His immediate reaction was, No want. He’d thought he was bringing expensive goods back to Danalon, and he hated the smell of this deal. His best guess now was that the bound man was a slave.
The idea of human trafficking made Max sick. He wanted to turn around and head back to his shuttle. But that could be dangerous under the circumstances. These men were expecting payment. Not only that, what would happen to the prisoner if Max rejected him?
He silently cursed his friend Rafe for getting him into this mess. What he said was, “Okay.”
The victim shuffled forward on his own, still with his head down. He was taller than the rest of the ugly crew. When he reached Max’s side, he spoke in a barely audible whisper.
“They mean to kill you. And sell me to another trader.”
Max blinked, his gaze flicking from the sellers to the prisoner and back again.
“You have Kawanda. Where is payment?” the spokesman demanded, his voice turning hard.
Glad that he hadn’t already handed anything over, Max fumbled for the pouch at his belt. He saw their greedy eyes follow his movements as he detached the small carry bag. With subtle pressure from his fingers, he loosened the drawstring at the top. Then in one swift movement, he grasped the sack from the bottom and gave a mighty swing of his arm, scattering the jewels in all directions. Some bounced on hard ground, others sank into thick muck.
The sellers gasped. Dropping to hands and knees, they began scrabbling around to recover the precious rocks.
Max pulled out his beamer with one hand and clamped the other hand firmly around the captive’s arm.
He hauled him back toward the rocky outcropping, steadying the guy to keep him upright.
As they drew even with the boulder, an energy blast drilled into the stone beside his head. He returned fire, hearing what must be a curse as he hit one of the assailants.
He kept firing, hoping to hold the bastards at bay as he rounded a boulder, then pressed his hand to the lock plate beside the shuttle door. It glided open, and he pushed Kawanda inside.
He’d closed the door behind them when the three pug-ugly natives surged around the outcropping, firing at the shuttle. And their beamers were not on half power. He could hear the metal of the small craft sizzling as he fired up the engines. Praying they hadn’t hit anything vital or punctured the skin, he took off.
For a heart-stopping moment he thought the continued fire was going to take him down.
He used the onboard guns to lay down his own deadly spray, which drove the marauders back around the natural shield, where they crouched to make themselves smaller targets. No longer in immediate danger, he rose far enough to clear the atmosphere, then set the controls for auto-return to the ship.
He was sweating under the damn full-head mask. Ripping it off, he tossed it into the cargo area behind him. When he turned back to the shuttle controls, the figure beside him gasped.
“What?”
“I did not believe the stories. But you are like me.”
“Like how?”
The guy shook his head, trying to dislodge the hood, but he couldn’t do it with his hands secured behind his back. “Wait a minute.” Max use a folding blade to cut the bindings.
The captive rubbed his wrists. They were thin and covered with red marks from the bonds. Below them, narrow hands and slender fingers ended in ragged nails. They didn’t look like a man’s wrists or hands. And now that Max thought about it, the voice was much too high for a man.
“Thank you.”
Curious, he reached up and pulled back the hood. It was his turn to gasp. He was staring at the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.