"Well trouble is what you got," the captain answered. Then he spotted Mixi hovering off to the side, her bow already aimed at the leader.
Gako burped fire to draw everyone's attention back to him. Was that the bacon combining with his stomach acid supplying the fuel?
"You won't win this battle," I told the man as Honeysuckle brought me my sword. I unsheathed the weapon with the press of a button. Then I waved it through the air a few times like a clumsy samurai to intimidate them.
The main guy was finally worried as he looked between us judging our strength and numbers versus his. Gako and Dawynda then took a position in front to protect us, hissing at our could-be opponents. After an annoyingly long delay, the man spoke again.
"Give us this blue flying girl and we will let the rest of you leave unharmed," he said, trying inadequately to sound confident.
I could feel Aeren's and Mixi's eyes on me. If ever I was open to the idea of selling them off, this would be the golden opportunity.
"No," I told him firmly with a cocky shake of my head. "You'll retreat back to your ship and wait for us to launch. Then you can go on unloading your equipment and living the rest of your lives. You’ll go back to your unfortunate wives and children without them ever having to know how close you all came to your death this day. Or our dragons can melt your faces off before any of us can pull a trigger."
He didn't like his options. That was clear. His men were scared, as was he. His backward glances told me that he might be more worried about what his crew would think of him than about their safety.
"There is another ship approaching," Strawberry informed me. There was no way for her not to be overheard.
"That will be the peacekeepers," the man said with a shaky smile. He was liking his chances a lot better all of a sudden. "This is your last chance to save yourselves. Just give us the girl with wings and you can launch before they arrive."
I shook my head again and said, "I hate this."
"You have no choice," the man answered, gaining in confidence.
"You are not going to sell Mixi for our freedom, are you?" Aeren asked.
"No, not at all," I answered. "I hate having to kill men that I don't even know, just because they are too stupid for their own good."
The enemy rifleman closest to Mixi turned abruptly and lifted his rifle in her direction. A snap of her bow sent an energy blast that knocked him on his ass. Two others fired their rifles. Both bullets must have struck the dragons in the chest. They quickly retaliated by gruesomely biting off the heads of their attackers. Teddy somersaulted from out of nowhere to blast that last crewman in the ass with an electrical charge. The guy fired his rifle wildly until Strawberry sent a blast to obliterate his face.
The captain was so panicked then that I could almost smell the shit in his pants. He stumbled backwards as he fired off a few rounds, some of which buzzed past me. I dove forward to the ground in front of him and swung my sword at his left leg. The blade went clean through. He went down screaming, but fully intended to empty the clip of his rifle before he died. I cut his plan short as my next swing was directed at his neck.
All opponents were down, three of them no longer in one piece. The dragons had spat the bloody human skulls out so accurately that they landed beside the disgusting headless bodies to which they belonged.
"Is everyone okay?" I asked as the peacekeeper's ship was getting close enough to see what was happening. Both Aeren and Honeysuckle were down on their knees, facing each other. But neither appeared to be hurt. Between them on the ground was Strawberry holding her belly as the blood seeped through her fingers.
"Get her inside!" I yelled. "Everyone inside!"
The dragons brought up the rear, which was their tendency. Selfless in that way, just like they had happily taken bullets intended for us. If only they understood that they brought this trouble upon us. If it wasn't for their feeding frenzy, we could have left this planet on reasonably good terms. But honestly, if I was a dragon, I probably would have done the same thing. It was hard to fault a creature for simply being what they were. It wasn't like they had ever encountered a real code of ethics before in their lives. I found it truly a wonder that they hadn’t rebelled against the restrictions that I had already placed on them.
There was no place for the newly arriving ship to land, so they hovered there and gave commands from an external speaker that we had no plans to obey. Once in the control room their demands were coming through the communications speaker.
"Remain on the landing pad. Do not power up your engines. Hey, what did I just say. Now power down your engines. You can't just fly away from the scene of a crime. There are dead men on the ground. There needs to be an investigation. Wait, no, do not lift off! Commander, these starship people aren't listening to a word I say. I told them not..."
Then the microphone was disconnected. The peacekeepers either had a rookie comm expert or never experienced this type of trouble before. I instructed Cinnamon not to reply at all but leave the channel open so we could hear whatever else they had to say. Let them provide us with any intel they wanted to share. So far it was a bit humorous.
Once we
