Jess thought about joining him and decided against it. She’d only end up begging him again, and she knew better. At least, her conscious mind knew better. Another part of her wasn’t quite that smart.
She threw back the covers and slid under them to sit, knees pressed to her chest, a frown of brooding on her face. What had happened, anyway? One minute she’d been making a fool out of herself, and the next . . . Something had blown out of her chest and into his, and then he was fucking her brains out.
She’d done that. Somehow. Just like she’d knocked everything off his shelves the last time.
But how?
Galar strode down the corridor toward the meeting with the rest of the strike team. Only Jessica’s boot heels clicked on the flooring; he moved with absolute silence in his armor. He’d damned well better. He’d oiled and adjusted for an hour last night until nothing so much as creaked to give him away.
Galar shot Jess a look. She appeared even smaller than usual beside his armored bulk, more doll than woman.
There was nothing doll-like about her bleak eyes, though. She still believed he was headed for disaster, though he knew she wouldn’t say so now. Not with him getting ready to Jump.
He sighed. “Jessica, humans don’t have the ability to see the future. Some other species do, but we can’t do what they do. Our scientists have done experiment after experiment, but no one has ever shown so much as a trace of true clairvoyance. Any stories that say otherwise are nothing but coincidence and too much imagination.”
“Just like we’re not telekinetic.” Her voice was toneless. “Did you ask the Outpost comp whether we really did have an earthquake the other day?”
Unease slid icily through him. “There was some kind of tremor, but it was extremely localized.”
Blue eyes flashed up to meet his. “ ‘Extremely localized’ meaning limited to your room.”
“I’ve discussed this with Dyami. We think it must have been some kind of abortive Xeran attack, but the Outpost’s shields defeated it.”
“That makes sense.” But she didn’t say she believed it. He wasn’t sure he did either, but what other explanation was there? She’d somehow developed impossible powers no other human had ever had? The Xeran idea was a lot more credible.
“I’m going to be all right, Jess,” Galar told her quietly.
She forced a smile and slid a hand through the crook of his arm. “Of course.”
Actually, there was something warming about her concern. Her worry was more intense, more personal than that shown by his fellow Enforcers when he was in danger. Almost as if she loved him.
And what an intoxicating idea that was.
He, on the other hand . . . wasn’t sure how he felt. Yes, there was an intensity to his emotions he’d never experienced before, not even when he’d thought he was in love with Tlain.
Then again, he’d killed Tlain.
True, she’d needed killing. She’d been a spy, a traitor, while he’d bet his last galactor Jess didn’t have a duplicitous bone in her entire body.
Jessica Kelly was, without doubt, the most trustworthy woman he’d ever known. If he was ever going to fall in love again, he could certainly do worse.
If.
They walked into the gym to find Galar’s takedown team waiting, all dressed in full battle armor. Probably why there seemed to be far more than the ten Enforcers she knew were actually there. They made Jessica feel like a child among a crowd of adults—and she wasn’t exactly short, at least by twenty-first-century standards.
Across the room, she spotted Jiri and Ando Cadell. The big male Enforcer suddenly grabbed his wife around the waist and pulled her in for a big smacking kiss. Then he popped her helmet on and dogged it down. She patted his cheek with a gloved hand. He grinned at her and turned to put his own helmet on.
“Remember,” Frieka was saying to Riane as the Warfem checked her shard pistol, “I’m in charge of our team. You go when I give the order, not before. Got it?”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Do you want me to bite you?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time. . . . Hey!” She yelped and leaped back from his snapping jaws.
The corridor door opened and Wulf stepped through, his shoulders almost as wide as the others’ even without armor. He exchanged a nod with Galar, who pushed Jess gently toward him. “Keep an eye on her for me, Wulf.”
The big man gave him a crooked grin and put an enormous hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep her out of trouble.”
Jess lifted a cool brow up at him and said sweetly, “Thank you so much, Wulf.”
He turned the grin on her, apparently impervious to sarcasm.
Galar lowered his head and whispered in her ear, “I’ll be back.” Stepping away, he raised his voice. “All right, folks, let’s go. We’ve got a battleborg to bring back alive.”
