The slaver barely standing got his whip out and activated, but not fast enough. Raising the whip she had captured and slashing it forward in the air, she connected with the alien’s torso. His head flew back, a spasm rocked his body. He made a gurgling sound and collapsed.
Bracing herself on one of the passenger chairs to pull herself up, Sierra went over to her fallen adversary and took his whip. Now she had two weapons, she also needed a plan.
On the bridge, there had been a shower of sparks at the crash, and another fluttering of lights that left the illumination dimmed by half. Some panels and bulkheads had come loose or fallen to the deck, and the lights on the control surfaces flickered and vibrated.
Kharno lurched out of the pilot’s seat and hunched over the controls again, while Liona stood up and off to the side of her own chair, rubbing her head, moaning at her dizziness and wincing at the stream of growled and bellowed Chithisian profanities pouring forth from Kharno.
She wanted to tell him, shut up, you purple imbecile, but she thought better of it. She got her vision in focus and found him cursing at the view on the monitor. When she saw what he saw, she had a mind to add some curses of her own. There, striding out of the Corps hovercar, were Brogan, Elaina—and Tynan.
“Bane and damn!” Liona hissed.
“In all my years in space,” Kharno growled, “no one—no one—has ever shot down my ship!” He fouled the air with more angry vulgarities in his language. “And now the filth is coming this way. I want them dead. I want them flayed and seared and broiled. I want to serve their meat to a starved Aralix.” He addressed Liona, “Go back to the passenger compartment. Check on my crew and my cargo. Make certain that she is uninjured and still restrained.”
Without a word, Liona made for the aft section of the ship, grasping the pain inducer firmly in her hand.
In the chamber in question, she found dimmed lights, two unconscious and disarmed male Chithisians—and nothing else. Scowling contemptuously, she looked to and fro in the room, searching for any sign of where Sierra Smith might have gone. If the ship’s computers and internal sensors were fully on line, finding the human would be just a matter of having the ship itself pinpoint her. Liona stepped deeper into the compartment, over the prone body of Sierra’s foe from only a few minutes earlier. She moved closer to the side of the compartment farthest from the forward section of the craft. Damn you, woman, you’re going to find there aren’t many places to hide on this ship. I will find you, and then…
She was less than an arm’s length from the storage compartment when it swung suddenly, sharply open. Liona had no time to react; it caught her hard on her left-hand side and sent her spinning into the passenger chair in which Sierra had been restrained. She hit it and then spilled onto the floor, quickly righting herself just in time to see Sierra come bounding out, brandishing two energy whips and looking ready for business.
Liona shrieked with rage, leapt to her feet, held up the discipline device, and pressed it. In that same instant, Sierra lashed out with her right-hand whip and let it slash and wrap itself around the wrist of the very hand in which Liona held the device. Two things happened at once. Waves of searing pain poured themselves into Sierra’s body while a torturous current of energy traveled down the length of the whip and into Liona. Both females writhed, screaming, in mutual pain and fury. They faced each other, inflicting agony on each other, in an excruciating deadlock. Each of them was determined not to be the first to fall.
CHAPTER 13
Kharno found that his ship’s comm systems were still operating when over the bridge speakers came the voice of Squire Brogan Holt: “Chithisian pilot, we say again: Come out, show your credentials, and prepare for your ship to be boarded.”
The alien let out another curse before barking back, “On what charges?”
“Probable cause,” replied Brogan. “Suspicion of carrying illegal cargo.”
“Why?” Kharno rumbled. “Am I suspect only because I am a Chithisian? Does being a Chithisian on Lacerta make me a criminal?”
“Fleeing from the Corps and ignoring hails invokes suspicion,” Brogan answered back. “Will you come out of your vessel now?”
Kharno made a mad animal noise at his monitor which showed the three Corps member standing outside. Will I come out of my vessel, indeed? You son of a leech-ridden durrok, I will come out—worse luck for you.
