Relief left him lightheaded. Fuck! I’m such a gods-be-damned coward. Tris scrambled up in the bed and reached for a robe while he barked responses to his AI. His action sent Angelica sprawling. Mage sat up groggily. “Not yet. Give me thirtyseconds, then put DeKieran on holo-vid.”
“Acknowledged. Thirty seconds beginning now, Prince DeHelios.”
Tris jammed his arms into his robe, wrapping the garment around him and cinching the belt tight as he walked toward the door to the living room. “Get up, Angelica. Get Mage up. You heard what I told the AI. I’ll give you two minutes to get decent… then join me. This is the call we’ve been waiting for.” Tris left the bedroom and stood in front of the huge media/communications center that took up two-thirds of the wall in his living area.
“Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty… you are live, Prince DeHelios.”
“DeHelios here. What’s the status, Ram?”
“The meks are here. We believe we’ve located two mek entities in a warehouse in port sector five. I’ll send the coordinates to your AI. There may be a third, but we weren’t able to get a clear enough read on its electron signature to lock down a verifying identity. In the interim, the signatures of the two known entities have gone dark. They may have erected shielding to cloak their presence and activity in the warehouse. Tok and Sweet are getting ‘eyes on.’ Until we can verify a known location and number, keep Dr. Giverny close to home. She can go to the medcenter and continue to see her patients, but that is as far as she goes, and I want you on her like a second skin. Since you indicated she agreed to leave Arkodaenia, when we have a fix and number on the meks, I want her out of the city—as in yesterday.”
“Understood.”
The image of Ramsey disintegrated into bits of sparkling green and the call ended. Tris turned to regard the closed face of Mage and a stunned, wide-eyed Angelica. “You heard?”
She nodded and blew out a long breath. “So now it begins.”
Tristan placed a gentle hand under her chin and raised her face to his. “This threat will be dealt with. We will keep you safe.”
***
Eva tried to find a comfortable position next to the hard body of the Khlossian, gave it up as a lost cause, and readjusted her precision optics. They lay prone on an elevated platform belonging to an oversized crane. Inside a vast freight warehouse whose dark secrets seemed to stretch into infinity, the total blackness hid them as well as the crane’s scaffolding. “I know the meks are here, but I’m getting nothing. Do you see anything?”
“Umm. Switch from infrared to ultraviolet on your goggles. Orient on the freight container marked ‘Ultron Shipping’. Check the base.”
“Shit. How could I have missed them? There seems to be a third. Where did it come from?Wait… they’ve disappeared. What the!” She felt the vibrations of what could only be silent laughter in the huge body next to her.
“Sweet Eva, switch your optic filter to x-ray and look again.”
“The ‘Eva’ is first. The ‘Sweet’ is second. Eva Sweet,” she muttered. She did as Tok had instructed and relocated the meks. “How did you know to do that? To switch the light splitters like that?”
“A lifetime of experience, Sweet Eva.” Tok rolled to his back and sighed. “Were you with Ramsey’s woman on Devon III?”
Her mouth formed the word, “Yes,” but it was moments before she could utter it. Eva was proud her voice didn’t shake. Her mind rebelled at the memory of bladder-loosening fear as invisible foes, impervious to point blank lazer fire, sliced through the high-tech armor of her brothers-in-arms; she shuddered at the memory of her shock at men disemboweled beside her, screaming as they stepped on their own guts. I’m not a coward, but how do you fight something you cannot see and cannot kill? Her mind had never reconciled why she hadn’t died that day. She’d expected to.
Eva could hear her own strident breathing as she struggled to shake off the horrific memories. “The members of our combat unit who survived did so because we ran like hell. Our inglorious retreat never sat well with the Captain.If these are like the meks we encountered on Devon III, the Verdantians have nodefense against them. How are we going to protect Dr. Giverny?” She shivered involuntarily.
Tok muttered a long string of words in a language she didn’t know. They sounded like curses. He fell silent.
Finally, she couldn’t stand the stillness. “Well, what are we going to do?” she whispered. “We can’t just give up.”
“No, Sweet Eva. We don’t give up, but I’m afraid my next actions will make me despised on this planet.” She felt his deep sigh and then Tok carefully rose to a standing position and began to descend the crane’smetal rungs. Despite his bulk and the total darkness, Tok moved with surprising stealth.
