by PJ Schnyder
The tail swished again, stirring up dust in a puff. “You could reconfigure your group, submit them all as a single entry.”
Tracer shifted where he lay on a gurney, his midsection wrapped in makeshift bandaging. It’d been sufficient to stabilize his broken ribs for the time being but Kaitlyn didn’t trust their medic, standing to one side behind the overseer. If Tracer went into another fight, one of those broken ribs could puncture a lung.
It’d been his injuries that brought them all to triage in the first place. Several of the slash wounds he’d suffered needed sealing or suturing and he might not have survived the blood loss.
“All the same, I’d rather come back with a solid team, especially for the sort of big to-do you all’ve got planned in the next day or two. I’m told these happen on a fairly regular basis.” As he shrugged, Dev motioned to Badger. The older soldier began to nudge Tracer off the gurney, Max sniffing eagerly at his handler. “Besides, I see no reason to keep my team here just for a standby position.”
“We are prepared to advance your team, provided you present the recommended grouping.” The answer came too quick. The reptilian’s desperation bothered Kaitlyn, set the fine hairs on the back of her neck standing on end.
If she’d been in panther form, the fur all along her spine would be raised.
Dev stepped closer to the overseer, within claw’s reach. “That’s a sudden change of heart. Is there something you want to tell me? Maybe I’d be smarter to take my team and reconsider.”
Kaitlyn could cover the distance between herself and the reptilian in a heartbeat. He might get a claw on Dev, maybe, but her captain did a good job of defending himself. So she held her ground when the overseer raised a clawed hand and opened it in a slow, deliberate gesture of peace. “Of course, you are welcome to do as you wish. It is merely my job to ensure you are aware of all the opportunities open to you.”
Liar. She smelled the deceit in the air, tasted it. He’d grown too used to speaking to humanoid pirates and slave owners. He had his body language and tone under control, but his stinking pheromones gave him away to any of the mutants with heightened senses.
“However, your team performed in a most impressive manner over the last few fights. The human and canine team are damaged, but unexpectedly survived more than once. The male and female team has further exceeded expectations. The big mutant has proven successful against our better solo fighters. As a whole, they’re...interesting.”
“They’ve been projected as the underdogs in every match they’ve been given.” Dev’s voice had gone flat, hard. “As an owner, I do understand the need to test the new and unproven. I’m only willing to risk so much in fights, putting my assets at significant disadvantage.”
“Precisely why entering your newly configured team would be recommended.” The reptilian wasn’t good at dissembling. The sweeter tone required came across as whining from him. “In the free-for-all format, all entries are projected to be entering with equal chances of survival. To win would more than triple the gains you’ve made on this trip thus far, whether your team emerges victorious or not.”
Or not. As in, they all died.
Kaitlyn considered Tracer and Max. The big dog returned her gaze with a somber look of his own. She honestly wondered how much of all this the Kx9 understood. He couldn’t talk, but hell, he responded as if he had a higher comprehension of conversation than most of the roughnecks they had signed on to new missions.
Max leaned into his handler’s thigh. The low whine was almost inaudible.
He should be worried. Tracer was currently the most vulnerable, with Rygard coming in a close second. She’d have to work to patch the both of them up more before the coming fight, considering the direction the conversation was going.
“Yeah, about that.” Dev’s smile turned tight, his lips pressed together. “Interesting the way betting isn’t limited to just who wins. I’m not so new to this game that I don’t have concerns. There’s wagers going based on how long a particular team, or individual, manages to survive. A man with as much invested as I have would want to know more about the safe guards you all have in place to prevent any...favoritism.”
“Oh no, no. The main purpose behind these events isn’t the wagering.”
Dev crossed his arms. “Really? Enlighten me, if you’d be so kind.”
“Well, we do have fresh entries every day. Not all of them are as skilled or well-equipped as yours.”
Most of them were dead meat walking.
Kaitlyn had seen them cowering in their little caverns. Some of them were fighters, perhaps warriors. But not most.
The overseer continued with a shrug. “We do like to keep our audiences entertained with continually refreshed candidates. The occasional extravaganza provides an added level of excitement.”
“You mean a higher body count for a bloodthirsty crowd.”
The overseer’s smile actually managed to send a chill through Kaitlyn, especially when he ran his tongue across his thin lips. She wondered if he personally ate any of the fresh kills from the fight.
The day after the big event, many of those caves would be empty and waiting for fresh blood.
“Regardless, we must ensure a certain number of quality teams.” The reptilian tapped his data pad. “Those who remain standing at the end of the event will be handsomely rewarded. In this case, there can be more than one winning team as the goal is solely to survive to the end of the set time limit.”
“I’ll think on it.” Dev turned away from the overseer.
Her captain would enter them. He’d make the overseer work a little bit more, but the outcome was decided.
Either way, there was a high likelihood Rygard’s men would be entered in the free for all too. It might be their only chance to get close to them. The fun part would be the escape.
Fun.
