7 Boys and their Toys

Adam had a look of pure delight on his face.

"Whoa! Now who is THIS sexy beauty?" He asked Steven. His eyes were nearly popping out of his head as he absent mindedly wiped saliva from his gaping mouth.

"Isn't she something else?" Steven beamed proudly. "And get a load of these curves. To be honest, I used to spend hours caressing her in bed before going to sleep."

"I can see why." Adam nodded in approval. "That's basically every red-blooded man's dream. Mind if I hold her?"

"I don't mind; just be careful. She requires a delicate touch."

Zoey, and A'luhr blinked in mild confusion as Adam approached Steven in a reverent manner. He gingerly took the hefty, black machine from Steven's outstretched arms and stared down upon it as if beholding a gorgeous woman - his eyes a mixture of admiration and lust. It looked a bit like a large spider, with eight propeller arms coming out of a central frame and a camera suspended below it. Zoey removed her glasses and tiredly rubbed her eyes.

"Boys and their toys…" she groaned.

"It is… some form of sexual companion?" A'luhr asked, clearly bewildered.

"It's his dumb drone." Zoey sighed. "But it might as well be, given the way he talks about 'her'. I was wondering if he was ever going to get a chance to use it again, seeing as he risked his LIFE - might I remind you - to lug it along with him!" She shot a nasty look at Steven who didn't even notice. He was still soaking-in Adam's praise.

"Excuse me, beloved stepsister, but a DUMB DRONE!?" Steven rebuked with an offended tone, still not taking his eyes off of the man gleefully fondling his precious treasure. "THIS is the Libairo Turbo 8 Pro." He declared with an air of finality, clearly expecting this to elicit some sort of profound reaction from the two women. It did not.

"This… combination of words... is not familiar to me," A'luhr admitted. "Is this perhaps some other language of your kind?"

"You could say that." Zoey shrugged and shook her head sorrowfully. A white blur quickly moved past her shoulder and she put her glasses back on to better see what it was.

"No way! You have an eight rotor model!?" Sarah gasped, bending over Adam's arms to get a better look at the drone while wiggling her limbs in barely-contained excitement. "These are so expensive! I've been wanting to try one out for so long but never got a chance!"

"Y-you're into drones?" Adam asked, clearly taken aback.

"I-I mean… yeah?" She replied, flustered. "I'm just an amateur, but I use my cheap one to take pictures and stuff. N-nothing special!" She let out an embarrassed little laugh and scratched her head. Adam took his eyes off of the drone for the first time since Steven had pulled it from its case. He furtively gazed at Sarah's reddened face with starry eyes.

"D… do you want to touch it…?" He stammered at her.

"Excuse me, but shouldn't I be the one to decide th-!?" Steven began to haughtily remark before Sarah swiftly moved in to put her hands on the drone. As she did so, her fingers brushed Adam's arm and they both reflexively jerked away from each other, a clear blush on both their faces.

"Hey! Watch it!" Steven yelled, grabbing the precariously wobbling machine out of Adam's hands.

"G-get a room you two!" Zoey awkwardly joked while trying to make it seem like it wasn't awkward at all. Sarah and Adam cleared their throats and let their eyes wander around the room in opposite directions. Steven began using his shirt to hastily polishing any fingerprints off of the drone's surface, unaware of the interaction between the two professors.

"How does this 'drone' assist us in destroying the Krinis queen?" A'luhr asked, also unperturbed.

"It's an unmanned scouting and payload delivery device that can navigate around their nest while we watch from afar." Steven replied. He placed the drone on the floor and withdrew a control pad from the open case at his feet. "You said the Krinis hunt looking for body heat and sounds, right? Well this beauty isn't exactly silent… but she IS cold."

"I see. That could work. The Krinis do not normally attack machinery, especially if they do not sense a threat." A'luhr's eyebrows quivered. "However, it is hard to predict how they may react if it approaches the queen."

"But… it could work?" Steven asked hopefully.

"Yes, I believe so."

"How exactly do you plan to get this thing near the alien queen, much less LAUNCH FIREWORKS with it!?" Zoey crossed her arms in disbelief.

"Listen," Steven replied. "A'luhr is a crazy-smart, advanced alien lady. Err… no offense…?" he glanced at A'luhr.

"It is true." She replied with a smirk.

"Exactly." He smiled back. "I bet she could supe' this baby up with her tech knowledge. It just needs to be able to emit enough of a spark to ignite the payload… and also be able to receive input over a very long distance, most likely."

"I see…" Adam said, stroking his beard. "A'luhr does that sound even remotely possible?" All of the humans in the room turned to look at her with raised brows and cautiously optimistic expressions on their faces.

"I… suppose I could attempt such a feat," A'luhr said slowly. "I am not considered particularly talented in engineering among my peers, but with the proper tools I am positive that I could at least make minor adjustments."

