Satan's Forge (Star Sojourner Book 5) (19 page)

“Jules!”

“What?” I turned and a fist smashed into my face. I staggered back against the tree, stunned, feeling as though my brain had been rattled loose of my skull. I fumbled for my stingler. It was gone.

“Boss Slade wants to talk to you, tag,” Ned said. He grabbed my vest and slammed me back against the tree. “This time there won't be any slaves to turn you into a martyr. And thanks for the weapons.” He pulled me forward and drew back his fist again. I raised my arm to block the blow. Adam grabbed me from behind and pinned my arms.

My head exploded with pain as the second blow, across my jaw, sent me to my knees. The world turned dark, not just with night. I tasted blood and felt it trickle down my chin.

A shadow leaped between us and slammed his palm under Ned's nose and up. Ned slumped to the ground with a moan, and lay still.

Adam cried out and threw me into the shadow. He turned to run, but the shadow threw me back against the tree and grabbed him. I slid down until my vest hooked on the spiky trunk and I hung there, not sure if this were a fantasy from my shocked brain.

The shadow swung a hand at Adam's neck. I heard bones snap. Adam groaned, collapsed, and lay still beside his brother.

The shadow turned to me.

I tried to raise my arms to protect my head. “Don't hit,” I mumbled.

“I've come to rescue you, Superstar.” His voice was familiar. “Can you walk?”

I lowered my arms. “Attila? Sure.”

“C'mon.”

But my knees sagged. I slid out of the vest, hit the ground and lay there, watching stars flow in a blur of liquid diamonds.

“Oh, hell,” Attila said.

I moaned as he lifted me over his shoulder. “I'll give you a ride,” he said. “That first step's an abyss, huh?”

Speaking of which, I fell in.

“He's coming around,” someone said at the other end of a tunnel.

A light was shined in my eyes. I pushed the hand away, reached up to touch my throbbing head, and felt a gauze pad taped there. I blinked my eyes open but it was all a blur. I tried to sit up and fell back.

Where were my attackers? I began to tremble.

“Take it easy,” someone said. “You're among friends.”

“What happened?” I croaked.

“Your new friends put out your lights,” Chancey said. I focused on him. “They were ready to deliver you to Boss Slade.”

Sophia, Huff, Joe, Bat, Chancey and Attila were around me. I lay on a sleeping bag near a campfire.

“You should pick your friends more carefully.” Attila grinned.

“Where are they?” I sat up and waited for the world to stop turning.

“Probably negotiating with Satan for an air-conditioned room,” Attila said.

I reached out a hand to him and he shook it.

“You saved my butt,” I told him. “How did you find me?”

“Big Sarge said 'Keep an eye on pretty boy. I never know which way he's going to jump'.”

I touched my cheek. “I guess I jumped the wrong way.”

“With the schemes you dream up,” Attila said, “I think you need a bodyguard.” He winked and walked away.

Sophia brushed my hair off my forehead. “How do you feel, Babe?”

“I'm all right, Soph. Don't worry.”

“Who, me worry, Jules?” she said too lightly. “About
what
?” She shook her head and curls slapped her cheeks. “When you're feeling better, we have to talk!”

Uh, oh,
I thought. “Help me up?”

“Stay there for a while, Bubba,” Bat told me. “You took a pretty good hit. Anyway, I'd like to check your back, too.”

“I could use a cup of Earthbrew,” I said. “My mouth tastes like cotton dipped in mud.”

“I'll get it,” Joe said. “I want a cup myself. Anybody else?”

The others shook their heads. Huff stared at me with his eyes leaking.

“I'm sorry, Huff,” I said, “I seem to always keep you worried.” I reached out a hand to him.

He cupped it in his big paw. “You are more trouble to my liver than twenty cubs to one ice-blown mother!” He wrapped his forearm around my shoulders and rocked me. “But like the mother of twenty cubs, I love all of you as though you were my own brood.” He hugged me tighter. “Even thirty, my Jules Terran friend of my aching liver.”

I felt him sob. “I love you, too, Huff.” I smiled. “Like you were forty ice-blown cubs.”

He drew back and looked at me. “Forty cubs? All rolling through the waters in different directions, like blue checkers in the south current?”

“Even that much, Huff.”

“All right, you two lovers,” Bat said. “Let me look at your back.”

I took off my vest and pulled my shirt over my head. Just then, Big Sarge sauntered by with Apache John. Sarge threw me a kiss. I lifted my middle finger.

“Oh, all right then!” He grabbed his crotch. “Any time, pretty boy.” But his expression turned serious. “When your head clears, if it ever does, we have to talk!” They continued to the vehicle I'd taken, where the men were looking over the rifles.

“That man is lewd,” Sophia said.

“Oh, yeah,” I agreed.

Joe came back and extended a cup of coffee. He glanced toward Big Sarge and smirked.

“What?” I asked and took the cup. “You want to talk to me too?”

