Page 2 of Game on Askole

“Usually. He’s not quite what he seems.”

“I agree. For shits and giggles, the Overlord and his minions are probably watching your interrogation on the warbird’s big screen and eatin’ their version of popcorn.”

“Without a doubt, and they have all sorts of scanners trained on us too.”I mouthed,fuck youat one of the surveillance cameras.

“Let’s see how our pretend Coletti deals with a fly infestation of biblical proportions.”

I grinned as Aunt Tess’s flies arrived by the hundreds, and they seemed to love Oydle’s scent. A lot.

“You tell—” Flies flew into Oydle’s mouth. He swallowed them and smacked his lips.

Oh, ick. “My name is Sarah Jones. I’m a Marine lieutenant. Yada. Yada. Yada.” I wondered how long it would take him to realize I was fly free.

“How wham!” He batted crazily at the flies. “Tell how wham.”

Boy, would I like to wham him up the side of the head, but I was handcuffed to the chair. I knew the prick’s goal was to push me into using my psychic powers. Fat chance. “My name is Sarah Jones. Oh hell, you should have the rest memorized by now.”

“Tell how kill.”

“You wanna know how to kill the flies? Well, first you need a fly swatter or some bug spray.”

“Kill Tai-Kok! Kill Tai-Kok!” Oydle’s level of frustration was growing.

I asked sweetly, “Aw. Do you need help killing the Tai-Kok too?”

“No. You how kill?”

“Me? With my laser cannons.”

Oydle shook his head. “Use more.”

“Sometimes a Sidewinder or R40 missile will do the job.”

Bzzzzzzzz.The hum of thousands of bees suddenly filled the room. My eyes widened at the size of the swarm coming out of the garrison’s conveniently open air vents. Aunt Tess had been a busy girl.“Any more surprises?”

“Honey, you haven’t seen anything yet.”

Clusters of angry wasps flew into the room.

Aunt Tess was the best critter wrangler ever. Not one bee, fly, or wasp came anywhere near me.

“You blab now.” Oydle swatted wildly at the bees dive-bombing his head. Which only pissed them off. They started stinging him.

To my surprised disgust, the bee venom had little effect on him.

“Blab or take by force.”

There was no way in hell I was going to tell him what he wanted to know. Were my commanding officers traitors? Had they ratted me out? Maybe. For now, only my family knew I was very, very good at mind control and had awesome mental shields. The pilots in my squadron knew there wasn’t an aircraft I couldn’t fly or a lock I couldn’t open, but only a few knew about my psychic tracking talents.

Oydle grabbed my braid and yanked my head back. “Warned. Me take lie.”

“Say what?”

The creep tried to force his way into my mind.

I giggled at the intense tickling sensation. “Is this a new interrogation technique? Tickle torture?”

“No. You fear power mine.”

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