Combat!

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eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work. This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. Samhain Publishing, Ltd. 512 Forest Lake Drive Warner Robins, Georgia 31093 Combat! Copyright © 2007 by K. S. Augustin Cover by Anne Cain ISBN: 1-59998-714-7 www.samhainpublishing.com All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: December 2007

Combat! K.S. Augustin

Dedication

To all fellow lovers of those old two-penny novels and black-and-white films. May they live on forever.

Combat!

Chapter One The sound I heard was a bone snapping. Thankfully, it wasn’t one of mine. I knew I shouldn’t have thought of following through with further destruction and, at any other place in any other time, that elbow snap would have been enough for me. But I hadn’t fought dozens of opponents in elimination round after elimination round, only to underestimate my enemy at this point. So, I carried through with my strike, whipping my enemy’s useless arm out of the way and hitting her—hard!—in the cheek with a backfist. Another crunch, then she was down, her head bouncing once on the hard sandy floor. She would have a headache the size of a small sun when she woke up but at least she was still alive. It was a luxury but I couldn’t help stopping to take a look around while I drew some much-needed breath. There were originally eight of us in the arena. And now we were down to three…another flurry of dust…make that two. I didn’t have any specific plans when the fighting began—just battle my way through whoever came at me and be one of the two qualifying contenders left standing—so it was very convenient when our group spontaneously broke into two groups. Although, as I steadied my breathing and looked around, it seemed that one independent pair had managed to knock themselves out completely. I had skirmished with three of the usual suspects, a hulking male from a low-gravity planet, an unnaturally flexible asteroid belt inhabitant and a slim pale female humanoid. The rules stated that all contestants had to belong to the same basic class. This meant that my competition was bipedal. But I heard things would change if I managed to qualify. A deep bell-like tone carried through the air just after someone else hit the ground and I knew that I and one other person had survived to the next round. Now that we were standing still, I had the chance to size up my future opponent. Oh, he was delicious. If there’d been men like him in Vahsoon-ya Province where I came from, I wouldn’t have left Vahsoon City, much less the planet. His fists still www.samhainpublishing.com

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clenched the rags of his tunic, expertly twirled around his hands to fend off any attacks, leaving his chest bare. And what a chest! He didn’t have the overgrown musculature of the low-grav native I’d fought, but was perfectly in proportion. I knew without touching that those muscles would be hard and warm. The ripcord effect extended down his torso, down his arms. I let my gaze drift lower, hesitating briefly over the suggestive bulge in his skin-tight trousers and felt my groin kick in reaction. The musculature extended down his legs, too, which I knew would be as hard as the rest of him. To my surprise, his feet were bare, indicating a street-fighter rather than a professional. He was a moving art form, already beautiful with his brown skin, made dramatic by the shock of white hair on his head, cut just short enough to avoid getting into his eyes but long enough to reward any inquisitive fingers wanting to run themselves through its silky length. I shook my head. No, I had to focus. It may have been a long time since my last sexual encounter but I had more than myself to worry about. The future of Vahsoon-ya Province depended on me. We turned to face the platform at one end of the arena and walked towards it. This whole place was a monument to overweening ego, and we were approaching that ego now. My clothes, wet with sweaty exertion, stuck to my body as I walked. Sundi’s World. Just two days after landing on it, I already hated it. The air was humid and still, not offering one iota of cooling comfort to my dark, overheated body. And the sun was hot and high in the sky. I’d read that most of the planet’s continents were ancient and lowlying, the result of millennia of rainfall erosion. All that rainfall and soil meant swamps, and lots of them. Cold ones, warm ones, hot ones; Sundi’s World was paradise to scientists who specialised in swamp-morphology. And one of the contestant-helpers had told me yesterday that, beyond the dry of the camp where we currently lived and fought, waves of sticky mud rippled apathetically against a gentle worn-down slope. If it wasn’t for my birth-province, I would have left the planet without a backward glance…but the smiling official on the chair above us—Prefect Dinoh of Sundi’s

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Combat!

World—beaming at us as if distributing largesse upon grateful subjects, had too much power in his soft, slender hands. And I had none. “Such energy, such valour,” he declared and looked around. There were perhaps five or six thousand people seated in the covered pavilions that ringed the arena, but I knew from the fly-cams whizzing around us that he was playing to a larger audience—people on the rest of the planet, maybe even off-planet. “This is the sixth annual series of tournaments and I’m happy to see that the quality of our contestants has not lessened. You two have fought bravely to qualify for the second round. And I’m sure you would have heard rumours about what’s to occur. Let me lay such rumours to rest and tell you directly what you want to know.” I didn’t understand why Dinoh was so surprised by us. The Rewards Series of tournaments on Sundi’s World was one of the most famous underground events of the sector. Hundreds, if not thousands, had already been eliminated on their way to this dusty piece of ground beneath an unforgiving sun. Some fought for themselves, but most fought for their community. As did I. And he wasn’t wrong about the rumours—they circled whispered updates of the Series like vultures around carrion. I didn’t know what they said in the insectoid, aquatic and drone series but in the humanoid series, there were rampant fables of group orgies and sex. I tended to discount such innuendo but, eyeing the smarmy smile on Dinoh’s face, I wondered if I was surrendering to an unjustified prudishness. “Up till now, you have fought bravely and with skill. But now, things will start to get more interesting.” Loud clapping broke out from the audience. “Tomorrow we begin Round Two of the humanoid series.” Finally, this was what I’d gone back into training for. Beside me, I could feel rather than see the male tense. “You will be presented with four levels, each level containing a different species opponent.” A roar from the crowd indicated they’d been waiting for this moment all day.


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I would have exhibited my contempt for them but the truth was, I’d asked to be here and so had nobody to blame but myself. “You will need to defeat the opponent on each level to reach the next. And, if both of you survive the four levels, you will need to battle each other for the supreme prize. But that is not enough.” He paused. “As you know, the Rewards Series offers significant sums of money to its winners.” He was a sleazy piece of work but he was right. The “‘Rewards Series”, as Dinoh had termed it, was not only famous but also one of the most lucrative of the underground martial arts tournaments. If I won, I could buy Vahsoon-ya Province another year of life. If I lost… I tried hard not to think about that part. “So, if you both manage to defeat your opponents from each level, you will pleasure each other that night.” What?! I thought I’d been paying attention to what the little rich upstart was saying but his last sentence came straight out of a wormhole. What?! The crowd was going wild around me, stamping their feet and hooting their approval. My opponent and I looked at each other for the first time and I knew we were thinking the exact same thing—had we just walked into some kind of surreal parallel universe? “And if one of you is defeated, then I’m sure I’ll think of something else. Refusal,” Dinoh hissed in a soft voice that carried to every corner of the arena, “is not an option.” Two contestant-helpers appeared at that point, leading my unresisting form away. Thankfully there was a small door just below where Dinoh was seated. I didn’t think I could have stood the leers of the crowd if I’d been led along the length of the arena again, as I had this morning. Now, I was just exhausted, and undisciplined enough to climb the stands and strangle one of the paying customers to death…just on principle. We disappeared into the cool blessed darkness of the underground chambers, although I lost sight of my male opponent as we were guided in different directions.

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Sex? With someone I was destined to defeat at the final level? Not that the thought itself was repulsive. My opponent was strong, skilled…and decorative enough. But I never liked the idea of being forced into something, even if it was ultimately a pleasurable activity, especially with someone I would eventually have to beat in the final round. I thought I knew where I was being led, back to the habitat quarters, but I was wrong. When I emerged once more into the sunlight, we were far north of the arena and heading towards a stepped pyramid surrounded by verdant greenery that assaulted my nose with its uncontrolled fecundity. I counted six levels on the pyramid. Six obvious levels, each one only slightly smaller than the one below it. I wasn’t surprised when the helper gestured to me to enter the first one. And was only resigned when I heard a door slide smoothly shut behind me. So this was it. Welcome to Round Two of the Series. And may the best fighter win. I walked the dark corridor until I came to a door. It slid open at my approach. The quarters were expansive and lush. I’d stayed at palaces with fewer flounces. And it didn’t take a genius to figure that Dinoh the Prefect had ordered the specifications according to his own tastes, as distasteful as they might be. Dominating the room was the bed, huge and octagonal, fully covered in a patchwork quilt of exotic furs. The theme continued to the rugs below my feet and the hangings on the wall. Only one long featureless wall was bare right next to the bed. On the other side of the room was a large bathroom, elaborately tiled but—as I looked around both rooms—no tables or chairs. Did Dinoh really design these quarters to hold just a bed with adjoining bathroom and not even a footstool in sight? I still had my boots on and so I couldn’t feel the soft fur beneath my feet, but was sure my barefoot opponent would enjoy it. Looking up at the ceiling a little more closely, I frowned and stretched one hand as high as I could reach. I’m not an exceptionally tall person but the roof was only a fingernail’s length out of reach. Together with the furs, the low ceiling contributed to the atmosphere of a cave. As did the silence. It’s not true that silence is the absence of sound.


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To me, silence has its own sound, the muted quiet telling its own tale as much as any small noises. And right now the silence was telling me that my quarters were very well insulated and near vacant. But I wasn’t fool enough to believe that vacancy meant nobody was watching. In the arena, I’d become used to the screeches and whizzes of the fly-cams as they circled about, trying to find the juiciest action from multiple angles and feeding it to the central mixer to create holographic images that could be beamed across the sector. Just because I didn’t hear those screeches and whizzes here didn’t mean nobody was watching. So, after circling the quarters twice, unable to relax, unable to even sit on the edge of the bed, I fidgeted with my dusty clothing and was about to take a much-needed shower when the wall moved. The bare one, of course, and if I wasn’t feeling so jumpy I would have thought of it earlier. The wall was bare precisely because it slid away. I watched the block of material slither to one side and confronted…him. My opponent. My masculine, decorative-as-hell opponent. Without the distractions of the sun, crowds and assorted bipeds trying to knock the consciousness out of me, he looked even more delicious than I’d given him credit for. He wasn’t especially tall, maybe half a head taller than me. He must be good—after all, he had probably fought through just as many opponents as I had—but he was too tall to be an excellent fighter. It always amused me that people were intimidated more by the giants than any short wiry guys. Giants were usually slow with little awareness of their surroundings and the short guys were quick and explosive, but people continued to pick the wrong villain. Not that he was wiry. Tall enough, good build, broad shoulders but not overmuscled. It was the shock of white hair on his head that drew attention, dramatically contrasting with the deep bronze of his skin. His eyes were a mix of amber and green, changeable and beguiling. I knew I’d have to watch out for them. Yet another weapon in his armoury.

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Combat!

We stood that way, mirroring each other across the divide where the wall once stood, before he moved. I must have twitched, because he put up a placating hand. Behind him I saw a small kitchen, a table and a variety of chairs. So Dinoh hadn’t been an idiot after all—the design was all part of his master plan of violence and sex. I’d have to remember not to underestimate the sleazy dictator again. “We’re obviously meant to get to know each other,” he said, taking in the bed behind me, and his smooth voice held a thread of dry humour. I felt the edge of my lips quirk in response. Humour was always one of my vulnerabilities. Still, I tried to maintain my indignation. “Dinoh can hurl himself into the nearest abyss if he thinks I’m going to perform for his pleasure.” “It’s not just him though, is it? I’m sure he has thousands of willing voyeurs strewn across the galaxy, all paying for the pleasure of seeing us screw each other. Several ways.” Handsome was right. I was just wriggling on the hook of inevitability. The fact was, I’d read through the so-called fighter’s contract before signing on for the Series and, effectively, everything I said, did or excreted (yes, it really did get that specific) ceased belonging to me once I put my mark on the entrance form. I’m sure the only reason Dinoh didn’t include thoughts in the contract was because he didn’t have a dependable enough army of telepaths. Yet. “You could be right.” The words were light but my stance stayed defensive. “So it could be that this is the only night we have some privacy before the second round of the tournament begins.” “Why do you say that?” I frowned. “Do you know something I don’t?” Yes, of course it was my fault that I hadn’t followed the previous series more closely. I was only interested in the tournament results—who won, what style, in which environment. I didn’t believe in living vicariously and crowding the underground clubs, watching black-market vids of last season’s maimings and deaths. Besides, I’d had my own battles to win across the known galaxy.


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Yes, I’d fought long and hard to stay away from my home world but, after seventeen years, the call had been too great. And so here I was. Again. Against the odds. Again. Except, this time, I couldn’t just get up and walk away. This time, my home world had lured me with images of broken people, starving children, and I didn’t have the heart to turn them down. Heart. One day, despite my reputation, it was going to get me killed. “It doesn’t make sense otherwise.” It was a skill how Handsome put all his persuasion into his voice, keeping his body as low-key and non-offensive as possible. Slowly, I felt myself relaxing. “We’ve finished the first round so Dinoh is going to milk it for all he can get and dangle the excitement of the second round in front of his loyal fans. And,” he added with a grin, showing teeth as blinding as his hair, “his fans wouldn’t want it any other way. They’ll probably drink or inhale themselves into a stupor, reliving past fights before the next stage begins. It’s a breather for them…and a breather for us.” Smart and handsome. Somehow that made him more scary rather than less. “So what do you suggest we do for the rest of the evening?” I asked. “Stay in and grab a vid?” “Perhaps we could get to know each other.” He gestured to my half of the expansive, yet still claustrophobic, quarters. “I see you have half the amenities. I’ve got the chairs. Care to sit?” It may have been my upbringing but I hesitated. My parents, now dead but—I was sure—still disappointed with me, brought me up to respect other people’s property. Right now that meant not trailing my dust and sweat over someone else’s upholstery. Until I remembered that this entire complex belonged to Dinoh. I threw myself into a soft, lowslung chair with enthusiasm. “So what’s your name?” I asked as I watched him fill two tumblers with chilled water at the kitchen sink. He brought them back and I accepted one, downing the contents in a handful of gulps.

