Dreaming of Atmosphere by Jim C. Wilson Page A

midriff. I knocked the wing out of them and drove my head upwards, clipping a chin. We disengaged and rolled apart, both puffing with exertion.
    A chortling chuff came from my opponent, and the lights came back on.
    “You made me bite my tongue, human.” Said Crege, spitting blood out of his beak.
    “Sorry, I’ll go easy on you if you like.”
    He chuffed some more and trilled a little, “You would dishonour me, if you did.”
    “I can get Zoe, in case you bleed out?”
    He responded by launching himself at me with a swift upper swipe that followed with a back handed low to high sweep. The rapid strikes almost caught me off guard and I was hard pressed to knock them aside. I was on the back foot, as Crege continued with his barrage of blows by alternating high – low, left – right, up – down and I had to concentrate fully to block or evade them all. I backed up so far I fell into one of the crates and went tumbling over and fell on my head on the other side. Crege leaped onto the crate and made to continue his attack, only I kicked his feet out from under him and he fell backwards.
    I leapt up, sword in hand, only to almost lose my head when he swept across me savagely. I faked to the left, but braced myself and pushed right, smashing my shoulder into him and while he was stunned I pressed my attack. My blows were not as fast or as accurate as Crege’s but they were heavier and made him recoil for longer than I had. I made a mistake, then, I repeated my attacks one too many times and Crege was ready for it. He dodged a stroke where last time he’d blocked it and smashed his blade down on my guard hilt. The blow stunned my wrist, and the swords scattered across the hold as he kicked it away. He had me, his sword tip resting on my chin.
    “Sloppy, human.”
    “Yeah, my bad.”
    “Your mind is not here. A warrior without a brain is not a warrior, he is fedang. ”
    “Yeah I get it, a practice dummy.”
    He lowered his blade and tossed it onto a supply crate.
    “You want to talk?”
    “When I catch my breath.”
    You may think that swords are a bit old fashioned to be used around such advanced weaponry, but there is a reason for it. Most firearms use hard light projectiles, meaning they’re formed of solidified light particles. It’s an energy form that’s been around for centuries, and there are many ways to counter it. There’s ablative coating on armour, which dissipates the particles across a wider area, or there’s personal shielding. Good old fashioned solid armour can also stop an energy projectile, most of the time. Personal shields are similar in operation to the shields used on our ship. They project a bubble around the user that breaks apart the hardlight casing of the projectile and converts it into electricity. Shields tend to create lots of sparks and make it hard to stay out of sight. The fireworks also mess with your vision and for this reason I tend to steer away from shields in favour of ablative armour. It’s less expensive than shields and they don’t burn out in the middle of a fight. When you do fight someone with shields or decent ablative armour, they can be difficult to kill. That is, unless you bypass the shields altogether. Like with a metal sword.
    With the introduction of personal shielding and ablative armour, melee combat became more popular, and even became an official sport. Famous swordfighters became folk heroes and the subject of many popular movies. Just like the old gun fighters of ancient Earth’s old west, a subculture grew out of the sport. Duellists who sought out one another to determine once and for all who the best swordfighter in the galaxy was.
    I’d almost caught my breath when I noticed a movement to my right. Artemis walked into the cargo hold, her ever present grin on her pretty face. She was twirling her ballistic pistol in her hand.
    “Sometimes the old ways are the best.” She teased, and returned her pistol to her hip.
    “That’s cheating.” I