by C. F. Harris
"You are not needed here," a third one with shaggy brown hair said. "Please leave."
"Why would I want to do that?" the man asked.
He had a deep voice. A sexy voice. A commanding voice. A voice that said he was used to being in charge. The sort of voice that made me feel weak in the knees and damp between the legs.
"What are you guys talking about? I just wanted to talk with my woman for a minute! How you doing baby?"
It took me a moment to realize he was talking to me. He was pulling the old boyfriend bluff. Was this guy hitting on me? Seriously? Normally I wouldn't have a problem with a guy like that hitting on me, but given the circumstances I was not in the mood to deal with another guy trying to get me to go with him.
One of the strippers, the one with the brown hair who seemed to be doing the majority of the talking, looked puzzled for a moment. Now that was odd. That was the first real emotion I'd seen on one of their faces since they started surrounding me.
"You did not come here with this woman," he said. "You haven't been with her at all tonight."
All of it was said in that weird monotone, and yet at the same time I felt a chill. That made it sound very much like they were watching us. Watching me. How else would this stripper know whether or not I’d talked with this guy? I was getting more and more freaked out with every passing moment.
"Thank you," the drunken guy, who was looking and acting less and less drunken with every passing moment even as my worry grew and grew, said to the dancer doing the talking.
"Thank you?" stripper asked, cocking his head to the side and looking for all the world like a confused puppy for that brief moment. "For what?"
"For confirming my suspicions, of course," the man said.
The suddenly not-so-drunk man swirled a chair around and sat down next to me. In a flash his arm went around me and he pulled me in close. I felt a moment of panic, but at the same time his arms felt so good. A girl could get used to that sort of treatment. Only what he whispered in my ear made me think he was absolutely crazy.
"I want you to do what I say. You're going to have to come with me if you don't want to be captured," he said.
I looked him up and down. This guy had to be insane. That was the only explanation for it.
"What the hell are you…"
"Stuff is about to go down. No time to explain. Just roll with it," he said.
The man raised a hand over his head. What the hell was this guy going on about? Only things continued to get more and more crazy with each passing moment.
No sooner had this strange new man raised his hand over his head than all the dancers surrounding us got really weird really fucking fast. All at once, as though someone had hit some sort of off switch, all of their eyes rolled into the back of their heads and there was a series of four thuds as they fell to the ground.
Only the four thuds weren’t the only sounds. All around the club the same thing was happening to dancers as women stared on in confusion. All of them had eyes rolling into the back of their heads and all of them fell at the same time. And when they hit the ground they all started shaking as though they were having some sort of seizure. My hand went to my mouth.
"Someone needs to call 911!" I said.
"Is that the local emergency frequency or something?" the man next to me asked. "No matter. They're just suffering from the aftereffects of the signal being cut. As soon as it wears off they should be fine. A little nasty side effect of an Imperium mind control device being severed."
"What are you talking about? Are you crazy?"
He paused for a moment, then extended a hand. Smiled.
"Sorry. I haven’t introduced myself. I'm Captain Flin of the Combined Interstellar Fleet, and you had the unfortunate pleasure of deciding to spend an evening with your friends in an establishment that has been taken over by Imperium slavers."
I stared for a moment. What else could I do? The guy was clearly certifiably insane. And yet there was something about the earnestness to his look that told me he was telling the truth. Or at least he thought he was telling the truth. I suppose if he really was a nutter then his delusions would seem real enough.
Then again who was I to say anything about craziness? That I was looking at this man and thinking there might actually be some truth to what he was saying was even crazier than the crazy things he was spouting. What was wrong with me?
"Where are my friends?" I asked. "What are you talking about slavers? Is this like one of those human trafficking things? Are they going to wind up in some Third World country where the rich people pay to have pretty white girls or something?"
A look of confusion passed across his face. "Third World. Pretty white girls. This must be something unique to your planet, yes?"
"What's wrong with you? You act like you're not from this planet!"
Again with the confused look. "Isn’t that what I just said? I'm a captain in the Combined Interstellar Fleet. I'm here to rescue you and all the other girls who’ve been taken captive. Why would I have any familiarity with the customs of this world?"
There were so many questions flashing through my mind, but I didn't have a chance to ask any of them. It was like we were speaking the same language and yet at the same time we were having at two very different conversations. Not that it mattered. No, my next thought was interrupted by an alarmed shout.
"Captain!"
This Captain Flin guy, I wondered why I was thinking of him as a captain when he was clearly just a nut job using lines from some old sci-fi TV show or something to try and get in my pants. Now that was a novel approach to getting in my pants even if it was destined to fail.
He looked over to the man he'd been sitting with. A guy with a close cropped haircut that looked more military than this Captain Flin guy. He wore a bright red shirt that clashed with everything else he wore. Almost as though he knew nothing about fashion on this world.
I shook my head. I was not going to start believing this guy. That would make me as much of a nut job as he was!
"Brace yourself," Flin said. "Something’s about to go down."
