Star Brigade: Odysseys - An Anthology (11 page)

The beast was even more oily-looking up close, its narrow and pallid face housing a pair of eyes that resembled dark, cavernous slits of blood-red, but without warmth. “Better down that Solar Scorcher while it’s hot next time,” Ella teased, suddenly feeling soiled under the beast’s unpleasant glare.

She sauntered away, her eyes returning to the hostellaris’s left-hand stage. The Korvenite was gone, safely backstage.
Thank God.
Now, if only the osvowraith could find a new target….

Ella cut through the crowded space of Hugrask’s, tingling from head to toe from that Solar Scorcher in her system. It kept the panic at bay, but not the wicked glee. Ella glanced periodically over her shoulder. She saw the osvowraith slowly standing up, eyes trained on her.

That’s it, sucker. Come to mama.
A victorious smile brightened Ella’s full and youthful face, making the Terra Sollan native look younger than her twenty-eight years.

“Ella?” Jaellyn said curiously on the comlink. “I’m getting a bio-reading of some bizarre organism from the nanocyte trackers.”

“Because I tagged our target,” Ella gloated, pleased with herself. “It’s heading my way.”

“Heading your wa—WHAT?” Jaellyn’s shock quickly turned to anger, as usual. “What did you do?”

“Nothing too dramatic,” Ella shrugged, eyeing a Nnaxan Phryne with disgust as she squeezed past. “I simply motivated our target to follow me so we could keep track of it.”

Jaellyn’s fury nearly blew out Ella’s earcom, “
You were supposed to
—”

“Calm the fuck down,” Ella scoffed, the nonchalance in her voice belying fear as she glanced back. Yep, the tall and gaunt osvowraith pushed through the heaving crowd, its blood-red eyes only on her. Ella quickened her pace, almost colliding with a rotund balloon of a sentient. “Who knows how long waiting would have taken? This speeds things up.”

“
Stupid
human!” her Tarkathian partner spat in impotent fury. “You always take these stupid risks.”

Ella smiled. Adding an insulting adjective before the word ‘human’ was the Tarkathian’s way of showing she was worried. Plus, Jaellyn’s Standard noticeably devolved the angrier she got. “Love ya too, Jae.” The human had finally muscled her way out the hostellaris exit.

The vicious smack of triple-digit heat almost knocked Ella back into the hostellaris. Noriida Major was a blistering crimson ball, leisurely beginning to set. But due to Bimnorii’s odd orbit, its sunsets lasted for orvs.  Ella gritted her teeth and forced herself out into the early evening furnace. She made a sharp left with brisk, long strides, putting some distance between her and the hostellaris.

Rimhara’s streets were swarming with alien beings, some milling around street vendors, while others were returning from futilely mining for desert treasures that had dried up centuries ago. Ella slowed her gait to not be obvious, keeping pace with the crowd for cover. Up above, several hovercrafts soared past, most of them decades out of date even compared to the poorest Union memberworlds. The vehicles’ worn and rusted metal all glinted against the harsh radiance of Noriida Major, now a crimson half-sphere, unhurriedly dipping behind the horizon.

“I see him,” Jaellyn stated within macroms, “tailing you from afar. I can drop him right here.”

Ella frowned sharply, remembering the last time the Tarkathian teen pursued this option on a recent job. “Leaving me to clean up the mess, like on Embrose? No fucking thanks. Wait till I’m clear of any bystanders.” Before long, she found a narrow, winding alley right at her left. Ella dodged around a massive Aengerian, its bowling-pin-like body taking up most of the walkway, then slipped into the alley entrance.

She looked back. No sign of the osvowraith—only the normal sounds and sights of pedestrian traffic pouring through the narrow alleyway egress.
It’s coming
, Ella assured herself. She continued striding past a scattered bevy of human and Nnaxan beggars looking for more currency to mine their fortune, or the street vendors too poor to pay for ‘protection’ out on the main streets. Ella ignored them all and turned right, into a more desolate part of the alleyway, narrower than the last one. This path appeared empty. Other than the far-off echoes of sentients and zipping hovercrafts on the main streets, Ella could only hear her thudding heartbeat.
Perfect.
Bounty hunter rules or not, Ella saw no need for innocents to die.

