• Chapter 2: Back to Gamma Base

    Aife made her way through the pulsating crowds of the Main Street. Crowds bothered her, yet at the same time, led to some comfort. She preferred to be in a wide open, uncrowded area, yet, when thrust into an area which had a heavy population, it was easy for her to tell which people were couples, which were single, which were assassins, or even which were Turks. Turks tended to infiltrate large populated areas in order to determine if the village was worth pillaging.

    Her eyes drifted calmly from person to person. So far, everyone seemed like they were normal. Many people held the exotic caucasian look of the Vauvan clan. Others included the populated Fenn clan, the genius Kings clan, and even the near-extinct Roma clan.

    Suddenly, the crowds thinned until she was roaming a barely populated street. That usually meant that a raid was approaching, or, if the worst were to be assumed, the Turks were coming.

    "You are Tekana, no?"

    Aife slowly slowed to a stop, her hands never leaving her pockets.

    "I could be a Vauvan, a Fenn, a Kings, or maybe even a Roma," she said, her back to the stranger who had spoken. "What makes you think that I am a Tekana? They are all but extinct."

    "Your features. You have the slightly tanned skin, and freckles across the nose, common to Tekana females."

    "You obviously know much of the different clans...Turk."

    The Turk grinned ghoulishly.

    "I knew my people did not kill you all, rat," he snarled. "you even have that scar my patriarch gave you."

    Aife drew her katana faster than the Turk could register, and brought its silver blade to the thick neck of the Turk. He froze.

    "Never insult me." she growled lowly, a sound that made the Turk flinch. Her eyes burned ice blue. "Your patriarch will pay for massacring my clan, and scarring me for life."

    "Not if you are dead, girl."

    Aife heard the sound of swords drawing, and moved her eyes to her peripheral. She saw a half-circle of Turks, drawing their cutlasses and rapiers. She bared her teeth in a silent snarl, and stepped back, her katana at her side, easing into a relaxed position."

    "Surrender," the Turk with the highest rank, The Commander, boomed, drawing his own blade. "you are vastly outnumbered. Maybe if you surrender, you can live as our slave."

    "Never!" Aife growled, bringing her katana to cross her face. With her snow white hair and ice blue eyes, and almost red scar, she looked more like a demon then a young woman. The Turks hesitated for half a second. That was there mistake.

    Aife charged forward, her katana in front of her. The first Turk went down when she buried her katana into his chest up to the hilt. The Turk directly next to her went down as the katana slid out of the first Turk into his heart.

    The Turks finally realized that their half-circle was wavering. They all charged.

    Aife stretched her katana out to its full length, and placed her legs a shoulder-width apart. Wait for it... she thought, her teeth bared. Wait for it...

    The remaining six turks were now less than three feet in front of her.
    NOW!!!

    The thought raged in her head, and she spun, the katana blade catching every Turk in the chest. They dropped like stones.

    "You are becoming a nuisance, girl," The Commander ranted, drawing his blade to bear. "I will relish your defeat!"

    "Dream on!" Aife shouted dismissively, and charged.

    The Commander met her katana with his blade in a shower of sparks. After a few seconds of locking blades, they both jumped back.

    "You have strength girl," The Commander observed with a smile, watching Aife's heaving chest, but otherwise statue-like form. "too much for a Generation."

    "Because I am the Warrior Maid!" Aife roared, and charged again. However, she was blinded by fatigue and rage, and misread her opponent.

    The Commander knocked her katana out of her hand, and threw Aife to the ground, sending her skidding backwards.

    "And so it ends." The Commander said softly, almost mockingly. "And to think I thought you would be a better opponent." He brought his blade down on her.

    The blade, however, was interrupted by another katana. Standing over Aife was a young boy of sixteen, with shaggy snow white hair and ice blue eyes. He was wearing similar clothing to Aife's, although not as battle worn.

    "Will!" Aife gasped, staring up at the boy.

    "Take your katana, Aife," Will said, pinning down The Commander's blade. "I cannot hold this up for long."

    Shaking out of her stupor, Aife scooped up her katana, and charged at The Commander, intercepting his blade while Will pulled back.

