Vaughn Heppner: The Lost Starship

The spectators oohed with delight.

Nerva had already glided away and his eyes narrowed, perhaps with surprise.

Maddox gave him a cool smile.

Did that goad Nerva? Possibly. Caius launched an assault. The viper stick swished with feral sound. Each of Maddox’s parries brought a sizzling proton discharge and a vibration to the handle. After the seventh shock, his hand tingled with semi-numbness. He wanted to set the stick aside and shake his fingers, flexing them, before resuming the duel. Viper stickers often allowed each other such intermissions. Nerva had insisted on a constant fight, he said, to test their mettle. Maddox hadn’t had any reason to disagree. Now he wondered. Caius Nerva kept a tight grip of his stick, a feat of some accomplishment.

How does he do that?

Even as Maddox wondered, he shifted his fingers before re-gripping. His sweaty hold had become slippery. With speed, he parried, and the viper sticks sizzled once again. Nerva’s nose twitched. Maddox smelled it too. The air between them stank from the proton discharges.

Both men stepped back. Maddox switched hands, flexing his right as he held the viper stick with his left. Quickly, he rubbed his sweaty palm against his trousers.

“I am better than you,” Nerva declared.

Although Maddox’s face remained the same, a silent determination filled his breast. He couldn’t believe the man was doing so well. He had thought…

“You are a dog,” Nerva said. “If you will admit that, I will permit you to crouch like a beast. Then, at my command, you will pull down your trousers, and I will swat you a single time on the bum. In such a way, you will survive this meeting.”

“If you played cards half as well as you boast,” Maddox said in a causal tone, “you wouldn’t have lost quite so often.”

Anger flushed across Caius Nerva’s face. He strode toward Maddox, and the tempo of his attacks quickened. It was faster than a man should have been able to achieve. That astounded the captain as he strove to defend himself. Could he have been wrong about his secret? Was he normal then like everyone else?

Perhaps even more surprising than Nerva’s performance was that Captain Maddox fended off the assaults. He did it through perfect footwork, strenuous exertion and nearly continuous retreat. Sweat dripped from his lean frame, and his muscles writhed with intoxicating interest—the women couldn’t tear their gazes from him.

Nerva had bulk and greater strength. A faint sheen of perspiration made his thick pectorals and bulging biceps gleam.

“You’re a dead man, Captain,” Nerva said in an even voice, as if he wasn’t winded in the slightest.

A rigid grin was Maddox’s only answer. He’d never fenced with someone possessing such speed. Clearly, Sergeant Riker had been right about the Methuselah Treatment granting more than extended life. Well, that wasn’t certain, was it? There were other possibilities as to why Nerva fenced so well.

Then Maddox heard it. The faintest of whines came from Nerva. The captain’s right eyebrow lifted as the shock of understanding struck him. He had badly miscalculated indeed.

Nerva must have noticed the eyebrow. He laughed in a mocking way.

Given the possibilities, Maddox stuck with more zeal than seemed wise. He had to know the truth. It was a dangerous and complex maneuver: a thrust, stop, thrust and reverse whip-around. The fact that the attack caught Nerva by surprise likely gave Maddox the microsecond’s edge he needed to pull it off.

Their viper sticks sizzled, and the tip of Maddox’s weapon caressed the top of Nerva’s dueling hand.

The spectators gasped with astonishment. Until now, the fight had completely gone Nerva’s way.

Maddox jumped back, and his gaze lifted as he watched Nerva’s face. The man’s mouth opened, but there didn’t seem to be any facial tightening due to exquisite pain.

I can’t believe this . The implications are absurd .

Instead of agony, surprise filled Nerva’s orbs, the disbelief that Maddox could have touched him. Their gazes locked. With a sickening realization, Maddox knew the truth. Nerva must have a prosthetic arm, one of the new Japanese models from Tojo 5.

It appeared as if Nerva came to a decision: he would play this out as if he were normal. The man bellowed: a nearly perfect imitation of agony. He dropped his viper stick, and he pulled his seemingly injured hand against his chest, cradling it.

A prosthetic arm, no wonder Nerva had been able to grip the weapon throughout the fight. It was also possible the man had dead skin at strategic locations on his person: his shoulders, chest, maybe his thighs. The dead skin would act as armor, although he would lack feeling at those places. In order to maintain his gentlemanly reputation, Nerva now pretended injury. The man was clever.

Before anyone could congratulate Maddox, or before Nerva could admit defeat, the sound of air-cars caused everyone to glance west. This was a restricted area, guarded by Nerva Conglomerate anti-air lasers. Who could have broken through the cordon?

Maddox turned toward the sound just as everyone else did. He spied three marine air-cars. Ah. They must have gained security clearance. The combat vehicles were obvious, with their camouflage paint and the gun turrets on either end. A loudspeaker clicked on.

“I REQUEST THE IMMEDIATE PRESENCE OF CAPTAIN MADDOX OF THE STAR WATCH!”

A woman standing some ways behind Maddox screamed. It had the shrill distinctive sound of someone witnessing something horrible.

The captain felt the small hairs rise on the back of his neck. He sensed the attack before he turned.

I shouldn’t have taken my eyes off Nerva .

The duel hadn’t officially ended. In that regard, the air-cars meant nothing. As quick as a cat Maddox twisted around to face Nerva.

The captain took in the scene faster than his body could react to defend himself. Nerva had already picked up the dropped viper stick. The man didn’t bother to pretend anymore. He used his right hand, the supposedly numbed one. It certainly meant that Nerva had a specially treated prosthetic right arm, one immune to a viper stick’s discharge. Nerva began a slash. There was no way Maddox could lift his own weapon in time or dodge the blow.

Instead of taking the full brunt of a viper stick discharge—ending up permanently paralyzed at best, killed by proton shock at worst—Maddox heard a stunner fire. A blot of nearly invisible force struck Nerva in the chest. Because of the stunner’s high setting, the blast knocked the man backward. His viper stick still slashed, but higher than it would have, several inches back and with less force and speed. The combination allowed Maddox to twist out of the way.

Then, Nerva was down on the trampled grass, panting. The shock of the stunner’s blast must have disoriented him. It certainly stole his concentration. His arms continued to move downward toward him. The right hand pulled the viper stick directly onto his prone body.

A security officer roared with outrage, likely at the stunner shot.

As Maddox stumbled backward from the inertia of dodging the viper stick, he watched fate handing out its verdict.

Nerva’s viper stick fell on top of him, striking his chest, neck, chin and face. It discharged with double force. Caius Nerva groaned and went rigid. Then, he exhaled a final time, dying from proton shock.

A marine air-car lowered, its antigravity pods humming as it turned toward the spectators. “CAPTAIN MADDOX, THE BRIGADIER REQUESTS YOUR IMMEDIATE PRESENCE!”

Ignoring the vehicle, Maddox glanced to his left. Sergeant Riker, his aide, held the offending stunner in his gnarled fist. The old man had just saved his life. The sergeant had also legally ended his own. The man was Maddox’s second. For killing the enemy duelist, any jury would demand the sergeant’s immediate transfer to a prison planet.