A Soldier For All Seasons Ch. 20

Focus. He told himself.

"Bubbling tells us which one's gonna spout. Looks like a simple cover to cover fight." Matekoni told him, sweat already dripping down his skin. He was always sweating.

"Up the sides, expand the field?" Jessie asked.

"Too steep." Xavier denied. Rivero had funneled them into this valley for a reason.

Usually, the skirmishes were more complex. Was he missing something?

One of the geysers spouted high, creating a blast of steam of water that blocked their view.

Perhaps that was a gimmick enough.

How to fight when your cover disappears often — that made sense. She always had a lesson.

They slid more than stepped down, eager to get to the geysers. They couldn't see their counterparts yet, but the mists and the steam meant their visibility didn't stretch far.

At the bottom of the valley, they slowed, keeping to the active geysers.

"Jessie, Matekoni, head east, push up against the steep valley sides. Let's cut down on the angles we are checking. One keep an eye on ahead, one look west. We'll take the west side and try and push them into the center. Got it?"

"Yes, boss." They chorused.

Xavi gestured the other two to follow him as they carefully stepped through the mist. The erupting geysers were the ultimate distraction, incredibly noisy, so that they could barely hear each other over the hissing and hurling of the water. Would they even hear a blaster shot?

Forward. Boiling water sizzled as it dripped, not three feet from him. The mist took forms and then vanished again, his mind playing tricks on him.

He took a deep breath. The only way they could lose this fight was through boldness. Caution was the way — they could win any straight shootout.

The next geyser was ahead, bubbling. But the gap was too far. It would leave them in the open.

He took a single step.

A hand on his shoulder.

He flinched.

"Boss," Luka drawled in his ear.

"What?" He snapped, embarrassed.

"Look!" Xavi followed the arm to see a shape in the sky. Just a drone...except someone hung from it? Swishing and swaying, like they were being rescued, like they'd had a case of friendly fire. Except the drone wasn't leaving the battlefield...it was hovering toward their flag.

"What the fuck?" Xavi exclaimed. He hadn't expected that, not from Graziano. Graziano had all the smarts of a toddler and just as much tact.

"Using drones, that's smart thinking, boss. We should do that." Luka noted. Little water droplets had dotted his face.

"Yeah, if we want to fly high and be the easiest target in the sky. Well? What are you waiting for? Shoot him down already." Xavi yelled over the rushing water, examining their cover geyser — it was difficult to tell how long it was going to last. The blue lizards were scampering around, looking excitedly at their geyser-cover.

They might have to retreat.

Graziano fell from the sky with a yell, but even he only took a couple of seconds to fire off his medevac coils, zooming to the safety of the drone which took him out of the fight.

"How did they get the drone down?"

"Shot it down, patched it up." Xavi dismissed. "The drones are programmed to fly high so if they detect they're at ground level, they'll fly high, no matter what...or who is attached."

The falling Graziano had caught the attention of Jessie and Matekoni — Xavi motioned them to stay put or stay back. He took a deep breath and let a relieved grin spread across his face.

He wasn't going to win any awards for this one, but when the enemy gave you an easy six versus five, it didn't pay to rush ahead.

"They're probably not dumb enough to try that again but keep your eyes on the sky, stay alert. We're just gonna play this one like a shooting range."

***

Nate wrenched himself out of the hot spring as it heated, throwing himself to the side just as it bubbled over and burst upwards in a vast spout of boiling water. He gasped, coughing out the warm water in his lungs.

"Fuck." He looked around, catching sight of his team at the geysers beside him, looking at him with both skepticism and alarm. He gave them a light thumbs up.

He hoped this was a good idea.

Lita pointed at the skies, where Graziano was being droned out, out of the fight.

He nodded back.

That was fine — if it had worked, even better, but it was only meant as a distraction.

As long as they kept their attention on the skies and not the springs below.

When the geyser dropped and the blue lizards had done their thing, he leapt back in, swimming powerfully through the clear waters.

The pink coral swayed with the shoals of fish and Nate followed them. They had a secret path, he'd noticed, through the valley rocks and caverns of a sort, a path that avoided the boiling points that oozed from the cracks in the ground, bubbled and then eventually spat upward.

