Page 78 of Stars in Halo

An arm reached out and snatched her weapon from Katya.

Xion gave her a grim look and targeted the approaching menace.

He squeezed off a shot and grunted with satisfaction when the appliance exploded in a ball of flames.

Smoke erupted from the blazing, falling mass, accompanied by the pungent odour of burnt electronics and oil.

Katya rose.

‘Wait,’ Xion cautioned.

But it was too late.

From behind them came the whirring sound of a second device.

A spit of laser fire rang out, and Katya groaned as she staggered off balance, slipped, and landed on her right shoulder on the rocks.

She didn’t cry out; her experience in high tension clusterfokks showed.

Xion whipped around so fast he was a blur as he impossibly jumped on the attacking drone and tore it apart with his bare hands.

There was the spit of torn electronics and components, the snap and crackle of electricity and the wild spin of its multiple propellers.

He tossed it aside, and it fell from his hands to the ground and writhed in an agonising electronic death.

‘Battle drones tend to fly in pairs,’ Xion rasped.

Winded, he swayed, bending over to grab his knees.

After a few gasps of air, the Rider glanced up at the fallen Ccyth woman and swore. ‘Fokk! Are you all right?’

Katya nodded, sitting up, brushing at her clothes and her shoulder.

Xion’s eyes tracked to her side. ‘You’re hurt.’

He was beside her in seconds, lifting her from the rocks.

There was a tear in her cloak and suit, and blood was welling from her collarbone and lapel.

‘The drone got you,’ he said.

‘Don’t worry about me,’ she murmured. ‘I’ll take care of it. I’ve got this. You rest, you need it.’

‘My metanoids are coming back, regenerating and accelerating my natural healing. I’m not so helpless any more,’ he countered. ‘And you require a second pair of eyes to dress that wound.’

He unzipped her Sable suit as he spoke.

She wasn’t wearing a bra, so he only undid the zipper to the top swell of her breast, then peeled the high-tech synth material off her injured shoulder.

The puncture wound was purplish and already swelling, sullenly oozing blood. The laser fire had gone into and through the left of her external arm muscles, the worst of it glancing off her collarbone or absorbed by the toned curves.

He scrabbled for their bags and found a medi-laser. Katya stood motionless as he sprayed, cleaned and closed the injury.

Magenta-hued moonlight gleamed on her bare shoulder, turning her skin pearlescent.

Her honeyed complexion was pale from blood loss, and her eyes gazed at him with such vulnerability that his heart lurched.

He dragged his eyes from hers to where the elegant slant of her nape was exposed.

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