Letha watched the young nurse’s brown eyes rise up to meet hers, large, curious, tempting. For a second the nurse lingered, then bowed as if ashamed, before stepping back.
The matter at hand was Aero’s response, Letha had to remind herself, not her curious lust for this nurse girl. Granting what Aero was talking about would mean, in a sense, putting him above her generals. They all knew the rules and had submitted and handed over their fighters when they united.
Now this guy wanted to essentially be her equal?
Letha scowled, shifted to check that the med kit was applied properly, which it was, and then sighed. “I don’t deny there’s much you could offer me.” She did her best not to look at the nurse with those words. “But you’re all words right now. It’s also true I am down some fighters. We were had. However, what you ask….” She trailed off.
Seeing that he wasn’t winning her over, Aero ran his hand through his hair, stepped forward, and knelt at her side. “I would gladly fight at your side and put my life on the line to see you live. Just don’t ask me to be beneath you.”
“Ah. Do you prefer the top?” she asked.
He smiled broadly. “I’ve heard about some of the shit you’re into—not my thing. Sorry.”
She laughed at that. “What can you really offer me that the others couldn’t? We need a win, and I need to know that’s what I get with you.”
Kale silently stared, exasperated at this, but he knew she was right. The events with Fireshot hurt too much. They needed some way to come back from that, for the team’s morale, and also for the audience.
Aero’s eyes lit up, then he nodded. “You’ve twisted my arm, as I hoped you would. Come, follow me. Is your leg well enough?”
“I walked all the way here on it, didn’t I?”
While the nurse held the tent flap back for them, Aero said, “Yes, let’s hurry then.”
“What is it?”
“I have a way to earn your trust and boost your team’s morale at the same time.” He beamed, then nodded for her to join him. “You’re going to love this.”
She shared a curious look with Kale, who was still annoyed but followed her lead. They told the others to stay put and be on alert. Soon they were off, sneaking along a nearby ridge in the moonlight. Distant gunshots echoed in the night, followed by someone shouting, but it was too far away to cause them worry.
They continued like this for some time, but then the small group reached a valley. Aero signaled for her to stay close as they descended the nearer side of the valley. A little waterfall dribbled along the path to their right. Letha did her best to keep up, and more than once she had to rely on Kale to steady her. She’d left Brink with the others at Aero’s camp, but had taken Kale and Redwood, in case this was a trap.
Moonlight trickled down through tree leaves, scattering the ground in silver patches and providing just enough light to not trip over the gnarly tree roots. Halfway down, Aero paused, pointing to a spot where the waterfall formed a burbling stream, a pool of water halfway across the valley.
“I noticed footprints around here a couple of days ago, then just today, saw him.” Aero turned to Letha with a smirk. “Skinner.”
“No fucking way,” Letha murmured, caught off guard by that. Skinner was one of the leaders of the Warbears, a guild that had been utterly destroyed in a recent raid against them. Letha and her team had been part of the raid, and this motherfucker had taken down three of her people before vanishing. Nobody had seen him since, and she’d had people looking.
“Do you want proof that you can trust me?” Aero said. “I’m giving you Skinner.”
Letha sucked in air through her teeth, eyes darting down to her bad leg in irritation.
“I can take him,” Kale offered. “If you’re not feeling up to it.”
“The lives he took, they were my fighters,” Letha replied, with a shake of her head. “Honor demands this.”
“And your fans, no doubt,” Aero said. “I could’ve done some damage to him, and I probably would have if you hadn’t shown up. But my team is in need of stronger allies, and we share a guild. I need you to know you can trust me, so that I can trust you. So… friends?”
He thrust out a hand and Letha took it, shook, and then pursed her lips as he took her hand and kissed it.
“My fighters are with you, Letha. As I hope yours are with mine.”
While Aero wasn’t known for leading the most fearsome fighters on Planet Kill, it was true that he was in her guild and that, at the moment, she was slightly down on her numbers. There was no reason for her to spurn this relationship, so she smiled with clenched teeth, nodded, and took back her hand.
