The Prize: Book One (32 page)

He guessed it wasn't gold crowns or piles of silver, nor would the MRE's have their labels in English.  The label on this one said Beef Wellington in Portobello mushroom gravy with mashed potatoes and fresh garden peas.  Penn pulled the tab on the bottom to activate the heating element and placed it on top of the crate to heat.  If all this was an illusion, it was a damn good smelling one he thought as he sniffed the fragrant steam issuing from the vent.  While it heated, he hunted around until he found a crate marked water and another marked medical supplies.  Penn dragged them over, opened them, pulling out water and a med pack, using one crate for a seat and the other for a table.  The food went down easy, tasting as good as the smell promised.  He followed that with two bottles of water, wishing for just a moment he had some of the wine left.  Once he'd finished, he filled his pack with as many MRE's as he could.  The med pack provided him with materials to doctor his cuts and scrapes plus a bottle of painkillers for his sore back and shoulder.  He also filled his camel pack, so he'd have food and water for them, when he found Ellis.  He had no doubt in his mind that he would find her; it was just a question of time.

Refreshed, he started again, calling out her name as he walked, in case she was within hearing range.  There was no way to tell which way she might have gone, so he kept on a reasonably straight path as he followed her scent, as humans are wont to do and occasional sniffing the air.  He figured that's what Ellis would do.  Several hours later, he heard something, a shout, or a scream, and for a moment, he was tempted to call out, but then thought better of it.  Penn knew the sound wasn't Ellis, but it might be connected with her somehow.  There was something about that sound, something that warned him he might be walking into trouble.  Shucking his pack, he tucked it out of sight behind one of the crates; wanting to be free of its weight should he have to fight.  Whatever the sound was, it seemed to come from directly ahead, so he backtracked, and took a side turning between a stack of crates.  If possible, he wanted to see what he was walking into, and formulate a plan.  Even so, nothing could have prepared Penn for what he found a short while later.  A dozen or so Thrakee stood in a loose circle with Ellis to one side, on her knees with her hands bound behind her back.  In the center of the circle were three kneeling Silurian, and they held most of the Thrakee's attention at the moment.  The sound Penn had heard had come from one of the Silurian.

An improvised gag had been stuffed in his mouth, but it couldn't completely stop his screams of pain.  The other two were blooded, but so far, the Thrakee hadn't started slicing them up.  The two Silurians just knelt there and watched in silence, knowing their turn would be next.  Even Penn felt sick, as each Thrakee took turns cutting off a strip of flesh from their victim and eating it.  Penn switched his attention back to Ellis, gritting his teeth as he did.  Ellis's uniform was torn, and even at this distance, Penn could see blood where they'd cut her, but she didn't seem to be in any direct danger at the moment.  One of the Thrakee stood behind her holding the end of rope wrapped around her throat, and he jerked it if she slumped forward.  Seeing that, an unspeakable anger boiled within him, but a small voice in the back of his mind urged him to be cautious.  Rushing in unprepared would just get them both killed.  Penn pulled himself back into cover behind a stack of crates, closing his eyes, and breathing deeply to calm his seething emotions.  The cuts weren't life threatening, he knew.  This was just the Thrakee's way of having a little fun with their victim before they got down to the serious business of dismembering their prey.  The Thrakee preferred their food raw, and alive if possible.  They reveled in the terror in their victim's eyes as they slow devoured each bloody piece.  This had to be one of the most unpleasant ways to die Penn could think of.  He knew he needed to act, and quickly.  The odds were twelve to one, yet he had a couple of things in his favor.  First, the Thrakee didn't know he was here, and the second they were extremely predictable in battle.  The Thrakee preferred to attack their enemy straight on.  There was very little subtlety in their fighting style, though when possible they did like to attack from an ambush position, a vestige of their predatory ancestors.

