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  Cooke jumped his craft upwards again to the black skies. His pursuer followed. The two ships whizzed past Windhoek as fast streaks of lights in the black sky and vanished into the horizon.

  The alien ship spat more blasts.

  Cooke took a dive downwards and flew close to the surface. The alien ship kept its height above and shot at him from there. He made Toyer dance all over the area. The craft jumped and leaped everywhere, the energy blasts aimed at it hitting the hard ground below, and creating small craters in the entire area. Then one of the laser blasts hit Toyer’s tail. The fighter ship shook violently and spun out of control. It came tumbling down, falling towards the hard, rugged and hilly surface like a heavy rock. Cooke knew soon the ship would hit the ground and he would die. The thought scared him. He wasn’t ready to die yet. He fumbled for a while but finally found the control levers – and pulled them backwards.

  Maybe there was something he could still do.

  The ship didn’t respond. He pushed the levers forward and pulled then back again. Still - there was no change. He didn’t give up though - he tried for the third time. Toyer stopped spinning and steadied a bit. The damage was not that lethal. Cooke pulled the left lever some more and the ship straightened. He swerved the ship to the left, circling back quickly to face the oncoming alien craft. It was in front of him in his line of sight and fire now. He could see its blinking lights clearly. He pressed the triggers. Toyer’s front heavy guns coughed laser.

  Phfphfphfphfphfphfweeeeo!

  The laser guns whistled and screamed. The alien craft swung to the right and Lieutenant Cooke followed it. The tables were turned. He was now in control of the chase. The alien ship raced to the south at high speed and Cooke gave chase. It maintained its high speed dancing about in evasive maneuvers avoiding his blasts. It continued south with him on its tail his guns blazing and it kept to continuously dance out of his line of fire. Twenty minutes later the two ships were still zigzagging about in the Kalahari sky. The scorpion ship swerved east and Cooke followed it. Finally he locked on it.

  The black scorpion went spinning downwards and crashed against a hillside. Cooke sped past and circled back quickly.

  “Lieutenant Cooke, the other alien craft is coming this way. It shall be here in less than a minute.” Delilah informed him.

  “I don’t care. I’m going to kill that bastard who crashed. They killed Merida.” Cooke snapped.

  He swooped Toyer downwards like an eagle and sprayed the crashed alien ship with laser fire. He wouldn’t be Cooke Hamilton if he didn’t blow the asshole to pieces like they did to Merida. After a few shots the alien craft exploded in a blinding flash that turned night into day. Its shattered bits scattered over the whole area. He dived his craft upwards to flee before the other ship arrived, but he was late. A trail of red laser fire hit his precious fighter craft. The poisonous black scorpion that stung Merida to death had come for him too! His ship rocked hard and went spinning to the ground.

  It was time to leave Toyer.

  He’d seen how this just arrived pilot operated like. He didn’t want to be blown to pieces along with his ship like Merida. The safest place to be was out there in the cold, not inside the falling ship. He had to abandon Toyer before the enemy could blow it to bits. He released the ejector seat and the craft spat him out.

  He watched from above as his craft continued spinning downwards, but quickly lost track of it as Xerla’s blinding spotlights fell on him. In about five minutes Cooke hit the hard ground. He rolled over, released the chute, and pulled himself up. The unidentified craft was circling overhead. Its bright lights on him - blinding him. He tried to run but laser fire hit the ground around him. He stopped dead in his tracks. The craft glided unhurried to the ground, its strong beams of white lights still fixed on him.

  It stopped and hovered about 30 inches above the ground a short distance away from him and its doors hissed open. A dark figure loomed into view, a huge laser gun in its hands. The figure jumped from the ship to the ground and hurried across towards him; gun fixed on him. Cold sweat trickled down Cooke’s spine. He risked a step backwards, arms raised in the air.

  “Don’t shoot. Please.” He shouted in English.

  “Nim ha kyo xixoha koba xi nom hanagas xiho re tuxipitkazir!” The figure shouted in a strange alien tongue. Laser blasts dug holes on the ground around him, choking him with dust and sand, a few times hitting him with stones the size of his fists.

  “For god’s sake alien, you are heartless; I have my arms in the air.” Cooke shouted in English even though he knew it was useless. The alien woman stopped firing but kept on approaching him. She stopped only a few meters away from him and removed her headgear. She was about six feet tall and had really long green hair that was loose, reaching all the way to her waist. She had on an armored suit covering her entirely from the neck up downwards. The suit had red alien digital writings flashing on it all over.

