The Iron Altar Series Box Set One: Books 1 to 3

by Casey Lea

  Voices echoed along the passage and her pulse accelerated.

  “Pertwing, could the technology used to camouflage a ship be used to hide a person?”

  “Yes, but it would take more power than your com can channel. Two mutt are approaching from the leeward of the ship.”

  “I have no idea what direction that is, but I can hear them. Are they dressed for rebound?”

  “No.”

  “Great, we’ll go back and hide in a cave.” Darsey pushed herself urgently from the wall and at the same time managed to shrug Wing’s comatose form into a more secure position. She took a step that was fairly straight and then another. Her third stride wavered and she had to stop before momentum unbalanced her again. She stood swaying and sweating heavily as muscles already tired from rebound demanded some rest. “Computer,” Darsey gasped, “can the com disguise Nightwing?”

  “It does not have the finesse needed to hold convincing facial features, or the power to disguise his total body.”

  “Just- ah- just color his hair. Brown, blond and blue, like ManDaNiah’s. What species is he?”

  “ManDaNiah is a gentik, but Nightwing is unconscious and that is what his hunters will look for-”

  “Do it,” Darsey ordered in a clipped tone, and Pertwing silently obeyed.

  Nightwing’s hair shimmered briefly and from the corner of her eye, Darsey caught a gleam of brown and blue. She raised her head, wincing at the pain in her neck, and looked down the twenty metres of twilit corridor that still stood between them and the closest rebound cave. The murmur of the approaching mutt grew clearer. Their voices were worried and she made out the word, “Jileea”.

  Darsey took another careful step toward the sound and this time kept going. Her pace was slow, but steady and she breathed deeply. The tremor of the approaching guards’ tread carried to her feet and the name, “Nightwing” also rumbled around the corner.

  Darsey grimaced as she panted her way up and down the switchback passage. It seemed this drama was being played out by her prime suspects, but this time she’d have to face down Jileea’s blaster without Wing’s help. The mutt’s voices were now a constant low rumble, a thunder of concern about failing their boss and they were nearly at the corner ahead.

  However, Darsey ignored the assassins completely. All of her attention was on walking and a simple series of steps that were straight. The fact that she was walking toward two mutt who were hurrying toward her was irrelevant. The cave entrance beckoned from just before the corner and she moved steadily toward it.

  “Human,” Pertwing’s voice hissed from the com, but Darsey was too close to potential enemies to risk responding. “You must go the other way. You must run. The mutt are close and they are searching the rebound caves.”

  I know, Darsey thought as clearly as she could. I’m counting on it. We’ll pass through the search line and be safe. We’d never make it to the link at this pace. It’s over two hundred metres away and you can bet they’ll be watching that too. Can the com move Nightwing’s limbs?

  There was no response and Darsey wondered if Pertwing understood the message. She took another stride, long and desperate, as the noise from the mutt reached the corner. The step was too ambitious and she started to fall, so she threw herself at the court entrance with the last of her strength. She saw a mutt’s leg appear around the corner and then her body toppled forward. Nightwing flew over her head and she collapsed into the cave after him, but neither hit the floor hard. They tumbled into the weightless space and everything slowed. Darsey’s momentum drifted her into firm padding, before bouncing her back to the middle of the oval chamber. She floated across it and saw Wing turning limply beneath her. Her need for rest was almost overwhelming, but adrenaline kept her moving.

  “Pertwing!” she hissed, and was reassured by an instant response.

  “Ye, the com can control the arm it’s attached to and move Wing somewhat. I’ll send it proper signals. The mutt are six metres away. Four. Two.”

  The console fell silent, but Darsey was already moving. She gave a triumphant shout and shot herself across the sphere, between the mutt and Nightwing.

  “My game, ManDaNiah,” she crowed. Now, Pertwing.

  Wing’s com pulsed and he seemed to push away from the lower quadrant. His left arm rose in the traditional salute offered to a victor. Darsey responded with the requisite nod and Nightwing’s arm pulled the rest of his torso down in an answering bow.