"What in the world are you…"
A crash. A deafening sound as though there was an earthquake. Not that I'd ever been in an earthquake before. It certainly sounded like what I'd imagine an earthquake would sound like, though. Or maybe an explosion going off nearby. What if this was a terrorist attack or something? What if this crazy guy had set up a bomb?
I felt the wind knocked out of me. What the hell? I looked up and Flin was over me. God he still looked so sexy, even with the crazy. I'd heard some of the guys from work repeat the mantra "you don't stick your dick in crazy." I wondered if the same held true for women. Don't let crazy stick its dick in you.
And yet with the way he looked, with the way he felt pressed against me, with the way that muscular body looked dwarfing my own, I could definitely see myself enjoying a little bit of crazy. Just long enough to have some fun, of course. Not a moment longer. He probably wasn't relationship material.
I shook my head. Explosions. Earthquakes. Crazy men talking to me. Dancers having seizures on the ground after they talk to me in a creepy monotone and made it clear they were spying on me.
Now was not the time to think of my dismal dating life. The fact that I was attracted to this man was probably proof positive of my terrible choices in men anyways, no matter how hot he was.
"Stay down," he said.
"Why would I…"
More loud noises. Screams. And what looked like laser weapons going off all through the room. Weapons that didn't belong in reality. Weapons that belonged in some cheesy science fiction show. What the actual fuck?
Captain Flin, if that was even his real name, rolled off of me. He pulled out something that looked like a gun, but it had a glowing tip. I watched in horror as he fired off a couple of shots that looked very similar to the energy blasts already blasting through the room.
My eyes narrowed. Whoever was firing those weapons, he w
as one of them. Or close enough as made no difference. Either way, I had no intention of hanging around long enough to find out if this guy came in peace. No, I was getting the hell out of here no matter what he said.
I turned and tried to crawl away from him, but he reached out and grabbed my arm. His grip was tight. Really fucking tight. I turned around and smacked at him, but it didn’t do a damn bit of good.
"Let me go asshole!"
"What are you doing?” he yelled over the noise. Music was still blasting, at least up until one of those blasts hit the DJ booth causing a minor explosion and igniting a fire. After that the noise of those strange weapons and the screams were still more than loud enough to nearly drown out his voice even as he shouted.
“Are you crazy? Look!"
And so I did look. And my eyes went wide as I saw a girl go running across the room, only one of those blasts of energy slammed into her and her body seemed to disintegrate. It looked like a bad special effect from an old movie, except it was real. It was so real. Her scream cut off as her entire body disappeared in a blaze of bright light.
"What the fuck was that?" I asked.
"Disintegrator ray," Flin said through gritted teeth. "Not a good idea to be out there right now. Got it?"
"Maybe I will hang around you for a little while longer," I said.
Flin smiled, winked, and held his gun up. "I thought you'd agree with me."
9
Flin
I kept a tentative hold on this beautiful creature for a moment longer. I wanted to make sure she understood completely and truly how dangerous it was to be out there. She stared up at the blasts of energy zipping through the air around u, causing the room to crackle with an ozone smell and smoke from a fire that had started over in the booth where an overweight gentleman had been controlling the music. It looked like he'd been taken by that blast. At least there wasn't anybody in there now.
Just the flames.
I let go of her arm. Braced myself. Wondered if I was about to go chasing her through a room bristling with disintegrator blasts flying back and forth in every direction. Only she stayed still.
"Thank you," I said.
She blinked. "Thank you? What for?"
"For not doing something stupid and risking both our lives," I said.
"You're welcome I guess?"
I thought about that brief delicious moment when I'd fallen on top of her. Pressed my body against hers. Sure I was jumping on her to save her life, but it still felt good. Really damn good. The memory still had my body on edge. More so than the combat all around us would account for.
We were hidden under our table and it didn’t seem the Imperium crew had noticed me for the moment. No, there was just fire being laid down through the whole room. They knew I was in here somewhere, but they didn't know where. I suppose cutting off the signal to their mind control device had been a little too obvious.
Damn it. I should have thought of that.
"This is not what I signed up for when I joined the fleet," I growled.
"What are you talking about? Aren't you supposed to be a dashing space captain or whatever?" the girl asked.
I turned and blinked at her in surprise. So they had the concept of a dashing space captain on this planet. Though I don't know why I was surprised. The amount of debris we had to dodge when we brought the ship into orbit around this world was proof enough that they were spacefaring.
"When I joined the Academy it was with the understanding that I was going to have the hull of a ship between me and any energy weapons that came after me. It wasn't until I got into command school that I learned about the surprising regularity that we were expected to put our lives on the line without any armor in between us and the people shooting at us."
She rolled her eyes. "Great. My rescuer is afraid to get in a firefight."
"I wouldn't go that far," I grunted.
I looked over the table. Sure enough, there was a row of Imperium pirates who had come out from behind a curtain on the stage. They must've been hiding back there the entire time, waiting for trouble.
