Alien (31 page)

Everything about this man screamed intimidation, the
subtlety in his movements, his rigid stance and the drop-dead glare. He wasn’t
going down without a fight. Great. Not that she minded gutting a felon. She did
it with such precise technique not an ounce of internal fluid spilled as she
removed their vital organs. In this case, it’d be a shame to waste such a
perfect specimen. The look in his eyes gave her no choice.

“This is your last warning, Hellion. On…your…knees.” She
spoke slower and pronounced each word, clearly giving them an edge of finality
in their meaning. If he didn’t follow command, she’d end his escape using every
weapon in her arsenal if needed.

“Outta my way, Paoni.” Anger dripped from his words and his
entire body tensed, making him appear even huger. “I have no intentions of
returning to hell.”

A warning in his words, Shia almost laughed at the
absurdity. “Hell is where you belong and hell is where I shall return you.” She
paused for effect then added in an ominous tone laced with pure conviction, “Or
kill you and send your organs to the Kiengir.”

His deep rumble of laughter held no humor and his expression
showed no fear. Truly a man with nothing to lose in life—or death. Shia
anticipated as much, but his next statement confirmed it.

“Likes stronger than you have tried.” A small spot beneath
his left eye twitched and for a split second she wasn’t sure if she caught a
glimpse of unexpected emotions in his glare. Sadness. Regret. Did the big man feel
remorse for his crimes? If he did, his voice didn’t show it. “Bring it on,
Paoni. Let us see which one shall die this night.”

A challenge. She couldn’t help the slight smile from
tickling her lips. Life. Death. It mattered not to her where Hellions were
concerned. Looking at the hulk of a beast, Shia hadn’t realized until now how
much she itched for a good fight. Gutting this one would be an honor. Albeit, a
loss of a perfectly formed male specimen she wouldn’t have minded sampling
under different circumstances. She swallowed the unwanted sigh of desire. The pleasure
she’d reap from this one would come from doing her job well.

Kal hadn’t meant for anyone to escape with him, but he
couldn’t leave the kid behind. Hell was no place for the young man. The Aludra
was a different story. He cut a sideways glance at the frozen bitch. Served her
right. Her kind could not be trusted. If the kid had listened, the woman would
still be where she belonged. Without looking, Kal knew Dio followed the Paoni’s
threat and knelt.

Good, it’d keep the kid out of his way while he dispensed of
the Paoni. He focused on the Kiengirs’ watchdog. From the looks of it, his
opponent was dressed in the finest battle gear provided by the High Guard
Council. He’d sneer, but he didn’t want to show an ounce of emotion to his
enemy. Emotion equaled defeat.

An arsenal of deadly devices lay hidden within a Paoni battle
suit. Kal knew that all too well. He noted the obvious weapons in the officer’s
hands. The smaller of the two, the KO-2, had four levels of stun—low, medium,
high, or extreme—for the criminal who refused to halt. The larger, the Magnum, used
a more painful method to incapacitate, maim or kill its victim. His gut knotted
at the thought of possibly being hit by the Magnum’s shock waves. Fiery
prickles shot through his system at the memory of the last time he stood on the
wrong side of that weapon. Many times he’d used it, but it took just once
getting struck by it to understand the meaning of pain and incapacitation.

He never intended to experience it again. Kal searched the Paoni
for weakness. The battle suit protected, but it didn’t prevent injury or death.
He had the scars to prove it. Paoni were trained killers, as was he. Their methods
were his methods. He watched for a flicker of movement that gave away the
officer’s intentions. If it were him beneath that black cloak of armor, the
criminals would have already been dead. Why the hesitation?

A movement so slight he almost missed it fired the KO-2. He
dodged the shot and it hit the Aludra, knocking over the statuesque woman. Two
blows on low, she should survive that, and if she didn’t, no loss, he noted as
she rolled dangerously close to the edge of the gap. Before he regained his
balance, the second shot hit him dead center of his chest.

Ugh, that stung. The Paoni must have switched the levels
from low to high, skipping the middle for him.
Lucky him
. He gritted his
teeth and dug deep to resist the paralyzing efforts of the stun to his system.
This trick had been part of his training when he was a young buck, so soaking
up the internal energy bouncing along his nerves didn’t entirely faze him. It
simply warmed his insides. But he let the Paoni think it worked. Kal froze and
waited.