Outside on the ground, Tynan, Elaina, and Brogan stood and waited, their patience growing thinner by the second, when into their minds bloomed the telepathic voice of Daxav: My brain is full of static, but…but…
Aloud, Tynan asked, “But what?”
Aboard the ship, Daxav returned, there is… I suddenly sense thoughts of great pain from aboard the ship. The two females: Anger…struggle…terrible pain. And from Kharno—something else. Danger. Danger…
The nerves of all three weredragons, but especially Tynan, sparked with alarm. “What danger?” asked Tynan. “Tell us.”
The thoughts of Daxav said, Drones…drones…
At that moment, a hatch on the starboard bow of the Chithisian ship swung open. Kharno appeared in the open hatch and descended the ramp with slow, heavy hoof-falls. He stepped out onto the turf, curling and twitching his tail, and approached the three uniformed Lacertans.
Surly and disdainful, Kharno asked, “Am I under arrest?”
“As my partner said, you’re under suspicion,” replied Elaina.
Suddenly, Kharno bellowed in defiance, “You may arrest this!” And before the three weredragons could react, he touched surfaces on either side of the belt of his tunic—and the ship behind him responded.
Two fixtures on either side of the forward upper hull of the ship broke off with a metallic popping and came to loudly humming, mechanical life, rising into the air and lighting up in a distinctly menacing way. Trained instincts took over for Tynan and his friends; the three of them went to bipedal dragon form and let loose the energy blades of their weapons—and at that very second, the flying drones opened fire.
Cruel bolts of energy strafed the ground, making trails of scorched, smoking earth. At the same time, the three dragons were in the air. Kharno watched them fly, evading the beams of his weaponry, and smiled a sick, perverse smile. How he looked forward to seeing them picked off and plummeting to the ground, one by one.
That was before he saw Tynan, with blade raised high, go into a fast, sharp dive—right for Kharno himself.
Inside the ship, Liona and Sierra screamed and howled in the monstrous pain that they inflicted on each other, but neither of them fell. Sierra staggered and gasped. Liona grabbed the chair into which Sierra had been bound. Mutual hatred fueled their shared refusal to give in.
Pulsating pain made Sierra’s movements an effort, but she activated the other energy whip and found just enough strength to slash out with it. The lash connected with the hand in which Liona held the pain inducer, searing the dragon woman with enough added pain to make her scream more loudly, throw her arm back—and drop the device.
Free of the pain that Liona caused her, Sierra took a ragged breath and kept her one whip wrapped around Liona’s wrist until, clenching her teeth, she slashed the whip away. Shrieking from the release of the pain as much as she had from the infliction, Liona staggered and fell back. “No, you bitch!” she wailed. “No!”
Ignoring her enemy’s cry, Sierra raised again the whip that she had used to seize Liona, and lashed out with it yet again, not at the dragon woman herself, but at the cruel thing she had dropped. The end of the whip struck the fallen pain inducer. The device jumped at its strike, belched sparks, and flew into two useless pieces.
Sierra looked up from the destroyed discipline device into the hateful look of Liona, and almost spat, “Now…who the hell are you calling a bitch?”
Maddened beyond all reason, Liona turned half-dragon in a heartbeat, bursting into scales and talons, neck and horns and snout, wings and tail. One second, she was an evil human, the next an evil and
livid dragoness. With taloned hands outstretched, she lunged at Sierra.
The creature attacking her now, Sierra knew, was far more dragon than she had ever been human. She was now facing not only the talons and jaws of an enraged dragon; she was assailed by years of the pent-up wrath of a woman scorned, which was greater than the furies of a thousand hells. Liona was enflamed by possibly losing her revenge on a male who had left her to languish in a dungeon, and for that she would have blood, Kharno be damned. Her only satisfaction now would be in spilling the blood of Sierra Smith.
