Pew! Pew! - Bite My Shiny Metal Pew! Read online

  Atiga shrugged. “This one did. Moldof screamed like a female pup in need of succor when this one vaporized him.” He shook his shaggy head. “Correction…when the humans killed him.”

  Henar’s right flank screamed in agony, so running away was not an option. And in his current condition, Atiga would make short work of him in a fight.

  Meaning, Henar realized to his pained horror, this one is finished. “You hate me that much? That you would kill fellow Benevolency soldiers to get ahead? And lie about the cause of death?”

  Atiga’s smile never reached his eyes. “Killing you has nothing to do with that…and everything to do with you standing in this one’s way.” The muzzle of Atiga’s blaster began glowing, about to discharge in Henar’s face.

  Chapter 5

  “Goodbye, Henar,” Atiga said. The smile playing across the Kavii’s muzzle lit up his eyes as much as the golden burn from his blaster’s business end. “Your and Moldof’s deaths will ensure that Earth is conquered properly.” His thumb started to squeeze the trigger. “Take pleasure in that before you—”

  A loud clap of noise from outside startled both Atiga and Henar. The latter cringed, the sudden motion reigniting his wounds.

  Atiga whirled around, eyes wide with panic, lighting up the darkness with a spray of blaster fire. “What in the five hells!”

  Henar gaped as Atiga turned away. An opening. Brief, but welcome. Mind clouded by pain, he reached for his own blaster in his utility belt.

  Atiga returned focus to Henar, who had taken aim with a shaky arm. The mistake landed on the other Kavii’s face as he snapped his arm up to fire.

  Despite his injuries, Henar shot faster.

  Golden fire lit up the tunnel again. The blaster bolt missed Atiga’s head, lancing instead through his neck with a grisly sizzle.

  The traitorous Kavii sank to his knees, eyes wide in shock as both arms dropped to his sides limply. Atiga’s blaster fell from dead fingers, splashing in the murky puddles around them. He faceplanted then into the same pool with a bigger splish-splash.

  Henar pulled up to the side of the rounded tunnel, clenching his teeth the entire time. His right leg and side shrieked, causing tears to run down his cheeks. He stared at Atiga’s body. He felt no remorse, no pity. Only sadness over his fellow officer’s brainless and selfish betrayal. Atiga had him, could have killed him. But the fool with his three working brain cells had to parade his victory in Henar’s face like it was a done deal.

  “Shouldn’t have monologued, Atiga,” Henar said, his words laced with anguish. “Monologues are for the victors of battle, not pampered scions who’ve never won a battle without their father’s help.”

  Two successive claps from outside shuddered through the tunnel, rumbling off into the distance. Henar jerked his head around in shock before recognizing the source. The rumble of thunder sounded from a distant, approaching storm.

  “Saved by Earth’s lack of weather control.” The Kavii smiled at the irony, despite his pain. He gave brief thanks to this backward planet’s shortcomings.

  A thunderclap, however, could not heal Henar’s nasty injuries. The Kavii could smell the stinking flesh and charred fur without even turning his head. He could have gone his whole life without ever looking at the extent of these injuries.

  But Henar was a soldier of the Kavii Benevolency. He had been given a chance to leave a stamp in history, serve his government in ways most in his nascent career could not have even dreamed. One stinky injury from a traitorous soldier would not stop Henar in his tracks.

  He looked to his right side. “Oh my stars and comets!” The Kavii’s stomach twisted up in nausea. The fur from just under the armpit to above the hip had been scorched off, leaving blackened flesh pockmarked and knotted.

  Henar turned away and vomited. Yep, he had been stopped in his tracks. “Unless I get medical attention…” He pushed up on hind legs, trying to shake off the dizziness.

  First things first, vaporize Atiga’s body. No dead Kavii body should ever be discovered on an unconquered planet. The results would be catastrophic.

  Spots danced before his eyes as he pulled out a disintegrator cube, typed in a short radius, and tossed it at Atiga’s corpse. One bright red flash later and the Kavii’s body disappeared, vaporized into subatomic particles undetectable to human technology. Moldof’s paw was thankfully caught in the blast radius, as Henar felt too wrecked to even bother dealing with that.

