Chapter 18 #2
Aramon was out cold but breathing, with his twin, Solear, a growling, shaking guard.
In the distance, I saw Dravion working on another injured mercenary while a Sune with three tails stood guard over him.
I could not tell who it was, but I recognized the standard-issue boots.
They waved me on, and I rushed forward to catch up to the fighting.
Reaching a clearing moments later, I circled through the underbrush and quickly appraised the situation.
Yeah, Eoin was there all right. I could see it in the damage done to the trees and the furrows dragged through the mud.
He’d managed to drag the human from his perch up above before he’d run out of metals to fuel his attacks.
My crewmates had taken cover behind trees and were laying down fire that prevented the former soldier from escaping.
He clashed with Ziame, the massive green-scaled beast harrying him through the trees, forcing him into the laser fire that whizzed around their heads.
It took me only one moment to appraise the situation.
It looked like they had everything under control; how could so many skilled men I’d fought and trained with be outmatched by one individual?
But I saw it. This Eric, he moved with a little too much confidence for a man nearly getting his head bitten off by a massive dragon-bull cross of an alien.
It was not him trapped; he was laying a trap of his own.
It sprang just as I shouted a warning, pushing my body to rush into the clearing.
Ziame’s clawed feet hit ground that wasn’t quite solid, a pit trap opening up beneath him that I had no doubt would have killed a lesser man.
He rolled, lightning-fast reflexes preventing a fatal plunge into the dark hole yawning beneath him.
His tail lashed, tipped with sharp spikes, but the Shadow Unit soldier danced out of the way at the last moment.
He would have succeeded in kicking Ziame when he was off balance, perhaps sending him into that hole after all—except he hadn’t counted on me.
Shouts went up, friendly fire brushed past my head, and then I collided with the male. Metal claws curled from my fingers, alloy sharp and strong enough to cut through nearly anything. They dug into his flesh, tore through armor not nearly as good as mine, and scraped bone.
A blast of fire went up to my left, where Ziame was, but I couldn’t pay attention to the Beast. Only the slippery shadow in my grip, the one I was trying to eviscerate.
I had him, my strength equal to his, but the element of surprise had given me the upper hand.
Our eyes met, and something that appeared to be relief flashed in his, like he was glad I was putting him out of his misery.
Unfortunately, his will to survive was stronger.
“Shoot him!” I shouted, and I could sense it when guns were aimed, readied—an instinctive knowledge that you were being eyed by death.
He smirked and slipped from the claws the UAR had crafted for me.
Rolling along the ground, and despite the blood gushing from his sides, he broke into a run.
I began to chase after him, but Ziame shouted, the fragile ground he clung to to keep from falling giving way.
In that split moment, I had a choice: chase the soldier and kill him, or keep the massive Lacerten captain from plunging to his death.
I knew what choice Ysa would want me to make, but I didn’t like it.
Swearing, I turned and dove, catching Ziame’s thick wrists and arresting his fall.
On my belly, I had no leverage, and we began sliding anew almost immediately.
With my head at the edge of the hole, I could see down its shaft just enough to catch the glint of sharp metal.
Twisting, I managed to get a knee into the dirt, then my foot.
It was the left one, made of metal and synthetic joints and muscle.
I felt it groan and creak, and more dirt began to give way.
My eyes met those of the gladiator known as the Beast, and I knew that if I did not let go, we’d both fall to our deaths.
“Noooo,” I snarled. My hands had clawed through the thick scales along his forearms, but I did not release him.
I found another reserve of strength, pushing nanobots to enhance my muscles and boost my power.
My other leg caught on a tree root, and I hauled with a shout.
It was enough. Seconds later, others piled on, grabbing both Ziame and me and hauling us to safety across the crumbling dirt.
We didn’t realize the extent of that trap until later, when Eoin dug his hands into the dirt and began pulling the metal to the surface with his special ability.
Tunnels were dug, traps spread out through this part of the woods, more left untouched than ones that had been triggered.
This pair had been busy for a while, like they’d been expecting us and planning accordingly.
I barely waited for Ziame to get back to his feet and ignored all the aching muscles in my body as I tried to give chase at long last. I knew, even before Fierce and his beast, as well as Tass, joined me, that it was pointless.
Both of them were insanely good trackers, and neither could pick up the trail.
Even when Tass, our plantist specialist, laid his ear to the ground and listened for the vibrations of footsteps, he found nothing.
We scoured the woods anyway, disabling traps as we found them.
I wanted to keep going, because I felt like the other shoe could drop at any moment.
We had to find this bastard, because if we didn’t, he’d come back to haunt us.
This guy, he’d found an opponent worthy of his skills, and he’d test us again and again until either we were dead or he was.
The captain recalled us when darkness began to fall, and it wasn’t until we approached the base and our ships that I began to understand what our prey had done.
“He’s on one of our ships,” I burst out, swearing roughly as my mind spun with the whys and hows.
I knew exactly what I would have done to stowaway on one of our shuttles.
Flack and the same group I’d been assigned to had joined us just outside the base, and I saw how the Sune’s sharp blue eyes focused on me.
“Why would he do that? There’s no place to hide…
” But he did not seem to require an answer, because he raised his comm and began ordering a search of the shuttles anyway.
There were some very inventive places he listed for the search, too, highlighting his past as a smuggler before he joined Asmoded’s crew.
When we walked into the base, I could tell immediately that they hadn’t found him. I started another search on my own anyway, redoing, against the protests of Aramon, who just wanted to fly back to his mate, the work they’d already done.
When I started a third search, Asmoded called a halt.
“We’ll hold in space and let Ysa do a bio-scan with the Varakartoom’s sensors.
But our males need more medical attention, we’ve got to take the risk.
” He pointed at the row of stretchers waiting to be carried in.
That included Aramon, who was complaining loudly about having to lie down and was kept on the stretcher mostly because Solear was literally sitting on top of him.
I counted in a hurry and realized that at least half our number wore bandages, and that two gladiators and four mercenaries were injured enough to be carried off the battlefield.
Not Ziame, and not Asmoded, though; they’d both bounced back after their encounters with the nasty traps the pair of spree killers had left for us.
“Fine.” I cursed as I stalked onto the nearest shuttle, and then I did something I hadn’t in a long while.
I parked my ass in the pilot’s seat. After all, we were down a few of the usual flyers, and I’d rather get out of here, if we were going anyway.
My fingers clenched around the yoke as I started the pre-flight checks.
This was a mistake, and I had to warn Ysa to be ready.
Thankfully, I could send a message with my comm hands-free, the processor implanted in my brain facilitating the link.
“Get ready, my little engineer. We’re returning home, and we might be bringing another stowaway. ”