The Snare (Huntress of the Star Empire Episodes 4-6)

by Athena Grayson

  The kit looked less than sturdy, and she hoped she wouldn’t be out here long enough to have to put it to the test. It was too much to hope that Brezeen’s crew would have left her with the real survival equipment she and Micah had come here with. The rest of the kit included flares, multi-purpose power cells, a magnetic orienteering kit, and a primitive data-pad. For recording your instructions to the next of kin, I guess.

  She tossed it into the pile of “might prove useful” and sat down, digging her finger underneath her wrist cuff. She searched for and located the small stud underneath the cuff and pressed it, releasing the cuff’s hold on her arm. Ignoring the naked feeling on her wrist, she opened the small inner pocket sewn into the ballistic fabric and pulled out the wafer-thin disc of her emergency communicator. Using the disc and the survival kit’s data padd, she plotted her location relative to her ship through the moon’s defense grid. The ship pinged back with an update. The repair gel was doing its work on most of the ship’s systems, mechanical, and physical damage, but they wouldn’t be going anywhere out of orbit without that actuator.

  That Guerran matriarch had simpered at Micah’s request, and Micah seemed to think she could provide. That meant there was an actuator somewhere on this dirtball. Treska narrowed her eyes. I’m getting that actuator, and then I’m getting that psypath. She gathered up the survival kit and turned towards the setting sun. And if that Guerran gets in my way again, I’m having cluck-bird for dinner.

  “Enlightenment?” Micah frowned. “He’s still trolling around out there?” His previous time spent on the moon was coming back to him, especially the fondness of its inhabitants for making use of anything and everything. He and Brezeen fell into a rhythm of stripping and separating the transport’s contents into profitable, useful, salvageable, and scrap piles.

  Brezeen chirped. “Indeed he is. If you’d been legitimately requesting your part from me, I would have gone through him anyway, since he’s the most likely to have one. As it is, I’ll have to send the boys out to find him anyway. He owes me a fair deal for the last time he swindled me out of good salvage.”

  “Then I’ve got to get out there.” He took off his reeking cloak and slung it in the back seat of the transport, shoving the dead Riktorian out of the way.

  “What? Wait one minute. You don’t mean to tell me— Are you going out there after her?” Brezeen darted forward and snatched the body out of the vehicle.

  His hands—still cuffed—fought with hers as they stripped the corpse of utility belt, holster, credits, and sundries. “I have to.”

  “Are you mad or stupid?”

  “Probably both,” Micah retorted.

  Their hands found the zapgun at the same time. Brezeen’s claw closed around the barrel at the same time his fingers wrapped around the handle. He lifted his head to meet her gaze.

  The weapon would fetch a good price in Shantytown. An even better one inside the gates of Shiba City. Unlike the more common shock-sticks or net-shooters, the zapgun had a lethal setting. Even if used only for hunting the sparse game that wandered the wilds, the zapgun held much more utility than most of the equipment they’d already pulled. Certainly worth more than Micah’s goodwill. “Listen, there’s more to it than you know. I can’t run away from her.”

  Brezeen’s claws tightened around the weapon. “Yes, you can. I can get you a ship and have you halfway to the Outer Sphere in a few hours. I’ll even make sure she doesn’t die, if it makes you happy.”

  “That’s not it.” A theory was beginning to form in his mind. It consisted mostly of wild speculation, imaginative overreach, and perhaps a molecule of truth. “She’s good at what she does. She hunts us and she captures us. But that’s because we keep running from her. We keep running from the Union.”

  Brezeen’s crest feathers rippled. “Running is smart when you’re hunted. Otherwise, you’re lunch.”

  “Actually, I’m bait.” His lips took a wry twist. “I’m working for the Restoration.”

  “What?” Brezeen squawked. Her wings flapped and she sent a reflexive glance around to ensure no one else witnessed her embarrassing outburst. “I take it back. You’re mad and stupid.” Without warning, the avian lunged towards him, hands going for his throat.

