floor at his feet. With a gurgle, he stumbled into the liquor cabinet behind him, pulling down bottles as he fell. Collapsing onto the floor, the three surprised gunmen behind the bar turned toward the new threat.
With his other hand, the Avalon pulled free his automatic pistol and began firing at the crewmen. The three crewmen who had chosen to hide with the bartender tried to run for cover, but the bullets tore through their surprised bodies and shredded through the wooden bar. Their bodies danced under the assault of rounds until the Avalon stopped firing and dropping for cover on the far side of the crescent bar.
Cardax turned as his men were executed behind the bar. Howling in rage, he turned and began firing at the hiding Avalon, his bullets gouging the top of the bar above the tips of the dingy wings. “They’re behind us, too,” Cardax yelled in frustration. “Kill that one too!”
Keryn watched from around the booth as Cardax’s men turned and began firing at the stooped Avalon who had taken cover once again. While the Avalon remained trapped by a hail of gunfire, two of Cardax’s men moved around the edge of the bar in order to trap the new assailant. The Avalon caught Keryn’s eye and he smiled wickedly.
“Now!” the Avalon yelled in a gravelly, familiar voice.
Keryn stepped out from behind the booth and opened fire on the two men moving toward Penchant. The first of the two men dropped, a round striking him firmly between the shoulder blades. Her second shot struck the other man in the small of the back, tearing through his body and leaving an exit wound the size of a fist in his stomach. He stared in horror as blood and organs began seeping from the gaping wound. The man tried taking a step forward, but slipped in his own blood and tumbled from his feet. He didn’t get back up.
Adam ran from behind his booth and launched himself over the closest overturned table, landing next to a surprised Uligart who had been using it for cover. He swung the barrel of his rifle down like a hammer, striking the Uligart’s face with the smoldering hot metal. The man dropped his pistol and collapsed to the floor, clutching his burned face. Adam continued the momentum of his swing until the barrel pointed ahead once more, aiming at a man who had leapt from behind a nearby booth. Pulling the trigger, the large caliber bullet tore into the side of the man’s head, spraying the wall behind him with blood and fragments of skull. The man dropped quickly to the ground and twitched violently; his motor controls destroyed by the explosive round.
With almost all of his men killed, Cardax leapt from his hiding place and ran between Keryn and Adam as he made a break for the door and freedom. Penchant, his skin now shedding the Avalon exterior and returning to its natural ebony exoskeleton, yelled a warning as he shot one of the remaining crewmen.
Keryn dropped her pistol, which was now dangerously close to being out of ammunition, and pulled a smaller weapon from her hip. Pulling the trigger, her projectile struck Cardax in the shoulder. Not slowing, the Oterian reached behind him and pulled loose the small dart. Staring in confusion, he tossed it to the side and continued running for the door.
The second dart struck Cardax in the small of the back. As soon as it broke through its skin, it began pumping a strong sedative into his bloodstream. Cardax knocked it free, but his movements became jerked and uncoordinated. Bumping into a table and knocking a couple bottles onto the ground, Cardax struggled toward the door.
Her third and final dart stuck firmly in the back of his thigh. Cardax’s body seized, his legs moving like dead weights. Gurgling in angry defiance, the Oterian smuggler pitched forward and smashed through a table, coming to rest unconscious on the bar floor.
Keryn sighed heavily and wiped the sweat from her brow. Looking over, she watched as Penchant killed the two crewmen who had been wounded in the battle. Adam walked over to her, choosing not to watch Penchant execute the men, and leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees. His breath was haggard and he was bleeding from a wound on his left arm.
“You’ve been hit,” she said, concerned.
Adam glanced down as though noticing for the first time. “It’s nothing,” he coolly replied. “I’m more exhausted than anything else.”
“Penchant,” she said through hitched breath, “please tell me you managed to secure us a room nearby.”
The Lithid climbed over the rubble and joined the other two in the middle of the room. “Of course I did,” he said from behind the featureless black face. “It’s in a nice building only three blocks away.”
Keryn and Adam exchanged exasperated looks. They both turned toward the massive sleeping form of the Oterian. Keryn had no idea how she was going to manage to drag his body for three blocks.
CHAPTER 6:
Yen paced impatiently by the door as the docking arm stretched toward his ship. He had chosen to dock with one of the external ports rather than waiting for the arduous docking within the internal hangar bays; he just didn’t have time to wait today. The hiss of air flooded the connecting passageway between the
Once gravity was reestablished, Yen shoved open the interior door and stepped into the antechamber, surprised at how many people awaited his return. Nearly half the ship lined the sides of the room, cheering wildly at the victory over the Empire and congratulating him on successful command of such an intricate invasion. Yen tried weakly to smile, but his mind was too preoccupied to be bothered with trivial niceties. Giving only meek nods of thanks and mumbles of appreciation, he forced his way through the crowd and into the main hall of the ship. As he left the antechamber, technicians appeared at his sides. Presenting hand held screens that scrolled volumes of data, his crewmen described troop movements and casualty statistics in a tsunami of information. Feeling suddenly overwhelmed, Yen brushed past them angrily, stopping them both short of the lift that would take him to the bridge. As they tried to step aboard, Yen psychically shoved them off the lift, watching with perverse pleasure as they crashed over one another into the hallway. Entering his command code for access to the bridge, he waved playfully as the doors slid shut on their stunned facial expressions.
Yen rode the lift in silence, feeling the thrill he’d come to associate with the release of his power. It had become so simple to use his powers, not just to psychokinetically push someone off an elevator as he had done moments before, but to control someone’s mind like he had done on Earth. It became reflexive, like an extension of his own body. He took control of someone’s mind and, with a mere thought, forced them to shoot themselves in the head.
With the memory came a wave of nausea. Yen remembered looking in the Terran’s eyes as they pulled the trigger, seeing the tears stream down their face. He didn’t know when it had begun, this perverse pleasure he got from using his powers, but it was starting to genuinely frighten him. Less and less, he felt like he was in control of the power surging through him. Much like on Earth, his power had taken the control and killed not just Dr. Solomon, but his own men as well. Now, firmly back among the Alliance, how long would it be, he wondered, before he lost control again? And would he still feel the perverse pleasure when it happened?
As the elevator slowed to a stop, the doors slid silently open on the bridge of the
“Welcome back aboard,” she began, her voice singing the words in her high-pitched tone. “We received your report and have sent word to as many planets as we can reach with our communications array. A few have already
