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  Heishi

  Shifting Planes Series: Book 1

  Copyright © 2019 Jeff Sabean

  All rights reserved.

  Dedication Page

  First, I would like to thank my loving and patient wife Beckey, who has been there through this whole journey for me. She has read everything I have written, giving me feedback along the way and helping make my writing better. My son Zane has been reading this story as I wrote it and has been my go-to guy for reading level difficulty. The rest of my children, Alyssa, Titus, Jade, and Mia have been ultra-supportive and have given me so many ideas for new ways to take my stories. Alyssa, my Cutie Pie, started me on this journey, as she was writing her own stories and reminded me how much I love to write. Thank you all for putting up with me as I obsessed over this, it never would have happened without all your support.

  Next, I would be remiss to not thank my D&D group from my last trip to the desert. Torres, the pain in the neck GM, gave me the ideas behind some of the characters and such. Carty and Gonzo, you wild animals, for the relationship you two had in our game that helped me shape the characters I added to the book for you. Archer, for stepping up our game when you joined our party and taught us to think outside the box for in game combat and reminded us that rogues can in fact steal from their own party (just never from your healer!). I would like to thank Pritts for having an amazing moustache and bringing humor to every session. Kuster, who joined our campaign at the very end, but was one of the first to volunteer to read my first few chapters and give me feedback on them. And last but not least Applegate, who made fun of us relentlessly for months until you tried playing and found out how fun it was. Thank you all for allowing me to steal some ideas from our sessions to add as Easter eggs to bring some comedy to the book and for proof reading for me.

  Lastly, I would like to thank J.T. Williams, author of the Half-Elf Chronicles (among many many other books). If not for him, I would still be fumbling around on my own trying to figure out how to publish my story. He is a gentleman and was instrumental in getting me on the right path to make this dream happen.

  Contents

  Heishi

  Dedication Page

  Prologue – The Call

  Chapter One – The Jump

  Chapter 2 – The World

  Chapter 3 – The Portal

  Chapter 4 – The Boss

  Chapter 5 – The Companions

  Chapter 6 – The Discovery

  Chapter 7 – The Sniper

  Chapter 8 – The Path

  Chapter 9 – The Caves

  Chapter 10 – The Nasty

  Chapter 11 – The Orb

  Chapter 12 – The Beginning of the End

  Chapter 13 – The End and the Beginning

  Epilogue

  Prologue – The Call

  Dawn. A beautiful time of the day filled with expectation and wonder as the sun breaks the horizon in a brilliant display of color. This morning seems more beautiful than normal, with a light haze still hanging around the base of the hill where the two combatants kneel facing each other. Their weapons are placed just to the sides of their legs, while they kneel just outside of each other’s reach, as dictated by protocol. The peacefulness of the morning deceptively covers the promise of upcoming violence. Aki is inhumanly relaxed, with his eyes closed and his mind wandering as he takes in the sounds and smells of the hillside around him. A slight breeze blows through his hair that he keeps cropping shorter and shorter to hide the salt and pepper that is appearing around the edges. For a moment he lets his mind wander as he decides whether it is time to take it all off, or if he should embrace the “aged master” look. At 6’2” he has a height advantage over his opponent, but his greatest advantage is the decades he has spent mastering his arts. His tonfa, his choice of weapons for the day, are laying on the ground near his knees, one on each side of his legs. He is vigilantly aware of the movements of the younger man and smiles to himself at the thought of the upcoming battle. He will let this moment linger a while longer before beginning, as this is his favorite time of the day.