"Let me see what I have!" Adam exclaimed. He jumped forward and excitedly led the group to the workshop as Steven folded the arms of his drone and gently placed it back into its case before following along.

***

"These are… not the proper tools," A'luhr said with a barely disguised hint of disappointment in her voice. Everyone was huddled around a workbench where Adam had sprawled out an impressive collection of tools, gadgets, and devices - many of which Sarah could only guess at their purpose. As an engineer, Adam no doubt took pride in his workshop's prowess, so Sarah felt a sting of pity for him after seeing his dejected face react to A'luhr's words. "These primitive rods and wires are all that you have?" A'luhr continued, fingering through the pile of trinkets and materials.

"Yeah, well, I... um… left most of my good stuff back in my office on campus." Adam nervously chuckled, clearly trying to save face. A'luhr sighed.

"Let me see the starfire." She looked to Steven, who scrambled to grab his backpack. He pulled out a long cylinder with a cone on one end. Red, white, and blue stripes adorned the sides and little stars decorated the tip.

"This is the only real firework I have," Steven said. "The rest are just sparklers." He produced a small handful of sticks from his backpack as well and laid them on the table next to the firework.

"Sparklers?" A'luhr asked, one eyebrow twitching curiously.

"They're basically tiny sticks of 'starfire' that, well, spark, when ignited." Sarah chimed in. "They're for entertainment and celebrations."

"It is amazing that your species fell to the Krinis so quickly despite having so much starfire available that you use it as a toy."

"Historically, our enemies have died when we blow them up." Sarah shrugged. "Sorry that we didn't know their random weakness ahead of time." There was a bit of an edge in her tone. Though A'luhr had recently come down a bit from her high horse, she still sometimes let an air of superiority slip into her speech, which annoyed Sarah quite a bit. Especially as, last she checked (which was admittedly never), 'A'luhr's people had ALSO been defeated by the invaders, so the alien woman really didn't have much of a leg to stand on.

"Well, now is the chance to rectify those mistakes." A'luhr replied, seemingly unrecognizing the bitterness in Sarah's voice. "I believe I will be able to make sufficient alterations to this device, but I may need to disassemble other technologies for their parts, if that is okay?" She turned to Adam.

"Of course!" He declared. "You will find my bunker well-stocked in all manner of useful gadgets and tech!" It was obvious that he was just eager to prove his usefulness to her after the earlier jab.

"Excellent." A'luhr's eyebrows swished back and forth as she moved to exit the room. "The first object I will need to disassemble is that large rectangular monitor. I believe it is a 'television'. Come now, help me move it."

"Ah…" Adam groaned. His determined expression melted into distress as he hurriedly followed A'luhr to help her kill his beloved big-screen.

***

A'luhr worked through the night, fiddling with the various tools and wirings at her disposal to modify the drone. The rest of the group spent their time assisting the effort by finding things she asked for, answering questions, and bringing her food.

At first, A'luhr was extremely hesitant to try the canned corn offered to her. Apparently it was very reminiscent of the droppings of a common animal back on her planet. However, once they convinced her to taste it, she immediately brightened up and enjoyed the sweet veggies.

Sarah was eager to ask A'luhr more about her home planet, but now was not the time, as the bellus woman needed to focus on her work. Zoey periodically checked in on her friends Diana and Arlo, but they remained asleep. Regardless, she still set small portions of food at the sides of their beds just in case. Though they were still trying to ration food, Adam had pointed out that if this operation went as planned, they wouldn't need to do so much longer. However, he still warned to not go crazy just in case things fell through, which is always possible with even the best-laid plans.

Sarah awoke the next morning to rapid knocking on the bedroom door. She groggily flopped out of bed, having gone to sleep still wearing her clothes… or what was left of them after her recent ordeal. Her pants and panties had been lost and Adam didn't exactly keep a wide variety of women's clothes in his man cave, so she had to make do with an extra pair of his boxer shorts and gray sweatpants. It wasn't her usual style, to say the least (though she did definitely appreciate how the sweatpants looked on Adam), but she threw her white lab coat on over her shoulders and headed to the door regardless. She patted down her bed head while Zoey tiredly fumbled around for her glasses on the bedside.

Once Sarah confirmed that Zoey was dressed, she opened the door to see Adam's scruffy face peering back at her. She never used to be into beards - she thought they just looked itchy - but recently she had been appreciative of the ruggedness that it offered to Adam's already angular face. She almost absentmindedly reached up to run her hand along his chin but stopped herself as he opened his mouth to speak.

"She thinks it should be good to go," Adam said as he turned and started walking down the hall. "I guess the sooner we can get on with this little mission the better." He had been in a bit of a sour mood since seeing most of his expensive electronics plundered just for a scrap or two, but he knew it was for the greater good. It didn't stop the hurt, though.