  “Another game?” she called to his unconscious form, and his com pulsed again to pull him to the central starting point.

  “Game good?” grunted a voice from beyond the chamber, and Darsey swivelled in apparent surprise.

  She saw two mutt through the entry field and to her relief they were both strangers. They seemed to be on their sides, so she sent a thought to her com. Its gentle surge tilted her until she was on the same orientation as the mutt in the corridor.

  “Sure it’s good,” she answered casually. “I’m winning. I don’t know how a gentik thought to beat a mermaridian.”

  The two hulking males laughed at the idea and Darsey had to hide a shudder at the gleam of their teeth. Neither seemed to have any lips. They were lost within silky silver hair in one case and rolls of fat in the other.

  “What you’n think?” the bigger mutt yelled toward Nightwing, making his belly ripple with anger and indignation.

  Wing floated with his back to the strangers, but his left hand tilted in a gesture that was unfamiliar to Darsey.

  “Too late say’n ‘no matter’ now,” grunted the other mutt, and both laughed again.

  “Much too late,” Darsey agreed. “Do you want to watch? I certain-sure like an audience.”

  “Ye,” they agreed without hesitation, and Darsey hid her shock. Perhaps the mutt were suspicious of her. “Great,” she said super brightly. “So you’re both off shift. You don’t have any work to do?”

  Their synchronised response was so dismayed that she had to hide a relieved smile. Both mutt gaped and their horror was obvious.

  “Work,” they groaned and exchanged a fearful glance.

  “Us’n work,” the hairy one apologised, before they both backed away. The other nudged his partner and hesitated.

  “Not shift. This not our’n shift. Not work, no. Just fun. Fun for boss. Or friend. Yes. Boss our’n friend. So, do for her now’n.”

  “Hurry,” the other hissed, and pulled at the rolls of fat encasing his partner’s arm.

  The two bowed deeply and turned away. They moved off amid more anxious muttering and Darsey’s legs turned to jelly. If there had been any gravity in the rebound courts, she would have fallen. She sagged anyway and the movement wafted her lower to bounce gently against the curve of the cave. Wing drifted across the space above her and his com pulled his hand down to slap his thigh repeatedly in a slow sarcastic clap.

  “Miraculous,” Pertwing drawled. “The primitive can out-think mutt. What a triumph for humans. Do you realize you’ve just put an enemy between Nightwing and safety? How do you plan to return him to me?”

  “Why would I want to?” Darsey inquired mildly. “Coming home to you doesn’t exactly thrill me.”

  “I can keep Wing safe,” Pertwing snapped in its first outwardly agitated response.

  “Perhaps, but his quarters are going to be watched. This section has been searched and cleared, so it’s going to be ignored. When they don’t find Wing they’ll think about searching again, but by the time they realize he’s slipped their net it’ll be too late. In less than ten minutes he’ll be conscious and able to take care of himself. All I have to do is keep us out of sight ‘til then. The rebound ruse works well-”

  “Against mutt,” Pertwing interrupted, “but whoever planned this is certain-sure no mutt. When they fail to find Nightwing, they’re likely to re-search the rebound courts. An assassin would never risk using too many mutt, so the courts were likely the sole place they covered. You can expect another visit of a more terminal nature.�
��

  “Well, a terminal would know,” Darsey quipped, but the flush of her success was rapidly changing to unease. She chewed her lower lip and looked thoughtfully at Wing, who had come to rest floating at an angle across the court.

  Unfortunately, the entire passage side of the cave was transparent to allow spectators an excellent view. Hiding inside the brightly lit court was impossible. Unless…

  “Pertwing, I need Nightwing’s com.”

  “You have your own com, human.”

  “No, I need his and I need all the power it can give. Enough for all-over camouflage.”

  “Impossible. I can't channel energy enough-”

  “No. Not the sort of disguise you’re thinking of. I don’t want to be invisible. I just need enough color to blend with my surroundings. Can you manage that? It won’t have to stand up to close inspection.” I hope.

