Vexing Voss:Coletti Warlords 03(14)

Hothar growled deep in his throat. "Sargon."

"Who's Sargon?"

"He and his men are clanless bounty hunters."

An obscenely fat Coletti in a tattered gray battle suit strutted out of  the shuttle like a cocky bantam rooster and studied the area.

Oh yuck. The dude had been repeatedly whacked with an ugly stick, and  his huge, distended belly made him look pregnant. With his smashed-in  face, scraggly hair, and protruding fangs, he looked like a porky pug. I  knew most warriors considered clanless Colettis pond scum, but were  they all this hideous?

Five mangy-looking warriors fanned out behind him. All of them were armed to the teeth with the latest weaponry.

Yep, they had taken a few licks from the ugly stick too. I eyed their  laser rifles. Where in the hell were they getting the money to buy them?  I didn't think bounty hunting paid that well.

I did a double take on Sargon. "Oh my God. I know him. He hunted me in Baghdad. Only he was a lot skinnier then."

"Most of the females he brings in are damaged," Hothar spat in disgust.

"I'm not surprised. I watched that creep capture a young Iraqi Siren.  She fought him, and he beat the crap out of her." A smile touched my  mouth. It had given me great pleasure to free her and the rest of the  women he had chained up in his ship.

His malevolent gaze fixed on me, Sargon waddled over. "Did you really  think this pitiful disguise would keep you safe from a warrior of my  status?"

"Are you for real?"

Hothar snorted in disgust. "He has no status or honor. The only ones he can defeat are helpless females."

"Shut your mouth, pup," Sargon snarled.

My hand dropped to the butt of my gun as his creepy warriors surrounded us. "I suggest you leave now before things get nasty."

A fierce scowl on his face, Hothar stepped in front of me. "She has been claimed."

"The female has no ownership band, and you cannot legally interfere with a capture."

"The Battle Commander won't allow-"

Sargon slammed the butt of his laser rifle into Hothar's chin. His head snapped back, and he toppled to the ground.

"Hothar!" I dropped down beside him and checked his pulse. A sigh of relief broke from me. It was strong and steady.

Sargon's pudgy fingers wrapped around my arm, and he jerked me to my feet. "You now belong to me."

A red-hot fury bubbled up inside me, and I hissed, "Like hell I do. You  made a really big mistake hurting him, and now you're gonna pay."

Sargon brayed like a jackass. "This tiny female thinks she can defeat a mighty Coletti warrior."

The hunters all roared with laughter.

"Go ahead, laugh it up, fat boy, but you're about to get your ass kicked."

Sargon's beady eyes narrowed. "Insolence and disobedience will not be  tolerated. You will be beaten until you show the proper respect." He  yanked a whip off his belt and cracked it wildly. Zorro he wasn't.

The hunter standing behind him started cussing furiously.

I peered around Sargon's flabby form. The poor bastard had a big gash  across his face, and it was bleeding badly. "I'd put that thing away  before you put an eye out."                       
       
           



       

"You will soon be on your knees, screaming for mercy."

"You first." Yanking my arm free, I hurled a torrent of power at Sargon. No one touched me but Voss.

The bounty hunter's eyes bugged in agonized horror; grabbing his head, he screamed and screamed and screamed.

My radar went on red alert. I swung around to face my new attacker an  instant too late. A big fist connected with my jaw, spinning me around  and knocking me face-first into the rock. The world spun in a nauseating  blur, and I tasted blood.

"Get away from her!" Uncle Saul roared, firing his laser pistol. A few  seconds later, my attacker's limp body landed next to me with half his  head gone.

More hands grabbed me, and I erupted into a biting, kicking, struggling wild thing. Only Voss could touch me.

A hunter slapped me viciously. Pain exploded in my face, and everything went black for a moment.

Sounds tumbled into my mind. A bloodcurdling battle cry, followed  quickly by the thud of fists hitting flesh, groans of pain, and the  sizzling whine of laser fire.

The hot dirt burning my face, I forced my eyes open, but everything was a  chaotic, jumbled blur. I could feel Voss's presence, and his rage was  terrifying.

