
DLSIJ Press www.dlsijpress.com
Copyright ©2004 Michelle O'Leary
First Published by DLSIJ Press, March 2003
NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.
With no small amount of irritation, Mea stared at the man who'd raised her. He might be like a father to her, and her boss, but right now he was in real danger of getting his ass kicked. "That makes no damned sense, Uncle Mike!"
"It makes perfect sense," he rumbled, folding massive arms over his chest and eying her from under bushy brows. His dark glower had sent more than one hunter into a state of high anxiety, but she'd lived with that expression too long for it to affect her. He continued, "And it's the Hunting Corp's policy, so deal with it."
"You're the director, for God's sake. Make a new damned policy."
Mike Conley snorted, shaking his head at her as he said, "That's the most scatterbrained thing I've ever heard you say."
"You're a jackass, Conley," Stone grumbled at her side, and she glanced over to see him returning Mike's glower full force, thick arms folded in a mirror image of the director.
Mike muttered something nasty under his breath as he leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his desk and looking from Mea to Stone in disgust. "Will you two stop acting like a pair of newlyweds for a friggin' second and look at this logically? You've never been on an official hunt together before. What you went through with the slavers was extraordinary circumstances. If you signed this partner contract today, what happens if a month down the line you find out you're not compatible?"
"We know we're compatible, Uncle Mike! We wouldn't be asking to sign if we weren't," Mea said through clenched teeth. The man was driving her insane.
"You know that, huh? Well, I don't know if you're a compatible hunting pair until you prove it. It's the Corp's policy to have potential partners try each other out for at least a couple months before letting 'em sign a legal document that forces them to work together. End of discussion," he added with emphasis when Mea opened her mouth. Like that would stop her.
"For newly met hunters, that's logical, but Bay and I---"
He slammed a hand down on the desk. "Hunter Brin, this is your director speaking. It's my official word that you and Hunter Baynard Stone are provisional partners for a period of no less than two standard months, during which you will make regular reports on your working status as you hunt. If after that time you still want to be partners, I'll draw up the goddamned contract myself. Now, shut the hell up and get out of my office!" he finished on a bellow.
Mea swallowed a sudden urge to laugh. Well, if she had to give in, there was at least the consolation that she'd cracked his control yet again. To turn the screw a bit tighter, she smiled sweetly and said, "Are you feeling okay? You look a little peaked."
His face took on a ruddy cast as he blustered, "If you weren't the best I had, I swear I'd---"
"Give it up, Conley," Stone interrupted, rising to his feet. "You raised her---you want somebody to blame, look in the mirror." His tone was flat, but Mea saw a hint of humor pulling at the corners of his mouth and glinting in his dark eyes.
"Couldn't have said it better myself," Mea murmured with a smirk, rising to stand next to her lover. "We'll see you in two months, Uncle Mike," she added, as they turned as one towards the door.
"Make it six so I can get some peace and quiet," she heard Mike grumble, and she chuckled as they left the office.
Bella had a twinkle in her eye that said she'd heard her boss roaring at his favorite hunters again, but she said nothing, nodding with a smile as Mea passed her desk with a murmur of farewell.
"Well, that didn't go quite as planned," she mused, as she and Stone left the reception area. "But it shouldn't be too---"
"Do you wanna sign?" Stone interrupted, catching her arm and pulling her to a stop. His face was expressionless, but his eyes were solemn with an emotion that looked like worry.
Turning to face him, she lifted an eyebrow with a quirk of her lips. "And here I thought you were in that office with me. Of course I want to sign. Why else did I fight with Uncle Mike?"
He scowled down at her. "Woman, you turn circles just to walk straight. Why the hell do you do anything?"
Suppressing a smile, she stepped closer, lifting a hand to soothe the crease in his forehead. "Was that an insult or a compliment?" she murmured, running her fingers down the hard planes of his face and the stubble-rough skin of his jaw to brush against his lips. "Bay, you are my partner, in everything I do. I want to make it official, but signing now or later isn't going to change the fact that you're mine and I'm yours."
His eyes filled with dark heat as he pulled her flush against him and nibbled on her fingertips.
She gave him a sultry smile, slipping her other hand around the back of his neck as she melted against him. "I don't play games with what we have. Unless you want to play, too ... how 'bout cat and mouse? I'll run this time," she whispered, rising on tiptoe to lick his bottom lip.
