Earth Fathers Are Weird (Earth Fathers #1) - Lyn Gala Page 0,54
gaze on the enemy.
“Yes. I am healthy. There’s danger. Other aliens are out there.”
“How many?” Max asked. A chorus of whale song blasted the air as James hurried into the room.
James sang at his father for a couple of minutes, and Rick hurried to the computer panel. His tentacles flew across the controls faster than Max could watch, even if he tried. However, Max had more pressing concerns, like not passing out when he was holding a prisoner at gunpoint.
“Max, other aliens are not on sensors. Possibility. They left,” Rick said.
James sang to his father again, and this time the computer translated enough words for Max to understand that James was giving him a detailed description of events from the time Max had come to get James in the pool room. Max still hated that he had seen aliens two and three die, but at least he had been around the corner when Max had splattered the guts of aliens four and five all over the storage hold and corridor. At some point they were going to have to get down there and clean up a sizable mess blocking the main doors.
Max asked, “Are there more invaders coming?”
Instead of answering, Rick asked, “Query. Method killing first. He weapon. Max no weapon.” Rick’s words were choppier than they had been in months.
Once Rick got a question in his head, he tended to focus on it to the point of obsession, so Max answered, “Maintenance hook into internal organs.”
The alien commander’s eyes grew larger. Good. Maybe the asshole would reconsider his life choices before attacking anyone else’s ships and threatening their offspring.
“Rick, I need to know if more of his people are going to rush in here. Where is their ship? James couldn’t access external sensors.”
“Query. You killed five enemy with one maintenance hook?” Rick was stuck on that part of the story.
“I killed two enemies with two maintenance hooks. I shot the other three.” Max raised the weapon since he knew “shot” was not going to translate. Still, something got through because Rick’s tentacles quivered and curled up. “Rick,” Max said with a sigh, “Focus on the problem. Do we have more enemy coming?”
Rick turned back to the computer and ran his tentacles over the controls. “Enemy ship. Two life forms.”
Two. Max figured that would be a pilot and a copilot or perhaps a navigator. But with only two people left on the ship, the enemies Max had killed represented the entire boarding party. Max narrowed his eyes at the pyramid-shaped leader. “So that leaves you. I don’t like to kill, but I don’t feel safe letting you walk away if you’re going to come back for revenge. Rick, any thoughts?”
There was no answer.
Max sighed. Either the translator had large gaps when it came to modern warfare or Rick was still stuck on the idea of Max killing. Or both. Both was pretty damn likely. “Rick, query. What should we do with this enemy? Is he safe to release?”
Rick shuffled closer. “Clarify. Safe for whom? Release is most safe for...” The translator lost the last wailing noise, but Max got the idea.
“Conditional,” Max said. “I allow enemy to leave. He returns and harms you, me or the offspring. Query. Conditional true or false?”
“False,” the enemy alien said, and his small tentacles twitched. None of these aliens had a poker face, or rather poker tentacles.
“Rick, query, is he telling the truth?” Max needed more information about the enemy, but so far, Rick wasn’t cooperating.
“I am unsure.” Rick sounded miserable about that admission.
Max took a step back and raised the weapon.
“I no threat. I leave. My ship leave. We leave. No threat,” the enemy rushed to say.
Max hesitated. With three people left on the ship, their chances of staging another incursion were low, but Max didn’t know whether their ship could take Rick’s down.
“Rick, is their ship dangerous?”
“I. Translation matrix failure.”
Max gritted his teeth. “James, is the enemy ship dangerous?”
James was so small that he couldn’t reach the controls, but he headed for the computer panel. That knocked a little common sense into his father. Rick touched the screen. “Query. Define parameters of dangerous.”
“Clarification. Able to damage our ship. Query. Conditional. Enemy ship leaves, it uses weapons on our ship.”
“No!” the invader said, his voice high and even more chittery than normal. “No fire. We leave. No danger.”
Rick finally found his voice and the ability to speak in coherent sentences. “The enemy ship is too small for significant battle-fighting. Enemy ship is small