“No,” Dad growled. “The monster sent those images to Lexi. It was still alive when I left her there.”
“The Tai-Kok are like locust, Dad. When they leave a world, nothing is left alive. Nothing.”
Uncle Ben scrubbed his right hand over his beard. “I still have its weapon and communicator.”
“What did you do with the body?”
Anxiety knotted my stomach. Dad was beyond pissed. If he found out, I had been popping into Tai-Kok spaceships, he would have an epic meltdown.
“It broke free, and I shot it with its own pistol,” Uncle Ben replied.
Dad bellowed, “Is it dead or not?”
“It dissolved into a zillion fireflies, Dad. There is nothing left of it.”
There was a long silence.
“Dad? You, okay?”
“No, I am not okay. We’ll be at the bunker in three hours and don’t even think about running,” Dad snapped. The line went dead.
A hysterical laugh escaped me. “That went well.”
“I have to tell General Jones about the portal before your father kills me.”
Uncle Ben was right. Now that the aliens had invaded Earth, it was the only way to stop them. “I’m going to suit up and see how many ships I can blow up in three hours.”
“I’ll meet you in my lab,” Uncle Ben said and headed for the elevators.
Chapter Two
The invasion begins…
Armed to the teeth, and trying to ignore the butterflies dancing in my stomach, I stepped onto the portal’s platform. “Today the monsters feel our wrath.”
“Give ‘em hell,” Uncle Ben said, and his fingers danced across the control console.
I sighed. He said the same thing every time. The golden circles of light engulfed me. My body tingled like crazy, and I appeared in what looked like a storage room. I planted the bomb and hit the retrieval button. Poof! I was back in Uncle Ben’s lab. “One down, two to go.”
“Give ‘em hell, Lexi.”
The lights encircled me again and poof! I was standing in the empty crew quarters. Huh? Their communal showers looked a lot like ours. Who knew. I left the bomb on a neatly made bed and hit my retrieval button. The instant I appeared in the lab, I asked, “Any confirmation that they blew?”
“There is chatter on the military channels about two massive explosions in space.”
“Good.”
Uncle Ben cracked his knuckles.
I frowned. He only did that when he was freaked out. “What’s wrong?”
“Their entire fleet will be on alert by now. They’ll be waiting for you this time.”
I had the sudden irrational urge to laugh. I had been playing Russian roulette for the last three months and now he wasconcerned. “Probably. But we don’t really have a choice, now do we? We fight or we die.” I pulled my Glock. Was I scared? Hell, yeah. “Let’s do this.”
“Give ‘em hell.” A wild look in his eyes, Uncle Ben tapped on the console.
The circles of light surrounded me, but this time it felt like a zillion fire ants were crawling over my body. Holy hell! Something had gone wrong! I appeared in midair and dropped like a rock. Smack! I slammed into someone, and my Glock went flying.
