Ninteen
Situation critical, Baran’s computer whispered.
Fuck, tell me something I don’t know, he thought back, straining to keep Druas’s knife from his throat. The Jumpkiller sneered at him, snake eyes blazing.
The damage is too severe for conventional healing. I sent nanounits to clamp the bleeding and begin tissue repair, but you’ll still lose too much blood.
How long before I crash?
Given Druas’s strength, you have forty-eight-point-three seconds of effective combat time left.
It’ll have to be enough. Blow the reserves, comp.
Inadvisable. Body temperature already too high.
Blow ’em!
“Bleeding out, Warlord?” Druas panted, struggling to drive the knife into Baran’s chest as he fought to hold it back. “Let’s see if we can speed it up!”
Then the power hit like an explosion of pain and fire, so hot and ferocious it tore a scream from Baran’s throat. The Jumpkiller’s eyes widened as Baran’s hand clamped down convulsively on his knife wrist. Bones grated, crunched. Druas howled in agony as the Warlord’s comp forced his body to pour out every ounce of power it had left, crushing his wrist despite the armor, despite the mercenary’s reinforced skeleton.
Baran thrust Druas’s broken arm away so violently the knife spun off to lodge in the wall. Maddened, he slammed his fist directly into the killer’s face, once, twice, again. Druas fell back, stunned by the savage blows that jarred his brain even through his reinforced skull.
Baran exploded off the floor, grabbed him by the shoulder, and rammed his fist up into the Jumpkiller’s gut so hard he would have slammed Druas into the ceiling if he hadn’t had a grip on him. The knife fell from Baran’s hand, but he didn’t even notice. Frenzied by the biochemical storm racing over him, all he wanted to do was beat his opponent to death with his bare hands.
Halfway down the stairs, still dragging Jane, Freika stopped and stared upward as Baran began pounding Druas like Rocky assaulting a side of beef. “Oh, shit,” the wolf said, “he’s blown the reserves. If Druas doesn’t go down now, Baran’s dead.”
Jane took advantage of his distraction to jerk away from his teeth, ignoring the ragged sound of her shirt ripping.
“Wait a minute!” The wolf lunged for her pants leg, but she dodged. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“To get my gun!” She raced up the stairs with Freika at her heels, slipping past Baran as he methodically pounded his struggling opponent.
As fast as it came, the last of Baran’s berserker reserves drained away. Druas’s limp body suddenly seemed to weigh more than Jane’s truck. Unable to hold him up anymore, Baran staggered back and watched the killer fall in a heap in the hallway floor. Black spots danced in front of his eyes.
Blood pressure dropping, the comp said.
No shit. “Gotta…kill you now,” Baran panted, and looked around for the blade he’d had a minute ago.
His eyes fell on something sticking out of the wall. Druas’s knife. He wondered vaguely how it got there. He tried to pull it out, but his bloody hand slipped on the hilt. Bracing his other palm on the wall, he fought to pull the blade free. It came loose so suddenly he reeled back, hit the opposite wall, and fell on his ass.
Blinking, he stared at his fallen enemy, who glared back at him with malevolent hate.
“Oh, that’s rich,” Druas said with a wheezing laugh. He coughed. A bubble of blood formed over his mouth and popped. “You used it all up. You don’t have enough left to kill me.”
“I do,” Jane said, stepping into the hall. She held her father’s gun in her hand.
Fear flickered behind Druas’s snake eyes before the killer laughed again. “I’m wearing armor, you stupid slut.”
“Maybe.” Her face cool and grim, she stalked down the hall to stand over him and point the gun at his face. “But you’re not wearing anything on your head.”
“Won’t do you…any good.” He peeled his bloody lips back from his teeth. “My skull’s reinforced.”
“I’m not aiming at your skull.”
Baran blinked, realizing the weapon was pointed at one of the killer’s snake pupils.
The gunshot boomed, astonishingly loud in the confined space.
“Damn,” Freika said, watching the body slump sideways to the floor, “I didn’t think you’d do it.”
“Neither did he.” Jane turned and dropped to her knees beside Baran. He looked up at her, his eyes unfocused. They were bright red—not from riatt this time, but from burst capillaries. She laid a hand against his cheek. His skin was so hot it seemed to burn.
“Damn, your fever must be over a hundred!” she said, alarmed.
“One-oh-three,” Freika said.
“I’ll call 911…” She stood.
A boom from the bedroom shook the house. “Don’t bother,” Baran said, his voice faint. “I think our ride’s here.”
Jane turned toward the bedroom just as Octopussy darted out at a dead run, fur on end from ears to tail. Without hesitating, the cat hurled herself into her arms. Jane caught the little animal automatically just as a figure appeared in the bedroom door.