She followed him, and as they gained ground level he held out a hand to stabilize her as she stepped off the final rung. His action—and the lingering caress of his hand at her waist—took her aback. Did he think her some fragile female? They slipped out and away from the warehouse.
“I’m not some delicate beauty you have to mollycoddle, Tok,” she muttered.
“You are to me, Sweet Eva.” His response threw her into a state of utter confusion. She followed him in silence, her brain whirling. In her life, no male had ever said such a thing to her. No male had ever responded to her as a desirable female. That the big Khlossian would consider her sexually attractive was… nice. She studied him with new eyes as she followed him to… wherever.
Tok finally stopped at a small pub, The Dry Spot, on a busy street many blocks distant. Tok ushered her through the door and to a table, where he seated her by pulling out a sturdy chair and regarding her with an expectant smile until, with a frown and shake of her head, she sat. Pleasure vied with irritation. Does he think because I’m female, I’m weak? She sat stewing while Tok summoned a waiter.
“She’ll take a kaffé with plenty of nata and saccharon and a piece of that bombom torta in the display case.” Tok’s attention returned to her. “Give me ten minutes and then order a titan mug of Pretario’s Ale. I should be back by then.”
Eva straightened in her chair and frowned at him. “What are you going to do? Where are you going? What about the meks?”
“I must make a call.”
“For our mysterious help? I’m supposed to sit here and eat cake?”
“You don’t like bombom torta? I thought all females liked bombom torta.”
“I’m a combat soldier, you know, adeadly one. I am useful.” She clenched her jaw and bristled at him.
“This I know.” His eyes regarded her with… empathy?“You’re also a fine looking female who appearedin need ofa treat.”
Stumped, she blanked for a moment. “Oh.” She cleared her throat. “Thanks. Ahh… so… who are you calling?”
Tok’s lips lifted in apology. “I cannot tell you, Sweet Eva. Your sense of honor would require you tell Ramsey’s woman… she would tell Ramsey. He would try to stop me. He would fail. I don’t wish to injure him.” He lifted a shoulder in a shrug. From his posture to his expression, Tok conveyed the impression he hated what he was about to do—but was set on his course of action. “It is better for everyone if you stay here and eat torta.” He held her gaze steadily until she nodded.
“Yeah. Okay. I get it. You would probably knock me unconscious and stash me somewhere safe if I don’t agree, huh?”
Tok’s eyes sparkled with amusement. His shrug was apologetic.
“So go make your call, big guy.”
As the waiter arrived with her kaffé and torta, she swiveled around in her seat and watched Tok contort his body out the pub’s door. As his massive form vanished, she returned to the torta and kaffé. So…I guess I’ll sit here and eat cake.
She was pressing a forefinger to the plate to pick up the last crumbs of the torta when Tok entered the pub, pulled out a chair and eased himself down. When certain the chair would hold his weight, he relaxed, smiled at her, lifted the massive stein of Pretario’s Ale and downe
d the contents in several long swallows.
“Ah, that’s good.” He thumped the stein onto the table and stood. “I cannot stay. I must meet our ‘help’ at gangway forty-three.”
Eva shot him a sharp glance. “That’s an abandoned section. Some nasty characters cruise that area.You might need someone to watch your back.”
Tok eyed her and tapped his pursed lips. “Possibly. I will allow you to accompany me, but I have one requirement.”
She looked at him expectantly.
“You cannot tell Ramsey or his woman. It is possible the ignorant Verdantian will kill our help on sight… and this he cannot do.”
A sense of foreboding shivered down her spine. “What am I agreeing to, Tok?”
“Promise, Sweet Eva, or you will stay behind.”
“Tok…I don’t like this.”
“My assignment is to keep Dr. Angel safe. I am doing so.”
“Yes, of course, but…” She sighed. “All right. I promise.”
They walked in silence to a seedy area of the port city where Eva knew illegal goods and persons were frequently smuggled onto Verdantia. The Haarb had constructed the makeshift landing bays as a temporary expansion during their occupation of Verdantia, and even after more than a decade the condemned facilities had yet to be razed by the port authorities. Eva supposed they’d had other things to do. Tok moved directly to a gangway connected to a light-absorbing, matte-black ship devoid of any markings. The vessel, cloaked by the murky gloom of the abandoned slips, presented only a dim profile. She imagined in the dark of space it would be invisible to all but sophisticated sensors. A small hatch opened in the dark hull and a lizard-like humanoid entered an open elevator and descended down the side of the shipto a decrepit gangway.
