Neither Helen nor Zebah look up at the chute where I’m hiding.
I palm my blaster quietly, getting ready. I can see Helen’s face, and she looks a little worried but not frantic. Her gaze is on the stranger, flicking occasionally to what must be the blaster in his hands.
“You…are you a qura’aki?” The voice is szzt. Two moden and a szzt. A crew of cheap mercs. Hmm.
“Me?” Helen asks, and then says, “I’m a dirty little cum-slut.”
What?
“You…what?” The guard echoes.
Helen nods, moving forward a step. “Will you discipline me? Smack me across the face with your cock and tell me how bad I want it? How I have to be a good girl?”
“Uh…”
She moves forward another half-step and then surges, whip-fast. In the next moment, the guard’s blaster clatters to the ground and there’s a crunch of bone. I slide the rest of the way out of the tunnel, frantic to protect Helen—
The moment the full picture comes into view, I see Helen with her arm around the szzt’s neck, his head tilted at an odd angle. She lets him go and he slumps to the ground, dead. Zebah immediately squats next to him, raiding his pockets as I stare at my sweet, innocent Helen.
“Bad guy?” she asks, and there’s a timid, worried note in her voice, like she just did something wrong. She watches me.
I nod. “Bad guy. You did amazing, Helen.”
A smile blossoms across her face. “You always get really distracted when I use those vid words, so I thought it might be a good idea to use them now.”
Well, she distracted him all right. I move to her side and kiss her cheek. I’m still a little stunned at how…efficient of a killer Helen is. That, and I really want to smack those guards back at Port for giving her those vids. “You’re amazing.”
“Kef yeah she is.” Zebah hops to her feet, shooting a besotted look in Helen’s direction. “I don’t know how you managed to find a murderous qura’aki but I gotta get me one of those. I don’t suppose she’s for sale?” She licks her lips as she looks at Helen. “Because kef me, I’m in love.”
“You can’t buy her,” I point out quickly, before Helen decides to break a second neck. “She’s part of my crew.”
Helen looks delighted to hear that.
“Then I’ll just have to seduce her away from you,” Zebah calls out gaily, adjusting her grip on the blaster in her arms. “Are we staying here to fight or are we going?”
“You here alone?” I ask. “Anything or anyone we need to liberate?”
“Nah. They dragged my ass from Three Nebulas over to this hellhole.” Zebah grimaces. “That’s what I get for trusting the wrong guy to have my back.” She shrugs and flutters her lashes at Helen. “Let’s just get out of here and pretend this never happened, yes?”
She’s a little too glib about the situation, but Zebah’s never been known to have good sense when it comes to allies. Something tells me that unless she has a change of heart—or finds a sensible partner—Zebah isn’t going to last much longer in this job. “Let’s just get out of here and regroup on the ship. We can figure something out from there.”
“You know they’re going to chase us,” Zebah calls back as I grab Helen’s hand and race down the hall with her, back toward the Sister.
“Let them.” I’m not worried about that. If Zebah had a contact that sold her out at Three Nebulas, that’s exactly where we’re heading. Whoever that was knew something, and I intend to find out what it is. These mercs can chase us all the way there. Once we’re in highly trafficked territory, they’ll peel off and give up.
But we’re on the right path to something.
I hear a door whoosh deeper inside the processing station, reminding me that we’re not out of danger. “Let’s move faster,” I remind the females. “We can go over everything back on the Sister.”
CHAPTER 49
HELEN
Zebah doesn’t look at her noodles, but looks at me instead, swirling her eating sticks in the bowl. “You sure are pretty.”
“I am,” I agree, slurping down a noodle. “I’m deadly, too.”
“I know. That’s sexy.” She tilts her head at me. “You sure you just like males?”
“I just like Mathiras,” I correct. “Do you like males and females?”
“I like danger,” she purrs at me. “Don’t care what package it comes in.” She swirls the noodles a bit more. “So how’d you move so fast to break that male’s neck? Is that a move you practice?”
Her eyes are slightly dilated and I’m picking up a weird scent from her, like she’s aroused. This is…strange. I’m not sure I like it. I frown in her direction, wondering if it’d be inappropriate to kick her. Actually, she’d probably enjoy it, so I won’t. “It’s not something I practiced. It’s just something I know.”