Her nose and lips became plumper, transforming from dull gun metal to the sheen of polished obsidian.
“What’s happening to you?”
She threw her head back, eyes closed as if in the throes of ecstasy.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She calmed a little and regarded him through slitted green eyes. “Hormonal change,” she whispered. “Congratulations, very few outside my people witness this and live.”
He stepped back and looked around for possible weapons.
She took an aggressive step toward him, and he finally read her intent.
“Orion’s beard! Hormonal change? You don’t mean like a Zhoogene in season?”
She gave him a flirtatious pout. “Do women with strong desires frighten you, Arunsen?”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Kayrissan. I only have fun with people I like. I’d rather slice off my dick than play with you.”
Enormous, doleful, green eyes tracked him for a while. “Pity,” she muttered, shrugging away the tension in her shoulders. “Now that the mission is over, I’ll need thirty minutes to wind down. When Kayrissans are on the hunt, we put ourselves into a state of total focus.”
“Like some kind of super jack?”
She laughed. “Yes. Like our friends in the Legion, but more so. Our senses are heightened. Our minds focused on the hunt. Other concerns and most of our emotions are all subdued until the mission is over. A few of us amplify certain traits. For me, it is playfulness. My sisters each intensified a different aspect of themselves. All but Kaycey are dead now. She doubles down on cruelty.”
“So, this is you transitioning out of your jack state into whatever passes as normal for a narcissistic killer?”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “Everything I put aside for the mission is flooding back into me, amplified tenfold. I want to climb, run, scream. To rut.”
She looked at him with a hunger that—dammit—he had to admit no human woman had looked at him with before.
“You are a Militia trooper off duty,” she purred. “I know your sort. No bar is too much of a dive to drink in. And no one is un-screwable.”
Dropping to all fours, she stalked him across the deck plates.
Skragg! He couldn’t deny she was hot, and he felt his body respond accordingly.
She sprung at him from the floor, arms outstretched. She meant to grip him by the shoulders, but he twisted and shoved hard against her sternum. “Keep away from me, you demented beast!”
He’d already seen her impressive strength, and she was only a little shorter than he. So, her lightness surprised him.
She flew through the ripe air, her skull clanging into the bulkhead.
Grunting in pain, she rubbed her head. With her other hand, she pointed at his crotch. “I don’t understand. I can see that your body wants to play.”
“I’m not Militia scum anymore,” he explained. “I’m Chimera Company scum now.”
Screaming an alien war cry, she pounced again, her claws slashing for his throat.
He advanced into her leap, ducked down at the last moment, and threw his left shoulder into her belly as she passed overhead.
She landed on an equipment bank by the opposite bulkhead. Landed like a cat.
“Let’s make this more interesting.” She grinned at him, licking her lips.
She flicked a control on the equipment bank and, a moment later, Vetch floated off the floor.
“Zero-g wrestling is such a release,” she said. “Come at me. Show me what you’ve got.”
“I keep telling you, you’ll have to play with yourself. Why don’t you lick your butt? Isn’t that what cats do?”
She was properly enraged now and flew at him.
She was fast. But so was he.
Her claws were wicked.
And that was a problem he struggled to counter, especially in zero-g.
As they pushed off the overhead, bulkhead, and deck to make slow-motion passes, he took some cuts from those claws, but he landed better blows with his fists, though none of them had the brutal power he could have unleashed with a proper floor to brace against.
He switched to grappling to better utilize his greater strength. Probably what the frisky cat had wanted all along. Her claws retracted, and she squirmed in his grip, trying to launch strikes with knees and elbows.
Vetch soaked it all up, capturing her in a bear hug.
By now, they had both lost momentum and were floating together in the middle of the compartment. Stuck. Becalmed without thrust packs or tethers.
Panic seized him. He threw Maycey away with all his strength. The reaction force slowly tumbled him backward, but the cat was flying like a missile toward the overhead.
When he was sure she would hit the ceiling, his relief felt ecstatic. They wouldn’t die here, unable to reach the control to reactivate the false gravity.
She purred furiously, licked a trickle of blood from her lip, and then thrust at him off the overhead.
When she closed, he feinted a backhand strike to his right that spun his body counterclockwise.
She blocked it with ease, but Vetch had lined up his left for a ferocious uppercut.
It was a perfect strike, right under the chin.
In zero-g, getting any strength behind a blow was difficult. But he reckoned he massed double the cat woman, and it sent her flying back into the overhead. It moved him too, somersaulting him around at a gentler pace and gradually lowering him to the deck.
As his boots kissed the floor, he looked up. Maycey had her tail wrapped around an overhead display unit, a blood trail flowing out her nose, into a shimmering blob of red.
“You’ll pay for that,” she hissed.
“Maybe. But I’ll enjoy kicking your arse first.”
She launched herself at him, clawed hands stretched wide in front of her.
Vetch leaped onto the bulkhead and pushed off to intercept the Kayrissan sailing down from the overhead. He came at her from her flank.
While he wasn’t looking, she must have grabbed something to shift her vector, because she wasn’t where he expected her to be. Too low. Too angled his way.
