Chapter Seven
There was a flash of black and we appeared in sick bay. I looked around the spotless room. Six top-of-the-line regen tubes lined the back wall. The four examining tables came with all sorts of thingamajigs to ensure a sterile operating field and enhanced diagnostics.
A gentle voice asked, “How may I assist you?”
“My mate needs treatment for this rash and heat exhaustion.” Hothar placed me on an examining table.
The medic walked over to us and my jaw dropped. He had green skin, tubular ears and exotic features. “Oh, my God. You’re Shrek, aren’t you?”
“I am.”
“Kaylee told me all about you. How you were an Alliance medic until she hijacked you.”
Shrek smiled and ran a scanner over me. “She hijacked the entire crew. How is the lady warrior and her child?”
“Good. Really good.”
“They need me on the island. I will return.” Poof. Hothar was gone.
I rolled my eyes. “You know how it is with Coletti warriors. Always places to go. People to kill.”
“Indeed.” Shrek handed me a chocolate bar. “How are you are related to the lady warrior?”
“We’re cousins. I went to live with her family when I was nine.” I tore the wrapping off and practically inhaled the bar.
“This will rehydrate you.” He put a pressure injector against my neck and triggered it. “Have you taken your mate’s blood today?”
“I have. Twice.”
“Excellent. Ten minutes in the regen tube should reverse the damage to your skin.”
“Yippee.” I jumped off the table and followed Shrek over to a tube.
His fingers flew across the control panel. The tube opened. “Please remove your clothing.”
“What?” I squawked.
Shrek took one look at my outraged expression and hastily added, “I have seen many female forms.”
“But not mine. I don’t get naked in front of strangers.”
Opening a drawer, Shrek pulled out a blue medical jumpsuit equipped with sensors and handed it to me. “You may wear this.”
“Thank you.” I looked around. “Where do I change?”
Shrek sighed. “I will step out. Please be inside the tube when I return.”
“Ok.” As soon as the door slid shut, I shucked off my sweat-soaked clothing and pulled on the jumpsuit. I wrinkled my nose. What was that awful smell? I sniffed my underarms. Ugh. It was me. I was surprised Hothar had wanted to get within ten feet of me. Dang. There went my idea to douse him with skunk perfume. The need to mate overrode his olfactory senses.
“Get inside the tube, Casey. Shrek has other duties,” Hothar growled in my head.
“Done killing people?”
“Yes. In the tube. Now.”
With an aggravated sigh, I climbed inside the tube and tried to find a comfortable position. “Find your traitor?” The instant the lid closed, a thick white mist swirled around me.
“We have not.”
“That sucks.”
“When the treatment is completed, Bey will escort you to my cabin,” Hothar said.
“Who’s Bey?”
“A friend and trusted warrior.”
“Why do I have the feeling, you’re not telling me everything?”
“I have no idea.” The link broke.
Hmmm. The sneaky bastard was up to something.
Shrek walked back in and examined the control panel on my tube. “Almost done.”
The sick bay doors whooshed open and two burly Alliance soldiers stormed in. Their eye-searing red uniforms were torn and bloody. Was one of them Bey?
Shrek turned to face them. “May I assist you?”
“We have come for the female,” the bigger one said.
The lid on my tube slid back. I sat up and did a little mental snooping. They weren’t Alliance soldiers, they were Earth First assassins. I flashed the info to Hothar.
“You are not authorized to be here. Leave. Now,” Shrek replied, stepping in front of me.
Bless his little heart, he was trying to protect me. My eyes widened when the door swished open and a golden tarantula the size of a dinner platter skittered across the ceiling. A Tabor. A goddamned Tabor and I had a feeling his name was Bey. Was this Hothar’s way of working on my problem?
The bigger assassin shoved Shrek aside. “Stay out of our way or die.”
I scrambled out of the tube. “You heard Shrek. Leave or the only ones dying are you.”
The assassins laughed and charged.
I tossed the bigger one against the wall.
Splat! Splat! Splat! Splat! Splat! Bey peppered him with web balls until all you could see was his horrified eyes.
Shrek grabbed a surgical laser scalpel. Kwishuuuuu! With a flick of his finger it became a light saber.
The other assassin pulled his sword and the duel was on. Vrummmummm! Fvish! Buzz! Vrummmummm! Fvish! Fvish! Fvish! Buzz!
Color me impressed. Shrek was one hell of a swordsman. He deftly blocked all the assassin’s blows. Vrummmummm! Fvish! The assassin’s sword arm fell to the floor.