“No. I know better than to bother. By the way, I'm glad you decided to be careful, now that you want to live.” He sipped coffee and strolled away, talking to Chancey.

“How about you, Bat?” I asked irritably. “You want an appointment with me?”

“Oh, no, Bubba.” He patted my shoulder. “I'll just keep my black bag handy.”

I jumped when he touched my back, and spilled coffee, but there was no pain in the healed welts.

“Take these,” he said, and handed me two pills. “For your headache. I imagine you have one.”

I nodded.

“Wish I could've ordered some new skin. You'd never know you had these wounds.”

“I don't know about that.” I swallowed the pills with coffee and leaned against Sophia. “I'm so tired.”

Bat closed his bag and stood up. “Get some rest. I want to check on Tommy.”

“How is he?” Sophia asked.

“I've done everything I can do for him here. We've got him scheduled for a ship back to Earth.”

“How are
you
feeling, Doc?” I asked Bat.

“Stronger every day.” He winked at me and walked to where Tommy lay on a cot by another fire.

Sophia helped me put on my shirt and vest and I laid down near the fire. Huff cuddled against my side. It was good to be back with my friends, and safe. But what about the slaves? Who comforted their weary bodies, torn and racked? Who offered a kind word to console their desolate souls? And the ponies, like innocent children, not understanding why they were worked to exhaustion, their muscles burning with the effort of pulling overloaded carts. Fear at their hearts.

“What is it, Jules?” Sophia asked.

I wiped an arm across my eyes. “I can't sleep while the slaves are being tortured and killed.” I put a hand on her knee.

“I know.” She kissed me lightly. Huff threw a forearm across my chest. I stroked it and smiled. “He gets jealous.”

She laughed. “I'll share you with Huff, but nobody else.” She stared at the fire and sighed. “If you decide to go off on your own again, with some plan to free the slaves, I want you to tell me. I want to come with you.”

I rubbed her knee. “I couldn't put my lady in harm's way.”

“You put me in harm's way every time I'm left behind and I don't know if you're alive or dead! I mean it, Jules. If you go off again, I'm coming.” She lifted onto her elbows. “You're a dopamine junkie, my love. You're not happy unless you're pushing past the limits to achieve some lofty goal.”

“That's an oversimplification of a very complex neurotransmitter, Soph.” I pushed curls back off her face.

“What was I thinking?” she said. “I forgot you're a biologist. OK, then, whatever molecule is bouncing around in your head and making you try to leap tall buildings.”

I was too tired to argue. I closed my eyes. “Lie down beside me? I have no plans.”

She did and snuggled against me. I was sandwiched between Huff's warm, soft fur, and Sophia's love. But my smile became a smirk when she said, “Oh, you'll think of something.”

It was still dark when I squeezed out between Sophia and Huff. I rubbed my arms in the pre-dawn chill, shrugged into my jacket, and walked into the thickets to pee.

I was returning when I felt a disturbing pressure against my mind, there in the deep woods. Perhaps the intense thoughts of hunting animals, or the anxiety and alertness of prey, ready to bolt, had broken through my tel shields.

Run!
my survival instincts warned.
Escape!

Was my mind just replaying the traumatic events with Ned and Adam? The headache lingered like an afterimage. But the response of the prey to bolt hit me stronger. I reached for my stingler and realized I'd left it back in camp. I found myself breathing faster. Why? Was it just the night fears of my primate heritage, we day creatures who live by our eyes? What were those shadows that moved among trees? Or was I imagining them in the half light of the moons and the tail end of a wind? Who could possibly discover us in this stretch of woodland with so many hunting camps in the mountains? We had always been careful to cover our tracks.

I shrugged it off and continued toward the camp. Until I saw a blue flash and heard a man scream.

“Sophia!” I whispered, scooped up a thick branch and ran.

I saw her running into the woods. Our people were scattering, throwing themselves behind trees and vehicles. Sophia's horse Stormy broke loose and galloped through the camp, trailing a rope, amid flashes of hot blue beams. We were surrounded. I saw Huff go down on all fours. A beam seared a tree above his head.

“Huff!” I whispered as he lumbered into the woods after Sophia, wearing his two ankle mouse beamers.

Sarge called out orders to his men, telling them to get into the four vehicles.

Another scream!

A soldier, running toward a vehicle, threw up his arms and went down. Christ and Buddha! His shirt was in flames. He didn't move and I think he was already dead. The smell of burning trees mixed with the sickening odor of burning flesh.

“Give it up, Sarge!” I heard Mack call out from the dark woods. “It ain't worth the credits. Slade wants you and Rammis. The rest of your boys can board a star flight. Slade's got no quarrel with them.”

“To quote a source,” Big Sarge yelled back, “tell the lizard to go fuck himself!”

I stayed low and moved quietly between trees, making sure not to snap a branch underfoot, circling the camp to where Sophia and Huff had disappeared into the forest.

