Authors: Tracy St. John
Wekniz’s bald declaration of love spoke in her head again. She thought of his expression when he’d said it: burning devotion, a fierce look that had nothing to do with the way his scars pulled at his face. That look and his statement had set off a profound burst of joy that had rocked Tasha as hard as the unexpected declaration.
“Not now, damn it!” she swore at herself as a thick gray billow of smoke swept over her. Why was her stupid brain dwelling on the matter when they were in mortal danger?
Yet her mind wouldn’t stop touching on the issue as she watched the door for an assault that didn’t come. She couldn’t not think of Clan Falinset when she heard the men’s voices yelling in the background.
The men she trusted and cared about enough that she was now set to die with them. She didn’t want to feel the way she did. She’d never trusted people outside her family, especially not men. Not after her neighbor. Lust was fine, she did lust wonderfully. With gusto. But to have actual faith in the opposite gender? It hadn’t seemed possible for such a thing to happen.
Yet these three men; Falinset, Nur, and Wekniz; they had broken through her defenses. They were ready to lay their lives down right now because of all that had been done to them over the years … but most especially because of what had been done to her by the Basma. Falinset in particular had been as distrustful as her, and yet he’d come around at last, ready to defend her and Noelle from his own family members.
If she couldn’t trust a man like that, who would she ever trust? The question was purely academic, however. Falinset and the other two had already won her faith. They had won a lot more in the bargain, the poor bastards.
The sound of hoarse coughing pulled Tasha from her thoughts. Who wasn’t wearing his mask? She’d kick his ass for it. Then she remembered Ket, lying tied up in the common room. Oh hell, they’d all forgotten the big asshole.
Tasha made a face. She’d love for him to drop dead, but there was the matter of him knowing a few things about Maf’s operation. If they could somehow survive this assault and get Ket to Kalquor, he’d be a valuable source of information. The likelihood of that happening was slim, but it was reason enough to not shoot him in cold blood.
Besides, cutting his dicks off would be much more satisfying than letting him suffocate. Tasha decided she’d better check on him, maybe drag him close to the door where he could get a little fresh air. No one had tried to approach the door since the fires had been started, and the common room wasn’t that far away.
“Door close and lock.”
It obeyed. Thick smoke began to build up immediately. Tasha thought it would obscure her vision in a matter of minutes, so she started backing down the hall, keeping an eye on the window vids keeping surveillance on the grounds.
The smoke was even thicker inside the common room. It was downright gloomy, as if twilight had fallen. Tasha could hear the roar of fire coming from the back of the house and Wekniz and Nur still shouting back and forth to each other as they fought the blaze. They spoke fast in Kalquorian, so she couldn’t make out what was being said. The urgency in their voices told her the situation was bad and getting worse.
The first flames danced over the far wall. The smoke was the real enemy right now, however. She hunched low, trying to find a clear sightline. She saw Ket’s big body still lying on the floor where he’d been bound. His arms remained pulled behind his back, and as Tasha drew near, she saw his eyes were still closed. Unsure she could drag his big muscular ass to the front door, she reached for him with one hand.
There was a flurry of sudden movement. Ket’s arms came out from behind his back, the strap Wekniz had used to tie him lashing out as he jumped to his untied feet. Tasha had no time to notice anything else. She was flat on her facemask all at once, the Nobek’s weight on her back, the blaster torn from her hand. She barely had a moment to register this before her oxygen mask was ripped from her head.
She drew in a breath to scream for help. She inhaled smoke instead of air and choked on it. She hacked as her lungs filled with the oily-tasting smoke.
Ket coughed too, but he was able to laugh and speak as well. “Got you, you smart little bitch. I’ve got you and I’m going to kill you. I’m going to kill all you stupid Earther cunts. And if that cunt Narpok dares to show her face again, I’ll kill her too.”
Tasha took little notice of his threats. She was too busy trying to make her searing lungs extract oxygen from the heavy air. Every instinct had her battling for breath. There was no room to think of anything else.
