Krac's Firebrand (2 page)

Yes,
Rorrak thought with a cynical curve to his lips.
If I have to go into a fight, I’d rather have Krac’s cold, emotionless back covering mine than face the heartless bastard.

*.*.*

Krac ignored Rorrak and focused on the mission. In truth, he could care less what the Zion Warrior thought or did. He would have preferred to come alone. It was only because of Anastasia’s family’s wish that the Zion agent accompany him that he had allowed the man on the special starship Anastasia had commissioned for him.

It didn’t hurt that he was also very familiar with the Jefe family. Rorrak’s older brother, Kordon, was now a lead councilman on Zion and was mated to Gracie Jones, a living member of the original Freedom Five. He had been skeptical of the claim that Gracie was
the
Gracie Jones until he abducted her during a previous mission. If being in her presences hadn’t convinced him, the DNA scan he did proved she was a direct relation to Anastasia.

Krac felt the strange wave of heat that always washed through him when he thought of Gracie. He had kidnapped the unusual human female a little over three years before in an attempt to draw out the leader of the reformists. At the time, Anastasia thought that Altren Proctor might have been the one trying to assassinate other members of the council, specifically those who could claim a bloodline to the Freedom Five.

Krac knew immediately the human male was too weak to have organized the numerous attempts. The former councilman was just greedy. He had paid a handsome sum of credits to Krac to kidnap Gracie. Proctor had hoped to use Gracie to take control of Earth by returning the Mother of Freedom to the planet and claiming her as his mate. That plan failed miserably when another assassin Proctor hired killed the councilman as he, Rorrak and Kordon Jefe closed in on them.

Now, as he moved down the narrow winding staircase after Rorrak, his mind ran through all the information that he had downloaded. He frowned when he came to a file that was encrypted. He made a mental note to come back to it before focusing on the task at hand when they rounded the last section of the stairs.

The guard standing at the bottom turned and glanced over his shoulder. His eyes widened briefly when he realized those coming down the stairs were not part of the security team. His mouth opened, but no sound escaped as Rorrak’s blade found its mark. The man’s eyes dropped to his chest and his hands wound around the sharp blade before he fell to the stone floor.

Krac moved smoothly down the steps and into the side room while Rorrak headed down the long, narrow corridor toward the other guard who was rising up out of the chair he had been sitting in.

*.*.*

“How much longer are we going to be in this hole,” a scarred-faced man sitting at the table grumbled. “We were supposed to have moved out yesterday.”

“The female is being difficult,” the other man replied, sitting back in his seat and studying the tablet in his hand. “Move four spaces to the left, sling blade left to right,” he muttered.

“Damn it,” scarred-face cursed when the character on his tablet disintegrated. “That was my second most powerful beast.”

“You should have seen it coming,” the other man laughed hoarsely, tipping his head back and swallowing deeply from the flask he held in his other hand. “That is one hundred credits you owe me now.”

“He won’t be paying you,” Krac said calmly as he ran his blade across the scarred-faced man’s neck. He ignored the head that fell in the opposite direction of the body as it separated. “I want information and you are going to give it to me before I kill you.”

The thin figure of the male surged from his seat, tossing the flask to one side as he drew a pistol from his waist. His scream of agony was cut short by Krac’s fingers tightening around his throat. The arm with the pistol now lay on the floor.

Krac slowly walked forward, holding the paling male up off the ground until he had him pinned against the far wall. He made sure the male got a good look at him. He wanted the male to know that death had come for him and it was in the form of a creature more dangerous than he had ever seen before.

“Who is your leader?” Krac asked coldly.

“I…,” the male gurgled as his eyes began to dim. “What… are...?”

Krac pulled the male forward before slamming him back against the wall. The sound of the man’s head cracking against the uneven stone echoed loudly in the quietness of the room. The glazed eyes faded to blankness.

“Word of advice, Krac,” Rorrak’s dry voice sounded behind him. “If you want information, you have to leave your informant in one piece and not smash his head first.”

Krac grunted in disgust as he dropped the male to the floor and turned with a glare. “Most species, especially the humans, are too fragile.”

