Fragile Bond Read online




  Riptide Publishing

  PO Box 6652

  Hillsborough, NJ 08844

  http://www.riptidepublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Fragile Bond

  Copyright © 2013 by Rhi Etzweiler

  Cover Art by Petite-Madame VonApple, http://petite-madame.deviantart.com/

  Editors: Gordon Warnock and Rachel Haimowitz

  Layout: L.C. Chase, http://lcchase.com/design.htm

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Riptide Publishing at the mailing address above, at Riptidepublishing.com, or at [email protected].

  ISBN: 978-1-937551-91-9

  First edition

  February, 2013

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  Sniper Sergeant Marc Staille and his trusty rifle, Mat, are on bodyguard duty at a mining operation on a backwater planet. The resource-rich valley is crawling with tawnies, the native dirt-colored predators. Huge things that hunt in packs and kill as well with tooth and claw as Marc ever has with Mat.

  The rules change when a tawny uses an unexpected weapon: pheromones.

  Commander Hamm Orsonna, leader of the fefa clan, is determined to chase off the invading aliens. The one he sets out to capture for intel is scrawny and hairless, not very intimidating—until it takes out his entire squad. Seasoned warriors, felled from halfway down the valley by its metal death stick.

  Their sacrifice may be worth it, though. The alien male smells like he’s interested in making things right. He smells of other things too, but nobody else seems to notice. Before long, Hamm finds himself fighting off his own kind to defend the alien, who might be his people’s only hope for peace, and Hamm’s only chance for happiness.

  For those who still seek

  that home to sink their roots deep—

  Journey on, kindred.

  About Fragile Bond

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Rhi Etzweiler

  About the Author

  Though the tripod steadying Mat’s barrel helped, the rifle felt heavier than an elephant in Marc’s arms.

  Sweep up the valley and secure the pass for the advancing battalion. That was the game plan, at least. He hadn’t had contact with any of his fellow forward scouts in close to a day.

  Maintain radio silence.

  But he hadn’t seen them, either.

  This was the most boring job in the fucking universe.

  He inhaled a hit of nicotine from the small vaporizer in his chest pocket, not so much out of need but as a means of passing time. The air here was thin and weak; the device delivered nicotine along with moisture and a thousand other little things the lungs and body needed to function properly. Gravity a little on the dense side, but nothing he’d not trained and prepped for.

  In some ways, Horace Deuce-Niner was no worse than a rough day back on Mother. Except for the grit.

  The wind picked up, shifting. Not strong, but enough to whisk the moisture off his sweat-damp cheek. He reached down, pinching dirt between his fingers to toss into the air. Watched how the wind grabbed it, the direction it scattered.

  Ghastly dust. Even in the green zone, lush with life and a far cry from the arid stretches of rolling bare dunes, the grit was everywhere. A fine sheen of dust covered every inch of him and his kit. Even the scope bolted to Mat’s barrel, except where he touched the knobs to make fine adjustments to the focus. His canteen, sealed tight, was full of water tainted with sand.

  Half the desert of this gods-forsaken planet had taken up residence in his gut in lieu of actual bacteria. Where the hell was the battalion, anyway? Had they stopped for a picnic? How long did it take to travel fifteen or twenty miles?

  He shifted his weight, clenching and relaxing muscles one by one to ease the burgeoning ache of stiffness and cramps. Then scanned along the ridgeline again. Then the valley floor. It was a great roost, the best he’d found in two weeks’ time. Unobstructed view, line of sight almost the full length of the valley.

  The first glimpse of a tawny something caught his eye on the northern ridgeline a third of the way down toward the valley floor.

  He froze, every muscle tensing. Trapped air in his lungs to steady Mat as he waited for whatever he’d seen to reappear. Praying he’d been wrong.

  “I’m starting to see things, Mat.”

  The breeze gusted, rustling the canopy of trees behind him. Blowing fine grit in his face. He licked his lips, tasted the mineral tang of dirt, and tweaked the focus another millimeter.

  There.

  Tawny dirt-colored brown. But dirt and rocks didn’t move. And weren’t shaped like heads.

  Marc tracked the tango, sliding the safety off with a flick. A max-range shot for his modified M110. Right about now, his trigger finger itched for the fifty-caliber one of his fellow scouts had bitched about humping around. And never mind how loud the fucker was. The fifty-cal, not the scout.

  But he knew his rifle well, how to eke the most out of what Mat had to give. Mutilate All Tangos.

  “Time to play, sexy.”

  When the tango shifted back into sight, the shape of forehead, cheekbone, and temple was unmistakable and definitely not one of his fellow scouts.

  He squeezed the trigger, watched the tawny shape disappear in a pink mist.

  “Oh yeah, Mat. Just like that. I knew you liked it dirty.”

  Silent death. Only a whisper from the subsonic-glide rounds, nothing that would be audible at impact range—Mat wasn’t the type to kiss and tell. It would take at least two more—if the tawny wasn’t alone—for them to triangulate his roost.

