I did my best to simply aim for the center of his torso. That’s what all the cop shows on TV said. Aim for the center mass.
He was almost close enough that I could have reached out, flipped up the visor, and shot him between the eyes.
God, what I wouldn’t give for some pepper spray right now.
The thought flitted through my head as I squeezed the trigger again.
This time, it hit him hard enough to send him sprawling back onto the deck.
I used that moment to begin making a wide circle around him, keeping the gun trained on him to the best of my ability—which, admittedly, wasn’t much.
A sharp metallic taste hit the back of my tongue, and everything around me sharpened.
Adrenaline, an analytical part of my brain noted.
The monster let out some kind of roar and lumbered to its feet, surprisingly agile for something that looked so cumbersome.
My gaze flickered to the door, calculating how fast I would have to move to get there before it did. I couldn’t make it. He was closer, and as soon as he saw the flicker of my eyes, he shifted his weight, preparing to move that direction, too.
He also pulled out a weapon of some kind.
So there we remained, in a perfect standoff. Like characters in a Clint Eastwood movie. Or one of those old spaghetti westerns my grandfather had loved so much.
But I was no Eastwood, and this monster was more villainous than anything I had ever seen in a film.
We froze that way for one heartbeat, then two.
Then, without warning, the door hissed open again, and a giant green tiger leaped through, landing directly on top of the Karlaxon warrior.
My giant green tiger.
My heart soared at the sight of him, and it was all I could do to keep from cheering as he ripped through the Karlaxon’s spacesuit with his claws.
Dax moved furiously, scratching at the Karlaxon as if he were trying to dig a hole straight through the other alien. Just as he tore through the final layer of clothing and armor and sliced into the Karlaxon’s skin, I saw the rhino-warrior’s hand twitch—the one holding the gun.
He raised it and buried it in Dax’s fur.
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion—another effect of the adrenaline, I suspected—and I had just enough time to scream, “Watch out!” as I jumped forward with my own gun in hand.
I jammed it into the hole Dax had created in the Karlaxon’s suit and pulled the trigger—but at the exact same moment, the Karlaxon fired his weapon, too.
Blood exploded around me, coming from every direction. I couldn’t tell what was the Karlaxon’s and what was Dax’s. It splattered across my wedding dress and my face. I wiped it out of my eyes.
The Karlaxon’s hand fell to his side, his weapon rolling out of it and onto the floor.
Dax collapsed to the deck, too, landing half on top of the rhino warrior.
Blood pooled around them. Red, I noticed. Just like human blood.
I kicked the Karlaxon’s weapon farther away, but he wasn’t moving. I was pretty sure he was dead.
Dax, on the other hand, was still breathing, even though I could see blood pouring out of the wound when I pushed his fur aside.
“Pressure, I need to apply pressure,” I murmured to myself, glancing around for something to use.
Nothing.
Muttering a steady stream of curses, I picked up the top layer of my puffy wedding dress skirt and tried to rip it off. That always happened so easily in movies. In reality, my designer dress was way too sturdy to rip apart. Finally, I grabbed the whole skirt, wadded part of it from the hem up, and held it against Dax’s side, pressing as hard as I could.
“Computer. Commander Dax is injured. I need to get him to the medical facility.”
“Acknowledged.”
Dammit. Computers were so literal. “Computer, do you have any suggestions for getting a giant tiger into your medbay?”
“Commander Dax is a Drovekzian shifter, not an Earth tiger,” the computer informed me.
I bit back a scream and took a deep breath before trying again. “How can I move Commander Dax?”
The computer was silent for several seconds, trying, I assumed, to come up with some way for me to lug an alien who weighed at least twice as much as I did from the bridge to the medical bay.
“Your chances are 27.3% higher of successfully transporting Commander Dax if he is in his bipedal form. A float pallet from the medbay is on its way.”
“But he’s not in his bipedal form, is he?” I didn’t even try to hide my sarcasm.
“Affirmative. Currently, Commander Dax is in his beast form.”
Beast form. Of course that’s what they called it.
“That was a rhetorical question,” I muttered. Then inspiration struck. “Computer, is there any way onboard to force Commander Dax to change shape when he is unconscious?” I paused, then continued before the computer could answer. “And if so, please tell me about it and help me arrange for it.” I hoped that covered all the contingencies.
“Solution-injection device available.” With a whirring noise, a panel on the wall opened, and a gun-like object extruded from it. I recognize it as the same object Dax had used to dope me up when he first brought me onboard.
Dropping the pressure from Dax’s wound, I jumped to my feet and raced to grab the injection device, my blood-soaked skirt swishing around my ankles with a wet slapping noise as I rushed back to Dax.
“Warning,” the computer said. “Forcing a shift on Commander Dax could exacerbate his injuries.”
“But it’s not absolutely certain that will happen?” I scrunched up the bottom of my skirt again and held it against Dax’s bleeding wound.
“Confirmed. Drovekzian males sometimes use shifting to heal injuries. The odds are roughly fifty-fifty.”
“Here goes nothing.” I breathed out as I held the solution to the neon tiger’s neck, burrowing it deep into
