Salvation for Three (2 page)

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and about being on the receiving end of a hunt that would end in human or alien gang rape.

Hunting for Drak Voi, earning that pile of credits every earth turn, seemed a better alternative than risking capture if the mask failed.

That would make her no better than the runners that she tracked.

Keer felt the landing gateway engage, jerking her from her reverie. She zipped her jumpsuit and checked the straps on the pack she carried. Five days' supply in the Endlands was too much to haul so she had settled for two days. She would hope for the best. She didn't want to recall this freighter twice. It was expensive renting a full sized freighter, and while Drak would make sure she got the credits back, she was frugal enough to keep an eye on her Alliance fund balance closely. You never knew when you'd have to jump ship.

Her peak would be here soon. She needed to get in and get out of the Endlands before the agony of delayed sexual release started to weigh down on her.

"Keer Teho request away to ground." The cargo hold gate began grinding open. Creaking and protesting, the door finally dropped. A cascade of red dust rose around the metal bridge.

"Two days before the return of this freight. Confirm." The annoying drone hovered in front of her, refusing to move.

"Yeah, yeah, two days, ok?" Red lights turned blue at her answer and the whirring drone removed itself back to the hold.

"Enjoy your stay in the Endlands."

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"Cold as a Horvak Witch," Keer muttered as she stepped out into the red dust. A desolate landscape stretched beyond the ship. No sign of life, just red dust moving in circles above the plain. Far from the Colonists' domed city, no moving creature or plants of any kind dotted the terrain, although Keer's research told of subter lizards that were a danger. Red rocks the size of mountains surrounded the canyon where the freighter landed. She shivered and tapped the wrist of her jump suit to active the heat sensors and then moved toward the Endlands horizon. The three moons, silver slivers, shown across the plain.

Colonists' reports led her to believe her latest runner holed up in a cave miles from the nearest subterranean city. While a domed city could be a relatively safe place in the Endlands, no one ventured out to the rocks. Getting mauled by a subter lizard out for an afternoon meal would not be a not good way to die. She ran two miles to stay warm before she saw the shadow of the overhang described in the colonists' latest missive.

"Jagged cliff edge that reflects back three moons." She checked her microcomp. This should be it. Assuring herself her razor ties were folded into her boot and her sting gun was attached to her left wrist, she flared the cuffs of her jump suit out. Pulling a flame red scarf from the pack, she tied it to her upper arm as was the fashion in the resort colonies. An average tourist snapping cam vids of the cliffs was the image she hoped to present. She sighed, doubting the runner would buy it, but still thought it worth a try.

Pulling a small cosmetic applier from the pocket of the skin suit,

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she flipped it open. A mirror reflected her pale face back, and she grimaced. Her lips chapped and flaking, her skin the color of dried milk. It wasn't a pretty picture. Dark hair ran wild around the hooded suit. Her mother and nature had gifted her with long black lashes that framed green eyes but it wouldn't be enough to entrance a runner. She pushed the hood back and ran her fingers through her hair, combing.

"Apply," she muttered into the side sensor.

A beam came from the reflecting screen. Keer closed her eyes and waited. Laser manual application of cosmetics would be considered archaic for most females. It was popular to opt for perm surgery but Keer had seen those women when they aged. She did not want to be clown-like at eighty earth turns and unable to afford the adjustment treatments on a fixed credit income.

The light faded and she looked again. Smooth skin, a slight flush provided by the cosmetics, eyes rimmed with ashy color and dewy, pouting lips flashed back in the view screen. A face only a sailor in rec port could love, she thought. Maybe her runner would buy the

"tourist out for a walk" bit.

Keer tapped one booted foot against the other and small stilettos appeared where chunked heels had been before. She swayed slightly, heels digging into the dirt. It would slow her down until she could drop the running boots back into place but it would add to the sway that she hoped would lead the runner to her.

Pulling a small pic-cam from her pack, she looped a strap around her wrist and walked toward the jagged cliffs, hips swinging in the heeled boots, pausing and stopping to crouch. She appeared to be filming the cliffs along the way.

She saw the first glint of movement within minutes of nearing the rocks. Casually, she reached one arm across her chest to loosen the red scarf pushing her suit fastener down with the move revealing dusty pink nipples. A little flesh hanging in the cold breeze might help matters along.

Traditional undergarments had been long gone after jump skins
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came into fashion. Nothing could help a girl's lovelife like a built-in push-up bra and a second-skin jump suit clinging to whatever curves the Terran Mother had given her. A tinge of heat tingled against her skin at exposing herself, and a quiver ran down her legs. She grimaced. Her peak was coming. She needed more time. She checked the horizon.