  If they even could. Preliminary scans of this planet had come back clean. No colonization, no civilized indigenes. Assets free for the grabbing, if they could hold off the hungry predators. Appar
ently the scent of easy meat was universal. Horace Deuce-Niner was a volatile and hostile environment despite its generous saturation of raw materials.

  The predators hunted in packs, with highly developed attack skills. As a forward scout, those coordinated tactics were ones he’d studied in depth during his formative training and education. The tawnies were certainly the largest predators he’d come across in some time, though.

  He watched carefully, easing the scope over the vicinity to scan for other tangos. It took a few minutes to locate them. He and Mat took out a second and third solitary in quick succession. Had to remind himself to breathe, slow and even to keep the scope steady, as he tracked along the ridgeline. Had the battalion been overrun? Were his fellow scouts dead?

  What if he and Mat were alone in a valley of predators that were already in a feeding frenzy at the taste of blood? Would he be able to pinpoint the roosts of his fellow scouts and, more importantly, relocate to them? His ammunition wouldn’t last. He’d need to scavenge from the kits of his comrades to keep this up for too long.

  The next tawny he scoped wasn’t alone. A group of three, treading through the rangy excuse for a forest on the south ridge. He took out the rear guard in another pink mist. Then watched in frustration as the others darted behind a rocky outcropping. Had they really triangulated his location, despite his caution? Their hearing had to be depressingly sensitive. He waited, focused and steady. Too late to relocate. At least it was a defensible roost.

  The wind gusted, shifting. Blowing at his back. He canted his head a fraction, letting the dry air slide fingers up under his helmet, a welcome ease against his hairless scalp. He tweaked the scope, adjusting for the change in wind direction.

  “Wait for it,” he crooned, stroking his trigger finger over the guard. The pair eased out into the open again, only seconds later, one after the other. “Oh yeah. Right there, Mat.” He took them out in rapid succession.

  The breeze kicked up again, bringing a scent he didn’t dare ignore. Unusual for new scents to just randomly surface given how long he’d been in this spot. The faint tang of musk. Something heavy and thick, though fleeting. It brought to mind the scent of soil, moist and dark, clinging to the roots of a dislodged weed. Rotting leaves in the undergrowth of a dense forest.

  Nothing like that existed on Horace, not that he’d seen, anyway.

  In measured increments, Marc straightened and turned, grip tightening on Mat as he brought the rifle to bear on the stretch of rocky, forested ridgeline at his back.

  Another gust of breeze, the scent stronger this time. Closer? He crouched and edged away from his roost, hooking Mat’s sling over his shoulder so he could steady himself against the rocks. He glanced around. Up would make him more vulnerable—no escape route, greater risk of being sighted—but going down this side wouldn’t be an easy feat.

  Marc rested his fingertips on the edge of a sharp rock at knee height as he planted his thick-soled boot. He was thankful for the Kevlar-gel reinforcement in his boots and battle dress. Impenetrable right down to the gloves.

  A weight slammed into his back and shoulders, bearing him forward and down, crushing him into the rock-strewn ground. Stone gouged his upper arm, a sharp, intense counter to the concussive force of his helmeted head rebounding off a boulder.

  The scent of soil and undergrowth saturated the air. So thick he could taste the dirt on his tongue. Between the tight press of rocks and his attacker’s weight, he struggled to pull a knee up. It gave him leverage to heave, loosen the hold, scrabble forward, away.

  Only to have claws, sharp and heavy, rake down his flanks. Unable to penetrate his armor, or he’d be bleeding out, shredded to ribbons. Shit, he should’ve dropped Mat and pulled the knife from his boot. Too late. The creature found purchase on his hips. Not just claws, but fingers. The alien grabbed hold and pinned him.

  Marc twisted, kicked, as he tried to bring Mat to bear on his attacker, fumbling with the tangle of tripod, barrel, and shoulder strap.

  Screw getting a bead. He struck out with the rifle’s butt. Aiming for temple, jaw, cheek. The weapon landed true, though from the sound of it, he accomplished nothing but angering the alien.

  It lifted its head, heavily muscled shoulders shifting in a ripple of white amber and tawny, with what looked like longer, mud-clotted hair hanging in thin dreads about its neck.

  Old training vids of feral felines flashed through his mind. Great cats, they were called. Ruthless predators, living on a planet surrendered to the whims of Gaia. Mercy wasn’t in their vocabulary. He’d gotten a chill, watching a pack systematically isolate and bring down a target. He felt that same chill crawl over his skin as his attacker curled back smooth lips on a frighteningly humanoid face, baring sharp fangs inside a wide mouth. A growling sound rumbled up from deep within its massive chest. It carried a vicious edge of warning.

  Why wasn’t it eating him?

  Marc forced himself to relax. Some things weren’t difficult to understand. It had him overwhelmed, the dominant edge of authority clear in its tone. His heart pounded against his ribs, fueled by adrenaline-saturated blood. He tried breathing deep, needed to, but the air was thick with musk. It coated the inside of his nose and mouth, reaching down into his lungs.

