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  “You—you’ll do!” she hissed at Verrai. That fleshy tube that came from between her spidery legs spasmed again and a length of white webbing wrapped around his thighs.

  “Ugh!” he gasped and lurched forward as she tugged at him.

  “Here.” Without thinking, I grabbed his arm and yanked him back before he could be pulled out onto the web. He was holding a blaster in his hand and it discharged with a flash of light and a sound like thunder in the large, echoing room.

  I don’t know if he meant to aim for the Widow—I don’t think so, honestly—but he couldn’t have made a better shot if he’d tried. The blast of energy hit her directly in the center of her swollen, writhing belly and a sudden, gaping hole appeared, eating away her white flesh like fire eats away at paper.

  “No! No!” I heard her wail as she fell backwards, her massive body splayed like a ruined mountain in the middle of the web.

  And then I saw a sight that I knew wouldn’t leave me for years.

  The wound had opened her belly but it hadn’t killed her—-or most of the eggs inside. They were mounded up like insect eggs, white and pulsing but I thought I could see red eyes inside them as they writhed frantically in the open air.

  As we watched, I saw them breaking open, the thin white membrane around them tearing as if their occupants were particularly eager to come out. And come out they did, pushing their little bald heads into the world, looking around eagerly with the same bulging, ruby-red insect eyes their mother had.

  From the waist up, they looked like babies. Ugly, bald babies with paper-white skin and bulging red eyes, true but still—babies. From the waist down, though, they were spiders. I saw them scuttling around, their tiny limbs flailing as they tried to get free of their egg membranes. If the Widow could be believed, all of them were female but it was hard to tell from here. All I could see was the mutant spider-babies were extremely active.

  And apparently, extremely hungry.

  I don’t know which one was the first to take a bite and I don’t want to know. I saw one open its mouth revealing tiny pointed teeth. At first I thought it was yawning and then I saw it duck its head and sink those sharp little points into the Widow’s white flesh. Another spider baby looked up with a red-smeared mouth…and another, and another. Soon they were all feeding while the Widow thrashed feebly and cried out in agony.

  It was a fuckin’ nightmare.

  “No! No, stop them—stop them!” the Widow wailed to her spider minions. But they only shifted from leg to leg uncertainly. I thought they were probably genetically programmed to protect the spider-babies at all costs and so were unable to come to the aid of their mistress.

  “This is sickening,” Verrai said in a low voice. For once we were in total agreement. He raised his blaster and aimed it this time. There was an echoing blast, a burst of silver light, and the Widow’s head suddenly exploded in a spray of crimson.

  I didn’t have long to admire his marksmanship. The sound drew the attention of the spider-babies. As one, they looked up, their cherubic white faces smeared in red, their bulging ruby eyes trained in our direction.

  There are some kinds of animals—herd animals and insects mostly—that share almost a kind of telepathy. It’s like one has a thought and it transmits to all the rest in a flash.

  In this case the thought was obviously, “Fresh meat!”

  They came at us in a swarm, spilling over the blood-soaked carcass of their mother in a flood of long, slender legs and gnashing teeth.

  For a moment, we all stood frozen. And then I turned to Verrai and shouted,

  “Run! Fucking run!”

  “I can’t!” He pointed down at the webbing still wrapped around his upper thighs.

  I started to grab my knife to cut him free but there was no time—the tide of spider-babies was getting closer, rushing towards us in a flood of blood-soaked death.

  There was only one thing to do—with a grunt, I leaned down and tossed him over my shoulder. Then I ran as hard as I could with the other Imperial Guards right behind me and the mass of swarming spider-babies right behind them.

  Let me tell you, if you’ve never run flat out for your life with an Imperial Guard thrown over your shoulder, well, I don’t recommend it. There are easier ways to get your cardio in.

  Verrai wasn’t quite as broad as me across the shoulders—then again, I’m built like a Xerusian tank—but he was at least an inch taller and every bit of him was solid muscle.

  What I’m saying is that it wasn’t nearly as easy to run holding him as it had been to run the same way holding Leah. For all that she thought she was too curvy, my little Earth girl was light as a feather—I could carry her all day. Not so with the Captain of the Imperial Guards.

  Luckily, just as I was beginning to feel winded, one of the other guards pointed to a wide silver door off the main corridor.

  “There! Air lock! The shuttles!” he gasped.

  I ducked in along with the other guards, Verrai still slung over my shoulder like a wounded Terran buck. As I got in, I turned to look and saw the white and red swarm of Spidier~o young was right on our heels. They were skittering along, not just on the floor but on the walls and even on the ceiling as well—coming as fast as they could, their tiny arms outstretched, their mouths gaping to show the bloody, jagged points inside.

  “Shut the door! Shut the fucking door!” I shouted and one of the Gold Skins—who was more pale than gold at the moment—started hammering on the door-close mechanism as hard as he could.

  Just as the writhing swarm reached us, the metal door slid down with a bang. I heard the disappointed hissing from the other side as well as the sound of thousands of tiny claws scrabbling at the metal.

  I couldn’t help thinking that it could have been me instead of the Widow. Or me and the widow, that the wicked little cannibals ate. Hadn’t I thought to myself that her bulging abdomen made the perfect target? And yet, if I had slit her open, all those eggs would have come pouring out and hatched on me instead of inside her.

  I never would have gotten away in time if I’d been in the web instead of up on the platform when they broke out of their eggs. Those hungry spider-babies would have had Braxian for dinner. Only my vow had saved me.

  It pays to keep your vows. And I had another to keep right now.

  “Make sure it’s locked,” I growled, finally lowering Verrai to the ground. “And then fire up your shuttles—I’m going to need one. I have to find my females before it’s too late.”

  “You saved my life,” Verrai said as I cut the webbing from his legs with my knife. “Why?”

  “It’s not my way to watch a helpless male die—even if he is a pain in my ass,” I told him, rubbing my shoulder. “You’re a heavy son-of-a-bitch—you know that?”

  “Yes, I know,” he said absently. “Now where did you say your female is?”

  “None of your fuckin’ business,” I growled. “I’ll find her on my own.”

  “Be reasonable, Braxian,” he said, frowning. “I wish only to help you—not to bring you in or arrest you. I swear it on the legacy of my beloved Empress, Sundalla the 999th.”

  I looked at him for a long moment while the spider-babies scrabbled and hissed and mewled outside the thick metal door. It was a strong oath—the strongest a Gold Skin could make. Verrai held my gaze, his own eyes making a strange, shifting rainbow pattern which was unique—even in a Majoran.

  “All right,” I said at last. “I’ll let you tag along but the kill is mine. You got that?”

  “I agree.” He nodded and pointed to one of the two small shuttles parked in the large airlock area. “Come on we’ll take my ship and you can tell me what to look for.”

  “What we’re lookin’ for is the son-of-a-bitch who stole my female and my ward,” I growled. “And when I find him I’m going to kill him…Again.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Leah

  “Now you see! Now you can see my new bo