Stealing Mercury (Arena Dogs Book 1) (39 page)

She kicked out, sending the cut section of the barrier tumbling to the ground below. She had one foot over the edge when Knock grabbed her arm. He handed her a small hand held stunner and the cutting torch, which she shoved in her pockets.

“You might need it,” he said with a shrug. “I have a med-services transport on the verge between the arena and the public transport station outside the main entrance. I’ll meet you there.”

She leaned forward, kissed his cheek, then went over the side and down the wall.

RomaRex Arena, Roma

Earth Alliance Beta Sector

2210.185

Samantha hit the sand with a heavy thud. Okay, so maybe the automatic part of the auto-repel wasn’t ideal. She was in one piece and that was really all that mattered.

She pulled the stunner out and strapped it to her hand, then turned and jogged toward the mini-war being waged between Arena Dogs and guards. She spotted Saber, first. The tall man was surrounded by uniformed men, but holding his own. A small figure in white flashed in and out of view—Chelle. Together, they must have freed every Dog in the staging area.

She wove through the pockets of fighting until she saw them. Mercury and Lo, still chained together and steadily working their way back toward the tunnel.

She lifted her arm and shouted. “Mercury! Lo!”

They looked over and saw her. They were both battered and bleeding, but they were alive and they were hers and she was theirs.

“Over here!” She turned to lead them back to the rope, but someone snatched her off her feet. Lo and Mercury ran toward her, their eyes promising swift death for the person who’d dared to grab her, but before they could get to her a group of guards swarmed them.

Samantha’s captor had grabbed her from behind and lifted her off her feet. She kicked back toward his shins, wishing for her boots. She swung her head back, hoping to break his nose. He squealed and dropped her.
Bingo!

Most of the group of men that had charged Mercury and Lo lay at their feet unmoving.

A wave of dizziness slowed her down when she tried to get to her feet. She’d nearly forgotten she had a head injury. She knew she should stay down and think of the child she should be protecting, but the baby wasn’t real to her, yet, and Mercury and Lo needed her. Despite her drive to get to them, the pain kept her down. She curled into a ball until the dizziness passed then forced herself up again. Mercury and Lo were still fighting, working their way toward her. A guard came around the corner right next to them.

Samantha shouted out a warning, but it was too late.

The guard jabbed Lo with a stun-stick. Lo’s body jerked, but he managed to slash bloody gouges into the guard’s shoulder before Mercury tossed the man aside. And then he was there kneeling in front of her. “
Courra
?”

“I’m okay.” She dug the cutter out of her pocket. “Let me get that restraint off you.”

He and Lo knelt together letting her work as they remained alert. Saber and Chelle and the other dogs managed to run interference for them long enough for her to free them.

Mercury lifted her into his arms, folding himself around her to protect her.

“We have to get up into the stands,” she mumbled against his neck. “There’s a rope.”

“The stands,” he repeated. He looked down the length of the wall and found the gap she’d created. “Wrap your arms around me,” he urged. He barked then took off toward the rope.

His hand slid under her bottom to support her and she slid her legs over his hips. “What about Lo?”

“I’m here, little Sam.” He shouted it from a few meters away.

Every Dog that could disengage was following, then running ahead. Samantha twisted to see them forming a living launching pad. Mercury never slowed. He launched them toward the other Dogs. The next thing she knew they were flying through the air. She didn’t know how Mercury did it, but they came down solidly on the walkway.

He set her aside and hunched down near the edge.

Snarls and shouts still rumbled below them, but on the walkway all was quiet. Most of the visitors in the section surrounding them had already fled.

Samantha looked over to see Saber serving as a launching platform for Lo who came flying at them. Lo slammed into the edge and with a groan Mercury pulled him onto the walkway.

Samantha looked for Chelle and her stomach heaved when she saw her. The guards had followed them across the sand. They had the group surrounded and Chelle lay face up, glassy eyes wide. Her head lay at an unnatural angle, neck broken.

Samantha heard a whip crack below. For a moment she thought she’d see Drake at the end of that whip, but it was another man. The whip wrapped around Saber’s arm.

