by S. E. Smith
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Chapter 4
What Is He?
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Dust stared at the two figures walking ahead of him. He glanced down and kicked at a stone in the road when Sammy looked over her shoulder at him again. A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. She had been glaring at him for the past two hours. At first, she had backed away from him. When it became obvious that he wasn’t going to attack her and Todd, she had tried ignoring him. They had worked quietly, gathering as much food as they could and placing it in stacks.
He found some more shirts on one of the aisles and quickly changed out of his torn and bloody one. He had also snacked on anything he could find and felt better than he had in ages. He paused when she stopped to stare inside one of the small cars left in the middle of the road. Curious, she opened the door and slid into the driver's seat. He jumped when he heard the clicking of the engine. His expression softened when Sammy leaned her forehead against the steering wheel.
“Pop the hood,” he called out.
Sammy slowly lifted her head and stared at him in silence before she bent down and pulled the lever. Dust stepped forward and felt under the hood until he found the latch. Pulling it, he lifted the hood and pulled the thin bar down to hold it up. He glanced around the engine, looking for anything obvious.
“Can you fix it?” Todd asked, coming up to stand next to Dust.
“Maybe,” Dust replied, touching some of the wires and hoses, before checking the battery. “Does it have any gas?”
Sammy stepped up to look up under the hood. “I don’t know,” she said with a shrug. “The battery is dead.”
Dust grinned. “I might be able to help with that,” he commented, looking around. “Wait here.”
“Where else are we going to go?” Sammy muttered under her breath as she turned to watch him jog across the street. “Shit!”
“Sammy!” Todd exclaimed, watching Dust with wide eyes.
“Sorry,” she muttered, staring at the spot where Dust had just disappeared – literally. “He just went through that door without opening it!”
“I know,” Todd whispered in awe. “I wish I could do that!”
Sammy didn’t say anything. Instead, she watched as the door opened this time and Dust walked out. He had disappeared inside what looked like a discount auto store. He had several things in a dark red basket. He stopped in front of the car and set the basket down before rubbing his hands nervously down the front of his pants.
“I used to help my dad in his shop,” Dust admitted. “It may take a little while, but all we’ve got is time, right?” he joked, looking at Sammy with a slightly pleading look.
“Why are you doing this?” Sammy asked, swallowing over the lump in her throat. “What happened to you?”
Dust bent his head and shook it. “I don’t want you to go without me,” he said softly. Clearing his throat, he bent and picked up the tools he had picked out and set them on the edge of the radiator. “You two are the first humans I’ve seen in over a year. The only other thing I’ve seen are a few animals and….”
“And?” Sammy asked, motioning for Todd to take the pack in her hands. “Can you put this in the car?”
“Okay. Can I help you, Dust?” Todd asked with a hopeful smile.
Dust nodded. “Sure,” he said. “Can you make sure everything is cleaned out as much as possible so we can load the car up when we get it going?”
Todd’s face fell, but he nodded his head and kicked at a loose rock. “Yeah, I guess,” he mumbled.
“If I need more help, I’ll call you,” Dust promised. “This is important, though. We’ve got to have supplies.”
“That’s okay,” Todd replied with a hesitant smile. “Can you teach me how to go through doors like you did?”
Dust’s smile faded and he bowed his head again. Sammy shook her head at Todd, who released a loud sigh and turned away. Sammy’s gaze followed her little brother with a look of worry.
“I won’t hurt him… or you,” Dust muttered. “You asked me what happened to me. I don’t know,” he said, bending forward and beginning to pull the spark plugs. Both the plugs and wires were scorched. He quickly removed them and tossed them to the side. “I don’t remember much after the initial blast. I was in the house alone. My mom and dad were in the barn, trying to bring the cows inside.”
“What… What happened to them?” Sammy asked, watching as Dust worked.
Dust glanced at her before bending to pick up some new spark plugs he had taken from the auto store. Sammy wished she could take back the question, but it was too late. Dust turned away from her and worked in silence for several minutes before he spoke again.
