Page 81 of The Commander

Cara just knew Brenda and her baby would die if she didn’t defend them. She had to get between them. “Don’t, please. Don’t kill her. She’s the only friend I’ve ever had.”

Before she could move, she caught a mean little ugliness in Brenda’s narrow eyes before the other woman smoothed it back to grief. It looked like she’d tasted something sour before she managed to swallow it back.

“There was no baby.” The knowledge escaped her. A sudden knowing, the truth in that flash of ugly.

“No, there was no baby. That woman is not carrying a child.” Bastian agreed, putting himself between them, his hand at the small of Cara’s back.

“I am. Baby! I have a baby. I’m going to. I’m pregnant.” Brenda wrapped her arms around her stomach and bent over Andy, wailing. “You’ve got to help me. What am I going to do now?”

It was too late. Cara had seen the lie on Brenda’s face. Had that woman really manipulated her so easily?

The mayor pointed at Brenda. “Someone shut that woman up. I’m not going to let her get me killed.”

The power cells arrived, five of them, looking old and useless, dropped next to the back wheel of the truck.

Bastian stepped in front of Cara, and she couldn’t see what was happening, moving her with his body back to her open truck door and handing her a black case.

“Open that black case, Kitten.”

“Bastian,” she said his name, wanting to say a hundred things, mostly for him not to just kill anyone.

“Do as I say.” Taking the gun remote from her, he put one of her hands on the case.

In the other, he handed her copper-colored wire.

“I want you to take this wire and wind it around each end of the white margin cell.” There were four pieces.

Of the several things in the case, only one was white. A can sized tube; it reminded her a little of an oversized battery. When she picked it up, two little sharp pointed ends ejected. “We will MacGyver this together.”

“What?”

His black eyes twinkled at her. She had no idea what he was saying, but something about his off humor comforted her. It shouldn’t. He could still just decide to mow everyone down.

“I need you to connect the margin cell to the old human power cells while I deal with Control. I do not know if you have ever encountered batteries?”

“My dad showed me some things, how I could use them. But I don’t know what I’m doing.” Her mouth had gone dry, and it was hard to talk, but he was calm, so she would be calm. She could do this.

“Connect the wires to the points on the margin cell, then the heads on the boxes.”

Picking up a car battery, he tossed it aside with a growl. “This one is faulty.”

He chose two more from the group. They must have passed his test because he set them down in front of her on the truck. Pointing, he said, “Connect them here. See if you can get a spark, too.”

“A spark from the batteries will tell us they are still live,” she murmured.

“That’s right, Kitten, very good,” he murmured above her ear, his body all along her back.

Now was not the time, but her body didn’t care. A distracting warmth shot all through her.

“Don’t worry about anything else right now. Not the humans. Nothing. Just this.” He palmed her waist, his hand twisting around her front to her belly, there and gone before he stepped away again at a booming woosh of noise from behind them.

Cara had heard the distinct sound of an alien shuttle landing before, but never from so close.

CHAPTER 27 - BASTIAN

Every human heartbeat went into overdrive as the delicate six legs of a showy bird class shuttle touched down in the middle of the old road. To them, it looked like a spider, minus a couple legs. To him, it mimicked the beauty of a sacred Sarrian avian, down to the four sets of shimmering landing wings.

At home, this type of transport perched on the balconies and rooftops of the wealthiest of houses. Made specifically for the feminine elite so they didn’t have to muck about with the lower classes, it didn’t belong on Earth. Fitting it with an overconfident set of battle-class antimatter guns and a decent shield system had not turned the fancy thing into a weapon.

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