3013: Targeted (18 page)

***

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Brandt sat at his desk, reading over one last report before heading to the docking area to meet T’karra’s fathers, who were due to arrive shortly. The last two days had been little better than organized chaos, but things were finally returning to something close to normal. All the Alliance personnel on X2 had been scanned, and none of them had been exposed to the
xili
drug. Most of the Krytos from the sanctuary had been scanned as well, with the final few due to be cleared in the next hour or so. It would be a couple more days before the rest of the permanent residents were cleared, but the end was in sight. The only question remaining was, who had dosed Mek with the drug in the first place.

A warning chime reminded him that it was time to go. He was meeting Hawke, T’karra, and Verak at the
Talon
’s docking berth a few minutes before the rest of the family arrived. His mate wanted both of them there when she told her fathers she was mated. It was going to make for a hell of a homecoming, but it was T’karra’s decision, and he wasn’t going to argue with her about it. They had the rest of their lives together, and Brandt intended to pick his battles carefully.

He was making his way down one of the docking arms when his wrist-unit signaled an incoming message, but it took him a second to place the name of the caller, a Lieutenant Kader. She was the head of the group of investigators sent by the Alliance to look into the
xili
drug issue.

“Lieutenant, what can I do for you?” he asked as soon as her face appeared on his screen.

“Commander Carver, I wanted to advise you that one of the Krytos failed to appear for her scan.”

Shit. T’karra isn’t going to be happy to hear that.

“Scheduling issue?”

“We don’t think so, sir. She’s not working or in her quarters, and she’s not answering her wrist-unit.”

“Inform Commander Summers immediately, and send me the missing female’s information. We’ll coordinate the search with T’karra Ryvern and her people. And have a security detail sent to the
Talon
’s assigned docking bay, just in case.”

“Security will be there shortly. If she shows up, I’ll let you know. Kader, out.”

The file Brandt requested appeared on his unit within seconds, and he scanned it as he walked. The missing female was Nina Khin, and she wasn’t just an angry youth looking for answers about her heritage. She was a thief and a con artist from the Shaula colonies, home of the
Scorpii
syndicate.

Son of a bitch.

He’d bet a month’s pay she was the one who had dosed Mek. Brandt broke into a dead run. Even as he sprinted down the corridor, he thought about stopping to call T’karra and warn her, but he didn’t. He could be there in the time it would take for her to answer her wrist-unit. Nina had gone this long without making a move. The odds were good she was already gone, fled the station before her lies caught up with her. Hell, he couldn’t even be sure she was their culprit. That didn’t mean he was going to take any chances.

He rounded the last corner and spotted T’karra and Danor already waiting by the
Talon
’s docking bay door, accompanied by a single guard. Hawke was walking toward them, and there was no one else in sight. Brandt slowed down enough to have breath left to call out to them. “Our suspect may still be on the station, watch your backs.”

Hawke heard what Brandt said and spun around to look at his partner. Brandt was coming at a run, and Hawke spun on his heel and did the same, heading straight for T’karra and her brother. By the time he reached the others, they had taken up defensive positions outside the landing bay doors, using the doorway for partial cover.

“Should we tell the
Talon
not to dock?” T’karra asked, scanning the empty hallway for threats.

“Not sure yet. Brandt will be able to tell us more in a second.”

They were alone in the corridor. The only sounds were the hum of the station’s machinery and the steady thump-thump of Brandt’s footfalls on the deck plating. There was nowhere for an attacker to hide, and Hawke knew there were no other ships docked along this corridor, he’d issued the order himself just this morning. The area was secure. That knowledge didn’t stop him from making sure he was standing in front of his mate. If anyone came after her, they’d have to go through him to do it.

Brandt joined them a few seconds later. “Nina Khin didn’t appear for her scan, and she’s not answering her wrist-unit. I think she’s our—” At that second, everything went supernova.

The doors to the docking bay across from them opened, and laser bolts flew through the air. Brandt was hit, his face turning ashen as he crumpled to the ground, his hand reaching for his weapon even as he went down. A searing pain tore through Hawke’s thigh, and he knew he’d been hit, too.

“Stay behind me,” he bellowed to T’karra, but she was already on the move, flying past him in a blur of fangs and claws as she shifted to battle-form and went on the attack.

There was no way in hell he was letting their mate go off to fight alone. “Take care of Brandt!” he yelled at Danor and threw himself across the corridor after T’karra. He was hurt and had no idea what to expect on the other side of the door, but wherever she went, he’d follow.

The ship he stepped onto wasn’t very big, nothing more than a shuttlecraft really, and it was in poor condition. Exposed cables hung down from the ceiling and the air was rank and stale. His boot struck something lying on the floor, sending it sliding across the deck. A gun, its flashing red readouts indicating it was out of power. He picked it up anyway and then turned to face the front of the ship. There wasn’t much space ahead of him, and most of it was being taken up by the two figures tearing at each other. T’karra was taller and heavier than her blonde opponent, but there was blood on the stained and battered floor, and not all of it was Nina’s.

T’karra wanted blood. Her mates were hurt, and the bitch in front of her had done the hurting. Nina had come to the Black Hole with nothing but the clothes on her back and a combative attitude, and they’d welcomed her as one of their own. They’d given her everything, food, a job, acceptance, and support, and she’d betrayed them all. She would pay for that betrayal. The younger hybrid fought with more desperation than skill, and even in battle-form she was an ineffective fighter. T’karra’s blows were far more brutal. She flayed flesh from bone with every slash of her claws, and one of Nina’s arms hung at her side, too badly broken to be of use. The taste of her enemy’s blood was in T’karra’s mouth, and she let the bloodlust consume her, pushing her past any awareness of her own injuries.

