At the foot of the boarding ramp, a large tank, overturned, had crushed several locusts. The blast had levelled the team transporting it.
A clacking furor issued from behind. Miko whirled, barely evading a blood-smeared pincer lancing out at his throat. He was about to lay into the attacker, when he spied the telltale red band on the skull.
The outcast from back at the laboratory! He stayed his hand. How had it made it this far?
The creature stabbed a claw through a lunging locust opponent’s neck, then looked up. The creature seemed to remember Miko. For a few brief seconds the two stared at each other in recognition.
It was an unspoken alliance.
They ran up the ramp to the ship.
Fenli grabbed Miko’s arm and motioned him back to the overturned tank. “Get the occupant. It’s a woman. Help me.”
“Are you crazy?” blurted Miko.
“She’s important,” the man grunted. “Look at the decals on her dress.”
“So?” Miko blinked.
“She’s Jakru. Worth a fortune.”
“Are you kidding me? You’ve got to be stark raving—”
Fenli grumbled. “No time to free her. Let’s grab the entire tank. You won’t regret it.”
Miko gaped with frustration. “Ransom?” Maybe Fenli wasn’t such an innocent victim after all. “Listen, they kidnapped her to add to the lattice, as sustenance for their feeders. I don’t want to abandon her, but do you want to end up in a bottle like her?”
Another blast rocked the ark from out in space, sending a shock wave reverberating throughout the bay. A battle cruiser went up in flames. A mini nova surfaced on the immediate horizon, almost blinding their eyes. Tinier locust ships weaved in and out of the debris, many going up in flames like fireflies struck by shrapnel or the shock wave or lethal Jakru crossfire.
A landing party of twenty Jakru soldiers stormed the bay and fought hand-to-hand with the locust-aliens. These were human-looking mercenaries, with handsome faces and prideful confidence—efficient, graceful fighters. They wielded stun blasters and wore ornate winged helms and engaged the locusts with unfettered ferocity, tearing off their heads and beating their way closer to the ship where Miko and Fenli were fighting a last stand.
Fires of fierce hatred smouldered in the locusts’ eyes as they stared down their invaders. They clacked in a fury to engage them. More insectoids swarmed in from the side bays.
The outcast stared at the battle with confusion writ on its face. Then it dipped its antennae and bounded up the ramp to the ship.
“Hey, you can’t—” But Miko’s words were lost in the tumult.
He shook his head and helped Fenli drag the tank up the ramp aboard the ship. Laser fire zigzagged off the walls. It flashed perilously close to Miko’s back. One caught the tailfin of a nearby locust vessel and it ignited, engulfed in flames. Miko rasped out a gasp. His breath puffed out white clouds. His lungs stung from the chill blasts of air. The air was thinner here; it was hard to breathe, and now ten degrees cooler.
Locusts swarmed about, trying to contain the breach in the hull while engaging the merciless enemy that poured in from two sides. Some wore masks and others, full pressure suits. Most of the locusts’ attention was diverted to these new foes, but one came skidding up with lumo-javelin aimed. Miko sidestepped the blast. The locust lunged forward. But a Jakru stun-gun hit it broadside and the creature’s head exploded in a puff of gore and its pincer only raked Miko’s arm as he twisted away. He cried out as a thin spurt of his own blood splashed on the floor plates. Crouching, e cursed and ripped his jagged metal piece upward at the enemy’s throat. He took green flesh and a piece of its claw away. Fenli veered in, smashing the pipe down on the thing’s bony skull, splitting it open like a melon.
“Hurry! The air’s thinning,” Miko cried.
A team of the Jakru burst through the locust defences. The locusts’ distraction gave the two an opportunity to live a few more seconds. Orange and blue laser fire arched dizzily around the area like a fireworks display. A blast nicked Fenli’s left foot. He stumbled, groaning in pain, but picked himself up.
They hauled their glass prize into the cargo ship, their chests heaving. The hold was low-ceilinged and cramped, panelled with more of the octagonal plates. The fluids in the tank sloshed to their jerky movements. For a second, Miko saw the grey eyes on the face blink.
He stared. The woman was astoundingly beautiful—at least her face was. The broad, seashell-like horns that curled from the back of her head down to her shoulders was a shock, but the iridescent hair that trailed down her back caused him to look twice.
The ship’s outer hatch was sliding shut. The metal jammed at the last second as a pry bar thrust through the crack. The thunk of weapons pounded against the hatch. Fire raged past the door and noxious smoke began to billow between the crack.
Hot vapours filled Miko’s lungs. He coughed out poisons. Fenli limped back, gasping, his hands on his knees. Miko gaped. The cramped cargo hold composed the far end of the ship’s bay, hexagonal in shape. Alien controls, lights, dials and various gear littered the walls: weapons, harnesses and grapples.
Miko saw the locust outcast making a beeline for the cockpit at the front of the ship. The enemy pilot, another locust, was strapped in his harness before the controls, chittering and gnashing to protect its position. Trying hard not to breathe, Miko turned back with Fenli through the clouds of smoke and hacked at the pincers that tried to clack their way through.
Miko gaped, completely unprepared. A sawlike instrument thrust through the gap. He scrambled aside with a yelp. The jagged edge