He swam quickly away from one cavern as a black abyss opened, revealing a single iris. What beasts lay in the waters of alien planets — Nate thanked his lucky stars, and it was those stars he'd always prefer over the mysteries of the seas.

The light coursed down from the springs above, illuminating great circles on the ground, a heaven sent halo for the impending death by boiling water. Nate avoided it. In one hand, he carried a blue lizard. The little guy squirmed and screamed in equal measure, but those measures told him when the water was too hot or easy enough to swim in.

Hopefully, he wouldn't have to jump out again — last time he'd got too close to a light circle, a geyser, and it wouldn't do to jump out right in front of Xavier's dumb smug face.

He kept his strokes long and powerful until he found himself at one last spring.

The flag.

It must be.

He dredged himself out of the spring.

And rolled straight into someone's ankles.

"What the fuck?" came the man's surprise.

Nate leapt to his feet and aimed a punch that missed by an asteroid field. The man fumbled for his holstered gun. Nate kicked it away as he pulled it clear.

Victory.

Nate grabbed his own holstered weapon, made to shoot and...his opponent was gone.

He zoomed high into the sky, carried by the backpack coils that carried him to the safety drone flying above.

"What?" Nate said, shocked.

The man had sacrificed himself.

"He's behind! Just one!" The man roared at the top of his voice, the sound echoing across the valley.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck." Nate cursed. He hadn't anticipated that. That must have been a plan they'd agreed on before. It looks like he wasn't the only one to realize that the drones were a potential unused advantage.

He grabbed the flag and made to throw himself back into the hot spring.

*Nate, you sure you can make it back? I don't want you to sushi yourself.*

"Is sushi raw? Never mind, I can make it—" Nate paused, thinking. Could he make it back? They'd surely realize that there was only one way he could have made it behind them. And if they saw him underwater, they'd only need a single shot — he'd be the slowest target, especially carrying the big flag.

Nate swore. He'd be dead meat. Not quite a sitting duck, more a...swimming duck, but very quickly a dead duck.

Yells and shots sounded from over the hill. He imagined they were retreating now, trying to safeguard or recover their flag. When pincered, they'd choose the weakest side. And if they only had one behind them...he only had seconds.

He had to move fast.

He tied the flag to a rock and threw the rock into the geyser, angling it so that when the geyser blew again, it wouldn't blow the flag out into the open. Hopefully, the explosion would just blow it further underwater. The flag was no longer a win condition — he was never going to make it back under the water, but he could at least keep them guessing.

Nate took his wet shirt off and threw it at the geyser's side. A trail of evidence. He darted behind a tree just as two figures appeared at the top of the hill.

"Where's he gone?"

"Fuck, he's taken the flag! Jay-jay was sleeping on the job, I just know it."

"Look, his shirt. He's gone down the geyser, Xavi was right."

"Xavi will get him."

"Will he?" Nate snarked, unable to resist. He shot the two quickly before they could even fire, disabling them both. Their glaring eyes stared up, frozen. They couldn't trigger their rigs while stunned — that was only allowed when the rigs sensed water or air resistance. And even if they could, they couldn't shout or scream.

"Sorry, guys." Nate called behind him as he scampered up the hill. Maybe he could still make a difference as the pincer.

Five versus three.

But at the top of the hill, the battlefield had changed.

A shift in steam in the center of the valley, a single glimpse. But that glimpse told him everything he needed to know.

Xavier was soaking wet.

He'd figured out the geyser trick.

Put himself behind his team.

Nate just had to hope his teammates hadn't gone down easy. Maybe some of them were still up.

He half-fell down the hill in his hurry to get down there, his ankle aching in an almost certain sprain. Flashes of light shot through the steam and mist in front of him — a firefight.

Hakeem lay paralyzed next to Lita. Nate ignored them — he couldn't help them now. But they had a blonde woman between them.

Good.

Three versus two.

Nate moved cautiously to the next geyser and then jumped back in shock as Bastian came shooting out of it on his medevac cables, zooming to the skies. Someone else zoomed out too, which told him Bastian had taken down one with him.

Two versus one.

But where was Lunar Moon?

He inched through the steam, the noise incredible, the smell of salt and sulfur pungent and thick, filling his nostrils. He'd become used to the roar of the water, deafened.

