by PJ Schnyder
“Why not? Sounds like the most efficient solution to ensure he consumes exactly what he should. Couldn’t he just spit it out if you fed him by mouth?”
Kaitlyn growled. Did she see how the captain stiffened? “I looked it up on my portable on the way here. Their stomachs are prone to torsion because they aren’t anchored to the inside of the thoracic cavity by connective tissue. Having the stomach loose makes putting a tube in him harder and keeping it in place seriously prone to complications. I don’t have the facilities here to monitor him properly and it’d be better if we could get him to eat normally, regardless. He needs to want to live.”
Did any of them realize the brilliance of the mind inside her head? Too busy dealing with the physical, it was easy to forget how incredibly smart she was.
“What he wants is irrelevant. He is military property. Once you have that Kx9 stabilized, get him in his crate and ready for transportation. He must be returned to the Kx9 division.”
Rygard almost stepped forward then, sure Kaitlyn would spring over the patient table and at Petrico-Calin’s throat. Instead, she ran a gentle hand over the big dog’s head, paused and fondled his ears.
“There was no enlistment. He never swore an oath.” Her words came quiet. “He chose a master, gave him unquestioning loyalty. That kind of heart deserves better than a number designation and a crate.”
“Such sympathy. You deserve to be in a crate right alongside that mutt.”
Anger hazed Rygard’s vision.
“You have something to say, Lieutenant?” Petrico-Calin faced him, chin lifted. The officer was hoping for a fight, wanted a reason to court martial his ass.
“You’ve been making a lot of threats tonight, Captain Petrico-Calin the Fourth.” Kaitlyn broke the tension between them. “For now, I have work to do and luckily for all of us, it’s in line with your orders. Let me get to it.”
Petrico-Calin didn’t take his eyes off Rygard, but his shoulders relaxed and an arrogant smirk spread across his face. “You have no idea. Get some rest. You never know what can happen on the long trip back to Terra.”
Foreboding ran through Rygard’s veins, ice cold and lightning fast. It was all he could do to let Petrico-Calin leave without grabbing two handfuls of the front of the man’s shirt and shaking the information out of him.
“Whatever knowledge he’s savoring, it won’t be exclusively his for long.” Kaitlyn wasn’t looking at Rygard though, her attention was still directed at Max. She fixed a nutrient solution bag on a hook above the dog. “Max, stay.”
The dog heaved another big sigh, but he didn’t move as she stepped away from him and toward Rygard.
“I won’t let him take you.” He pulled her to him, held her tight.
“No.”
He thought she’d said it as a statement of faith in him. But she’d buried her face into his shoulder and faint tremble came with her next breath.
“No, Rygard, you will let him.”
“Like hell...”
Lithe arms circled his waist, crushed him close with a strength greater than most men, cutting off his air and what he’d been about to say. “Don’t say anything you can’t take back. As long as we’re here, on Dev’s ship, we have options.”
She loosened her hold and he savored a taste of air. Before they’d gone into the Colosseum, shit, just a few days ago, her show of strength might have left him uneasy and withdrawing. Now...
“You’re incredibly sexy when you’re assertive. You know that?”
Her eyes widened and a surprised laugh popped out of her. “You’re insane.”
“Doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”
Dusky rose spread across her cheeks. “I’m going down to the galley. Would you watch Max and make sure he doesn’t pull his IV loose?”
He kissed her then, for asking him rather than telling him what to do. “I’ve seen an IV or two. Shouldn’t be a problem.”
* * *
Kaitlyn headed for the corridor, a small smile playing on her lips. Despite Petrico-Calin’s threat hanging in the air, the warmth of Rygard’s mouth on hers had sent tingles through her body.
They’d come through hell and back. She was in her home territory now with not only her captain and crew at her back but Rygard at her side.
“Kat.”
Speaking of her captain, his voice issued from the comm system. She halted by the door and spoke to the air. “Aye, Cap’n.”
“What?” No surprise that Rygard sounded puzzled.
On night setting, she had the volume in the Medical Bay turned down low to avoid disturbing any patients. Any communications broadcast across the comm would be audible to her, and Max tonight, not a normal human.
She held up a hand to forestall any further questions from Rygard and tapped her ear to give him an idea of what was going on.
“We’ve got a situation.” Dev’s words were carefully measured. “I need you on point but you’re going to need backup.”
“Where?”
“Holding cells. Start tracking. Do not engage without reinforcement.”
Bharguest.
She was out the door and down the hallway, tossing a few words over her shoulder to Rygard. “Remember, that IV stays in.” Best to give him a job to do, otherwise he’d never stay put. Rygard was still too damaged from the last adventure to handle a close quarters altercation with Bharguest. Hell, all of them were.
The corridors were empty. They were still in the middle of the ship’s night cycle and in the aftermath of the escape from the Colosseum, she hadn’t paid attention to who had been put on watch.
Despite her haste, she came to a solid halt at the junction approaching the holding cells. Caution came to the forefront and she opened up all her senses as best she could.
