Tark! She would have shouted for joy if the slimy tentacle hadn’t been wrapped across her mouth. Actually, it was a good thing she couldn’t make a sound. Globber was facing away, heading for his ship which was now visible in the dim gloom of this strange dimension. He was dragging Chloe behind him, so his lantern-like eyes were pointed in the opposite direction, allowing the big Kindred to sneak up from behind.
But what is he going to do? Chloe wondered, beginning to feel nervous. He doesn’t have his blaster with him, does he? Does he have any weapons on that metal glove of his that he can use?
It hardly seemed like a fair fight. Tark was big and immensely strong but he only had two arms. Globber, on the other hand, had dozens of tentacles and almost all of them were covered in the murderously sharp sucker-teeth. Chloe remembered the numerous small, vicious wounds that had covered the big Kindred’s left arm after just one tentacle had wrapped around it. How would he withstand dozens?
She wished she could help Tark in some way but there was nothing she could do—she was trapped in the endlessly shifting coils of the tender-mother arm, unable to even speak.
Tark saw her watching him and nodded silently, his golden eyes blazing in the gloom. Though he hadn’t said a word, Chloe knew what he meant—Hang on—I’m going to get you out of here!
But could he?
Before she had another minute to consider the question, the big Kindred sprang. Jumping on the Slimerian’s back, he hit the balding, bulbous head like a punching bag as hard as he could with his metal-gloved hand.
Chloe gasped as she saw Tark’s big fist sink into the Slimerian’s head as though it was made of putty. The blow would have killed almost anyone or anything else—hell, she thought, it would have killed the elephant she’d been comparing Globber to earlier.
But like the putty it resembled, the tissue of the Slimerian’s head began to stretch and grow, regaining its shape in only a matter of moments. And now Globber was on the defense.
With a low, burbling cry, like someone being strangled underwater, he turned towards Tark and threw his tentacles around the big Kindred, wrapping him tight in an unbreakable bear hug.
Chloe thought the big Kindred would have used his metal glove but now it was pinned to his side. Globber squeezed tight and horribly, little trickles and rivulets of blood began to run down Tark’s bare arms and shoulders. Obviously the Slimerian’s sucker-teeth were hard at work, gnawing on every available inch of skin.
Biting him—that bastard is biting him all over! she thought frantically. If only Tark could get his arms free to fight! If only she could help him!
“You can help him, my daughter,” whispered a warm, strong, feminine voice in her ear.
Chloe looked around—where had that come from?
“The “tender-mother” arm is called so not just for its lack of suction cups or sucker-teeth,” the mysterious voice went on. “It is also extremely sensitive and easily wounded. There are three times as many pain receptors in this one tentacle than the whole of the rest of the Slimerian’s body put together.”
There are? Chloe wondered if the owner of the strange voice could hear her thoughts. Who was she anyway? And why had she chosen this moment to start talking to Chloe? Was Chloe going crazy? Breaking under the stress?
“You need not fear for your sanity, daughter,” the voice murmured in her ear. “Only do your best to inflict pain on your captor—the arm is across your mouth. You know what to do!”
Behind the tentacle, Chloe grimaced. She knew now what the voice was talking about—what she had to do. It was going to be horrible but there was no other way.
The arm over her lips loosened its hold for just a moment and she opened her mouth as wide as she could manage. Then, fighting her gag reflex, she bit down on the slimy, muscular thing as hard as she possibly could.
Gooey stuff like warm snot squirted into her mouth and then Globber made a gobbling howl of pain. The long tentacle holding her flung Chloe away in an instinctive gesture, like someone jerking their hand away from a hot stove.
She hit the ground hard and for a moment everything was dark with shiny white stars dancing in the background. Then she came to, gagging to get the hot slime out of her mouth. Blinking to clear her blurry vision, she looked anxiously to see what was happening in the fight to the death between the Slimerian and the big Kindred.
She must have been out longer than she thought because it appeared that Tark had the upper hand now. He was dripping with blood from a thousand tiny wounds but he had one muscular arm wrapped around Globber’s thick neck and he seemed to be pressing something against his flat, awful, alien face.
