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

  “You need to give it a moment. The translator probes need to fully attach to your neural circuitry.”

  “Translator probes...?” I repeat as my voice trails in confusion.

  He nods once and then glances at my ass.

  “Translator probes.”

  I’ve intentionally been avoiding looking at my ass because I really didn’t want to see a big gaping wound on my body, but I can’t help but look at what he is gesturing at. I glance down and I’m immediately relieved to see that I still have a whole butt. In fact, it looks completely normal with the exception of a tiny silver pin sticking out of my right cheek.

  I reach down and pull it out immediately and throw it away like it’s burning my fingers.

  “What was that!?” I ask as I rub my mildly wounded butt.

  Rather than answer me, he walks towards me, lifts me and then throws me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. And it happens so quickly that I just sit there and watch while he does it.

  “Injector dart. For the translator probes,” he growls as he turns around and walks towards the hatch.

  I’m struck by his words that I don’t even fight him. Injector dart for translator probes? So I can understand him now because he shot me with a language translator doo-dad? Are you kidding me? I hang off his shoulder, my head dangling, while I let that sink in for a minute...

  That’s freaking cool! Where was that dart when I was taking high school Spanish? Getting shot in the butt in high school would have been so handy.

  But that’s neither here nor there, I might as well take advantage of our newly opened lines of communication.

  “W-what? What are you doing! Put me down! Hey! Put me down!” I yell.

  I start to slam my fists on his back, but I instantly realize how futile and ridiculous that is. His clothing is made out of a strange alien material that is absorbing the impact of every punch. Or it could just be his obscenely large muscles absorbing everything. Either way, I can tell that my punches probably feel like mosquito bites.

  But that doesn’t stop me from trying to inflict some damage.

  “Hey, asshole!! Put me down! What do you think you’re doing!” I yell while my arms and legs are waling on him.

  He just continues to walk and ignores me as if I’m not even on his shoulder. This just infuriates me more. So I decide to try a different tactic.

  “Do you have any idea what you’re doing? Do you know who you’re messing with? I’m an astronaut! You fucked with the wrong world, buster! America is going to go after you!”

  At this the big blue man snorts. He doesn’t say or do anything else, he just snorts.

  Alright, time to try a different strategy.

  “What? I’m serious! You’re going to regret this! I’m so freaking important on my world, you have no idea! Don’t think that the world isn’t going to know that you just kidnapped one of its most prized people!”

  As the words pour out of my mouth, I bite my lower lip in mild shame. No, maybe I’m not an astronaut...and maybe I’m not a VIP human...but he doesn’t have to know that.

  Big Blue pauses for a moment, processing what I’ve just told him. It’s working! He’s actually rethinking whether or not he should take me. I can see the wheels turning.

  “How important are you? What are you worth? Do you have special abilities?” he asks lowly in his weird alien accent, his interest mildly piqued. He doesn’t seem afraid. He just seems interested.

  Oh fuck. Well, that didn’t go the way that I wanted. I’ve just managed to make myself appear even more appealing for kidnapping. Wonderful.

  I backpedal like I’ve never backpedaled before.

  “Uh...uhmm...nothing really. No special skills or anything! I’m just a special person in the sense that all people are special. Heh, we’re all...just really special in our...averageness. Nothing spectacular about me or us humans in any way. Nothing. At. All.”

  The alien seems to accept my answer and continues to walk towards the hatch. I breathe a strange sigh of relief, although I’m not exactly sure why I’m so relieved considering I’m still being taken away. I’ll probably be tortured or disemboweled or experimented on in just a few short minutes.

  I shudder and whimper quietly to myself. I’m so screwed.

  I also quickly realize that my punching and kicking are having little to no effect on him and it’s only making me tired, so I quietly give in and stop.

  But not without getting in a quick elbow to his big head.

  He growls in response, but does nothing else.

  “Where are you taking me?” I demand.