Jessica’s throat tightened as she watched the team move off in surprising silence, booted feet not even whispering on the deck.
“Come on, Jessica,” Wulf said, steering her through the door and out into the corridor. Even as it closed behind them, the floor shook under her feet with the sonic boom of the mass Jump.
Jess bowed her head, wondering if she’d ever see Galar again.
Marcin raced through the night, his armored boots ringing on the primitive pavement, a madman’s grimace pasted on his face. His sensors were at full scan, searching the darkness for the drunk who was supposed to spot him.
And the Enforcers who should be drawn out in response.
So far he saw no one at all. The neighborhood he ran through was a rural one, houses spaced far apart, occupants sleeping at this hour. There were no streetlamps, no pedestrian walkways. Nothing but this empty, snaking road and the towering Earth trees that stood to either side.
Some kind of animal—his computer identified it as a dog—erupted in a furious cacophony of sound. He shot it a glance as he ran and saw it was straining on the end of a chain tied to a stake.
He ran on, enjoying the sting of adrenaline pumping furiously through his body. Fueling his craving for the battle to come.
Finally, a fight. A break from his frustrating, grueling hunt for that thrice-damned, elusive heretic, Chara va Hol, and the Abominations she was protecting, and the T’lir the warrior priest wanted so badly. An opportunity to shed blood in the Victor’s name and prove himself worthy of being a member of Tarik’s cohort.
That was, after all, the next logical step in his path to glory. But it wouldn’t be easy. Only the elite of the elite were chosen to join the deeply secret Order of the Victor, Xer’s ultimate weapon against those who attempted to defy the Fatherworld and keep its people from their glorious destiny. If you were judged unworthy to join, the cohorts might well kill you for your temerity in even applying.
Marcin, however, had so far been judged worthy. Though if he failed against the heretic . . .
Well.
He spotted a man walking along the darkened sidewalk— the drunken primitive who was supposed to report his presence to the police, thereby leaving a record for Temporal Enforcement to find. “You!” Marcin roared in English.
A white face jerked toward him as he charged the man, bellowing. The drunk whirled and staggered away as fast as his unsteady legs would carry him.
Marcin laughed softly. That should do it. He ran after the idiot for a couple of blocks, just to make sure the primitive would head straight for the police.
Finally, deciding the drunk was sufficiently terrified, he turned and loped away into the night. Any moment now . . .
“Halt and drop your weapons!” a voice snarled from the darkness. A man wearing blue Temporal Enforcement armor materialized into his path, apparently having dropped a camo field.
Marcin turned, only to see two more Enforcers racing toward him. His lips curled back in a snarl of satisfaction.
They’d taken the bait.
He wheeled with a roar and lunged right for the first agent, whom his sensors identified as th
e same big blond he’d fought at the heretic’s house. Even better, the man was a Warlord, despite the lack of a facial tattoo.
Killing one of Vardon’s hated warriors was a holy act—a fitting sacrifice to the Victor. Marcin had every intention of adding the Warlord’s head to his collection.
Jess stood frozen in the corridor outside the gym. The sonic boom from Galar’s Jump still seemed to reverberate in her bones.
She blinked hard. She was not going to cry in front of Wulf, dammit.
A huge hand fell on her shoulder, and she jumped, glancing around wildly.
“Enough angst,” Wulf told her, though his bright turquoise gaze was sympathetic. “It’s time for your combat lesson.”
Jess had never felt less in the mood for a lesson in anything, much less combat. Her stomach had laced itself into a set of fine, shivering knots. She was seriously tempted to throw up on the big Enforcer’s boots.
Unfortunately, if she just stood around waiting for Galar to come back, she was going to lose her mind. A practice fight would at least provide her with a distraction from all this icy fear. “All right,” she sighed. “Let’s get it over with.”
He gave her a wide, white smile and turned her toward the door across the corridor. The sign over it read “Unarmed Combat Practice.” “That’s my girl. This way.”
Reluctantly, Jess followed his broad back as the door sighed open. He stepped aside for her—and she froze in horror.