“Go,” Saber shouted. “Go.”

Mercury pulled her back from the edge.

Samantha resisted his tug. “We can’t leave Saber behind.”

 “He won’t go without his pack brothers,
courra
.”

The truth of his words settled her. She understood, because she couldn’t leave without Mercury or Lo.

“We’ll find a way to get them out,” she vowed.

“We will,” Mercury agreed. “One day, we will.”

Mercury pressed his forehead to hers, his hands framing her face. They were shaking. “I’m never letting you out of my sight again.”

“A good idea,” said Lo. “But we need to go. Now.”

“Since when did Lo become the sensible one?” Sam shook her head as Mercury released her and they all headed down the tunnel.

“I don’t much like the role,” answered Lo. “So you two had better start thinking clearly.”

Samantha somehow found the strength to chuckle. She buzzed with hope.

She turned and led them toward the exit tunnel. As they came out, spilling into the path of people streaming out from other areas of the arena, the people closest got a good look at Mercury and Lo and screeched, then scattered like sand-cats in rain.

“Which way?” Lo ran to the outside wall and looked over. “Too far,” he said.

“Knock has a transport waiting,” she explained. “But we have to get to it without being seen.”

“There will likely be guards waiting for us at the exits,” Mercury warned.

“When we are low enough we’ll jump or climb down,” said Lo.

“So how do we make it that far?” Samantha turned in a slow circle, desperate for some safe route to magically appear. She spotted a set of doors along the interior wall and they looked very much like lift doors of some kind. “Wait.” She charged toward them and slid to a halt as the doors slid open.

Drake stood in the doorway, blood staining the front of his shirt from where she’d injured him earlier. More importantly he was holding a plasma pistol and pointing it in her direction. His finger was already on the trigger.

“I’ll blow a hole in her if you so much as move.”

They all know his speed wouldn’t match Mercury or Lo’s. He might get one shot off, but he’d never make two. Still, as long as he had her in his sights, he could control them.

Keeping the pistol ready, he strode directly to her and spun her around. He put an arm around her throat and tugged her back against his chest and there was nothing she could do to stop him.

“Now that’s better. Time to talk,” he said, facing off against Mercury and Lo. “You can’t get off this planet. Cooperate and Sam won’t be harmed. I give you my word.”

Mercury and Lo both growled and snapped, but neither moved closer.

Samantha’s mind raced. She still had the cutter. She just needed to get it out of her pocket. “You don’t think they’re going to fall for that, do you Drake? Didn’t you teach them better than that?”

She locked her gaze on Mercury’s and pleaded with her eyes for him to help her distract Drake. To her surprise, he held out his hands as if waiting for restraints.

“I will do as you ask,” he said. “Just don’t hurt her.”

“Incredible.” Drake shook his head and laughed.

Samantha slipped her hand in her pocket and pulled out the cutter. She flicked on the control and swung out toward the hand holding the blaster.

“Fuck!” The blaster hit the floor with a metallic clink. “Fucking bitch.”

Mercury and Lo flew toward them in a flash of grace and power.

“Fucking hell,” Drake swore as he scrambled back, his arm tightening around her throat. As she struggled for air, the pain in her head swelled as if her skull had been filled with the expanding foam she used to plug holes in engine chambers. She slammed her fist into his groin and the pressure eased. She yanked free and fell on her ass.

Drake screamed. Mercury snarled. He pinned the whip-master to the floor a meter away. She tried to blink them into focus. Mercury’s hands held Drake’s head. He twisted the man’s neck with a vicious snap, silencing the screams.

Samantha stared at the body of the man who hurt her and the men she loved over and over. His relentless drive for vengeance against them had virtually guaranteed his death. Maybe she should have let them kill him back on Wilderness.

Mercury stroked hair out of her face with gentle hands. “Samantha?”

She tried to speak. Coughed. Swallowed.

His hand tightened in her hair. “I want to kill him again.”

“Okay,” she agreed.

He chuckled, a choked, desperate sound.

She heard Lo yip and she reached out a hand. He was there pressing her hand to his bare chest. “What do you say we go look for our ride back to the port?”

