Alien (32 page)

“That’s going to be us if we don’t move.” Kal leaned against
a tree. The pit popped a pebble-sized glob of molten lava onto Dio’s arm and he
screamed in pain, hurriedly brushing it off as he scrambled backward.

A sensation of pure dread washed over Kal. A presence loomed
in the distance, hidden in the night skies. He felt it in the marrow of his
bones. Something deadly came for them. Every instinct kicked into high gear and
focused on the synergy he sensed in the air. To the unskilled, this would’ve
been missed or perceived as the wind increasing, but Kal knew differently. Paoni
forces were on the move and headed this way.

The officer at his feet groaned. Though it shot severe pain
from his thigh to the center of his core, Kal stooped and grabbed the Paoni.
Through clenched teeth, he growled at Dio, “Help me. We might need to use him
as leverage if we’re caught.”

“But he’s a Paoni,” Dio pleaded. “Kidnapping. Are you trying
to get us killed?”

Kal fisted the front of Dio’s ratty jumpsuit and spat, “No.
I’m trying to save your life. Feel that wind. That’s not Mother Nature giving
you a kiss. It’s a Paoni task force and they’re closing in fast. Now choose.
Death by lava or Paoni, or a chance at freedom?”

Dio didn’t hesitate. He helped lift the unconscious officer.
To disperse the weight evenly, they slung the officer across the back of Kal’s
neck and shoulders so the officer’s legs hung down his right arm and the arms
and head were to his left. Since the helmet was no longer attached to the suit,
it slid off and bounced on the ground. Kal froze. This was a first for him. A
woman. He had fought a woman. A female lay unconscious across his shoulders and
worse, he was the reason behind her injuries.

Fair complexion, long dark lashes fluttered against her
cheeks but did not open. A braid of thick golden hair hung to about his waist.
Damn, this wasn’t right. Emotions threatened to emerge from the lock box within
his soul. Kal flexed and tightened every muscle in his abdomen and chest. This
wasn’t going to happen. He wouldn’t regret the fact he’d beaten a woman. If he
hadn’t, he, Dio, or both would be dead right now.

Since when had the Kiengir allowed women into the Paoni
ranks? Dio didn’t look surprised at the gender of the Paoni. Had Kal been
incarcerated so long that the universe had changed so much? He didn’t have time
to think it through. The pit sputtered and spat, sending spitballs of lava
raining down. When they got to safety, he had a growing list of questions for
that boy.

“You sure you can do this?” Dio questioned as he dodged the
flying lumps of lava, while scrambling to collect the Magnum, which he grabbed
and tucked into the large pocket on the leg of his jumpsuit.

“Don’t have a choice.” Kal grimaced as he adjusted the
Paoni’s weight. “Grab that helmet. It should help us find the source of transport
the Paoni used to get here.”

“How?”

Kal nodded in the direction he first saw the Paoni. “That
way,” he gasped. “The helmet has a homing device that’ll lead a lost officer
back to safety. Out here, that’d have to be his…err her…transport. Keep the
helmet close to her head so the neuro-transmitter still reads her brainwaves or
else it’ll shut down. Hold it at an angle where you can see the inside of the screen
and follow the blip. Now, go.”

Dio grabbed the helmet, flipped it over, and held it beside
the woman’s head. As soon as he saw the inner screen, he pointed the way. Side
by side, they ran. Kal ignored the bone-shattering pain from his leg with every
connection of his foot to the ground. All he could pray for was that the
bandage held and he didn’t bleed to death before they reached the transport.

About a quarter mile from the pit, they located the Paoni’s
ride. Kal didn’t recognize the four-wheeled vehicle, but it seemed to thrill Dio.

“Sweet.” The younger man gave a low whistle. He approached the
rear of the vehicle and lifted the hatch. “Great, it’s not locked. Put her in
here while I look for the keys.” He tossed the helmet inside and ran to the
driver’s side of the vehicle.

This was the most excited he’d ever seen Dio. Even when the
Aludra woman made her advances on him, he wasn’t this enthusiastic. Kal
deposited the Paoni with a thud into the rear of the machine. He searched the
compartment and found odd-looking cables with clamps on the ends. This would
have to do. Quick as possible, he tightly tied her hands and feet together
behind her back.

For a moment he hesitated, holding her exposed hand in his. Long,
lean fingers, soft skin and well-manicured nails, not polished, just neat and
clean, made him hunger for something he could not have. He growled between
clenched teeth as he dropped her hand.

