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She brought the glitter of the blade up into their line of sight like a
fencer so that they could both consider its cold blaze. "I will have my
revenge!"
His hand went to the hilt of the knife embedded in the tree trunk, and
she made new calculations based on his being armed. Sterling's having a knife
was so much the better as far as Miriya was concerned; she wanted to kill him
in a fight on equal terms, wanted to humble him as he had humbled
her-before...before he could...
His hand came away from the haft of the knife-very reluctantly, very
slowly, very deliberately. He turned back to her. "I'm afraid I don't know
what this is all about."
He left the weapon aside when he might have taken it. His life was in
danger, but in another way his life was there, staring at him, a knife in her
hand-the person, he was sure, he couldn't live without.
I wonder what the court-martial punishment is for falling in love with
the enemy?
"What d' you mean, revenge? If you're a Zentraedi, I understand why we
have to-to fight." He barely got the word out. "But why d' you want revenge?"
She held the short, tanto-style knife high, a miniature samurai blade,
burnished and keen, that threw the light back like a mirror.
"I...have...reasons!"
With that she sprang at him, fast as any jungle cat.
But Max Sterling's emotions and misgivings were subject to a sudden
override; body and reflexes took over.
An edge so fine that it would have cut a hair floating in the air sliced
through the spot where he had been standing, with a curt, sinister sibilance.
Max was already aloft.
She spat a Zentraedi oath in frustration, watching him dive and flip to
momentary safety. He whirled on her when he might as easily-and more
sanely-have run for it. "Miriya, what'd I ever do to you?"
She wasn't blind to his decision to stand when it would be more
advisable to run. Like a Valkyrie, she lifted the knife blade again, so that
it threw back shards of light.
"You defeated me. And you don't even know who I am, do you?"
She swirled the blade around, en garde, so that there was a contoured
trail of light between them. "I am the Zentraedi's greatest pilot! And I will
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not be humiliated by a human insect!"
She plunged at him, the razor-sharp edge slitting the air. In less than
a second she executed two masterful infighting moves that would have
disembowled a lesser opponent.
But Max Sterling simply wasn't there. He made no countermoves, but he
avoided the cuts and thrusts like a shadow. Miriya was even more enraged to
see that he wasn't terrified, but rather mystified. That he still felt
weakling human emotions for her.
She fought down the chaotic impulses that flared up within her. She
slashed again, but the knife hissed through empty space once more.
And she began to know a certain fear. By the Protoculture! He's so fast!
Her fear had nothing to do with dying; she was Zentraedi. In this strangest
battle of her life, she wasn't quite sure what that ultimate and most dire of
terrors was, the dread that was somehow bound up in Max Sterling. She had had
many mental images, wondering about what this utter demon of war would be
like; none of them were anything like the truth.
"The first time you were lucky! The second time was your final victory!"
She cut at him, barely missing, Max dodging with that same uncanny
speed. "Nothing can save you now!" Miriya hissed. "I will defeat you!"
She hurled herself at him, the blood thirsty edge coming around in an
eviscerating arc.
CHAPTER EIGHT
There are old soreheads and young soreheads in our ranks who still denounce
the events that occurred near the Peace Fountain that night. Chances are, they
won't get the point of this book, either.
To paraphrase Robert Heilbroner, "These people bring lots of rigor to our
cause, but alas, also mortis."
Betty Greer, Post-Feminism and the Robotech War
Miriya was quick, too, nearly as quick as Max, and a clever knife fighter. She
maneuvered the next sequence of cuts so that his route of evasion would be
past the tree's great roots, and sure enough, he stumbled and went down.
She dove at him gleefully, the white throat open for her death cut. By
all rights the duel was hers; it needed only the flick of a wrist to end
Sterling's life and expunge her shame. Nothing could explain her slight
hesitation, she who had never hesitated before and had lost to no other foe.
Nothing could explain it except the sudden, vivid image of what he would look
like when she killed him.
Flat on his back, Max looked up at her. This was the powered-armor pilot
he had fought to a standstill days before, first in a furious dogfight over
the SDF-1, then in a toe-to-toe confrontation in the streets of Macross
itself.
He should have been afraid for his life. But all he could think of was
the fact that, squaring off with Miriya's mecha, he'd kept hearing Tex
Ritter's old song from High Noon, "Do Not Forsake Me, O My Darlin'," echoing
through his head. And now he just couldn't help hearing that haunting line
on this, our weddin' day-ayy...
Miriya sprang at him; the blade cleaved the air, aimed at his heart. His
body responded before he had time for coherent thought; he held up a flat disk
of rock, and the knife point skidded from it, striking sparks, nearly taking
two of his fingers off but missing but a hair's breadth.
The miss put her off balance; he worked a leg trip. As she rolled to get
free and try for his life again, he catapulted toward the first knife, which
was still buried in the tree.
She was after him at once. To kill him before...before he could...
"It's no use!" she cried triumphantly, slashing at him. They maneuvered
and feinted, the other knife's haft only inches beyond Max's reach. "You're no
match for me! Oh, you may be a great man, but what's a man compared to a
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Zentraedi?"
He faked her away from the tree, turned, and had the knife in his hand
like magic, her belated cut only chipping bark.
"Now, we'll see." He held the knife in a fencing grip, almost
hesitantly. She went at him.
Impossibly, they set aside any sane knife-fighting style to fence as if
they held sabers. The knives struck scintillas of light from each other. Max
had learned to fence in school and had sharpened his combat skills in the
Robotech Defense Force; Miriya was a Zentraedi-she lived and breathed warfare.
Amazingly, Max engaged her blade in a bind, whirling it around and
around, whisking it from her grip. It flew high, landing yards away. The point
buried itself in the ground, tantalizingly close and yet so far, too far.
Max held the point of his knife close to her throat. She raised her chin
proudly. "I guess I win again," he said, yet there was something in his tone
that made him sound unsure.
It was the moment Miriya Parino, warlord of the Quadrono, had never
thought she would face. And yet there was such a thing as dignity in defeat,
such a thing as her warrior code. "I've lost to you."
This is a shame I cannot endure. She sank to her knees, pulling the
scarf down and baring her throat. She waited for the cold kiss of the blade,
hoping it would come soon to end her suffering. She couldn't help it, but
tears welled up in her eyes-not from fear or even anger but from impulses to
which she could put no name.
He was hesitating for some reason; she thought that perhaps he was going
to show the cruelty a Zentraedi might in his position. She didn't blame him
and was bravely determined to endure whatever he might mete out, but she
thought that perhaps he simply needed a word from her to acknowledge her
defeat.
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