The Ice Warrior

Chapter 3

Luckily, all the gun did, was make a hole in the floor while Silv struggled to get it away from Denis. Even though it couldn't be used without Denis' fingerprint, Silv took it with her knowing full well that she stood no chance in hand to hand combat against someone as dedicated to his training as Denis was.

Besides, he might have hidden weapons, Silv couldn't say for sure. The guy she thought she knew was just a carefully crafted facade, so she couldn't predict anything about him. It was a lesson she learned the hard way, but one she dared not dismiss.

While he was screaming in pain over his broken finger, Silv took up the opportunity to run. Where? She had no idea, but anything was better than being murdered in cold-blood by a person who only months before had claimed to love her more than life itself.

Running as fast as her legs would allow her, blindly following a hallway that could lead anywhere Silv allowed fear to enter her mind, for the first time since she left the academy. It was one thing to fight against the harsh conditions or enemy forces, but fighting one's comrade was a whole different thing.

When she had run a great distance without hearing any signs of pursuit, Silv started hyperventilating. It wasn't the running but pure panic that settled in. Denis was right, she might have been a soldier, but all her life she had been protected by her grandmother. It was like having a safety net.

However, she found herself all alone in an empty base, a crypt of the past, trying to fight off someone in whom she had complete trust. There was no way for her grandmother to help her, no one could. There were no human habitats for miles around the base. No one was coming.

It occurred to her that the way her grandmother had raised her was both a blessing and a curse. Unlike Denis and the rest of the people left on the planet, she wasn't raised to revere the government. In her household, family came before anything else.

They had to show their loyalty to the government in public, but at home, they always put more value on family than on the laws. While her grandmother Rose cared more about the safety of her family and subordinates, the government saw all of them as expandables, just pawns in an endless survival game.

Silv decided to hide in the nearby closet until she could think clearly. Running in an unfamiliar place could lead her to a dead-end. She wanted to avoid fighting one of the best soldiers she knew at any cost.

Tactics saved more lives than brute force, and she needed to think of a good one. However, to be able to do anything at all, she had to calm her shaking hands and stop her heart from escaping her chest.

She tried her best to remember her training but it was difficult to keep a clear image of anything at the forefront of her mind as she shivered unsure if it was fear or the cold making her do so. It was hard not to long for the warmth of her home and her grandmother's homemade soup, which was anything but homemade but still warmed up her heart in the cold world they lived in.

Never having truly been in such a dangerous situation, Silv didn't know what her instincts were telling her to do. They were drowned out by all the possibilities running through her head faster than a snowstorm.

Taking stock of her situation didn't help. She was all alone in an unfamiliar place, being stalked by someone who fought in more wars than she was aware of. To top all of that, she had managed to make that person furious, thus very determined.

Her only advantage was her above-average intelligence and excellent survival skills. At least that was what her last aptitude tests told her. Still, for the time being, she didn't feel very intelligent, having not recognized the danger Denis posed.

Her rational mind was telling her that the tests were infallible, they used the most recent technological advances which were top of the notch, but her heart told a different tale. Technology might have been the one thing that kept them alive, but it wasn't perfect, nothing ever was.

Silv still remembered having to drag dead bodies from the small village near the metropole whose thermal units suddenly ceased their function for no apparent reason. Having had no thermal jackets on at the time, all of the inhabitants froze to death in a matter of seconds. They called it a 'small glitch'. Humans would have been more vigilant.

Yet, it was the human government who deemed those deaths collateral damage and never even launched an investigation into what had happened. She should have known then that the people in charge only cared about themselves, but Silv was naive enough to believe in the greater good.

No matter how heartwrenching those thoughts invading her mind were, they ignited in her determination even stronger than before. Not only was she going to survive, but she was going to do what should have been done years before. She was going to bring them down and put in charge someone who truly cared about the little people.

After all, those same little people were the cogs that made their world function. They were the ones who worked hard on the newest inventions of scientists, while scientists themselves drank warm cocoa while enjoying other luxuries such as bread or cookies.

It had to change. The end of the world had caused enough suffering, it didn't have to be prolonged by greedy people who seized power the moment everything fell.

As those thoughts fluttered through her mind, no definite plan presenting itself, Silv heard footsteps approaching her place of hiding. Her fear was replaced by anger. She was a soldier, after all, and she would not cower away from danger, she would face Denis and fight for her freedom or die trying.

Since the element of surprise was on her side, she decided to wait until the footsteps were closer and then to ambush him. It was her only chance to claim victory. Her small stature and short arms wouldn't be much help otherwise.

As she listened more intently, Silv noticed that there was something odd about the footsteps. They sounded bigger and sturdier than Denis'. However, she dismissed that thought as an impossibility. There was no one else in the abandoned building, and they were far away from any functioning settlements. It could only be Denis.

When the thudding footsteps were close enough to the closet, Silv jumped out of the closet, ready for a fight only to be frozen by what she saw. Denis was not what she saw, to her utter astonishment, and she wasn't sure if that was good or bad news for her.