Wen leans back and hands both me and Olo a blaster, the weapon bulky and unfamiliar in my grasp. This leaves our alpha without a weapon of his own, and I frantically push mine back to him, but he shakes his head and dives back out into the fray.
I cry out again, but don't attempt to go after him this time. Instead I maneuver myself until my back is to the crate. I hold the gun up like they do in the movies and wait, drawing in a few calming breaths before I attempt to peek out of our cover to assess the situation. What I see makes me want to hurl, but I will myself to stand strong.
The bodies littering the floor are both aliens and Straforians, and fuck, there's nothing that will ever prepare you for seeing a dead body. Technically I’ve seen a dead body before when I accidently killed Aurora, but that was very different. She was in tiny pieces, more blood than anything recognizable as human.
These people are still mostly whole, and very, very dead.
Fuck.
I'm thankfully distracted from my morbid thoughts when I see an alien backing away, trying to retreat toward the hallway to my right where we came from. Without pause I raise my blaster and shoot, a hole appearing in his back. He drops to the ground and doesn't move again. I turn to Olo, ready to say something, anything, when I freeze with my mouth open.
Olo is gaping at me, something akin to wonder lighting up his eyes, and I don't know why, but it makes me panic. I start to ramble out bullshit when he raises his own gun and shoots something behind me. I whirl around and watch an alien’s arm fall off when Olo's shot goes a little wide. The alien, this one a purple muscular reptile looking one, turns with a fucking hiss. I don't wait for him to charge, I just aim and fire, this shot taking his head clean off.
I gag. I can't help it.
Well, I suppose it’s poetic that murder and death is what got me into this whole fucking mess to begin with, and it's also what's getting me out of it too. It's kind of fitting that this shitshow ends like this.
But gods, it's fucking chaos everywhere, and the noise is deafening. I try to find Wen, but he's lost in the pandemonium, and I try really hard not to think about what could be happening to him right now, otherwise I'll lose it. Instead I turn toward the other supply crates and make a quick count of how many of us stayed behind. It seems we're left with eleven, including Olo and myself, and none of the others have weapons.
A good majority of them are hunched over and trying to make themselves as small as possible, tears running down their cheeks, and damn if that doesn't make me want to do the same. I know a breakdown is imminent, but I need to stave it off a little while longer. Once we're all home safe again, then I can sob like a baby the way my brain is demanding.
There's a massive bang that makes my ears ring moments before the entire ship shakes again. It has the aliens and Straforians fighting behind me scrambling for purchase.
There's a lot more aliens on this ship than I had expected. Many of them look the same, and they're clearly of the same alien species, with a few oddballs here and there. Suddenly one of the identical ones, the same purple alien as before, is running right for us. He's too busy looking behind him as he runs at us, and I know he'll slam into the crate and spot us, so I fire.
He stumbles to a stop and glances down at his chest with visible shock. Then he glances back up with wide eyes as a dagger appears at his throat and slices clean through his neck. Blood bubbles and quickly overflows as the blade disappears over his shoulder. The purple man drops, revealing a Straforian behind him—an alpha, judging from his size and the menace radiating from him.
The alpha spots me and jogs around the crate to crouch with us Olo and, giving us a quick once-over, checking for injuries, I assume. He eyes the weapon in my hand with approval before turning to take in the others hiding behind their own crates to our left. Without warning he darts towards a female hunched and crying, pulling her into his arms despite her screaming and thrashing.
I start to panic, thinking that maybe this sick bastard is taking advantage of the confusion to kidnap her when Olo grips my hand and squeezes. Glancing his way, I see him watching me, and he points to his neck, then points to the female and the alpha still gripping her to his chest. The moment the female stops fighting, I see the bite marks on both of them and relax.
Wanting to respect their privacy despite it being a very public spot, I turn away and resume my watch.
A figure is running toward a now-open door to the right of the hallway we all came out from, a door that wasn't there before. It takes me a moment to realize why I'm so fixated on the alien fleeing, and then I'm up and racing after him just as he disappears through the open doorway. Distantly I hear Olo scream for me to come back, but I don't stop.
Instead I race after Clija, who's leaving a thin trail of blood in his wake, and let my rage consume me. Rage at all the horrible shit he's put not only me and my unborn baby through, but Olo, Wen, all these other humans, the Straforians he kidnapped, and who knows what else he's done. He's a terrible man, and there's no way I can let him escape.
If any of these aliens need to die, it's him, and I'll make sure he gets what he's owed if it's the last thing I do.
I can't let him get away. I have no doubt he'll be back once he's amassed a new crew. We're too valuable to him—he's stated time and time again how many credits he'll get for these modified humans. He's said he'll start a fucking empire selling our babies, and fuck if I'm going to let him get away.
So I chase him through the narrow hallway to an open door at the end. As soon as I step through, gun raised, I don't think—I just fire. The blast hits him in the back, and he staggers forward and into one of the escape pods he was fiddling with.
Bastard was so close to getting away. Fuck.
Clija turns so suddenly I startle, and the loud zapping sound that follows sends chills down my spine when I realize he had a fucking gun of his own.
Shit.
Chapter 19
Olo
Shit,shit,shit!
I race after Lyra when she suddenly takes off without warning. I yell at her to stop and to come back, but either she doesn't hear me or she's choosing to ignore me. Dread fills me as I lose sight of her after she runs through the door after one of the aliens. I didn't get a good look at the alien, but if Lyra's chasing it down, my guess is it's their leader, Clija.
The weight in my hand reminds me of the gun I'm still gripping for dear life. I've never shot a blaster before, let alone held one, so the better option would have been to hand the thing over to Fenn, the alpha who had slit that alien's throat, so he could protect the people we left behind the supply crates. Instead I left him to defend his mate Natlia with nothing more than his knife and teeth.