And then, through the mists, Lunar, gunblade in hand.

She smiled as she saw him, jogging forward.

But she didn't see her six — Xavier.

He yelled out but she didn't hear. She saw something in his eyes.

Turned.

Fired.

But not quick enough.

Xavier slid smoothly under her shot, into her ankles. He wrapped his arms around her and shifted her easily into Nate's shot — Nate snarled with rage as he ended up stunning her.

Xavier grinned as he held the Mediator's stunned body, using it as a shield as Nate advanced.

The geyser next to them dissipated and the thundering noise went with it.

"Naughty, naughty Nate. Shooting your own teammate." Xavier taunted. He nestled his nose into Lunar's unmoving body, taking a long sniff.

"Aah...Mediators. There's something better about just knowing they're virgins, am I right? I also think they smell different. What do you think?"

"Lets settle this in a shootout, Xavi." Nate said softly. He knew there was this side of the man, had known it since he'd fought him. That side of them that wanted the humiliation.

"What's the matter? Got a hard-on for this girl? I can't blame you. That whole innocent ingenue thing, fuck. They say they don't have any emotions, but they clearly fucking do."

"Xavi." Nate's tone was warning.

"Alright, have it your way." He shifted Lunar next to the spring and threw her into the water. Her body dropped hard, completely disabled. But her rig triggered, firing cables up to the sky, up to the drone.

Only Xavi was quicker.

He fired a blast at the drone, blowing it out of the sky. Lunar crashed back down, into the blue depths.

Out of sight.

"What the fuck?!" Nate raged, bounding forward.

They held a blaster on each other.

"You can either stun me or save your girl." Xavi flashed him a cold smile. "You can't do both. You know I'm a fast fire — you've seen my records. You can't shoot me without me pulling my trigger. And at this range, I'm not missing."

Nate gaped at him. "She's going to die!"

Xavi shrugged. "Collateral. Don't hate me, I'm teaching you to be a Judge. These are the choices we're gonna have to make."

"There are fucking cameras!" Nate raged. "You won't—"

"Win at any cost!" Xavi rolled his shoulders languidly. "You heard Rivero. That's what Judges do."

"Judges don't kill our allies!"

"Tick-tock." Xavi hummed.

Nate took a deep breath.

*Isabelle?*

*I'm sorry, Nate.*

Nate scanned the situation in front of him, half-cocked ideas bouncing around his head.

"Will you let me save Lunar?" Nate tested, even though he knew the answer. Xavi was psychotic.

"Maybe, maybe not. Can you really afford not to trust me? Maybe if you're really nice and you bow in front of me, make it real good." Xavi grinned, a grin fat and wide and smug.

That constant Judge advice resounded in his head — the lesson Rivero had tortured into him.

When there are two choices in front of you...make a third.

"Okay, okay," Nate said as he bent down slowly. "You win. You're the best, you won." He laid his gun on the ground, ensuring he was bowed over completely, his rig heavy on his back.

Xavi laughed. "You dumb fuck, did you—"

Nate triggered his medevac, the coils shooting out hard and smashing through Xavi's chest, spearing him like a tuna fish. He tottered back, face caught in a frozen laugh, even as his eyes went wide in shock. And then he fell.

Nate wasted no time, diving into the pool with both hands together. The water bubbled beneath him. The shoals were swimming away.

The geyser was coming to life.

Below, Lunar lay amongst the corals, eyes frozen in fear, unable to move. He put his arms beneath her and carried her, pushing off the waterbed with his feet, kicking forward as hard as he could.

The water was warming up. Bubbles hissed by him. Something whined.

The light was coming closer.

Salvation.

They broke free and he rolled them free just as the geyser shot high and hard, boiling water burning his skin as he kept rolling, the droplets landing on them, scalding, sizzling.

Finally, they were safe, lying in the sodden grass.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Nate chanted, holding her up, parting her mouth to get her to choke out the water.

She couldn't move, couldn't talk. But she breathed, heavy and hard and desperately, until the water burned away, out of her mouth and nostrils. The breaths turned from hard to regular to easy, and as he held her cheek, cradled her, he caught the one movement she could still make.

Lunar Moon smiled.