Chapter 12, part 2
The Guild of Marksmen
The Trader Emergency Coalition
8 years ago, inner sector, western rim, galactic position 940, 945, planet christened "Matsuda 1"
"You always knew they'd come after you," Judman said quietly as Kol and he slipped quietly along the wall deeper into the Operation Departments, both with their guns out.
Kol shook his head. "No, you knew. You just never saw fit to tell me."
"I'm sure I mentioned it at least once," Judman whispered back.
"Never, not even once," Kol replied as he glanced around a corner. "Ok, this is it."
Kol and Judman turned the corner, and stood in front of two whisper-silent sliding doors from an ancient century, with the words Operations Conference Room 1 printed clearly above them. Apparently the man in charge had a thing for antiques.
"So what now?" Judman asked quietly.
"I go in, and you wait just around the corner to back me up if I need help," Kol said evenly, staring at the doors.
"I'm not going to waste time arguing with you. How will I know if you need help?"
Kol turned and looked Judman in the eyes. "If you hear gunfire, I need help."
With that he took a deep breath, holstered his gun, let out the breath, and pushed open the doors to the conference room.
Dalahan Borvick looked up as the doors to the Operations conference room swung open. He smiled as the man came cautiously into the room, eyes sweeping the area like a hawk. Oh, this one'll never change, Dalahan thought triumphantly, this one's my masterpiece.
But aloud he said, "Take a seat," and motioned to a chair across the table from him.
Kol sat cautiously down, not daring to take his eyes from the man sitting across from him, yet not daring to stop his surveillance of the room. Who knew what hidden surprises the Marksmen were capable of performing? These were the men that haunted children's dreams and were the midnight ghouls that haunted the alleyways of the TEC. These men were monsters out of legends and fairy tales.
"You took your time coming back to us," the man continued, his eyes on the first of a stack of papers lying in front of him. He pursed his lips, jotting a quick note at the bottom of the page, and looked up. "We will go into that why later. For now, I want you to explain why you led someone to our meeting."
The man raised a hand, and two Marksmen, their tattoos clearly displayed on their shoulders due to the sleeveless vests that they wore, pushed a disheveled Judman into the room. His gun was gone and there was a cut across the side of his face that was bleeding. The men released Judman and he fell to the ground, moaning. Kol jumped to his feet.
"Oh, this man was important to you?" The first man, who Kol assumed was the leader of the Marksmen from the way he commanded the other men, got up and stood so that their faces were right up against each other. "Kill him, Jackal."
Kol's eyes whirled around the room, looking for the Marksmen named Jackal. No one stepped out of the shadows, however, and neither of the burly Marksmen standing over Judman moved an inch, so Kol looked back at the leader of the Marksmen, confused.
"Did you not hear me, Jackal?" The man hissed, angry, "I am commanding you as Dalahan Borvick! Have you already forgotten my name?"
Kol looked steadily at Dalahan. Was the man talking to him? He's obviously confused me with the man called Jackal who was Commodore of the first defense fleet against the Vasari, Kol thought. So he did the most obvious thing.
"I'm not the Jackal," Kol said with a hint of contempt.
Anger flashed in Dalahan's eyes, and Kol immediately regretted his words. He found himself crouching against the opposite wall of the room, couching and spitting out blood. His left shoulder was a mass of pain, and Kol seemed to remember Dalahan picking him up by that arm and throwing him against the wall, although he was positive that he had not seen Dalahan move. Sons of the stars, Kol thought, I picked the wrong Marksmen to mess with.
Dalahan stood over him. Lifting up Kol's chin with one finger, he gazed intently at Kol's face. Finally he turned away.
"You're right, you're not the Jackal," Dalahan said, returning to his stack of papers. "You are no longer that man, and you are no longer a Marksman. I'd have my men here cut off your arm to remove the tattoo, but I have plans for you. You will join the Marksmen eventually, Alexander Kol, and when you do you will be sorry you ever had this momentary lapse of memory."
He knows my name, thought Kol, yet he called me the Jackal. Why?
As if reading his mind, Dalahan shook his head disgustedly. "I cannot believe you forgot so much. I see it in your face. We all have our birth names, Kol, but then we have our Marksman names. I am not referred to as Dalahan or even Borvick by my disciples, am I, gentlemen?"
The two Marksmen standing over Judman shook their heads without taking their eyes from the wall above Dalahan's head. It was disconcerting.
"No," continued Dalahan with a smile, "to them I am known as the Overlord. And you will be known as the Phoenix for your miraculous survival of the fire, and for the strength in which it has invoked in you. And you will come to us eventually, Kol, and you will answer to the Phoenix, make no mistake. You will have time to remember what your mind has blocked from you, but you will only have so much. In 17520 hours, exactly two years from this moment, we will come to you again, and we will take you by force if that is what is needed. You will not be able to stop us. The Marksmen do not abandon their own, nor do they allow others to abandon them. Remember that, and remember that well."
With that, Dalahan hit Kol over the head and he fell to the floor, unconscious.
When Kol woke up again, Dalahan and the other Marksmen were gone. He immediately crawled over to Judman and checked for breathing. Yes, his chest was rising, but only barely. He needed medical attention. Kol staggered into the hallway, still disoriented from the blow, but made it to the nearest emergency phone. He smashed the glass and held the phone to his ear. It automatically called the control room of the asteroid station, and as it was an emergency phone Kol was speaking to the head scientist in less than a minute.
"I'm in the Operations department," Kol wheezed into the phone, "conference room 1! Major Judman's here with me, he needs immediate medical attention."
"U-understood, Commodore," the scientist said nervously. After all, what could have happened to the Commodore and Major on the station? "Medics are being dispatched to your location immediately."
"Good. And get Major Higgins on the line too! He should be in the capital ship hangar."
"Right away, Commodore. Is there anything else you require?"
"No, that should be all, thank you."
"My pleasure, Commodore. I will transfer you to Major Higgins now."
Kol took the phone from his ear and leaned against the wall, massaging his head. This incident had given him much to think about. In two years, the leader of the Marksmen had said, we will come to you again, and we will take you by force if that is what is needed. But why so long? Why not take Kol now?
They wanted Kol to come to them, he realized, they wanted the Marksman to return to his own. Well, let them wait. They'd have a hard time finding him two years from now, he'd make sure of that.
"Commodore?" A voice spoke out of the phone.
"Higgins? Listen very closely to what I'm about to tell you..."
