Chapter 79

Arguments among the troops were settled in various ways, those ways proven over time by armies the world over. But when those means failed and there seemed no other alternative, the ring became a last resort. Sometimes it was the only way to appease combat troops used to violence. It was a simple boxing ring, and was used as that most of the time, but it had a bright red spot, a foot in diameter in the center. Out three feet from the spot in either direction were two parallel lines, again in red. Opponents stood at these lines facing each other as the match began. The males were allowed only exercise shorts. The females were also allowed an exercise bra. Cross-sex matches were not allowed. A mouthpiece wasn't required for a knife fight. The fight was allowed to continue until one opponent could not respond, or one of them gave up. But those matches were not to the death. This one was.

The fight was announced to all base personnel. This was the first time two Colonels had fought in the ring, ever, let alone to the death. Everything that could be was cancelled or rescheduled to allow as many personnel as possible to attend in person. Those who were unlucky enough to have to work — guard duty and the like — were provided monitoring equipment so that they would be able to see the fight anyway, albeit some would be using small screens, or helmets. Off-world personnel would gripe for years because they had missed the fight.

Jeff, dressed only in exercise shorts, padded down the hallway toward the General's office. Excluding special occasions, normal procedure did not require a salute inside the main building, unless reporting to a superior officer, or relieving at a duty station. And someone wearing only exercise shorts certainly wasn't saluted ... until today. Jeff met eight people in the hallway between his quarters and the General's office. Every one of them came to a halt, braced and saluted.

The last had been two young female troopers. After they had saluted, Jeff had returned it and had walked on. After he passed, one of the women slumped against the wall. "I damn near had an orgasm," she gasped out to the other. "We brushed shoulders as we passed. It was like touching an electric wire. Damn, he looks good and he smells like ... I don't know. Really, really good, though," she said as they watched Colonel Matthews turn the corner. "There's just ... something about him..."

"Yeah, and he has a harem, too," the other said, "Sorry, Donna. We don't have a chance with him. He doesn't even know we exist."

Neither of the troopers had the faintest idea just how good Jeff's hearing was. Red-faced, he finally made it to the General's outer office, where the sergeant called everyone to attention, and Jeff got the treatment again. He rapped on the General's door, heard, "Come," and walked in.

From the Cheshire grin on Whitworth's face, Jeff figured his commander had been watching on the monitor.

"Those last two..." Whitworth started.

"Don't go there," Jeff said as he put his combat knife on the General's desk, and to have something to do, walked over to pour himself a cup of coffee. As Jeff sat down, Whitworth set the knife display on its side so his Colonel could see.

"Bowie knives?" Jeff asked.

"Yeah. The set belongs to Buckmann. Twelve inch blades. Made by the same process our combat knives are made. Buckmann demands to use them in the fight."

"I'll stick with mine."

"Eight inch blade against his twelve inch. I can deny his request," Whitworth said.

"No, let it be. I'll stick with mine, though," Jeff said again.

Eying Jeff's knife as it lay on the desk, Whitworth started to say something, hesitated, then making up his mind said, "I guess it's useless to say this, but I'm going to do it anyway, and I am dead serious. I could pick up my pistol, go down and put a round between that bastard's eyes, and no one would even blink."

"Don't," Jeff said.

They sat quietly for several minutes, each with his own thoughts, "If you're not going to use one of his Bowie knives, I have a request," Whitworth said.

Jeff looked at him and raised an eyebrow.

The General got up, walked over to his gear and came back with his knife. Placing it on the desk in front of him, he sat back down. "I would be honored if you would use Ellen. She's been bloodied, of course, but not for a long time. May never be again. I..." Whitworth ground to a halt. Generals didn't usually get to see combat, at least not up close.

Jeff leaned forward and picked up the combat knife, automatically glancing at the blade edge. No one who knew anything about the combat knives would deliberately touch the edge, just as you wouldn't touch the edge of a scalpel. Off-world combat specialists were issued a combat knife that none of the other troops was allowed to carry. The knives were produced, one at a time, by the only knife maker in the world who used the particular procedure. In a secret process, several types of steel were folded twenty-four hundred times, then the blade revealed in an acid bath to produce a pattern of grays that tended toward purple, and the pattern was unique for each blade similar to the famed Damascus steel. The handle, the color of old blood, was made of ironwood, and polished to perfection.

