Page 43 of My Alien Angel
I shake my head. I probably should have armed myself, but where would I have gotten a gun? It’s not like I could have just asked one of the guards to kindly hand over theirs.
Null lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Of course not. Stay here.” Handing me back the datapad, he strides around the corner as confidently as if he worked here, not just escaped from one of the cells.
“Hey, what—” I hear a guard start, but their words are cut off by the sounds of fighting. Peering around the corner, I watch Null toss one guard against the wall and twist just in time to knock a weapon from the second guard’s hand. Then there’s a sickening crack and a high-pitched wail. Blood soaks the sleeves of the second guard’s uniform as Null efficiently breaks both of his arms before leaning down to pick up the dropped gun. In shock, I watch as he shoots both guards, then grabs the other one’s weapon as well.
“Oh god,” I whimper, shocked by the highly efficient display of brutal violence. “Are they…are they dead?” Please, don’t let them be dead. Fuck! I seriously didn’t think this through. I don’t think Omni would want me to leave a trail of dead bodies in my wake as I try to free him, and these men were just doing their job, they didn’t deserve—
“Just stunned,” Null interrupts my spiraling thoughts. “Broken bones. Easily fixed. Here.” To my absolute horror, he hands me one of the guns. My fingers wrap around the smooth grip automatically while my mind tries to reconcile whatjust happened. Moving the gun away from where I’ve been unintentionally pointing it at him, Null points to an obvious button on the grip. “That’s the trigger. Press it to shoot. It’s set to stun so your precious human conscience doesn’t have to worry about killing anyone.”
“Right.” The only thought really registering in my mind is, “Oh, look, the weird, emotionally stinted alien knows what sarcasm is!”which is hardly helpful, so I force myself to focus back on the mission.
Escaping from this ship. Finding Omni’s crew. Making sure they save him. Have lots of sex with him.
Yeah, I nod to myself. That sounds like a plan.
“If you’re still coming,” Null says, “we need to move fast. Don’t hesitate to use that,” he points to the weapon in my hand, “and keep up. I will leave you behind if I have to.”
I smirk at the irony. “No honor amongst thieves, right? Let’s go.”
The next few minutes pass by in a blur. We’re racing down narrow corridors where pipes and wires line the walls and ceiling. A service or engineering section, perhaps? It’s cramped, Null often needing to duck under low overhead pipes but on the upside, we only run into two people wearing smudged coveralls. Null stuns them both before they’ve registered our intent while I murmur an apology to their unconscious bodies as we step over them. I have to use the keycard twice to open locked doors, the last one opening up into a cavernous hangar.
It’s not the same one Omni and I landed in earlier. Although still massive, this one is slightly smaller. Instead of uniform rows of sleek, military style fighters, this one holds a vast array of ships of varying shapes and sizes in equally variable states of disrepair. It kind of resembles an impound parking lot combined with a junkyard. We head for a battered vessel the size of a cargo plane, only instead of wings with engines sticking out of its sides,it’s covered in weapons. Slamming his hand on the control panel by the door, Null curses when nothing happens.
Alarms finally start blaring.
“Lost the keys?” I joke nervously. There’s no one in the hangar other than us right now, but they must know we’re here. Soon, soldiers will start pouring in and there’s no way to stop them with just two stunners.
“Be quiet,” Null grumbles as he pulls the panel apart. “I need to focus.”
Biting back a sharp retort, my eyes roll at his imperious tone. He’s right, though. I shouldn’t be distracting him while he does his best to save us both.
“Stupid alarms,” someone utters from right behind me. Shrieking, I whirl around to face a slender woman with light blue skin and a wild patch of black hair.
Her startled eyes meet mine briefly before my instincts kick in. I squeeze the trigger of the gun that’s somehow aimed in the right direction. The alien female crumples to the floor, her head meeting the ground with a thud that makes me wince. Fuck. “Fuck! I shot her. Fucking fuck, I actually shot her!” My eyes dart between the weapon and the female as if there was some other explanation for why she’s suddenly taking an impromptu nap. “Jesus Christ! Oh my god. Did I kill her?” What kind of stupid instinct was that, anyway? Someone speaks and I pull the trigger? I could have killed an innocent person.
“She’s breathing,” Null notes, momentarily glancing from the panel he’s butchering. “She’ll live. Come on.”
The ship’s door opens with the usual whoosh sound, but I’m too rattled to enjoy it. Looking at the unconscious female, I hesitate. “Shouldn’t we help her? What if she’s hurt?”
Null enters the ship without a backward glance. “I’m leaving,” he says over his shoulder. “In or out, your choice.”
After quickly checking that the blue-skinned female does indeed appear to be breathing, I approach the open door. Looking around the hangar, I realize one more difference between it and the one where Omni and I landed. Quite an important one. “Um, Null? Shouldn’t that door be open so we can fly out?” I ask, examining the large bay door I assume opens up to space.
“No need,” Null replies from inside the ship. There’s a subtle whirring sound and I jump back in fright as the ship’s cannons come to life, rotating into position. “We’ll make our own door.”
“What?! You’re going to shoot your way out?” It’s not actually a bad idea when I think about it. Glancing at the unconscious female again, however, I realize a slight problem with the plan. “What about her? Won’t everything get sucked out into space when you blast a hole in the wall? She’ll die!”
Grunting, Null stomps back to where I’m standing in the doorway. “She’ll be fine. The suction pressure won’t be large enough to pull her out and the emergency force field will engage before she dies from exposure. Get inside the ship, human.”
“But…” I can’t help but feel responsible. I literally shot her. What if she dies now? What if Null is lying just to placate me? I wouldn’t put it past him. “Can’t we bring her with us?”
“And have the UGC hunting us down for kidnapping? I think not. She will not be harmed. I promise,” he says seriously. It’s difficult to pinpoint where his all-black eyes are looking, but I have a feeling his gaze is on me. “Now, get inside the ship or I am leaving without you.”
I sigh. “Okay, fine. I’m sorry,” I whisper to the unknown female before entering Null’s ship. At the same time, shouts ring through the hangar and a laser beam glances off an invisible barrier now surrounding the ship. Yelping, I leap into the ship, away from the open doors. “They’re shooting at us!”
“They are,” Null confirms calmly. “They’ve also stopped using stunners. Congratulations, human.”
“What?” I ask like an idiot before it hits me. They’re shooting to kill now. I’m officially getting shot at as a criminal, and it’s not as cool as the movies make it sound. In fact, it’s fucking terrifying. “Can we leave now?” I ask, trying not to whimper, but failing miserably.
