Page 46 of Time Traveling Space Bastards
And my fucking time machine rarely explained his motives when he did whatever the fuck he wanted. Big Daddy was a lot like my mother in that regard. He wanted us to figure it out. But this was a lot more dangerous than crashing into a child’s pool. Valtens could really hurt her.
“If you won’t tell us why, tell us where she is,” I demanded.
“You can’t just go barging in,” Ghol said. “Valtens packed weapons from our planet and he didn’t leave them on the ship. Valtens is jealous of you. You’re smarter and he knows more people like you than want him as king. You’ve beaten him at everything since you were kids. I’m pretty sure he thinks the only way he’ll win is if he removes you from the equation.”
“Which is illegal, but if there are no witnesses, he can spin whatever story he wants,” Torrek said.
I knew my brother was jealous. It was why we stopped being close when we got older. Everything was a competition because eventually, we’d be in the biggest contest of our lives for the throne. I didn’t beat him because I was smarter or stronger. I just tried harder. Valtens expected everything to be given to him, even when it was a contest with his equal.
I hated to say this because hewasmy brother, but he’d turned into the kind of male who would kill me and all my friends to win the throne. And he had my Velne right now. If I knew Baxter, she’d keep that quiet.
If Big Daddy had a neck, I’d be wringing it right about now. But he didn’t feel pain and couldn’t really be reasoned with. Still, helikedBaxter, and I didn’t think he wanted her to die.
“Are you actually going to help?” I snapped.
“I accessed surrounding cameras and have his location. Before I give it to you, you will need a plan.”
“You’ll need weapons,” Ghol said. “Valtens was able to buy from the military, so he’s not going to be using what the average citizen can get.”
“No,” Enix said. “I’ve scanned the data and I’ve seen what kind of weapons they have on this planet. They are primitive and brutal compared to ours, but the noise is the same. Their police force usually shows up when they are fired because someone calls. Baxter was able to explain our appearance before, but we are going to have a pretty hard time making people think we aren’t from another planet if we have weapons with tech not available on this planet. If they don’t automatically think we’re from another planet, they will think we are terrorists, and it won’t end well for us. We have to avoid those weapons going off.”
Fuck. That complicated things, but it wasn’t completely undoable. I needed to think, and I was having trouble doing that with my Velne involved.
“Human security is primitive compared to ours, but they do have it,” Enix said. “Big Daddy sent me the address. I was able to access the blueprints and his security. It’s just cameras. I can trick those. I’m fairly certain he’s counting on those to warn him we are there.”
“Their locks are also primitive,” Omi said. “If I can bypass my mom’s biosignature on an S7 door, then I can pick those locks.”
Torrek pulled Omi into a hug.
“I wanted to strangle you when you did that, but good. I would have just kicked it down.”
“And Valtens would have started shooting,” I groaned.
Omi’s criminal past was going to pay off in more ways than one. And she started laughing hysterically.
“I’ve got an idea.”
It was official. My sister was insane. Kuka went right over that cliff with her as soon as she told us what she wanted to do. Personally, I thought it was just crazy enough to work, but Ghol didn’t like anything about it. He wouldn’t. He had every ounce of battle strategy available on our planet programmed into his head and now that he was here, he could access what they had on this planet, too.
Yeah, it was totally insane, but we really weren’t that different from humans when it came down to it. And as much as Iloathedit, human males seemed to find my sister attractive just like back home. She’d been able to wrap them around her finger since puberty hit and foronce,it was actually useful.
Enix sent the blueprints and security information to our chips so we knew where to avoid the cameras. Ghol stayed with Omi while she gathered her army of devoted, but hormonal teenage males. Ugh. I really wanted to hate that, but I couldn’t.
Enix set the cameras in the back of the house on a loop while Kuka, Enix, and I tried to breach the rear of the property. The problem with that was that the back of Valtens’s property butted against the back of someone else’s. Someone we honestly had no problem with and didn’t want to scare the shit out of prowling through to get to Valtens.
And we definitely didn’t want human police anywhere near this. Kuka just shrugged and marched straight up to their front door. He was up to something. I went with him because it was my duty to protect him, but I half turned so I could watch the door and the street at the same time.
The woman who answered the door was no threat. Saki revered our elders, and this was the human equivalent. She looked at us expectantly and Baxter was right. With his clothes on, everyone just assumed Kuka was wearing contacts and so was Enix. I kept my face in the shadows so I didn’t startle the human elder.
“Excuse me, ma’am, but we’ve received a complaint about your neighbor behind you. We need to get in the back of the house, but he’s refusing to let us. We have authorization to be there. Can we go through your property to get to his?”
Interesting. We did that on our planet, but you had to have official documents authorizing it. Most folks didn’t want to let our police anywhere near their neighbors unless they saw the documents and knew there was a reason for it. Kuka was taking a huge risk. She could easily ask for proof we were authorized to be there.
But she didn’t. She just nodded.
“Are you finally here to look at the smell back there that I’ve been reporting foryears?I’ve also made several noise complaints because whatever he’s doing back there that is causing the stink is also quite loud.”
“Ma’am, that is exactly why we’re here and if it’s illegal, we’ll take care of it.”