She didn’t resist when Ket picked her up and slung her over his shoulder. Only when the front door of the house opened, carrying her into clean air did she realize she’d been taken prisoner. Even then she couldn’t spare the sense to fight. She was too busy hauling in oxygen, her head buzzing, her sight dim. She hovered on the edge of unconsciousness.
Ket’s gleeful voice came distantly through the roar in her ears. “It’s me! I’ve got the woman. Go on in and finish off those stupid fuckers.”
As Tasha fought to return to her senses, to not give in to the gray mists of nothing that beckoned, she thought she heard the sound of howling. The chilling sound of Nobeks ready to kill rose in animal triumph as Ket broke into a run, carrying her away from the blazing house.
Falinset backed away from the door. The Nobek soldiers had been playing with him, darting in close to the back of the house to make him fire at them, racing back to cover to keep from getting hit. His blaster’s power pack was empty now. He ordered the back door closed and turned to look up the corridor of his home.
He’d heard the fire raging for so long that he felt deaf from the roar. Nur’s and Wekniz’s yells had told him the house was lost. Yet his jaw still dropped in shock to see flames licking out of doorways in the swirling black smoke that filled his vision.
Nur jerked into the corridor, almost falling out of Falinset’s personal meditation room. Hungry flames leapt out after him, as if seeking to devour flesh. Falinset shot to his Imdiko, yanking him into the middle of the hallway. He shouted, “Door closed!”
The mechanism did not obey. The wiring had melted. Before the blaze could advance and engulf the two men, Falinset shoved Nur down the hall.
Wekniz stumbled out of another room, driven before more flames. He shouted, “To the front of the house!”
They sped forward. As they went, Nur let his extinguisher rifle hang off his shoulder by its strap. Their bodies parting the swirling mist that grew lighter as they went. After a moment, Falinset realized why it was brighter: the front door was wide open.
Just as they reached the doorway of the common room, the distinctive hiss and boom of blasters firing sent them jerking backwards, towards the worst of the blaze. Bits of the wall blew apart over their heads.
Wekniz seized Falinset and Nur by their collars and pushed them into the common room. The far end of the space was on fire; the wall a sheet of flames. Somehow it made little impression on Falinset as a new horror claimed his attention.
“Tasha! Tasha, where are you?” he screamed.
“I left her by the front door!” Wekniz roared. He peered in the orange-glowing smoke of the room lit by the fire’s hectic light. She was nowhere to be seen.
Nur screamed, “She must have run outside! They must have grabbed her!”
Falinset rushed back into the corridor, desperate to find her. Blaster fire boomed like doom.
At first he thought he’d been shot. A shock of pain reverberated along the back of his skull and body. A mighty weight bore him down, sending him crashing to the floor. There was the almost musical sound of broken glass tinkling all around him. A second later he realized he’d not been hit by a percussion blast after all. The fine mirror hanging on the wall had been knocked loose and fallen on him. He lay beneath its heavy frame.
He shoved it off far enough in time to see Nur jump out and fire his blaster wildly at the shadowy figures standing outside the front door. The Imdiko screamed, “Help him, Wekniz!”
The snarling Nobek was already pulling the frame and larger shards of glass off his clan leader. Falinset struggled to get loose, desperation for the woman he loved uppermost despite his near miss. “Tasha! Let her go, you bastards!”
The heaviness holding him down disappeared, and he surged to his feet as Nur’s blaster stopped firing.
“I’m out of power!” Nur cried.
Wekniz hefted his extinguishing rifle. “Come on, Nur. We’re going to have to make a run for the woods. Stay close, Falinset!”
As Nur got his rifle ready to fire, Falinset grabbed Wekniz desperately. “We have to find Tasha!”
Wekniz ground his teeth together. “First we have to stay alive to save her. Now come on!”
