“Wren,” I hissed in the com.
No answer. Maybe she was playing possum too on purpose, staying dark.
A stone turned several feet away to my right.
“Looking for me, Jet Rusco?”
I whirled in the red shale, my gun raised. I sprayed out a stream of fire and Mong leaped back in all his charred, blooded glory, sheltering behind a massive rocky trunk. His rifle pointed out. My fire ricocheted off the rippled bark and took out large chunks of the petrified wood he crouched behind, spewing flakes every which way.
“That’s a waste of bullets, Jet.”
Closer he limped. I sprayed more fire but missed. He ducked back behind another tree, less wide than the others, but enough to conceal his ape-like frame. He’d timed it so he’d make it. I gave a silent curse. I panted, my eyes darting wildly from trunk to trunk. Maybe the fuck’d already hopped to a new hiding place while I rubbed the grit out of my eyes. I wouldn’t doubt that his injured leg was crippled enough, but he could still walk on it. Bloody hell! Didn’t surprise me.
A metal barrel spat a few rounds at my heels—just to tease me. I wormed my way more desperately along, the blood hammering in my skull.
My rifle caught on a rock and I heard a grunt of triumph somewhere to my right. That last glimpse of him I saw: his face so placid, untroubled, it unnerved me. As confident as the wild animals that once roamed this forest habitat.
Thirty feet separated me from his last location as I scrambled behind a tree of my own, barely avoiding his return fire. I kept my head and body under cover and my gun low. I dared come no closer. I knew the man’s illimitable power. Even maimed, he was a threat. A surge of raw panic tickled up my spine. My mouth felt like a dried prune, a sandpaper desert. Mong was a force to be respected. Any fool could see that. My breath rasped in my throat. The worst stranglehold of fear was on me, having a monstrous tour de force so close. The ultimate psychopathic sadist...
A vision sprang in my mind. The lurid memory from back in the tanks when I experienced that horrible case of deja-vu. I saw myself again on an alien, freaky hillside on a faraway world, facing down Mong. The same as now.
I heard a familiar voice wheeze out a tired breath. “Yes, Jet, one must be careful when he hunts the tiger. Star Lord and con man—here we are—Hustler wanting to be Star Avenger. No need for quiet. My colleagues will keep your friends busy for some time, so we may converse freely.”
I peeked an eye out from behind my trunk. I could not see him. I pulled my head back.
“I must commend you for taking down my flagship and shuttle. I don’t know how you did it, but I guess you managed to reinstate the Melinar jammer. Very good. Funny how I dismissed that tech. I don’t know how you defeated Balt either and liberated the Mentera. But I can guess. You capitalized on my mistake. Kudos to you, Jet Rusco! Ingenious and spontaneous. Perhaps my teachings were not in vain after all. Balt will stay in his glass prison; in fact, he has moved to primary exhibit in my new ‘restored’ Temple of Light on a different world, far away in the Butala sector that nobody will find. You’ll have to visit it sometime. I’ve renamed it ‘The Temple of Wrath’—in dedication to all the worlds of this filthy system who will pay for rising against me.”
The man was talking far too much. Why? I snatched a quick look over my shoulder. The gunmen I expected to come leaping out, fry me from behind, were not there.
Mong must have caught the movement for his lips curled in a blood-smeared grin. Double bluff. My head spun. The man was mind-fucking with me. “You don’t seem to be in any position to uphold that claim,” I croaked.
Mong clicked his tongue. “Armies can be replaced, Rusco. Ships can be rebuilt and amassed. Like the rich man who loses all his money. Within a week, or two, such a man has rebuilt his empire stronger and bigger than ever.”
I raised my weapon.
Mong gave a cynical flourish. “Let’s dispense with our toys. I propose a duel. A test of strength and will. We compete with only physical and inner components. The best man wins. Are you game?” He tossed aside his rifle in a clatter of metal on stone, his R9, a rare and deadly weapon, smaller and more efficient than my R4.
Why would the sod do that? Was it jammed up or kaput? Or just another mind fuck?
“I’m not that stupid, Mong.” I clutched my weapon tighter.
He narrowed his eyes. “Just stupider in other areas. I see you had the fool plan of trying to take me alive.” He shook his head, smirked again and clicked his tongue. “That narrow ambition is revealed in your eyes. Hero Rusco captures Star Warlord! Pah! You still have a dreamy sentimentalism to you. Nor have you lost your old crone’s desire to get ‘one up’ on your enemy. Shame on you.” He exhaled a long breath. “Let it go, Jet Rusco. It’ll only kill you, like a pig with a skewer in