As the lift clacked down its track to the ground, the lizard-man’s gaze swept the area beneath him and then stopped and focused on her. His yellow, snake-like eyes devoured her and his mouth pulled back in a toothy grin. Worse, his forked black tongue flickered from between his teeth as if tasting the air, as if tasting her. His attention never left her as he grabbed his crotch in an obscene gesture and began pumping his hips and grunting.
Revolted, she turned her back on him and faced Tok. “That’s a Haarb, Tok,” she hissed. “What in the fuck are you doing? This is our help?” She shook her head violently. “I don’t like this. This race tried to annihilate the Verdantians. They almost succeeded.”
Tok held her shoulders. “Be calm, Sweet Eva. Stay here. Don’t approach the ship.”
“As if I’d knowingly get within a mile of the murdering scum.”
“Good,” he grunted and trod up the gangway to meet a member of the race that had nearly succeeded in wiping the Verdantians from their planet.
In a language comprised of hisses and guttural spits, it appeared Tok was negotiating with the Haarb. It seemed a contentious negotiation. Tok met the lizard-man’s constant gestures toward her with a forceful shake of his head. “Nysss,” he growled. The Haarb’s gestures became more insistent. In a move faster than would seem possible for a being his size, Tokgrabbed the Haarb off its feet. A deadly blade seemed to appear as if by magic in his right hand. He held it to the Haarb’s eye socket. “Nysss!” he bellowed, and threw the creature to the metal grating. It sprang up and pulled its own blade with a threatening hiss. Tok barked some words at it and its lips pulled back in a sneer. It swung its gaze to Eva and in a very human-like gesture spat onto the ground.
Tok addressed it again, and with a baleful gaze the creature nodded. “Sssey.”
Tok grunted, turned his back on the Haarb and lumbered off the gangway. The lizard-man rotated its head toward her and leered with a final waggle of its tongue. She shivered in revulsion.
“Tok! What have you done?” she spat when he stopped in front of her. “Lord DeKieran will impale you where you stand when he finds you’ve brought Haarb to this planet. Our commander will have your balls on a plate—after she cuts out your liver. What the fuck have you done and what is this going to cost the Verdantians?”
Tok regarded her steadily. “The mekanikos are not vulnerable to sophisticated weaponry. They absorb the energy from lazer and fusion fire. It makes them stronger. They are, however, vulnerable to being torn apart. The trick is to find something physically stronger than they are; something not confused when they vanish from sight or change shape. I had limited choices.”
At the sound of a hatch banging open, her attention returned to the black ship. A silent parade of at least a dozen Haarb exited a ground level cargo hatch and rattled down the gangway. Each repugnant entity held several leashes with a snarling monster at the end of each leash. She gasped in horrified disbelief. “Fell wolves… the Haarb have brought fell wolves.”
Chapter Eighteen
Tristan handed Angelica a compact, lightweight weapon while Mage eyed both of them with annoyance. “No, princess,” Tris said. “For the last time, you don’t come with us. At the medcenter, you’re a liability. You’re more valuable here monitoring the communications board. We’ve been through this. Now, drop it. You’re staying.” Tris held Mage’s gaze until his lover rolled his eyes.
“Fine. Fine. I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it.” Mage placed a gentle kiss on Angelica’s lips. “Pay attention to the asshole, please. He does know what he’s doing.” Tris was just about to agree with Mage when the man grabbed the back of his neck and jerked him forward, smashing his lips in a forceful kiss. “Be careful,” Mage growled. “Don’t be a gods-be-damned hero.”
With lips still pulsing from the ferocity of Magellan’s kiss, Tris snorted. “Me? A hero? Pompous dick wits are never heroes.” Mage rolled his eyes again and shoved him away.
Tris turned to Angelica. “After you, Dr. Giverny.”
Tris and Mage had tried to convince Angelica to remain in the apartments, but she had insisted that she’d rather submerge herself in work. As Tris didn’t think she was at any greater risk in her offices, he’d agreed to let her go to work. Once there, the identity of Angelica’s first patient came as a surprise. When Lady Katrine DeClousey walked through the door, Tris started to retreat to a non-threatening corner to make himself as inconspicuous as possible.