Never again would he fall for that trap. Beneath him, the
vehicle sputtered to life, jarring him from his momentary lapse into idiocy.

“The keys were under the mat,” Dio shouted excitedly. “Come
on, let’s get out of here.”

Kal took one last look at the woman. Sensations he thought
long dead barreled through him. Need. Desire. Lust. He hated himself for it. Slamming
the hatch, he hurried to the passenger side and climbed in the door Dio had
reached across and opened for him. The boy was grinning from ear to ear.

“They don’t make ’em like this anymore. Hold on, I’ll
drive.”

The engine gunned, the wheels spun as Dio shifted gears and
bulleted the vehicle forward. If Kal hadn’t grabbed the strap above the door
with one hand and the arm of the seat with the other, he would have hit the
dashboard and tattooed
Bronco 4x4
into his forehead. He would have
yelled at Dio if it didn’t look as if the kid was having so much fun.

Shia woke but kept silent. Slowly, she lifted her head and
assessed the situation. The front of her neck felt bruised, which coincided
with the fact her airway had been clamped by a meaty fist until she passed out.
That fact alone made her lip curl in anger. How had he known about the
emergency release button under the edge of the helmet? And who the hell was he?
She’d hit him with some of the most deadly weapons in her arsenal and he still
managed to overpower her.

The strain on her tender neck muscles made her lower her
head. It hurt to swallow. She tried to reposition but couldn’t with both hands
bound behind her back. When she tugged, it became apparent the same thing that tied
her hands was also connected to her ankles. No wonder she felt like one of
those calves she’d seen roped and tied at the rodeo. Pain cut into her wrists
when she attempted to unknot the cord. In the dark, she couldn’t be sure what
exactly held her tight. Her best guess, the jumper cables were used as rope to
hold her in place. Her fingers brushed a clamp, letting her know her summation
was correct.

Though she couldn’t see her captors, she heard them. A pair
of males sat in the front seat. Shia speculated the younger escapee drove. She
doubted the big man maintained the capabilities to operate the vehicle after
suffering a Kettlemine-coated knife wound and a Pulsar dart she knew she’d
implanted between his shoulder blades. How he survived either amazed her.

Maybe he was some sort of Kiengir experiment gone awry that
they had to incapacitate in a prison because they couldn’t kill it. She’d heard
rumors more than once concerning different Kiengir projects. The words of her
favorite cadet school instructor, Master Ur Atradies, whispered through her
head.
Every planet in the universe is their test lab and the people upon
them merely subjects in a Petri dish.
He had a theory about everything,
especially the Kiengir. A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. Thinking on
the big man’s size, that was one hell of a large dish.

Listening carefully, she realized they somehow managed to
locate her Bronco. Nothing sounded like the engine of her most prized
possession. She’d spent hours keeping it honed to perfection. She took comfort
in knowing she was trapped within something familiar. If they only knew the
many surprises she’d built into this special vehicle.

They hit a major bump and caught air. A masculine “yee-haw”
cut the night as they landed hard. Shia bounced around the cargo space. She
heard his pain-filled groan, so low if she weren’t attuned to the sounds within
the Bronco, she would have missed it.
Serves you right for stealing my ride,
shot through her thoughts seconds before they hit another bump at full speed.
Damn,
this isn’t any way to treat my baby.
This time she bounced so hard she
lifted several inches off the floor. With her arms and legs stretched backward,
her left shoulder and hip took the blunt of the forceful landing. The side of
her head hit hard enough she saw stars behind her closed lids. To make matters
worse, her helmet broadsided her forehead, nearly busting her nose. Shia bit back
the pain and struggled to keep a clear head. There was no need for her captors
to know she was awake. Not yet.

When her helmet nearly collided with her head again, she
managed to avoid the blow and even pinned it between the side of her head and
the floor. If she could somehow slide it back on, the neurological connection
with her battle suit would reengage. Carefully, she wiggled her chin, trying to
nudge the helmet opening into a better position without losing the precarious
hold she had on it.

Brakes squealed and locked up as they stopped suddenly. She
slid headfirst into the rear panel of the backseat. The helmet went flying and
she was lucky she didn’t break her neck. Jaw tight and teeth grinding, she
swore she’d kill both of them the moment her hands were free. She’d neuter the
Sirian for driving her ride with such disrespect. And the big man—she had plans
for his organs. Special delivery straight to the Kiengir.