Marcin stood waiting in the empty room, still, impassive, the bright overhead lighting glinting on his two sets of horns. His booted feet were spread wide apart on the padded floor, his huge hands hanging empty at his side. His black-scaled armor made him look like a biped snake, an effect enhanced by his scarlet slit pupils. If anything, he seemed even bigger and more menacing than she remembered.
She recoiled. “Jesus!”
Wulf snagged one arm before she could whirl and run screaming from the room. “Hey, he’s not real. It’s just a combot. See?”
Marcin seemed to melt, leaving a big, man-shaped form standing naked before the mirrored wall. Its body was smooth, genderless, reminded her of a really tall department store mannequin. Assuming they’d modeled one on Arnold Schwarzenegger in his Terminator years. Its skin was a kind of icy white, and its doll-like irises were black and glassy.
And more than a little creepy.
A moment later, Marcin was back, complete with horns, red eyes, and chilling expression. She realized the combot must be projecting the Xeran’s image over itself.
“Is that really necessary?” Shivering, Jess rubbed her goosefleshed arms, eying the big android. It made a really convincing Marcin.
Wulf shrugged. “Better to confront your fears now. It will be easier if you ever have to fight Marcin in reality.”
“Somehow I doubt the words ‘easier’ and ‘Marcin’ belong in the same sentence,” she grumbled.
But Jess soon realized the Enforcer had a point. Exchanging slow punches with the Marcin-bot—stopping periodically while Wulf critiqued—was both grueling and a trifle boring. So much so that the chilling expression in the ’bot’s eyes stopped bothering her quite so much.
Panting, sweat streaming from her body, she’d just drawn back a leg to plant a kick in the Marcin-bot’s belly when Wulf threw up his hands. “Hold it!”
She lowered her leg and gave the Enforcer a questioning look. “What?”
The big man rolled his eyes. “It’s Chief Enforcer Dyami. He’s just called me to the main auditorium, where he’s got the backup team.”
Alarmed, Jess asked, “Is there a problem? Are they going to have to Jump?”
“I don’t think so.” Wulf scratched his chin, looking troubled. “He said I might as well let you two keep sparring.” Turning to the combot, he added, “Keep an eye on her while I’m gone. Dyami said this won’t take long.”
“Affirmative,” the combot said, no inflection in its voice at all, though it still sounded far too much like Marcin.
Panting, Jess braced her hands on her knees and watched as Wulf strode from the room, leaving her alone with the Marcin-bot. She wondered if the thing would let her take a break. Probably not, given the Enforcer’s orders.
“Okay,” she sighed. “Let’s try that kick again.” Drawing her leg up, she prepared to drive her foot into the Marcin-bot’s rock-hard abdomen.
Before she could launch the kick, the combot blurred into motion. Powerful fingers clamped around her throat to dig cruelly into the skin. She gagged and tried to knock its hand away, but it only tightened its grip.
“Hey!” she wheezed in outrage. “That’s not the move we’re supposed to practice!”
“I know.” The Marcin-bot’s red eyes didn’t even flicker. Spots began to dance before her gaze as its fingers tightened on her windpipe, lifting her agonizingly onto her toes.
“Stop!” she hissed, barely able to force the words past its strangling grip. “Can’t . . . breathe!”
“That,” it said, “is the idea.”
Galar bared his teeth and waited as Marcin raced toward him, lethal determination in narrowed red eyes. As he ran, the battleborg brandished a Xer Sevik, one of the long, lethally sharp knives the bastards favored. He wore full temporal armor, which meant the shard pistol Galar carried would be useless.
Galar drew his own blade, a Vardonese machete the length of his forearm. Tossing the weapon in his palm, he contemplated the bastard’s armor. To get a blade through the supple, tough material, he’d have to batter it long enough to break down its molecular cohesion with repeated impacts. Which meant this was going to be a long, hard fight.
Which was just fine with Galar. He was in the mood for a brawl. He roared his battle cry and stepped into Marcin’s charge.
