Grumpy Alien King by Celeste King
Xxuric
“You’ve got to get back in your pod,” I said. I had already begun spinning up my shuttle’s engines, laying in a course for the compound. I was checking the comms, but there was only static from down below. Then I realized Heather hadn’t budged. “Get back to your pod,” I repeated, “I’ve got to get back.”
“I’m not going anywhere. Except with you.”
“My compound is under attack. I’m returning to a fight.”
“Yeah, and I’m trained in combat,” she said.
My brain skid to a halt as I tried to process that.
“You’re – what?” I asked, befuddled. “You’re a mail order bride.”
“And I had intense combat training at Teshie’s.” She said all those words together in that order with a straight face.
Which made me bust a gut laughing.
“That is maybe the silliest shit I’ve ever heard,” I told her. Her mouth tightened and her face flushed. Wrong response, I thought. Whatever. I don’t have time for this. “Listen. You’ve got no choice. I’m going back there to kick some ass. And you’re staying in your own pod, safe and sound, until things calm down.”
“There’s no way I’m waiting in that pod.”
“Want to bet?”
“Think about it for a second. Me alone in a pod with no weapons? I’ll be a sitting duck. Anyone coming by could board me and murder me. Or, worse, abscond with me.”
I was about to start arguing again with her when I realized that she made a fairly decent point. Growling, feeling the tug of the attack on my compound fighting the tug of needing to protect Heather, I launched myself out of my seat.
She hurried after me as I moved toward the back of the shuttle. On the wall was a keypad. I punched in a code and part of the wall slid open to reveal a well-stocked weapons rack.
“Whoa,” Heather said, her eyes moving over the array of blasters, hand-held rocket launchers, and a few bladed weapons.
I grabbed a KV-38, one of the smaller and easiest to handle blasters in the collection.
“Here’s a blaster,” I said, handing it to her. “It doesn’t do a lot of heavy damage, but that also means the chances of you seriously injuring yourself are low.”
She inspected the weapon as I grabbed a charge cell.
“Now, to insert the charge cell and prime the weapon, you need to –”
Before I could finish, she snatched the cell out of my hand. In one fluid motion, she slapped it into the blaster, primed it and released the safety. Then she spun toward the front of the shuttle and squeezed off a shot that blasted into the dead center of the viewport.
“Are you out of your mind?” I shouted. I rushed forward. The viewport was blaster-proof, of course, but the shot had left a little burn mark. “You could have blasted us out into the vacuum of space.”
“I recognized the blastproof glass the minute I got on board,” she said. Then, hefting the blaster again, she commented, “By the way, the weight on this is a little off. I think the sighting mechanism’s out of whack.”
Marching back to her, I muttered under my breath that I’d be sure to take it up with the manufacturer.
“Aren’t you the…?”
“Yes,” I growled back. She caught my impatience and quieted up for the moment.
I watched the way she held the blaster. She was right. She’d clearly been well-trained. I’d never seen a woman heft a weapon like that. It impressed me. She was so full of surprises. How many more were there for me to discover.
Get your head in the game, Xxuric. Your house is being shot at.
“All right,” I said, focusing, “I believe you that you can handle yourself. And I’m impressed. Now, will you please return to your pod so that I can get down there and smash some fucking heads?”
She studied me a moment. I could see her debating whether to continue fighting or finally acquiesce to my wishes. Finally, she re-engaged the safety and slipped the blaster into the top of her pants.
“I could be really useful down there,” she said, trying one last time.
“Not with me worrying about you all the time. I’d be distracted.” The confession popped out of me without my even having intended it. But I knew even as I said it that it was the truth.
“Would you really worry?” she asked, looking up with her wide, deeply lovely eyes.
I wanted desperately to kiss her. And more. To say to hell with the attack on my compound, all I needed was right there in front of me. Let everything else burn.
I resisted the temptation, however. Grabbing her gently by the arm, I hustled her back toward her pod.
“I’ll come back for you as soon as everything is mopped up,” I told her as I straddled the airlock. “All right?”
“Be careful.”
“You’d do better telling them that,” I said with a wink. Then I sealed her pod’s hatch before sealing my own. I tapped a few buttons and the airlock released and retracted.
Settling into the pilot’s seat, I pushed all thoughts of Heather out of my mind. It wasn’t easy. But there was a battle to be fought. The engines fired and I rocketed back toward the compound.
I still couldn’t raise anyone on any of my comm frequencies. My mind raced as I tried to guess who would have the balls to attack me. I had an enemies list, obviously. You don’t get to my position in my business without making some.
But our battles were usually fought in boardrooms, in bids for jobs and clients. Nothing ever really escalated to the level of actual violence.
Clearly, all of that had changed.
As the shuttle raced home, I went back to the armory. I outfitted myself with as much firepower as I could handle, then settled into the shuttle.
The house was coming into view. Along with the bastards who’d dared come for me.