Rethvar knew I’d be coming, and he laid a trap for me. A trap I'd walked right into, and now the people in this club were paying for it. As I stared another woman tried to dash across the room and was hit with a straight blast that completely disintegrated her in a puff of vapor. She didn’t even have time to scream.
That was both the good thing and the horror of disintegrator weapons. You didn't have to be a good shot. You just had to hit the person.
It really was an ingenious plan. All the men who'd come out from behind the stage were wearing ridiculous Imperium uniforms. They hadn't bothered to change, and why not? Rethvar probably swooped down onto the planet, saw this place for what it was, and immediately mind controlled some of the dancers so he could use them to do his dirty work.
The men who were being mind controlled would take all the risk, they would be the ones the local authorities went after when women disappeared, and Rethvar would be gone from this world before anyone realized what had actually happened. Even if they did realize what had happened the people who were in the know would likely be dismissed as crazies if this lady’s reaction to my introduction was anything to go by.
"Are you going to do something?" the girl shouted.
I looked at her. Locked eyes with her. She immediately stopped with the whole panicking thing. Her breathing was still coming in sharp gasps, but not quite as fast.
"What's your name?"
"Melissa," she said.
Melissa. It sounded so exotic. So out of this world. Well, I suppose it was probably perfect for this world. It was out of my world, though. It sounded so odd as I rolled it around in my mind.
"Melissa, I'm going to need you to go ahead and let me do my job here," I said. "There are bad guys shooting at us. I assume you don't want to be in the middle of the bad guys shooting at us, right?"
She swallowed. "It would be nice if we got the hell out of here."
"Right. Then let Captain Flin work please."
I looked over to where Jorel sat. Only he wasn't sitting now. No, he’d thrown his table over, including the jamming device and the my communicator which I'd left over there like an idiot. I cursed. Why would I leave my communicator over there?
Because I'd been so eager to get over here and save the day, impress this Melissa girl, that I hadn't thought of anything else. I was all swagger and no planning.
Idiot!
As I watched the Imperium members concentrated their fire on Jorel’s table. It splintered and then several blasts slammed into his bright red shirt at the same time. The poor guy never had a chance. One moment he was there, and the next he disappeared in a puff of vapor. He got hit by so many blasts that it didn't even do the usual thing where his body slowly disintegrated.
Well, slowly compared to the puff of vapor that he just turned into.
All that fire directed at Jorel and his hiding spot had the added effect of completely destroying the scanner he'd been using to jam the mind control signal as well as destroying my communicator in the same blast.
Well then. It looked like I wasn't going to be doing any dramatic dashes across the room to grab my communicator and call the ship for help. I was on my own unless I could find some way to track down Keva. Something told me she was probably in just as bad a situation as I was if I hadn't heard from her at this point, though.
Damn it. This mission was going terribly.
I needed to do something to get the hell out of here, and I needed to do it five minutes ago. I kicked over our own table, not that fake wood was going to do much good against those energy blasts, and fired off a couple of shots of my own at the Imperium privateers up on stage.
The ones who got hit with my blasts didn't even have a chance to look surprised. No, one moment they were up on stage firing with reckless abandon, and the next they were melting away as my blasts hit them and disintegrated them. I figured that was a little something for Jorel the
security grunt who'd been in over his head ever since we arrived on the planet.
The other Imperium privateers didn't seem to realize they were taking fire from a different direction. It looked like they’d triangulated in on the scanner’s jamming signal and that's why they targeted Jorel in particular. I cursed. That was my fault as well. I should have figured they would be able to pull something like that.
That meant his death was as much on my hands as it was on the Imperium privateers’ hands. Sure they were the ones who pulled the triggers and fired the energy blasts that disintegrated him, but I was the one who left him there like a sitting duck because I was so interested in going and having a little bit of fun with some of the local flavor.
Idiot. Complete and total idiot!
The scanner being destroyed took the jamming signal right along with it. That added a new wrinkle to an already dangerous and screwed up situation. No jamming meant that signal was live again. The signal starting up again meant the dancers were getting mind controlled again. A couple of them that were still having seizures stopped immediately. Started to stir and stand.
Not good. In a moment not only was I going to have Imperium assholes firing, but they’d also have an army of mind controlled muscular dancers in the mix. I turned to Melissa. "We need to get the hell out of here, and now."
The fire that started in the DJ booth was raging now. Flames licked across the top of the ceiling and parts of the club were crashing down. I grimaced. I hoped not too many people would get caught in that, but at the same time I figured it was for the best. It would cover up any evidence of what had happened in here, and maybe the local authorities would think anyone who told them about people firing energy weapons would be written off as crazy.
Either way, we needed to get the hell out, and we needed to get the hell out now.
"No," Melissa said, pulling away from me.
I looked at our surroundings and back at her. "Are you crazy? I thought we covered this already?"
"I'm not going anywhere with my friends! They’re somewhere in this building!"
