Blowback (33 page)

“Then hit something else, but she said to confuse them,” Tom
yelled back. Da’shay was still working in the panel and Tom was starting to
wonder how long it took to get a door open and how long these guys would mill
like sheep in a slaughterhouse.

Ramsay didn’t answer, but Tom heard the explosion as
something went up on the far side of the room. Ramsay’d found something
interesting to shoot at. The catwalk finally groaned and Tom cursed as his next
bullet missed its mark. The catwalk was swaying dangerously and the wires were
so damn thin that it was like trying to shoot a flea off a mouse. After five
tries, he finally hit the next wire and the whole catwalk started tumbling to
the ground, the metal screaming as it twisted and fell onto one of the ships. A
dozen or so
cati
took off for the ship and Tom let them go.

Glancing over, he saw the hatch to the ship open and Da’shay
sprang up, her hands catching the
cati
that appeared in the opening and
throwing him out. Then, instead of waiting for backup, she darted into the ship
and vanished.

“Da’shay!” Tom called. Firing shots toward the groups of
confused
cati
, he took off for the ship, crossing the open dock as fast
as he could. “Da’shay!” he screamed.

Tom got to the ship and took a second to drop the sniper
rifles and switch to the pulse guns. Just in case Da’shay had been wrong about
them working, he checked his main gun. He turned to head into the ship and a
hand caught him. “Tom, you don’t know what’s in there,” Ramsay yelled over the
sounds of crashing and screaming metals and fire.

“I know Da’shay is.” Tom shrugged off Ramsay’s hand and
headed into the hatch.

The second he was inside, he knew he wasn’t on any human
ship. The walls were glowing, but it wasn’t the straight lines of inset
lighting he’d see on some fancy cruiser. It was like something that glowed was
seeping down from the ceilings so the swirled metal was stained with light. A
cati
body lay sprawled on the floor, cut open from neck to stomach and laying in its
own blood. Tom looked first one direction and then another, but there wasn’t a
blessed thing to tell him where she went. Picking a direction at random, Tom
took off. He made it not more than twelve feet before the curve of the hall had
him turned around and the passage split in two.

A
cati
with an iridescent shirt rushed at him from
the left passage and Tom fired the pulse gun, waiting for a split second to
make sure his first opponent actually did go down before he turned to meet the
footsteps rushing at him from behind. The wait cost him and the second
cati
had hands on Tom’s arm before he could bring his weapon around. The fingers
that caught his wrist dug into the joint and Tom had a second to wonder why
every fucking species had to be stronger than humans, but strength alone didn’t
determine who won a fight. Tom drove his boot down on the top of the
cati
’s
foot. The large black eyes got a little larger and it made a whistling sound,
but it didn’t let Tom go.

Tom followed up with a knee to the groin and this time Tom
made the pained noise. Either they were armored or they had sex organs that
made rock walls envious. Damn. Changing tactics, Tom fired the pulse gun even
though it was pointed at the floor because the
cati
still had his arm.
The repercussion from the charge slammed Tom back into the wall and the
cati
hit the floor with his over-long arms wrapped around his head while he wailed
so loud that the sound echoed down the curving passages. Tom fired a second
blast and the
cati
went silent.

Footsteps echoed and Tom started running the opposite
direction. If that cry had been some call for help, he didn’t want to be the
center of a big pile of pissed off aliens. The corridor split again and Tom
took the right branch again. A
cati
dropped out of a hole in the ceiling
and Tom fired the pulse gun without even breaking stride. The alien fell.

Some movement out of the corner of his eye made Tom throw
himself backward and heat seared past his face a half second before hot air
rushed past him. Either he’d just had a near miss or the aliens had just
irradiated him and he was slowly dying.

Tom pulled his second pulse gun and alternated firing them.
Charging forward, Tom crashed into four
cati
. He’d expected a major
fight, but once they were all on the ground, the
cati
seemed more
concerned about getting up than getting in any hits. Tom kicked one in the face
while pulling on the leg of another that had almost gotten upright. It was a
messy, arm-biting, dirty, on-the-ground fight, but weirdly, Tom was the only
one actually fighting. Kicking himself free, Tom got clear of the pile and
fired his pulse gun. Three
cati
went down immediately and the last one
back-crawled away and Tom let him. It didn’t feel right opening fire on
something that was staring at you with huge, confused eyes and trying to
escape.

