Saved (Alien Space Pirates 3) (SciFi Romance) Read online

  Alien Space Pirates:

  Saved

  By: Mara Frost

  Copyright © 2016 by Mara Frost

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Please note all persons portrayed are 18 years of age or older.

  Table of Contents

  Alien Space Pirates: Saved

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Dani

  I’m not dead. Holy shit, I’m not dead!

  Why aren’t I dead?

  I hear a pathetic groan and it takes me a few seconds more than it should to realize that it actually came from me. I hurt. Oh man, do I hurt. Everything hurts. I’m almost afraid to open my eyes to see the damage. The last thing I want to see are my legs twisted upright and facing me in some scary unnatural position. Well, there’s only one way to find out, right?

  Ack! My eyes hurt too. I hear a pathetic whimper and I absolutely know that one came from me.

  I slowly open my eyes and I’m instantly greeted with a bright shaft of light searing right into my corneas. Alright, so it’s not searing into my cornea, but damn, does it feel like it. Trying to adjust to the bright light, my eyes water while I blink away the pain.

  I groan again.

  Once my eyes adjust, I look around and I’m just…shocked by what I see. The entire shuttle looks like a mangled tin can. Why am I even alive?

  “Oh fuck…what the hell,” I moan as I look around.

  “Just be happy that you are alive, human,” a deep, but somewhat labored voice says behind me.

  I throw my head around as best I can towards the voice. I see Big Blue leaning against a collapsed part of the ship. A flood of relief sweeps through my sore body. He looks a little rough around the edges, more than usual at least, but he’s alive and that makes me incredibly happy. Mostly because my chances of survival increase exponentially when he’s alive.

  I’m sure that’s why I’m so thrilled to see him and why my heart feels like it’s about to burst out of my chest. That’s totally why.

  “How are you? Can you move?” he asks while he critically eyes me and the visible parts of my body.

  I nod my head. “I think so. I’m sore, but I think I can move.” I go to remove my belt, but quickly discover that it’s stuck on something. I try to pull at the jammed seatbelt, but it might as well have been stuck in concrete. And I feel way too achy to be fighting with concrete. I can just live in the shuttle. It’s fine.

  He shakes his head stiffly. “No. Stop,” he orders.

  Big Blue hovers over me and inspects both me and my seatbelt. I squint as I look up at him and see a halo of bright light from the alien sun cascading over him. If I squint a little, he almost looks like an angel. A big muscle-bound angel with a permanent scowl on his face.

  Sigh. I must be delirious or dying. I just compared Big Blue to an angel. Am I bleeding out somewhere? I try to look down at my body and see where the blood is gushing out from.

  “Stop moving.”

  I stop. “Okay, well what are you doing? I’m not sure if just standing over me is going to do much good.”

  He takes a breath and looks as if he’s biting his tongue. Bite away, big guy! He’s not the one attached to a mangled ship that’s probably going to blow up in a few seconds.

  Without saying a word, he reaches for a metal rod holstered on his thigh. I eye it suspiciously since it doesn’t really look like anything particularly useful. He then presses something on it and a glowing blade extends out from the handle. I yelp and jump – well, I “jump” as much as a person who’s glued to a chair can jump.

  “What’s tha-“

  In one quick movement, he swings his alien blade down and slices through the restraint like it was made out of butter. Instantly freed, I feel the release of the belt’s pressure and some of the pain that I was feeling quickly disappears.

  I nervously test out my body a little bit, moving my arms and legs, making sure that I can actually move everything – and that I’m not bleeding actually out somewhere. And surprisingly, everything is looking good, bruised and banged up, but good.

  I somehow managed to survive a crash-landing relatively unscathed? Cats ain’t got nothing on me.

  I glance up at Big Blue and his awesome glowing blade.

  “That’s…so cool! What is that?” I reach for it and he jerks his hand back and quickly “turns it off” and sheathes it back in its holster.

  “It’s a utility tool.”

  “It looks like a miniature light saber,” I say, my eyes wide with interest.

  “I don’t know this ‘light saber’.”

  “It’s from Star Wars.”

  “Again, with this Star Wars.”

  I shrug, feeling in oddly good spirits – probably from the whole not dying thing. It’s amazing how happy you can be after surviving a crashing landing via spaceship.

  “I told you, you should watch it sometime. It’s a classic tale of good versus evil.” I pause and eye him sternly, mostly for effect. “You people could learn a thing or two about that.”

  He says nothing and just shakes his head, as if I’m the biggest puzzle in the universe, but it’s alright - it’s a look that I’ve grown used to from him.

  “Anyway, it’s no spork, but it’s cool,” I reply with feigned disinterest, acting as if my inner 10 year old doesn’t actually want to play with his cool light saber utility tool. Screw inner 10 year old, my inner 27 year old wants to play with it. What’s the point in being space if you can’t play with some of the toys?

  My reference to my terrifying Death Spork actually gets a tiny smile out of him though. And it lasts for approximately 1.3 seconds.