With a growl, he spun her and pressed her against the wall, his mouth coming down on hers with hot demand.
It took them a long while to get back to the ship.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" her mother's voice rang out, echoing around the training room like a warning of impending disaster.
Regan jumped guiltily, shoving the rifle into her father's hands and backing away from it and him. When Mom had that storm on her brow and green fire in her eyes, it was best to get out of the way as quick as possible. She felt a twinge of guilt for abandoning Dad, but it wasn't like he couldn't handle himself.
At the moment, it looked like he'd decided to play dumb. Slinging the rifle against his shoulder, he turned without haste to face Mea and asked, "What?" in a calm rumble.
Regan winced. Wrong ploy.
"Goddamn it, Bay, you know what!" Mea thundered, stalking towards them like a wave of dark fury. "She's a child! Guns and knives have no place in the hands of children. What the hell do I have to do to get that through your thick head?" She stopped in front of him and poked a stiff finger into his chest. "I have told you time and again that she is not allowed to handle weapons! If I find you training her one more time---"
"You smell good," her father murmured, curling a finger around a strand of Mea's dark hair and bringing it to his nose. "New soap?"
Ah, distraction, Regan thought. A better ploy. "You look really pretty today, Mom," she added in a casual tone.
All that seemed to do was divide Mea's anger between them both.
"Oh, stop it, you two!" she snarled, snatching the gun from Stone's hand, as she glared from one to the other. "You know I've forbidden this kind of thing! I swear, if you don't stop going behind my back, I'll lock this training room down. Do I make myself clear?"
Regan pressed her lips together and dropped her chin, torn between conflicting needs. She desperately wanted Mea's approval, love, and support. Her mother's anger bit at her like a lash, and though her mind knew it wouldn't last, it still made her heart and stomach clench with old fears of abandonment. But the intricate blue patterns on the backs of her hands gleamed in the light, refusing to let her give up.
Lifting her head, she caught her mother's eye and said, "Mom, I need to be a hunter."
"You don't need to be one right this second," Mea admonished, her tone still firm, though not as loud. "And you might change your mind. There's plenty of time for you to decide that," she added, as she strode away from them to the wall and re-hung the rifle.
Regan sent her father a grimace of frustration and got a commissary half smile and shrug in return. "Mom, some of those kids at the academy were barely older than me! I need to start learning---"
"But they were older than you," Mea interrupted, walking back to Regan and cupping her chin, raising her face. "Why can't you just be a kid and have fun for now? Forget about all this hunter nonsense until you have to decide."
"It's not nonsense, and I've already decided," Regan muttered in exasperation, staring up into her mother's warm green eyes with a mixture of love and annoyance. "'Sides, training with Dad is fun."
Mea snorted and turned an accusing glare on Stone.
He shrugged, amusement playing at the corners of his mouth. "It's a talent," he murmured.
She made a rude noise and turned away from them both. "The answer's still no," she said over her shoulder, as she headed for the exit. "Lunch is ready."
Regan folded her arms and stomped a foot in frustration as she watched her mother leave the room. "What are we gonna do, Dad?" she asked, wincing at the whiny tone in her voice.
He ruffled her short hair before settling a warm hand on the back of her neck. "Give it time, kid. She'll come around."
"Before or after I go nuts?" she mumbled.
He chuckled and guided her towards the door and lunch.
"She's following us again," Stone rumbled at her side, and Mea snarled a curse under her breath.
"That girl will be the death of me," she muttered, as she glanced down the dim alley behind them. She didn't see anything, but a faint rustle was magnified against the close, dingy buildings.
Stone chuckled, shooting her an amused glance. "If you trained her, she wouldn't have to creep around behind your back."
"You're not helping," she said through clenched teeth, glaring at him as she adjusted the grapple's strap over her shoulder.
He didn't seem at all repentant. "She's gettin' better. Didn't catch on to her 'til way past the port this time."
She growled at him, but all she got in return was a lazy grin. Curling her lip in a promise for later retribution, she stepped away and faced back into the alley. She didn't like giving away their position to possible listeners, but what choice did she have now? It was either that or break off the hunt. "Little girl, if you don't return to the ship this instant, I will hunt you down and tan your hide black and blue," she said with clear, calm authority.
There was silence for a moment, before a faint rustle came to them and a small shadow disappeared around the distant corner of the building.
With a sigh, she turned back to Stone's amused expression.
"Think that'll stop her?" he murmured.
