by Pamela Fryer
“Jager, you dog!”
“I do not understand.”
She laughed. “No matter how free we are in our sexual permissiveness, even we frown on adultery.”
“It was not my choice. She was a Sulvarien, a noblewoman of the citizenship. When I came back victorious from the territory wars at Venula Moon, I was called upon to serve her.” He scanned the area while holding his weapon aimed forward, but she knew he was mostly trying to avoid her eyes. The tightness between his brows told her it was a sore subject for him.
“I was merely sport to satisfy the cravings of a spoiled and bored aristocrat,” he finished with distaste.
She placed a hand on his arm and urged him to stop. “Jager, I’m so sorry. No person deserves to be treated that way, especially a war hero. I hope it wasn’t a bad experience.”
“It was unpleasant and meaningless, and only served to taunt me with things I could not have.”
God, he reached right into her heart with that one. And then he gave her a thin smile that made it all that much worse.
“It is why I am so grateful to you for the beautiful gift you gave me. I would not do that unless I had feelings for you as well.”
So he had caught her little blunder. Now it was her turn to blush. She turned forward and started walking without a word, headed toward the broken window she’d crawled through last night. He fell into step beside her. The silence was not uncomfortable, but at the same time she nearly had to bite her lip to keep from asking the questions whirling through her mind, which all seemed too inappropriate.
Oh, what the hell. “It can’t be encouraging to keep the soldiers from having any fun. What are your officials thinking? How can they expect you to put everything you have into fighting if you have nothing to fight for?”
“We are not permitted to marry, but we may use credits to visit the Rashee harem ships. Rashee women are pleasure givers.”
She didn’t need that translated: prostitutes.
“Rashee are much like your Geisha. On Ocreon, there is an entire city inhabited by Rashee. It is a beautiful and enchanting place. They serve the highest class and the most decorated of soldiers, and are very expensive. There are lower-level Rashee, more commonly referred to as Ras, to serve low-ranking soldiers and the poorer working class.”
Translation: whores.
“Some even travel in ships that dock with service vessels and military caravans.”
Translation: skanky whores. She stepped over the mud and crawled into the windowsill.
“I have never visited any of them either,” he continued. “My mentor advised against it...and because I have served the Interplanetary Alliance my whole life believing that there was something better waiting for me.”
She stopped, balanced on the sill, holding her breath.
“Now I see I was right. I may have only hours to spend with you, but they were worth waiting for.”
She slipped her arm around his neck and pulled him to her lips. This time, his kiss was immediate and powerful, without a hint of regret. His arms slid around her and he squeezed tightly, as if he had finally found her after a lifetime of wandering. As if it could somehow keep their imminent separation from happening.
It couldn’t.
She now understood she’d been waiting for him too. It made the idea of losing him so quickly all the harder to accept.
“That is the sweetest thing anyone ever said to me.”
“You deserve better, Brooke. I only wish I could remain here and give it to you.”
He really was a prince. She blinked away the stinging in her eyes. “I wish you could too.”
She held his gaze a moment. A ray of warm sunlight brightened and then faded as the clouds moved past the hills to the north. She slipped through the window, and he hopped in after her.
“There’s that stink again.”
“The Tetra has most likely emerged to find clean water.”
“So it could be anywhere?” She holstered her gun and withdrew the Syfy Channel special Jager had given her. The weapon made her nervous. If it didn’t fire good-old Earth-mined lead, it didn’t pack the kind of punch she was comfortable with. “Come on, spider, make my day.”
They passed through the gutted office and stepped into the hallway.
“This way to the main floor and the access tunnel we took last night,” she whispered. One last question was burning a hot-spot on her tongue. “Don’t the soldiers get edgy without the proper outlets for their needs? Seems to me the soldiers would be distracted with too much pent-up sexual frustration.”
“There are remedies the soldiers can take to dampen sexual desires and keep them focused on their assignments.”
What a depressing idea. “On Earth, men masturbate.”
“Is that a pill?”
She chuckled softly. “Your generals should take a few tips from us Earthlings; the quickest way to make a man run from a relationship is to ask him to commit to it.”
They passed through the steel doors to the main floor and were immediately overwhelmed by the musty odor of decay. But once they reached the access tunnel leading to the sewer, they found a mountain of refuse piled over it. Jager turned in a slow circle, sweeping the room with the powerful light beam from his weapon’s illumination setting.
“You didn’t show me how to make mine do that,” she whispered.
“Press the green button at the back of the handle.”
She illuminated hers and swept the light in the other direction. “Do you think it’s in here? I don’t smell it like I did when it was close.”
He flipped open his handheld device and looked at the grid. There were no blips or squiggles. “Of that, I am uncertain. But I feel safe to presume it does not want us to follow.”
Brooke took the printouts from her back pocket and unfolded them. After a quick scan of the first, she located a marker in another section of the plant about a hundred yards away. “There’s another access tunnel, that way.” She looked up. Deeper in, the building got darker and gloomier. “Do you think it’s a trap?”
“Quite possibly. However, we have no choice.”
“Wait a minute.” She looked at the map again. “There’s another, that way. It’s outside, in the forest at a pumping station. Let’s take a tip from the cultists and not look for the easiest route.”
