The Limmie Daylights/Chapter 1

The Limmie Daylights

Chapter 1

His grip tightened on the blaster when he heard footsteps below. Jace Bont slowly crept to the edge of the rock and laid down on his belly. He could feel the warmth from the rock. It had had direct sunlight for most of the day. While prone, Bont cautiously peeked his head over the edge of the rock and glanced down the cliff face.

About twenty feet down, he saw the young dark-haired woman moving through the foliage, blaster drawn. He had a clear shot at her back. Bont inched even closer to the edge until he was able to swing his arms over. With his chest laying on the edge of the rock, he angled the blaster down at the Kiffar woman.

He fired one shot. A red splatter appeared on the woman's lower back. She spun around, surprised. Bont fired one more and saw another red splatter on her chest.

The woman stood there and looked down at her black body armor. Then up to see Bont on the edge of the cliff. "Damn you, Bont," she said with a smile.

Bont said, "Sorry, Ainslé. You're dead."

Ainslé shook her head and tried to wipe the red paint from her chest.

Bont stood up and headed away from the cliff, on a mission to hunt other targets.

A handful of MI5 operatives were chosen to participate in a training exercise here on Spira. MI5 owned a relatively small island in Spira's western hemisphere. It was named Gibralta and it was used by MI5 specifically for training exercises. It was pretty far from all the popular tourist areas, so MI5 didn't have to worry about them. Gibralta had a steep mountain and a bunker built into one side of it. The terrain varied from flat beaches along the water to craggy cliffs and thick, lush foliage on the mountain. The bunker acted as an indoor-type environment, used for training with infiltration tactics. MI5 operatives used the island quite often to train. Balls of paint were used instead of actual weapons. After all, it's only a training exercise.

MI5 operatives Jace Bont, Ainslé Vos and Pandolfo Taproot were among the personnel in todays training session. Bont had already hunted and "killed" two people before finding Ainslé. Now he was looking for more.

Bont began to descend the mountain, covering it's terrain fairly quickly. His senses were completely tuned to his surroundings.

Nearby, the Nosaurian MI5 agent, Pandolfo Taproot, was also attentive to what was happening around him. He froze when he heard someone moving beyond a small cluster of trees near the edge of a cliff. He slowly made his way to the thick tree trunks and held his paint-blaster at the ready.

There was silence.

Was there someone still there? Had he made too much noise that they stopped because they knew he was there? Pandolfo decided to jump out at them. On the count of three. One, two...

Before he could even think the word "three", someone jumped out at him!

Pandolfo had a blaster in his chest and he found himself facing a Zeltron.

Bont grinned and said, "Gotcha."

Even though Bont hadn't yet pulled the trigger, Pandolfo knew he was defeated. He just shook his head.

"You make too much noise, Taproot," Bont said to him. "Spending all that time with computers has made you soft in the field."

"I've still got some tricks up my sleeve," Pandolfo responded. He then quickly snapped his mouth wide open, causing the phosphorescent lining to flash in Bont's face.

The move, which was unofficially known as the "Nosaurian flash", momentarily blinded Bont. As Bont stumbled backward, Pandoldo swung his blaster around and fired at him. The red paint splattered Bont on the chest.

"Ha! Take that!" Pandolfo said with a fist pump.

Bont tried to steady himself and get his eyes to refocus, but the ankle of his foot caught a think tree root protruding from the dirt. Bont fell backward and rolled off the edge of the cliff.

"No!" Pandolfo rushed to the edge. Luckily it wasn't as steep as he thought it would be. He watched Bont tumble down the slant and roll right through a line of shrubbery. Then he disappeared from sight.

Bont continued to slide, roll and tumble down the short distance of dirt and foliage to the sandy beach below. Bont landed face-first in the sand and finally came to a halt. "Aaugghh..." he groaned, spitting sand out of his mouth. That was quite a tumble, and now everything hurt. Bont rolled over on to his back and took a few deep breaths. Then, fighting the pain, he sat up. He could feel and move every part of his body, so nothing was broken. But he would surely have plenty of bumps and bruises tomorrow.

He realized he had dropped his blaster on the way down. Then he saw the paint on his chest. "Damn it." He slowly got to his feet and tried to stretch everything, gauging what exactly was injured. He then noticed someone laying along the waters edge. The small waves rushed up to the being laying there. Curious, Bont wandered closer.

It must have been another "kill" during the training session. But why would they lay in the water like that? As he got closer, Bont noticed the being had a rather large, bulbous head. And the body was completely soaked. Something didn't seem right.

He rushed over to the body and knelt down to find a male Bith face-down in the sand. The skin looked like a grayish color. Not normal for Biths. He reached down and rolled the body over. The face was grotesque. The Bith was obviously dead. He didn't recognize him as MI5. The body must have washed up on shore. The body was bloated and the skin was rotting, or half eaten, due to the aquatic life.

So a mysterious dead body washes up on to an MI5-owned island on Spira. Bont knew he had to follow up on this. He had to get the Bith's body back to MI5 Headquarters on Coruscant.

Chapters: Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | Epilogue