Dark Runner: LodeStar 3.5 (21 page)

“Yeah he has,” Darry soothed. “Believe me, Tal’s had plenty of gorgeous women throwing themselves at him.” Scala digested this. Right. She was only the latest in a long line.

“He’s had plenty of time with this one.” Scala knew she was fretting but was unable to stop herself. “To get whatever intel he wants, I mean. You really don’t think he’s fucking her?” Hells, that came out wrong. “I mean, he’s smarter than that, right?”

“Of course he is,” Trix said. “But if he’s not out in five minutes, I say we take out the guards.”

“We?” Scala smirked.

“Meaning you,” Trix said, as if granting a favor. “After seeing what you did to that Gorglon, these two won’t give you any trouble.”

Yeah, at least she’d done something right.

“Heya,” called the smaller guard, swaggering forward. “How about it, Serp?”

“I call time,” Trix added. “Those two are annoying as all hells.”
 

“Women,” Darry muttered. “Be careful, Scala. And stay away from the hatch, ‘cause I’ve got the big laser trained on it.”

She could do that, no problem.

 
“Sorry, boys,” Scala said. She set her hands on her hips and gave the guards a taunting smile. “I’m a rich man’s toy. Much too good for the likes of you.”

Men were so easy. The human started for her with an ugly scowl, while the other moved to flank her. “We’ll show you what you’re good for, bitch.”

She waited until they were only few steps away, behind and before. Then she leapt backward, slamming her shoulders and elbow against the alien, and using him as a fulcrum to flip her legs up and kick both of them straight out at the human.
 

She hit him full in the chest with both heels. He went down like a felled deerbitt.

“Hey!” The male behind her grabbed her arms. She twisted, throwing her body up and over his shoulder, tearing her arms from his grasp to land on her feet behind him.
 

Twirling, she took him out with one kick. Then as he landed, she leapt up and landed on him again, slamming his head into the hot sand. He went limp.

The human was stirring, struggling to bring his weapon around. She kicked it away from him and smiled at him. “Say goodnight, sparky.”

She kicked him in the chin, so hard his head snapped back.

Both guards lay inert in the sand, the hot sun beating down on them.

“Nice,” Darry said in her ear. “Not subtle, but thorough.”

“Heads up,” Trix added. “Here they come.”

A whoosh of air behind her signaled the opening of the woman’s craft.

“Oh, dear,” a bell-like voice said. “My ship and my guards both incapacitated. I suppose I’ll just have to take yours.”

Scala turned to find Tal standing a step before the woman. She held a laser trained on him, and so did the Serpentian male on Tal’s other side.

Tal smirked at Scala, the corners of his mouth curling up. He had a smear of bright coral lipgloss on one cheek by his mouth. Scala glared at him disgust. That better be the only place that bitch’s mouth had been.

“Take me up to your ship,” the woman ordered Tal. She looked up at the sleek, black ship hovering over them, with gloating satisfaction. “It will do to get me where I’m going next. And you can ... entertain me while we travel.”

He started down the gangplank. “I’ve loyal crew on board, you know.”

The woman laughed. “Yes, and if they want to live, they’ll shift their loyalty to me.”

Tal looked sulky. Scala’s instincts flared. The man wasn’t shy about expressing his displeasure, but he sure as hells never sulked. “What about my mistress?”

The other Serp gave Scala a contemptuous smirk. “Oh, we’ll leave her here. You won’t need her anymore.”

“The hells he won’t,” Scala hissed back, drawing the pilot’s attention. The Serp gave her an appreciative look over his shoulder.
 

“She can come along for me,” he said, flicking his tongue at Scala.

“Get ready,” Darry warned in her ear.
 

Oh, she was ready, all right. She was going to kick some Serp ass, and then Darkrunner’s.

Just as Tal reached the hoverpad, twin lasers fired from hidden ports on the Z’s belly. The pilot fell back, body arcing as his tan uniform blossomed great gouts of blood.