  “This is true. You wield a very fierce…” He cocks his head to the side and adds, “Spork…”

  “I know, right? It pretty much made you my bitch,” I reply with a self-assured grin. I then quickly stand up and squeeze past him as I try to make my way out of the shuttle. There’s no point in being in cramped quarters with an alien after you just told them that a spork made them your “bitch”. Plus, knowing my luck, I’m sure the shuttle is going to explode into a fiery ball at any point. They always do.

  “Your ‘bitch’? What is…this?” I hear him ask behind me. The fact that they don’t have a translation for “bitch” completely surprises me, but I just go with it.

  “Oh it’s nothing, it just means a ‘worthy adversary’…or something,” I yell back. I’m so full of shit.

  I haphazardly step over fallen parts of the shuttle as I make way to the back of the ship. The ship might be dead, but I still see sparks of electricity on the controls and circuits. That doesn’t seem right to me.

  “Be careful!” he orders. I wave back, acknowledging that he just said words to me, while silently saying that I’m going to walk as quickly and as carelessly as possible if it gets my ass out of this tin can faster.

  Once I reach where the shuttle doors should be, I abruptly stop - mostly because there are no shuttle doors. But to be fair there is no “shuttle” ei
ther, at least not a whole one. I look around and see that the entire back portion of the ship has been ripped off and now in its place is just open alien landscape.

  I turn around and look at Big Blue and point to where the shuttle doors should have been. “What happened to…? Where did the…?” My voice trails as I try to process what I’m seeing.

  After several seconds of silence, I ask the only question that comes to mind. “How in the Hell did we survive this crash?”

  The big and frustratingly calm alien silently walks past me and steps off the ship and onto the ground. “Your survival was never in question. I had everything under control.”

  I pause for a second, glance back at the completely crunched up shuttle and then back at Big Blue, who is just standing there silently waiting for me to join him.

  “Bull. Shit. You were just as freaked out as me! Your were clenching your teeth so hard back there that I could have shoved a piece of coal in your mouth and I’d have a diamond right now!”

  “If you say so, human.”

  “I do say so and it’s Dani. My name is Dani. I’m not just ‘human’,” I bite back as I walk to the edge of the ship.

  I gaze out towards the alien landscape and take a deep breath. Funny enough, I actually find myself hesitant to step off the broken ship. This is an alien world, with alien plant life, and alien animals…so basically aliens – all these things could potentially be very bad for my health.

  “Do we know where we are? Do we know anything about this planet? Are we safe here?”

  “We know enough about this planet. It’s an H Class planet with plenty of edible vegetation and wildlife and an ideal atmosphere for sustaining life. It’s has everything we need to survive until we can be retrieved or rescued.”

  I look around, slightly impressed. Well, that’s pretty lucky. I don’t know much about space, but I know statistically speaking the chances of us running into a planet that would make us spontaneously explode or make our lungs catch on fire are much higher than us finding a planet that’s Dani-friendly.

  “Wow, it’s pretty lucky that you crash-landed us onto this planet then, huh? I mean, the chances of us finding a planet that is so hospitable…has to be pretty slim.”

  He shakes his head. “No. I found this planet before we escaped through the worm hole.” He shrugs, turns away and adds, “I entered these coordinates and navigated us here.”

  Without thinking, or giving my previous trepidation against this new planet a second thought, I step off the ship. I flinch in pain slightly, but walk towards him quickly. A worm hole? I traveled through a worm hole! I’m no smarty nerd, but I know that worm holes are only theories at best and they’re supposed to be unstable little fuckers.

  “Worm hole? That thing we went through that made it feel like my insides were trying to become my outsides was a worm hole?!”

  He nods.

  “Where did a worm hole come from then?! It’s not like you can find them on some street in space.” I look up at him questioningly. “Or can you?” I’m actually not sure if you can or can’t. Space is seriously confusing the crap out of me.

  His brow furrows slightly in confusion. “No, of course not. I bought one at the dark market while we were on the Commerce Planet.”

  Ignoring my very clear shock over traveling through a worm hole, he steps closer to me and eyes my face and body critically, almost to the point of making me feel mildly uncomfortable. I swat at him half-heartedly as I try to get back to the fact that he just told me that he basically bought a real live worm hole at the grocery store.

  “What are you…doing? And how do you buy a -”

  “I want to assess your damage. If you are injured, we must deal with that now.”

  His inspection continues and I silently accept it as I quickly realize that I don’t have much choice. He lifts my arms, earning a small cry of pain from me, but it doesn’t take long to figure out that I have nothing more than a some sore muscles. After he turns me around few times and pats me down like an awkward cop, he faces me towards him and nods his head once.

  “Good?” I ask.

  “Good.”

  “So? What now?” I ask while I look nervously around at our surroundings, completely forgetting all talk about worm holes.

  At first glance, it doesn’t look all that strange. It just looks like a big lush jungle that you’d find on Earth, but once you look a little deeper, for a little longer, you start to notice some subtle differences – namely that it was alien.

