Miko immediately jerked back and squirmed out of her grasp as she relaxed her grip. He fell in a quavering heap.
The fire had further ripped holes in his suit. He choked, his lungs struggling for precious air that didn’t exist as the last hissed out from his suit.
In a chitter of rage, Audra flung herself at the unexpected intruders.
She smacked her head into Cloye who could not get off a second shot. She had misjudged the creature’s burst of superior speed. Audra slammed her backward as if she were a sack of fluff.
Yul fired but the Zikri was faster, bowling him over in a savage rolling motion. He felt slime-pocked tentacles crawling over his suit, grasping with unforgivable force. He gasped in anguish. Cloye shook the haze out of her head. Reaching to snatch up her blaster, she fired point blank.
Audra sprang back, chittering as red arcs seared her thick hide. Whistling what thin air was available through her gullet, she recovered fast, rolling out of the way. Seconds from death, Miko jerked to his knees, croaking and wheezing. Just as he sucked his last breath, bzt, he blipped out of existence.
His bodiless form floated out of his suit like a mutant spirit. Still stunned, though his senses sharpening, Miko traveled with it. In a rush of ghost-like vapors, he drifted past the chittering Audra, immune to her dismay. He snatched up his blaster. The weapon floated eerily in midair. With invisible eyes, he watched wraith-like as Usk got the rear doors of the ship closing. Calmly he swept in behind them, blaster clutched in invisible hand, before they sealed the doors tight.
He had no control over these weird forces that granted him invisibility. It engaged when it would, more often than not, in times of dire peril or extreme stress. When he came back to bodily form was a mystery. If only he could master the power, instead of it mastering him…
Audra, appalled at the chaotic events, staggered for shelter behind the ship’s bow. As the hull vibrated to life, she scuttled to safety, crouching behind some scattered boulders just as Cloye sprayed wild fire again her way. Damn that human! The blasts zipped off at all angles, ripping shards from wall and boulder alike. She propelled herself toward the safety of the tunnel, her ropy, rubbery hide smoking with blaster fire. Used to such hurts, she forced herself on. Such damage would kill lesser Zikri, but not her. Her human quarry lay left behind, hunched twitching on the cold, rough floor. She had been so close. Victory had been hers…but snatched away.
“Into the ship,” Yul wheezed at Cloye hoarsely. He grabbed at her and hauled her back. Cloye squirmed out of his grasp while spewing a spate of obscenities. “Die, you fucking bitch octopus!”
“Save it for later…” He pulled her back toward the ship.
She drew back grudgingly, spraying a final round for good measure.
Hresh had stayed aboard to watch the ship. Now through the glass, he gaped as the two ducked into the cargo hold and the outer hatch drew down behind them. The chamber depressurized. Cloye and Yul stumbled blindly out of the air lock and down the narrow corridor toward the bridge. Hresh tagged at their heels, wringing his wrists. Miko’s ship had long departed.
* * *
Back in the shadows, Audra glared. She nursed her heavy, rubbery chest wounds. They would heal, as they always did. Even with missing tentacle parts, she knew her vitality would take care of the rest. They would regenerate, as would the chunks of flesh off her hide and haunch. She was beyond gangrene and infection. Such was her iron constitution.
A long time after, she stared at the retreating ships, besieged with rage, frustration, and pride. The latter was spurred by her lover’s ingenuity in escaping an impossible scenario. She had to compliment him. It had been an all too chaotic escape. Miko was fast improving his game. Last time he had almost gotten himself shredded at her violent ministrations. Perhaps he had learned to control these freakish lapses into non-existence.
She glided over to his vacated Mentera suit and kicked at the empty, shredded husk. He still could be lurking about these tunnels as a bodiless entity. But likely not. The human would connive to get on the ship that the locust had piloted away. She should have crushed that meddling bug when she had a chance.
She twitched. Her head swam with bitterness. Never helpful in these moments of hindsight.
Expelling a gust of cold air, she glided jerkily up the tunnel. She’d been here before at a similar place of deadlock. Immune to the harsh environment and the airless loneliness of this planet, a familiar spite swept through her tingling limbs and dissipated to the familiar tune of ‘I told you so’. There would be other places, other times. How much longer could Miko escape her clutches?
Her limbs quavered. Down the empty tunnel she glided, toward the smoking carcass of Miko’s earlier ship where his friends had been gunned down by the Mentera. After much wandering she found it. It was some tunnels away. Slaughtered Mentera lay piled in ghastly heaps. She’d bide her time. Waiting in ambush hiding would suffice. When the Mentera showed up to claim their dead, they’d be in for a grisly surprise…
Chapter 14
Miko glided wraith-like onto the bridge where Usk sat at the helm, guiding the ship down the tunnel with a labored breath. His one claw was badly torn. Star sat hunched beside him, head slumped, her back to the wall by the weapons console. The holo view showed darkened corridors with rough-hewn walls, with the ship passing the occasional cross corridor. Despite his