What is he doing? What’s going on? Chloe thought woozily. She still felt dizzy and sick from having the slime in her mouth but she staggered to her feet, meaning to get back into the fight if she could.
But when she managed to get around to where she could see what was happening, she saw there was nothing she could do. Globber had multiple tentacles wrapped around the Kindred’s waist and legs and arms and shoulders but they didn’t seem to be doing much good. Maybe it was because Tark was cutting off his air supply with the arm wrapped around his neck.
With the other hand—the one with the metal glove—he was pressing forward. There was something shiny in his palm and with a start, Chloe recognized the sharp, glittering jewel he had pried from the walls of their sex-cubby.
Globber was writhing and snapping at the big Kindred with his long, yellow tusks, but he couldn’t quite reach the muscular arm which was coming inevitably, inescapably toward him. His tentacles, dragged on Tark’s arm but the Kindred’s jaw was clenched in determination. Though his blood pattered down like crimson rain onto the Slimerian’s face, he pressed forward until the glittering multi-faceted jewel was right in front of one of Globber’s wide, lantern-like eyes.
Chloe watched in horrified fascination as Tark pushed the sharp crystal into the eye, popping it like a water balloon filled with yellow, viscous slime. Globber howled and gibbered and writhed, his tentacles knotting and clenching and flailing so that Chloe had to step back in a hurry to avoid being hit by them. And still the big Kindred pressed forward, a look of grim determination on his face as his arm disappeared up to the elbow in the Slimerian’s empty eye socket.
“Die you fucker,” he said clearly and with a final thrust, he jammed the sharp jewel home in the Slimerian’s brain.
With a last, gurgling howl, Globber finally went limp and collapsed onto the dark, hard-packed ground in a pile of limp, rubbery tentacles and goo.
“Oh my God,” Chloe whispered. It was simultaneously one of the worst and best things she had ever seen. It had been horribly disgusting but at least she was absolutely certain that Globber the Slimerian would never bother her again.
It seemed to take Tark a moment to understand he had won. He looked silently down at the lifeless Slimerian who was surely dead for good now, his golden eyes uncomprehending.
“Tark?” she asked softly, daring to go closer now that the tentacles had stopped twitching. “Tark, are you okay?”
It was a fair question. The big Kindred was covered with blood and slime and it looked to Chloe like every inch of him had been bitten by the ruthless sucker-teeth. Tiny, jagged wounds covered his smooth tan skin. None of them were deep but all were bleeding freely—how long could he last losing blood at that rate?
“Tark,” she said again, more urgently. “Tark, please—talk to me!”
“Chloe…” He looked up at last, his golden eyes beginning to focus. “Y-you…are you s-suh-safe?”
“Now I am—thanks to you.” She reached out her arms. “Come here—get away from that nasty thing!”
He stepped over the fallen Slimerian’s tentacles and nearly stumbled. Under the mask of blood, his cheeks were pale.
“God!” Chloe rushed to help him although he was so big she couldn’t offer much of a shoulder to lean on. “Come on—we have to get you out of here. Get you back!”
“Too…f-far,” Tark rasped. “B-besides, I l-luh-lost the jewel—only w-way home.”
Chloe felt a surge of panic.
“Well, then how are we going to get out of here?”
He pointed at Globber’s ship, which was looming over them in the gloom.
“Take…his sh-ship.”
“He did say it had a dimensional drive made out of resonite or something like that,” Chloe acknowledged nervously. “But do you really think you can drive, er, fly in your condition?”
“Have to.” He straightened up with an obvious effort. “I c-can make it. L-luh-let’s go.”
Chloe had no choice but to believe him. The two of them hobbled to the Slimerian’s ship—which turned out to be deeply unpleasant inside since every single surface was coated in a thin layer of slime.
It’s like riding in a giant snot-mobile, Chloe thought unhappily but she couldn’t complain too much. After all, she only had to sit on the stuff—Tark had to touch the instrument panel which was also coated.
