“ Where’s Cooper?” Klous said after they’d fought through what was turning into a monsoon to return to Treetown. He’d forced himself to move on after seeing the damages to the Black Hole. Aran and Ling’s plan to fire the reaction thrusters to make the ship hover while a new strut was put in place had been a neat idea, but impractical. The back-blast from the thrusters would roast anyone standing under the ship even if they did have time to repair the ship enough to try it. Already the waves were breaking and lapping at the edge of the ship. Eric had mentioned something about high tide coming in as well, whatever a tide was.
All that remained for Klous was finding out how his younger brother was doing. Or whether or not Cooper had managed the impossible yet again and turned the tables on his captor. Brand was still an unknown factor, but as more time passed the certainty that he’d met an untimely end grew greater as well.
“ Come on, let’s get this over with,” Sharp sat the large bag full of miscellaneous plunder from the Black Hole down in the hollow of a tree. Klous saw him catch Tarn’s eye and glance at the others. Tarn nodded.
“ We’re stuck here too,” Klous said. “We’re not going to do anything stupid.”
“ You’ve got a history of stupid,” Sharp pointed out. “First attacking us then coming here. You try being less stupid for a while and maybe I’ll start believing you.”
Klous fought the urge to lash out. He wasn’t in charge anymore and it bugged him. He nodded shortly and turned to the four remaining members of his crew. “Stay together and don’t do anything-”
“ Stupid?” Sasha rolled her eyes at him. Klous fought the bitter urge to chuckle. Lizzie tried, and failed, to smile. Aran and Ling grunted and nodded, respectively, and started going through the equipment they’d returned with.
Klous followed Sharp across the slippery wooden bridge. Rainwater fell almost as heavily as though they weren’t sheltered by a thick jungle canopy overhead. Even breezes whipped through the trees, a testimony to the ferocity of the storm that had come upon them as they were leaving the Black Hole behind. He glanced back at one point and saw Kira following them, her pace determined and quicker than their own.
“ You going to break my nose again?” Klous had to almost shout to be heard over the loud cadence of wind and water.
“ I’m going to make sure you don’t try anything,” She answered.
Klous watched her for a moment, then felt his heart lurch as his foot slipped on the wooden planks. The treacherous foot scraped against the edge of the board, stinging as the skin on his ankle was torn, then hung suspended in space while his other foot shot out the other direction. Expecting to hit the boards and then fall to the jungle floor below, Klous found his breath jerked from him as he stopped abruptly. He scrambled to get his feet back under him and his arms on the rope handrails so he could stand up again. Once he was standing Kira let go of him and shook her head.
“ Pay attention!” She snapped. “Everything will kill you here, even the rain. Everything!”
He nodded, not trusting himself to speak. His ankle stung but he could walk on it. He glanced ahead and saw Sharp looking back at him, an annoyed crease to his eyebrows. Klous hurried after him, or at least it felt like he hurried now that he was taking each step much more carefully.
Two trees and one platform later, Klous marveled at how the survivors of the Rented Mule had managed to do so much with so little. He’d seen shelters and hammocks in the trees as well as tables and even signs of firepots for cooking. Now they were headed towards a tree with a shelf or platform built around it as well as a hollow within it. Above the platform a matching roof had been made of wood, bark, and even long grasses woven together.
Sharp pulled up sharply as a figure emerged from the tree. Another person was behind him, directly. The man in front lurched forward and fell to the decking, a knife protruding him his back. Klous cursed, recognizing his brother. Cooper knelt down and pulled it free, then looked up when Sharp and Klous both shouted.
“ Cooper, damn it, drop the knife!” Klous screamed. His words were jumbled by the storm and Sharp’s own shout. Kira slipped past both of them too quickly for Klous to even marvel at how she’d managed to get around them on the narrow bridge.
Klous watched as Cooper stood, knife in hand. He turned to face them and saw Kira approaching. Klous was close enough to see Cooper grin. He wasn’t close enough to see the feverish glint in Cooper’s eye but he knew it was there. He’d come across Cooper once right after the man had made a kill and it had disgusted him.