Pressing her lips together, Mea hefted the grapple and aimed it at the darkness overhead. "We'll just have to make our trail a little harder to follow."
The whump and whistle of the grapple leaving the barrel was followed by a faint thud as it landed on the building overhead. Tugging it to make sure it was secure, Mea attached the end to her belt.
Stone shifted close and slipped one arm around her and one through the support strap, bending to nuzzle her ear as he rumbled, "Any excuse to get your hands on me, huh?"
It was hard to hold onto her irritation when he touched her and his voice sent tingles up and down her spine. But she did the best she could. "Easy, tiger," she said with a touch of irony, as she activated the grapple. "The hunt's not over yet."
As they rose in the air, he growled, "Which hunt?" against her skin. Then he sank his teeth with gentle possession into the flesh of her throat.
If he was trying to distract her from her disobedient daughter, he succeeded admirably. Purring with pleasure, she wrapped her limbs around him and turned her mouth to his, sinking into his heat in surrender.
It took them a while to notice that they'd reached the rooftop. Stone groaned in frustration when she pulled back from him with slow reluctance.
"Woman, you're killin' me," he growled, as they hauled themselves over the edge of the building.
"I didn't start it this time," she retorted, holding back a sigh at the aching throb in her body.
"When we get back, I'll finish it," he said with hot promise in his dark eyes. Securing the grapple in its barrel, he slung it over his shoulder and loped off across the roof.
Catching up and matching his stride, Mea grinned to herself. This was becoming a pattern she couldn't object to---the stimulation of the hunts aroused their primitive instincts, and their coming together afterwards was hot and savagely wild. If she could just discipline herself to wait until they got back to the ship...
The ship and Regan. Her grin slipped into a frown as she contemplated what her daughter was doing at this moment. Damn the girl, why couldn't she just be a normal child? This thought was accompanied by a spear of guilty pain, as she acknowledged that Regan's life up to this point had been anything but normal. Her sister's death and her lack of security as Mea and Stone struggled to come to terms with each other had been bad enough. But being captured and turned into a slave was a far cry from normal.
Thinking of the slave tattoos on the backs of her small hands, Mea grimaced. If she could erase what had been done to her daughter, she would. She'd tried to get Regan to have the marks removed, but the girl flatly refused. When she'd asked why not, Regan had replied, "They remind me that I'm free."
"Hell," Mea swore under her breath, as they leapt from one roof to another, heading towards their target's hiding place. She'd held onto the hope that Regan's infatuation with being a hunter would eventually fall prey to the impatience of youth and she'd find something else that would occupy her, leading her to a safe life far from slavers and the dredge of the galaxy. But Regan's stubborn insistence was starting to wear that hope thin.
"Next roof over," Stone rumbled at her side, and they turned as one, muscles bunching in a powerful leap as they crossed the space between buildings, falling towards the next roof. Mea allowed her momentum to carry her as she landed, tucking into a roll that ended in a crouch.
Stone was right beside her. This at least had gone more than right. She snorted as she thought of Mike and his compatible. They were the same breed of animal, she and her mate. On a hunt, they moved as one and thought as one. There was no doubt, no conflict---there was only the target and the chase.
At the moment, their target was holed up in the building adjacent to the one they were currently standing on. He was a slaver on the run, culled from the herd and targeted because he knew where his people were keeping the plans for the device that could detect the metal alloy bonded to a hunter's bones.
They'd scoped the place out the day before. The slaver had bought some security, muscled brutes to guard the entrances to the building and watch over his person.
But you get what you pay for, Mea thought with a feral grin.
The man should have hired more.
Slinking their way along the rooftop, Mea and Stone peered over the edge at their target's supposed security. The window showed a clear view of the interior of his hiding spot. Their target was slumped in a chair with his head lolling back and his mouth open, chest rising and falling in the rhythms of sleep. He was alone.
Exchanging a look of contempt with Stone, Mea moved aside as he swung the grapple into place. A moment later, the thing was whistling through the air, embedding its head into the wall just above their target's window. The sound must have carried to the interior---the slaver jerked and struggled to a sitting position, his head whipping around wildly. But he couldn't see past the darkness beyond his window.
As Stone secured the end of the grapple, Mea swung over the edge of the building and slipped a hook onto the wire. When Stone murmured, "Go," at her back, she shoved away from the roof, sliding down the wire like a dark comet towards her target. At the last moment, she let go of the hook and crashed through the window.
