Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
I hesitate, but then I do as he tells me. Fighting him is only going to result in more pain. He doesn’t say that, but it’s in the air. I crawl up on the table, and try not to squirm too much when he starts strapping me into place, face down. They run over my midsection mostly, not arms, which is good because I am pretty damn tired of being restrained by these aliens. It’s like they can’t trust me without knowing I can’t move.
“Why do you have these?” I ask, pulling at the straps.
“Because you were always naughty.”
“That’s fucked up.”
“Quiet,” he says, running a hand down my back in a soothing manner. “I don’t want to have to do the same things that Kronos did to you. I am trying to be more civilized where you are concerned. This doesn’t have to be painful.”
“It doesn’t?”
“No,” he says, chuckling.
“I want you to stay here,” he says, massaging my shoulders and back, legs and even my butt. My body finds his touch to be familiar. I know that because I relax immediately and sink into a state of relaxation and ease. He is making me feel very cared for and very tended to. Almost makes me want to do what he wants.
Almost.
“I can’t be stuck to a board the whole time you guys are fighting aliens,” I say. “That’s no fun.”
“You’ll be safe and comfortable, and if the ship gets into any danger…”
“I’ll be stuck.”
“It’s this, or a cage. I can assure you, you do not like the cage.”
“I don’t?”
“You loathe the cage.”
He says it in a way that strongly implies I’ve been in the cage before and I really don’t enjoy it. I can imagine hating being confined, though being bound isn’t really all that much better.
It’s not fair, is it, that they know me better in some ways than I know myself.
“Who are you?” I ask him the question in a kind of probing, sort of silly voice.
“That’s not the question you really want to ask. The question you really have is…”
“Who am I?”
“You,” he says, “are trouble. That is all you really need to know about yourself. Now, I want you to stay in this room until we have finished our escort mission. Please. For me.”
I almost do what he asks. I swear I do. But the temptation to see if I can wriggle out of the bonds is too high, and about twenty minutes after he leaves, it turns out that I can.
And then, though I could make absolutely any other decision, I go to the bridge. I have my reasons.
Sligtonians are one of the very few aliens I know not to like. They’re slave traders. They abduct humans. And frankly, right now, I’m looking for a fight.
I sneak onto the bridge and stay quiet at first. They are clearly tracking another ship, which is on screen and very much Sligtonian in appearance. It has green and yellow stripes and a sort of penis and balls appearance to it. The balls in the rear are where they keep their cargo. The thick head is, well, I don’t know. At any rate, it looks ridiculous.
At first, I’m afraid the whole mission is going to go smoothly and nothing very terrible is going to happen to them.
I have a real sense of satisfaction when I see them start to come under attack as three ships with red and gold spiky protrusions zoom out of the dark ether. They surround the Sligtonian ship and start threatening them. I know this because the audio is piped right from the Sligtonian ship into ours.
“Come to a halt and prepare for boarding, Sligs! We’re taking your stuff.”
“It’s our stuff, and you can’t have it,” the Sligtonian captain responds. “We have guards.”
“How many guards?”
“Enough?” The Sligtonian captain really doesn’t seem that confident.
“We’ll take our chances,” the robber captain says, slightly less intensity in his tone. “Pull over, or we’ll start shooting.”
And then they start shooting.
“You have them locked?” Sharp asks Kronos. Sharp is the navigator and captain. I actually think this ship is technically his, if I had to guess. Kronos and Boss are on the weapons systems.
“Mhm.”
“Take them out.”
The ship takes one shot and one of the three vessels explodes like a cylinder of baking powder being crushed by an unseen cosmic hand. Apparently we are very well equipped with intense fire power.
“Want to try that again?” The Sligtonian captain asks the question quite smugly. He’s far too comfortable with this situation. I don’t like it.
It takes a moment for the space pirates to reply. When they do, it’s not a male voice that comes over the speakers. It’s a female. And she seems pissed.
“My boyfriend was on that ship,” she says. “And we were trying for a baby. Now I’m going to have to find someone else to mate with. Do you know how inconvenient that’s going to be? Do you know how hard it is to find a man worthy of breeding with? And you wipe him out like he never mattered at all because we were trying to steal a few trinkets from a few space slugs?”