Orion and Juanita knelt atop a hill that looked down over the lake. Trees dotted it and partially hid the view, but the Star Guardian ship and the boggy area where it had landed were visible through the woods. Normally, without night-vision equipment, they wouldn’t have been able to see anything down there, but two bright moons had come out, shedding silvery green light on the water. That light also gleamed on the hull of the Falcon 8.

“She’s a beautiful ship, isn’t she?” Juanita whispered.

Orion realized she was seeing it from a distance for the first time. When he looked over at her, he caught a hint of the moonlight glimmering in her dark eyes. She was more beautiful than the ship, and her spirit for adventure and exploration made him smile. More than that, the loyalty she’d shown, standing up for him with Sage and doing her best to deflect his ire… It made him feel more than he’d felt for anyone in a long time. Since he’d left home and fully committed to becoming a bounty hunter, he had often filled his days with no other company than that of his ship’s AI, the criminals he hunted, and the books he read. His dalliances with women had been brief and more about sating physical needs than anything else. The types of women who were attracted to bounty hunters usually had the jaded hearts of bounty hunters themselves. They weren’t playful and adventurous, and they would have mocked him if he’d ever spoken of his family problems with them.

“It’s said to be a great honor to serve on a Star Guardian fire falcon,” Orion said quietly, shifting his attention back to the spacecraft and the surrounding area.

He couldn’t let himself be distracted by his growing attraction to Juanita, not again. He had been foolish to get so wrapped up with her—figuratively and literally—against that tree when there were so many dangers around. But having her pressed against him had been beyond stimulating. And when she’d started running her hands up and down his arms and licking his neck? He’d been seconds from pulling down both of their pants and rutting like a Bracorean Stag. The fact that she’d seemed to want the same thing? It had only fueled his passion.

But they couldn’t sate their mutual urges out here. He didn’t even know what women on her world did for birth control. Did they have such a thing at all? The massive population of Gaia seemed to suggest otherwise. What kind of ass would he be to send Juanita home pregnant when he might never be able to see her again? The thought almost made him wish he was a fleet soldier or a Star Guardian, since women and men received contraceptive shots that lasted several months at a time.

A light came on across the lake, pulling his thoughts back to the here and now. It wasn’t from the Falcon 8—the Star Guardian ship remained dark, as if it had been deserted. Were Hierax and Zakota truly the only ones left on board aside from the women? Orion had noticed the corridors were deserted when he’d woken up, but it had been early, according to ship’s time, so he hadn’t thought anything of it then.

“What’s that light?” Juanita whispered, seeing it too.

It was on the opposite side of the lake from the ship, and as they watched, it started moving through the trees. A couple of other lights appeared, also moving, parallel to the waterline.

“One of the slaver ships must have landed over there, and now a team is on its way to investigate Sage’s ship. They’re being brazen, aren’t they? Not worrying about hiding themselves.”

“Maybe they want to avoid the quick mud.”

Orion smiled at the term. He’d only ever heard such spots called sinkholes, but he supposed the words were apt.

“There’s another team coming from over there,” he said, pointing toward their own side of the lake. A couple more lights were visible, bobbing as their owners walked along the waterline.

The lights should mean that the slavers didn’t have combat armor. They would be using the night-vision capabilities of their helmets if they did. The Star Guardians would have an advantage when it came to close combat. That was good, but it did look like they were going to be outnumbered. If these new ships had crews as large as Captain Cutty’s ship had claimed, there could be as many as two hundred people tramping through the woods to join the fight. Sage had closer to forty, maybe fewer if there were more people back on the ship than he had mentioned.

“But the Star Guardians are prepared, right?” Juanita leaned forward peering toward the ship.

The moonlight would have made it bright enough to see the armored figures of the men if they had been in the clearing around the ship. They weren’t. They were probably hiding in the trees, waiting to spring their ambush.

“I hope so. Sage doesn’t give away anything, but Treyjon sounded surprised when we learned there were three enemy ships.” Orion grunted, disgusted anew that Sage had let him sleep and hadn’t included him in the planning for this trap he was trying to spring. Did his brother truly think he couldn’t be of use out here?

Juanita turned toward him. She didn’t ask a question, but he sensed that she had one.

“I hate not being included in the planning,” he explained.