They swiped at each other. Missed. And clashed heads.
He bellowed in pain. She shrieked.
“Man, that hurt!”
They merged vectors, clumping into a confusing ball of limbs and torsos. Vetch pulled away, but Maycey wouldn’t let go of his leg. As he tried to kick her off, she climbed up his leg until she had a firm grip around his shoulders.
He tilted his head back, away from her.
She thrust hers toward him, coming in for a kiss. Or so he thought. Instead, she held him in a tight embrace and licked the blood from his nose.
He flinched, disgusted. Although the feeling of her hot body pressed up against him… wasn’t so bad at all.
But she was not his friend.
He feigned dizziness, flickered his eyelids, and allowed his head to sink back even further.
She loosened her grip and moved back a little. Was she concerned about him?
“Concern this!” he yelled and snapped forward into a head-butt. He felt something soft squashing.
They both grunted with pain.
Vetch put his hand to his face and felt the blood flow from his nose. Hurt like hell but had to be done. His opponent was hanging in the air, a fresh gush of blood spooling out of her own nose. The mad creature was laughing.
“Your blood tastes spicy,” she told him. “I like it. Would you like to taste mine?”
“You’re crazy.”
“I enjoyed wrestling with you, Vetch,” she said. “You were just what I needed.”
She’d never called him Vetch before. The implications horrified him.
Maycey used her tail to pull herself up to the overhead and pushed off to the equipment bank.
This time, Vetch was ready when she switched on the grav-plates beneath the deck. A shower of Kayrissan blood rained down, splattering him. It mixed with his bl
ood on the deck.
“I look forward to our next bout.” She gave him the green-eyed blink again. “Although, next time, I hope the Nyluga will honor my request to have you shaved, waxed, and oiled first.”
Vetch had no answer. He could only shake his head and send a prayer to any deity that would listen. He decided none would care, so he sent a second to his teammates. Darant. Fitzwilliam. Anyone. Even Sybutu! I don’t care about the cat-women wisecracks I know you’ve got coming. Just get me out of this crazy place!
* * * * *
Chapter 24: Izza Zan Fey
Boitan, Pleigei Orbit
The first officer’s harassed features glared out of the bulkhead holo-comm. “I can assure you, ma’am, the incident is minor. It is under control.”
Izza fumed. “I heard one of your crewmen shouting that we’ve been boarded. My party has arms and knows how to use them. Release our weapons from secure storage, and we will assist you in repelling the boarders.”
The suspicious human narrowed her eyes. “How can I be sure you’re not a pirate in on the attack?”
Izza shrugged. “Wouldn’t life be easier if we always had all the information before we had to make a decision?”
“Standby.” The Boitan’s officer had been walking along a corridor in conversation with her spacers. One of them told her something that made her come to a halt. Her demeanor stiffened. Then released.
“Passenger Zan Fey,” she said, “the captain wants a word with you. Patching you through.”
The first officer’s image was replaced by the captain’s. The man—of sorts—was scratching his bald, frigid-blue pate. He was a Jeanneppi, a descendant of a human colony who had mutated into a new subspecies within generations. They were usually trouble, but this example was looking apologetically into a hovering camera.
“I’m afraid I have bad news, ma’am.”
Izza’s heart leaped. Had the captain surrendered the ship? That hadn’t been the plan.
There had clearly been a fight, though. The captain’s cheek was stained with iodine-colored burns. The kind you got from shooting a blaster rifle that needed its firing timing recalibrated.
“The item you deposited in our secure vault was stolen by thieves who breached the ship. They’re gone, but so is your item. My apologies.”
“What?” Izza’s head growth fluttered in horror. “How did they get in? Was it an inside job? What are you going to do about getting my crystal back?”
The captain rubbed his burns, but Izza guessed it was the threat of lawsuits that was hurting him most. “With regret, ma’am, in these situations, it is my duty to avoid speculation. Nor may I openly apportion blame or accept liability. I refer you to our insurers. I have already sent you their details. My advice is to contact them immediately upon our docking at Ardabol Station. Again, my apologies, Passenger Zan Fey. Captain Yoelsom out.”
“Insurers?” Fregg burst into laughter. “As if a tug like the Boitan could afford a policy with a reputable insurer.”
Izza smiled. She felt a little sorry for Captain Yoelsom. “Just as well; we wanted the decrypter stolen.”
She put a friendly arm around Green Fish. The human girl had learned enough by now for the seemingly friendly gesture to wipe the smile off her face.
“Greenie, a good Guildswoman knows many things, such as the secret conduits of a ship. And how to clear a fouled blaster pistol in zero-g while wearing pressure garments. Just as important, she must know her way around bureaucracy and paperwork.”
The human sighed. “She also knows that the newest recruit gets the crappiest tasks. You want me to go through the motions of making an insurance claim. Roger that, boss. Consider it done.”
* * * * *
Chapter 25: Izza Zan Fey
Tumlhui Dek City, Pleigei
Filled with misgivings, Izza took her hooded cloak from the peg. “Tell me I’m not just about to walk into the Third Hell for no reason.”
