by Bevan Greer
“Aye, but a pretty one at that,” another hulking brute added, licking his lips in a manner that made Jace cringe. Then he saw the projected thoughts the pirate had in store for him and had an involuntary shiver.
Sudden shots rang out from the forest beyond them, and Jace ducked out of the way, relieved his friends had finally shown.
He peered through the leafy bush under which he’d taken refuge, only to find himself staring at one of Eyshan6’s crew on a speeder. Shit.
The Legion are here, Dare, he warned. Take off, now.
He tore through the brush feinting left and right, following the sounds of a massive battle before him. To his surprised, he’d somehow retraced his steps to the large pirate spaceship and blazing land station.
He watched in shock as blue flame engulfed the land station and burned in a bright light—as bright as the Mari moon’s sister sun.
The forest seemed to still as everyone watched in amazement. The station had been firing one moment, ablaze in starfire the next, and now lay in clumps of human and fortress ash.
Screaming in dismay, the remaining pirates returned to their cannons on ship and fired wildly.
Jace felt a moment’s panic when he couldn’t get through to Dare. Then realizing she’d most likely tired herself out, he focused as hard as he could and got a bead on her energy presence.
He turned to the west and moved through the jungle as fast as his tired legs could take him. He paused a moment to catch his breath and watched, stunned, at the battle that shifted from the far tree line into the clearing just a few paces beyond the jungle in front of him.
Through a copse of trees, he saw Ren aboard the pirate vessel fighting a bloody battle. Just him and a saber against four pirates. The Legionnaire wielded his blade with precision and deadly force, dispatching two of the men before two more took their place.
From the fierce look on Ren’s face, Jace knew he had to get Dare and the others as far away from Kre as possible.
Unfortunately, he found Castor before he found the crew.
“Well, well, one of our lost SpaceStalkers.” Castor grinned under a bushy mustache. Jace watched the man with more attention to detail than he’d paid him before.
Castor’s arms looked huge in the Kre moonlight shining above them. Blood streamed from small cuts about the large warrior’s arms and hands, but that didn’t deter him from wielding his Bylaran blade with ease.
His chest was wide and muscular, and as he swung his blade, it seemed as if the sword was an extension of his body.
Jace backed away, cursing the fact that he’d given away his only blade to a captive before showing her the way to freedom. He looked left and right and spotted a dead pirate’s hand outstretched to a blade near him.
Jace feinted left and dove right, coming up with the blade as he parried Castor’s hard strike. The clash of steel sounded loud in the sudden stillness before screams and shots of nearby weapons returned. Not good. Where the hels was his crew?
“Not bad, Blondie.” Castor laughed as he tested Jace’s mettle.
Swearing aloud, as he had neither the time nor inclination to fight the brawny man, Jace shoved Castor back with a mental push and ran as if chased by a lightning storm, aware of the swearing Legionnaires after him. He finally found Dare, out of breath and moving slowly.
Roc and Shea are still fighting several pirates trying to escape toward the east. You have to rein them in, Dare telepathed.
Where’s Mra? He heard a loud feline shriek and darted around Dare to find Mra putting an end to a pirate.
Jace continued to look behind him, knowing they needed to leave. Pronto. “The Legionnaires are all over the place. I’ve seen Castor and Ren, and they’re spoiling for a fight. Ren’s like a madman. We can’t let them find us here. We have to go.”
She frowned at him. “What happened to your sword?”
The cat grumbled at them to leave, and they hurried after her.
“Your sword?” she asked again.
“I gave it to one of the slaves,” he admitted, feeling foolish for a sentimental decision that had left him unarmed. She laughed at him, and despite the situation, he laughed with her. “Try not to lose me this time.” At times like these, Jace could forget his past, reveling in the lifeblood that pulsed through his veins, in the glow of the here and now.
Suddenly Mra stopped and growled low in her throat.
Dare peered through an opening in the brush ahead of them and whispered, “We have to turn around.”
Jace looked with her and saw the remaining pirates fleeing on small shuttles as groups of Legionnaires rounded them up. Quite a coup for the Legion today.
