Captured (Alien Space Pirates 1) (SciFi Romance) Read online

  At least I won’t be puking in my final moments?

  Suddenly, the sound of the latch being lifted makes a loud bang. We both jump and smash closer to each other, if that’s even possible.

  I freeze and try to brace myself, holding onto Jordan while grasping onto a handle on the wall.

  “Okay, here we go,” I mumble.

  I swallow as the door slowly opens. I try to prepare myself to be sucked out into space as best I can. I’m not sure how one does that, but I imagine holding your breath and closing your eyes is a good start.

  With my eyes closed, I hear a big boom and then some banging...and then after a few painful seconds I hear a weird electric pulsing sound. Not exactly the sounds that I’d expect from open space.

  Something seems a bit...odd. I dare to open one eye slowly, just a peak to see why things were getting so noisy.

  I immediately regret my decision.

  Two very big, very blue and very....not human men are looking right back at us while pointing two big gun-like things in our direction.

  So naturally, I scream. I scream louder than I’ve ever screamed before.

  ***

  Dakhar

  “Fuck, they’re loud, aren’t they?”

  I glance at the man standing next to me and I growl in response. That’s the only affirmation I’m capable of giving at the moment. The shrieking is just too...unpleasant.

  “Is that noise...normal? Is that how these females usually sound?”

  “I hope not,” I reply. If it is, I would likely fly us right into a moon rather than listen to that for a full cycle. Why didn’t we do any research on the indigenous people of the planet before accepting this job?

  Oh wait, because we’re getting a shit-ton of money. Oh yeah. Fuck, they’re still going at it?

  I watch silently as the shrilling sound escalates. How is it even possible for that much noise to come out of something so small? One of the females, the one with light colored hair and who’s trying to hide in the other female’s armpit, is particularly loud. Her screaming is reaching a pitch that my ears aren’t even familiar with.

  I growl again.

  The screaming gets louder.

  I glance down at the blaster in my hand and I instantly wish that the cartridge inside was full of tranquilizers instead of translator pods. Why didn’t I put some tranquilizers in the blaster?

  “Dakhar, I don’t think you’re helping. They’re getting louder. Please stop doing whatever you’re doing.”

  I glance at my partner. The little females are lucky that I don’t go over there and muzzle their little – but strangely loud – mouths. It’s none of my concern if I look pissy or scary to them. My ears are about to bleed.

  “If you mean stop looking annoyed, then no, Kaveth, I’m not going to stop doing what I’m doing,” I reply evenly, trying to keep my growing frustration in check.

  Kaveth shakes his head and shrugs. He then looks around the little “space ship” and chuckles to himself.

  I can’t really blame him. The ship is ridiculous and I have no idea why these little beings would feel safe in it. It’s being held together with metal-based polymers that would easily be torn apart if a meteor so much as looked at the ship the wrong way.

  It’s so small that we were barely able to dock our cruiser to it. It certainly doesn’t help that the engineering of the vessel is so poor that we almost tore the ship apart altogether when we attempted to dock to the hatch.

  Personally, I have no idea why these creatures would send their females up into such a hostile environment in something so unsafe.

  Although, if all the females sound like this, I might be able to see the wisdom...

  “Look at this place,” my partner laughs. “It’s so small and cute. It looks like the little toy shuttle I got my nephews.”

  At this Kaveth abruptly stops and his easy smile disappears, his words sinking in. “You don’t think these females are children, do you? I don’t think I can do this if they’re children, Dakhar, I...”

  I roll my eyes at him. We might not have done the necessary research on these ‘humans’, but it didn’t take much to see that these females were not like any children that I had ever seen. Unless humans were giants and they came out of the womb fully developed in all the right places and...in the most appealing way, it was safe to say they were not children.

  I glance at the females as they huddle together, their soft bodies pressed firmly against each other.

  Definitely not children.

  “No, they’re fully grown. Children don’t look like that. In any galaxy.”

  They might sound like children though. Fuck.

  I growl again.

  “Fine, but you’re making it worse.”

  “How am I making it worse?”

  “By looking like you just ate a fire Tryxack and it’s about to explode out of your ass. And the growling doesn’t help.”

  I glance over at Kaveth and for one brief second the annoyance that was directed towards the screaming women is now directed at my partner. Kaveth merely smiles in response.

  We’ve been partners for more cycles than I can count and I’ve called him a friend for even longer, so I refrain from shooting him right where he stands. I’ve come to expect this sort of thing from him. Of the two of us, he has always been the more carefree and relaxed. He is in this business for the adventure and fun. And I’m in it for the money.

  And it helps with the boredom.

  That’s why we’ve worked well together. He keeps my shit light and he’s good company and I make sure he doesn’t get skewered by any angry Trillian merchants whenever he gets caught fucking their wives.

  It’s always worked out pretty well.

  “Let’s just shoot them and get this over with. Maybe the screaming will stop, ” I order.

  “Copy that, Commander.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “You got it, Commander.”

  “Fuck you.”

  ***

  I continue to scream until I realize that my voice is going hoarse.