Tom headed deeper into the ship. The passages twisted and
curved around, divided, merged and dead-ended. Openings in the ceiling and near
the floor led into rooms that had the same alien dimensions, but they were either
empty or had
cati
cowering in the corner when Tom checked them, so he
ended up trotting in endless circles looking for Da’shay or someone else to
fight.

“Tom?” Tom brought the pulse gun up so fast that Becca
nearly got blasted into unconsciousness. Tom dropped the barrel of the gun. He
wouldn’t feel too guilty about knocking Becca unconscious, but a blast at this
range could very well rupture eardrums or damage eyes.

“What the hell are you doing?” Tom hurried past her to check
the passage beyond her. “There’s aliens still around.”

She rolled her eyes and hit him in the arm. “You’re as bad
as the captain. I can fire a gun and the fighting’s pretty much over. Da’shay
has some big important someone cornered in the other end and I’ve been
wandering around looking for you. Da’shay says the
cati
who are left
aren’t going to be much for fighting. At least, I think that’s what she said.
She’s not all that easy to follow when she gets her metaphors going.”

“The captain?”

“He’s with Da’shay, arguing about what to do with the head
cati
.”
Becca turned back toward where she came from and frowned as she saw the forked
corridor. “I’ve never said this before in my life, but I think I actually don’t
like this ship much.”

“That makes two of us,” Tom said as he waited for her to
make up her mind about which of the two passages she’d come out from. “So,
Da’shay’s arguing with Ramsay?”

Becca shrugged and picked a direction. “Um, the captain’s
arguing; Da’shay’s pretty much ignoring him.”

That sounded closer to the truth. “Eli?”

“Guarding the hatch. Things seem unnaturally quiet, but the
captain wants to take off before all hell breaks loose.”

“Then why aren’t we?”

“He can’t find the pilot’s deck and I don’t have any clue
how the engine works. This looks familiar.” She stopped in front of a streak of
particularly bright light. “Does this look like the bit that’s just inside the
hatch?”

Tom snorted. “I was more worried about shooting people.”

She sighed as if he was going out of his way to annoy her.
“Eli!” she screamed.

“Trouble?” a voice called from the left.

“Nope, just lost again,” Becca turned to the left and Eli
was there next to an open hatch. He had one of the guns Tom had abandoned
pointed out the hatch as he watched for enemy that seemed to have vanished. Tom
looked out at the dock. The fallen catwalk was caught on the wing of one ship
and white foam was streaked across everything, slowly turning to a slick slime,
but there wasn’t any sign of life.

“Should close that,” Tom said. He didn’t know when these
guys would counterattack, but they would.

“I’d love to. If you can figure out how, let me know,” Eli
answered. “The others are that way. At the dead end, go up.”

Tom took off before Becca could get ahead of him. It
rankled. He’d come into the ship first and the others had all managed to find
their way to Da’shay first. He was almost hoping to find more
cati
soldiers because shooting something sounded like a really good plan right now.
Actually, after watching Da’shay go charging in without backup and without
checking for traps, shooting a part-
cati
was sounding good. She could
have been killed, and considering that the one body he’d found was killed with
a knife, it meant she wasn’t even properly armed.

“This whole level is nothing more than a maze of hallways.
You have to go up or down to get to actual rooms. Maybe that makes sense to an
alien, but it’s just real confusing for me,” Becca said. “I’m grateful I got
through the engineering academy already because if I had to take a test on this
tech, I ain’t so sure I would have aced it.”

They hit the dead end and a series of narrow slots in the
wall offered an awkward ladder. Tom was guessing the
cati
were more
flexible than humans because the steps were too wide and there were just too
few of them for comfort.

“Tom, are you okay?” Becca asked.

“Great,” Tom snapped. “Any better and I’d have to gut
someone.” He climbed up into the next level. The round hole opened up into a
small room with more irregular dimensions. The side with the hatch in the floor
was the narrow part and it opened into a triangle shape before the far end
curved into a wall. Da’shay sat on the floor near what looked like another
ladder. Her dress was torn and she had a pulse gun sitting in her lap, but she
was busy cleaning a knife with the hem of her skirt.

Tom pulled himself up and started for her. “What kind of
fool plan is that? You go rushing in without backup?” Bristling with anger, Tom
strode right to her. She stood up, the pulse gun tumbling to the floor, but the
knife still in her hand. “You gutted that
cati
inside the door, which means
you didn’t have a gun at the ready. What the fuck were you even thinking?”

