Vitalis Omnibus (38 page)

Elsa remembered how the bugs had come after her at first. She suppressed a shiver before asking, “They’re not very big, how dangerous can they be?”

“Their bite is poisoned,” Kira explained. Burns like you’ve been strapped to a thruster port on a starship. It burns because it’s breaking up the tissue and making it easier for them to chew apart and digest.”

Elsa couldn’t hide her shudder that time.

Kira turned to Fiona. “How far off are the spitters?”

“Some of them had crossed the ridge, by now I expect them to be another thirty to sixty minutes away in the hills.”

“All right, let’s go.”

Elsa glanced at Fiona, hoping for an explanation, but the other Marine was already on the move. Elsa shrugged before adjusting the bow across her back. She started off, glancing at the inside of her left arm long enough to note the redness from the bowstring slapping against her skin had faded. Kira insisted she’d build up the strength and technique to keep it from biting her with every shot. She hoped so, it stung more and more with each shot she fired.

She brought up the rear of the small group as they walked. She continually glanced behind, falling back on her training to make sure she did her job. Her near teammates might not be FIST members, but neither was she anymore. The mission wasn’t just about her rescuing civilians, it was about keeping herself and her new team alive. Her new people.

If it was as bad as everyone claimed they were on their own for the rest of their lives. A couple dozen people and a planet filled with things that wanted nothing more than to eat them. Teamwork was the only solution and they seemed to have figured that out already. Now she had to figure out where she fit into that team.

And what about Tarn? He’d been her unasked for knight in shining armor once, but Kira didn’t seem to think too highly of him. He’d been ridiculed by a few people, the more she thought about it. What was wrong with him? Especially if he used to be a FIST himself. He seemed pretty damn fine to her. He hadn’t even taken advantage of her when she’d been knocked out. Among the alpha males she’d known on FIST team three she couldn’t think of too many that could have done the same.

Lost in her thoughts and in studying her surroundings, Elsa was surprised when she was plunged into shadows. Kira had led them into a shadowed overhang at the base of a cliff. “You should stay here and wait for us,” Kira said, slipping out of her savage girl costume.

Fiona pulled a large rock that looked like it weighed a couple hundred pounds away from the wall. Kira tossed her clothing in there, but not before Elsa saw a small opening where other clothing and even a few weapons had been stashed.

“This is one of our caches,” Kira explained. We have a few of them scattered around in case we have to take a different path back then the one we went out on.

“You’re going to leave me here?”

Kira shrugged. “You think you’re ready to go up against those spitters again? I don’t want to but we might run into them. If you get hurt there’s a good chance we won’t be able to help you.”

Elsa nodded. “I walked through their home base last time and killed a few. They’re not so bad.”

“You had armor, an X-109, and a few grenades too.”

Elsa shrugged it off. “Now I’ve got my trusty stick. I still owe those fuckers for what they done to my boys.”

“This isn’t about payback. There’s nothing on this planet that understands vengeance or justice. This is about survival. Got it?”

Elsa scowled at the steel-eyed gaze Kira gaze her. She nodded. “Yeah, don’t worry, I got it.”

“If you’re coming with us, you’re doing it my way. Strip down.”

For the second time that day Elsa found herself naked. Kira led her deeper along the wall to where a puddle of water had grown. It was filled from a steady trickle coming out of the rocks above. Kira dipped her hand into puddle and pulled out a handful of mud. She stood and applied broad swipes of it across Fiona’s body. Fiona stood there, arms and legs spread, without complaint.

“Your turn, hope you’re not ticklish,” Kira said after she’d retrieved a fresh handful of mud.

Elsa’s eyes narrowed. The last time Kira had mentioned being ticklish she’d been talking about her feet and sex. Before she could ask anything the first streak of cool mud cross her chest. Kira continued, painting her into a mottled pattern that broke up the pattern of her body and made it easier for her to hide. She showed no concern when her hands crossed over a sensitive area, so Elsa made an effort to ignore the strange tingling it caused in her.

When she was finished Fiona returned the favor, painting Kira down with the mud. Else glanced up at the sky and groaned. “I hope nobody on the
Desperado
has their cameras looking down at us right now.”

“Why not? They’ll see three gorgeous women they’ll never have a chance to touch. Maybe we could even put on a show for them?”

Elsa’s open mouth made Fiona burst out laughing at her comment. Kira smiled before offering advice, “Remember, you’re not a part of the Terran Coalition anymore. We have different rules here. Other than human life is to be respected, protected, and nurtured at all times the only rule that really matters is that we have no rules.”

Chapter 7

“So what’s the deal with Captain Sharp and Klous?” Elsa asked after they started out again. Kira glanced at her but Elsa kept her voice soft so it wouldn’t carry.

“Kira’s better to answer that,” Fiona said. She pushed ahead, walking faster to get ahead of Kira then leading them up a winding path that allowed them to climb the wall of the cliff.

At the top Elsa saw more hills and cliffs awaited them. She tried to match it to her memory when she’d worked her way to the plains the first time but none of the landmarks seemed familiar.

“Tarn said you came up several miles that way,” Kira said, pointing with her bow to the east.

Elsa looked and saw a few familiar peaks, though from her angle she couldn’t be sure. “That’s a long ways away, how far have we walked?”

“A long way,” Kira said with a smirk. “I wouldn’t think a big strong Marine like you would be surprised by that.”

Elsa scowled when she felt the heat in her cheeks. She pulled her bow off and held on to it, not wanting Kira and Fiona to think any less of her since they already gripped theirs. “So how about it, what’s up with those two? And where did Sasha come from? Does Vitalis cater to the wet dreams of teenage boys?”

