Shifter Planet

by D. B. Reynolds

  She concealed her surprise. “That was very kind of you, sir. Thank you.”

  He was silent a few more minutes, staring over her shoulder and pretending concern over some detail of the unloading process. Finally, he looked at her directly and said, “She deserved better.”

  She blinked. “Sir?”

  “Elise. She deserved better than what your father gave her.”

  The main thing her father had given Elise was Amanda herself. She granted Leveque the benefit of the doubt, however, and assumed he was referring to her father’s decision to let Elise go back into space without him, and to raise their child alone.

  “Yes, she did.” She wondered again at just how old the friendship between Leveque and her mother was.

  It was his turn to be surprised. “You look so much like him, I assumed—”

  She dared to interrupt. After all, in less than an hour, she’d be the last fleet officer left on the planet. “I am not my father, Admiral. I know I look like him, but I’ve never known him as anything except a blurry face on an old digital image from before I was born. My mother raised me, and it’s always been just the two of us. Everything I am, everything I have achieved, I owe to her and her alone.”

  Knowing what she now did about her father, she realized that might not be true, but it didn’t change how she felt about her mother. “She’s the strongest, most determined woman I have ever met,” she continued. “And I will miss her desperately.”

  Leveque frowned and stared down at his perfectly polished boots. He coughed nervously, then glanced up at her before looking away again. “You forgot beautiful.”

  “Sir?”

  “You forgot beautiful. Your mother is beautiful.”

  “No, sir,” she said with a wry twist of her lips. “I don’t think anyone ever forgets beautiful when speaking of Elise Sumner.”

  He smiled at last, a quick curve of his lips that was there and gone. “Well.” He nodded over her shoulder. “The shuttle seems to be ready at last. I’d better get on board.” He gave her a brisk nod and started off.

  “Admiral?”

  He turned with an inquiring look.

  “Take care of her.”

  He nodded again. “I will do that, Lieutenant. Never fear. Good luck.”

  She came to attention, snapping a salute as he did the same. She relaxed when he turned away, watching until he disappeared inside the passenger compartment, until the loading bay doors whooshed shut with the sucking sound of vacuum seals, and the engines powered up so that she had to step to the edge of the field to avoid the backwash. She continued watching until the shuttle was nothing more than a speck in the cloudless sky.

  And then she walked away to begin the biggest adventure of her life.

  Chapter Eight

  Harp, two weeks later

  Amanda drew her long knife with a hiss of metal on leather, legs bent, weight distributed evenly as she slowly backed away, her eyes locked on the snarling mass of fur and teeth in front of her. The trees had been warning her for the last several minutes, so she hadn’t been entirely surprised when the unpleasant little beastie had come after her. And after weeks spent studying everything she could put her hands on when it came to the flora and fauna of Harp, she recognized her attacker as a Wyeth’s badger. One who was having a very bad day, and determined to share it with Amanda. Roughly eighteen inches at the shoulder, the Wyeth was a compact bundle of muscle and attitude, with long, curved claws and a mouthful of very sharp teeth. The creature flashed those teeth now, letting out a scream reminiscent of tearing metal. Instinct told her to cover her ears against the noise; logic told her to keep the damn knife between her and the angry Wyeth. Logic won.

  Holding the weapon in her right hand, she managed an awkward cross draw of her shorter belt knife with her left hand. With powered weapons not an option, she’d begun carrying the two knives with her everywhere she went. She was also putting in time training with them every day. She was already skilled in close-combat techniques, but knife fighting was new to her. Two weeks with even the best instructor—something Rhodry had quietly arranged, to her surprise—wasn’t enough to acquire any meaningful skill, and it showed in her clumsy handling.

  And speaking of Rhodry, it was his fault she was out here alone in the first place. He’d surprised her with the knife lessons, which was a really nice thing to do, and then he’d insisted that she had to be accompanied whenever she went into the Green. Which was ridiculous. She’d survived hazardous treks that would make him blanch. Fortunately, they’d underestimated her determination, her deviousness, and, frankly, her skill and discipline.

