CHAPTER 87

FRANKLY, I’d been expecting nothing to happen. But the cosmos did me a solid and transferred me right to where I’d been thinking. I almost didn’t react, I was so shocked.

However, self-preservation kicked in fast. Dropped the cube into my purse and readied my battle staff at hyperspeed because, naturally, the room where Jeff, Chuckie, and, thankfully, the other guys were wasn’t devoid of Rapacians. In fact the room was rather large and there was easily a full platoon if not a battalion of Rapacians in here.

I’d been seen but I started running around the room and that meant I disappeared, at least per the Rapacians’ shouts. Kicked it up to the higher gear my total rage at seeing what they were doing to my men gave me and ran up to and on the ceiling, making sure I avoided the glowing square that indicated where I could utilize the cube’s Free Return Trip option. If I hit that, I’d go back to the ship I’d left, and that wasn’t happening until I’d saved my men.

Jeff was on his knees, our enemies’ fave position for him, and as per usual, he was stripped to the waist. They had his hands tied and had him holding them behind his head. Great view, since even in pain and close to death the man was drop-dead gorgeous. But I was here to avoid the drop-dead part.

Interestingly, the torture the Rapacians were doing was physical. The A-C fast regeneration meant that Jeff was healing quickly whenever they lashed him with something that looked like a nasty cat-o’-nine-tails.

Chuckie, meanwhile, was in a contraption that looked a lot like what they’d put plain old Steve Rogers into so that he could walk out as Captain America. He also had a gigantic version of the jewel in the circlets clamped to his forehead. However, if Chuckie was going to walk out as anything, it seemed like the Rapacians were shooting for Vegetable Man. He was still all there mentally—I could tell due to our connection—but he wasn’t going to hold out for too much longer.

My music had stopped the moment we’d gotten into the room, presumably because Chuckie couldn’t take anything more barraging his mind, and/or because the Rapacians would be able to hear it somehow. Gave it even odds for either. Or both.

The other guys were shackled to the walls in shackles that looked like they really hurt if the prisoner was just standing there, let alone if they tried to move. Clearly only Lakin had the “kind and gentle” containment setup on his ship.

The room was a basic rectangle, but there was a little alcove. Went over there to discover that they did indeed have Lakin’s energy cage—they were just using it to control Christopher. The Rapacian standing there was constantly pushing blue buttons. Realized that Christopher was using his speed to try to break through, and that meant they had three of the cages around him—as he broke through one, they reactivated it.

Had no idea of who to try to rescue first. This wasn’t based on love or anything, but on reasonable chance of success. The Rapacians knew I was in the room, and while I was mad enough to hit all of them possibly before one of them got a lucky hit on me, that wasn’t guaranteed.

My music changed to “Built for Speed” by the Stray Cats. Decided not to argue.

Dropped down from the ceiling onto the Rapacian with the remote. The remote dropped out of his hand and skittered toward the energy cage. What would happen if it hit the cage I didn’t want to find out, but my imagination shared a lot of options with me, all of them horrifyingly bad.

However, I had a Rapacian to overpower first, because my landing on him hadn’t knocked him out, just down. Leaped up, brained him, hard, then leaped for the remote. Caught it just before it hit the cage.

Leaped back and ripped the circlet off of the now-unconscious Rapacian’s head, destroyed it, tossed him to the side but out of sight of anyone who wasn’t looking directly into the alcove, then took a look at the remote. Had the same number and color of buttons as the one Serene now was controlling and in the same order. Hit all the blue buttons.

The cage disappeared and Christopher collapsed. Fortunately I was still going at the super speeds he usually used, so I was able to grab him before he hit the floor. Dug around in my purse and pulled out a couple of waterfruit. His Poof, Toby, came out with the fruit. “Eat these,” I said softly, as Toby jumped onto his shoulder and nuzzled him.

Somehow, no one had heard us. Possibly because they were still busy shouting at each other and searching for me. Well, at least that meant they weren’t hurting Jeff for the moment.

Christopher ate at hyperspeed so he was done quickly. “Thanks, for the save and the waterfruit. I feel a lot better.”

The shouting sounded far less chaotic. We peeked around the corner. There were a lot of angry Rapacians all doing the same thing—swinging their weapons around themselves. They were placed so that each one was just at the edge of the other’s weapon range, so they were covering all the available space. There were two Rapacians guarding the door in the same fashion. The likelihood of one of them hitting us, fastest hyperspeed around or not, went up dramatically. The likelihood that one of them would ask where the guy guarding their special prisoner was went off the charts.

“What we need is a distraction,” I said softly to Christopher. “Something to focus them while we take them out.” But Fancy wasn’t on this ship, and neither was anyone else, and, frankly, I didn’t want either one of us to be the distraction because the likelihood of us getting hurt was high and getting higher. Basically, I was at a loss unless I asked the Poofs to do something. However, them eating the Rapacians was out, at least for the moment, and if they couldn’t devour, then they’d just be big targets for people already in a killing mood.

“I’m out of ideas,” he whispered back. “All I want to do is kill everyone in this room that isn’t from Earth.”

“I feel your pain, believe me. But we have to do something, and fast. Not only do we need to get them all under control but we need to also destroy all the circlets on their heads. We’ve kept a few, but the majority need to go sooner than soon.” Before they drained Chuckie’s brain.

“Ah. I see everything you just went through and what you and Serene are trying to do. And, God, is that really what they’re doing to Chuck? I thought what they were doing to Jeff was bad enough. Yeah, we need to get the others free and take over this ship.”

“Nice to see our mind-reading abilities remain intact up here. And, I guess I could see if I have another self-contained nuke in my purse.”

“I don’t even want to know. That will just kill Jeff and the others, so no, even if you have one.”

“I could try the Return of the Jedi gambit.”

“Good grief. I can see what you’re thinking, and no, that won’t work in this situation. No one’s going to believe you’re willing to blow yourself and everyone else up.”

“I’m seriously open to ideas. My husband and best friend are both about to die, and in ugly ways I am not willing to allow. We need a distraction and we need it now.”

And, proving that sometimes you really did get what you asked for, a distraction presented itself. Loudly.