The Challenge (49 page)
Authors: Susan Kearney
“Jypeg will suspect I did it.” Tessa understood the tactics. She also knew that if she showed up to guard Kahn’s back, she would distract him.
“That’s Kahn’s plan.”
“What’s happening now?”
“Jypeg is making Kahn come to him inside the shuttle.”
“I don’t like it. He’s setting up an ambush.”
“Damn,” Dora swore.
“What?”
“Kahn took out three men. He did it silently, but a scanner picked him up. Jypeg now knows Kahn, not you, is hunting him.”
“Then there’s no need to maintain radio silence. Patch me through.”
“Compliance.”
“Kahn, do you need me?”
“You’re armed?” His voice was curt, tense.
“I have two stunners with full charges.”
“How long until you can reach the shuttle?”
“Four minutes.”
“See you then.”
Kahn believed she could help! No praise from Master Chen had ever meant more to her. Tessa let out the breath she’d been holding, her heart full. She swam underwater to the island, coming up periodically for huge gulps of air.
Once she reached the beach, she detached a stunner. With her knife in one hand, her stunner in the other, she raced across the beach and toward the shuttles. “Dora, which one?”
“To the right.”
“How many Endekians are aboard?”
“At least three. Kahn is fighting Jypeg and two others.”
“How’s he doing?” Tessa ducked through the hatch. Kahn fought with his back to a wall. Two men closed on him from opposite sides, one from above.
For the moment, Tessa had the edge of surprise. She fired, killing one Endekian with the weapon. Kahn kicked his null-grav into super-fast mode, and he and Jypeg slashed, bounced, zoomed, attacked, and counterattacked at a pace so ferocious it stole her breath. However, that didn’t stop her from engaging the other Endekian.
With Kahn zipping around the shuttle after Jypeg like a ricocheting bullet, she focused on the second Endekian, who’d rolled behind the console to take cover. Tessa kept him pinned, firing to prevent him from helping Jypeg.
“Behind you,” Dora warned.
Tessa spun, took down an Endekian who’d entered through the hatch. But that gave the man who’d hidden just enough time to launch himself into her back. Slamming into the bulkhead, she dropped her weapon. Although her shields had been up, her arm went numb. Her head snapped back and for a moment she couldn’t see.
“Duck,” Dora warned.
Slow to shift, Tessa took a second blow to the shoulder. But her vision began to return. The Endekian must have sensed her injury and closed in for the kill. She remained deliberately clumsy, letting him come to her. And when the Endekian lunged at her, he slid right onto her blade.
OUT OF HIS peripheral vision, Kahn saw Tessa and the Endekian go down, but he couldn’t help her with Jypeg keeping him engaged. Concerned for her safety, yet confident she could protect herself, he’d allowed her to join him in battle, a decision that had been necessary to their survival. As Jypeg drop kicked at Kahn’s throat, Kahn shifted and blocked out concern for his wife. Her strong psi told him that she still lived.
And he wanted Jypeg’s attention on him. Finally, Kahn faced his enemy, the man who’d killed Lael. The man who’d tried to murder Tessa. The man who’d invaded Rystan and was responsible for much of his people’s suffering.
Tessa shoved the dead body of Jypeg’s man away and straightened.
“Take cover,” he ordered, and she dived behind a hatch and out of sight, leaving him alone to focus all his attention on Jypeg.
“Your woman can’t run so far that I won’t find her.” Jypeg somersaulted off the wall and shot a fist at Kahn’s kidney.
Kahn shifted and with a spinning back kick caught Jypeg’s shoulder with a glancing blow that sent him reeling. “She won’t have to hide after the Federation locks you away.”
“Locks
me
away?” Jypeg shouted, “Not in your luckiest fantasy. Your ship will be crushed. Your wife raped, then slaughtered. I look forward to hearing her screams in my ears, her begging for her life.” Jypeg taunted, feinted, then struck with an elbow that just missed Kahn’s sternum.
Refusing to let the Endekian’s taunts faze him, Kahn noted that the man appeared to be sweating too much, breathing too hard. But was it a trick?
Kahn tested him with a right punch followed by a fake downward with his left fist, then from above, he planted a two-footed kick into his foe’s stomach that knocked Jypeg into an out-of-control roll. Kahn didn’t wait for the man to strike the ground before following through with a killing blow to the heart.
Tessa peeked around the corner, her eyes narrowed, a stunner steady in her hand. “I was afraid to shoot for fear of striking you.” Her gaze centered on Jypeg. “Is he dead?”
Kahn checked the body and nodded. “I would have preferred for him to stand trial to publicize to the rest of the Federation that the Endekians want Rystan.”
“I’m glad the son of a bitch is dead.” Tessa finally lowered the gun she’d kept steady on Jypeg. Kahn had never seen her look more beautiful. With her eyes serious, her mouth compressed, and her pulse beating at her slender throat, her femininity had never seemed more in contrast with her cool green eyes.
Kahn opened his arms to embrace her. “You okay?”
She grinned and embraced him. “I am now.”
KAHN CLOSED his arms around her, kissed her until she was breathless. Since the Challenge had begun, Tessa had tried to focus on the current problem at hand. But with his powerful arms around her, with the fresh taste of him on her mouth, with the familiar musky scent of him rousing emotions of how much he meant to her, she didn’t want to ever let go.
