Zero's Return (68 page)

“You just weren’t paying
attention,” Joe said, still considering Mike over his plasma pistol.  “I said I
wouldn’t maim or kill
without cause
.  Details, Pointy.”

How about the detail
that you could spend the next twenty-four hours thinking you’re a
twelve-year-old girl if you continue to piss me off?
Twelve-A demanded.

Knowing a foray into
pre-pubescence was perfectly within the telepath’s realm of possibilities, Joe
decided to cut his losses.  He gave Mike a cold look and said, “This is where I
tell you if I ever catch you sniffing around us again, I’ll hunt you down and
lighten your kids by a few body parts and feed your balls to a kreenit so you
can’t spread your rotten vaghi genes to the rest of Humanity.” 

“Sorry,” Mike whispered
hoarsely.  “Sorry, man.  Sorry.”  His calloused hands trembled where he held
him, his big shoulders quaking.  “We just…”  He swallowed hard.  “Sorry.”

Joe gave a derisive snort
when he saw tears.  “You hypocritical sootbags are so burning lucky you got the
pointy-eared furg on your side.  And after what you did to him, too…”  He shook
his head,
still
itching to pull the trigger.  “
So
burning lucky.”

Mike’s eyes widened. 
“You mean he doesn’t want us dead?”  The ashsoul sounded…surprised.

Joe declined to comment,
because
Joe
was still debating.  Scowling, he said, “Whether or not
Pointy thinks you should die is irrelevant. 
I
think you should die.  If
you follow us, you
will
die.  He’s the only thing keeping you sniveling
Takki alive right now, so just count yourself lucky he doesn’t seem to be
capable of wanting you dead.”

“W-we n-n-never hurt
an-ny one,” Mike babbled.  “Please.  We were just hungry…”

“Never
hurt
anyone?” Joe demanded, raising his voice in a shout.  “I ran across your
handiwork a couple weeks ago.  A family of four. 
Dead
.” 

Mike flinched and looked
away, going green. 

Joe watched him with
disgust.  “You think you’re doing anyone a favor by tying them up, taking their
stuff, and leaving them to die?” he growled.  “You think they’re gonna what…
walk
it off
?  You might as well be pulling the trigger, you burning asher.  If I
had my way—”  Movement caught his attention out of the corner of his eye and he
saw Shael, who was leading the other two girls across the abandoned camp
towards him.  Joe immediately recognized the hard, determined look on her face
as cold, warrior vengeance.  Seeing she fully intended to murder Mike and his
kids, Joe debated for a split second.  Then, despite his better judgement, he
lowered his gun and muttered, “Get out of here.  Fast.  And don’t follow us. 
You do, and I
will
end you.”

Mike must have noticed
the look on Shael’s face, because his eyes widened and he grabbed his little
girl by the waist, threw her over his shoulder, grabbed his boy by the hand,
and ran.

“How
dare
you
steal my glory, Voran,” Shael snarled as soon as she got within hearing
distance.  “His blood was
mine
.”  Her face was flushed, her perky
breasts bouncing again as she stomped up to him.  “Did you have Takki for
ancestors?  He was going to strike my
back
.  It was
my right
to
kill him.”

No thanks from the pretty
girl for saving her life, no compliments on his stellar shooting skills, no
starry-eyed awe at his awesomeness.  Of course not.  Because the Mothers hated
him and the Sisters enjoyed screwing up the threads of his life in every way
possible.  If it weren’t for the fact that the fire in her vivid emerald eyes
was eerily turning him on, Joe would have had no problem at all telling her
where she could shove her attitude.

But she was pretty when
she was mad.

Really pretty.  Joe’s
heart was pounding again.  “I, uh, was just trying to protect Eleven-C.  I
thought he was attacking
her
.”

Shael squinted at him. 
“Why do you insist on speaking the language of skulkers and thieves, Voran?  Do
you sympathize with this vaghi scum?”

Joe sighed, realizing he
had spoken Congie.  Again.  Someday, he needed to sit down and figure out where
the soot his Jreet habit was coming from and how to turn it on.  Until then,
though, he had a perfectly good crutch.

Can you please
translate for me?
Joe asked. 
She’s being unreasonable again.
  After
all, Joe had never been the scholarly sort—his brother had been given enough
brains for the both of them.  Why learn something unnecessary like a language
when he had a device or grounder that could do it for him?