“Well, you evidently lived up to your reputation, Warlord,” the man began as Jane gaped at him. His skin was an inky black with shimmering blue highlights that was not even remotely human. The darkness stood in stark contrast to the fiery shimmer of red curls tumbling around his ethereal face. “You’ve completely wrecked this….”
Then the man’s metallic gaze fell on her, and he looked every bit as dumbfounded as she felt. “You’re alive!” He look a half-step back. “You aren’t supposed to be alive!”
“Shit,” Jane said, clutching Octopussy so close the cat began to squirm. “I knew it.”
Baran struggled to focus on the TE agent despite the hallway’s slow revolutions around him. “What do you mean, she’s not supposed to be alive? You told me…”
“You were supposed to try to keep her alive—you weren’t supposed to succeed!” The agent gave him a wild-eyed look. “You have to kill her now!”
Baran looked at him, feeling even colder and sicker than he had a moment ago. “Fuck off.”
Accurately reading his snarl, the Enforcer looked at Freika, who stood at Jane’s side as she cradled Octopussy in one arm, the gun held awkwardly in the other hand. “Forget it,” the wolf told him. “I wouldn’t even touch her cat.”
The Enforcer squared his shoulders, taking on a grim look. “Then I’ll do it.” He took a step forward.
Jane, standing on the other side of Baran, began to back up toward the stairs. Terror grew in her lovely eyes as she read the menacing intent in the agent’s.
Hell, Baran thought. Give me something, comp. I’ve got to…
No reserves left.
The Enforcer started to step across his sprawled body. Never mind, I’ll use what I’ve got. He lifted one leaden hand, wrapped it around the agent’s ankle and jerked.
With a startled yelp the Enforcer went down as Baran forced his drained body to roll onto hands and knees and scrabble after him. He didn’t so much pounce on the agent as fall across him.
“What the hell are you doing, Arvid?” the Enforcer roared, struggling to escape as the Warlord wrapped his legs around his body and curled an arm across his throat.
“You’re not killing her!” Baran gritted, glad the bastard didn’t have sensors. Otherwise he’d know how close he was to passing out.
“Do you want to cause a paradox! She’s got to die!”
“Did they find a body?” He held on desperately as the Enforcer writhed in his grip. It was a good thing the little bastard was a standard human, or he’d be screwed.
“Yes!” The agent tried to tear loose, instead managing to roll Baran onto his back. The Warlord kept his grip, but it felt too damn good to lie there. He fought his body’s need to collapse as the Enforcer panted, “She had a .38 bullet in her brain!”
Baran felt a spurt of relief as his comp reported the man’s bouncing heartbeat. “Never lie to somebody with sensors, asshole. They didn’t find a damn thing.”
The Enforcer snarled, white teeth flashing against the blue-black of his lips. “All right, you bastard, she disappeared! But she was never seen again—she had to have died.”
Baran looked up at Jane, who was staring down at them, frozen. Disheveled, her shirt torn, clutching her cat and the gun she’d used to kill Druas, she’d still never looked more beautiful.
The realization hit him in an explosion of warmth and joy. Somewhere inside him a voice said, Of course. “That’s because she goes back to the twenty-third century with us.”
Jane’s brown eyes widened in astonishment.
“Are you insane?” The agent’s voice rose in outrage. “Or do you want to cause a paradox!”
“No, I don’t.” Baran tightened his grip. “Which is why I want her transported with us. She’s supposed to go. It’s fated.” The black specks were dancing faster before his eyes. Keep me conscious, dammit, he ordered his comp. The specks thinned.
The Enforcer tried to wrench himself free. Baran barely managed to tighten his grip in time. “I’m not going to risk destroying the universe so you can have a piece of ass, Arvid!”
“She’s not a piece of ass, you arrogant little prick,” Baran snarled, and shifted his hold to wrap his hand around the curve of the other man’s skull. “She’s the woman I love. And if you don’t bring her with us, I’m going to break your neck.” Ruthlessly he began to apply pressure, praying his strength wouldn’t fail him.
The agent gasped in pain and subsided, panting. Suddenly he went still, staring hard at Jane. “Do you want to be responsible for the destruction of everything?” he asked her in a low, ugly voice. “Are you that selfish?”
She gaped at him. “No, I—”
“Use the gun, Jane,” the Enforcer ordered. “End it. Die a hero’s death and save us all.”
Her pale lips moved. “Commit suicide?”
“No!” Baran roared, knowing he didn’t dare turn loose his captive to try to stop her—even assuming he could make it to his feet. “We’re supposed to be together!”
