Imminent Danger: And How to Fly Straight Into It by Michelle Proulx Read Free Book Online

a striker. The other hand he extended to Eris and Miguri with a gesture that clearly meant, “Come with me.”
    “Oh, hell no,” Eris protested, scrambling as far from the menacing intruder as she could in the small cell. Miguri was right by her side, clearly no more inclined to follow the raider than was Eris.
    “Claktill,” the alien rasped, voice somewhat obscured by the helmet. “Kra nakri vara!” When Miguri, looking stunned, didn’t respond, the black-clad man wiggled the striker at them and then waved it toward the cell door.
    “On second thought, maybe we should follow him,” Eris suggested.
    “I agree,” Miguri said. “I find it unwise to anger any being carrying a striker. Especially a raider. They are notoriously trigger-happy.”
    The raider exited the cell and, crouching outside the door, gestured for Miguri and Eris to follow. Moving away from the cell, he scanned the empty control room, striker held at the ready.
    Where’s Grashk? Eris wondered, peeking through the opening.
    Then the main cell block door spiraled open, and Tarsis ran in. The Ssrisk was clutching a blue oxygen mask to his face with one scaly hand, the other five all wielding strikers. His movements seemed unusually slow.
    The raider squeezed off three shots at Tarsis. Eris screamed as all three plasma bursts slammed into the huge alien, burning holes in his chest plates. He gave a gurgling moan and slumped to the floor.
    Eris fought back the bile rising in her throat. She didn’t know whether Tarsis was dead. But he certainly won’t be torturing anyone for a while.
    When the raider beckoned them again to follow him, Eris did not protest. Don’t piss off a guy with a striker. Check.
    They were halfway to the cell block exit when Grashk appeared in the portal, blocking the way. Eris saw that, unlike Tarsis, Grashk had clearly prepared for battle. His movements were sharp and swift, a breathing mask strapped firmly over his mouth. A protective vest covered his chest, and only four hands clutched strikers. In his other two hands he held daggers with electricity crackling around the blades’ tips.
    Miguri scuttled toward the wall, away from the fight. “What is it with Ssrisk and electric weapons?” Eris grumbled as she crouched and followed her friend.
    The raider, meanwhile, had turned to face the new threat. He fired two shots at Grashk, who was racing for the safety of the central control platform. Grashk returned fire as he ran, and managed to blast the striker from his opponent’s gloved hand. As the Ssrisk dove behind the console, the raider clutched his hand and spat, “Inda Kari vin torlak shoon!” His striker skittered across the floor and out of reach.
    Grashk leveled his strikers at the intruder—now caught out in the open, weaponless—and fired four plasma bursts in quick succession. Just when Eris thought the battle was over, the raider leaped impossibly high in the air, clearing the plasma shots by at least five feet. Landing catlike beside his fallen striker, he grabbed the weapon and peeled off several shots that made smoking dents in the console where Grashk was taking cover.
    “Who are we supposed to be cheering for?” Eris gasped to Miguri.
    Her alien friend had a dark look on his normally cheerful features as he watched the battle. “If the raider is what I suspect, then I pray to Kari the Ssrisk emerges victorious.”
    The raider danced several paces to the right, making him impossible to hit from Grashk’s position behind the console. Snarling, Grashk jumped out and returned fire. The glowing plasma bursts would have vaporized the raider had he not dropped flat to the floor.
    Springing back to his feet, the raider sent a volley of plasma at the Ssrisk guard. The three shots blasted all but one of the strikers from his grasp. Grashk jerked back, rat-tat-tat -ing furiously. Now down to one weapon, Grashk blazed plasma back at the raider, who avoided every shot with astonishing acrobatics.
    The raider