Pass the Plot 3: Scene 10

"Ellie?" Nara stared at the woman before her. "What's going on?"

Lieutenant Eloin shouldered a laser cannon twice the size of the drone, Darrew's, old weapon. Ellie's gaze shifted to a point above Nara's right ear and slipped out of focus. "I'm doing what I was programmed to do." She pulled her focus back onto Nara's eyes. "My people will rise again."

"The conversions don't take as long as they used to, I see. They've gotten you already, Ellie." The other woman raised a thin black eyebrow. "Wait a minute." Nara swore. "You were one of them all along! You and Darrew together!" Nara placed her hand in the small of her back and made a fist. She hoped her crew would get the clue that they should figure out where to hide before the laser cannons started firing.

"No, not together," Ellie said. "He never knew what I am. I had his links connected to my colony's sensory node, but the surveillance only went one way." Her lips curved. "Malkur always liked to put his colony comms in the forehead, for convenience. Fool. It was always so fun to open Darrew's ship's comm when he was, shall we say--too busy to talk."

"So you're not a Garid?"

"No."

Nara eyed the cannon on Ellie's shoulder. "Why haven't you killed us yet?"

Ellie's smile widened. "You're the only one left."

Nara glanced behind her. Pinpoints of purple light met her eyes, making her squint. Five purple-skinned humanoids with LED eyes blinked at her, all fingering giant cannons like Ellie's. And Thompson, Jennings, Schmidt, and Graziano lay at the creature's feet, eyes wide in shock, blood dripping from mouths and noses and ears. Nara swallowed bile and turned back to Ellie.

The laser cannon was trained at Nara's chest.