“Let’s kill them all!” she growled.

  “We need to make sure those guns of theirs don’t work on us first.” Dustin held up his PED and she nodded.

  ‘PED, can you change the composition of the scales so that they aren’t genetic in nature? Kind of how some things form rock shells or something like that?’ asked Dustin.

  (ANY CHANGE WOULD HAVE TO BE GENETIC IN NATURE FOR ME TO CONDUCT THE CHANGE, BUT IF YOU ARE SEEKING TO PREVENT DAMAGE FROM THE GENETIC DESTABILIZER WEAPON, YOU COULD TRY FOR AN ENERGY SHIELD?)

  ‘And how do I do that?’ he asked excitedly.

  (SOME OF THE GENETIC INFORMATION YOU PROVIDED TO ME INCLUDED ENERGY MANIPULATION, POSSIBLY FROM AN AQUATIC CREATURE, BUT COULD BE MANIPULATED TO PROVIDE AN ENERGY BARRIER IN THE CURRENT ATMOSPHERE.)

  ‘I’m game!’ said Dustin, grinning at Olivia. This should also prevent them from damage from just about any other type of weapon they tried to use.

  (INITIATING EVOLUTION)

  (EVOLUTION COMPLETE)

  Dustin held up his hand and tried to form the barrier. It tingled, but a soft glow emanated from his hand. After a moment of consideration, he was able to fully cover his entire body.

  “Whoa! What’d you do?” asked Olivia, walking around him.

  “It’s an energy barrier. This should keep the genetic guns everyone’s been using, from hurting us.”

  “I want one!” she demanded immediately, so he uploaded it to her PED.

  Standing in front of the door, grinning evilly, they opened it, much to the surprise of the Josagn waiting outside. No matter how many shot at them, the particles from the Josagn guns merely slid off the energy shields that surrounded the two of them.

  Chuckling, they started firing at them, and before you could blink, all of the Josagn were dead. The hall was filled with nothing but floating dust particles.

  “We’re going to empty this entire damn station of every last Josagn.”

  Olivia nodded at him, “And then we’re going to find a way to fly back home, even if we have to fly this damn station.”

  Before Dustin could get too caught up in that thought, more Josagn arrived, pausing when they came into view of the carnage in the hall. They quickly joined their comrades as piles of dust. Throwing her gun to the floor, Olivia grabbed up a fresh one.

  “Were you out?” he asked in surprise.

  “No, but I figured I could start with a fresh gun, since there’s so many to choose from.” She picked up as many guns as she could carry, checking to make sure they were full on ammo. With a shrug he started to do the same thing. These things were going to die. If even half of what he had learned was true, then they deserved more than death.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Moving to the end of the hall, the two lizard men showed up.

  “We were supposed to come help detain and kill you, but do you mind, um, helping us instead?” asked White, looking over his shoulder to make sure none of the Josagn were around.

  “No,” said Dustin, moving to go around them.

  “What? Why?” cried Blue, blocking his path.

  “Knowing what these creeps have done, and choosing to side with them? You can both go to hell!” he spat through his teeth.

  All of the indecision and fear immediately left their faces. Both of them straightened up and Dustin knew them for what they really were, potential spies.

  “You’ll never manage to succeed!” screeched Blue, jumping for him, with electrical arcs flying from his fingers.

  As he came in contact with the energy field, Dustin started to drain him using his energy siphon he had acquired from the space creatures.

  White backed away in panic as Blue collapsed unconscious to the ground, then started to go grey around the edges. As he finally let him go, Dustin was sure he was dead, but just to make sure, he shot him with the gun and dissolved him.

  “Wait a minute, can’t we…” Olivia shot him before he could say another word. “Let’s kill us some aliens.”

  They lost track of time as they hunted the Josagn, killing them whenever they found any. The nursery was disgusting. The image of clean little baby beds fled from his minds eye when he saw the piles of crap, they laid their eggs in. The babies would then eat vomit off of the floor until they could walk well enough to leave the room.

  “How did these things even manage to get to the space age?” gagged Olivia as they finished off the featherless monsters squawking at them. There was nothing cute about them.

  “Probably stole it from the first race to contact them,” said Dustin, moving to the next room.

  Whenever they started to get a little tired, or hungry, they would lean up against one of the monitors and drain energy directly from the station. This was great. He couldn’t figure out how none of the previous guys hadn’t managed to pull this off.

  Neither of them knew how much time had passed, they just knew they had explored the entire station, had killed countless Josagn, and all of their guns were empty.

  “There has to be a ship somewhere, how did the Josagn get here?” complained Olivia, kicking a wall after they came to another empty ship hangar.

  “There’s only one place left to look. Maybe we’ll have some luck there,” said Dustin. He was tired of killing, tired of looking, and tired of everything. The only ships they had found were shuttles the Josagn used to travel back and forth to the surface of the planet. None of the ships they had found were long distance space vessels.

  Opening the last door, they were both shocked when the crystal prince turned to look at them. He was standing in front of a long table covered in food.

  “Ah. About time. I was wondering when you would get around to coming here.” He set down a plate he had piled high with various foods, vegetables, fruits and other non-meat things.

  “I’d thank you for killing all of those nasty birds, but I’m a bit busy at the moment. I’ve built up quite an appetite waiting for you, so if you don’t mind,” he turned back to his plate and started to eat.

  Olivia looked at him for a moment, then rushed at the crystal man and kicked him, sending him flying against the opposite wall. He had seen it coming, but made no attempt to stop her, or to get out of her way. If he had another gun, Dustin would have tested it on him, to see if it would work.

  She was breathing hard as she returned to his side. “There is no way in hell I was going to listen to that jerk talk down to us.”

  Dustin walked past the table of food, past the crystal guys unconscious form, and opened the door to the next room. The sight that met his eyes caused him to pause, and Olivia gasped.