Penn checked his knives, unsheathing each and testing the edge before replacing it.  He touched up the edge of his third blade to razor sharpness before returning it to its sheath behind his back.  He couldn't afford to get into a prolonged battle, and he knew he had to take out two or three in the first few seconds.  He expected to lose one or both of the smaller blades dispatching the first of the Thrakee, so he didn't bother securing the latch on the third knife, leaving the hilt free and clear.  He took a longer look at his enemies, taking in every piece of information he could.  He saw a Thrakee, probably the leader, standing on a slightly raised dais fiddling with some sort of control while he swallowed another piece of sliced off flesh.  The control system sat atop the graceful shaped pillar rising from the center of the raised dais.  As the leader played with the controls, the roof appeared to open to the glory of the star filled heavens above.  The light in the gallery dimmed until the whole sky dominated the space above them.  Penn saw a battle fleet spring into existence to one side, as if coming around the planet.  Either that or the Thrakee was manipulating the controls to bring the fleet into the center of the dome.  Whichever it was, the view gradually zoomed in until he could identify the ships.  One was a super-dreadnought, its midnight black coating identifying it as an IMPSEC ship with its accompanying battle group escorts.  He wasn't sure what the Thrakee was doing until a targeting reticule superimposed itself on the ceiling, bracketing a battle cruiser.  A moment later, and without warning, the ship exploded in the eye-searing flash of a fusion reactor gone critical.  The eye-searing brightness of a miniature sun lasted a few seconds before fading away, leaving nothing, but an expanding cloud of plasma and debris to mark the ship's demise.  Penn was shaken by the quickness of the silent blast, and he drew back into hiding.  The Thrakee cheered in victory, and Penn watched in fascination as one by one, the same fate befell the remainder of the fleet.  Some, like the super-dreadnought tried to escape but it was no use.  The weapon tracked them relentlessly, and bright flashes lit up the sky.  The leader enjoyed toying with the last ship, intentionally missing with whatever he was firing at it, as his troops cheered him on.  At last, the targeting reticule finally locked right onto the ship, but the leader still hesitated.  Penn suspected it wasn't out of compassion.

From what he could tell, the Thrakee was waiting until the ship had clawed its way up out of the gravity well and was ready to traverse into hyperspace.  At the very edge of the junction between intersolar and interstellar space the ship exploded in a same soundless flash of light.  The Thrakee screamed with joy, dancing around and slashing at the three Silurian in bloodlust frenzy.  At that point, Penn made his move.  He couldn't wait any longer and risk them cutting Ellis.  Squeezing down on his stomach muscles, he keyed his nervous system into combat mode, feeling his heart race in anticipation of battle, his body going into overdrive and his system responded to the intoxicating fix of chemicals.  He didn't try to clamp down on his anger this time, reveling in the feeling as his system went into full overdrive.  He was going berserker.  It was a crazy move to make against so many enemies, but he didn't care.  They had Ellis, had dared to touch her, and were about to pay a blood price for that.

CHAPTER - THIRTY TWO:              Death match.

The sound of his boots hitting the stone floor was lost in the Thrakee's celebration, and in the dim light, it wasn't until Penn was within ten feet from the group that they realized they were under attack.  Penn went airborne, screaming even louder than the Thrakee.  Ellis jerked her head up, instantly recognizing the scream as human.  She could smell him now; smell the bloodlust and the terrible rage.  One desperate human with two knives attacking twelve, armed Thrakee.  A sob escaped her lips.  Her wonderful Penn was coming for her.  Ellis watched in awe as he went airborne and landed in their midst in a blur of motion.  Two Thrakee went down even immediately, their throats slashed, reddish-green blood spurting into the air.  Penn jumped over the bleeding prisoners in the center of the circle and sliced his way through the closing ring.  Before any of them realized it, four more were down.  Suddenly, the twelve had become six, but it cost him one of his blades.  Without missing a beat, Penn pulled the short sword and continued the dance of death.  To Ellis, it was like watching some intricate, terrible ballet as Penn bobbed and weaved, his arms a blur.  To Penn, it was if the Thrakee were moving in slow motion.

