"Get back," George warned. "We're armed, and dangerous."

 "I only want to give her a message," Gordy said, pointing at Benny. He took a couple of steps towards her, and drew out a knife.

 "That's the message?" Arthur asked.

 "No. This is." Geordy raised the knife above Benny's still form, and brought it down with all his might.

 Robin fainted.

 ---
The Benny Internet Adventures
BIA#2: 'The Least Dangerous Game.'
Chapter 4: "Emancipation and Emasculation. Sort Of."
by Gregg Smith.
---

 Gordy's wrist twisted as his arm snapped firmly down, swinging the blade up and away from Benny and bringing the hilt of the dagger down into a light tap on her forehead. Arthur saw the swift movement. George too, would have seen it, had he not already sprinted behind this mysterious interloper, grabbed the two stone ceramic jug that housed the Blood/Chocolate drink, hefted it over his head, and then shut his eyes tightly as he swung it down onto the base of Gordy's skull.

 Gordy would have said 'Well, lads, I think she's out cold' - a comment on Benny's rather untimely decision to allow the stress, sense of displacement, and her need to digest the bloody drink without thinking about it, to get the better of her - followed by 'Mind if I leave this with you and get off home?' Had he not been unconcious and in the process of crumpling to the floor in a shower of blood (some of which could well have been his), chocolate syrup, milk and pottery washing over his grey hair. The dagger bounced harmlessly into Benny's lap.

 It's been a long time since I fainted. I mean actually, inexplicably fainting, not falling down drunk or dozing off in curriculum meetings. And I'm sure it used to take much more pressure than a few pyromaniac mercenaries and some noxious alien drink. Admittedly, I haven't been sleeping well recently, and it is that time of term when I find myself wading through poorly conceived first-year essays, not to mention the excruciating five-minute soliloquies of excuse from those who've missed deadlines. And I'm sure dropping my regular dose of intoxicants has removed a few protective layers from my insides. Right, a combination of petty weaknesses getting the better of me. That's all.

 [Post-it note over the above]

 Complacency.
My life is far too comfortable.

 [Post-it note over the above]

 I bet those bloody
kids spiked my drink.
Bastards!

 "I...I did it. Look what I did. I did that. I saved her life. From a real bad guy."

 "But..." Arthur began, coming to George's shoulder.

 "But?" George looked at him, eyes full of adrenalin but with a growing sense of caution. Arthur returned the gaze.

 "Nothing." He glanced down at Benny, then Gordy, then back to George. "No, well done, great work old chap," he said, in absolutely feigned earnestness. He patted George on the back a few times, awkwardly, and then shook his hand, awkwardly. "Now, George. How do we wake the old girl up?"

 "Well," George stepped over Gordy's crumpled mass. "As I recall, the hero always wakes Sleeping Beauty with a long, passionate kiss."

 "Now George, don't get carried away with the moment, remember, we are the Noble Chivalric S..."

 Arthur trailed off as he noticed George wasn't listening. And so it was that Benny woke up with a warm jet of air blowing on the side of her nose, the smell of far too much aftershave assaulting her nostrils, and a wet, frothy tongue trying to push her lips open. She stared into a pair of pretentiously arched eyelids for a few seconds, before they pulled back to reveal a pair of eager, brown eyes. Eyes which quickly shot back when they noticed hers were already open.

 "Ah." George smiled at her, nervously. "Thought that might work. Good show." He frowned, then smiled, his eyebrows jogging up and own all the while, then his slow retreat was interrupted by Arthur's gaunt mass.

 "Yes." Benny took in the changes to the room: The two bodies on the floor, the smashed remnants of the Blood concoction, and the two members of the Noble Thingummy-Dooda who remained standing. "Well, why don't you try the same with your friend while I gather my thoughts," she with the stern dismissiveness of a school teacher (an attitude she had spent many an hour perfecting on Joseph).

