Page 6 of Phoenix's Last Heist
“This doesn’t mean I’m letting you go,” I growl.
She flips me off, and the curiously human gesture makes me smirk against my will.
“My ship is close,” she says, rubbing her wrist where the rope rubbed her skin raw. Damn. Too tight.
“How are we going to get past them?”
For the first time since I caught her, Lyra smiles. Though the expression is ominous with mischief, her entire face lights up like a meteor streaking through the early sky. She’s stunning.
“Leave that to me,” she says. “Give me my helmet. I can get the ship started from here. I’ll create a distraction, head north, and then double back once I lose them. Head straight for my ship. Do you know where it is?”
I nod. “I know where it is but I’m not leaving you to deal with Void Stalkers on your own. They’ll cut you up into little pieces and toss you all over the forest.”
She makes a derisive snort. “And you’d miss the chance to hand me over to the Feds, who’ll surely be more lenient?”
“No,” I huff. “But your chopped up carcass would be bad for the wildlife. And it’d be a lot of paperwork for me.”
“Well, you don’t have much choice. I’m the one they’re after, and you’ll just fuck things up if I get caught with you.”
I watch as she slips her helmet on and slides her knife into her thigh holster, then checks the cartridge on her plasma gun. Ever so slowly, she unzips the front of the tent. When her eyes cut to the idol sitting on top of my pack, I can practically see her plotting. I snatch it and shove it into my pocket.
“Don’t even think about it,” I warn.
She lifts a shoulder, throws me a glare, and creeps outside. A shrill screech rents the air, followed by outraged snarls and the wet pop of a plasma blast hitting flesh. I suck in a few tense breaths, unsure of who’s got the upper hand until I hear her angry roar and manic cackle.
“Fuck you, you fucking fucks!” Lyra yells, then crashes off through the jungle, firing shots as she runs.
Grabbing my pack, I shoulder my plasma rifle and poke my head out of the tent. She hit one of the stalkers in the head—well, itwasa head. His decapitated body twitches on the ground. Another one lies in the dirt, hissing in pain with Lyra’s massive knife jutting from his abdomen. Void Stalkers are ugly on a good day—humanoid monsters with sickly gray skin, oversized fangs, and a ridge of bony spines trailing from their foreheads to their backs. They wear full body armor designed to accentuate their horrible features, making them look like something that crawled out from the depths of the nastiest cave. The fact that Lyra was able to find the small, vulnerable spot in between the armor plates confirms my suspicion that she’s had violent altercations with these Void Stalkers before.
Has probably killed their kind before, too.
Black blood burbles through his reptilian lips and nausea rolls through me. As soon as he sees me walking over to him, he reaches for a weapon at his side, but I hoist my rifle first. He stills.
“You,” I growl. “You speak Kailorian? What do you want with the woman?”
A rasping laugh issues from his thin, gray lips.
“We might be the only ones in the galaxy thatdon’twant the woman,” he coughs.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.
The cruel smile returns, but it’s clear he isn’t going to give me any more information. His fingers twitch for his gun, but I squeeze the trigger on my rifle. The shot takes his head off, and I grimace as I yank Lyra’s knife from his gut, clean it on his pants, and pocket it. I’ll have to come back to the campsite and burn the bodies as soon as we deal with this mess.
I take off in the direction of Lyra’s ship, praying my ancestors will forgive me for desecrating their sacred ground, and kindling a begrudging hope that Lyra is faring well against the two remaining stalkers.
3
lyra
Better the Devil You Know
“Ada,I need you up and runningnow!” I shout, vaulting a fallen tree and ducking a plasma blast perilously close to my head.
The two Void Stalkers tailing me are faster on open ground, but their long tails are more of a hindrance in the thick brush, which gives me the advantage in the trees. I just have to loop back through the forest, get to my ship, and hope that the criminally hot but lawful pain-in-my-ass doesn’t put up a fuss when I take off without him.
You were offline,Ada states.Systems will reboot in eight minutes.
“I don’t have eight minutes! I have two Void Stalkers breathing down my neck and a Xylothian ranger determined to hand me to the Feds if I survive. Boot it into high gear and warm up those guns,” I yell.