She heard the target cry out as she rolled to her feet, and she rounded on him with a predator's grin. She heard the door slide open as she leapt after the scrambling slaver, but she didn't turn to look---she knew it was already too late for the target's hired help. As she slammed the man into the wall with foot planted in the middle of his back, she felt the change in air pressure as her mate followed her through the window. Catching the slaver around the neck, she squeezed until he lost consciousness, watching Stone work over her shoulder.
There were three of them: large, vicious looking, and well armed. They didn't stand a chance. In less than a minute, he had them in a pile on the floor, rendering them harmless with a smooth efficiency that was both beautiful and savage.
With a sigh, Mea let the target slump to the floor. "Any casualties?"
He scowled as he crouched to confiscate their weapons. "Why do you keep askin' me that?"
"Because we have that funny little hunter rule: kill only when necessary."
"Rub it in, why doncha?" he grumbled.
"After what you did to that sharpshooter on the last hunt, I thought you needed the reminder," she said with a snort of dark humor, bending to frisk her target for anything that could be a weapon. "But why so cranky? You did get to pulverize those three."
"Yeah," he rasped, flashing her a wicked grin, "and there's more of 'em down below."
"That's my man," she murmured dryly, as she hoisted the target across her shoulders and headed for the exit, "always looking on the bright side."
Mea found Regan in the cargo bay, staring at the slaver in his cryotube, with folded arms and a faint crease between her brows. "Sugar, are you okay?"
Regan turned her large, dark eyes up to Mea and gave her a smile that was too grim and mature for her age. "I'm fine, Mom. Just wondering why we aren't asking him any questions."
"Uncle Mike wants us to save him for the interrogators. Plus, we got an urgent distress call from a small colony at the edge of slaver space. They've got a nest of those snakes they want us to clean out for them."
Regan grunted in such a perfect, scaled down imitation of Stone that Mea had to hold her breath to keep from laughing. The girl went back to her solemn perusal of the slaver and then said in a thoughtful tone, "You know, it's my birthday tomorrow."
"I know, baby."
"I'll be twelve."
"Warren made a cake, and we've got a couple presents for you. Not much time to shop lately, but---"
"Mom, I don't need presents," Regan interrupted in an impatient voice. Lifting her chin, she met her mother's eyes with grim intensity. "You know what I want for my birthday," she said quietly. Then she spun on her heel and headed for the door.
"Regan..." Mea called after her, but the girl paid her no heed, stepping out of the cargo bay.
With a sigh, Mea turned to gaze in at the frozen slaver, pressing her lips together as an unexpected surge of resentful fury flushed through her skin. But she couldn't blame them alone. "You bastards and I, we've ruined my daughter's life," she whispered.
But had they? Was Regan so broken? Was she any different from Mea herself at that age, determined to fight back and thirsty for revenge? Had her own life, a hunter's life, been such a ruin?
With a feral snarl at the slaver, she whirled and marched towards the door, racing away from such thoughts. She couldn't bear to think of her daughter in danger's path every day of her life, faced with the worst that society had to offer. She wouldn't allow it.
"What are you doing?" Regan asked with a note of alarm, as Mea gently pushed her into her quarters.
"I'm locking you in this time, so you won't follow us. It's for your own protection, little girl," Mea answered sternly.
Regan propped hands on hips and gave her mother a disgusted look. "Shit, Mom, it's my birthday! You can't do this."
Mea blinked at her daughter in surprise. "Did you just say 'shit'?"
A crease of uncertainty crossed the girl's brow and her arms slipped back to her sides, as she responded in a hesitant voice, "Yeah..."
"Weird," Mea murmured with a shake of her head, backing out of the room and colliding with Stone's bulk.
"What's weird?" he asked, slipping an arm around her waist.
"She just said 'shit.'"
"So?"
"It sounded strange, is all," Mea muttered with vague discomfort.
"Let's hear it, kid," Stone said over her head to Regan.
The girl raised her brows, shifted from one foot to the other, and then said in a small voice, "Shit?"
"See, that's why," Stone rumbled with a nod. "No guts behind it. Just needs practice."
"Hmm, you're probably right," Mea responded, as Regan looked from one to the other with her mouth open.
"Still lockin' her ass in?" Stone asked in her ear.
"Yup." Mea hit the door control, smiling at her daughter's wail of frustration as the door slid closed between them.