The woman screamed and ducked behind Tal, blood streaming from one arm. She flipped her weapon toward her other hand. Tal whirled, knocking her back off the hoverpad. She landed on the gangplank of her craft and rolled off into the sand.

She aimed the laser at him. “No man bests me,” she hissed. “You’re already dead.”

But Scala was already vaulting across the gangplank. She landed on the woman’s back. Slamming the Serpentian’s weapon hand into the sand, she slid her other arm under the woman’s chin and jerked her head up to make eye contact.
 

“How about a woman, then?” she asked.

If looks could kill, Scala would have gone up in flames. “Not so pretty on your belly in the sand, are you?” Scala snarled.
 

Then she hung on. Screaming and hissing, the woman fought her ferociously. Covered in silk and long hair, the other Serpentian was slippery as a water snake, but Scala was stronger and faster.
 

“I’ll kill you!” Slidi screeched. “And him too! I’m the richest woman in the galaxy … and the smartest.”

“Oh, shut up.” Scala tightened her grip on the woman’s neck and twisted, hard. She heard something snap, and the woman went limp.

“Let go, Snake Eyes,” Tal ordered. “She’s dead.” Strong hands lifted her up and away from her victim.
 

Scala stared dumbly at the limp body in the sand. “Always thought if I killed someone in a fair fight, it would be with a kick,” she muttered.
 

Tal gathered her close against his hard body, his leathers hot and comforting against her skin. Despite the heat of the day, she felt chilled to her core.

“You slayed me with the first look,” Tal said. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

Every fiber of her being screaming at her to stay, Scala jerked her gaze away his and herself from his arms. Negotiating their relationship, or whatever it was, could wait.
 

Besides, he wasn’t going to have any further use for her once he learned the whole truth. Which was that she was the one who needed the Serp’s body.
 

“No, wait,” she said. “Don’t you, uh, want the body? You know, to show Kiri?”

Tal stared at her as if trying to figure her out. “No, Snake Eyes. I don’t. Discovered something about myself in the last few days. I like my women mean.”

A bright, sharp pain pierced her heart. He picked now to say sweet things to her?

Okay, focus. She had to stay focused. “Yeah, but don’t you want … uh, everyone to know what you did? I mean, you could be a hero. Polish your image.”

He shook his head, like a man hanging onto his patience by a thread. “Snake Eyes, all the people whose opinion I care about? They’re right here. We killed someone who deserved to die. That’s an end to it.”

His words echoed in her ears like the sweetest music. All the people he cared about were here? Did that mean he no longer yearned for Kiri?

“You want a trophy?” he added. “Take a holovid.”

He stopped by the woman’s body and turned her over with a shove of his boot. Her body rolled to rest face up, her bright silks fluttering one last time in the hot wind.
 

“Darry, make sure you get a close-up” Tal said. “Now c’mon, Snake Eyes. I need to get on board. Think the heat’s gettin’ t’me.” His voice slurred on the last few words.

Scala whirled, peering into his eyes. Alarm was an icy chill that seized her heart and squeezed, hard. She forgot the dead woman, forgot everything but the man swaying on his feet in the brutal sun.

“Tal?” He was pale under his tattoos, his pupils dilated until his eyes were nearly black. “What’s wrong?”

“Tal?” echoed Trix.
 

“Hang on,” Scala told him, dragging him onto the swaying platform of the hoverpad. She braced herself as he sagged against her. “I’ve got you. Darry, get us up to the ship!”

“On it. Hang on to him.”

Afterward, she never remembered the ride up to the
Z
, just that when they emerged into the cabin, Darry and Trix were waiting to catch Tal, who sagged from Scala’s arms, his eyes rolling back in his head. His weight bore Scala down to the floor with him. She scrambled to her knees, her hand clutching his.

“Lay him out flat,” Darry ordered. “Trix, go get the medkit. Dalg, link the resort and see if they’ve got a medtech.”

“I don’t smell blood,” Scala said, searching frantically for any sign of a wound.

“No,” Darry said grimly. “I don’t think that’s what this is.”