    The Commander struggled to keep up with the harmonious sword strikes of the two Generation. Aife and Will trapped his blade in between their two katanas, and twisted, spinning The Commander's blade off into a side alley. They then buried their katanas into the surprised Turk's chest. He slumped to the ground, dead.

    "So," Aife said, pulling her katana out of the corpse of The Commander. "why have you chosen to seek me out?"

    "Gamma base is under attack."

    ~-~-~

    Aife and Will picked their way carefully through the Turk infested forest, making their way to the hidden Gamma base, nestled deep in the Kalmaya mountain range. They followed the winding Hawthorn River. Just wandering already began to bring about several old memories. Her earliest memories lived within the Jai County, of which settled Gamma base, the next to largest stronghold of the military, Gamma base.

    Soon, they were in sight of the Kalmaya mountain range.

    "What's our plan of attack?" Aife asked, settling into a crouch behind a large boulder.

    Will poked his head over the edge, and observed the Turks patrolling the area.

    "I suggest that we go around in a wide circle, and approach the entrance," WIll suggested finally.

    "Too risky," Aife said, shaking her head. "We should cut straight through the clearing and scale the mountain."

    "Even riskier," Will said. "We'd be cut in half before we even take ten steps."

    "..."

    "..."

    WIll and Aife exchanged glares, before Will finally sighed.

    "Fine, we'll go with your plan."

    "I knew you'd crack."

    Will glowered at Aife as she climbed to the top of the boulder, drawing her katana.

    "I'll go in first, you cover me," she said. Before Will could complain, or even try to get up, Aife was gone, already decimating the first row of startled Turks.

    Will sighed, and reluctantly followed.

    The first, second, and half of the third rows of Turks were already lying on the ground, mutilated and dead, by the time that Will decided to help Aife.

    "About time," Aife grinned as she drove her katana into the Turk's chest, and slashed upward, into another Turk.

    ''We'd better hurry and get into the shaft!" Aife called, making her way to the path that led to the entrance to Gamma base. Will noticed a small limp, and blood running down her arm. "They're sending for reinforcements!"

    The worst thing in the world was enraged Turks in large numbers.

    "If we don't hurry," Aife called. "We're gonna be moving target practice in the middle of five hundred pissed off bad guys."

    "Then let's hurry," Will shouted. He slung Aife's good arm over his shoulder, and hurried forward.

    Behind them came the roar of a Commander Turk.

    "We had less time than I thought," Aife said.

    "Then we'd better hurry..."

    "Get in!" Aife shouted. She shoved both herself and Will into the deep shaft. Aife landed on her bad arm, and repressed a hiss of pain, and blacked out.

    When she came around, Will had his palm pressed against a vault-like door.

    "The retinal and palm scanners are destroyed," Will said quietly. "There's still voice access, but no response."

    "Maybe you're not saying the right thing."

    Aife stepped forward and whistled an annoying singsong tune.

    "I didn't think of that," Will said.

    The singsong tune was the Generation's it's all clear signal from their training days on Gamma base. But no one but the Generation and a very select few outsiders knew of it. Those few outsiders may still be inside.

    Aife keyed the microphone and whistled, then repeated twice more, and released the key.

    Minutes passed, too long for Will while the Turks tried to figure out their position.

    "Well," Aife sighed heavily. "it was a good idea. We can recon the shaft. Maybe we can destroy the shaft, and dig-"

    The seamless vault-like door began to shudder as meters of steel and other alloys began to open up.

    Blinding light flooded the passage, outlining a silhouetted figure. As Aife and Will's eyes compensated with the light, Aife identified it as a Kings female. She wore a pair of black slacks, a white blouse, and a white lab coat with a data pad stuffed in the breast pocket. She caught the glimmer of her eyeglasses, black-rimmed with almost invisible bifocal lines. Her black hair, which was graying, was pulled back into a neat ponytail.

    But it was her face that caught and held her focus-she recognized the tight smooth skin that wrinkled only at the corners of her mouth and light blue eyes. She was the intellect behind Project: Generation, and the one who had rescued her from the streets.

    She was Dr. Rachel Penn.