The retinal scan showed the runner to be a small man, close to her own size and human. That was a relief. Taking down the huge, hulking Nelds were putting a toll on her. "
So, no fish scale wrestling
tonight. Thank the gods."

She shifted her hips, a purely feminine gesture, and then gave a small gasp and sank to the ground in what she hoped appeared to be a faint. Rolling as she fell, her breasts nearly tumbled out of the loosened suit. She resisted the urge to hiss from the cold.
"Come and
get it, boy, before I freeze these twins off and they go to waste."

He advanced from the north side, evidently sure of himself and his prey, making as much noise as a garbage trawler through the sand and dirt. Stumbling and pushing red gravel in front of him, he half ran.

Keer's fingers pulled the sting gun, sliding it down into her grasp.

She could smell him before he got within a hundred yards. She let him roll her over and lean closer, holding her breath to ward off the stench.
Gods help us, he smells worse than a boar herder.
She gave a helpless moan for effect and took a breath, pushing her breasts further out of the suit, and then slipped her tongue out to moisten her lips.

"Bless you, Terra Earth, it's a real female!" He sniffed her appreciatively and ran his nose nearly in her chest, then pushed a rough finger down the open suit fastener attempting to grasp the two globes that jutted directly at his face. One red dirt-soiled hand came in contact with her breast before Keer shifted, pushing the treasure into his palm. When he groaned in appreciation, she pounced, pulling the razor coil out and sending it with a metallic snap down, bonding the runner's legs together. She came up in a crouch, fast, and jerked hard, simultaneously pointing the gun at the runner's left shoulder and

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zipping him with a sting.

He screamed before he hit the ground, red dust rising around him.

"Bitch! You're a fucking bondsman?" he wailed at her, a hand grabbing the bleed in his shoulder. Then began to shriek as the razor tie cut his legs through the ragged jump boots he wore. "Gods help me!" He writhed for a moment then thought better of it. "They'll find you. You won't make it out of here before they come." The runner had stopped moving against the razor wire and lay still, gasping in pain.

"The Alliance has me registered here, pig-breath. No one's getting caught but you today." Hunter's teeth! What was the man babbling about?

"The lunar winds hide…" he spat at her as she watched him, one eyebrow raised waiting for the wailing to stop. He began to gasp at the pain.

She assessed the dirty man. "Colonists have been looking for you for nearly a full three moon turns." Keer was puzzled. He looked to be well fed. He wore dirty and shredded clothes, but still appeared nourished and hydrated. "Have you been eating subter beetles to survive or stealing from the City?" Stealing more likely, she thought Subter beetles had an armor coat, although she had heard they made a good stew if you were patient enough to steam the armor away. A lot of runners lasted months in the Endlands if they moved quickly enough to catch food. This particular prisoner didn't strike Keer as smart enough or fast enough to survive the red dust and the lunar storms.

"They give me food if I move the rocks at night." He grunted in pain again. "Have to watch for the lizards but if you stink badly enough they won't catch you." So that explained the smell. He could certainly be successful if stench was his bodyguard.

Even in pain, he ogled her skin, breasts still bursting from the bra inset and low fastener on the jumpskin. She holstered the sting gun and adjusted herself back into the suit, sealing it tight against the breeze.

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"Who's got you moving rocks?" Keer eyed him, grabbing for his wrist as he winced. She felt for his tracking chip. Locating the chip, she pressed down, activating the secondary track.

"They're in the subter. Hunting for females." He groaned involuntarily as the razor tie cut another thin line through his dust-covered boots and a trickle of red began to drip onto the clay.

"Females." Keer laughed, hoisting the runner up to his knees and then his feet with her enhanced arm. "Keep pace and the wire won't cut. Try to run and I'll lash your arms too." She activated the callback pouch for the freighter which was probably not yet out of range. The drum of the engines carried over the dust. She started back with the runner at a stilted trot to the dry reservoir of the landing site.

"The Colonists here only have a one-to-seven female quota. They won't let them get away so easily, runner. And no fertile females to be had in the ten planet range." She tossed that in for good measure.

Her pulse had picked up pace at the Runner's claims, but what could he know after months spent hiding in the Endlands? Her skin felt hot as she began the run back to the reservoir, face flushing.
"Not
yet, Terran Mother. Please not yet."
She had to get off this planet and back to her own safe living quarters a comfortable half-million light years from the Endlands and from anyone hunting someone like her.

