Punch-Drunk

by Celeste Hotaling-Lyons

(Another in a series of “D.S.V. Universe” stories)

Cally, clad in what seemed to Vila to be a set of floppy, white cotton p.j.s, described arcs in the air with her fluttering hands, eyes fixed on some theoretical point in mid-air. She turned fluidly, kicking out with her left foot, simultaneously crying out, “KEEE!”; then dropped to one knee. Her left hand making a motion like that of a dying butterfly, her right arm perpendicular to the floor; she rose up smoothly, performing the last motions of the Auronae kata.

“Very nice,” the thief said, munching on some Zen-produced, hot buttered ‘popcorn’. “But all I really wanted to do was learn how to throw a punch.”

Shrugging gracefully, still caught up in the dance-like movements of the alien defense method, she glided up to him and plunged her fingers into the oily snack, pulling out a fistful from the bottom. Delicately popping a few burnt kernels into her mouth, she shook her head sadly.

“First, Vila,” she crunched at him, “you must become one with the universal spirit we of Auron call Glaznost. You must develop your relationship, your Gunja-mu, with this spirit. Only then can you learn to channel the Bunifu Fu that flows from the energy points, the Moonjpy, to be found in the violence directed at you. You will be my student, my Loonie, I shall be your teacher, your Itsabubu. You have much work ahead of you, Loonie-Vila. We start with a fast of three days....”

“Hmmm. Ye-e-es. Uh, Cally, I hope you won’t be too offended if I just scarper off to ask Dayna for some pointers with this punch-throwing thing? After all, she is the second most violent person I know.”

“Oh, no, Vila, I do not mind. The relationship between a Loonie and an Itsabubu is not one to be forced. Good luck with your Bunifu Fu, Vila.”

He left, quasi-popcorn in hand.

Cally waited until she heard the elevator doors close. “Humans are sooooo gullible,” she said to herself. Not bloody likely she was going to allow herself to get stuck with this invitation to disaster; i.e., teaching Vila Restal the art of self-defense. “Oops! The time!” She popped her vidi-glasses onto her nose and settled in to enjoy her favourite show, Mind-To-Mind, regularly beamed in from Auron by Orac.

* * * * * * *

Dayna was engaged in fierce battle on the gym-deck with a series of flying, coloured dots. The dot light-images careened about the room, generated by a target-projector that had been designed by the sharp-eyed weapons expert. “Yes! Got it! All right!!” she cried as she scored point after point with her practice-weapon.

The Delta thief waved entreatingly at her, trying to capture her attention. “Well, Dayna? Can you help me out?”

“Oh, Vila! Forget about crude physical violence!” she gasped, barrel-rolling to one side as a large purple dot flew at her. “Get yourself a gun, Vila!”

“Look, I just want to learn how to throw a punch!” Vila muttered, ducking dots. He dropped to the floor and crabbed over to the target-projector, hitting its ‘off’ button. The dots instantly disappeared.

“Vila, when I left Sarran so hastily, I also left behind the coolest little hand-gun that ever was,” the young girl threw herself to the ground and grinned up at him. She curled her legs Indian-style beneath her and wiped at the beads of sweat on her forehead with a towel she had draped around her neck. “You just had to point, Vila! Just point and shoot, the gun did the rest!”

“It was a spattergun?” Vila was surprised. Spatterguns were the worst. Point, shoot—and take out a building, some innocent bystanders, etc.; along with your enemy. A clumsy gun, to say the least.

“No!” she hotly denied the insult to her weaponry-genius. “Puh-lease, what do you take me for? It had self-directing aim, Vila. It had a computer in it, and a radar, and a teensy gyroscope; you pointed and it would pull your hand to the target! I could re-produce it for you in one of Zen’s labs.”

“Dayna, I say ‘go for it’. I say, great, everyone needs a hobby—some hobbies are more dangerous than others—but, hey, you build your gun and I’ll carry it ‘round with me in my red plastic cooler for all the good it will do me.... But, Dayna, what I really, truly want at the moment is simply to learn how to throw a punch.”

“Vila, this is not at all like you. You avoid all physical pain. Why in heavens do you want to learn how to fight?”