  Naturally, he doesn’t respond, which is fine since I really wasn’t expecting an answer. Besides, I know where he’s taking me - he’s taking me to his scary ship.

  Seconds later, he lowers his head and walks through the hatch and into his vessel. Everything immediately changes. The loud creaking of the space station is instantly replaced with a quiet low hum of the alien ship.

  I can’t really see anything since my line of vision is limited to the alien’s lower back and ass - which appears to be rock hard and perfect – but the LED lighting of the space station is gone and now there’s a warm pulsating light surrounding us.

  I arch my neck and try to look around and I see glowing panels with alien symbols blinking up and down the wall. I’m both mortified and fascinated. Yes, I’m scared out of my mind, but I can still acknowledge the general coolness of being in an alien space ship.

  Even if it is on the shoulder of a big scary alien.

  “Where are you taking me?” I repeat, my voice a little more shaky and unsure than before. Now that I’m no longer in the “safety” of the space station and in a very alien space ship, my strength and ability to fight back has suddenly disappeared. So yeah, I’m scared shitless.

  I wait for the lumbering man to reply, but I get nothing. So I try again.

  “Hey! Where are we going? And where’s my friend? Where’s Jordan?” I persist.

  Still nothing. He just continues to walk through the corridors of his big ship. Wonderful. I sigh and hang my head in futility. Well, this is just great.

  Stupid lottery.

  Chapter 2

  This human female is impossible. Are they all like this? Do humans not understand the basic laws of the Universe? I’m big. She’s small. Why does she fight back? Does she not realize that I’m three times her size? Do you humans lack common sense?

  If I ended up getting a deficient human I will not be pleased.

  I walk through the corridor and towards the flight deck feeling more irked than usual. Kaveth had no trouble at all capturing the other woman. She simply yelled like a dying Lok’tak until he shot her with the translator nodes and then she apparently fainted and he carried her back to the ship.

  Easy. Clean. No questions. No verbal assaults. No running. And no punches to the head.

  Humans are profoundly unpleasant.

  That could be a problem when it’s time to do the trade. Normally, I would feel compelled to share such unsavory knowledge about merchandise to prospective buyers, but being that this is going to be my biggest pay day, I’m just going to keep my mouth shut. No matter how distasteful I find this job or the trading of lesser beings. Let them deal with the human once they have her.

  I enter the flight deck and I see Kaveth sitting in the pilot’s chair inputting the coordinates. He glances up at me and chuckles.

  “What’s your problem? You look pissier than usual. What took you so long?”

  I don’t look at him. I just sit down.

  “We should do more research on the merchandise next time,” I say lowly.

  Kaveth cocks an eyebrow and gives me a knowing smile.

  “Yeah? Why’s that? I didn’t see a problem. They might be a loud bunch, maybe a little on the puny side, but they’re surprisingly not awful looking creatures. That should count for something.”

  “Not awful looking? I wouldn’t know, I was too busy staving off the attack
s of the female I had to deal with to notice.”

  Although, I was able to catch a glance of her backside right before I shot it with the injector dart, and admittedly, I found that it moved in a particularly...appealing way. But more importantly, the human apparently has some spirit and strength. I can almost respect that. Almost.

  She will need that for where she’s going.

  “Where’s the female you captured?” I ask while I look at our plotted course.

  “I put her in my quarters. She’s completely out and I felt weird putting her in the cargo hold next to the miniature fire drakes we captured. Anyway, aside from a few tiny obstacles this was way easier than I thought it was going to be.”

  I glance over at him, bored and not amused. The look is subtle enough, but I make sure he knows my thoughts on the subject. It’s true that our lives were never at risk, but that didn’t make the job any less annoying.

  Kaveth laughs and focuses on the flight controls.

  “So how shall we handle the trade off? Where to first?”

  “The females are going to two different clients so I think it’s best if we head to the Omega quadrant and go our separate ways from there; you can take the transporter and take one of the females to your contact and I’ll do the trade that’s scheduled on the Commerce Planet.”

