Star Brigade: The Supremacy (SB3) by C.C. Ekeke Page B

up!” Khrome said dryly.
    Kingston scrambled to his feet and backpedaled, nearly falling over. “Get away from me, you mechanical abomination!”
    Khrome’s cobalt-blue face filled with mock sadness. “Now my feelings are hurt!” Then he smiled. “And that’s techno-organic abomination. You xenophobes never get it right!” The Thulican advanced on him now. “Be a respectable bigot and surrender.”
    In response, Kingston whipped out a pulse pistol from his belt and lowered his aim at Khrome’s face, as the Thulican stood inches shorter. “Not to you, alien,” Kingston snarled, “NEVER to you!”
    The Thulican’s round yellow eyes flicked from gun to holder and he abruptly laughed. “Like that’ll work.” Khrome approached everything with a smile or a laugh, one of the things Sam adored about him.
    Kingston pulled the trigger. A blistering pulse bolt struck Khrome point-blank in the face as Kingston squeezed that trigger repeatedly. A sadistic smile lit up his face along with every shot of bright, yellowish energy blasting out of the barrel. Kingston’s pulse pistol was finally spent, leaving just the hollow clicking of a trigger.
    The smoke created by the pulse blasts cleared…along with Reyes’s sneer. Khrome stood in the same spot, barely a blast burn on his face or any trace of amusement. “Told ya it wouldn’t work.” The Thulican’s thick, stubby fingers snaked forth, grabbing Reyes by the collar and practically digging into his flesh. With one hand, Khrome effortlessly tossed the human over his shoulder and through the breach behind them. Kingston shrieked, flailing his limbs uselessly as he sailed over two walkways.
    Khrome peered over the breach where he had thrown Reyes. Tyris ambled up beside him, idly twirling his staff. The Tanoeen shook his spiky head. “Our enemies never learn,” he said, his voice like a frosty draft.
    “But if they learned,” Khrome replied, “our jobs wouldn’t fun!” The teammates fist-bumped up and down before mockingly saluting where Reyes plummeted into the stifling darkness.
    The echoes of Reyes roaring every known swear word in the Standard language floated up from the breach. While the fall wouldn’t kill him, Sam knew of Habraum and UniPol’s plan to release Reyes into the wild and see who he contacted. Hopefully that would produce locations and IDs of Reyes’s masters, and then the Children of Earth’s upper echelon.
    A distant splash signaled the end of Reyes’s plunge. “Really hope that fall hurt,” Sam snickered, returning her attention to helping the Korvenites from their cell box.
     

Chapter 4
    Habraum watched Khrome and Tyris emerge through curling white smoke still fouling the air. The Tanoeen’s spiky, ice-sculpted body shook with mirth. “Eleven,” he declared.
    “So?” Khrome snapped. “I got thirteen.” The pair was caught up in another friendly debate over who took down more hostiles during a field mission.
    Tyris’s indigo eyes widened in shock. “Lies! Don’t count the five you threw me into! I did the work.”
    “No, I did the work while you just stuck your arms out,” Khrome parried, glaring up at his taller and lankier friend. “Meaning that I, Khrome-tastic, get finder’s credit for those takedowns.”
    “Finder’s credit?!” Tyris’s voice was a sharp slap.
    Habraum snorted. Sure, Tyris got on great with his CT-1 teammates, even V’Korram. But the Cerc’s doubts lingered over whether the Tanoeen could be his true right hand like Sam could. “Time will tell,” Habraum muttered to himself before approaching his two subordinates. “Khrome.”
    The two ceased their debate. “Yes, oh captain, my captain,” replied Khrome.
    Habraum towered over Khrome and whispered, “You tagged Reyes, yea?”
    The Thulican looked almost offended. “Did you expect any other outcome, Reign?”
    Habraum smiled and played along, “Of course not. Let me know when he makes contact with his peers.” He patted the Thulican on