“We have an accord,” Letha said, then turned back to the water below. She scanned the nearby tree line for any signs of Skinner. He was a wily one, of medium height with ragged facial hair and eyes that had gone long ago. If not for the enhancements he wore, he’d be blind as a bat—instead, the metal attached to his face was part of a cybernetic beta that allowed users heat vision and night vision… or close to it.
The others waited nearby as she worked her way down, careful to avoid any loose rocks or dirt. If she hadn’t received the med kit from Aero, she probably wouldn’t have even been considering this. As it was, her leg had already started to feel much better. She almost had full mobility, and the pain was more of a dull throb.
If she knew anything about this Skinner guy, she knew he’d be hiding out, having already noticed her. Letha supposed that she could walk right out and see how he attacked, but that could get her killed. She decided instead to stay behind cover so that when he attacked she could dodge out of the way and live to fight another day. She ran and dove behind a rock, then was up and moving to a tree when she noticed the branches above her and to the right shift. It could’ve just been a Torslo, one of the small creatures native to the planet that resembled blue-and-yellow streaked squirrels with sharp teeth. But Letha was willing to bet her life on it not being a Torslo. She slid around the other side of the trunk and ducked, just as a massive metal spiked ball on a chain slammed into the tree beside her. Splinters and large chunks of wood sprayed out, but she was already on the other side, lifting her rifle and letting loose.
Leaves exploded and drifted to the ground, and a branch creaked before Skinner appeared, swinging down with his feet in front of him. He hit her hard and sent her flying backward, sprawling across the mud. Her embarrassment flared as she realized her companions saw this, but then she laughed at herself as she remembered her whole audience saw it.
She was up and spinning away before Skinner could attack again. A flash of moonlight caught on the metal spikes and she rolled aside in time for the heavy ball to miss, slamming into the mud with a thick squish. She pounced on the chain Skinner held. The impact dragged the former leader forward into the light. Letha smiled horribly, pulled her shocker out, and hit the metal chain with it as she stepped aside.
The idiot should have let go, but he didn’t. Not in time. A blast of electricity raced through the chain and blasted him back. He slammed into the tree behind him and crumpled to his knees. She was certain that wasn’t the end of it, and she ran across the mud. Letha slipped with the last step but caught herself on a tree branch with enough leverage to bring a knee into his face.
Blood spurted from his nose and she cursed, noticing a blade behind his back. She couldn’t allow that! She jammed the shocker into his shoulder and waited for the spasm to hit. Then Letha pulled back and caught his arm, twisting it as she stepped over the arm and brought it around at an unnatural angle. With an audible snap it broke, the man’s wrist and elbow in positions they never should be in, and Skinner was roaring in pain and anger.
He slammed his head forward, head-butting her right between her legs, which hurt a little but was mostly confusing. Too busy wondering about that strange attack, she didn’t realize that he had grabbed her by the back of her shorts with his free hand. He used his leg as leverage and pulled her down. She fell,
and he was on top of her, slapping the shocker out of her grip and bringing his head down again hard, this time aimed at her nose.
If she hadn’t turned away, that might have done her in. As it was, his forehead connected with her ear. It still hurt like hell, but she was able to recover. She wrapped her arm around his head, leaned up, and then fell back so that his face was in the mud. She twined her legs around him and held him there in that headlock while he spluttered for breath.
Every movement she made brought punches from him. He even tried to hit her with the broken arm and wrist, causing himself new spasms of pain before he started to go limp. Reckoning Day was the next morning. She needed all the credits she could get, if she hoped to stand a chance of getting the best recruits the following day. That meant not killing him like this—she needed the screen.
A gasp of air came from him as she loosened her grip and kicked him off. Letha rolled to the top where she quickly took his other arm in an armbar and pulled back all the way, snapping the tendon. He shouted out in pain, but lay there, defeated, crushed down in the mud. His wild eyes stared up at her from a mess of blood and mud that barely allowed any of his skin to be visible.