“They should include you. You’re a really good fighter.”

“But I’m not one of them.” Orion lowered his voice, almost keeping the next words to himself. “They didn’t want me.”

“Who didn’t? Your brother?”

“No, he has no say in who becomes a Star Guardian or not. Or at least not much say. He may hold an ear or two, but even so, he wouldn’t have put a word in for me. He never believed I had the discipline for the job.”

Orion couldn’t help but emphasize the word. It was the exact one Sage had used many, many times with him.

“He’s almost twenty years older than you, isn’t he?” Juanita asked. “Nobody thinks someone that much younger has discipline. He probably had to walk ten miles to school every day as a kid. In snow and rain. And uphill. Both directions.”

He snorted. “Actually, our father was something of a war hero, a retired general. We didn’t have a rough childhood. We took shuttles to school. I heard Sage even had private tutors when he was younger. By the time I came along, our parents seemed to think that was a waste of money. Or that I was.” He snorted again. “No. I’m whining. Don’t listen to that. My childhood was fine. But in regard to the Star Guardians, you can’t apply or go to an academy to get in. Their ships aren’t as big as military battleships, and they’re not an army or a fleet. They’re elite handpicked troops that are chosen to go places where a battleship would be overkill—or a sign of war. There are only eight Star Guardian ships out at any given time, and usually fewer than fifty people on a crew. If those that run the organization want you on one of their ships, they find you and they choose you.

“There are careers you can pick to be more likely to be discovered by them, and to gain the right kinds of skills for the job, such as the military or law enforcement, but sometimes, it’s a mystery as to who they pick and how they discover you. I remember one year, they recruited a couple of champions from the Olympics.”

“You have the Olympics?” Juanita asked, sounding startled.

“Of course. It’s an old tradition that originated on Gaia, the stories say. Originally, it was just on our planet Dethocoles, but people from the other planets sometimes come and compete.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot that it was originally a Greek thing. I think it disappeared for a couple thousand years on Earth. Gaia. That’s neat that we both still have it.”

“It is.” Orion found himself pleased to learn that his people’s custom existed elsewhere too. This almost seemed like proof, more than anything else the women had said, that their world was Gaia. “I didn’t try that route to get noticed. I joined the military, the same as Sage had. But the war was over by the time I got out of the academy. It’s hard to stand out and be noticed during peace times. And I had a penchant for finding trouble. Maybe if we had been at war, I could have channeled my energy and rebelliousness toward a better cause, but I, uhm, eventually got kicked out for fighting with a superior officer. He deserved it, but I broke his nose, and that’s frowned upon. It’s acceptable to break an enemy’s nose, and even brutalizing a peer isn’t going to get you kicked out, but a superior officer is a different thing.” And, admittedly, that incident hadn’t been the first time he’d gotten into a fight with one.

“It wasn’t Sage, was it?”

“No, but we did have a few squabbles before then when we weren’t in uniform. There are scars. I’m younger and faster and bigger and stronger than he is, but somehow, he always wins when we fight. He always wins at everything.” Orion cleared his throat. “Anyway, if you couldn’t guess by now, I’d actually wanted to be a Star Guardian—hells, I even idolized my brother when I was growing up—but I got disillusioned by the military. And I was bitter that I was never picked. I decided to cut my own path, work for myself. I figured that as a bounty hunter, I was still doing good. I was bringing criminals to justice. Even if Sage doesn’t approve of my methods. The hells with him.”

Juanita reached out and squeezed his arm. The support warmed his heart, and he might have basked in it all night, but a distant thud reached his ears, putting him back on alert. It sounded like something or someone had run into a tree.

Orion turned toward the back of the hill. Was there another team coming up from that direction?

He didn’t see any lights, but that noise hadn’t sounded animal in nature. Predators were generally smart enough not to crash into trees in the middle of the night.

He crept to the far side of the hill and crouched behind a bush while tapping at his logostec. A holographic scope formed in the air above the screen. He adjusted the scope to a wide-angle setting and lined it up, alternately peering through it and above it to try and spot whatever had made that noise.

Clothing rustled behind him, and he was aware of Juanita crouching down to look over his shoulder, but she didn’t disturb him. A whisper drifted to his ears from the direction he was looking. If someone was talking, that meant at least two people coming. Their route should take them past the bottom of the hill and straight toward the back of the fire falcon.

