And they were beautiful. Tiny and delicate, they called to everything primal in a Lathar male—possessiveness, protectiveness… He wasn’t surprised T’Raal was interested in Sparky’s mysterious female contact, and not in the professional way he was pretending.
Sparky’s reply was a bark of laughter. “God no, Mirax Corp wouldn’t ever dare put her in Ruas. She’d fucking take over and lead a rebellion. Let’s just say she’s so dangerous she has a Dead or Alive, preferably Dead order on her. She tends to be invisible.”
T’Raal rumbled, sounding impressed. “She has secured cloaking technology? That is… smart.”
Sparky chuckled as they reached the top of the rise. “Fuck no. Cops who want to live tend to look the other way. Ah, there she is.”
The pasture was spread out below them, vegetables laid out in neat rows that covered three quarters of the area. The order appealed to Skinny’s childhood training as a farmer. She had several different varieties for a balanced diet, and she was co-growing in at least three areas, which was good for the soil. What one species took out, the other would put back. She obviously had some knowledge beyond the basic of produce farming.
The cannon spat again, bringing their attention to the petite slender woman standing just beyond the last row of produce. Skinny was forced into a double take, T’Raal giving a short bark of laughter at the size of the cannon in her hands. It was almost as big as she was. It was comical, right up to the point something… monstrous crawled out of the tree line opposite her right as she was reloading the big cannon.
His eyes widened. It was a spider, but like none he’d ever seen before. Instead of the tiny arachnid he’d seen in the Terran files Zero had “liberated,” this was easily as big the woman herself with claws on the ends of its long legs and malevolence and hunger lurking in its many-eyed gaze. It hissed in challenge as it ran toward her.
Ice hit Skinny broadside, his breath catching in his throat. It was going to reach her before she could reload, bearing down on her with vicious-looking mandibles that glinted in the harsh sunlight. They were as long as her arm and would easily tear into the woman’s soft body, which was only protected by some kind of field jacket and lightweight combats similar to the ones Sparky favored.
“It’ll kill her!” he gasped, surging forward, only to stop in his tracks as the woman slammed the energy cartridge home. Shouldering the cannon with a practiced gesture, she aimed and fired in the same movement. The spider exploded right in front of her, legs blasted in all directions.
“Fuuuuuck…” T’Raal breathed. “I think I’m in love.”
Sparky chuckled. “Yeah. No. Not a good idea.”
A hint of a growl entered T’Raal’s voice as he swung his head to look at the smaller human. “And why not? Is she mated? What kind of male would allow her to be out here alone, putting herself in danger?”
“The kind of male who wants to keep his balls where they are,” a female voice stated clearly as the woman walked up toward them. A shimmer flared behind her as a defense shield activated. Bright blue flashes sparked as more spiders ran at it and were incinerated.
Skinny’s eyes widened a little. If that had been there all along…
The woman reached them, and his eyes widened even further as she removed her goggles, leaving them looped around her neck. She was older than he’d expected, with elegant white-blonde hair that looked like she’d just stepped out of a salon rather than having been on a remote planet farm for gods knew how long. But the familiar blue eyes and Sparky’s features written across a beautiful feminine face clinched it.
“Guys…” Sparky said proudly, looping his arm around the woman’s shoulders. “Meet my mom, Nerissa Allen. She’s a whiz with fake IDs. You’ll see.”
“So you expect me to pull several new IDs for aliens out my ass?” Sparky’s mom asked as she put mugs for them all on the table in the kitchen of the small farm house she appeared to live in alone.
T’Raal started in surprise. “How did you kn—”
Nerissa Allen cut him off with a wave of her hand, still looking at her son pointedly. Skinny bit back his grin. He’d never seen anyone tell the big Warborne leader to sit down and shut up before and, from the look on his face, neither had T’Raal.
Nerissa, meanwhile, didn’t appear to give a shit, instead rounding on her son. “You’re a brat. You know that?”
Sparky grinned, boyish charm on full force. “Yeah, Ma, but you love me anyway. I’m your favorite son.”
She snorted as she moved around the small kitchen. In the best traditions of farm kitchens the universe over, it was rustic and partially made from local materials as well as the extruded plastic humans seemed so fond of. But, despite its tiny dimensions where he and T’Raal jammed in together on chairs that creaked if they so much as dared to move, it was still familiar to him. So familiar he could imagine she was his own mother moving around. But, of course, she wasn’t and couldn’t be. He’d killed her the day the H’Rath gang had come. And even if he hadn’t, the plague would have taken her a scant few years later. He would never have this with his mother again. No Lathar would.
“No. Scott’s my favorite at the moment.”
Sparky gasped, hand over his heart dramatically. “Scott? That little tosser? Oh, come on, Ma! He’s a total goody two-shoes!”
“Don’t you call your brother a tosser!”
T’Raal looked between the two of them. “Wait… there’s more than one of you?”
The big Lathar’s voice held a note of horror and disbelief that Skinny could identify with. Finding out that Sparky had a mother was bad enough. They’d all assumed… hoped he’d emerged fully formed somewhere as a gift from the trickster god. But then to find out that there were more of him. That he had a brother… Draanth.
Both humans ignored the question, Sparky continuing to be dramatic as his mother put a large kettle on the table.
“Scott’s doing ten years for kidnap in Millbank,” she said proudly.
“See? I told you! Kidnap is a pussy crime.”
She snorted.
“Armed kidnap I’ll have you know. Tea, boys?” she asked, smiling at the two Latharians.
They both nodded.
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you,” they chorused.
“Now, now, none of that shit,” she said, pouring them both drinks. “Call me Ma, like Jayce here.”
“Of course, Ma,” they replied obediently.
It was never wise to piss off anyone who could handle an energy canon like Ma Allen. Or someone who had a kitchen quite so full of things with sharp edges.
Skinny cast a worried look around when he was sure the human woman wasn’t looking. It was uncomfortably like being in Red’s quarters. He’d only been in there once, when she’d needed someone to hold the bed in place while she welded it back against the wall. He hadn’t asked what she’d been doing to make it break free. Some questions were wise to leave unasked.
“And he got caught?” Sparky shook his head and sighed. “Fucking rookie. Couldn’t you at least have picked Marc as your favorite instead? I mean, Scott’s what? Like twelve? What’s he doing out on his own anyway?”