"It's a shame we can't contact anyone else to let them know of the magnesium thing." Sarah yawned and stretched out the kinks in her neck and back. She looked back at Zoey who was eagerly bobbing along behind them and wished to go back to her age. Even though Sarah was still only in her late-twenties, the effects of age were already becoming an inconvenient and inescapable reality.

"Yeah, well, it's a shame we can't contact anyone PERIOD any more these days." Adam sighed. "I imagine most people either don't have power or are already captured. Still, I check the radio every day to make sure."

"I hope this works so we can go back to living our lives again…" Zoey said in a sleepy voice.

"Whatever happens, our lives will never be the same, that's for sure," Adam replied. "We've confirmed extraterrestrial life and might even have access to some of their tech. Humanity will either meet its end or its salvation depending on how we deal with these horny fucks." Zoey solemnly nodded in agreement. They made their way to the workstation and found Steven and A'luhr inside, standing around the newly upgraded drone.

The camera was now placed at the top of the drone's payload, with the bottom now holding a compartment that contained the firework. Several wires fed into the shell that served both to optimize power consumption and to ignite the fuse when needed. It was quite large and looked pretty makeshift, but A'luhr seemed happy with her work.

"The components all correctly operate individually," she said with confidence. "Obviously, we have not been able to test the true functionality of the whole system seeing as we only have this one payload, but I have no reason to think it will fail."

"She's amazing!" Steven shouted out, unable to contain his excitement any longer. "She boosted the handling and battery life by a mile! I think I'm in love."

"Keep it in your pants," Adam said, patting him on the shoulder. "You are literally not in her league."

"Your words are too kind." A'luhr put her fingers to her eyebrows in a similar manner as to when she introduced herself. "I simply did the best with what I was given. Now, should we begin?" The abruptness of her suggestion caught the rest of the group a little off guard.

"We're gonna' do it right now? Just like that?" Zoey asked.

"There is no reason to delay." A'luhr stood, holding the drone. "In fact, there are a great many reasons not to. The new queen could be born at any moment, so we must have our cake and eat it too." She glanced at Steven, who gave an awkward shake of his head. A'luhr's face fell a bit, having failed to correctly use the idiom, but Sarah knew this setback wouldn't stop her from trying again.

"How are the other two doing?" Sarah inquired. "Still asleep?"

"Yep," Adam replied. "Haven't touched their food either. I guess they must have really been tuckered out."

"Indeed," A'luhr affirmed. "Being within the Krinis breeding grounds puts a heavy burden on the victim, both mentally and physically. Though disturbingly enough, some of their captives come to even enjoy it - as impossible as that sounds."

"It uhh… doesn't sound completely impossible." Steven coughed awkwardly. "N-nevermind." His face reddened as Zoey suspiciously eyed him over. Sarah silently agreed with him.

A'luhr and Adam worked together to bring the drone outside, all the while Adam complaining that he would have installed an elevator if he had known how much heavy lifting he was going to have to do down here. Meanwhile, Steven connected the drone's control panel to the monitoring room's displays so that everyone would be able to view the drone's feedback while he piloted it.

Luckily, it had ceased raining in the night. That would have really put a damper on their plan, so even this small sliver of luck gave Sarah an optimistic feeling going forward. Adam and A'luhr returned to the monitoring room with Adam still grumbling, but with the excited look in his eyes betraying his true emotions.

Steven flipped some switches and suddenly the several screens on the wall came alive, all working together to show one large composite display of what the drone was seeing.

"Even with the extended battery life, we don't have tons of time…" Steven said in a strained voice. "If it takes too long to find the queen, we might not have enough juice to get back… if we can even get there at all…" Steven sniffed. "So… so what I'm saying is that this could be the last time we ever see her… but it's our one and only shot… so she will at least have died a hero."

He looked up at the monitors and gave a small salute with a tear in his eye. He looked around the room, apparently expecting similar reactions, and everyone else embarrassedly did their own little salute to appease him - except for A'luhr, who didn't seem to fully understand what was going on.

"Are we all ready?" Steven asked the group, still a bit choked up.

"This is your show now," Adam replied. "I know you won't make me regret trashing my TV." He firmly planted a single pat on the younger man's back in that hearty way that men do to other men for some reason.

"Mom and dad will kill you if they find out you broke their latest birthday gift already." Zoey winked. "So just pretend it's one of your live streams and do what you do best, okay?"

"You mean annoy you?" Steven teased.

"Okay, the thing you do SECOND best." Zoey rolled her eyes and laughed. "Put on an awesome show for us."

"It's gonna be out of this world." Steven grinned and began to operate the controls as if performing an elegant dance that he had been practicing for his entire life.