Recon Marines II: Marine's Heiress, The by Susan Kelley Read Free Book Online Page A

few minutes before the door
opened. Vannie stood before Vin, shirtless and wearing only a pair
of loose trousers. Moe loomed behind him, attired in a similar
fashion.
    “ What is it, lad?” Vannie
grumbled.
    “ A sound woke me. A large
animal is in the village.”
    Moe swore and stomped away.
    Vannie groaned. “Give us a few minutes,
and we’ll be with you.”
    Vin waited at the bottom of the steps
and listened to the night. Not a single light glowed during this
hour. A dozen solar captures were arrayed on the tallest buildings,
feeding into the large commercial battery that serviced the entire
town. Adequate power but the thrifty miners knew better than to
squander it chasing away night shadows.
    The two large men came down the
interior stairs and exited out the front of the café. Though they
moved well for such large men, they made too much noise for Vin to
listen for more intruders. They each carried small gas powered
pistols and thick clubs. Neither weapon would do more than irritate
the animal out back.
    “ Holy hell,” Vannie
muttered when Vin led them behind the buildings. “It’s a
moose.”
    “ Moose?” Vin had never
heard the word.
    Moe snorted. “We just call it that
after some old Earth animal, a large kind of deer. I think this
thing is a lot bigger than those moose ever were.”
    Another civilian inane conversation.
“Should we chase it out or kill it?”
    “ Kill it?” Moe slapped Vin
on the back, knocking him forward a step. “We could put every shell
we have into it, and it would only shake its head and try to impale
us with those prongs on its head.”
    Vin rolled his shoulder. The first time
a civilian had hit him like that, Vin had beaten him to the ground.
Only later did he learn it was some strange ritual of male bonding.
So he didn’t hit Moe back, instead he held up his weapon. “This
will take it down with one shot, but will we be able to butcher it
for food?”
    Vannie squinted and leaned in for a
closer look at the rifle. “What kind of gun is that? I’ve never
seen anything like it.”
    “ It’s a weapon that can
kill any size of moose if you think we can use it for
meat.”
    “ Don’t know what moose
tastes like,” Moe said. “Nobody ever brought one in from the
hunt.”
    “ Would take a dozen men to
carry the meat back if someone did kill one,” Vannie added. “But
with the days we missed panning and no supplies coming in, maybe we
should think of stocking up.”
    “ We’ll need some help.”
Moe scurried back through the alley.
    “ It’s a magnificent
creature,” Vannie said.
    The moose stopped eating and looked
over its shoulder at them with its jaws still moving over a
mouthful of green.
    Vin knew many animals didn’t have good
eyesight, but the moose stared right at them, unafraid. Chances
were it hadn’t encountered many predators it had to fear. Even the
massive Vannie would look small and weak to it.
    Noise rose in the streets on the other
side of the buildings as Moe roused the townspeople to help butcher
the animal. But the more he watched it, the more Vin regretted the
plan to kill it. He would hunt other wildlife. Would ten small deer
offset the giving of life to the moose?
    Vin scented Emma before he heard her as
she joined them. She nudged Vannie aside and brushed against Vin’s
arm. Heat slammed into his middle, spreading downward and up. The
dark hid the blush rising to his face and a slight turn of his hips
hid what else was rising.
    “ My herbs!” Emma
whispered.
    The moose heard her and took a step in
their direction. Vannie swung his thick arm in front of Emma and
forced her to back up. At the same time, Moe and a number of men
thundered around the side of the building. The excited men surged
forward, forcing Vin, Vannie and Emma out into the open beyond the
shelter of the alley.
    Vin heard the jumbled exclamations of
the civilians behind him, but all he saw was a two ton enemy
snorting aggressively. With the people behind him, no retreat