  The woman muttered something in her strange alien tongue again and moved closer to him. She reached out and pulled his head gear off completely, revealing his boyish handsome face with a strong jawline and dark brown eyes. Her face lit in amazement and surprise. She turned him sideways forcefully and touched his ears a few times, studying them in her ship’s strong lights then released them. She circled him a few times studying him with a lot of interest. Finally, she stopped in front of him. She reached to her left ear and lifted her hair to reveal her ears. She had slightly longer than normal, pointed ears. She muttered something quietly in that same alien tongue she used earlier then stepped back. A serious don’t-fuck-with me look planted across her face. She raised her gun in an instant and pointed it at him again. She nudged him with the huge laser gun signaling to him to start moving towards her craft.

  CHAPTER 6: CEDE

  It was many moments later. Twenty or so minutes after Tilyhn cut his penis. Cede was barely alive and still lying motionless in bed where Tilyhn left him.

  Where are the fucking bodyguards? He asked himself.

  It was a long time since Tilyhn left.

  They should have caught her already by now and rushed to his quarters to alert him that she tried to escape as usual. What was delaying them? Had Tilyhn managed to actually escape?

  If his guards didn’t find him in time he would surely die. There wasn’t much time left. He had lost a lot of blood already.

  Everything was slowly becoming blurry and distant. He was slowly drifting away into darkness.

  Where are they?

  He tried to keep awake and avoid passing out by repeating the question over and over in his mind. His plan wasn’t working. Darkness kept on creeping in on him. The mafia boss knew he was on the verge of death. Not the kind of death he thought he would die, being literally stripped of his manhood and left to die a slow painful death. He had always thought he would die by the hands of his competition. Not by a girl’s hand. No, he had never a thought a mere young woman would be the one to kill him. Never.

  Everything ends here right now. I am dying and there is nothing I can do about it. He lamented silently.

  He wished he could go back and do all things that he didn’t do yet, but knew he couldn’t now that he was dying. It was late. He was scared of what the afterlife had in store for him. He feared the afterlife wasn’t going to be as enjoyable as his life had been if everything Inzperu preached about was true. With each breath he took, it became darker than before, darkness he had never seen nor imagined engulfed him.

  I’m dying. Fuck. I haven’t done all the things that I wanted to do...

  Everything went black.

  He didn’t hear the shouts of his bodyguards as they entered into his quarters breathless to find him motionless in a pool of blood. He didn’t hear them carrying him as fast as they could across to the far side of his ship to the fully equipped and operational, first class clinic aboard the Lilzaint staffed with ten very skilled alien doctors of different races money could buy.

  An hour later Cede had regai
ned consciousness.

  His back was hurting though – he had been lying on it for a while and it was complaining. He shifted a little trying to ease the ache on his back. Unimaginable pain seared throughout his entire body.

  He shouted an insult equivalent to “Fucking sick fucks!” to his doctors in Ekcyrien.

  “Fifteen minutes ago you said the pain would go after ten minutes. It still hurts you good for nothings. Tell me why I hired you. You haven’t even a single clue as to what you are supposed to be doing. Your painkillers don’t do shit.”

  He was still in the clinic aboard the Lilzaint, lying in a hospital bed where he had been since after the operation. Fifty minutes prior, he had come to from the depths of hell to find himself on an operating table surrounded by his doctors who were busy surgically re-attaching his penis. It took them thirty full minutes. Tilyhn had cut it straight from the middle, but that didn’t matter now, his penis was back where it belonged, although it still hurt like hell.

  The castration was by far the worst and most painful highlight of his entire life. A man should never have to be separated from his penis. He felt inhuman and worthless those many minutes his dick was lying on the floor across the room from him. Away from its master.

  Tilyhn was going to pay.

  He was going to see to it. He would not let her get away with it. She was going to pay with her life at his own hands. He would enjoy killing her so much. He shall choke her to death while he raped her. How could she cut his male organ like she did? He was Cede; nobody would never belittle him like that and get away with it.

  “Don’t worry sir, it shall be over soon. And by tomorrow your package will be as good as it was and you will be ready to use it.” The older doctor who had led the operation told him.

  He wasn’t lying. By tomorrow his penis would be okay, Cede knew that. But tomorrow was far. He wanted now. His bodyguards were out hunting for the whore. There was nowhere she could escape to. This planet was dead and lifeless. They would catch her in no time. He was certain of it. They were bound to return with her any moment and he would have loved to perform the ritual of choking her to death while raping her today, not tomorrow.

  “Do I look like a patient man?” Cede asked the doctor. “You better be right, if more than fifteen minutes passes and this pain is still there you are a dead man doctor. You better pray you are right.” Cede growled.