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He set his own glass on the table and spun an upright timber chair around, straddling it with those muscular thighs of his. I tried very hard to keep my thoughts above waistlevel. “Aldanen. What about you?” Privacy was an outmoded concept when each move I made was plastered across every illegal gambling venue in the sector but, still, a girl had to have her principles. “Call me Vahsoon-ya.” He frowned. “Vahsoon-ya? That sounds familiar. Isn’t it a planet or something? In the seventeenth decime?” “Something like that. What about you? Where are you from?” “Third decime. You probably haven’t heard of it. Onn Tertiary IV.” He was right. I hadn’t heard of it. “What do they do on Onn Tertiary IV?” “It’s mostly an agricultural planet. Farmers, cultivators. We’re the grain bowl of the Greater Onn System.” “But you didn’t want to farm?” He grinned again and I had to think of unpleasant topics to stop my mind from falling under his spell. “I wanted excitement.” “And have you found it?” He sobered but the hint of a smile still lingered on those sensuous lips. “I think so. What about you? What do they do on…Vahsoon-ya?” “Die of starvation mostly.” My estimation of his character rose when he didn’t gush meaningless platitudes. He just nodded. “That’s why you entered the Series?” “That…and it’s always good to benchmark yourself. Any good cause behind your entry?” “No. Just me. And a juicy retirement if I win.” In my game, I came across a variety of people who fought for a variety of reasons. Here, in the Rewards Series, Dinoh had kept things as quiet as he could in a noisy galaxy by opening entry mostly to the desperadoes. When someone is dangling at the edge of a


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precipice, they’re not about to complain if the helping hand they’re offered happens to be slippery. And that’s just what Dinoh’s little competition was—as slippery as they came. No guarantees, no appeals, just a few consolation prizes along the way that were big enough to keep communities coming back for more the next time, and for the winner, as Aldanen pointed out, more than enough to fund either a community for a year or a retirement beyond imagining. I was in it for the children. He was in it for the money. But it could easily have gone the other way and I was in no position to judge another being. There was a small silence before he indicated the bed with a jerk of his head. “I see the sleeping arrangements have been pre-arranged.” “We can take a bet on who gets it for the night.” My suggestion made it clear that sharing the space was out of the question. I already knew he was going to invade my dreams but I drew the line at him invading anything else. Dinoh wasn’t going to find me a willing partner in his perverse side-entertainments. His eyes crinkled and I concentrated on the empty tumbler in my hand. Then the rug beneath my feet. Then the scuff marks on my boots. Anything, in fact, except his face. “I’ll move a couple of chairs together. I’ve slept on worse.” “Thanks.” I bent down to massage my calf, pretending it was to rub away a nagging ache. At least it stopped me looking into his eyes. “We’ll have to agree on use of the bathroom as well,” he continued. “How about I use it first then return to my side of the quarters?” “All right.” I couldn’t avoid his smile as he rose, my eyes following him as he took his glass to the kitchenette sink. “They left us some prepared food.” He indicated a tray next to the sink. “I’m not hungry.” “Then I suggest we get as much rest as we can.” I nodded and only breathed a sigh of relief when I heard him disappear into the bathroom.

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Usually I was more scintillating company. But this situation was far from usual. I’ll admit I wasn’t forced at blaster-point to enter the tournament but the dull and pained gaze of children’s eyes are often more dangerous than mere energy weapons. So, even though I wasn’t coerced, nobody could say I was here through one hundred percent free will either. As for men, well, Aldanen was handsome enough. And appeared relaxed in my company. Which was a plus. I tended to intimidate men so they either avoided me or tried to prove how much more macho they were. But once they knew my name, even those hormone-driven idiots tended to drop off. Except, even my name wasn’t my name. Back in the early days, when I was young and full of fire, eager to knock the impoverished and conservative dust of my home from my heels, I came up with what I now regard as a ludicrous show-name—Ebony Strike. To my youthful mind, it was a multi-layered pun, indicating the colour of my skin, the image of darkness, my slim build and perceived fighting prowess. Later, I cringed whenever I heard it. It reminded me of every gauche implausible fantasy I’d held about the rest of the galaxy. But by then it was too late. I was too well-known, the name stuck and the fans seemed to love it. Now, it’s like an old favourite jacket—battered and perhaps not one to wear to every social occasion, but comfortable enough. And, from time to time, it even gets me into those exclusive restaurants and venues I used to eye enviously when I was younger. I came back to the present when the sound of running water stopped and, minutes later, Aldanen strolled past, smelling tantalising and inviting. With a grunt, I levered myself off the chair and, with one tight smile in his general direction, headed to the bathroom myself. Nothing—not sonics, not sand, not scraping after a steaming—gets a person as clean as water. Sweet water, not salty. It clears the body and brain. Which was why it occurred to me, while I soaped myself, that Aldanen must be ex-military. Only the military put such emphasis on sleep, as though every impending situation is a combat one. If I was


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holed up with a fellow martial artist, I would have ended up talking the night away, reliving past wins and injustices and arguing finer points of technique. But Aldanen, like a military man, wanted sleep. Which gave me one insight into his character—he fought dirty. All military personnel do, it’s one of the enduring truisms of the universe. Still deep in thought, I dried myself and dressed in one of the utilitarian one-piece outfits I found neatly folded near the bathroom door. I was sure the fabric was impregnated with nano-sensors, all the better to gather information on exactly what I was feeling and doing during the next few days of fighting. Military opponents were tough but not invulnerable. When I emerged again in the quarters, the lights on the kitchen side were off and I could see a lump inhabiting two pulled-together chairs. Silently, I shut off the one side-light next to the bed and slipped underneath the covers. In the absence of any insight into what I would face in the morning, I went over my fights with ex-soldiers, trying to pin down commonalities between them. Images of white hair and amber-green eyes intruded but I fell asleep before I could give in to them.

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Chapter Two The action didn’t start till late morning, which meant I had time for a good breakfast. Both Aldanen and I were too highly strung to make more than polite conversation, which was understandable under the circumstances. According to stories from past Series, in the second round I could face anything from an insectoid to a drone to mutated snakes. Idly, I wondered what the atmosphere was like outside our hermetic pyramid. The two doorways at either ends of our quarters opened simultaneously—a silent invitation. “Two doors. Two separate opponents?” “Looks like it,” I agreed. He hesitated then flashed me a quick grin. “Well, good luck.” “Thanks.” I walked to the doorway and looked up and down the corridor. To the left was the way out, now a blank wall. To the right, a set of narrow steps led upward. I had only just stepped into the corridor when the door behind me also slid shut. As I walked, I checked what I was wearing. The one-piece outfit was close-fitting, which suited me fine, and I subtly scuffed the toe of my boot along the floor. It bit in, indicating good grip. The first flight did a u-turn on a narrow landing and continued upward, till I reached another doorway. This was level two of the six-level pyramid. I stepped through. It was a male. And he was Qolari, his arctic white skin gleaming in the bright recessed lighting. His tall mohawk of hair banded brown and yellow, the mane disappearing into the back of his tunic. He didn’t look like much, a two-and-a-half-metre skinny straw with legs and arms, but the Qolari reputation for fighting was legendary. He easily had the reach of me, and if he was an ex-spy for the Qolari government or had access to rumoured black-market surgical chop-shops, then he could also be carrying death via his VAPs, or Value-Add Prosthetics. www.samhainpublishing.com

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I saw the flick of his hand before anything else and ducked just as something silver arced above me, most probably a blade on a monofilament line. VAPs it was then. Most fighters would have taken more notice of the weapon and straightened but, then again, most fighters were already out of the contest. I knew it would take a couple of seconds to retract and store that handy prosthetic of his so I used that time to move. While he was still half-concentrating on reeling in his line of death, I was on top of him, barreling into his waist and bringing him down to the floor where the odds were more even. Spinning on the ground, I got his right arm in a hold and, with the heel of my boot, stamp-kicked him in the jaw. On anyone else, and at that angle, that would have snapped the neck. But I was betting my Qolari opponent had reinforced his entire spine. I was right. But, even obviously dazed, he moved quicker than I expected. While I was still cocking my leg for another kick, he grabbed my foot and twisted. When I say twisted, it doesn’t begin to describe what happened. In order to minimise the pain shooting up my leg, I had to follow the movement. Except I still had his other arm in a hold. It took only a split-second for me to release the hold and throw myself into the twist but that was a split-second of absolute agony, combined with the genuine fear that I was about to get my ankle broken. So I let go and—as I said—threw myself into the twist, landing hard on the floor. But the Qolari bastard still didn’t let go and, unless I did something about it, he was going to bounce me around the floor like a ball on a cord. He wouldn’t need to do any work, just keep twisting, and I would end up knocking myself out trying to avoid a major injury. It took some effort but I dragged my free leg up and, when he tried another twist, I kicked him again, this time in the underarm. That made him let go and I slithered out of the way as quickly as I could, staggering to my feet at the end of the room. Nothing was broken but my foot hurt. In a regular fight, I would have time to walk around a bit, encouraging blood circulation through my injured leg but this was a long way away from being a regular fight.

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The Qolari saw me limping in the corner and actually smiled as he approached me. I could see why he would feel encouraged—he had an opponent in pain and backed into a corner. With his superior height and reach, I’m sure he thought he could merely extend his arms and pummel me into submission. Besides, I knew that smile. It told me he wasn’t going to use any more of his VAP tricks because victory was well within his grasp. Or so he thought. The fool. This wasn’t the first time I’d battled a taller opponent. And, in such cases, I did what skilled smaller opponents had always tried on me…I went under. It was a brutal uppercut of a punch, and not the usual punch either. It was more like a spear, with just the top two knuckles of the hand bent over and tensed. Unlike a blunt strike, it required precision and proper technique and I was thinking and calculating as I stepped forward, ducked and drove up with my hand, right into a spot at the bottom of his ribcage. From all the anatomical texts I had read (reading is the first sign of an effective martial-artist), I knew this was a vulnerable Qolari point. Every species has a few vulnerabilities—areas of their body they can’t condition or pad out with muscle. And I was betting that even if my white-skinned opponent had been part of his government’s high-tech spy organisation, he didn’t warrant enough influence or currency to pay for an entire ribcage replacement. The breath whooshed out of him like a deflating balloon as he doubled up, which was a good first step. I followed up with a series of head strikes. He may have had a reinforced spine and perhaps even a partially-armoured skull but, inside those fortifications, his brain was slushy organics. And, with each strike, I was sending it careering from one side of his brainpan to another. In the vids I occasionally watched, at this point the hero would pitch the villain far over his shoulder onto the floor, stride over to the prone and groaning body and stomp on his head, but that was pure fantasy. With an opponent suffering so close, what would it serve me to then throw him halfway across the room? No, I liked to keep them well within reach.


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I worked him over like a traditional punch-bag, front and back, up and down. By this stage, he should have been a quivering mass on the ground but those damned prosthetics of his kept him upright and moving for far longer than I thought possible. Eventually, on his knees, I got a good grip on his jaw and twisted it, up and angled. The hands that were reaching for me stopped and fell limp. I stood back and he toppled to the floor. It would have been nice to say that I had emerged triumphant and untouched, but it wasn’t true. I still had that limp in my right leg—the bastard managed to badly sprain my ankle—and bruises over my body where some of his counter-strikes had scored. And my fighting fitness was suffering too. In the preliminary rounds, with the more familiar fighters, I was able to perform. But here, at the first level of the final five, I discovered that the burdens of my home world province’s expectations were affecting me more than I had anticipated. As feckless Ebony Strike, traversing the legitimate fighting circuits, I cultivated a discipline of cool aloofness and casual ruthlessness. Representing Vahsoon-ya, battling for the survival of thousands of innocents, my ruthlessness became less an affectation than a necessity, and the thought of people dying due to my mistakes, my inability to fight through to the end, added a jarring stiffness to my technique. I looked down at the unconscious body by my feet. The Qolari had been a tough opponent, beaten as much by my desperation as skill. And if he was only at the first level of this enclosed ziggurat, then that wasn’t good news, because desperation becomes its own disability and, with things set to get tougher, I needed to hone myself down to clarity and pure technique as soon as I could. I didn’t bend down to check the Qolari’s life signs. Maybe I should have, but I had enough to think about, and he was now in my past. I limped back to the chamber entrance and down the steps, wincing as I descended. Wondering when the next match was planned. And wondering what could be worse than a pumped-up VAP-laden alien.

Y

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I was the first back to my…our…the…quarters. If we had both been given the same type of opponent—if that’s the way Dinoh had planned things—then the fact that I was the first to finish told me that Aldanen was not as skilled as I initially thought. An interesting snippet to chew upon. Alone, I took the opportunity of easing off my boots and limping to the kitchenette in bare—and one bruised—feet. I went through the wide drawers on one side of the bench and discovered an entire cache of medical supplies. Analgesics, bandages, local anesthetics, they were all here. There were even sprain packs, labeled by species type, which was exactly what I needed. I hobbled back to one of the chairs, now back to resembling chairs rather than a makeshift bed, and dropped into one with a sigh. Then, bending down, I eased on one of the sprain pack sleeves and ripped off the small controller thread. The pack immediately went to work, expanding into a solid block while constricting and cooling my ankle and slathering the skin beneath with an advanced concoction of medication. I’d used these packs before—they were a standard part of my travel luggage—and gave thanks to whichever pharmacist or chemist had thought them up in the first place. But that meant that I also knew the consequences of wearing a sprain pack, which was two days off my feet. If Dinoh wanted to run the second round on a daily basis—one day, one opponent—then I knew I was already out of the running. It was bad enough imagining an opponent worse than a VAPed-up Qolari without also imagining myself limping around avoiding tricky, possibly lethal, manoeuvres. I didn’t have to put myself physically into the second fight to know I’d already lost it. Damn but that made me angry. Vahsoon-ya Province had used a lot of intelligence to find me. The person they knew as Ebony Strike had retired from the circuits years ago and was now making a nice living as a freelance instructor with a well-known personal security firm. I shed names as easily as a reptile sheds skin and now I was plain Xin Dell. I used part of the proceeds of my time as Ebony Strike to purchase the new identity—new name, new home-world, new past—but somehow the inhabitants of Chaltow III still managed to track me down.


