“Shit!” Maya swore, tripping over her own clothes to get to the pup to quiet him down.
Ranek reached for the weapon usually strapped to his belt, but it was nowhere to be found. He scanned the room, searching for both it and his comm, which was also missing. He spotted his comm on the floor by the door. It must’ve fallen out of their clothes when he carried Maya back last night. He was glad Commander Chaos hadn’t found it and decided it was better than the leather footwear.
And the blaster? On a pile of paper on the desk on the other side of the room. He scrambled for it, but it was already too late. The door slammed open, knocking Maya and Commander Chaos back. Her sharp yelp of pain as her arms came up to protect herself spurred him into action. Instead of going for the weapon, he dove for her instinctively, cushioning her fall.
He grunted from the impact, but Maya was safe in his arms and unharmed. When he looked up, it was down the barrel of a blaster.
“Move, and I’ll shoot your brains out.” The snarled voice came from a Tallean male with an artificial hand and a large scar across his forehead.
The hand was the kind that was supposed to be covered in synthetic skin. Ranek’s brother, Vasek, was a medic who specialized in providing biomechanical enhancements, and he had one himself. But unlike Vasek, this male did not care for the limb, or perhaps he didn’t have the means to repair it.
Knowing this planet, these were most definitely pirates ready to make some credits, and not to be friendly.
“Look, how cozy,” said a second male, stepping into the room.
Commander Chaos scrambled out of Maya’s hold, planted all four paws on the ground, and snarled at the two newcomers with all the rage his little body could muster. The new male pointed his blaster at it, and Maya threw herself out of Ranek’s arms and between the weapon and the pup. The action had Ranek’s heart leaping into his throat.
He growled and lunged at the male, knocking the blaster out of his hand.
“You fucker!” The male swung a heavily gauntleted fist toward Ranek’s jaw.
But Ranek was quick; he caught the fist and twisted, driving the pirate back into the wall hard enough to rattle the metal panels. The male recovered fast and came at him again. Ranek blocked the next strike, but the pirate corrected and slammed his elbow into Ranek’s ribs, knocking the air out of him.
Somewhere behind him, Maya yelled loudly, and there was the sound of something hard and metallic hitting much softer flesh. It was punctuated with a loud, “Take that!”
Maya’s fight instincts were obviously stronger than her flight ones, though Ranek wished they weren’t. He didn’t want her to get hurt, and the only reason she’d gotten that hit on the other male was probably that he’d been watching the fight and not her. He hoped she’d made that hit count.
But there was no time to check, because the pirate was charging at him again. Ranek stepped into the attack and braced, his shoulder hitting the other male’s chest. They crashed to the ground, rolling across the floor.
A booted foot with four gleaming, sharp claws sticking out the front flew at Ranek’s side. He shifted, letting it hit the floor instead. The pirate cursed and tried to twist away, but Ranekpinned him with his weight and wrestled the blaster from his grip.
Movement flashed at the edge of Ranek’s vision, and the second pirate was suddenly there pointing something at him. He felt it before he actually saw it; electricity surged through his body, locking every muscle at once. The blaster slipped from his grip and clattered across the floor. His knees buckled, and the shock ripped the air from his lungs. He watched in slow motion as the floor came up to meet him.
“Ranek!” Maya shouted his name, her voice distant through the static in his ears.
There was another jolt and Ranek hit the floor headfirst. His vision blurred at the edges, and he was unable to move. The last thing he saw was the pirate stepping between him and Maya, a satisfied grin spreading across his smug face.
Then everything went dark.
Chapter 13
Maya
Maya stumbled forward as the pirate shoved her out the door and into the blinding morning sun. Once again she found herself holding Commander Chaos in her arms. Her arms were starting to ache from carrying him so much in the past day; she'd better be building some nice pipes from all of this.
They stuffed her and the dragus into the back of the transport at blaster point and locked her inside. The transport stank like two-week-old gym socks left in the bottom of a wet bag, and she wanted to gag.
She tried the door handle, but she was good and stuck. There were bars stopping her from getting to the front too. For a moment, she thought she’d never see Ranek again, until the two pirates went back into the station and dragged him out.
“He better be worth something,” said the one with the scar on his forehead.
“He has to be. That’s the stolen shuttle. I recognize it.” The squatter one gestured to Ranek’s shuttle.
“That thing? It’s almost as old as the crap on this planet. How much can it be worth?”
“The shuttle? Nothing. But there’s a bounty on the thief.”
A bounty? So that was what Ranek had been hiding.
