Magarce woke to the sound of Benz cursing, and it frightened her- the old pirate had always been essentially calm, but there was a tone in his voice that was almost panicky. She sat up, and watched him nervously as he paced around, hunting all over the cave. Eventually, she said, “Benz?”

“Oh, you woke up! You may wish you hadn’t.”

“What?”

“We’re trapped. I think we need to make a run for it, but I don’t know this planet very well.”

“Where’s Tres? What’s the matter?”

“That’s why you should wish you never woke up…” said Benz, miserably.

“Stop it! You’re trying to scare me!”

“Tres turned on us.” said Benz.

“What does that mean?”

“Let me put it this way. Tres turned us in.”

Magarce listened, sick at heart, as Benz outlined his story.

“I wondered if something was up. Don’t you remember how she talked? She was very interested in how bad the Nerre wanted to kill you. Said they’d do anything. I wish I’d spotted that, but probably if I suspected her in time, she’d have killed me. I’m not as sneaky as an Estrai. Nothing is as sneaky as Tres, anyway…”

“But what did she DO?”

“It’s about what she’s going to do. She’s figured out she can trade her freedom for your life. She’s going to tell the Nerre where we are. She might have already done it. They’re coming.”

Magarce stared at nothing.

“They’re coming. Did you hear me?”

Benz stared down at the stricken kitten, and waited for a reaction- any sort would do. If it was a panicky reaction, now was the time to get it over with. If it was a fade into despair, he could try to coax her into going on, or he could shoot her. Tres had taken the weapons, but knew better than to try and take his gun or ammo. For that matter, there would be no reason to shoot her, he could just leave her here as Tres had, and the Nerre would eventually find her. Perhaps very soon…

The little cat’s head slowly raised. Magarce’s eyes met his. He had never seen green flame before, but the color in her eyes could only be described as that. It riveted him.

“I will get you out of this. And she will pay.”

“You’re talking crap.” said Benz. “Get real.”

“I am. This is my planet, not yours. We’re going to get to the spaceport, steal a ship, and get back to our own ship. And never come here again.”

“You sound as if you know what you’re doing, but you’re a kid. What do you mean, this is your planet?”

“I am not a kid. Did you know most Hse-Nerre have never killed? This place is so stuck in its own bullshit that nobody does wrong things, everyone obeys their disgusting little rules. I’m going to break all those rules, they won’t know what hit them, and I’m getting you out of here. Do you have bullets? Count them.”

“Kitty, I’ve counted them three times. I’ve got seven shots left. Is that all?”

“No. I’m claiming you as well.” said the little Nerre.

“Beg your pardon?”

“You’re mine. I haven’t got any males left- I almost had Angs, but now he’s dead. You’re a better shot than he was, and maybe you’re just as much Runge- it could go two ways, one, you might be bigger in which case you’ll remind me of Benjen, or you might be smaller in which case…”

“Who’s Benjen?” said Benz.

“Benjen’s dead. He died holding me. I felt him die. He never made it into the ship I escaped in. You’re going to do better than that.”

Benz had to look away from Magarce’s eyes. Not because she was weeping or showing pain, but because her burning gaze, that electrifying green luminosity, was creepy and she would not blink. To all appearances, Mags had gone to one of those obsessive places pirates sometimes got caught in, where everything else dropped away and there was an awful clarity. Benz began to wonder if she would actually be able to do what she claimed. For that matter…

“So.” he said. “I guess you want a good fuck, huh?”

“No. Don’t tempt me. We’re going to work out a strategy for getting out of the cave in case there are Hse-Nerre in here.”

“Okay. I won’t tempt you. What about… test you?”

“Fine. If it doesn’t take much time.”

“It didn’t. You pass. Let’s do this.” said Benz, then- “Wait.”

“Yes?”

“Tres took her weapons. She took all the ammo she could get her hands on. Did you have anything? Where’d you put that knife you used on the pilot?”