“Good afternoon, Prince DeHelios. You look in need of sleep and a shave. No matter how fatigued, there is never a good reason to neglect your personal hygiene.”
Tris simply blinked. Angelica attempted to muffle her gurgle of laughter, but he heard her and swung to face her. “I liked her better before,” he muttered, and Angelica laughed harder.
The klaxon of the security system sobered them both.
“What?” Angelica’s wide eyes sought his.
The comm device on his wrist buzzed angrily—Mage on a priority call. At the same moment, Ramsey, Steffania and a contingent of Blue Daggers burst through the door to Angelica’s exam room. Tris hit connect on his comm device and barked, “Not now. I’ll get back to you.”
“Wait! Meks! Meks have hit the apartment!” Mage's out-of-breath voice filtered across the comm linc.
“Copy. I’ll get back to you,” said Tris.
“Meks have entered the dome,” Ramsey snapped. “We were unable to hold the perimeter. They’ve hit Angelica’s apartment and they are coming here. Get Angelica to the safe room.” Ram’s gaze speared Angelica. “You and Tris lock yourselves in and don’t come out until you hear the all clear. Here, take this.” Ramsey tossed him a bulky tube mounted with optical sights and a reinforced tripod. Tris grunted with the effort to hold the thing. He recognized it as a mobile, one-man fusion cannon. Shit. He could take half the medcenter out with this weapon. Ramsey’s head swung to a cowering Lady DeClousey. “Stay in the exam room. You are not the target. I don’t think you’re in any danger as long as you stay out of the line of fire.”
Tris ran to the door with Angelica and sprinted to the “safe” room down the hall, a room made as impregnable as possible. He pushed her inside and closed the solid metal door. The solid thunk of the lock
ing mechanisms connecting sounded loud in the room. He thumbed in Ramsey’s comm code. “We’re secure.”
“Roger. Set your comm line to monitor channel twelve. Ramsey out.”
Tris did as Ram had ordered and then proceeded to set up the fusion cannon facing the door.
“What do we do?” Angelica stood with her arms wrapped around her but amazingly composed.
“We trust the Daggers to protect you and we wait for the all clear.”
Tristan opened his arms and Angelica moved into his hold. Through the open comm device, both of them listened to the shouted orders from Ramsey and Steffania as the Daggers worked to secure the hallway on either side of the safe room. All fell silent.
“Fuck! Ultraviolet! Shift optics to ultraviolet!” Steffania screamed out orders. Abruptly, shouted commands, sounds of lazer fire and screams of agony overwhelmed his open comm and continued for several minutes—only to be replaced by static.
Angelica gasped, “I can’t stand this. What’s happening?” At that moment a tremendous blow battered the door to the safe room. An indention appeared. Bam! Bam! A hole opened in the middle of the door and a metallic hand began to peel the solid sheet metal away as if it were paper.
Tris moved to the fusion cannon, centered it on the door and flipped the priming switch. A low whine sounded in the room as it armed itself. “Get behind me, Angelica. I’m going to blow these bastards to the seven hells.” Tris disciplined himself to wait until the last moment possible and so was treated to the view of a skeletoid figure of living metal stepping through the gaping hole in the door. It paused for one moment and regarded the fusion cannon with a cocked head.
“Yeah, you ugly fucker. Come and get it.” Tris hit the firing button. The blast from the cannon hit the mek pointblank and ripped the safe room door from its hinges. The back-blast flattened him and Angelica against the back wall. When Tris straightened from his curled position protecting Angelica, he surveyed the damage and swore savagely. He pulled his Razar 88K and began firing as the unscathed mekanikos advanced on him. He emptied his gun at the creature’s head. “What’s it going to take to make you die, asshole?” Tris jerked his dagger from his belt as the mek reached out, picked him up by his armor and dangled him like a small child from its outstretched hand. It regarded him dispassionately before it removed the blade from his hand, drove it into his abdomen and sliced him from hip to hip. It happened so fast he felt nothing until it opened its fist and he fell to the floor. Through his agony, he saw Angelica aim the small emitter he’d given her at the mek and fire. The mek swatted at her, knocking the firearm out of her hand and grabbing her by the neck. A squeeze of her carotid artery and she slumped over. Had the mek killed her? Or was she simply unconscious? The mek tossed her over its shoulder and turned to carry her down the hall.
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