Page 20 of Fated to the Hunter
“You let them live?” He made a face like the thought of letting any flyer live was abominable.
I laughed. “Think of it as turning their flyers against them. We can see what it sees, so we always know when a group of scuttlers are coming, or if a centicreep is in the area.”
He still looked unsure, so I grabbed my phone and pulled up the website with Numbnut’s feed even though seeing the nest gave me the creeps. “We named this flyer Numbnut. He’s still circling his nest, so we know he’s not anywhere near New Franklin. We’ve been using him to study scourge behavior. And when he’s in the air, the video covers a large area and gives us advanced warning.”
He hummed. “I admit this is useful.”
Next was a Xarc’n blaster tucked into one of the side compartments. And on the other side, there was something thickly padded with foam. I took out the padded pouch and looked inside.
“What the fuck, Sam! Warn me next time you put motherfucking grenades in my motherfucking bag,” I exclaimed.
“Sam is not here.”
“Well, duh. I’m just surprised.” I carefully placed the foam pouch on the floor.
Bael’k looked inside and grinned. “These are very useful. I have seen them in action. They will not detonate unless you want them to; it is safe.”
“I’m still not sure I want them in my bag. I have a shit throwing arm. You don’t want me to use these.”
“Then I will add them to my arsenal.”
“They’re all yours. Have at it.”
Not feeling anything else delicate, and tired of taking things out one at a time, I turned my bag upside down and dumped the rest out onto the shuttle floor. I planned on reorganizing everything anyway. I regretted it immediately. I’d completely forgotten about the smutty alien romance novel I’d shoved in there. It landed, cover side facing up, the artist’s rendition of the aliens’ blue chests on full display,
And of course, Bael’k’s eyes landed on it right away. He picked it up, flipping through it, and frowned when he found no more images. “Is this a manual? I have not yet met this species.” He turned back to the cover. “They wear lower-body coverings similar to ours. I was unaware that humans had prior contact with others.”
“We haven’t,” I said, my face heating up. “They’re just stories. Fiction.” I snatched it out of his hand and stuffed it back into the bottom of my bag.
“What is this?”
I turned, and what I saw had me instantly wishing the floor would swallow me whole.
Because there, in his hand, was my little bullet vibrator.
Kill. Me. Now.
And the worst part was, I had known it was in there. I shoved it in there because I didn’t want anyone to find it while I was gone. How could I have forgotten? I snatched it out of his hands and, without answering, tossed it unceremoniously back into my pack.
With my face hot and flushed, I started going through the rest of my supplies and equipment, trying to fit everything back into the bag.
Please do not ask your shuttle, I prayed silently.
And lucky for me, Bael’k did not.
***
We got into camp just as the flyers were starting to harass our little entourage. It sucked that so many of the flyers had ways of detecting cloaked Xarc’n vessels. It was one of the reasons why we’d flown in formation.
The whole formation flying thing wasn’t a Xarc’n habit, but something that developed here on Earth when someone noticed that flyers had a harder time attacking cloaked vessels when they were close together. They’d tried several shapes and found one that worked the best, but it wasn’t foolproof.
Last I heard, hunters on other planets had adopted the formation trick successfully. The thought that our fight here on Earth was helping destroy scourge all over the galaxy gave me the warm fuzzies. These nasty bugs destroyed my life, and like many humans still alive today, I hated them with every ounce of my being.
So when we finally came into range of the camp’s anti-air defense and broke formation, giving them space to shoot, I was grinning ear to ear. I clung to the pilot’s chair, my eyes locked on the screen.
“Ha! Deserved it!” I cackled as one of the flyers exploded in the air. “Die motherfucker!”
But two of the flyers had veered away just in time, realizing the trap.