Magarce blinked, and then scampered off to one of the packs. She dug right into it, and let out a little cry of delight, for the knife was still there. Not only that, it was still bloody.

“You know it’s better to clean those, right?” said Benz.

“Whatever. I don’t get it, I know Tres saw me put this in my pack. She made a face. I’m sure she saw it.”

Benz’s ears showed puzzlement, cocked in odd directions. “I don’t get it either. She’s incredibly disciplined. Do you think she forgot?”

“Maybe she found it distasteful and tried to put it out of her mind…”

“…too well!” finished Benz. “That’s a lucky break for us.”

“You want me to wipe it off?” asked Magarce.

“Don’t you want to?”

“Yeah, on her corpse. But… you don’t think, maybe, it’s just some sort of mistake? Like, she went wandering around and got trapped in a cave or something?”

“Think about what you just said, and Tres, for a minute.”

The little feline looked incredibly disgusted. “You’re right. Never mind.”

“Anyway, unless she was going to fall down a hole and try to shoot her way out…”

“Never mind, I said! I think that’s everything. Should we bring the packs?”

“Not unless you want to be encumbered. Strip them of anything we can use right away. Eat some of the food. Do you know how to find food in the woods?”

“Do Hse-Nerre count?” she replied blithely.

“Um. You do know you’re not really a wild animal, right?” said Benz, disconcerted.

“I was joking. Kinda. Take it easy.”

“All right. I just… it’s hard to know what you’re capable of, okay?”

“I’m counting on that.” said Magarce.

They made their way out of the caves, carefully, but uneventfully. Magarce asked Benz, “Should we be watching for anybody?”

“No, not really. Once we get outside, it might get more interesting.”

“Do you hear them? Or, more like, not hear them?”

“I’m not sure I’d be able to hear them, if they really tried to be sneaky.” said Benz. “But I’d smell them. You guys forget the Runge sense of smell. We’re almost as good as Resten at it.”

“Oooh. What do I smell like?” said Magarce, coquetteishly.

Benz didn’t reply at first, paused long enough for Magarce to figure out she’d said something wrong. Then…

“I can still smell the blood on you. Though your carousing the last two nights covers it up a lot.”

“You can still smell blood on me?” blinked Magarce.

“Yeah.”

“Get used to that.”

The darkness of the cave clung, sucking all the energy out of the dwindling camp-light, but as the Runge and Nerre progressed through the narrow cave passageways, Magarce this time paying attention to how Benz was getting along, daylight began to appear. It seemed very blue, too vivid to be real, quickly overpowering the camp-light.

“We’re almost there!” said Magarce.

“No, we’re not.”

“Really? But look at it.”

“Let’s go a little farther, then stop for a while when it gets too bright.”

“Where?”

They turned a corner, and the cave wall was lit up in one vast glare, but there was no cave mouth to go with it. Indirect light alone was enough to blind their dark-adjusted eyes. Magarce stared at the camp-light, and couldn’t tell if it was on or off anymore. It was perfectly quiet and peaceful, apart from the flood of daylight that lit the cave up like a day at the beach.

“Here would be good.” said Benz.

“I see what you…”

“Ssh!”

There was the movement of a shadow ahead, and a faint sound. Something was out there.

“Back a little…” whispered Benz, “and then- talk.”

“What?” whispered Magarce, her ears laid back in alarm.

“Trust me. Back just around this corner, so we can still see, then talk. Say anything. I only hear one guy.”

They did as he said, and then Magarce whispered, “What the hell are you doing?”

“I didn’t hear anything.” said Benz in a normal voice, and then whispered, “…use the knife…”

“What the hell is wrong with you? Is this a test? Benz!” hissed Magarce.

“…good, the sibilance carries, lurk behind that rock there…” said Benz, and then said “No, you’re out of your mind!”

