Page 19 of A Mate for Vasek (Tallean Mercenaries #11)
They couldn’t quite rip up the mesh, but they were leaving marks all over it. One side looked ready to tear.
Dawn had never been so glad to hear the sound of a Tallean blaster.
There was a piercing zing as a bolt of energy sliced through the air, hitting one of the creatures and knocking it off the tent.
The scent of burnt protein and ozone combined with the putrid smell of the creature had her wishing they had more of that olfactinull stuff and that it actually worked on humans.
She’d learned the hard way after purchasing some marketed as a deodorizing spray for Kotch once that humans were immune to the effects of the chemical. It had hidden the horrible stench of a creature that had crawled up into his home’s roof and died well enough from his nose, but not from hers.
There was the smell of burning plastic or similar, and she worried that the tent was burning with her in it. Then she was coughing and wheezing. She covered her face with the fabric of her makeshift dress, trying to filter out the stench.
There was more blaster fire and the vibration of something large and much heavier than those bugs landing on the tent. The sound of the zip opening—yes, Talleans had their own form of zippers too—was loud in the once-again silent jungle, and Vasek stuck his head in.
He waved his arm at her. “Get out of there. Let it air out.”
Dawn let him help her up onto the branch, still coughing and wheezing, all the while watching her surroundings for signs of the creatures. She saw a few singe marks on the branches and trunks around them, but no man-eating starfish-centipede-face-huggers.
He guided her to the crook of the branch and sat down cross-legged, pulling her into his lap. “Help is coming soon. We wait.”
But Dawn was still scanning the trees, sure that one of those things would be back.
“They won’t be back,” Vasek assured her. “And even if they are, those creatures are not known to attack Talleans.”
“Just humans? That doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“Well, you are good enough to eat. But if more come, I will dispose of them.”
“If you don’t, I’ll never forgive you.”
Vasek hadn’t been wrong yet, so Dawn relaxed, and soon so did the rest of the forest.
***
Most of the afternoon had gone by when the sound of a large ship rumbled the skies above the jungle. Dawn couldn’t actually see the ship through the thick canopy above them, but Dawn felt and heard it.
And by the sound of it, this ship dwarfed the two pirate ships that had been looking for them.
“You should’ve seen how quickly those two ships fled when they saw us coming,” said a gruff male voice on the other end of the line when Vasek picked up the comm.
Dawn leaned over to check out his screen. There were two males, one sitting in front who was dressed as the captain, and another Tallean behind him who was so big he took up most of the screen.
“Uzzar, Berus. Just the males I was hoping to see.”
“It’s been some time,” said the captain. This was another voice, so the big guy must’ve been the first one who’d spoken. “We are hovering over your signal location,” the captain continued. “Do you have a way to signal us?”
“I do,” Vasek said. “I’ve got a signal flare.”
“Get as high as you can. But make sure you are stable enough to connect yourself to the line we’re sending down. Do we need to prepare for any injuries? How is the female with you?”
Dawn tensed at the mention of her, suddenly wondering if she was truly safe with these Talleans. They looked tough.
“She is fine. We are both uninjured.”
“Good, then let’s get you two up here, and we can figure out how to get your shuttle out. You crashed that thing good.” The captain frowned. “I expect one of the idiots on my crew to do something like this, but not you.”
Vasek chuckled. “They can’t have all the fun.”
The captain just grunted and ended the comm.
“Let’s go signal for our ride out of here,” Vasek said, reaching for the tent’s zipper.
Dawn stood on the branch and watched Vasek pack up the tent.
Detaching it from the tree was a bit fiddly, but she was surprised to see how easily it packed up.
The shelter they’d been staying in all day, protecting them from the elements and the wildlife outside, was just several easy steps away from fitting back into a slim, waterproof sack about the size of her legs.
It was strapped neatly back onto Vasek’s pack in minutes.
Then, they were scaling the branches to get as high as possible. Or rather, Vasek was carrying her up, branch by branch.
Dawn was glad to be finally leaving the wilds. Despite her stay here being relatively uneventful compared to how much danger she knew surrounded them, she was done being in the wilderness, no matter which planet it was on, for a very long time.
But she also wasn’t so sure about boarding this ship. The male on the screen had looked big and brutish, terrifying even. And Vasek had hesitated briefly before calling the older Tallean male Uzzar. Was that something she should know about the New Horizon ?
What if they weren’t as trustworthy as Vasek thought they were? Now that she’d had a taste of freedom, even with Vasek, or was that especially with Vasek, she didn’t want to ever end up on the auction block again. Not even if her new owner was on his way to Earth.
Yup, that was right, sometime in the last few days, freedom had trumped seeing Earth again, which was huge to Dawn. And it was all because of Vasek.
But that didn’t mean that getting back to Earth wasn’t still at the top of her list of to-dos. It was. It just meant that she now had a secondary goal, which was to remain free.
Dawn had known that the ship coming to get them was big from the shadow it cast. But it wasn’t until Vasek moved aside the bough overhead that she finally saw it in the late afternoon sun. She gasped. This thing wasn’t just any old ship. It was a Dominion warship!