The blades could be hammered through a half inch steel rod and the edge would still shave. Indeed, there were no provisions for sharpening the knives, for they never needed it. Nor were the blades brittle. By unit tradition, combat knives could only be named after having been bloodied in battle. The men usually picked female names, and the women usually picked male names.

Whitworth sat watching Jeff as he handled the knife. "You might be able to feel the difference, one knife to another, but I can't. Oh, I can recognize my knife among others, because of the pattern worked into the metal, but I can't feel the difference."

"Yes," Jeff said, looking the General in the eye. "I will use her and be honored to do so. Just keep Di safe for me until I'm ready to go home."

Kayla was scared spitless, but striving hard not to show it. She had tried her best to stick with Jeff, but the General had given her several duties. Duties, she suspected that were more to keep her away from Jeff than anything else. She couldn't believe her mate had allowed Buckmann to lure him into this. Her time with the General's people had mostly been spent off-world. She knew little of the politics of the base, and practically nothing about Buckmann himself. Everyone she came in contact with seemed to be talking about the coming match. Although now-Colonel Matthews was a near-legend because of his exploits off-world, there was a lot being said about the now ex-Colonel Buckmann. Although betting was frowned upon, and commercial betting practically didn't exist on the base, that didn't seem to apply to the personal betting going on about the coming fight.

His team isn't even here to support him, Kayla fretted. Oh, shit, are they going to be pissed they missed this. I know he'll win, but ... Everybody says Buckmann has taught knife fighting for years. Oh, I can't lose Jeff. Oh, shit, she suddenly thought, Diana will kill me if I allow anything to happen to him. I have to see the General. I have to put a stop to this. This is insane.

But Whitworth had anticipated her, his sergeant meeting her as soon as she finished her last duty and entered the General's outer office. The message was clear. Behave herself and she would stand by the ring and watch her charge; continue and she would watch the match via monitor while sitting in a cell.

Kayla, dressed in fatigues, her pistol in its holster on her hip, walked beside her Colonel — her mate — as they entered the auditorium. Buckmann, surrounded by guards, walked through a doorway on the other side and headed toward the ring.

Kayla glared over at him. You son-of-a-bitch, she thought, if you're the one left standing, you'll be dead anyway. The General didn't take my gun away, and I'll use it if Jeff doesn't win. I'll empty a magazine into your ass before anyone can stop me. You'll die today, one way or the other. I never heard the General say that you could win your freedom by killing Jeff — if you can manage it. He just granted your demand to fight him. Either way, you'll be dead soon.

Diana, Arlene, and the rest of Jeff's wives were gathered in their new suite when Susan and the girls walked in. "What's going on?" Susan asked, then seeing Diana's face, she sucked in a hissing breath.

Before she could say anything more, Diana spoke up, "As we all know, Jeff went back to the base to 'see' the one who started all this. I'm afraid for our husband..." she got out as she slumped forward in her seat, Arlene now hugging her. "Jeff won't just kill him, Jeff will offer him a fair fight."

"Mom, Daddy will win..."

"I know. I know," Diana said through the tears flowing from her eyes and the lump in her throat, "but I'm scared. I'm really, really scared."

"We prayed for Joyce," Arlene said as she looked at her sister-wife. "We can do it for Dad, too."

Kayla stood just outside Jeff's corner of the ring, her holster unsnapped, her right hand aching to hold her Glock. Taking several deep breaths, she tried to calm herself. I can't stop this, and oh shit, that damn knife of Buckmann's looks big. They might as well have let that bastard bring a sword, she fretted.

Major Bailey walked to the center of the ring and motioned for Jeff and Buckmann to take their places. Both men, their knives at their sides, walked to the center, stopping at the blood-red lines to face each other, six feet apart. Bailey stood a couple feet back from the red circle to address the two men. Normally, he would give a short talk, traditional, lasting maybe ten seconds, before ordering the match to commence.

Looking at Buckmann, Major Bailey asked, "This is a match to the death. Do you agree?"

"Yes!" Buckmann snapped out before Bailey even got the words fully said.

"And you, Colonel Matthews, do you agree?"

"Yes," Jeff said, his voice quiet, but firm, the PA system, nevertheless, echoing his voice throughout the auditorium as it had Buckmann's.

"Very well, in keeping with tradition..."