"Mom!"
"Be good," she called through the metal. "We'll be home soon."
Regan's voice was muffled, but still audible, and Mea lifted her eyebrows, cocking her head at Stone.
"Practice," he murmured, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.
"There's a dozen at least," the woman wheezed, staring at them anxiously. She had some gray in her hair, but was still too young to sound like she did. The air filters were going bad, and most of the colonists huddling around them sounded as if their lungs were full of silt.
"Maybe more," a man added, before hacking up a wad of phlegm and spitting it into a dark corner.
The air smelled of unwashed people and chemicals. The lights were dim and flickered constantly, proving that the air filters weren't the only things going bad out here. Eyes peered out at them from the darkness of the empty storehouse, roughly a hundred colonists, poor families who didn't have enough credit to buy their way back to civilization and safety.
Mea schooled her expression into bland attentiveness, determined not to show her disgust and pity. They didn't need that from her---what they needed, first and foremost, was an exterminator. These people had enough problems without slavers moving in and using them for sport. They'd been capturing the colonists, one by one. None ever returned.
Mea was familiar with the games that slavers liked to play. These people standing around her might be dirty and dismal, but they were the lucky ones. She would make sure that they stayed lucky.
"It's all right," she murmured. "We can take care of them."
"But," the woman wheezed, looking from her to Stone, "there's only two of you."
"We're enough," Stone growled.
"Just stay out of sight until we say it's safe," Mea added in a gentle voice.
The woman's face crinkled with worry, but she nodded and backed away from them. The rest of the colonists followed, drifting by the hunters like chaff on their way to the underground storerooms, where they'd sought refuge from the slavers.
Mea turned to Stone, arrested by the harsh expression on his face and the grim light in his eyes, as he watched the last of them slip into the darkness. "Bay?"
He twitched and glanced down at her, his expression shifting into a faint, rueful grimace. "Bad memories," he murmured with a shake of his head.
"They look familiar?" she asked in a neutral tone.
"All victims look alike," he said without apparent emotion and turned away.
She turned with him, brushing her shoulder against his arm as they headed for the exit. "But not all have to stay victims," she murmured, catching his eye with a hint of a gentle smile. "Shall we go hunting?"
"You gonna let me kill the bastards?"
"Tempting," she muttered, looking down at her wrists where the slaver manacles had abused her flesh. That memory, plus the look on Regan's face as she'd watched the frozen slaver, shadowed her heart. "Very tempting. But we've got these for a reason," she said, flashing the paralytic dart rings on the base of her fingers. "Of course, when the darts run out," she added with a grim twist of her lips, "we'll use any means necessary."
There were two main domes to the colony, one in use and the other in the middle of construction. The residents had obviously planned on expanding at one time, but those hopes were long gone, along with those who could flee the expanding slaver threat. On their approach to the colony, they'd seen the slaver ship docked at one of the airlocks to the occupied dome, and had opted to slip in from the opposite side, settling the Starfire in the shadow of the dome under construction.
If the slavers were aware of their arrival, they gave no sign. According to the colonists, they'd settled in the hydroponics facility, making themselves comfortable by looting what they wanted from the abandoned homes around it. They knew as well as the colonists did that there was safety in a pack, in not isolating themselves from their own kind. They might have better firepower and more experience than the colonists, but one lone slaver wouldn't stand long against a mob of angry parents.
Mea and Stone moved towards the hydroponics building, staying in the shadows and out of direct line of sight with the facility. They heard their first scout long before seeing him. He was rummaging in a small, gutted little building, its blacked walls and rotted roof telling of a fate written in fire. The slaver seemed oblivious to their approach, his sidearm in its holster and no other weapons visible.
Mea held up a hand to Stone, and he nodded, settling outside to watch for others while she crept up on the slaver. His cry of surprise as her knife appeared at his throat was choked off when she pressed the edge against his skin.
"Hi," she murmured in his ear, as she divested him of his weapon and forced him with slow precision to his knees. "Find what you needed here?"
"Who are you?" he snarled, but wasn't stupid enough to try to catch a glimpse of her.
"The tooth fairy," she said dryly. "How many of you are there?"
He said something uncooperative---a mistake. She set about making him more forthcoming. A few minutes later, she rejoined Stone, shaking the blood off of her knife.
"Seventeen more," she whispered. "There's a loose perimeter around the building."