The thief threw himself down next to her. “I don’t mean to learn how to brawl, Dayna. I just want to learn the barest basics of fisticuffs, enough to surprise someone long enough to disable them for a moment, really just to get away! The number of times I’ve been grabbed by baddies on these ghastly missions you lot have forced me into; if only I’d been able to throw a single punch, I’d have saved myself much in the way of pain. And each time I’ve sworn to myself that I would learn to defend myself!”

Dayna was surprised. This was the first time he’d ever spoken seriously to her about something other than fine wine. “Vila, I’m sorry—I’m not bad at hand-to-hand, but I’m a really bad teacher. My father always said I was too impetuous to make a good teacher... or student, for that matter.” She sighed, feeling melancholy; partly from the topic of conversation, partly from the drop in adrenaline she always experienced after target-practice. “But I promise, I will build you that gun.”

He sighed, too. “Thanks, Dayna.” He got up to go, the doors shushing open before him.

“Vila? Why don’t you ask Tarrant? He’ll help you!” she called after him.

He turned and snorted in disgust, “Are you balmy?! Ask for Tarrant’s help?!”

“Ask for Tarrant’s help with what?” Speak-of-the-devil, the young man himself came up behind Vila, causing the thief to jump and clutch theatrically at his heart. “Were you looking for me?”

“Tarrant! You didn’t half give me a turn! ...No, nothing, don’t trouble yourself, I’ve got to see a man about a—”

“Vila wants to learn how to throw a punch,” Dayna interrupted. “You taught a training course at the Academy, didn’t you Tarrant?”

Tarrant turned a skeptical face to the Delta. “You? Really, Vila? You want my help with some physical training?”

“Oh, no, no, no—you’re a busy man, I don’t want to bother you....”

“No bother at all. Really. Perhaps there’s some hope for you yet, Vila. Dayna, you don’t mind if we put off our target-shooting, do you?” The ex-Federation officer smiled his usual dazzling smile at her, the smile he used to use to get a free refill of Bheer from the bar-girls on Centero back when he was a cadet.

The elegant weapons-expert waved a dismissive hand at the two men. “Not at all. Heaven forbid I get in the way of some of that good, old traditional male-bonding I’ve seen so little of around here in the past.” Much to Vila’s consternation, she leaned back comfortably on her out-stretched arms. Apparently she was going to stay for the show.

Tarrant gestured for Vila to come to the center of the gym and the thief threw up his hands, giving in to the inevitable. But he decided he had nothing to lose by drawing his line now, before Tarrant started drawing actual blood.

“Look, Tarrant. I don’t want any rough-housing from you. I just want to learn the proper way to throw a punch. The sort of thing any 6th-level school child learns as a matter of course.”

“Then why didn’t you learn it when you were a 6th-level school child, Vila?” piped up Dayna from the side-lines.

“Because when I was a 6th-level school child, I looked like a 3rd-level school child. And, as you so cheerfully pointed out earlier, I am not keen on physical pain.”

Tarrant was unexpectedly understanding. “But Vila, a small man needs to learn how to defend himself as much as, if not more than, a big man. Really, Vila, I taught several classes of cadets beginner’s self-defense. I can do this—more importantly, you can do this.”

“Oh, very well,” said the thief, unconsciously mimicking Orac. “What do I do?”

The pilot slid easily into teacher-mode. “For the smaller man, and for the average-sized woman—you should take pointers, Dayna....”

“Oh, I am, I am.”

“—self defense is a matter of quickness and knowledge. You can’t rely on your size to bull through a situation.” Tarrant adopted a stance, solid-footed on the floor.

Vila tried to adopt that stance. “I can’t believe it, but you’re actually making sense. Now what?”

“Well, you hold your arms so—don’t tuck your thumbs into your fists, you’ll never pick a lock again—and then....”

* * * * * * *

Twenty minutes later, they were down in the sickbay, staunching the flow of blood from a nose. Astonishingly, that nose was not Vila’s, but Tarrant’s.

“Do not lie back, Tarrant, sit up,” instructed Cally. “You do not want the blood flowing down the back of your throat, you could choke.”

“Fushing fief,” the pilot gurgled. Perhaps it was just as well no one could translate what he’d said.

“Honestly, I’m sorry!” gulped Vila, tickled despite himself.

