Page 75 of Arresting the Warlord

“It is.”

“I call dibs on it.”

“The last thing you need is another rocket launcher. Focus on the mission.” I lowered the landing ramp. “Go out there and create a distraction. The General and Jake are approaching her from the south.”

“Okey-dokey.” Singing off key, Uncle Jesse staggered out of the shuttle. He tottered over to Jia’s tree, whipped it out and took a piss.

I clamped a hand to my forehead. I had asked for a diversion but that wasn’t quite what I had in mind. I hurried out of the shuttle. “What are you doing?”

“Taking a piss. You blind?”

I threw my hands up in the air. Sometimes Uncle Jesse reminded me of a twelve-year-old and he loved putting on a show. For our audience, I yelled, “There’s a perfectly good toilet onboard the shuttle and I only stopped so you could take pictures of those stupid ruins.” I lashed out psychically and hit Jia with my freeze ray.

She toppled out of the tree and landed at our feet.

“Oh, look. A falling songbird,” I exclaimed.

Uncle Jesse grabbed Jia’s rocket launcher. “With a new Falcon rocket launcher.”

“Put it down before you blow something up,” I barked.

Uncle Jesse scowled at me. “I know my way around weapons.”

Bang!Flames shot from the rocket launcher.Whoosh!The missile whizzed by my ear.

“Fuck!” I triggered my armor and knocked Uncle Jesse to the ground.

Kablooeythe shuttle blew into a thousand tiny pieces.

I did my best to shield Uncle Jesse and Jia from the flaming debris raining down on us. “Nothing like announcing our presence to the evil scientist.”

“It’s not my fault the controls are touchy,” Uncle Jesse retorted.

I retracted my helmet. “It wouldn’t have been a problem if you hadn’t picked the stupid thing up.”

“Maybe.”

Jake crashed into my mind.“Anyone hurt? What happened?”

“We’re all okay but I’m afraid the shuttle is a total loss and unless Giovanni is deaf and blind, he knows we’re here. Stay hidden until we see what he does.”

The General demanded,“Where did that missile come from?”

“Jia had a rocket launcher and Uncle Jesse accidently fired it.”

“He what?”Jake bellowed.“I knew we should have left the old man behind.”

A glittering blue light suddenly engulfed us.“Crap.”

Chapter Fourteen

When the light faded, we were sitting in an ancient dungeon complete with mummified human remains shackled to the wall.

“Was that a transporter beam?” Uncle Jesse ran his hands over his body.

“It was.”

“It felt like my insides were being scattered about the universe.” Uncle Jesse blew out a relieved breath as he patted his groin. “But I’ve got all my parts.”

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