“Oh god! Iwillbe sick! I can’t look! Are they horribly mangled?”
“You were going to shoot them!”
Chloe gasped. “I was not! Well, I didn’t actually intend to. I was only going to point the pistols at them. And, anyway, they’re laser pistols. They wouldn’t have bled—didn’t.”
Jared shook his head at her. “Just go. We will clean up and then we will return to the lander we brought down.”
Chloe nodded.
“Do not forget that you came to buy women’s supplies,” Kane said sharply.
“Oh yeah! You know, I kind of doubt there are any stores still open.”
Jared rolled his eyes. “Go anyway. If they are open, then buy the supplies. If they are not …. Find something to make a package as if you did buy something.”
Chloe smiled at him. “Great idea!”
She patted both of them affectionately as she headed toward the front office. “Just be careful!”
Somehow it looked much worse when she went through the front room again, but then she hadn’t seen the blood smears on the walls. She was a little relieved to hear a couple of groans. Trying to convince herself that they’d accomplished their mission without actually killing anyone, she picked her way through the debris to the front door, peered out to see if anyone was looking, and discovered about a dozen people had been drawn by the commotion. “Holy shit!”
Whirling, she raced toward the back, barreling into Kane as he came out to pick up one of their victims. “People! I told you that you guys made way too much noise!”
“Shit! Go out the back!”
Nodding, Chloe ran toward the hole Kane had made in the back of the building, skidding to a stop to glance out before she leapt through and dashed toward the shadowy darkness behind the building. When she’d circled around, she hurried along an alley toward the main thoroughfare and began glancing at the store fronts as she passed. She was in luck. She found a general store. The proprietor had just reached the front door to lock it as she reached for the doorknob. Grabbing the doorknob, she put her shoulder against the door and shoved before he could turn the lock.
He glared at her. “I’m closed.”
“Come on! I just need a couple of things! It won’t take me five seconds!”
His lips tightened.
She batted her eyelids at him hopefully. “Please?”
He looked heavenward, shook his head, and finally stepped back. She dashed in, glanced around the now dimly lit store and finally rushed up and down the aisles until she found what she was looking for. Gathering up everything he had on the shelf, she headed to the front counter. He stared at it doubtfully. She glared at him. “Could you just tally it up and give me a total?”
It was highway robbery, she thought angrily when she marched out of the store again with two large bags of feminine products. She didn’t believe the damned stuff was imported from the next galaxy for a minute! They always said shit like that just to jack the price up!
She was still angry when she reached the space port, enough so that it wasn’t difficult at all to put her late adventure and the potential for disaster from her mind. She tripped on the way up the gangplank and dropped one of the bags and then spent nearly ten minutes running around and picking it up—which effectively distracted everyone close enough to witness it.
It was also an effective distraction for her. By the time she’d finally managed to fend off the help of one of the port guards and loaded her ‘supplies’, though, everything had come crashing back. Actually, it didn’t crash back until she’d boarded and spied the cyborgs in the back of her craft. It returned then with a vengeance, however, and she was a nervous wreck until she was cleared for departure.
She didn’t relax when she’d blasted off either. All the way back to the ship she kept expecting to get a hail on the com and a demand to land or be shot down. She arrived in the docking bay first and sent the cyborgs who’d traveled with her into the ship. Striding to the com, she ordered the main computer to prep for departure the moment the second lander was inside and then waited in nail biting impatience until Jared brought the lander in and shut the engines down.
The moment the bay was sealed and pressurized, she dashed down to greet them, flinging her arms around Damon and kissing him all over the face enthusiastically. “We did it! We actually got away with it!”
“We are not away,” Jared said pointedly.
She was too happy and relieved to let his sour mood ruin hers. “Don’t be such a pessimist! We did it! Now, let’s get the hell out of here!”
Turning to Damon, she stroked his cheek. “Why don’t you go to my cabin and rest? I have to get the ship ready for another jump as soon as we hit the outer boundary.”
She was practically skipping with delight as she led the way from the bay, pointing out the crew cabin for the other cyborgs and her own cabin to Damon. Jared and Kane were on the bridge when she reached it.
“I know I ought to be pissed off that you guys didn’t stay put when I told you to, but all’s well that ends well.”
Jared and Kane exchanged a look. “We attacked a ranger station.”