Lynx buzzed his casing. “I can assure you the crystal encryption module you allowed to be stolen is, in fact, still under our remote control. Furthermore, it has successfully decrypted the target systems.” He boosted his gravitics, lifting himself up to take his false head and walking legs down from the next two pegs.
“That is to say,” continued the droid as his fake arms and shoulders inflated, securing themselves around his cylindrical case, “those we leave behind have access to secure Sanctuary systems. Whether the penetration of the Nyluga’s security justifies what you and I are about to do is another matter.” He lowered his volume and boosted the treble in his voice, producing a tinny whisper. “Frankly, Captain, I’m not sure we can trust the others.”
Izza wrapped the leaf-green cloak around her. Trust was indeed a big issue, but it was where Lynx’s true loyalties lay that bothered her more than her other crewmates, despite the unpleasantness when Izza had finally admitted who they were to rescue Vetch from.
The droid’s fake head swiveled in her direction. “And I certainly wouldn’t trust me. I am stolen property, after all.”
“But you were a part of the deal,” Izza cried, half-laughing at the protest she’d made so many times before. In fact, although Lynx’s loyalties were a concern, they weren’t near the top of her worry list. She’d learned that the more argumentative he was, the more he could be trusted to do as she told him. His bout of sullenness over the past few months had worried her. Perhaps the droid had needed some time apart from Fitz. He had that effect on some people, and she didn’t suppose droids were that different.
“We’ve everything under control,” said Green Fish. “You do your job, boss. We’ll do ours.”
Easy for you to say, kid. Your job is likely to be considerably less painful than mine.
But she didn’t want to wipe away the girl’s excited grin, so she just nodded.
Without looking back, Izza stepped out into the snowy street, Lynx walking alongside on his three spindly legs.
For a place that hid much that was ugly, the outer reaches of Sector Seven were as pretty as she remembered. Prettier, even. Fat flakes drifted down onto a fresh coating of snow, which was tinted red, gold, and copper by the streetlights. The houses here were narrow but tall, with ornate gables shrouding upper stories with sliding wooden cargo hatches.
A generation before, residents were disturbed in the night as mobile cargo cranes transferred items of dubious provenance into and out of those upper stories. But such comings and goings had shifted to other sectors of Tumlhui Dek.
“I don’t remember such a hostile environment,” said Lynx.
“Silly droid. It’s just snow. It’s beautiful.”
“Beautiful? Are you intentionally highlighting my inability to perceive beauty?”
“I thought Fitz was teaching you aesthetics.”
“Have you seen the way he dresses?”
“But I like the way he…Gotcha! If you’ve no sense of aesthetics, how can Fitz’s scruffy jacket offend it? Answer me that.”
“It doesn’t. I was attempting irony, but it’s pointless when my companion lacks the sophistication to notice.”
She pulled in front of the droid and bent down to the level of his fake head. “I know you’re worried, but you’re not in danger, Lynx. I promise you. Everyone else is, but not you. Whatever happens, you will come out of this okay.”
Blue and red lights chased each other across his casing. “Why do you think I am worried?”
She rubbed snow off his fake head. “Because when you are, you say things you think will hurt me. Don’t be concerned. I meant what I said. Whatever happens, you will come out of this okay.”
“I know that.”
“Then we’re good.”
Izza tramped through the snow piling up on the sidewalk. Just a girl and her droid abroad on a beautiful evening. For a few minutes, she could enjoy the simplicity of the moment.
The droid buzzed. “It’s you I’m worried about.”
Izza missed a step. Lynx had never sa
id anything like that before.
She looked back at him. “I’m also worried about me,” she said. “But it’s too late now. We shall proceed according to the plan and hope I’ve made the right call.”
As they walked deeper into Sector Seven, the traffic thinned. Fewer people were about, and those that were crossed the street to avoid the hooded humanoid and the droid with the awkward swinging gait.
That suited her. They were traveling undercover because she didn’t want anyone to recognize her and claim the reward on her head by kidnapping her.
The buildings gave way to a zone of ornamental spiral decorations inlaid with precious stones. There were low-walled fountains too. Everything was low to the ground, as if this were an ultra-high gravity world. It had been designed this way to minimize concealment, producing a zone of semi-cleared ground to make it difficult to sneak up on Ree’s base.
The Sanctuary was a collection of buildings hidden on three sides behind white stucco walls, ten-feet high and reinforced with ceramalloy ribs. This was a defended compound. It didn’t hide that fact, but the frontage onto the street stood out because instead of the armored walls of the other three sides, it appeared no different than nearby houses.
Other than the armed guards watching her from the balconies, she supposed.
Izza walked through the weapon and explosive scanners built into the sidewalk and up to the black pseudo-wood door. She rapped with the bronze knocker.
The door even sounded like wood.
This narrow semblance of a normal house was the idea of Nyluga-Ree’s two wives. Despite the shady dealings Ree had led them into—and both Das-Zee and Lyi-Niah were fully engaged with most of her plans—they had demanded the entrance to their home look normal and respectable. That had been part of their price for supporting Khyz-Ree’s rise through the ranks of the Guild to become Nyluga-Ree.
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