Page 33 of The Ozar Triad

At least she had adrenaline on her side. As she’d lain all day in the burning sun getting turned into a deep-fried french fry, she’d had time to think. And think. And get angrier.

Not only had these reptile creatures abducted her for reasons as yet unknown, they’d captured and injured men who’d been the only people on this ass-end of a planet to help her.

If she had anything to do about it, they were going to pay. Dearly.

Just seeing her men injured like they were, and then treated so roughly without reason was enough to press her buttons. It seemed the universe was filled with the same sort of people as the likes she’d encountered while fighting the worst kind of battles, and she’d reached her limit.

Being a soldier, she stood up for herself, stood up for innocents, and brought creatures like that to justice. Just because she wasn’t on Earth meant that had to stop.

She was just being a soldier and that was what soldiers did. They helped get people back.Anypeople. Not justher men. Not that she wanted to be cocooned between them again, sandwiched between hard muscles and harder cocks. Definitely not that she wanted to experience their brand of lovemaking that brought her endless orgasms until she just about passed out. Not the caring. Not the thoughtfulness. Not that part of her that felt so connected it might be that they were an extension of herself, because that didn’t make sense. At. All.

No. This was all about justice and doing what soldiers were trained to do. Clear and simple.

If she thought about any of the other reasons too much, it made things a little too messy to cope with, because that would mean she might never get back home. Notwantto. And that meant she’d inadvertently given a part of her heart she’d vowed to remain intact.

She found her way into Rujali’s room, to the little hidden cavity and the arsenal inside. It required a little more pushing than the last time, but the door hissed open revealing all of that goodness.

Her heart did a little flip as she reached for the sword. The handle fit into her palm like a handshake. She flipped it in an experimental arc. The balance was superb.

She found a hip holster with multiple attachments. She slung it around her waist—twice—and filled the holsters with side arms. Next she clipped a shoulder harness around her torso and slipped the blade into the sheath at her back, leaving the handle high enough to lift it out easily. The wisp of metal on leather made goosebumps break out over her body. It felt so good.

Once she got her men out from wherever they were, she would have plenty of weapons to share with them. Soon she was weighed down with as much as she could carry of the arsenal and she hadn’t even dented the contents of the cabinet.

“Men after my own heart,” she muttered, and stalled when she realized what she’d said.

She headed out of the room. She needed to drink something or she wasn’t going to last long enough to share said weapons. There was barely enough saliva in her mouth to coat her tongue. The craft was a mess of twisted metal and crumpled walls. When she came to the irreparable rent in the fuselage, it was clear this machine was never going to fly again.

She clung to a section of the wall and half stepped, half jumped the gap. There had to be a kitchen somewhere in this wreck.

She passed half open doors that were a mass of limp wires. “Huh. Finally see how those things operate.”

She recognized a sink and a tap in the next room. A kitchen. Thank God. It took a moment to find the switch and then she bent underneath the stream of crisp, clear water and let it run down her throat. It was better than manna from Heaven.

She set about tapping the walls. More hidden cabinets hissed open. She was getting used to this technology. Inside a cabinet rested some bars wrapped in a plastic-type material. She grabbed one and ripped off the plastic, letting it drop to the floor, and then sniffed the bar. It smelt like nothing. After an experimental lick, a mild savory flavor coated her tongue. She took a bite. It was chewy like a muesli bar, but not distasteful. Better than army rations.

She leaned against the bench, hand over her stomach, and let out a long, slow breath. She hadn’t realized how hungry she had been until she was finally sated. How long had it been since she’d eaten a meal? Hours had run into days, her life completely wrung inside out. Even now, she had no idea where she stood. The only thing she was sure of, was that she was going to seek retribution from the creatures that had abducted her and thrown her into all of this.

Her sole focus now was on what she had to do. Her foot brushed something loose in the floor of the corridor. She bent to find the object and her hand curved around a cold, hard familiar device. The tool she’d used on Klaej. She knew he still suffered the effects and that it just didn’t automatically go away. If he’d been seriously hurt because she’d rendered him paralyzed, she would never forgive herself.

That line of thinking was going to get her nowhere right now. She shoved the guilt away. There would be time for that later. She slipped the device into the waistband of her pants and continued down the short corridor.

Coming to the enormous rent, she peered around the corner. The night was eerily quiet. There were no animal noises. No hooting or whistling or rustling. Only the sound of a brisk breeze. In the distance, the airport glowed, a subdued halo of light against the deep stars of the universal sky.

She jumped to the ground and stuck to the shadows of the craft, which wasn’t hard because the only source of lighting was from the stars in the sky. There was no moon. Now that the heat of the sun had disappeared, a dewy chill filled the air.

The cave loomed like a toothless, open mouth. Nothing stretched between the craft and the cave but flat open ground. She waited, sucking in shallow breaths, but the cave mouth was dead. Not a flicker of light or movement.

She waited twice as long as she thought was needed, her blood firing with the unspent burn of adrenaline, until finally she clutched a rifle-looking weapon against her chest.

With a glance in either direction, she took off at a run toward the cave.

She padded to a halt just outside the entrance, her back to the cool rock, fingers molded to the rifle. She took quick breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth, waiting for any attention she may have caused. No movement. She darted a quick glance inside. Nothing but thick, solid obscurity. She slid around the curve of the wall and into the darkness.

Back pressed against the wall, she waited for her eyes to adjust. The air was more chilled in here. The silence inside made her ears ring with the absence of the wind. She slid farther inside, following the wall. She felt her way with her fingertips, creeping carefully deeper into the cave. Any sound she made would be compounded in the stillness.

She glanced over her shoulder, noting the entrance to the cave as a dot of night sky in the distance. The cave was huge, but completely empty. She had seen the Reptiles take her men inside, but where could they have gone?

They had to be here somewhere, behind a hidden door or in an offshoot somewhere. If only she had some lighting. She hated being totally blind.

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