“Another ship!” I yell. “There’s another ship coming through the gate!”
Everyone sucks in a breath. Holding it, as the massive warship exits the gate and speeds towards us. Firing as they approach.
“This is it,” I say.
The beam of light coming towards us is so wide I can’t even comprehend the distance across it.
“SEAR cannon incoming!” Xyla yells.
And for some reason, I think… So that’s what SEAR fire looks like.
But it doesn’t hit us.
It goes right past us and takes out both Cygnian warships at the same time. The explosion is both beautiful and terrifying. Great clouds of gas and fire shoot out into space. Blue, and purple, and orange.
“What the fuck was that?” Jimmy yells.
“I have no clue,” Xyla says. “But there’s an incoming neutrino wave message.”
“What?” Jimmy says.
“Playing it,” Xyla says.
Then a deep, feminine voice blares through the internal comms. “This is the Mighty Minions warship Demon Girl to the Big Dicker. You are under arrest for failing to pay exit fees at Mighty Minions Station, for damages done to the Lava Mountain docking bay, and for the theft of the Palladium Rewards Bot, X007. Surrender, or we will take you by force.”
I belt out a single, “Ha!”
Jimmy looks back at me from the other side of the ship. He says, “Do you believe this fucking shit? That place is gonna squeeze every last credit out of me before they’re done.”
The little one screams, “Mighty Boss to the rescue!”
“Another incoming message,” Dicker announces. “This one’s video. Should I play it?”
“Why the fuck not?” Jimmy says, annoyed. “That fucking ship is probably gonna tell me I’ve been conscripted into the Mighty Minions Ambassador army.”
“It’s not from Mighty Minions,” Dicker says. “It’s from the third Cygnian warship. Which conveniently disappeared through a cloaked gate once Demon Girl showed up.”
“Huh,” Jimmy says. “Let’s hear it then.”
I sit up, then get to my feet and walk forward toward the cockpit when Veila’s face appears on the large screen.
She is a hot mess. Her silver hair is all tangled and sloppy. Scorch marks on her long silver and white gown. And there’s a deep cut above her left eye.
She glows bright white light as she sneers into the camera, her lip curling into a snarl as she says, “You win this time. But I’ll be back. For all of you. And you can both forget about ever seeing your siblings again. They are as good as dead now.”
A few seconds pass as she glares at us from the screen, then it goes black.
“Fuck you!” the little one yells. “I’m gonna kill that bitch! I’m gonna kill her so dead!”
The boys behind me calm him down and I stand in the middle of the ship, halfway between Jimmy and the boys, and just… smile.
Because we’re safe now. We might end up in a Mighty Minions prison, but compared to being used as breeding stock for Veila’s insane genetics plot, I figure that place isn’t so bad.
And besides. She won’t kill Tycho.
She can’t kill Tycho.
Because she needs him.
She needs all of us.
But you know what I need more than she needs us?
Revenge.
I’m just as good as her. I am just as powerful as her. I am a true-blood Cygnian princess and now I have the galaxy’s most dangerous Akeelian males on my side.
So I send my aunt Veila a little mental message.
I’m coming for you, bitch.
We’re all coming for you.
Right after we get out of the Mighty Minions prison.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE – JIMMY
Demon Girl locks a tractor beam onto Dicker and we wait for them to shuttle over and board.
All the kids are accounted for. One fell down a stairwell when Dicker accelerated and broke his leg, but he’s in our medical bay and he’ll be fine once we get him back to Harem.
If we can get away from Mighty Minions. And that’s starting to look more and more doubtful as the minutes tick off.
“That fucking place,” I growl to Delphi. She’s sitting in my lap in the cockpit. Xyla is shooting me weird looks about this, but I don’t care. How many times in the past twenty-four hours did we almost get turned into sex slaves, or semen collectors, or hell, just die?
Too many to think about.
I can’t let her out of my arms again. I don’t care if she’s not my one. She is the only one I want. And I’m gonna hold her tight for the rest of our lives.
“Don’t worry about it,” Xyla says. “We’ll just pay the stupid fine and be done with them forever.”
The stupid fine? ALCOR is going to shit himself when he sees this bill. Because they’re charging us half a billion credits for fees, and damages, and penalties.
But then I realize… Baby ALCOR doesn’t give a shit about our accounts. It’s Old ALCOR who would throw a fit. And he’s dead.