Page 30 of Craved By the Alien Warlord

"I disabled their communications, so they won't be able to radio for help. They will send one soldier to get a commander; you need to disable him or her." She narrowed her eyes at me. "Are you okay with attacking and knocking out a female?"

I wasn't, but I waved her on to continue her plan. "Once you intercept him or her, come into the armory and free me."

She grinned broadly at her simple yet effective sounding plan, and I gave it some thought.

"Will they shoot you when they see you?"

Her hesitation was telling enough.

"Your plan is good, but we need to deviate slightly. I will go and be taken prisoner," I decided.

When she was about to protest, I shook my head. "Not negotiable. If I don't give them any reason to, they won't shoot me. They'll be too curious about who I am and what I'm doing here."

She nodded tightly, not liking my plan either. Too bad.

The only thing I worried about was her taking out the soldier they would send to notify their commander, but she obviously thought she could, and I had to trust that she was right.

I gave her my gun and was about to walk out into the open when she called me back. "Kendryx."

For a moment, our eyes met. I didn't know what she wanted to tell me, and she probably didn't either, but our eyes did all the talking and that was enough.

"Be careful," I said in a hoarse voice, wanting nothing more than to pick her up and carry her back to the fence, throw her over if I had to, and take her away from here. But what I had learned was that nowhere would be safe until the humans lost their ability to use their advanced technology, and we had a chance to do this now.

If I thought Thorodoth and I would have a better chance tomorrow, I would have taken it, but as it was, this seemed to be the right moment, and I hated it.

I prayed to the gods not to allow any harm to come to Chrissy and walked out into the open, hands up like she told me to.

"Don't shoot," I yelled in English, which seemed to perplex the six guards more than anything. "I need to talk to your leader."

They were too far away for me to hear what they were saying, but they rapidly spoke to one another while aiming their weapons at me. These weapons looked different from the one Chrissy gave me earlier. They were longer, and the soldiers were holding the butts pressed against their shoulders. I figured as long as they didn't shoot at me, it didn't matter what kind of weapon they were holding.

They watched my approach warily, and I noticed one soldier shouldering his gun and taking off. The messenger, I assumed.

"Get in here," a man snarled, pointing his gun aggressively at me.

"Who are you?" another wanted to know, waving me forward.

When we entered the building, I curiously looked around. Boxes were stacked upon boxes; most held the image of a skull on them with words written on top or below, sometimes in both places. I had learned English from Chrissy, but only spoken. I had no idea what the letters meant.

"Turn around," the man who had spoken before ordered, and I did as instructed, offering no resistance when he pushed my wrists together and slapped something around them, cuffing me.

They took my sword from its sheath, and I felt a certain amount of satisfaction in seeing them falter from its weight.

"Who are you?" one of them repeated.

"I will only talk to your commander," I stated, staring him down.

The one kallini between them assessed me curiously.

"What? Is this barbarian getting you hot, Murphy?" one of the males laughed.

"Shut up, pencil dick," she retorted, sneering at him.

My English wasn't perfect yet, and some of the words didn't make sense to me, but I got the gist that insults had been thrown around and neither the man nor the woman looked very happy.

"Keep it together you two," an older male admonished.

"Yes, sir," both acknowledged.

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