Kira covered her mouth after a sharp laugh slipped out of it. She shook her head and pointed a scolding finger at Elsa. “Stop that. Sasha’s a pirate. All of Klous’s crew were. They attacked Captain Sharp’s ship and knocked our sensors out, then they managed to damage our engines on accident. It was a combination of long odds lining up that ended up with us crashing here. A few months later Klous and his crew tracked us down and they landed. Vitalis took care of their ship for them, so now they’re stuck here with us.”

“Pirates? You mean illegal salvage operations, right?”

“Among other things.”

“What other things?”

Kira sighed. “They had an inside man on The
Rented Mule
. They were after one of our crew for a bounty that was posted on his head. Salvaging the Mule would have just been a bonus.”

“What’d you guys do with the traitor?”

“She gave herself up when her sister fell in love with the target.”

“She’s still here, do you really trust her?”

Kira grinned. “I don’t know, do you trust me?”

Elsa took three more steps before she stopped and stared at Kira. The woman kept walking, not slowing in the least. Shaking her head, Elsa hurried to catch up. She stubbed her toe on a rock then realized it had barely even hurt her. They were walking barefoot across broken stones and ledges of rock, yet she hadn’t thought a thing of it until now.

“That’s Vitalis taking care of you. You survived her test and now she’s accepted you. She’s made you her own, but don’t think that she won’t keep testing you.”

“This world is just a planet, it’s full of life and it’s amazing, but it’s not alive.”

Kira shrugged. “Wait until you’ve been here a while.”

“I hope I get that chance,” she said softly. “Now don’t change the topic, I don’t get it, you were the one who sold out Sharp’s crew to Klous?”

“Emily did it.”

“Oh…um, I thought you said you were Emily?”

“It’s complicated,” Kira offered Elsa a smile.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Childhood trauma, invisible friend, split personalities, you know how it is.”

“No, not really.”

Kira shrugged. “Take my word for it then. Emily’s gone now, it’s just me. She got me through some hard times and didn’t want to let go at others. But she gave me back my life. The plan was to set me up with enough money that she wouldn’t need to worry about me again. She’d go away and I could live the rest of my life. She never figured I’d fall for Eric.”

“Eric was the target!”

Kira grinned. “We’ve all got a past.”

Elsa shook her head, trying to make sense of it.

“Okay, I get it. Not really, but enough for now. Fiona keeps glaring back at us for talking so we’d better shut up but first explain the Klous / Sharp thing.”

Kira blew Fiona a kiss, drawing a scowl from her. “She just doesn’t want you getting too close to me. She’s been here a while now and her relationships haven’t been the best. I think she’s jealous.”

Fiona stuck her hand behind her back, middle finger pointed skyward. Kira chuckled again.

“We go the drop on Klous and his crew when they came hunting for us. I’d captured his brother already but I left him with Jeff. Cooper managed to turn the tables on him and stabbed him, but we’d made it back by then. I killed Cooper and Jeff ended up being fine.”

“You don’t sound like a very nice person.”

Kira grinned before continuing. “That settled Klous down for a while. He and Sasha hooked up then they got pregnant. After a while few others did too. Klous wanted this planet from the moment he saw it. He’s been trying to talk Sharp into trying to setup some official government here and try to exploit the place so he can be rich.”

Elsa looked around. “This place is probably worth more than all of us could ever imagine,” she opined.

“It is,” Kira’s eyes hardened as she spoke. “And I won’t let the Terran Coalition rape it like they’ve done every other planet or resource in history.”

“I admire your dedication, but you’re just one person.”

Fiona snorted from ahead of them.

“Okay, there’s two of you. There’s a lot more of the TCS.”

“You haven’t seen her in action,” Fiona said. “Now will you two please shut the fuck up? We’ll be near the top of the ridges soon and we could run into the spitters at any time from there. We can reach a couple of crash sites from there as well.”

Hearing about the crash sites perked Elsa up. She nodded and clamped her lips together theatrically. Kira let her head dip as well, then increased her long legged pace to push her ahead of Elsa.

Elsa admired the way Kira’s muscles flexed and rippled. Her buttocks were smooth one second and striated with muscle fibers the next. Elsa shook her head, glad that the other women weren’t looking at her. Sure, she’d been a Marine on long deployments and she understood any port in a storm as well as the next Marine. She preferred a strong and powerful lover like Tarn but she imagined the women she was travelling with had plenty of strength and power themselves.

Elsa blew out a sigh as quietly as she could. She hated to admit it but Kira was right, Vitalis was getting to her!

Chapter 8

“Can they see this far?” Elsa whispered. They lay upon a ridge looking down on two spitters that were the size of fast attack skimmers.

“We’re not sure how far they can see, hear, or smell,” Fiona whispered back.

“They can spit a good twenty feet though,” Kira added.

“Yeah, I know.” Elsa had been hit by the viscous poison when she’d run up against the spitters. It had hit her ruined FIST armor and, foolishly, she’d wiped it off with her hand. What followed was Tarn stripping her armor off of her and carrying her naked body miles through the jungle back to Treetown.

“How far are they to Treetown from here?”

“Twenty, twenty five miles,” Fiona said.

“I can’t believe we made that kind of time.”

“We moved fast. You’ve been conditioned well, Vitalis will only make you stronger,” Kira told her. “Let’s kill these things, it’ll slow them down then we can move on to the wreckage.”

“Wait!” Elsa hissed. “These things…are they bugs or animals?”

“We don’t know,” Fiona said. “We’ve got a guy who used to be a vet, Wes, and he thinks they’re kind of a cross between species.”

“How’s that work?”

“None of us has any idea. He’s guessing they evolve at an incredible rate but they started out as insects. Maybe even something like the termites.”