 George blushed slightly, and was almost certainly on the verge of a high-pitched defence of the platonic relationship between himself and his fellow heroes, when Arthur forecably propelled him towards Robin's prone body, whispering something about form and taking liberties into his erstwhile companion's left ear.

 Benny closed her eyes and tried to shake her head clear. When she opened them again, the first thing she saw was the dagger, glinting at her from her lap.

 "The Ceremonial Sacrificial Dagger of the Cult of the Resurrection of Phu-Tan-La the Eighty-third. It can't be." She closed her eyes again, and opened them. And the dagger was still there. Still there with its bewjelled hilt, a rampant, crested Haggert at the top, the Gumdin skulls, with their distinctive fangs and three eye sockets, running down the shaft among the myriad coloured jewels, to the ever decreasing circles at the base. "It is. It is the Ceremonial Dagger of the Cult of the Resurrection of Phu-Tan-La. The Eighty-third. How the hell did this get here?"

 Benny had seen the dagger for the first and, until now anyway, the last time during one of her earliest digs as team-leader, on the planet Alpha Ambercromby Three. It had been thought lost when the Braxiatel Holding and Storage Facility, or Neptune as it had once been called, was carpet-bombed by the Daleks in the second Great War.

 "That man tried to kill you with it," George answered from across the room, where he was lifting Robin by the arm-pits. "I stopped him," he beamed.

 "Sort of," added Arthur, avoiding George's curious gaze by concentrating on Robin's feet, and the map table they were heading for. George rested Robin against the edge, and reached over to the table like a vengeful god, pushing little trees and hills and heavily-armoured soldiers onto the floor.

 Benny looked down at Gordy, and then at the dagger. Years of experience, and the utter readability of George and Arthur, allowed her to work out the gist of what had happened, if not every subtle nuance of the encounter.

 "So that's why he was after me. Very odd."

 George was coming over to her now, while Arthur helped a waking Robin to sip some water.

 "Robbers'll be OK now," George observed. "Poor chap, it's been quite a strain for him. He stumped up most of the cash for this place - well, his father, you know. And seeing holes blown in it must've been quite a shock." Benny wasn't paying much attention.

 "Where the bugger did this thing come from? I mean, it was destroyed, everybody said it was destroyed. So who..." Before Benny could finish her largely rhetorical question, the wall behind Arthur and Robin blew in, shattering the two with plaster and brickdust.

 A woman stepped through, still recognizably the woman who had threatened them before, this Fiera, despite the massive gouges in her side, the scratch marks on her legs, the little bits of tarnished metal caught comically in her hair.

 "Right. I've killed your robot dogs, no problem." She wheezed a bit, once again thanking her portable transmat for getting her far enough away from the dogs to ambush them. "Now, if you don't give me what I want, I'm going to kill all of you."

 "Let me guess," called Benny. "Are you...after the The Ceremonial Sacrificial Dagger of the Cult of the Resurrection of Phu-Tan-La the Eighty-third?"

 Fiera screwed her eyes up, and Benny could just see the little cogs in her mind. Momentarily, the killer continued. "Yes, that's the one. And I'd like it now, if you please."

 "Certainly. If you wouldn't mind letting my friends go."

 "Bollocks to that." Fiera hefted her gun into the air and pulled the trigger. And nothing happened. "Shit. OK, hang on a tick." She dropped the gun and grabbed an overly-large bowie knife from her belt. She stepped up to Arthur, crushing defensless little soldiers under foot, and put the knife across his throat. "Now, give me the knife, or your friend dies."

 "I don't even know the boy."

 Arthur's eyes widened with panic, and he began to dribble.

 "Alright," Fiera drew the knife back, producing the tiniest amount of blood.

 "No, stop, you can have the dagger." Benny picked the dagger up from her lap and tossed it across the room. Robin sat up to catch it, fumbled, and it embedded itself sharply into the table, between his legs. he swallowed hard.

 Fiera reached around Arthur's trembling form and retrieved the artefact.

 "Now, you on the table. Get up, and go out that hole."

 Robin obeyed her, meekly.

