Date: Sun, 5 Nov 1995 21:36:48 -0500 Reply-To: JillMari@AOL.COM Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Jill Spetoskey Subject: Shades of Red and Black (part 8) I'm sorry things are taking so long, but this little thing called school seems to constantly be getting in the way. Yuck. comments are always welcomed and encouraged at jillmari@aol.com or jilkey@grfn.org Shades of Red and Black(A Highlander/V story) part 8 c. 1995 by Jill Spetoskey *** There was someone shaking her shoulder, urging her to wake up from a sleep that had come grudgingly the past night. "Go 'way. S'not time to get up yet." Kate groaned. Between the excitement of the day before and the uncomfortableness of the old cot, she had barely slept at all during the night. She figured that maybe she'd dozed off at around 4:00 a.m. "Rise and shine, sleepyhead. I promised Luka that I wouldn't let you neglect your training." Swinging one hand up to her face, Kate opened her eyes peer at her watch. 6:00 a.m. She looked beyond the watch to see Lucian's friend Sara standing next to the cot, grinning like an idiot. "Camd't workout. Domb't have m'gear." She tried to bluff. "I know you do though. When you left with Willie last night, you were carrying two bags. Luka had you bring one of them out of the shop, the other was yours." "Okay. Least let me duck in the bathroom a minute though." "Be at the courtyard with the basketball hoop in it in ten minutes then. Don't forget, I now know where you live." And with another grin, she headed out into the morning. Kate stretched, watching the other woman literally bounce out of the room. What she knew of Sara had never really seemed to fit with the image the woman tried to project. There was Sara the special effects genius, glasses perched on her nose trying to figure out how to fake a dragon breathe fire, trying to look for all the world to be nothing more than a computers person thrilled by the latest drop in hard drive prices. Then there was the Sara who collected anything she could from the Roman Empire and moved like an nth-degree black belt in something or other. She wondered why Sara seemed to always feel the need to put on whatever weird mask she did. Still, anyone that Lucian considered so highly had to have something going for her. She made her way to the bathroom. Slapping cold water on her face, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her green eyes were puffy, and her hair was a tangeled mess. She'd exchanged her work clothing of silk shirt and skirt for some tattered oversized blue jeans and an old UCLA sweatshirt last night, and her new clothing had definitely gone through a long history. "Yeah Williams, like it matters what you look like here." Seven minutes after she had been dragged to conciousness, she made it to the basketball hoop. Sara, as expected, was already there, and had already dug a pair of masks and epees out of storage. "A word of advice to you, Kate. No matter where you go, or what situation you find yourself in, find things that have been comforting in the past, and make them part of your routine in the present. Now let's see what Lucian's been teaching you. Just a word of warning; my style is considered a little bit...eclectic." After the two had stretched for a few minutes, Sara tossed her a mask. Reflexively catching it, Kate jiggled it around as she reached over to pick up her epee. She had barely straightened herself out before Sara charged toward her. She parried, but only barely, and found herself totally involved in defending herself. The other woman was good, better than anyone Kate had faced before. Yet she still had a feeling that Sara was holding something back, testing her for something. She started to find a rhythm to Sara's movement, and for a moment was even able take the offensive. Sara quickly regained the offensive, but Kate thought she heard a grunt of approval. The pace was grueling. Sara stopped for nothing, and Kate soon found her movements slowing from exhaustion. "C' we rest for a minute here?" "In a minute. We're going to work on your endurance here." And Sara unleashed another flurry of strokes. When Kate felt that her arms were going to fall off, Sara finally allowed her to rest a minute. They repeated this a few times more before Sara called the session complete. "So why didn't I ever see you and Lucian practicing together?" Kate gasped, her breathing almost, but not completely returned to normal. "I don't suppose you'd believe I'm too shy to let others watch?" "No." "Well, I promise I'll tell you some other time. You're doing pretty well, if it helps to know. Maybe a little too much competition style, and not enough practicality, but overall, not bad. I'd like to stay more, but I've got a 7:30 a.m. class I've got to teach. Take a nice hot shower if you can find hot water, and relax a little before you see Chris at 10. I expect to see you back here tommorow at the same time." "Tommorow? I'm gonna be sore for a week after today," she groaned. "Think of the pain as weakness leaving your body." Kate watched Sara as she headed away from their impromptu gym. She gathered things back into the equiptment bag, and pulled it over her shoulder with a limp arm. She headed back to her cell-like room, and deposited her bag within, hoping she could still get an arm raised far enough to turn on the shower. She was puzzled by Sara's actions. It was easy enough to see that Sara was one of the best swordswomen she'd ever seen, but she wondered if the other woman was a little crazy as well. An offer of a training partner was one thing, but to go in and treat things like it was almost some ancient bar-room brawl was another. Kate preferred fighting by a very structured set of rules, thank-you-very-much. Still, there was no way she really could aviod Sara if she wished, and Lucian seemed to trust the woman. Just don't let yourself get caught alone with her, a part of her warned herself. ***** As she walked toward her morning self-defense class, Sara evaluated who she was beginning to think of as her new student. Kate was too used to competitive fencing with its pause and puzzle out the right of way thinking, but if she could just get used to the idea of keeping moving, the girl would probably easily survive her first century, the time when Sara felt the younglings were most vulnerable. She was good, probably better at 23 than Lucian was at a century plus. She felt the apporach of another immortal. Damn, and I still haven't figured out how to approach Ham. "Sara, Lizbeth is going to take over your class this morning. We need you in a meeting now." "What's going on, Ham?" she asked, startled. A part of her wondered if Ham had been adeptly playing the youngster all along, and now saw a chance to make a move on Kate. "There's some action going on around the old Meridian Studios, and Gooder remembered that used to be where you worked." "Okay." She followed Ham into what she though of as the War Room. Julie, Chris, Martin, and a few others were already there. Donnovan entered just behind Sara and Ham, a coffee pot and tray of mugs in tow. After he had passed around the pot, he began his presentation. "Here's what we do know. The Visitors have taken possession of the old Meridian Studios lot, and we think they're planning on using it as a human processing center for the eastern part of the city. Our fifth column friends say that they're going to be devoting a lot of resources toward converting the site for their own use, but that they may not have as much firepower as they'd like to defend things. They've spent a lot of effort on getting things to their liking so far. It may be possible to hit them when they're vulnerable and significantly delay the human processing program if we time things right. Alex?" "A friend of mine still works in City Hall. She was able to pull the blueprints for the studio site for me." He pulled a set of prints out of a long cardboard tube, and tacked the series onto the far wall. "Here's what is supposed to be here. However, things have undoubtedly changed since the plans were filed. Sara, if you'd be so kind to look these over and tell us some of what's changed?" She took her cue, and rose to examine and point things out on the posted diagrams. "Now the Visitors have undoubtedly added their own touches to the layout, but I'm betting that some of the ways we used to get eighty minature dinosaur models into the studio without having all kinds of people bumping into them are still there." This drew a brief chuckle from the crowd. "Now the first thing that jumps out at me as being there but not listed in the blueprints is....." She continued her examination and comment as the gathered resistance fighters planned for the upcoming raid. End part 8 =========================================================================