The robot does want what I have, and I increase my pace because there is no way I’m going to let it have the ball. The Gonoz are clearly capable of existing using robots as their physical forms. To want to take over another species is greedy and wrong.
The light gets closer and bigger. My lungs are screaming at me as I pelt towards it until I burst out into a vast room.
A room filled with Veseli. Cockroach aliens who turn as one to face me.
“Fuck.” I pant out the swear word, dropping my hands to my knees as I attempt to recover any breath at all, “It had to be you, didn’t it?”
Antennae swivel and jaws open as they make a surge for me. I straighten up as best I can.
“Not this time,” I growl, lifting the ray gun and pointing it at them. “This time you have to say hello to my little friend.”
And I fire.
DANTE
This bot does not want to succumb to either flame or claws. It is determined if nothing else. But it wants my mate and it will not have her.
My sweet, clever little mate who has taken the one exit I left open for her and right now should be heading in the right direction to get to the central control area where, if I have any help from the ancestors, there should be enough information for the Sarkarnii to be able to undo the so-called mutations which have controlled us since we ended up in this galaxy.
One bot to deal with and then freedom for us all. If only this nevving bot will cease functioning.
I wrench at the last of its arms, the pincer slicing at my flesh. My shift has made short work of healing the damage to my own body from having to hang on to a ball of white-hot conduits, but even so, that limb is still weaker than it should be, and it means I cannot get my claws into the body of the bot to rip it apart.
Instead, all I can do is slow its progress towards my mate, who is nearly at the entrance to the control hub. The nova second she disappears, I redouble my efforts, using fire, claws, teeth, everything in order to push the bot behind me and follow my Rosalie.
One Gonoz, bot or not, will not stop me being by my mate’s side, especially as we have the rest of the Gonoz contained forever within the conduit parcel.
As I get closer, I hear the sound of pulsar fire. My heartsfire shouldn’t have to shoot at anything. The place is empty save for us and the Gonoz.
Which is when I see the Veseli go flying past the entrance, smoke billowing from its wing casings.
The Gonoz had Veseli?
I pick up even more speed, bursting into what should be the central hub to find it is anything but. A vast space, deep within the crust of this planetoid, is filled with Veseli, and my mate is attempting to hold them at bay with a single pulsar pistol.
She is magnificent.
I let rip with a flame which incinerates most of the Veseli within her vicinity.
“About time,” Rosalie says, her chest heaving. “I thought you would miss all the fun.”
“And miss wholesale destruction?” I position myself in front of her, laying my tail down on the ground. “I wouldn’t ever miss a good fight. Get on me.”
“Get on you?” she says.
“Get on my back.” I turn my head to look at her. “Or I will put you there myself.”
Rosalie blows out a breath and then uses my spines to clamber up my tail, onto my back, and to the base of my neck.
“Get comfortable because we’re about to blast our way out of here,” I call back. “But also, feel free to use your pulsar as much as you like.”
The shiver which runs down my body very nearly unseats my sweet mate. I know when I close my eyes I am always going to see my fierce Rosalie holding off our enemies.
It will certainly cause me to have many emissions in my dreams.
I have no idea why the Gonoz would require an area the size of the one we are in, but as I unfurl my wings to their greatest extent, I am pleased to find I fit, and I’m able to take off, releasing swathes of flame as we go over the top of the Veseli, and I’m able to keep them from flying as we surge down the space to where I can see it opens out even further.
Once we get there, it is exactly as I expected. A shaft leads up, presumably to the planetoid’s surface.