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I wasn’t in a nice mood when I realised that somebody had done that. Especially when that somebody came from a backward planet that really was my home. I was teaching an advanced strike-negotiation team at the time. I didn’t really think it was a good idea to combine the roles of negotiator and strike force team leader but the government was paying me to teach people, not debate policy, so I kept my mouth shut and banked my fat regular pay. Ston accosted me at the end of the second week with a pitch and an accompanying vid presentation. In truth, he didn’t need either. He was a young man and should have been tall and strapping. But he was shorter than galactic expectations and I could easily tell there was taut dull skin over bones under the fabric of his tunic, unpadded by fat. There were shadows under his eyes and gauntness about his face that went beyond artistic androgyny into borderline malnutrition. And—damn them all to the inter-galactic abyss—he came from the same province I had. Vahsoon-ya. It was scraping by when I left and now the inhabitants looked back at those days with fond nostalgia. It was easy to say that the Chaltow government was corrupt. Or unlucky. And that Vahsoon-ya Province suffered as a result. But that meant little when children were starving and adults had lost hope. But Ston, as representative of the province, had a plan. If they—meaning, the province—could somehow get their hands on some money, they could buy themselves out of starvation for a year. Give the meagre fields a chance to revive and an extra season to grow food. They didn’t need much money, just—oh—what equated to First Prize of Prefect Dinoh’s underground Rewards Series for deranged martial artists. Was I interested? I told him I would think about it, meaning to take a month to ponder all the consequences of whatever decision I made. Instead, it only took a week. Ston was ecstatic, damn his soul. No, I didn’t want to go back to Vahsoon-ya to be lauded as the saviour of the province. No, I didn’t want any monetary, or any other, recompense. All I wanted was one year to train and. To. Be. Left. Alone. He was upset with the one year

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stipulation (didn’t I realise people were starving to death?) but eventually, reluctantly, gave ground and departed. I finished with the killer-negotiators and disappeared again. After putting all my affairs on autopilot, I booked passage to a high-grav planet with good ansible access. And I trained. I figured that most competitors, puffed up by their real or feigned prowess, would only train in their native environments and I needed an edge. So for one year, I trained in high gravity. For the first month, it was an effort just to get through my usual warm-up routine. Then, as I got used to the pervasive crushing pressure, I started adding weights to my arms and legs. I varied the routine too, interspersing long runs with two hundred push-ups, skipping with isometrics, and mixing and matching among the fighting arts of the galaxy. Over the ansible, I ordered as many of the fighting vids from previous Rewards Series as I could. With a smirk, the order-takers frequently asked if I also wanted any “extras”. Fool me; I thought that meant preliminary elimination rounds, interviews with groupies and other vacuous footage. I always said no, not wanting to waste time and money on such fripperies, and unaware that what they really meant was “with the sex footage”. By the end of the year, I was the best I ever was. Just for laughs, I entered the Series under my first stage-name, Ebony Strike, aware of the flutter of attention that would command. They would be expecting a flabby has-been. What they got was a black flash of oiled fury. But now, here in the second round, one opponent down and only a handful to go, I was staring into the chasm of defeat. And desperately trying to think of a way around it.

Y When Aldanen entered, I was sorry to see no equivalent injuries on him. Sure, he looked like he’d been dragged backwards through a fire-bush—there was an especially


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large tear in his suit that seemed to circumnavigate his waist—but, to my chagrin, he wasn’t limping and both arms looked entirely functional. He looked over at me and at the ankle I was resting on a nearby chair but said only, “I see you made it back before I did.” I nodded. By this time, the medication in the sprain-pack had been absorbed and I was comfortably numb from my right knee down. “I faced off a Qolari,” I told him. “What about you?” “Yes, me too.” Interesting. That confirmed my initial supposition. Aldanen was capable, but there were gaps in his training. Gaps I hoped I could exploit when the time came. He seemed to be looking for something. “Left-hand side,” I offered, “lower two drawers.” Taking my advice, he opened the drawers. The movement made him wince. Seeing that grimace should have made me happy—another equaliser. But it didn’t. He couldn’t see it but I almost winced with him. Then wondered at my reaction. With a sigh, he dug out some medication and bandages. “He sprained my ankle,” I said, stating the obvious. Aldanen unzipped his suit, stopping only when it reached the provocative shadow above his groin. Again, I felt something. Lust, yes, but something more than that. Something tender and unexpected. Care that he’d been hurt, curiosity about how many other fights he’d ever fought in and how badly he had been hurt in them. The thoughts were so unexpected I had to shake my head to get rid of them. “Something wrong?” he asked as he applied salve to a nasty deep-looking gash that traversed his rib-cage. “Headache. It’ll go away.” I watched as he rubbed the cream into his dark bronze skin. The long laceration was red and angry. “That looks nasty.” “Under normal circumstances, I’d be up for some sutures but somehow,” he looked at the nearest closed door, “I don’t think they’d let any medical personnel make house calls. I’ll just have to settle for the do-it-yourself variety. Can you help me?”

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It was an innocent query yet why did I feel so hesitant? Part of me believed that if I touched his flesh I would somehow combust. He looked at me with those amber-green eyes of his and I was caught on the hot spike of his gaze. This must be how an animal feels before it collides with a large thick sheet of metal, I thought. I wanted to move—away, flee the continent, flee the planet— and I wanted to stay—drown in his murky gold depths, stop talking, stop moving, stop breathing. Something fluttered in my stomach, something I hadn’t felt since I was a teenager with a crush on the handsome rebel that would never be fulfilled. “He got my back too,” Aldanen explained, probably wondering about my idiotic non-reaction. “I don’t think I can reach all the way around.” As smooth as his voice was, it broke the spell. I was about to attempt standing when he waved me back into the chair. “Stay there. I’ll come over to you.” He approached, tried to open a pack of temp-sutures and managed to rip the top of the pack, sending a shower of white bulbous strips onto my lap. It was exactly the right thing to happen at the right time. It brought the situation back to normality instead of remaining in the hyper-delineated fuzzy-sexual zone it had been in. There was something about this man that got under my skin and it wasn’t just his physical beauty. As a martial artist, I trained predominantly with males and was used to watching their strolling naked and half-naked forms with a feeling approaching boredom. But Aldanen…Aldanen felt different. His personality was a tangible thing, even considering we had barely exchanged a few handfuls of sentences since meeting the previous day. His aura played with my senses, capturing my mind and I was caught between not liking it…and liking it very, very much. He stripped off his one-piece and stood naked in front of me and I could smell the sweat of exertion on him. Usually it was an acrid scent, dusty and sharp. And usually it overwhelmed me until it was all I concentrated on. But Aldanen’s physiology must have been subtly different because the undertone was smoky rather than acrid. More blunt than sharp. More inviting than repelling.


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I tried not to think about his scent but that meant I had to concentrate on his body. He had taken several temp-sutures and turned his back on me, working on patching together the rip in his flesh on the front of his body. I ran my eyes up his back, still filmed with sweat, muscles surging under the chocolate of his skin, and down to the taut roundness of his buttocks, each cheek sleekly indenting before flaring into a muscular thigh. I knew there were probably hidden cameras watching our every move, zooming in on the disproportionate attention I was giving his physique, but I couldn’t help myself. It was years since my last meaningful relationship and I was being confronted by masculine poetry in motion. Tentatively, I reached out and touched his skin. It was cool beneath my heated fingers. I imagined them stroking, kneading, sliding… I cleared my throat. “I think I need some cream for this.” He handed me the narrow tube and I squirted some of its contents onto my fingertips before rubbing it gently over the gash and surrounding skin. Like the sprain-packs, the medicated cream was also something I always travelled with. “It’s a jagged cut,” I observed. “How did it happen?” “Bastard had a serrated flexi-blade stored up one wrist. He got me as I twisted away from him.” “Ah.” I smoothed the lotion, massaging it into his skin until it was absorbed. Then, with a precision born of long practice, I applied the temp-sutures. The last step, after another detour to the medication drawers, was a quick spray of synth-skin then he started relaxing. While we were gone, we must have had visitors to our quarters because the benchtop now contained a tray of covered items that weren’t there before. Aldanen walked over to it and picked up a flimsy. “According to our host, we face our next opponent tomorrow,” he said, after reading it. “But this time at night. To give us time to ‘gather our spirit’, he says.”

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Dinoh, thinking of our welfare? More likely it gave him another day of replaying choice cuts from our fights, hustling up more hype and, therefore, more gambling money. But, for whatever reason, the additional almost-day was good news for me. Maybe I could make it through the next level after all. “And food,” Aldanen added, peeking under some covers. “I’m not hungry. What about you?” I shook my head. “Not yet.” When he approached and took a seat facing me, I knew he wanted to talk. “Is your foot broken?” “Just sprained.” “So you should be okay for the next level?” “Should be.” I tried to sound confident. I felt he was trying to say something, convey something through his eyes, but I didn’t know what it was. He was looking at me with such intensity, but I couldn’t figure out why. Did he have some master plan for defeating all our opponents that he wanted to share with me? Inside information? “So what are your thoughts on the Rewards Series?” he asked. “What do you mean?” I caged. “Don’t you ever wonder how Dinoh gets away with it? Putting so much money up for prizes?” What was Aldanen after? I was expecting him to bring up a myriad of topics, but money wasn’t one of them. Did he want to figure out how Dinoh put it together so he could try the same model himself? I had my own personal thoughts on Dinoh’s enterprise, none of them flattering, and felt a stab of disappointment at the thought Aldanen might be trying to emulate him. “As Prefect for this decime, I guess he can get away with it,” I finally said. “Yeah, but how?” Looking at the thoughtful expression on his face, I didn’t think Aldanen’s question was directed to me. “It must be the gambling.”


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And I became irritated with his musings. More than irritated. Angry. Here he was, obviously trying to figure out how to scam people out of their earnings while people undeservedly starved and died throughout the galaxy. “Maybe if the Fusion wasn’t so corrupt the rest of us would stand a chance.” Unfortunately, there was more bite in my voice than I intended. He looked up sharply, leaving me no choice but to continue. “Prefect Dinoh has been running his underground tournament for years now. If the Fusion really wanted to, they could have shut him down a long time ago.” “There’s no harm in sponsoring a competition,” Aldanen said slowly. I snorted. “Dinoh’s seed money had to come from somewhere. You can’t sit there and tell me you believe he’s perfectly legitimate.” My eyes bored into Aldanen’s. “How many planets did he scam to make up the prizes for his first tournament Series? How many planets are still being cheated while he skims money into his private treasury?” Aldanen smiled, but there was a twist of puzzlement in it. “You really do care, don’t you?” Care? Me? “Care? Me?” I laughed. “I think you’re confusing me with some aid-counsellor.” But the looks he kept darting at me till dinnertime contained speculation…and warmth. And I really didn’t feel as uncomfortable about that as I should have.

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Chapter Three It started soon after we finished our dinner, which was an uncomfortable affair. Neither of us said anything, but I knew we were both thinking of Dinoh’s words in that hot humid arena. That if we survived the round, we would have sex. I wondered how the Prefect was going to engineer it. Sure, Aldanen was attractive. But attractive didn’t mean I was going to jump into bed with him the next instant. Was Dinoh going to force us at blaster-point? I pictured a line of grim-faced soldiers entering our quarters, pulling out their weapons in regimented synchronicity. Just for fun, I imagined the soldiers dressed in the garb of the Ancient Second Nedron Union, with split armoured pants that barely covered the thighs, embellished metal breastplates and bare midriffs. I giggled. Aldanen looked up sharply at me so I giggled again. Something tried to worm its way to the front of my brain. Something important. Something… “Are all the men on your planet built like you?” I asked. Aldanen’s eyes narrowed and a slow smile spread across his face. “Some.” He slid closer, positioning one of the chairs next to mine and sitting on its edge. “Why? Do you like what you see?” I ran the back of my hand up his arm, lightly stroking him through the material of his tunic, watching as the cloth bunched and rippled beneath my touch. “You know I do.” I wanted him. I couldn’t believe the intensity of my want—a fire, a yearning, that began in my groin and moved to my breasts. I wanted the erotic abandonment that came with me spreading my legs and feeling a man move between them. I wanted to feel the heaviness of his hips against mine, the constraint of another being against me while I clawed and panted my way to the summit of an orgasm. www.samhainpublishing.com

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“I want—” You. He moved quickly, pushing me back in my chair, his lips on mine. Cutting off words, cutting off thought. He had cleaned himself up before dinner but I could still smell a hint of smokiness on his skin and breathed it into me as I opened my mouth. I lifted my hands, cupping his face, and felt the roughness of emerging stubble against my fingertips. After the exertions of the day, I should have been tired but I wasn’t. I stabbed my tongue into his mouth, meeting his, playing, asking, demanding. I felt his groan rather than heard it, the vibration rising from his throat and into my mouth. His hands on me tightened. Then weightlessness as he rose, lifting me in his arms and carrying me to the bed. His breathing was as ragged as mine. I knew I should have been thinking of other things—future fights, my ankle, the consequences of what we were about to do—but it was all too difficult and, at that moment, all I was interested in were things that were very, very easy. Aldanen still had enough presence of mind to lower me gently to the fur covers, more than I would have had under similar circumstances, then he stripped, quickly and efficiently, and stood before me. Where before I had only sneaked quick glances at him, now I openly had my fill. Where before I had held myself in control, now I could do what I wanted and the sense of liberation increased my desire for this man. My eyes moved down to the apex of his thighs and the nest of silver-white curls that rested there, cradling a tumescent shaft of flesh that quivered and grew in front of me. “Do you still like what you see?” he teased. “Oh yes,” I breathed. And with my gaze still on him, I began undressing myself. Aldanen twitched, holding himself back, as he let me take off my clothes for him, only stepping forward to help when I tried to get the leg of my trousers over the sprain pack. I was proud of my body. Proud of its suppleness and cords of lean muscle. I had long, strong legs that I enjoyed using in ground-grappling…and around the waist of a favoured lover. My breasts, while not large, were still prominent—smooth skin

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surrounding proud black nipples. Sensitive weapons in the wars that often erupted between my pleasure and my thoughts. Except that this time there was no conflict, no concept, no idea, no rumination. Just two bodies, both aroused, both seeking pleasure. My sprained ankle should have been enough to dissuade me from having Aldanen plunge into me. Not the pain but just the inconvenience would normally have been sufficient. And somewhere in the back of my mind, like a small rodent scratching at a thick wooden door, I knew that, in the past, it had always been that way. But not tonight. Tonight, I wasn’t Ebony Strike, feared fighter. I wasn’t Vahsoon-ya, fighting for a starving province. Tonight, I was just a female animal, her normal anxieties banished, giving herself up to the moment. Aldanen pulled the last vestige of clothing from me and pushed my legs apart, coaxing my knees to bend so I was open to his gaze. Then, without a word, he bent his head and licked me. My body bucked at the contact as his tongue laved me in one broad stroke. It was a shallow movement with no inward thrusts, yet the slightest passing contact with my swollen clitoris was enough to make me cry out. I clutched at the fur with tense hands, willing him to explore further, to insert his tongue, his fingers, his manhood, into me while I accepted the waves of insistent gratification that his invasions provoked. As if reading my mind, he repeated the gesture but this time pulled the lips of my labia apart and dined on me. His elbows were spread, keeping my legs open, so I couldn’t close them if I wanted to. But I didn’t want to. If anything, I wanted to thrust myself farther into his mouth but was thwarted by the distant throb of my ankle. I was wet with desire, could feel myself dripping juices that he lapped up with eagerness, each lick sending a small convulsion through me. With my eyes closed, only the movements of his body as it touched mine registered. I couldn’t help the moaning that ripped from my throat, sending my head twisting from side to side. Even a fight to the death could not match the exquisite torture this man was visiting on me. I could feel the wetness of his tongue as it matched mine, the hot firmness of his arms as they exposed me, his capable fingers keeping me open and the breath of his mouth against my sex.