  Rather than the jungle being a uniform color of green, like you would find on Earth, the forest was bursting with color. The leaves of the trees were green, but the trunks were dark purple and the plants that carpeted the jungle floor were an assortment of colors and shapes. It was almost dizzying. It all blended together to the point that it was difficult to focus on any one of thing.

  I shake my head as I try to adjust my eyes from the dizzying effect.

  “It’s part of the jungle’s defense mechanism. Your eyes and brain will adjust. Just try not to focus too much on things in the distance, it will make you dizzy.”

  I give him a slightly worrying look. “Don’t look at things in the distance? How is that going to help us when trying to protect ourselves? That doesn’t sound like a very good plan.”

  His back stiffens.

  “Do you doubt my ability to keep us safe?”

  “I don’t doubt your ability, but I do doubt the ability of this planet to keep us alive. I believe that being a stranger in a strange land isn’t exactly an ideal situation. The odds always favor the house, don’t you know gambling?”

  He shrugs, dismissing my words as if I’m speaking gibberish. “I know the concept of gambling, but you assume that I know nothing about this planet and that we’re traveling blind and with no defenses.”

  “Okay, fine, if you say so, Big Blue. So, what next then?”

  He opens his mouth and then snaps it shut.

  “What is this ‘Big Blue’? You have been saying this. Is this supposed to be me?” I look up at him innocently. “What? You never told me your name.”

  “It’s Dakhar.”

  “I know. I’ve heard people call you Dakhar. I like Big Blue though,” I reply with a nonchalant smile. “So, what next?” I ask, indicating that I’m finished with the subject.

  An angry scowl sweeps across his face, but disappears pretty quickly when he realizes that there are bigger things that he needs to deal with. “We’re going to do nothing. I’m going to back into the shuttle and try to salvage something out of the communicator. You wait here.”

  I shake my head. “I can’t just sit around and do nothing. What can I do?”

  “Not get in the way or get into trouble,” he replies dryly.

  I cross my arms across my chest in frustration. “No, I’m not going to sit around after we crash land and just twiddle my thumbs. There are too many things that probably need to be done.”

  “As you mentioned, this is an inhospitable and alien land, especially to a defenseless human women, the best thing you can do is stay out of the way.”

  “No.”

  He rolls his eyes and tilts his head back, as if silently begging the universe to give him the gift of patience…or maybe someone who is less stubborn. Too bad for him, that’s probably not going to happen anytime soon.

  He sighs. “Okay, you can go through the back of the shuttle and fill the reserve packs with the food that’s stored underneath the replicator. Just try to stay away from the front end of the ship, the engine’s core is still unstable and the lingering effects of the worm hole might cause some issues.”

  “Issues like what?”

  “Displace you from this reality.”

  Okay, nope.

  “Alright, stay away from the front end of the ship. You got it.”

  Why does it feel like the universe is trying to kill me?

  ***

  Dakhar

  Hundreds of fire fights, thousands of enemies, cou
ntless battles and I’ve survived them all with only a few scars to show for it, but all that’s nothing compared to the Hell this little human female has caused in a very short time.

  No wonder Earth is off limits. If there were more than two of them in one spot they would likely destroy half the galaxy. Although, I know that the only person to blame for my current situation is myself. I’m not a fool. If I hadn’t gone back to save her I would still have a working shuttle, I would be back on Maxaya 40,000 Q’itar richer and we wouldn’t have been nearly ripped apart and turned into sub-atomic particles.

  I growl quietly as I enter the communiqué coordinates to send out a hail. I still have no idea why I went back to get her. I keep telling myself that my hate for the Empire and General Xuraan led me back to the auction, but my hate has never driven me to pure insanity – to blatantly risk my life for a volatile human female. I’m a bit puzzled by it, so I’m going to choose to ignore it.

  I lean back in the pilot seat and exhale a deep breath and feel the pain in my rib. I flinch slightly. The crash was a little rougher than I would have liked, but given the circumstances, the fact that we are even alive is pretty shocking. Plus, the female seems to have escaped unscathed, so that’s good. I imagine if she were injured, her unpleasantness would increase greatly.

  I feel the corner of my lip twitch unexpectedly as I think about how well she’s been handling everything. She can be so obstinate and difficult, but it’s those same qualities that have helped her survive. Humans can be strong creatures.

  She is very strong.

  “Dakhar!! To what do I owe the pleasure? Is that a smile I see on your ugly mug?”

  I look down at the visual comm. and see a face I was hoping not to see for a very long time.

  “Vorak, you look well.”

  “And you look like shit. And from what I can tell, so does your ship. What in the Hell happened?”

  I choose to ignore Vorak’s first comment. Besides, he’s right. I’m sure I do look like shit. I’ve known Vorak for a very long time and subtlety and tact are not his thing. In fact, I’m fairly certain he takes great joy in being the biggest asshole in the galaxy.