"Why is it I always seem to be getting in fights in this payload bay?" I asked Tatiana as I grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled her over to the floor as we hit. We tumbled for several meters and came to a stop against one of the modified warp missiles that was stored there. "Well, that missile ain't ever gonna fire," I said as I ducked her barrage of kicks and punches. "Come on, honey, snap out of it, will ya! Fight the bastard!"
I was blocking her punches and kicks while trying to grab her. I couldn't bring myself to—really—hit her. I knew it wasn't her doing this. It couldn't be her.
Tatiana, what are you doing?
Tatiana is not home, little monkey. Opolawn's voice came to me through Tatiana's mind link. This was enough to startle me and throw me off guard for a split microsecond. That was all that Tatiana, uh, Opolawn, needed.
She caught me with a right hook to the head and then dropped and grabbed me by the ankles and yanked my feet out from under me. As I lost my balance she tossed me headfirst into the bulkhead. I hit the wall with a massive crack and my head poked clean through the metal wall and into the hallway on the other side.
"That hurt!" I saw stars for several seconds before the nanomachines could right my injuries. I pulled myself back through the hole in the wall and shook myself off. I was too late.
Tatiana was already in the smaller Gray ship and had opened the bay doors. She couldn't get anywhere in the little ship though because the outside warp bubble was still in place around the Phoenix.
Let her go, Opolawn, she can't get out!
Why would I do that, monkey?
"Steven? What is going on!? Where are you!?" Tabitha's voice came over the comm.
"Don't open the warp bubble, Tabitha. Opolawn is controlling Tatiana and she is trying to fly off the Phoenix with the smaller Gray ship," I called back to her.
"Roger that!" Tabitha responded.
Tatiana, fight him. Snap out of it, baby!
That will do you no good, monkey. No human has ever overcome the Himbroozya before.
Yeah, well, nobody bats a thousand!
Let her out or I will force her to fly into the warp field wall at high velocity. The little bug ship will probably bounce around inside the bubble and beat all of you even more senseless than you are.
Stop it!
Let her go.
No!
Then you will all die. The little Gray ship lifted slowly off the deck plating and hovered for a second.
Okay! Wait! Opolawn, wait! But not her. I'll meet you on the surface with the controller, but you have to let her alone now!
Brave monkey. Very well.
Steven? Tatiana's mind voice came to me.
Tatiana, land the craft and come to me. She landed the little spaceship and crawled out of it. I took the controller from her and put it in my pocket with the replica. I wasn't worried about confusing them—Mike knew the difference. As soon as Tatiana handed me the controller a small warp field formed around her. I turned and there was Anson pointing his little warp field projection device at her.
"It's for her own good, son!" he said.
"I agree," I told him.
CHAPTER 27
I had my alien armor suit on everywhere except for my head. I figured that Opolawn wouldn't recognize me and would think I was up to something if he couldn't see my face. I also grabbed an extra warp armor belt in case mine went out. I wanted to be prepared for anything, whether I would need another one or not. "Be prepared" was the only credo that seemed to make any sense to me at this point. So I grabbed everything I had with me that would fit in my pockets. I put on my double shoulder-harnessed nine-millimeter Glocks just in case. I didn't think that a handgun was going to do me any good in a high-tech battle against a creature as powerful as Opolawn, but again, be prepared.
I hadn't told Opolawn how or where on the surface I would meet him, so I called out over the YIT to him and he opened a communications channel. I told him I was coming out and that I would meet him on the ground at the landing field we were at earlier. He agreed to that location and told me that he was losing his patience and that I had two minutes.
Tabitha set up two warp bubbles around the Phoenix. The first one was the one that was already in place and was holding off Opolawn's yellow tractor beam. She adjusted the interior space of the bubble enough so that she could project a second bubble. I flew the little alien ship out past the location for the inner bubble and she turned it on and turned off the outer bubble. The light bombarded the ship and the bubble and Opolawn's air force was surprised because fourteen ships surrounding the Phoenix's warp bubble opened fire on it when the outer field went down.
"CLEVER MONKEY." Opolawn's voice boomed over the Gray ship's intercom as several of his fighters fell in beside me. I kept my warp armor on just in case he tried something fishy.
"You didn't think we were that stupid, did you?" I called back at him and faked a laugh.
I landed the ship meters away from where we had landed the Phoenix earlier that day and I hopped out onto the platform where I had dumped Prawmitoos.
"Okay, Opolawn, here I am!" I yelled up at the blinding miniature sun.
Opolawn drifted slowly down to the ground and dimmed himself slightly. He almost dimmed himself enough that you could tell it was nighttime.
"Hand over the controller, monkey, and no tricks," he said.
I placed the replica controller on the ground in front of me and backed up so the controller was on the edge of the bubble. I expanded the warp armor bubble to its maximum and then I turned on the second warp bubble. The second bubble I kept nearly skintight so I could turn off the outer bubble, leaving the picophage control mechanism lying on the ground unprotected and between myself and the alien.
Opolawn began to laugh as he walked toward the device confidently, and arrogantly he said, "Monkey, you should learn where your place is." He bent over to pick up the controller and for the first time I realized that his knees bent both ways.
"Now!" I yelled into the comm. Opolawn looked up just as the squeeze play warp missile appeared and caught him in a squeeze. The force of the implosion threw me back a thousand meters, and debris and rubble blasted through the air around me. I warped into Opolawn from a head-on position to keep him off balance. The impact sent him flying about eighty meters straight up above me since I caught him at the bottom of his protective field—whatever it was—and it was like I had punted him straight upward.
"Don't stop now!" I yelled up at the Phoenix as three more squeeze play missiles caught him. Then Jim and Anson zipped out of the Phoenix and began pounding on Opolawn's air and space forces with their warp armor. Tabitha and 'Becca continued to fire away at Opolawn with the missiles.