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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 1872966" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 62: Orange BladesThe Topsiders had gotten very close to Voort before his aura of calm suddenly exploded in movement. All at once, the five reptiles were bringing own heavy swords towards him, but suddenly, in a blinding flash of movement that even a droid couldn’t detect, they were all on the ground in at least two pieces. In the center of the body ring, looking over his shoulder to another group of Topsiders who had halted there advance out of shock, was Voort. His dull grey eyes seemed tinted in a soft orange, but that was not from within but without. In his right hand, held back and up after the strong swing that had killed five Topsiders at once, was a lightsaber with an orange blade extending from both ends.    Suddenly, the calm moment was gone and Voort charged the second group of Topsiders. Cleaving easily through two of the lead Topsiders, a third and forth both managed to finish their swings. Of course, in both cases Voort was out of the way, spinning to the side and between the blades, while his lightsaber killed both of the attackers when he moved out of the position. Quickly ducking down out of the way of a horizontal swing from one of the remaining Topsiders, Voort rose up and brought the primary blade up in a vertical slice, slicing the reptile into two neat pieces. Before the body could collapse, Voort’s opposite blade cut the Topsider into fourths, which in turn killed a second Topsider just to his left.    As Voort was a blur of motion, single handedly massacring more than half of the Topsiders, the other three humans were having trouble. Specifically with the Topsider’s apparent leader. Like Voort, this Topsider was a machine with his sword, slicing left and right and taking a few chunks of Jen’s hair as she barely managed to move out of the way. The only way Jen had avoided the third strike was that Hansen’s slugthrower rifle had been fired, and the bullet had by chance hit the Topsider’s arm. This sent the swing off to the left, but there was no other noticeable effect in the Topsider beyond an angry hiss. From the way the Topsider dove at Jen again, it looked like the slugthrower shot had done nothing at all beyond put a small hole in his arm.    Somehow, Jen managed to sidestep out of the way of a downward strike meant to double the amount of Jen currently occupying the desert. And though she got out of the way of that, she back into the landspeeder. Jen had only a millisecond to wish for another shot from Hansen or even Landau, but from the sounds around her, they were dealing with the remaining Topsiders. This gave her only another millisecond to sight the sharp Topsider’s blade catch the moonlight and shine brightly as it cleaved through the air down at her. Reacting, almost feeling as if something was forcing her to react rather that her actually doing it herself, Jen spun to the left. She could feel both the rush of air from the blade and the shock that accompanied the loud crash when it dug into the landspeeder.    It took a full two seconds for the Topsider to pry his blade out of the speeder’s hull, and this was exactly enough time for Jen to get completely to her feet and away from the speeder. However, by the time she’d raised the blaster pistol to fire on him, the Topsider was swinging at her. The surprise was that she didn’t get sliced into two. Instead, the butt of the hilt smacked her hard across the face, sending Jen hard into the sand below and leaving her with a near concussion. Through blurred and shifting vision, Jen caught sight of the Topsider stand over her and bring the blade down in a stabbing motion. It was not like many holodramas where the villain made a quick speech to tell the victim something, even if it was only “Now you die” before the blade was dropped. Instead, the second the Topsider was there, the blade was falling. But, something that happened commonly in holodramas occurred in front of Jen’s still confused eyes.    A sudden, hard nothing slammed into the Topsider, sending the reptile sprawling over her and landing hard on the ground at Jen’s side. The dark night suddenly exploded with an unearthly blue. But the blue was not from a star, or a glowrod, or anything that was anything recognizable to Jen. Instead, it was an arc. Arcing over her and slamming into the Topsider next to her. It coursed through the thrashing body for a long moment, before a voice that Jen would later identify as Landau yelled, “Hold, Captain! Hold!”    And then...it stopped. There was one last, vague noise off to Jen’s left. A humming sound. Constant, and waving slightly every few moments. But then, with a strange reverse snap-hiss sound, the hum disappeared, and only the sound of a groan remained. Slowly, as the world around her stopped its wavering and began to come back into focus, Jen turned her head to find that the source of the groaning was the Topsider.    Footsteps approached from two sides, one pair stopping right next to her before kneeling down. Jen turned her head and managed a smile. Even in the dim light, she could tell it was Voort. He carefully helped her to sit up, resting a hand on her cheek and finding that her jaw was not, in fact, broken.    “Why did you stop him?” snapped the sharp voice of Hansen, who had holstered her weapon and was looking down at the half-alive Topsider, “This thing should die.”    “Landau was right,” Voort said slowly, calmly, “I got carried away. This one should not die.”    Nodding in agreement, Landau knelt down next to the Topsider and looked into the two large, dazed eyes, “It was about to negotiate before one of the others got jumpy.”    Hansen said nothing, but made an annoyed scoff and stepped over to the landspeeder, busying herself with nothing until the others got to the speeder and they could leave. While Voort made sure that Jen was alright, not speaking at all of his actions, Landau studied the reptilian creature laying on his back in the cold sand. The Topsider was breathing in a labored fashion, and upon noticing that he was being examined, spoke raspily, “You not...kill me...”    “No,” Landau answered in a neutral voice.    Slowly, the Topsider’s head looked to Voort, Jen, then back to Landau, “Why...?”    “You are not as savage as you want us to believe,” came the second answer from Landau, not completely answering the question but coming very close to it. For Voort, it was a good explanation. But when the Topsider said nothing, Landau tried a simpler question, “Why did you stop us?”    This, the Topsider had no problem in responding to, “Narani hunt ussss for him. Come at sssunssset and killsss usss and our homesss.”    Voort and Jen exchanged looks, both thinking one simple work. Sadrak. Yet another thread woven through that man. But why kill the Topsiders? What good would that do? Landau had never seen any evidence of them being any more than a strong hunting species that when avoided, coexistence became possible. So why provoke them? It didn’t add up. Unless...    “They’re a threat to Sadrak,” Jen said quietly, saying what the two men were just coming to the conclusion of. But that led to a thousand other questions. Thankfully, those could be answered later. Here was an interesting thing. Something that Sadrak felt threatened by. That was indeed rare, and not something one should just toss away.    “What are you called?” it was Voort’s turn to speak, asking a question that was phrased oddly. Only Jen took notice of this, though.    The Topsider turned its lizard skull towards Voort, looking up at the man for a long moment before speaking, “I am Trker-Hon. I wasss...leader of my clan. However they...”    “They made a foolish choice,” Voort finished for Trker.    There was a nod from the Topsider, “Yesss. I apologize for my actionsss, but I could not jussst leave you to killsss my clanmatesss.”    Jen reached over and helped to get Trker-Hon to sit up, which surprised all of them. Quietly, she said, “No apology is necessary.”    “You are a ssstrong warrior, female,” Trker commented upon realizing who it was he was speaking to.    Even Jen couldn’t help a smile at that. There was a short pause between them all before Voort started to pull Jen to her feet, “We can speak once we get out of the dark.”    Trker-Hon nodded, “Yesss. It isss likely that Narani will be sssearching for prey sssoon.”    “Then we go now,” Landau said as he helped the Topsider up and to the speeder. This was a leader among those that Sadrak feared. Somehow, it felt like this Trker-Hon should be their enemy, too. Yet...despite the savage appearance, an intelligence was there. And a cunning. Yet despite all of it, the males of the species lived these barbaric lives. Was Trker-Hon just unique in his intelligence? Did it even matter? Too many question...too late at night.</blockquote>

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