“ Cooper!” Klous screamed again. His brother was a sick man but he was still his brother. He had to look out for him even if Klous’s thoughts were interrupted as Kira jumped off the bridge and onto the platform, rather than going directly through where Cooper stood at the bridge’s landing. The leap itself had been something near super-human, Klous couldn’t begin to fathom what was happening.
Kira swung around a pole with a skill reserved for the finest of adult entertainers and kicked out with her feet. The knife went flying and Cooper stumbled back. She landed and dove forward before Klous’s twisted brother could react. She grabbed his feet and yanked him to the hard wooden platform.
Klous heard Cooper grunt out his breath even from a distance of twenty feet in the rain. He assumed the fight was over and started to move forward and follow Sharp. He froze when he heard a cry of alarm. Looking up he saw that Kira wasn’t finished.
The muscular woman had grabbed his foot and now she yanked on it, pulling him with her as she backed off the edge of the platform. They fell, with Cooper somehow rotating around her to fall first. Kira abruptly stopped, her skirt flying up and coming to rest against her belly. Cooper, whom she’d just released her grip on, continued the twenty some foot fall headfirst to the jungle floor. His short-lived scream was cut even shorter.
Klous stared down, knowing that his brother was dead. His head was at an extreme angle and his body lay motionless. He looked up to see Sharp kneeling next to the other fallen man. Kira was climbing back up onto the platform. A rope fell from where she’d looped it around her leg to the floor, disclosing the secret to the magic trick she’d used to levitate. Klous started forward, confused and uncertain, but needing to understand.
As he approached Kira knelt next to her fallen crewmate. There was an angry red rash along her leg where the rope had scraped against her. She showed no sign of caring, her attention was focused on the man, Jeff, who appeared to still be alive.
“ Get plenty of water in it and he should be fine,” Kira said. “From the stream would be better.”
Sharp nodded, then looked up at Klous. He returned the Captain’s stare, feeling his own numbness turning into a sense of anger. He’d just watched them kill his brother and now they were acting as though he’d never existed! “Hey!” Klous growled. “What about-”
Kira spun around to face him. She stood up, a knife in her hand. Klous wondered where she’d hidden it, it was a decent sized blade and he’d seen no sign of it given her limited clothing. Straps! He remembered seeing straps on her upper thigh when she been briefly upside down. If he’d been paying more attention to her and less to Cooper he realized he might have seen a lot more.
Sharp rose up behind her, helping Jeff to his feet by throwing the wounded man’s arm over his shoulder. “No law but mine here,” Sharp said. “We’re an endangered species on this planet. We all get along fine, but with you guys it’s simple. You don’t like it, you leave and find your own way. You do anything — anything — that threatens any of us and you get the same treatment he did.”
Klous grabbed the same wooden stick that Kira had used gymnastically and peered over the edge. Cooper still lay there, as expected. He still couldn’t believe his brother had died so suddenly and so quickly. Cooper was quiet and intense, and when the situation warranted absolutely ruthless and skilled. Sick as well, given his history of choosing people he could lure into situations where he could capture, torture, and kill them. Cooper’d always preferred women but he’d never had sex with them, he just tortured and killed them. He’d done men too, but out of necessity, not pleasure.
Klous looked away from the body of his brother, staring out into the jungle. In a sense he felt relieved. He didn’t have to protect or cover for his brother any more. The crew of the Black Hole already knew or suspected what Cooper did, but he doubted they had a real appreciation of just how depraved the man had been. Klous had been able to keep him under control, at least. Now he didn’t need to do that anymore.
“ All right Captain,” Klous said. He felt tired finally. Not his body, that was stronger and more alive than ever. He felt tired in his soul. “He had it coming. I didn’t want it to happen, but he deserved it. We won’t give anyone any trouble. Just tell me how we can help.”
“ Help me get Jeff somewhere safe,” Sharp said.
Klous nodded. “I’ve never known Cooper to leave someone for dead and not have them die.”
“ Anywhere else and you’re probably right.” Kira let the mysterious statement go unexplained. Klous stared into her cold eyes and said nothing. He got under Jeff’s other arm and together the two Captains helped the wounded man back across the bridges.