Jane clutched the cat and the gun, staring into Baran’s wild bloodshot eyes. He was pale as a sheet, blood seeping across the carpet under him, yet the force of his will blazed out at her. It’s probably the only thing keeping him conscious, she thought.
“If you cause a paradox, you’ll die anyway,” the Enforcer told her, his metallic eyes narrow and hard. “But you’ll die knowing you killed everyone and everything that ever was.”
Oh, hell. How could she take that kind of risk?
Jane looked down at the gun. It felt heavy and cold in her hand. She wondered once again if her father had used it to kill her mother.
“Don’t do this to me, Jane,” Freika said suddenly.
She blinked and shifted her gaze to his. “What?”
“If you don’t come back with us, Baran won’t return from our next mission. And neither will I. You can see it in his eyes.”
Automatically Jane looked at Baran. There was such desperate pleading on his face, she felt her chest clench.
“Please, Jane,” he said. “I love you.”
“Love?” the Enforcer sneered. “He’s off his head, high on riatt and blood loss. He’s an assassin—what the hell does he know about love?”
Jane straightened. “You’d be surprised.” She lifted the gun and pointed it at the Enforcer. “Take us to the future. Now.”
The agent stared at her, incredulous. Then his eyes narrowed. “Kill me, then!” he spat. “Unlike you, you selfish little bitch, I’m not willing to risk a paradox to save my own life.”
“We won’t be causing a paradox!” Baran snarled, tightening his grip on the agent’s jaw and bending his neck painfully back. “I know I will not allow Jane to die, so therefore she lives, so therefore”—he forced the Enforcer’s head back another inch, tearing a gasp of pain from the man—“you’re going to Jump us all back to our own time.”
“I’m not Jumping you anywhere!”
“Do you know the sound a man’s neck makes when it snaps?” Baran said, his tone so cold even Jane felt a chill. “I do.”
The Enforcer’s eyes rolled in their sockets. Jane could have sworn he paled even under that midnight-blue skin.
Suddenly he went limp. “All right, dammit. Let me go, and I’ll do it.”
“Uh-uh.” Baran jerked his head another inch. “Now.”
The agent closed his metallic eyes and reached for the belt of his suit.
“Come on, Jane,” Freika said, stepping closer to the two. “Gather around and brace yourself.”
Hurriedly she joined them, still clutching Octopussy and the gun. The cat squirmed. She dropped the weapon on the carpet and tightened her grip on her pet.
A wave of hot, burning energy suddenly slapped into her, as if she was standing too close to a furnace. Jane tensed, staring wildly down into Baran’s wild, determined stare.
Just before the energy beam hit, she heard Freika say, “But do you have to bring the cat?”
Then the beam hit. As she felt it rip her apart, Jane screamed, “Baran, I love you!”
The beam assembled Jane inside out.
Or at least, her stomach thought it had. Her guts went into such instant, violent rebellion that she dropped Octopussy and fell on her knees, clamping both hands to her mouth to avoid throwing up. Purple starburst explosions filled her vision until she couldn’t see a damn thing. Desperately she fought to hang on to her stomach contents and remain upright.
She almost lost the battle when the starbursts faded and she realized she was looking at Druas’s body. His one remaining eye stared sightlessly at her.
“Well,” Frieka said, sounding a little strained himself, “we’re all still alive. Guess Jane was supposed to come here after all. Huh, Enforcer?”
The agent replied in a foreign language, but from the tone, she could guess the content. Dazed, she watched him tear himself out of Baran’s arms, get to his feet and stomp away, armor creaking, still snarling alien curses.
The Warlord didn’t move.
Looking down at him, Jane froze in horror. Like Druas’s, his eyes were fixed and empty, staring at the ceiling.
“Baran!” she screamed.
Life flooded his gaze again. He sucked in a desperate breath and began, weakly, to cough.
“Shit,” Freika said. “Medtech! Oh, hell, wrong language.” He paused, then bellowed something incomprehensible.
Glancing around wildly, Jane saw no one around. They were lying in the middle of a long, curving corridor. “Did anybody hear you?”
“They’re coming.”
“They’d better.” She scrambled to her lover’s side as he lay far too still on the floor, staring up at the ceiling with eyes that didn’t seem to track.
“Baran?” Jane reached for his hand. In contrast to his earlier blazing heat, his fingers were ice cold. Slowly his head turned until he could look at her, but there was no recognition at all in his gaze. “Baran, it’s me,” she said urgently.
His expression warmed. His lax grip tightened. “Jane?”
She clamped her fingers over his, praying the contact would keep him with her. “What can I do? How can I help you?”
