Late at night, the master mercenary Jool Noret stood exhausted and sweating, but feeling intensely alive after hours of strenuous training He was only thirty-two years old, but he felt like an ancient man. He had seen more combat and destroyed more machines than the most battle-scarred member of the Council of Veterans. And still he felt he had so much to do, many more enemies to destroy… a lifelong debt to repay.

Barefoot in the sand, Noret had fought for hours with the sensei mek Chirox, who continued to help him modify his fighting technique. Year after year, the combat robot had learned more from his best student, increasing his own skills.

In the ten years since its founding, the island school had grown, producing many successful mercenaries who modeled their own techniques after Jool Noret’s style of “fighting with utter abandon.” With a jaded eye, he watched some of the best trainees the sensei mek had produced. Many of them were expert at fighting the most fearsome enemy machines and had even developed specialized skills for defeating human opponents who wore personal Holtzman shields.

Chirox had excelled in his role as a teacher, and Noret was pleased to leave it at that. He had done what he could. Hundreds, even thousands, of exuberant converts had by now been scattered among the Jihad battle-fields, bringing terrible destruction to countless enemy machines.

In the final summation, he supposed, he had far more than made up for the loss of Zon Noret. But he didn’t know how to release himself from the prison of his own expectations.

Now under clear night skies and bright stars, Noret stood on the beach, wiping perspiration from his brow after a difficult workout. With complete abandon, he had fought to the zenith of his skill, every movement a symphony of perfection. He held his pulse sword, its smooth hilt slick in his palm. He would need to recharge the weapon soon, for he had used the disruptor bursts many times during his recent session.

Hearing loud shuddering booms in the distance, Noret looked up into the deep blackness. He watched a trail of fire across the starry sky, a meteor so bright it traced a glittering path over the serene cosmic ocean. It was the largest bolide he’d ever seen, and it kept growing brighter, more intense. He raised a hand to shield his eyes. Sonic booms followed it like a chain of percussions through the air.

Noret blinked, then staggered as a streak of intense purple branded his retinas. The falling object grew hotter, searing white.

Far out across the endless water, a blinding flash of impact swelled to the heavens as the space rock slammed into the deep sea. Less than a minute later, Noret heard the attenuated rumble of the explosion, sound waves skipping like stones across the water.

Chirox strode with heavy footsteps across the beach. The sensei mek stood beside Noret, focusing his optic sensors toward the horizon. “What has happened?”

“A meteor hit the ocean,” he said, still blinking his dazzled eyes. “It looked huge.”

In the darkness the sensei mek stared far out across the water. To the southwest, the lights from a far-off island glittered like jewels. As the two stared in anticipatory silence, one line of lights suddenly vanished, as if snuffed out. Then another set of lights— closer, this time— also went dark.

“What do you think that was?” Noret asked.

A moment later, they could discern the stampeding wall of water, an oncoming tidal wave set off by the asteroid impact. It rolled inexorably across the sea, oblivious to anything in its path. The roar grew louder.

Noret shook his head as realization swept over him faster than the oncoming wave could approach. “Oh, no.”

There would be no chance to evacuate the island, to get the students to safety. Already he heard shouts of dismay from the huts as the trainees emerged.

Noret gripped his pulse sword, as if wishing that he could do something heroic with the weapon. For the first time in years, Noret felt completely helpless. He could only stand next to Chirox while the rumbling wave hurtled over the reefs toward them.

“I knew I would find this eventually,” he said in a hoarse voice. “An enemy I cannot defeat.”

HOURS LATER, AS the foaming brown water receded from the flattened Ginaz archipelago, the currents faded and settled, leaving islands scoured clean of people and trees.

Plodding slowly up the slope to the wrecked island where he had trained so many students, the sturdy metallic mek lumbered out of the waves that still splashed around him. He had been bent, scraped, and scoured, but Chirox remained functional. He plodded onto the beach, each step heavy and labored.

In two of his six arms the combat robot carried the battered body of Jool Noret, his greatest student of all, crushed by the hammer of the tidal wave.

The only moving thing left on the desolate island, Chirox walked along the now barren strand. Gently, almost lovingly, he deposited Noret’s body on the damp ground. As near as the sensei mek could determine, this was approximately the spot where Zon Noret had also fallen. He swiveled his head and focused his optic sensors down on the body of his teacher and trainee.

During generations of service, the robot had spent much time interacting with humans, and had learned that organic life was resilient. Before long, the islands would become lush again, and mercenaries would return from their missions and repopulate the archipelago with eager new students.

As he had done for the past ten years, Chirox would teach mercenaries. They would continue to come to Ginaz in search of the elusive techniques of the great swordsman, Jool Noret. Chirox would teach them everything he knew, everything he had learned from the master.