  Dark, vivid, golden brown eyes. Pupils oblong, just enough to make its gaze odd. But the intelligence was there, the awareness, buried beneath the wild sun-bleached mane tapering over its shoulders. That chimera blending. The slope of the nose, the arch of brows above deep-set eyes. The jaws distended further than normal, but the tawny had more teeth in there.

  “Yeah, we’ll do the whole ‘cease and desist’ thing. When you fucking dismantle us both, you hairy fucking bastard!” Marc swung his rifle again, striking the beast in the face, followed with his elbow, drawing his knees up into the resulting gap.

  Just enough to use his legs, boot soles braced against the thing’s hips, to push it away. A grunt of effort escaped him, a whoosh of breath. The alien roared, snarled, grappling at him, claws snagging Kevlar but finding no purchase. Marc rolled to his side, twisting Mat to bear on the tawny. It eased away, aggression checked by Mat’s barrel.

  “We’ll take our boring job back, thanks.”

  He took another breath, watched the tawny’s nostrils flare as it matched his rhythm, chest expanding. Sun-dark skin smooth and hardened with muscle, only a trail of white amber hair arrowing down the meridian of its torso to a very well-endowed groin and a pair of faintly hairy legs, sinewy muscle cording in its thighs.

  Of course they’d have to tangle with the largest, meanest tawny on the planet.

  “You’ve got great taste, Mat.” Marc’s skin started tingling. Everywhere. At this range, one round could tear off a sizeable chunk of flesh. He eased his finger inside the trigger guard; the male’s gaze dropped, catching the move.

  The air became too thick to breathe. No oxygen left—he inhaled nothing but musk and pheromones. He had trouble focusing. His arms felt heavy, his brain thick. All the blood was heading south, and he couldn’t think. The tawny roared, fangs bared, twisting Mat’s barrel off to the side and pouncing back on top of him, claws raking at his gloved hands.

  Things started getting hazy. Marc’s muscles felt limp. His trigger finger finally squeezed, but it was too late, too much delay, harmless. The male flinched at Mat’s kick and report, but only ratcheted his grip tighter. He should drop Mat. Pull his knife. He knew that, but didn’t care. The desire to resist, to struggle and fight, at least on a lethal level, faded into the background. Desire of an entirely different sort surged to the fore in his mind and body. There was something horribly wrong with this, he knew there was, but he couldn’t hold onto the thought long enough to make any sense of it.

  Yeah, it had been a while since anyone had cuddled up to him like this, but he wasn’t that desperately horny. This was wrong, all wrong. He wouldn’t do this, not in the middle of a life-threatening situation.

  Okay, maybe. But not on a mission. Not like thi
s. Something was going on.

  He couldn’t let go of Mat. Mat and him, they went back a long way. Mat wouldn’t be offended by his arousal. The tawny seemed offended by Mat, though, which was a problem. Slowly easing his rifle down to rest against his stomach and thigh was the best he could do.

  The solid cylinder of alloy, radiating warmth from recent discharge, pressed against his cock. That he was even hard sparked confusion. But the contact, the weight and pressure of the rifle, only made him twitch more. The tawny rumbled again, more vibration than sound.

  Marc squeezed his eyes shut, white-knuckled his grip on Mat, and took another deep breath. It didn’t relax him at all. If anything, it made things worse. He groaned and rotated his hips, the rifle’s barrel and scope resting on either side of his erection.

  The fucking tawny was doing this. He didn’t know how, except that scent.

  Mineral-rich soil, dark and damp. And it had gotten stronger, thicker.

  With every breath, Marc’s resistance weakened in favor of . . .

  “Fuck.”

  Another rumble of sound, a growling cadence. A firm grip on his shoulder, Kevlar sparing him from claws that leveraged him to his feet and guided him forward over the uneven, rocky ground. Marc made no attempt to resist, stumbled, body still tingling, aroused almost to the point of pain. The alien’s hold steered him with ease, checking and redirecting his momentum with sharp pressure points from wicked claws the length of his hand.

  An interesting predatory weapon: inciting arousal so strong it short-circuited the ability to think of anything else.

  Even self-preservation.

  Hamm’s claws had drawn no blood-scent. The lack baffled him, but it fit with what others described of the invaders. Its skin covering had repelled his attempt to penetrate as surely as the exoskeletons he encountered on prey. Odd little creature, and its inability to control its arousal, to think past it, was a decided weakness.

  Hamm inhaled deeply as they walked, tasting the air against his upper palate. The alien hadn’t shown any control over the scents rolling off it: sweat, dirt, and pheromones. Faintly strange, but far from unpleasant. Quite the contrary, he discovered, as his shaft twitched with the rush of blood to his groin, skin suddenly tight. Why was he having such a response to its scent? How had it done that? Was it a weapon his scouts and squads hadn’t encountered yet? Problem was, it didn’t seem to work in the alien’s favor in the least.