Page 38 of Life-Debt

There was no honor in abusing the enslaved for them.

At the two minute mark, with my rifle ready to go, I sent my beast off with a tap of my heels. The scaled bastard had a name, but I didn’t use it, as I refused to become attached to the grouchy lizard with a hatred of all living things. I opted to pretend I wasn’t going to cry when I had to leave the planet behind. No, the real damned fool was me.

Even trying to dodge names, my heart refused to obey the rules I’d set. No names, no attachments.

It turned out my traitorous heart didn’t give a shit about names. Delta had cracked through that barrier first, making room for an entire clan of murderous feathered freaks who wanted to eat a human for having kidnapped one of their hatchlings. I couldn’t blame them for that.

I kept reminding myself the Veloc would not show him a scrap of mercy, and it might take them days to decide to stop playing with their prey. The bastard wouldn’t reach my ship alive, and everyone except him knew it.

The kidnapper still believed he could outsmart an entire planet of predators—predators who would gang together in a united front when it came to their hatchlings.

I could already hear the Veloc from other clans moving through the thick trees, watching and waiting.

If Miracle of a Lost Crimson Star’s clan didn’t catch him, they would. Nothing in their rules or agreements barred other clans from interfering. I’d been among them long enough to understand the truth. The one Veloc guarding my ship would, assuming their prey made it to my ship, preserve the law.

But every other Veloc on the planet sought out justice with zero care of mercy.

Making use of my link, I fixed on my target, which informed me my prey hadn’t made it all that far. I directed the mount over, around and through thick groves of trees, pushing aside moss-laden vines as needed or flattening myself to the lizard’s spiny back. It took me three minutes to locate him, and in that time, I’d gained several feathered shadows.

A few hooted calls, meant to mimic birds, informed me they tracked me as much as my prey. I almost chuckled at the realization they forgot I could speak their language.

They worried I might get lost in the jungle.

They’d be getting a rather nasty surprise.

At some point in his flight, the bastard had decided climbing a tree might save him. I suspected he’d given up attempting to run or hoped to catch his breath. When I treated him like one of the pirates who murdered crews for cargo, I found it simple enough to set my rifle in place on my shoulder, take aim, set it to silent mode so I wouldn’t disturb the wildlife or hurt the ears of the nearby Veloc. I made use of a laser sighting to get a bead on his head before finishing the job with a single armor-penetrating round.

The bastard hadn’t even realized he’d been found before he fell from the tree and hit the ground. As I had no interest in examining a human’s brain matter, I turned the beast so it wouldn’t get some rounds, lowered my rifle, lifted the barrel, and blew off imaginary smoke. “Point to me,” I announced. “Rules are rules—and my rules say we don’t eat the corpse of a humanoid I shot, so one of you can tie the body to my saddle. I’ll pay for it, but he’ll be returned to his planet of origin for a proper burial, along with a copy of the verdict and that he had a clean, quick end.”

In other courts, the bastard would have rotted in prison for years before facing execution for the crime.

Mercy had won, and I wouldn’t blemish my track record despite disappointing a bunch of predators.

An emerald crested Veloc emerged from the underbrush and eyed the body before regarding me with interest.

Bugger. The bounty clan. As all the Veloc I’d met spoke trade, I said, “I’m not available for recovery right now. You’re part of Mystoran’s clan, right?” I gestured in the direction of his crest. “You’re the same color. Sort of?”

“Yes, we are. We arrived before the trial, and as we do not interfere in such things, we have bided our time.” The Veloc went to the body, turned, and gave it a single, hard kick, careful not to use his claws. “You are a strange creature. Disturbingly ethical.”

“I’ve been around you Veloc long enough to know you play with your food when angry, and there are a lot of angry Veloc around right now. I didn’t want to try to sleep knowing he’d spend days screaming before being put out of his misery. It doesn’t fix anything.”

“It does not. In that, you are right.” The Veloc snagged the body by the leg and dragged it over to my beast. Rather than tie it to the saddle, he whistled a command, and the lizard wrapped the body in its tail. “No rope required. I will provide escort. You will want to put this into stasis before he rots.”

I activated my link to get a direction for my ship, and I pointed the correct way. “My ship is there.”

“Then we shall go there. Your clan will catch up soon.”

Sure enough, within three minutes, I had a rather unamused audience of Veloc, although most of their ire was focused on the emerald crested visitors.

Rather than engage with them over the situation, I kept urging the lizard from hell along, doing my best to keep from twisting around to stare at the body. Almost forty minutes later, mostly due to a bunch of Veloc insisting they posture and show off their feathers, we made it back to my ship.

“There are body bags in the utility closet in the hallway. Can you get one for me? I’d rather not have this asshole leak all over my ship.”

The guarding Veloc hooted a laugh, went into my ship, and brought one of the leak-proof bags I kept for when things went bad on a salvage. I got off the lizard, and as I didn’t trust him not to go running off at his whim rather than mine, I gave the reins to the nearest Veloc. With a little help from two of the calmer Veloc, I got the bastard stuffed into a bag and went to play with my new stasis chamber.

As I didn’t have a living body to worry about, I got to skip an hour of setup, got some help from the Veloc to shove him, bag and all, into the chamber, sealed it up, and froze him in stasis for the journey to his home world.

Pandora and her kit waited at the door into the cargo bay, and they wagged their tails. Smiling, I went to give them treats and praised them for being good. Then, as I wanted to see how long it would take me to ditch the corpse on his own world, I went to my navigation room to discover I had a rather handsome guest lounging in my chair, and he wore a pair of jeans and a rather smug smile.