  “You got it. Which female should I take with me? Do you want me to take the fiery brown-haired one? I can -”

  “No. It’s fine. I’ll take her. There’s no point in frightening the humans more by forcing them to deal with both of us.”

  Plus, for some reason I don’t love the idea of Kaveth handling the female that I captured. There is no good reason for it, but it just bothers me.

  It’s probably because I don’t think he can handle her and her temper properly. She’s a handful and Kaveth would likely fuck it up and accidentally lose her.

  Kaveth shrugs. “Works for me. The light colored hair one is extremely pleasant to look at anyway. Just a little hard on the ears,” he pauses for a second, as if struggling to find the right words, and then adds, “Do you ever...have second thoughts on the commission we take?”

  I stiffen slightly, but don’t allow him to notice.

  “What? Like this job?”

  He shrugs again as he shifts uncomfortably in his chair. “Yeah, like this job. While they’re not from an advanced Q Class planet, these two aren’t exactly miniature fire drakes either.”

  “Are you having second thoughts? Because –“

  “No no! No second thoughts! I just...ah, fuck it, forget it! It was nothing.”

  He enters in the coordinates and initiates the hyper-drive. Feeling like I just dodged a bullet for some reason, I relax. He was dangerously close to saying something that we both we were probably thinking and would have caused a serious wrinkle in our plan.

  “Permission to engage the hyper-drive for the Omega quadrant?” He pauses for a minute and then mutters, ”Commander?”

  I smirk quietly.

  There is no use for titles or formalities when you’re an intergalactic smuggler, but occasionally Kaveth likes to be an asshole and remind me of my past life as an Imperial Peacekeeper.

  Hah, Peacekeeper. What a pile of shit. There was nothing peaceful about what we did.

  It’s not a life that I’m proud of. It was just a life that came naturally to me. Being a Truvian, we are naturally more aggressive and ideal soldiers – we were bred that way. The strongest male was always matched with the strongest female. Strength, agility and aggressiveness were traits that we admired and strived for. It’s always been that way and that’s why we’ve always been the Galaxy’s protectors and the Empire’s hammer.

  And I was the biggest hammer.

  I moved up the ranks faster than most and took command of the fiercest and most elite squadron of Peacekeepers that the Empire had ever seen.

  I had to do a lot of things to reach that position – things that I’m not proud of.

  At first, I didn’t question the things that I had to. I was the perfect soldier. I executed orders flawlessly and with lethal precision and never blinked an eye. Never questioned anything. The more unsavory the task, the more cold and hard I became.

  It was this ability that helped expedite my way up the ranks. They valued my ability to be detached and cold. They liked the fact that I never questioned what we were doing. I was their lethal mindless animal – the perfect soldier.

  They just didn’t realize that their lethal animal would eventually bite back.

  “Granted,” I reply.

  “You got it.” Kaveth engages the hyper-drive and the stars instantly disappear and become blurred streaks sitting on top a blanket of black.

  The fact that I now make my living as an intergalactic smuggler is just a happy consequence to my breaking away from the Peacekeepers. Now, I just consider a job to be exceptionally enticing if I get to relieve the Empire of some of their worldly goods and make a profit from it in the process.

  Kaveth interrupts my thoughts as he asks, “Did you inject your female with a tranquilizer?”

  “I did, once we arrived to the ship. Why?”

  “Well, it looks like your female is awake.”

  He nods at the blinking sensor that indicates there’s a possible breach in one of the security measures in my quarters. I press the controls to get a visual of my quarters and I see the female I captured kicking and punching at the door.

  Without saying a word I rise from my chair to make my leave of the flight deck and deal with the disturbance in my quarters.

  Amused, Kaveth laughs and shouts back at me, “Don’t be too rough on your female. We don’t want you to damage the goods.”

  “Just fly to the Omega quadrant,” I yell back.