The shadows moved more eagerly, and Magarce took her position behind her rock, ears well back and tail foofed out in alarm. She noticed that Benz was sort of half hiding. His body was behind a rock, but his grey wolf tail was sticking out, and he was farther along the cave passageway than she was.

Soft noises stole closer and closer, and suddenly Magarce froze, with a tiny squeak of alarm, for a figure had walked right past her. It was one of the Hse-Nerre, and he was armed- surely Tres had warned them, for Nerre did not favor weapons beyond their claws and sometimes teeth, yet here he was, walking very slowly and aiming the gun down the passage.

As she made the noise, he in turn froze. It was darker here, and she couldn’t make him out that clearly, but she stared up at him in terror, for he had the drop on her, and she was certain he was looking around, aiming the gun everywhere he could…

There was a faint noise from Benz- he’d moved. His tail flicked, and then he said “Ssh.” to nobody.

The Hse-Nerre began moving toward Benz, hesitantly, the gun held out rigidly before him, taking a step toward the hiding Runge, and then another, and another… as behind him, a small vengeful figure rose up, knife in hand, and rushed forward.

Magarce let out a shriek just as she plunged the knife into the guy’s back. She didn’t just do that, she leapt upon him and toppled him to the ground, as if she was trying to climb him and using the knife as a climbing-hold. He screamed once as he hit the ground, and then Magarce was flung off and to the side, for the guy was thrashing around, impossible to hold. She cried out her rage and stabbed at him again from where she’d fallen, and thought she’d got his shoulder, but it wasn’t helping. He seemed to be getting up, and then the bulk of him was lunging toward her and she still hadn’t got to her feet again.

Then, his body flipped to the side. Benz had jumped out from behind his rock, and thrown the guy to the ground. Magarce could see that Benz was pinning his arms down, and then her rage took over again and she flung herself onto him, stabbing him with wild swinging blows, her world a riot of feline shrieks, jolts of pain, savage attacks…

Magarce came around to the sound of Benz saying “Let me see that. Let me see that. Magarce. Let me see.”

Her leg hurt. The guy was worse than hurt, he was butchered. His torso was a biology class failed by a drunk student- you could see there were supposed to be organs in there, but it wasn’t a neat dissection at all. She was panting and shaking.

“Let me SEE.”

“What?”

“Good, that was language. Let me see your leg. Who taught you to do that? You’ve got a lot to learn. Show me right now.”

Her leg hurt. She looked down, to see one of the Hse-Nerre’s hind paws. It was splayed in agony, and the claws glinted in the dim light, showing their red-tinged razor implants.

Her blood.

Magarce gulped, staggered, and then the flood of adrenaline and menace tossed her stomach playfully inside her, and she threw up to the side of the guy, falling to all fours.

“Let me see! I’m gonna leave in ten seconds if you don’t.”

Magarce rolled over, and held up the leg that hurt. She didn’t dare look at it herself. Everything had just got far too intense, and the whole world seemed to be shrieking its existence at her. She could see the contorted face of the Hse-Nerre she’d killed. One canine tooth was outlined against his pulled-back upper lip, and then the series of smaller ones before they were hid by part of his mouth. It looked like she’d hit that too, because a mouth wasn’t supposed to be that shape.

“Uh-huh… uh-huh. Okay, now we move.”

“What happened?” managed Magarce.

“You don’t like it as much when they fight back.” said Benz. “First time?”

“What HAPPENED?”

“I’ll tell you. Then we move- out or in, I’m not sure which is best. You could’ve got him. Usually the best way is a throat-cut. You might even get the spine if you’re aggressive, then there’s no moving- well, not voluntary. Who told you to do that? That- ridiculous stabbing stuff? You weren’t even on the side of him where the heart is.”

“You told me. And his heart’s there, look. What happened to ME?”

“He didn’t die instantly, dumbass. He threw you off, and still had his gun…”

“You got him in here with it!”

“He was blind. I got him to come in too fast, he couldn’t see us. It was supposed to be cleaner- you’ve got to do better than that.”