  Micah didn’t think, he reacted. He brought his hands up and out in a lightning-quick movement that broke her grapple and brought his hand with the zapgun up to her throat. But he neglected the weight of the cuffs and the movement sent strain streaking through his shoulders and back, leaving a burn in its wake that caused the zapgun to shake. They both grunted in unison, Micah’s lip curling up into a snarl while Brezeen’s wings snapped out in an impressive display of aggression.

  He felt sharp talons digging into his midsection. Brezeen had lifted her foot when her arms were blocked. “Easy, lad. I just wanted to get that collar off you.” Her shiny black eyes searched his, while her feathers remained motionless.

  It was then Micah felt his disadvantage. He couldn’t read her beyond the non-verbal language of her feathers. And without his powers, that semi-private level of communication that allowed him to read her was missing. Something he could adapt to with Treska, but something that made communication with more alien species a lot less certain. “It has to stay.” The look he sent her pleaded his case. He didn’t want to shoot her, just as she didn’t want to gut him. He hoped.

  She trilled a sour sound of disagreement. “What’s that Vice Hunter done to you?”

  “I told you, I’m working.” He was very conscious of the way her beak had been developed, over millions of standard years of evolution, for ripping through the soft flesh of clever mammalian beasts roaming the greener parts of the plains. The zapgun became heavy in his hand.

  “That Restoration is just as much trouble as the Union! They want to bring back the old Star Empire—it was just as bad as the Union.”

  “It was our bad. It was terrible and corrupt and careless, but it didn’t hunt sents down to extinction.” Micah sighed and lowered the zapgun. “Brezeen, I’m the last there is. And the worst part is that I don’t even know where the others have gone. What’s happened to them.”

  Brezeen lowered her taloned foot and drew her head back. “You’re the last psypath?” Her beak—now at a comfortably safe distance from his throat—clicked in disapproval. “That’s a damned tragedy.” She stepped back. “And a good reason why you should keep running!”

  “I can run the rest of my life and I’ll always be running, and I’ll still be the last psypath. Or I can turn and fight.”

  “And when the Union crushes you? You’re good, laddie, but you’re not invincible. That Vice Hunter wants to take you straight to the mouth of the maelstrom.”

  He set his jaw. “That’s the plan. One does not simply Jump straight into the Capitol orbit…unless one is the ‘guest’ of a Vice Hunter.”

  Her wings flapped again. “You will die at their hands.”

  Micah closed his eyes. The very real possibility had plagued him—as it would anyone. He hadn’t been exaggerating when he told Treska that it was no comfort knowing your life was worth a lot of money. The difference between valuable and priceless was a narrow gap as wide as the known universe. “Not without answers,” he said.

  “You always have to find those damn answers!” Brezeen’s wings flapped in distress. “And what do they lead you to?”

  Micah stepped back. “More questions, it would seem.” He held out the zapgun, stock first.

  “That’s crazy. And stupid.”

  Brezeen took the weapon from him and he turned, sorting quickly between survival essentials and nice-to-haves. Brezeen had been kind enough to rescue his pack, and although it had been raided—by the Riktorians or her, it didn’t matter—and now smelled a bit like lizard drool, it still held necessities. “But it ends somewhere. I have to know. If there’s a way to stop this cult—to exonerate psypaths—I have to do it. Today, it’s psypaths exterminated and Hathori in quarantine. Tomorrow, it’s Hathori hunted dow
n and Guerrans the new enemy of Virtue, or whatever they’re preaching this week.” He heaved himself into the transport’s piloting seat.

  “If you insist on crashing around my homeworld with a death wish, then at least let me get those stupid repulsor-cuffs off.”

  Micah glanced down at the cuffs. The collar had to stay, but the cuffs were standard. No extra failsafes. “I think I would consider that a kindness.”

  “It’d be a damn kindness if I clobbered you with them and dragged your unconscious body back to Shiba City.” She bent her head and her claws worked the fasteners on the cuffs. She muttered for a few minutes, and trilled for a magna-socket, which he produced out of his pack. When she was done, his arms and legs felt blessedly free.

