Page 45 of Time Traveling Space Bastards

M y chest was completely mangled and getting it fixed was going to be complicated, but I didn’t regret what I did. Torrek and I were closest to her, and I was solid. Torrek bounced off me when I jumped in front of her. He had been trying to do the same thing, and he’d be dead now. I was the only one who could survive it.

And I got lucky, too. The weapons Kuka had gathered were powerful weapons that would have killed even me. One would have reduced me to a pile of ash, and another would have blasted a hole straight through me that couldn’t be repaired.

The gun Valtens had was more advanced than anything on this planet. It would have served him well against humans, but that was a civilian weapon back home. It wasn’t nearly as powerful as the ones he managed to buy from the military.

And I still would have jumped in front of her if it was one of those weapons.

Ghol kept staring at me as we prepared to flee. It seemed like he wanted to ask me something, but it wasn’t the time.

“I’ve connected to the cameras in this house and erased everything except Baxter tied to the chair. I’m fairly certain by the time they gain access to the footage, we’ll be gone.”

I was pretty sure Ghol had just done a major thing, but I couldn’t think about it until we were all safe. We snuck out the back, through the elder’s property the way we came. I had a feeling if anyone was going to call about the gun going off, it wouldn’t be her.

Valtens threatened her youngling. I could understand not getting human customs around this strange holiday at first, but he’d been here fifteen years. If it was custom to leave the light off if you didn’t want to give sweets to the younglings dressed like demons and risk vandalism, he should have known that by now.

It didn’t matter which galaxy you were from. People were protective of their younglings. She’d have no problem if it was a gun, and it killed him.

Valtens was also a terrible neighbor. It was like he didn’t know what to do with his trash. He’d been throwing it into his backyard and that was the smell the elder kept reporting. Once we hopped the fence, we had to wade through mountains of it to get to the house.

The elder stepped out of the house when we exited her property.

“Is it done?” she asked.

“He won’t be bothering you anymore,” Kuka said.

“I’m guessing you aren’t really from the city, but I never saw you if anyone asks.”

That was a relief. Big Daddy was a time machine, but he was also a ship. None of us had a vehicle here, and we didn’t know how to summon one like Baxter did. Big Daddy took us here and was waiting to take us back.

We snuck in and I expected Baxter to be furious with Big Daddy for letting her get taken. She had a temper on her and I expect the first thing she was going to do when we were safely away from Valtens’s awful house was to let him know that.

She didn’t. She flung herself at me and refused to let me go. This was good, too. I decided I liked physical contact when it was her. I liked hugs.

“I can’t believe you jumped in front of a fucking gun for me.”

“He also stopped me from jumping in front of you. He saved both our lives,” Torrek said.

“You took damage for someone who doesn’t own you,” Ghol said. “I didn’t think that was possible.”

“We’re capable of a lot more than what’s been told to us. Baxter and Torrek don’t own me. They don’t want to, either. I care for both of them. I deliberately took damage to my vessel because I wanted to. Losing either of them is worse than the complications from getting me fixed.”

“About that,” Omi said. “They offer an elective at university on doing repairs on Enix. It’s only available for certain study programs and mine was one of them. I took it because I consider it basic medical care for everyone on our planet. Kuka planned for all kinds of emergencies with his med bay. I’m fairly certain I can fix you now. If I can’t, I can do it when we get back so you don’t have to go to a repair center where they might send you back to your previous owner.”

“Do it now,” Baxter said. “He deserves to be whole again because he’s a hero and if he doesn’t mind, I want to thank him carnally.”

And I was pretty sure that was the first time this pleasure model actually wanted to have sex.