“Jae? Where are you?” she whispered, trying to keep the nerves out of her voice.

“Almost there.” Jaellyn sounded oddly frantic.

“And our mutual friend?” the human asked. Glancing warily at the roofs of the rundown, stumpy buildings surrounding her, Ella slowly reached for the pulse pistol under her vest.

“
Ella
,” the young Tarkathian cried, “it’s almost on you!”

The bounty hunter whipped her head around, but saw nothing. Just a sand-covered pathway and the fading smolder of sunset peeking in from both ends of the alley. “Where—”

Something in the shadows caught Ella’s eye. She spun toward it as a blur of motion plowed into her.  The bounty hunter felt her feet leave the ground, and then the beast’s entire weight landed on her.

Ella grunted. Her ribs screamed in protest, even through the armorweave vest. The sissing continued as a pair of sinewy arms bearhugged her waist like a vise. But by pure luck, the osvowraith didn’t have the bear hug fully cinched, allowing Ella to roll through and fight out of the hold. The osvowraith hissed and spat like a wild animal, trying to pin Ella to the ground. And she fought by thrashing and twisting her body every which way with a panicked ferocity. As they tumbled and wrestled across the alleyway, Ella knew in her bones this defensive flurry wouldn’t last. Already the beast’s iron-limbed strength had her wheezing, and those aching ribs made breathing increasingly difficult.

Survival instincts learned from living on the galaxy’s fringe flipped on like a switch. She jerked her torso violently to one side, finally creating just enough distance between her and the beast, and kicked out with both feet as hard as she could.

Ella struck something solid and heard a surprised hiss. Suddenly she was free. The human tumbled backwards into a three-point stance. Across the alleyway, her prey coiled on all fours, ready to spring. The osvowraith glowered, those unforgiving crimson eyes focusing on her with an intense, feral hunger.

Ella shuddered. No way could she outrun her prey. The bounty hunter struggled back to her feet, but a fork of agony skewered her midsection, leaving the woman gasping. Fucking ribs…

“Jae,
where
are you?” she murmured crossly, almost doubled over.

No answer, which either meant the Tarkathian was nearby and didn’t want to blow her cover, or had decided to cut her losses and leave. Ella actually wouldn’t have blamed Jaellyn if she had chosen the latter. Either way, Ella would not go down without a fight. She reached for the pulse pistol in the back of her belt…and felt nothing.
Shit!

“Looking for this?” the osvowraith said in a venomous, otherworldly hiss. It raised a clawed hand, which held her cobalt blue, snub-nosed pulse pistol. The beast tossed it aside with a slow smile, displaying long, needle-like teeth. As the firearm clattered far out of her reach, Ella could no longer hide her panic. She backed away, looking for a way out. The osvowraith edged forward, matching her step for step.

What I wouldn’t give for my RR-5 pulse rifle right now.
She fought her unraveling nerves with a quick mental inventory of the weapons on her person: a dozen sonic marble explosives and three mini thermogrenades in her utility belt, both weapon types which would kill her and the quarry at such close range. Everything else was either for tracking prey or fixing her ship. There was the dagger hidden in her right boot—not much good against this type of quarry—and the mini blaster in her right gauntlet—also no good, since the setting was on Kill.

Ella smirked, remembering the loaded shock dart shooter in her left gauntlet. Perfect. “Seems like I don’t need my pistol.” Ella pressed the arming device beneath her utility belt and snapped her left arm up, aiming at the osvowraith’s chest.

The beast didn’t move, responding with a disturbing sissing noise that Ella could only compare to laughter. Something flashed in its narrowed eyes, a third eyelid perhaps.

A baffling breeze began cooling away the oven-like heat in the alleyway, flowing through Ella’s skin, seeping into her very bones.
Tattshi!

She had read about this in Xubes’ sparse data on osvowraiths, some type of psychic attack that literally crushed one’s willpower. At the time, Ella had found such a thing preposterous.

Not so much now. Her limbs had just gone weak all of a sudden.