  I walk through the door and just as it shuts behind me I growl, “And she’s not my female.”

  ***

  Dani

  “Hey!! Assholes! Let me out of here! Hey!” I yell while I bang and kick at the door.

  At least I think it’s the door. The walls of the room are entirely seamless and there doesn’t appear to be a doorframe of any kind – everything is just a smooth wall. The only reason why I’m banging where I’m banging is because there’s a control panel close by and it just feels like a good place for a door given the placement of the furniture in the room. What? Who said there isn’t Feng Shui in space?

  After the big bad blue alien man carried me through the ship and dropped me on my ass in the room, I honestly thought I was done for right then and there. Without even saying one word, he raised his ray gun-type thing and pointed it at me, but this time he had a weird glint in his eye, like he was going to enjoy what he was about to do.

  “Hey! Hey! I already understand you! No need for more translator thingies!” I yelled as I tried to inch backwards.

  “This isn’t for translators, human,” he replied evenly.

  He lifted his gun and aimed.

  Realizing that my end was probably near, I snapped, “You’re an ass!”

  He cocks a single eyebrow and smiled ever so slightly, transforming his strong face to something a little unexpected and strangely pleasant.

  “I will enjoy this.”

  Being annoyed by his little grin and feeling an overwhelming surge of anger and confusion were the last things I felt before everything went black.

  Oh and the stinging pinch I felt in my shoulder. I remember feeling that too before I passed out.

  And so here I am now. Banging at a wall and yelling like a mad woman in a doorless room in an alien spaceship. This doesn’t bode well for my sanity.

  “What do you bastards think you’re doing?! Let me out!”

  Although, honestly I’m not even sure why I would want to be ‘out’ of this room. It seems relatively safe and secure and there are no big aliens in it. In fact, I’m not even sure why I’m drawing attention to myself except for the fact that I’m just so thoroughly pissed off right now that I want to bang on something.

&n
bsp; I’ve just spent the last eight months training with a bunch of grade A assholes who hated my guts only to spend three days puking in space while wishing for death and now? Now I get to be abducted by grouchy giant aliens.

  So yeah, I’m a little irrationally pissed right now.

  Fuck space.

  Just as I throw my arm back to bang on the wall again, the smooth wall separates like magic and before I can stop myself my fist makes contact with the hard chest of a stone-faced alien.

  I freeze.

  I slowly glance up, arching my head back so that I can look up into his scary blue face. I see his dark alien eyes locked down on me. His face is unreadable. I have no idea what is going through his mind. Is he annoyed? Angry? Unimpressed?

  I don’t know many aliens, but I would be willing to bet he might be all three.

  I exhale a slow breath that I didn’t realize I was holding in and take an unsteady step back, my eyes still locked on him. It’s not that I have a problem with hitting him. I’ve already hit him a few times since I met him. It’s just that things are a little different now. I’m in his house now. I should probably try to be less disagreeable.

  “Hi...” I stutter out.

  He takes a step forward and follows me into the room. God, he’s huge. He fills up half the room. My heart stops a little. For the first time I get a good look of him. It was dark in the space station, so I couldn’t really see clearly, but now? Now, I see just how daunting he is. I knew he was big, I knew he was muscular, but I had no idea what I was dealing with.

  In general, he looks pretty similar to a human actually. He has a big nose and lips - surprisingly nice lips actually – and a head full of hair. His face is strong and angular and a jaw line that could slice through butter and eyes that are dark as night. Or dark as the universe. Either descriptor could work.

  For lack of a better word, his face looked like molded perfection, something that one of the old great artists could have made out of marble.

  But I think what threw me was the fact that he didn’t actually look...awful looking. In fact, quite the opposite. Aside from the overbearing intensity – and the blueness – he was actually sort of attractive. He did have a long scar on the side of his face, along his jaw, but that somehow made him oddly better looking, like it accentuated the perfection of everything else.