Tolan kicked away the debris in his way and used his Shakien strength to shove his large body with undue violence into what was left of the mech whisperers’ repair hangar.  He should have made the connection that Cor Warrung had a damaged ship and just what it would mean that Rindel was the nearest inhabited planet where a mechanic might be found.  Wasn't that what led The Fire here the first time? He continued to berate his lack of foresight while he scanned every inch of debris-strewn space around him.  What had once been a somewhat organized and, in his opinion, haphazardly kept mech space now looked like a war zone, with pieces of machinery, tools and building mingled in the rubble.  In some places, there was still smoke from the blaster fire blackening the air, and black char coated most of the surfaces.  This was not the only place on Rindel that had been hit, but it had taken the most damage.

No one could have survived this.

He knew his eyes had permanently bled to Shakien lavender, and that his battle form was rolling over him at random.  A feral haze that was threatening to take him over was slowly winning the more he saw.  Cor Warrung had done his job well here.  The question was, did the bastard have Jax, or had the tricky mech whisperer managed to elude the scourge of the galaxy?

His only solace, such as it was, was that Warrung needed the mech alive to fix his ship, but it was cold comfort when he knew Cor Warrung would take one look at Jax, with her delicate golden Dainaree looks, and the last thing he would be thinking about was her mech skills.  The thought of his little witch in Warrung's hands was what had him in a constant state of losing his control.  Shakien’s had a reputation for being dangerous berserkers for a good reason.  He needed her to be safe.  And so did everyone else left alive on this rock.

He was near to growling his rage at the possibilities when a golden flash dropped down on him from the twisted metal of the rafters.  Tolan felt the broadside of an energy stick across his shoulders, the pain leaving a lingering scorch across his nerves.  He roared, sending the attacking form flying toward the buckled wall of the hangar before he realized who it was.  His Shakien battle form flowed like midnight water over him and he grew a solid foot in muscle and height. Then he roared again, sure he was going to see her gutted against the jagged protrusions of the wreckage. The delicate female form twisted in midflight and landed a few feet away, crouched on her feet and ready to spring at him.

It was a large and impressively dangerous figure that turned feral lavender eyes toward the pretty mech witch.  Rather than let the sight of a fully transformed and battle-ready Shakien intimidate her, she hissed out something in a language he didn't understand.  Her tricolored topaz, gold, and purple eyes shot sparks he could practically feel sizzle off his skin.  Some of the floor-length curls of her gold hair escaped the elaborate braid she had them trapped in and fell around the angry blaze of those unforgettable Dainaree eyes, giving her a wild look that suited the gleam in those eyes.  Then she flipped her wrist, twirling her stun stick with dexterous familiarity, and attacked.

Jax was enraged.   When the command center had notified the populace that Cor Warrung was destroying the fighters that patrolled the borders of Rindel she had wasted no time contacting a friend at Rindel command for particulars.  Hearing that they had hesitated to allow him entrance to the planet to make repairs on his ship and were paying the price for it, she had known she was in serious trouble.  Jax did not need the hurried warning of her contact to get somewhere safe before the com went dead.  She had not survived on her own since her sixteenth year by being foolish.  So, she burrowed down into her personal secret bunker to wait out whatever was to come.   No one had any idea where her hidey-hole was so no one could betray her location if they wanted to.  It might have been an extreme reaction to one short warning call, but she did not take chances when intergalactic powerhouses like Warrung came calling looking for repairs to his ship.  Especially that Warrung.

There was more than one mech that could be found on Rindel but anyone who bothered to ask would lead people to her door.  She was the best, after all.  She had no doubt that Warrung would come looking for her if he was demanding a mech. She just didn't plan to be around when he came looking.  What she did not expect was for him to retaliate for her absence by destroying her building and then what was left of the town when he couldn’t find her.

The mech he did find had fared no better than her building had, and she would feel bad about that if the man had not been a swindler and a cheat in his own right.  Not to mention he did shabby work out of pure laziness and greed, which she could not abide.  Still, as many times as she had fantasized about his permanent disappearance from her vicinity, even she would not have wished Cor Warrung on him. 

That he had disappeared into the bowels of Warrung's shiny, well-armed pleasure cruiser no one doubted; whether he was still alive and pain-free was up for speculation.  Warrung had needed a mech.  He could not locate the one he wanted and was angry enough about it to destroy a large chunk of the space port, leaving her mech hangar in rubble.  Nobody believed good things would come to the second-rate one he did find.