  “Now…” Henar stated as he began moving forward. “The injuries…before this one passes out.” Every step caused electric jolts of agony to shoot up and down his right thigh. He nearly collapsed right there. Only the slick sides of the tunnel kept him upright.

  “Blaster salve,” he grunted, pulling out yet another item from his utility belt. This item was a sizeable flexible tube of paste to begin healing wounds from blaster fire depending on the severity. Part of him wondered how so many items fit in this belt, but new shoots of pain shifted any attention back on his wounds. After slathering some of the neon orange paste up and down his right side and hip, the pain immediately dissipated into a dull ache. He breathed in several deep breaths as his vision began returning to normal and the dull ache lessened even more.

  “Now…back to finishing the mission.” Aborting this assignment had never crossed Henar’s thoughts. Not once. He was a proud soldier of the Benevolency and would complete what had been assigned to him.

  And most importantly…reporting back all the chaos that had consumed his mission before it had started would cause the Benevolency to end things straightaway. Even with proof of Atiga’s attempt on his life and murder of Moldof, the Kavii knew the consensus would be to just go back to the original plan of conquest.

  Meaning, no ascension beyond Domestic Surveillance. Henar winced. “This one would rather Atiga have killed me,” he murmured.

  But if help could not come from the Benevolency, then who else could Henar turn to? Unfortunately, Osefa, Leakki, and Nele were back on the ship. Henar knew they would give their lives for him. He also knew all private and military-related communications coming to and from the Dominator-class vessel would be monitored.

  Henar was on his own. He cursed Atiga and his vile family from root to branch and pushed off the tunnel. The only sensible action right now was to head back to his dropship and mentally regroup while the blaster salve did its magic.

  The determined Kavii then began limping back to the mouth of the sewer tunnel. Those few miles through hills back to the dropship felt like light-years away now.

  Henar had just turned a corner when two voices stopped him cold. Two familiar, grunting Kavii voices.

  Akko and Kamai. A peek around the winding corner confirmed what his ears heard. Yep, Henar would have recognized the silhouettes of those two hulking meat puppets anywhere. They paced back and forth at the head of the tunnel, sounding bored.

  Henar bit down more curses and dove behind a rounded corner. Of course Atiga had brought these musclebound space-brains in on his assassin job.

  “Why do these hairless humans call those noises thunderclaps?” Kamai asked, legitimately annoyed. “Sounds more like ‘thunder rumbles’ if you ask this one.”

  “Maybe there are creatures in the skies called ‘thunders’ that clap,” Akko replied, as if he was an expert on the subject. “And their claps are so loud, they sound like rumbles.”

  Kamai didn’t seem to be satisfied by that answer. “Then wouldn’t a thunder have been catalogued in the database of Earth’s fauna?”

  “What if they haven’t located one?” Akko asked with a gasp. “We could be the first beings to locate an actual thunder!”

  “But…” Kamai interjected. “We have to wait until Atiga has completed whatever his scouting survey with Moldof and Henar was. Until then, you and this one are to guard this tunnel’s mouth.”

  Surprise crackled up Henar’s spine. They don’t know what Atiga did to Moldof, he realized. No doubt they were clueless as to what Atiga had plann
ed for Henar.

  A booming clap of thunder interrupted, causing Akko and Kamai to jump.

  “Another one!” Akko yelped.

  “After the Benevolency conquers Earth,” Kamai gushed, breathless and eager like a pup, “we hunt for thunders!”

  While Akko and Kamai continued their epic intellectual debate, Henar squatted in the sewer muck, running down the ways to engage this new obstacle.

  A straight-up fight was out of the question. Even at full strength, Henar knew he could not match these two behemoths whose ungodly strength more than compensated for their combined black hole of wits.

  A sneak attack where he blasted Akko and Kamai to oblivion would do best. Then Henar’s mind flashed back to Atiga; the energy bolt shredding through his neck, the wound’s charred stink, the life fleeing from Atiga’s face as he slumped to the ground. Henar’s first military kill… Then there was poor Moldof, an innocent soldier whose dedication to the Benevolency was as strong as Henar’s. His only mistake was becoming another victim of Atiga’s toxic entitlement. Had he known terror in the moments before Atiga murdered him? Had he fought with every fiber in his furry body with his life on the line? Or had that entitled (and now dead) coward Atiga sneak-attacked him too? Probably the latter.

