Chapter 9 #2
Khar cut the connection with a grin, sparing himself the rest of Vegrun’s pitiful scrambling, and pressed a stun weapon into Lily’s hands.
Before she could object, he spoke over her.
“Stay behind me. I will handle this. Nothing will happen to you. If they are not vukri and they are armed, your vest will absorb any ranged strikes. You will feel only the shockwave. I am nearly certain they will prefer close combat. When we enter, we move straight into the storage aisles. They will think they have the advantage. They will be wrong.”
Lily nodded once and tightened her grip on the weapon.
“I understand, but why not simply deploy Vitro’s drones?”
“Impossible. IMPERIUM law forbids autonomous systems from attacking sentient beings. Every unit has an automatic lockout in situations like this. Now move.”
Before the human female could change her mind, Khar slammed his palm onto the door control and broke into a sprint toward the rows of storage lockers.
Lily ran after him, careful to stay in the giant’s shadow, but contrary to her expectations, no projectiles came flying their way.
When they reached the narrow corridors between the lockers, Khar was grinning broadly.
“This is it. Now the hunt begins.”
The first intruder burst into view. The lean, brown-skinned creature was nearly as tall as Khar, but lacked the mass and definition of a Divani frame.
It rushed toward them at frightening speed, shrieking to summon its companions.
One clawed, membrane-like limb swung up to strike.
Khar caught it effortlessly at the joint and bent it back the wrong way.
The creature’s scream was piercing, but mercifully brief. Khar slammed it to the floor and crushed its skull under his boot.
Two more vukri appeared almost at once. One rounded the corner where the first had fallen.
The other launched itself from the top of the locker row.
Khar kicked the runner hard enough to snap its spine, but the second landed on his neck, its serrated teeth snapping toward his throat.
Khar threw himself backward into a metal support pillar, pulverizing the creature against it.
He turned toward Lily with a triumphant look.
That was when a harpoon-like metal spike tore through his right shoulder and burst from his chest.
Khar dropped to one knee. Even as he fell, he dragged his attacker close. The vukri barely understood what had happened before Khar smashed its skull against the pillar.
“Unauthorized… illegal machinery,” Khar muttered, then shouted, “Lily, I cannot remove the projectile without bleeding out. I cannot fight like this. Go to the escape pods. Get inside one.”
He severed the tether line, then swayed as the harpoon shifted in his shoulder, pain exploding through him.
He knew Lily was stronger than him. That much was undeniable. But she was also painfully innocent. This had to be her first real fight. She had no chance. And as the defeated one in the hierarchy, it was his duty to protect her.
The luxury promenade maintained its own security detachment. He would send a distress signal. All he had to do was survive until they arrived. Lily’s best chance was to flee. He was not worried about Vegrun or Madame Turtle. Breaching the private suite would take more than a gravitational strike.
Lily bit down on her lip.
Khar braced himself to drag her bodily toward the escape pods, convinced she could not move on her own.
Then she spoke.
“These… ASSHOLES!”
Khar was suddenly certain the harpoon had been poisoned and he was hallucinating.
“Khar, stay here. I’ll deal with these bastards. How dare they attack us? Vitro, reduce gravity to one quarter.”
Reduce gravity?
His thoughts were dimming by the heartbeat.
Raising it would make more sense. Lily could handle the strain.
He did not have time to say any of it.
She was gone.
His head felt heavier by the second as blood loss set in, dulling his reactions. A strange rhythmic thudding filled his ears. That was not a good sign.
With shaking hands, he tore a medipatch from his vest and slapped it over the exit wound.
With some effort, he managed to secure another over his shoulder.
He forced down a circulation stabilizer, and the world steadied slightly.
He was not combat-ready, but he could move.
And if a vukri found him, he could still run.
His only fear now was Lily.
He dragged himself upright and peered through the gap between the locker rows.
Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw.
Of the remaining six vukri, three lay broken and unmoving on the cargo bay floor.
The others clung desperately to the outer wall, trying to evade Lily’s attacks as she pelted them with a heavy, elastic sphere normally used to provide traction for vehicle stabilization.
She hurled it at them like a youth playing a ball game.
The lethal kind.
“You’re not so tough now, are you?” Lily shouted. “Ten of you against two of us? You fucking pirates. If I lose my only friend because of you, you’ll wish you never set foot in here.”
Something warm bloomed between Khar’s twin hearts, like the way his mother had held him when he was small.
At the same time, an icy shiver raced down his spine. The same feeling he had known when a ghesz warrior had driven a kick into his gut during his Legion chrono-cycles.
For a moment, he had believed he was dying.
He had not known both sensations could exist at once. Clearly, anything involving Lily required him to rethink everything he thought he knew about the universe.
The pounding sound finally made sense as Lily bounced the ball beside her, occasionally slamming it into the wall near the vukri, keeping them pinned in place.
Khar almost felt sorry for them.
Almost.
“Lily, I’m here.”
She snapped her head toward him. One of the vukri seized the moment and bolted for the logistics hatch through which they had entered the Vitromium.
“Khar, I was so worried about you!”
Without breaking her rhythm, Lily hurled the ball. It struck the fleeing vukri in the leg, dropping it in a heap with a strangled cry.
Khar felt time slow to a standstill as the vukri and the two of them locked eyes.
