Page 183 of Galaxy Games Four-Book Box Set (Galaxy Games)

183

Rescue and Capture

A ’Dar

After comm’ing Mel and Ran to meet at the theater, I pound down the hallway outside my cabin. Machta isn’t just a possibility. I realize it’s a reality only moments after I open my cabin door and the unique scent of a terrified human female hits my nose. By the powerful effects I’m feeling, it’s obviously descending fast. I need to get the human back to my cabin before I lose my mind.

First, I need to save her.

Ran’Kin and Mel’Kan are close behind, breathing heavily. We’re all struggling with the aftereffects of almost two thousand years in stasis—and perhaps they have machta, too.

The moment we burst into the hallway and see the three Frains toying with the humans, drawing out their inevitably torturous deaths, I breathe a sigh of relief that the humans are still alive. Without pausing a heartbeat, I press the trigger to fire my gauntlet laser in one long burst that will slice through all three in one stroke.

It doesn’t fire.

Abandoning my useless weapon, I draw my long knife from the scabbard on my back. I don’t know what possessed me to strap it on before I left my cabin, but I take pride when I realize my comrades are similarly armed.

I assumed the pirates’ pulse only affected our engines and thrusters. That it also affected our weapons could have been a deadly mistake. Luckily, we’re all carrying blades.

If these were armed male Frains, we would have a real battle on our hands. These are obviously untrained and unarmed females. Because of our weapons’ advanced tech, their acid spit won’t damage our blades or armor. We just have to avoid getting it on our skin. I have no armor on my stomach and upper legs, but I’ll be quick about my business.

The Frains shift their attention from the Earthers to us. When they face us, I give a Xenon battle cry, exposing my mandibles in the age-old display designed to strike fear into our enemies. The Frains spread out, each trying to hit one of us with their caustic saliva. Big mistake.

While the female who spit at the tiny human is trying to generate more saliva to attack me with, I scoop some of her acid from the floor onto my blade, slide behind her in one swift movement, pull back her head, and slice through the soft part of her now-exposed throat. The gash alone would have killed her, but using her own corrosive against her was to punish her for trying to hurt the little humans.

When I tear my gaze from the Frain corpse at my feet, I see Ran’Kin and Mel’Kan each have a dead Frain in front of them on the still-sizzling floor.

As the Frains’ insectoid bodies bleed out, I notice the humans have run. Didn’t they see we were killing their attackers? Don’t they know we’re rescuing them?

Even in our weakened condition, our larger strides eat up the distance between us. I’m upon them in a moment and lift my female, the one with the long array that’s half in a knot at her nape and half falling down her back.

Ran and Mel have secured their females as well. All three are screaming what are undoubtedly obscenities. I can’t understand the words, but their meaning is clearly filled with hatred and terror.

After plucking her knife out of her hands and tossing it to the floor, I throw her over my shoulder, turn, and run back to my cabin. Other females in the contest might have heard the fighting. They could be on their way to see if they can eliminate any competitors who might be weakened from the fight.

I don’t worry about besting any of them in a battle. My supremacy is a foregone conclusion. I don’t want them to know my location because I must keep the humans safe.

Within a minute, I’m back inside my cabin. It’s only now I realize the human is kicking, screaming, and pounding on my back.

After easing her gently onto my bed, I back to the door. It will allow me to be the first line of defense while letting her know I won’t hurt her.

“Computer, turn off all surveillance in these three cabins and the corridor—both Xenon tech and that of the invaders. Notify me immediately if there are any breaches in the corridor before or aft of this one,” I command the AI.

“Yes, Captain.”

Maya

My mind is spinning. I know people say that to describe being confused, but I feel like my thoughts are literally tornado’ing inside my head.

The roaches were terrifying. We were dead. Well, seconds away from it. And it wasn’t going to be a painless death, either. Their spit was eating away the metal floors. I can’t imagine what it would have done to flesh and bone. My two friends both got splattered. I hope they’re okay.