  Henar suddenly felt nauseous. Horrible as Atiga was, he had been a fellow Kavii in service to the Benevolency.

  Correction…in service to himself, Henar amended. Regardless, killing another Kavii that he should be standing shoulder to shoulder with felt wrong.

  “No more killing other Kavii,” he told himself. Besides, Henar had used his only disintegrator bomb on Atiga’s traitorous corpse.

  The solution struck him then: sneak past with invisiCloak. He scolded himself for forgetting such a simple counter. Tapping on his wristcom, Henar could feel the cloaking energy field envelop his entire being. A couple flickers rippled through the field before it stabilized.

  Then Henar emerged from his hiding spot and snuck forward. Akko and Kamai’s eyes were locked on the overcast skies beyond the tunnel. By the stars, these Kavii had no right to be so HUGE, furry mountains of muscle. Henar sucked down another gulp of breath and kept creeping forward. A limp still hindered his movements as he moved, but the pain was barely noticeable thanks to the salve.

  Henar now stood right behind Kamai and Akko, close enough to reach out and touch.

  His heart thundered against his chest, loud enough to echo off the sewer tunnels. Henar felt relief.

  Almost there. He moved past his two fellow Kavii soldiers.

  A popping fizzle startled Henar, but not enough to stop his movement through the tunnel exit.

  Kamai turned and looked directly at Henar. His eyes widened. “What the—!”

  That grabbed Akko’s attention. He jumped back in surprise. “Henar!”

  Henar froze. They can see this one? Which meant his invisiCloak had been damaged.

  The three Kavii stared at each other in silence. Henar’s heart leaped into his throat, unsure whether to run or grab his blaster.

  Akko and Kamai decided for him, clawing for their weapons.

  Henar bolted off for the nearest thick clump of grass. Knives of pain shot up his right side. But staying still meant death. He pushed off his left leg, diving behind the thick brush. Bright flashes of blaster fire shredded up loamy earth he had just stood on.

  Drawing his own weapon, he set it to stun and rolled about to the next bush of grass.

  “HEY!” Henar called from behind his hiding place, streaks of blaster fire scorching past the grass stalks. “Why are you shooting?”

  “Why did you run?” Akko bellowed back with a hailstorm of blaster fire.

  “Because!” Henar popped up from his hiding spot, blaster cocked, spraying a volley at Akko and Kamai. “This one thought you’d try to shoot on sight!”

  Both behemoths wisely dove for cover within the sewer tunnel.

  Kamai answered first with a return salvo that would have scorched Henar’s head off had he not ducked. “Our blasters are set to stun!” he hollered, as if that statement rationalized their aggression.

  “We thought you found out that Atiga had captured Moldof,” Akko added. His attacks burned like comets out of the dark, shredding Henar’s meager hiding spot apart. “That one told us to stop anyone from finding out!”

  So Akko and Kamai weren’t trying to kill him. Henar found that sparsely reassuring as he scrambled from his destroyed cover on all fours. “Did he also tell you about killing Moldof?” He squeezed off a trio of shots as he dashed behind another thick clump of grass and shrubbery.

  “What?!” Kamai sounded surprised amid the blaster fire scorching back and forth. “No!”

  “We captured him,” Akko added, peeking out of the tunnel, only to duck from a stray blast from Henar, “so Atiga could talk some sense into him about your dumb conquest plan for Earth.”

  The dig on his plan boiled through Henar.

  He popped up. “First off, my conquest plan is NOT dumb,” he cried, a blaster shot punctuating each word. Henar ducked as Akko and Kamai retaliated with a flurry of shots. “Secondly…Atiga killed Moldof…and tried to kill this one!”

  That caused Kamai on the left side to stop shooting. “You’re lying!” he snapped.

  Henar popped upright, juking left to evade return fire, and squeezed off half a dozen blazing rounds of his own. “Have you ever known this one to lie? About anything?” The Kavii ducked back down and waited.

  “No!” Akko fired back, with his anger and his blaster.