But Mixa was no longer her problem.  The Shakien son of a krell snake who had brought Warrung down on her head was.  She loosened her wrists with a twirl of her shock stick and sprang at him.  When he braced to take her impact, she rounded him at the last minute with a dexterous flip in midair and slammed the energy stick across the back of his legs as she went by.  Obviously unprepared for her quickness he hissed at the hit but took it with barely a hitch in his step.  He was already turned to face her when she landed a second later.

"Come to gloat?" she asked, her voice betraying the anger and hurt behind her fierceness.  Jax tried to rein in her emotions but she had built this place from nothing, and it was the first thing that had been hers, her haven.  Now it was gone.

"Come again?" Tolan Lark growled at her, his Shakien lavender eyes tracking her.

"You led him here," she accused flatly just before she moved in a blur, striking under his guard first on his right side, and then across his thighs on his left, all the while moving too fast for him to grab or deflect while he cursed at her and snarled.

"The fuck I did," he hissed at her, growing just that slightest bit bigger as his warrior form reacted to her movements.

Tolan cursed when she came at him again, her words flying with razor edges at his head while her little stick came at him with angry purpose.  He knew well enough that if she wanted to she could amp up the power and take him out with the thing, because she had done it before. He tried to take comfort from the fact that she was not laying him out for the easy kill, but it was hard to do when she kept up a constant stream of irritating and painful whacks.

"I'm supposed to believe it’s a coincidence that Cor Warrung showed up looking for a mech within a solar week of your visit?"  She moved faster than his eyes could see, her stun stick flying at his head, not to knock him out, but to shock and enrage.  She was still speaking over his hiss of pain, the sarcasm clear in her voice.  "Then you show up again?"  Smack went the stick against his unprotected side.  Only his nanite armor was keeping him from serious damage, that and she was playing with him.  "Come to see the damage you instigated?"

"I came for you.  You little viper."  Tolan growled the words and waited for his chance, already tired of this game she was playing.  He lunged, and once again she was standing somewhere else before his hands could catch hold.  This time his hiss was frustration, then it turned to another grunt of pain when her slender stick flashed again, this time right across his backside, adding insult to injury.

"Come on, kitty cat, you can do better than that," the little witch taunted.

At the final insult the Shakien nature that Tolan Lark kept under such careful control really broke loose.

Jax saw the moment she lost control of the situation.  It was possible that she let her emotional reaction to the destruction of everything she had built affect her good sense.  Why else would she taunt the Shakien warrior until he went homicidal?

She thought she had gauged his speed until she tried to duck his next lunge and found herself wrapped up in hard, unyielding arms and lifted off her feet.  She didn't let that stop her from twisting free of his hold, or at least trying.  She had almost managed to slip away when his arms tightened to a painful vise that made breathing difficult.  When she continued to struggle despite her lack of needed oxygen, he shook her.

"I did not lead Warrung to you.  He found you the same way I did the first time."  He shook her again.  "Necessity and proximity."

She would have scoffed at that, but she was too busy trying to breathe.  Her stun stick fell out of suddenly nerveless fingers, and it was only then that the big Shakien krell snake relaxed his grip the smallest increment.  Not enough for her to escape, but breathing was once again a possibility.

How the hell did this happen?  Wasn't he supposed to lumber like the big lumbering trux he was?  I should have knocked his ass out again when I had the chance.

Shite, Tolan thought using one of Barnos’ favorite curse words, seeing the flashing rage in those glittering tricolored eyes.  This close he could distinguish every color as a distinct circle and he was momentarily diverted from his own rage.  The fury heating those eyes made them glow with their own fire.  She gets that stun stick back and she won't be playing anymore. 

He started to calm down, his Shakien cat not liking it any more than he did that the little mech witch thought he was the enemy.  His arms relaxed just the smallest bit more, allowing her the full breaths she had been trying for.  He started to get control back, remembering what she had been through and how it must look to her.  Then she hauled back and slammed her head into his.  The blinding pain behind his eyes had him snarling.

That was fucking that, he raged in his own pounding head before slamming her forcefully against one of the few bits of partial wall that still stood upright.  It buckled and moaned at the further abuse.  He ignored the ominous sounds, using his body as a blunt force to keep her contained, while his hands went none too gently into that abundant gold hair to hold her head still.  Only some of it was still contained in those elaborate braids, and all of it had a nice coating of dust.

He was about to tell her what exactly was going to happen next, and how she was going to behave, when the wall gave way with a shower of dirt and crumbled, taking the both of them with it.

Well, fuck!  Tolan did his best to shield Jax with his big armored body and luckily, when the dust and debris settled around them they were lying relatively unscathed.  Jax was protected in his arms from the rocky debris-strewn floor and the rest of the falling wall by his body. 