She should thank him for coming to her rescue, but she couldn’t summon the words past a throat choked with love. When Kahn broke their embrace and stepped back, she wanted to cling because she sensed what was coming. She hadn’t completed the Challenge. She still had tasks to finish.
Kahn held her shoulders as if he didn’t want to release her, either. “You must go on as if I’m not here. Dora will send the shuttle for me as soon as repairs are completed, and I will return to the ship. Since the Endekians were not supposed to interfere, I’m hoping the Federation Council won’t nullify your Challenge. But the less time we spend together, the better our chances of their seeing our side.”
“I understand.” She turned away and fled from the shuttle before he could see the tears brimming in her eyes. Stumbling to the beach, she chastised herself. They’d defeated the Endekians. She would complete the Challenge. Everything was fine.
Yest, she missed Kahn with a dreadful tearing inside that left her battered and bruised. Knowing she was reacting like an emotional yoyo didn’t mean she could stop the aching. All her life, she’d been alone, but now that she’d found someone to love, being alone again was much more difficult. She had so much to lose.
But as Helera was so fond of saying, she could do hard things. After a few sniffles of self-pity, Tessa pulled herself together. Emotionally and physically exhausted, she decided that despite the bright light of day, she needed sleep. She found a spot in the sand on the beach above the high-tide mark and slept, awakening once to note the darkness but not rising until the day had arrived once more.
Her last day. She would finish the Challenge today or not at all.
Walking down the beach and searching for another boat, she practically stumbled over the flitter she’d wished for earlier. Without hesitation, she climbed into the flyer, which had a simple stick control similar to the one on the shuttle. As she lifted into the sky, her hopes soared. The sooner she finished her task, the sooner she could be reunited with Kahn.
She flew straight to the golden obelisk and circled from the air. The golden monument extended from a two-hundred foot high base, a pyramid of colored
bendar
. With no place flat to land the flitter upon the steep pyramid, she had to set down in a nearby clearing, next to the pyramid’s only entrance, an archway through the
bendar
.
All she needed to do was find the second key, walk through the archway, and open the doors to win the Challenge.
But when Tessa arrived at the archway, it was no longer an open passageway. Zar blocked the entrance with his enormous body, his tentacles waving. When he’d given her a ride between islands, she had only guessed at his enormous girth. Now, with his entire body out of the water, she estimated he was as long as four school buses.
Tessa pretended to ignore the fact that he’d told her that the next time they’d meet, one of them would die. “Hello, Zar.”
“Greetings, Earthling. You have done well to come this far.”
“Thank you. Looks like I could use your help again. Can you lift me over your body so that I may enter the archway?”
“I’m sorry. I’m not permitted to help you, again.”
“Would you object if I gently climbed over you?”
“No. However, my tentacles will not allow you to pass.”
“Okay.” She should have known getting past Zar wouldn’t be that easy. She had less than a day left to figure out how to pass by him and find the second key. Perhaps Zar would weary of his spot in front of the entrance. A big guy like him had to feed frequently. “Zar, how often do you eat?”
“My body doesn’t require sustenance during the Challenge. I do not sleep either. Your only way through is to kill me.” He spoke matter of factly, as if his death meant nothing to him.
“I don’t kill creatures who aren’t hostile. And you helped me.” She sat in the shade, thinking. “Can you tell me where to find the second key?”
Zar didn’t answer.
This time he was no help to her, but a hindrance. No way could she budge Zar’s enormous girth. She had to convince him to move.
The first hour, she tried bribery. But Zar didn’t want anything she offered. Not food or wealth or companionship.
In the second hour, she hiked around the pyramid, searching for another entrance and the missing key. She found nothing helpful.
During the third hour, she began digging a tunnel under Zar, but his weight collapsed the sand.
In the fourth hour, she tried to collect enough driftwood to build a bridge over him, but she ran out of materials.
In the fifth hour, she stopped her attempts to get past Zar to search for food, hoping a meal would revive her and help her thinking process. She zapped several fish with her stunner then cooked them. With only Zar for company, they’d formed an odd friendship, had several long conversations, but nothing she said convinced him to budge. And she wondered if she had to first get past Zar to find the missing key.
In the sixth hour, she tried begging.
Hour seven she reserved for insults.
In the eighth hour she ignored him. Perhaps she had to find a new way to use her psi. The
bendar
walls were too high for her to use null-grav. She couldn’t manage enough height to clear Zar’s double-decker high body.
In the ninth hour, Zar insisted, “If you wish to win the Challenge, you must kill me. I am prepared to die. One lethal zing of the stunner to my brain will cause no pain.”
“Don’t make me do this.” Tessa yanked the stunner from her suit, pointed it at Zar. “Why don’t you just go back into the sea?”
He didn’t move.
And she couldn’t bring herself to pull the trigger.
HIS HEART JAMMING up his throat, Kahn watched the drama between his wife and Zar. She didn’t have much more time to make a decision. While he admired her stubbornness and her ingenuity, Tessa didn’t like to fail. All of this stalling made the decision so much harder for her.
“Calm yourself, Kahn,” Osari slithered beside him. “Have faith in her character.”
“No one should be asked to make such a dreadful decision.” Kahn seethed, paced, his gaze never leaving the screen.
