The Sands of Argurumal (Argurma Salvager Book 3)

by S. J. Sanders

  She braced as the droid immediately spun in her direction, far quicker than she expected. She jerked in surprise when it rushed her, the club-like extensions of its arms lifting as it swung at her in deadly earnest. It moved so fast that Terri barely managed to hop out of the way, her eyes widening with worry as she felt the sharp breeze fan her face from its swing. That would have done more than bruise if it had connected… It would have taken her head off!

  Was that supposed to happen?

  An alarmed growl sounded behind her, indicating that it sure as hell wasn’t.

  “Comm Veral. The droid is malfunctioning,” Malraha barked in panic to Azan. “It is somehow set on combat settings. That should not be possible! All the droids for target training are supposed to have locked programming. Its programming must be corroded. Clear the room!”

  Terri’s whips snapped out, the blunt ends expanding into blades that barely seemed to score the metal as she dived out of the way of another swing of one of its lethal arms. She cried out as something crunched hard against her calf, dropping her to the ground in agony. Its massive arm rose again, swinging down. Her whips snapped out, coiling around the metal leg of another droid, the momentum and the whips’ quick retraction sending her skidding across the floor to the opposite end of the room.

  Through eyes glazed with pain, she wheezed as she watched the droid turn once more toward her. Malraha attacked it from the side, but it flung her away effortlessly. Not even the plasma bolts from Azan’s blaster seemed to slow it as it advanced.

  21

  A waste of time. It was simply what it was.

  Veral despised wasting time as much as he disliked wasting resources, and within a relatively short amount of time, he concluded that the visit from Vazan amounted to exactly that. Little that Vazan had thought to ask Featha had differed from Veral’s own questioning, and those points which did were of such inconsequential detail that it was maddening.

  What did it matter what exact needs Featha had for her supplies? Plants for the ever-expanding courtyard and household common goods did not require such detailed explanations. He had seen the records for himself and had noted that it bore little difference from her usual monthly expenditures. The minute details of how everything was to be used and their purpose had no bearing on his mate’s attack. It had taken all his self-restraint to keep from throwing the male out. He could have sent that information, along with his own data file preserved in his processors, to the head guard and saved everyone the time and effort. He could have been spared hurting his mate.

  He knew within a .0043 percent probability that he had fractured the trust in their bond with his attempt to direct attention away from her. Although it had seemed necessary at the time, it now filled him with self-disgust. His sensitive hearing had registered her gasp, and he had covertly watched as she retreated into the safety of the compound’s labyrinth of corridors. She was safe from the guard’s prying and from the world outside the household.

  But the cost was far greater than what was tolerable.

  As attuned as he was to her vitals when she was near, he had been all too aware of the unsteady rhythm of her breath and the sudden quickening of her heartbeat. Her blood pressure had elevated as well. But it was the sound of grief and the patter of her stumbling steps as she fled from him that cut the deepest.

  Because of this, he was angry at Vazan’s presence, but not nearly as angry as he was with himself.

  Featha sighed impatiently, adjusting her robe over her lap as the Farhal finally stood with a respectful nod.

  “I appreciate your time and forthrightness on this matter,” Vazan said politely as he tucked his datapad into his uniform jacket.

  “My pleasure to assist,” she replied, her mouth thinning with displeasure as the male made no hurry to leave.

  Veral was of the same mind. He twitched, his fingers digging into the back of the long couch on which his mother-kin sat in effort to not hurry the male out. He needed to seek out and soothe his mate, and that was not going to happen until the guard left the compound. Only then would he be free to amend things. The leisurely way the guard moved—stretching slowly as he glanced around thoughtfully—put Veral’s teeth on edge.

  “This is concluded?” Featha finally asked, her voice sharp from her strained patience breaking the silence.

  Vazan inclined his head, one corner of his mouth quirking.

  “My apologies. I have not been able to help myself from admiring your household. It is truly one of the finest I have seen. It is just curious for a household suddenly taking in aliens that I have yet to see even one in service here.”

  Featha shot Veral a dark look from the corner of her eye but straightened, her back stiffening at the male’s assumptions. True, they were ones that Veral had intentionally seeded within the male, but not ones that his mother-kin would tolerate.

  “Who we have in our household and what role they have is our business alone. You doubtlessly have been on Argurumal long enough to know that our compounds are self-sufficient. We have no need for aliens everywhere. Our human guest’s position here is a private matter, like things among Argurma.”

  “Of course,” Vazan said graciously, his smile widening. “I should have expected nothing else. Forgive me for my assumptions.”

  “Is there anything else I may assist you with?” she inquired icily.

  “No. You have answered all of my questions. Thank you,” he murmured as he stepped away from the seating area.

  Featha inclined her head for an instant before dismissing the male altogether as she stood up and left to return to whatever duties currently occupied her time. Veral fell into step beside the Farhal, his vibrissae churning with impatience as he dutifully escorted the male from his mother-kin’s quarters.

  The head guard gave him a sidelong look and sighed. “I appreciate your time and patience with this matter. Featha’s testimony regarding her errands just confirms what I have suspected, that the attack on the alien is a localized, reactionary incident. I will keep the file open in case we receive any more information on who is responsible so they can be punished appropriately, but it is safe to assume that the attempt on her life was an isolated event.”