  Heishi appears edgy; clearly nervous about being so close to the legendary master kneeling across from him. Although he has youth on his side, he isn’t foolish enough to believe it will be all he needs to best the wizened warrior sitting opposite him. At 5'8" he realizes that Aki has a reach advantage, as do most men he squares off against, which might be one reason he gravitated to the long sword as his primary melee weapon. He moves with the practiced precision of a man who has performed this ritual of respect more times than he can possibly remember, but there remains a slight jerkiness to his actions that reveal an internal struggle to remain calm. As he closes his eyes to take a moment to focus before the combat begins, he can’t help but be a little impressed that he has made it to this point. His katana lays peacefully near his left knee, and he is keenly aware of the swift death he can invoke at will when he wields the blade. His years of training and perseverance will hopefully pay off this morning, and then he will take his place in history as a master himself.

  Aki gradually opens his eyes and gives a slight grunt to signal he is ready to proceed. Simultaneously, the two opponents bend at the waist and bow deeply, placing their foreheads to the ground in a sign of mutual respect. The bow is held for a few seconds, and slowly the men begin to return to their starting positions. Without warning, Heishi reaches down and grips the saya, or scabbard, for his blade in his left hand, lifts it and smoothly pulls the blade as he steps forward with his right foot. The jet-black blade arcs toward his opponent, light being absorbed by all but the ha, the cutting edge, which catches and reflects the light as it flashes with blinding speed. With a thought, he activates the blade and lightning flashes, leaving a green edged trail of electricity as the blade blazes toward Aki’s forehead. From this distance it is impossible to get a killing blow, so the classic first strike is to aim for the forehead to hopefully make a clean cut and draining blood into your opponent’s eyes. A fight typically would not begin until both opponents have completed the bow and returned to a standing position, but Heishi is depending on his slight breach of protocol to give him an edge in this fight.

  The ploy almost succeeded, but this is not the first time an opponent has attempted subterfuge to defeat Aki. Just prior to the attack, the younger warrior made a fatal flaw and flinched before he reached for his blade, which was all the warning the veteran needed. As the blade flashes toward his face, Aki effortlessly reaches for the tonfa handles laying near his knees. Quickly and naturally, he raises his right hand with the handle gripped loosely. Just as the katana blade comes in range, Aki activates the weapon with a thought and shadows curl around the tonfa Aki designed himself. The blade stops inches from his face, the shadows absorb the impact and the lightning energy from the sword, and the old warrior smiles mercilessly.

  “You’ll pay for that, kid.” Aki mutters as he uses the momentum of the swing to spin his opponent like a top. His left hand follows through with his second tonfa aimed for Heishi’s midsection and would have crushed the ribs of a lesser man, but such would not be the case today. Heishi’s first strike was a calculated risk, and although it did not pay off, he was not surprised and maintains his balance. He lightly rolls to the side as the second tonfa curves for his belly and deftly dodges the bludgeoning strike.

  Disentangled from the initial encounter, both warriors now circle each other, watching for any flaw in his opponent’s defense. Aki feints with his left, attempting to force Heishi to follow the movement, but knowing his enemy well the feint fails: Aki favors his right, not his left. While he is momentarily off balance from the feint, Heishi attempts a second cut swinging for Aki’s neck just above his left shoulder. Predictably, Aki moves to deflect the blow, but by the time his tonfa reaches the spot where the blade should be, Heishi has already pulled it back and is stabbing forward from his waist. Shocked, Aki reflexively jumps back and narrowly escapes disembowelment. As the two regain their footing, Heishi presses his attack with a swing straight down the center toward Aki’s skull. A momentary look of terror crosses Aki’s face as he realizes he might be late with his block, which causes overconfidence in his opponent. Rather than a slicing motion, he chops with the sword as if it is an axe, which slows the attack and affords the elder warrior the opportunity to deflect the blade with his left hand.

  Pulling down and to the right with all the strength he can muster, Aki is able to step out of the kill zone and pull his opponent off balance. Spinning behind Heishi, he attempts to finish this duel quickly but is too slow: his tonfa meets nothing but air where his target was a fraction of a second before. Surprised, he misses his block as the katana comes straight for his head again, sparks crackling as if the blade itself is excited to spill his blood. At the last second, Heishi pulls the swing short and only slices an eighth of an inch into the right side of Aki’s temple, leaving a five-inch-long gash across his head. As the blade slices through flesh, the electricity arcing across the blade cauterizes the wound, leaving no blood but creating a wicked looking scar in the process. As Aki prepares a counterattack to draw some blood of his own, both men are stopped suddenly by a loud, high pitched alarm coming from Heishi’s wrist communicator, signaling an encrypted message inbound. They each take a step away from each other, not yet dropping their guard.