“Be…fine.” His voice was slurred, weak. “Gotta…” His eyes slid closed.
“Freika!” Jane looked at the wolf desperately.
“The medtechs’ll be here in a second.” He moved over to look down at his partner. “They’ll save him.” He didn’t sound nearly as confident as she’d like.
“It looked like he was dead,” she said, squeezing the big, limp hand. “And he feels so cold.”
“Shock,” Freika told her. “And he probably was dead, at least for a few seconds. I’ve seen it happen before. His comp jolted his heart back into beating.”
“Jesus. This happens a lot?”
“Well,” the wolf said, sounding grim, “not a lot.”
Running footsteps drew Jane’s head around. A woman and a man towing something that looked uncomfortably like a floating glass coffin raced down the hallway toward them.
The woman snapped incomprehensible orders at them, waving her free hand. Reluctantly Jane stood and moved back with Freika so the two technicians could reach Baran.
The pair positioned the floating transparent box over his lax body. It began to lower over him like a lid. The moment it had him covered, it flooded with some kind of pink vapor before rising again, lifting Baran with it.
A glowing trid display appeared in midair over him, displaying what was evidently a schematic of Baran’s body. Ominous sections were colored bright red. The two medtechs stepped in close and started touching parts of the trid with their fingers.
Jane watched nervously. At her feet Octopussy meowed pitifully. She bent absently and picked the cat up. The little animal felt warm and solid in her arms.
The skin of one of the medtechs was a bright emerald green. His hands seemed misshapen; she realized he had twelve fingers.
“Is he an alien?” she asked Frieka in a low voice, cuddling Octopussy.
The wolf snorted. “Nah. If he was, he’d look much weirder than that.”
“Oh.”
The glass box began to float away. Automatically Jane started to follow. The female medtech turned toward her and gestured, her tone sharp. Jane shot a questioning look at Frieka. The wolf said something back to the medtech in the same language. The woman replied over her shoulder as she followed the box off down the corridor.
“What was that all about?”
“They’re taking him to the ship’s hospital. He’s going to be in regeneration for the next five or six hours. Then we’ve got a mission.”
“A mission?” Jane gaped at him. “The man was dead a second ago, and they’re going to just patch him up and send him back into combat?”
The wolf glanced up at her as he started down the hall in the opposite direction from the one the medtechs had taken. “Well, yeah.”
“That sucks.”
Freika flicked an ear. “Not compared to the situation we were in ten minutes ago.”
Ten minutes ago, Jane remembered, they were all back on Earth trying to keep the Enforcer from executing her while wondering if the alternative would destroy the universe. “Okay,” she said, “you’ve got me there.”
Sitting on Baran’s bunk several hours later, Jane looked up just as a muscular blond Warlord strode by, stark naked. Catching her stare of wide-eyed amazement, he looked puzzled, then glanced down at himself. When he realized what she was gaping at, the grin he gave her needed no translation whatsoever.
“I,” Freika announced, “am going to tell.”
Covering her burning cheeks with both hands, Jane muttered, “I’m in love, not blind. Jesus, Baran meant it when he said his people are casual about nudity.”
The wolf yawned, revealing impressive fangs. “No reason they shouldn’t be. You all look alike anyway.”
“That was a racist comment. Or maybe a species-ist comment. I’d think somebody from this time would be more…”
Resting his head on his paws, Freika flicked an ear at her. “You’re babbling.”
Jane sighed. “Going nuts does that to me. Shouldn’t Baran be back by now?
“Evidently not, since he isn’t.”
She eyed him as he lay on the bunk beside her. “You’re disgustingly literal, aren’t you?”
The wolf lifted his head and eyed her. “And you’re terrified out of your mind. It’s going to be all right, Jane.”
“Yeah, right.” Absently she stroked Octopussy as the cat coiled in a neurotic, shivering ball in her lap, a thoroughly traumatized Siamese. Jane knew just how she felt.
They sat in a huge round room filled with what looked like several hundred bunks. All around them, people talked, did incomprehensible things with strange bits of equipment, or watched trid images that danced in the air. Jane had never felt so lonely surrounded by so many people. The fact that they all spoke a language she didn’t understand wasn’t exactly a help, either.
Jane sighed. Her eyes fell on a brawny blond woman on the bunk opposite hers. The woman—a Warfem?—seemed to be making some kind of adjustments to something that looked like a weapon. For all Jane knew, it was actually the twenty-third century equivalent of a Salad Shooter.
“I’m three hundred years in the future, I don’t speak the language, and two of my only three friends in the entire universe have tails,” Jane said.
Freika grunted. “Do not include me in any category with that cat.”
