Chapter Eighteen
Five dead with onealien left was the thought running through Max’s head as he stood outside the door to Rick’s control center office. Now that he’d killed the two aliens on the lower level, the computer console showed one bad guy left, and he was standing right next to Rick.
Max hissed and pressed his hand to his right side. He was fairly sure he had pulled a muscle climbing the ladder back out of the service shaft after he’d killed the last two aliens. Much more of this and he was going to be ready for a hospital bed. Hell, he needed one now, but he couldn’t afford to reveal the extent of his injuries. James was around the corner, ready to take the fight to the alien leader. That would happen over Max’s dead body.
Max raised his weapon before nodding. Around the corner, James opened the door controls he had hacked. Max rushed the room, identifying the enemy. He was too close to Rick, so Max fired. If the asshole took refuge behind Rick, the situation could spin out of control too damn fast.
The invader had been moving toward Rick, but the energy blast shot between him and Rick, and the alien leader leaped backward.
“Max!” Rick shouted. Hopefully none of the blast had hit him, but Max didn’t have time to worry about Rick. He kept his weapon focused on the enemy leader while staying far enough back to keep clear of those powerful leg tentacles. Max’s stomach still ached from the kick he’d taken from the first asshole he’d killed. The invader stood against the computer console with his short tentacles all pulled up under his body.
“Take your weapon and put it on the floor,” Max said. “Carefully. If I even suspect you are trying to use it, I will splatter your guts across the wall.”
The invader tilted his pyramid body and looked at Max with those huge eyes. “Query. Confused.”
Max took a deep breath. He was running out of energy, but he needed to secure the scene and get information about any potential reinforcements before he crashed. His arms throbbed and his head hurt and black dots swarmed in his vision. “Gun. Floor. Now.”
That must have translated because the invader took his weapon out and bent all four of his leg tentacles so he could place his weapon on the floor.
Max tapped the floor with his foot. “Gun. Here. Now.”
The invader pushed the weapon with his small tentacles and then stood. “No harm,” the invader said. Max wasn’t sure if that was a request for mercy or some claim that he hadn’t harmed the family. Considering that his men had tried to take an action that would have killed Xander and Kohei, Max didn’t feel charitable either way.
“Rick, are you all right?” Max asked, but he kept his 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.