“Our ride?” Mercury wrapped an arm around her and helped her stand but the world spun.

Samantha swayed. “I think I may have overdone it a bit.”

Mercury pulled her into his arms. “I’ll carry you,
courra
.” He urged her to wrap herself around him and she did. Even standing had begun to feel like a chore.

Mercury and Lo surged through the corridors until they found an exterior stairwell. They slipped inside and slipped in and out of the shadows.

“Samantha?”

Mercury urged her to look over the edge of the protective barrier. She searched for the med-transport. There were several.

“
Courra
, we must know where to go.”

“I’m looking,” she stalled. Three of the transports had the doors open, loading people. “That one.” She pointed to a transport with no signs of activity.

“Look,” said Lo. “There are more stairs like these, over there.”

“We have to do this fast,” said Mercury. “It looks as if more guards are moving up the ramp.”

“Let’s go,” said Lo.

Mercury kept Samantha wrapped around him as they worked their way to the transport. They climbed along ledges and jumped from level to level on exterior features of the Arena building. Silently, she willed the idiot guards to continue to fail to look up and for the acid in her stomach to stay down.

The moment Mercury and Lo touched ground in a soft patch of grass, Samantha pushed at Mercury. “Put me down,” she whispered in panic.

Mercury set her on the ground just in time for her to drop to her knees and heave. There was nothing in her stomach to come up, but she heaved until the cramping in her belly stopped.

“How bad are your injuries,
courra
?” Mercury spoke as he pulled her deeper into the shadow of a bush.

“I do have a head injury, but the medic treated it. I should be fine.”

“You don’t seem fine,” accused Lo.

“Maybe I don’t like climbing down buildings and jumping from ledge to ledge.”

They both stared her down, unappreciative of her sarcasm.

“We don’t have time for this,” she pleaded.

Both men spun as two guards practically tripped over them. One of the guards caught Mercury with a stun-stick. Samantha scrambled back out of the way and Mercury had the man pressed into the ground in a blur of motion. Lo had an arm around the neck of the other guard and he squeezed tight until the man went limp.

Mercury pulled her back into his arms and ran, hunched low and using as much cover as he could find, taking her to the transport. And then they were there.

A click and a thunk signaled the moment they crawled into the transport. Mercury and Lo curled in a ball around her behind the seating. The passenger door swooshed open and she heard voices. Captain Artane! She was saying something about a twisted knee. Two other
Gwendella
crewmen climbed in to the transport in the guise of patients.

When the doors slid shut and the engine started, Samantha whispered, “Too easy.”

Lo laughed—a rusty sound.

Mercury stroked her cheek. “They were unprepared. Nothing like this has ever happened before.”

She lifted her chin and let her determination show in her eyes. “We’ll make sure—”

“It happens again,” finished Mercury. “Rest now,
courra
.”

She eased back and let her muscles relax. It was time to trust the others to see to their escape.

“Rest, little one.” Lo’s voice stroked her with comfort.

“I’m resting,” she protested, letting her eyes drift shut as she listened to the sirens and shouts outside the safe bubble of the transport. The noise faded as they moved into the darkened areas of the city.

The memory of Chelle’s sightless face came back to her. Maybe, not so easy. They’d been lucky and they’d had friends. That had made the difference.

“I hate to interrupt your beauty rest back there,” said Knock. “But we have a long hike ahead of us. The roads to the port are shut down.”

Samantha pushed up to look outside as the transport hummed to a stop in an alley behind a hotel. “The tunnel?”

Knock made an affirmative noise. “That’s right. I followed you when you left with Rachel.”

Lo tensed at Rachel’s name. “It might not be safe.”

Knock pushed open the door and stepped out then slid the back door open. “It’s safe. I checked it myself.”

Mercury pulled her against him and wrapped her around him as he climbed out of the transport. No one spoke as Knock led them through the service areas of the hotel and down into the tunnel. Samantha looked over Mercury’s shoulder to see Captain Artane grinning back.

“Feels good,” she said in a hushed voice. “Being back in the action. Didn’t realize how much I missed it.”