Star Kissed

Chapter Twenty

The healer stopped suddenly, and she ran into him. Mandy caught her balance and followed his gaze.

Two squat, rough looking men stood in the hallway, armed to the teeth with weapons she didn’t recognize. The healer trembled and held up his hands to surrender. He went to his knees.

The two men laughed at the move and put their weapons away, trading them for shackles.

Mandy refused to kneel, partially because her body was raging with pent up energy that left her wanting to run. She waited for them to approach. The first went to the healer, who was completely cooperative and submissive. Sick of being passed around from alien to alien, Mandy assessed whether or not she could take one of the little men. After her beat down with Hichele’s guard the other day, she figured she had a better chance of fighting a dwarf than she did a giant, especially with the adrenaline racing in her blood. 

The second man reached for her hands. She made a show of holding them out until he was close enough. Then she kicked him in the crotch with all the strength she could muster. He dropped. She punched him in the nose then kicked him again, turned and fled. She’d taken basic self-defense long ago but didn’t know enough to stay and fight.

Mandy raced through the halls, heart pounding in her ears and lungs soon burning. Acrid smoke rolled out of some rooms, and she covered her mouth with her shirt as she barreled past. She had no idea where she was going, but she wasn’t going to stop until some knocked her flat or she was off the spaceship or the adrenaline wore off.

She cleared one smoky hallway only to run into another of the men who didn’t reach her shoulder. He grabbed her. She kicked and flayed wildly until he released her then raced on.

Something huge smashed into her, driving her through a panel. Mandy groaned and pushed herself up. If she was hurt, the adrenaline buffered her from feeling it. She’d landed in some sort of open bay with no other entrances she could see.

A towering guard in gold climbed to his feet near the door.

“Shit,” she muttered, sensing he wasn’t there to defend her from the invading men.

Mandy looked around for anything she could use to defend herself. The bay was empty.

Something soared over her head and clanged against the floor behind her. She whirled, terrified it was some sort of weapon she should run from.

It looked like a pipe. Mandy stared at it for a second then turned to face the guard. He faced the doorway. A dozen of the smaller men crowded into the room, their weapons trained on the guard.

Unable to figure out what was going on, Mandy’s gaze settled on Hichele. The woman and her father were ushered into the room, along with two more guards in shackles.

“Your weapon,” one of the smaller men said, addressing her. He pointed past her and grinned.

Mandy followed his finger and saw the pipe. Not understanding, she turned once more to face him. Another half a dozen smaller men had entered.

“I don’t get it,” she voiced, beyond confused. Her mind raced too quickly for her to process what was happening, and her body quaked from the drug the healer gave her.

“They want you to fight,” Hichele said. “Him.” She nodded her head towards the guard.

Mandy looked anew at the guard in gold. She swallowed hard then retreated to grab the pipe-like weapon. She looked it over, guessing it was something far more advanced than a pipe but uncertain what.

“Kini only respond to violence,” Hichele’s father said. “Their insistence on physical confrontation is irrational, a battle no respectable Naki will fight.”

I’m not a Naki, she said silently. Out loud, she asked, “Do I get a free hit in?”

The guard beckoned her forward in an affirmative answer. Mandy gripped and released the pipe weapon, hands clammy, doubting her one hit was going to help her cause in the slightest. At least she couldn’t feel anything with the drug in her system. Maybe this beat down would be painless, and then she’d be dead.

Was this really how her life ended? Without knowing if Akkadi was alive? She was too juiced up to cry.

“Only seen one Naki fight,” one of the smaller men said.

Laughter rippled around the latest alien invaders to capture her. Their eyes were on her.

“Never seen a Naki woman fight,” another added.

“I’m definitely not a Naki,” she snapped.

“You look like a Naki.”

“Now those are fighting words.” Mandy glared at the man who spoke. “That is the single most offensive thing anyone has ever said to me!”

“A challenge!” someone cried gleefully.

The man who called her a Naki appeared thoughtful then nodded. He stepped out of the group and tugged off some of his weapons.

“I accept,” he said. He pointed to the guard. “Step back!”

Mandy suspected this was the worst in her series of bad decisions. At least the robed guard could kill her with one blow. She was about to be beaten to death slowly by the smaller man who accepted a challenge she didn’t know she was making.

“For the record, I’m a purebred human, not a Naki,” she told him. “Does that mean anything to you?”

“No.”

She sighed and raised the pipe. “Let’s get this over with.”

Someday, she’d wake up from this nightmare, but it didn’t look like today was that day.

If I don’t die here, I want to be with Akkadi.

It was the most irrational of her latest thoughts. There was no way she was getting out of here alive.

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