Stars Across Time (8 page)

He had wanted so much to ask Andie more about her experiences as a pilot. Some planes existed in his world, with the military having a few of them, but they were mostly propeller-driven one-or two-man craft. Simple machines for a simple time. The term
fighter jet
certainly stirred his imagination. But Theron hadn’t wanted to inundate Andie with questions, lest he scare her, make her think he was interrogating her. For some reason, she had relented and told him about herself, and he treasured that. He had wished he could share more about himself, but he hadn’t dared say even his name where someone might overhear.

A few more days of this ruse, and he should have the location of the market. He already had the location of that time machine, so long as the other team didn’t move it when they were finished using it. Theron worried that might happen—if it stayed in one place and was easy to find, someone’s team should have done so long ago. Morimoto and the other higher-ranking officers didn’t want a time machine out there in the hands of civilians, especially civilians who were using it for theft.

Not all of the higher-ranking officers...

Theron grimaced, still shocked that General Duckworth had strolled into that cave—and that the kidnappers had acted as if it was a perfectly normal thing. He was relieved that his subterfuge had been believed. After he had tried to help the women escape, he had been certain he would be discovered. He certainly hadn’t thought he would get away with taking them through the time field without repercussions. Of course, there might still be repercussions. Bedene kept glaring back at him, and Theron had a feeling that, sooner or later, he would figure out his identity. Even if he didn’t, the man didn’t trust him. If Theron disappeared tonight, Bedene would notice it and demand to know where he had been when he returned. And what would he say? He had gone out for a stroll? No, if he left tonight, he wouldn’t be able to come back. Not openly, anyway. He supposed he could track the men at a distance, following them until they reached the market. As long as the group stayed in the trees, Theron might be able to do that without being discovered, but what if they reached the inland sea and took a boat? Theron would risk losing them forever.

Grumbling, he put his notebook away and pushed himself off the boulder. Full night had fallen, and he couldn’t see to continue writing. He would check on the women and let that determine his course of action for the night. If the men were too weary to harass them, perhaps Theron would take the risk of going back. Destroying the time machine was one of his priorities; the general had made that clear.

He walked past the man slumped against the log wall next to the door, his chin drooping to his chest. He must have been assigned to stand guard, but he appeared too tired for the task. Nobody looked Theron’s way when he stepped into the dim cabin. Someone had lit one of the lanterns taken from the campsites, but it didn’t brighten much of the open structure, a single giant room with a loft up above. The furnishings were sparse, and most of the gear had been dumped on one side, a few blankets stretched out to claim sleeping areas. Andie, Min-ji, and the third woman that Russell’s team had collected sat over there, with Andie gesturing as much as her bound hands would allow, whispering to the other two. Concocting some scheme to escape? If Theron were in charge, he could be keeping a closer eye on her.

But Bedene was sitting on a stump by the hearth on the opposite side of the room, with a few of the other men, most of who were watching the two teenage girls. Their hands were free, and they had been pressed into duty with skillets and fire tending. The smell of sizzling meat filled the cabin, and Theron’s nose wanted him to walk over and check on the possibility of a meal, but he noticed two of the men sitting on a large split-log table, watching the women, both those at the hearth and those on the blankets. One of them was the one that Andie had bitten the night before, Blackie. Theron sensed that he might want some revenge.

Far too many eyes were following the women’s movements, and Theron realized that he could not leave, not even to fulfill his mission. Someone had to stay here and keep this night from sliding into atrocity. He would see these women safely back to Fort Kitsap, and then he could take a squad of men out to deal with the time machine and the kidnappers.

And you think you can do that? Against twelve men?

He had to. And he had to do it in a way that wouldn’t arouse suspicion about who he was.

“No problem,” he muttered, and snorted at himself. What had the general been thinking, sending him out here alone?

He caught Bedene watching him, that suspicious squint to his eyes again. Theron smiled and gave the man a cheerful wave, if only to throw him off. Bedene glared back.

The two men sitting at the table nodded to each other, mumbled some words of agreement, and pushed themselves to their feet. Even before they started walking toward Andie’s group, Theron knew they intended to go in that direction.