 "What are you doing? You said you wouldn't kill them."

 "No I didn't."

 "Oh Yes you did."

 "Don't start. I'm taking these two with me. Try to follow me, and they will die." She pulled Arthur back, and nudged Robin along and out of sight.

 "George?"

 "Yes?"

 "Could I have that drink now, please."

 "OK?"

 "Fine, yes, yes, fine, fine." He smiled weakly.

 "Right, lets get after her then."

 "But..."

 "I know, but if we don't then you can be sure she will, she's not going to just let them walk away. At least, I don't think she will. Now, have you got any transport?"

 "Sure, loads. Skimmers, hover-cars, bikes, trikes, quads, boats, a genuine wheeled Rolls Royce from the Twentieth Century."

 An expansive area, running the whole front of the mansion, the porch was a collage of styles: Two rows of intricate, and pristinely white ionic columns, supporting a desperately gothic fan vault ceiling; a three-foot high gold trellis running between the outer row of columns, with a gate opposite the doors; a translucent floor, checked in green and blue, over a swirling liquid-crystal foundation, which was pure neo-Parisienne revival; pink and yellow panelling on the walls, like something out of a Costume-Simdrama; lead-paned, Tudor windows, with severe, grey frames in a mid Corporate-Colonial style, matching the doors. Benny's head swam once more as fresh queasiness gripped her stomach.

 "The house is even more impressive from the outside, don't you think?" George enthused.

 "Delightful," Benny replied through gritted teeth. "Where are we, anyway?"

 "Camelot." George pointed to a plaque on the right-hand door, with bore the inscription YE OLDE COURT OF CAMELOT in ornate gothic lettering. "On the island of Merry Olde England," (George pronounced the 'e' in 'olde' with great precision). "Look," he pointed to a small clump of trees on a hillock beyond the drive in front of them. "That's Ye Forrest Of Sherwood."

 Benny looked at George, irritation in her eyes.

 "We're on Dellah. This is my island, one of the cluster around the Hopkins peninsula."

 "It's not raining."

 "No, we've got a weather bubble. Latest import from the research labs in Alpha Centauri. Fabulous technology, simply amazing."

 Benny did a few mental calculations. "We're about half a continent from St.Oscar's, then," she thought out-loud.

 "That's right. And the same distance from the nearest space port. And the only way on and off my island is through the Complete Works of Shakespeare. That's a group of crevasses on the north coast. Apart from them, the island is surrounded by impenetrable cliffs full of deadly animals and treacherous weather conditions."

 "How very exciting. Shall we go?"

 "Yes, of course." George and Benny walked up to the gate, Benny going straight through and starting down the steps (which were painted in all the seven colours of the rainbow, a few out of order) while George tapped at the auto-chauffer terminal recessed into the right-hand column.

 As Benny reached the bottom of the steps and crunched on the gravel of the driveway, she caught sight of a mysterious figure shrouded in billowing black with a white ring around its face. Shielding her eyes from the sun, the image resolved itself in her vision: a tall, bulky nun, face tightly enclosed in a wimple, wearing large sunglasses and smoking a cigar between rose-painted lips.

 "George," Benny called up to him, not turning around. "Were you expecting a call from the local clergy."

 "Pardon me?" His eyes followed Benny's gaze across the drive.

 "Oh no! Not now. Benny, get down!"

 George's first anxious exclamation had Benny starting for the cover of some nearby shrubbery, but as soon as she started to move a long, glinting shaft appeared from between the nun's robes, drawn to waist height by gloved hands. A hail of bullets followed Benny's run, an earsplitting percussional assault, chucking gravel and dirt into the air and blowing chunks out of the rainbow staircase. The nun strode forward now, combat boots crunching on the gravel, firing all the time. Benny dove over the last few feet of stones, landing behind a short bush at the side of the drive and scrabbling into a field of long grass behind it. She kept going, feeling the wash of grit, bullets and shredded foliage following her.