  Veral grunted. The guard’s conclusion was satisfactory, so why did he not feel appeased by the report?

  He resisted the urge to run his hand down his face to relieve the tension pounding behind his eyes as he accompanied Vazan to the compound entrance. Without betraying a hint of emotion—neither relief nor concern—he inclined his head respectfully as the male muttered his thanks and drew up the high collar on his jacket to ward against the lightly blowing sand.

  The Farhal stepped out, and an unsettling itch ran through Veral, forcing him to step out behind the guard.

  “Shonk Vazan?”

  The male glanced back at him curiously.

  “Is there something else, Ahanvala Monushava?”

  Veral chuffed quietly at the formal address, his eyes turned toward the towering compound behind him. Something still unsettled him, and it seemed to lurk even closer at the Farhal’s pronouncement. The compound itself seemed too much like a crouched predator threatening his mate. He was uncertain how much of that was a fantasy derived from the organic part of his mind, and how much of it was a reasonable conclusion reached by his processors. It was disturbingly difficult to tell.

  “I do not require such ceremony. I am interested in what probability you have witnessed in which crimes were perpetrated from within a unit rather than from an outside source?”

  Vazan worked his jaw thoughtfully.

  “On Argurumal, I can honestly say less than ten percent of the murder cases involve close relations and trusted individuals. It is rare among Argurma, especially with your allegiance to your maternal lines and kin, but it does occasionally manifest in terms of disagreements—typically in regard to station and inheritance on rare occasion.”

  He slanted Veral a cautious look.

  “I had suspected a pos
sible attack orchestrated by Featha, but there is nothing I can see to implicate her. All of her actions since you have taken position of Ahanvala have been typical of her normal activity. There have been no documented outbound messages from the Monushava compound at all over the last half lunar. But you know your kin better than I. Should you be concerned?”

  Veral’s vibrissae swelled and flattened for a moment, the soft hiss of their writhing lengths betraying his current unease as well as his uncertainty. He did not care to share information about himself, but he required the male’s insights from the outside advantage.

  “I have been occupied elsewhere far from Argurumal until recently. I have few close connections with many of my mother-kin. My only certainty comes from my programming. The line and my mother-kin are held above myself. This is what we are all programmed with, to consider our line and household first. To break this programming would require extraordinary circumstances to necessitate it.”

  The guard nodded thoughtfully.

  “So you would say it is unlikely that a murder would be planned casually by any one of your kin.”

  “The probability of such occurring is low, below 2.68 percent without a considerable incentive worth the personal cost of breaking one’s programming.”

  The Farhal cocked his head as he gave Veral a curious look.

  “And what would happen if you broke your programming?”

  Veral lifted a hand in helpless surrender, uncertain of how to describe what he innately knew through his programming.

  “There would be considerable pain and a fragmenting of the mind as the processor attempts to rearrange the codes of our programming. They would have to consider it a significant necessity to their own survival and welfare to risk it.”

  “Does anyone within your household strike you as such?”

  Veral considered his kin, and while there were those who were secretive, he could not logically ascertain anyone who would fit the model. He met the guard’s eyes and hissed with quiet frustration between his teeth.

  “No. Not one fulfills the criteria.”

  Vazan nodded as he wound a sheer scarf over his lower face. “Then we are in agreement. Accidents and the reckless behavior of those outside your environment cannot be helped. I would not be concerned. If you learn of anything more, please comm the guard barracks and ask for me.”

  Veral did not reply as the male faced away and stepped out into the building winds. There was a sandstorm pushing in, as earlier reports had already informed him, but still he remained there at the door, his protective lids covering his eyes as he thoughtfully watched the guard board his flyer and depart.

  He expelled a hard breath and started to turn back into the compound when his comm went off, flashing red in an emergency communication. Veral accepted the transmission as he strode indoors, cutting through the courtyard in his haste as he once did covertly with Terri when they first arrived. Now it was worry rather than caution that propelled him.

  “Speak,” he growled into the connection.

  “Ahanvala!” a male shouted into his comm to be heard over the loud sounds of chaos erupting in the background. “Report at once to the training yard, the battlements room.”

  Veral frowned and redirected his trajectory. “I am coming. I will arrive in 5.7 minutes. State the emergency.”

  “A battle-class target droid is malfunctioning and is locked in combat mode. It has already dealt injury to your mate and despite our advances against it I estimate…”

  Rage roared through Veral, and his mandibles widened as he released it in a vicious bellow, his mind blanking for several heartbeats before his processors kicked in against the overwhelming emotion. As awareness returned, it was to the observation that he was running at full speed through the corridors en route to the training yard. The battlements room was a padded room that should have been the safest place in the entire facility for his mate to spar with droids as she had done onboard their ship—and yet he now faced the real possibility of his female in danger of dying there.

  Without slowing his ground-devouring pace, Veral sprinted, the heavy thump of his feet preceding him, alerting everyone in his path to his approach. A bitterness filled his mouth as his worry spiked until his entire existence became centered on that one thing alone.