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Then one hand moved and a finger entered me, gliding on my slippery wetness, and my moans turned into a cry. He lifted his tongue from me at the same time that he eased his finger out then plunged into me again. When he did it for the third time, a second finger joined the first. Then a third. And still I couldn’t get enough. I could feel him inside me, stretching me, sending a heavy throb up to my breasts where, I knew without looking, my nipples had long contracted to hard pebbled nubs. They ached for his touch but I didn’t want him to leave my groin and the pulsing need there that still demanded satisfaction. Once more, I tried thrusting my hips upward, offering myself, jerking with each new sheathing of his fingers, and he finally obliged, forming his tongue to a point and flicking at the moist trembling hardness of my sex organ. I could feel the pressure start to build, like a coil slowly being wound tighter and tighter. Higher and higher. His fingers continued their insistent rhythm, their width pushing against me—within me—forcing me to meet his thrusts with my own, each getting faster and more frantic until I exploded against him, yelling into the roof. Still he continued, licking me, flicking at me, until I was consumed by continuous waves of mindless pleasure, squeezing his fingers with my muscles, letting the surges smash me into wall after wall of bliss. He moved again and this time it was he who invaded me—his shaft, his penis. I could feel myself stretch even farther, taking him in, a steel rod clad in thick velvet. Masculine relentlessness that penetrated even farther until I was fully impaled. It even hurt a bit, it had been that long since I’d been intimate with another being. But the momentary sharpness was subsumed by a throbbing and then a hungry ache. I opened my eyes and he was above me. I grabbed his shoulders, tightening my grip until I could feel the hardness of bone beneath my palms, providing resistance to his onslaught. His eyes glittered then darkened and his breath caught for an instant before he emptied himself into me, caught in a series of spasms that tensed his muscles and made him cry out. I relaxed and we looked at each other, both of us still breathing heavily. Then, with a bashful twist of his lips, he slipped sideways next to me and we fell asleep.

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Y And I dreamt. I dreamt of Dolen, whom I hadn’t dreamt about in decades. We met during a residential workshop that Vahsoon-ya Province funded, one of the last before the Great Disaster of 2345 that blighted the entire planet and the continued future of its inhabitants. I was young and away from home, more a physical girl than a great thinker, not a virgin but certainly not what anyone would call experienced. In my other life—my real life with my parents and their friends and my friends in a small urban community—my trysts with boyfriends were hurried affairs, dodging exposure and catching what little pleasure we could in cramped dark rooms or against a rough wall somewhere. In contrast, the workshop, ostensibly an employment and activities fair, was open and liberating, despite the numerous patrolling chaperones. I rented a small apartment, had my own money…and an angry misfit called Dolen. I hadn’t liked him at first. I saw him as an angst-filled malcontent, happy only when he’d reduced someone to a seething mass of rage. But there was a spark in his dark eyes that was absent from my fellow workshop participants. I dreamt of our first night together. We had come back to my apartment after a walk in the nearby gardens. I remember feeling drunk with the realisation that, for the first time, I could take my time with the sexual act. I uncovered Dolen piece by piece, like a seductively-wrapped present, opening his shirt to expose his abdomen, then his chest, then assiduously working my way downward. Unlike many of the men I would later meet, he was not intimidated by my initiative and I admired him for that. I turned him over, lifted his shirt and licked his spine, the tip of my tongue caressing that point where his back dipped before surging outwards towards his buttocks. We made love while still partially-dressed. I mounted and rode him hard, till he shouted out in pleasure and our bodies were covered with my perspiration.


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The second time that same night was in the convex window at floor level that projected out of the building’s wall. I left it transparent to the darkness while we had sex. Dolen used tongue and fingers, mouth, body and nose and smeared himself with my scent as though in a tribal ritual until I begged him for release, panting and moaning halfbrokenly with frustrated pleasure.

Y I blinked, thinking for one confused moment that I was back in the workshop and that dawn was breaking as it had that first morning. As with Dolen, there was a weight across my midriff but it was large and heavy, a contrast to Dolen’s slim, wiry frame. And the roof above my head was curved rather than straight. There was no dawn, only soft illumination from a down-light in the kitchenette. Of course it wasn’t real. But, for that one moment, how I wish it had been. I slipped out of bed, carefully moving the arm that lay across my body, and limped to the kitchen counter. While swallowing some more painkillers, my memory returned me to a place I didn’t want to go. It was at that workshop that the genesis of Ebony Strike and my desire to explore more prosperous worlds was planted. After another year of careful planning and parental obstruction, I was ready to leave the planet of my birth. I had kept in sporadic contact with Dolen but, for this, I made the effort to see him in person. Back in that small apartment during the fair, he had told me he was eager to get off-planet and I thought my plan was perfect for us. But, despite my exhortations, he turned me down. Maybe, he said, he was just a coward at heart. It took another three years off-planet before I steeled myself to return home for a visit. I had prepared myself for my parents’ disapproval but was really looking forward to seeing Dolen again. I remember thinking that my plans were much more solid this time with Ebony Strike about to break into the big league. But this was 2346, the year after the Great Disaster, and all I found was a simple grave with his name on the identifying plaque.

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Even now, decades later, it hurt. Because, despite his prickly nature and sarcastic mien, I had loved him. I walked back to bed then paused as I saw the bronze god sleeping on his stomach before me. Why, when I hadn’t even spared a thought for young Dolen for more than twenty years did I dream of him now? He didn’t even resemble Aldanen, not in voice or build. Aldanen was quick and humourous, Dolen was angry and intense. Dolen wanted to change the galaxy, whereas Aldanen seemed content to go along with it. Which led to recollection and another revelation. Of course, to eventually get his way, to ensure the satisfaction of his paying customers, Dinoh put aphrodisiacs in the food. And Aldanen and I ended up performing like well-trained animals. I should have been angry at the way we were manipulated. Even now, there were probably high-def vids of us beaming their way to distant sectors. But despite the deception and the invasion of privacy, the illegal use of substances, and the inevitable sense of shame, the drugs had freed me in a way I hadn’t felt for decades and my fury dissipated with that private realisation. I hadn’t experienced such unfettered pleasure for years. If truth be known…not since Dolen.

Y The drugs had well and truly worn off by the time we rose later that morning. I was the first awake, content to just lie there. After I’d gone back to bed, our sleeping positions had changed again and a giant arm once more trapped me. This time I was sure I would wake him if I moved again so I stayed still, content to let my mind wander and reluctant to face someone I’d been so intimate with under circumstances I did not control. He woke slowly, as if savouring the sensation, and I could feel different limbs tense then relax against mine. When he lifted his head, his eyes still held a hint of slumber and relaxation. He smiled at me and it floored me more than any opponent I’d previously


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faced. His face was open and welcoming, the smile contained a hint of mischief, and my breath caught at the thought of waking up to such a sight every morning. I stiffened when I felt something against my leg. A hard-soft nudge. But the drugs had worn off by now! Did this mean he felt some desire for me? The temptation to run my hand down his body to that organ that called to me was immense…but I had a corrupt prefect and his all-seeing eyes and a home-province to think about. “We have to, ah, get up,” I stammered and slid out of bed. He didn’t stop me. Of course I was naked. And my ankle had started hurting again. I tried to get into my clothes gracefully but didn’t. Then wondered why I had tried. The meal from last night had disappeared to be replaced by another tray and it bothered me that someone had walked in—walked right past my sleeping form—to indulge in some light housekeeping. But there was something there besides just food… I frowned and walked over to the counter, picking up a hypo and a small cartridge. There must have been some stillness to my posture because the next thing I heard was Aldanen’s voice behind me. “What is it?” I turned and showed him the cartridge. “Tri-acetocollagen booster. Very expensive.” He didn’t do what I expected him to do, which was to raise an eyebrow or express some kind of surprise. Instead, he cast a quick look at the ceiling. “Blackout,” he said. “I don’t understand.” “We’re under blackout.” His eyes had lost their earlier seduction and were now hard and focused. “Dinoh has a habit of trying to extend each Series as much as possible without looking like he’s interfering. It brings in more revenue. So, every time he passes some medication or aid, there’s a transmission blackout.” That must be true because I’d never encountered any such episode on any of my purchased vids. I had to give it to the prefect, he thought of everything.

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“More. If it’s recorded at all, evidence will be sitting around somewhere. So the technicians turn off the recording devices for one-hour stretches, until the evidence can be removed and destroyed.” I looked at him as he stood there, only the bottom half of his one-piece zipped up so he looked like he was emerging from a pale cocoon. The soft material threw the hard contours of his muscles into even more contrast, marred only by the neat line of tempsutures that crossed the angry red line of his wound. “But,” I said, “if episodes like this are not even recorded, how do you know about them?” He hesitated. “I…hear things.” I could see there was a battle going on behind his eyes, even if I didn’t know what it was about. Did it have something to do with how he’d gleaned secret information on Dinoh’s operation? Or was it something else? Eventually he jerked his head to the cartridge I still held in my hands. “Are you going to use it?” “The booster?” He asked me as though I had a choice, when anybody who knew my circumstances would correctly deduce that I had none. I put as much dryness in my voice and expression when I answered. “What do you think?”


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Chapter Four It was a Chitterin this time on the third level, which only slowed me for a splitsecond and for a couple of reasons. First, the Chitterin are a social conglomerate, evolved from insectoids, and it was highly unusual to find lone individuals roaming the galaxy. Second, those six hairy limbs take a bit of getting used to. I barreled into it, driving my head into its thorax. As I expected, four of its legs clutched at me instinctively, the thin barbs spiking into my arms and back, holding me tight against the suffocatingly fine hair of its body. But, just in case its own strength wasn’t enough, I clutched the nearest pair of limbs with my hands. I don’t know how insectoid minds work but it was a safe bet that the Chitterin thought it had me right where it wanted me. Maybe it wondered how I’d even qualified for the second round of the Series with such an obvious lack of intelligence. But there was method in my madness. The serrated barbs hurt but they helped hold me in place while I pivoted, bringing my legs up off the floor. It must be one of the big jokes of the galaxy that, despite the form life takes, all functions are situated in approximately the same place. Whether humanoid or reptilian, marine or insectoid, biology is biology. The usual posture of a Chitterin protected the more valuable parts of its anatomy. While those formidable limbs protected its head, its heart, anus and reproductive organs were tucked away in the back, safe from a frontal attack. And while a mass of connective tissue and chitins protected most of the nerve cord than ran down the front of its thorax, there was none of that protecting the cord as it continued its way along the vulnerable abdomen. And it was the vulnerable abdomen I was targeting with a kick, tensing my foot as much as possible and driving it upward into that soft bulk. I didn’t care if I hit its major nerve, its anus or its genitalia—it was too much to ask that I could drive my foot far

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enough to get anywhere near its heart—but I was betting that a strike in that general direction was going to pay dividends. I was right. Unfortunately, upon impact, the Chitterin immediately loosened its hold. My hands slipped down its limbs and I landed on the floor with a crash, wasting valuable seconds trying to breathe before scrambling out of the way. Somebody else would have taken time to steady their breathing before attempting anything else. My lungs were still running ragged, I was still gulping, but I got to my feet, caught a hairy limb between my arms and, in a scissor action, broke it. Then a second one. That’s when it fought back. Because a Chitterin is essentially a giant insect, it has no body language in common with humanoids. But I knew it hurt because, when the blow came, it lacked focus. The limb that caught me just below the jaw and propelled me across the room was motivated by pain and panic, not technique. It could have easily sliced me across the neck and the fight would have been over there and then, but it didn’t. Mistake. This time I had enough time to position my body so I hit the floor with my shoulder and rolled, dispersing as much momentum as I could before the wall stopped me. I got to my feet again. The left side of my face stung and I knew there was blood seeping from a wound of some kind but I didn’t have the luxury of tending to it right now. As for my ankle, the triacetocollagen had worked as advertised and the slight limp I carried was more psychological than anything. Only seconds had passed since our fight began but I could see I had inflicted some major damage on my opponent. It was twitching, which—I hoped—meant that it was still suffering from my initial attack. And as for two of its arms…the forelimbs looked like broken twigs, attached by threads to the rest of its body. I tried for another abdominal strike, feinting then coming in low, but those superior insectoid reflexes stopped me and drove me back two steps. The same thing happened on


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my second attempt. It was angry now, if the incessant string of hisses and clicks was anything to go by, and a delay in ending this fight would aid it more than me. On my third attack, I repeated the move of ducking low but, instead of rising to an inevitable counter-strike, I continued falling to the floor, letting my weight slide me along to one of its hind legs. I had no more than two seconds and my execution had to be perfect. My left leg hooked behind the Chitterin’s limb and I repeated the scissor-action, but this time with my legs, pulling with my left while pushing with my right, just above its tibia. Snap! With all three limbs on one side of its body out of action, my opponent fell. It still tried to get me, twisting as it dropped, but I was almost out of reach. A serrated blade caught my cheek but that was all it could manage before it hit the floor. If it had decided to fight on, I wasn’t sure of the outcome. There must have been some irritant on its extremities because my back, arms and face felt like they were on fire. And, as good as the booster shot had been, I could feel twinges of my sprain coming back. Modern medicine was a marvel but there were still some things that only rest could cure. So I think we must have both been relieved when, after one last spasm of effort, the Chitterin slid back to the floor and remained there. It had been a worthy opponent and I couldn’t stand there and watch its broken form. Once I left the chamber, the rescue team should kick in, taking the insectoid to a medical complex. Or so I hoped.

