Imminent Danger: And How to Fly Straight Into It

by Proulx, Michelle

  Hroshk’s gaze flickered to Miguri. “As for you, Claktill, I have located a new home for you on Ssriss. A rich friend of mine is looking for a … pet.”

  Miguri emitted a high-pitched squeak.

  “What a pitiful creature!” Hroshk exclaimed, rising to his clawed feet to tower over the little alien. “You tremble though no harm has befallen you! Such cowardice must not go unpunished.” He phhh-ed as he detached a short rod from the side of his belt.

  Miguri looked terrified. Eris couldn’t understand what was upsetting the little alien so horribly. Is it that rod he’s afraid of? she wondered. She got the feeling she was missing something.

  Hroshk handed the rod to Tarsis, saying, “Two will do.”

  Tarsis grinned, exposing sharp yellow fangs. “With pleasure.”

  The captain dismissed the guards, who seized their captives and marched them from the bridge. When Eris tried to speak to Miguri, Grashk said, “Silence!”

  As soon as they returned to the cell block, Miguri tried to bolt for his cell, but Tarsis grabbed the tiny alien with two of his six arms and yanked him back. The Claktill’s hair drooped miserably as he squirmed around in the Ssrisk’s grasp.

  Tarsis raised the rod. There was a handle on one end and a shiny metal cap on the other. The reason for Miguri’s panic soon became clear. Tarsis flicked a control on the handle, and the metal tip was suddenly surrounded by crackling electric currents.

  “What are you doing?” Eris exclaimed. She stepped forward, hoping to intervene on her friend’s behalf. But Grashk grabbed her arms and held her immobile. “Ow!” she yelped as Grashk’s scaly fingers tightened.

  Hoisting Miguri up in the air, Tarsis ruthlessly shoved the metal tip against the Claktill’s left thigh. Miguri screeched as Eris watched in horror. “Why are you doing this?” she cried. “He didn’t do anything wrong!”

  “Captain’s orders,” Grashk hissed.

  “Well, your captain’s a sadistic bastard, you know that?”

  Down came the electrocution device again. As Miguri writhed in agony, Eris struggled to escape her captor’s many hands. “What is wrong with you people? Is Hroshk going to fail his performance review if he doesn’t torture enough prisoners?”

  “We do not question the captain,” Grashk said.

  Hroshk is insane, Eris realized. An insane, sadistic lizard-man who likes to torture innocent prisoners for fun. And so, apparently, is Tarsis.

  Tarsis dropped the smoking, whimpering Miguri to the floor. The Claktill immediately bolted for his cell, limping on his injured leg. Wanting to go comfort her friend, Eris snapped, “Let me go, Grashk!”

  Then Tarsis stalked toward her, twirling the rod like a baton. “Give me the human, Grashk,” he ordered. “Two jolts each.”

  Eris wanted very much to punch Tarsis right in his scaly face, but she settled for snarling, “Go ahead! Do your worst!”

  Tarsis bristled at her tone and then reached out three hands to grab her. But to Eris’s surprise, Grashk intervened. He hit Tarsis’s arms aside and then released Eris and pushed her behind him.

  As Eris pressed up against the wall, the two Ssrisk began to circle each other warily. The spines on their tails extended wide to expose greenish fins, and the twin rows of scales on their heads rose like spikes. They were both making an angry rat-tat-tat sound like a machine gun firing.

  “Why did you stop me, Grashk?” Tarsis spat.

  “The human has just shown courage in the face of adversity,” Grashk returned with equal venom. “She does not require punishment.”

  Tarsis brandished the rod threateningly. “You will respect the captain’s orders, not defend some pathetic terrestrial!”

  Grashk pulled himself up to his full eight feet of height. He had a good six inches on Tarsis. Clenching two fists together, Grashk swung his arms and slammed them into his opponent’s chest, knocking the alien back several feet. Then, pounding all six fists against his blue chest, Grashk hissed, “You will respect my orders, Tarsis!”

  Rat-tat-tat-ing angrily, Tarsis backed off. After glaring for another few seconds, he dropped the rod at Grashk’s feet, hissed, and turned tail and slunk out of the room.