He knew if they didn’t soon get off their ship off the planet, they might never leave. Not without Legionnaire assistance. Then they could kiss their freedom goodbye.
Jace tugged Dare to her feet and nudged her in the direction of the ship. “Shea and Roc will have rallied on the SpaceStalker. Let’s move.”
It didn’t take long before Dare passed Jace, running with as much grace and speed as Mra. With any luck, they’d make it to the ship before and of the Eyshan6 crew found them.
In the weeks since their escape, he’d learned more about Ren’s people than he’d wanted to know. The Eyshan6’s pilot, Primo, was a seasoned airman. The tall twin warriors and Castor had the battle readiness and training of master swordsmen, and Ren led them in experience and ferocity.
From what Jace had pieced together, Ren’s special unit of elite warriors—the Stalkers—had been broken up into four different teams to engage in a special mission.
To capture the Mari.
Not only were the four warriors on Eyshan6 deadly, but eight to twelve more of them floated somewhere in space at Ren’s beck and call.
Perhaps the worst bit of news he’d learned concerned the small blue alien on Ren’s ship, the one called Phin. Phin was an Informa. In the small bit of time the little man had been in Dare’s presence, he’d no doubt gleaned all sorts of minor details that when put together with an Informa’s amazing brain, told of her past.
Dare was not only Fenturi, she was the Mari, and she’d been right under Ren’s nose all this time. By now Ren had to know her identity, which would explain the flashes of rage Jace had seen and felt from the angry captain. Combine the man’s bias against the Fenturi with his unwilling attraction for one who’d lied to him, and Jace knew they stood on the brink of disaster if they didn’t leave. Soon.
He breathed a sigh of relief when they reached the hidden path to the ship and bent over to catch his breath. So he didn’t immediately notice the brigands moving out of the trees to surround them.
Dare felt herself tiring and knew they didn’t have time for fatigue, not with the Legion and the pirates both after them. And one Legionnaire in particular—Ren—coming closer.
Then she saw more of the slaving scum appear from the woods to surround them. So not good, not now. She took a blade from the scabbard at her back. Mra growled and stepped closer, and she felt Jace move behind her, covering her six.
“Nice ship ye got there.”
She recognized the pirate captain’s voice first. He had swarthy skin, watery blue eyes and rotting teeth behind thin lips. His smile boasted nothing good as he and his men approached them. She blinked at the glare of the Ocaian water gem encrusted on his decaying front tooth.
She pointed with her blade to the gem. “Be careful or you just might lose that.”
“Aye? Well we lost the lot we brought to sell, thanks to ye and yer crew.” His eyes promised an intelligence at odds with his unkempt frame. “But I’m thinkin’ ye and the blond one might make up for that. Pelt of a stalker might work as well.” He nodded, studying her small group.
“Dream on.” She glared.
“O’ course, we’ll also be takin’ yer ship. That’ll more than make up for our troubles today.”
“Dream on,” Jace repeated with a snort of derision.
“In fact,” the captain con
tinued, his eyes shrewd as he studied them. “We’ll let you live without much torture at all if ye call yer friends out from the ship. The lads liked the little spitfire especially.”
That answered whether Roc and Shea had gotten safely aboard. Now if she could just get Mra and Jace there safely.
Not without you, Jace sent firmly.
“We’re not in agreement. Let’s settle this, shall we?” Dare immediately struck out at the nearest combatant.
By her count it was eight against three, but her three made an intimidating group. Mra’s sharp teeth and fangs scored several cutthroats who tried to advance on their flank, while Jace skewered two pirates, leaving them with four still standing and able to fight.
Unfortunately, the pirates correctly identified Dare as the group’s weakest link and pressed hard.
She managed to cut down one and wound a second before she took a grievous slash to her left arm. She kept her pain silent, working to shield herself for Jace and Mra’s benefit.
Angry at the wound that weakened her and losing control of the starfire aching to be let loose, she did her best to hold it inside. Letting it go would alert one and all to her identity. But exhaustion beat at her control until it failed. Utterly.
