Fenturi Fate (Spacestalker Saga Book 1) (15 page)

Why now? Why all of a sudden the urge to free her people? A people she hadn’t even tried to help in years? Before guilt could rear its ugly head again, Dare focused on the here and now, which meant staying out of the Legion’s greedy hands.
M
ost certainly, she needed to avoid Captain Ren and the
Eyshan6
. Did he want her because he knew she was the Mari? Or for some other reason? Perhaps he’d learned more about her exploits than she knew?

“No, Dare,” Jace interrupted.
“Ren knows who you are.
I
t’s only a matter of time before he finds us.”

***

“A Nearworld planet. Kre if I’m not mistaken.” Primo scratched his stubbly chin.

“Kre, hmm?
Stalker cats are native to Kre.”
Ren smiled, and the crew looked uneasily at one another.

Castor sighed.
For over two weeks the
SpaceStalker
had eluded the entire Legion.
Though Ren wanted nothing more than to get his hands on the ship’s sexy captain, at this point to throttle her, Castor felt a reluctant admiration for a space crew that could evade them as long as Dare’s crew had.

Castor watched as Ren’s eyes widened, his nostrils flaring as if scenting his prey.
His skin took on a faint
glow, his eyes a brighter green. Castor turned. The twins appeared similarly affected—their skin luminescent, their eyes a neon blue. He privately likened them to a pack of stalker cats following the lead male.

Normally solitary creatures, stalker cats, when thrust together, formed a solid unit.
Castor had done a lot of reading on this trip.
Bored at their lack of fighting and adventure, he for one would be more than happy to encounter anything illegal or questionable, if only to unleash some of the tension in his best friend.

When Phin had first relayed his suspicions about Dare, Castor had been disturbed by Ren’s reaction.
Castor knew Ren was attracted to the space pirate. He hadn’t expected that learning she might be a Fenturi, the very one they’d been sent to find, would shoot Ren’s temper supernova.

He’d been too cold, too controlled.
Castor feared for the female’s safety when they found her.
He had no doubt they would, since Ren never lost a quarry once he started pursuit.

“She’s on Kre,” Ren said with deep satisfaction.

Castor noted the twins’ happy reaction as well.
 

“Finally,” Ned said on a breath.

“We’ll get some fighting action.” Nesh agreed.

“No one touches the woman,” Ren said coldly, and every one of his crew felt the bite in his words.

“Understood.” Castor and the others acknowledged his order and moved back to their positions.

Primo looked at the captain with sad eyes. The poor bastard had grand hopes for a revisit to Vembi after a quick stop at Kre.
But Castor could have told him they wouldn’t be going to Vembi anytime soon, despite them all needing a pleasurer and a Bitter Blue something fierce.

“We’ll be there by tomorrow, Captain,” Primo relayed and set back to work plotting his course.

And then what will you do, I wonder?
Castor eyed Ren, determined to help his friend deal with whatever his Fenturi nature demanded. He just prayed that didn’t mean killing any beautiful space thieves.
 

***

Talk about coming home again. Jace absolutely hated slavers. He fired another shot and rolled toward the small child as an Olm pirate drew a bead on her.
His shot struck true, because t
he man fell. Jace urged the child to follow the escape trail the others made as they fled the ship.
A line of women and children no doubt culled from a poor town on a colony no one would miss. The bastards. He hoped every one of these pirates would die a slow and painful death.

And speaking of death…
“Hurry up, Dare,” he muttered as he watched her blast another pirate from the deck of the ship.
Once sa
tisfied the cargo hold had been evacuated, she yelled out to Shea and Roc that all was clear, then leapt to the side as a blaster cannon rocketed through the hold.

Good night. That was close,
he sent to her.

No kidding,
she sent back.

“Ye bleedin’ idiots,” the Olm pirate captain screamed.
“The land defenses are here to blast
the invaders
.
Not me own ship!”

Dare sprinted by Jace, and he followed her, racing toward the speeders they’d left hidden in the brush.

Just yesterday after their rousing discussion of Fenturi history, Jace had received a mental summons for help, the emotional despair of so many impossible to ignore. Not that he would have anyway. He hated the scum who stole lives. Apparently, the Olm pirates had returned to their hideaway on the south side of the particular island where Jace and crew were holding up. And even better, the pirates had a hold full of young slaves.

Jace and a reluctant Dare had hidden the
SpaceStalker
in the Olm pirate’s home port.
The pirates’ reputation was such that not even the Legion attempted to rouse them.
And only a very foolish, or a very desperate, crew would think to poach on Olm territory.

Jace liked to think of himself as intelligent rather than foolish.
He’d found the perfect hiding spot. Or so he’d thought.

He swore again, knowing he shouldn’t have told the others about the slaves. Once Shea had heard that children would be sold and possibly sacrificed by the Olm, she’d been quick to organize a rescue party.
Bored out of his mind and always one to protect the young, Roc had readily joined her.
D
are had been only too ready to transfer her troubled thoughts about the future to a helpless crusade.
He’d thought himself an idiot for allowing emotion to cloud his judgment. Turned out he wasn’t the only one.

Now he tried to follow a maddened Fenturi through the woods, moving as best he could so as not to become the next Olm sacrifice.

