The Siren's Call (Fantasy, Science Fiction, Romance) (FORCED TO SERVE) (14 page)

Liam, I saw you slip the demon’s amulet off Ania and put it in your pocket. It doesn’t call to me as strongly as my own, but it still calls to me.

Don’t worry, it’s not meant for you. So long as you properly care for Conor’s body, I will have no reason to use it,
Synar sent
.

Good to hear. Now let’s see if I can envision what Ania might do to these people. At her insistence, I have been spending a lot of time practicing nonviolent thoughts instead of blatantly evil ones. This shouldn’t be too hard.

Snorting with impatience, Liam shifted Ania gently on his shoulder, hoping his strength would hold out long enough to carry her back to the shuttle. Her new physical form was a lot sturdier, but also a lot heavier.

I know she’s heavy, but it was a change for the better. Warriors need muscles. Okay. I have an idea about the punishment. What if I were to free all the slaves from their collars and take out the transmitters that bounce the signals of the controller devices? Let the slaves rebel and do the killing for us. She would be happy because we taught them a life lesson, and we can listen to galactic reports about the chaos that ensues. I’ll make sure the weapons all fail as well. In fact, I’m going to take out all power sources except those needed for life support.

Synar snorted again, but this time with humor. It really was a clever idea.

I heard that. Is your amusement the same as permission? Ania will be pleased with us. Trust me
, Malachi sent.

How long will all that take to accomplish?
Synar asked

A bit longer than simply killing everyone, but I think I can calibrate some linked explosions among the transmitters. I would explain the physics of sending a single tone to activate them, but it would only make your head hurt. Just know that the chaos should provide cover for the shuttle’s exit and deter anyone from coming after us
, Malachi sent.

Do it,
Synar said firmly.
On your way back, flatten the prison she was in so they’ll know the penalty for harming slaves. Meet me at the shuttle.

Now? Don’t you think you’ll run into problems at the gate?
Malachi asked
.

Synar pulled his stunner from his belt.
None I will hesitate to solve this time.

He felt Malachi zipping away like a light beam as the last thought passed between them.

Chapter 11

Standing at the front portal of the shuttle, Boca waved to the two armed guards who were circling around outside and directing her to open the door. Worried they might actually fire on the shuttle with their weapons and damage it, she realized that confronting them was really her only choice.

Running quickly back to the first aid supplies, she grabbed the two scalpels she’d seen there earlier. She slipped them into the pocket of her Medical tunic, and then calmly lowered the boarding ramp, boldly walking part of the way down it to discourage them from coming onboard to retrieve her. She wanted to keep them from finding Malachi’s host body if she could.

Seeing a predatory gleam in one of the guard’s eyes didn’t bode well for that possibility or one where they might actually be stopping by to offer assistance to a downed shuttle. Their possessive gazes proclaimed what her intuition had already warned her about. They had no intention of helping her, but every intention of taking her prisoner.

“You’ve landed a shuttle outside the permitted boundary,” one of the guards said.

“My apologies if we have broken your laws. My mate was ill and we had no choice but to land,” Boca lied, trying for the saddest expression she could muster. “I think he might even be dead, but I was afraid to go for help.”

The guard with the bigger gleam in his eye pointed a weapon at her while the other one ran into the shuttle, returning quickly with a report that there was indeed a mostly dead male body onboard the craft.

The one who had been aiming his weapon at her smiled. “What you say is truth. Your mate is dead.” His gaze and his smile shifted to the other male. “Looks like we just found a new slave to sell.”

They exchanged a look that had Boca tensing.

“She’ll bring a nice sum on the market for the chief, but I’m not giving her up until I’ve tried her out myself. Here—hold my weapon,” the older guard said to the younger one.

“Put the weapon back in your holster. The chief is not going to like it if you damage her,” the younger guard said in warning.

The older guard walked up to Boca and looked down on her. “If she doesn’t resist servicing me, she won’t get hurt. Let’s go back into the shuttle, prize. I wish to avail myself of your body.”

“No,” Boca said firmly. “To touch me would be to die today.”

He laughed at her comment and didn’t see the scalpel swiping until he felt something wet running down his face. He lifted a hand and pulled it away covered with life force.

“You’ll pay for that with marks of your own,” the guard said, grabbing her shirt and lifting her to throw her down.

Boca shoved the blade she had through his throat, causing him to drop her immediately. The guard’s life force spewed and covered her tunic front as he fought to speak and she fought to keep from falling down.

“I am unfamiliar with your species or I would have tried to do less damage,” Boca said calmly. “If you seek medical help immediately, you even might live. I will not try to stop you from leaving.”

Seeing the second guard squeeze the trigger on his weapon, Boca threw herself down and hit the ramp face first, the metal of it scratching her face as she saw the stun beam flash over her.

“
Slaggika
,” she swore in Sumerian, feeling the sting in her cheek as she raised her head and climbed to her feet.

Keeping low, she sent herself flying into him, the impact carrying them both over the side of ramp. His weapon flew out of his hand, and she had the second scalpel stuck in the younger male’s throat before she climbed off him.

Now she had two males with hands at their throats trying to remove what she had shoved there. Neither was being successful, but they were making a racket with their gargling sounds and stumbling around against the sides of the craft. Fearing there might be more guards patrolling, Boca decided the best course of action was to completely kill them.

Lacking more blades and the necessary training to kill them by hand, Boca picked up the dropped weapon that had been used to fire at her, looking closely at it as she tried to figure out the symbols well enough to set it to kill. Trained only in the most basic combat, she had not advanced to blast weapons before Rogan had made her stop training.

