Page 2 of Guardian’s Destiny (Space Guardian’s Mate #3)

VRAAX

My target was hard to miss. The bastard's aura was so dark that it nearly swallowed him whole. He sat facing the entrance to keep an eye on people coming in. The moment he saw me, he grabbed a hostage who had the misfortune of crossing his path right then. The young Hettita didn’t seem old enough to be in here, but she was, and now a blaster was pointed straight at her head.

She screamed.

Others scattered to the side, away from the spectacle unfolding in the bar.

"Drop your guns, or I'll kill her," Mwat, a Pronex and my target, threatened.

I glared at him coldly. "The only choice you have here is to die with her or without her. The moment you kill her, you will be dead."

It didn't take a genius to figure out his predicament or his next move. I dove to the side, upending a table as cover, right before he pointed the blaster at me and fired. I aimed low for his foot. Worst case scenario would be the Hettita would lose a toe or two, still preferable to losing her life.

With a howling curse, Mwat changed his weight to his one remaining foot, while the little Hettita proved herself to be braver than I thought. She made herself fall. Mwat didn't have the strength to keep her up while balancing on one leg. I saw him aiming the blaster at her and fired mine the moment her head passed his chest.

He crashed to the ground, and his full, dead weight landed on her. Pressing her down so hard that she didn't even have the breath to scream. In four long strides, I was at their side, pulling Mwat up by his horns as she clambered out from underneath him.

She shot a quick glare at me before she ran off into the arms of a group of Hettita who had stayed behind. It wasn't that I expected a thank you , but why did she have to glare at me?

The bartender rose from behind the bar. With shaking hands, he pulled out a glass and filled it with liquid before handing it to me.

"Thanks." I swallowed the contents whole as they burned a path down my throat. I held the empty glass out for him, and he refilled it.

"What is going on here?" GTU soldiers arrived. Late, as usual.

"This man, Mwat, took a Hettita hostage, and I was forced to terminate him," I explained. They would see all that on the security cameras. There was no reason for me to explain that King Zyranus had hired the Ohrurs to find and terminate Mwat for kidnapping his sister. The bastard had managed to evade the GTU forces for years. That was only one of his many crimes.

"Why were you here, Space Guardian?" the GTU commander asked me.

I shrugged, "To get a drink, like everyone else here." To make my point, I emptied the second glass the bartender filled for me. I didn't owe these males any explanation, and they knew it. The termination was righteous, and they had no grounds to hold me.

"You should probably have the body removed; it's bad for business," I said, nodding at the soldiers. This was their job now.

I handed my comm to the bartender, "Charge whatever you see as fair to make up for the interruption and give me another." I held up my glass for a third time.

Instead of filling it, the bartender handed me the bottle, and I shouldered my way through the GTU soldiers to an empty booth. I deserved a few drinks. By the stars, I might even get drunk. It had been a while.

But first, I needed to notify Moddekdum, my minder, that I had finished the mission, and he could collect the reward from King Zyranus. I felt many eyes on me and didn't project Moddekdum's form into the bar. Instead, I kept his image on the comm.

"Change of mission," he said the moment he was on the line.

"Too late, it's already done," I replied smugly. I didn't like Moddekdum or any of my previous minders. If pressed, I would have struggled to explain why I worked for the Ohrurs, other than that I enjoyed my job. A lot. Terminating the scum of the universe was in my blood. It was a calling, and the Ohrurs gave me the means of doing just that. "What's the new mission?"

"Several Space Guardians went rogue. They need to be stopped," Moddekdum filled me in.

It didn't happen very often, but his words filled my veins with ice. It was hard to believe that any Space Guardian would turn into a traitor, but what did I know about my fellow coworkers? Nothing. We worked alone, mostly. We didn't congregate and never met unless it was for a mission. Other than working for the Ohrurs and terminating criminals, we had nothing in common.

"I'll send their names to you. All missions as of right now have been put on hold until these three have been caught." True to his words, I received a file.

Raasla Garjed.

Zaarek Taloor.

Tharaax Zelker.

Three names. Three Space Guardians. Three traitors.

My eyes stayed glued to Zaarek's name. He was the only one of them I actually knew. We had worked together before. Well, not really worked together. We had been assigned a mission. For whatever reason, Zaarek thought himself better than me. He tried to command me from day one, which didn't go over very well. He might have been older, but I held the advantage when it came to the mission because I knew the Pronex prison better than him. His arrogance nearly got us killed. If I could picture anybody as a traitor, it was him.

I refilled my glass but then thought better of it. Getting drunk wasn't the best solution right now. I had a new mission, one I actually liked very much. Getting Zaarek terminated or into custody would be my greatest pleasure.

As luck would have it, fate was on my side. Not even a few hours later, I received an alarm from my comm, waking me with the news that none other than Zaarek Taloor had been spotted on the very same Space station I was still anchored to. What were the odds?

I was out and running down the corridor while yelling commands into my comm to get me the traitor's location.