The last Thrakee screamed as Penn opened his gut, intestines spilling out onto the floor.  As the lizard dropped to his knees and attempted to gather his stomach, Penn took his head off.  He turned to the Thrakee holding Ellis.  If it thought to use her as a hostage, it never got the chance.  Even as he put his knife to her throat to slice her jugular, Penn threw his own blade.  Ellis looked up just in time to see the knife bury itself in the Thrakee's throat.  Penn wasn't taking any chances.  He jerked the knife and slashed the leash before scooping her up and charging off with her over his shoulder.  Within seconds, he was dodging left and right between the stacks, not stopping until he was certain the last Thrakee was following.  Setting her down, he cutting away her bindings.  A quick kiss, and he turned to face the leader as he came around the corner into a clear space between the stacks of crates.  The Thrakee roared his anger as he skidded to a halt.

“I will eat your flesh and drink your blood, human!”  The Thrakee hissed.  Unlike his brethren, the leader didn't charge in, but began to move sideways, knees bent, his arm and knife held slightly away from his body.  The other arm was held out for balance.  Penn didn't disregard the free hand, even if it didn't hold a knife, the fingertip claws could still rip him open.

“I smell you, Drath!  It was you who entered my camp and killed my nest mate!”

“She died like an eater of grass and weeds,” Penn spat back, enraging the Thrakee even further.  He hadn't realized until then that the Thrakee he'd beheaded was female.

The Thrakee screamed in rage and charged.  They clashed in a blur of steel on steel.  Much to Penn's surprise the Thrakee was almost as fast as he was, even in combat mode, and he barely ducked out of the path of the slashing hand.  Penn grabbed the wrist and ducked under, pulling his heavier opponent around with him, intending to flip and throw the Thrakee.  For his trouble, he got the tip of the Thrakee's knife across his upper arm, cutting through his uniform and skin.  Penn didn't feel the shallow wound, not while in combat mode.  Later he would.  He hadn't expected the Thrakee skeletal structure would be so flexible, enabling him to flex and twist his way out of the throwing hold.  Speed was the answer now, as he feared using any variant of martial arts might have the same results.  It came down to a knife fight in a phone booth as they ducked and weaved around each other, trading cut for cut.  For a moment, they skipped back to catch their breath.

“You fight like your nest mate.”  Penn spat.

“You do not fight at all, human.”

With a roar, the Thrakee headed toward Ellis, probably thinking to kill her in revenge.  Penn screamed, his vision going gray as he leapt into the air, smashing into his larger opponent and driving him sideways.  The landed in a tangle of arms and legs, slashing, clawing, and biting.  Penn felt none of the cuts and bites.  The adrenaline surging through his systems gave him the strength of three men as he forced the Thrakee's chin up with his forearm, exposing his throat.

“You die lizard!”  Penn screamed, slashing his blade across the tender skin.

With one convulsive heave, the Thrakee threw him off and staggered to his feet.  One clawed hand touched his throat, coming away covered in yellowish green blood.  The leader looked at it a moment, then at Penn, wavering momentarily before dropping to its knees, blood pumping from the severed artery.  The Thrakee seem to deflate as the blood drained out of his body and he fell.  At the last, he leaned forward, but instead of slumping to the floor as expected, he carefully placed his blade on the floor, the hilt toward Penn.  For a moment, he sat upright and looked Penn in the eyes before finally slumping sideways in death.  Penn let out a long slow breath as his systems slowed to normal, almost dropping to the floor himself.  He didn't normally stay in combat mode so long, and it drained him.

“Jesus.”  He panted, the adrenaline rush burning through his veins.  Ellis grabbed him as he slumped, cradling him in her arms, as he let out a long sigh.

“I didn't think… you would make it…”  She said lamely.

“You mean you didn't think I'd come to find you in time, didn't you?”  Penn looked up at her, seeing her nod.

“Yes.”  She murmured.

“Don't ever think that again, Princess.”  He reached up and kissed her, and she wrapped her arms around him.