Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 09:46:35 -0400 Reply-To: JillMari@AOL.COM Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Jill Spetoskey Subject: Shades of Red and Black (part 5) comments are always welcomed and encouraged at jillmari@aol.com or jilkey@grfn.org Shades of Red and Black(A Highlander/V story) part 5 c. 1995 by Jill Spetoskey *** As she tried to pull her long blond hair back into a braid, the black cat playfully swiped at the strands. "Ghost, bad kitty! You shouldn't play with people's hair like that!" Sara sighed, figuring that she likely would never figure out a way to keep her hair out of her face completely. She'd been with the resistance for a little over a week, mostly setting up her computer so the scientists could create their models and simulations. Thankfully, Ham Tyler had been away most of the time; the last thing she needed in a new environment was to worry about a strange immortal who may or may not be aware of his potential. She'd heard something about him procuring some weapons somewhere near San Diego. She gave one last twist to her hair, and pulled an elastic around the remainder. "I know you're not a bad cat," she cooed, scratching the longhair under the chin," it's just that Sara's probably a little nervous about tonight. She hasn't done this sort of group thing in a good forty years. Guess I'm just hiding trying to get a little peace before the chaos." She shifted her weight around the cheap folding chair, pulling the big cat onto her lap. While Mike and Julie puzzled out the strategy for tonight's raid on a processing plant, she'd retreated to the comfort of Father Andrew's office. Although it was only a small room containing only a card table, a few folding chairs, and a bare lightbulb, the priest had made it his own since he had come here. She'd guessed that he had even used it for small services because it had the unmistakable feel of holy ground. She was just about to slip back into her thoughts when a hand rapped on the door. "Come in," a blond, curly-haired Visitor stuck his head through the door. "Is Father Andrew here? We were supposed to meet for launch." "That's lunch, Willie, and I think he's still sitting in on the planning session for tonight." "Thanks, would you like to join me then? Both you and Ghost are welcome." "Maybe in a minute. For now, it's just kind of nice to find a sanctuary for a little while before all the action starts." "Sanctuary?" "Just a place where I can find a little bit of quietness in among all the activity. A place where I don't have to have my guard up, worrying about things." "I'll leave you alone, then." "You don't have to. You're not interrupting anything. A true sanctuary is both a place of retreat and a place within your heart. If you can find that place, there is no interruption. Stick around, and we'll wait for Father Andrew together." There was something reassuring about the alien fifth columnist. Both of them had not come willingly into the Resistance at first, but had found their own reasons for whole-heartedly supporting the cause. "Okay. You'll have to tell me more about this sanctuary, then." He said as he settled into another chair. "Your people have their own concepts of religion?" Willie nodded. "Part of it is the place. It may be a great cathedral, or a place held sacred because your ancestors were laid to rest there, or just a place like this. My people held the belief no wars could ever be fought on such places." "And the other part? It would seem like that would be the harder place to find." "It is. I've known a lot of people over the years who never find it once, and I sometimes have a hard time knowing where to look, too." The conversation was interrupted by Father Andrew's enterance. Ghost jumped off Sara's lap, and twined himself around the cleric's ankles. "Hello, you two. How are you doing?" "Good. I was just in here thinking, and Willie stopped in to see if you wanted to get something to eat, and we talked a little." "And I think they probably haven't fed you at that meeting, either." Willie added, and she thought she could detect a note of hopefullness in his voice. "Okay. I do hope it's something other than Spam, though. I am getting tired of it." "You could always go vegetarian like Willie, here. But then I'd bet you'd start complaining about too much creamed corn." She grinned, as the two men started to move out of the office cum chapel and towards the improvised mess hall. She slid through the rest of the day, her mind remembering the details that differentiated a single combat fight between two immortals and an action involving groups of mortals. It was easier fighting a duel. You either survived or you didn't, and you didn't have to worry about getting in the way of other people doing the same thing. This evening's raid would be so messy. People running