  With a grin, Heishi lowers his blade and deactivates the electricity pulsing through it. He bows from the waist to his opponent, and Aki follows suit as his wrist communicator begins emitting an identical alarm.

  “Next time you won’t be sa
ved by the bell, old man,” laughs Heishi as he returns his blade to its saya and checks the message.

  “You still have much to learn kid,” smiles Aki, “but I clearly have taught you well.”

  As the message decrypts, Heishi’s grin widens. “Meet you in the team room in an hour,” he says as he mounts his Harley and begins receiving acknowledgements from the rest of his team. “It’s time to make the green grass grow.”

  Chapter One – The Jump

  Ninety minutes later, Heishi, also known as Master Sergeant Paul Neasba, Team Leader of an elite Special Operations unit code named "Ronin," sat reviewing the mission notes as his team streaked away from Fort Bragg on their C-17. His team had been activated in response to a nuclear threat in Florida, and due to the nature of the emergence the team hadn't had time for a briefing: just pack your junk and get on the bird. The flight would take under three hours, but the team had been together long enough that they could operate with minimal instruction, and three hours was plenty of time to work out the details.

  Looking down the plane at his team prepping their gear, MSG Neasba couldn't help but feel a sense of pride in what he had put together over the past 18 months. It all began with a directive from the President to develop a Top-Secret team of operatives who would be ready to deploy immediately, bypassing the typical Washington D. C. bureaucracy. The Special Operations community had learned their lesson from the implementation of Delta Force: once the public learned of your existence, your ability to operate without red tape was greatly diminished. Ronin Team could technically be considered illegal if the wrong people went snooping, which explained the secrecy surrounding the team. They were funded by several third-party sources that could never be traced back to the US Government, Tactical Operations Center (TOC) was in a subterranean bunker beneath an artillery impact zone, everyone associated with the team had falsified identities, and only a select few high-ranking officials even knew of their existence. Their mission was to perform the jobs that no one else could, and to leave no evidence they were ever there.

  Chief Warrant Officer Adam Zatus was quiet, but none of the tech used by the team would exist without his brilliance, to include the weapons used in the morning sparring session between Heishi and Aki. He had always possessed the ability to break down components and re-arrange them to maximize their power while reducing the weight, which was crucial for operatives in the field. It did no good to have the coolest tech in the history of the world if you needed a four-man team to carry it to the destination. CW3 Zatus was responsible for the gadgets that were sold to the public to partially fund Ronin Team, but he withheld the best tech for the team and kept it classified so the enemy would never know what was coming their way. Would a wrist-mounted, nuclear powered, encrypted communicator that had no need of satellites, provided videoconference capabilities, automatically translated any spoken language, and didn't need to be charged for an estimated 200 years be useful in the private sector? Of course, it would. But the minute the technology was released to the public, the enemy would know about it and attempt to hack it. Some things were best kept secret.

  Aki, also known as Sergeant First Class Jay Aki, the team medic, was busy re-packing his gear to include some of Zatus' latest tech. Having served on Special Forces teams for longer than anyone had the nerve to discuss with him, Aki had spent his entire adult life keeping Soldiers alive. Over the past few years, this had become much easier, not to mention his ruck getting lighter, thanks to the new tech available. The medical advances made by CW3 Zatus’ tech had saved thousands of lives worldwide, and combat deaths were down proportionately. A running joke on the team was that if Zatus made saving lives any easier, Aki would be out of a job. One can dream, right?

