“His race is called the Tai-Kok. He’s a scout and he wants to be released.” Nausea rose in my throat. “We are nothing but food to them. The minute we let him out of that cell; he’ll notify his ship, and they will attack.”
“Fuck that.” Uncle Ben picked up an oddly shaped weapon and pulled the trigger.
A red energy bolt missed the Tai-Kok by a good foot but vaporized the bars.
Moving faster than I thought possible, the loudly squawking Tai-Kok charged out, grabbed Uncle Ben by the throat and lifted him off his feet.
“Stop!” I yelled and struck the monster’s mind over and over again until he released Uncle Ben.
The monster staggered over to a worktable and grabbed a funky- looking cell phone. With a triumphant honk, he pushed a button.
Uncle Ben scooped the weapon off the floor and shot the Tai-Kok. He dissolved into a million fireflies.
The cold fist of reality hit me. Well, damn. Those evil aliens were going to invade Earth after all. “His buddies are coming and we’re like Christmas dinner to them.”
“There is a way to stop them, but it’s dangerous,” Uncle Ben said.
Chapter One
A dangerous game…
Dangerous, my ass. It was a few steps short of suicide. Uncle Ben’s plan was to transport me onto a Tai-Kok ship. All I had to do was leave the bomb, hit the retrieval button on my belt and poof! I was back on Earth before the Tai-Kok ship went kaboom. Sounds simple, right?
Wrong. Uncle Ben didn’t have a clue where I would actually appear on the ship. It could be the engine room, the crew quarters, or even the bridge. It was like playing Russian roulette. The Tai-Kok don’t like surprises or uninvited guests, and I’ll never get the image of a naked Tai-Kok out of my head either. I shuddered. Their penises reminded me of crab claws.
The first two attempts to get me onto a Tai-Kok battle cruiser ended with me floating a foot above the ship. With only an hour of oxygen in my tank, I kinda freaked out. It’s true what they say about no one can hear you scream in space.
Out of sheer desperation, I grabbed a protruding antenna and managed to duct tape the bomb to their hull. I later discovered that antenna was part of the weapons array. If they had turned that sucker on, I would have been vaporized.
To make the situation even more fun, Uncle Ben had me wearing an old, bulky 1960s spacesuit. Fighting or running in it was impossible. The Tai-Kok warrior’s sharp metal claws quickly ripped the nylon and rubber to shreds. On the upside, I got very good at psychic combat. With my mental right hook, I scored a TKO every time.
To date, we have blown up nine Tai-Kok ships and Earth hasn’t been invaded. Yet. I wanted to tell Dad what we were doing, but he would put a stop to it and probably kill Uncle Ben too.
Uncle Ben knocked on my door. “Dinner’s ready.”
“Coming.” I wrinkled my nose. My uncle loved military MREs. Me? Not so much. The beef stew and spaghetti weren’t too bad, but the oatmeal was awful. God, I’d kill for a big, juicy hamburger and some time at the mall.
I walked into the tiny kitchen and took a seat at the card table. “I need a better spacesuit.”
“You’re letting the Tai-Kok get too close to you.”
I gaped at him in disbelief. “Seriously? I’m not letting them do anything. Yesterday, I popped in on those creatures having sex. Ewww. It was just plain icky, and they weren’t happy about me interrupting them either. I emptied an entire clip into the monsters, and it barely slowed them down.”
“What orifice were they using?”
My eyebrows shot up in baffled horror. “Why?”
“Scientific curiosity.”
I shrugged. “Belly button area, I think.”
“Huh. I need to add a camera to your suit.” Uncle Ben placed a plastic container with lumpy tomato sauce in front of me. “It’s chicken cacciatore.”
Rolling my eyes, I took a bite of the chicken cacciatore and immediately spit it back out. “Are you trying to poison me? This is awful.”
Uncle Ben ate some. “Tastes fine to me.”
Nausea roiled my stomach. “I want a new space suit that’s made from Kevlar armor. I want to go to a mall and get my nails done. I want to go out to dinner and eat real food. Not this plasticcrap.” I shoved my chair back and dumped the container in the trash.