Before Sierra knew what was happening, Liona had grabbed her by both wrists, rendering her unable to bring the whips into play again. The lashes of the whips twisted like snakes warning that they would strike, while Sierra and Liona thrashed and pitched back and forth, Sierra making a desperate but vain attempt to wrest herself free of the reptile female’s grip.
Finding that futile, Sierra tried another gambit. She flung herself backward onto the floor, seemingly giving Liona the chance to descend upon her with snapping jaws and rip out her throat.
But before that could happen, Sierra brought up her knees against her winged foe and pushed up hard. The force of her up-thrust caught Liona by surprise, and her taloned digits slipped from Sierra’s wrists. She flew back onto her wings, hitting the back of one of the passenger chairs.
Sierra leapt up to her knees and found Liona recovering, leering at her with talons once more at the ready. Liona lunged forward and down, and Sierra rolled away, vacating the space just as Liona hit the floor. She scrambled to her feet and watched Liona clamber up again as well.
Holding up both whips to keep the dragoness at bay, Sierra stepped carefully across the floor, knowing that with one false move Liona would be upon her. She raised her right-hand whip and prepared to lash it out. But with a vicious screech, Liona whipped forth her tail and battered it against Sierra’s wrist, knocking the whip from her hand.
Now Sierra had just one weapon against the jaw, claws, and tail of her foe. She sensed, perhaps rightly, that if she did not do something unexpected now, she was doomed. She got the whip from her left hand into her right hand, giving Liona just enough of an opening to send her tail swishing forward again. But in that same instant, Sierra slashed the whip forward and got it around Liona’s tail, sending its power coursing into the dragon female’s body again.
Liona’s shriek of fury and pain reverberated off the walls of the compartment. Sierra pulled on the whip, sweeping the pain-wracked Liona’s feet out from under her. She spilled backwards onto her wings on the floor and thrashed in the grip of Sierra’s weapon. Sierra found that the switch of the weapon lay in a groove.
What would happen if she were to move the switch along the groove? Desperately, she slid the switch up further, halfway as far as it would go. A crackling sound filled the air, and Liona writhed and kicked and flailed, her sounds of rage and pain growing ever louder, until her entire body seized—and went limp.
Suddenly realizing that her breath had frozen in her chest, Sierra let loose with a long exhale—but kept the length of the whip coiled about Liona’s tail while stepping the power back down. She had stumbled onto the variable power setting and managed to step it up enough to render Liona unconscious and save herself being torn to pieces.
She fell back against the wall and wanted to slide down it and crumple herself there, exhausted. But she just leaned there, keeping the metal braid coiled around the tail of her foe and humming with just enough power to keep Liona immobilized. She would take just this moment to catch her breath. With luck, Kharno would not appear until she was ready for him.
In this spell after a frenzied fight, Sierra finally had time to wonder what it was that had made the ship crash and given her the chance to free herself. It was only then she saw, from outside the window, flashes of light; and with them came explosive sounds, as of weapons being discharged. Eyes widening, she breathed out the name, “Tynan…”
Tynan had not reckoned with how fast a Chithisian could move. Kharno had lunged out of the way of Tynan’s power dive and pulled out his energy whip. Each time Tynan tried to dive in to attack with his powerblade, Kharno swung and slashed the whip through the air between them, forcing Tynan to pull back and up.
Tynan knew full well that if that lash of power connected with him just once, it could knock him clean out of the air and then he’d be at Kharno’s mercy. He was not about to let that happen, not when Sierra had been at the alien’s mercy instead of in Tynan’s bed where she belonged. He was going to get this hoofed alien beast for that, and for whatever he may have done to Sierra.
The thought of this creature even touching Sierra was more than Tynan could stomach. He had to do something else to break this impasse. Withdrawing his blade, he swung round the other end of his weapon and opened fire. With one good shot, he could knock Kharno senseless and helpless enough to be apprehended.