The small man's eyes narrowed as he laughed again. "I move the rocks at night so the City guard won't see the trawler the hunters use or the tracks in the dust they leave behind. They have to be covered to hide from the Colonists. Then the storms come and it doesn't matter.

They say the City holds a puny race, afraid of their shadow. Those warriors say a female is coming. And she's fertile. They say it like it's their truth." He paused, thinking. "They'll come for you. Even if you are barren dirt." He grinned, teeth blackened from a phet drug habit that had earned him prison ship time to begin with.

"They're as big as Neld's and they don't sleep, not more than a lunar wind cycle." He cackled to himself. "If they look at you, they'll have you. Something about those eyes. You can't say no to them.

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You'll see." He leaned forward, leering. "Wait until the winds come.

Wonder if they'll flip a credit for you." He cackled a dry laugh again as he trotted beside her. "You'll be spread wide for one of the hunters.

You'll see."

Keer had a flash momentarily in her retina implant of lying, legs sprawled, under a huge man, wild golden hair streaming from his strained features, his back a mass of knotted muscles as he pushed into her. One iron-girded arm bore a twisted metal circlet. He was pounding her mercilessly, driving her so hard her legs flew out with each thrust. His hips grinding against her thighs. She could see her own slickness on his massive cock as he pulled back and then forced the purple-domed head into her sheath.

The picture was as sharp as any view screen image. It sent a spike of heat straight between her legs making her pussy tighten. She nearly groaned aloud. Another large hand lay between her white belly and the hard sweat-slick skin of the blond giant. The hand was pinching her nipple, pulling until the tip was flushed and hard.

Another man, dark haired and as big as the golden warrior, lay underneath her. He pushed in tandem his cock equally as large burrowed in her rear checks.

She was screaming and it was not with fear.

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A noise coming from across the plain snapped her back to reality.

Her brain, numb from the hallucination, could not process the sound.

Threads of heat pooled in her stomach and descended between her legs. She must not think of the vision she had seen. She could feel the hot moistness building in her sex as the bud between her legs began to swell. Gods, it was going to be too late. . Her pussy was contracting in spasms nearly incapacitating in the burn. She would have to razor bind this runner's mouth and hide in the pilot cabin until the freighter took her to safety.

She stretched out and forced herself to begin a fast jog, pulling the runner with her. He continued laughing wildly as they ran toward the descending freighter, the dust swirling in dark clouds around them.

"Too late, bond hunter. The storms are coming. When the storms come, they come."

The freighter gate dropped and she scrambled up the gangway, pulling the man behind her. Keer pushed the runner into the jump seat and yelled over the rising wind at the security drone.

"Keer Teho requesting return to prison ship
Agreeb
.
Now
."

The gate began to rise as the security drone repeated her commands and accessed the space coordinates of the
Agreeb
. She watched as the metal wall rose, creaking, pulling the door in a slow ascent. The storm had swirled so much dust into the cargo bay that she could barely make out the shape of a trawler as it flew toward the ship across the reservoir. She saw two figures jump out and begin a forward run.

Even from the distance, they were huge, muscled men with

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squared shoulders wrapped in the traditional Endlands robes against the sand, faces covered from the raging windstorm. They did not pause against the blow of the red storm but accelerated the pace.

"Gate
Closed
!" She nearly shrieked the command, knowing full well that it would not hurry the process on the old ship. "Terran mother, get that thing up before they get to the ship. Before they get to me!" The pace of the two giants running across the dirt toward the gate, as if no red lunar dust existed, chilled her blood.

Keer knew they did not come for the runner who continued to laugh from the jump seat. She could see intent in those strides. They knew she was here. They knew she was ripe and fertile, and were coming for her.

As the gate finally reached near closure, she focused on the face of the closest man, terrified. His stare pierced through the dust, the color of Terran sun and precious amber. His hair, the wild gold in her hallucination, escaped the headcover, blowing against his face.

She ran to the gangway, still watching, grabbing a gate hold to pull up as the door closed, and peered out before the latch engaged.

The blond giant ripped the cover from his head and looked across the plain at her. His jaw clenched in anger. He cupped his hands and called through the winds of the lunar storm.

"Woman." The voice boomed, echoing into the cabin.

Keer gasped. She could hear him. In her mind, the voice resounded, loud and penetrating. Telepaths and hunters. Gods knew what else they were capable of.

"
Woman. We come.
"