The peacekeepers stared at the weapon in her hands and hastily shuffled to the rear of the container.
“Where the hell did you get that, Sarge? That’s alien tech.”
“Never you mind,” Arin steadied her aim. “You all turn away and duck, now. I’m about to blast this thing.”
Arin squeezed the trigger, preparing for a loud blast.
Nothing happened.
“Is it broken?” one of her men whispered.
“Wait.” Arin studied the thing. It had a blue charge indicator on the side alongside what looked like the safety.Of course. She flipped it off, pulled the trigger, aimed at Rykal’s makeshift ‘lock’, and fired.
Boom!Blue plasma fire lit the darkness, and the gun’s powerful recoil threw Arin back onto her ass, sending her crashing into one of the empty cargo containers opposite them.
“Aargh,” she groaned, momentarily blinded by the flash, her lower back and ass aching. She hadn’t expected such a mean recoil. The Kordolians made shooting these things look so damn easy.
With lots of frantic rattling, the peacekeepers busted out of the container, falling upon their weapons as if they were a pile of gold.
“You okay, Sarge?”
“Yeah.” Arin got to her feet, dusting herself off. She briefly considered launching into a long and scathing dressing down on why human soldiers shouldn’t follow a Kordolian warrior off into the darkness with the intent to ambush him, but she decided that could wait for later.
Right now, they needed to get out of here before a stray Xargek found them.
Arin shone her guide-light at her squad, noting their dazed expressions.
“Thanks, Sarge. We owe you a pint or two if we ever set foot on sweet Earth again.”
Arin deflected their gratitude with a short, sharp shake of her head. “All of you, cut the crap and listen to me. There’s an evac taking place in Docking Bay One. There may be Xargek down there, and there may be Kordolians. Hopefully, the latter will be engaging the former. I want you to make your way down to the Docking Bay in a swift, orderly fashion and assist with the evac efforts. If you see a Kordolian, do not engage. Am I clear?”
Hesitation.
“Am I clear, assholes?”
“Yes, Ma’am!”
“Listen to your commander, assholes.” A low, rather snarky voice drifted to them from beyond Arin’s small cone of blue light.
Instantly, an array of guns, knives, and hateful looks were summoned and pointed towards the darkness.
Arin sighed, even as a warm wave of relief coursed through her. “Rykal, what are you doing?”
“I came for you,” he said. “I was worried about you.”
Arin raised her wrist so that the radius of her link band’s blue light increased, illuminating the surroundings.
Rykal’s golden eyes flashed as the light reached him, reminding her of a wolf in the night. Slowly, the rest of him came into focus. He was leaning casually against an emptycargo container with his arms crossed, wearing an infuriating devil-may-care expression
“You bastard!” Dekker lunged forward, but Arin pinned him with a hard stare.
“I told you not to engage,” she snapped. “What do you think you’re going to achieve, Dekker?”
“He killed Harris!”
“That human shot a missile at me. Be thankful I didn’t kill all of you,” Rykal said mildly. “I could have.”
“Oh, yeah? Picking us off one by one in the dark is one thing, but taking all of us on at once?” Dekker raised his bolt rifle.
