Les Mousquetaires – Chapter 6 (Life’s Lemons) Part 1

Les Mousquetaires – Chapter 6 (Life’s Lemons) Part 1
 
 
 
      “To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind. The answer may annihilate the question and the questioner.”  Anne Rice
 
 
 
“They must have seen the two ships slaved to this one and thought they were in for repairs.  They mean to strip us in the air, siphon off the plasma coils, and then leave us to drop,” Bruce hollered over the noise, despite Lynnette being just inches away from him.
 
“Well, they’re going to find a mighty surprise on my boat, that’s for damn sure,” Benny yelled then, as he came up behind them.
 
“Where’d Tiglath go?” he asked, but before anyone had time to answer him, the medium-build man with the tired eyes came back into the center room carrying four large plasma guns.
 
“Don’t bother asking names, these fellas have been haunting me for the past thirteen years.  Been trying to drive Red Wolf Clan entirely into extinction, so they can take over our territories.”
 
Lynnette raised an eyebrow at that.
 
So Bruce quickly explained in her ear, as they both disengaged the safeties on their plasma cannons, “After the war with the Catholics, Red Wolf Clan was awarded the largest territory, but Tiglith’s was the only ship left, so he leases most of it out.”
 
Lynnette looked again around the small out-of-date ship that looked like it was being kept aloft with not much more than hopes and prayers, and then she raised a meaningful eyebrow at the bald yet beautiful man.
 
Which made him chuckle in that knowing kind of way that always drives women wild.
 
And then he said, just as the side of the airship exploded outwards, “He sends it all to the indigenous tribes still stuck on the ground.”
 
And a moment later three large bird-men entered through a hole in the side of the ship.
 
“We’re here for the female,” a large black and blue feathered alien said, as he walked confidently up to the large bullish man that was shielding the small redhead under his arm.
 
“Excuse me?  I don’t believe you were invited,” Tiglath said then, as he moved in an arc around the bird-men, so quick-like none of them could track him.
 
And then, in a single motion – he threw them off of his ship, flinging them like ants off of a picnic blanket.
 
“But how?” Lynnette asked, as she gaped at the place the alien bird-men had just been.
 
“A modified peace bomb,” Tiglath replied, as he looked again at the redhead, and then at the hole in his ship.
 
“We’ve got one chance, and that’s if we jump now, without the slaved ships, and with the giant hole in this one.”
 
“Why? I thought…” Bruce began, but Tiglath put up a hand, and then quickly answered the first question.
 
“Because Cassons can fly, their shit dissolves metal, and one wrong strike and this entire ship will explode.  Now, who wants to jetpack back to their own ship?  Anyone?  Those slaved ships slow us down, it’s either we jump now – or we’re dead where we stand.”
 
“Jump,” Lynnette said, entirely too used to giving orders that risked not only hers but everyone else’s life as well.
 
“Hold on, this is gonna get ugly,” Tiglath hollered, just as Benny shouted, and then pointed out the opening, at the fast approaching hoard.
 
“There’s at least fifty of them!” he hollered over the whirlwind.
 
But before the avian attackers could land, the star-drive engaged and suddenly they were slipping in-between space.  A place no avian alien could follow – without the right technology, that is.
 
And then, just a second later, the ship bounced to a stop thirty-thousand-feet over the South Pacific.
 
“At least it’s a clear day,” Lynnette remarked brightly, as she peered out of the giant opening in the side of the ship.
 
“That’s not a good thing,” Tiglath replied with a dark look.
 
“Why’s that?” Lynnette asked, because the truth was, she was still a bit naïve – even after seventy-some-odd-years.
 
“Because he’ll most likely be drunk as fuck,” Benny quipped, as he once again picked up a hand cannon.  “So, this should be real fun.”
 
 
 
 
 
© Raena Exe 2021
 
 
*Inspired by life.
*All characters, places, and events are completely fictional.
*All rights reserved.

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