“They were gone and so was the barn. There wasn’t much left of the house,” he said in a low voice. “I woke up buried in the cellar. I could see through the roof. I remember a strange light in the sky, bolts of lightning striking all around me and a strange dust. It all mixed together and everything began to glow. The next time I woke, I was….”
“You were…,” Sammy prompted, placing her hand lightly on his arm before jerking it away.
Dust’s head slowly turned and he looked at her with piercing brown eyes. “I was there, but I wasn’t.”
Sammy stared at him for a long time before she nodded, as if she had made up her mind about something. Biting her lip, she looked at where Todd was playing. Her heart hurt for both Todd and Dust. Life shouldn’t be like this. Blinking back the tears, she looked back at Dust and blushed a little when she saw he was watching her.
“Todd can stay here and help you,” she said suddenly. “I’ll start bringing stuff from the store and packing it into the car. This way we can get out of here as soon as you get it started.”
“Okay,” Dust replied, glancing back down the street with a frown. “Be careful. We don’t know what happened to that one devil dog and we don’t know if there are more.”
“I will be,” Sammy said, stepping back. “Just… Promise me that you’ll keep Todd safe.”
Dust straightened. “I promise,” he replied. “I’ll keep you both safe – or die trying.”
“Let’s hope that won’t be necessary,” Sammy retorted with an unsteady laugh, pushing her hair back behind her ear.
“Take your bow,” Dust advised.
Sammy shook her head. “I only have one arrow left. I’ll borrow your pipe,” she said, reaching for the long piece of metal leaning up against the front of the car. “Just get the car going.”
Sammy didn’t wait for Dust to reply. Instead, she focused on the task she had assigned herself. If Dust was successful, she wanted to get out of here. Her gut was telling her they didn’t want to be here after dark tonight.
Dust: Before and After
Krac’s Firebrand
Section K Replication Alluthan Clone, or Krac as he was now called, had one focus in his life: protecting the descendants of the Freedom Five who ruled Earth’s council. Rescued by members of the family from a secret facility, he pledged to do what he could to always keep them safe. Things become personal when insurgents target a special member of the Freedom Five, Gracie Jones-Jefe and her family. When Violet Jefe is kidnapped, he swears to do everything he can to bring the precocious little girl home safely and kill those who took her.
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Captain “Skeeter” Lulu Belle Mann lives a life of freedom drifting from Spaceport to Spaceport in her short haul freighter looking for unusual treasures to add to her collection of mismatched prizes. On the Pyrus Space Station, she finds two treasures she has to have! One is the new navigation module she desperately needs and the other is a curly haired little girl with big green eyes that melts her heart. Never one to be denied what she really wants, Skeeter buys the first and steals the second.
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When sources lead Krac to the Lulu Belle, he finds more than he expects - a woman who fires his blood almost as much as she draws it…
Krac scowled at the men surrounding him. For the pa
st two weeks he had been following one lead after another. Each one led him a step closer to finding the men who kidnapped Violet. Unfortunately, he was still no closer to finding out who the leader of the New Order was or where he might find him.
The dead male at the medical tower had given him his first clue. While there was no identification on the male, Krac had been able to link him to the Tillman Corporation back on Earth through facial and DNA scans. Tillman was one of the largest suppliers of weapons for the Earth’s military.
The founder was also a contributor that funded the research lab that developed him. Richard Tillman had remained free because there had been no trail of paperwork that lead back to him. Krac knew better, but Anastasia made him promise to not go after Tillman, as it would prove his point that Krac should have been destroyed instead of set free. Instead, she promised to have him watched, so she could bring him down publicly, a fact that caused open hostility between her and Tillman.