  She reached for some of that discipline right now as she faced down a three-foot-long, yowling carnivore. The Wyeth took a crouching step forward, a steady growl rumbling from its chest, and saliva dripping from its lower jaw. Bristle-like hair stood straight up, adding bulk, and beady brown eyes gleamed with anger. She backed up blindly, hoping for the solid reassurance of the tree she knew was somewhere behind her. The Wyeth shadowed her every move, undeterred by either her greater size or her knives. She took another cautious step backward and cursed when her foot came down on a gnarled root, turning beneath her and throwing her off balance for a few precious seconds. She managed to avoid dropping the knives as her hands flew out reflexively to catch herself, but the brief stumble was all the opening the Wyeth needed.

  It darted in low and fast, sinking its teeth into her leg, digging into the leather of her boot and hanging on, worrying at her calf like a meaty bone. She yelled and kicked out instinctively, trying to dislodge the nasty beast. The Wyeth only tightened its jaw as her boot gave way and sharp teeth sank into her flesh. She screamed, slashing down with her knife, catching the Wyeth on the hind leg, too afraid of cutting herself to aim any higher.

  The Wyeth opened its mouth long enough to squeal in pain. She jerked her leg away, and struggled to her feet, waving both knives at it once again.

  “That’s right, you little bastard,” she rasped, baring her teeth in a snarl. “I’ve got teeth too.”

  She was far from an expert on the local wildlife, but she was pretty sure Wyeths weren’t supposed to be this aggressive. She’d probably surprised it, tramping into the clearing as she had, too busy being pissed and not paying enough attention to what the trees were telling her or where she was going—always a mistake no matter which planet you were on, and one she would be embarrassed about later. Assuming she survived.

  Sweat rolled down her face, and she dashed her hand quickly across her eyes. The damn Wyeth should have turned tail and run when she hurt it. Nothing about this situation made sense. This animal was a male, bigger and darker than the female, and all alone. There was no reason for him to—

  A high-pitched scream grated from somewhere above her, and she twisted her head around in shock, her eyes traveling up and up to find the Wyeth’s golden-haired mate perched overhead, her belly big with pups.

  Well, fuck! Could this get any worse?

  She spun away instantly, not wanting the enraged female directly over her head, and definitely not wanting to get between the mated pair. As she moved, she hoped against hope that the two of them would take the chance and run for it. A faint hope as it turned out. The female jumped as Amanda limped away, slamming into her back and shoving her to the ground once more, long claws slicing easily through the fabric of her tunic and into her skin. She screamed again and rolled, dislodging the female in time to see the male aim a running leap directly at her face.

  Giving a wordless shout, she rolled once more, avoiding the male’s leap. Sheer survival instinct got her back to her feet, barely managing to get both knives in front of her. The male made another dashing charge, this time at her injured leg, but she was ready for him. Drawing her good leg back, she delivered a vicious kick directly at the little bastard’s jaw, all that martial arts training finally coming in handy after all. The male went tumbling over the dirt and she paused, certain the pair of them would finally run.
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br />   “Son of a bitch,” she cursed as both creatures turned and renewed their attack, the female coming in low as the male bunched its powerful hind legs and leaped into the air from several feet away. She danced to the side, swiping her long knife outward almost blindly, the blade taking the male in the gut in an instance of pure dumb luck. The Wyeth let out its own scream of pain and dropped to the ground. Her longer weapon, still stuck in his gut, was jerked from her hand, leaving her with only the short belt knife against an outraged female.

  Shifting the remaining knife to her right hand, she watched the pregnant badger take up a defensive position in front of her mate. The male lay in the dirt, unmoving, blood and intestines oozing from the obviously fatal wound in its belly. The female bared her teeth, eyes rolling with fear and rage as she divided her attention between Amanda and the male whom she didn’t seem to realize was dead.

