by Autumn Dawn
“Who are you?” she demanded, her breathing harsh.
His answer was muffled, but it sounded like a curse.
She wrenched his arm up a little higher. Much more and it would break. “Speak up!”
“Captain Azor!” he hissed.
She studied his face but didn’t see any of the things she remembered. She eased up a fraction on his arm. “Turn your head.” Sure enough, there was the mutilated ear with the stud earring, the old knife wound and the angry, cold eyes.
“You can let go now,” he said frigidly.
She settled more comfortably. “I don’t think so. Zsak!” she bellowed, summoning help. It arrived at a run.
Zsak skidded to a stop, blaster in hand, and stared with horror at Azor. “What are you doing here?”
Azor curled his lip.
“I found him sneaking around the galley,” Xera replied. “You said we were looking for a Kiuyian—I bagged one.”
Zsak reached down and practically dragged her off the other cop. “He’s the backup, you twit! We were expecting him.”
She glowered suspiciously as Azor peeled himself off the floor. He stood and flexed his arm, then sent a killing look her way. “Are all the women in your family this bloodthirsty?”
Blue arrived on the heels of that comment. “What happened?” he asked.
Azor sent him a chilly look. “I was testing the security of the ship. This shrew walked in and punched me.”
Blue looked astonished. “You let her?”
Zsak turned his snort of laughter into a cough, then muttered for Blue’s benefit, “She had him on the floor when I ran in. I had to drag her off him.”
There was a hint of bronze around Azor’s cheeks. “I didn’t expect her to lash out like that.”
Xera folded her arms. “Tough luck. You might want to fix your hair, by the way—it’s coming out of its ponytail.”
His nostrils flared but he didn’t move to tidy himself up. “Who’s with Gem?” he asked instead.
Blue nodded, took the hint and headed back to the bedroom. But not before Xera noticed the laughter in his eyes.
Azor tugged his uniform down, straightened it. “Your security seems to be in order,” he muttered.
Zsak choked.
Azor’s eyes narrowed. “Now that I’ve arrived, we can transfer the women to my ship until we have the killer. Their sister Brandy is anxious to see them.”
Xera lit up. “Brandy’s here?” She’d talked to her sister that morning, but had had no idea of her location.
Azor nodded. “I have a shuttle outside. Go wake Gem and we can leave.”
Xera was eager to go, yet she noticed that, while Zsak let her pass, he didn’t immediately follow. She paused and looked back at him, something in his manner making her uncertain.
He was staring thoughtfully at Azor. “How come you didn’t call in? I would have met you at the door.”
Azor shrugged. “Call a shifter to catch a shifter. I was checking to make sure our friend couldn’t make it on board.”
“And you got in.”
“I had the door codes.”
Zsak slowly smiled and raised his gun. “No, you didn’t.”
Azor’s expression seemed to darken. “Don’t threaten me, Zsak. You won’t like the brig.”
Zsak gave him a predatory smile. “Azor doesn’t believe in brigs, and he wouldn’t let a girl—no matter how skilled—whip his butt.”
Azor slowly blinked. His eyes shifted, became long reptilian slits in place of the round human eyes he’d sported before. Scales sprouted on his face, covered his visible body like a suit of chain mail. Even his voice changed, became lighter, cocky. “Don’t take on a fight you can’t win, cop. You know about dragonskin? Your blaster can’t hurt me now. Give me the girl and I’ll let you live.”
Shocked, Xera fought hard not to step back. She’d heard about Kiuyians who could grow scales that even a blaster couldn’t penetrate. It was a rare talent, but it seemed this man had it. These Kiuyians were often physically faster, as well, and tougher. You practically had to hit them with a mace to even leave a bruise. She couldn’t understand why Zsak seemed so calm.
“Xera, go warn Blue,” he said.
Xera blinked at the order, but she backed up and did as she was told. It was tough to turn her back on the Kiuyian, but she knew she had no choice. The sound of hissing filled the hall. She ran.
