Ties
Chapter 3
Dedicated to Mooncat, who got me thinking...
Mind me,boy, someday that temper's gonna
get you killed.
Maybe, Paw-Paw, Panthro thought, glancing at the bandage covering
the gash on his right hand. But it's gonna have to get me a piece at a time.
Panthro, Weapon Master of Panther Clan,
piloted his treasured fighting machine across the uneven terrain with a deft
hand and unconscious precision across the plain towards the forest. The roar of
the Thundertank’s engine filled the early afternoon sky as golden Third Earth
sun shone through the open canopy, warming the slate-gray fur that covered the
panther's broad, heavily muscled shoulders. Unlike other breeds of Thundercat,
Panther Clan sported no mane to play in the wind of the vehicle's passage,
giving an illusioun of baldness that only added to the big cat's imposing
presence. He took his deep red eyes away from the windshield to glance at the
scanner display mounted in the instrument cluster. He could see two transponder
signals, positioned about forty miles north of his position: Cheetara and
Lion-O.
Must be his turn, Panthro thought bitterly, stabbing a finger at the
control panel and switching off the display. After this morning there was a
hollow ache in him, which would sometimes flare up into a sensation of pain
almost physical in it's intensity.
Give it over, boy. You two never had a
single damn thing together, it was just your wishful thinking. No point making
yourself sick over it.
Panthro nodded his head slowly in remorseful
agreement. His thought process often took this form, an imaginary dialouge with
his long-dead grandfather, Gideon. Gideon had raised Panthro after the boy's
parents were killed in a suprise Mutant attack towards the end of the war.
Gideon himself had died of natural causes when Panthro was a teen, the first
Weapon Master in ten generations to die in any manner but battle. Panthro
missed him terribly, and knew he always would.
Gideon had instilled his grandson with the
same pragmatic sensibility the elder panther had borne himself. Thundera was
gone; there was nothing to be done about it. He and these others might be the
last of their people in existence; there was nothing to be done about that
either. As for Cheetara...
It was true; he had no claim to the beautiful
cheetah's affections. Normally direct and fearless, he became very nervous and
tounge-tied around females. Hell, he'd only lost his virginity when his army
buddies had dragged him to a pleasure house before their first mission, three
years ago. He shook his head at the memory, smiling a little; the embarrasment,
the nervousness, the entire fiasco before he'd achieved a successful copulation
with his rented partner. At the time, he'd believed his libido would never
recover.
All of his buddies from that night, Pierce,
Ender and the rest. They were all dead now. He was the only one left to
remember that night. To remember them...
Don't go there boy. The past isn't a good
place for you, 'specially now.
The panther focused on his driving as he
neared the largely unexplored forest. He pulled to a halt and exited the tank,
taking his hand scanner, a small pack containing food and a blanket, and his
'chucks. He shouldered the pack, tucked the weapon into the back of his shorts
were he could reach it easily, then activated the scanner. The device revealed
a large clearing just over one kilometer into the woods. Panthro strode
leisurely through the trees in that direction, occasionally practicing his
iajutsu technique, whipping the 'chucks out, striking and returning them to his
waist in one seamless fluid movement. It demanded clarity and focus, and kept
his thoughts from wandering to unpleasant places.
The 'chucks, like Cheetara's staff and
Tygra's whip, were among the gifts Jaga had distributed to the clan leaders
years ago, after he'd returned from the desert with the Sword of Omens. Each of
the weapons had it's own set of features, including a limited sentience and an
ability to form a psychic bond with it's weilder, allowing the weapon to
respond to it's user's will. Panthro's nunchaku was a set of sturdy, stylized
rods connected by what appeared to be a length of chain. The chain was a
hologram to represent a microcontrolled force field, unbreakable and capable of
extending to great lengths, allowing the weapon to adjust it's striking range
or even be employed as a grapnel if needed.
