Page 43 of Haunted By the Alien
“Enough. You’re not escaping me,” I growl. That’s when the searing pain of a knife impaling my abdomen shoots through me. Stunned, I lose my grip on him as I stumble back. I realize my mistake when he rips the surgical gown off, revealing an extra set of arms.
Four arms. He’s og’dal!
Two lower hands punch me in quick succession as the good upper arm slashes a knife at me.
Blood runs down my torso as I try to protect my vulnerable middle. I’ve made a critical error in not running a check on this male myself earlier. He’s been hiding in plain sight this entiretime using jackets and layers of clothing to conceal his lower set of arms, so he’d appear human.
I toy with the idea of reaching for my blaster, but I need him alive. He has information I need.
A knife slips into his fourth hand from an arm sheath, making me question if he’s one of the mofa’ti, a highly skilled group of assassins and malcontents on Dal.
Before he raises his hand to throw the knife, I charge at him, risking his lower arms stabbing me. I spring into the air and catch him in the chest with my feet, protecting my upper body from his knives. One knife slices along my trou but doesn’t cut deep. Another enters my thigh, but the force from my attack sends him crashing into the operating table.
Ignoring my wounds, I use my knife like a sword, slicing across his chest and lower arms with one downward arc. It’s bloody and desperate, but effective.
Parsons drops two of the three knives. I kick the last knife from his grasp, flip him over, and lock my mag cuffs on his lower arms. I yank tubing from a nearby machine and tie his upper arms next.
“Name,” I demand when I pull him into a sitting position. “Dalese name.”
“Figure it out, zyanthan.”
“Pray Galactic Intelligence doesn’t execute you.”
Parsons rests his head against the wall. His wounds aren’t deep, but he’s secured. Finally.
“I have friends who will arrange my release,” he says with a smug expression.
“You should consider them enemies now. You broke the one rule of the mofa’ti. You got caught.”
“You know nothing about me, Warrior.”
I grab a nearby towel and press it against my abdominal wound. “You killed the grud to keep him from talking andprotect your mission. Another mofa’ti will find you and do the same, og’dal, unless you cooperate and give me reason to transport you to Galactic Intelligence where you’ll be safe, away from the other undercover og’dals here.”
“You think mofa’ti are only on Earth, zyanthan? Then you’re a fool.”
I might well be. What he hints at, that there are agents of the mofa’ti among Galactic Intelligence, would explain much of the problems they’ve had. Such as the theft of blasters last year.
“You’re not taking Parsons anywhere,” Major Collins says behind me.
I swing around and see a gun pointed at me. Everything falls into place. The military’s inability to find the grud ship, the major always trying to convince me to go east, away from the industrial park where I later found the ship, and his eagerness to make me leave Earth?—
His finger caresses the trigger on that gun.
My right hand holds the towel against my belly, close to my blaster.
“You’re part of the Brotherhood,” I say to keep Collins talking. I need a distraction. A mere second to draw and shoot him before he can shoot me.
“It’s simple, Vardell. I have an interest in Parsons continuing his work.”
“Which is what, precisely?”
Collins grins. “We’re not going to play that game. Give me the name of the witness.”
“Let me take her off Earth, and you won’t have to worry about her.”
“I’m not stupid, Warrior.”
Neither am I. He won’t allow either of us to live.
