Thursday, January 19, 2012

The Tower of Trials Chapter 8 Page 1

There was a nick on the windshield.

George had noticed that earlier when he had popped into the front cabin to collect some equipment from Mabel. He assumed that a stray bullet had hit the transport during the firefight. That time, the shields that would protect the windows had not deployed. At least the glass had been tough enough to take a hit.

They had stopped to pick up Iona once they were in the open wastes again, out of the rocky area where the tower had been situated. Iona was back in her human form and was at that moment curled up in one of the seats in the passenger cabin in the middle of the transport. She was asleep, clutching her stuffed goat like a baby would with her toy.

She looked so peaceful. Her sleeping form was a stark contrast to the dangerous panther with armor-ripping claws that George had witnessed earlier.

"Hey, Squirt," Tricia called. Her armored bulk was on a small seat modified for her armor.

"Yes?" George responded. He was very tired. The fight had been exhausting, with people shooting real bullets at him and him trying his very best to stop them. He was fortunate to have survived unharmed.

"You understand the concept of suppressive fire, don't you?" Tricia asked.

"Yes." George nodded. "Like you said, shoot at them to stop them shooting."

"The same goes for you," Tricia pointed out.

"What do you mean?"

"When they're shooting at you, you're supposed to be taking cover."

So instead of shooting back, George should have ducked!? Once he had the leisure of thinking without worrying about seeing his own blood, he recalled that he had been shooting back wildly instead of seeking cover. It was a wonder that he had not been hurt!

Iona was suddenly awake and beside George. "Squirt, let me see your bracelet!" she demanded. Without waiting for a reply, she pulled his hand to herself so she could examine the accessory.

Each and every one of the beads of the bracelet had broken into pieces. The fragments that had been trapped within the bindings of the bracelet fell out when Iona had roughly taken George's hand.

"Wow, all your balls are broken," Iona commented in wonder.

Mabel, in the driver's seat in front, blew an amused snort.

"Sorry about your bracelet," George apologized. How had the beads broken? A bullet could not have cracked all of them, could it? Did he slam his wrist against something hard? Even that could not have smashed each and every one of the beads, could it?

"Squirt, that bracelet was for your protection," Tricia explained, "Each bead protects you from one bullet."

"What kind of technology is that?" George asked curiously.

"It's magic!" Iona proclaimed.

If he had been told that the day before, George would have rejected it as baseless superstition. But since he had spent time in the wastes and had seen things he had only seen before in downloaded videos - specifically, Iona's shapeshifting - he was much more open-minded. There were things out in the wastes that he had never imagined possible.

Could there be other stuff in the shows on Covenant's network that could actually have some truth in them?

"It's a blessing of the Catalocus Tribe," Tricia said, "Separately, armor or the blessing could reduce harm from a bullet but you'd still get hurt. That's why you've both on you. And from the way you've been fighting, you'll need all the protection you can get."

"You're very lucky," Mabel added, "The blessing fails when the last bead has broken. The next bullet will put you in hospital... or worse."

George really did not like the 'or worse' used to describe his safety!

"Why don't you have one?" George asked the heavily-armored Vixen to get away from the uncomfortable subject concerning how close he had been to leaking life fluid. As he recalled, only he and Mabel had bracelets.

Tricia tapped her spaulder. "This protects me," she said, "and Iona doesn't need it. Her armor's been blessed already."

George glanced at the bone plates on Iona's outfit. He wondered how effective that protection was.

"So, Squirt," Mabel addressed him, "what do you think? The wastes is exciting, isn't it?"

"Well, yeah," George agreed. As long as he did not lose a finger, a toe, or his head.

There was silence after that. Iona went back to sleep.

"Anyone care that we left the place wide open back there?" Tricia asked.

"What do you mean?" George asked.

"We left the windows and the main doors open," Tricia elaborated, "Any wasters left can just walk in."

"I'm sure Lukas can handle himself," Mabel said confidently, "I imagine he's been in the wastes for quite a while in that tower, waiting for challengers. Plus that black power armor's still in there somewhere."

George did wonder about the bald man's safety. Well, if anything happened to Lukas, 'Madboy Keith's Tower of Trials' would stop releasing new episodes. He could find out, if he could locate the program on Covenant's network.

***

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