At last, the screen appeared.
“Fuck you,” he said, more to the audience than to her.
“Fuck him,” the screen said—a very typical comment, and not at all going to happen. It wasn’t even that high of a bid. As she watched, a new bid popped up that said, “Dry hump his head into the mud until he dies of suffocation.” Perverse, but it offered five hundred credits. That could get her some new equipment, med kits, and really help make up for the money she’d lost bribing the Dark Mark.
Still, what the hell was wrong with these people? She waited a few seconds more, but the next highest bids were all in the hundred range, and none were easily combinable.
“You’re going to enjoy this more than I,” she said to the screen as she hit accept. With a sneer, she paused as she watched the screen, realizing she hadn’t seen the full description of what she was to do. The last part said, “Without shorts or panties.”
To go back on a bid after being accepted was a killer mark against her and she’d have to refund the amount in double, but that was just wrong. His head was covered in mud—it was disgusting. She wasn’t about to get that nastiness up inside her and risk infection or worms or whatever.
Still…
Vaguely aware of her teammates on the other side of the hill, she stood with a sigh, dropped her shorts and panties and then glanced around for cameras. Seeing none of the drones, she figured surveillance had to be built in, likely angled with the light.
“This is following your rules, while staying sanitary,” she said, removing her bra. It was still relatively clean, since it was under her skimpy shirt. Letha kicked him over, then arranged the bra so it covered the back of his head. It was a good fit, actually.
Next, she lowered herself so her knees were on each side of his head. She pressed her crotch against the back of his skull, then started rocking back and forth. It was twisted. It was depraved. It was making her rich.
Closing her eyes, she rubbed a hand along the curve of her breasts, imagining that the hard pressure against her clit was anything other than what it actually was. To her surprise, even though she tried to imagine Kale, then Brink, instead it was Trunk who appeared there in her imagination. His hard cock was pressed against his rock-solid abs as she ground herself up and down on it.
She started to moan, and wanted to reach down and grab it, but instead found only Skinner’s muddy head as he twitched. He was shaking in a new way that brought her intense amounts of pleasure. Chills ran through her body, all of her muscles clenching and then flowing with warmth that overcame her. One final spasm from below, and then he was gone, his body limp, and she let out one last, long moan as she climaxed.
What the fuck. She hadn’t been expecting that.
The screen flashed back with a bonus of two hundred credits from other viewers chipping in. The chat screens were going off the charts with demands for her to do that more often. “You keep coming, we’ll keep tipping,” one commenter said. “Louder next time, I want to hear you from across the room as I lie in bed, massaging my clit.” It continued, and got raunchier, to the point that she had to wave it away. But not before noticing that her points had gone up as well. Since Skinner had been a leader, she had earned an extra hundred points for his death.
Not bad at all.
When she stood, she left the sticky bra there. She could easily get another. Her teammates were approaching, so she slid into her panties and shorts, ignoring the questioning look in Kale’s eyes. Redwood seemed like she was trying not to laugh, but that was fine by Letha. It was the judgment that bothered her. Finally, she couldn’t take it.
“You used to do far worse, when I found you.”
“A point you never fail to remind me of,” Kale replied, arms folded across his chest. “Still, that was… weird. Was it worth it?”
“Five hundred credits, plus tips.”
“Fuck. Me.” He glanced down at the corpse. He gestured for Redwood to gather the loot, including the man’s spiked metal ball. “For that many credits, I’d skull-fuck the bastard right now. You’ve got big fans out there, girl.”
Letha smiled and turned back toward where she guessed the cameras were, winked, and gave them a thumbs-up. Sure, part of her felt like puking, but the rest of her knew she’d be smiling all the way to the bank.
“Are we good then?” Aero asked. “Shall we return to camp, and let the rest of them know we’re partners come tomorrow?”
