“You heard her,” Kale said, stern but not loud, in case the enemy was nearby. “Pull on your big boy pants, because we’re done playing around.” He turned to her as the others went about their business. “And to answer your question, that was the problem. Playing around.”
“Excuse me?”
He leaned in, lowering his voice. “How many credits did you have before you went up? How many do you have now?”
“It’s all part of a game,” she replied. “What do you expect from me?”
“A game where the cost of losing is our lives. Us. Your dedicated generals. Soldiers, fighters, recruits, whatever you want to call us. We die when you fuck up. You have to be strategic, to consider every choice and how it will affect the next move.”
“And your decision to stick your head between my legs at night, is that part of your strategic planning?” She glared, waiting for an answer, but hating that she’d even asked the question. Out of earshot, Brink was helping Trunk with the wounded woman.
Kale licked his lips, which seemed odd to Letha, but then he frowned. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to. Do I sleep with you because it helps me stay alive? Not entirely, but the other thing… Think of this: when’s the last time you went down on any of us?”
She scowled, then waved him away. “We’re done here. We have a war to fight.”
“A war…” He bitterly laughed, then added as he walked off to check on the troops, “A second ago you said it was a game.”
Staring after him, she wasn’t sure what to think. She’d been on planet longer than him, survived longer and set herself up for success because of how she worked this place. But he had a point—those others, the ones who would never wake up tomorrow because of her, they had deserved a chance too.
Part of her wanted to say they made their choice and that, if they died, that was their fault. But if that choice meant siding with her, she couldn’t reconcile her thoughts with the idea that doing so could be the wrong choice.
And the other thing? It wasn’t that she didn’t like the idea of going down on him—or any of the others she took to her bed—but Mantis had insisted on that point.
“You are their leader,” Mantis had said. “You put a man’s cock in your mouth, you have now put yourself in a subservient position. You’ve now told that man, through your actions, that you will get down on your knees and worship him. Remember this—they all worship you, not the other way around. Men, women, even the scumbag Warden, as far as I’m concerned. They. Worship. You.”
The woman’s teachings had gotten her this far, so why stop now? Letha started moving along the perimeter, pausing at points and listening, watching. Now she couldn’t get the distracting image of Kale’s dick out of her mind. One moment she was staring off into the woods, the next she was back in her bed, massaging the tip, stroking it, slipping it inside of her and feeling it throb with excitement. Now she was leaning against a tree, hand on a low branch, imagining taking that cock and massaging it with her tongue, engulfing it with her mouth.
FUCK. Maybe she was too flustered. It had started out as survival, what Mantis had taught her about gaining a viewership, about winning the others to her side through intense physical intimacy. Now it was like she was addicted to it.
Fucking, and killing, too. They were like stims on Planet Kill, and she was an addict. However, if she wanted to reach her goals, she had to truly be a stim fiend for as long as it took. The only rehab here was being the best there was, to move off planet, and follow in her mentor’s footsteps.
As for the issue of going down on a dude? That would have to wait, because she had just seen movement. She hissed a warning and motioned to the closest fighter, a man in his forties with a large ax and pistol. He nodded, looked off where she pointed, and then nodded again.
On her mark, she would open fire and he’d charge.
She prepared, pulled her rifle around and took aim, and then held up a hand. There were more of them. Two more about ten paces back. She held up three fingers, and heard scuffling behind her. Damn her wounded leg. If she had full mobility, she’d charge down there and take them out herself, and get more points for it.
Then again, that might be the exact sort of hubris Kale was talking about. A glance back showed that Brink had joined the other fighter, and they were ready. Letha gave them a nod, sighted in, and then hesitated.
The “enemies” were talking now, one laughing. This wasn’t the group that was pursuing her. She held up a fist, then lowered her rifle and waited.
Brink approached from behind, carefully. He whispered, “What do we got?”
“Neutral, I think. We—”
BAM!
One of the two in the back fell amid wild curses from the other two, while the one in the front threw himself down and turned away from Letha. How the hell had these guys stayed alive this long? Another shot rang out, and the other man at the rear screamed in pain.
“They hit me, man!” came a high-pitched voice from one of the men. “Dammit, I’m bleeding out here!”
Shouts of agony followed, and then Letha saw the shooter—a dark-haired woman bent close to the ground, creeping forward. She was only visible in the bushes for a split-second, about thirty paces out, but Letha had a good feeling by that one glance that it was Grinder.
Don’t bother to check if these guys are the ones you’re hunting, not when every kill can get you more points and cooler loot, she reminded herself.
On the positive side, if it was Grinder, that didn’t necessarily mean others were close behind. She was a lone wolf when it suited her. When she could get more points and credits on her own than with a team.
Letha decided it was time to move—whoever these three had been, one was still alive and her team was in need of reinforcements. Maybe this guy would do, maybe not, but at least he could serve as bait. She motioned to her other two fighters
“Grinder,” she whispered, pointing to where she’d last seen the woman. “Be careful.”
