Page 21 of Beauty and the Alien Beast
What in the galaxy does “cyoot” mean?
Whatever else was true, it was clear she was not making fun of me. In fact, she seemed a bit charmed, and that was a very good sign.
Alpha. Don’t get too comfortable.The warning from my trainers came back to me at once, even before Brax tensed and pricked up his ears. I looked over at him, touching Ella’s shoulder to get her attention. “What is it, Brax?”
Brax started to growl low in his throat.
Suddenly, I heard the hoverbikes again, and this time, they were coming toward us much faster. “The tree line,” I shouted, and as Ella jumped up, I grabbed her hand, pulling her in that direction.
We ran. She stumbled a little on the broken ground, and finally, I scooped her up, racing toward the tree line with her in my arms. Brax ran right after us, panting along on my heels.
We had barely managed to dive into the bushes and hunker down out of sight when a trio of the bikes came sweeping down the creek’s course, just an arm’s length above the surface, sending the water flying in a fine, hard spray to either side. I caught sight of the figures sitting atop the bikes and squinted, trying to make them out beyond the glare of their lights.
Just as I thought… The Omers’s slave catchers.
As Ella crouched next to me, I saw the one in the middle clearly as he slowed to look around at the faintly disturbed ground of our camp. I tensed, wondering if I had accidentally left anything behind. But all he did was shine his searchlight on the small stack of bright stones Ella had made.
I studied him, one hand on my pistol. He was almost as tall as I, with a mane of golden-blond hair that was the most natural-looking thing about him. I quickly recognized what he was—a cyborg. His flesh was encased in heavy machine armor, implants ran up both sides of his neck like buttons, his face was covered by a battle mask, and both of his lower arms had been replaced with heavy-duty cyberlimbs bristling with probes, devices—and a pair of weapon barrels. His eyes were a pair of red pinpricks in the blank mask.
Across his back, he had an enormous customized energy cannon, so heavy-looking that it couldn’t possibly be fired by anyone without cyberenhancements.
I narrowed my eyes. As soon as I could get an encrypted uplink without having to worry about being tracked, I could look up this cyborg and sort out what I was dealing with. The problem was I couldn’t even so much as contact my pack for backup right now without my communication being tracked by the slavers and catchers.
The cyborg catcher sat there for a few moments longer, frowning thoughtfully down at the little pile of stones as his men swept green scanning lights over the banks. Finally, the cyborg turned his head and called to his team, “Anything?”
“Plenty of biotraces, but they could be animals. We can’t differentiate anything in this mess, sir.” The soldier who spoke immediately looked a little nervous as he admitted his failure.
This confirmed that the cyborg with the mane of golden-blond hair was their leader.
“Not good enough,” the cyborg barked. “We keep looking. If they didn’t take the flight corridors, a teleporter, or the waterways, he’s traveling overland toward one of the Gladiator sectors. So we search the forest.” I couldn’t see the man’s scowl behind his mask, but I could hear it and the dogged determination in his hard tone.
Both his companions looked at each other, shocked. The second one spoke up. “But, Belland—sir—” he pleaded, only to fall immediately silent when the cyborg glared at him.
Belland.I committed the name to memory.
“If you have a legitimate alternate course of action, speak up now. Otherwise, keep quiet and continue doing your job.” Belland’s voice was a heavy, metallic rasp, dripping with disdain.
“What about blockading all paths leading into the nearest sector so they can’t get in?” the first soldier mused.
“Maybe,” Belland snapped, reaching under the edge of his mask and scratching his stubbled skin. “Let’s check in with the others around dawn.”
Once the three had taken off out of sight, Ella heaved a huge sigh, sagging against me. I held her with one arm, watching them very warily. My hand stayed on my energy pistol until he vanished down the creek with his cronies. Then I slowly got to my feet, helping her up beside me.
“They’ll be watching every route between here and my sector,” I muttered to her, as much to sort out my own thoughts as to strategize.
Ella and I would have to hide out for a while until I could safely get a message to my pack, or maybe, given time, this Belland cyborg would think we’d been eaten by something out here in the woods and give up chasing us.
“Ella, we need to find a place to hide.”
I had an area in mind that might serve—a massive stone outcrop, like a natural fortress, that was riddled with caves, some of which I’d used as camps during training exercises in the past. It was half a day from here. She and I could get there by dawn if we hurried.
Grimly, I swung into Brax’s saddle and offered Ella a hand up. It was time to get moving again.
16
Ella
The forest’snightlife was unlike anything I had ever seen. Luminous mushrooms and beetles with glowing bodies flashed past as we rode, their gleams coming in a dozen colors—red, green, blue, gold, white, lavender, orange, pink—some of them solid, some spotted or striped.
