“I don’t hear any clanging. They must be pinned down,” first officer Jenna said.
“I think we should take this route and see if we can outflank them,” Niki said.
They’d scarcely all cleared the door and entered the corridor when one of the lizard men rounded the corner at the end of the corridor. He jolted when he spotted them, apparently too stunned to assimilate just at first.
“Hold the weapons!” Niki said, pulling the blade she’d brought and charging toward the lizard man.
Seeing the women charging toward him ‘unfroze’ him. He charged to meet them, but he couldn’t get up the momentum they’d already reached. At the last moment before collision, Nikki bounded straight up and drove her blade through his eye socket.
His knees buckled. She couldn’t get out of the way fast enough and he took her to the deck. Fortunately, she wasn’t the only one under him when he started to fall and didn’t take the entire weight of the bastard.
Rolling him off, more certain—now—that they were in the right place, they pulled their weapons and moved as quickly and quietly as they could, checking the corridor carefully before they went around it.
The lizards had taken a stand at the other end.
Fortunately, it was well within the range of their weapons.
“Pick a target,” Niki said, realizing that, as bad as she hated to attack from that vantage point, they couldn’t stand behind the wall for cover. They wouldn’t be able to pick off enough of the bastards. “Get ready to charge.”
The women spread out, chose their targets, locked the guidance on them and charged, shooting as they ran. They managed to take out the first row without them ever knowing death was charging toward them. The next row was a little harder since they didn’t have time to lock on new targets, but they had the bastards divided. Only a portion turned to meet their charge. The others were still occupied with trying to kill the giants.
Uttering screams of rage when the women realized it, they ran faster and fired as quickly as their weapons could lock on a target.
They’d thinned the group to less than a dozen before they reached the end of the corridor, but they were the distraction the giants needed to break from cover.
The sound they made almost made Niki’s hair stand on end and she wasn’t the target. If the lizards turned to meet them, her and the other women shot them in the back. If they faced the women the men beheaded them.
In a matter of a few minutes, they’d wiped out the entire force.
All of them were winded. “Is this all of them?” Niki gasped.
Kagan and Taurin were looking at her, she discovered, with a mixture of amazement, anger, and respect. “We will have to search the ship—and quickly before they have the chance to destroy anything.”
“Well let’s get to it!” Niki said, turning immediately. She paused a moment, though, and looked back. “Where are our friendlies?”
They stared at her blankly. “The giants?”
Kagan and Taurin exchanged a long look. “Next level up.”
They joined her and the other women as they jogged toward the access stairs again. “What about below? The common room? Where we got these?” she added when they looked baffled.
“Mayhap.” Taurin responded. “I send group to de bottom to make sure dey no escape.”
“Good thinking. I armed the women—I hope. I sent a couple with the weapons we didn’t need. How’s the ammo?” she added when she’d said that.
The women checked their weapons and reported back that they had a full quarter left.
They almost fell over the lizard Niki had killed with the sword.
“Watch the carcass!”
Kagan and Taurin paused to look at him and then caught up.
“You kill with dagger?” Kagan demanded.
“I couldn’t give us away by using our weapons,” Niki said defensively.
Kagan and Taurin exchanged a look but let it drop.
Sort of.
“I will beat your ass when we are done,” Kagan growled.
Niki sent him a saucy look. “Only if you kiss it afterwards.”
He looked shocked, but then grinned.
Taurin looked pissed.
Niki sighed.
And all of them focused until they had thoroughly searched the ship and made sure they had no pockets of resistance left.
Tired but triumphant, they headed back to the common room, identified themselves to the women inside and then went in.
The women inside went wild—with jubilation and appreciation.
For the men.
Throwing their weapons down, they rushed them, searching frantically until they found ‘their’ men.
Niki could hardly believe they’d managed to wipe out the entire lizard crew without a single fatality.
A lot of wounded, unfortunately. A few of them were hurt seriously, but they had come through it, by god!
When everyone had calmed down a little, Taurin sent out the men in the best shape to patrol the ship and look for anyone they might have missed. And then groups were formed to dispose of the bodies since nobody wanted them lying around and stinking the place up.
“I don’t suppose we captured anyone to fly the ship?” Niki asked tentatively. “I mean, I wasn’t thinking about that in the heat of the moment.”
“We took two,” Kagan said, chagrinned. “Dey did not know how to fly de ship, though.”
“I thought it was probably too much to hope for. Well, we’ll have to figure it out. At least we have the language on the translators. That ought to help.” She summoned her flight crew and told them they were going to have to figure out the ship. After a moment’s thought, she told the engineers to start checking the ship out and taking notes.
Their men followed them—all of them.
The command center, fortunately, was big enough to accommodate them all.
Because Niki was the only one that had a train of four.
Dismissing them after a moment, Niki and the other women focused on checking everything out—looking for any sign that anything important had been sabotaged. Relieved when they saw nothing readily apparent, they searched for any sort of manuals. Everything was generally on the computer system, but anybody that wasn’t an idiot made sure they had backups.