Rorrak looked at the bloody curved blade still clenched in Krac’s left hand. He shook his head and chuckled. Not even a Zion warrior would be able to survive such a wound.

“Not all of us are made up of living metal,” Rorrak replied dryly. “We have less than five minutes before more company arrives. I’d like to at least rescue the ‘Princess’ before they arrive.”

Krac nodded. “Is your warship close?”

“Yes,” Rorrak bit out. “But, we will still have a fight on our hands.”

“You keep Anastasia Miller safe,” Krac instructed as he headed toward the door leading down to the second level. “I’ll take care of everything else.”

Rorrak shrugged. “Fine with me. I just hope I don’t have to carry her ass. You know how Earth women are.”

Krac’s eyebrow rose at the comment. Yes, he did know what most human women were like and preferred to avoid them as they were weepy, fragile and weak. He had only met two human females that gave him pause to think that they were not ordinary to the human female species: Gracie Jones and Anastasia Miller. Both of those human females confused him as neither behaved like those he had met while on Earth.

“Just protect her,” Krac replied. “I will kill you if she gets hurt.”

“Well, that changes everything,” Rorrak muttered darkly under his breath as Krac palmed the door panel and disappeared down the second set of stairs. “I guess I’ll just carry her ass then.”

Chapter 2

“Tower, this is the
Lulu Belle
coming in to repair bay A4,” Captain “Skeeter” Lulu Belle Mann announced cheerfully. “I need clearance of all incoming traffic. Oh, and you’d better put the bumpers out, boys, my thrusters are being a pain in the bunny butt right now. Frog! How are you doing on the repairs, sweetheart?”

“Two minutes, Skeeter! I need at least two more minutes!” The voice behind her frantically yelled.

Skeeter ignored the coarse curses coming over the system from the tower. She was used to them by now. She didn’t know if it was protocol for all Spaceport Towers to use such language. She’d have to ask Bulldog, her adopted father, the next time she talked to him. She was still learning all the technical talk since he let her take over as Captain of the
Lulu Belle
. So far, it seemed to be the norm at all the Spaceports she had delivered to so far.

“Captain, I have the rear thrusters working,” the high-pitched voice of her co-pilot responded. “And my name is Froget, not Frog! How many times do I have to tell you that?” The green, yellow and black creature growled as he jumped into the chair next to her.

Skeeter laughed in delight at the slightly exasperated tone of her new co-pilot. She had picked up the medium-sized amphibian creature on the Gallus Spaceport at the last minute. She didn’t care what he said his name was, he looked just like the frogs in the picture vidcoms that Bulldog had given her as a child.

She had fallen in love with Frog’s big eyes and long, sticky tongue. He could pick things off the wall from almost ten feet away! It was the coolest thing she had ever seen, well, until he got stuck that one time. He still hadn’t forgiven her for that. How she was supposed to know that the antique paper she had picked up and hung from the ceiling was stickier than his tongue? She loved how it curled around like a streamer and she thought all the little black flying creatures on it were neat.

The only disappointment she had discovered about her new friend and co-pilot was that he didn’t turn into a handsome prince when she had kissed him one night. Skeeter sighed heavily when she remembered her disappointment. She had been sure he would change as he had looked like all the frogs in the old books. Instead, he had shuddered and made her promise to never try to kiss him again.

“Thanks, Froget,” Skeeter replied. “Tower, never mind about the bumpers. Frog got the rear thrusters working so I’ll come in backwards.”

“
Lulu Belle
, this is Tower One, please hold formation while traffic is cleared from the area,” a warm voice replied.

“Oh dear, sorry about that,” Skeeter whispered as she turned her short-range, class IV Trident freighter at the last minute so that she could back in between two larger long-range ships that were docked in the repair bays next to the one she had been given. The sound of metal on metal echoed through the small freighter briefly as it scraped the side of one of the larger ships as she tucked herself between them. “Tower, never mind about clearing the traffic. I was able to dock.”

“Confirmed. Locks have been engaged,
Lulu Belle
, and the connection duct has sealed to the rear access door,” the Tower replied. “Welcome to Newport Space Station. I’ll warn everyone you have arrived.”