Kale and the other man advanced, cautiously. Each step found solid footing, taking them to the cover of trees when possible. The shouting below continued, and then there was a light—one of the audience camera drones. A bloodcurdling scream followed a moment later, and Letha could only imagine the horrors some perverse audience member had paid Grinder to perform for their entertainment.
It often took a strange sort of mental sickness to become rich enough to make such bids, so the demands were often degenerate in themselves. Letha lowered herself to a cross-legged sitting position, elbows on her thighs for support, and aimed for where the flash of light had been.
Red on the ground. Blood.
No sign of Grinder.
A movement in the wind… no movement from one specific section of the tall leaves and ferns, as if someone were holding them steady or in the wind’s path.
Letha opened up on that spot, and Grinder rolled out, landing with an expensive energy shield at the ready—blue, glowing, and absorbing each shot. The woman smiled horribly, wearing what looked like a woman’s scalp, fresh with blood dripping down. Long blonde hair, over Grinder’s dark hair and golden-brown skin. She’d apparently taken some of that blood and smeared it across each cheek like war paint, making her whole appearance like one out of a horror movie.
As much as power and the ability to kick some ass often turned Letha on, nothing could be further from the truth with this woman. She was sick, deranged, and looked like she would do anything for those extra points. This was proven even more evident when Letha noticed the necklace around the woman’s neck —a string of what once might have been tongues.
Whatever the fuck that was supposed to represent or mean. Letha didn’t care to find out. She opened with a new round of shots, aimed at the tree next to the crazed woman in hopes that one would ricochet and catch her behind the shield. Grinder charged forward, however, not the type to sit still in situations like this. To her detriment, she hadn’t noticed Brink. He appeared three f
eet away and had his rifle ready. He caught her with two bullets that sent the shield flying and rolled her into the dust with a howl of anger and pain.
Blood splattered across the rocks, but the woman wasn’t done. She pulled a disc from her waist and tossed it up. In mid-air it began to deconstruct into small explosives. Letha had seen only one of these before. She roared, “DOWN!” and dove back behind her tree, hoping her companions had gotten to cover. Then Letha curled up in a ball as explosions rocked the hillside.
When it was done, she peeked around and saw no sign of Grinder. Brink had debris sticking out of his arm, but was otherwise unharmed, and the other man was dead. That meant she only had eight left. The stranger was still alive, farther down the hill, and was kneeling with his hands up in surrender, a look of terror on his face. The other one had stopped shouting, likely dead.
“Holy fucksicles,” Trunk said, and Letha turned to see that he and the rest of her team were just past her at the top of the hill, peering down at the chaos.
“Grinder,” Letha explained, then pointed the direction she was pretty sure she’d gone. “I don’t know if she was alone.”
Brink and Kale were already moving, each selecting two fighters to go with them. One group went to see if there was any sign of Grinder, the other went to secure the stranger and check on other followers.
Trunk helped Letha up, as her messed-up leg didn’t make standing easy. For a moment, he seemed to have the tiger in his eye, that look he’d get right before he pounced, but then he licked his lips, wiped his dirtied hands across his perfect abs, and shrugged.
“Hell of a day,” he said. “You win some, you—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Letha interrupted. “We didn’t lose anything yet. We gained a whole lot of reasons for getting those sons of bitches, more fuel for our fire.”
“Right,” he said, smile unwavering. “And yet, you seem to be down one general.”
“You couldn’t handle the job.”
“I hear it comes with great perks.” His eyes darted across her body, almost too fast for her to notice, and in that split-second, hers did the same. Tan skin with small scars here and there from his battles, muscles that were defined in just the right places, and of course everyone knew what he was packing under that loincloth. Perks indeed.
“Bring me Grinder’s head, then we’ll talk perks.”
He pursed his lips at that, almost a pout. “A gamble of death for the chance to be at your right hand.”
“My right hand, my left, hell, I might even give you access to more than just my hands.” She turned toward the sun, wondering where the cameras were right now, and shrugged. “Wonder what the audience would think of that.”
A screen appeared between them. Both of them were able to see it, but it was clearly for Trunk. Several bidders were having some fun, apparently, as the options were things like: “Tell her to blow you,” “Go after Grinder, it’s worth it, sex god!” and “Kill her right here and now. Take it all for yourself!”
There were a lot of credits next to the first and last options, but Grinder didn’t waste time thinking about it. He selected the middle option, the one that said to go after Grinder, and smiled.
“Gotta love it when they pay you to do what you were going to do anyway.” He readied his bow and arrow and glanced around, a hint of doubt in his eyes. “If you find me dying though, maybe… I don’t know, blow me as a consolation prize?”
The screen flashed again and his credits rose by fifty, causing him to smile.
“Sorry!” he shouted as he took off, “Had to hope they’d still pay for that one. Thanks, audience member, wherever you are!” As he ran, and turned back with a laugh and said, “No need to answer now, let’s see which way this goes, then you can decide.”
“I’m not blowing a corpse, fuckhead!” she yelled after him, then found herself shaking her head at the thought of people hearing that all over the galaxy. Dammit, she was sure that would end up on a T-shirt with a caricature of her, possibly doing just that in the image.