“Methinks the wolf protests too much.” She grinned suddenly, unable to resist an opportunity to twit him, if only to distract herself from her misery. “You know, back home we say that anybody who professes to hate somebody that bad must have a secret….”
“Forget it.”
“Well, you know what Freud would say about all those jokes about eating pussy.”
Freika gave her a look of such horrified revulsion it was all she could do not to fall off the bed laughing. “Sick. You’re just sick. God, we’ve brought a pervert to the future.”
She snickered.
“You take it back.”
“I’m just saying—”
“Get away from me!” He jumped off the bed. “I can’t believe you’d even think something like that. That’s not natural!”
Jane hugged the cat and collapsed into giggles. Octopussy gave her an offended meow and struggled free before leaping onto an empty bunk.
“See?” Freika glared at her. “Even the cat is disgusted.”
“Freika loves puss-y,” she singsonged in a schoolyard chant, unable to resist. “Freika loves—”
“Here I hurry back, thinking you’ll be heartsick with worry,” interrupted a deep male voice, “and instead I find you in hysterics. I’m hurt.”
“Baran!” Jane threw herself off the bed and into his arms.
“Just in time,” the wolf growled, glaring at her. “You can hold her down while I bite her.”
“Actually, I was planning to hold her down while I bite her,” Baran said, pulling her tightly against him.
He felt so big and hard and safe. She burrowed into him, inhaling his clean male scent. No blood, no dirt, just Baran. Drawing back slightly, she looked him over anxiously. No wounds, either. “Boy, medicine in this time is amazing.”
“As long as you’re not dead for too long, yeah.” He looked down at her, searching her face with hot, dark eyes. “God.”
Then she was plastered against him, and he was kissing her with a passion that seemed to singe the roots of her hair. She moaned against his ravenous mouth and twined her body around his, arms around his neck, legs circling his waist.
“Chi di rath ki, Baran!” a strange voice called, and laughed.
“Roughly translated, that means ‘Get a room,’” Freika told them. “Though personally, I wouldn’t want to be alone with her, considering what a deviant she is.”
They ignored him.
Jane finally came up for air while he strung nibbling kisses along her collarbone. “Isn’t there somewhere we can go where we won’t have a fascinated audience?”
“Yeah.” Baran got in a last nibble and lifted his head reluctantly. “Unfortunately, we don’t have time to go there. Frieka and I have to go kill Jutka.”
“Now?” She drew back to study him in dismay. She realized he was dressed in some kind of futuristic black body armor. “But you just got out of the hospital, or sickbay, or whatever they call it here.”
“There’s a war on, Jane,” Baran told her grimly. “And victory will be a lot easier with the general dead.”
New anxiety attacked her. What if something happened to him? They finally had a future together, and now he had to risk it again.
But one of the things she loved about Baran was his devotion to duty. She knew she had to let him do his job, even when it terrified her. Fighting the impulse to cling harder, she pulled away from him and straightened her shoulders. “So kill the creep and hurry back.”
He grinned, eyes lightening. “Believe me, I’m going to wrap this thing up as quickly as I can.” He reached into one of the pouches attached to his belt and pulled out a small object. “By the way, I’ve got something for you.” He took her hand and put it in her palm. “Had a hell of a time getting my hands on one. Finally just ordered the ship to synthesize it for me.”
Jane opened her fingers and studied the small, curving piece of gold. “It’s…nice.” What the hell was it?
“It’s a personal comp,” he told her, taking it back from her and taking her chin in one hand. Tilting her head, he slipped the little device around her ear so it rested snugly against her skull. “When I get time, I’ll reprogram it for English. Then it’ll be able to teach you Galactic Standard.”
“Oh!” Jane brightened. “That’s neat. How does it…?”
He winced. “Hell, they’re calling us. Freika…”
“Yeah, I’m ready,” the wolf said, moving to join him.
“When will you be back?”
“As soon as we can.” Baran dragged her close again for another hug. Something about the ferocity of it told her he was worried.
Suddenly she remembered Freika referred to the job he and Baran did as “suicide missions.” She tightened her grip, feeling her heart leap in fear. “You come back to me,” she said, her voice low and hard. “I lived for you, Baran Arvid. Now you live for me.”
He drew away and looked down at her, his gaze just as determined as she felt. “I will.” He turned his head, as if hearing a voice she couldn’t. “I’ve got to go.”
Baran turned and strode off down between the bunks, Freika trotting at his heels. Jane watched them go, feeling forlorn. “Bye,” she whispered.
At the other side of the room, the doors slid closed behind them.
She sat down. Octopussy crept out from under the other bunk and jumped into her lap. Gathering the cat against her, she settled back to wait.