around, all relying on each other for different things, and trying not to trip over each other as they tried to accomplish a goal that could change in the middle of the raid. Besides, some of them probably wouldn't come back, and she had gotten fond of many of the Resistance fighters. To cease to care is to become a walking dead man like Slan and so many of your kind, she reminded herself. Soon she found herself back on the same van she had riden in the night she had first come to the Resistance, although it had been painted the same green as her coat. She adjusted her earpiece, and rubbed her coatsleves, wondering if the West German army had ever considered the coat standard issue for this type of warfare. Looking at her companions, she gave Chris, who was driving, a thumbs up, and half-nodded to Ben and Maggie as well. She lightly ran her fingertips over the uzi in her lap. They hadn't aquired enough of the Visitor blasters, so they used human firearms with ammunition adapted to pierce the Visitor body armor when they had to. Sooner than she'd expected, the van eased to a stop, and the fighters slipped out of the vehicle to make their way to the processing plant. They would have the most dangerous job: serving as bait to draw the guards away from the processing center so that the rest of raiding party could get in close enough to place explosives. As she made her way carefully among the warehouses toward the target, she was hit by a sense of deja vu, finally realizing that tonight's raid was taking place only a short distance from the previous raid. Then, all of her thoughts were replaced by the need to lure the Visitors away so the explosives could get enough time to get in and out. As she took up a sniper's position, she saw Chris charge across the open space in fron of the plant to get the attention of the guards, and they turning to meet the new threat. "Sara, your turn now." The earpiece intoned. She moved closer to the center enterence, and opened fire at the visitors, solidly hitting one of the three guards that had followed Chris's feint. In a few moments, the hoped-for chaos had errupted. She caught a glimpse of someone that looked like Julie making it into the processing plant, but then found herself too tied up in her own fight to follow the actions of the others. One of the uniforms got too close to her, and she was just barely to put a bullet through his throat. She paused a moment to snatch up the Visitor's more powerful weapon, but wasn't quite quick enough. As her fingers clasped around the weapon's grip, she felt a sudden searing pain in her left shoulder, and she looked up to see a guard she's missed. Her momentum carried her to the blaster, and she was able to grab it with her good arm, and shoot the Visitor squarely in the chest. "Damn." She could smell her burnt flesh where the blaster had hit, and figured that it wouldn't totally heal until after she had regrouped with the Resistance. "Okay, we have explosives placement. Time to go home folks." Her ear spoke. Just then, she heard a loud rumble, turning just in time to see the former processing plant start to crumble to the ground. Carefully checking her surroundings, she bolted back to the van as quickly as caution would allow. "And that makes seven. Time to roll folks." Chris cried out as he tried to urge the underpowered vehicle forward. She noticed that Lorelei was cradling an arm to her chest, and that Ben had a cut on his face that would probably require stitches. Maggie looked at her bloody coat with concern, but Sara waved her off. "It's only a graze. Closest thing to missing me entirely. I'll be okay." Sara turned her attention to Lorelei. A Visitor had hit her squarely in the arm with a shot, searing the flesh to the bone. Sara guessed that she would be lucky if she didn't lose the arm. Sara felt one last twinge from her own shoulder, and classified it as part sympathy as her own wound finished closing. Fortunately, she thought as the van slid back into headquarters, I managed to get away with the "It was just a graze" line this time. I don't know if I'm going to be as lucky next time. There would be a next time too. She knew she tended to get careless about her own perceived safety when lives were at stake. She'd always figured that if someone had to throw themselves in front of a bullet, better her than someone who couldn't recover. As she helped Lorelei out of the van, she brushed up against a tired Julie, who seemed to be trying to be doctor on top of everything else she'd done that night. Julie passed the woman on to someone else for medical treatment, and caught a look at the blood on her coat. "You okay Sara? We better have someone look at that." "Only a graze. Most of the blood's hers, not mine." Julie shoot her a look asking if she was sure, but started to move away. "You must be good luck