When she reached him, Blue took one look at her face and demanded, “What?”
“A Kiuyian with dragonskin! Zsak’s fighting him.”
Blue cursed and slammed a hand down on the door latch, locking them inside the room. He aimed his gun at the door, thrust out his hand. “Back off. Get by your sister.”
“Aren’t you going to help him?” Xera cried. She pulled her knife and waited by Gem, who was alert but didn’t ask questions.
“He’s doing his job,” Blue said, but his eyes were hard. He stared at the door even as he took his communicator from his belt and tossed it to Xera. “Dial one. Tell them what’s up and tell them the situation’s urgent.”
Xera did as she was told, then jumped as something clanked off the door. Fumbling with the communicator, she hurried to explain the situation to the person who answered on the other end. Another blow to the door caused it to bulge slightly. The metal wouldn’t take much more abuse.
Suddenly a new voice came over the com. “Xera, tell Blue we’ll be on the ground in five minutes.”
Xera glanced at the buckling door. “We don’t have five minutes!”
“Tell him I copy,” Blue said grimly. He must have inferred the information from her side of the conversation.
The door was warped off its hinges, barely hanging on. After a moment’s pause on the other side, silence. There was a gap nearly wide enough to admit a man’s fist…and something started flowing through it.
Blue fired his blaster, but the tentacle slithering through the crack seemed to simply absorb the shots. Actually, it avoided them: Its substance parted, only to ooze back together. And the Kiuyian was getting in.
Blue snarled and grabbed the tentacle with his bare hand. It writhed, clearly in pain, and Xera realized what was going on: it was being hit with intense cold. Blue was freezing it with his bionic arm.
A screaming noise came from the other side of the door. The tentacle turned white with frost, stiffened and broke. The shattered fragment dropped to the floor with a clack. Its inside was pink with ice and frozen solid. The shifter howled.
Xera didn’t know how injuries affected Kiuyians, but she hoped their enemy had just lost his hand. There was the sound of running, which quickly faded away. She wasn’t eager to chase after it, no matter what.
A voice came from the communicator, and Xera recognized it now: Azor. “We’re on the ground,” he said. “We’re tracking him.”
“What about our guys outside? Can they get to him?” Blue asked.
“They’re dead,” came the reply. “He got to them.”
Xera’s mouth dropped open. She stared at Blue.
He took the communicator from her. “We clearly underestimated our opponent.”
“You think?” Xera muttered.
Blue gave her a hard glare. “I need to open the door. Zsak might need me,” he said.
If Zsak wasn’t dead. Xera was more than aware of the possibility.
Blue tried pulling on the door but the steel was hopelessly warped. Thankfully, his augmented fist was stronger than the shifter’s flesh, and Blue managed to punch through. But neither the door nor his hand looked too good afterward.
“Bring your sister,” he grunted when he was finished and they could pass through. “Easy with her shoulder.”
Xera and Gem followed closely behind Blue and could only see his back, but it was clear when his footsteps slowed that he’d come upon something. Xera glanced forward and saw blood sprayed all over the walls.
Blue stopped and turned, his face white. “Wait here,” he said, his voice strained
. “You don’t need to see this.”
Gem placed her good hand on his shoulder. “Blue?”
“It’s okay,” he said gruffly.
But it wasn’t. Xera’s throat hurt as she watched him walk to Zsak’s fallen body. His right arm had been ripped off at the shoulder. Zsak wasn’t moving. There was so much damage, and for what? Was any revenge worth this kind of carnage?
Blue knelt and felt his friend’s neck. A look of surprise and impossible hope crossed his face. “He’s alive!”
Azor might have been late to the party, but his medics had impeccable timing. They were suddenly there, in the ship and helping, and they took over, shoving everyone else out of the way. Grateful for their help and smart enough to leave them to it, Blue escorted the women outside to where Azor was working.
He didn’t waste time with pleasantries. “Azor? I want the women out of here now. Someplace safe.”