The pirate who had wounded her moved to strike at Mra, and in her rage, he caught fire. A blue flame of such purity that neither stench nor the crackle of sound released.
Between one second and the next, he turned to a pile of ash upon the ground.
The remaining three pirates cursed and stared at her in horror.
But the pirate captain smiled. “Worth your weight in beks, I’m thinkin’.” He smacked his lips and advanced.
After that surge of energy, Dare could barely hold her head up. Jace and Mra did their best, but the captain’s blade pierced her shoulder, and she sank to her knees.
The others were joined by another half dozen pirates, and Dare knew they’d come to the end of this particular fight.
I’m done, Jace. Take Mra and get out of here. Come back for me when you can. If you stay you’ll be taken. Or worse.
“I’m not leaving you.” Jace struck back when others advanced.
Neither am I. Mra snarled and slashed at the captain, who barely managed to dance out of reach.
With too many enemy to fight, Dare felt an uncomfortable surrender welling up.
But the next few words spoken stopped everyone cold.
“No, you’re not leaving her,” a familiar voice, one as deep and dark as the hels on Dark World, warned. “In fact, you and the others are coming with us.”
Dare blinked up at the sight of Ren, his eyes blazing a bright green, blood at his temple and a firm grip on two bloodied blades, one in each hand. He seemed unaware of the carnage around him, focused only on her. A flash of something primitive and deadly flickered in his gaze then vanished, replaced by determination as he focused on the threat around them.
The twins stepped out from the woods behind him, and Castor joining them as well, circling behind Jace.
The pirates were bad enough, but this time Dare knew she wouldn’t escape Ren.
With ease, he and his crew dispatched the pirates, leaving none alive. No mercy for slavers. When his gaze again met hers, she couldn’t stop the shiver of real fear she felt. Before he’d burned hot, but now he blazed cold, his fury impenetrable.
Jace stepped in front of her and held his sword at the ready. “Don’t come any closer.”
Beside him, Mra snarled a warning.
“Hold.” Ren held up his hand, and he and his men stilled.
Then Mra did something completely out of character. She stopped growling and sniffed at the air. After moving around Jace, she studied the twins with curiosity. Then she returned to Dare’s side, her attention centered on Ren. The cat stepped toward him, her fur raised, her ears flattened.
He waited, unmoving, while Mra sniffed at his feet. She opened her mouth, exposing huge fangs. Instead of taking a bite of him, she closed her mouth again and sat back on her haunches. Then she tilted her head, as if talking to him, and began to clean her blood streaked face by licking her paw and wiping.
Dare wasn’t sure if she was seeing things or if she’d already passed out and dreamed the scene. Mra?
It’s about time he got here. The blasted cat started to purr.
Dare tried to speak, but the strength that had kept her conscious finally left her. Her eyes fluttered closed, and she swore she felt Ren hold her close before she hit the ground. As if he could be that fast.
She breathed in his scent, snuggled closer to his heat, and smiled, giving in to the darkness.
Castor hadn’t know Ren could move that quickly. In the blink of an eye, the captain had moved from standing still to kneeling on the ground, cradling his enemy in gentle arms. Though his eyes gleamed with a fierce satisfaction, Castor noticed the care with which he held their prey. A glance at the twins told him they noted as well. Ned raised a brow. Nesh tried to hide a grin.
“You will return to your crew,” Ren ordered Jace, his voice like ice. “The Legion will accompany you back to Bylar to stand trial for treason.”
Before Jace could move, the twins were at his side and disarmed him. They dragged him into the woods, in the direction of the SpaceStalker, where half a dozen Legion shuttles waited, standing guard.
Then, to Castor’s shock, Ren spoke in Fenturi to the cat, of all things. Castor knew enough of the language’s rhythms to guess at a few words. Guidecat he knew. What else Ren spoke about he could only guess. But the cat seemed to understand, because it bobbed its head and rubbed against Ren’s legs, winding between them with affection.