She reached up to touch his cheek and he grabbed her hand,
pushing it away. “Oh no. I want to be angry right now, so don’t go trying to
pet me like your fucking dog.”

“Tom,” Ramsay said, but Tom ignored that. This was between
him and Da’shay.

“Not dog. Mate. Toy.” Da’shay gave him a look that made
Tom’s cock hard, but he could be pissed and horny at the same time just fine.

“Either you trust me to have your back or you don’t, but you
don’t go rushing off when I’m not even in position to have your back. Not
unless you’re wanting to call this over.”

Da’shay jerked her hand back. “Running water can’t reverse.
You’re mine.” She gave Tom another of those fearful looks and Tom could feel a
need to forgive her that was nearly as strong as his anger.

“If I’m yours, then I’m fighting at your side, not wandering
around a fucking maze, you got that?” She stared at him and Tom struggled to
find the words to explain what he’d never rightly felt for any woman before.
“You said you’d defend me over the captain and I feel about the same for you,
so when you go charging in somewhere that I can’t defend you, I get so angry I
consider gutting you myself.”

“Confusion and confusion and confusion all adding up until
the
cati
scatter to the corners,” Da’shay said. She reached out for him
again. Tom tried to pull back, but Da’shay darted forward, her hand catching
him behind the neck and holding him, fingers pressing into his flesh. It seemed
wrong for someone so small to have such a strong grip but for all his anger and
strength, Tom was caught. She hummed. Maybe that was supposed to calm him down,
but he just had too much anger running through him for calm to find any
foothold.

“So you needed someone confused to just attack random shit?”
Tom asked. Tactically that had some advantage. If an enemy seemed unfocused,
you didn’t rightly know what to defend. It made perfect sense except for the
part where she ran off and damn near got herself killed.

She nodded. Without warning, she started to smile at him.

“I ain’t done being mad,” Tom warned.

“Love you too,” Da’shay said with a huge grin. She looked
almost human in that moment, and somehow her undisguised joy took the shine
right off his anger.

With a sigh, Tom jammed his weapon into its holster. “Don’t
like being the one to play decoy, not if it means you ain’t got someone at your
back. If you need me to do that, fine. But next time you grab the captain by
the neck and haul him with you, but you don’t go rushing in without someone at
your back. You may be near a hundred—older maybe, who knows. But you ain’t
immortal. You don’t leave your back unguarded.”

She tilted her head at him and her fingers gentled against
his neck. “Years and years, I was the actor creeping among the mice, crawling
through mice trails in the dark.”

“Well, you ain’t anymore.” Tom didn’t get most of that, but
he could understand how she was alone—different from everyone around her. She’d
had secrets she’d kept, not because she wanted to, but because she didn’t have
any way to tell them. But her secrets were out now and she wasn’t alone in
this. “You go running off on your own again and I’ll…” Tom gritted his teeth as
he tried to come up with a threat serious enough to make her understand that he
wouldn’t yield on this. “I’ll go thinking some mighty dark thoughts for a very
long time, you got that?” he threatened.

Da’shay pursed her lips and nodded. “No more wandering
trails without the sparkle of diamonds lighting the way,” she promised.

Tom let out the breath he’d been holding. He admired the
hell out of Da’shay—what she’d survived and how hard she’d fought. He still
felt a little shocked every time he thought about the fact she wanted him, but
he couldn’t have stayed only to see her go flying off alone every time she
thought there was a real threat. It would have gutted him. Now that she’d given
her promise, Tom could admit that he’d been feeling fear ripping through him,
fear that she’d refuse to change and he couldn’t live with that. “I love you
too much to watch you get killed, got it?” Tom demanded.

Reaching into a pocket, Da’shay pulled out a short chain,
something that couldn’t be more than three feet. Tom didn’t move as she reached
up and attached it to his collar. Then she wrapped both hands around the short
leash and leaned into him. Closing his eyes, Tom wrapped his arms around her
and held her tight for a moment.

“Funny,” Ramsay said softly. “Crow doesn’t taste all that
good.”

Tom looked over. “What? Why would you eat crow? They’re stringy
as hell and ain’t got much meat on ‘em.”

Ramsay looked at him for a second as if he couldn’t quite
decide what to say. Then he shrugged. “Can you see Kada going after Hou like
that?” he asked in a total change of topic.

Tom snorted. “Hell, no.”

“I guess you two really aren’t much the same.”

Da’shay pushed and Tom let her go. “Did you really think I
was anything like him?” Tom asked the captain.