  “Is it worth dying for?” Brezeen tossed the cuffs in her salvage pile.

  Micah thumbed the switch, new lightness invigorating his movements. “I’m going to die anyway. I can’t die ignorant.”

  Brezeen did her best avian scowl as she mounted her hovercycle. Her throat feathers swelled, while her brow crest flattened. “Ignorant is not the same as stupid!”

  The flat grassland’s lack of interest made it easy to keep moving without having to think about it, which freed up Treska’s mind to process other things. She worried about Micah—purely for financial reasons, and the sting to her pride over losing him to a gang of witless Riktorians—but not too much. Apparently, he had friends on this rock.

  It puzzled her, the presence of friendship. Especially for a psypath. How could anyone have friends with such power over someone else’s mind? Why even bother? Could it even be called friendship, if Micah were twisting the minds of the Guerrans to serve his purposes?

  She stopped to check her heading and get bearings, using the orienteering kit’s binoculars. Barely on the edge of the horizon, she spotted a rocky formation rising from the sea of plains grass. A landmark that would make a good place to camp for the night, if she could get there in time. She picked up her pace, lengthening her strides through the swishing grasses. At least the wind was at her back, thank the stars for small favors.

  The influence of the Jovian made Guerre’s gravity lower than Prime’s, at least during Jovian rise. She stopped to take a drink and re-orient. The rocks were coming closer, and she was only slightly off-course towards the direction where she’d landed the ship. The ship was still several hours away, and the rocks, if the readout at the bottom of the binoculars was correct, were within another half hour at a brisk pace. Although she’d been walking at a speed just shy of a run for almost an hour, she didn’t feel very tired. Probably the gravity. Whatever it was, she’d take advantage of it for as long as she could.

  The rocky formation grew in size until it filled the horizon, and she made the shadow of the rocks well before dusk. Closer inspection revealed a deep fissure in the rocks, left of center. The binocular readout said it was a narrow canyon that led as far as the binoculars could sense, and that there was water at its base—a narrow, fast-moving stream. Yes! She quickened her pace into a sprint. If she was lucky, the canyon would have a nice flat place next to the stream where she could set up her tent.

  Once she entered the canyon, she realized the rock wasn’t just rock. Deep striations of crystal ran through it, catching the last rays of the watery sunlight and bending them into murky opalescence. It was kind of pretty to look at the subtly changing colors, and more than once, she found herself stopping by the edge of the small stream to stare up at a particularly wide seam of murky crystal. The third time she found herself doing this, she rubbed the center of her forehead and shook her whole body. She knew when it was time to toss in the towel.

  While the light was still good, she pulled out the palm-sized package that was the thermal tent and pulled the tab that would restore the memory of the thin fabric, allowing it to unfold itself and stretch out to its proper shape. The small, lightweight shelter that resulted could be sealed from inside, providing thermal protection from the elements. The instructions that came with the tent assured her that a chemical coating over the fabric was a universal predator and vermin repellent. She wouldn’t trust the claim on a place like Treemia where the predators were twice the size of an average human, but she did hope that the chemicals were enough to repel the small mammals she’d seen earlier, scaling the cliff walls to and from holes in the canyon’s sides. And if it wasn’t, she was sure the ration bar would repel anything that wanted to live for kilometers around.

  She stretched out inside the shelter, neglecting said rations after a single bite. They were worse than the trail mix they’d shared in the caves and the protein cubes she’d fed Micah before Sharpclaw’s attack. If he was as hungry then as she was now, she didn’t blame him for biting her finger. Fingers would be pretty tasty right about now.

  Only he hadn’t bitten. She closed her eyes and remembered how he’d closed his lips around her finger and sucked. And in the marketplace, he had the audacity to kiss her. And that damn avian’s words came back to her again. Who wouldn’t want a lover who could sense your most secret desires?

  Right now, my most secret desire is the rest of my syntha-meat wrap. She couldn’t remember when she’d last had food that wasn’t protein cube or field ration. Special Affairs liked to keep her diet well-monitored so it wouldn’t interfere with the medication and the reconstruction, but that wasn’t always possible. Thus far, no harm had come to her from being off a monitored diet. No harm from the food, at least.