Hothar. I had to protect Hothar. Struggling upright, I drew my pistol  and sat with my back against the boulder. Black dots danced across my  vision. I shook my head to clear it.

Someone knelt in front of me. My eyes widened in horror when my father's  face came into focus. One look at the hatred in his eyes, and I knew.  Daddy was in league with the butchers of the universe. I quickly brought  up my gun.

His hand clamped around my wrist, twisting it viciously until I dropped  the gun with a cry of pain. "This is the last time you ruin things for  me."

"Did you kill Mom?"

"That conniving bitch got everything she deserved." He jammed a pressure  injector against my throat and triggered it. "Unfortunately, Malik  wants you alive."

A dizzying wave of heat swept over me, and my body went completely numb.  I sagged limply into my father's arms. He grabbed a handful of Hothar's  battle suit and dragged him closer.

A glittering blue transporter beam engulfed us.

I heard Voss's bellow of fury, and then we were on a metal platform.

My stomach lurched sickeningly when a Tai-Kok pirate stepped out from  behind the transporter controls. Who dressed him? Goths R Us? Lots of  metal spikes decorated his red battle suit and his head. Jeez, he kinda  reminded me of a demented porcupine with all those metal spikes  protruding from his skull.

Oh ick! There were white wormy things crawling all over him too.

A hand on the butt of his laser pistol, Spike spat a bunch of angry, quacking gibberish.

My father dumped me carelessly on the cold metal floor and kicked Hothar  out of the way. As he stepped off the platform, daddy dearest pulled  out a small cell-phone-sized translator and spoke into it. "I captured  the Battle Commander and put him in chains. Your warriors allowed him to  escape and destroy the base." Seconds later, vicious quacking noises  emanated from it.

He had captured Voss? Liar, liar, pants on fire.

Spike, the prickly pirate, started quacking like Donald Duck on meth.

Sweat trickling down his face, Daddy read the screen and blustered, "No,  you've got it wrong. Malik didn't capture him. I did, and if your  idiotic warriors had done their job properly, Voss would have never  escaped." The translator spewed out a bunch of gibberish.

Oh my God, the big, fat liar was going to get us invited for dinner.  Controlling my panic by a thread, I instinctively reached out for Voss.  What the hell? All I could sense was an empty black void. It was as if  our link had been severed. A sob broke from me. Was he dead? Did anyone  know where we were?

The transporter doors swished open. Two heavily armed pirates entered and headed for the big-mouthed moron.

The general sneered. "You think I'm afraid of you? Without me, you'll  never find those containers filled with all that human flesh you crave  so much, and you'll lose forty million credits too."

Nausea rose in my throat. Dear God, my father was a monster who didn't know when to shut the hell up.

Spike made a stop motion with his hand. His warriors dutifully obeyed.                       
       
           



       

His expression one of gloating satisfaction, my father asked, "You ready to pay up?"

The pirates fixed murderous glares on him.

"Ticktock. My price just went up another million."

Hysteria bubbled up in me. I couldn't move. No matter how hard I tried. I  couldn't even summon enough power to give the pirates a mild headache.  We were stranded on a Tai-Kok ship with a fool who was determined get us  all killed.

Hothar was still out cold, and I couldn't expect any help from him. The  awful truth was no one would be riding to our rescue. It was up to me to  figure a way out. Think. Think. There had to be something I could do.  Dammit, we weren't dying like this.

Spike snarled, exposing pointy metal teeth with bits of bloody flesh  stuck in them. He answered my father in a bunch of weird honking quacks.

"No!" my father yelled. "That wasn't our deal. I gave you the codes to  shut down the planetary defense systems. You culled thousands of women  and children in the last raid. That cost you extra, and I brought Malik a  Siren. Ticktock, assholes. The price is going up again." The translator  spewed out a bunch of quacking.

Cold horror gave way to terror when the Spike's voracious gaze swept  over me. There wasn't a doubt in my mind we were on the dinner menu.  "Voss! You can't get dead on me. I need you, goddammit! Now! I don't  want to die this way, and a swarm of those creepy wormy things are  heading our way."