by Lauren Esker
"No. I don't have the—" What had Lyr called them? "The right mods."
"Damn. I'd give you one of mine for protection if I could."
"I'll be safe enough up here. You and Lyr will protect me."
"Just stay out of the way if you can." He took the collar controller from his pocket and touched it to his right cuff, where it adhered in some way Meri couldn't figure out. "Let's go."
Unselfconsciously he shucked off his ragged pants. Meri jerked her eyes away, and when she looked back he was a tiger, scruffy and lean, naked but for the gold slashes of the cuffs on his front ankles.
Meri followed him to the edge of the cliff. Looking downhill, she could see a small group of figures toiling up the mountainside. Even from here, she recognized the electric blue of Lyr's hair, and her heart leaped.
Tamir had already vanished among the boulders, his tawny fur fading into the rocks; she couldn't even tell where he'd gone. Her throat felt dry again, this time with tension. Swallowing, she crouched in position and set her hands on the length of deadwood that Tamir had used to set up their first avalanche trap.
She couldn't help being amazed at how far she'd come from where she had started out. That lost, grieving woman in the car with Cora, driving to Kansas City to start a new life she didn't even care about, seemed so far away now that Meri could barely relate to her. Now she was about to fight a bunch of space pirates for the sake of the man she loved. Her hands trembled with nerves, but she felt strangely unafraid, adrenaline keying her body to a state of intense readiness verging on eagerness.
Cora, if you could only see me now.
20
___
T HE PASS HAD SEEMED much gentler when Lyr had flown through it yesterday, blissfully oblivious to the steep terrain beneath his wings. On foot, he was all too aware of how steep and rough the approach was. And Tamir and Meri had done this yesterday, in the dark? Their tenacity amazed him. He already knew Galateans were tough, but he was never underestimating Earth humans again.
He'd been working hard to slow the pirates. All through yesterday afternoon he'd done his best to lead them in circles, not only guiding them astray but reaching out with small telepathic nudges to make them think they were choosing the right path when actually they were heading away from the pass instead. It was difficult to lead them in the wrong direction now that the pass loomed just above them, a target even the stupidest pirate couldn't hope to miss. Still, he did his best, sending out tendrils of sleepiness. He couldn't cloud their minds, not really, but he could make them lethargic and inattentive to their surroundings, the same way he had once eased his frightened and anxious sept-sibs into sleep.
When all else failed, he twisted his feet to kick loose rocks that the cursing men behind him had to dodge.
Through it all, he had been keeping his eyes open for a chance to escape. The wire around his wrists and the rope trailing to a guard's hand were only temporary setbacks; the collar was the true limiting factor. If he could only get the controller ...! But he would have to overpower Zef, and the centaur kept the controller safely anchored to his left-hand cuff, within easy reach at all times. Easy to use. Easy to defend.
He rehearsed his own actions over and over in his head. When Tamir and Meri sprang their ambush, he needed to get the controller from Zef. As long as the pirates could reduce him to helpless incoherence at the touch of a button, he couldn't effectively fight. All he needed was a few seconds with the controller, just long enough to deactivate his collar.
After that ... oh yes. After that, they would regret the day they decided to capture a dragon.
A sharp spasm of pain erupted from the collar and raced down his spine. Lyr jerked, but managed not to fall. He'd already fallen a number of times on this climb. Without his hands to catch him, he had acquired some new scrapes and bruises to go with the other half-healed ones.
"Just a little reminder," Zef said, hooves clattering alongside him. The centaur was limping; he'd picked up a stone in his hoof yesterday. Another of the small collection of advantages Lyr had mentally catalogued was that the terrain up here was much better suited to running bipeds with hands to help them climb, as opposed to a horse-bodied creature. Zef could easily have run him down on flat ground, but Lyr could just as easily outclimb him.
Not that any of it would matter if he couldn't get the controller. And if he could get the collar off, climbing wouldn't matter anymore; he'd have wings.
"A reminder of what? That you're an asshole? Already figured it out, thanks."
