Blaster Squad #1 Terror on the Moon

Book 3 Chapter 3

1

Navy Officers’ Quarters

Alliance Station

Orbiting Earth’s moon

4125.9.15 Galactic

Sirenna Albright stopped moving and held her breath. Her senses were on high alert.

Listening intently, Sirenna strained to detect any sound in the still air of her quarters. Someone or something had moved, penetrating her consciousness as she finished peeling off her training gear in preparation for a muscle-soothing shower. The salty perspiration bathing the naked skin of her lithe, athletic frame filled her nostrils as her olfactory senses sniffed for a scent that shouldn’t be here.

A tingle of peppermint tickled her nostrils, making her stomach muscles tense and a knot of tension form in the pit of her stomach. She detested peppermint in all its forms.

Her yellow, almond-shaped eyes flitted to the discarded gun belt that lay around her bare feet where her blaster was still in its holster, her razor-sharp fighting knife and baton were in their separate compartments ready for deployment. Only this time, whoever had infiltrated her quarters had caught her with her pants down. Literally, she thought with grim amusement.

Sirenna prepared for unarmed combat by sliding her left foot backward slowly until it was behind her, in line with her shoulders, which were turned slightly. She then shifted her right foot to a sideways position in relation to her body to add to her stability. She extended her left arm, pushing it straight out, forty-five degrees from her body, her hand forming a fist while pulling her right arm back forming an L-shape, tight against her right torso, waist high, her palm up, fingers curling into a tight second fist.

Her six-foot-tall, hundred and sixty pounds of muscle and sinew were now perfectly balanced and ready to repel an attack. Not an attack from a blaster, obviously, but she would make any attacker pay dearly.

Her eyes widened with surprise when a shadowy figure wearing dull purple blast armor suddenly appeared, standing to her right no more than two feet away. Without hesitation, Sirenna stepped back and to her left, swinging her shoulders square to her target. She shot her right arm out to block the attacker’s blast rifle that was swinging toward her. Her blow was strong enough and placed at just the right spot along the length of barrel that it snapped into two pieces.

This didn’t slow the attacker, who dropped the now useless weapon, the pieces clattering across the floor, and pulled a long-bladed knife from a sheath attached to the belt around its waist.

Sirenna now had her body square to the attacker. She slapped the palms of her hands on the sides of the cool steel blade and twisted. This caused the attacker to lose its grip of the weapon. Sirenna now had control of the thick-handled, eight-inch-long knife.

Before the attacker could react a second time, Sirenna flipped the knife over, catching it in midair, then, with all her strength, slipped it between the gaps in the attacker’s armor. The gaps were necessary to allow the wearer flexibility to move their arms and legs during combat. A fine, strong, plasti-steel mesh protected these vulnerable junctions between the armor plates. But Sirenna knew that, with sufficient force, she could pierce the mesh and slip the sharp blade into the flesh beyond. Especially when her attacker was within striking distance.

Sirenna grunted as the knife sank up to the hilt.

The attacker froze, then sagged to its knees until it collapsed to the floor like a balloon with a leak, landing in a heap on its right side. Blood seeped from the wound, pooling around the body. The attacker grunted in pain and shock. Sirenna couldn’t see its face behind the helmet covering its features, but the chest moved up and down, meaning it was alive.

Sirenna grunted her distain, a sardonic grin spreading across her face.

She squatted next to the armored attacker and checked the belt for other weapons. Seeing none, she grasped the knife’s handle and extracted it from the tear in the mesh. Blood the color of purple grape juice coated the blade.

She studied the helmet and managed to locate the clasp that would unlatch it. She did so and pulled it off the head.

Black eyes a deep shade of obsidian were dulled by pain, and purple blood trickled from the right side of the wide mouth. She was unable to determine the gender by the appearance alone. “Who are you?” asked Sirenna.

“I…bounty…” the attacker gasped, then stiffened, and the grayish purple flesh of its angular face lost what little color remained. The light in the eyes faded until the body sagged when the last of its strength ebbed and was gone. Air escaped the lungs for the last time. The voice sounded female. Regardless, he or she was dead. Bounty hunter?

Sirenna studied the face as a slow frown creased her forehead. After removing the helmet completely, revealing short hair the color of golden, sun-washed wheat, the frown deepened even more. Something isn’t right.

Sirenna reached to her own gun belt still on the floor and extracted her baton after setting the attacker’s knife on the floor. Using the baton, she turned the attacker’s head to the right and looked at the flesh where the neck met the beginning of the jawline. Her eyes drifted to the neck. No Adam’s apple. She sucked in a little air and her eyes widened briefly. The bounty hunter definitely wasn’t male, and she wasn’t an alien.

This dead bounty hunter was a human female, surgically altered to appear alien. Sirenna assumed the blood had also been chemically changed to appear non-human.

Who would go to such trouble? And why did they want her dead?

Sirenna wondered if this bounty hunter had something to do with Nick Justice’s offer of a job with the mercenary team he was forming called Blaster Squad. If that were true, then Blaster Squad would be a highly dangerous, high action-oriented job unlike anything she’d ever enjoyed in the Alliance Navy as a self-defense training contractor.

“Sounds like fun,” she murmured.