“Where do you think you’re going?” he scoffed, advancing on me.
Where was I going?
Panic had deprived me of logic. I kept moving further inside the ship, leaving Svetlana to fight for her life out in the corridor.
My goal should be getting Enkail out of here and helping Svetlana to get back in.
Enkail out, Svetlana in.
Gathering my legs under me, I jumped up and aside. “Come and get me, tough guy!”
Holding the gun in my hand, I ran around the table and back to the exit.
With a grunt, Enkail followed.
Someone, a yourlu, poked his head into the ship. His tentacles snaked in, trying to block my way. I pointed my gun at his narrow forehead, right under the purple tuft of hair on the top of his head and fired. A smoldering hole formed in his bluish skin, then he crashed to the ground.
“I just killed a person!”
The thought shot through me, not unlike the laser blast. Only I had no time to freak out or even comprehend the full meaning of it. Someone else took the yourlu’s place, and I shot again, then again, blasting my way out of the ship.
“Nadia!” A deep roar reverberated through the corridor.
Wyck!
Far down the corridor, his massive figure towered behind the crowd. Lesh’s chain was wound around Wyck’s torso, binding his arms to his sides. A group of errocks held him back as he fought against them, shoving at them with his wide shoulders.
Having no slack in the chain, Lesh tangled at his master’s legs. Leshy and Leshic snapped at the ankles of his attackers. Nearly strangled by his collar on a shortened chain, Lesher seemed to be fighting for air.
I’d just taken the shortest glance at them, but it cost me a split second of concentration. Enkail gained on me. Grabbing my foot, he knocked me to the ground.
Wyck’s roar shook the corridor, spreading through the bowels of the Dark Anomaly. Pure horror distorted his beloved features.
“Get off her!” He thundered.
His huge body strained. Blood rushed to his face, turning his skin from the warm color of reddish clay to flaming red, like a volcano ready to erupt. Veins in his thick neck swelled, and the muscles in his arms bulged. A link in the chain gave in under his enormous physical power. It bent and snapped, sending two ends of the chain flying open.
Enkail crawled over me, pressing my hips into the floor and reaching for the gun in my hand. Twisting aside, I held the gun with both hands and fired straight into his face, between his eyes.
“Press and hold,” Svetlana’s words rang in my head as I kept the trigger pressed.
Enkrail roared in pain and jerked aside. I moved my arms, aiming the laser ray at the exact same spot on his face. The laser burned through the plating between his eyes. The wound got deeper and wider, the nauseating stench of burnt flesh filling the air. The dimo’s hard, heavy body slacked, still partially on top of me, yet I kept pressing—my finger froze in place as terror paralyzed me.
“He’s dead.” Svetlana yanked on my arm. The ray had made its way through the dimo’s skull, leaving a scorch mark on the opposite wall. “Let go, Nadia.”
I drew in a gasping breath, filling my lungs with the smell of the burning flesh of the male I’d just killed. My arms shook and my teeth chattered.
“Come.” Svetlana helped me up. Tugging me up with one hand, she held her gun in the other, shooting at anyone who dared to approach us. Raising my gun in my shaking hand, I shot, too.
Wyck was working through the crowd to us. Pieces of the chain dangled off him. He swung his fists left and right like a pair of maces, crushing the bone and skulls of those in his way.
“Wyck!” Nocc leaped in front of him and thrust a long piece of a thick metal rod at him. “Stop this right now, boy.”
“Get out of my way.” Wyck kept moving ahead, ignoring Nocc and his makeshift weapon. “Nadia!”
“Is that your choice, boy?” Nocc yelled, pressing the jagged end of the rod into Wyck’s chest so hard, a trickle of blood formed where it dug into Wyck’s skin. “You choose some pathetic female over us, your family? You’re betraying your own kind!”
“My kind is larger than you, Nocc,” Wyck growled wildly. “There’re billions of errocks out there, and they’re better than any of you.”