He nodded, and they slipped through the shadows towards the facility. When it came into sight, they separated, going for the slaver's perimeter guard first. Surprise was their best advantage, and they meant to hold it as long as possible. Mea found one slaver pissing against the wall with his back to the town. They had grown too confident and careless, she thought with an inner sneer of disgust. He never saw her coming, slumping to the ground in a puddle of his own urine.
Two more were throwing themselves a mini-party at one entrance to the facility, their loud laughter and ribald comments covering any noise she might have made on approach. Both dropped mid-laugh, eyes wide with shock as paralysis consumed their muscles---including their vocal cords. No alarm was raised.
Swift as darkness, she moved around the building, searching for more guards. She found her mate on the other side, and he held up three fingers. "Same," she mouthed, before they moved into the facility to close on their prey.
The greenhouses took up most of the building, racks of hanging plants rising several stories high with catwalks between them, the moist and oxygen-rich atmosphere a pleasant change from the dome's air. Only a third of the greenhouses were being used, the others an empty testimony to the colonist's hope for expansion.
A group of slavers could be heard in one greenhouse, but Mea and Stone searched the surrounding offices and labs first for stragglers. They found a quartet playing sex games in one room that they'd turned into a sleeping area. The hunters' interruption came as quite a shock, and they put up little resistance, though they weren't as quiet as the guards. But still, there was no alarm raised.
The rest of the surrounding rooms turned up empty, so Mea and Stone focused on the group in the empty greenhouse. All of the greenhouses had connections, airlock-like hallways that kept the atmosphere inside the greenhouse stable. But for the empty ones, the doors were left open, and the racks were stacked in neat rows, awaiting resurrection. The sounds from the slaver party echoed through the emptiness, and Mea and Stone had no trouble pinpointing their location.
Slinking through the rows of racks in the next greenhouse over, they were surprised to find the entrance to the slavers' greenhouse guarded. There were two of them, and they were in a cleared area, with no catwalks directly overhead. There would be no sneaking up on them, but they seemed distracted. Both had weapons drawn, and they were arguing in low voices, their gestures agitated.
Mea couldn't hear what they said, but she suspected that they might be wondering why they couldn't contact any of the other slavers. Pressing into the shadow of one stack, she turned to Stone and raised her eyebrows.
He shrugged and whispered, "If we shoot 'em, the others will come runnin'."
"They've been alerted," she hissed back. "No frontal assault will work at this distance. Even if they can't shoot for shit, they've still got a good chance of taking us down."
"What then?"
She gave him a grim smile. "Ever been fishing?" Lifting her knife, she flicked the flat of the blade against the rack behind her. The metal responded with a loud, reverberant ring.
Stone grinned and slipped from her side, deeper into the stacks.
"Shh! What was that?" a slaver said clearly.
In the silence that followed, there was another sing of metal on metal off to Mea's left. She smiled and waited.
They took the bait. "Come on. Let's check it out."
"Could be the racks settlin'."
"Let's just make sure."
Unfortunately, they didn't separate like she'd hoped they would, and they didn't brave the areas between the stacks, sticking with the wider, more open main path. They still made easy prey, but one managed to cry out and discharge his weapon before the hunters silenced him.
The slaver group's response was much faster than Mea had expected, catching the two hunters out in the open. There were five of them, weapons drawn and trained on the hunters as they pressed closer, their cries of warning echoing around the greenhouse.
Mea straightened and turned to face them, lifting her hands in the air in a gesture of surrender. Stone did the same with a quirk of his lips. The group wouldn't be able to resist a pair of hunters to play with, so Mea had no serious concerns about their welfare. The slavers' health would be in question, though, as soon as they came close enough.
They never made it that far.
"Don't move!" a high, firm voice rang out over them.
Mea's heart leapt to her throat, before diving straight to her toes. Lifting her head, she scanned the catwalk above with a faint hope that her ears were lying to her. They weren't.
Regan was positioned in the middle of a catwalk up to their right in a small crouch with the gleam of a rifle resting against the rail and targeting the five slavers.
Mea caught movement out of the corner of her eye and snapped her head down to see one slaver raising his gun. "Aa!" she snarled at him. "Don't be stupid! Can't you see what she's aiming at you?"
"I've got an itchy trigger finger, too," the girl announced in a casual tone.
The slaver hesitated, looking from the girl to Mea with clear indecision.
Mea sighed, pretending her heart wasn't pounding and her ears weren't ringing with fear and fury. "Are you completely brainless?