“Yes. They’re going to my ship.” Azor gestured to two men. “Yiu, Pelig, take five men and escort these women to my ship. Their sister is eager to see them.”
“Brandy’s here?” Gem asked, perking up. She still seemed a bit groggy.
“I’d like to help,” Xera put in.
“No,” Azor snapped. His voice rang with authority. He turned his attention to Blue then, and it was obvious by the look the men shared that he’d heard about Zsak. Azor looked grim. “Let’s get him,” he said.
“Brandy!” Gem lit up when she saw her sister. Brandy looked a hundred times better than she had the last time they’d visited. There was color in her skin and her bones were knitting nicely. She still couldn’t walk easily, however, and used a wheelchair to help her travel.
In spite of this, she was well able to give them grief over their disguises. “Hookers?” she demanded, and there was a sparkle in her eye as she spoke. “You let them disguise you as prostitutes?”
“It was Zsak’s idea,” Gem said, but her smile faded almost immediately. “He’s been hurt.”
“Looks like you have, too,” Brandy noted, glancing at Gem’s left arm and shoulder. “What’s happening?”
Xera quickly filled her in. “And now they’re out hunting for the Kiuyian.” She glanced toward the big window in the galley, as if it could offer any kind of useful view.
Gem could practically read her sister’s thoughts. Xera wanted to be one of the hunters.
To distract her, she said, “Why don’t we go down to the sick bay and see if they can tell us anything about Zsak? I’m sure they’re still working on him, but I’d like to be there when he wakes up. We owe him.”
“Yeah,” Xera agreed. “Besides, we can catch up there as easily as here. I just wish they’d let us know what was happening!”
“Don’t worry,” Gem assured her. “Blue’s not going to let this creep get away. First he attacked me and now he’s seriously hurt Zsak. The man can’t run forever—but he’ll wish he had.”
Blue glanced at the blood trace on the rocks. The Kiuyian was hurt badly, but he hadn’t collapsed yet. They were using infrared to track his movements, and he was proving slippery. The bastard.
“It would help if he’d stop shifting,” Blue muttered.
Azor studied their equipment’s readouts. “He can’t keep this up forever. He’s been shifting too much, too fast; he’s probably panicked. Even if he’s tripping on drugs he’ll run out of energy soon. When that happens, he’ll be trapped in his natural form.”
“You don’t think he’ll try to fly out?”
“He’s smart enough to know he can’t leave this rock by wing unless he wants to be shot out of the air. If I didn’t want to bring him in alive, he would have been fried long ago. We’re stationed in just the right spot.”
The Kiuyian alternated between flying as a reptile and running on four legs to evade them. So far they haven’t gotten close enough for a stun shot, but they would soon. They’d herded him close to the rim of the island and cut off his escape from the edge. He was now dead center in their circle, and that circle was growing smaller.
“There.” Blue’s bionic eyes zoomed in and found the Kiuyian’s location. In the form of a hunting cat, the killer had stopped running and now just stood there panting. He stared back at Blue as if defying anyone to get closer. Slowly, reluctantly, his form shifted back. He was again a humanoid—and exhausted, visibly shaking.
Azor smiled. “Stun him.”
Blue was happy to oblige. One shot, and the shifter was on the ground, beamed into unconsciousness. “Pity,” Blue commented. “I’d hoped he’d put up more of a fight.”
Azor watched his men move forward with restraints. Specially designed, they’d mold themselves to any form this prisoner tried to take. There would be no escape, not even for a Kiuyian. “He killed your team and ripped off Zsak’s arm. I’m not about to chance anyone else’s life,” Azor vowed.
Unfortunately, his oath was impotent. As his men reached the body there was a sudden flash of light. The blaze grew in intensity until it was too brilliant to look at, then gradually faded away. In seconds, both the Kiuyian’s body and those of three of Azor’s men were dust.
Blue blinked as his eyes adjusted, then stared at the empty space. The Kiuyian had been wearing a bomb.
