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Heather smiled. “You’re a good fighter, but you’re just one alien. You can’t take on a whole station of angry cyborgs.”
“Cyborgs don’t get angry. It’s not in their programing.”
“Smart ass. You know what I mean.”
“I’ll stop anyone from hurting you.”
Heather reached up and stroked the base of Loka’s horn. “It’s sweet of you to offer. I wish we had the A-Team here.”
Loka rubbed his chin. “Who are the A-Team?”
“You know, dah dah dah, dah dah dah. If you can find them and no one else can help.”
Loka looked confused.
“You’ve never heard of them? Retro human TV at its best. They’d get us out of this mess.”
“They’re not real?”
“They’re real to me,” Heather said. “I’ve watched the series so many times I can recite most of the scripts. This is the kind of situation they’d be perfect in. With all odds against you, when you have nothing but a metal pipe and a blow torch, they come along and rig up an incredible weapon. They’d take out all the bad guys without anyone being mortally wounded, save the day, rescue the girl, and ride off into the sunset with a grin on their handsome faces.”
“There’s plenty of metal pipe around here,” Loka said. “I’m not sure about a blow torch, though. I don’t know what that is.”
Heather sighed. “If we get out of this, we’re having an A-Team marathon. You’ll like them. It’s not the most scientific of shows, not like Star Trek, but you’ll get into it.”
Loka caught hold of her chin. “When we get out of this, I’ll take you up on that offer. It seems we’re going to spend a lot of our time watching movies or TV.”
“It’s sort of my hobby.” Heather met Loka’s intense gaze for a second before looking down. “It helps me switch off from the hectic nature of my work. It also reminds me of Earth, before it all went crazy down there.”
Loka traced his thumb across her chin. “I understand that. I sometimes become too absorbed in my own work. It’s good to have a distraction.”
“I’m happy to distract you.” Heather swallowed, suddenly nervous by how close they were. “I mean, with the A-Team and Star Trek and stuff like that. We can veg out on the sofa and watch as much as you like.”
“I’m not sure what veg out means, but I’m happy to try it if it means spending time with you.”
The ship lurched, reminding Heather they were being slowly dragged toward the station and whichever group of aliens wanted human females to barter with, or eat, or probe.
Her gaze turned to the confusing panel of lights on the ship’s control desk. “There’s really nothing we can do to stop ourselves going back there?”
“The ship will have a self-destruct mechanism. We can activate that and turn the ship into a bomb.”
“Blow ourselves up?” Heather shook her head. “As noble a sacrifice as that might be, I sort of love my life. I don’t want to die.”
“I’d never blow the ship up with you on it.”
Heather felt a tingle of warmth in her stomach. Loka always said the right things, even if the way he said them were sometimes odd. That warmth faded as she felt the ship turn. She looked out the window and saw Prodigy loom into view.
“We should arm ourselves,” Loka said. “Koobs must keep weapons on board.”
“They usually carry those weird gnarly looking fighting sticks.”
“Electro rods,” Loka said. “They’re just what we need.”
“Electro rods?” Heather had never heard a Koob weapon called that before. She’d never seen a Koob fight. They were generally a peaceful race, happy when serving others. “What do they do?”
“You have something similar on your Earth,” Loka said as he stood from his seat. “They have a power pod in them that is discharged when it makes contact with the skin.”
“Like a taser?”