They found a stack of manuals, divided them up, and carried them with them to the common room to eat since everyone was starving, not just exhausted.
Niki was just about ready to lay her head on the table and go to sleep when Taurin scooped her up to take her to his quarters. She settled her head on his shoulder gratefully. “I am so glad you’re ok.”
He said nothing for several moments. “I still angry you risked your life,” he said finally.
Dismay filled her. “Your women were warriors,” she reminded him.
He wrestled for a moment with his temper. “Our womens could beat my ass,” he growled.
Niki didn’t believe that for a minute. “So … we’re just supposed to cringe and die if you can’t get there to save us? Is that what you want?”
He didn’t respond until they’d reached his quarters and closed the door behind them. “Want you safe,” he said angrily, setting her on her feet.
She didn’t think pointing out that him and his men had been pinned down until they arrived would be a very good idea. That had to hurt their egos.
But, damn it! She’d preferred wounded egos to dead men!
“I’m sorry it bothered you … but I love you. I will never stand by and do nothing while you risk your life. I can’t do it and you can’t demand that I do it. It is who I am just as surely as you are a strong, brave and wonderful man.” She glanced around at Jurik. “Both of you. All of you. I’m proud of you. I want you to be proud of me. Of us, all of us.”
Taurin grasped her arm and hauled her against his length. He curled his arms around her. “Hab neber been more proud.”
“And relieved,” Jurik added.
Taurin glared at hi
m, but then shrugged. “An relieve.”
Niki grinned at both of them. “You’re welcome! I knew you guys didn’t really need us, but I didn’t see making it any harder than it needed to be.”
“I need Niki,” Taurin said. “I need.”
* * * *
Niki and her crew were so caught up in trying to understand the alien technology well enough to fly the ship that it wasn’t until they’d finally figured out most of what they considered the essential operations that it occurred to her that they really hadn’t settled anything.
And by that time they were able to navigate because they were in known, recognizable space.
“That’s … Earth,” their navigator, Beth gasped, stunned.
“What?” A wave of dizziness washed over Niki. Struggling with it she moved toward the console where Beth was working. “It can’t be.”
Beth nodded. “It is. I’ve run the calculations repeatedly. That’s our star system and that point right there is Earth.”
Frowning, Niki studied the points and saw that the bodies that were highlighted matched up with their solar system—but it hadn’t been long enough since their capture. Even if the lizard people had known where they came from and turned right around and headed for Earth—not enough time had passed.
Unless the ship had taken short cuts, and or traveled faster.
“Can you zoom in? Get us a better look from this distance?”
They could and it was. It wasn’t just a planet that looked like Earth. It was Earth.
Niki met Taurin’s gaze. “Did you know?”
His lips tightened. “That Muck intended to attack Earth? Yes.”
Chapter Fifteen
“We dodged a bullet,” Jenna observed.
“I’m glad we killed the bastards,” Annette said tightly.
“Just a shame we can’t kill them again,” Amy added.
Or that they didn’t know when they ‘helped’ the madrone warriors that Earth was the next target, Niki thought. She didn’t want to discuss it in front of anybody else, though. She went to Taurin’s quarters with him and the others.
“When did you know?”
Taurin’s lips tightened.
“To be fair,” Kagan said in a placating tone, “no one was really in any condition to think about it.”
“Because?”
Kagan reddened. “It was … well, it is hard to explain.”
“You were too focused on fucking,” Niki growled angrily—because she felt—betrayed. They had told her she mattered to them—both Taurin and Kagan. She’d believed them—fool that she was. She’d actually bought into it.
It wasn’t a great leap to believe they’d meant to take her home—all of them—and dump them.
Because they were done.
And they didn’t care if they abandoned two hundred pregnant women to fend for themselves and their unborn child.
Taurin paled slightly and Niki felt pain herself.
“Is that what you believe?” he asked a little hoarsely.
She felt her chin wobble. “What am I supposed to believe? Tell me what that was?”
“Mating,” Kagan said, angrily. “We could not help that it was triggered as soon as there were women to make that possible … anymore than you can help it when your hormones seize control of you.”
So there was nobody driving the train? “Ok. I accept that. I understand. It was our own damned fault, right?”
“Why do you want to fight, Niki?” Jurik asked.
She felt her chin wobble threateningly and had to swallow several times before she dared even try to talk. “Because … Because every time I believe you I find out something I just didn’t know—something you didn’t share—besides me, I mean. Why would you not say anything? Was the plan to bring us home and … dump us? Is that why we’re here?”
“We did not set the course or make that decision!” Taurin said angrily. “We were told. That is all.”
“But then you still didn’t say anything—even after we’d taken the ship. Didn’t you think we’d like to know? That we might be worried about where the hell the ship was headed?”
“If you want the truth of it,” Kagan growled. “I did not want to tell you at all!”