The assassin screamed in agony and fumbled desperately for his laser pistol with his left hand.
The minute it cleared his holster, I yanked the pistol out of the assassin’s remaining hand and hurled him across the room. He bounced off the wall and crashed to the floor. Splat! Splat! Splat! Splat! Splat!
His cries were muffled by the webbing.
“Now that is what I call teamwork.” I eyed the Tabor warily. I wasn’t afraid of him. What was up with that? Had Hothar been mucking around in my head? Probably. We were going to have a long talk about personal boundaries. “Are you Bey?”
“I am.”
“Thanks for the help.”
“Human females frequently require saving.”
“Do not.” Prickles charged up my spine. “Incoming bad guy.”
A Coletti warrior in full battle armor teleported in, grabbed me and teleported out. Inky darkness spun crazily around us.
Whoa! I was getting seasick. I blinked as little sparks of lightning danced over us. Weird. That had never happened before. After what seemed like an eternity, the darkness fell away. Friggin’ hell. I was back on spider island. I wriggled in his grip. “What do you want?”
“The Overlord will surrender to me or you die,” the traitorous fool stated.
A hairy golden appendage waved at me over the warrior’s shoulder.
I grinned. “If you can distract the traitor long enough for me to get access to his warrior’s bracelet, Uncle Saul showed me an icon that will help us take him out,” I told Bey.
“He did not pick his prey carefully.”
“No, he didn’t.” I let out a big belly laugh.
The warrior growled, “What do you find so amusing?”
“You just made the biggest mistake of your life,” I chortled.
“How is that?”
“Your first mistake was assuming the Overlord would ever surrender to you. He won’t. Your second mistake was thinking my mate would stand idly by and let you hurt me. Not a chance. And the last reason is him.” I pointed at Bey. “My personal bodyguard.”
The second the traitor turned his head to look at Bey, I hit an icon on his warrior’s bracelet. His battle helmet retracted. Bam! The Tabor had his fangs buried in the warrior’s throat.
He released me and yanked wildly at the Tabor riding his face.
“Did you know one bite from a Tabor and you’re dead before you take your next breath?”
The warrior made funny gurgling gasps and collapsed.
“Okay, my bad. Two breaths.”
Bey crawled off the traitor. “He is not Coletti.”
“But he teleported. Kinda.” I pushed the dead guy’s head up with my foot. “He looks Coletti.”
“Prosthetic fangs and his blood tastes like Bjarke.”
I bent down for a better look. “Huh? The Bjarke are mercenaries. The question is who hired him and had his appearance altered?”
“There are many suspects with the technology to accomplish that.”
“Yeah, Earth First could pull it off. The Legionnaires aren’t smart enough and the Rodan usually don’t play well with others.”
Hothar appeared beside me and did a double take. “Did you know that jumpsuit is transparent in the sun.”
“What?” I looked down. Dang! It was. You could clearly see my girls and hoo-ha. “Did you know the Coletti Bey just killed is actually a Bjarke warrior in disguise?”
His lecherous grin vanished. “Bjarke?” Hothar quickly tapped several icons on his bracelet. “Wazzock’s piss.”
“I have many cousins on this island,” Bey commented casually.
My eyes bulged at the sight of several hundred spiders scuttling towards us. “Cousins? Those eight-legged freaks like to eat people.”
Bey waggled his legs. “As do I.”
“What!”
“Quit teasing her Bey.” Hothar tossed a stun grenade at the spiders.
Boom! My ears rang, and for a moment the world tilted dizzily around me. “Whoa!”
Hothar grabbed me before I did a face plant in the sand. “My apologies. The sight of your glorious body has scrambled my brains.”
I smacked his chest. “You’re so full of shit and why didn’t you use your bracelet’s bug repelling sonic thingy?”
“It affects Bey too.”
“Right. Wouldn’t want him to get all woozy and accidently eat one of us.” I blinked to clear my vision. The beach was covered with curled up spiders. “Are they dead or playing possum?”
In a move that mimicked Zarek, Hothar cocked a dark brow. “Possum?”
“Acting like they’re dead until they get the chance to bite you or make a run for it. Wolf spiders in Arizona do it all the time. I usually blast the hell out of them with bug killer to make sure they stay dead.”
Bey stroked a leg over my bare toes. “You killed my brethren?”
“Yeah. Got a problem with that?” The day from hell got the best of my temper and I dropped into a combat stance. “Then bring it on. Cause I need to kick some ass.”