  In the rear of the plane, blasting old school rock n roll while reconfiguring his gear, was the final member of the tactical team, Staff Sergeant Tyler Tiane. SSG Tiane was the team's youngest member as well as the sniper, and was being groomed by MSG Neasba to eventually take over as the team lead because let's be honest, gun fighters need to know when to take a desk job if they want to live to be an old gun fighter. Specializing in guerrilla tactics and improvisation on the battlefield, Tiane possessed a rare ability to look at a situation from a "bird's eye view" and make brilliant, although often extremely dangerous, decisions on the spot. Neasba reminded himself as he looked at Tiane that with experience the cocky young man would gain wisdom to go with his knowledge, and when that happened the world would be a much safer place.

  "Finish what you're doing and get up here for a mission brief," called MSG Neasba, "We have about 2 hours before we jump, and there is a lot of information to cover in that time."

  Tiane, always eager to please his team leader, was the first to the briefing table. "What's the mission, boss?" He asked as the other two slid into their seats.

  Looking at his team, Neasba was filled with pride at what he had put together. Knowing his next bit of information was volatile, he waited for his team’s undivided attention before continuing.

  “Listen up Ronin Team,” Neasba began, “I hate to do this as we are about to enter a hostile situation, but it was sprung on me after the bird was in the air. We been doing such great things for our country that the boss in the White House has decided to expand our little dysfunctional family. Please welcome our new intelligence officer, Captain Leigh Aldith. Yes, CPT Aldith understands that you are still my team and she is simply the Intelligence Advisor, so there will be no power struggles around here. My word is still undisputed, and she understands this. CPT Aldith comes highly recommended, and I am assured she will fit in with our team. Unfortunately, we do not have time for bonding now, so leave the usual shenanigans for after the mission and pretend to be professionals for the next couple hours. CPT Aldith, the floor is yours.”

  Stepping around the corner, all eyes were immediately drawn to the remarkable woman standing before them. Dressed in yoga pants, tennis shoes, a loose t-shirt, and a wide-brimmed hat, CPT Aldith appeared to be dressed to visit a theme park for the day, not to brief a Special Operations team. All she was missing was a fanny pack to complete her tourist ensemble. Standing 5’6” and weighing 145 lbs. With blonde hair and blue eyes, she appeared to be physically fit, and the smirk on her face belied her readiness to shut down any smart comments that might be forthcoming. Fortunately, Ronin Team were professionals, and would not allow their typical hazing rituals to interfere with a mission. Following a short round of introductions, the briefing commenced.

  "We have rock solid intel that terrorists have smuggled a nuclear weapon into the United States across the Mexican border and the latest information has it located within the new theme park in Orlando, where it hasn't moved for at least 48 hours. Zatus' email sniffer picked up a trail through fake Gmail accounts that appear to be legitimate threats against the Christmas celebration: this might come as a surprise, but religious extremists seem to have a problem with a celebration that can be traced back to a different religion. We have less than four hours until the parade begins, so that doesn't give us much time to get moving on this. We will be jumping into the outskirts of the park where local security will provide us transportation. We'll be operating within the park, so civilian clothes are the uniform, and all weapons must be hidden. If you can make it look like a costume for the park, then bring it, but I don't want to see any of your faces on the news tonight. Keep it low profile, conceal your pistols, this one will be difficult to keep out of the media, but try anyway. Questions?"

  “Did you say ‘we’ ma’am?” asked Neasba while trying to contain the shocked look on his face.

  “Affirmative, Master Sergeant, I will be accompanying the team for the jump. Before you get defensive, allow me to explain. First, I will not be involved in the operational aspect of the mission. I would never endanger your team by changing the team dynamics at the last minute. My sole purpose will be to secure a position with park security so I can feed real time information to you. With more prep time, I understand that CW4 Zatus could provide me that information without leaving the bird, but we don’t have that kind of time today. By accompanying the team to the ground, Zatus will stay with you and have more time to set up without having to worry about providing a feed to me.