She nodded, glancing at Kale to see if he was still judging her. He didn’t look like it She had gotten herself worked up and felt her and her team needed a bit of celebrating. She wanted to ensure her generals got theirs too, so they were ready to get back to the bloody action when the recruits came.
“We’re going to show you all how it’s done,” Letha grinned, then gestured for him to lead the way.
10
Dregg’s Reward
Planet Kill, Hidden Landing Site: Two Days Until Reckoning
Fire and smoke billowed out, slowing their descent into a hollowed-out crater that looked like it had been created by a missile. Once on the ground, the ship glided beneath an overhang of rock that jutted out just enough to cover the ship completely.
“Finally,” Dregg said.
“Really?” Pierce said. “Really? The modern marvel of interstellar travel and all you can say is ‘finally.’ Un-fucking-believable. I mean, we just flew through space.”
“Would have been much faster on one of my private ships.”
“Oh, you have private spaceships? Nice. No, really. That’s actually nice. I’m not being sarcastic at all. It’s kind of cool.”
“You wouldn’t like my ships. They are much too fast for your piloting skills. Probably too big for you to handle, too.”
Pierce grimaced and unbuckled, but stayed in his seat. “Look, you can go out first,” he said. “I need to stay here and monitor the surrounding area in case any hostiles come our way.”
“This better not be a setup,” Dregg said, as he loaded up his gear and weaponry.
“Just trying to keep you alive long enough to get what I need out of you,” Pierce replied.
When the hatch opened, Dregg trudged down the ramp and planted his feet firmly on the sands of Planet Kill. He took in a deep breath of the desert air mixed with jungle air, an environmental characteristic distinctive to the planet. Weather patterns were about as predictable as when someone might die. Dregg grinned from ear to ear. “Home sweet home,” he announced.
Pierce began talking with him over comms, as the hatch rescinded and closed behind Dregg. “Try to keep the chatter to a minimum,” Pierce said. “I’ll be guiding you to the spot.”
“Works for me. Can’t stand your grating voice anyway.”
Near the base of a plateau, Dregg stopped cold when he spotted a red flag a few feet of
f the ground. With a burst of excitement, he rushed toward it. He yanked it out of the ground and snatched the metal engraved message from the spike at the bottom.
“You find it yet?” Pierce asked over the comms.
“Fuck yeah,” Dregg said. “It’s Flotsam! You got me a fight with Flotsam. I’m flattered and shocked.”
“How’s that?”
“He makes plenty of credits from public fights. How’d you get him to agree to a private, unbroadcasted one? He won’t get any credits.”
“He had his price. I paid it. Do you accept?”
“Immediately, before he retracts it. I want this, Pierce. Make this happen, and I’ll be certain to give you all my secrets to survival here.”
“I’m firing the missile now,” Pierce warned.
Dregg looked back toward the ship and waited. A few seconds later, a projectile fired from the ship and arched over the big man, landing on the far side of the top of the plateau. No explosion followed, however. Instead, the response was a billow of smoke.
“He’s accepted the invitation to battle,” Dregg said, his voice filled with anticipation.
A gust of wind greeted Dregg as he reached the top of the plateau, and he pulled the hood of his cloak up. The land was covered with shrubbery and trees that were shaped like baskets. The leaves had a plastic-like film on the side facing the sky to filter acid out of the rain.
“Where the fuck is he?” Dregg said. “I’m ready to fight.”
“He’ll be there,” Pierce said over comms, “just don’t get caught with your pants down.”
“I bet you’d like to see that.”
“No thanks, I’m good.”
Dregg trekked around the shrubbery, looking for traps. He didn’t find a thing. The place looked untouched, which struck him as a little strange. Then again, scavengers would have cleaned up after any battles. If Dregg were being honest, it was just nice to be back on Planet Kill, where he could be himself. There were none of the restraints like back on Earth to hold him back. The fighter was free to act as he saw fit, regardless of the consequences.
Planet Kill Page 10