Twelve-A gave a tired
mental shrug.

What the hell does
that mean?
Joe demanded.

I guess I could.  I
don’t feel good, Joe.  I threw up a few minutes ago.  It was mostly blood. 
Hurry, okay?
  He didn’t even bother to mention that Joe had shot someone, a
fact that startled Joe to the core.

“Twelve-A needs help,”
Joe told Shael.  “He’s going to die.  We can compare teks later.”  Again,
unfortunately, in Congie.

The woman scowled at him,
then her green eyes dropped to his stomach.  Without asking, she reached out
and unbuckled the ammo belt and various holsters from his waist.  Jane’s sleek
form went with it, the traitorous wench yet again trying to trade sides.

Joe grabbed Shael’s wrist
before the belt could fall free.  “Since when does a Welu warrior demean
himself with the weaponry of a biped?” he demanded.  The mere thought that she
was
interested
in them was enough to give him an ulcer.  Jreet disdained
firearms of all sorts.  Considering the penchant Shael had for exploding
craniums, he’d like to keep it that way.

“You don’t need so many,”
Shael retorted.  This time, she used her mind-powers to shove him aside as she
forcefully took the belt of guns.  “Typical grabby Voran, hoarding trophies
like a Jahul hoards its ruvmestin.”  Then, with the poise of a Dhasha prince,
she snapped Joe’s belt around her own hips and give him a challenging stare,
daring him to refuse. 

“You,” Joe growled,
jabbing a finger between her breasts, “can’t have my guns.”

She gave him a smug
look.  “Try to take them from me, Voran.”

The challenge in her
voice made Joe’s adrenaline surge again, and he once more thought about how
this woman could kick his ass, and how much Junior seemed to be up to the
challenge.  He had to violently shake himself out of that particular thought
before its sheer stupidity tipped him over the mental cliff and got him killed.

Twelve-A,
Joe
said, desperate now,
tell her she can’t take my guns.

Twelve-A did not reply.

Joe
would
have
taken the guns from her—if he hadn’t known she would flatten him for the
effort.  Her compunctions against using her so-called ‘war-mind’ seemed to have
flown out the window around the same time some starving, selfish furgs tied her
up and left her to die.

Soot,
Joe thought,
looking at his guns.  He
wanted
Jane back, but he didn’t want to become
the Amazing Tree-Impaled-Man for the effort.  Even then, the corpse-topped pine
was a gruesome reminder of exactly what Shael could do to him if he pissed her
off.  He supposed he still had a few pistols and all his rifles…

No!
a startled
part of him cried. 
You are
not
giving her Jane.
  “I am
not
giving you Jane,” Joe blurted.

The infuriating woman
patted Jane’s sleek curves.  “Looks like you already did, skulker.”

Again, the threat in her
vivid emerald eyes made Joe’s heart give a startled hammer.  She looked so
sexy
when she was threatening to kill him.

“Uh…” Alice said, looking
up at the two of them with perplexed gray eyes, “…what are you guys saying?”

“Adult stuff,” Joe said,
glaring down at the tiny woman in front of him, trying to figure out how he was
going to get his belt back without getting skewered by a tree.  Something was
nagging at him, something important, but he couldn’t get over the fact that the
woman had just taken half his weaponry from him and he hadn’t stopped her. 
Most of the guns wouldn’t even fit in her petite hands.  That was just
greedy. 
Still, he couldn’t think of anything to say.  His heart was pounding like
it had taken a plasma round, his chest feeling like it was going to explode as
he met her fiery green eyes.  Never before—
never
—had anyone done that to
him.  “Who the hell
are
you?” he blurted, barely able to hear over the
hammering in his ears.

Oh, nice one, Dobbs. 
Looked like his brother’s genius was rubbing off on him.

Shael, obviously not
affected in the same way as he, snorted. “Dumb Voran.”  Without another word,
she brushed past him, heading back to the People’s camp.  Joe turned, following
the mesmerizing sway of her hips, feeling like he’d just been run over by a
Congressional tank.

Alice glanced nervously
from Joe to Shael, then swallowed and, giving Joe a look of apology, hurried
after the woman now carrying most of his guns.  Eleven-C, however, stayed with
Joe, giving him a confused frown.  “Gun,” she said, pointing at Shael’s back. 
It was one of the few words Joe had managed to teach her.