  Plus, Jordan is screaming right into my ear and I’m now torn between being scared of the two giant scary alien men and fear of going deaf from Jordan’s high-pitched banshee scream.

  It doesn’t help that I think she’s trying to crawl up into my hair too.

  The two aliens don’t look too happy about the screaming either. After we screamed for a few long minutes, I could hear the two of them talking to each other and they didn’t look happy. Especially the big guy.

  I tried desperately to hear them, but there was no hope of that thanks to Jordan and her Mariah Carey-like vocal range. Well, that and the fact that they’re aliens and they were speaking in a weird growly alien language. I suppose that’s a bit of an obstacle too.

  What I did have a chance to do was observe them briefly while they talked to each other. And what I saw was both terrifying and a bit surprising to be honest.

  They both were huge, easily almost seven feet tall. And they were muscular. One was slightly bigger than the other, but they were both jacked up beyond belief. They looked like Terminators with their leather clothes and their huge cannon-for-arms.

  Oh and blue. They were blue. I can’t forget to mention that part. They weren’t bright blue - they didn’t look like members from the Blue Man Group or anything, which I think would have been even more terrifying. It was more of a grayish blue.

  I would have analyzed them longer if it wasn’t for the fact that their attention was suddenly back on us again. And their giant guns were once again pointed at us, but this time it actually looks like they’re going to use them.

  “Dani! Dani! What are they doing!? What are they doing?!” Jordan screams.

  She grabs my arm and latches onto me even harder than before.

  “I-I don’t know! I think...I think they’re going to shoot us...!”

  Once I uttered the words, Jordan lets go of me and makes a run for it. A run for where,
I have no idea, but it actually seems like a good idea. Running seems to be a better idea than just sitting there and letting an alien asshole shoot you dead. Might as well take your chances and be a moving target.

  I get up and run the opposite direction as Jordan. This move seems to catch them off guard. A look of surprise sweeps across their alien faces as we frantically run around the galley.

  To be honest, there really isn’t a lot of real estate to work with and after I take my first two steps I quickly realize that my options of where to run are pretty limited. I can either run straight through the hatch and into their ship or...run in circles around the galley table.

  I sure as hell wasn’t going to run into a ship that could potentially be full of more giant ‘roided out smurfs...so running in circles around the table seemed like the smart thing to do.

  Because we split directions, the two alien men have to go after us separately and lucky me, I got the big one going after me. Well, the “bigger” one. And he doesn’t seem happy at all. His already grim and angry face looks even angrier and...grimmer. He is clearly irritated that he actually had to put some effort into shooting me.

  Good. Asshole.

  I eye him as I run around the table and scramble to the opposite side of him. He stares me down and makes a move to walk around the table, trying to reach me. I scramble around the other side of the table again. My eyes never leave him – I want to be able to look my killer square in the eye when he shoots me.

  He matches my stare and growls.

  The sound is terrifying and makes me want to pee my pants.

  I’m guessing he’s not enjoying our little game of alien cat and human mouse. That’s too bad because if this was an actual viable solution, I imagine I could keep at this for at least a few hours.

  Unfortunately, the big guy doesn’t seem to be a fan of this idea.

  Just as I’m about to move around the table again, I hear some yelling and screaming and then a loud pulsing explosion and then nothing. Just silence.

  Jordan. They got her. The alien bastard got her.

  “You fuckers!!” I scream. I look around for something to grab to protect myself with and the only thing that I can find within immediate arm’s reach makes my heart drop.

  A spork.

  A spork?

  Alright, a spork. I reach for the spork and hold on to it like it’s the deadliest weapon in the universe. And for a brief second, the alien actually looks a little taken aback. Like he’s unsure of what I’m holding and thinks it might actually be a deadly weapon.

  I’ll take it.

  “What? You’re afraid of a spork? That’s right, asshole! I’ll stab you to death with it and then scoop your heart out and eat it for dinner!”

  Ew.

  A terrified Dani apparently is a sociopath who says really screwed up things while staring death in the face. Who knew?

  The giant blue man pauses for only a moment before he decides to take his chances on the spork. Realizing that my weapon isn’t going to take me very far, I try to run around the table again. Unfortunately, he is thoroughly sick of chasing me around the table and decides to just grab the table and rip it entirely from the floor and throw it across the room.

  I stare at the table in complete shock. The table was nailed firmly to the floor. Nailed. To. The Floor. I glance up at him, now only a few feet away from me and without the table barrier between us.

  Oh he’s big.

  My heart is beating so erratically fast that it feels like it’s just trying to break through my chest. I’m too scared to scream and my throat feels like it’s locking up and trying to suffocate me. I want to cry, but I’m too scared to even do that.

  And he’s just staring down at me with his alien gaze, barely fazed and not even out of breath after yanking the bolted table from the floor. I think that terrifies me even more. Who tears a bolted table from the floor and doesn’t break a sweat?

  “Okay, big guy, how about we just calm down for a minute? I’m sure we can talk this through, huh?”

  My voice is a little shaky but surprisingly clear. He’s still looking down at me like I’m an annoying ant, but he makes no move towards me. I’m going to take this as a good sign.

