To Rescue a Villain

Chapter 23

The clicking sound was starting up again and I had to resist plugging my ears because carrying a gun was more important. We'd been traveling through this maze of doors for almost half an hour and my legs were starting to ache. It was at times like this that I really wished I had the ability to fly...Sure, I could teleport but I didn't want to show off my powers to these people just yet.

"You are nearly there." Di's voice rang down from probably the biggest door we'd seen today. "There are a large number of enemies behind this door."

"Thanks for the warning but we're fine," Jala informed her, placing herself to the right of the entrance and holding up a gun she'd found earlier "Go ahead."

The AI obeyed and opened the control room. It was massive, nearly the size of a courtyard, and had a floor to ceiling window that looked out on the planet Manica and its surrounding stars. In front of the window was a large control panel that stretched about seven feet high. Surrounding it were twenty to thirty of those female aliens.

I desperately scanned the room for Derek but he was nowhere to be seen. My heart starting burning as I considered that he might already be dead but then a gunshot sounded from behind the control panel.

"Hey!" His voice sounded in our ears, his breath quick and labored. "Can you give me a little help, please? I've been holding these guys off for twenty minutes."

Maddox grabbed his sword and ran forward, silent as a cat and swift as a hawk. In moments he had cut off the head of the closest creature and was ready to dig into the rest.

As the girls went to join him I glanced over my shoulder at John Philips, who was attempting to hide behind the door as best he could. When he realized that he was being watched, he shooed me away and pointed to the crowd of aliens.

"Don't worry about me. Kill them!"

"I wasn't worried," I muttered under my breath, scrunching my nose at him before turning back to the fight. "I was just wondering why you wouldn't help us." Then, shaking my head, I also joined in...by shooting the aliens from afar.

Maddox and Jala were already starting to establish their trademark form of fighting. They were standing back to back and using their swords to slice their enemies' heads clean off. Maddox would dig his blade into the sternum of one and Jala would cut off the head while it was stabilized.

Zora was standing nearby and used two large pistols to demolish the enemy. Her aim was incredible, which made me slightly jealous, and she managed to land almost every shot near or in the enemy's brain, immediately rendering them helpless.

It was somewhat gruesome but also awesome to finally see the heroes of the story come to life.

When the last body fell, Derek finally peeked his head out from behind the control panel and breathed a loud, exaggerated sigh of relief. His black Hikarius uniform had some splatters of blood on it but he wasn't acting wounded so I allowed my panicked heart to calm down.

"Thank goodness you guys showed up," Derek yelled excitedly, his face lighting up as he holstered his equally blood covered gun and looked all three of them over. "Di definitely chose the right heroes for the job. I'm Derek Hacket."

Jala and Maddox were hesitant to shake his offered hand but Zora didn't seem to mind one bit. Her eyes were brighter than they'd been moments before which I could only hope was a result of killing crazy aliens, not from seeing my rugged, enthusiastic husband.

I had to admit, the years had been good to him. The scar on his face from ten years ago made him look more masculine and he'd started growing his hair out a little. I was kind of sad that Polly hadn't inherited his hair color because it looked really good on him and likely would have on her too. Instead, she'd grown up with blonde hair like mine.

Anyway, hair critiques aside, Derek was alive and looked super hyped about this adventure despite his entire crew getting killed by aliens.

"All right. Now I know that fighting aliens was not in the job description but, based on what I just saw, you guys should be able to handle it. I was originally going to send you straight to the moon's core to find out what's going on down there but, with the ship being attacked and all, that'll have to wait."

I found it kind of amusing that he hadn't noticed me yet. We hadn't seen each other for three weeks, after all. It was hard for him to convince his boss to let him visit Manica so our meetings had been few and far between. He was probably just distracted, right?

"I need your help to clear all of these...things out." He pointed to the corpses littering the ground with a look of disgust. "I've seen them eat lots of my coworkers. Once we get rid of them, we're gonna head down to the moon, find their hive or nest, and destroy it so they can't hurt anyone else."

Jala liked the sound of that but crossed her arms. "Who woke them up?"

Derek was about to answer when I spotted movement out of the corner of my eye. Since I was standing further away, I had a broader view of the room so when I looked up, I could see a final alien crawling along the corner of the ceiling, its arms digging into the wall paneling like a lizard of some kind. Its eyes were focused on Derek.

I knew what was about to happen. It was going to leap on top of him and try to rip him apart. I couldn't let that happen.

Yelling for everyone to duck, I raised my hand and flung the creature across the room, snapping its neck when it collided with the opposite wall. Then, to make sure it was truly dead, I sent it crashing onto the hard floor, breaking a few more of its bones.

"Whoa." Jala leapt backwards in surprise, laughing gleefully. "Are you a Valdis?"

I nodded, smiling slightly at her reaction, before turning back to Derek. He had finally noticed me.

His dark eyes were wide and I couldn't help but notice Zora's brow furrow as she watched him run toward me and wrap me in a tight hug, his laughter echoing through the huge room.

"What are you doing here?" he whispered, his face buried in my hair. "How are you? How's Polly?"

"We're all fine," I answered. "You're not injured, are you?"

"No." He hesitantly pulled away and took a look at the blood running down his front. "This was from a colleague of mine. He fell on top of me during the first attack a couple days ago. If it weren't for him I might have died."

I frowned, realizing I should have come earlier. I'd forgotten how early the aliens had invaded.

Seeing my concern, Derek gave me a quick kiss to assure me that everything was fine, then turned to the other three with a huge grin on his face. "Sorry for the interruption," he told them, just now realizing how embarrassing this must have been for them.

Both Zora and Jala looked slightly confused but Maddox was just staring out the window, oblivious and uncaring.

My husband chuckled, his sweet voice turning serious. "Mary is my wife so if you allow any harm to come to her I will kill you."