“Told you I bet she’d stop on a dime.” The voice she heard
had to be that of the Sirian due to its youthful tone.

“Dio, stopping isn’t what we should be doing right now.”
This voice she definitely knew belonged to the big man. A hint of pain laced
his tautly spoken words. She still couldn’t believe he remained conscious or
that he was even alive, for that matter.

“I know, but I needed to stop in order to boot up the GPS
that’s been installed in the dashboard of this baby. Most of these have a
default system that won’t let you program them while in drive.” A few seconds
passed and she knew he got what he wanted.

“GPS? That was ancient technology even before…” The big man
grumbled, but didn’t finish his sentence. Before what? She wanted to know and
strained to hear in case he chose to continue.

“To the Adamu, this is high tech,” the Sirian replied,
causing her to roll her eyes even though he was right.

She knew Earthlings were behind the rest of the universe in
the technological world and for some reason, the Kiengir kept it that way. They
only allowed dribs and drabs of the universe’s technology to infiltrate the
Adamu. To Shia, it seemed as if they wanted them to remain stupid and blind to
the reality of what truly lay in outer space.

“This thing belongs to a warrior. You’d think it’d be
equipped with the latest innovations available or have the Paoni fallen from
grace?” She couldn’t miss the sneer in his tone. “Where’s this one’s vimani?”

Vimani
. If he only knew. She grinned. He was sitting
in it. Wrapped in the disguise of a Bronco 4x4 was the latest in Kiengir
technology. It had the ability to fly, teleport, shoot down enemy crafts and
morph. Didn’t he know a vimani transformed into whatever its owner needed it to
look like in order to hide it in plain sight? How long had this guy been
incarcerated? Or was he just plain stupid? Remembering how he triggered her
suit’s release mechanism with ease, she knew he wasn’t an idiot. A tad behind
on his intel maybe, but not dumb. And it would do her wise to remember that for
their next encounter.

“Don’t know,” the one named Dio replied. “I got the
coordinates for home on this. Think we should go to the Paoni’s place, stock up
on supplies then head out?”

“Not sure how safe that is. It’s possible others might be
there and I’m in no condition to fight them right now.” She heard his heavy
sigh and sensed he struggled to remain conscious. “Where are we?”

“Earth,” Dio stated. The steady tap on the GPS panel
couldn’t be missed and she knew he input new coordinates. “My grandparents own vacation
property on this planet. Since the big Roswell, New Mexico, fiasco, the Kiengir
no longer sanction visits here, but it hasn’t stopped the vacation industry. In
fact, it doubled it. How anyone crash landed in a flat desert is beyond me.”

Shia bit back the snort that threatened to escape. The kid
stated the obvious that under different circumstances would have made her
laugh. That accident happened before she was assigned to Earth, but every Paoni
knew about it. It wasn’t a family set out on a vacation. It was a team of
criminals on a mission to free their incarcerated boss from the bowels of hell.
They encountered a Paoni task force as they entered the atmosphere. Their ship
was damaged and the gravitational pull catapulted them into the ground.

Pictures from that crash were part of her training. The Paoni
assigned to that region could have handled the cleanup differently, to the
point no one knew it even happened. According to the textbooks, the Kiengir
chose to use it as a means to thwart future escape attempts—a scare tactic as
they called it. They allowed the Adamu to locate, retrieve and do limited
experiments, before they turned the remains into what now appeared as a poor
excuse for a sci-fi movie prop. Then they leaked the information across the
intergalactic telecommunications network. It must have worked, because to her
knowledge, there had never been another external attempt to help Hellions escape.

She wanted to believe if it had been anyone other then a
trio of criminals in that crash, the Kiengir would have handled it differently.
There would have been no evidence and the bodies would have been treated with
respect. A shiver shot down her spine at the memory of the pictures posted in
her textbooks of the Adamu’s experiments on the crew. A definite deterrent for
even visiting this place, much less attempting to enable an escape as far as
she was concerned.

Blocking out the images, she focused on the big man’s voice the
moment he spoke. “How far is it?”

“According to this, we came out along the South Fork
Flathead fault in the middle of nowhere Montana. My grandparents’ place is on a
private island in Siskiwit Lake. That’s in the middle of Isle Royale in Lake
Superior, which will take us about a full Earth day of travel in this thing.”

