Hybrid Saga 01 - Hybrid by S M Briscoe Page B

been her way, and for a while, it seemed as though he wasn’t going to answer. Maybe he hadn’t understood her. It was possible. Likely, actually. Beginning to feel like a bit of an idiot suddenly, she opened her mouth to rephrase the question.
    “Jarred,” he said finally, and she felt a great sense of relief wash over her, so much so that she realized she hadn’t even absorbed his response.
    “Jarred Archer,” he continued, as if having heard her unspoken thought.
    “Jarred Archer,” she repeated, letting the name sink in. “A good name.”
    He gave her an annoyed look and she couldn’t help but grin.
    “Well, Jarred,” she began again, a little awkwardly, her next admission coming out of her with some difficulty. “I wanted to say thank you. You know, for what you did. Helping us, I mean.”
    Jarred looked at her, seeming a bit surprised, and even somewhat amused, which only made the whole thing that much harder.
    “For both times,” she continued, reluctantly. “You know . . . with those men on the street.”
    He gave her a crooked grin. “Nah. Like you said, you had that taken care of.”
    Elora rolled her eyes at herself, then smiled.
    “Well, anyway,” she continued. “Thanks for helping us.”
    “No need,” Jarred said, shaking his head. “We’re not out of anything yet. Tell you what, though. If you really want to, I’ll remind you to thank me later once we’ve made it off this rock.”
    Elora grinned. “You mean if we make it off this rock, right?”
    “Right,” he answered, grinning back at her.
    Elora kept smiling, holding Jarred’s gaze for a few moments longer, suddenly looking away as she began to feel her cheeks flush. She struggled to come up with a quick change of subject, her mind suddenly numb with embarrassment.
    “So,” she began slowly, thinking of only one question to ask. “What is it like?”
    “What is what like?”
    “Being a bounty hunter?” she prodded. “You know, traveling all over the system, meeting new and interesting beings, and vaporizing them.” She laughed at her own joke and looked over to Jarred expecting him to be as well. His good humor seemed to have left him though and his mood had become cold and serious again. He stopped walking and stood motionless, staring out at seemingly nothing as far as she could tell. They stood there for what felt like ages to her and she immediately regretted having asked the question.
    “Listen,” she began. “I didn’t mean to pry. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. It’s really none of my business.”
    Elora realized she was babbling, but couldn’t help it. It was just something that happened when she got nervous. She forced herself to stop and take a deep breath. To her surprise, Jarred slipped his hand around his back and removed his rifle, bringing it up into both hands.
    “What are you doing?” she asked, completely thrown off by his inexplicable actions.
    He had managed only a glance in her direction when suddenly the sand in front of them quaked, sinking in on itself briefly before exploding upwards into the air, a dark figure shooting out of the ground with it, lunging straight for Jarred.
    Elora jumped back in surprise and saw Jarred raise his rifle to fire at his attacker, but being caught off guard, was too slow. The creature knocked the weapon from his hands as a shot blasted out of it. She saw Jarred take a few cautious steps back, the vicious looking sand creature leaping at him again, letting lose an ear piercing screech. Reaching back, he drew a short, but broad bladed weapon from a sheath strapped to his back; the blade’s apparently mechanical sections splitting and shifting apart in a split second, snapping back into place to form a longer narrower sword; and spinning in a circle, swept it horizontally around his body, dropping the creature as the blade sliced through it.
    Elora’s peripheral vision caught movement to her right and she turned to see another of the