Earth was an interesting place, Elemmire thought to herself as she considered her current situation, wedged in one of the many equipment cubbyholes that lined Trans-Nippon’s primary maglev approach into Tokyo. Too interesting for her blood, she finally admitted to herself, no easy task for a warrior caste acolyte, but a necessary one in light of the circumstances. She was sure that her mentor, OB1, would understand, and maybe even praise her for keeping a level head through it all. She hoped so, since -

HUMMMMM…WHOOSH!!!

Elmy gritted her teeth as the fifth maglev of the hour passed by her surrogate womb at 350 km/hr, the train’s pressure wave slamming into her body as the very air became supercharged with residual electrics, her nose detecting the telltale ionic scent. Just as her body overcame the pressure differential, arcing microbolts snapped all over her, but, mercifully, it didn’t last long, just as the previous four hadn’t.

After the train passed, her breath burst out from between clenched teeth. She then, as before, inspected her blaster and her paired vorkami, dagger-sized equivalents to the prized vorsashi, but they were completely unaffected by the trauma. If only she could hold up as well, she ruefully considered.

Elmy was resheathing the second vorkami when she heard the muted buzz of the approaching nano-cloud, one of three which had been hunting her through the city’s environs for the past four hours. In spite of the relative safety of her hiding place, even a nano-cloud was no match for a speeding maglev, it had really only been a matter of time before they found her again. Given the object of her mission, they were probably programmed for an exhaustive search and destroy operation and, carbon-based mortal that she was, the op was living up to its description.

Sneaking a peak down the maglev tunnel toward the twinkling cloud of reflective pixie dust, Elmy marvelled at how such a beautiful and harmless-seeming spectacle could kill, but kill her it would, as efficiently as a swarm of angry bees. Undaunted and mildly unnerved, she mentally went over her plan once more. If the theory was sound, she might be able to escape from this mission relatively unscathed. If not, well, she knew her cousin Luthien would make the proper arrangements.

Inexorably, the cloud drifted down the tunnel, thin tendrils reaching out and into every nook, cranny and equipment cubbyhole in its path. As it got closer, Elmy suddenly broke out into a cold sweat as her confidence began to fail her. She didn’t want to die, not like this, not as a coward on the run, hiding in the depths of some foreign planet. No, she should die fighting, with her vorkami in each hand, deep in the throes of Destiny’s Dance, the fighting dance of the forlorn hope. Elmy’s hands instinctively gripped the hilts of her vorkami as she struggled to ward off the wave of panic that enveloped her. It was at this moment that one of OB1’s lessons hit home: “The death of a warrior is like a splash in a pond. A small splash in a still pond is more memorable than a big splash in a tumultuous one. The size and nature of the splash is not important. It is the pond, our universe, which should dominate one’s thoughts. Consider not the splash and its fleeting memory. Rather, seek the stillness, the glass-smooth surface of the pond, that resides both within and without.”

Reliving the lesson, Elmy’s thoughts turned to Roto-Vegas II, her home planet, and the waterfall and pond behind her childhood home. Even as a child, she had marvelled at how the waterfall’s turbulence at the far end of the pond had had such little effect on the near end. In her mind’s eye, she saw the handmade rock breakwater that had lain just beneath the surface and protected the cove nearer the home. Slowly, she remembered the details of every stone of that wall, the usual destination of innumerable summer swims, and had picked out her favorites, using them to build a protective breakwater of her own to fight against the raging sea of her rising panic.

The last stone fell into place when the first few reflective specks entered through the access panel. The hunter’s reactions were swift. The malevolent particulates remaining in the tunnel moved as one to its prey as the first arrivals attached themselves to Elmy’s skin, repeatedly discharging microamp stings into her system. Individually, they were harmless. Hence, the cloud.

For the first few seconds, as more of the deadly dust entered her false sanctuary to haphazardly coat her skin, Elmy did nothing but scream inwardly and watch her panic assail her makeshift breakwater. Finally, however, according to plan, she kicked the access panel off its mountings and leapt out over the maglev track. In doing so, three key ingredients of her plan came together. First, she became covered almost instantaneously with a near-fatal amount of dust, the amperage of which convulsed her senselessly. The second and third ingredients were the two safety straps tied to her ankles. The first strap was tied to an open diagnostic module for that section of track. When Elmy jumped onto the track, the strap’s tension toggled a switch that loaded a simulated train onto that section of track. When that happened, the electro-magnetic field for that section went to full power filling the air around her with the supercharged electrics that she’d been subjected to earlier. Only now, she was in the mainstream of the field and the effects were explosive, literally. Each nano-particulate suffered a catastrophic overload and exploded, the sound, if Elmy had been fully cognizant, would have resembled the sound of milk mixing with her favorite breakfast cereal.

What saved Elmy from suffering the same fate as her pursuer was the second safety strap, standard issue for maglev diagnostic technicians. The strap served as a superconducting grounding conduit, the result of which allowed the supercharged field to pass over her skin instead of into it and her vital organs. In essence, she stung the stingers to death.

Elmy stood on the track transfixed for the better part of two minutes as the automated diagnostic program ran through its paces and shut itself down as she fought off the aftereffects of the nano-cloud’s numerous stings. After shaking her head to clear the cobwebs, Elmy climbed back into the cubbyhole and reset the diagnostic panel, erasing any evidence of her presence. Satisified with the result, she stepped out onto the track and quickly made her way to one of the technician’s access tunnels that led away from the the area. Once safely inside, she sighed heavily, and proudly, and continued on with her mission.