The master mercenary sat on a knoll of rock and sand, beside a broken-coral shrine adorned with fresh hyacinths. This memorial to Manion the Innocent offered comfort and protection against demon machines, but Jool Noret preferred to rely on his own fighting abilities, as he had done on Ix more than a year ago.

Looking away, the hardened young man gazed out across the ocean of sand that surrounded his small private island. He envisioned imaginary enemies, targets, and foes.

Noret wore nothing but a small loincloth cinched at the waist. Crouching, he bunched his muscles until the frozen stance made him ache, but he refused to loosen up, refused to blink, even though trickles of sweat rolled over his eyebrows and into his eyes.

Then, quick as lightning, he slashed with his pulse sword. The disruptor edge stabbed into the air precisely where Noret had aimed.

Noret had vowed never to let his skills fade, even when he went back to Ginaz between battle engagements. He had to keep training with Chirox, to bring his abilities to an ever higher level. Already he had set the mek’s adaptability algorithm far beyond previous limits, exceeding anything he had formerly considered practical. Proving himself repeatedly, he never achieved any sort of self-satisfaction. The subtle clock of age ticked inside him, and he didn’t want to lose his skills as he grew older. Strange, morbid thoughts for a man who had not even reached his twenty-third year.

Months ago he had returned to Ginaz with a group of veterans on their way home from Salusa Secundus. None of the angry, well-seasoned mercenaries particularly wanted to loll around on a sunny archipelago, so for weeks they hunted through space along a perimeter of the Synchronized Worlds, looking for suitable stragglers. They found and destroyed a pair of robotic scout vessels, but with no more targets in sight, the troop transport ship eventually headed off through the corridor toward Rossak and Ginaz. After threading their way through the system’s asteroid belt, they reached the ocean world.

Noret did not mind. He longed to be back on the small island with Chirox, honing his skills sharper than a nanoblade. The better to kill machines.

Without warning, he whirled, leaped into the air, and slashed behind him. Since childhood, he had trained with a variety of weapons, including complex armaments that could take out a dozen combat robots at a time. Even so, he always went back to his father’s pulse sword. It was an archaic weapon, but precise. Use of the sword demanded a skill level that no scrambler grenade or brute-force weapon would ever require.

Fighting is a matter of precision and timing, the correct application of senses, and the knowledge that comes from experience.

When not on a mission for the Army of the Jihad, Jool Noret trained for hours every day, either alone or with the sensei mek. Having no wish for close human companionship, he made no friends among the other trainees who came to the island. He paused only to drink tepid water or eat bland foods, enough to energize his body so that he could keep fighting, training, and sharpening his edge.

Soon Noret would be ready to return to the Jihad. He considered himself a man who existed for no reason other than to obliterate thinking machines. One day, his recklessness might cost him his life, but he would make sure that it cost Omnius a great deal first….

Below, on the trampled beach, student hopefuls silently and respectfully observed Noret as he worked through an exercise routine. The sensei mek Chirox stood with the observers. Noret saw them with his peripheral vision, but paid them no heed. He had learned a great deal from simply watching his father, and they were welcome to observe, but he would not be their teacher.

Noret turned his back on the audience and plunged forward with his exercises. The people knew of his exploits, from war reports that the Council of Veterans disseminated among recuperating mercenaries and crowds of eager trainees. All of the island people had heard of his victories. On his very first mission, Jool Noret had achieved near-legendary status, single-handedly unleashing an atomic city-killer that wiped out the Ix-Omnius. Since then, in a handful of other skirmishes, Noret had defeated swarms of thinking machines.

But Noret shunned all accolades and refused to bask in fame. He did not feel he deserved it.

In the past few weeks, though, an increasing number of curious students had come to watch him, hungry to replicate his techniques. They witnessed Noret’s superhuman drills against the combat mek and gasped as he moved.

The crowds increased. Some of the would-be warriors pleaded openly for personal instruction, but he declined them all. “I cannot. I have not yet learned all that I need to know.”

Though he sought to conceal it, he refused to teach any admirers because of the guilt he carried over his father’s death. His heart felt like stone. He knew he would fall in battle someday, for that was the fate of his kind. But he vowed to do it in a blaze of glory, with his skills sharpened to their limits. His complete release of all care or self-preservation liberated him to achieve such feats as he demonstrated in his training exercises. What good would that kind of teaching do the other mercenaries, except to get them all killed?

Each day, Noret bested the highest level of expertise Chirox could implement.

“Other students wish to learn from you, Master Jool Noret,” the combat robot said, as the sun set golden on the extended sea. “Is it not the stated duty of Ginaz to hurl more and more mercenaries into the fight?”

Noret frowned. “It is my duty to return to the fight. I intend to leave on the next ship.” He hefted his pulse sword, piecing together in his mind scenarios for future engagements against the evil thinking machines.

Then one of the bolder students strode toward him, brave enough to approach the famously solitary young mercenary. “Jool Noret, we admire you. You are the scourge of Omnius.”

“I am merely doing my job.”

The student had dark hair and pale skin that had sunburned, peeled, then freckled. He was obviously not a native of Ginaz, yet he had come here to train. Here. He was older than Noret by at least five years, and his strength came from a burly body and heavy muscles. He would never possess the agility of a deft Ginaz mercenary… but he still had the look of a formidable fighter about him.

“Why do you refuse to teach us, Jool Noret? We are all weapons waiting to be forged.”

Calmly, Noret repeated what had become a mantra for him, with no end in sight. “I remain unworthy myself. I am not fit to teach anyone else.”

The man’s voice was gruff. “I will take that risk, Jool Noret. I come from Tyndall. Eight years ago the thinking machines took over my world, killed millions and enslaved the rest. My sisters were slaughtered, and my parents.” His eyes were large and filled with both anger and tears. “Then the Army of the Jihad fought back. They came to Tyndall with an overwhelming force and many mercenaries from Ginaz, and they drove the machines out. I am free, and alive, because of them.”

His upper lip trembled. “I came here because I want to be a mercenary, too. I want to kill the thinking machines. I want my revenge. Please… teach me.”

“I cannot.” Noret hardened himself to the crestfallen expression of the Tyndall refugee. “However,” he said, turning to Chirox after long consideration, “I have no objection… if you wish to train candidates on my behalf.”

THOUGH HE WAS an unorthodox trainer and met with considerable skepticism from veteran instructors, the combat robot began formal lessons for the breathless and ambitious pilgrims who came to Noret’s island.

Within days after his master’s departure, Chirox took two students, then twelve, and finally he led several shifts of eager mercenaries all through the daylight and nighttime hours. He instructed them in the basics of robot destruction techniques. And he needed no rest.

Early each day the students threw themselves into the training with all the vehemence a teacher could hope for. Each of them wanted to be like the legendary Swordmaster of Ginaz, though when asked why, none of them could say precisely what their idol did that was different from the style of other mercenaries. Except that he was extremely fast, his actions rapid and undefined.

Whenever the sensei mek felt that particular trainees were ready, he sent them off to be accepted as official mercenaries of Ginaz. Claiming to be followers of Jool Noret, each one drew an inscribed coral disk from a basket and adopted the spirit of a fallen mercenary.

Then they headed out to pledge their fighting abilities to the Army of the Jihad.