Humans, it seemed, could see at an angle as well as straight ahead, something neither he nor the intruders had anticipated based on the forward placement of her eyes. Though they stood on opposite sides, fear mixed with respect bound them together in a single, breathless pause.
Lily stepped closer to Khar and wrapped one arm around him from the side, keeping the vukri in her line of sight.
“I’m so glad you’re all right. I think we can call the promenade guard now. They cannot escape.”
Khar looked down at the small head pressed against his chest, at the dark, silky hair, then at his own skin as it continued to deepen in tone, shading toward near black. Lily noticed it too and lifted her face toward him.
“What is happening to you? This is not blood loss, is it?”
Khar shook his head. The gesture was still new to him. He had only ever seen Lily use it, but it felt appropriate now. Necessary, even.
He knew this was not blood loss.
He had never imagined this could happen to him, but somewhere amid the chaos of the fight—or perhaps the moment Lily pressed against him—the irreversible process of Divani imprinting had begun.
It was not supposed to happen. Not to the strongest. Not to the undefeated of his kind.
But he was not undefeated anymore, was he?
Still, his body was already changing. Reshaping. Attuning itself to a single chosen mate, preparing to become her biologically perfect counterpart.
There was no escape from Divani imprinting.
Khar had always known that.
He drew a deep breath and lowered his massive, clawed hand onto Lily’s shoulder. She leaned into him a little more, never taking her eyes off the vukri.
“Lily. I am opening the rear stasis locker. Can you herd them?”
“I think so. They are very afraid of the ball.”
Khar might have shaken his head at her calling a guest-ship collision dampener a ball, but now was not the time. He issued the command to Vitro, and with Lily’s enthusiastic assistance, the vukri were quickly secured. Even the motionless ones were revived and deposited beside the others.
When it was over, dizziness washed over Khar, but Lily did not let go of him.
He could not afford to collapse yet. To receive their reward, everything had to be handled discreetly, including the cleanup.
Lily protested briefly, but Khar insisted that despite the absence of visible injuries, she submit to a scan by the wall-mounted medical unit in the cargo bay.
When it confirmed she was unharmed, Khar filed the incident report with promenade security.
Lily returned to the control room to guide Vegrun and Silomarila on yet another unnecessary shopping excursion, buying them enough time to transfer the vukri to authorities without notice.
As expected of a security force assigned to the playground of the wealthy, the response was flawless.
The intruders were taken into custody and Khar’s statement recorded before Vegrun and his companion had even begun their return.
By then, Khar was already in Vitro’s medical bay, sealing the puncture wound in his chest.
By the time Vegrun and his lover returned, and Lily finally escaped them, there was no trace of the injury.
Khar had replenished his circulation with several chrono-cycles’ worth of premium nutrients from the medical station’s exorbitantly priced reserves.
He would need them for the imprinting process, and Vegrun could hardly complain about supplies used in the line of duty.
The upper portion of Khar’s uniform was beyond saving, so he donned a white medical robe reserved for patients. He lacked the patience to fuss with the tiny fasteners at the front and left his chest bare.
The medical station announced Lily’s presence at the door. Khar released the lock and pretended to be occupied with reorganizing instruments as she hurried inside.
“Khar, how are you? Are you really all right?” Lily asked, worry threading her voice.
He turned toward her and did not miss the way her voice faltered as her gaze caught on the muscles visible through the robe. Khar smiled to himself. He had suspected before that his appearance affected her, but he had been too preoccupied with sulking and a wounded ego to explore it further.
It was time to correct that oversight.
“I am fine. Do not worry about me. How were Vegrun and his companion?”
Relief softened Lily’s features, but at Vegrun’s name, annoyance returned.
“Everything went according to plan. Silomarila noticed nothing, though I think even she is tired of all the shopping. Vegrun also asked me to order a gift for her, something that would be waiting in the suite when they returned. You know, when you warned him about the vukri, he pretended that was why he was calling us.”
Khar barely remembered that detail, but as she spoke, it resurfaced.
“What did you buy?”
Lily smiled mischievously.
“A game. It is called Predestination. There are characters printed on cards who face random disasters in random locations, and depending on your choices, they survive or they do not. A strategy game. You can play alone or with others. Both Silomarila’s and Vegrun’s species are included as playable characters, so Madame Turtle can see exactly how many ways Vegrun might bleed out. ”
Khar liked the concept, though he doubted Vegrun would appreciate it. The extent of their shared taste ended with Vitro. Vitro, in Khar’s estimation, was perfect.
“It sounds good. I would accept it.”
Lily’s smile widened at his approval.
Khar remembered the first time he had seen her, how despite his irritation, his gaze had lingered on the delicate curve of her mouth.
Now, with joy radiating from her, he had to restrain himself from touching her.
Instead, he finished tidying the medical bay and walked toward her in slow, measured steps.
When he reached her, he braced one arm against the doorframe above her head and looked down into her dark-pupiled eyes.
“How do human females celebrate when they have done very well?”
Khar prided himself on maintaining composure, but he had to fight to keep a neutral expression as Lily flushed crimson, dropped her gaze, and let it trail from his exposed chest down along the lines of muscle disappearing beneath the robe before she snapped it away again.
She stammered. Khar laughed softly, unable to stop himself.
“Come, Lily. Let us secure Vitro and I will walk you home.”