They met in a jarring clash of steel, knife ringing on knife, the impact sending them spinning apart again like a pair of dancers. Galar whirled back toward Marcin, lips peeled away from his teeth, riaat singing its lethal song in his blood. He swung the machete at the Xeran’s throat, but Marcin jerked clear, then struck like a snake. The deadly point of the Xer Sevik scraped across Galar’s chest, glancing harmlessly off the armor’s slick blue scales.
Galar retaliated with a short, brutal punch that snapped the Xeran’s head backward and sent him stumbling. Galar lunged, ramming his machete into the off-balance Warrior’s belly with such force, Marcin’s feet left the ground. Only his armor saved him from being gutted.
The Xeran hit the ground on his back, flipped like an acrobat, and swung out in a furious kick. His armored boot slammed into the side of Galar’s helmet, sending him spinning to the gritty pavement.
Though stunned—Damn, but the cyborg bastard could kick—Galar still managed to turn his fall into a roll. He skidded to a stop on his back to see Marcin falling toward him like a rock. The Xeran landed astride his chest, slamming the air from his lungs as he prepared to drive his Sevik into the underside of Galar’s jaw. Fighting to drag in a breath, the Warlord slammed his wrist against Marcin’s, knocking the blade away.
Undeterred, the Xeran rammed his armored left fist into Galar’s helmet, once, twice, again. The tough visor creaked and crackled, threatening to shatter under the cyborg’s inhuman strength.
“Get . . . off!” Galar grabbed Marcin by one horn and flipped him off over his head. The Xeran hit the ground with a grunt. Galar twisted around, still maintaining his grip on that jutting horn, and tried to grab its twin with his free hand, planning to break the Xeran’s neck. Marcin swung his knife and jammed its point into a nerve bundle in Galar’s forearm. The blade didn’t break through the armor, but his arm went numb to the shoulder. He lost his grip and Marcin tore free.
Both men scrambled to their feet, breath heaving, thoroughly pissed now and ready to do some killing. Out of the corner of one eye, Galar saw Jiri and Ando Cadell watching, their own blades drawn as they waited for an opening to join the fight. Galar waved his left hand at them in an I don’t need help! gesture as he and Marcin circl
ed.
Unease flickered through his mind. Where the hell was Marcin’s Xeran backup? The bastards should have sprung their trap by now. Galar’s remaining Enforcer teams were still maintaining position, camouflaged and invisible, waiting for Marcin’s nasty little friends to make their move.
“You seem distracted.” Marcin bared his teeth. “Waiting for something?”
Galar gave him a vicious grin. “Just getting a little bored.” He lunged, his knife scraping against the Xeran’s Sevik with a metallic ring.
But before Galar could make another attack, a chilling, ululating howl shattered the night. Even Marcin jerked his head around at the sound.
The howling man appeared in Xeran Temporal armor, melting out of the night at Jiri’s back like a ghost in black scales. She whirled, instinctively bringing up her blade even as her husband leaped to block the attack.
They were both too late.
Still howling, the Xeran swung the sword he held in both hands. Jiri’s head spun away, helmet and all, blood flying in a fine crimson spray.
“Jiri! Nooooo!” Ando’s scream of despair and rage was the chilling distillation of a soul’s death. He lunged for the Xeran, knife raised.
Coolly, the man pivoted and slashed, taking the Enforcer’s knife hand off at the wrist. Ando screamed again as he fell back, gripping the stump with his remaining hand. The Xeran’s next thrust drove right through the center of his chest, penetrating armor and rib cage alike as though they were warm butter.
The agent was dead before he even hit the ground.
Shit! Shit, shit, shit! Galar blocked Marcin’s slash at his own head by sheer reflex, backpedaling furiously. Enforcers! He sent the broadcast ringing out over their shared com channel. Agents down!
The others were already appearing, dropping their camouflage fields with roared battle cries. Even as they closed on the Xeran and his impossible sword, four more enemy warriors materialized out of the surrounding night. Their swords made a strange, high-pitched ringing sound, chilling and alien, as they raced toward the Enforcers.
What the fuck were those things? How did they cut through full Temporal armor as if it were rice paper? It wasn’t even possible.
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