“Where are we going?” she asked, when he managed to get the ship going and they were headed up into the black void that surrounded them. “Back to our own dimension?”
Tark nodded and cleared his throat.
“And th-then to the M-muh-mother Ship near Earth,” he managed to get out. “Th-they c-can h-huh-heal me and g-get you h-home.”
Chloe certainly hoped they could heal him. The big Kindred was still bleeding all over and though she had found a relatively dry towel to blot him with, hidden under a stack in the slime-covered bathroom—(at least, she assumed it was a bathroom although the toilet was nothing but a sucking hole in the floor)—she hadn’t been able to stop the big Kindred’s blood loss.
Please, she prayed, not sure who she was praying to but praying all the same. Please, just help us get back. Let us get to our own dimension and the Mother Ship before Tark bleeds out—before it’s too late!
Chapter Twenty
“Is that a Slimerian ship?” Baird, head of the Kindred Fleet aboard the Mother Ship, frowned as he stared at the viewscreen.
“It certainly looks like it.” Sylvan, his brother, frowned as well. They were sitting in Sylvan’s living area but his viewscreen was used for official business since he was the Head of the Kindred High Council.
“What in the Seven Hells is a Slimerian doing around here?” Baird demanded. “I thought they lived in another dimension light years from here!”
“That’s what I’ve always thought too.” Sylvan shook his head. “I don’t like having one so close to Earth. Slimerians are a greedy, unprincipled bunch.”
“Hey, what’s going on?” Olivia, Baird’s wife and Sophia, Sylvan’s mate, came into the living area followed by their best friend, Kat.
“What’s that weird looking ship?” Kat asked, frowning at the viewscreen. “It doesn’t look like it was built so much as extruded from somewhere.”
“Ugh—Kat!” Sophia made a face.
“Kat’s not far off,” Baird growled. “That’s a Slimerian ship and believe me, they are some slimy bastards. They don’t build those fucking ships—they grow them. And you don’t want to know what they use for fertilizer.”
Just then a call came through the com-link.
“Commander Sylvan, Slimerian ship headed our way,” barked a voice from the link. “They are requesting to speak to you—should I put the call on the viewscreen?”
“Yes, put it on screen,” Sylvan said. Better to know what was going on—if there was a possible threat to the Mother Ship he had to head it off as quickly as possible.
The viewscreen flickered but instead of the bulbous, bulging head of a Slimerian, a Kindred face came into view. A Kindred face covered in blood, Sylvan saw with a shock. The wide golden eyes proclaimed the owner of the face to be a Beast Kindred but other than that, it was very difficult to tell who he was.
“C-cuh-commander S-sylvan,” the male rasped. “Y-you d-don’t know me b-but my father is Commander Rarwl. He—he…” But then his eyes rolled up in his head and he collapsed right there in front of the viewscreen.
Suddenly someone else shoved into the field of view. It was an Earth girl with long pink hair and wide blue eyes filled with fright, Sylvan saw.
“Please, can you help us?” she begged as she shook the Kindred, trying to get him to wake up. “Tark has lost a lot of blood from those awful sucker-teeth and I don’t know how to fly this thing. Please, I’m so scared for him!” Her eyes filled with tears and she shook the Kindred’s broad shoulder harder. “Tark, come on—please wake up. Please!”
“Oh, you poor thing!” Olivia stepped forward, looking into the viewscreen. “Don’t worry about a thing—we’re coming to get you. Right, honey?” She glanced at Baird who was on his way out the door. While Olivia had been talking to the girl, Sylvan had given his brother the go-ahead for the rescue.
“On my way with an emergency towing kit. We’ll have them down to the docking bay in no time,” Baird promised. “Tell her to just hang on.”
“Did you hear that?” Olivia asked the girl. “Help is on the way. Now what’s your name?”
“Chloe,” the girl said through her tears. “I…I’m from Earth but the Commercians kidnapped me and put me in the weight-loss house to try and make me skinny. Tark rescued me but this awful Slimerian tried to get me and Tark had to fight him and oh, he’s losing so much blood.”