It came over her slowly, washing across her skin in a cold wave, the awareness of Bharguest’s attention fastened on her. She didn’t have to look up; knew he’d appear to be watching something else.
She must have done something interesting to him.
The question wasn’t what, it was whether she wanted to admit she knew, even to herself.
* * *
“Fight with Max on your right.” Kaitlyn tucked in the end of the bandage to Tracer’s midsection. “Anything you can do to discourage hits to your side will give you a better chance to come out of the next skirmish standing.”
“Max and I know what we need to do.” Tracer’s face was pale, a fine sheen of sweat across his forehead. “Funny. Hurt like a bitch when you re-wrapped me, Kat, but I can breathe easier now you’re done.”
“Uh huh.” Kaitlyn helped him lean back against the cavern wall. “Your ribs are properly supported now, not just held in around your internal organs. Try not to shift or cause a worse fracture.”
“How’ll we know if it happens?”
She shrugged. “You’ll have trouble asking those questions you’re so fond of tossing out there. Or, you might cough up blood. A jagged end will have a good chance of puncturing your lungs. Let’s avoid that if at all possible.”
“Let’s.”
Kaitlyn rose and turned away.
“Hey, Kat.”
“Yeah?” She didn’t turn around. If she didn’t look at Tracer, she’d have to look at Max and those sad brown eyes would crack her.
“I figure it’s a good idea to toss another question over to you while I can.”
She didn’t answer, but she turned her head to the side so he could tell she was listening.
“No family to ask, I figure you’re closest thing to it.” Tracer chuckled. “You going to rip holes in my hide if I ask Skuld to spend more time with me, intimate time? You think she’d consider a long term, long distance with me?”
Her prefe
rred threat ran along the lines of delivering a crushed skull or broken neck; less of a biohazard to clean up if she didn’t spill blood across the decks. But Tracer had proved himself a good man this mission and it didn’t look like he was joking. Neither was she, most of the time, and she didn’t plan to give him the usual threat, as a light-hearted warning or otherwise.
“If she enjoys your company, you don’t have to worry about anything but healing up and keeping her happy.” And because she couldn’t swallow past the lump in her throat, she did turn then and fastened her gaze on Max. “You be careful when you play with Chester. The tube-rat is bendy but he’s fragile. You got it?”
The dog lifted his big head, ears swiveling forward.
“I mean it.”
She retreated then, too disturbed to pretend to be positive.
You were never the fake cheerful type, anyway.
How long had it been since she’d heard Katzer’s voice?
Well, years in reality, and inside her head it had been a while too. Definitely not since they’d descended into this hell hole.
You make the best of everything, Kitten. Even in the places no one else would, you could find a way.
He’d said those words to her back on Triton Moon Base when he’d dreamed of leaving. He’d wanted the life of adventure, to go beyond the Earth’s solar system. He’d have loved being a part of Dev’s crew.
Not her. She’d never shared his dream. Did she have any dreams? He’d accused her of being too complacent on the moon base back then, willing to stay and make the best of it.
Had she developed a comfort zone, even here?
“You’ve got ghosts in your eyes, sweetness.”
Rygard’s presence hadn’t done more than register at the periphery of her awareness when he’d first stepped to her side. Now, warmth bloomed at her core and spread along her extremities. His musk filled her nose and she wanted to press a kiss at his collar bone, flick her tongue out to taste the salty sweet of his skin.
“Now you’ve got a whole lot of something else on your mind.” His voice triggered shivers along her spine, in a delicious sort of wonderful. How long had it been since he’d run his hands over her body?
Her skin burned and her nipples chafed underneath the light fabric of his shirt. The only reason she could bear wearing the garment was because it was his, carried his scent. She wanted his touch, craved his hands on her.
Breathe. Only breathing didn’t help because his scent filled her lungs, made her mouth water for the taste of his skin on her tongue.
He touched her then, slipping a finger under her chin and forcing her gaze from his broad chest up to his face. “Hey. Wherever your mind is, trust me, I wanna be there with you, but the normal you wouldn’t want that here.”
She didn’t nip at the corner of his mouth to shut him up. Instead, she lifted her lip, bared her teeth in a silent snarl. He was right. “Whatever this is, it’s getting worse.”
“The last fight, I’ve never seen you that vicious.”
There’d been several facing them; only one Rygard would talk about after the fact.
“You heard the things he said he’d do to me if he won against us.”
“And I wanted to kill him for it. You beat me to it.” A pause. “But you didn’t have to slash him from neck to groin.”
“I finished the kill.”
“Yeah, after you stood over him. After he begged for it.” His voice had taken on a different darkness, with a bitter edge.
She took a step back and his hand dropped away from her chin. Her skin felt cool in its absence. “It took a minute, to get past what I wanted to do to him. You know he’d done worse to the others he’d fought, the females they gave him as rewards. That one talked way the hell too much during a fight. It’s why he lost.”
“You’ve never been cruel before, Kaitlyn.” The use of her full name splashed over her like cold water.