I stopped and drew in a breath when I saw an Altairian guard crouched behind bushes in my path, and firing into the camp. It wasn't just Mack's men we were up against.

I tried to slow my breathing so he wouldn't hear me, and approached him from behind with the branch lifted. Dried leaves crunched beneath my feet and he turned. I threw myself on his back, and bashed his head with the branch. He quivered beneath me, then lay still.

I grabbed his stingler and moved on. I didn't know if he were dead. I didn't care. We were in a fight for our lives, including Sophia's life.

More screams from camp.
Great Mind,
were we being decimated? I would not give up, even if Sarge asked me to. Without us, the slaves were doomed. I hadn't come this far for that to happen!

I peered between trees as I heard a vehicle start, the one with the hunting rifles, and hoped it was our people inside. We always had a rendezvous point in case of discovery of our camp. I knew the survivors would head there if they weren't pursued. This time it was a played-out lithium mine twenty miles away with a few broken shacks still standing. A second vehicle started up and the two tore out of the camp, pursued by the guards' land vehicles. They had to be our people!

I skirted a group of three humans, Mack's men, and paused behind a tree. The men turned as an animal leaped away. I remained still, and they turned back to fire into the camp. I could have burned them all with a continuous hot beam. But if they screamed as they died, it would bring others.

I lowered my shields and probed for Sophia and Huff. There, to my left, like a magnetic tug. I felt Sophia's fear, and knew it was for me. Huff had quieted his mind and focused on taking care of her. I didn't have to read them any deeper as I followed their thoughts like a beacon, and kept my weapon pointed at the three men, should they hear me and turn my way.

I continued on, staying to trees.

A growl. Huff leaped at me from between two bushes and slammed me to the ground. I felt the air rush from my lungs as he landed on top of me.

“It's me, Huff!” I squeezed out.

“Jules!” he whispered. “I could have killed you, my Terran cub.”

“No kidding? Get off me.”

“Jules!” Sophia ran back and threw her arms around my neck. Her eyes were wide in the dawning light. “It's Mack and his men, and the guards from the mine, too. They're all over the woods.”

“I know.” I took her hand. “C'mon.”

I lowered my shields and scanned as we moved through thickets, in the direction of the rendezvous point.

* * *

Dawn brightened to day and we still had miles to go. We used every tree we could for cover as Love Mine's hovairs flew by low, with shrill wails that sent birdlike creatures plunging into the sky.

We were in a small clearing, running toward a grove of red-leafed trees, when a hovair burst over a hill and bore down on us.

I kept Sophia between me and the craft as we raced for the cover of trees.

“Throw down your weapons and live,” the hovair's speaker ordered as the craft lowered. “Rammis, you and the others will not be killed. Throw down your weapons.”

They wanted Sarge and me alive, that much they'd announced at the camp. For what purpose? I shivered at the thought. As examples to never defy Lithium Love Mine? Sarge and I might be nailed to adjoining trees. Where did that leave Sophia and Huff? I remembered Joe's words the last time we'd been offered an ultimatum to surrender and live.
Don't believe him.
No, I vowed that Sophia and Huff would not be taken prisoner and executed. Not while I was standing.

We threw ourselves under the grove of trees and I aimed at the hovair's right wing. A hot beam sliced tree crowns above our heads and sent them plummeting around us. Sophia cried out as I pulled her to the ground and covered her with my body. Huff covered us both. A flaming branch hit his back. He roared and flung it aside. The slimetrolls had our location. I aimed at the wing again as the craft came into sight, but it banked and climbed above treetops.

“Quiet,” I said, and listened to it circle us. The bastards had us pinned. They could have blown us all into another dimension if they hadn't wanted me alive.

“Throw out your weapon, Rammis,” the craft's speaker ordered, “and come out. Now!”

“Stay down,” I told Sophia and Huff. I touched her face. “We're not giving up yet. Huff, give me your ankle mouse beamers. Hurry!”

He unholstered his two small weapons and handed them to me.

“OK!” I called to the hovair and threw out my stingler. “I'm coming out. Don't fire!” I held the two beamers in the palms of my hands and walked out of the trees. “You've got me. Let the others go.” My thumbs were on the triggers.

“Get your hands up where we can see them,” one called while the craft hovered at eye level.

“All right.” As I lifted my hands I fired at the two wings and dived back under the trees. “Run!” I shouted to Sophia and Huff as the hovair nosedived into the ground. Its whine raised to a screech of metal as it dug a trench. Oil shot out of the battery compartment. Wires sparked. I rolled behind a tree as the hovair exploded. Hot metal thudded into the trunk and spun past me, the ragged edges sizzling with fire. The acid smell of hot metal and the odor of burning bodies drifted.

I picked up my stingler, trotted back to Sophia and Huff, and took Sophia's arm. “C'mon, Soph.,” I said softly, “don't look back.”