Page 54 of Alien Mine

A shot rang out, slicing through their play, and the goats’panicked bleating filled the night. The deepest dread sprang into Rachel, muting the need Dyuvad had roused. He cursed low under his breath and shoved her off his lap into the floor between the couch and the coffee table.

“Stay down,” he whispered, then he was gone, stalking out of sight around the couch toward the girls’ rooms.

Another shot rang out. Rachel jumped and clapped a hand over her mouth, silencing the scream threatening to rip out of her throat. Dear God, what was happening outside? If somebody was on her property taking potshots at the goats or, worse, the house, why hadn’t Dyuvad’s alarms triggered a warning?

He ghosted around the side of the couch, his expression harder than she’d ever seen. “Someone’s standing at the edge of your property outside the area my ship is scanning. I’m going after them.”

She slid her hand away from her mouth and grasped his arm, held on tight when he tried to shake her off. “Don’t be an idiot, Dyuvad. Whoever it is has a gun.”

“Don’t worry, beauty.”

He leaned forward, pressed a hard, lingering kiss against her gaping mouth, and was gone before she could say another word.

As soon as he was clear of Rachel, Dyuvad jumped directly to his ship’s armory. While he stuffed himself into a flexible, armored jumpsuit and a helmet armed with a projectable shield, he barked orders to his ship’s AI, calculating the position of the shooter standing at the edge of Rachel’s property and the coordinates of the next jump.

He hadn’t had a problem getting through a jump without passing out since his first jump onto Earth. Always before, he’d been woozy and had to take time to recover, a fact his mercenary-soldier brother had teased Dyuvad about to no end.

He only needed three guesses as to what had changed, four if he counted Fate. Having a family, being its primary protector and caring for someone beyond himself, was apparently the cureDyuvad had needed all along.

In that moment, clarity struck. This is what had motivated his mother to become a mercenary-soldier. This is what motivated his brother Benar still, this determined duty to protect at all costs the lives of those who couldn’t protect themselves.

For his mother and brother, those lives had largely been strangers, but for Dyuvad, the people he protected had, between one breath and the next, it seemed, become so important to him, he’d do anything to keep them safe.

Anything at all.

Two minutes after jumping onto his ship, Dyuvad flipped the jump for Earth. He landed in a crouch not eighteen ceg from the last known position of the person shooting across Rachel’s property. The night was starkly silent around him, contrasting sharply with the cacophony on the nearby farm. The insects and other creatures pervading the forested hillside were inaudible over the screams of Rachel’s goats. A half moon shone above him, scarcely visible through the thick canopy. Its light filtered through the trees and did little to pierce the blackness surrounding him.

Infrared, he murmured against the helmet’s sub-vocal com. Instantly, thermal images bled across the visor. A human figure crouched against a tree, one hand clasped around the barrel of a still-warm rifle.

A cold smile stretched Dyuvad’s lips.Gotcha.

He slipped a specially made jump chip out of a recess in the armor, fitted it deftly to the end of his gun. The intruder shifted his grip on the rifle. Dyuvad sucked in a breath, aimed, and fired in one smooth motion. The intruder jerked. The rifle slipped out of his hands, and down he went into a crumpled heap onto the forest floor.

The smile broadened into a pleased grin as Dyuvad remotely activated the jump. A low buzz reverberated through his wrist, signaling the intruder’s successful ground-to-ship transfer. Now they were getting somewhere. Later, he’d check on his prisoner, held safely in his ship’s brig awaiting questioning. But for now, he had more urgent matters to attend, like checking on Rachel andthe girls, and figuring out exactly what that winyu runner had been shooting at.

It didn’t take long to make sure everybody was safe, round up some strong flashlights, and head outside to assess the damage. Rachel insisted on coming along once the girls were settled back into bed, and Dyuvad didn’t stop her. It was her property. True, its protection and maintenance fell under his purview, but she was the owner. She had the most at stake.

He headed out to the pasture while she walked slowly around the house running light over the outer siding. The moon slid behind a cloud, deepening the darkness, and Dyuvad slowed his steps along the worn path, studying the ground under the strong beam of light as he walked. The goats had subsided to quiet, mournful bleats. Their panic seemed to have dissipated, though their agitation had not. As Dyuvad approached the fence, Billy rammed his forehead into a post. It quavered under the blow and the wires attached to it shimmered in outward ripples.

Dyuvad held out his hand and murmured softly to Billy, risked combing a hand across the top of the ram’s rock-hard head. Billy’s bell clanked as he butted Dyuvad’s hand, then he turned and scampered off. Dyuvad slid a beam of light into the enclosure. There on the ground, a goat lay, her blood-stained side heaving as she struggled to breathe.

His heart sank. Georgette, one of Rachel’s prized milkers, a sweet-tempered creature beloved by Kelly and Tiny. They doted on her, had since she was born. Fed her by hand when her mother died during the birth, Rachel had told him, and raised her to adulthood.

Losing her would hurt all three of them, and maybe that’s why the intruder had chosen the goats. They were Rachel’s primary source of income, yes, but they were also part of the family. Was that the message the shooter had wanted to impart? That nothing was safe, nothing was sacred?

Would the girls have been next, or Rachel, if she’d goneoutside to investigate the shots?

Anger rose swiftly in Dyuvad, tightening his own breath. By Fryw, that would never happen, not while he was there. With every ounce of strength he possessed, he would protect them, fight for them, love them as long as his heart beat and energy imbued his limbs with strength and purpose.

Love them.

He shoved the thought aside as he opened the gate, slipped inside, and closed it behind himself. There was no time now to worry about the feelings he’d developed for Rachel and her family, nor whether they were reciprocated.

But as he knelt beside the injured goat, he knew it was too late to save her. She turned her head toward him, kicked her legs weakly. Her eyes were wide and luminous in the circle of light thrown by the flashlight, and held mute fear. Dyuvad ran a soothing hand down her throat, attempting to calm her, but his heart was a wicked knot in his chest, tangled with the sorrow of losing her, knowing he could do nothing to save her. Him, with some of the galaxy’s most advanced technology available on his ship, was helpless in the face of certain death.

A hand landed softly on Dyuvad’s armored shoulder. Rachel knelt beside him, reached out her other hand, and placed it on top of his. “She won’t make it.”

It wasn’t a question. Dyuvad couldn’t have answered even if it had been.

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