“She is no longer afraid of Tabors or their cousins,” Bey said, his amusement obvious.
“You bastard!” I punched Hothar in the gut. “You did muck around in my head.”
Hothar scowled. “As my mate you will be dealing with a number of unique lifeforms. You cannot behave like a frightened child every time. It could get you killed.”
“I want a divorce.” I hurled Hothar down the beach.
Poof! He teleported back. “Do you?” Hothar picked me up and kissed me like a starving man. “How about now?
“You had no right…”
Hothar lips locked on mine. He slowly and thoroughly ravaged my mouth. Pleasure fogged my brain until I was wrapped around him like a limpet. He tasted so damn good. I needed his touch more than I needed to breathe.
Ack! Ack! Bey heaved and hacked like he was trying to cough up a hair ball.
Reality broke through the haze of desire. Divorce wasn’t in a Coletti warrior’s vocabulary. I was stuck with Hothar. Warts and all. Could I deal with a control freak for the rest of my life? Hothar’s naughty, naughty fingers electrified my body, unleashing a voracious hunger, a clawing want. In that instant I knew Hothar was mine. I couldn’t imagine a future without him.
Ack! Ack!
I broke the kiss. “Are you okay Bey?”
“No. I am not okay watching humanoids perform sex acts.”
“It was just a kiss.”
Hothar gave me a “seriously” look and reluctantly released me.
“Okay, it was one hell of a kiss,” I said on our private link.
Hothar winked.
Bey retorted, “Is the Overlord aware of your enthusiastic kissing?”
Nope and it needed to stay that way. “Where is the omniscient one?”
“Interrogating the prisoners. General Jones is taking the submarine to the Australian naval base at Cairns,” Hothar answered.
“Okay, our job is to discover the traitor’s identity before he does any more damage. Like siccing another fake Coletti on us,” I said.
Hothar nodded. “A good plan. What did I miss?”
“The Bjarke teleportation resembled a mixture of the Gorum and Katanic methods of travel,” Bey answered.
I fed Hothar my memories of the dead guy teleporting us. “The little sparks of lightning surrounding us was kinda freaky. I kept waiting to get zapped.”
“If you had been zapped, you would have exploded into tiny pieces or your bodies would have merged together.”
“Dang.” I shuddered as I pictured my head on Bey’s body.
“A most unpleasant complication,” Bey said, equally repulsed.
Hothar searched the fake Coletti. He pulled off the weapons belt and examined it. “This belt is a quantum logic gate.”
“What does a quantum logic gate do?” Curious minds wanted to know.
“It breaks down your body into photons and channels the energy between two teleportation devices,” Hothar replied.
“Kinda like a transporter?”
“In a way. A stable quantum gate cannot be tracked or blocked. It would allow enemy warriors access to our command centers or secure areas on a warbird.”
“Well, color me horrified. Earth First would love to get their hands on this kind of technology. How safe is it?”
“Sometimes the quantum gate creates an unstable magnetic field and the resulting explosion can be catastrophic,” Hothar answered.
“So, we’re lucky we didn’t go boom or end up stuck in a wall?”
“Yes.” Dropping the belt, Hothar rans his hands over me.
I quivered in delight. “What are you doing?”
“Making sure you have all your parts,” Hothar responded, trailing one hand up my ass.
“Are you going to check Bey too?”
Bey skittered away. “I have all my parts.”
“Are you sure?” A giggle escaped me.
“Very. We should be more concerned about where the other device is and who is controlling it,” Bey groused.
I winced. Hothar wasn’t the only one with raging hormones. I mentally checked the area. “Bey has a point. There would have to be another gate nearby. Earth First fanatics could turn the device into a powerful suicide bomb and use it to destroy our bases. We need to find a way to track it.”
“If the gates are unstable, they will be easy to locate.” Hothar scanned the area with his bracelet. A high-pitched beep sounded. “There. In that pile of debris.”
A burning sensation crawled along my shoulders. “Something’s wrong.”
“Charged particles are ionizing the air,” Hothar responded, tapping different icons on his warrior’s bracelet.
“Does that mean the magnetic field is destabilizing?”
A worried frown knotted Hothar’s forehead. “Yes.”
The sand vibrated beneath our feet. “That can’t be good.”
“There is a metallic hum coming from the belt,” Bey warned.
A strange boom, boom, boom reverberated around the island. “I think it’s getting ready to blow! Run!”
“We cannot outrun it.” Hothar scooped me up. “Bey, to me.” The second the Tabor leapt on his back, he teleported.