There was no time to consider the consequences. I stuffed away my pistol, reached down to one of the corpses—whether it was my old meat-shield or not I couldn’t tell—and slashed its neck with Ebon while ripping its head free with my other hand. I ducked and, as gently as I could, deflected the ootheca away with a little flick. The jiggly oval hit the far wall and popped. I moved my feet and in one smooth movement snapped up my pistol again and fired three more shots down the hallway. I felt the heat of the blast and knew they were close.
I stabbed one of the Xeno I’d knocked down, heaved it over my head, and tossed it at the rest of the incoming bugs. They fell in a heap.
I stabbed the second one, lifted it over my head, jumped, and landed on top of the creature with a crunch. I hoped it hurt, because the pain in my leg was a fiery dwarf star. The Xeno’s body provided insulation between myself and the hundred or more oothecae on the floor. I took one big step, planted a foot on the creature’s head, and leapt for the hole in the ceiling.
I cleared it and landed hard in the hallway. A small grunt of agony escaped my throat as a sensation like white-hot shards of glass ground into my femur. Luckily, there were no enemies in the passage.
“Oh, shit,” Nyna gasped, “he’s hurt!”
“Cover the hole!” I ordered.
“Got it,” Reaver said. “Grenade!”
“No!” I roared. “You’ll breach the hull!”
Reaver put the grenade away and pulled out her new weapon from around her neck, the kusari-fundo she’d acquired from Tortengar. She took a couple of practice swings, spun about a foot of the chain around her head, and thrust it toward the hole. It seemed to keep extending forever, surprising both of us.
Reaver drew it back, spun the foot of chain again, and while holding on to a looped length in her other hand, threw it through the hole again, and again it extended. She laughed, Skrew clapped, and I groaned. Nyna had torn the remains of my pant leg open to see the wound. I knew it was bad, but she acted like it was no big deal—as if she’d seen a hundred wounds that were so much worse. A few moments which felt like a few minutes later, the pain began to subside.
“I’m healing you,” she said as she ran her fingers through my hair and across my forehead. “Please relax. You heal really fast.”
Meanwhile, Reaver looked to be having the time of her life. She’d developed a technique in which she would strike once, spin the weighted chain above her head once, then strike again. Between strikes, she took little steps left or right to gain a better position. The look in her beautiful eyes said she was having fun, but the sneer on her lips said she wanted to kill as many as possible.
Beatrix and Skrew, meanwhile, were standing guard. Skrew was trying too hard to mimic what the tentacle-haired warrior was doing. He tried to stand like her. He tried to scan the perimeter the same as her. And, since he didn’t have tentacles of his own, he wiggled ears.
“Comes to Skrew, nasty bugs,” the vrak whispered. “Skrew wants to puts the pew in the Xeno butt.”
The words were funny, but his tone was deadly serious. I knew if he didn’t get the opportunity to do exactly that, I’d never hear the end of it.
Nyna finished healing my leg and started on my face.
“This should be quick,” she said. “30 seconds or so, but it looks like you’re gonna have a scar.”
“I don’t care,” I told her. “Thank you.”
She leaned in close to me as she waved her healing rod over my wound. “If it’s any consolation, I think scars are sexy.”
Sure enough, m pain faded until it was completely gone. When I sighed in relief, Nyna leaned in, took my face in both of her soft hands and kissed my new scar. Then, she stood and placed the rod back into her bag and slung it over both shoulders.
“All out of bugs,” Reaver said.
“Reaver killed all of Xeno with… that?” the vrak gasped.
“Sure did,” she said as she looped it around her neck and put the weights down the front of her shirt.
She did so slowly, just to give me time to appreciate how the weighted ends slipped between her breasts. I would enjoy holding them again soon, squeezing them as I had for the first time before we set off on this endlessly extended expedition.
“There’s no going back, though,” Reaver said. “The whole room is swimming in acid.”
“It’s okay,” Nyna answered. “This passage will take us to the Queen, too. And there are no rooms between us and her. We’re there.”
I placed the team back in formation and led them on. It wasn’t long before we encountered another side passage. I signaled a warning before I peeked around the corner. After ten yards, the passage to the right opened up into a room that could be nothing other than a hangar. A sleek-looking Xeno ship was the only thing docked, and a hatch was opened toward us.
It was time to split the team. Once I engaged the Queen and she fully realized she would lose, I didn’t think it would be beyond her to destroy our only chance of escape. It would take a lot of guns to keep the ship, so I needed as many as possible there.
“Reaver,” I whispered, “take the team. There’s a hangar down this corridor. Inside is a ship. I want you to secure it and hold it.”
“What will you be doing?” she asked.
“I’ll be killing the Queen. If you don’t keep the ship, we’ll have no