The scent of fresh blood came to her first. The metallic tang was becoming too familiar. Was it a bad thing her mouth began to water at the smell of it? Probably. The fetid smell of bowels erased any taste she might have for human flesh.
Ugh.
No sounds from the holding cell and no movement in the darkness of the corridor. Dev must have seen the bodies from the security visuals feeding up to the ship’s bridge.
Touching the wall console, she keyed up the bridge.
“Report.” Dev didn’t sound happy.
“Two men down, the MPs.”
“You have a trail.”
“That’s a yes.”
“I’m dancing with our Captain the Fourth over who has jurisdiction. My ship, his men. Track as best you can. I don’t want this bastard loose on my ship while we’re digging into bureaucratic bullshit.”
As she crouched low, she shifted to panther form. No sense in leaving her fragile human back and neck open to attack when she could track better on four paws. Bharguest hadn’t bothered to hide his scent, which made her more cautious.
His trail took her down the less traveled corridors, ones he’d have gone through only maybe once or twice during his time on board. No mystery as to what he was up to. His path was leading directly to the cargo hold.
If she remained on his scent trail, she’d either come face to face with him or whatever trap he’d left as a present. Any trap he could cobble together wouldn’t be sophisticated. Still, she had no doubt it’d be fatal. From the quick visual she’d taken of the dead guards’ bodies, Bharguest had looted them for their weapons and gear.
Time to take the path less traveled.
It took moments to pop the nearest access to the ventilation shafts. Her training experiments with Chester included runs throughout every part of the ship using the shafts so they were almost as clean as the corridors. No dust to stir up, no worries about having her sight impaired if crud got into her eyes.
Once inside, she headed toward the cargo hold with a brief stop at eac
h grate to catch Bharguest’s scent and reassure herself he was indeed moving along the anticipated route. Dark as it was, the nighttime lights in the corridors provided just enough for her to see by in the enclosed space.
Funny how they didn’t bother her as much as cages or caverns did.
Learn to move silent in these and they’ll never know how we got from Point A to Point B.
Katzer had been right, years ago. The occupying force on Triton Moon Base had never discovered how the cadets had been moving around domes and escaping detection. Knowing those routes had been her salvation when she had finally escaped captivity.
Of course, back then, it’d been harder for her to pass through the tight spaces without making noise. A leopard’s paw pads gave her an advantage over magnetic ship boots and she’d left her clothes back at the entrance point.
A sound came from below, barely audible, the soft brush of fabric against a hard surface. She froze. Bharguest’s scent came to her from the nearest grate, his strange musk heady as she crouched at the ready. The hunt, it was over to soon.
A minute stretched out into several. No further sound. She crept forward, headed for the next grate and the nearest console to signal Dev.
Shots rang out in two short bursts. The panel gave way beneath her and she was falling. Stretching out her paws to catch herself, she kept herself soft for impact. But she never hit the ground.
A hand caught her by the throat, snapping her out of the air and slamming her against a wall. Legs wrapped around her waist. An arm slid around her neck and under her jaw in a guillotine choke.
“Shift and I break your neck,” Bharguest whispered in her ear.
A growl rumbled deep in her chest. Fine. She had more to hurt him with in this form anyway.
He chuckled. His hold didn’t loosen. “You were doing so good, little one. You forgot how vipers hunt their prey.”
Well, now she remembered.
Ambush predators, some snakes lay next to a log or other game trail with their chin resting on the surface. The vibrations warned them when their target approached.
“You almost fooled me. If you’d waited another minute, I might’ve moved on.”
Almost only counted with children’s games...and hand grenades.
His arm tightened around her neck until her jaw threatened to pop and her vertebrae strained. “What will I do with you now?”
Laying limp, passive, went against every instinct she had whether it be human or animal. But she had to wait for the right moment, the right leverage point. Only he wasn’t giving her any openings.
Stars began to burst across her vision and darkness crept along the periphery. Air started to burn in her lungs and her own pulse beat hard against the pressure he applied to her throat.
Too much. Her mind stopped logical thought. Panic washed through her and she bucked in his grasp. His legs tightened around her, iron coiled around her hips. She lashed out blindly with all four sets of claws. Caught nothing but air. Her lungs screamed for it, couldn’t find any. Her lips were drawn back. She would’ve snarled if she could.
“You’ve come far.” His words came from a long way away, low and gravelly. “Down there, in the Colosseum. You had it, the killing rage. And you came back from it.”
Black crawled across her sight. Her focus narrowed to the console on the wall.
Dev.
Call for Dev, Kitten. Call him.
Katzer had known back then. Wanted Dev near her before he said his good-byes. Dev could call her back to being human.
But not from being dead.
Darkness closed over her vision. Bharguest spoke in her ear again, “You learn fast, little one. You’re not just human anymore. Don’t go back to pretending. There’s more than the Colosseum out there and there’s bigger, badder monsters than you. I’m out there and I’m the better killer. I’ll expect more from you next time.”