He stumbled and rolled to his feet, his momentum taking him farther forward.
He soon appeared in the opening where the speeders should have been but weren’t.

Black hels and demons. A frek of a situation.

Instead of the speeders, five large, foul-smelling pirates stood waiting, their sabers and phasers drawn for battle.
Jace cursed as he realized he’d lost his phaser when he’d tripped, and that none of his crew looked to be near.
The pirates must have sensed his poor luck, because they smiled as they surrounded him.

“Well, well, an interloper, I’m thinkin’.”
A rusty-haired, bushy-bearded thug spat at him.
Disgusting but pretty par for the course with Kre scum.

“Aye, but a pretty one at that,” another hulking brute added, licking his lips in a manner that made Jace cringe.
Then he saw the
projected thoughts the pirate had in store for him and had an involuntary shiver.

Sudden shots rang out from the forest beyond them, and Jace ducked out of the way, relieved his friends had finally shown.

He peered through the leafy bush under which he’d taken refuge, only to find himself staring at one of
Eyshan6
’s crew on a speeder.
Shit.
 

The Legion are here, Dar
e,
he warned.
Take off, now.

He tore through the brush feinting left and right, following the sounds of a massive battle before him.
To his surprised, he’d somehow
retraced his steps to the large pirate spaceship and blazing land station.

He watched in shock as blue flame engulfed the land station and burned in a bright light—as bright as the Mari moon’s sister sun.

The forest seemed to still as everyone watched in amazement.
The station had been firing one moment, ablaze in starfire the next, and now lay in clumps of human and fortress ash.

Screaming in dismay, the remaining pirates returned to their cannons on ship and fired wildly.

Jace felt a moment’s panic when he couldn’t get through to Dare.
Then r
ealizing she’d most likely tired herself out, he focused as hard as he could and got a bead on her energy presence.

He turned to the west and moved through the jungle as fast as his tired legs could take him.
He paused a moment to catch his breath and watched, stunned, at the battle that shifted from the far tree line into the clearing just a few paces beyond the jungle in front of him.

Through a copse of trees, he saw Ren aboard the pirate vessel fighting a bloody battle. Just him and a saber against four pirates.
The Legionnaire
wielded his blade with precision and deadly force, dispatching two of the men before two more took their place.

From the fierce look on Ren’s face, Jace knew he had to get Dare and the others as far away from Kre as possible.

Unfortunately, he found Castor before he found the crew.

“Well, well, one of our lost
SpaceStalkers
.”
Castor grinned under a bushy mustache.
Jace watched the man with more attention to detail than he’d paid him before.

Castor’s arms looked huge in the Kre moonlight shining above them.
Blood streamed from small cuts about the large warrior’s arms and hands, but that didn’t deter him from wielding his Bylaran blade with ease.

His chest was wide and muscular, and as he swung his blade, it seemed as if the sword was an extension of his body.

Jace backed away, cursing the fact that he’d given away his only blade to a captive before showing her the way to freedom.
He looked left and right and spotted a dead pirate’s hand outstretched to a blade near him.

Jace feinted left and dove right, coming up with the blade as he parried Castor’s hard strike.
The clash of steel sounded loud in the sudden stillness before screams and shots of nearby weapons returned. Not good. Where the hels was his crew?

“Not bad, Blondie.”
Castor laughed as he tested Jace’s mettle.

Swearing aloud, as he had neither the time nor inclination to fight the brawny man, Jace shoved Castor back with a mental push and ran as if chased by a lightning storm, aware of the swearing Legionnaires after him. He finally found Dare, out of breath and moving slowly.

Roc and Shea are still fighting several pirates trying to escape toward the east.
You have to rein them in,
Dare telepathed.

Where’s Mra?
He heard a loud feline shriek and darted around Dare to find Mra putting an end to a pirate.

Jace continued to look behind him, knowing they needed to leave. Pronto. “The Legionnaires are all over the place.
I’ve seen Castor and Ren, and they’re spoiling for a fight.
Ren’s like a madman.
We can’t let them find us here. We have to go.”

She frowned at him. “What happened to your sword?”

The cat grumbled at them to leave, and they hurried after her.

“Your sword?” she asked again.

“I gave it to one of the slaves,” he admitted, feeling foolish for a sentimental decision that had left him unarmed. She laughed at him, and despite the situation, he laughed with her. “Try not to lose me this time.” At times like these, Jace could forget his past, reveling in the lifeblood that pulsed through his veins, in the glow of the here and now.

Suddenly Mra stopped and growled low in her throat.

Dare peered through an opening in the brush ahead of them and whispered, “We have to turn around.”

Jace looked with her and saw the remaining pirates fleeing on small shuttles as groups of Legionnaires rounded them up.
Quite a coup for the Legion today.

He knew if they
didn’t soon get off their ship off the planet, they might never leave. Not without Legionnaire assistance. Then they could kiss their freedom goodbye.

Jace tugged Dare to her feet and nudged her in the direction of the ship.
“Shea and Roc will have rallied on the
SpaceStalker
. Let’s move.”

It didn’t take long before Dare passed Jace, running with as much grace and speed as Mra. With any luck, they’d make it to the ship before and
of the
Eyshan6
crew found them.