James Axler – The Mars Arena

“Then you should have missed Solomon,” Perry snarled.

Dean gave him a cold look. “I didn’t want to. Mebbe we aren’t coming back from wherever they’re taking us. I didn’t want Solomon getting away with chilling all of us.” He paused. “I had another reason, too. We’re going to be noticed missing in the morning. Somebody’ll come looking for us. If Connrad and his people leave Solomon’s body where it is, it’ll give whoever comes looking a chance to start searching in the right direction.”

Louis looked at Dean, a slight grin on his lips. “Slick. I wouldn’t have thought about that.”

Dean parted the tarp after the boots moved away. All the boys except Perry crowded around him, peering through the tarp, as well.

Outside, a sec man held a lantern while two others lifted Solomon’s body and threw it onto the wag.

“Guess they thought about it, too,” Conor said glumly.

Dean let the tarp drop. “Mebbe. But there’s the blood. Be harder to see, but they can’t clean it all up. Not after what that shotgun did.”

The wag lurched forward, banging the boys around. They spread out, everybody staying away from Perry.

Settling back against the side of the wag and getting as comfortable as he could, Dean forced himself to relax and not think about chilling Solomon.

“You think Brody’ll send somebody?” Moxen asked Dean.

“I don’t know. If Brody gets word to my dad,” Dean said, “I know he’ll be there as soon as he can be.” And he hung on to that thought for comfort, not daring ask himself how far away his dad might be at that moment.

“WHAT ABOUT DEAN?” Krysty asked. She sat astride her lover on the riverbank behind a copse of trees, within shouting distance of the other companions as dawn colored the eastern sky rose and gold. Neither of them had any clothes on, pressing flesh against flesh, a blanket beneath them. Their weapons were within easy reach.

Ryan looked up at her, his hands kneading her full breasts, tweaking her nipples until they stood fully erect. “Can’t lead these people to him. And that’s assuming LeMarck doesn’t overtake us. It’s in our best interest to change courses.”

While they’d been up on higher ground, he and Jak had spotted LeMarck. The seven villes sec commander had linked up with more troops.

Krysty loved the feel of her lover’s hands on her, hot and insistent. She ran her own hands against his chest, pushing to roll her hips against his. His hard erection lay between the lips of her sex, not yet penetrating her. She had to make herself think, to keep the thread of conversation.

“I had a vision about Dean last night,” she said, staring into Ryan’s cobalt blue eye. It was red and bloodshot, mute testimony that he hadn’t been getting enough rest. None of them had.

Ryan paused, waiting.

“In that vision Dean looked sick, out somewhere in the open so he couldn’t be protected.”

“Was he still at the school?”

“I don’t know. Couldn’t see that. I’m worried about him, though.”

Ryan pulled her down to him and kissed her tenderly, then held her tight against him. “We’ll get to him, Krysty. That’s what we’re all out here for. Just can’t see a way clear to do it yet. The river goes on another fifteen, twenty miles before it switches back to the north and joins up with the Humboldt River according to Hoyle. It might take us the wrong direction, way the hell off the route we want to go.”

“I know. I looked at the map, too, when you and J.B. were going over things. We could hole up somewhere and hope LeMarck and his baron miss us.”

“We could,” Ryan agreed. “But if we get caught out here, there’s no defensible place we could hope to hold. Our best bet is movement. We’ll catch a few hours’ sleep here, then push on before noon. Hoyle says the impact area where the space station is coming down is about fifteen miles from here, according to J.B.’s minisextant. We can make that by nightfall, mebbe set up camp, see what we’re left with next morning. Chron’s ticking against Hardcoe and LeMarck. They got to be getting on to this Big Game of theirs. Once they do, we’ll be left alone.”