Hunted By the Alien Pirate by Celia Kyle Page 0,19
is the apropos course of action, no matter how it rankles.
“Hands up—slowly.” The leader, a mustachioed human with several missing teeth, sneers as he takes us in. “Kilgari? And humans?”
He turns to his lieutenant, a slightly shorter but far more robust man whose heavy jowls protrude from the face mask.
“Aren’t those the two dick guys?”
Solair and I exchange a rueful glance. Whenever another sapient species—particularly humans—meets one of our kind, they never mention our aesthetically designed, work-of-art starships, our rich tradition of music, or our many contributions to galactic culture.
They all get hung up on the two cocks thing. To us, it’s perfectly normal, of course, but it’s a source of endless fascination for other species. Quite frankly, it’s insulting.
Not that I’m about to complain to these hard-looking men, of course.
We keep our arms raised in the air while the leader gestures toward us.
“Joe, Rob, take their weapons.”
The apparent Joe and Rob move to do as ordered, roughly yanking our firearms and taking the survival knife in my boot for good measure. Then they frisk us with just as much carelessness to our comfort. One of them grabs my crotch and feels around, and I have to chuckle.
“I assure you, that’s not a weapon in the conventional sense.”
“Just being thorough.”
Fiona yelps as one of the armored mercs frisks her, paying more attention than is required to her chest. I take a half step toward them when the barrel of a rifle presses painfully into my nose.
“Go ahead, you two-dicked son of a bitch. I’d like nothing better than to splatter your brains all over the wall.”
“Settle the fuck down, Rob. Or do you really want to scrub gore off the bulkheads again?”
“This is all a mistake.” Solair grins as Rob lowers his gun. “We thought this facility was deserted.”
“Oh, really?” The commander shrugs. “Then I guess we can let you go.”
“Really?” Solair’s face is a mask of incredulity.
“No, not really. You must be out of your mind. I’ve heard some lame excuses from infiltrators before, but you, buddy, take the cake, pie, the whole fucking dessert stand at that.”
Rob turns to the mustachioed commander.
“What should we do with them, Flint?”
“Hmm.” Flint strokes his mustache with a gloved hand. “I don’t know, rightly. I’d hate to vaporize them without the clien—that is, without command’s tacit approval.”
He steps back into the hallway, keeping his rifle pointed at the floor—for now.
“We’ll take them down below and secure them for now. This is a headache I don’t need at the moment.”
Joe pokes me in the belly with his rifle.
“Get moving, horny. And don’t try anything funny.”
We have no choice but to let them herd us along like livestock. I make sure to remain protectively close to Fiona’s side as we head down the passage. I’m glad she’s holding herself together so well. A lot of women—hell, a lot of hardened warriors—would be freaking out in a situation like this.
I once heard Grantian say that so many good men die trying to avoid an inevitable capture because it represents failure, even if that failure is temporary. Good thing Solair and I have more level heads.
The mercs herd us along, down a sloping passage to another level. The many twists and turns in the labyrinth-like complex soon have me thoroughly confused, despite my best efforts to orient myself. The mercs seem to have no problem figuring out where they’re going, and I notice one of them has a schematic on his display on the armor visor.
Getting my hands on that visor would be a real boon, but I don’t see how that’s going to happen.
Eventually, after myriad different paths and junctions, we’re shoved into a small storage depot, largely empty but for spools of wire and what looks like an unpowered console. The doors slam shut behind us, and Solair sighs heavily.
“That could have gone better.”
“We’re alive.” Varia kisses him on the cheek. “So long as that remains the case, there’s hope. Yes?”
He grins at her and then heads over to the door. Fitting his fingers into the seams between the two sliding panels, he attempts to shove them open by brute force to no avail.
“Montier, you want to try?”
“I’ve got a better idea.” Fiona has turned on the console and is rapidly tapping keys on it. “I can hack the door and get it open in a jiffy.”
“That’s great, my darling, but we’re hopelessly lost. Or at least, I am.”
“I can help with that, too. There’s a schematic on this console. Just give me a