Tolan leaned up; lying as he was fully over her, when he shoved back, the pieces that had settled on them rolled off his back with yet another billow of dust.  He met her wide tricolor eyes--all he could see beneath the dirt coating her hair and skin.  His warrior form melted away and, now blue-eyed, Tolan Lark started to laugh.  Those big Dainaree eyes narrowed.

"What in the known galaxy can you possibly find funny about this situation?" she growled.  It was an interesting effect, that smooth as butter voice of hers in a growl.  It distracted him, as did the feel of her wiggling beneath him.  At the fire flaring higher in his eyes he laughed again.

When it looked like another head-butt was imminent, he stopped chuckling long enough to answer.  "Just thinking, between your temper and mine we'll be lucky if the ship survives long enough for you to fix it."

Jax blinked at that, her anger turning to incredulity.  "Do you actually think I'm going to fix your ship?"

"How else do you think you'll get off this rock?" he asked with a shrug of his broad shoulder that shifted more debris off them, releasing more dirt over them.

He shook his head, sending even more down on her less-than-happy face while he was at it.  She turned away with a choked hiss.  When she could safely see again, she glared baleful eyes at him while he continued blithely. 

"And I need the ship to hunt that fucker Warrung down and finally, finally finish him." He raised a brow and gave her a measuring look.  "You can't tell me you don't want Warrung brought down after he did this."  He didn't bother to motion to the wreck her shop had become, just went on before she could spit her answer at him.  "Not to mention that now you’re on Warrung's radar.  He'll come back for you eventually, if just because you managed to deny him what he wanted.  If he finds out what you can do, it will be sooner rather than later."

At his words Jax swallowed back her angry reaction and studied the man above her.  "And I'm supposed to trust you aren't in league with the bastard and it was just a coincidence that he found me so soon after you came calling?"

She watched his face harden, and his eyes flash lavender, while he clenched his hard jaw until she wondered that his face did not crack.

"You," he stated through those clenched teeth, each word spaced and low.  A warning all on its own, even if the flashing Shakien eyes were not enough to make a body aware he was angry.  "Have a gift for angering me beyond reason."

She huffed out a breath.  "I’ve met you twice, and I already know that's not remotely hard to do," she muttered, choosing to ignore the big prowling beast in his eyes.

Then again, he did not exactly bring out her best either.

Tolan Lark was in a quandary.  He needed the mechanic to fix his ship, so wrapping his hands around her neck and shaking her might not be the best plan.  But the alternative, laughing at her goadingly, would probably end up with her hands at his neck, so again not conducive to getting the job done.  And he had come too far to give up now.  He needed her on his ship.  Mostly to fix it, but also because there was no way he was leaving her where Warrung could return to find her, and he had not lied about that eventuality.  Warrung would return for her, if not because he was curious about her now and found out what she was, then just because she had bested him.  That was unacceptable to Warrung, who did not forget or forgive.

"Come," he said, standing up and pulling her with him as the rest of the crumbled wall fell away from them.  He watched her close her eyes and duck her head until enough of the dust had cleared that she could glare at him without repercussions.  He did not let her speak, just finished with, "You help me bring down Warrung and I will see that you have the compensation necessary to rebuild.  Hell, I'll take it out of Warrung's accounts if it comes to that.  It won't be the first time I hacked him." 

That stopped whatever she was going to say. "You've hacked Cor Warrung?  Why aren't you dead?"

"He keeps trying."  The arrogant bastard grinned at her roguishly.  "But I'm not that easy to kill."

Jax narrowed her eyes at him again.  Something about that smile irritated her beyond all normal bounds.  She restrained the impulse to remove it, forcefully, from his face, as she considered what he said.  Sometime in the last few minutes she had accepted that he might not have been what brought Warrung to her door.  She didn’t know what or when it happened but she no longer believed that he was with Warrung, and what he said had merit. 

Not that she wasn't going to find out for sure the second she was on his ship, but for now she would trust her gut on this one.  She had her own stash ferreted away but if as he said, Warrung would come for her, it wouldn't do her a whole lot of good to rebuild, only to lose it all over again.  Still, giving the big mercurial Shakien what he wanted went against the grain, badly.  Plus, she was not all that sure they could exist in the same ship without her wanting to whack him repeatedly with her stick.  There was just something about the mercenary that rubbed her in all the wrong places. 

"This is going to be a big mistake," she muttered. 

His answering satisfied smile did nothing but irritate.