Then Ren lifted Dare in his arms and headed toward their ship. Castor followed, wondering what next to expect.
“She’s awfully still. Is she alive?” he asked, breaking the silence.
“She lives. She won’t die until I’m through with her.” Ren sounded certain.
And a bit possessive. Castor bit back a groan. Now he’d owe the Informa twenty beks. Figured the knowledgeable little alien would be right about Fenturi instincts. Ren might want to deny his wilder half, but he’d recognized a potential mate.
What that would mean for the future of their mission—and the existence of the System—was anyone’s guess.
The cat seemed to wink at him and purred louder.
-8-
“Good work, Lieutenant,” Ren said, relieved to find everything as it should be back on his ship as they hovered above Kre. “I shall make sure Legion Master Rorn hears of your skill on the battlefield.”
Castor rolled his eyes, making no effort to hide his disdain for Bylar’s special troops. The lieutenant puffed with pride, gave Castor a scowl, then bowed and left the bridge of their ship, bound for his shuttle to the SpaceStalker.
“Are you done yet? I think you’ve complimented just about every unit leader that accompanied us to Kre. Lt. Walker, like the others, knows not to harm a precious hair on our captive’s heads.”
“Yes, I’m done.” He watched through is vid screen as the lieutenant’s shuttle readied to jettison for the SpaceStalker. “I trust I was exceedingly imposing? I don’t want any of those hotheads injuring Dare’s crew. I have a feeling they’re going to be the leverage we need to get our ‘Mari’ to work for us.”
Castor eyed him with doubt. “How is she? She hadn’t woken when we boarded an hour ago. She’s in the sick room, right?”
Ren nodded. “Under constant guard. I don’t trust her.” Upon boarding the ship, he’d immediately placed Dare into the med unit in the sick room. Designed by the Nexians, the med unit could cure just about anything so long as a breath of life remained in the body.
Ren didn’t think Dare’s wounds grievous enough to make her so listless, and he had faith that the Nexian’s medical miracle would cure her.
“I think she might be suffering exhaustion. When we came upon them battling the pirates, she seemed near collapse.”
Nesh, Ned, and Phin
entered the command bay.
“So Ren,” Castor said, “what did you make of the blue flame that shot into the sky?”
“Yes, Ren. What are your thoughts on the cause of the starfire?” Phin asked.
Starfire. The answer to the puzzle that had been plaguing him for a standard week. A flash of blue fire, then nothing but ash on the ground, an exhausted Dare surrounded by pirates, and her blond pilot and that mystical feline standing by, protecting her.
The glint in Phin’s eyes said he knew what had happened.
“I think we both know what happened, don’t’ we?”
“We do?” Castor looked from Ren to Phin and back. “Are you admitting Dare’s the Mari, then? Because you’ve done a pretty good job of avoiding my ‘I told you so’ for a week.”
Ren growled a curse at his Second, while the twins didn’t even bother trying to hide laughter.
“Sound like you three want extra duty scrubbing the ship. Phin too, I’m thinking.”
“Oh, ah, gee, Ren. We should get back to sickbay,” Ned said and took a step back.
“What he said.” Nesh nodded at his brother.
Castor sighed and stroked his mustache. “Where’s your sense of humor gone, captain?”
“Up in a blaze of starfire, I’m thinking,” Phin muttered and left the cabin.
“Get back to your stations.” Ren forced himself to appear stern. His crew could be such a pain sometimes. “And Primo?” he added.
“Yeah?”
“Make way for Nexios.”
Castor and his pilot stared at him in surprise.
“My instructions…” Ren paused, recalling the enemy witch woman who’d told him where to go. “My instructions are to head directly to Nexios once the Mari has been located. Castor, let Methan know I want to see him as soon as we arrive. But give us two days to get there. I want our Mari refreshed for the trip. You have the con.” He left the control room, unable to stop himself from checking on her. Again.
He entered the secured sick quarters, nodded to the twins standing guard outside the bay, then forced himself inside and look through the clear panes of the med unit. Something he’d avoided until now.
