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Stories from the Verse
In Version
Chapter 83: Brown 266
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Kondor 240
As the Dvandar leapt at Bob, Derek involuntarily gasped. It moved like lightning, and its spearpoint was in front.
However, Derek didn’t even have the opportunity to think that it was over. Slade’s sword appeared from nowhere and caught the side of the spear, knocking the jumper off course and off balance. In the same movement his dagger came up from below and put a slice in the exposed orange belly. It had underestimated him; that’s not unreasonable--Derek had seen Bob fight, and he had also underestimated the fighter’s speed and accuracy.
The Dvander landed awkwardly, but rolled to absorb the impact and shifted back onto its feet. It paused to check its wound, and Bob seemed to be waiting for it to decide what to do next. It eyed him warily, and began approaching more slowly.
Bob took a step to his left. Clever, Derek thought; it requires the enemy either to turn toward him or reach right with the spear, opening his chest. As the alien adjusted its course, Bob took another step, this time left and forward, beginning to circle, and continued a slow circle to the left.
The creature seemed a bit uncertain. It kept turning to continue toward him, creating a humorously curved path, but always coming straight on.
Suddenly Bob faked left, and as the creature lunged he ducked under the spear and plowed into the wounded gut. Blood spurted from the injury, and Bob knocked the creature to its back. The spear went flying, and the fighter rushed forward, putting his left boot on his opponent’s chest and the tip of his sword just below its chin.
“Yield,” he commanded. There was a silent pause in the entire arena before the answer came.
“I yield.”
The blue alien medics rushed onto the field to attend to the wounds. Despite their efforts, they were notably slower than the two fighters. Derek turned to the Kelp.
“Do you have enough data?”
“It was a very short fight,” 1942 replied. “I should like to see him against an Anders. Well, you are next.”
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #489: Battle Worlds. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
