For a moment they just stood there, gazing silently across the gap between them, each warrior apparently sizing up the other. Then, abruptly, Taakh leaped sideways, grabbed Judas's chair, and heaved it and Judas straight at Mordecai.

The blackcollar was far too quick to be caught that easily. He sidestepped effortlessly, leaving Judas to continue on to crash with a yelp onto the floor beside the door.

But Taakh hadn't really cared whether Mordecai was caught by the chair or not. Even as the blackcollar dodged, the khassq dived across the room behind the rest of the chairs, his outstretched hands reaching for the laser he'd knocked earlier from Galway's grip.

But if Mordecai was too fast to be caught by a thrown chair, he was also too smart to be taken in by such an obvious diversion. Taakh was still two meters from the laser when a shuriken flashed across the room to bury itself into the weapon's side. There was a flicker of light and a brief cloud of sparks, and the weapon was dead.

Taakh scooped it up anyway, squeezed the trigger once to make sure, then spun and hurled it at Mordecai's head. Again Mordecai managed to evade the missile, but this time it cost him the accuracy of his next shuriken. The throwing star flashed past Taakh's head without connecting as the Ryq dodged out of the way and again threw himself across the room, this time aiming for his short sword. Another shuriken caught him in the upper arm as he hit the floor and rolled back to his feet with the sword ready in his hand. Spinning around to face Mordecai, he pulled the shuriken from his arm and charged.

The blackcollar leaped to the side, whipping out his nunchaku and spinning it in a blinding arc toward Taakh's head. The Ryq swung his sword up to meet the flail, and the weapons met with an earsplitting crash and a brief shower of hardwood splinters. Taakh let the impact bounce the sword back, riding its altered momentum around in a tight circle and stabbing up toward Mordecai's side. The blackcollar danced back out of its way, and as the tip burned bare millimeters past his ribs he snapped his left arm down and around, catching the back of Taakh's sword hand with his own forearm and adding a little extra momentum to his thrust. Taakh seemed to stumble as his center of balance was thrown off; twisting around, Mordecai threw a spinning kick at the Ryq's torso as he simultaneously swung the nunchaku at his head.

The flail missed, but the kick connected. With a grunt, Taakh swung his sword again, a pair of quick, downward blows toward Mordecai's shoulders and head. The blackcollar dodged both attacks and leaped back out of range, his back bouncing against the wall as he suddenly ran out of maneuvering room. With a roar, Taakh leaped forward, this time swinging his sword horizontally at Mordecai's torso. Ducking under the blow, Mordecai braced one hand against the wall and snapped a side kick into the alien's abdomen.

It was a solid, powerful blow, the sheer impact of it sending Taakh staggering back. Shoving off the wall, Mordecai followed it up with another nunchaku attack, but the Ryq managed to get his sword back up in time to block the swinging flail. But the impact threw him a little farther off balance, allowing Mordecai to duck past him away from the wall and back into the center of the room. Taakh spun to face him, and for another moment the two opponents seemed to pause, sword and nunchaku poised and ready.

For Galway, his head and neck and fingers throbbing as he gazed at the tableau, it was a moment of unrelieved blackness. Taakh, khassq-class warrior of the Ryq, stood strong and tall and muscular, hardly affected by the blows his opponent had managed to land. Mordecai, human blackcollar, was unmarked, but in the confined space of the monitor room he could hardly avoid his enemy forever.

And with the Ryq standing nearly twice his height and pulling perhaps three times his weight, it wouldn't take more than a single solid punch or sword slash to bring the fight to an end.

Galway looked desperately around the room, searching for something—anything—he could use as a weapon. Something he could use to tip the odds even a little in Mordecai's direction.

He was still looking when Taakh, his moment of combat meditation apparently over, leaped again to the attack.

Once again, he slashed his sword down toward Mordecai's head. This time, though, Mordecai didn't simply dodge away, but instead lifted his nunchaku upright, one stick gripped in each hand with the connecting plastic chain stretched horizontally above him, ready to receive the blow. The blade slammed into the chain, its momentum pressing it downward toward Mordecai's head. Turning his body out from under the descending weapon, Mordecai swiveled one of the nunchaku sticks around, letting the sword's momentum carry the weapon down past his shoulder. Before Taakh could recover his balance, the blackcollar swung his left arm around the sword point, looping the nunchaku around the weapon. The chain wrapped solidly around the base of the blade, trapping it in place.

Taakh's roar of anger changed to a grunt of pain as Mordecai slammed his right elbow across the other's forearm, clearly trying to shake the sword loose from his grip. He slammed the Ryq's arm again; and then Taakh took a long step backward, gripped the sword with both hands, and pulled up and back.

Mordecai tried to hold on, but the Ryq's size and weight were far more than he could handle. Even as he was lifted bodily off the floor he let go with his left hand and allowed the nunchaku to swing around and away from the blade as Taakh continued to yank the sword upward. Both of them raced to get their weapons back under firm control; Mordecai won by a fraction of a second, swinging a stinging nunchaku blow across Taakh's face before being forced to leap away from the sword's whistling slash.

Lifting the weapon again, the Ryq leaped forward, pressing his attack as he tried to once again to push Mordecai to the wall. But he was finally starting to show some fatigue, and his swinging weapon was moving marginally but noticeably slower. Mordecai dodged with relative ease, and again managed to slip out of the potential trap and back to the center of the room.

But Mordecai was slowing down, too, missing two of his blocks as he fended off the flashing sword, only reflex and luck keeping the blows from taking him out of the fight permanently. He was in trouble; and as Galway watched helplessly, he realized suddenly that Mordecai was trying to work his way back to the door and escape.

Taakh saw it, too. With every step toward the door that Mordecai tried to take, the Ryq countered with one that forced him back toward the center of the room.

And then, as Taakh continued to press him back, Mordecai's foot caught the edge of the laser Taakh had thrown at him earlier, and he jerked slightly as he tried to regain his balance.

It was all the opening Taakh needed. Leaping forward, he slashed his sword downward again toward Mordecai's head. With his feet still tangled beneath him, Mordecai had no option but to once again swing his nunchaku up in a two-handed grip and catch the descending blade on the chain. Twisting to the side, barely making it in time, he again whipped the left-hand stick around the sword, twisting the chain around the hilt.

Only this time, Taakh was ready. Instead of simply pulling back and trying to free his sword, he reached over with his free hand and wrapped his hand around Mordecai's in an unbreakable grip.

And with that, Galway knew, it was all over. In his mind's eye he could see the inevitable outcome: Mordecai hauled off his feet, dangling helplessly in midair from his own nunchaku while the Ryq kicked him into a bloody, broken puppet. With a triumphant bellow, Taakh planted his feet and heaved himself backward, his massive shoulder and arm and back muscles bulging as he pulled the puny human off the floor.