Road of Vengeance (Taken to the Stars Book 7) by J.N. Chaney & Rick Partlow

Author:J.N. Chaney & Rick Partlow [Chaney, J.N. & Partlow, Rick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Variant Publications
Published: 2024-07-21T00:00:00+00:00

18

I might have been caught with my pants down, but Laranna was not. Already grasped in her right hand, her staff extended with a flick of her wrist, and one end of it smacked the lead Krin right between the eyes. That had to have hurt, but more importantly, it startled the snake-like humanoid, sending him into an out-of-control stumble, the stun wand flying out of his hands.

I didn’t try to catch it, instead ducking out of the way as it crackled through the air only a few inches from my head. Basically a three-foot-long cattle prod, it didn’t turn off automatically when pressure was let off a switch, just stayed on until it was switched off on purpose, and I didn’t want to get a handful of the non-insulated end. I finally drew that Ka-Bar.

My heartbeat thumped in my ears, a harsh, red tinge covering everything as time slipped into slow motion. Betrayal. That was the word that echoed in my head, my thoughts racing a hundred miles an hour. But these weren’t Imperial soldiers in armor with pulse guns, they were Krin enforcers carrying knives, stun wands, and clubs, all weapons a civilian could get on Wraith Anchorage, which meant things were more complicated than Janus selling us out to the Anguilar.

Not that it mattered in the moment. In the moment, this was a fight, and if I’d built up the reflexes for anything since that fateful night in 1987 in central Florida, it was for a fight. The Krin Laranna had nailed between the eyes stumbled out of the range of her staff and, even if he hadn’t, she’d moved onto the next scaley bastard coming through the door.

The guy was stunned and unarmed and not an enemy combatant, technically, and I couldn’t bring myself to bury the Ka-Bar blade in his gut, so I buried a fist there instead. He folded around it, and I slammed an elbow into the side of his head. That was, in its way, nearly as dangerous as the knife to the stomach, and if his brain had been shaken up badly enough by the two blows to the head, it might leave him just as dead, but hey, nobody’s perfect.

He went down and didn’t get up, and that’s what I’d wanted him to do, so I moved on.

Laranna took the next of the Krin in the solar plexus with a jab of the end of the staff, then followed through with a swinging blow to the side of the neck, and the heavy club the snake-man had been midway through swinging at her head clattered to the floor at my feet. The snake-man who’d been swinging it crashed not too far from the one I’d put down, and I kicked him in the back of the head to make sure he stayed there at least for a while.

Three more crowded through the door, pushing together, rushing us to make up for the fact that they were facing a deadly Strada warrior.

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