Azor cursed and wiped his own watering eyes. “I should have expected that,” he muttered. Frustration darkened his face, but there was nothing he could do; his men were dead. He stared a moment; then his jaw tightened. “Well, it’s finished. There’s nothing more we can do.”
His remaining men gave him unhappy looks but didn’t protest. They all knew the risks of the job.
Suddenly, Blue was very tired. His shoulder ached more than ever. “At least I can tell the women they’re safe. They’re finally free to return home.”
“Yes. They can go back to business as usual.” Azor seemed pensive, a rare thing for him, at least in Blue’s experience. He glanced over at Blue and realized he was being watched, and all trace of emotion disappeared. “Let’s go tell them.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Finally,” Gem said wearily. She seemed as spent as Blue looked. “We can go home.”
“No more hooker hair,” Xera agreed with relief. “I can finally get back to the academy.”
Brandy didn’t say anything. She slanted a look at Azor, then glanced away. She was the first to leave the waiting room.
Zsak was still sleeping. He was alive. The surgeons had reattached his arm and treated him for a mild concussion as well. With time he’d be just fine, but maybe not so quick to take on a Kiuyian solo. The whole incident made Blue wonder what Azor would be like if he ever used his ability on the job.
Azor was very private about his heritage. To Blue’s knowledge, he’d never shifted while on duty. After seeing the possibilities, he wondered why. The man’s abilities could be a real asset in the right setting. Then again, they all had hang-ups.
Blue hadn’t thought twice about freezing the Kiuyian assassin and punching through the door, but now he looked at his battered hand and wondered what Gem thought of his robotic arm. She’d known about it, of course, but it was one thing to know someone had mechanical parts and another to see the proof. He hoped it didn’t negatively affect her opinion of him.
It felt like a real hand. He flexed, marveling that the sensations were every bit as good as those of true flesh and bone. It had hurt to hammer away at the door, but instead of a bloodied hand his false skin had now curled back to expose a metal skeleton, gears and wire. Even now, the nanotechnology of his hand was repairing the “tissue.” In a couple of days he would be good as new.
He’d seen Gem glance at it, but she hadn’t said anything and her face gave nothing away. No, he hoped she wasn’t repulsed, and he would give her the benefit of the doubt. And he couldn’t wait to show her how functional the hand was when they first made love.
He was going to marry her, he’d decided. This was no time to ask, of course. Everything was still unsettled, and she was still in pain from her s
houlder wound. He’d like to make sure the pain meds weren’t interfering with her reasoning when they talked. And they could use a little more courting time. She’d just begun to thaw when all this had hit.
Also, there was her family and their situation. Brandy had cut a deal with the cops to spill everything she knew about Jean Luc, but she still needed to serve her sentence. He couldn’t see Gem planning a wedding while she was still growing accustomed to that situation. And then there was Xera. She’d want to leave for the academy ASAP, which would be a problem if Gem wanted her to be at the marriage ceremony in person. It had taken a court order to get the girl home last time. Once they had complete hold of her, the GE wouldn’t give her any leave for at least six months.
Blue’s impatience built just thinking about things. He’d have to talk with Xera, see what her priorities were. It would be awkward, sharing his intentions when he hadn’t spoken with Gem, but sometimes a man had to bend the rules.
There was no time tonight, sadly. They all needed sleep, and he still had a report to write. The ship was heading back to Gem’s home island, and in the morning they would be at The Spark. He hoped he’d think of a way to stay by then, because he didn’t want to leave Gem again.
Ever.
“Xera, can I talk to you for a moment?”
It was early in the morning and they’d just filed into The Spark. Xera nodded and followed him curiously into the garden. Blue glanced around, then studied her as they walked the path. “I’m going to ask your sister to marry me.”
She halted, clearly surprised by his abrupt announcement. “Now?” she said cautiously, but she didn’t look upset.
He crossed his arms and, out of habit, scanned the dirt paths with his eyes. “I haven’t asked yet. I wouldn’t mention it to you first, but you’re gung ho to leave.”
She gave him a confused look.