A greater secret was concealed within the
shafts themselves, however. The shafts were color coded, each containing three
glands. In the red arm, the glands contained a fluid that burst instantly into
flame on contact with oxygen. Within the blue arm, the fluid supercooled to
near-absolute zero, freezing it's target solid. Both of these fluids were
launched from the fist-like end of their respective shafts, which unfurled to
reveal a discharge port. Each gland would replenish itself in about twenty-four
hours after being expended.
Of course, it was still a set of 'chucks, and
could be used to bludgeon the hell out of somebody. In Panthro's opinion, the
direct routes were usually best.
The woods were cool and peaceful, the air
rich with earthy, fertile scents. The sound of his footsteps was accompanied by
the occasional twitter of birds and rodents among the trees and underbrush.
Despite himself, he found he was relaxing under the influence of the pleasant
stroll. As his tension drained away, his thoughts began to similiarly loosen
and flow.
Tygra, he thought. Smug bastard was a womanizer back home too. Just like
him to take advantage of her in a weak moment.
‘Course, maybe she wanted to sleep with
him, Gideon chimed in. You put her
up on some pedestal in your mind, expecting her to behave as you think she
should, then get mad at Tygra for knocking it all down. Fact is, son, you're
really mad at her for breaking your illusion of her.
Panthro came to a game trail. He verified
with the scanner that it led in the direction of the clearing and began to
follow it. I never put her on a pedestal, he thought. I just wanted
to give her an honest courtship, something fitting to a pair of Clan Lords.
You just wanted to see her out of her
uniform, Gideon said with some
amusement. Not for the first time, Panthro wondered if he might be getting a
little schizophrenic.
A few more minutes walking along the peacful
trail brought him to the clearing. As he rounded a final stand of trees, he
stopped, his eyebrows arching in suprise. Gardening wasn't his specialty, but
this he knew: corn. Row after carefully-planted row of not-quite-ripe corn. He
approached the nearest stalk, plucked an ear and examined it. The fruit was
small, whitish, but insect and disease free. He walked along the edge of the
field, noting the carefully tilled soil, straight rows evenly spaced, and
abscense of any weeds.
I'm too far from the Berbil villlage for
this to be one of their fields, the
panther thought. I don't remember any talk about other farmers in the
area...
"Hold, demon!" came the cry from
behind him.
Panthro stopped. "'Hold, demon?'"
he muttered to himself. He turned slowly in the direction of the challenge, His
sharp eyes probed the near portions of the glade, seeking movement that would
orient him on this possible enemy.
She rose out of a nearby stand of brush. She
was a female mammal, that he knew immediately. She had no fur, but did have a thick
head of black hair, which she wore tied behind her back. She wore a simple
leather jerkin, long enough to cinch with a belt and serve as a skirt. In her
hands was an effective-looking longbow, which she held drawn and trained on the
Thundercat with the ease of long practice. She gazed down the shaft of the
arrow at him with hard, slate-gray eyes full of mingled anger and apprehension.
Suddenly it clicked. "You're a
human!" Panthro exclaimed.
She replied in a version of Basic so stilted
with dialect that the big cat could jut barely understand her. "Say no
more, devil, or I will dispatch you back to whatever Hell your master Mumm-Ra
summoned you from!"
Panthro grinned. He couldn't help it. Does
anybody actually talk like that? he thought. He raised his hands in a
placating gesture, saying "I'm no devil miss. My friends and I are
Thunderc..."
She released the arrow with a twang, sending
the missle speeding it's way towards the panther's broad chest. His hand
flashed up and plucked it from the air inches away from his skin.
"...ats," he finished, dropping the
arrow on the ground. "And you're going to need more firepower than that to
dispatch me anywhere."
The woman threw back her head and issued a
high, trilling cry. From all around the glade, over a dozen more warrior women
stepped into view, each with an arrow drawn on Panthro.
Okay, so maybe you've got it, he thought. He looked around the scene and decided he
could escape, but not without hurting or killing a few of the humans in the
process. He mulled it over as moment after tension-laden moment crept by.
He raised his hands slowly above his head and
said, "OK, you win. I surrender."
TBC
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