  “Heh, I guess we can’t really ‘talk’, can we? That would be impossible since I’m a human and you’re a giant smurf.” I pause and do a quick look-over of him and his body and my mouth goes dry. Muscles are literally busting out of his shirt. “A really giant smurf,” I add.

  He cocks his head to the side, as if he’s trying to understand what I’m saying. Psht, no chance of that, buddy.

  “Maybe we can use hand signs? Maybe this is just a big misunderstanding? Do you think that we humans are being aggressive because we’re taking steps towards space exploration?”

  I raise my hands up, showing that I mean no harm...and hopefully calming him so he won’t try to shoot me with his giant space gun. I move half an inch forward.

  Why am I moving towards him? Because I’m crazy.

  “I can promise you that we mean no harm at all. We’re just trying to explore the unknown and learn more about our place in the universe that’s all! We mean no ill will...”

  At this an unexpected noise comes from the alien man. It sounds like a weird combination between a snort and him spitting up a loogey. It’s the most bizarre sounding thing I’ve ever heard and if I didn’t know better it almost sounds like he’s laughing – which I find strangely annoying.

  But for one millisecond it actually looks the alien has lowered his guard slightly. And that’s when I decide to make my move.

  I jump towards him, with my spork in hand, and stab him in the only exposed area that he has – his arm. I slam down with all the force that my body can muster and instantly, I regret my decision.

  His skin is apparently not made of skin. At least not like any skin that I’ve seen. The pointy spork doesn’t even penetrate! In fact it barely leaves a scratch. I’m fairly certain all it does is piss off the pissy-looking alien even more.

  I don’t stick around to find out though. After I attempt to stab him with my now bent spork, I make a run for the second hatch on the other side of the room. If I’m going to die, at least I’m going to take “big blue” with me and we’re both going to be sucked out into space.

  Unfortunately, I don’t make it two steps before I hear a loud blast behind me...and then a hard sharp pain in my right ass cheek quickly follows. I fall to the floor instantly.

  The bastard shot me in my butt! Really? Was that some sort of joke? Who shoots a person in the ass when they’re trying to kill them?

  My ass feels numb and my head suddenly feels fuzzy, like it’s full of cotton balls. What’s happening? I feel like I’m stuck in a state of slow-mo. This is horrible. It’s like I’m in one of those awful dreams where I can’t run or move no matter how hard I try.

  “Whaaaat...deh yow do t’me,” I slur out. I’m instantly struck by how drunk I sound. This can’t be good. Am I having a stroke? This would be a really weird time to have a stroke.

  I try to crawl away, sliding on the floor and probably looking pretty pathetic. Hah! I’m crawling away from a big bad alien even though my mind is telling me that I’m toast. The drive to survive is a helluva’ thing.

  As I continue to slink up the floor, I hear the blue Terminator behind me start to make weird guttural noises that sound like a mix between growling and a record player that’s being played backwards. It’s weird and freaky as Hell.

  After a few more seconds of it, I realize he’s probably talking and trying to taunt me. Why do the bad guys always do that? They always have to do those little monologues where they pat themselves on the back and celebrate their victory while their victims just sit by in misery, waiting for their impending doom.

  Good job, Big Blue, you’re an advanced alien race and you’ve just beaten a defenseless human woman. Take a bow.

  “Will yuh sutup!! I donneed tuh hear yuh,” I yell back at him.

&n
bsp; That gets more weird growly noises out of him.

  I growl back in frustration as I continue to slide away from him. Wondering why he’s not going after me, I dare to glance back at him and I sort of wish that I hadn’t. With his gun lowered, he is just standing there, watching me coldly. Undoubtedly waiting for me to die a horrible death while I futilely crawl like a giant caterpillar across the floor.

  He yells back scary garbled growly words and I try my best to shut him out. Why doesn’t he just shoot me and get it over with already? Oh God, I hope he doesn’t plan on doing some weird torture on me? Oh God, I don’t want to be anally probed. Isn’t that what they do?

  At this I actually chuckle to myself. I guess I don’t have to be too worried about the anal probing considering he just blew my butt off.

  “Xyxck rqnsk chven ah moh-ment.”

  I stop. Now, my ears are probably playing tricks on me, but it definitely sounded like he just said a real word. A real English word. I shake my head of the cobwebs and decide to push on.

  “Xyxck giv-uh chvn gre moh-ment.”

  Okay, there were definitely two English words in there.

  I try to turn around without putting weight on my numb blown off butt and eye the giant man once more.

  “What?”

  He pauses for a minute and closes his eyes, as if he’s losing his patience and he needs a moment to find his “center”.

  Hah! He should try being shot. That really shakes a person’s center.

  “You...need. To give. It a moment.”

  I freeze as my mouth drops.

  He just spoke words. In English. What the fuck?! This can’t be real. I must be delirious.

  The last thing I expect to hear is the alien suddenly speaking strangely accented English. What in the Hell is going on? Why does he speak English? Did he do a study abroad program or something?!

  I gaze up at him uneasily, more confused than ever. “W-what d-d-did...you say?” I stutter, noticing that my own slurred speech has gotten better.

  He continues to look down at me and repeats himself without missing a beat.