“Why?”
He swallowed a little sickly. “I thought you might not say with us. I thought you would choose to go home. It was Taurin who was determined to tell you. He said that you had to choose us. If you did not then we … would never know if you stayed because you wanted to.”
That was by far the most palatable explanation they could have given her and yet, she was afraid to just accept it. She didn’t know if she would ever be able to completely believe they cared about her.
But she loved them. She wanted to be with them. She just couldn’t imagine a future that didn’t include them anymore.
She studied them, all of them. “I love you. I have almost from the very beginning. I don’t know why I fell, but I do know why I stayed. Because you are the most wonderful men I’ve ever known. There is nothing that could convince me to leave you except discovering that you don’t care. That was really the thing that frightened me—that I would care and you wouldn’t. I don’t want to go home to Earth. I am home. I’m with you.”
She moved to each of them and hugged them and kissed them.
“Are we … are y’all willing to come to the new world with us? To help us build our colony?”
“Yes,” Taurin said, “gladly.”
“You will not regret?” Kagan asked.
“No. I would never have left Earth if I wasn’t sure I was ready to start over in a completely new place and I certainly will never regret that I’m with you.” She considered it for a moment. “I have to ask the other women if they want to continue on or stay on Earth since we’re this close. I couldn’t deprive them of that decision—although I don’t think they would have left to start with if they weren’t as ready as I am for a fresh start—the chance to make a better world this time around.”
She made the announcement that evening before they started the victory celebration—that they’d defeated the delizo and figured out how to control the ship they were in—telling them they had one last chance to decide if they wanted to build a colony or head back home.
There were some that were on the fence … until they realized that their warriors might not be welcome even if they were willing to stay on Earth. She thought some might still have some doubts, but they voted unanimously to continue the journey to their original destination once they were told the madrone warriors had decided to colonize the world with them.
They had two hundred pregnant colonists onboard and a colony to build. Whether they reached the colony before the babies were born or afterward, they needed help.
And, beyond that, the warriors had totally won the women over.
* * * *
They had finished the last permanent structure before the first children born on the colony world of New Eos reached their first birthday. It was an amazing feat. Niki didn’t think she and the women would have had a quarter of the colony completed in that time—even with the equipment they’d brought along to help.
It transpired that the madrone warriors were natural born construction workers, though. Next to hunting—making war on the wildlife—they loved it best.
Next to their women and their babies.
They were natural born parents, too. Niki was almost jealous that all of the men fought over who was going to take care of little Tarn, lovingly referred to as Tarnation by his second father, Kagan—who’d grown very attached to that particular ‘Engish’ word.
The time came, though, that Niki had expected and dreaded with every fiber of her being.
Taurin told her that he needed to go to his home world and see if there were any survivors. It seemed unlikely that there would be or that they would be in need of help if they had survived so long. The madrone warriors had been in delizo captivity at least five years before they’d invaded the Ear
th ship. But she understood that he needed to know for his peace of mind.
So they trained a crew of volunteers and programmed the ship for a round trip to their world, which they located using the ship’s computers, and back to New Eos.
Niki knew it was selfish, but she didn’t want to let him go—at all. “Will you … come back to me?” she asked unhappily.
He gave her a look. “I will never leave you—no matter what we find. You understand that I must?”
“I do. I just … love you and I feel very selfish.”
He embraced her tightly. “I love you. I would not leave you at all if I was not worried about my people. But I know that Kagan and Goran will take very good care of our family and that you do not need me as they might.”
“That is totally untrue!” Niki said tightly. “Nobody needs you more than I do! Go. Help them, but if you don’t come back, I’m coming after you! And don’t think for a minute I won’t kick your ass and hers, too, if I find you mating with a madrone warrior woman!”
He grinned at her and squeezed her. “I have given you my heart. My cock goes with it.”
Niki laughed. “Just remember that! And how much I love you and I’m going to miss you.”
She cried for days after he left before she managed to get a grip and realized that she’d hurt Kagan and Goran with her grief over Taurin and Jurik.
And she’d abandoned Taurin’s baby to his second duo. He made her feel wanted, though, when she stopped focusing inwardly and she felt terrible that she’d ever felt as if she was less important to him than the men in his life. Not that he’d suffered for attention, but she was his only mother and his true father and Jurik had left him.
Kagan decided it was time to mate again.
Or he went into mating fever—she wasn’t sure which—but he kept her very well occupied for a full week before she managed to escape him.
She was halfway through her second pregnancy—alone with one hundred ninety nine other women—when the ship returned.
Niki was thrilled to death and terrified at the same time—afraid that Taurin had been gone so long he’d had time to get over his feelings for her.
He immediately put her mind at ease, striding down the gangplank and opening his arms for her as she ran to him. The other men who’d gone with him descended the gangplank to similar or more excited less subdued welcomes.
Alien Warriors: Invasion Page 14