  There was no answer from Pertwing, and Darsey threw herself impatiently across the court. The pulse was perfectly judged and her legs flexed to halt her easily against an intersection of colors that formed part of an eye-twisting pattern around the hollow sphere.

  “I’ll float here,” she explained, “exactly where the purple, lime and puce meet. Color my body in the same way and a mermaridian will look straight past me. Especially if you lower the lighting. What do you think?”

  “What you describe is possible,” Pertwing admitted. “Lower lighting is easy-as. Greon encourages such saving. The colors are more difficult and will use extra energy. So much power may overload even Nightwing’s com and such a drain will be noted in the nest.”

  “It doesn’t matter. If we use it, we’ve been found anyway. Spies on the bridge won’t matter. They might even help. Greon can’t be part of this. If he wanted Nightwing dead, he’d just do it, but my disgusting owner seems to be a decent senior. Greon might help us-”

  “Idiot,” Pertwing interrupted happily. “The leader will watch his crew die with pleasure. He wants only the strongest to serve. However, I will release the com to you. Nightwing’s survival requires it. I will also add any power that you need.”

  “Then we have nothing to worry about,” Darsey stated firmly and belatedly hoped that Pertwing didn’t ask about the fingers she had crossed behind her back.

  A click that echoed from the curving walls announced the release of Nightwing’s com and Darsey kicked off to snatch it from the air as she swept across the chamber. She flipped to push off from the far wall and shot back to her lurid intersection. Two hours of rebound had made her body well used to the moves needed to cover the court in pursuit of the correct energy pulse. A back thrust stopped her in position and she snapped Wing’s com into place on her other wrist. It hung there for a moment, loose around her smaller arm, before gradually tightening.

  There was a brief sensation of uniform coolness as the com settled into place and then a euphoric surge so strong that Darsey’s arms and legs jerked wide. Her pulse leapt as she breathed in sharply and the world seemed to come into focus around her, less colorful, but clearer than usual. Her body spasmed again as it struggled to surf a wave of energy unlike anything she had felt before.

  The healthiest and fittest moments of Darsey’s life seemed weak and sickly in comparison to the wellbeing infusing her now. A sleeve of energy flowed from the com to encase every cell and maximise its function. She breathed in sharply once more, and then sighed as her physiology started to adjust to sensations that were far beyond any extreme it had previously known. That sigh seemed to last an age and her next breath was just as slow and shallow. Respiration that would once have suited deep meditation was all her enhanced metabolism needed.

  Darsey shook her head in amazement and nearly twisted it off her shoulders. “Ow,” she complained automatically, before realising that there was no corresponding pain. She rubbed her neck carefully, and came close to putting her hand through the wall when she swung it down again.

  Darsey gave a startled laugh that suddenly became an anguished cry. The euphoria sweeping her body vanished and she was swamped by pain flowing from her newly commed wrist. The hurt was so intense that she froze in place, unable to do more than gasp sharply, dragging air past her teeth and into lungs on fire. She managed that single breath and then her body convulsed, thrashing across the cave with full combat strength. She twisted and spun, almost kicking herself in the back of the head with one heel, while the other smashed through the strengthened curve of the wall. She felt as though she was tearing herself apart.

  However, before Darsey could find another breath to scream, the pain disappeared. It stopped as abruptly as it had started. She slipped seamlessly from unimaginable hurt back to utter wellbeing. The transition was so sudden and so welcome that anything beyond her body became irrelevant. She concentrated on simply breathing and each lungful absorbed her. That simple and familiar act felt so good that she slipped into a reverie, oblivious to anything else. She was jerked back to the present by an unwelcome voice.

  “That seemed odd, but com enhancement does take adjustment,” Pertwing instructed testily. “Try to show some restraint, human.”

  “I show restraint every time I talk to you, machine. And if that’s a warning, it was late.”

  “Perhaps, but this one is not. A mermaridian is fast closing from the link.”