“Yeah,” Joe sighed, “I
know.  She just took my guns.”  Guns that, until now, he had guarded with all
the jealousy of a pregnant Hebbut.

“Gun!” Eleven-C cried,
stomping her foot in the grass.  She again pointed at the belt wrapped around
the woman’s retreating back and gave him a look like she expected him to go
retrieve it.

Somehow, Joe didn’t think
that would end very well.  Giving the woman’s back one last torn look, Joe
hastily turned and jogged into Mike’s annihilated camp, picked up his abandoned
medkit, retrieved his ovi from a headless corpse, forced the bawling, nutless
man to take off his boots, slipped his feet back to their rightful place,
slapped the magnetic catches in place, and hurried back after them.

Eleven-C kept pace,
frowning at him.  “Gun,” she said, sounding more than a bit irritated.  Like
every other experiment in the camp, she had been forbidden to touch them, and
obviously felt like Shael was getting away with something she shouldn’t be. 
Which she was.

“I know what you mean,”
Joe muttered.  “Don’t worry.  I’ll take care of this.”  His legs, being over a
dig longer than the ebon-haired beauty’s, quickly caught up with her.  “Those
are my guns,” Joe said.  Shael gave Joe an irritated look out of the corner of
her eye, but didn’t slow down or offer to return them. 

Joe narrowed his eyes. 
“Okay.  What the hell?  You’re gonna, what, start
shooting
people now,
is that what you’re telling me?  I thought you were Jreet.”

The woman gave him a
dangerous look, but continued moving.

“You would shame yourself
with modern weaponry?” Joe demanded, desperate, now.

“You do,” she said.

The woman had a point.

Joe had the realization
that this could go really, really bad.

And Joe, who was having
trouble thinking because something about the woman was sapping his brainpower,
made the dubious decision to grab her and
take
his weapons back. 
“They’re
mine
,” Joe insisted.

He was on the ground in a
microsecond, an invisible mountain squishing him from above.

“I,” she said, coming to
stand over him with cold fury, “will
not
bear your children.”

Bear his…  Joe’s eyes
widened, realizing she still thought he was aiming to wrestle her into dropping
her ‘tek’ and becoming female.  “Misunderstanding,” he gasped.

She leaned down with a
frown, the invisible barrier still solidly in place.  “What?”

“Mis…understanding…” Joe
managed.  His chest felt like it was caving in.

She straightened,
scowling down at him again.  “You babble nonsense again, Voran.” 

“Please,” Joe gasped,
rapidly blacking out.  In Congie, because he didn’t know how to switch his
Jreet habit on because he was too lazy to study it because he had a crutch.

Shael, however, obviously
understood his meaning.  She grinned and crossed her arms over her chest,
curiosity in her eyes.  “Oh-ho.  The Voran begs?  Were you crimson fools never
trained
in the war-mind, Joe Dobbs?”  She was grinning, now. 
Much
too
pleased with herself.  “Perhaps if you ask
very
nicely, I’ll let you
keep your tek.”

Joe narrowed his eyes,
feeling a rush of fury boil up from within.  “I’d rather suck diseased Dhasha
dick than beg a Welu to take a bath.  Jane!  You’re hot, baby.”

From the woman’s waist,
Jane purred, “
Of course, Commander.
”

As Shael was frowning,
twisting and raising an arm to look down at the weapon on her hip, the holster
began to smoke where it was touching Jane’s sleek curves.  An instant later,
the invisible barrier holding Joe to the ground dissolved as Shael was gasping,
slapping at the fire, hooting and stumbling backwards, trying in vain to get it
off her midsection, obviously having forgotten about the belt release in her
panic.

Joe stood up, smoothly
unbuckled the latch, yanked the gun-belt free, and, scowling down at Shael,
said, “Jane, cool off, sweetie.” 

The seductive Human voice
said, “
So soon, Commander?
”  Immediately, the gun cooled, ice crystals
forming momentarily on its sleek black curves before it returned to normal
temperatures.

“Like I said,” Joe said,
strapping the belt firmly to his hips, “they’re mine.”  He started walking
again.

Shael caught up to him
quickly.  “Your weapons fight for you,” Shael blurted, sounding pleasingly
stunned.  She still held a hand over the burn on her midsection, but looked
completely preoccupied.  Licking her lips, she said, “Twelve-A said you were a
great warrior. 
Are
you a great warrior?”  She seemed…nervous.