Y “Ouch!” “Keep still.” His voice was one of command, and I wondered that I didn’t pick up on that earlier. What did he do in real life? I’d previously detected other traces of the military in his behaviour and how he moved. But was he part of a standard militia? Or maybe a mercenary?

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“And don’t even think of scratching,” he warned me as my hand twitched. I curled it into a fist to keep from misbehaving. Aldanen was wielding a sharp pair of tweezers with precision. The Chitterin had not just slashed and pricked me in places, it had left small hairs bearing irritant compounds wherever it had touched bare skin. That was what caused the burning sensation. I had given Aldanen’s body a close inspection and now it was his turn to remove the thin invaders from my skin. He was finishing, there was only the long cut on my cheek left to do, and those full lips of his were centimetres from mine. I glanced at the stormy depths of his eyes then looked away. I hadn’t felt this uncomfortable in front of a man for decades. “That’s it. Hold still while I apply some antiseptic.” The gel was cool on my skin, a welcome antidote to the hot stinging that had been plaguing me for the past hour. We must look like the walking wounded, I thought with a flash of humour. Aldanen hadn’t survived his own altercation without injury either. Between the two of us, we now sported sprains, abrasions, gashes, cuts and bruises. “We have supper waiting for us,” he told me as he concentrated on dabbing the gel on my jawline. I had tried to wash the Chitterin and my tiredness away with a cold shower and was feeling at least half-alive even if, Aldanen rebuked me, I had managed to send batches of Chitterin hair deeper into my cuts in the process. He, however, the second to return, hadn’t cleaned himself yet. This close to him, I couldn’t avoid his scent of smoky exertion. It was twirling itself around my primitive back-brain and making itself at home, filling my mind with hazy recollections of our love-making. And now he told me we had supper waiting. No surprises what else was mixed in with the food. What an indelicate dilemma Prefect Dinoh presented us with. I could either keep my head…and starve. Or feed myself and end up acting like some sex-crazed animal for other people’s entertainment. “We have a full day off tomorrow,” Aldanen added. I said nothing.


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He finally sat back. “All done. Why don’t you set out the food while I clean myself up?” I looked at the covered tray and it was as though there were venom-fangs under there, waiting to pump their poison into me. “There’s nothing you can do about it, Ebony,” he told me softly. “We have to get through this one way or another.” Then he rose and left. There was never a time that Ebony Strike let her guard down. Like a suit of armour, my aloofness enabled me to keep a distance from anyone I came in contact with. Maybe the first layer of distance had been laid with the news of Dolen’s death but my reputation—and the increasing number of people who sought to take that away from me—helped build the successive layers, one after another, until nothing got through anymore. It was sick how one person used the power of his position to manipulate beings into public acts of intimacy. And it was sick how the galaxy had empowered such a person instead of those who had even marginally higher standards of ethics. Centuries from now, someone would be able to find a vid of me finding pleasure with a man while under the influence of coercive substances. And, long dead, I would be in no position to even defend or explain myself. But…and here was the kicker…there was a part of me that liked the lack of control the drugs gave me. The part of me that was sick of playing Ebony Strike or Xin Dell. The part that wanted to share my life with someone without having to wonder whether his hand held a weapon. What scared me as I stared at the tray was not that my act of sexual gratification was being recorded for semi-public consumption but that I was looking forward to taking the drugs and forgetting myself with Aldanen. My back and face had stopped hurting. I got up and walked to the tray, lifting the lids with a deceptively steady hand, looking at the food that lay there so innocently. I began to eat.

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My second-to-last coherent thought was whether previous combatants from other Series had become addicted to the aphrodisiac mix Dinoh concocted. My last coherent thought, as Aldanen emerged—naked—from the bathroom, was how he got injured on his inner left thigh. I hadn’t noticed a rip on his clothes when he returned from his fight with a Chitterin, yet there was now a flesh-colored discreet oblong bandage on his skin. I stayed where I was, even though the temptation to walk over to him and topple him on the bed was immense. He smiled as he got closer and indicated the piece of fruit in my hand. “You started without me.” “I was hungry.” My voice was husky with need. Aldanen took the fruit from my hand and put it into his mouth. I watched him chew, then the bob of his throat as he swallowed, and lust hit me in the stomach. I growled and attacked him, grabbing him by the shoulders and pulling his head down to me. There was a moment of hesitation, of resistance, then he groaned and crushed me to him. My mouth felt hot over his, a fevered heat that probed his coolness, playing with his tongue and urging it to consider more adventurous moves. “How’s your ankle?” he asked as I propelled him backward. “I. Don’t. Care.” I was busy shedding my clothes, then I pushed him so he fell on the bed and levered myself above him. His hair was soft, silky, and I drank in his features—the bronzed skin that threw his cheekbones into sharp relief, eyes that swirled amber and green, and the short white stubble that roughened his jaw. I felt hands grab my buttocks and urge me forward, over his belly and chest. Then he moved, arms tunneling under my legs and pushed me forward again. My breath quickened as I shimmied forward some more. And then, at the end, to help him, to help myself, I reached down and parted the lips of my labia as I lowered myself on his mouth. The feeling was exquisite and I shouted out in sudden pleasure. His face was rough against the tender flesh of my inner thighs and as he moved his face from side to side,


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nuzzling me, the sandpaper of his jaw sent spikes of delicious sexual chafing through my body. Then the wetness of his tongue flicked me, ran up and down my clitoris. His hands pushed me again as he inserted his tongue into me, lapping at my own drenched readiness. In. Out. While I kept the lips of my sex apart and presented myself to him, moaning but forcing myself to keep still. Wanting an orgasm to crest and carry me away. Wanting his exploration to continue for eternity. By the time he moved back to my clitoris, I was wet with lust, enhanced when I looked down and saw my own wetness glistening on his cheekbones. Then he supped, nibbling, sucking, lapping, until I could feel a climax surge within me, breaking out of me in shuddering waves. He relented, and I could feel the pleasure recede, then began the onslaught again. Two, three, four orgasms rocked my body until perspiration covered me and I was forced to collapse against him. But that still wasn’t enough. In a mirror to his own actions, I licked his lips and chin, inhaling my own muskiness, tasting my mouth-filling saltiness, then stabbed my tongue into his mouth. His hunger matched mine as he twined one hand through my short black hair—hair that was shorter than his own—the other sliding down my back and over my backside, one finger massaging the crease between my buttocks, getting firmer each time until it slid between vagina and anus, transferring juices from one orifice to another. I sighed with my mouth still open over his and lifted my hips, spreading my legs apart even more, letting him explore and prod me as my tongue and body writhed above him, only the tips of my breasts brushing against his chest. I withdrew from his mouth and kissed the edges of his lips, then along his jaw, then down his strong neck, giving in to the impulse to bite him where neck met shoulder, sucking on his flesh and letting the smoky aroma of his flesh mingle with the earthiness of my sexual lubrication.

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It was a libretto of muted dialog. Sighs and moans, the quiet brush of limbs against fur, the wetness of our fondling—they were the only sounds that broke the silence of the room. I moved lower and his hand left my back, trailing my spine instead. I brought his nipples to small, sharp arousal and watched his muscles tense as he jerked against me. Resting my palms on his body, I let my fingers flick against the dark masculine buds while my mouth continued exploring. Lower. Tracing delicate kisses on either side of the ugly red gash that marred such physical beauty. Noticing, despite the haze of carnality that enveloped me, a rough crisscross of paler scars. I kissed them all. Lower. Following a trail of light fuzz and letting the fine fur tickle my nose, until it broadened to a triangle of crisper hair, straight for the most part and only curling at the ends. I burrowed into its roughness, anointing my face with the essence of his scent, rubbing against the hardness of his shaft and pausing occasionally to suck on its tip, removing the thick briny drops that squeezed out of it. Lower. Grazing the wrinkled sac below his penis then, with lips wide, taking it whole in my mouth. Suckling the ovoid shapes beneath tender skin with my tongue and teeth. His gasp shuddered through his body and I felt it there, at the junction of his body and legs, with my mouth and lips. I pulled my head away, letting the weight of him drop against the inside of his thighs. I licked his penis again, each time leaving behind a thick film of saliva, then I lowered myself onto him, sliding easily on my own spit and lubrication. I wanted it again, wanted the release of another world-shattering orgasm but—this time—I wanted him to join me. As I rocked against him, I parted the lips of my sex again, letting the roughness of his pubic hair rub against me, then I leaned forward, capturing that arousing texture against the most sensitive of my organs as I rode him. Something inside me insisted on energy and on a relentless rhythm and I rocked and pushed until sweat emerged on my brow and trickled down my face.


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I could feel him jerk forward inside me and knew he was close to a climax, then I turned into pure sensation as I clenched against him in convulsion after convulsion, bucking against him as he impaled me, feeling him spasm and the flight of his semen as he emptied himself inside me. We rode each other for minutes, extracting every gram of pleasure from our primal dance, then collapsed against each other, still wordless. And slept.

Y I woke to hands plucking at my breasts and complete darkness. Hands rubbing my nipples to peaks, replaced by teeth, gently capturing then letting go. The drugs had worn off but I didn’t want this to end. It was Aldanen, I would know his scent anywhere by now, and he was between my legs, playing with me. I moved my legs farther apart and imagined we were lost in our own secluded universe. His hands could have been anyone’s hands, his mouth anyone’s mouth. Then, all at once, he entered me and I caught my breath. Yes, I wanted to tell him, yes, I want to be used. I want to be used the way a female animal is used, being aroused while he found his own release. There was no sound beyond his breathing, heavy and ragged. Rough kisses, rough plucks against my breasts, rough thrusts deep into my sex. I was the first to climax, arching against his weight and shuddering my little death, my spasms pushing him over the edge. He gasped against my ear, driving himself into me until he had sated himself. Holding me close, we slumbered again.

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Chapter Five What was happening to me? What had happened to the cold, aloof, razor-sharp Ebony Strike? My internal clock told me it was probably late morning. We were still in bed. I felt his body against me but, rather than move away, I snuggled closer into its heavy warmth. He shifted and one hand tightened on my waist. I always thought I would end my days alone. After Dolen, there had been a series of encounters. Some ended out of boredom, the rest out of prickly detonation, and I had resigned myself to a solitary end, my character probably by then half-full of cynicism tinged with bitterness. After too many episodes of hurtful words, I lost hope that I would ever find someone I could be comfortable with for even a couple of years, let alone decades. So what had happened? Why was I relaxing against the masculine bulk of an almoststranger called Aldanen? Was it right to trust him, or were my instincts playing me wrong? It irked me to admit it but I liked the man. With drugs, without drugs, he still tugged at the core of femininity I kept hidden away under lock and key. I didn’t like the vulnerability it exposed but couldn’t help seeking out opportunities to display such vulnerability. But what about him? Was his lust for me only aphrodisiac-driven or was there something deeper? Or, to put it another way, in the handful of days that we’d met— replete with violence, deception, manipulation and voyeurism—had something slightly more pure also sprung to life? Put like that, the answer was obvious. No. I sighed, thinking the sooner I reconciled myself to the painful truth, the better. Perhaps I wasn’t as far divorced from my female frailties as I thought. www.samhainpublishing.com

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The hand against my waist tightened again and I knew he was awake. “I’m going to get cleaned up,” his voice whispered in my ear, air tickling my lobe. “Would you like to join me?” Absolutely no way! “Yes.” The water was hot, soft firm splashes against my skin. We faced each other and soaped each other down. He washed my hair and I was beginning to feel erotic stirrings in my groin when I felt a pinprick against the back of my jaw. I looked up at him the same moment I rubbed my face. Under the smooth skin, was there a small flat bump that wasn’t there before? The water and steam obscured some of his features. “I’m sorry,” I saw him say. “I must have tugged at your hair a little too hard.” The words were right, the tone of voice was warm and relaxed, even his hands kept massaging my shoulders in a gesture of conciliation. But his eyes…I had seen such eyes before. They were full of focus. Concentration. Don’t betray me, his eyes told me, over and over again. Don’t betray me. I kept my voice light. “Don’t worry about it.” His face showed his relief but that just ratcheted up the tension within me. What was going on? When we left the bathroom and I saw the fresh tray sitting on the table, I felt dread, but a different one from before. It was now obvious that some kind of double-cross was taking place—what was that alien thing he planted under my skin?—which put Aldanen in the same camp as Dinoh. I didn’t want to believe he was capable of deception—which just showed how much I had already fallen for the man—but there was no other logical basis from which to start my deductions. “Perhaps some tea?” he suggested, walking past the tray. “Good idea.” I was glad of the reprieve. So far, it was obvious that it was the food that was drugged, not the drink. And although Aldanen had not done a thing to me that was forced or suggestive of violence while we were both under the influence, the look he gave me in the bathroom showed a facet of his character that I was not comfortable with.

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I, too, glanced down at the tray, noting the tri-acetocollagen and tissue quick-repair boosters. Did this mean we were no longer under surveillance? He must have caught my train of thought quicker than I did for he faced me and shook his head before turning back to the counter. “They must import the water,” he commented. “It doesn’t taste muddy at all.” I relaxed into a chair. “Anything, er, for his prized contestants.” It was difficult making false small talk while important questions swirled around my head. Aldanen came back with two bowls and handed me one. Then he sat opposite and, leaning forward, touched me on one of my knuckles. “Can you hear me?” I jumped and almost sloshed the entire contents of the bowl over myself. It was Aldanen’s voice but it was somehow inside my head. His voice was steady and at a bearable volume in my ears except I swear the man wasn’t talking. Was this some kind of telepathy? “I—” “Don’t mention this. They might not be watching us but they’re still listening. Say something innocuous.” Say something innocuous? I had a sex partner who was now conversing with me by bypassing the air between us and I had to keep up the conversation? “I’ll, have to, find out…um…what kind of tea this is. It’s really quite nice.” I hoped my eyes were correctly relaying the message—what the hell is going on? He kept the backs of his fingers on mine. Now that I was watching, I saw his lips barely moving. “It’s low-tech. An old trick. I planted a tiny amplifier next to your jaw in the bathroom. I’m sorry it hurt. The vibrations from my sub-vocalisations are being carried along my bones and, upon contact, through yours where they’re getting amplified so you can hear my voice.” Not telepathy then. Just old-fashioned science. I opened my mouth and almost asked him “Why?” Until I realised that such a onesided conversation would sound very suspicious. But he guessed the question anyway.


