Page 21 of Cops in Space
“Gut. You,”the mercenary gasped, trying to get to his feet.
“Uh-huh.” I hit him with my telekinetic TKO punch and smiled as his eyes rolled back in his head.“I’m seriously considering feeding you to Qa’a. It’s what you deserve, but even a lowlife like you gets his day in court.”I cuffed him and yanked his hood back. The Bjarke mercenary had a nasty scar on his forehead and reeked of cheap liquor.
“Him. Stink.”
“Him does.”I tried the backdoor to the hangar and shook my head in disbelief. It was unlocked. Not only were the Bjarke mercenaries dumb as a rock, but they were also careless.
Opening the door a few inches, I stuck my bracelet inside. On my heads-up display I counted two mercenaries dismantling the control console on the starfighter. Well, I’ll be damned. Thanks to my merge with Kaelen, I could understand them.
“I can jury-rig anything.” A mercenary wearing an eyepatch held up a computer motherboard. “Once I integrate this with our processor, we’ll be able to cloak our ship.”
I snickered. The motherboard was for weapons control not a cloaking device.
A mercenary with his hair in a man bun demanded, “When is Vokai arriving?
“Soon,” Eyepatch answered.
Manbun hacked up a wad and spat it on the floor. “I don’t trust him. He is betraying his own people and could easily fly off and sell the starfighter to a Hrungnir trader.”
“Not with my knife at his throat,” Eyepatch replied.
Hmmm. Was this Vokai an Alliance pilot? If so, he was a dead man walking. I scanned the rest of the hanger. Fifteen mercenaries were sitting at a long table drinking some sort of beer and playing cards. They seemed oblivious to the fact that there were more than a hundred Alliance soldiers swarming the spaceport. Nor had they noticed the Executioners floating about.
“Bad man!”Jaxor cried.
Before I could react, I was shoved violently through the door. I stumbled and hit the floor hard.
Something heavy landed on my back, pinning me down and knocking the wind out of me. Damn. Couldn’t breathe.
“Prepare to die,” a harsh voice said.
“No. Hurt. Momma.”
Ten seconds later, the man started screaming blue bloody murder and the weight on my back vanished.
Rolling over, I scrabbled backward and my jaw dropped. Jaxor had latched onto the man’s groin and was growling like a rabid pit bull. How had he managed to retract his helmet? Yeow! His sharp little teeth were cutting right through the man’s armor. Blood spurted in every direction.
A guttural scream tore from the man as his desperate attempts to free himself failed. The instant the man’s hand closed around the hilt of his sword; I unleashed my TKO punch. His head snapped back and he slumped to the floor.
Jaxor’s tentacles repeatedly stung the man’s groin.
“Leave him Jaxor. Leave him.”
Grrr. Grrr. Grrr.
Dammit! My little warrior was totally ignoring me. Gasping like I was a six-pack-a-day smoker, I managed to get upright, staggering backwards as I took multiple laser hits. Shit! Shit! Shit! I darted behind a crate. “Found the starfighter and I need some backup, like now,”I yelled psychically as I returned fire. God, I loved this armor. Without it, I’d be very dead.
Kaelen’s energy flowed into me as he demanded,“They are jamming our scanners. Where are you?”
Using my telekinesis, I hurled a mercenary through a window.“Here! I’m here!”To be on the safe side, I tossed another Bjarke out of a window on the opposite side of the hangar.
“Hokahey!” The Bjarke mercenaries shouted as they charged toward me firing wildly. Gaping holes appeared in the hangar’s walls.
The crates I was hiding behind suddenly disintegrated into a thousand fireflies. Shit! Shit! Shit!
Dad and Kaelen abruptly appeared in the hangar. Bellowing war cries, they drew their swords and attacked the Bjarke soldiers.
A mercenary doing a weird hippity-hop dance circled me. “Prepare to die!”
