Ice Planet Barbarians (Ice Planet Barbarians, #1)(54)

“To go to your caves?”

“To go hunt the sa-kohtsk. We seek khui for you and the women.”

She flinches a little but nods. “If we must, we must.”

“We need more time,” the mouthy one called Liz says. She looks weaker than the rest, thin and wan. But she’s got a stubborn set to her flat mouth. “Not all of us are sold on the idea.” She puts an arm around a new human’s shoulders, and the woman trembles and leans into Liz’s caress.

“You may not have much more time,” I begin, but I’m interrupted by a high pitched whine. In the background, Kira claps a hand to her ear and collapses. Georgie claps a hand to her own arm, wincing.

“What? What is that?” I ask.

Her mouth opens in pain, and she pulls her hand away from her arm even as the whine dies down. There’s a light blinking in her arm, just under the skin, an angry, glaring red.

“The aliens are coming back,” she tells me. “We need to leave.”





GEORGIE


We’re a sad, sad little party as we set out from the cargo bay a short time later. The new girls are weeping and confused. They want more furs than we have to go around. They want better shoes. They’re hungry, cold, and tired. Maybe it’s exhaustion, but I’m frustrated with them because we’re doing the best we can and they just keep crying. I know this is new and scary for them, but I find myself wishing they’d catch up and get with the program already.

The women also want to avoid the men, who are giving them longing looks. Someone keeps purring, though no one will step up and admit things. It’s probably for the best, because I’m guessing that the girls can’t handle the thought of taking on an alien boyfriend right now. Not with everything else going on.

My upper arm throbs. It’s freshly bandaged, but it still stings like the dickens. Once the sensors went off, we set into action, readying to leave the camp. Before we did, though, we had to take care of matters. If the sensors were trackers, we had to get rid of them, and fast.

Out came the knives, and five minutes—and a lot of tears—later, the trackers had been removed. Pashov had been sent to dump them into the nearest metlak cave. Let the little green men take them if they want captives.

Now, the rest of us trudge through the snowy dusk, except for Josie, who is carried by a big male called Haeden. We’re trying to ignore the bitter cold, in search of something Vektal called a sa-kohtsk. It would have the khui we needed, and it, he told me, would save us.

I am all for being saved at this point. Exhaustion is making it difficult for me to keep up, and Liz is so weak that Raahosh decides to carry her slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

One of the scouts appears, waving his spear overhead. “Sa-kohtsk,” he calls into the driving wind. “In the valley. Hurry!”

Vektal puts an arm around my waist. He is now carrying Tiffany, who’s too exhausted to lift her feet. “Come, my resonance,” he tells me. “Not much further.”

“I’m good,” I tell him, plodding ahead. “I—”

The ground shakes under my feet.

“What was that?” I ask, stopping. Terror ripples through me as it happens again. Even the snow at my feet vibrates.

“That,” Vektal says, urging me forward again, “Is a sa-kohtsk.”

Oh, shit. I’m a little terrified of what we’re about to find, but we’ve come this far. Vektal and his men press ahead, so we have little choice but to keep up. “Have you hunted these a lot?” I ask him.

“Not often,” he tells me. “Only when a khui is needed. They are too fierce otherwise.”

“Great,” I say dryly.

“This will go well,” Vektal tells me and gives me a comforting pat on the arm, which only sends a flare of pain through my new wound again.

At least when I get a khui, Maylak will be able to heal me. At this rate all she’s going to have left are a bunch of Georgie-shaped pieces. I ready the knife I carry with me.

“What’s happening?” one of the new girls asks, shivering in her furs. Her name’s Nora, I think, and she’s one of the stronger newbies.

The ground thumps again, and Vektal points at a copse of pink feathery trees ahead. “Take the women there. If the creature comes for you, hide amongst the trees.”

“By climbing them?” I look at the other women. “I don’t think they can climb.”

“You won’t need to climb,” Vektal says. “He cannot get to you through them.” I wonder at his words, but there’s no time to talk. He presses a kiss to my forehead and then passes Tiffany off to me. She’s so weak that she clings to me, and I have to drag her over to the trees with Nora’s help.

It feels a bit sexist to have all the women huddling under the trees as the men go off to fight, but I look at the women around me and feel a little despair. We’re weak, exhausted, and not used to all this cold. If the little green men showed up right now, we’d be helpless to fight back against them, even if we outnumbered them.

The ground shakes again, and at my side, Kira clutches a spear while Liz moans unhappily. “What the fuck is that Jurassic Park shit?”

“I don’t know,” I tell her. But I ready the knife I carry with me.

Something gives a high-pitched roar, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It seems close, really freaking close, and the ground shakes again. Megan chokes back a sob of fright, and the other women are whispering. I hiss for silence because I want to know what the hell is going on, damn it. The thought of Vektal out there with some huge monster frightens me.