Time became a blur of activity. Trix raced back with the medkit, which Darry used to check Tal’s vitals, while she got an oxygen mask on Tal. They found no wound, but his heart rate was irregular, he had a high fever and his breathing became more torturous by the moment. His body was rigid, his arms and legs twitching.

When small red streaks began to appear on the unmarked areas of his skin, Scala froze, then let out a cry of rage. “
No!
”

“What?” Darry demanded.

“This is serpent venom,” she told them. “Not a wraith or he’d be dead, but a—a, I don’t know, a sand viper, maybe. He needs anti-venin now, or he’ll die. We need a medcenter.”

“Dalg,” Darry yelled, rising to his knees.
 

“Already taking off,” Dalg bellowed from the cockpit. “Strap him down and hang on.”

The
Z
lifted into air, already veering to the north. “Headed to Raavel,” Dalg updated them. “ETA thirty three and a half minutes.”

“He doesn’t have that much time,” Scala called, terror crushing her in its grip as Tal convulsed, his body rigid, horrible noises emerging from his throat, audible even through the oxygen mask. His eyes were half open, but unfocused, the whites streaked with red.

“I’m pushing her as fast as she’ll go” Dalg roared.
 

Scala shook her head. “We’ll never make it.”

Trix keened, a horrible sound of despair and grief. Darry stared at Tal, his face bone-white. Both frozen by their fear for the man who led them, cared for them. Someone had to act, and oh, goddess, it was going to have to be her. No matter how scared she was.

“Okay. I know what to do,” Scala said, trying to sound positive, decisive despite the terror rising in suffocating waves as Tal struggled for breath. “We Serps produce our own anti-venin. We need to give him a transfusion of my blood.” It might work. They had nothing else.

Darry gaped. “You do—I mean, you can? But—but what if you have the wrong blood type? We might kill him.” He was already delving into the medkit, though, his body ahead of his mind.

He pressed a monitor to the inside of her wrist and Tal’s. “All right. Checking blood types.”

“Wait,” Trix cried. “Serp—she’s Serp. Tal’s not. Won’t that kill him?”

“He told me he’s a mongrel,” Scala insisted, watching the monitors. “And as fast as he can move, I’m sure he’s got Serp in him somewhere.” He had to … because otherwise what they were about to do might kill him as fast as the serpent venom.

“We can’t risk it,” Trix insisted. “We can’t.

“Stop it,” Darry snapped, already ripping the monitor from Scala’s arm and fastening the tourniquet on. “We have to try, baby. Tal’s tough. And if we do nothing …” He would certainly die. The words hung silent between them, punctuated by the horrible wheeze of Tal’s struggle for breath.

“Blood types in the eighty percentile range,” Darry said. “Close enough.”

“Thank the goddess,” Scala said. “But—but wait. We need, ah, something to thin it. I’m all Serp, remember. Too much of my blood might kill him.”

“All right, that’s good info. Give me your arm,” Darry demanded, already grabbing a device from the medkit. “Trix, tourniquet. And a vial of the plasmacore. We’ll send your blood through that.”

Her gaze fastened to Tal’s face, Scala pressed one hand to his struggling heart as Darry jabbed her with a needle, connected a length of tubing through a container of plasmacore, and injected another needle in Tal’s quivering arm.
 

“Here we go,” Darry said. “I’m going to monitor the amount, so you don’t give too much. God, I hope you don’t have any trace substances he can’t tolerate.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Trix wept, crouching by Tal’s head, holding his arm still with all her weight. “Just help him. Help him. If this doesn’t work ...”

“He won’t die,” Scala said. “He can’t. I won’t let him.”
 

She leaned over, her mouth to his ear. “You hear me, Tal Darkrunner? You die, and I’ll come into hell after you, just to kick your ass.”

He strained for breath and convulsed again, harder.

Time dragged, a blur of hanging over Tal. Scala grew dizzy, and laid down beside him, her gaze on his face. “Don’t stop,” she mumbled. “Don’t stop. Take as much … as he needs.”