  Darsey’s breathing deepened slightly, but it was remarkably easy to stay calm. She glanced at Nightwing, and a kick of her foot took her to his side. She hooked the same foot beneath his chest and hoisted his floating form into her arms with a single flick of her toe. “Party time,” she murmured, “and we need a piñata, my friend.”

  16

  The Hunt

  Jileea was moving so fast that the energy credits she had saved since joining the ship were almost exhausted. Her com field set her skin tingling and she swatted absently at a forearm as she leapt from the link to land ten metres along Rebound Road. An energy sink was anchored to cells throughout her body – powering muscles and protecting her from harm. She checked the time her com had left in combat mode and cursed all mutt. She should have known better than to trust them as an unsupervised part of her team.

  I had no choice. Loyalty was a must. Drak. How hard is it to find an unconscious kres?

  Jileea tried to find some anger for the mutt, but there was only a distant exasperation. They tried their utmost and she had absolutely no reason to expect better results. Plus, she was far too excited to be annoyed. She could feel the Luck flowing under her skin, raising goosebumps. It was an underground river and she was a mote in the current, being swept into darkness, or out to sea. She hardly cared which. She was gambling and caught deep in the thrill. She could almost understand how her father had bet her and lost, in the wager pits. Almost.

  Jileea looked up and froze before her next bounding leap. It would propel her to the end of the first corridor, but she locked her muscles in place to halt instantly, dropping to a crouch, with one foot on the flat and one still raised on a shadowy hill. Someone was slumped across the threshold of the first rebound cave. She hissed quietly as her scan stabbed out to brutally analyse a golden forearm that had been thrown across the passage. Her com pulse shattered DNA to give an unequivocal reading. The still figure was genuinely unconscious and was definitely Nightwing.

  “At last,” Jileea breathed, and a twitch of her legs took her to the helpless officer in a single stride. She stood over her Senior, who was sprawled face down across the corridor. She was relieved that his features were hidden and suddenly realized that killing in cold blood might be harder than she thought. A surge of remorse surprised her and she sniffed in annoyance. Nightwing was never especially friendly to her, that would have been bizarre on such a ship, but he was always fair, which was almost as strange.

  Jileea crouched uncertainly and threw a cursory glance at the rebound cave. Whoever had been playing against the kres had clearly had the good sense to leave. Jileea looked back down at her victim and he groaned, causing her hand to flex automatically an
d target her com.

  Wing’s eyelids flickered and his arms tensed as his hands scrabbled weakly against the shadowed floor. Drakkit. Jileea rose to stand over him, moving as if in slow motion.

  “It’s too bad, Nightwing. We could have had fun before it got to this.” Jileea’s arm slowly rose, but she still hesitated before firing. She leaned over again to stare at his forearm, and her upper lip creased in a frown. The gaping welt left by her scan was exactly what she expected, but something else was not. Her lips puckered further and then parted with a hiss. “Where’s his drakking com?”

  “Here,” said an unexpected voice from the cave, and Jileea’s world exploded. Her head flew back as someone struck her with com-enhanced speed. She went with the blow, sliding back across the passage, blinking furiously in an effort to focus. Unfortunately, she failed completely. She must actually be unconscious, and dreaming, because an enemy seemed to be closing on her that looked like Wing’s primitive slave, painted in surreal colors. Certain-sure she was hallucinating. The vision closed on her again and punched her in the face.

  Drak. Jileea staggered in pain, completely disoriented. Dreams weren’t supposed to hurt. She blinked and realized she was down on one knee. She bounced upright, straight into the slave’s next attack.

  The primitive spun to deliver a roundhouse kick that made Jileea stagger. She was down again, on both knees this time and tried to track the next blow, but it landed with numbing force. Her own program was completely outmatched. She had a blurred impression of a kaleidoscope creature spinning toward her, a bizarre jig-saw horror, before stars filled her vision. Her enhanced muscles tensed uselessly. She never even realized there was another blow coming. A boot slammed into her wrist, which snapped when her com shattered and the world around her exploded into shards of pain and darkness. The very last blow Jileea felt was the floor striking her face.

  17