Page 46 of Shielded Heart 1
Growling, Arcanthus spun, pulling Samantha out of the stairwell with his tail and sidestepping to draw her fully into the hallway. She stumbled from the sudden movement. Before Arc could right her, the onigox attacked again. Arcanthus released Samantha and raised his arms to defend himself from the onigox’s rapid, powerful blows, deflecting and dodging as many as he could. Those that connected did so on his arms, which could absorb such punishment indefinitely.
“My boss told me to take you apart one piece at a time,” theonigox said as he advanced. “Then I’ll let Straek take your terranji’tas. Maybe we’ll sample her before we sell her.”
A crimson haze fell over Arcanthus’s vision, fueled by a furious, intensifying heat within him. He leaned backward sharply and braced himself on his tail to dodge one of the onigox’s punches. The onigox overextended his arm; for an instant, his middle was exposed.
Arcanthus kicked the onigox in the gut, pushing forward with both his tail and his other leg. The onigox grunted and doubled over, forced back by Arcanthus’s momentum.
Planting his leading foot on the floor, Arcanthus swung his right fist in a quick cross before the onigox could recover. His metal knuckles crunched bone and knocked the onigox’s head to the side when they connected with the orange alien’s cheek. Arc followed through with the punch, twisting his torso and hips. His tail whipped forward and coiled around his opponent’s ankle.
Movement flickered in the edge of his vision—movement inside the stairwell.
“Alk, watch out!” Samantha called.
He dove aside as two members of the illustrious elevator crew opened fire on him from the stairwell; his tail tugged the onigox’s leg forward, destroying the orange alien’s balance and sending the brute to the floor. The sound of the elevator crew’s blasters was amplified by the stairwell’s acoustics, making the high, piercing shots almost deafening.
Arcanthus rolled onto his side, flicking his gaze toward Samantha. She’d fallen, but now sat with her back against the hallway wall across from the stairwell entry.
Pushing himself up on an elbow, Arcanthus reached back for his spare auto-blaster.
Samantha, still clutching her weapon with white knuckles, turned the barrel toward the stairwell. The fear never left herwide eyes as she pulled the trigger and screamed. Her voice was broken, pained, angry,fierce, conveying all her fears and frustrations without a single word.
Blue-white plasma bolts sprayed from her blaster in a wide cone, their spread increased by the trembling in her arms. There was no counting how many shots she fired; she just held down the trigger.
Arcanthus spun on his back, planted his feet on the wall, and shoved himself over to her. The two members of the elevator crew who’d descended were smoking corpses on the floor of the stairwell. Sam didn’t seem to notice.
Sitting up beside Samantha, Arc placed his hands over hers to steady the weapon and ease her finger off the trigger. Her wide-eyed stare remained on the open door for a time before she turned her head toward him. Countless emotions swirled in her warm brown eyes, punctuated but made no more identifiable by her sharp, panting breaths.
A few meters down the hall, the onigox climbed to his feet and growled. “Stand up and face me, sedhi. I’m going to pummel you into a paste.”
Perhaps in his younger, more rash days, Arcanthus would’ve welcomed the challenge of facing such an opponent in hand-to-hand combat, would’ve thrilled at the opportunity to prove his martial prowess. He knew he’d made some foolish decisions as of late, knew that he’d taken irresponsible risks, but if there was one thing Arcanthus had learned over the years, it was that he had nothing to prove.
He pivoted Samantha’s auto-blaster, slipping his finger through the open trigger guard, and fired.
A burst of plasma bolts darted through the onigox and sizzled into the wall behind him. The orange alien glanced down at the holes in his chest, from which small tendrils of smoke curled, and grunted before crashing to the floor.
Arcanthus guided Samantha’s hand away from the auto-blaster’s grip and met her gaze. “Are you all right?”
Her lips parted, but no sound came out. She looked at the dead onigox, then swung her gaze to the dead aliens in the stairwell, before finally returning her eyes to Arcanthus. “I’m… I just… I’m…”
“Numb?”
She nodded.
“Let’s get you up.” Arcanthus took hold of her forearms as he rose, helping her to her feet. Her auto-blaster fell to hang from her shoulder by its strap. He slipped his tail around her waist again and kept hold of her arms; she seemed unsteady, and he feared she would fall if he let go. “Can you walk?”
Her tongue slipped out and wet her lips before she pressed them into a tight line. A little crease formed between her brows as they lowered. She nodded again, this time with more confidence.
Tentatively, Arcanthus released her arms. She wobbled for a moment before taking hold of her auto-blaster in both hands. The weapon seemed to help her reclaim her balance. Satisfied that she wouldn’t topple over, Arcanthus swung his remaining auto-blaster to his front and glanced up and down the hallway; there was no one else in sight.
He led Samantha toward the rear exit, which was the closer of the two. “We’re going to the rear doors. Kiloq, Koroq, how are you two holding up?”
“Stalemate,” Kiloq replied over the comms. “We’re outnumbered, and we’ll be exposed if we move.”
“Drakkal, what’s your situation?”
“We can make an opening to get into the car if we need to. That’s as good as it’s going to get,” said Drakkal.
Arcanthus nodded to himself. He’d hoped for a smoother rescue, but having come into this without a plan, he’d notexpectedan easy operation. All he wanted was for Samantha to be safe. Was that really too much to ask? Was the universe really that intent upon screwing with him?
