9. Talia

Jules didn't waste any time. As soon as Kal'va was gone, she jumped up to follow.

"What the hell are you doing?" I asked, trying to block her way to the rope ladder.

"Your boytoy killed some of those assholes, right? Their guns are still up there, and we need weapons."

Okay, that was a reasonable point even if I didn't like it. My objection died on my lips, replaced by a much less serious one. "He's not my boytoy."

Jules grinned her evilest grin, and I knew I'd regret that comment. "No, I guess not. Given your age difference, you're the sugar baby here, right?"

"I could punch you right on the nose." My face beet red, I shook, caught between outrage and laughter. When she gave me a cheery thumbs-up, I gave in to the laughter, slumping against the bier.

"Fuck you," I said when I could breathe again. "You are the worst friend."

"Sure am," she agreed, clapping me on the shoulder. "Now let's go get armed, so we don't have to leave everything up to Kal'va."

That was a plan I could get behind. Kal'va might have accepted his own death, but I refused to. Once we'd taken the ship, we'd have options, and I wasn't about to blindly follow his order to abandon him. Fuck that—he can shout at me if he likes, at least he'll be alive to do the shouting.

Mates or not, he'd learn that I wasn't his to command. I tried to convince myself of that, and that took up enough of my attention that I almost didn't notice the first corpse. I swallowed a squeak of shock, hopped back, and managed not to step on the mercenary or his blood.

His throat neatly opened by a razor-sharp blade or claw, he lay on his back, looking almost peaceful. If it hadn't been for the sprays of blood splattering the surrounding walls, I might have thought he was taking a nap in a really inconvenient location.

Jules whistled, staring past me at the dead man. "Your boytoy can cut through a hardsuit?"

"He's not my—oh, never mind." With a shake of my head, I gave up the protest before I'd finished making it. "I have no idea what he can do, okay? I've never asked him how sharp his claws are. It's not something that came up in conversation."

"The two of you had other priorities," my friend said, and I heard the grin spreading across her face. My only reply was a rude gesture over my shoulder as I crouched to check the body.

I tried not to look at the wound; touching him made me queasy. As a xenoarchaeologist, I was used to handling bodies, but usually they'd been dead for a few centuries. A fresh corpse was an unwelcome new experience, and one I wanted to get through as quickly as possible.

He held a laser rifle in his hands, a stun zapper slung at his side. Jules took the laser, I fumbled for the stunner, and Paulo took the mercenary's vibro-knife.

"If I end up using this, we're already screwed," he complained, glaring at the offending weapon. Jules snorted.

"Do you know how to use a rifle? No? Then you get the knife and hope we find another stunner."

It wasn't long before we heard the distinctive crack of laser fire. The sound sent a shiver down my spine, and my fingers gripped the stunner so hard my knuckles went white. Swallowing my fear, I set out towards the shots, hoping I wasn't making a terrible mistake. Jules tried to slow me down, but it wasn't her mate's life on the line. I shrugged her off and rushed ahead, rounding a corner, and running into a mercenary crouching there.

His focus locked on the massive, rubble-strewn chamber beyond, he was even more surprised than I was. Unfortunately, he was also far better trained. The impact of our collision sent us both tumbling out onto the black flagstones of the chamber, and he ended up on top of me, vibro-knife in hand.

Around us, the battle raged. Six soldiers, all in cover, firing at a whirlwind of sand. Kal'va stood at the storm's heart, directing it, and using it as shelter, but how long could he hold out while surrounded? I had to get free and help him.

I shoved my stunner at the mercenary and pulled the trigger, but his reflexes were too good. He knocked the muzzle aside, sending the blast toward the ceiling as his blade swung down. Ceramsteel vibrating fast enough to slice through bone stabbed toward my neck.

There wasn't even time to resign myself to death. I watched, eyes wide, as the blade blurred toward me.

The next moment is seared into my memory forever. A wall of sand smacked into the mercenary like the fist of an angry god, lifting him and slamming him into the wall with a crunch. The sand dropped to the floor along with his corpse, and I looked around, stunned.

Kal'va ducked back into cover, a half-dozen laser beams blazing at him. Sand still blew around him, eddies and swirls making him hard to see, but he'd depleted his shield forming the blast that saved me. He sacrificed his own safety to protect mine, which was wonderful but stupid.

"You idiot, I'm here to save you." I shouted, rolling into the cover of a fallen piece of masonry. A couple of soldiers fired at me as I moved, but most of them kept shooting at Kal'va. Fair enough, he was the bigger threat, but I took advantage of the opening to fire the stunner at one who was trying to flank my mate.

His hardsuit absorbed most of the shot, but it staggered him. If that was all I contributed to the battle, at least it would be something. I ducked back behind my block of stone, barely avoiding return fire. Our enemies were better shots, and they outnumbered us. How long could I keep them busy before I took a hit? Unarmored, that would put me out of the fight for sure.

Not risking showing my head, I pushed the stunner around the block and fired wildly. That wasn't likely to hit anyone, but it would keep a few of them focused my way, and that would do.