  Amanda didn’t know how much longer she could stay on her feet. Warm blood was pooling inside her boot with every beat of her heart, and she knew her leg wound was bad. More blood was seeping wetly through her shredded tunic, and her back muscles were seizing into a solid wall of agony as she crouched in readiness. Would the female run at last, protecting her unborn young? Or was her devotion to her mate stronger than death, stronger even than the instinct to protect her pups? She didn’t know.

  Without warning, a serrated yowl cut through the air, and she swore loudly. Apparently the day could get worse after all. Branches crashed overhead and a huge hunting cat dropped into the clearing, golden eyes sweeping her with a dismissive look as it stalked deliberately toward the female Wyeth.

  It was a magnificent beast, shoulders rolling with muscle beneath thick, dark fur and saber-like fangs glistening between powerful jaws. The female badger squealed a protest as she was forced away from her dead mate, her pregnant belly scraping the ground as she paced backward. Amanda could almost see the calculation in the female’s eyes as the huge, angry cat bore down on her, but the badger made the only choice she could. Driven by the need to protect her unborn pups, and seeming to understand finally that the male was gone, she gave a sorrowful howl of surrender and spun away. Sharp claws propelled her rapidly up the nearest tree where she paused long enough to give Amanda a final ear-piercing shriek of defiance and then disappeared into the thick foliage.

  Amanda sank to the ground, staring at the big cat, grateful for the intervention, uncertain what her rescuer intended. She’d run into several of these monsters prowling the forest near the city, the first time when she’d walked into a clearing just in time to see one make a twenty-foot standing leap from the ground directly into the lower branches of a sizeable grandfather tree. She’d stood there like a fool, staring, but the cat had merely studied her lazily for a few seconds, before winding soundlessly up the trunk and out of sight. The strange thing was, she’d never felt threatened by the great beasts. It was more as if the cats were as curious about her as she was about them.

  Like the one studying her right now, standing no more than a dozen feet away. She held perfectly still under that glittering regard, knowing she was losing more blood with every minute she delayed, wondering how long it would take her to get back to the city and if she could make it at all.

  The cat’s nostrils flared, probably taking in the scent of her sweat and blood. It stared a bit longer, then moved suddenly into a still crouch, muscles bunching. She tensed, fingers gripping her belt knife, knowing it wouldn’t be nearly enough. The one time she could have used some protection from her ever-present babysitters, and they were nowhere in sight. And it didn’t make her feel any better knowing that it was her fault.

  She cursed Rhodry with what she figured was her last breath, hoping he’d feel guilty as hell when they found her body. And then she gasped.

  It started gradually, a blurring of the air, like a ripple of heat on a hot day. She blinked, trying to clear her eyes, thinking it was the blood loss making her see things. As she stared harder, forcing her eyes to see, she knew it wasn’t.

  For a brief instant, the big cat seemed to disappear as its coloring altered chameleon-like to match the surroundings almost perfectly. A shimmery wave of nearly invisible movement, and then the air filled with the sound of joints and bones cracking and popping as dark fur flowed away to reveal golden skin, and suddenly the cat was gone and in its place crouched someone she knew. Tonio Garza, one of the Ardrigh’s guards, crouched in front of her on all fours, panting slightly and completely naked.

  He looked up into her disbelieving stare and swore. “Rhodry’s going to kill me.”

  Chapter Nine

  “You’re bleeding,” Tonio said sharply, and rushed over to her, swearing again when he caught sight of her torn and bloodied back. He bent to tug off her boot, but she jerked her foot out of his hands, almost kicking him in her urgency to get away.

  “What the fuck was that?” she demanded breathlessly.

  He ignored her, grabbing her foot again, succeeding this time in baring her foot and leg. “Shit, he broke the skin, we’ve got to get you—”

  “Stop!” she nearly screamed, shoving him away again with her bloody foot. “What was that?”

  His expressive face closed down completely. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “The hell you don’t! What did you just do?”