for us, Sara. We didn't lose anyone tonight, and Lorelei's injury looks to be the worse of them all." "That's GOOD news." Sara managed a tired but happy grin. "For now, all I want is a nice, big whirlpool tub, but I'll settle for a quick shower, and a chance to sleep in." "It's a done deal, then. Pleasant dreams." Julie smiled back at her. Sara made her way to the women's bathroom, stripping off the coat in the hope that she could get most of the blood out of it before it set in. She left her shirt and coat soaking in the sink, and jumped in the shower, letting the cascading water remove the last of the blood from her body. She'd been surprised at how easily Julie had accepted her explanation of the blaster wound. Chances were that she couldn't get away with it again. She thought of the nature of the war she had thrust herself in. Wars were always about us against them. This time around, the us had become the entire human race, and the them had become nearly everyone else, with the exception of a few of the fifth columnists like Willie and Martin. She wondered where they would judge her position if she were found out, and either of the sides would do to her. "Sara, are you in there?" Julie's voice called as she entered the bathroom. "I want to see if you need any stitches on that shoulder. There was an awful lot of blood there." "Just a minute. can't a girl get some privacy?" Sara started, not noticing as the meager hot water started to go cold. Wonderful, a scientist and doctor waiting for her to make sure she was well. Still, as she'd worked with Julie, she'd grown to like the other woman. Julie had never pried into anyone's background, and had never judged anyone based on whether they were human or Visitor. If she had to explain herself to someone, better Julie than the newsman Donovan. She flicked the shampoo out of her eyes. Okay, time for some spin control, and some choice snap judgement about character. She turned off the shower, and pulled on her bra, underwear, and jeans, what was left of her clothes from the evening, and draped the towel around ger hair, and where the blaster wound should have been. "Julie, we need to talk." She said, making her way to position herself between Julie and the door. "I don't need any stitches. I got hit square in the shoulder by a blaster, but it's healed, now." She paused, and fished her Swiss Army knife out of her pocket. "My given name was originally Antonlina, and I was born two thousand years ago in the hills of Dacia." Never call it Romania or Transylvania unless you like wearing those jackets with the extra-long sleves. "And I cannot be killed by normal means." She drove the knife deep into her forearm, wishing it didn't hurt quite so much when she had to do this. She saw Julie move quickly to her side to try to stop the bleeding, opening her mouth to call for help. "No." She put as much command into her voice as she could."Wait and watch." She pulled the knife out of her arm, and both women watched as the cut scarlessly healed in a few moments. "How?" Julie asked, her voice filled with wonder. "No one really knows why or where we come from. I was a foundling. My foster father found the man I called brother and me in an abandonned village in Dacia. He took us in, and treated us as his own as long as he could. Then the riots came, and one day ny brother and I were caught up in the mob. He was killed, and they thought I was dead too until I woke up from that little death, and I haven't aged since. There are a few others like me, not many though, and we are sterile. I know of a few who have become doctors and scientists in recent years, trying to figure out why, but they have never found anything in their microscopes that sets us apart from the mortals. We rarely tell our secret to outsiders like you. It just seemed like I had no other choice than explain myself to you." "But why tell me?" "I know myself too well. Sooner or later, I'll apparently hurt myself in a big way, and I either play dead and slink off in the middle of the night, or have to explain why I'm still living. Better to say something now, and gain your trust with honesty. What I ask is that you keep my secret until this war is over, and not press me to play lab rat for you afterward. You trusted me when I said I would help. Now, I trust you to keep my secret." "You still consider yourself one of us?" Sara fely the question covered both the Resistance and humanity in general. "Yes." Sara moved softly over to the sink to retrieve her torn shirt as Julie thought. "Two years ago, I would have said you were crazy if you said that space lizards were on the way to invade the earth. I guess that rapid cellular regeneration isn't as strange as that. For now, I won't say anything." "Thanks, Julie." End part 5 =========================================================================