  She flopped over onto her stomach, the thin air-pad making a lousy mattress. Where was Micah now? Eaten by the Riktorians? Somehow she didn’t think so. Like he’d said, the bounty on his head was enough for them to forgo eating the evidence. But maybe not to forgo killing him, and the thought brought her an unexpected ache. She refused to consider the possibility that she would lose Micah altogether. Riktorians could be stupid when their instincts got the better of them. Micah could outsmart them. He had a cool head and a mind quick enough to keep her on her toes. Not like the other one. Her stomach churned when she pictured Micah’s face with so much terror and desperation.

  Nonsense. Brezeen had said she was going after him. After she found means to return to Shiba City, she’d simply track down Brezeen and convince the Guerran to tell her where he was. This time, she wouldn’t negotiate first. And definitely no flirting, as Micah had done. Trank-darts were straightforward. Only thing a girl could trust these days was a good set of trank-darts.

  She pillowed her head on her folded arms and contemplated the loss of time this setback would cost her. Once she got the trail of a psypath, it was only a matter of time. This last one had been such a long time coming only because he stayed so far out of Union space. It had taken months of waiting for news from one of the Jumpgate spies to detect a movement from him. If his reaction to Brezeen’s artifact tale had been any indication, it gave an explanation—and a place for her to look should he slip through her fingers this time.

  Her eyes drifted closed. Now that she’d worked out a contingency plan, she could let her body rejuvenate. One hand slid to her belt, reaching out of habit for the cylinder of inhibs that wasn’t there. The worry that her body would betray her without the medication nagged at her. She couldn’t simply walk into a pharma and pick up a supply—her inhibs were custom-tailored to her needs, and only Doctor Rimana monitored her levels. So far, though, the monitor built into her wrist cuff still showed her in good health. Elevated stress levels, well-explained, and—she squinted at the readout—some sort of hormonal spike that warned her of mood swings. Also unsurprising, given the company she’d been keeping. She hadn’t yet heard the Voice, though. Even in the caves when her dreams led—don’t think of that. Blame it all on Guerre. It was a strange moon indeed, with its bird-people and crystal veins. She fell asleep to the sound of the wind sighing through the canyon, and dreamed about voices.

  The crunch of the dirt underneath feet woke her several hours later, in deep night, judging by the pitch-black outside her shelter. She touc
hed fingers to her wrist tranks and strained to listen. Footfalls came closer to the shelter and she tensed.

  The seal hissed open and the fasteners pulled back. She aimed her wrist-trank and fired, bursting up out of the shelter tent with a shout.

  “Whoa!”

  Her trank dart went wide, probably because the Mauw male standing before her was so thin that his body looked like it had to warp space to maintain three-D status.

  “What in the name of the nine hells are you doing?” she shouted.

  “Finders, keepers!” the male crowed.

  She crouched, darting a quick glance around the area. The canyon’s narrow passageway was obstructed by a huge dirigible with a creaking gondola bumping up against the wall. The Mauw was already digging up her tent pins. She made to shove him away but he was a lot stronger than he looked and she bounced back from his body, landing flat on her ass. “Those are mine! I’m still using them.”

  The Mauw stopped digging and looked over at her. He cocked his head, his tawny fur fluttering in the constant light breeze. “Well, what do we have here?” His whiskers twitched. “A tasty morsel, just in time for breakfast?”

  “Mauw aren’t sentient eaters,” she retorted, just a bit nervously.

  He leaned forward, his feline nostrils open and his whiskers twitching madly. “No. A damsel in distress, perhaps. Just waiting for the right feline knight to gallop by in his dirigible and rescue her from the ravages of the Guerran wildlands.”

  “Hardly,” she retorted, just as his whiskers brushed her cheek. She leaned back.

  “Are you sure? I only have to do it once to put it on my business cards. ‘Salvageable wreckage salvaged, misdirected travelers redirected, damsels in distress…de-stressed?’”