 Before George could even move from the porch, the nun had disappeared into the grass after Benny.

 "No. No, I'm calling it all off," he shouted, pointlessly. The assassins were paid on retainer, obliged to continue trying to kill the prey until the woman-of-choice was dead, or the week-of-heroism was up. He ran down the stairs, flailing his arms, exasperated.

 She began moving again, slowly and with great deliberation, planning every movement. She could hear the nun heading in her direction now, so she chose a path that led slightly around the direction the nun was coming from. She could almost hear the nun breathing now, and the sound of fresh bullets being loaded into the gun. They were very close, and Benny stopped dead still, allowing the nun to work a little way past her. She then turned around, heading after the nun at a measured and silent pace.

 The nun reached the spot where Benny had been, examining the bullets that had fallen on the ground there. Benny kept moving, still carefully, and as calmly as possible - although she hadn't dared to breathe for the past two minutes. The nun stood, carefully, peeping over the tops of the bushes. Benny, almost on top of the nun now, stood also, but quickly, and with a shout:

 "Hello! Are you looking for me?"

 The nun jumped slightly, and swung round. Benny brought her knee up, right into the nun's groin. He doubled over, the cigar falling from his mouth and the gun falling to the floor.

 "Thought so," muttered Benny, bringing her right fist up into the nun's face. He moaned his way to the ground.

 Benny turned around and started wading through the grass, back to the drive, where George stood, looking anxious. A low, red skimmer with an open top and yellow go-faster stripes down the side was parked behind him.

 "Are you alright," he asked, trying to pat Benny's hand.

 "Yes, fine. Who was that?"

 "The Sadistic Sister Agatha, Nightmare of a Thousand Altar Boys. A novelty killer from Earth, I believe. It's really a man, you know."

 "Yes, I had noticed."

 Benny opened the door on the driver's side and got into the skimmer, while George vaulted over the window and landed heavily in the passenger seat.

 "I say, this is all starting to get exciting, don't you think?"

 Benny affected her most withering gaze and powered the engine. As the skimmer started into the air, a gloved fist reached up from the grass.

 "I'll get you kids next time, to be sure," said the nun, in a deplorably poor Irish accent.

 "Got it."

 "Oh look," George was looking off to the side, across the sun-drenched fields. "Birds." There was a flock of colourful, winged figures, dancing in the air about half a mile off. They suddenly seemed to change direction, and start heading towards the skimmer.

 "That's odd, I don't recognize the variety. And they seem to be heading this way."

 Benny glanced across, getting a quick look at the 'birds.'

 "George, tell me: You didn't send the contract you so kindly put on my head to the Krevari. did you?"

 "Well, now that you come to mention it, we did decide to contact them this time. We've never used them before, but they do have a great reputation for efficiency and dedication. Why?"

 "Because those aren't birds. They're Krevari ships. And we're in real trouble."

 Soon, the two ships either side of the flag-ship began to fire, and then the four ships in a diamond pattern behind them, and then the twelve ships spread out behind them, until all thirty of the ships bearing down on skimmer had their weapons blazing. Today's battle would go down in the annals of Krevari history as a great triumph for the superior technology and intelligence of their hyper-intelligent race - surely the most prodigious and honourable beings on all of Dellah. It would provide new material for Krevari poetry and prose (starved of tales of action and triumph for so long - and one can only take so many stories about the tragedy of one isolated worker in eternal and un-requited love with a Queen). And the credits they would earn would be enough to hire and abundance of salt slaves for the next three seasons.

 Captain Jk turned to his first officer, the highly promising Mister Sck, and flicked on the auto-recording apparatus to ensure that his words were recorded for all his crew to hear:

 "Today is a good day to be an ant."

 TO BE CONTINUED...

 Copywrite note:

 Sister Agatha is copywrite to her creator, Damian McCaughan, and was originally played by Gregg Smith in the short film 'Immaculate Deception.' The character exists in this chapter purely as a private joke between myself, Will Howells and Matt Michaels.