  Eris pushed herself away from the wall, shaken by the violence of the past few minutes. “Thank you,” she said to Grashk in a quiet voice.

  He hissed dismissively and picked up the rod. “There is no reason to thank me. The captain ordered punishment for cowardly prisoners. You did not display such a pitiful quality and therefore you do not require punishment.”

  Eris nodded mutely as Grashk returned to the central console. That makes no sense, she thought, but I’m certainly not going to argue the point.

  Concerned about Miguri, she hurried to his cell. Her little friend was curled up in a ball, furry white tail wrapped several times around his thigh. Eris knelt down beside him and carefully pried back his tail. The brown fabric of his pants had sizzled away, and two angry burns stood out on his skin—skin she found far too pale, considering its usual suntanned shade.

  “Oh, Miguri! Does it hurt a lot?”

  “I have experienced worse,” he replied. “But thank you for your concern.”

  Having no first-aid supplies and doubting Grashk would provide any, Eris tried to think of what she could use as a balm for Miguri’s wounds. Then she spotted Miguri’s bowl of breakfast. “Who would have guessed space jelly had so many uses?” she mused, slathering the cool substance over her friend’s burns.

  “Ah! Much better.”

  The captives decided to stay in Miguri’s cell for a while, reluctant to go into the control room in case Grashk and Tarsis renewed their argument. Neither of them wanted to become collateral damage to a Ssrisk fistfight.

  Searching for a topic of conversation, Eris said, “Why don’t you tell me about Claktilla?”

  She spent the next few hours entranced as Miguri reminisced about his lost home planet. From the way he described it, Claktilla had been a paradise. The trees had towered a mile high, with teal-colored bark and broad leaves in all shades of the rainbow. The Claktilli homes had been intricate tree houses built on top of thick branches and joined to each other by rope bridges. Joyful music had filled the air each evening. Sunsets, always beautiful, had been silvery spectacles with all three moons arrayed along the horizon. The monstrous jsgarn—a huge, ravenous creature native to Claktilla that Miguri said could devour ten Claktills in one bite—sounded to Eris like a creature in a fairy tale.

  “And then the Rakorsians destroyed your beautiful world,” she said. “Why would they do that?”

  Miguri shrugged, hair drooping sadly. “Claktilla was never a prominent presence in the galaxy. We are a peaceful species and had a very small star fleet. Most of the galaxy considers us something of a joke. I think they do not take us seriously because of our appearance.”

  Eris frowned. “I like your appearance!”

  “Thank you, but I fear you are in a minority. Most find us quite comical looking. Regardless, when the Rakorsians decided to push the boundaries of their empire—again—Claktilla was one of the first to fall victim, because we refused to submit to their rule. The Rakorsians bombarded our beautiful planet with chemical attacks that turned all the beauty of my world into toxic sludge.”

  “That’s terrible!” Eris exclaimed.

  “Rakorsians expend a great deal of resources developing superior military technology. It is that, and their skill at genetic manipulation, that makes the rest of the galaxy fear them so much.”

  “And now your home is gone. But how did you get away?”

  “When we realized the Rakorsians were coming, we fit as many Claktills on our ships as we could and fled the planet. Not everyone made it. The Psilosians offered us some of their old cruisers as colony ships, and my people have been traveling the stars as refugees ever since.”

  They stared at each other.

  “Yes, I definitely hate the Rakorsians,” Eris said. She glanced at Miguri’s leg and was pleasantly su
rprised to see that the burns had nearly faded under the thick coating of space jelly. “Hey, you’re almost healed!”

  “While your ministrations were very helpful, the truth is that Claktills heal quickly,” the little alien said. “It is one of the things that has allowed our species to survive for so long through so much turmoil.”

  BOOM.

  Suddenly, the entire ship shook. It felt as though the vessel had struck, or been struck by, something very large. This can’t be good, Eris thought nervously.

  6

  The ship shook again.

  “What’s going on?” Eris demanded. “Did we hit something?” Thoughts of the Titanic suddenly sprang to her mind. But there aren’t any icebergs in space … well, unless you count comets. She shook her head. Focus!

  “I do not know,” Miguri said, hair spiking in agitation.

  They huddled in the bottom of the cell as several more explosions rocked the ship.

