Page 62 of Rauf: Minotaur Mates

The first drone fired before it had fully cleared the ship. Korfas jerked his hand back and ducked, and I lunged behind the boulder at the stern. Blasts struck the stone hard enough to send chips down the back of my shirt. I pressed close to it, listening to the whine split as the drones spread out.

One went high. The other two came around opposite sides of the boulder.

I bent, snatched up a loose stone, and flung it at the drone rounding my left side. It lurched off course, firing into the mud. I went after it before it could turn back.

The casing was hot against my hands. I caught it with the barrel pointed away from me, swung, and hurled it into the second drone as that one cleared the boulder. The two machines hit with a satisfying crack and dropped into the shallows.

One tried to rise. I stamped it back into the mud.

Above me, the third drone turned. I saw its barrel dip toward my face and threw myself against the bank. It fired. Dirt sprayed over my head.

Korfas came down the slope behind it with a rock in both hands. He struck before it could climb out of reach, smashing it against the boulder. The casing broke open. He hit it again.

Only then did he let the rock fall.

I hauled myself onto dry ground, shaking filthy water from my hands. The front of Korfas’s shirt was scorched. I suspected mine wasn’t much better. Neither of us seemed to be bleeding, which was more than we’d usually managed after working together.

“Do you think maybe we should go get some backup before we try and head inside? With this many defensive features, there’s no telling what’s going to go on once we breach the hull.”

Korfas glanced at the ruined drones, then back at me. “Where’s the fun in that?”

An engine whined on the road above us.

A buggy swept around the bend, throwing dust over the brush. It came down the short slope toward the ship far too fast, its underside scraping a stone with a shriek of metal before it stopped. The dust caught up with it and washed across the bank.

I knew that buggy. And I knew the human sitting behind its wheel.

Jason had a blaster pointed at us.

Julia sat beside him, clutching the edge of the seat. For a moment I couldn’t understand what I was seeing. She was supposed to be at the house. With Teresa.

I started forward. Jason raised the weapon a little higher, and I stopped.

“Stay there,” he snapped.

Korfas shifted beside me.

Jason climbed out, keeping the buggy between us while he favored one leg. Julia got out on the other side and followed him around the front. He backed toward the ship with her beside him, the muzzle moving between Korfas and me.

“Jason, stop, please!” Julia yelled, and there was something almost familiar in the way she was talking to him. “Don’t hurt anyone. This has gotten out of hand.”

“Just get in the ship, Julia.” The blaster never wavered, and Jason didn’t face her when he spoke. Then he addressed us. “My ship is repairing itself. Let us board and we’ll be out of your hair in no time.”

Korfas took a half step forward. “I can’t let you kidnap one of my women.”

Jason’s eyes widened. “What kind of sick game are you playing? Your women? That’s disgusting.”

“Jason, please.” Julia was still pleading.

Not like a stranger at all.

“Do you know him?” I asked. Korfas glared at me for speaking. So what? Remmen might have left him in charge, but I hadn’t voted for that.

“She’s my sister,” Jason said.

And Julia looked so forlorn at the declaration that it had to be true.

I looked at the fading bruise on Julia’s cheek. She wouldn’t look at me.