He didn’t even blink when the officer walked over and stood
beside him. “You disappointed me. I thought you’d be harder to catch. Gutting
you will be a pleasure.”

“No,” Dio screamed as he lunged, clipping the officer behind
the knees. The Paoni dropped to the ground, rolled and sprang into a crouched
position. Dio slid face-first into the dirt.

Faster than anything Kal had ever seen, the officer
holstered the KO-2, produced a port-a-pod and encapsulated Dio for transport.
If he didn’t do something, the kid would be teleported to the delivery ports in
Peru. Every species of the universe had a delivery port, which decorated the
surface of Cajamarquilla—known to the Adamu as the band of holes. When a
port-a-pod reached its specific port, it opened and swallowed the pod. It was a
one-way chute into the prison and worked at a speed no human eye could see.

That would not happen. Though he’d been trapped, Dio caused
a much-needed distraction. Kal jumped, packing the momentum of his size into
the double-fisted blow he landed to the side of the Paoni’s helmet, just below
its rim where it fit onto the battle suit. If he jarred the head unit from the battle
suit, the neurologic connection between the officer and his weapons were
disengaged. This he knew as fact. The Paoni went down hard on his side with Kal
on top of him.

Kal straddled the officer. They struggled for the remaining
weapon in the officer’s hand. The Magnum. Though he had the officer in weight
and size, the officer didn’t quit. One hand on the Magnum, the officer squeezed
off a round, which brightened the night sky with a tremendous red ball-shaped
blaze. Kal repeatedly pounded the officer’s hand against a rock until the
Magnum flung into the woods.

The Paoni’s other hand produced a knife and stabbed him.
Severe heat sizzled up the inside of his thigh and sent a river of fire into
his bloodstream, letting him know the blade was drugged. The blade twisted. Kal
bit back the pain, thrived on it, and redirected it into strength. He squeezed
the officer’s wrist until he forced the knife’s release. Though it wasn’t easy,
he pinned the Paoni’s forearms beneath his knees. The officer didn’t stop.

For a smaller person, the inner strength amazed Kal. Though
his opponent’s arms were secured beneath Kal’s knees, the Paoni used this as
leverage and attempted to head-butt Kal. Though the height difference between
them didn’t allow head-to-head contact the solid blow to the middle of his
chest knocked the wind out of Kal. On reflex, he shoved the officer with enough
force to cause the back of his helmet to hit the ground hard. His head bounced
once then all motion stilled. Kal quickly leaned forward, shifting some of his
massive weight into his arms as he held down the officer by the shoulders. Though
he tried to see through the shield, its dark tint allowed no glimpse of the
officer inside the helmet.

A lack of response from the Paoni had Kal believing he’d
knocked out the officer. Kal searched for the one aspect of the battle suit
that wasn’t officer-specific. An emergency-release trigger had been installed
in case an officer went down and needed to be removed from his suit. He worked
his fingers underneath the edge of the helmet. A subtle movement of the hips
beneath him gave a clue he was wrong about the officer’s condition. Before he
found the release trigger, the officer’s boot tip made contact between his
shoulder blades.

A sharp object ejected from the boot and penetrated his
flesh. Damn. A Pulsar dart. Short bursts of energy pulsated from the point. It
thrived on the victim’s heartbeat. With the increase of the pulse rate, the energy
bursts also increased until the heart short-circuited and quit beating. Kal
took slow deep breaths and concentrated, fighting his system’s natural need to
panic and pump blood faster. Though the officer bucked beneath him, Kal managed
to stay seated, held down the Paoni, and fought to remain in control. One shaky
finger tripped the release trigger of the helmet. A slight gap popped between the
helmet and the battle suit.

Kal worked his fingers into the opening, pried it wider,
wrapped a meaty hand on the officer’s neck and clasped tight. It didn’t feel
thick or solid like that of a muscled warrior. Instead, an unusual softness met
his palm, which surprised him. The officer’s rapid pulse spoke volumes in fear.
Or anger, Kal noted as the Paoni wiggled and squirmed and even attempted to
implant another Pulsar dart into his back. But Kal was ready for this one and
shifted. The second boot missed. The dart shot across his shoulder and lodged
in a tree.