“That is a wise decision.”
Unless the creature was more cunning than she gave it credit for being. Did it want them to go the long way? Was it anticipating that they would expect a trap? Brooke fully admitted she was out of her league. She didn’t like going up against insects that were smarter than she was.
One thing for sure, she’d rescued her last house spider. From now on, the ones she found in her apartment were getting the business end of her shoe.
A rumble of thunder greeted them as they exited the building. The air was charged and muggy. Brooke could see the cement blockhouse in the trees, a distance away. She scanned the forest, searching for movement.
She glanced at Jager’s still-blank screen. “Are you sure that thing is working correctly?”
He angled it so she could see. “It registers our body heat at the base of the screen.”
She would bet those two little red dots were burning a little brighter today than they had been yesterday. Her cheeks grew warm. “That’s reassuring.”
Jager aimed his weapon at the door handle and fired a thin, green laser beam. The lever handle immediately began smoking, turned bright red, and fell to pieces. Once the hardware disintegrated, he kicked the heavy door in.
Butterflies took flight in her stomach. No matter how strong and independent she believed herself, there were still girly parts of her that loved the display of male bravado from a hot guy.
“Do not touch the door,” Jager said as he started in. “It will be quite hot.”
The cover to the access pipe was still in place. Jager knelt and pulled it aside.
Brooke looked down into the dark pipe. She co
uldn’t see the bottom, only inky black. Her shoulders stiffened. She did not want to go down there.
Jager sensed her trepidation. “You do not have to go.”
“Yes, I do.”
He sighed, obviously resigned to the fact she wouldn’t be dissuaded. “I need only that you navigate the tunnels for me and keep a look out for surprise attacks. When we encounter the Tetra, I will engage the kill. I do not expect you to place yourself in danger.”
She swallowed. “That night I told you about in Portland—the sewers saved my life. But now when I think of them, all I know is fear.”
“I understand.” His eyes proved he did.
“It’s okay. I can do this.”
“You are very brave, Brooke.”
Not as much as I’m trying to look. “I guess now’s not a good time to mention I’m claustrophobic.”
“I do not like high places either.” He switched his weapon back to “light” and shined the beam down the pipe. “The ladder leading down is no higher than the one in the building.”
Her fears didn’t matter, Brooke thought grimly. Sara Brown was the first priority. Time was running out for the senator’s daughter.
Maybe if this wasn’t her hometown, she wouldn’t put her own life on the line for a client. But this case was different; it seemed everyone from her past had gathered in Ridgemont to watch her, like some sort of macabre jury. She had a lot to prove, and a lot to make up for.
Brooke couldn’t live with herself if another person died because of her. This wouldn’t bring Amy Farnsworth back, but every life she saved was her small way of saying “I’m sorry.”
She swallowed down the thick lump clogging her throat. “Let’s go.”
Jager started down first and Brooke followed. The rungs were cold and rough on her hands. That musty, stagnant smell intensified the deeper she got, choking off the fresh air of the forest. At least there wasn’t that rotting, foul smell given off by the Tetra.
“I feel it would be best to travel toward the blocked access,” Jager said when she reached the ground. He held up the screen of his device. Still nothing.
“Sounds like as good a direction as any.”
Brooke looked at the schematic again. In the other direction, northeast, they would come to the dead end at the water station by the old reservoir. She wished she had a compass. She knew where she was now, but in moments she could lose her sense of direction. Thankfully the access pipes were marked.
“G-9. Remember that’s where we came in.”
Cold air tainted with the chill of death made her shiver. Though her hikers were past ruined, Brooke stayed to the narrow walk beside the channel. At least now her feet were dry and she was wearing clean socks. The last thing she wanted was more of that gunk squishing between her toes.
No, the last thing I want is to get eaten by an outer-space spider.
They came to the access pipe where above, scrap metal blocked the opening. Brooke saw the prints in the muddy bottom of the wide trench: theirs from the day before, and more of the Tetra’s. The smell of the creature wasn’t quite as strong as she remembered. The odor was still there, but now it was tainted with something else she couldn’t quite identify.
She sneaked a glance at Jager’s screen. Still nothing.
“Is it possible the Tetra isn’t even down here anymore? We could be chasing shadows.”
“Though unlikely, it is certainly a possibility. However, I would stake my wager on your first assumption.”
“A trap.”
“Yes.”
“Jager, you have to learn how to sugarcoat your bad news.”
The handheld device emitted a soft beep. They both looked at the same time. A small green dot hovered at the top of the screen. She wished she knew how to read the thing. At this point, she had no idea how to gauge the distance.
“Is that the Tetra?”
Jager nodded. “With sugar.”
“It isn’t moving.” No sooner than she’d said it, the green dot started moving across the screen toward the two small red dots— them—and fast.
“The tunnel joins another just ahead,” Jager said. “We must get to the branch before the creature can escape.”
He started off at a jog and Brooke had no choice but to follow. Dread formed as a heavy, cold ball in the pit of her stomach. Was she really hurrying toward that thing? If it was coming at them, she would bet money it wasn’t trying to get to the branch first so it could escape.