  “You’re injured, Amanda; you’re not thinking straight. I’m trying to—”

  “Garza!” a deep, angry voice interrupted. She and Tonio both muttered curses as Rhodry stormed into sight. “What the fuck are you doing? Jesus!” he swore when he saw her bloodied leg and the dead Wyeth. “How the hell did this happen?”

  Tonio stood up, scowling. “What the fuck am I doing? What the fuck was she doing out here alone? I thought—”

  “Shut it,” Rhodry snapped and dropped down next to her. “This is why you’re supposed to wait for me or Fionn before you go exploring. But no, you have to do it your way, sticking your neck out, making the rest of us work harder to protect you from things you can’t possibly understand.” He spoke in sharp, bitten-off words, even as he tore off his tunic and began ripping it into strips to bind the wounds on her leg.

  She stared at him, feeling her heart pound and her breath grow thin with shock. “What did Tonio just do? What did I see?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, and neither do you. I can stop the bleeding for now, but you’ll need—”

  “No,” she whispered. “Get away from me.” She pushed at him weakly, knowing she was losing too much blood, knowing he could overpower her with ease if he chose to, and still wanting him away from her until he told her the truth.

  “Amanda, stop,” he said quietly, then shot a glance over his shoulder at Tonio, who was still standing there naked. “Put some fucking clothes on,” he snapped.

  The other man snarled wordlessly back at him, then hurried away through the trees while she stared at the two of them in a daze of disbelief.

  “Amanda,” he said with surprising gentleness, drawing her attention once Tonio was gone. “You’re injured—seriously injured. We’ve got to get you back to the city. A Wyeth bite is nothing to fool around with. I’m going to—”

  “Answer my question.”

  “What question, acushla?”

  “Fuck you,” she said, gasping with pain as she forced herself away from him, half crawling clumsily to the nearest tree. Ignoring her body’s protests, she managed to haul herself up onto one leg. He reached out to help her, but she slapped him away, swearing when the effort only made everything hurt worse. “Don’t touch me.”

  He made an impatient noise. “I’m not going to stand here and let you bleed to death to make a point. I can carry you—”

  “I can walk,” she insisted stubbornly, ignoring the tears of pain that she couldn’t stop. She hurt so very bad. She took a single step and the ground rushed up to meet her. “Or maybe not,” she said faintly.

  It was the trees she heard first. Before she caught
the soft patter of footsteps and the antiseptic smell that were the telltales of hospitals everywhere, the trees sang to her and she knew where she was. Keeping her eyes closed, she took inventory of her injuries. She ached all over, but that wasn’t the worst of it by far. Her back felt like it had been flayed open, and her leg was a steady scream of hot pain. She heard a faint movement next to the bed and someone’s indrawn breath.

  “I know you’re awake,” Rhodry said drily.

  And she remembered. Everything.

  She opened her eyes and realized he was holding her hand. She took a moment to drink in the comfort that simple touch gave her, and then wrenched it away. “Leave me alone.”

  “A little gratitude would be nice. We could have—”

  “You could have told me the truth. Asshole.”

  “Don’t be such a child.”

  “No one’s asking you to stay.”

  “Damn it,” he hissed, then sucked in a breath, glancing over his shoulder as he remembered where they were. “Look, Amanda,” he said tightly. “You were never supposed to see Tonio like that. The Ardrigh ordered—”

  “How many of you are shapeshifters?”

  “I can’t talk about it,” he insisted.

  “Why not? I already know what you are, so what difference does it make?”

  “It’s not my decision.”

  “Is it everyone?” She waited for the answer as a different sort of pain made her stomach hurt. She’d begun to think of this planet as something special. The trees had sung only to her, not to anyone else from the ship. They’d told her she belonged here. But what if it didn’t mean any of that? What if this was a planet full of shifters, and she was only the crazy Earther lady who thought she could hear the trees singing? Unwilling tears filled her eyes and she turned away, although not fast enough.