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“I’m here to shut Dinoh down.” I withdrew my hand and sat back in the chair, watching him. He rose and checked the customary note that came with the breakfast tray. “Next match is tomorrow morning,” he said out loud. “We have the whole day free.” Then he sat down opposite me again. Did I want Dinoh shut down? Of course I did. The man had used his power as prefect of his decime to accumulate money and carve out a niche for himself in the underground fights. What he did to people, regardless of what kind of people they were, was immoral and unjustified. The man deserved everything anyone could throw at him. But why now? I was within striking distance of the prize money, knew I had what it took to beat out the competition—as handsomely distracting as it was—and walk away with a year of life for several thousand people. “Law?” I asked, and turned it into a cough. He smiled and nodded. My heart, already in my feet, sank lower. There was a faint hope he was some kind of competitor, a rival hoping to quickly step into the vacuum Dinoh’s downfall would cause. With a rival, I could have negotiated something. But with the Fusion’s justice system involved, there was nothing I could do. Everything would be confiscated—the arena, the buildings. The prize money. I looked at Aldanen’s easy smile and tried to hate him. I couldn’t. In the end, I held out till well after lunchtime before I ate anything. The booster was a welcome addition to my routine but I was not inclined to indulge in any aphrodisiac drug-taking. Unfortunately, my metabolism—and my logic—betrayed me. My body craved food to burn and the grumblings in my stomach turned to sharp pains. Maybe I should have just nibbled until the pangs went away but I was thinking that if I gorged myself with lunch I could ignore dinner. And breakfast the next morning, just before a fight, was going to be as clean as the imported water Dinoh used.

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Aldanen watched me as I ate, only an eyebrow raising as he saw the amount of food I dished onto my plate before joining me. “Thinking of skipping dinner?” I scowled at the accuracy of his statement and didn’t answer. I knew this would tip the watching crowds into fits of titillation. After two nights of uncontained lust, the contestants were irritated with each other. Impatient. Terse. Well, I was at least. Aldanen was his usual imperturbable self. I imagined the bookkeepers as they whipped up the interest of their voyeuristic audience. What will happen when Dinoh works his magic on this pair, one so obviously upset with the other for no discernible reason? Will it dull the pleasure? Or heighten it? It heightened it. “I hate you,” I growled as I pulled him to his feet and slammed him against the wall, not even waiting until he had finished eating. My entire body burned, an itch only he could scratch. I rubbed against him as I attacked his mouth with mine, feeling my nipples get hard and a growing dampness in my crotch. Expertly, he twirled me until I was the one sandwiched between him and cool concrete. He lifted my arms above my head, kneed my legs open then ravaged my neck as he pushed himself against me. I could feel the length of his hardening cock against my pelvis and even two thin skeins of fabric between our heated bodies were too much. Still holding both of my hands in one of his, he used his free hand to unzip my clothing, then rip it off me. He was rough, exciting, and the zip’s teeth caught my body, burning ripples of friction across my belly, before it was discarded. The concrete was now cold against my back and buttocks. He worked on his own zipper while his teeth nipped at my shoulder and his mouth sucked. Then his hold loosened and I was free to do what I wanted. Slowly, I slid down the wall until I squatted in front of him, my knees apart. My hands crept around his body to massage his backside, opening his cheeks wide then stroking downwards until I could feel the firm wrinkles of his sac with my fingers, while I took him into my mouth.


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With a curse, he slammed the wall with two open palms and jerked his hips, moving back and forth while my tongue washed him. I licked the length of the thick vein that bulged under his penis then sucked as his head reached my lips, running them over the ridge that separated that most sensitive knob of flesh from the rest of the shaft. Amid his smoky scent, I could smell myself—earthy and open—and feel wetness slowly trickle down my skin. Before I could bring him to orgasm, he caught me under the arms and hauled me up so we were almost face-to-face. With a jerk, he entered me, pinning my arms above my head again. “Practise talking to me,” he grunted, our fingers intertwined against the concrete. “Not out aloud.” What was he saying? I didn’t understand. I just wanted to feel him slam into me, lift me with each stroke, stretch me. “I need you to practise,” he sub-vocalized again, but each word was breathy with exertion. “I…” My brain had shut down the moment those drugs hit my system. “Say it,” he hissed. “Say something.” How could I think when he was pounding into me? My hands remembered the feel of his skin, the tautness of his hips and backside, the dips and hollows and secret soft places, and I imagined them all combining into the strokes that were driving my body insane. But I kept my voice as low as possible. “I…don’t know…what…” “That’s right,” he said straight into my ear. “Again.” This time I knew what to say. “I’m coming,” I told him and closed my eyes, feeling both the wall and Aldanen slamming into me, feeling my legs vibrate as my orgasm began to take over. “Good. That’s good.” Then, at normal volume. “So good.”

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I lost feeling in my limbs, every sensation concentrating on my groin, my sex, as it pulsed against him. Feeling him as he released himself, driving himself into me in a frenzy of pleasure until the both of us were satiated. But it still wasn’t enough. We tumbled on the bed and fucked again, long tense strokes meant to dominate and satisfy. I had to eat, I had to continue this orgy of carnality, and so we did, long into the afternoon and night. He continued making me practise sub-vocalizing and, although I think I only complied three times out of ten, it was enough. When we woke up the next morning, I was throbbing from the continuous sex we had, and conversant in low-tech mumbling. As the mists of my hunger subsided, I wondered why it was so important for me to learn such a skill and came to the obvious conclusion that Aldanen was expecting my cooperation in whatever he was planning. The problem was, I wasn’t yet sure I was going to give it.

Y Catiliians are deceptive. I watched my opponent as he paced the other end of the room. We were on the fourth level of the pyramid and I was trying to see him through the same eyes that had first spotted a member of that reptilian species. I had seen him in vids of previous Rewards Series fights, but Dinoh had a stable of at least thirty different species and I was irrationally hoping that I could’ve avoided an encounter with him. His legs were heavy and massive, countered by an equally heavy tail. All three lower limbs supported a stolid torso and slimmer—but still muscular—arms. His neck was thick below a heavy jaw, fangs prominently displayed, and large eyes that moved in measured rhythm rather than darting here and there like a hairy mammal. I had made a massive mistake the first time I encountered a Catiliian. I mistook her bulk for slowness and underestimated the strength of her arms. Being tailless myself, I also failed to take into consideration the infuriatingly efficient use that limb could be put to. And that was before I found out about the talons, thick skin and venom-fangs.


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The Catiliian obviously hadn’t caught sight of me yet and I was happy to stand perfectly still while I sized him up. The grab-and-kick routine that I had used on the Chitterin was akin to suicide on a Catiliian. And his legs were too thick for me to attempt a sweep. Even if I succeeded there was that damn tail to worry about. The obvious answer was to use whatever technique I had subdued my earlier reptilian opponent with. The problem was, I lost that fight. There were only two targets I could aim for—a pocket of soft flesh between neck and head and, counter-intuitively, the short ridge of defensive spines along his back. But that wasn’t my only problem. I’m usually an offence-style fighter. My ideal fighting distance is close enough to smell what my opponent’s had for lunch. But an approach like that was just asking for trouble against a Catiliian. No, this time, I had to pull it back to straight defence with only short opportunistic strikes. It was while I checked the soles of my boots for their thickness that he caught my scent. Catiliians have lousy eyesight but a great sense of smell, neither of which was going to help me in the one-on-one fight to come. He faced me and opened his arms, goading me to attack. I wasn’t that stupid. I wasn’t moving either. I just stood there, watching. There was no move I could make now that was a good move, so I did nothing. And let him come to me. After unsuccessfully waiting for several minutes, that’s exactly what he did. By now, I had been stamp-kicking my Qolari foe and into my series of feints with the Chitterin, but I knew the current fight would last far longer than that. His first move was exploratory, nothing more. In a lightning-fast step he advanced then twirled, but I remembered the tail and stepped out of the way, sideways and forwards so he couldn’t trap me into a corner. His eyes didn’t even flicker. He just accepted the dodge and started thinking of something else. This was where my opportunistic strikes came in. If I gave him enough time to think, my foe would put together a detailed, step-by-step plan that would begin with me dancing out of reach and end with me metaphorically spit-roasting over an open fire. I had to make sure I disrupted such thinking processes as much as possible.

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So, I started circling. I wanted to get a better look at those spines but I also wanted him to divide his time between planning and watching. With a low rumble, he turned to face me, his tail swishing along the floor. I sidestepped left and so did he. Then right…he followed. Now I could see the end of his tail twitch as his irritation rose. Why wasn’t I staying in one place like good prey? He bared his teeth and I could see something slimy glisten on his two front fangs—a semi-lethal biochemical concoction just for me, I was sure. Then, just as I was about to irritate him some more, he rushed me.


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Chapter Six I’ll admit I was terrified. Just for a moment, but it was true. Then the cold, calculating part that is an intrinsic part of every good martial artist took over. First to stop him. I backed away as fast as I could until I hit the wall then raised my legs and kicked him in his mid-section. That wasn’t enough of course. I somersaulted right, over his arms, and almost landed on my feet before his tail got me but I still managed to get away. I had enough time to get to my feet and, while still crouching, stamp on the offending limb before I retreated. I knew his tail must be hurting but those implacable features gave nothing away. Still, I thought with a quick grin, it was a foundation to build upon. And now it was my turn. Two zigzag steps brought me to his side and I kicked him, pointed toe, just under his ankle. It wasn’t a destructive move, wouldn’t topple him to the ground, but it would hurt and that was my major objective. With all that dense muscle and thick hide, Catiliians get hurt so rarely that any pain must be a distraction to them. Forward quickly to stamp his tail again then retreat. In retrospect, I deserved the blow that caught my head. I got cocky, started underestimating my opponent again, and while I was stepping back—instead of away— he swung around and backhanded me just behind the ear. Stars burst in front of my eyes and I completely lost my sense of direction, only regaining it when I hit the nearest wall. He was getting cocky too. Admittedly I didn’t have the battle-tank physique of a fellow reptilian so he should have followed up and beat me into little pieces there and then. I was dazed, my vision was only just clearing and my head was ringing like a bell. Only the fact that the strike was a backhand saved me from losing an ear and most of the skin on that side of my face. But instead of finishing the job, he walked away. Arrogance. He had a right to be arrogant…but that didn’t mean he had to accept that right. And that started me thinking. 56


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So we circled each other again. I let my left shoulder droop so he’d think he hurt me more than he had, and made a show of trying to focus on him. Roundhouse kicks were out, as ineffectual as an insect bite. And there wasn’t enough power in any crescent or flying head-kick in the galaxy that could put a dent in that armoured head. I needed something that would hurt him and line him up for my next move. Something close and so obviously stupid that he wouldn’t take obvious advantage of it. It was a childish move, something that belonged in school, but I was thinking of the effectiveness of Aldanen’s bone-vibration mechanism and how even outdated, low-tech techniques have their place. So he let me punch him in the gut because, I guess, he thought it was funny. And I did it because it brought me right up and close to him. Then, repeating the move on his tail, I stomped on his bare, taloned feet as hard as I could and danced out of the way. He flinched, only a little move but that moment was enough. I took one running step and vaulted over him, much as a small arboreal animal might traverse a large grazer, scrunching myself into a ball as I changed position on his shoulders. It was a tough move, I hadn’t done such things in years, but I managed to swap my feet and come down behind him, holding onto him as I steadied myself with hands and one leg. Once in place, I used the other foot, protected by a thick enough sole, to slam the spines on his back—now erect in battle posture—into his flesh. There was a furtive move towards my shoulders as he tried to dislodge me, then he shuddered as the darts started puncturing his spine. Some, I knew, would get stuck in the bottom of my boot, others would break against his vertebrae, but if only a small handful—bearing their miniature venom payload—managed to drive themselves between the bones, then I had succeeded. It wouldn’t kill him—Catiliians are immune to their own venom—but I was hoping it would send him into quick unconsciousness. I continued with my attack. His tail caught my back but it was a weak blow, then he fell forward onto the floor, aided by my weight as I kicked away from him, rolling and coming to my feet well out of his strike range. He stayed on the ground. I had survived. Again.


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It was only when I was descending the stairs after the fight that it occurred to me that I didn’t have to fight the Catiliian at all. After all, with the law on Dinoh’s tail, what was the use? But still I had done it. Battling the inevitable…that was me. And, just to add insult to injury, Aldanen was there before me. Even he thought there was something special about it because a smile split his face. “I was wondering where you’d got to,” he said. “Tough opponent?” It was difficult to take offence with such good humour. “Something like that.” A reluctant smile lurked on my lips. “You finished soon enough.” “That’s because I know their vulnerable point.” I pointed to the juncture of neck and head. “No.” I tapped my back. “No.” “Where then?” He uncoiled from his position in the chair. “I’ll tell you sometime.” An empty promise. The moment he completed his job, he’d be away, leaving me with a starving populace that had placed too much hope in my hands. I was about to deliver a smart rejoinder when the doors slid open—the doors that only slid open when we were about to face our next opponent. It was instinct that moved Aldanen and me back to back, and I watched our intruders with narrowed eyes. A single line of six men entered and I recognised the emblem on their shirts. They were members of Dinoh’s security forces. One approached us while the rest fanned out in the quarters. “We have picked up an unauthorised broadcast,” he told us shortly. I frowned, watching the other men prod and squeeze every dish, utensil, pillow and piece of furniture. “What makes you think it came from here?” He didn’t answer, just shifted his glance from one of us to the other. “Look,” I said, “in case you didn’t realise, we’ve only just returned from our latest bouts. Where would we have had the time…?”