He was braced for the surge of pain this time, but it still drove him to his knees. He spat out a mouthful of blood, having bitten the inside of his cheek, and got up wordlessly.
If only I could shift!
His dragon still felt muted and strange, as if layers of cotton batting kept it apart from him. Reaching out telepathically to Meri and Tamir took a concerted effort of will, especially since he was already tired from the little mental tickles he'd been sending at the pirates.
How did I manage to live so long like this?
He could tell he was getting closer to Meri. Her nearness lifted his heart, but also worried him.
*We're ready,* Meri thought at him.
They were entering the pass now, the high rocky walls closing around them. *Where are you?* he asked.
*Look up.*
He did, unable to help himself, and glimpsed a flash of movement high above—an arm, waving briefly.
*Stay out of sight, love!*
*Sorry. You're right.* Meri's arm vanished.
Lyr glanced at Zef and the others. It didn't look like they'd seen her, but all of them were alert and wary despite Lyr's best efforts to keep them complacent. Even if they didn't suspect a trap, the pass had an ominous feeling after the open mountainside. Those looming rock faces felt like the walls of a prison cell closing in.
*Tamir?* Lyr reached for his friend's mind. *Are you here?*
*I am.* Closer even than Meri. He couldn't pinpoint Tamir's location exactly—he was out of practice, and it wasn't a precision art when talking to non-telepaths anyway—but he could tell that Tamir was somewhere among the boulders in the pass, probably tiger-shifted.
Lyr glanced around at the pirates. All of them besides Zef and the insectile Mantid were Galateans, but not all Galateans could shift; in fact, most couldn't. The trait had been lost for the most part among families that hadn't specifically arranged their marriages to keep it—the royal family, for one, and some of the old warrior clans like Tamir's. Otherwise, it still came up as a rare trait in some families, but not often. He had no way of knowing if any of them could do it until they did it.
One of the pirates pointed at the sky with an exclamation. A few of the flying beasts Lyr had noticed on his flight were visible against the clear blue bowl of the sky, wheeling lazily like great birds. Dangerous? he wondered. He hadn't been concerned as a dragon; now he began to wonder if they would attack human-sized prey. He doubted they'd go after a group of this size. Still, it wouldn't hurt to warn Meri and Tamir, especially if those creatures were as impervious to energy weapons as the pack of hunters he'd fought by the spring.
*We saw them,* Meri said in response to his mental tap.
He became aware, then, that Tamir was trying to get his attention telepathically. *I hear you,* Lyr said, strengthening the connection and opening it to Meri as well.
*You're in position for our trap. Ready?*
*I am ready. Go.*
*Tell Meri do it now,* Tamir said.
*Meri heard that,* Meri said. *I'm on it.*
Lyr couldn't tell what she did—he got a brief impression of exertion and the straining of sore muscles—but a moment later, he heard rumbling and the pirates around him burst out in cries of alarm.
It was difficult at first to tell where the rumbling was coming from, though he could feel it through the soles of his feet. Then he glimpsed movement on the mountainside. It looked like part of the cliff face was crawling, accelerating and gat
hering speed as the avalanche spread.
*That's a hell of a trap, Tamir.*
*Custom avalanches aren't a precision art, you know!*
Panic spread among the pirates as tiny pebbles began clattering around them. The bulk of the avalanche was behind them, with no time to go back, so they bolted forward as the slide gained momentum—only to have a second avalanche begin its slide in front of them, trapping them between the two.
As the pass filled with rubble and a choking cloud of dust rolled across them, a plasma bolt speared through the group, taking advantage of their moment of distraction. One of the Galatean pirates dropped without a sound.
Lyr immediately flung out all the mental confusion he could manage. The mental images he sent were unlikely to be mistaken for anything real under normal circumstances, but in the haze of dust he gave the panicking pirates images of attackers, an entire army of guerrilla ambushers. The pirates whirled around, shooting blindly, even shooting each other in the fray, ignoring Zef bellowing at them to stop. This would never have worked on a disciplined company of Galatean soldiers, but the pirates were little more than a rabble at the best of times.
