Page 39 of Stalker
Before she finished, the security alarm chimed, and the AI voice announced, “Intruder alert.”
A hologram appeared at the end of the bed, showing Stalker battling Colton Price in the front yard beside the Mesaarkan flyer.
Neely jumped out of bed. Passing her hand over a door in the wall on her side, she reached in and grabbed the blaster, checked the setting, and ran from the bedroom naked.
Despite the fact he was wearing his armor, Stalker lay on his back with blood, so much blood seeping from his abdomen. Price was on his knees, straddling him, raising a short sword with a glowing tip to plunge it into Stalker’s throat.
Neely screamed, “Nooooo!” Firing the blaster simultaneously, its force knocked Price off him. She ran across the grass and hit Price with a second blast, falling to her knees beside Stalker.
He was choking, trying to breathe in short gasps; a trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth. His eyes were open, and he met her gaze with a hint of a smile, then his eyes closed.
“Stalker,” she sobbed. He couldn’t die! Not now. Neely choked back another sob and looked for his weapons belt. He wasn’t wearing it. Picking up the bloody sword, Neely ran back into the house. She dropped the weapon, went to the med cabinet, and grabbed a four-bolus pack of nanites.
Running back to where Stalker lay unconscious and bleeding, Neely fell to her knees. His armor had receded, and he was now wearing only a pair of shorts. She opened two nanite syringes and pumped the contents into the wound. The other two, she pumped into his nose.
“Stalker, hang on. You can’t die… I love you… I need you….” Neely sobbed, putting her ear to his chest. His heart was beating slowly, and his breathing was intermittent at best.
The fact that a normal man would be dead was of little comfort. From what she’d learned of cyborg physiology, Stalker’s nanites should be able to heal him. It could take hours or even days.
In the meantime, she needed help to get him into the house and secure Colton Price. And she needed to dress before they arrived. Picking up her blaster, Neely hurried into the house to their bedroom.
Opening one of her clothing drawers, she pulled out a pair of cargo shorts and a tank top and quickly donned them. Then she found her com tablet on the table by the bed and called Protector Chief Argan Shield.
“Argan, I need help. Colten Price showed up… Attacked Stalker with a lighted tip sword… Stalker is hurt bad, and I can’t move him.” She hurried back outside to find Coltan kneeling beside Stalker, searching for his weapon to finish him off.
Dropping her com-tablet, Neely reset her blaster to kill. “Get away from him, Colton, or I will kill you.”
Colton looked up, and Neely fired off a bolt that zinged by his ear. He seemed to know that she missed on purpose and jumped up, raising his hands and backing away.
“I just came for the Mesaarkan flyer.” The cyborg backed away as he spoke. “He was beating me; I had to stop him….”
“What the hell was that thing you stabbed him with?”
Colton shrugged, “A Mesaarkan radial sword. It sends a beam through the space between molecules in the armor, piercing it. Then, a radial beam cuts a circle through a few to several inches of surrounding tissue.”
While he spoke, he was sidling around the Mesaarkan flyer parked in front of the garage. Neely raised her blaster to kill him, but Stalker gasped, drawing her attention away from Price.
When she looked back up, Colton Price was nowhere in sight. Neely wanted to check Stalker’s heart and breath sounds, but she needed to know that Colton Price wasn’t circling back to attack them again and steal the Mesaarkan flyer.
A high-pitched whine in the distance announced the arrival of four protectors on hovercycles. They landed in the front yard moments later.
Only then did Neely press her ear to Stalker’s chest. His heart still beat slower than normal but a little faster than before. His lungs still sounded congested, but he was breathing better.
The four cyborgs got off their hovercycles and approached Neely and Stalker. “Where’s Price?” Argan asked.
“I don’t know. Stalker gasped, and I looked down. Price was gone when I looked back up.”
As if to answer the question, a flyer lifted off from somewhere beyond the trees that surrounded Stalker and Neely’s home and grounds.
“Aren’t you going after him?” Neely asked.
“Our cycles aren’t fast enough to catch that power-enhanced flyer. However, I pinged it and got the ID signature. They’ll track him from space and send a team after him.”
“I should have killed him,” Neely muttered, looking down at her fallen mate. “I used to consider him a friend… Not anymore.”
“I heard Commander Dark say that some of those natural converts were never quite right after becoming cyborgs,” said Argan. “Ma’am, if you could move away from the lieutenant, we’ll get him into the house for you.
Neely looked up at Shield and back at Stalker. Finally, she nodded and got up, stepping back. As the four of them lifted Stalker carefully and started toward the door, she said, “Straight back to the short hallway, last door on the left.”