He took a few steps forward, deliberately stepping in their path. “What’s for supper?” he asked. Maybe a simple thing such as food might distract them from carnal intent. “You starved after walking all day? I am.”

“Already had a sandwich.” One of the men waved toward a smashed tin of travel bread and some dried meat that had come out of someone’s pack. “Looking to relax now.” He gave Theron a friendly smile, though there was wariness in his eyes too. Rami, that was the man’s name, Theron recalled. “Why don’t you join us, big man? You like the tattooed girl, right? We’ll take the younger ones.”

Blackie thumped him in the arm. “
I
want Tattoo.”

“
Nobody’s
taking Tattoo,” Theron said.

This time, Rami thumped Blackie in the arm. “I
told
you he’d want that one. He was talking to her all day, trying to be charming, like we’re back in civilization and he’s gotta dress up and court her.”

Theron looked down at his bare chest. Dressing
up
hadn’t quite been involved.

Blackie snickered. “Yeah, like you don’t just take what you want out here. You’re not going to make it long, new blood.” The man’s snicker faded, and his eyes closed to slits. “You’ll push someone’s hackles up the wrong way, and you’ll get a dagger between your shoulder blades.”

“That’s more my concern than yours, isn’t it?” Theron would have tried to get along with the men if he had respected any of them even a single iota, but he was waiting for the day when he could bury these boys six feet under. If he was wise, he would wait until he had a platoon of soldiers with him, but he had a feeling they were going to force him to be unwise.

“My concern might become yours real soon,” Blackie said, “because
I
want Tattoo.”

Not surprisingly, Andie and her friends had noticed this conversation and were looking toward the men. Blackie wasn’t speaking quietly. Everyone in the cabin probably knew his intentions.

“Why don’t you keep your paws to yourself for a couple of days, and then go buy willing women with the coin you’ll get from the sale?” Theron suggested, doubting his idea would take root in the infertile brain matter this one carried around.

“Maybe I like them better when they’re not willing.” Blackie smiled like a wolf, looking past Theron’s arm toward the trio of women.

“That make you feel more like a man?”

“It makes me feel
good
.” Blackie grabbed his crotch, having all the shame of a rabid badger. “When they’re fighting you, and you come all over them. Bet you’d like it, too, new blood, if you got that stick out of your ass and relaxed some. There doesn’t need to be trouble between us. Just step aside.”

Two men by the hearth stood up, their stumps rocking audibly in the cabin. Theron heard it because the area had gone quiet, save for the snapping of the logs in the fire. If he had been across the water, or anywhere in civilization, the men getting up to pick a side would have stood behind him. These idiots joined Blackie and Rami.

“Been a long day,” Rami said, lifting his chin now that he had men at his back. “And it’s been a long time since we had girls. You’ll have to fight all of us, if you think you get to keep them to yourself.”

“How about
nobody
keeps them?” Theron pulled out his knife.

The men tensed, but all he did was spin the blade on his fingers.

“You expect us to believe that, Mace?” Blackie asked. “You want that one for yourself. That’s all this is about. Look, you can have her first, then I’ll take her. That’s a fair deal. But you don’t get to be selfish, not when there are only five of them and...” He glanced at his little group, mumbled, “four,” then counted out loud, trying to tally up the rest of the room, but he got distracted somewhere about ten. Maybe it was the way Theron was flipping his knife.

“New blood,” Bedene said, still on his stool. “Go gather some firewood. It gets cold up here at night. We’ll need some more.”

Theron snorted. “Sure, I’ll jump right to it.”

Blackie grinned. “Yeah, go gather some wood. And take your time, will you?”

Theron ignored him, his eyes locked with Bedene’s.

The leader’s jaw clenched, and his hand dropped to his rifle. “That wasn’t a request.”

“Why don’t you come over here and do something about it then?” Theron had no idea if all of them would jump him or not, but he thought that if he knocked Bedene on his ass, the others might back down.