She and Jager had proved to be a thorn in the bug’s side, and it wanted to be rid of them.
Their lights illuminated the branching tunnel. The green dot was no longer moving across the screen. The scent of the Tetra was stronger than ever.
The odd odor mixing with it made Brooke uneasy. What is that?
The instant she heard the screech, something came flying out of the darkness. It wasn’t the Tetra, but a large, gooey mass like an enormous wad of chewed gum.
Webbing. It struck her in the chest and knocked her against the far wall, kicking the breath out of her. It spread around her like a sticky net. It was heavy and thick, and started hardening immediately. She’d jerked when it came at her; now her body was frozen in a half defensive pose as she struggled to draw in a breath. She tightened her right hand on the handle of the space weapon, determined not to drop it.
The creature emerged from the shadows, scurrying toward them upside down on the ceiling of the tunnel. Jager lifted his weapon and aimed.
The scent registered. It was a trap.
“Jager, don’t fire! The tunnels are full of gasoline!”
Chapter Eleven
The Tetra crept toward them menacingly. She would swear its shiny, dead eyes glared at her. It was uglier than sin, like a monstrous mutation from the Island of Dr. Moreau.
“It’s trying to blow us up!” God, how in the hell did it find flammable liquid? How in the hell did it know?
Jager backed toward her, quickly turned, and pulled at the webbing adhering her to the wall. She came away with a crunch as hardened pieces broke free, but she was still restrained as though she were wearing a straitjacket.
“You didn’t tell me it could do that!”
“It escaped my thoughts.”
The Tetra started scrabbling faster, the sharp tips of its feet scraping across the cement ceiling. Brooke remembered seeing a documentary about spiders. They had tiny hairs upon tiny hairs upon tiny hairs all over their legs, making it impossible for them to slip. It was just her luck space spiders were apparently the same.
She pulled her arm into the sleeve of her jacket just as the Tetra emitted another bloodcurdling screech. It was so close she could see the massive mandibles open. Jager was right. It was bigger. Much bigger.
She unholstered her Taser, shrugged out of her denim jacket, and fired. The contacts hit just behind the Tetra’s ugly head. It scrabbled up the wall and turned upside down on the ceiling, nearly yanking the Taser out of her hand. One hundred and sixty thousand volts of electricity pumped through the wires.
It screeched again, but this time it was clearly a scream of pain.
It changed direction, racing across the curve of the ceiling and bouncing off the wall. It landed upside down in the muck. She released the trigger an instant before it hit, praying the contacts wouldn’t ignite the gasoline.
The Tetra flipped upright and vanished up the branching tunnel, tearing the contact wires out of the pistol. The force jerked the weapon out of her hand. It didn’t matter. It was ruined anyhow.
“Anything else you forgot to tell me?” she demanded as they started after it at a run. Brooke wiped the webbing off her arm. It stuck to her hand, smearing around her clothing and generally making a bigger mess, like super-bond cotton candy.
“I am sorry. I did not believe the Tetra could spray in Earth’s atmosphere.”
“Yuck! God, it stinks to high hell!”
She followed beside Jager, who ran easily through the trench, holding the handheld device lev
elly in front of himself. She kept one eye on it and one eye on the narrow ledge. Brooke kept losing her balance and planting one foot in the muck running down the sloped floor. Before long, her left foot was soaking wet and slimy ooze was again squishing between her toes. It was almost worse that it was only one foot.
Oh, the hell with it. She stepped into the muck. It was easier to run this way, and at least both feet felt evenly gross.
The green dot indicating the Tetra moved to the edge of the screen and disappeared.
“That is one fast bug.”
She thought of the comparison to a scurrying cockroach, a buzzing mosquito. Brooke gave silent thanks that all bugs weren’t as big as humans.
“You hurt it. That was a wise decision to use your electrical device. You would make a good soldier, Brooke.”
“No thanks. I’ve had my fill of civil service.” She slowed her step, stunned at the sight of a fifty-gallon drum cracked open like an egg. It looked as though the Tetra had snipped through the metal with its mandibles.
“Is it my imagination, or is that thing getting smarter?”
“As I said—”
“I know, I know. The Tetra is a very cunning creature.”
He looked at her, perplexed.
“Sorry.” She wiped at the goo on her jacket. It was like trying to pry flypaper off; she only managed to transfer it from one hand to the other.
“Come away from the gasoline. I will burn the webbing off.”
She jerked back. “No thank you!”
“Brooke, do you still not trust me? I will not hurt you.” He programmed his weapon and aimed it at her. “Be still. We must hurry.”
With the weapon set to emit a flat, wide beam of milky white light, the Tetra’s spray ignited into cool blue sparks. It was a bit like igniting a film of alcohol on her skin. It burned, but it didn’t burn her.
“Is there anything that thing can’t do?”
“This model does not possess a levitation beam.”
She grinned. Jager’s sense of humor was limited, for certain. Though it was just one more adorable trait, she wished she’d have more time to work on it.
They continued up the branching tunnel at a jog. There had been more water in this branch yesterday. Today it dwindled to a trickle. She soon discovered why.