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I stopped, trying to turn the pause into a question, hoping the man hadn’t detected my sudden flash of doubt. Aldanen. He’d been here alone before I arrived. That’s how the broadcast happened. Aldanen moved so we were now standing next to each other. If anything, he looked as irritated as me, which was a sensible tactic. Later, when this whole episode was over, I would wonder about the uncharacteristic slowness of my thinking. If I was only thinking of the people of my province, if I was going to let nothing stand in my way, if I was so close to victory, then the logical thing to do would have been to jump away from Aldanen and expose him for the imposter he was. With enough careful searching, I was sure Dinoh’s men would uncover all sorts of incriminating evidence. He would be disqualified, hauled away, and the prize money would be mine. So what was going on when, instead of denouncing him, I kept my mouth shut and let him smoothly fill in the awkward pause left by that faint vestige of insight? “Tell Dinoh that his tactic of psychologically intimidating us isn’t going to work.” And I could almost believe Aldanen was genuinely upset. The lead security guard was obviously taken in as well because he blinked in surprise. “Psychological…” Aldanen sneered. “We’ve both dispatched your fighters so far with little effort, so now Dinoh is sending you in a feeble effort to unbalance us. What’s he done? Bet the planet against us winning?” Aldanen looked around the ceiling, searching for the concealed cams he knew to be there. “What’s the matter, Dinoh? Losing too much money this time?” There was a charged silence before the guard touched the concealed transceiver in his left ear. “Let’s go,” he ordered the rest of the team. But the look he sent Aldanen as the group trudged out said he hoped there would be a chance for a return. “I wonder what that was about,” I mused aloud. As if I didn’t know. Aldanen grabbed some cold drinks and handed me one. “Like I said, sounds like an intimidation tactic. Say, what happens if both of us survive?”


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That was an interesting thought. “You mean a tie? Don’t think that’s ever happened before.” “We must be more closely matched than any previous competitors in the Series,” he said, pacing the room. “That’s the only reason they’re trying to unnerve us now.” A Fusion law officer? Aldanen was more like a consummate actor as he continued with his conspiracy theory, expounding the various ways Dinoh could reap benefits by harassing us or changing the rules midway through the competition. I left the room while he was still talking to take a shower and do some thinking for myself. What would happen next? Whatever covert transmission Aldanen had made in between the time he defeated the Catiliian and the time I walked through the door had been detected. Perhaps Dinoh’s security net was tighter than he’d been led to believe? Maybe, I thought with growing hope, this might turn out my way after all. Because if Aldanen was unable to complete his mission—to get valuable information out to his handlers—then there was still a chance I could finish, and win, the tournament before Dinoh was clamped in chains. If Aldanen couldn’t pass on intel, it might mean the organisation Aldanen belonged to would have to give up their current opportunity, regroup and perhaps try infiltrating the next tournament…leaving the spoils from this one to me. As long as I got the money and left Sundi’s World behind, I didn’t care what happened to Dinoh. And would watch a future newscast of his imprisonment with a raised glass and a feeling of good cheer. I was humming when I stepped out of the shower.

Y “We have one more opponent left before we have to fight it out amongst ourselves,” Aldanen remarked over dinner. “Any ideas what we’ll face?” His transmission must have shaken Dinoh and his cohorts up a bit because lunch never arrived. But dinner was early. And, as always, delicious. For all I knew, Dinoh was also running a sideline business in gourmet food. Maybe as revenge for disrupting his

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routine, the note that accompanied our food informed us that the next—penultimate— fight had been scheduled for the following afternoon. “The Prefect has a stable of around thirty fighters,” I answered. That was no great secret. “Maybe after the Catiliians, we’ll catch a break.” I took a sip of the sparkling wine that accompanied the meal tray. “We’ve had a humanoid, insectoid and reptilian. What else can he throw at us? Maybe a set of twin fighters?” Yes, Dinoh had two pairs of those but they were ethereal-looking beings, albeit masters with bladed weapons. So far the rounds had all been hand-to-hand. Would Dinoh put swords in the hands of his final fighters? Did I even want to be in the position to put such ideas in his head, knowing our conversation was monitored? I shrugged. “Maybe.” I willed Aldanen to keep quiet, maybe talk about the swamps on Sundi’s World or how he’d get the stink of the planet off his clothes, but it didn’t work. “He’s also got a couple of drones he keeps for the really tough competitors. Maybe we’ll get a mechanical next.” “Maybe.” As I finished the meal, I felt pharmaceutical tendrils start to meander around my body. Of course we were the prime performers for another one, perhaps two, more sexual episodes before it all ended, but there was a different texture to the desire that was now starting to kick in my belly. I shook my head, trying to clear it, but lethargy was taking over my body. Incredibly, I was feeling sleepy and horny at the same time. “I…need to lie down,” I said faintly, and barely made it to the bed before collapsing. Soon after, Aldanen too struggled over and toppled next to me. He reached out a hand and stroked my hair. “You’re very beautiful,” he told me.


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Despite the mist in front of my eyes that obscured reality, I knew it was a kind thing to say. Striking, impressive, lightning-fast, I had been called all that on many occasions but, before Aldanen, only Dolen had ever called me beautiful. “You’re very handsome,” I returned. It was true. There had not been any depilatory supplies in the quarters and by now Aldanen’s chin and cheeks were sporting longish snow-white hair. If he tied back his hair and trimmed his beard to a more compact shape, he would look like a god, startling pure ice against the dark brown of Nature herself. I didn’t think I’d spoken my thoughts out aloud until he said, “That’s very poetic.” We took our time. I undressed him as though I was a skeptic—tentatively peeling off material, halfcertain that he would disappear in a puff of smoke. I didn’t see any of his cuts or bruises, only the smooth bronze of his skin and the perfection of his body. I didn’t want to say I loved him because, even in my drug haze, I knew it wasn’t really love. It was too soon, for a start. But I was starting to care about him and what happened to him, and I knew it could go much deeper given the opportunity…except there wasn’t to be one. “No chance,” I whispered, looking deep into his eyes, and wondered if the sadness I saw there mirrored my own. Our kisses were soft but deep, our movements smooth and long. It wasn’t just fucking anymore, not for me and not that time. Maybe Dinoh had given us a different mix or I had managed to get all my frustrations out of my system and now all that was left was a long-buried tenderness. Whatever it was, Aldanen felt it as well and we came as close to lovemaking as we were ever going to get. I would have cried at the end if I were the sentimental type, the sex was that good.

Y “Wake up.” The voice was insistent in my head and I blinked my eyes. It wasn’t yet morning, I knew that.

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“Ebony, wake up.” It was that voice-in-my-head thing again which meant it was Aldanen talking to me. “We’ve got to go.” I knew urgency like that. Only the light above the kitchenette counter was on. Once Aldanen had seen my eyes open, he jumped out of bed and started putting on clothing. “Where are we going?” I whispered. But there was a thread of premonition—bad premonition—curling up my spine and I didn’t want to face it naked. Slipping out of bed, I followed Aldanen’s lead, walking to grab a clean set of clothing from the closet near the bathroom and slowly easing into it. “We’ve mounted an assault on Dinoh’s complex. I’ve been told all the electronics have been fried. We have to get out of here.” It’s usually only in a fight that my brain works so much faster than my body. But this was no fight and my body still couldn’t keep up with my thoughts. No. I’d run out of time. I lost the gamble. What about the children? “You contacted them again?” No need to say who “them” was. Aldanen knew I wasn’t stupid. He tightened his lips and shook his head, looking displeased. “They decided to move on their own initiative.” “I see.” I put my boots on and he led the way. I hadn’t realised how well insulated we were in the pyramid until we walked through the open metal door and out of it. All of a sudden, noise assailed our ears: the hum of energy weapons, the sound of people running in different directions, a distant roar of approaching vehicles. I swear I even heard the slither of large leaves brushing against each other in the night breeze, so starved had I been of background noise during the past several days. It was nighttime, but the darkness was punctuated with flashes of occasional light.


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Aldanen swore. “I thought I told them to come in low and quiet,” he muttered. “Come on.” He probably thought I followed him because I trusted him. He was wrong. My plans had already detonated, along with the electronics of Dinoh’s complex. It was a tough fact to swallow but I’m a practical person—I had failed Vahsoon-ya. They wouldn’t be getting that year of ease they needed so desperately because the Fusion, damn them, had decided to exercise their morality now, instead of years ago. I clenched my teeth together as Aldanen and I groped our way through the landscaped gardens, only the occasional bursts of reflected light from weaponry guiding our erratic route. I knew only too well what came next. A Lower Convergence commission would be convened. Witnesses would be called forward and forced, under every ethical guideline the Fusion could throw at someone, to testify. Depending on which side the witnesses originated, they could be guaranteed fame or notorious infamy. And I wanted neither. I hadn’t spent plenty of hard-earned money to have my true identity revealed and my testimony plastered across every news vid throughout known space. Let other, less private, individuals make the case against Dinoh and his corrupt little empire. All I ever craved in life was anonymity, and not even the Fusion was going to take that away from me. So while Aldanen was looking for his trigger-happy strike team, I was looking for an escape. Two sets of eyes were better than one, which was why I tagged along with him at the beginning. I watched for an escape route and for something to distract him. It didn’t take long for both to present themselves. I heard a yell then Aldanen answering. It wasn’t Cirlian Formal, the working language of the Fusion, but something else—a language only the members of his team knew perhaps. Then one figure detached itself from the darkness up ahead. Aldanen was concentrating on that figure, asking questions of it as it approached. And, as it stepped nearer, I retreated. The lush vegetation of the hot world hid me as I stepped back. I didn’t use the usual slow one-by-one backward steps of a normal

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humanoid—that would have been detected in a second. Quickly, as fast as my feet and practice would take me, I zigzagged backwards and disappeared into the blackness near the pyramid. Because I now knew where Aldanen’s team was located, I headed in the opposite direction and came across a small group of flyers in a level area just past the arena. This wouldn’t be enough to get me off-planet, but it could certainly get me to a calmer urban centre. I jacked the fastest looking vehicle—martial arts and petty crime are more closely related than some might think—and sped out low and dark across the oily waters of Sundi’s World. I tried very hard not to feel anything.


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Chapter Seven Dolen’s grave was overgrown but the letters on his plaque were still sharp and untarnished. I knew I should have waited before heading for Chaltow III—it was only two standard weeks since Dinoh’s racket was exposed, and it was still the leading news item on most ansible feeds—but I owed Ston, and the people of Vahsoon-ya Province, a personal apology at the very least. Still, I decided to stop at Dolen’s grave first, maybe to build up courage before facing a sea of hungry, hopeless faces. I tugged at the tough brown stalks beneath his memorial and threw them to one side. As soft as they were, I heard the steps approach from behind me. I knew that rhythm. And it was only one person. Aldanen. So I wasn’t surprised when I heard his voice, three metres away from me. “They told me I was delusional, but I knew you’d come back.” I turned. He had tamed that wild icy mane and shaved his almost-beard so he was back to being a mere devastatingly handsome mortal rather than a god. He was also dressed casually rather than in the uniform of Fusion Internal Security. I recognised the insignia on his companion’s uniform during the assault on Dinoh’s complex. “You’re not on duty?” I asked. Am I surrounded? “No.” He shook his head. “Consider this off the record.” “So I can leave?” “If you want to.” I didn’t expect to feel this, stillness, inside me. I felt dead, heavy, and had ever since that night two weeks ago. I’d followed some thoughts to conclusions but had shied away from others, fearing that the wall that kept my emotions dammed up would burst…and then what? What could an anonymous, ex-martial artist expect from the galaxy? No, I

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was better off expecting nothing and walking away, wrapping small shreds of indifference around me as I stalked to the spaceport…and towards yet another identity. “Can you answer some final questions for me?” I asked him. “Yes.” And my admiration for him began anew. There were no conditions or prevarications. Just a plain “yes”. Somehow that made my lonely future seem even sadder and bleaker than before. “You knew who I was before you even asked my name.” Despite my answer of Vahsoon-ya that first day, he’d called me “Ebony” twice. He could only do that if he already knew about me. “Yes.” “And you obviously know about…” I indicated Dolen’s memorial with one hand. “Yes.” My private pain, already made public. I swallowed my tears. “You carried equipment in your thigh, didn’t you?” I recollected the bandage on his leg after our match with the Chitterin. “Yes. As you know, all personal belongings are confiscated and there’s a skin scan when you enter Dinoh’s complex. But I was carrying some vital equipment, including a small transceiver, and we had to put it somewhere.” “Let’s not forget the bone amplifier,” I remarked with a little acid. “That was actually a backup unit for me.” For him? So did he or didn’t he expect me to be his accomplice? And I recalled something else. “You hesitated, after the Chitterin.” I wanted to complete the sentence, wanted to ask him what he meant by having sex with me when it was now obvious he’d been oblivious to Dinoh’s pharmaceutical concoctions after that first time. But I didn’t think I wanted to know the answer. It had all been part of his job…hadn’t it? “We’d been monitoring the Rewards Series for a number of years,” he finally said. “But it wasn’t enough just to take down Dinoh. If we got rid of him, we knew it would only be a matter of time before someone else came along and took his place. So we had


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to dismantle his entire network, and it was a lot bigger than we thought it was.” Pause. “We decided to make our move this year.” So he needed to play along until his teams were in position all around the galaxy. My heart turned to dust in my chest. He must have seen something in my face because he took a step forward and halfextended a hand to me. “I didn’t have to fake anything with you.” And he used my real name. “I wasn’t pretending.” I took a step back. “I don’t understand.” If he knew my real name then he knew everything about me: my ego, my missteps and my mistakes. I couldn’t please my parents and I couldn’t stop Dolen from dying. What worth did such a person have? And why was he looking at me that way, as if I was somehow important to him? “You’ve been careful to build up Ebony Strike’s reputation in the galaxy. But it isn’t who you are.” His voice was gentle. “You left your planet years ago yet you still care about them. You pretend you have no feelings but I can feel your compassion pounding through your veins. Even here, now. Despite the danger of exposure, you had to come back, to explain—in person—your failure to the people who almost bullied you into helping them. To visit at the grave of the first man you ever loved.” His image blurred as the tears worked their way past the lump in my throat and streamed down my cheeks. He stepped closer and I felt his hands on my arms. “You’re right. After the first time, I took a pharmaceutical blocker. But don’t you see? I still felt such strong desire for you. I could have faked something, but I didn’t. Does that tell you something?” If this was a trick, the galaxy couldn’t have created one more cruel. It would have been so easy to just reach out and take what he offered, no questions asked. “I don’t…” He cradled me against him and I didn’t resist, clutching at his jacket like a child. “Reading your file was one thing,” he said, “but they never tell you everything. It didn’t

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tell me that you were funny, or caring, strong yet sensitive. Or,” he added with a thread of laughter in his voice, “completely combustible in bed.” I couldn’t help it. A smile curved my lips. “And Vahsoon-ya got their money.” I pulled back and looked up at him. “What?” “It seemed only fair, considering all the effort you went through. I had a quiet word with the Commission. Not just this province, but the whole planet will get proper funding and added incentives, as long as they agree to taking the advice of the administrator that comes along with it.” “How do I know…” I stopped. It seemed such a churlish thing to ask straight after such generosity. “That the administrator won’t cheat your planet the way Dinoh did? He’s my halfbrother. If he does, he’ll have me to answer to.” I should have been ecstatic. Not only my province, but also my home-planet, was finally going to get some much-needed help. Prefect Dinoh’s corrupt empire was finished. So why was there still a tight knot in my stomach? I pulled away from him. “Aldanen? Is that your real name?” Suddenly, it was more important than life for me to keep talking to him, to give him time to…what? He’d hinted at something before. Was it important enough to mention again? “It comes from my mother’s side of the family. I’m seriously considering adding it to my formal name. Do you like it?” he asked suddenly, as if coming to some decision himself. “It’s…nice.” “Would you like to meet other holders of the Aldanen name?” What was I supposed to do? Keep saying “I don’t understand” to every question he asked? “I’m thinking of getting out of the service,” he mused. “Maybe get into some freelance work. Choose the assignments that interest me.”