  His mate.

  His Terri.

  He would not fail his anastha. He would not fail his offspring.

  Muscles tightening, Veral breached the room at full speed, his processors analyzing everything he saw at the very moment, calculating his next action. Terri lay back against the floor, her arm raised in defense as several spikes burst forth between the razor-sharp whips that did little to slow the droid’s advance. It was only together with the Argurma rallying to his mate’s aid that they prevented an all-out assault from the droid. All the while, it flung its attackers and beat back the symbiont’s protections with the steady ruthlessness of a machine, giving Terri only limited time and space to drag herself at a painfully slow rate across the floor, her damaged leg limp behind her.

  She was vulnerable and without her protectors. Malraha lay unconscious, crumpled against a wall while Azan tumbled and fell as she attempted to rise.

  Two males and a single female vaulted onto its back, lances stabbing deep as they aimed for the delicate circuitry in its neck. Each blow failed to meet its mark as plating shifted protectively, and it swerved violently, upsetting their balanced perch. Within the next breath, it ejected them from its back with a single snap of its arms as it drew close to Terri, overshadowing its target.

  Veral did not hesitate to follow his hasty calculations. With every bit of speed that he could summon into his limbs, he sped forward and jumped, his foot only briefly coming into contact with a shelving unit, propelling him higher so that he achieved enough elevation to drop at an angle that gave him the perfect opening. Drawing out a blade from its sheath against his thigh, he stabbed down with all his strength. An arm snapped up, hitting him with enough force to send him sailing through the air. He only just barely managed to catch his descent on the balls of his feet, his eyes narrowing with rage at the droid drawing back its arm over Terri, as a roar tore from his throat.

  He rushed forward again, allowing his claws to slide out. Although the reinforced metal claws would be slow working on the droid, he refused to give up. His claws dug with loud, metallic shrieks into the droid’s back as he hit it. Raising one hand, he slashed at the protective barrier at the back of its neck, dread forming in his gut as he met his mate’s frightened eyes. Pain filled him, replacing his anger with torment as the droid’s flexible hand half-hidden behind a spiked club reached back and seized him.

  It wrapped around his torso, pinning one arm to his side. His right arm was free, giving him the ability to dig his claws into the metal around its central spine, but it did little good. With a single sharp tug, he was pulled free. He bellowed as the thing held him dangling in the air in front of its metal head. The vise-like hand was crushing him, his vibrissae churning and snapping as he struggled to free himself. Azan was firing at the thing as she attempted to drag Terri away, but his female fought against her hold.

  “No!” she shouted, her arm extending again.

  Her whips came up, striking simultaneously with a strong enough blow that the droid faltered and turned toward her, opening itself up for a metal spike that extended like a lance from her arm to burrow deep into the droid’s neck.

  A loud crack echoed through the air, accompanied by the vicious sparks that leaped into the air seconds before the machine dropped to the floor, releasing Veral as it fell.

  Hitting the ground hard, Veral grunted in pain, breath fleeing his lungs at impact. With a loud, painful intake of breath, he rolled into a crouching position before forcing himself to rise and stumble to his mate’s side. A low, painful growl escaped as he took in his mate’s countenance, the red welts on her delicate skin already purpling with vivid bruises. Allowing himself to drop to his knees at her side, he dre
w her up into his arms, his face burrowing into her sweat-slickened hair.

  “Anastha,” he rasped, his body shuddering as he felt her hands slide up his back to tangle among his vibrissae.

  “Veral,” she whispered brokenly. “I’m okay… I think. My leg hurts and I have this really painful aching in my… Oh my… Fuck!” she cried, her body tightening as she curled in on herself, her arms circling her belly.

  Ignoring his own pain, he encompassed Terri in his arms, pulling her up fully into his embrace as he pushed up onto his feet with a pained hiss. Her cheek leaned into his chest, a cry escaping her at being jostled.

  “Veral,” Dreth murmured at his side. “Is she well?”

  “I do not know,” he growled. “I am transporting her to the medic immediately.”

  The male nodded his head, casting an uncertain glance toward Malraha’s prone body as Veral adjusted his grip on his mate. He lay a hand on his bicep, drawing Veral up short for the briefest of moments. “Know that it was an accident. We all witnessed the malfunction. Malraha did all she could to alert us to the problem and to stop it. If you had been even a moment later…”

  “It is fortunate I was not,” Veral interrupted, brushing his cousin off with annoyance. “See to our mother-kin, but I ask that you do not detain me any further,” he growled. “My sole concern is my mate and offspring, and nothing more at this moment.”

  The male drew back and lowered his head deferentially, but Veral swept past him without acknowledgment. His entire being focused on the small female clinging to him as her body trembled with silent cries. He lowered his head to rest his cheek against her brow, mandibles vibrating in a soft purr.

  “The baby… Oh, shit, it hurts so much,” she cried out into his chest. “There’s something wrong.”

  “I have you, anastha,” he murmured, his voice hoarse with the emotion tightening his throat as he rushed through the halls. “I will not allow anything to happen to you or our offspring. I swear it.”