“What happened to my leg! Benz!” protested Magarce.

“I’m telling you. I threw him, but I didn’t have his feet, and they have those claws. You jumped right on top of him and kept stabbing. You took him out pretty quick, not that you stopped or anything, but he caught your leg. It was a glancing blow, messy but not serious. He could have fucking disemboweled you, and then you’d be lying here dying alone.”

Magarce was speechless. Benz… wasn’t.

“Do. not. do. that. again.”

Magarce was still speechless, staring up at the old pirate with a stricken look, next to her bloody handiwork.

“Get up. Come on. We have to decide right now which way to go. With your leg working, which it ought to, I’m thinking out, not in.”

“Why?” asked Magarce.

“The guy might have just been scouting. I don’t hear anything else. If there are others, they’re waiting. They’ll come in after us and we can’t count on that blindness trick twice, because they’ll have heard it. You can see they’re armed. We’ll take this guy’s gun, radio, whatever you didn’t break, and we’ll go out and try to get to some kind of cover outside.”

“What if we stay here?”

“They’ll come in after us very slowly and shoot at anything they think they see. Ricochets off the rock walls will get us if direct shots don’t. Or we can get lost and starve in here, or fall down a hole, or be trapped in a cave-in once they start shooting…”

“Okay. We’ll go out.”

It took some time. Neither Benz, nor Magarce, desired to rush out and be as blinded as the hapless Hse-Nerre Benz had tricked, but both desperately wanted to get to safety. Unfortunately safety was orbiting the planet, waiting for the return of the landing party.

As they waited, staring into the glare of the morning light from just inside the cave, Magarce thought of something. “Benz? Is Tres going to get back to the ship… first?”

That left the old pirate unable to answer right away. Finally, he said, “Not if I can help it.”

“But are we racing? To beat her back to our ship?”

“Kitty, I tell you, I really don’t know. If she’s trying to get back to it, she won’t have worked with the authorities here, she’d just steal a ship or something. We have a dead guy back in there to show that she did betray us. You should know that’s a big deal. She’s not supposed to do that. If the guys at the ship find out, she’ll be just as dead. The one thing we can’t tolerate is a traitor- if she turns on us once, she’s tainted. But if she got up there first and didn’t tell them what she did… but then she’d have to kill us, couldn’t risk exposure…”

“It sounds complicated.” said Magarce.

“Complicated is bad. That’s why Angs did well for a long time. He’s not complicated. Tres is complicated, but hid it. I’m a little too complicated but my actions are simple. You… I can’t figure you out at all, but in some ways you’re very uncomplicated.”

“Thanks… I think.”

“Might as well be grateful. You’re still alive because I can trust what you want. Even your fuck-ups are consistent with it.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve got to teach you to attack better. Screaming raging assaults look scary but that’s not always useful. That’s for if you’re attacking someone pretty helpless and easily frightened. You were attacking a fighter. Got to do maximum damage with maximum surprise. The rules change completely.”

They slunk out of the cave mouth, squinting into the daylight for signs of other Hse-Nerre. None were visible. Birds were chirping, insects buzzed about, the tree-line waited for them below. Magarce trembled, looking for eyes in the bushes, for the glint of a gun barrel pointed at her. The world was full of visual noise, the surroundings full of places someone could be hiding. The Hse-Nerre’s guns would glint, for they were shiny. Benz’s was pretty dull, but very well kept. He was holding the Nerre gun, which was probably made by the Runge. She was holding the dead man’s radio, a sort of phone.

It vibrated, and lit up. Someone was calling. Magarce squeaked, and dropped the phone.

“Kitty. Kitty! Magarce! Hey!”

She was overcome by panic, sprinting for the treeline below. Benz cursed, and went after her. His legs were longer, but he was old and she was really going for it- he realized that he was going to have to go to a quad run if he wanted to catch her, which was a good question. Then Benz thought of Tres’s betrayal, and he knew he didn’t want to go out that way. He was going to do whatever it took to stay with the mad kitten, and if they died it would be as a team.