Video feeds from the apartment where the nurse lived showed the shadowy face of one of the other males, the one who held Gracie. Krac had finally been able to make a facial match after piecing together numerous images. Harden Blake was a mercenary for hire who was wanted in at least three star systems for the murder of prominent political figures. He had found the nurse dead in one of the exam rooms at the medical center. From the evidence in her apartment, she and Harden had been lovers.
It was the piece of information he had been downloading when Kordon alerted him that had been his first big break. A personal starship belonging to Richard Tillman was requesting emergency clearance to depart from Zion. He had tracked it to Banshore Spaceport. It would appear that his movements were being tracked as well, based on his welcoming committee. The only way that was possible was if the sleek starship that Anastasia had commissioned for him had been tagged with a tracker, or worse, there was a traitor within Anastasia’s inner circle.
One of the men spit on the ground before grinning at him. He held a long laser whip in his right hand, tapping it against the palm of his left. Krac watched as his eyes ran up and down him with a sneer of contempt.
“You don’t look so big and mean for being a monster,” he chuckled menacingly. “If you live, we’ll see how good you are in the fight rings.”
Krac stared intently at the man. He would be the second to die. The man to his back and left would be the first as he held a dart gun. He could process and control being shot better than drugged. If these were Tillman’s men, and he was positive they were, then Tillman would have given them the drugs that could neutralize him. He could not take a chance on that. The other four men would die at random.
“Where is Councilman Jefe’s daughter? If you tell me, I’ll kill you quickly. If you don’t, I will make sure I take my time. Believe me, I know many, many ways to prolong your death,” Krac said quietly.
“Fill him with a low enough dose he can feel the whip, Sal,” the leader of the group ordered. “I want him begging for us to kill his ass.”
Krac didn’t wait any longer. With a slight shift of his weight, he kicked out backwards. His booted foot caught the man holding the dart gun in the throat, crushing it. He ducked and swiveled, grabbing the dart gun as it fell out of the dying man’s hand as he grabbed his shattered throat. Completing the circle on his heel, he fired a dart into the man with the whip. He decided he wanted him alive.
He ejected the second dart in the gun into his hand as he stood up. He swung out with both hands. His right hand smashed the butt of the gun into the third man’s jaw while his other drove the tip of the second dart into the fourth man’s forehead, piercing his brain.
He grabbed the man whose jaw he had broken and pulled him in front of him as the fifth and final man lifted the laser pistol he had drawn and fired. The man in Krac’s arms jerked as his chest was riddled with laser bursts. Krac pulled the laser pistol from the dead man’s waist as he let the body fall and fired a single shot between the last man’s eyes.
Twirling the pistol in his hand, he tucked it casually into the waistband of his pants before bending and effortlessly throwing the unconscious male over his shoulder. He wanted answers and he was going to get them. The male was about to discover the true meaning of wishing he were dead.
Skeeter glanced sideways, keeping her eyelashes lowered as she picked up parts that she didn’t have a clue what they went to. Since she wasn’t sure what the part she needed was called, she didn’t want to ask the men. Besides, the two at the counter didn’t look like they were the kind of men who were very helpful. For that matter, neither did the guy behind the counter.
“We need to make contact. Tell the Leader that the gray bastard is breathing down our necks. We’ve sent some men to stop him, but if we don’t deliver the package soon and disappear, we are in trouble,” the meaner-looking of the two said quietly. “We need more men to kill him.”
“And help Mace,” the larger male growled. “He shot Mace. He needs help.”
“Shut up, you moron,” the male hissed, glancing at Skeeter, who quickly picked up a long cylinder shaped device. “We need to talk in private.”
“Back here,” the male behind the counter grunted. “Don’t take anything without paying or I’ll cut your hands off,” he yelled out at Skeeter.
Skeeter looked up at him with wide eyes. “I’m not a thief! I have credits,” she replied indignantly.
“Just remember what I said,” the male snapped before he jerked his head. “Back here.”
Skeeter watched in the reflection of a large piece of metal as the fat yellow male behind the counter unlocked a wide door and pushed the top of the counter up. She breathed a sigh of relief when the men walked through the opening and disappeared through a door behind the counter area.