But Blackie was the first one to move. He must have thought Theron was distracted, because he yanked out a dagger and jumped at him.

Theron stepped into the attack, knocking away the arm holding the weapon as he drove his own blade into the man’s chest. Bones cracked as his knife crunched through them and pierced his attacker’s heart. Theron yanked the blade free and grabbed Blackie’s blade at the same time. He jumped back, expecting that more of them would come at him. He wasn’t disappointed. All three men rushed him. He threw a wild lateral slash toward their faces, making them think twice for a second, and used the feint to leap to the side so he only had to face one. While he was in the air, he threw Blackie’s blade so that it would land near the women. If this went to hell, and every man in the cabin attacked him, he would need allies. Maybe Andie would be able to cut herself free and do something.

The man in front of him—Rami—had pulled a gun rather than a knife, but Theron was close enough to slap it aside, even as it went off. A bullet lodged in the log wall somewhere behind him. He struck again with his knife, feinting twice, making the man stumble as he threw up his arms to block, then striking. His blade sliced through Rami’s neck as one of the other men was trying to make his way around to his back. Theron leaped into him, hurling his elbow at the man’s gut. His foe twisted and got an elbow down for a partial block, but Theron had struck with enough force that the block wasn’t enough. He stumbled back, and with more space between them, Theron brought his leg up for a kick. His heel slammed into the man’s stomach, and he doubled over before crumpling to the floor.

Theron spun, his blade raised, and his mace in hand now, as well. Rami and Blackie were dead on the floor, and the third man was rolling about, grasping his gut. For the first time, the fourth seemed to realize that the fight had turned deadly. He backed away, his empty hands up, alternately staring at Rami and Blackie and at Theron.

The rest of the men in the cabin were on their feet, but nobody else had come forward to join in the fray. Bedene still sat on his stump, but he had his rifle in his arms, his finger on the trigger, the muzzle pointing at Theron.

What had he been thinking about getting himself into an unwise situation? Yes, that had happened.

Knife and mace in hand, he crouched, staring at Bedene from across the cabin. He doubted that the man would miss at this distance. All he could do was watch his finger, his body, his face, and try to guess when the shot was coming so that he might dodge it. He had a feeling he was going to get hit either way, but maybe he would get lucky, and it wouldn’t be a killing shot. To die out here, without completing his mission, with nobody ever knowing what had happened to him... That bothered him more than the idea of never seeing another sunrise.

He didn’t let any of these thoughts make it to his face. He concentrated on Bedene, on trying to anticipate the shot.

“You fight like a soldier,” Bedene said, his tone cold, his face difficult to read.

“Doubt I’m the only one here who fought for the Alliance.” He was just the only one here who was
still
fighting for it.

“Figured you for a soldier. You got that look about you, beard or not. What unit were you in?”

It wasn’t the question Theron had expected. Actually, he had expected nothing more than a bullet after Bedene’s declaration. Still, it was an easy enough question to answer; he had any number of units he had served in that he could pick from. He chose the one furthest back, when he had been a nameless private that nobody would remember.

“Third Infantry Brigade, Rainer Company. I was a scout.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen how quiet you stalk around out there,” Bedene said. “Who was your CO when you were in?”

“Captain Bennington,” Theron said, still not taking his focus from the rifle trained on him. For all he knew, Bedene fully intended to shoot him and was just trying to puzzle out who he was before he did so.

“Captain?” Bedene’s brows twitched upward. “You’re older than you look, new blood. Bennington was a major when I served, and that was nearly ten years ago. He must be a colonel or general by now.”

He was a colonel, and Theron played cards with him on Tuesday nights when he was in the rear.

“I imagine,” he said blandly.

“I was in the Third too,” Bedene said. “A sniper.” He offered a tight smile.

“Bet that comes in handy,” Theron said, refusing to appear intimidated. It was promising that the man was talking to him, but he didn’t know if the fact that they had served in the same unit, if at different times, would matter to Bedene. Lots of people left the military with bitter feelings, realizing the hard way that the disciplined lifestyle and lack of freedom was not for them.