Quad run was a problem. Benz was able to holster his gun, but he had to fling the other gun aside to free his hands, and his aging body did not like returning to this ancestral gait. You had to throw your shoulders so far forward that your shirt ripped in the back, and Benz was too old to be able to do that with a heavy jacket, so he was hobbled by that, and his neck didn’t want to bend back enough so he was glaring up desperately to see where he was going… but it was just enough (the jacket was by far the biggest problem) for him to do the gait. Bounding forward with kicks of his hind legs, flinging himself on with his arms, he caught up with the fleeing Magarce and tackled her, tumbling to the rocky ground in a haze of pain from his neck, shoulders, and back.

Magarce shrieked when she went down, but was unharmed, and quickly worked out who’d tackled her. Benz wasn’t letting her up until she was back in control of herself, but they were both panting so hard it was difficult to tell.

“It’s… a PHONE.” panted Benz.

“Yeah…”

“You can’t… run like that… into the woods.”

“Why not…”

Benz took a deep breath, controlling his voice. “They could be waiting there. There’s lots of cover. We have to go in more carefully.” They stood, but he wouldn’t let go of Magarce’s arm. The stress hissed in his ears.

“We have to run!” protested Magarce.

“Will you stay while I run back to get the other gun?”

“No!”

“Why?” demanded Benz. The stress was really bad.

Her ears were back, her eyes wild, and she gestured to the side, and up. Benz followed her gesture, and there were specks in the sky, big specks. The hissing was coming from them, not his ears. They were growing larger even as he looked. They weren’t aircraft, or spaceships. They were the Nerre personal air transport- hovers. Hse-Nerre, aerial search.

Benz didn’t hesitate. His gun barked once, twice, and each time, a speck came apart into two specks, which gracefully fell out of the sky.

Far away, the Hse-Nerre rode their hovers towards the tiny specks that surely represented the renegade and her pirate friend, right where the Estrai woman had said they would be. They stood on the lower crossbar of a light open framework linking two powerful ducted fan jet engines pointing down, holding two handles, shifting their weight to control the motions of the ultralight vehicles. They heard no shots, but first one and then another of their number cried out, hit with something, falling off their mounts which automatically shut off and dropped with them. “Get down!” shouted their leader over the hissing shriek of the tiny turbines and the overpowering rush of fan wind.

The specks dropped, and Benz’s third shot, fired an instant before, went over their heads.

Benz cursed horribly, counting the specks as best he could, not liking the result at all. “Kitty! Go get that other gun!”

Magarce was off. Two of the flying Hse-Nerre changed angle, tracking her. Two shots rang out, and they tumbled out of the sky, hitting the ground with thuds that shook the earth. The hovers landed seconds later, their lightness and the huge ducts around their engines tending to slow their fall. One landed upside down, on a rock that smashed at its handholds, breaking its delicate control system- it turned back on, with a shriek of tiny engines, and flung itself across the rocks to crash in a ravine.

The remaining Hse-Nerre had hit the deck, and as Magarce ran back to Benz with the other gun, there was a distant crack and a bullet whistled by her ear.

“Get down!”

Benz had taken cover as well as he could, on exposed mountain above the treeline. He was prone, facing the Hse-Nerre… and counting them.

“Kitty! How many did you see?”

“What?”

It seemed as though the sound of hovers hadn’t stopped, even though two were shot down and the rest had gone to ground. Magarce looked around frantically, and cried out, “Behind you!”

Another three Hse-Nerre were coming from exactly the opposite direction. They were really hauling ass, cranking their hovers to full throttle and leaning them forward as far as possible, and the things were swooping down in a crazed power dive. Benz turned his head, his eyes widened, and he picked off the lead Hse-Nerre immediately with a quick shot, but then another bullet whistled by his ear, and when he turned again, the attacker was flat against the ground, unseen behind a small plateau.

