Ahelno (Lietvia Galaxy #1)

CHAPTER 1

Blinking my eyes open, I found myself strapped inside a three-sided box. It looked more like an alcove than a box, but whatever it was, I’d been buckled into it like some kind of display doll. Apparently, it was designed to keep passengers from being tossed around the spaceship.

My stomach dropped as I recognized the ugly-ass insectoid alien at the helm.

For a few disoriented seconds, my brain struggled to catch up. Then anger rushed through me, hot and sharp, followed quickly by panic when I realized I couldn’t move.

Thankfully, the alien had its back to me, focused on whatever lay beyond the front window while I fought not to hyperventilate.

Up close, it was even worse than I remembered.

Four inky-black eyes. Six legs. A vaguely humanoid torso balanced on top like some nightmare version of a centaur.

When it had first approached my holding pen—on some other planet, or moon, or whatever hellhole I’d been incarcerated on —I’d thought it looked almost beetle-like beneath the harsh lights.

It had growled and hissed in a language I couldn’t understand while arguing with one of the furry blob creatures acting as zookeepers for the captives in the pens.

Or slave traders.

Ever since I’d been kidnapped from Earth and woken up in a freezing, barren cell, I’d had no idea what was happening to me. But one thing was painfully clear:

Nothing about this was good.

When it first spied me in that cell, the shiny centaur-ish insect had leered at me obscenely, and I knew I was in trouble.

After a brief, unintelligible conversation with the fuzzball zookeeper, the window of the pen lowered, and the insect-alien quickly reached out and grabbed me by the throat.

It ran another hand down my body and squeezed in places I absolutely did not want to be squeezed. No, no, no.

It continued its inspection by shoving its hand down my pants and between my legs, then brought the hand to its mouth and licked.

Terrified, angry, and humiliated all at once, I fought back, kicking and punching like a honey badger on steroids.

The alien reared up on two of its legs, suddenly bipedal and now a foot and a half taller than me.

It used all four of its remaining limbs as arms to truss me in ropes and carry me out of the cell.

It spoke to the fuzzball again as it hauled me over its shoulder like a sack of flour.

I could tell we were making our way between dozens of pens, but that was all I could see.

I struggled to get free and received several hard blows in response.

The fuzzball approached me with a giant needle, which it plunged in my shoulder and within seconds, all my muscles went slack.

My eyes worked, but I couldn’t blink, and I suddenly couldn’t move at all.

My captor ferried me through what looked like an airport (spaceport?), but I saw nothing from my prone position other than its back.

It carried me to a ship and stood me up against the wall in this compartment, like a mummy in a sarcophagus on display.

It closed the transparent door, and I was trapped inside, still unable to move.

The alien looked me over from head to toe to make sure I was secure, then scuttled to the front of the ship.

Paralyzed and frightened, I focused on my surroundings to see if anything would be of use in an escape attempt.

Everything was mostly red, and I could see a table, a lot of buttons and lights at the helm where the alien was crouched again on four legs, a few alcoves like mine along the walls of the room I was in, and a hallway to my left.

I tried to move, but I couldn’t even lift a pinky.

There was nothing I could do but observe and wait.

My terror kept me awake for hours, but eventually I succumbed to sleep.