Page 14 of Relyn
Grom stood up and headed to the exit, but found himself blocked by the cargo and Relyn.
“Let’s move it!” Grom said as he tried to crane around the side of the crate.
“Better if we negotiate first,” Lysh said. Relyn agreed. Once they got the crate off the ship, they could easily lose possession, though, while he’d been sitting there, Relyn had added a passcode onto the hover controls. He hoped the cargo was too heavy to move easily without it.
Grom let out a flubbery sigh, and then shifted his mass into a thin wedge that allowed him to pass around the cargo. “Fine.”
Lysh scrambled over the bench to join him. Ketle was the only one now trapped behind the cargo, and when he realized it, he was not happy. Relyn, Lysh, and Grom all exchanged glances and decided silently among themselves that Ketle would stay on the ship for now. They proceeded down the hatch ramp together.
The Adrastians immediately pegged him as the biggest threat. They were correct. Relyn kept his movements loose and casual. This was all just a friendly business deal… until it wasn’t.
“You ready to pay up?” Grom said. His nerves were beginning to show and he was losing finite control of his form. He sounded like he had a mouthful of rocks.
“All business and no pleasure?” one of the Adrastians said. “No hello, how are you?”
“Hello, how are you? Where’s my money?” Except he said it with a lisp.
The three Adrastians laughed at this. Grom wasn’t laughing.
“All right, back to the ship we go,” Lysh said, turning around to head back to the ship. “You know we ain’t cleared to negotiate, so if they want to try and stiff us, I’m sure the boss has a second buyer lined up.”
Grom paused, obviously not catching on that Lysh was bluffing. “I can negotiate!”
“Well, then, let’s negotiate,” The Adrastian said.
“The price is set at 50. No questions asked,” Grom said.
“That’s funny. I was told 30,” The Adrastian said.
“No, 50. It was definitely 50.”
“I thought you said you could negotiate.” The Adrastians were slowly drawing to the right, out of the line of fire. Grom was going to get them all killed. There was no time now to move the ship. They had probably seen the hunk of junk and figured the container shielding would protect it. They were about to blow it open like a nut.
Relyn heard the cannon’s charger buzz to life almost at the same moment he pulled a knife from his sleeve and threw it right into the throat of the lead Adrastian.
“Down!” he shouted. Amazingly, the kid dropped into a puddle of ooze, just as the cannons went off and blew the back half of the shuttle clean off. Lysh’s pistol fired a dud, so he pulled a knife and ran at the Adrastians with a high pitched shriek that did him more harm than good. The second Adrastian pulled a laser pistol and fired off three shots, the third of which caught Lysh full in the chest, dropping him before his short legs could close the distance.
A roar of rage sounded from the wreckage of the shuttle. Ketle was now well and truly pissed off. This was actually the perfect time. The two remaining Adrastians were distracted bythe rage machine that was working his way loose from the twisted metal. The one managing the guns must have been told not to shoot more than once, otherwise they would risk damage to the cargo. Relyn took advantage of this by speeding into their ship, ignoring the two outside. Ketle would make short work of them.
Relyn took a risk and shifted into an Adrastian, hoping it would buy him enough time to clear the ship before Grom or Ketle came aboard.
“Shut the fucking hatch!” Relyn heard a voice call from the cockpit.
“But they are still out there!” a second voice replied.
“They’re gonna be dead in a second. Leave them.”
“But he’s my cousin.” Something banged as if it had been thrown across the bow of the ship. “Oh,” the second voice said. “Okay, but what about the cargo?”
“Fuck the cargo.”
“She ain’t gonna be happy if we-”
Two Adrastians were sitting conveniently next to each other at the control panels. It was almost too easy. They didn’t even notice him until he was right behind them. In the form of an Adrastian, they didn’t even seem too concerned when they noticed him.
“Who are you?”
Relyn responded with a hard thrust of a knife into each of their skulls. They were dead before they could slump over. He shoved them onto the floor and shifted back into Balcore. Through the viewscreen he could see that Ketle was standing over the dead Adrastians, his chest still heaving as he looked for more of a fight. Relyn got on the coms and announced, “The ship’s clear. Grom, come aboard and claim your bounty.”