*Take out the Hnee centaur; he's their leader!* he sent to Tamir. *And he's got their only collar controller.*
*I can't get a clear shot at him,* Tamir said, his mental voice tight.
As shields started going up all around him, Lyr threw all his strength into breaking the wire around his wrists. It bit deep into his flesh—he was going to have scars from that—but it was no match for draconic strength. The wire snapped and he spun around and flung himself at Zef's horse legs. Zef was already shielded, so it wasn't like Lyr could break his legs or do any serious damage, but he collided with the centaur's front legs and they both went down in a tangle.
His fingers slid on Zef's shield, glistening with a soap-bubble sheen and covering Zef's wrists and cuffs like a second skin. He couldn't reach the controller with the shield in the way, or get the cuffs either. All he could do was desperately try to stop Zef from being able to have a moment of leisure to use it.
As Lyr and Zef thrashed together in the gravel and the dirt, there was chaos all around them—shouting men drawing knives or raising their wrists to shoot at nothing. Tamir came out of nowhere, a lean tiger bursting out of the dust cloud to bear one of the men silently to the ground. Lyr couldn't see what happened next; he had his hands full with Zef. He managed to get first one of Zef's arms and then the other pinned against the ground, while Zef thrashed and kicked, but Lyr was at a severe disadvantage grappling with an opponent who had more body mass as well as four legs to Lyr's two. A flailing hoof caught Lyr in the side, knocking the breath out of him.
The controller was manually operated, but the cuffs were mind-controlled, and a sharp bolt of tingling pain shot up both Lyr's arms as Zef belatedly realized he could get Lyr off him by shocking him. Lyr flung himself away before he could be stunned into insensibility.
Zef got to his feet, his dusty horse flanks heaving. Lyr started to lunge again, but agony caught him mid-stride and sent him crashing to the ground. Instinctively he tore with his hands at the collar, but all he did was cause himself more pain. He tasted blood; he'd bitten his tongue again.
It's only pain, he thought, gathering the shreds of his self-control. It's not actually damaging you. You can push through this.
Slowly, with great effort, he got to his knees. Panting, he stared through the sweaty hair hanging in his eyes, his body rigid with the effort of fighting against the agony burning him up from the inside.
"What the hell? You can't do this!" Zef fumbled with the controller, cranking it to a higher setting.
Lyr gritted his teeth until his jaw popped. Fists clenched so the nails bit into his palms, he struggled to his feet.
And then suddenly he was aware of Meri in his mind, supporting him, lending him her strength. *Fight it, Lyr! You can do it!*
He didn't want her to feel this pain too. For an instant, as he tried to block her out, he lost his ability to fight back against the agony of the collar. Dimly he was aware of his knees hitting the rocks with a bruising impact, then his hands.
But Meri pursued him mentally. *We're in this together. You can do it. Fight him!*
He pushed himself up to his knees again, and then to his feet. As Zef stared at him in shock, Lyr lurched toward him, one step at a time. Meri braced him, holding onto him in his mind.
"You can't do this," Zef said in disbelief. Fear broke across his face, and Lyr took a vicious satisfaction from it. The slave master, the one with the controller and all the weapons, was afraid of him.
*Lyr!* Tamir's mental voice came to him. *I can't get to you in time; there are too many of them in the way.*
*Throw it to me,* Lyr managed to send back.
*Are you sure? If we lose it—*
*Do it! Now!*
Tamir came into view as he leaped to the top of a boulder behind Zef, as a tiger, and shifted to a naked man in mid-stride, streaked with blood and dirt. He plucked the controller from one of his cuffs, where it had been nano-glued on, and hurled it toward Lyr.
It almost worked.
The controller arced through the air, glinting in the sun. Lyr threw every bit of concentration he could spare into not letting Zef know it was there. Don't look up. Don't look up. Don't look up.
Tamir's aim was good. The controller tumbled toward Lyr and he raised his hand to intercept it, his rigid muscles fighting against the spasms of pain wracking his body.