  Captain Hroshk’s furious voice blared over the intercom, “All hands to battle stations. The ship is under attack by an unidentified enemy. Repeat, the ship is under attack. The hull has been compromised. Kill all intruders.”

  “I believe we may be under attack by raiders,” Miguri said, twisting his tail around his midsection in a defensive gesture.

  “Raiders? I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “Yes, that is the most likely cause of the commotion. A typical raiding strategy is to sneak up on a target ship while their guard is down, disable their engines, and then latch onto the hull.”

  Eris tried to imagine what that would look like. In her mind, a wooden pirate ship had its anchor wrapped around a giant blue gum ball.

  “That would explain why it felt like something hit us.” Eris suddenly wished she had some sort of weapon. If they were going to be attacked, she wanted to be able to defend herself.

  Miguri nodded. “Let us only hope the raiders do not try to take the bridge.”

  “Why? Is that bad?”

  “If they take the bridge,” he said grimly, “then Hroshk will self-destruct the ship rather than surrender. It is a matter of honor to the Ssrisk.”

  “Ah. Well, that’s not good.”

  “Indeed.”

  They sat in silence for a few minutes, listening for sounds of battle. Then they heard a series of zwoosh sounds from not far away.

  “What was that?” Eris asked.

  “That is the sound of strikers being fired.”

  “Strikers?”

  “Remember the gun device you said your planet’s cowboys use? A striker is somewhat similar, but it fires plasma bursts instead of bullets. And it can be used to stun, not only to wound and kill.”

  “How very Star Trek.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Never mind.”

  The sounds of battle continued, raging beyond their field of view. Eris felt helpless, not knowing what was happening. Then there was only silence.

  “Do you think the attackers left?” she asked hopefully.

  “No,” the Claktill proclaimed. “They have probably released paralysis gas into the air vents to render the Ssrisk immobile.”

  “Paralysis gas!”

  “Do not be overly concerned. Since we are not paralyzed, the gas is likely targeted specifically at Ssrisk biology. We should experience only mild symptoms, faintness at the most.” Miguri sighed. “If we survive this, Captain Hroshk will be in a very bad mood. The Ssrisk despise those who avoid a straight fight.”

  “Well, who wouldn’t try to avoid a fight with a Ssrisk, if they had the chance?”

  Miguri smiled faintly. “A fair point.”

  Just as Eris began to believe they might come out of the whole attack unscathed, they heard the sound of footsteps racing toward their cell.

  BOOM.

  The cell door exploded in a shower of sparks, spewing charred bits of blue spongy material at Eris and Miguri. Through the ragged hole came a six-foot-tall male humanoid figure. He was clad in black body armor from neck to toe save for the milky-white lamri glowing on his belt. His head was entirely concealed by a black helmet with a darkly tinted visor. In one hand he held a deadly looking gun—Eris assumed it was a striker. The other hand he extended to Eris and Miguri with a gesture that clearly meant, “Come with me.”

  “Oh, hell no,” Eris protested, scrambling as far from the menacing intruder as she could in the small cell. Miguri was right by her side, clearly no more inclined to follow the raider than was Eris.

  “Claktill,” the alien rasped, voice somewhat obscured by the helmet. “Kra nakri vara!” When Miguri, looking stunned, didn’t respond, the black-clad man wiggled the striker at them and then waved it toward the cell door.

  “On second thought, maybe we should follow him,” Eris suggested.

  “I agree,” Miguri said. “I find it unwise to anger any being carrying a striker. Especially a raider. They are notoriously trigger-happy.”

  The raider exited the cell and, crouching outside the door, gestured for Miguri and Eris to follow. Moving away from the cell, he scanned the empty control room, striker held at the ready.

  Where’s Grashk? Eris wondered, peeking through the opening.

  Then the main cell block door spiraled open, and Tarsis ran in. The Ssrisk was clutching a blue oxygen mask to his face with one scaly hand, the other five all wielding strikers. His movements seemed unusually slow.

  The raider squeezed off three shots at Tarsis. Eris screamed as all three plasma bursts slammed into the huge alien, burning holes in his chest plates. He gave a gurgling moan and slumped to the floor.