  More shots sheered through more shrubbery in Henar’s hideout, leaving another tattered ruin of flora.

  The sight chilled him, realizing how exposed they were. Even worse, Atiga’s awfulness was turning Kavii against Kavii. The epiphany cratered his stomach enough to stop shooting. “Wait. Let’s stop shooting at each other and talk like rational Kavii! If a human came across this…”

  That finally stopped the stream of blaster fire from the sewer tunnel.

  Henar holstered his blaster and stepped out into the open, paws held high in the air. Surrounding him were rings of burnt and destroyed plant life. Foreign beauty ruined by Kavii violence. Who are the savages now?

  After a short while, Akko and Kamai stepped out of the sewer tunnels. Even from a distance, they towered over Henar.

  Akko wrinkled his nose, clearly distrusting. Despite his sleek and blood-red fur, he was not a handsome Kavii. “Fine. No more shooting.”

  Kamai stepped forward, his dark green eyes like cold daggers. “Where is Atiga now?”

  Henar’s breath caught. Right. That issue. He was almost afraid to reveal the fate of the traitorous Kavii. But to gain Akko and Kamai’s trust, they had to know the truth. “Atiga is dead,” Henar admitted with a heavy voice. Suddenly, guilt he never knew was there bubbled up his throat. “This one killed him.”

  Akko and Kamai grabbed for their blasters again.

  Not good! Henar raised both paws and nearly stumbled backward. “WHOA. If this one hadn’t, he would have killed me. Just like he killed Moldof!” His words hit a fever pitch as his heartbeat skyrocketed yet again. “This one saw his severed paw!”

  The twin Kavii lowered their arms, but not their guard. Henar felt brief relief but knew these ones required further convincing.

  Kamai’s eyes burned with hatred. “You killed a fellow officer!”

  “In self-defense,” Henar amended, paws still raised in peace. “He would have killed me if not.”

  Akko paced back and forth like a caged savage, shaking his head in disagreement. “You do not know that.”

  “Want proof?” Henar reached for his body armor where Atiga’s blast hadn’t damaged. A few pressed buttons activated the desired function. “Our armor, even the light attire, have video recording to track our missions. Here. Watch!” He brought up a floating screen showcasing the entire encounter with Atiga. That included the confession to murdering Moldof.

  Just like that, all the distrust a
nd anger bled from Akko and Kamai’s faces.

  “By the Benevolency!” Kamai cried out after the video ended with Henar shooting Atiga through the throat.

  Akko looked close to tears. “Why?” he cried out in anguish. “Why would Atiga do that to one of his own? A fellow Kavii!”

  Henar was glad these two mountains weren’t trying to shoot him anymore. But his true sympathy went to Moldof, the real innocent in this mess. He walked up to the two Kavii so they stood face-to-face. “Because Atiga is…was selfish. And spoiled. And greedy for power at anyone else’s expense.”

  Without Atiga there to guide them, the duo looked like lost pups in need of their parents. “What…what now?” Akko asked forlornly, looking to Henar for instructions.

  Henar did some quick thinking…and the actions were not favorable to anyone. “Atiga’s actions will be reported. As will mine. Self-defense or not, this one killed a fellow officer.” Whatever lay ahead, he would face it like a true soldier of the Benevolency. But only after he completed his assignment. “But first, the mission Moldof and this one were assigned must be completed. And…this one needs both your help to do so.”

  Akko and Kamai exchanged a look. Henar’s heart was ready to sink, already knowing how these two morons would reply.

  The duo turned back to him. “What do you need us to do?” Kamai asked.

  Henar was so flabbergasted by their acceptance he couldn’t find his voice for a few moments beyond sputtering gibberish. “It’s simple,” he finally managed to say. “We—”

  A bladelike hiss cut through the air. Then another…

  Then came a choked gurgle from Akko. Henar’s jaw fell open as Akko and Kamai both went rigid, eyes bulging cartoonishly, limbs twitching. Both had silvery dart-like flechettes sticking form their necks.

  The humans found us, Henar realized. Of course they did with all the noise their blaster fight had caused. The two large Kavii then toppled over simultaneously and went into full-on spasms.