CHAPTER 69
MATHIRAS
The Little Sister’s hatch door opens and I step out onto the ramp. The box of “credits” is in my arms, the payment for the humans we’ll be collecting. In reality, the box is empty, because I’m not foolish enough to bring a kef-load of credits to a meet-up. Helen is at my heels in her ooli costume and cloak, and Bethiah brings up the rear. The doors of the Sister whoosh shut behind us and I hear the sound of locks clicking into place as I gaze out into the near-empty docking bay.
Normally I wouldn’t be nervous about this sort of thing, but normally I don’t have a beautiful, innocent female at my back. Oh, and Bethiah, who is chaos personified. I shouldn’t worry about Helen, because she can take care of herself, but I love her, and naturally I worry that something is going to go wrong and I’ll be responsible if she gets injured or taken. Just the thought makes my brain blister. If someone so much as harms a hair on her keffing pretty head…
“Nice welcome we’re getting here,” Bethiah calls out casually, forcing me to focus on our surroundings.
Right. I steel myself, eyeing the long hallway that leads from the open dock. There’s nothing around us, the dock completely empty without even a single shipping crate to be seen. There’s a door at the far end and one szzt guard standing in front of it, his hand on his blaster. It’s not quite what I expected to see when we landed, but I’m also expecting a trap. One guard doesn’t mean there’s a problem…yet.
We approach, the two females at my side a step behind me. The guard nods at us and gestures at the door he stands in front of. “Master Bnakhh will meet you through here.”
“And he brought the humans?” I ask, feigning ease. “As many as he had?”
The guard just points at the door again, indicating we should head through. He puts a hand on the door panel and it slides open, revealing a dark interior. “Master will join you soon.”
Oh please. This is absolutely a trap. Helen touches my tail with her littlest finger, as if warning me. But I just nod and step forward, because we’re expecting this. It’s not a meeting. It’s a robbery. No one ever plays by the rules. Or rather, the only rules are that there are no rules. I head forward into the darkness, my ears pricking, my senses aware.
The door slides shut behind us, leaving us in the darkness. I hear the sound of a blaster whining into action.
“It’s a trap,” Bethiah sing-songs.
“It’s always a trap,” I agree, turning around to face the door we just came through. “But that makes things easier.”
A blaster shoots out into the darkness, the bolt of light blinding as it heads straight for my face. It never hits—a moment later, there’s a rush of soft, silky hair that moves over my face and the sensation of the air shifting in front of me. The blaster bolt deflects and hits a wall harmlessly, and I hear Helen growl low with anger, sounding like a fierce kitten.
“Bad guys?” she asks.
“Bad guys,” I agree, pulling out my blaster and peering into the darkness. “But we need at least one alive.”
“I can keep one for you,” she agrees in a lethal tone, and then the room is silent again. It’s all quiet, and then there’s a snap of bones breaking.
“Kef me,” Bethiah breathes, and then the darkness lights up with blaster fire from all angles.
I fling myself to the ground, immediately looking for Helen. Between flashes of light in the darkness, I can see a glimpse of green limbs and a ripple of cloak. There’s another round of blaster fire, and I see more of them reflect directly in front of me, one finding its mark and someone grunting in the darkness.
Fabric rustles over my face and then Helen is crouching in front of me, breathing hard. “There’s seven,” she whispers. “I’ve killed two. It’ll be easier to find the rest if we turn the lights on. I don’t like the dark.”
“I’ll get that,” I whisper, belly-crawling along the floor as another round of blaster fire echoes in the room. If this room is like any other, the control panel for the lighting should be near the door. “Watch my back.”
“Always,” she tells me and then races off again, the cloak snapping me in the face as I crawl.
I keep low to the ground, moving toward one of the exits—or at least, where I think the exits are—and see a pulse of blaster fire. I raise mine to fire back and then pause, because the darkness is hiding me. Better to approach one quietly and take him by surprise than to give away my location with a few poor shots. Continuing forward, I grit my teeth when I hear another crack of bones. I hate being unable to do my share.