My eyes flicked to the display. All too well did I know the spider-gripping force of the tractor beam that now drew us toward Mong’s much larger vessel.
Chapter 13
I watched Follee in the pilot’s chair clutching at something at his side—it’s as if he had a monster itch or some nervous tic on his gonads. “You okay over there, chief?” I groaned. “You picked a hell of a time to choke your chicken.”
Follee’s face paled as our power drained from the main thrusters. They petered out. I felt the sudden g’s of deceleration and I teetered in dismay as our ship was pulled toward the larger craft. Its big quad fareon cannon loomed, enough to blow a hole in a small planet. It’d make mincemeat of our shields. Stars slipped sideways past the glass viewport, then a massive cargo door slapped shut behind us.
We were trapped like mice in the enemy’s ship.
I heard the clinking and cutting of tools at the hull’s hatch. My blood turned to ice as I stared at Blest. “Christ, can’t you do anything, Follee? Anything at all?”
“I don’t know how to work these shitty Skug weapon controls!” he brayed.
I looked around. Panic swept over me like a bad rash. The electro shock. The explosives. Where were my usual bags of tricks?
I stumbled over to the weapons console, slamming my fist down on the panel before Follee. “Can’t we blast our way out of this situation? Take over their ship?”
He stared at me as if I were a lunatic.
“Direct the shield power to the outer hull. Quick!”
Follee nodded. Nearly wagging his head off, he fumbled with the touchpads while Blest stared, green-faced, fists clenched in agony as another wave of pain rippled through his leg gripped by the alien plant. The door to the bridge door burst open in a blaze of blue fire.
I dropped to my knees, bringing my R4 up in one continuous motion. Shots emptied from the barrel. Blest choked out a gasp. He leveled death into the area behind us.
A hulking figure loomed at the doorway, weirdly immune to our fire. He held himself erect, fearlessly confident. Long leather wine-colored trenchcoat trailing with golden eagles on the sides. Wolf furs draped around his shoulders. Hair thick and black as buffalo fur trailing past the middle of his back. The man was enormous. He filled the doorway, must have been seven feet tall. I recognized him at once.
Silent despair crawled over me. A tidal wave of fear and loathing all at the same time, like no other.
The Star Lord.
I fired back at him but he ducked, seemed to flick out his hand and deflect impossibly that burst of fire and absorb it back into his body. What the hell did he have under that leather of his, hyper-kevlar? Plate armor? He wore a sick grin on his wide, sideburned face, eyes windows into nowhere. He jerked his other hand. The weapon sailed out of my grip to slap against the wall. “What the fuck?” I cried.
Staring at my empty palm, I felt a stupor enveloping me as I rolled for cover.
Blest lifted his weapon to loose hell and blast the shit out of the intruders, for there was another figure coming up behind. Blest’s fire went wide and ate into the wall, shredding it to pieces. But it was too late. Mong’s techno-psi power was in motion; with a twist of a wrist, Blest’s weapon seemed to wither in his hand. He gave a mournful cry. The R4 clattered to his feet. Blest blinked, shaking his head, staggering and reaching to grab it. But Mong was a step ahead, kicking it out of his grasp.
Follee was too stunned for action. He just sat there, staring like a zombie. Mong turned to him, a fatherly expression on his face, ignoring me while Blest writhed for cover on the debris-ridden floor.
Two gunman came in behind to waste Follee and the rest of us if we dared to breath too loudly.
Mong grabbed the nearest gunman’s barrel and shoved it down. “Wait! I want these people alive.”
Follee jerked in a weird way. Maybe it was just panic or madness taking him over. Lurching off his chair, he clutched a dark lump in his palm, the same pod he’d been fumbling with earlier. One of those damned bulbs from the space station. The thing in his hand had been birthed from the dying eel-lizard, pulsing now and shimmering with an eerie expectancy.
Follee gave a harsh laugh. “Stop, or I’ll chuck this at you. I’ve seen what these things can do.”
Mong hesitated. His lips parted and his large brown eyes stayed trained on the bulb.
The other two gunman circled us. Raising the bulb in a trembling hand, Follee gripped his firearm in the other, as if he’d never shot a gun before.
Mong motioned. “Who is this momma’s boy?”
His nearest henchman shrugged.
I lay on the floor by the debris of the destroyed door, praying for a miracle.
“Come on, boy,” the dark figure said to Follee, “you don’t have the nerve to shoot me, a Star Lord, do you?” His deep-throated voice echoed through the seashell-shaped bridge.
Follee faltered. The tech man was cracking. Why didn’t he shoot? It was unthinkable to just stand there and threaten Mong with that bulb...and yet, Mong did not advance.
Follee hoped to bluff his way through this. Like as if something was going to hatch and attack on his command—even if it did, so what? I remembered the Myscol I’d force-fed him and I did a face palm—a fool gag to play. One that could