Chapter Twenty
“Kat. Report. Kaitlyn.”
Maybe her captain could call her back from the dead.
Precious seconds passed, too many, as she gathered her thoughts enough to shift to human form. As she dragged herself to the wall and slammed the comm with her palm, shuttle’s airlock sealed and the locks began cycling their releases.
“He’s getting away.” No need to say who.
“We see that. He’s overridden bridge control and bypassed securities. Damn, the man is fast. A military detail is one minute from you. Badger and one of the grunts. You have a uniform nearby?”
She released the comm and forced her body to obey as she darted farther into the cargo hold and up a series of stacked containers to one of the support beams stretching across the room. Nabbing a stashed ship suit, she yanked it on without bothering to worry about undergarments. By the time the military detail arrived at the cargo bay, she had the ship suit sealed and her feet shoved into a spare pair of boots.
Signaling to the younger man to remain a few paces back, Badger watched her leap down the containers. The old soldier looked her up and down and gave her a nod. “You okay?”
“I’m alive.”
He shouldered his firearm and scratched his chin. “That’s a surprise.”
“Yeah.” She nodded and walked back over to the comm unit.
“Are we chasing him down, Captain?”
“Well, it looks like we’ve got a lot of surprises going on tonight. All sorts of people seem to be coming and going.”
And Bharguest was gone, getting away.
She opened her mouth to protest, but loud clangs sounded across the cargo bay and the entire ship shuddered. A tractor beam must have taken hold.
There weren’t too many ships large enough to take Dev’s ship into tow, much less attach docking clamps big enough to make that kind of noise.
“Do we have friendlies or am I preparing for another fight?” She strode toward the big cargo bay doors. A forced entry was most likely to come through those.
Badger and his man followed her, readying their weapons. Convenient the way they came along without questioning. But then, Badger had been down there with Dev, seen her in action.
“Friendlies. Stand down.” Dev’s voice didn’t sound alarmed over the comm but it didn’t sound pleased either. “I’m en route.”
Well then, waiting seemed like the plan. Running her hands through her hair, she tried to pull herself into a semblance of presentable appearance. Luckily, the ship suit provided enough coverage that the lack of anything else wouldn’t be detectable. Skuld did it all the time.
“Your bruises, they’re fading.” Badger stared at her. Or rather, his gaze fastened on her neck.
Not a surprise. Well, not surprising that Bharguest had left nasty bruising around her neck. “I heal fast. It’s a perk of being a genetic aberration.”
“The men aren’t healing as fast as that.” No accusation in Badger’s tone. No, he made the statement a question.
She shrugged. “I’ve had the virus longer and my mutation is more complete. I’ll know once I have a chance to analyze the blood samples I took. So far none of them have a full mutation to their genetic code. They’re mostly human.” Well, one stood out. “DeSarto’s mutation is looking to be the most advanced, but he’s also got better control than the others. It helps balance things out.”
“Hard to tell.” Badger glanced up the corridor and then to his man. “They’re having a hard time staying calm in the bunks now that some of them are recovering from the sedatives you gave them. Couple of scuffles have broken out. Think maybe they’re trying to see who’s top dog?”
Not a good sign but not going to lead to the bloodshed he was worried about either. “They were together long enough in the caves to figure that part out.” She would put her creds on DeSarto. Rygard’s big friend had size and confidence over the oth
ers. “It’s not usually the alpha or the contention for alpha that causes the issues. It’s all the rest figuring out the pecking order below him. There’s constant jockeying for position. It’d help if they were allowed to get out of the room, get a little distance to let them calm down.”
Badger shook his head. “Captain gave orders to confine them to quarters. Keep ’em from infecting the rest of us.”
She frowned. “It’s not transmissible from humanoid to humanoid. Once the mutation is complete, the viral agent used to introduce the genetic code dies. This far into their change, they aren’t contagious anymore.”
Two blank looks answered her statement. Damn, she was used to Rygard. He always seemed to follow or at least ask enough clarifying questions enough to eventually catch up.
“They can’t give it to the rest of you. Neither can I.”
She’d be willing to bet the two of them had orders to confine her as well as Bharguest. Regret weighed heavily in her gut. She did not want to scuffle with Badger. If she had to hurt the old soldier, she’d feel badly. He was a good man, helped them on the mission. But he could only remain flexible with orders to a certain extent. Judging from grim set of his mouth, he had no wiggle room. Where was Dev?
“Just so we’re clear, your military commanding officer does not have jurisdiction over my captain’s crew, not any of us.”
Badger’s expression didn’t change, but his younger companion gave it away.
“We have our orders.”
Obviously.
Kaitlyn didn’t blink. The room came into sharper focus as her pupils changed. “I like you well enough, Badger, and I’ve got nothing against him either, but neither of you is going to take me.”
A muscle jumped in Badger’s cheek as he tightened his jaw.
