Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One

February - 3,390 BC

  Earth: Crash site

  Colonel Mikhail Mannuki’ili

  Mikhail

  Something was wrong.

  Mikhail’s eyes shot open. Reaching to his hip and finding the reassuring bulge of his sidearm, he groaned in agony as he lurched to his feet and wobbled unsteadily, fighting the urge to pass out as his punctured lung tore against the stitches. Clutching at his ship's control console to remain upright, his broken wing dragged uselessly behind him as he moved towards the crack in the hull.

  Still blinking as his eyes adjusted to the sunlight, a high, shrill voice made his heart beat faster. The scene flashed before his eyes as though he watched it via strobe light, his injuries giving everything a surrealistic, distant feeling. Urgent images whispered into his brain. Men laughing. Water splashing. A half-dozen dark-haired men wearing kilts had their back turned towards him, facing a rocky stream. A seventh dark-haired figure held Ninsianna’s head beneath the surface of the water, shaking his finger at her as though he scolded a child.

  Mikhail in no condition for a fight, so he fired a warning shot, startling the man in the water enough to get him to release Ninsianna's head. She popped back above the surface, gasping for breath, but the olive-skinned man grabbed her arm and shoved her behind him, defiance glittering in his angry black eyes.

  “Why not pick on somebody your own size!"

  The other men shouted and ran away, but the one who held Ninsianna did not intimidate quite so easily. Mikhail noticed the way the swarthy-skinned man positioned himself in front of Ninsianna, both protecting her, and also refusing to let her go. Whoever this man was, he viewed her as his property. Where he came from, he vaguely recalled that treating a woman like that would get you your tail feathers handed back to you on a metal cafeteria tray…

  “I wouldn't do that if I were you." Mikhail fired a warning shot at the water inches from the man’s abdomen. “Ninsianna, come here!"

  Ninsianna struggled to break free, and when that didn't work, formed a fist and punched the man right in the face. With a yelp of surprise, the black-eyed man let go. Ninsianna bounded up the banks of the stream, intelligent enough to realize he could barely stand. She propped herself beneath his armpit so he wouldn't fall over, leaving his right hand free to still hold his pulse rifle, and screamed something that left a pained expression on the olive-skinned man's face before it hardened into an expression of hatred. A lover’s quarrel?

  Blood roared in Mikhail's ears. A dark tunnel closed in around his field of vision and made everything sound very far away as he fought to remain conscious. He had no choice but to lean on Ninsianna for support.

  “Go on! Get the hell out of here!” Mikhail said.

  His furious black eyes glittering with hatred, the man skulked out of the stream, grabbed his spear and disappeared in the direction the other men had gone. The moment he was out of sight, Mikhail had no choice but to let the blackness claim him.