Finally, Orion spotted movement. Four armored men were striding between the trees, carrying a cylindrical object about six feet in length and three feet in diameter.

When he saw their armor, his first thought was that this was another team of Star Guardians, but the armor wasn’t black. One was white with the others appearing as shades of gray under the moonlight.

Slavers, then. And slavers in combat armor. That wasn’t good.

Orion shifted his focus to the object they carried. Was it some tool for drilling through the hull of the Falcon 8? That seemed a logical guess, except that it didn’t look like a drill. The smooth sides were a casing for something. What it looked like was a weapon. Could it be a missile or bomb?

One of the men stumbled, and the cylinder dipped. The others cursed at him, the words drifting up the hill.

Certainty settled in his stomach like a boulder. If they were worried about someone tripping and dropping a corner to the ground, it was definitely something volatile. Perhaps explosively volatile.

A big enough bomb could definitely blow a hole in the side of the ship, if not blow up the ship in its entirety, not to mention those inside. It could also blow up any Star Guardians who happened to be close by when it exploded. Combat armor could deflect en-bolts, but not the energy of a warhead. And Sage couldn’t be expecting this. Not from a pack of slavers. How was it that these people had been so organized? He sure wished he’d been a part of the interrogation of that first officer. The Star Guardians must have stumbled into some greater plot that had already been afoot.

“Shit,” Orion muttered as the men strode closer to the clearing with their ominous load.

Juanita, also peering toward the slavers, rested a hand on his shoulder. He held up his logostec, angling it so she could see through the scope.

Out on the lake, the lights were converging. There were far more of them now. Fifty? Sixty? There could easily be four men for every light too. The hostilities would break out any minute.

“What is that thing?” Juanita whispered.

“A bomb, I think. And I bet the Star Guardians don’t have any idea it’s coming.”

She looked at him, a question hanging in the air.

“It could destroy the ship,” he said. “Maybe us too. Unless I can stop them.”

He glared at the men—he no longer needed the scope to see them. In less than a minute, they would walk past his position and be heading out into the open area around the ship. If he was going to do something, it would have to be soon. But what could he do against men in combat armor?

If he hit them with en-bolts enough times and in the right places, he could damage their armor, but it wasn’t as if they would stand there without firing back. And if he hit that bomb, it could blow up right there. He and Juanita would definitely be killed then.

It would be difficult to sneak up on the men too. Their armor would have life-form sensors and would detect his body heat. If one of them looked up the hill, he might be visible to them even now.

“You mean unless we can stop them,” Juanita whispered.

“What?”

“There are two of us. That makes a we.”

“I appreciate your help earlier, and I really mean that, but a knuckle-puncher won’t do anything against men in armor.”

“I understand.” She squeezed his arm. “I have a better idea. I’ll lure them away, so you can disarm that thing.”

“Lure?” Orion was horrified as he imagined her being chased through the woods by slavers in armor. Armor that would enhance their natural abilities and make them fast, far faster than she. “They’ll catch you easily.”

“Of course they will. I’m going to give myself to them.”

“But—”

“Sh, there’s no time.” Juanita tilted her head toward the men. They were now parallel with their hill and would be past it soon. “Trust me, and be ready to disarm that weapon.”

When she rose to her feet, he almost sprang after her to pin her to the ground for her own good. Whatever crazy plan she had in mind, it might get her killed.

But as she picked her way down the back of the hill, he stayed where he was. He realized he did trust her. So far, she’d been nothing but useful out here. Who was he to assume she couldn’t be useful again?

Hoping he wasn’t making a huge mistake, he hunkered down behind the bush and watched her progress.

Juanita moved around the back of the hill so she wouldn’t risk giving up his hiding spot, and then started running when she reached the bottom. Instead of running away from the men, she ran toward them.

She hadn’t made much noise when she’d been descending, but now she crunched on every twig along the way. She glanced over her shoulder often, as if fleeing someone.

The slavers saw her right away, their helmets swiveling toward her as one.

It took all of Orion’s willpower not to jump to his feet and start firing at them before she reached them, before they could think of hurting her.

“It’s one of the girls,” one man said, his voice drifting clearly up the hill.

He stepped forward and intercepted Juanita. The other two leveled their weapons at her.