  He hated pain. He wasn’t used to it. Usually it was he who caused people pain, not the other way around. And he was good at it. If the pain wasn’t going to stop soon then the doctor would be a cursed man.

  CHAPTER 7: XERLA

  The alien man was extremely lucky. Xerla thought. If he were just an ordinary Hycn pirate he would be dead already. She would have long killed him in mid-air while he was falling in his chute. But he wasn’t an ordinary pirate. His and the other ship she blew were not ordinary pirate ships. They were very advanced military ships, and their pilots appeared to have been thoroughly trained in aerial battles too, there was no way an ordinary space pirate could have outsmarted Kocz in an air fight. Kocz was an outstanding pilot.

  She wondered where the alien man and his dead partner could have come from, and what they were doing out here on the wandering planet. Others were probably lurking somewhere close by and were bound to come looking for them soon.

  They were a few feet from reaching her craft when laser fire swooshed above their heads.

  “Hold it right there. Release Lieutenant Cooke at once before I kill you woman.” An emotionless female voice announced.

  Xerla froze on the spot, her gun still aimed at Cooke.

  “Who is there?” She shouted back in her native tongue as if she understood. She cursed silently. She was not expecting another enemy close by.

  “I said release Cooke whore - before I blast you.” The voice coming from Cooke’s crashed ship repeated.

  “Who is there?” Xerla asked again in Ekcyrien.

  “Hand that big gun to Lieutenant Cooke Hamilton and walk away from your craft alien.”

  “I said who is there.”

  “Do as I tell you or I will be forced to you.”

  Xerla gave in at last. She let her huge laser gun drop to the ground. Cooke sighed and relaxed. He owed Delilah one for saving him. He bent down and picked the gun.

  “Wow that was really awesome Delilah, for a while I thought I was done for. Thanks” Cooke said after picking Xerla’s gun. He held it casually in his thick, tattooed arms like it was his. Like a mercenary would. He loved big guns. They represented power.

  “Of course I had to save your sorry ass lieutenant. I wonder what you would do without me” Delilah commented. Cooke grunted and shut up. He owed the AI. It saved him from being taken captive by the alien warrior princess; he would let this rude comment slide

  He started walking towards Xerla’s craft.

  “And now?” Delilah asked him at once.

  “I’m taking her craft. I should be able to steer it without any trouble.” Cooke responded.

  “What about me? And your mission?”

  “You are an online AI for god’s sake. You are not even here, you reside in a server somewhere down below. Initiate the ship’s drive format. Erase everything.”

  “I should be able to make it to the Africom base without any difficulty. Tell the commander I have been delayed in completing my mission. On second thought, don’t. I’ll call and tell him myself when I reach Africom.” Cooke told the AI.

  “What about her?” Delilah enquired.

  “She should thank god I’m not killing her for blowing Merida to pieces. She can go crawl into a hole and die for all I care.” Cooke Hamilton paused a few meters away from the Ekcyrien craft and admired it for a moment. The scorpion had a black metallic body about 12 feet across and 23 feet long. Its flip open semi-circular cockpit was placed towards the middle on top of its sloping surface to give the pilot an unobstructed view around, and there was a narrow walkway going along the length of the fuselage to the cockpit. At the front, two huge laser guns extruded on both sides like a scorpion’s front claws. In the rear it had a long, narrow and pointed scorpion-like tail bending upwards back to the front; ending above the cockpit. This was the big gun where very lethal laser blasts were fired from. Cooke saw it for himself when the alien woman blew Merida up. Attached to the scorpion’s lower part of its body on each side were four rods that functioned as legs when landing and folded unto the underside of the alien ship when in flight.

  Cooke boarded the ship and shut the cockpit. He sighed in relieve as he found that its controls were not that different from Toyer’s. He would be able to steer the craft without any trouble. A few minutes after he’d boarded the scorpion its engines came to life. The ship blasted off eastwards heading for Africom, leaving Xerla alone in the middle of nowhere - pissed off at herself for being out-smarted by an AI, and more than anything else, pissed off at Cooke for hijacking her ship. She activated the communications radio device embedded in her protective headgear and contacted The Maztica for somebody to come pick her up.

  THE END.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Dimpho Sametsi also known as D.S. Foliche in the writing circles is an enthusiastic Photographer/Graphic designer living in Botswana who loves to write about characters with complicated psyches, aliens and the supernatural.

  https://twitter.com/DSFoliche

 

 

  D.S. Foliche, Hycn

 

 

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