Page 13 of Taming Chaos

Enough. Torin pulled his sword. “Should have taken me up on that offer,” he muttered.

With great difficulty, the Ephrenian secured the human’s hands behind her back.

“Some fucking job offer,” Winters yelled at Markov, her face turning red with anger. “You’re a spineless asshole, Markov.”

A strange device appeared in one of the Ephrenian’s hands. Before the alien could activate it, Torin surged forward and whipped out his sword, severing the creature’s hand at the wrist.

The alien howled. Green sap-like blood sprayed everywhere. His hand landed on the metal floor with a soft thud, and something rolled out from its long-fingered grasp.

A small sphere dotted with blinking green lights.

Boom!

As it hit the floor, the fucking thing exploded.

Torin didn’t have a chance to react. He was blown back along with everybody else. Humans flew in all directions, crying out in shock and alarm.

The explosion wasn’t fire and energy. It was pressure.

That thing was a fucking pressure bomb! Thrown backward, Torin landed on his ass with a heavy thud. A disbelieving laugh escaped his lips. Kaiin’s Hells, he hadn’t been thrown around like this in a while.

The force of the blast had scattered the humans; they’d been thrown back much farther than him. Moaning in pain, the guards struggled to get to their feet.

Torin blinked, shook his head, and rose. The Ephrenians were moving, retreating into their mysterious ship… with Winters. Somehow, the blast hadn’t affected them. The pressure must have radiated out toward Torin and the humans, leaving the slender ones untouched.

Fucking Ephrenians and their strange technology. It made them too unpredictable.

No matter, he would get them in the end.

The Ephrenians disappeared, and the boarding ramp started to retract.

“Wait! Where are they going?” That was Markov, his voice trembling with outrage. “Where are our guns? We had a fucking deal.”

Torin tsked. It was obvious that the Ephrenians’ first priority was to secure the human. In exchange for Callidum. A deal that was too good to refuse.

Stupidity.

When Torin got his hands the Kordolian who was behind this, he was going to wring the fucking idiot’s neck.

The Ephrenians disappeared from sight, along with Winters. The boarding ramp closed. Torin ran, drawing both his swords.

He summoned his nanite exo-armor. A sharp mental command was all it took to activate the billions of nano-particles coursing through his bloodstream. The symbiotic machines moved out of his veins and arteries, penetrating flesh and sinew and bone. Rising to the surface of his skin, they coalesced to form an impenetrable layer of armor.

As always, the process was exquisitely painful.

The emerging exo-structure damaged Torin’s existing disguise, cracking apart the inferior helmet and ill-fitting armor. Shards of metal and synth-glass fell away, revealing glimpses of his true form underneath.

It all happened in less time than it took for one to draw breath.

The Ephrenian ship powered up, its rear thrusters glowing green. Hot air swirled around them, followed by an intense blast of pressure. The roar was deafening. Torin forged on, pitting his enhanced strength against the full might of an Ephrenian trader ship.

Reckless idiots. The Ephrenians were going to make a run for it. A ship of this size was only supposed to power up when all bystanders and vehicles were well clear, but Zarhab Groht wasn’t exactly the sort of place where safety protocols were enforced.

He pumped his legs, moving faster and faster as the vessel started to lift into the air. It was like moving through thick stasis fluid.

Move, idiot!

Behind him, humans were being blown around like fallen leaves. The freighter crate he’d used as cover tipped over, spilling its contents—green and black metal boxes of unknown content and purpose. Grunting with exertion, Torin reached the side of the ship. A sudden sense of urgency gripped him. Any moment now, the thing was going to ascend high into the open space above and cruise toward the massive airlock.

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