Page 50 of Star Prince

A blazing streak of light whizzed past. She dove toward the ship, seeking cover. The air crackled. The ground nearby exploded and burned where her opponent’s shots grazed the dirt. Heavens, she was in a gun battle! Unless people made easier targets than produce boxes, she was in deep trouble.

There were more shots. Her ears were ringing. She peeked around the fuselage and tried to see her attacker. He fired and almost hit her. She retaliated blindly, fearing that if she stopped firing, his next volley would kill her. But her shots went wild. There was an answering burst of light inches from her shoulder, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. Then the intruder bolted into the woods.

She chose a tree and fired above his head, thinking she could stop him by dropping a tree limb on his head. A crisp beam of green-tinged red streamed out from her pistol. With an ear-splitting crack, the smoldering branch crashed to the ground, barely missing her fleeing assailant.

Full of adrenaline, she jumped after him. Startled birds, woken from their slumber, took to the sky as her attacker crashed through the trees. Then, justbefore he disappeared, he cast a glance over his shoulder. Her heart stopped, and so did she. She knew those eyes, so like her own. And that face; it was imprinted in her memory.

“Klark!” she screamed after him. She reeled with fury. A primitive, bloodthirsty urge to finish the kill urged her to again give chase, but common sense held her back. Gulping air, she lowered her pistol and sagged with spent terror against theSun Devil’sfuselage. The acrid odor of hot metal and charred wood stung her nostrils.

She hoped she had seen the last of Klark, that he had satisfied his need for vengeance by humiliating her in the arcade. But he was back and he had almost killed her. What did he want—her very life for spurning his brother? That was insane.

When her legs stopped quivering, she jogged around to the thruster. She found the cowling hanging open and the torn-apart innards of the engine exposed. Clutching the fabric of her flightsuit to her chest, she squeezed her eyes shut. In the arcade Klark had said this wasn’t about her, but she hadn’t believed him. Now she understood.

He wanted to destroy Ian.

Chapter Fourteen

Fistsdeep in his pockets to fight the effects of the cold night air, Ian walked alongside Muffin, half-listening to Push, Gredda, and Quin’s humorous reminiscences as they all tromped back through the woods.

After a drink in the nearest bar and a sweep through town looking for Randall, in which they came up empty-handed, they had unanimously called off the evening early. Randall was obviously holed up back at his ship.

It was just as well—Ian wanted more time to work on his proposal. He knew that his detractors expected him, as an Earth-dweller and frontiersman, to be incapable of holding his own in serious negotiations, but they were wrong. When he confronted the senator, he would have several coherent, well researched plans—or at least the bare bones of them.Forethought and discipline had always been his strength.

A shot rang out in the distance. Screeching birds exploded out of the trees nearby, but an intense exchange of pistol-fire drowned out cries.

Muffin threw his arm in front of Ian, the instinctive gesture of a man protecting his leader, at the same time Ian reached for his gun with adrenalized speed.

More plasma-fire ended in an explosive crack of splitting wood that echoed through the forest. Then a woman screamed.

Tee!

Ian broke into a run. “To the ship!” he called.

Branches clawed at his face. Breathless, he burst from the tree line, skidding to halt at their ship’s landing pad. Right on his heels, Quin stumbled to a stop and aimed his flashlight at theSun Devil.

Chest heaving, Tee squinted back into the beam, her eyes wild. From one hand dangled a smoking pistol; clutched in her other was a flashlight. Blood glistened on her forehead.

“Push,” Ian shouted. “Check the perimeter for intruders. Gredda, get the medical kit.” His crew took off in opposite directions.

As Muffin guided Tee away from the ship and sat her on the ground, Quin said, “I’ll get the auxiliary generator online—the one that should have come on automatically.”

“Why didn’t it?” Ian demanded. He had left Teealone with a faulty security system and told her to sleep? The deed was criminal, especially knowing that someone might be after him.

“Hell if I know, Captain. But I intend to find out.” Swearing at the ship’s computer the mechanic jogged to the entry ramp and, after a few false starts, manually started the generator. The exterior and interior lights came on bright.

Mollified, Ian walked to where Tee sat with her long legs sprawled out on the dirt. As he crouched in front of her, she gazed up at him with a slightly dazed expression. Something inside him gave way as an elemental need to hold her, to care for her, dwarfed anything he had felt before. But instead of pulling her into his arms, he cursed the circumstances that kept them apart. “Gredda will fix you up,” he said gently.

“I’m injured?” She lifted a shaking hand to her head.

Ian snatched her fingers. “Don’t.”

“Something must have ricocheted and hit me,” she said. “I didn’t feel it.” She looked herself over. “I’m not shot, am I?”

Smiling, he took off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders. “Not that I can tell. Thank God.”

“Good. Now I can kill him.” Her mouth contorted with rage. “Preferably with my bare hands so that I can feel him suffer.”

“Kill him? Kill who? Tee, what the hell happened?”

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