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“That’s nice,” I said faintly. “But I can’t do it alone,” he continued. “I need some advice. Maybe a partner. Someone who knows her way around the galaxy. Someone who won’t embarrass me at family functions, that kind of thing.” He quirked an eyebrow. “Would something like that interest you?” I smiled, a mixture of happiness, relief…and that thread of desire he always seemed to spark within me. “I’m sure we can come to some agreement,” I told him. And we did.

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About the Author To learn more about K.S. Augustin, please visit http://www.ksaugustin.com. Send an email to [email protected].

Human for half a month, dragon for the other half… his salvation lies in the hands of a young, broken thief.

The Dragon of Ankoll Keep © 2007 K.S. Augustin Seeking a mythical treasure in a far-off land is, at best, a risky venture. And that's before Gamsin discovers an enchanted man/dragon thrown into the mix. He extends his hospitality, and generous spirit, to her. But, as Gamsin knows from bitter experience, there is always a price to pay. Ankoll has been dragon-cursed for five hundred years and is desperate for someone to help him end his enchantment. Where Gamsin sees only hurt and pain, he sees a woman of depth and strength. In his search for the master sorcerer who punished him in the first place, Ankoll and Gamsin travel to the isolated Twilight Ranges and confront an evil previously banished from the world. Will Gamsin, a broken young woman, be strong enough to give Ankoll the support he desperately needs? And what of the man-dragon who begins to realize that a hated form may be the only salvation for their world?

Enjoy the following excerpt for The Dragon of Ankoll Keep: Gamsin sat up in bed, gasping, her hand moving to her throat, feeling the soft cotton of her nightdress against her skin. Nightdress? She looked down at herself. She was in her bed, the blanket covering her. Around her, the furnishings of her chamber looked ordinary and mundane. One of her window’s shutters was open, spilling bright morning sunlight into the room. Sunlight? But shouldn’t she be at the top of the keep? And what happened to the dragon? She frowned, trying to concentrate. She remembered the dragon, remembered it turning into Ankoll and him approaching her. Oh, she had tried to do as he asked. Truly, he was an exceptional specimen of manhood and she wanted to show her gratitude for all he’d

done—extending his protection and the peace of his keep to her. But he’d chosen the wrong deliverer. She was too weak and too broken to aid him and had said no. What had happened then? She wished she knew, but a fog descended on her recollection. Did they mate? Did he—? Frantically, she moved a hand between her legs, but felt no betraying wetness. No, no man had found his own pleasure inside her body last night. But if she had turned Ankoll down, who moved her to her room and changed her clothing before settling her peacefully in bed? Gamsin threw back the covers and got up, dressing quickly. Hopping, she pulled on her boots then opened the door, flying down the stairs. She stopped on the second level when she heard sounds emerging from the kitchen, and approached warily. “Greetings.” Ankoll smiled, turning at the sound of her quiet footsteps. He was carving a loaf of bread, laying thick slices on a platter, next to wedges of ham and yellow farm cheese. Beside the platter stood two mugs of ale. Despite herself, Gamsin’s mouth began to water. She’d tried her best for the past two weeks, but had to admit she didn’t have a tenth of Ankoll’s culinary skills. It was all she could do to hack off some inexpert pieces of ham and wolf it down just to keep the hunger pangs away. In truth, she’d never eaten so well as when she dined with him. “Breakfast will be ready in minutes,” he told her. She moved to a bench and sat, still eyeing him with suspicion. “You’re back to being human.” It was obvious, but the only thing she could think of saying. He nodded his head agreeably, a smile playing on his lips. He looked the same as always, dressed in his usual open-necked shirt and dark breeches. His fingers were their usual lean lengths, not even slightly resembling flesh-rending talons. But Gamsin could not forget the night visions that had confronted her at the top of the keep. “Will you…turn back into a dragon?” she asked, watching him. Ankoll brought the mugs over to the rough wooden table, followed by the platter. “No,” he paused. “Well, I don’t really know. Perhaps not.”

He helped himself to some food. “But we didn’t…” Gamsin faltered. “I don’t remember…” “We…came to a different resolution. The first part of the curse is lifted, I know that to be true. But I can still feel the spirit of the dragon within me.” The spirit of a dragon…the sharing of one consciousness between two entities… “What’s that like?” Gamsin asked, chewing on some bread. He’d made her two loaves before he changed, but they had only lasted a week and got hard and dry near the end. Now Ankoll was back, and she gratefully devoured a slice of the fresh, light loaf. “To be a dragon?” She nodded. “It’s a fearsome beast, ruled by twin passions of greed and hunger. It’s difficult having such an unbridled spirit rule you for half of your life.” He drank some ale. “It frightens me to admit that such licentiousness can be liberating, until you hear the cries of people and realise that you’ve struck down one of their loved ones, or spirited away their only food for the winter.” He swirled the liquid around in his mug, watching it. “Maybe that’s what the sorcerer Beltrin had in mind all along when he laid such a curse on me— to show me the folly of ignoring my own people and putting my own needs above theirs.” “But if the curse is lifted, then you can be ruler to your people again,” Gamsin countered. “You can bring the castle and your lands back to greatness.” It made her heart sink to say each word, but it was the truth. Ankoll smiled and shook his head. “I am centuries past doing this. My blood kin are all dust and my lands now belong to another lord. It is only the isolation of this castle—and the barriers I have put to its access—that keep me safe here. No, I have another task and that’s to find Beltrin.” “The sorcerer who did this to you?” “The curse is not fully lifted, I can feel this. I need to find him.” He lifted his blue gaze to Gamsin’s. “Will you help me?” “I? Help you?” Surely she was the one responsible for the curse continuing instead of lifting. Hadn’t she done enough damage? “How could—”

“You are brave and smart, young Gamsin. You are also of this world and know more of its workings than I. My knowledge is centuries old and pitiful.” “But how can you be sure Beltrin is still alive?” Ankoll took a deep breath. “I can feel him still in this spirit world. His trace is faint, but I can track it. Tell me you will help me.” She looked at him helplessly. Her, help a sorcerer? Surely he was jesting! But, then, how else could she make up for her betrayal? “You have helped me once before,” he pursued. “You showed courage when none others, in hundreds of years, did. Help me again, Gamsin Thief. Please.”

An assassin can't afford a conscience. It's bad for business.

The Assassin Journals: Hunter © 2007 S.L. Partington Ex-soldier turned assassin Gage Brassan is having a very bad year. First, an unwelcome attack of conscience has him switching targets at the last moment, which doesn't sit too well with the criminal organization that hired him. Then an old girlfriend’s betrayal and a trip to prison stir up memories of his military past and a promise left unfulfilled. Tortured by his haunted past and hunted by the organization he betrayed, Gage seeks the truth behind the execution of the elite military patrol he once commanded. With the help of Jak, a Rigian street kid, and Joanna, the sister of an old army buddy, Gage follows the blood trail from the war-torn Androsian system to the highest echelons of the Galactic Security Force to the corrupt halls of the Rigian People’s Palace. On the run, unsure whom he can trust, he struggles with a growing attraction to Joanna while trying to protect his estranged father from the personal fallout of a life gone wrong. He knows the answers are out there. The trick will be living long enough to find them.

Enjoy the following excerpt for The Assassin Journals: Hunter: I woke to darkness and the certain knowledge that I was in very deep shit. Light crept in under the door of the windowless room, and I heard muffled voices outside. I sat up slowly, closing my eyes against the pain in my head and shoulders. Someone had sold me out. Probably the waitress in the bar. I really was going to have to stop trusting women like that. The odds were pretty good that Jak the Rigian Rat Boy rotted in the alley along with the garbage while the barmaid spent his cash.

I listened through the pain in my head, trying to figure out where they’d taken me, but the voices outside the door weren’t dropping many hints. I could only assume the Guilds had elected themselves a new Grand Poobah, and I was at the top of his shit list. Shouldn’t I be dead? The heat and stale air in my windowless cell weren’t doing much to help alleviate my headache. I heard the sound of a lock rattling and looked up as the door opened. Skinny Sorrellian stood over me with a canteen that he tossed on the floor in front of me. I thought about asking him where I was, but he didn’t look like he was in the mood for conversation. He shut and locked the door without speaking. I opened the canteen and sniffed, then took a tentative sip. Water. Another hour or so passed and I dozed, jerking awake when the lock rattled again. Skinny Sorrellian was back. “Get up,” he said. “The master will see you now.” I got to my feet, and he led me from the room. I wouldn’t want to keep the master waiting. I was led into a large, spacious room, furnished with expensive Terran antiques and hand-blown Lyrian crystal. A log fire burned in a black marble fireplace; above it hung a watercolor painted by a renowned Rigian master, five hundred years dead. A massive rosewood desk sat in the center of the room and a man stood before the French doors leading to a stone flagged terrace. Rigian, older, gray streaked his yellow hair. He didn’t turn as I was brought in, just continued staring across the darkening lawn. “You disappoint me, Hunter,” he said at last. “Is there no honor at all among murderers and thieves?” I didn’t reply and he turned to face me. “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you.” “Do I know you?” “My name is Artur Melardis. I am the Guild Master. I believe you were acquainted with my predecessor. You seemed to have no trouble at all taking the money he paid you to eliminate our esteemed president.” I shrugged. “My shot went astray. Sometimes it happens.”

“An interesting argument. It is not often that an assassin pleads incompetence. You took the Guild’s money and reneged on your contract. A rather substantial sum provided in good faith with the expectation of results. There are those within our organization who scream for your head, but I believe that would be…unproductive. You owe us a death.” “Who did you have in mind this time? Delaren? Again?” “Master Delaren is learning, to his frustration, that attempting to transform a system like ours is rather like trying to bail a sinking ship with a thimble—a valiant attempt, but in the end, an exercise in futility. He has made some modest gains, I will admit. Members of the civilian security patrol are less inclined to accept Guild direction, and financial benefit. The general population does not fear us as they once did. These things are inconvenient, but will be overcome with time. His constitutional amendments, however, are making potential business associates nervous. Several have already canceled rather lucrative contracts. This I cannot allow. Since you are directly responsible for inflicting him upon us, it is only right that you correct your mistake. Kill him, and your debt to the Guilds will be cleared.” There had to be more to it than that. They’d never make it that easy. “I don’t suppose refusing is an option.” “Unfortunately, no.” Melardis moved to the desk and switched on the com-link. “Bring in the boy.” He looked back to me. “Equally unfortunate is the fact that we find ourselves unable to trust your word. Once burned, you understand.” The door behind me opened, and Skinny Sorrellian came in carrying Jak the Rat. The boy’s hands were bound, and an angry, purple bruise decorated his left cheek. Skinny Sorrellian dumped him on the carpet at my feet. “A friend of yours, I believe.” I kept my face carefully neutral as I looked from the boy back to the man behind the desk. “Let him go; he’s no threat to you.”

“I am afraid that is not possible. He is our guarantee of your good conduct. Once Master Delaren is dead, we will release him to you, and you both may be on your way.” They’d release us all right. Into death. “You will spend tonight as my guest. In the morning Oren will drive you back to the city. I expect to hear of our esteemed president’s death within the month. Otherwise, I fear your young friend will meet an unfortunate end.” Skinny Sorrellian picked Jak up and tossed him over his shoulder like a sack of flour. He drew his weapon and motioned for me to leave the room ahead of him, passing Jak off to a man standing guard outside the door. A nudge in the back with his blaster told me he expected me to precede him down the hallway. I glanced back in time to see the other guard carry Jak through a doorway at the end of the corridor. Fuck. I knew I shouldn’t have come back here.

Samhain Publishing, Ltd. It’s all about the story… Action/Adventure Fantasy Historical Horror Mainstream Mystery/Suspense Non-Fiction Paranormal Red Hots! Romance Science Fiction Western Young Adult www.samhainpublishing.com

Combat!

Combat

Combat

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Combat Alley

Single Combat

Combat Moon

Close Combat

Combat Medicine

Single combat

Combat rapproche

Single combat

The Combat

Combat Trauma

Combat Unit

Combat rapproche

Close combat

Close Combat

Close Combat

Combat Alley

Combat Alley

Combat Alley

Combat Unit

Combat rapproche

Combat Alley

Combat Ops

Combat Zone

Close Combat

Combat Moon

Combat Jack

Close Combat

Combat!

Combat

Combat

Combat

Combat Alley

Single Combat

Combat Moon

Close Combat

Combat Medicine

Single combat

Combat rapproche

Single combat

The Combat

Combat Trauma

Combat Unit

Combat rapproche

Close combat

Close Combat

Close Combat

Combat Alley

Combat Alley

Combat Alley

Combat Unit

Combat rapproche

Combat Alley

Combat Ops

Combat Zone

Close Combat

Combat Moon

Combat Jack

Close Combat

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