“Dammit, Tres!”

“She’s not here!” protested Magarce.

“I told her once, I got pinned down by attackers on both sides! She must’ve told them!”

Magarce stared at him, her ears back, and another shot shrieked over her head- and her nerve snapped. “Get to the trees!” she shrieked, and jumped to her feet, sprinting for the treeline, which by now was tantalizingly close, but still too horribly far.

“Kitty!” shouted Benz, but it was no use. Another two shots rang out, both missing her- the Hse-Nerre were not skilled at hitting running targets, but Benz could not trust to that.

He rose up, suspecting their real target was Magarce- whirled to his left and took out two of the first group who were already trying for another shot at her- whirled to his right, shot one of two attackers that were swooping down on Magarce, and hastily swapped guns, for that had been his seven shots. He drew aim, with the Hse-Nerre gun, on the remaining one. Mags was nearly at the treeline…

Click. The Nerre gun had misfired. There wasn’t going to be time to clean or unjam it.

Benz sprinted forward. He saw the Hse-Nerre hit the ground, not even slowing his swoop to do so- the guy dived out of his hover and rolled while the flying machine smashed on the ground. Magarce heard this and turned to look, pausing her flight, and backed away in alarm as the tumbling Hse-Nerre was back on his feet in an instant, pulling his gun.

She’d reached a tree, and in an eyeblink she flung herself at it, and scrambled up, bits of bark flying as the little feline latched onto the trunk with desperate claws. It was amazing how fast she was out of sight.

The guy took one look at the charging Runge with a gun in each hand, and went straight up the tree after Magarce. He’d holstered his own weapon to free his hands for climbing.

Benz staggered, gasping, to a halt, staring up as the two Nerre raced higher and higher into the tree. Behind him, the sound of running paws told him more than one Hse-Nerre had caught him. He turned, and leveled both guns at them, and they came to an abrupt halt, matching his posture. A stand-off.

“Surrender.” said one of the Hse-Nerre. “We can capture you. It is the criminal we must destroy.”

“Oh yeah? No capturing both of us? Huh?”

“She is disgrace in life. She defies everything we live by.”

“Yeah- she’s good at that.” said Benz.

“You do not fire.” said the Nerre. “Your weapons are empty.”

“No.” said Benz, truthfully. A jammed weapon was not empty. “Maybe I want to capture you!”

The Nerre paused. “But… no! You cannot mean that. Then- if your weapons are not empty, they are broken, or you would…”

His thought was interrupted by a sudden noise. Something was falling through the tree. It hit the ground right behind Benz. It wasn’t Magarce, it was the Hse-Nerre. He hadn’t drawn his gun, and he hadn’t killed Mags up in the tree. And he hadn’t slipped and fallen off, either.

The shocking stab wound in his left eye was all the evidence Benz needed of that.

Benz bent over the corpse. The Hse-Nerre started forward. “Stand b…”

“Here’s one!” said Benz, and whirled on them, firing the gun he’d just lifted from the corpse.

Their panic was terrible. They did not even try to fire at him, their initial reaction was to turn and flee, and each one that did, died on the spot. Benz fired rapidly, and one, two, three Nerre dropped, and then… click.

The one that had been talking to him was still standing, and he’d recoiled, but had not turned. His ears were back, but as he realized Benz was truly done, out of options, the deadly feline’s eyes began to gleam that alarming shade of green Benz had seen in Magarce’s gaze before- and he began to stalk slowly forward. And he dropped his gun as he did so, and flexed his hands, and the glittering blades showed. His eyes went even greener, too wide, and Benz, alarmed, began backing away. Faster and faster, as the Hse-Nerre’s gaze fixated only on him, clearly no longer interested in capture, and he rushed at Benz with claws out…

Magarce dropped out of the tree, directly onto him. Her knife flashed in the daylight.

This time, she remembered Benz’s advice.