But Buckmann didn't wait for Bailey's short speech, nor his order to begin. Instead, Buckmann lunged at Jeff. Buckmann had always taught his students to end a knife fight as quickly as possible, preferably while the opponent was still making up his mind to fight.

Bailey tried to jump back as Buckmann shouldered past with his panther quick strike with the big knife, but Bailey wasn't fast enough; the spray from an artery caught him anyway.

Buckmann lay on his back, split from groin to throat, the razor edge of the General's knife having been driven through muscles, bone and flesh by the power of a Prime. Buckmann's guts and innards continued to spill slowly out of the ghastly wound, a look of amazement on his dead face, the smell of feces, urine and blood strong.

Jeff slung the blood from the knife blade, then accepted a towel from the General as he stepped into the ring. Carefully wiping the blade clean, Jeff inspected it, thanked the General for the use of his knife, then handed Ellen back to him as the crowd, having been stunned to silence, suddenly erupted.

Hours before, Buckmann's confession had been put on the base's system so anyone who wished could listen to it. The General turned to Major Bailey who was wiping a splatter of blood from his face. "This," the General said, motioning to Buckmann's body, "goes to the incinerator with the other trash lest this traitor's remains desecrate the graves of our fallen comrades." The General's voice, also picked up by the PA system, produced a roar of approval from the troops.

Kayla slammed into Jeff, her arms locking around him. Jeff looked over her shoulder, thinking to glare anyone down who might have a comment, but he didn't see anyone who seemed in the least worried about any etiquette that Kayla might have broken. Where Kayla couldn't see, the General winked at Jeff.

"Let's go home," the Prime whispered into her ear.

As soon as Kayla and Jeff stepped out of the ring, a Sergeant Major bellowed out, "Unit. Ten-hut."

"Present. ARMS."

"Order. ARMS."

Fuck, Jeff thought, as he returned the salute, realizing the General had saluted him with everyone else.

A little later, Kayla and Jeff walked out into the hangar alone. Probably the General's orders, Jeff thought as they headed toward the Ship. He told me he would have our things put aboard. Otherwise, I'm going to freeze my ass off when we get back to the retreat, he mused.

Inside, a few moments later, Jeff quickly dressed as Kayla stood smiling. He put his hand on her shoulder, sending a message to Little One. Kayla shivered as Little One flowed out of Kayla's collar and onto her shoulder where Jeff picked her up and put her on his own shoulder. Miss me? he teased the small alien as she burrowed under his collar.

{{{ Why? Were you gone somewhere? }}} she teased back, the thought clear and unfettered with the jumble of information she usually sent for Jeff to have to sort into something he could understand.

What happened? Jeff quickly sent back, but only got amusement in return.

"Did she try to talk to you while she was on your shoulders?" Jeff asked Kayla.

"No, I only got ... contentment, I guess you could say. Then I was so worried about you that I forgot about her. Why? What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Jeff said, "Uh, nothing I guess. She just seemed — different there for a minute."

The door/hatch popped open and someone pounded up the ramp. "Sir, the General sent this," the trooper said, handing Jeff a helmet memory cube and a DVD disk. Saluting again, the trooper turned and quickly left. The door and ramp ceased to exist.

Jeff, suspecting what he had been given, mentally shifted gears, said, "Come on, let's get settled in and get home," as he led the way down the corridor to the command center.

Settling himself into one of the "couches," he motioned to the next one.

"You've got to be kidding, right?" Kayla said, staring back at Jeff, not moving a muscle. "One dead, the rest nuts, at least for a time. No way am I sitting in that seat."

"The ship didn't know enough about the human mind then. She won't hurt you, or any of my mates."

Kayla continued to look down at Jeff for a moment, then summoning her courage, her faith in her mate driving her, she settled cautiously into the next couch.

The ship suddenly ceased to exist around her. It was if she and Jeff were suspended in air as she looked around at the inside of the hangar. Her hands locked in a death grip on the arms of her couch. Before she could say anything, the hangar disappeared and a fuzzy, gray nothingness surrounded the ship.

The hangar reverberated to the sound of air crashing back to fill the void where the ship had just stood. To Kayla, in the next instant, she was suspended high above the retreat, the snow-covered mountains spread out below her. Her grip on the arms of the couch tightened even more, if possible, "Oh, Jeff," she started, but the ship suddenly became solid around her again with only the front wall of the chamber seeming to remain invisible.