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A com came in from D’irk. “I won’t leave you and Hill, Protector.”
Ignoring D’irk, I flew ahead. A sign at last. A long swath of cleared land appeared, and an opening in the volcano’s side revealed itself. Though made of rock, the ground rippled like sand after the tide had passed—evidence the hellsna had been coming and going here for many annums.
I reefed the strap on my leg tighter as my vision blurred. “Entrance located. Hill and I will join you shortly. Get Efred safe and warm and conserve fuel. Return to the west entrance at once.”
D’irk’s teeth clacked. “Retreating to the west cave entrance as requested.” Saluda and D’unter grumbled in the background.
A dressing down would be coming. Sisip had been lax in training her enforcers to follow the chain of command. But right now, I had to coax a group of enraged hellsna back into their hibernaculum.
Hill and I climbed straight up the face of the volcano, transmission straining along with my thumping head. We pushed the hovees to their limits as we urged them toward the entrance.
The beasts shrieked and writhed as they reached for us. My leg throbbed. The dorat walked a tightrope line acrossthe handlebars. The beasts showed absolutely no inclination to return to their cave. The blanting bastards weren’t cooperating in the least. I lifted my chin to the sky and closed my eyes for a moment.
This time, when I flew over the entrance to entice the vicious demons inside, a bushy-tailed dorat leaped from the handlebar. She dropped into the dark hole in a technicolored display, lifted her tail and released a pungent liquid mist. My heart leaped after her, but fortunately, my body remained firmly on my hovee. “Dorat,” I called after her in dismay. She really needed a name.
“Protector, do you have some kind of secret weapon?” I could tell Hill was smiling through the com. “You’ve been holding out on me.”
“Looks like I do.”
She landed, feet soft, and prowled along the entrance, continuing to spray. I held my breath as the almost blind hellsna launched toward her scent like a homing beacon.
Undulating wildly, they tracked her scent, slamming their monstrous bodies into the cave entrance. If I could’ve called her back to safety, I would have. But she had a mind of her own and I had to trust she knew what she was doing.
Each salivating beast jostled for the lead. The brittle volcanic rock broke and gouged into their translucent flesh, leaving long trails of blood that trickled like streams in their shadow’s as they fought to reach the dorat.
“Well, would you look at that,” I muttered.
Hill pulled his hovee alongside mine. “I can’t believe it. She’s herded them all back into their hibernaculum.” His eyes widened as the last beast fought its way inside the cave. “Don’t know about you, Protector, but I’m running on fumes over here.”
“I won’t make it back.” My hovee sputtered, and I guided it to the ground.
“Hop on, Protector.” Hill idled beside me. He helped me prop my injured leg over his saddle and then climbed on in front of me.
“Happy to have you on my team, Hill.” I patted his shoulder. “Well done.” I opened the com to the rest of the team. “Mission complete.”
Sisip’s voice came through the com, her relief evident. “JayJay, D’irk, Efred, D’unter, Saluda and Hill, excellent work. All able-bodied enforcers, return to the hoverbay.”
Cheers rang through the com. Despite my worry over the dorat, my heart filled in a way it hadn’t for a long time. Even though the respite would be temporary, we’d kept the settlement safe.
“Ah, Protector…” Hill yelled over the downdraft. “What’s keeping them from coming back out after us?”
12
The thick leather ofthe mantu hide glided over my fingers. I ran a reverent thumb over the bumps of each tiny stitch, traced the reinforced knees, then picked up a soft rag from the table to buff the hide until it shone. Standing from my chair, I snapped a picture of the awesome pants I’d made for JayJay, careful to keep the rags I’d used as a template out of the camera’s frame.
As I added the pictures to my portfolio’s gallery alongside my best work, a longing for home overcame me, so intense my knees grew weak. The last film director I’d worked with had friends in powerful places. Maybe she could get me off this planet.
I slumped into the overstuffed chair tucked in the corner of Makir’s spare-bedroom-turned-workspace and buried my face in my palms. Not willing to do anything illegal, I put that plan to rest. Would I ever need to send my portfolio out again?
A loose chain mail shirt JayJay would wear over a vest lined with white linobee fur fell off the armrest beside me. As I bent to pick it up, my knuckle slipped through one of the lightweight copper-colored rings made from the lunal plant. It grew under the moon’s light and rampaged across the wastelands, another curious mutation from the Fires That Cleanse. It had taken a lot of trial and error to soften the fibers enough to knit them without diminishing their integrity. As it turned out, the bitter javae had its uses after all, softening the weed when soaked and drying to a steely hard finish.
A stray tear slipped past my nose, but underneath the sadness, a sense of pride emerged. Even if it didn’t win me any awards, this was the first real armor I’d designed. Protecting JayJay meant something to me after all the times he’d saved my life. Someone had to protect him. He was shit at it. That was worlds more important than looking good on a set or stage. But he would look damn fine in it.
I smiled, imagining the brown leather dyed a deep plum from hiscus flowers, clinging to his muscular legs, and the copper chain mail revealing the grooves of his biceps and forearms through the sleeveless vest. An image of JayJay’s rich pewter skin against the coppery lunal came to mind, making my mouth water. Strangers who laid eyes on him would know he was a man to be listened to when he wore this. Everyone else already knew, even in his rags.
But that didn’t mean I wanted to have sex with him. It just meant I admired him.
A prescription for sex. Of all the fucked up…