Seeing those three humongous males tearing down the hallway, armored, armed, and deadly, I realized there could be worse things than acid roach spit.

They wasted no time killing the roaches, then I was thrown over this guy’s shoulder before I knew what was happening.

And here I am, tossed on his bed like a sack of flour. The moment I hit it, I bounce off and look for somewhere to hide. He obviously brought me here to rape me. I don’t have to make it easy for him, though.

Of course, he had to park himself in front of the door. There’s no way to make my way through him. Although I tried to pay attention to fifty things at once as he carried me here, one thing registered in my mind—he’s unlike any flesh and blood male I’ve ever met.

Not that I’ve touched a million guys, but there’s no way a human could be that… hard. As I pounded on the parts of him not covered by his armor, it felt like concrete. There was no give at all. The male is all muscle. Alien muscle.

The room is dim. Maybe he knows how hideous his face is and is trying to hide. I hate to tell ya, bro, you may be able to hide ugly, but you can’t hide that much ugly.

His face is humanoid, and if it weren’t for his mouth, he’d be… handsome. But he has two tusks jutting up from his chin area, and a few of what look like external teeth rising along his jaw. Two more teeth flank his nose. Not nearly as bad as my thoughts of the Carnivore movies when Zedd showed us the original pictures, but his face is no picnic.

The dreads are cool, though.

The armor he’s wearing on his perfect, masculine, mottled-green body is a weird combo of ancient Roman gladiator and Star Wars sci-fi. His shoulders and arms are covered with articulated metal I assume is filled with hidden weapons.

Bizarrely, most of his chest and back are bare, as are his thighs, although his knee-high boots are metal like the knights of the round table.

He’s watching me, but he’s staying put near the door. After ordering the ship computer to turn off nearby cameras, he slides down until his ass hits his heels, like he’s going to stay there for a while.

I have to disarm or overpower him. But how am I going to do that? He’s two feet taller than me, armored, armed, and blocking the only exit.

Rising from my crouch in the corner, I hug the wall as I head toward one of the two other doors in the room. The first is the bathroom. It’s sleek and sci-fi-ish. There’s a toilet, sink, and shower.

Even if he has a razor in here somewhere, it would be about as effective as a toothpick against a mountain of a muscle like him.

The next door is his closet. I don’t know if anything here is clothing. It’s a treasure trove of weaponry.

My grandpa used to have his tools like this. Each thing had a place on a pegboard that had outlines of the tools drawn on it. To hear my grandma talk, the man never picked up a piece of his own dirty clothing in his life, but he was positively scrupulous about his tools.

This guy has gleaming pieces of armor hanging in perfect symmetry. It’s not the armor I’m interested in. There are guns.

A glance at him confirms he’s sitting on his haunches, still as a statue, his sickly yellow eyes following my every move. I dart into the closet, snag the biggest bazooka-looking thing within reach, and give it an extra yank to release it from its moorings, where it looks like it was plugged into a charging station. Without hesitation, I poke the barrel of it in his direction as I hide all but my head inside the doorway.

“Let me go,” I say, trying to keep my voice from sounding scared.

It suddenly dawns on me that he and his two friends just cut down those three roaches with long knives. That laser attached to the gauntlet on his arm didn’t work, but maybe there are other weapons on his muscular body.

I just aimed a bazooka I don’t know how to use at a well-armed alien. Well, maybe it wasn’t so stupid. If this can blast through him , none of those bitches in The Game will be able to harm me, that’s for sure. If this weapon works, I just figured out how to win The Game.

“Can you understand me?” Those are the first words he’s spoken. His voice is deep and soft. Despite the barrel of my bazooka poking out of the doorway and pointing directly at him, there’s no threat in his tone.

“Yes.”

“Your weapon won’t work. None of them will. They’re not only set to my biometrics, but there was an electronic pulse that rendered them all useless until we get them back online.”