She snarled out loud then, stepped up into his personal space. “What was he to the others, the ones too weak to stop him from doing what he wanted? What would he have been to me?”
“You’re better than that.” Rygard’s jaw clenched. He didn’t give ground. “If it hadn’t been for the other three we needed to eliminate, I’d have put that rabid idiot down before you twisted yourself.”
Memories flashed across her eyes, of a time when the panther aspect first gained control of her. She parted her lips, dropping her jaw a bit to pant and cool herself.
“I was twisted long before you met me.” He lifted a hand to touch her, but she shook her head, maintained the tiny gap between them. “Dev helped me play at being human, but this place...you can see what I am.”
“You’re better than this.”
She shook her head, gave him the truth nagging at her. “I can live here, be all of me here. This place challenges every part of what I am.”
She’d missed it. Reveled in exercising her abilities instead of using a bit at a time. “Right now, I’m thinking about the fight to come and I’m excited for it.”
“You’re revved up overall. The heat thing is driving you insane.”
“No. The heat is driving me to violence and the combat is the only place I can clear my head.”
“Yeah. I get that.” Rygard studied her. “And I’d help you in other ways if we were alone in this place, but we’re not and neither of us wants it that way. Still, when you get into those rings, you don’t have to be cruel. You can enjoy the adrenaline, savor the victory, but let it be a clean victory. When you come back to yourself, you’ll like yourself better for it.”
When was the last time she’d liked herself?
This time, when he stepped up to her, she didn’t fade to the side.
He slipped his hand into her hair and she leaned into it, rubbing her cheek into his palm. “Trust me, sweetness, you can be this part of you without being someone you won’t forgive.”
His touch soothed her, calmed the irritation and burning across her skin. In its place, an ache woke low in her belly, a need to be filled.
“This.” The bitter taste remained in her mouth and she twisted her lips in a parody of a smile. “This heat thing is every bit as much a part of me and I don’t think I ever recognized it before we got here.”
“Never recognized it.” A pause. “Never this strong before?”
“Hell, I figured it was premenstrual symptoms and ignored it.” When he chuckled, she let a corner of her mouth turn up. From him, she didn’t mind the mirth. Damn, it made it easier to stomach if someone found the humor in the insanity of it all.
“You are maturing, small one.”
Kaitlyn lifted her head to see the bigger of the two felid aliens standing in the archway. He watched them, tailing swinging back and forth behind his legs in an almost hypnotic sway, and beyond him, his smaller companion crouched. Within her own enclosure, a pair of eyes glowed in the shadows to one side of the archway. She wondered when it had stopped bothering her to have Bharguest constantly staring.
“However you came by your second nature, it is younger than your true form.” The dominant felid gestured at her, head to toe.
“I ran tests on a weekly basis.” She took a step toward the archway and decided it wasn’t cowardly to welcome the change in conversation. “The genetic mutations stabilized weeks after the original viral infection.”
The felid cocked his head to the side. “What we are is not the sum of our components. Cells, tissues, structures can be assembled and the whole may yet remain lifeless. It is our thought processes, our experiences and how we take the gained knowledge forward that make us more.”
“I think, therefore, I kill.” Well, maybe the old cliché went a little differently.
“A simple thought. The young think in such terms.” The felid seemed to smile, or at least the co
rners of his mouth turned up. No teeth.
Good thing. She already wanted to bare her own.
“I spend plenty of time in panther form. There’s a difference in the way I think. I don’t waste time worrying about what-ifs or doubts.”
“As a child, you did the same.” The felid raised a hand, palm outward and fingers splayed. “You think only in terms of one form or the other, no in between. I will guess you approach combat in the same way.”
She held her tongue. After all, she might find herself facing him in the cages before it was all over.
“Push yourself to think. Transition smoothly from shape to shape, keeping the best of each aspect for any given situation, much the way you would switch from fighting style to style.”
“Why are you so full of the advice, all of a sudden?” Rygard stepped to her side.
Having him stand shoulder to shoulder with her settled something inside, as if something she hadn’t looked for had slid into place.
“Seems to be a lot of you interested in me, lately.” She lifted her chin in Bharguest’s direction. The only answer was the disappearance and reappearance of his glowing eyes as he slowly blinked. “I’d normally be annoyed, but I’ll admit most of the commentary has been constructive.”
She lifted her own hand, palm outward. Spreading her fingers, she visualized her change as she bore down, tensing each tendon until her claws slowly emerged. It took more concentration to hold the partial shift, rather than change straight into a panther.
“A pupil who listens, absorbs knowledge, and applies it. This is a rarity.” The felid closed his hand, let it fall to his side. “And I would like to see you survive long enough to become a friend.”
She raised an eyebrow. In a place like this, friendships were dangerous. Tracer would already be leaving a hole in her if he didn’t pull through. She wouldn’t dare consider the possibility of Rygard going down.
The felid tipped its head to one side in a brief concession. “Perhaps friend enough to share how you came to be the way you are.”