She turned the weapon out towards the sounds of footsteps, only to lower it immediately when she saw the ragged group of her comrades emerge slowly from the trees.

Seeing Boca with uniformed guards nearby, Gwen jogged ahead of the group, swearing at how much her feet hurt as the raw soles of them pounded on the barren hard ground. A short distance away she stopped to raise an eyebrow at the blood on Boca’s shirt and to look at the severely injured guards, one leaning against the shuttle, the other sitting by the ramp.

“I am trying to finish killing them, but can’t figure out which setting is correct,” Boca explained, looking at the wounded males with disgust. Fighting with knives was always messy. She needed to learn a better way.

Gwen took the weapon gently from her, blasting each male in turn. “It really doesn’t matter if it’s kill or stun. If they don’t die, at least stunned they won’t be so distracting while we wait. Are you okay?”

Boca shrugged. “My only injury is that I hit my face on the ramp when I had to fall down to avoid a weapon blast.”

Gwen smiled, sorry she’d missed watching Boca fight.

“Never dive face first. Always roll to the side,” Gwen advised the irritated female, making a mental note to talk to Synar and Ania about Boca’s surprising talents. “Malachi’s host body okay?”

Boca shrugged again. “I think it is fine. One of the guards checked it and pronounced it dead, but he didn’t linger with it long enough to do anything serious. They had plans for availing themselves of me instead.”

“Males are so predictable,” Gwen said sharply, reaching out to pat the much smaller female on the shoulder. “You did good.”

Boca nodded. “I see you found Lieutenant Zade.”

“Sort of,” Gwen said, watching Zade lift one unconscious male and throw him out of the potential engine fire of the shuttle craft. Jordon didn’t have the same strength, so he ended up dragging the other one off to discard him. In the end, both Zade and Jordon looked satisfied, which had Gwen rolling her eyes but still grateful they had done the dirty work without her asking.

“Zade has lost his memory, but the connection between us is keeping him with me. Sarinnea insisted we bring along a friend she met. Synar is on his way here, bringing a drugged, unconscious Ania who’s been stabbed in the back,” Gwen said.

“
Slaggika
. I will need the scalpels back then. There are no more onboard,” Boca said in consternation. They needed to put more than one first aid kit on the shuttle. She would mention it to Medical when they returned. What if there were two wounded people? What then?

Gwen watched a determined Boca run down the ramp and over to the guard’s bodies to jerk the blades from their throats with a practiced twist any warrior would have envied. Gruesome, but effective, Gwen thought.

The smaller female had only employed crude hand-to-hand fighting. Still it was damn admirable that the tiny healer had held off two armed guards all by herself.

She watched fascinated as Boca wiped off the scalpels with her tunic on the walk back. Gwen couldn’t stifle the urge to laugh when she thought of Chiang’s shock over the severed hand deal. What would he think if he saw her jerking knives out of people she’d stabbed and wiping their blood off on her shirt?

“So does Chiang know that you―”

“Yes,” Boca said, frowning as she interrupted. “Malachi told him before we left. Never share a confidence with a nosy demon.”

Gwen chuckled at her dry tone and nodded. “Noted. Sorry I missed seeing Chiang’s face when he found out. Let’s get everyone onboard and strapped in. When Synar gets here, we’re leaving immediately.”

The first explosion sent them all ducking with the natural reflex to save themselves. The second and third ones had them standing and rushing up the ramp into the shuttle seeking shelter to avoid potential falling debris.

Gwen was firing up the engines when Synar finally emerged from the trees with Ania still over one shoulder. He was walking way too slowly given the tension of the situation, and Gwen thought her weary captain looked like he might not even make it. She was wondering what to do when Zade, who had been sitting in the first seat behind her, looked over her head, unbuckled, and headed down the ramp.

“Shades of Kellnor—now what?” she demanded harshly, her skilled hands automatically revving the engines to get them up to flight mode with no delay for take-off. Through the viewing portal she watched Synar gently transfer the unconscious Ania to Zade who carried her easily back to the shuttle.

Gwen let out the worried breath she’d been holding when both males were finally onboard. She moved out of the pilot’s chair and into the copilot’s. “Is Malachi with you?”

“Causing explosions,” Synar said, not explaining anything else.

He focused all his attention on the controls and ignored her. Unoffended, Gwen looked over her shoulder to see Jordon bending over Ania’s body and turning it gently in response to Boca’s commands while Sarinnea looked on with wounded eyes.

Sarinnea had been suspiciously quiet, and Gwen had not had a single moment to talk with her alone. It hadn’t taken any intuition to guess what kind of suffering Sarinnea had endured. Or that it had somehow been connected to the Norblade male she’d insisted be rescued.

Gwen looked back at Synar, whose eyes suddenly turned redder than she had ever seen them. She’d watched that happening to Ania often enough to know it meant Malachi was close. Synar said nothing, but moments later a black mist flew through the door, and the ramp pulled up. A minute or two after that, Malachi struggled to pull his host body up into a sitting position.

Gwen smiled in relief because at least everyone was alive, on the shuttle, and they were all headed back.

“Wow, I was almost out too long. The body is sluggish from a lack of life force circulation. Someone help me move this bulk so I can give the medical table to the truly wounded entity,” Malachi said.

Zade stood and lifted Malachi as effortlessly as if he were child, clearing the large male over the heads of the others, who in turn lifted the wounded Ania onto the table.

Zade deposited Malachi into a seat and went nonchalantly back to his own.

“Wow—strong. Next time I want a Siren host body,” Malachi teased, studying the vacant gaze of Dorian Zade, who studied him cautiously in return. “Hello, Lieutenant. Are you still in there somewhere? You’re usually a little more talkative than this.”