The snap of laser fire from behind me nearly gave me a heart attack until I realized it was Jules joining the fight. Paulo's stunner fire joined her, a ragged barrage of zaps that wasn't likely to hit anything but added to the chaos. That was the tipping point, and the mercenaries decided this battle wasn't going their way. I don't think even one of our shots hit, and if they did, the hardsuits absorbed it, but we kept the pressure on them as they withdrew.

Kal'va pursued them to the doorway, flinging miniature storms after his prey. He didn't chase them further, snarling and slumping against the wall instead. The swirling sand dropped from the air, and I gasped, heart threatening to burst in my chest.

He'd given worse than he'd gotten, but Rush's men hadn't wasted their time. Laser burns and bleeding wounds marked Kal'va's arms and torso, though I couldn't tell how much of the blood was his.

Golden eyes gazed down at me as he shifted back from his warform. "I told you to stay in the crypt."

My blood boiled at that. "Hey, you fucker, we just saved your?—"

He cut me off with a kiss that knocked the irritation right out of me. Jules applauded loudly, Paulo made a shocked noise, and I gave them both the finger before being swept away completely.

An hour later,we'd all washed off the traces of battle, and Paulo had gathered the packs of explosives the attackers left behind. I kept shooting them uncomfortable looks—we'd disarmed them, of course, but they didn't feel safe.

Better than leaving them where our enemies might recover them, of course. Paulo was right about that much.

Paulo sat by the radio, searching for gaps in the jamming signal. Jules sorted through our new armory of lasers and stunners. And me? I sat on Kal'va's lap, snuggling and dressing his wounds. He indulged me, though he didn't feel the need for medical attention.

When the radio squawked, it shocked Paulo as much as anyone. He yelped and almost fell off his chair.

"I didn't do anything," he said in response to our questions. "They're narrowcasting through the jammer."

"Well, put them on speaker," I told him, trying to keep my nerves under control.

Paulo clicked a couple of buttons, the speaker roared static at us, and then the two systems linked up. The quick, efficient voice of a corporate underling greeted us. "Please hold for Ms. Mallory Taverner."

The sheer gall of that shocked me enough that I stared, speechless, at the radio for the few seconds while hold music played.

"Good evening." Taverner's cold, clear, emotionless voice put a veneer of politeness on the situation. I hated it. "I have a deal to offer you, Ms. MacKenzie. A win-win solution to the unfortunate situation we find ourselves in."

"What the fuck could you offer us, and why the fuck would we trust you?" I preferred honest hostility to her fake manners and wasn't about to play along. "You're trying to kill us."

"I was," she agreed, winning a few points for not pretending otherwise. "But the situation has changed, and you have something to offer me. In return, I will stop trying to kill you."

I exchanged a look with Kal'va, who growled but nodded his head. Given the laser marks scoring his body, I understood his reluctance. Personally, I wanted to tell Taverner to go fuck herself. Tempting, but my life wasn't the only one on the line. I owed it to the others to listen to her proposal.

"Let's hear it."

"You have disturbed an Ancient site, going far enough to awaken a killing machine. We all know how that story ends, except this time you've defied the odds. Not only are you alive, you appear to have tamed the thing."

I gritted my teeth at her calling Kal'va a ‘thing,' and almost killed the call right there. Kal'va scowled but took my hand and squeezed. My rage drained away at his gentle touch and I focused on Taverner's words again.

"My family wants this world rebuilt from the bedrock up, turned into a paradise for human colonists. I won't pretend I'd stand in the way of that. If nothing else, it would make me a fortune in bonuses. However, I am prepared to offer you the planet, too. I'll acknowledge the protected site and sponsor your research, which will put the terraforming on hold for a decade at least."

I straightened in my chair, blinking and hoping I'd hidden my gasp. Amazing poker face, MacKenzie. "What do you get out of the deal?"

Taverner gave a dry chuckle at that. "Well. An Ancient war machine with impressive weaponry, and early access to anything else you find on the site."

"That can't possibly be worth more than a planet."

"No, probably not. But you are not bargaining with Taverner Terraforming, you're dealing with Mallory Taverner—and I don't own Tulla. The war machine is worth more than my bonus."

"Not happening," I said, firm as I could manage. "He's a person, not a thing to be traded, and I don't control him like that, anyway."

"I suppose, in that case, I might have an extremely lucrative position opening up. Curator of alien artifacts? That sounds like a good fit for you."

Damn her. The offer didn't tempt me, not for a moment, but she was forcing me to say no to my dream job and I resented it. "He is not for sale. It's not about the price, he's not my property."

"Well now, don't be hasty. These ruins will require extensive research, so the curator will need an…Institute of Alien Studies, backed by sizeable Taverner donations. Just think of all the secrets you'd be able to uncover."

I'm not sure what I'd have said to that if I'd had a chance to. Something along the range of ‘no' to a string of expletives ending with no. Kal'va spared me the need to reply.

"You will spare all the humans," he said, growling low and menacing, leaning over the transmitter. "Spare the prisoners you have already taken, as well as those here. Or there is no deal."