She swayed and staggered about to stay upright, only for her knees to buckle. Ella couldn’t get back up.
What’s the point?
Both arms hung at her sides, leaden and useless. The biting chill made Ella feel like her brain had been plunged into a frozen lake, sapping away her strength. Her soul had suddenly grown so miserable…as if happiness was a half-remembered dream she would never know again.

The osvowraith sprang forward too fast, catching Ella by the throat. It lifted her high up with one hand—slammed her back down hard. The air rushed out of Ella in a loud grunt. Lances of pain stabbed through her spine, neck and ribs. 

The osvowraith picked Ella up again, driving her ragdoll body down even harder. The back of her head bounced off the ground, almost knocking her out. Twinkly little stars danced along the edge of Ella’s vision. She looked up through blurred vision at the blood-red slits in that blank and sallow face—the last face she would ever see. The long-limbed beast straddled the bounty hunter, tightened its grip on her throat. Ella choked, pinned and helpless.

“You stole a drink from me, frail,” the osvowraith hissed with a casual menace. “Only fair that I return the favor.”

The osvowraith opened its mouth impossibly wide. The lower jaw separated down the middle into two halves. Out of that gap slid several shining tentacles, writhing like tapered worms as they inexorably slithered down to Ella’s prone form.

With the osvowraith clutching her throat, Ella couldn’t scream, even if she had the motivation to. Doing that seemed so…meaningless. As she stared upward at the shiny tentacles slithering toward her face, Ella’s last thought was,
God, I should’ve let that fucking Korvie die.

And then…Ella felt a whistling wind as the tentacles whipped away from her face and into the air. She heard the crackle of electricity on flesh, followed by the most horrendous shriek ever issued from a living creature.

Suddenly Ella could move again, the icy draft scorched away by Bimnorii’s evening furnace. She gasped at the vitality rushing back into her limbs and mind. Not questioning what happened, Ella heaved the osvowraith off with a sharp twist of her hips.

The osvowraith tumbled aside in a heap, the smoke of charred flesh trailing off its upper back. Ella sat bolt upright, and immediately regretted it. Blinding pain in her abdomen made the world spin. But what stood before her made the human forget that pain momentarily.

A hooded, elfin humanoid stood in battle stance and twirled a golden shock pike almost as tall as her five-foot-one-inch frame. Her obsidian black eyes gleamed intently, fixated on the fallen osvowraith with the callousness of a hunter moving in for the kill. Jaellyn.

Their eyes met. The Tarkathian’s eyes told a story of anger at Ella’s recklessness and relief to find the human still alive. Ella afforded Jaellyn a quick smile in return and gestured at their target.

The dazed beast stumbled to its feet and found itself outnumbered. The osvowraith quickly sobered up and jerked its head back and forth, mutely assessing its new circumstances.

Choosing the newer threat, the osvowraith lunged at Jaellyn.

Ella yelped. The beast’s wild slash should’ve skewered Jaellyn through the belly.

But she was ready, ducking under the swipe with practiced grace, spinning about like a dancer and jamming the sparking end of her shock pike up in a vicious arc—right into the osvowraith’s throat.

The beast’s limbs splayed in all directions, sparks shooting out from under its chin in cascading showers. Its eyes wider than saucers, the osvowraith shuddered so violently, Ella feared the beast might explode into a million pieces. Finally, Jaellyn yanked the staff away and the beast sank to its knees without a sound. It was barely conscious, eyes dulled, swaying back and forth.

Jaellyn and Ella exchanged a look of disbelief. Then the Tarkathian picked up the pulse pistol from the ground. “Make an end,” she stated flatly, tossing it to her human partner. The girl’s fierce tone sounded more nasally and youthful when not on a comlink.

Ella caught her pulse pistol. Pointing it at the osvowraith’s temple, she fired.
BZZAARK!
The osvowraith fell forward, kicking up clouds of red dust. Jaellyn drew back her hood, revealing a bald head with a scaly, grey-green complexion. Her triangular face sported several tiny, chalk-white bumps on each cheek. The Tarkathian’s dark indigo eyes, with baby-blue star-shaped pupils, fixed on their prey in that grim fashion Ella had become used to.

“Too bad we need it alive,” she said as casually as a being discussing a sports team’s loss. Her button nose wrinkled at the stink of charred osvowraith flesh.