It was the familiar scent of his blood that clued T’karra into Hawke’s arrival. She spoke to him without looking back, her focus still on making Nina bleed. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Like I was going to stay out in the corridor and bleed while you defended my honor? Not fucking happening. Why should you get all the fun?”

She slammed her fist into Nina’s face, feeling the satisfying crunch as the girl’s nose broke. The smaller Krytos hissed in pain and struck out blindly, her claws tearing through cloth, but missing the flesh beneath.

“Fucking ’leets. Everything was going according to plan until you two showed up. Sticking your noses where they didn’t belong! Danor should have died, but you had to save his worthless life,” Nina ranted, pain and her broken lips distorting her words until they were barely understandable.

“We welcomed you into our home, and you tried to kill my family. Why?”

Nina snarled at T’karra. “Why not? You had everything given to you, everything! I tried seducing your brothers, but they thought they were too good for the likes of me. If they’d agreed, I’d of protected them from my employers. It could have been perfect. One way or another, we were going to use this place, but it didn’t have to be like this. You and those fucking ’leets of yours screwed everything up. I hate them, and I hate you!”

“The feeling is mutual, bitch.” T’karra connected with a backhand that sent her opponent staggering backward, using the brief moment to pull her knife from its sheath. It was time to end it.

Hawke limped into her peripheral view, the gun in his hand pointed directly at Nina. “I know you want to, but you can’t kill her. We need her alive so she can tell us what she knows.”

T’karra fingered the hilt of the dagger, her instincts screaming at her to finish it, to kill the traitorous bitch so she could never threaten her loved ones again. But in the end, she knew Hawke was right. If she truly wanted to end this, then they needed to learn who had put this plan in motion. “Fine. But when this is over, she’ll face pack justice, yes?”

“When we’re done with her, she’s all yours,” Hawke agreed.

“I’m not telling you anything,” Nina declared and then did the one thing neither of them expected. She grabbed T’karra’s hand and leaned forward as she drove the blade of the knife into the side of her neck. Nina looked up, her face twisted into a defiant sneer as her legs gave out, and she tumbled to the floor, her blood flowing across the deck plating as silence filled the ship.

“Son of a bitch.” Hawke started toward the fallen female but shouts from the corridor made him pause. She could hear Danor’s voice over and above the others.

“T’karra! Get back here, he needs you.”

“Make sure she’s no threat to anyone,” she said before turning her back on the dying traitor and hurried off the ship, to Brandt. Now that the threat was gone, the fiery rage that had burned through her began to fade, replaced by icy tendrils of fear. The second she stepped into the corridor, T’karra’s heart sank. There was almost as much blood out there as there was in the shuttle. Brandt was lying face down on the floor, eyes closed and face drained of color. Someone, probably Danor, had torn his uniform away. Her brother was kneeling at Brandt’s side, using his shirt as a makeshift bandage as he tried to slow the blood flowing from the ragged hole in her mate’s back.

“Med-techs are on their way,” Verak said. She glanced up and realized that the other voices she heard were those of her fathers and brother. They’d arrived in the short time she’d been away, fighting Nina.

“How bad is it?” she asked.

“If he were Krytos, he’d make it, but he’s human. Even with his enhanced healing, I don’t think…”  Danor trailed off, unwilling to finish his sentence.

Ignoring the blood, she dropped to her knees at Brandt’s side, resting a hand against his pale cheek. “Don’t you dare die on me, t
ikta
. We’re supposed to have a lifetime together, all three of us. That was the deal. You can’t leave me. Do you hear me, Brandt Carver? You can’t go and leave us alone, we need you.”

There might have been the barest flutter of his eyelids, but that was the only response she got. He was slipping away, and her heart felt like it was shattering in her chest.

“T’karra, did you mate him? Answer me, girl, this is important!” Her father was shouting at her, but she was having trouble understanding what he was asking her. It was like trying to hear someone calling from the far end of a tunnel.

“Yes. He’s my mate. He and Hawke.”

Her father dropped down beside her, setting a hand on her chin and turning her head so she had to look straight at him. “If you mated him, then there’s still a chance. Convert him, T’karra.”

“That would kill him. The conversion is brutal, the odds of him surviving—”

“Are still better odds than he’s facing. Do it. If you want to keep your mate, then this is your only choice.”

“Here?”

“There’s no time left. It will have to be done here and now.”

“Would someone please tell me what the fuck you’re talking about? If there’s a way to save him, then why aren’t we doing it?” Hawke demanded.

“Because it will probably kill him. Even if it doesn’t, he’ll never be human again. Do you think he’d want that?” T’karra lifted her gaze to Hawke’s, seeing the worry and grief in his eyes that echoed the feelings tearing through her.

“I think he’d want to stay with you, baby, no matter what. We love you. If it was my choice, then I’d choose a lifetime with you over anything else.”

His answer helped her make her decision. “Then tell everyone to stay back. No one comes near me until this is done.”

Hawke nodded. “Save him, T’karra. You take care of Brandt, and I’ll take care of everything else.”

She knew what had to be done, though it was not something she’d ever witnessed. Few Krytos were willing to risk the lives of their mates this way. The dangers were too many and the suffering too great. It was easier to live together as they were than to bleed a loved one to the point of death, then bring them back as a Krytos and watch their bodies undergo the terrible strain of the physical transformation. It was the physical changes that killed most of those who tried it.

Please, let this work. I don’t want to lose him.

She sent up the silent prayer to her ancestors and got settled beside Brandt’s body before turning him over and pulling his head into her lap. She wanted to be careful of his wound, but she forced herself to put it out of her mind and do what she had to. If this worked, he would be Krytos, and the wound would heal on its own.