To get the clear opening he needed, he would first get Kharno off balance. He fired not directly at the alien himself, but at the ground at Kharno’s hooves, making him dash and leap out of the way of the bolts that he sent explosively into the ground. Kharno jumped at each blast, not letting Tynan’s attacks connect. But in concentrating his assault entirely on the Chithisian, Tynan forgot the other danger.
A sudden, hot pain made Tynan thrash and flail in mid-air. The edge of his left-hand wing was now seared and smoking, having been grazed by a beam from one of the drones, which wheeled around in the air for another, possibly fatal shot at him. Growing dizzy, Tynan fought to stop himself blacking out and went into a dive for the ground, hitting the turf and rolling to a halt just as the deadly shot of the drone blasted through the spot where he had been.
Kharno was upon him at once, standing over him, holding his whip up high, ready to slash it down and send Tynan to oblivion. Squinting through the pain of his burned wing, Tynan gave one last thought to Sierra and everything they could have been…
…and suddenly there was a shocking light, and Kharno let out the most blood-curdling scream in the world, a sound that no one should ever hear more than once. He staggered away, and Tynan, forcing himself up on one knee, saw what had saved him. Twitching in the grass was a length of blue-violet tail, red-hot and smoking at one end where half of it had been sheared and severed.
Tynan glanced up and saw Elaina swinging her powerblade in the air to deflect the oncoming beams of one of the drones. She took only a half-second to glance down at him and acknowledge what she had done—and gave Tynan an idea.
Summoning back his strength, ignoring the pain in his wing, Tynan flew up, back into the air where his two companions wheeled about, whirling and sweeping their blades against the relentless attacks of the swerving and blasting drones. Good, he thought, keep your attention on them… As one drone hurtled menacingly at Elaina, Tynan dropped his powerblade, flew in behind the drone—and seized it in both of his dragon hands.
He jerked it to one side, making its bolt sizzle through the air to one side of Elaina and miss her. Then he swung it down and aimed it towards the ground, finding Kharno staggering and screaming out curses over his severed tail.
He directed the firing surface of the drone right at Kharno and let the weapon do its work. It issued a bolt of power downward, right at the stricken Chithisian. Kharno disappeared for a second into a flash of light—then crumpled, his tunic burned, his skin reddened, onto the ground several paces from the sheared-off section of his tail and lay there unmoving.
Before his captured drone could fire again, Tynan called to his friends, “Brogan! Elaina!” And then, he spun around in the air and threw the drone high overhead. The other two Corpsmen reacted instantly. Elaina swung the firing end of her blade around, took aim at the drone closing in on Brogan, and let loose. A single shot ripped forth, connecting with that drone in mid-flight, piercing clean through it.
The device careened downward and hit the turf. At the same moment, Tynan pivoted his own weapon from blade to blaster, raise
d it high at the other drone spinning in the air, and before that drone could right itself and attack, Brogan unleashed a beam that sliced into its firing surface at one end and out the other. The remaining device fell like a stone and joined its fellow on the ground.
More flashing lights appeared, but these were no threat. These were the lights of inbound Corps hovercars, three in all, from Talontown. They quickly landed, as did Tynan and his friends. Tynan went human and immediately felt relieved of the pain from his burned wing. The next time he morphed the injury would be gone.
He found his powerblade in the grass and snatched it up again. Tynan left Brogan and the other Corps officers to deal with Kharno and collect his fallen drones. Without another thought to the battle outside the Chithisian ship, he broke away and dashed for the hatch through which Kharno had emerged.
Daxav opened the door of his side of the car and climbed out onto the grass. Watching Tynan run inside the ship, he picked up the dragon Prince’s thoughts. They were all of Sierra. For the first time his impression of reptile-mammalian mating was not unpleasant. Strange, but not unpleasant. The little mollusk being felt a new energy coming back into his mind and his body. Tynan, he knew, would be as good as his word. Daxav would be going home soon; home to a better life than he had led thus far.
Tynan Page 16