“Thank you, Artamis,” Skeeter replied warmly. “How is Tila doing?”

“Her hair is almost back to normal since your last visit. I like it blue, by the way, so please leave it that way. I’ll warn my mate you have docked and will be stopping by to visit. Oh, and Skeeter,” Artemis, the Tower controller replied with a hint of laughter in his voice. “Governor Erosa asks that you try to avoid Level 2 while you are here.”

“You know it wasn’t my fault that Bulldog went nuts!” Skeeter complained as she went through the procedure of shutting down the engines. “Lucas should have known better than to try to hire me to deal with illegal transport. I could have been in trouble with the Confederation if it hadn’t been for daddy telling me what Lucas was up too. How is he by the way?”

“Lucas just got out of rehab,” Artemis replied dryly. “They had a hard time re-growing his missing fingers. A very unusual problem considering his species.”

Skeeter winced. Lucas was an Octoply. A species that had four arms, four legs and a dozen fingers on each hand. Her dad, Bulldog, had removed four of them on each hand when he found out Lucas had tried to use Skeeter for some unauthorized ‘deliveries’. Granted, Lucas had offered her a lot of credits to do it, but she could have been in big trouble if the Confederation boarded her small freighter.

It would have been her first run for him and her most profitable since she took over the
Lulu Belle
. When she had shared her new contract with Bulldog, she had been surprised when he had calmly informed her that it had been cancelled at the last minute.

Skeeter later learned that her dad had paid a visit to Lucas. By the time he got done, Level 2 had been pretty much destroyed. She grimaced again when she thought of how many fingers the Octoply would’ve had to regrow.

Skeeter turned when Frog jumped down out of his seat with a loud curse. She blinked when he peered out of the portside window, then glared back at her again. She knew from the tight look around his mouth that he was upset about something she did – again. It was the fly paper look all over again.

Sighing heavily, she turned in her chair and crossed her arms across her generous chest. “Okay, what now?” She asked belligerently.

“You don’t know?” Frog asked in disbelief. “Didn’t you hear the sound of metal scraping? You know, that loud, I hit something, sound?”

Skeeter shrugged and dropped her hands to the well-worn arms of the captain’s chair. “It wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t as loud as the last time. I’m not very good at backing up. Besides, it couldn’t have been all that terrible. None of the alarms went off this time.”

Froget Horntip looked at the pale human female pouting back at him. He had joined her crew at the last minute as a favor to her adoptive father. What the enormous Razor-tooth Triterian saw in the fragile creature biting her lower lip and looking for all the world like she didn’t have a clue why he was so upset with her, Froget would never know. There was no way he would ever question Bulldog about his decision, though. Bulldog had a reputation of slashing, mutilating and digesting those who did.

Instead, he glanced once more at the large Confederation warship docked in the repair bay next to them. It now had a long…, Forget grimaced as his eyes moved over the mark,… a very, very long pink scrape down the side. He would have to fix it before the female decided she would. He shuddered as he remembered Bulldog’s dire warning if anything happened to his precious but very stubborn daughter.

“Protect her, don’t let any men near her and for Goddesses’ sake, don’t let her out into space. The girl doesn’t have a single ounce of survival instinct in her body. She lives life to the fullest. I love her the way she is. Make sure she stays that way, Froget, or else.”

“How do you…?” Froget remembered starting to say before the look in Bulldog’s eyes turned them to a burning red. “Life… fullest… no men, no space, protect at all cost… got it.”

“Good,” Bulldog grinned, showing off row after row of sharp teeth. “The last bodyguard I sent didn’t.”

Froget looked at the clear, liquid-filled cylinder behind Bulldog and turned a very pale green at the lifeless floating body in the tank. With a sharp nod, Froget had hurried out of Bulldog’s towering office. For once, he wished he had chosen a different profession than bodyguard for a living. He had a feeling he might not have a very long life expectancy in his new position.

Chapter 3

Krac nodded to Rorrak as he pulled the curved blade out of the body of the second man standing outside the door to the room holding Anastasia Miller. He silently counted to three as his hands tightened around the bloody blades. In the back of his mind, he had already mapped out the room and was calculating the probable location of the remaining male.