That's a rapid fire pulse rifle she's got up there. It's not a precision weapon, but it will mow the lot of you down before you can blink twice, and she wouldn't even have to aim."
"Better put the guns down, fellas," Regan stated. "Those are my parents you're threatening, and I'm a little unhappy about that. Might lose control, you know."
Stone threw back his head and laughed, the low, deep sound rumbling through the room like thunder. Mea watched him, nonplussed. She'd never heard him laugh so freely before.
"What the hell have you been teaching her?" she hissed at him, interrupting his amusement.
He turned gleaming dark eyes on her and said with a grin, "Survival."
The slavers were lowering their weapons to the floor, their movements cautious and their eyes trained on the rifle above them. Mea had to admit, her daughter had chosen her position well---the catwalk provided the advantage of high ground and easy exit, its position off to the side giving the girl a clean shot at the group, her parents well clear of her range. She was making herself a small target while still allowing for a quick getaway---crouching instead of lying flat. And she had the rifle braced on the rail to offset any tremors she might have from holding the heavy thing.
She was acting like a hunter.
"Back up ten paces and lie down face first," the girl ordered, gun never wavering from the five slavers.
As they complied, Mea muttered under her breath, staring with a sense of helpless terror up at her daughter, "If there are any more of them..."
"She'll see 'em comin'. Sooner we wrap 'em up, the sooner we get her down," Stone responded, his tone not even a little concerned.
"You tie them. I'm going up to get her," Mea snapped.
"All right," he said in a bland tone, shooting her a hooded glance before moving towards the reclined slavers.
She knew what that look meant. Pressing her lips together, she headed for the stairs and commanded, "Stay put, Regan!" as she slipped her sidearm out of its holster for the first time. She wasn't going to feel comfortable until they were all safely back on the ship. No telling when her heart would stop rattling along at light speed, though.
When she reached her daughter, the girl was still surveying the situation below, but her rifle was turned away now that her father was in the line of fire. She shot her mother a quick glance, then scanned both ends of the catwalk and the surrounding structures before rising to her feet. Like a damned hunter.
Mea ground her teeth. "I am going to beat you until you can't walk for a week," she announced in a low, strained voice.
"Mom, I couldn't let them take you," Regan said, not looking up at Mea. She was cradling the rifle in the crook of one arm, and Mea noticed that the barrel was quivering. The girl was shaking from reaction.
Slipping an arm around her shoulders, Mea turned her towards the exit and murmured, "They weren't going to take us."
Regan stopped, pulling out of her mother's hold and staring up at her with wide, dark eyes. "It looked like it! You know I can't let that happen again, Mom. I just can't. I need to know what to do. I need to be a hunter."
Staring down into the dark pools of her daughter's eyes, Mea felt her heart tearing with pain and indecision. How could she do it? How could she put her daughter in harm's way? How could she train her baby girl to be a ruthless killer?
"Mom, I'm safer by your side," Regan whispered, moving closer.
"Not out here you're not," Mea muttered, but the idea did have merit. If they couldn't keep her from following, the next best thing would be to have her where they could protect her---between them.
Regan hefted the gun, looking up at her mother through thick lashes. "I didn't do too bad, did I?"
Something clenched in Mea's chest like a fiery knot, before easing in slow degrees as she stared down at her daughter. Hell, the damage was already done. At least she could control what happened next, minimizing the risks.
With an aching sigh, she ran a hand through her daughter's hair and then slipped her arm over her thin shoulders again, guiding her down the catwalk. "Not bad at all, baby. You're going to make a hell of a hunter."
"You mean it?" Regan asked on a gasp, eyes lit with delight.
"Like I could stop it," Mea retorted, sending her an acerbic look. "By the way, how did you get out of your room?"
Looking abashed, Regan dropped her chin. "Warren tried to feed me," she mumbled.
Mea sighed. "Tell me you didn't damage him."
"I didn't! Just locked him in. He's okay, really."
With a snort, Mea muttered, "Your father's going to be so proud."
Regan's laughter danced around them as they made their way towards the exit.
Michelle O'Leary is the author of The Huntress, Angels and Ministers of Grace, and a growing collection of short stories. She is also a contributor to Clerestory, a windowed wall and The Insomniac Tales by Chaucer's Women.
Visit www.dlsijpress.com for information on additional titles by this and other authors.

