Ruckland didn’t ask questions. His hand came up. His fingers snapped together. His slave came to him, leaping off the stage with real grace and prowess. He didn’t say a word, but he did sign a gesture into the air. The female cast a startled glance at Jeval and Margie and then she nodded. Knives appeared in her slim hands.
The four of them hastened out of the Hall, and Margie saw, with a sinking heart, that the officer that Jeval had pointed out had noticed that exit too. She gulped out, “I think we might be in some real trouble here.”
The green female said, “Me too. Ruckland, can we get to the ship?”
They were running now, not even bothering to hide that fact either as they exited into the boiling clouds of dust and laser bright rays of the alien sun. Ruckland’s slave said, sharply, “Ruckland, now!”
He transformed. There was no other word for it. He transformed into some creature that raced along the ground faster than anything she had ever seen. Her gasp got louder as the sun hit hard, striking into her body.
The female grabbed her up and then she changed too. Ruckland snatched up Jeval in his teeth and Margie dangled from the female’s as they headed for the docks, moving so fast that the world was a spinning dust bowl and ground flying below.
Margie felt sick. She couldn’t breathe. Her entire body wanted to go rigid, but she was afraid if she moved even an inch, tensed a single muscle, that the long and vicious fangs of the female, who was now at least three hundred pounds and many feet taller and wider than she had been before, would puncture her skin and kill her.
Ruckland peered behind them. His body was tense. He growled out, “They follow.”
Jeval knew what he had to do but he didn’t want to, not at all. It was a small ship coming after them and they were only halfway to the docks now. The ship was clearly a Fed one and he shouted, “I got it; let me go!”
Ruckland dropped him. Jeval spun downward, flying into the dirt. He heard Margie scream a warning and he rolled sideways just in time to avoid the clawed feet of the female and having those feet rip his stomach open.
The dust, reddish orange, was a thick curtain but it did not and could not hide them. All it could do was give them away.
He didn’t know why The Federation wanted them so badly, but they did, and that meant he wanted them too, and if they went with him willingly, so much the better.
He shouted, “Make for my ship!”
Ruckland shouted back, “We have no choice! We bought passage here and have no ship!”
The dust got thicker and more choking as weapon fire came down. The female circled back around and so did Ruckland. They all stared upward. Margie screamed, “Put me down!”
The female dropped her, and she and Ruckland drew weapons again. The female went low, rolling hard as weapon’s fire struck down, sending showers of the fine powdery earth upward. Margie spotted a creature racing toward them on the ground, and she grabbed the laser gun on Jeval’s side without thinking and then it was in her hand and going off, the fire cutting the thing coming at them in half!
Horror struck her right to the core. She had killed something!
Ruckland shouted, “That damn…” then he was moving, his weapons coming up and fire blasting toward the ship. But it was no ordinary ship; it was a warship and outfitted, and the fire was heavy and wide.
Jeval’s arm and hand yanked her backward. She toppled to the ground, and he barked out, “Stay down!”
He took up a stance. Heat radiated off his body. His arms spread wide. A fresh wind, one born from somewhere deep inside him, sprang up and then a powerful sonic burst rippled and rose upward, smashing into the low-flying ship.
He had just single-handedly taken down a Federation ship!
He grabbed her by the arm as debris, flaming and weighing tons, rained down all around them. Ruckland shouted, “You blew up a…never mind. Run for it!”
They did. The docks were not far now, and they made it to them. Margie was sick and in shock, and as soon as their feet crossed the threshold, they were up, leveling above the earth and heading for space above.
Ruckland, who was clearly not in possession of a slave but whose mate was definitely his equal, leaned against one wall. He cried out, “Drop us at the nearest way port. We will seek our way across to our own ship from there.”
Jeval sat Margie down in a chair. “Why is The Federation after you?”
Ruckland looked at the female. She spoke softly. “Someone has stolen a vast amount of papers from them. It was not us, but they are hunting down the most notorious of all thieves to see if they can find out who did it.”
Margie asked, “Why would they hunt down thieves for…I don’t understand.”
She didn’t. Ruckland opened his mouth. It got wider and wider, a large shelf of jaw suddenly appearing. She gagged a little as he disgorged what looked to be an entire and incredibly precious statue! He said, “They want all of us because we move in a small circle.” His fingers swiped his saliva and some other thin fluid off the statue, which was made of a precious metal. “They probably think if we didn’t take it ourselves then we would have heard who had.”
Gross.
There was a lot to talk about, and she knew it, but the one thing she knew the most was that she could not wait to get Ruckland off the ship! He was busy bringing up all sorts of things, and she was pretty sure she was going to get sick long before he displayed his haul from the pleasure planet!