“Keep her talking,” Sylvan murmured to his mate, who was standing by her sister looking anxious. “Try to keep her calm until Baird can bring them into the ship. Olivia,” he said to his sister-in-law. “We need to get to the med center.”
“Of course.” Olivia nodded and Sophie did too.
She looked at the distraught girl on the viewscreen. “Chloe, I’m Sophia and this is Olivia my sister and this is Kat,” she said, pointing. “Olivia is going to be in the med center to greet you and help treat your man—she’s a nurse. Now, what part of Earth are you from?”
“And who did you say kidnapped you?” Kat asked, frowning.
Sylvan left them still trying to talk the frightened girl down. He and Olivia made their way to the med station on the run.
“Will he be…all right?” Olivia panted. “That girl—Chloe—said he was in a fight with a Slimerian. I’ve never seen wounds like those—how bad do you think they are?”
“We’ll have to wait and see.” Sylvan kept his voice neutral but he couldn’t stop the worry from showing on his face. He’d never treated a male with such wounds before but he’d heard that Slimerians could be deadly foes—they made so many tiny cuts with their suckers that their opponent usually died of blood loss even if no deeper or more deadly wounds were inflicted.
Remembering how limp and pale the Beast Kindred warrior had looked under the mask of blood he wore, Sylvan couldn’t help being worried.
Goddess, he prayed, Let me save him. Let me be able to help this new warrior who has come to us.
He heard no answer but he felt a fresh surge of determination go through him.
“Come on,” he said urgently to Olivia. “Let’s go!”
“Already running…as fast as I can,” she panted. “You go, Sylvan. I’ll…catch up.”
Sylvan nodded and put on a burst of speed, heading for the transports. He knew there were other good and competent doctors in the med station but he wanted to be there to treat the wounded warrior himself and he hoped that Olivia would get there in time to comfort his female.
It was the only thing she would be able to do if Sylvan was unsuccessful in saving her male.
Chapter Twenty-one
“He’s lost a lot of blood—I had to give him several transfusions. But he’s out of danger now.”
Sylvan, the blond Kindred doctor who was also the Head of the Kindred High Council, came out of the OR looking weary but satisfied.
“He’ll be all right?” Chloe asked urgently. She could scarcely believe it was true. “Did you really just say he’ll be all right?”
??
?That’s what he said, doll. Your man is going to make it.” Kat, a pretty, plump girl with long auburn hair who was married to Twin Kindred husbands, smiled at her and squeezed her hand. She and Sophia, who was Sylvan’s wife, Chloe had learned, had been sitting with her during the whole surgery while Sylvan and Olivia worked to close the many tiny wounds on Tark’s skin and give his body enough blood to keep going.
“Thank you. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!” Chloe jumped up and started to hug Sylvan…but drew back at the last moment. She was still coated in Globber’s slime. The other girls had offered her a shower and a fresh change of clothes but she hadn’t been willing to do anything while Tark was still in surgery.
Sylvan smiled at her. “You’re very welcome. And you are welcome also, to the Mother Ship.” He frowned. “You said earlier that you’d been kidnapped from Earth—I need to know more about that. We have an energy net around the entire planet. I don’t understand how anyone could have breached it to get you out.”
“They were these little blue guys called Commercians,” Chloe explained. “They look kind of like three-foot tall centipedes.”
“Ugh!” Sophia shivered. “Kidnapped by giant sentient centipedes—how awful!”
“It wasn’t much fun,” Chloe acknowledged. She looked up at Sylvan. “They have a space station that’s camouflaged in the space junk orbiting around the Earth. They said they were from another dimension—apparently in their own dimension there are no Kindred and another set of Commercians already has a monopoly on the Earth-girl kidnapping business.”
“A station hidden right by Earth?” Sylvan looked grave. “This will have to be dealt with immediately. But how did they kidnap you?”
“I know it sounds weird but they sucked me up through a mirror,” Chloe explained. “They were trying to get my friend, Amanda—she’s tall and thin—exactly what they wanted. But instead they got me.” She shrugged. “They, uh, weren’t very happy about that.”