Free SOMETHING WAITS by Bruce Jones

harm. Leave the planet now and I see no reason to report you.”
     
    The vain smile again. He thought she was bluffing out of fear. Oh, boy. There was just no help for this guy. All right then, she’d tried. The fun was over. She had to get back to work.
     
    “Klete!” he answered and threw himself into an excessively ostentatious fighting pose.
     
    Now it was her turn to smile. “Hawn,” she said calmly, and slowly, ever so slowly drew her sword level to and horizontal with her breasts. It was a maneuver she savored. They were splendid breasts; generous and round and pink-nipple firm. Few men could watch them and her sword simultaneously. He proved no exception.
     
    Her next movement was so lightning-fast, he had only time to feel the breeze her John Carter blade made passing in front of him. He started to counter but she was frozen now at the completion of her turn, staring passively at his chest.
     
    But she had missed! He was sure of it! He’d felt nothing! He glanced down at his chest.
     
    The ribbons of crimson appeared magically across his tank top, delayed seconds by the impossible keenness of her blade. His mouth fell open. Before he could shut it again, she was behind him, wrist flicking ivory bright in the sun, sending the slashed tank top swishing from his body and over his head. Together they watched the material arc high into the air to drape neatly over a leafy branch.
     
    When he whirled in humiliated fury to slash at her, she was gone, pirouetting gracefully to his right—no, to his left—no, no she was behind him again—pulling tentatively at his wide swashbuckler’s belt with the point of her weapon, then effortlessly slicing leather like butter to the ankles. The pants fell away like separate, faded petals. Then she feinted to the right—he followed, stumbling—and, leggings tangling his ankles now, crashed in an inglorious heap as she’d planned. He had to let go of his sword to prevent impaling himself.
     
    She kicked the sword away and struck the point of her own blade beneath his terrified chin. His Adam’s apple convulsed once and he was suddenly swimming in sweat.
     
    “Up!”
     
    He obeyed immediately, propelled airlessly to his tiptoes by the stinging tip of the magic sword. She stood grinning at his nakedness, letting the razor point trace a tickly, not-quite-skin-piercing line down his throat, chest, belly…
     
    She lowered the sword between his legs and cocked her head speculatively. She had castrated only one man before in swordplay, although it was quite commonly the loser’s lot among Fleet swordsmen; indeed, many half-expected it. But she found no particular satisfaction in the act or in the rapidly growing fad of gathering nuts so popular among the younger cadets. In her book, you either killed your opponent outright or let him go the way he came.
     
    She looked up at his dripping face: eyes squeezed tight, teeth clenched, jaw atremble. “Turn around, pig, while I decide how to kill you.”
     
    He turned drunkenly, legs rubbery with fear, to stand shaking before the warm sun. He was standing there still, an hour later, long after she’d melted silently into the tangled thicket.
     
    Alone again in the forest, she was still on Leakwood’s rather clearly marked trail and still remembering what the Commander had said about him…
     
    * * *
     
    “Now, then, Sheffield, my reports tell me you knew this…this…”
     
    “Leakwood, sir.”
     
    “…knew him personally. Is that true?”
     
    “It’s unofficially true, yes sir. ‘Acquainted’ might be a better word.”
     
    “’Acquainted.’ Would you care to amplify that, Sheffield?”
     
    “We ran into each other at the Colony library occasionally…had lunch together once or twice.”
     
    “Once or twice.”
     
    “Twice, then.”
     
    “What kind of lunches, Sheffield?”
     
    “Just…lunch. At the cafeteria.”
     
    “I see. What else?”
     
    “Let’s see…I believe he took me to the