Now, she could really look for what she needed without worrying if they asked her questions she couldn’t answer. She pulled the small part that Froget had removed from the navigation module. Even to her untrained eyes it looked burnt.
She quickly scanned the shelves closest to her before moving to the ones closer to the counter. She stood on her tiptoes, trying to see what was on the top shelf, but she was too short. Turning, she scanned the room. Her eyes lit on a small crate with a handle on it.
Skeeter glanced toward the doorway where the men had disappeared before glancing back up at the shelf. It wouldn’t hurt to take a quick peek. She hurried over to the crate, deciding she would rather look for herself instead of waiting to ask any of the scary men. She was surprised at how heavy the little crate was, considering it looked like it was empty.
She was breathing heavy by the time she set it down next to the shelves. Standing on it, she looked at abundance of parts. She set the broken piece down on the top shelf and ran her hand around over some parts that were closer to the wall. Her hand wrapped around one item that looked similar to what she needed when a small whimper caught her attention.
Skeeter looked over her shoulder, puzzled. She shrugged her shoulders, thinking she must be hearing things and was about to turn back to her search when the whimper sounded again. This time, a little louder than the first time.
“Who's there?” Skeeter whispered loudly.
“Mommy?” A tiny voice whimpered. “Mommy, I’m scared.”
Skeeter’s eyes widened in disbelief when she realized the tiny voice was coming from the crate she was standing on. She scrambled down off of it and knelt on the floor so she could look through the mesh covering one side of the small box. Her breath caught when a pair of vivid green eyes, filled with tears, gazed back at her from a dirty face.
“Oh my,” Skeeter whispered. “What are you doing in there?”
“Bad… bad… men… hurt my daddy,” the tiny little girl whispered. “They… took me from my mommy. I want to go home. Pretty please. I want my mommy and daddy.”
Skeeter’s eyes filled with tears as she heard the pitiful plea. Memories of her own parents, now faded by time, flashed through her mind. She reached her fingers through t
he wire in comfort. Her eyes skirted toward the doorway in the back again.
“How about you come with me?” Skeeter whispered back. “I have a big freighter. I bet we could find your mommy and daddy. It will be like an adventure. You have to be really quiet though, so the bad men don’t know.”
“Like hide-and-seek?” The little girl asked excitedly. “I like that game. Mommy made Uncle Krac play it with me. He said you have to be really, really quiet. Mom said I’m not supposed to come out until someone says the magic words.”
“Alley, alley in come free?” Skeeter responded with a grin.
“You know how to play that game?” The tiny figure asked.
“It’s one of my favorites. My dad could never find me,” Skeeter giggled. “Let’s get you out of here.”
The little girl nodded and put her fingers to her lips. Skeeter looked over her shoulder again before quickly undoing the wires holding the mesh closed. She reached in and helped the tiny figure as she crawled out of the small box. Her lips tightened in anger when she saw the dark tracks of dirt where the child had been crying.
“My name’s Skeeter,” Skeeter whispered as she picked up the tiny body. “What’s yours?”
“Violet,” she replied, laying her head on Skeeter’s shoulder. “I’m hungry.”
Skeeter ran her hand down along the girl’s thin back and hugged her close. “I’ll fix you something as soon as we get back to the Lulu Belle.”
She turned to leave before she realized that she forgot the part to the navigation system. Tightening her arms around Violet, she stepped up onto the crate and reached for the part she had set down. She quickly slid it back into the pocket of her cloak before jumping down off the crate.
She rolled her eyes when she realized she needed to put the crate back where she found it. She bent down and grasped the now much lighter box and carried it back over to next to the side where she got it. She remembered the man behind the counter telling her not to take anything without paying for it. Deciding, since Violet wasn’t theirs in the first place, the rule shouldn’t apply – still, it wasn’t right to take something without leaving something, even if it wasn’t theirs.