Slow. Too slow.
He reached, he almost had it—and the controller bounced off his fingertips and went tumbling on a different trajectory.
Zef's eyes widened in surprise, and the centaur flung out his arm. A plasma bolt stabbed from his cuff and melted the controller to slag in an instant. It dropped out of the air and landed in the sand, blackened and useless.
Damn it! Damn it!
Now the only controller they had—his only chance of getting the collar off—was Zef's.
With an effort, Lyr extended his fighting spines and the blades in his forearms. He might lack cuffs and shields, but he had weapons of his own.
"You're more trouble than you're worth, you know that?" Zef growled. "I don't care how much cash you'd bring in."
With his other hand still holding down on the pain button, he brought his wrist to bear on Lyr.
He was going to shoot.
Lyr's muscles were locked rigid with the effort of fighting the collar. He needed to dodge, but he couldn't move. Without shields, a single shot from the cuffs would kill him.
A shadow flickered over him. The flying dinosaurs were still up there, and it gave him an idea—the only thing he could think of to do.
He'd never tried to manipulate an animal's mind before. These were simple minds full of simple needs, hunger and the urge to defend their territory and the thrill of the hunt. With a silent apology for what he was about to do, Lyr pushed on those minds hard. Danger down below. Danger to the nest.
Sweat ran into his eyes. Everything seemed to slow down; his awareness narrowed to his mental focus and the gleam of Zef's cuff pointed at him.
And then great wings broke through the dust cloud as the flock of flying beasts dived on them from above.
***
The release of Lyr's pain was like the snap of a tether, sending Meri sprawling to the ground at the top of the cliff as her knees gave out. After taking a minute to collect herself, she sat up. Her head throbbed as if from a sinus headache, and she felt shaky and weak. And this was just from the secondhand pain.
Those collars were evil.
*Lyr? Are you okay?*
*Busy,* came the distracted answer.
The battle between the pirates, Lyr, and Tamir had now turned into an all-out brawl with the dinosaurs. Reptilian shrieks of pain and hoarse yells echoed up the cliff to her. She couldn't tell what was going on down there; it was all fast-paced confusion and dust. Lyr and Tamir had both told her to stay out of the
fray, up here where it was safe. But ...
But she'd already triggered the avalanche traps. There was nothing more she could do up here. Down there, she might be able to help.
Meri took a bracing breath, and gripping her club firmly in one hand, she began scouting for a place to climb down.
She was no Tamir, to spring from boulder to boulder on feline paws. But the rockslide, if nothing else, provided a way down. It was still steep and difficult, and she ended up in something that was more like a controlled fall than a climb, her feet slithering in loose rocks. If she stopped moving for even an instant, she was going to fall on her face.
But that was her entire life on this planet so far, wasn't it? Just keep moving, don't take time to think, just take one step and then another and another—
Her wild ride down the rockslide eventually dumped her off in a patch of boulders near the bottom. If things had been confusing from up top, it was a thousand times worse down here. The fighting had stirred up a new cloud of rock dust, from which green flashes of light and occasional combatants appeared, locked in battle. She saw Tamir slashing and snarling at another big cat, some kind of leopard, with a tool belt around its waist and gold cuffs on its ankles. A dino burst out of the dust cloud, beating its heavy leather wings as it tried to gain altitude with a pirate clutched in its claws. He wasn't hurt; the soap-bubble gleam of his shield protected him, but also blunted the edge of the knife he was using to batter at the beast's legs. In all this chaos, she couldn't even see Lyr.
*Lyr, where are you?*
*What are you doing here? Stay away!*
*Lyr, I'm here to help! I can get the collar controller and get that thing off you! Where's Tamir?*
*He doesn't have it anymore. It was destroyed.*
Which only left—damn it. The centaur was fighting one of the dinos. Screeching and flapping, it battered him with his wings as his attempts to shoot it splintered off its scales.
It's always that stupid centaur guy. I hate that guy.
She wished she still had her pepper spray.