“Don’t know your own strength, do you?” said Dayna to the thief. She tried to put an ice-pack on the bridge of Tarrant’s nose, but he snatched it away from her and placed it there himself, gingerly. “Don’t worry, Tarrant,” she comforted, “a man with a broken nose can be quite sexy-looking. I’ve heard.” He shot her a killer glare, made even more effective by the black rings coming up around the blue eyes.

“I dod’ blabe Bila for dis,” said the pilot, somewhat more distinctly than his previous utterance. “I blace the blabe squarely ubon your shouders, Bs. Belladby.”

Dayna pressed a spread-fingered hand to her chest in a ‘moi?’ gesture and Vila let out a sigh of relief.

“How is it Dayna’s fault?” inquired Cally, passing a revitalizer over the pilot’s bruised face.

“Bs. Belladby, for sob unaccoudable reason, shrieged, ‘Obygod, he’s god a gun’ at the tob of her lungs, jus’ as Bila threw his bunch. I starded to loog aroud, and the dext thing I knew, I was on the floor—in incredible, bliding bain, I bight add.” He snuck a look at Dayna to see if the guilt was affecting her yet, but she just smirked at him unrepentantly.

“Ah. I believe that is what you humans call ‘a joke.’ How amusing. You will be fine, Tarrant. The medicomp says your nose is not too badly broken; the revitalizer will take care of the bruises and will start the bone knitting. By tomorrow, you will not even know you lost a fight.”

The pilot was outraged. “Lost a fight!!! Cally, you—”

“My first punch!” interrupted Vila, eyes round with awe at his own ability. “My very first punch, and I laid Tarrant out like... like a can of Spam!” He ran for the door. “I have to tell Avon!!!!!!” And he was gone.

“I think I really hab to kill him...,” The pilot stood, then gripped the medi-table as a wave of dizziness hit him. “...lader. I will kill him lader.”

Trying to keep a straight face, Dayna gripped his arm. “Here, let me help you to your room. And you won’t kill Vila later. Leave him alone, this is the first time I’ve ever seen him filled with, dare I say it, self-respect. Don’t worry, Avon won’t believe his story—yes, I know, I know—you don’t care what Avon thinks. Let’s go.”

Cally took his other arm and the two women helped the pilot limp to his room, ice-pack in hand.

* * * * * * *

Meanwhile, back on the flight deck.

“...it was great, Avon, if I do say so myself. Tarrant was flat on his back, moaning piteously. Made up for a lot of abuse I’ve put up with from him in the past.” Vila toasted the absent pilot with a large glass of green liquid. He and Avon were seated on the couches to the fore of the flight deck.

“You do not think for a moment you could take Tarrant in a fair fight,” said Avon flatly.

The thief laughed. “No! But I think I’ll let him think I think I can for a little while, at least!”

The computer tech seemed dubious. “You should learn something from this, Vila. Something I would have told you, had you come to me with your problem.”

Vila was surprised. It was true—it had never occurred to him to ask the haughty Alpha for help. It would have made sense to ask Avon for self-defense advice; physically he was closest to Vila’s size and, as a scientist, he really wasn’t the athletic type, either. Yet Vila had seen him stop men as big as oxen in their tracks when push came to shove.

“Avon? What would have been your suggestion? What should I have learned?”

“You dropped Tarrant with a punch, but you needed the element of surprise Dayna gave you to do it. I would advise you to remember that. You must not use mere quickness and knowledge on your opponent. You must also fight dirty.”

“Dirty?” Vila was honestly confused.

Avon continued. “Up until now, you’ve talked your way out of fights. You must continue to do this. Simply use it to distract your adversary, then move decisively. Sucker-punch him.”

The light dawned in the Delta thief’s eyes. “Yeah,” he agreed. He could see it. It would work.

“MY HERO!” Dayna came down the flight deck steps to join Avon and Vila on the comfy couches. “Oh, Avon, it was choice. He was magnificent!” she said, only half-jokingly.

Vila swigged another gulp of adrenaline-and-soma, lost in thought. Avon sighed, wondering how long it would be before some other bizarre occurrence would supplant this one as the main topic of Liberator conversation.

...and that is how, my dears, the little Delta thief, Vila Restal, was able to trash that obnoxious Federation spy on Gauda Prime. So there.

End