  Eris fought back the bile rising in her throat. She didn’t know whether Tarsis was dead. But he certainly won’t be torturing anyone for a while.

  When the raider beckoned them again to follow him, Eris did not protest. Don’t piss off a guy with a striker. Check.

  They were halfway to the cell block exit when Grashk appeared in the portal, blocking the way. Eris saw that, unlike Tarsis, Grashk had clearly prepared for battle. His movements were sharp and swift, a breathing mask strapped firmly over his mouth. A protective vest covered his chest, and only four hands clutched strikers. In his other two hands he held daggers with electricity crackling around the blades’ tips.

  Miguri scuttled toward the wall, away from the fight. “What is it with Ssrisk and electric weapons?” Eris grumbled as she crouched and followed her friend.

  The raider, meanwhile, had turned to face the new threat. He fired two shots at Grashk, who was racing for the safety of the central control platform. Grashk returned fire as he ran, and managed to blast the striker from his opponent’s gloved hand. As the Ssrisk dove behind the console, the raider clutched his hand and spat, “Inda Kari vin torlak shoon!” His striker skittered across the floor and out of reach.

  Grashk leveled his strikers at the intruder—now caught out in the open, weaponless—and fired four plasma bursts in quick succession. Just when Eris thought the battle was over, the raider leaped impossibly high in the air, clearing the plasma shots by at least five feet. Landing catlike beside his fallen striker, he grabbed the weapon and peeled off several shots that made smoking dents in the console where Grashk was taking cover.

  “Who are we supposed to be cheering for?” Eris gasped to Miguri.

  Her alien friend had a dark look on his normally cheerful features as he watched the battle. “If the raider is what I suspect, then I pray to Kari the Ssrisk emerges victorious.”

  The raider danced several paces to the right, making him impossible to hit from Grashk’s position behind the console. Snarling, Grashk jumped out and returned fire. The glowing plasma bursts would have vaporized the raider had he not dropped flat to the floor.

  Springing back to his feet, the raider sent a volley of plasma at the Ssrisk guard. The three shots blasted all but one of the strikers from his grasp. Grashk jerked back, rat-tat-tat-ing furiously. Now down to one weapon, Grashk blazed plasma back at the raider, who avoided every shot with
astonishing acrobatics.

  The raider suddenly made a strange wheezing noise. He’s laughing, Eris realized. What does he think is so funny? Is this just a game to him?

  Grashk stopped shooting and seemed to be waiting for the raider’s next move. When the raider bowed his head toward Grashk in what appeared to be a nod of respect, the Ssrisk warrior rat-tat-tat-ed angrily. “You dare mock me?” he hissed.

  The raider responded by rushing at his opponent almost faster than the human eye could follow. Before Grashk could react, the raider had flipped up and over him, delivering a powerful blow to the back of Grashk’s skull. As the raider landed on his feet, the Ssrisk crashed to the floor.

  “Grashk!” Eris shrieked.

  7

  The raider seized Eris’s elbow and pulled her away from the fallen Ssrisk. Before she could even think to resist, she was whisked out of the cell block and into the corridor with Miguri hurrying along behind.

  “Let go of me!” she protested. “Damn it, let me go!” The raider ignored her pleas. When she started to struggle, he tossed her effortlessly over his shoulder. She pounded her fists against his armored back and shouted at him to release her as he ran.

  The corridor was filled with green mist, and Eris felt herself growing woozy. She saw that Miguri—who was trailing behind, trying to keep up with the raider’s long, lithe strides—did not appear to be affected by the gas. This must be that paralysis gas Miguri mentioned … Lucky for him he’s so tough. Eris tried to take shallow breaths, but it wasn’t easy while bouncing along on her kidnapper’s shoulder.

  Despite having to carry Eris, the raider had no trouble dispatching two more Ssrisk that had managed to procure oxygen masks. The rest of the crew members they passed lay slumped along the sides of the corridors.

  After traveling along several hallways and down an elevator column, they arrived at what Eris surmised was the Ssrisk ship’s docking bay, as it held several small blue ships in various states of repair. The raider ran toward a scorched hole in the hull, and Eris realized he must have blasted the opening to dock his ship.