The story:
He rescued her from space pirates … but can he keep them both safe from the far greater evil stalking a deserted planet?
Space travel without Kidnap & Ransom insurance? Not a good idea. University instructor and researcher Sara Bridges can’t afford it, so when pirates board her cruise liner, she’s taken captive along with the mistress of a wealthy man, and brought to a deserted planet. When a military extraction team sent to rescue the mistress refuses to take Sara too, she’s left to the mercies of a retired Special Forces soldier, along as consultant.
Reluctantly reactivated and coerced into signing up for the rescue operation to the planet Farduccir where he once was deployed, Sgt. Johnny Danver just wants to get the job done. But when the team leader leaves one captured woman behind, he breaks away to rescue her himself.
As Johnny and Sara traverse the barren landscape, heading for an abandoned base where they hope to call Sectors Command for help, they find villages destroyed by battle and stripped of all inhabitants. A lone survivor tells a horrific tale of the Sectors’ alien enemy, the Mawreg, returning after being pushed out …
Searching for evidence to give the military, Johnny is captured. He regains consciousness in a Mawreg cage–with Sara next to him. Death is preferable to what the aliens will do to them… And even if they do escape their captors, can they alert the military in time to prevent another invasion of the Sectors?
The excerpt - Johnny's been stung by a cave dwelling, poisonous creature and Sara must cope:
She rummaged
in the pack for the medkit and brought it and the water, along with a T shirt
she’d grabbed. Tearing it into strips, she got ready to clean the wounds, which
had stopped bleeding but were becoming puffy around the edges and a scary
reddish black. Swallowing hard against the nausea rising in her gut, she said,
“I’ll try to be gentle but this is going to hurt.”
He laughed. “Can’t be worse than
the bite and the burn.”
She poured water over the wounds
and then daubed at them with a piece of the T shirt soaked in antiseptic from the
medkit. “Is there antivenom in this kit?”
Johnny shook his head. “Only a
generic. Keep the dose for you, just in case. I’ve had the injects for this
planet and a buncha others. I’ll be ok.”
“You’re not acting okay. Let me
give you the inject anyway.” She dug in the medkit, searching for anything
labelled antivenom.
He pushed her hand away. “No.
It’ll take time but I’ll sweat the poison out. Gotta extract the stingers
though.”
“What?” Sinking back on her
heels, she made herself scrutinize the puncture highest on his leg, right below
the kneecap. A red needlelike spike in the center drew her attention. “What do I get this out with?”
“I’ll do it.” He tried to sit.
His hands were shaking.
“Yeah, tough guy, I think this
is my job.” Clearly he wasn’t going to be able to do anything as delicate as
pulling out the stingers.
He fumbled at his belt. “Knife.”
She reached past him to pull the
knife from its sheath. “What do I do?”
“Get the tip under the stinger,
flip it out. Don’t touch it, still has venom.” He shut his eyes and put one
shaking hand over them. “Can’t see straight right now.”
Sara did her best not to hurt
him but she cringed at the way her clumsy efforts with the knife had to be
causing him pain. He didn’t make a sound and finally she had the first stinger
out. She looked at it on the knife tip for a moment, seeing how it had tiny prongs
to help it stay in the wound once the creature had attacked its prey.
Shuddering, she rose and stepped to the cave entrance, flinging the stinger
into the brush. Going to kneel beside Johnny, she said, “I’ve got the hang of
this now. Hopefully I can do the other one more easily.”
“Doing fine,” he whispered, so
softly she could hardly hear him. “Burn salve next. Red tube.” He undid the
fastenings of his combat boots and toed them off with a lot of false starts.
“I saw it in the kit, don’t
worry.” Knowing what she was dealing with, she made quick work of extracting
the second stinger, with less incidental damage to Johnny’s leg. Then she
washed the wounds again, applied antiseptic, the burn salve and a bandage from
the medkit. He was barely conscious. Sara staggered outside the cave and threw
up, falling to her knees for a moment in sheer terror. Then because she feared he’d
try to come find her, possibly hurting himself in the process, she made herself
stand and walk into the cave with more confidence than she actually possessed.
She got the bedroll out of his
pack, pushing the tab to make it expand and tried to arrange it smoothly, close
to where he lolled drunkenly against the cave wall because she didn’t think she
could move him very far, but at least not lying close to the cave’s entrance.
“All right, my friend, time to lie down.” She got her shoulder under his arm
and tugged to get him to rise. She was exhausted by the time he’d limped to the
sleeping mat and lowered himself to the ground with her help.
“Drink some water,” she said,
holding the canteen to his lips. “You’re going to get dehydrated.”
“Lemme rest a minute and then
I’ll go patrol.” His voice was slurred and faint. A tremor rocked his frame.
Sara patted his shoulder. “Don’t
worry about patrolling right now. Rest sounds like a good idea.” Gently she
covered him with the thin blanket and then retreated to a nearby boulder to
sit. Dropping her head into her hands for a moment, she gave in to the tears
that had been threatening for the last hour while she tended to Johnny. Sara
rocked back and forth, struggling to breathe past the tightness in her chest
and lightheadedness. Never in a million years would it have occurred to her
something would happen to Johnny. He’d seemed so tough and indestructible.
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