He and Nur advanced on the front door, spraying retardant as they went to create a concealing fog. The shots from their attackers ceased as they were driven back by the chemical spray. The clan rushed for the sunlit rectangle of the open door.
Falinset drew his knife as he ran to escape the inferno around him. His clan was most assuredly as good as dead. He only hoped one of the soldiers would find the guts to confront him hand-to-hand rather than shooting them from a distance. If he could take at least one of the bastards with him, he’d take that insignificant victory. He’d failed Tasha, but he could leave one less man to hurt her.
Wekniz led their charge. He shouted, “Go for the woods on the west side of the house. Run and don’t stop until I tell you to!” Then he was through the door, Nur half a step behind.
Falinset brought up the rear. He saw his clanmates jerk to either side, as if they’d been grabbed. Nur yelled. Wekniz roared.
Falinset screamed to see them taken. He ran out with his knife flailing, ready to fight and die at their sides.
A scarred hand swept before him, knocking the blade spinning through the air. Falinset felt more hands grabbing him, lifting him off his feet. He was put facedown on the ground and held there, the pressure firm. In his desperation and fear, Falinset thought he’d been handled damned near gently.
From over his head a mocking voice said, “I think that will do, Dramok Falinset.”
* * * *
When Tasha finally stopped coughing, Ket threw her to the ground. He aimed the blaster at her face. “Get up and walk, cunt.”
She blinked streaming eyes. She was on a path in the middle of the woods, perhaps the same forest she and Noelle had fled through when they’d escaped the prison compound.
“Move!” Ket roared and kicked her leg.
Tasha hissed with pain and climbed unsteadily to her feet. Ket gave her a shove, propelling her down the trail in front of him.
She burned with anger, but with the blaster trained on her she had no choice but to be herded along. The fury mixed with terror for Clan Falinset, left behind in the blazing house. Tasha could not hear the bellow of the fire. She couldn’t smell anything burning either. Ket must have moved them for quite some distance before dumping her on her ass.
She glanced back at him, and he grinned. His teeth were blazing white within his smoke-blackened face. “That bitch’s drug wasn’t potent for more than a few minutes. That weak fool Wekniz doesn’t know the first thing about making a real man a prisoner either. All I had to do is wait for the right moment to grab one of you. I hoped for the brat, but her death will make a fine enough distraction while the Basma gets his forces in place.”
He didn’t know Narpok had used his shuttle to get Noelle away. Tasha thought of telling him, just to see the look on his face. But she was still too breathless and weak to make the effort.
That became clear when she stumbled and fell. She laid still and thought about not getting up again.
Ket gave her another rough prod with his heavy boot. “If you’re not up in two seconds, I will kick you to death where you lay.”
She got up, though she knew she was dead anyway … just as Clan Falinset was no doubt dead already. Her heart lurched and tears threatened. Tasha gathered her rage, clutching to her soul like a child with a teddy bear. It gave her the strength to walk, though not fast enough to keep Ket from occasionally slapping the back of her head, shoving her between the shoulders, or kicking her ass and thighs.
The path ended, and Tasha stepped out on the empty landing pad near the Earther abductees’ containment area. She was back at Maf’s camp. Yards away, a few of the women, looking worse than when she’d left, wandered the dirt yard.
A couple of the women saw her and Ket coming and cried out. Several more women appeared at the barrack’s door and then began to surge outside. Tasha saw Sonia and Amy among them. The blonde and brunette stopped in the middle of the yard, their mouths hanging open as they stared at her.
Ket halted at one of the barrier poles, the key to release the field in his hand. He looked around, his brow beetling in surprise. “Where are all the guards?”
He was right, Tasha realized. No sentries patrolled the perimeter, inside or out of the containment. The women within didn’t answer the Nobek’s question. They continued to stare mutely, their eyes riveted on Tasha.
Ket shrugged and flashed a knowing grin. “Huh, I guess they decided to join in the fun of killing my brother and his clan of fools.”