Off to her side was another of her fighters—a man in a cowboy hat, well-built but a good foot shorter than she was. He stood with his thumbs in his belt, a machete hanging at his side, and dual blaster pistols as well.
“Sorry, ‘Cowboy’ is it?” she asked.
“Rodrigo, ma’am. Kale told me to stay with you. In case.” He offered a smile, though it looked wrong on him, like his face was made for scowling. “For the record, that boy wants it on his deathbed. If you’re not up for it, give me a holler.” He tipped his hat to her.
She laughed, not sure if he was joking but finding the image hilarious either way. “I’ll do that, Rodrigo.” They found a spot with cover, eyes alert, and sat back, waiting.
She found it odd that there were no birds, no early morning chirping or movements overhead to distract from the dullness of waiting to find out if her team had hunted down their prey successfully. She wanted to be out there, on the prowl, but this blasted leg prevented that from happening. She could go on and on with complaints in her mind, but pushed them aside. She could go down some major rabbit holes of negativity living here. She’d seen what it could do to people. With a frown, she realized that she was parched. Rodrigo had the pack, she saw, so she held out a hand. He reacted instantly, pulling out some water and offering her an energy bar.
“I’ve still got some food,” she said, pulled out the leftover half of her energy bar and went to town on it.
“Is it true?” he finally asked. “Five years?”
She shrugged as if it weren’t such a big deal. “What else have you heard about me?”
He glanced away from the tree line to her, then back to keeping watch. “I… shouldn’t say.”
“Bull. What are the rumors?”
“They say you were kind of a prude when you arrived. That you didn’t want to kill, didn’t want to fuck. That you spurned your audience, shouting at the cameras and all that, hiding when you changed, crying and puking when you saw death….”
She chuckled. “Oh, the innocence lost in this godforsaken hellhole.”
“It’s true?” He looked back at her again, but she motioned for him to keep his eyes out there. An attack could come at any second.
“I didn’t belong here.”
“Shouldn’t have volunteered then.”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. I didn’t.”
Now he couldn’t help himself. He turned around all the way to face her directly. “No shit? I thought that was just a story, you know? An urban legend. No way! You?”
She nodded. “It’s a long story, but the simple version is that I was brought here against my will. I could’ve stayed in my old ways, died pretty quickly after who-knows-what would have happened to me, but... There was this night when I came across a man being beaten by a Warden for trying to rape another man. I remember the way the Warden did it for show, but he really didn’t give a damn. He didn’t care what we did to each other. That is, until she approached him and told him to back off, that this guy was hers to kill.
“I remember the power she had even then, the way she made this guy suffer for what he’d done to one of her guys, and the way the Warden treated her with respect. Even then, Mantis was getting ready to leave this place. Even before she was free, everyone knew what role she was going to play in society, and treated her like she had the power and authority she would soon obtain.”
“You wanted that.”
“I needed that. I knew right then that I would follow in her footsteps, do whatever it took. So I proved myself, I opened up a bit. Never anything that… I don’t know, would make me hate myself later. Hell, back home I’d watch, I’d see the way a man would rub a woman’s breasts, the way she’d moan when he put his tongue on her mound… I’d watch, even pause the screen sometimes when they’d pull out their cocks. I was curious. I just didn’t know how to deal with situations like that.”
“The problem with the view feeds,” he said. “Makes eve
rything seem so unrealistic.”
She laughed. “Yeah, well, look at us now.”
“So you do it for the money and power? To make something out of yourself, like the rest of us are trying to do?”
“Not exactly. The sex stuff, mostly because I want to. That’s the luxury of being in my position—I won’t do a single thing those screens ask of me if it isn’t something I already want. I’m no prostitute, no assassin for hire. But there are smart choices and choices of passion, and if I can get paid and level-up for either of those, might as well.”
“Hell yes,” he replied.
Suddenly he stiffened, finger on the trigger of one of his blasters.
“Action?” she asked.
He waited, then relaxed. “General Kale is back.”
Kale stood at the bottom of the hill with a smile on his face, dragging someone behind him.
“Grinder?” Letha asked.
“No,” he admitted, “one of three others who were hunting us. Thought I’d save one for you. Points and all.”
Letha grinned. The classic offerings up to their goddess, like plunder to a pirate captain in days of old. This was one of the many reasons she greatly appreciated Kale. He was a gentleman when it came to dispatching enemies.
Not that she wanted to take the life of a man who was already defeated, but he would die regardless, and she had to think about the big picture. As she approached the man, her screen popped up and showed that the audience was lively today and ready with creative ideas. She scrolled past the sexual ones, very much not in the mood with her leg hurting and the defeat weighing on her mind. Instead she landed on a high-credit bid that wouldn’t require too much energy.
“You’re going to do what?” Kale asked, watching as the screen closed.
“As if you haven’t done worse,” she smugly replied. “Probably even today.”
He shrugged. “Right, sure. But still.”
The other man, beaten and dazed, rolled the eye that wasn’t swollen shut up at her. “We have your number, bitch. Your days are coming to an end.”
Planet Kill Page 8