“Which equals?” His impatience couldn’t be missed in his
weakened tone and Shia sensed he needed immediate medical attention or he
wouldn’t last much longer.

“About twenty-three to twenty-four hours straight driving
time.”

Part of her wanted to let him suffer and die. Without him,
the Sirian would be easy prey for her.
Let him die
. But the fact he
removed her helmet without a hitch, survived deadly weapons and incapacitated
her with only the use of his hands tormented her curiosity. Who was he? No one
other than a Paoni should have known about that trigger. What if he was a Paoni?
How had he become labeled as the worst of all criminals, a Lanius, and
incarcerated? Nothing in her teachings fit this scenario. She needed to know
who the hell he was before she killed him.

Shia gathered as much saliva as possible in her dry mouth.
Though it pained her to speak, she forced the words to exit. “Reset the GPS to
home. There will be no other Paoni there. I live alone and my location is not
public knowledge.”

Dio’s surprised look was comical, but Kal was in no mood to
laugh. Simply breathing equaled a challenge at the moment.

“Why should we believe you?” Dio quipped before Kal gathered
the strength to speak.

“Why should you not?” the feminine voice from the rear of
the vehicle retorted.

Dio’s mouth opened, then shut, letting Kal know the young
buck didn’t have a comeback for that one.

“Besides, I’m the only hope you’ve got for your friend’s
survival.”

Damn if she didn’t state the obvious. Kal agreed. Every
ounce of him hurt from his thigh, where the gash started to ooze blood through
the bandage, to the steady throb in his head from the aftereffects of the drug
still simmering in his system, to the just-been-beat-from-the-inside-out
bruised sensation rewarded to him by the dart. Not to mention the shock his
synapses received from the stun she hit him with first. Combined, it made clear
thought a difficult objective, but he grasped for it anyway.

“A good Paoni always has a backup plan,” he stated without
lifting his head from the headrest. “What’s yours?”

There was no hesitation in her response, which he had to
respect. “To level the playing field by helping you heal,
then
I intend
to kill you in the end and gift the Kiengir with your organs.”

A low laugh escaped at the determination in her tone. If
nothing else, she had spunk by speaking the truth. He held no doubt she meant
to kill him. His goal—not to let her. There was something he intended to do and
no Paoni hell-bent on killing him was going to stop him. Not now, not ever.
He’d made the mistake to trust another woman once and it cost him too many
years of incarceration.

Kal closed his eyes for a moment and gathered his thoughts.
They really had no other choice. He needed to find certain medical supplies to
help him heal or he was toast. From the way he felt, if he saw morning it would
be a miracle.

“Reset the GPS, Dio.” He breathed an exasperated sigh. He knew
it was a deadly risk to listen to the Paoni, but something in his gut made him
believe she spoke the truth about living alone. If he was lucky, she was a
typical woman with something to prove by being a Paoni officer, which made her stubborn
and headstrong. Stubborn and headstrong were traits that caused mistakes. He
swallowed the smile because his lips were just too tired to comply.

“But, Kal,” Dio whined. “What if it’s a trick?”

“Then we’ll handle it when we get to that point.” A wave of
electrical pins and needles skittered through his system, renewing the threat
of death. It was a residual effect of the Pulsar dart. Though it had been
removed, it left behind a jolt to his nerves that could continue to do damage
for days or until he died, whichever came first, unless treated.

Dio mumbled under his breath but did as he was told,
stopping the Bronco. Dio reset the coordinates to home. Kal winced at the
movement as the vehicle lunged forward. He really didn’t have it in him to
argue with the young buck. Closing his eyes, he leaned against the cool glass
of the window. It eased the heat on that side of his face and he wished it
would cool his whole body. Fever had set in. Kal swallowed hard, knowing his
best chance at survival was to remain conscious. Dio needed someone to protect
him until they found a way off this planet. Once they achieved that, Kal had a
mission to complete.

The vehicle bounced and jostled him until they finally
exited the uninhabited area and worked their way onto a paved road. Kal watched
through lowered lids. The red arrow on the GPS stood for their progress. To
him, it looked like some sort of kid’s game. Why would a Paoni use such
primitive technology? He listened for any sound of movement from the rear of the
vehicle. There was none, but he knew not to underestimate their captive. She
was a deadly force and had proven it during their fight.