Seconds seemed like minutes before the officer stilled. Kal
couldn’t be certain if he’d killed the Paoni or simply suffocated him until he
passed out. Either way it didn’t matter. The officer was incapacitated—for the
moment. Inwardly, Kal battled the effects of the drug from the knife and the
bursts of energy from the dart. If he didn’t do something soon, he’d be in the
same condition as the Paoni—out cold, or dead. From the way his body hurt,
death would be a relief right about now.

He assumed from the throbbing headache, the drug was
Kettlemine. A poison to most, but not to him. Threatened with it too many times
in his youth, he had ingested small doses of it over a period of years, until
he had developed immunity to it. Now, it simply made him suffer as if he had a
severe hangover. He shook his head slightly. The short bursts from the Pulsar
weren’t helping his situation, but he knew he couldn’t reach it.

He needed help. Dio was still locked in the port-o-pod. At
least it wasn’t activated for takeoff. Kal gritted his teeth and sucked up the
pain as he moved off the Paoni. For a split second, his vision blurred as
intense pulses shot through his chest. Kal grappled for the strength to remain
conscious. Breathe in. Breathe out. Sweat beaded his brow and moistened his
upper lip. The Pulsar dart vibrated as he struggled to stay calm.

A glance at the Aludra and he knew she’d be of no help. Her
lips were blue and her skin paled. Guess the second hit of the KO-2 was more
than she could handle. He needed Dio or he was going to die. His heart pounded
with every movement, but he had no choice. He had to search the Paoni.

If memory served him, the controls for the port-o-pod was
usually located in the upper left section of the battle suit. He lifted the
outer edge of the breastplate. Heavy-handed, he felt for the button that would
release Dio. A series of buttons lay hidden beneath a protective flap on the left
side of the chest. His thick fingers didn’t fit in the slender opening so he
ripped off the flap that covered the miniature control panel and pressed the
correct button.

The port-o-pod spat Dio out then shrank to the size of a
marble. Dio gasped for air as he scrambled on hands and knees to Kal. Without
being told what needed to be done, Dio caught the Paoni’s glove Kal tossed at
him. He didn’t waste time slipping it on. Instead, he wrapped it around the
dart and tugged. The instant it was out, Kal relaxed and took a cleansing
breath.

“We’ve got to get that knife out,” Dio stated the obvious as
he examined Kal’s thigh.

“Don’t remove it,” Kal hissed. “It’ll bleed worse. We have
to tie a tourniquet above it and wrap it tight before you pull it.”

With Dio’s help, Kal ripped the leg of his jumpsuit away from
the wound. They tore the tattered material into strips. Kal held a long strip tight
around his upper thigh to stanch the circulation, while Dio jerked the knife
free. Dio wrapped multiple layers of the torn material around his thigh,
covering the cut with a makeshift pressure bandage. Slowly, Kal released the
tourniquet, while keeping an eye on the Paoni. Something about that one nagged
his conscience and whispered danger.

“That’ll have to do.” Kal groaned. “We’ve got to get out of
here. No telling how many Paoni may be headed this way.”

Dio looked at the Aludra woman. “Is she dead?”

Kal nodded and sadness filled the young man’s eyes. When Dio
crawled over to her, Kal shook his head. The kid didn’t learn. A woman got him
into this mess in the first place. A hot blob of red lava landed beside him,
letting him know it was definitely time to move. The gap widened. Lava bubbled
dangerously close to the rim. Globs of it shot into the air and landed fiery
balls of mass destruction around them.

“Shove her into the pit.” Kal struggled to stand. Dio’s
surprised look of disgust struck a nerve. They didn’t have time for sentiment,
not if they wanted to survive. “If you don’t and the Adamu—humans—find her,
they’ll dissect her remains in the name of science. Do you want that?”

For a second, he thought Dio wouldn’t comply. He read the
indecision in the young man’s face and understood. He’d been there once. Love
was a deadly distraction as far as he was concerned. Women weren’t to be
trusted. But it was a lesson to be learned not taught. He knew that all too
well. No matter what he said, he knew Dio wouldn’t listen. Not when the heart
ruled the mind.

With a swipe of the back of his hand across his eyes, Dio leaned,
kissed the dead woman’s cheek then rolled her into the growing pit. She
instantly disintegrated in the intense heat.