Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I woke up in my own bed. It stunned the hell out of me, and I wondered for a bit if it had all just been a dream.
But the mild ache in my ass told a different story, and when I stripped in the bathroom, I noticed a hickey on my neck that hadn’t been there the night before.
It wasn’t huge, like he’d done it on purpose.
More like he was just as distracted as I was and didn’t notice what he was doing.
Luckily, it was low enough that my uniform would hide it.
I didn’t need Knightley or anyone else asking questions.
I took a solaray bath and got dressed, checking at least a dozen times that I was right and the hickey didn't show. I was stalling a little, too. I didn't know how Aster was going to act now that we’d hooked up. Or more like he fucked me stupid and I freaking let him. I didn’t know how Krezikians got off or if he even did last night.
Maybe it was a little selfish to not think about his enjoyment of it, but in my defense, my mind was mush after that massage.
I blamed it for my lack of critical thinking last night.
If I’d been in the right headspace, I would’ve known better than to offer my ass up like that.
Okay, maybe I was lying to myself, but I wasn’t ready to admit that yet.
The door to our room slid open, and I heard Aster’s chipper voice on the other side. “Good Morning, Travis.”
Knightley’s voice was terse and a little suspicious whenever he spoke to Aster, and today was no different. “Morning…”
“Have you gotten ahold of your family? Enzo worked hard to get that approved with our leaders.”
Technically, it was a joint effort, but I was still hiding in the bathroom, so I couldn’t exactly argue with him.
“Uh, yeah… I’ve talked to them. I’d like to go home soon, though. They need me there.”
Aster hummed, his voice going sad. “I know. We are trying. It is difficult when your leaders won’t listen. They are refusing to focus on what is important.”
It was awkward hiding in the bathroom, so I forced myself to walk out, suddenly glad my complexion wasn’t prone to blushing. The back of my neck was where I usually turned red, and I hid that by rubbing my neck awkwardly. Aster smiled brightly at me but didn’t make mention of the night prior.
Knightley glanced at me, his brows drawn together. “What leaders?”
I made an irritated sound, stomping over to sit on the edge of my bed so I could pull on my boots.
“All of them. They picked up the government leaders of every damn country, put them in a room, and expected them all to listen to reason. They’ve been arguing for days just on whether they want to listen to what the Krezikians have to say or not. They haven’t even let them speak yet.”
Knightley’s mouth fell open. “Holy shit. You’re serious?”
“Yeah. The plan was only to keep the military for three days so they could make a plan with the world leaders before sending everyone home. It’s the humans that are dragging this out. I fucking hate government leaders sometimes.”
Knightley groaned, dropping back onto his bed and staring at the ceiling. “How much do you want to bet it’s our government leader who’s causing the most headaches? It’s not like they picked up the whole senate, right?”
He rolled his head without sitting up to look at Aster, who wrinkled his nose in confusion.
“I don’t know what that is. But we only picked up the leaders of the nations. Not any extras.”
Knightley sat up suddenly, whipping his head around to face me.
“You do realize that if the president is considered compromised, they’ll just put someone else in his place on the ground.
Any decisions he makes here might not mean anything.
And they’re probably already planning a retaliation as we speak. ”
Fuck. I hadn’t thought of that. I just assumed when the Krezikians said they picked up the government, they picked up all of it.
Just world leaders meant those on the surface would scramble to have a working government and replace those who were taken, even if they could now contact the people back at home.
“They cannot retaliate. We incapacitated the bases,” Aster protested.
Like the universe wanted to prove him wrong, alarms started blaring, and a ship-wide announcement went out in Krezikian. “All personnel return to their workstations. Enemy shots fired. Shields at 100%.”
Even with shields, which I had so many questions about, the ship rocked from the impact, sending all three of us to the floor.
Aster landed on top of me, but his tentacles whipped out to cushion us both in the fall, so I didn’t feel it.
One even stretched to catch Knightley’s arm to make sure he didn’t hit his head.
“Are you alright?” Aster demanded, his eyes trailing over me to check for injuries.
I nodded quickly. “I’m fine. What’s happening?”
He was too confused and upset to answer, rambling instead. “Someone is firing at us. I don’t understand. We made sure that all bases were shut down. How did we miss any?”
“Did you do anything about the submarines?” Knightley asked as he pushed to his feet.
My stomach dropped. Oh shit. I hadn’t even thought of those. And apparently, neither had Aster. He pulled us both to our feet, frowning at Knightley.
“The what?”
Another impact rocked the ship again. This time we managed to stay standing, but whatever was happening was obviously not a one-time thing. Aster steadied me on my feet before tugging my elbow.
“We must go. We need to return to the Command Center.”
I was going to ask why I was going too since my job was only to liaison with the humans, but Knightley pushed me and Aster out the door, following hot on our heels. Aster didn’t comment on him joining us, leading the way at a pace where we had to run full out to keep up with him.
I expected the chaos when we got to the Command Center. All eyes were on the monitors on the wall, locked on the ocean, and when another missile shot out from the water, Trevuk barked at everyone, “Brace!”
“Holy shit,” Knightley shouted, holding on to one of the workstations to remain upright. “Are they seriously firing on ships that hold the fucking hostages? Are they trying to kill us all?”
Trevuk swung around, his eyes narrowing on Knightley. Uh oh. Maybe I shouldn’t have let him come with us. But Trevuk didn’t have time to yell at us. Another missile shot out and a red flash went across the screen.
“Warning. Shields at 80%. Warning.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck. I wasn’t sure how much firepower the submarines had, but if they kept going, they’d shoot us down. With hundreds of thousands of innocents on board.
“What are they doing?” Knightley demanded. “Why aren’t they firing back?”
“Because they’re not here to hurt people,” I snapped. “If they can handle the situation without killing, that’s what they’ll do first. That’s why they took everyone. It wasn’t to use us as hostages. They just wanted a chance to speak without fearing for their lives.”
Knightley looked stunned by my conviction, but I was a little pissed off. The aliens who took us went out of their way to make us comfortable. Meanwhile, our own government was trying to shoot down the ship they knew was filled with military POWs.
Aster was standing near Trevuk, speaking so quickly that I couldn’t even begin to understand him, even with the translator chip. Between the noise of the panic in the room and the repeated impacts of the missiles rattling my brain, I couldn’t hear much besides white noise.
“Oh no!” the Krezikian using the workstation I was clinging to whispered, his eyes wide and terrified.
“What’s wrong?”
He pointed at his screen. “They’ve taken Landu. They’re going to hurt them!”
Fucking hell. Of course, the abducted military members would use this shit to their advantage.
Even excellent treatment didn’t change the fact that we were prisoners up here.
I leaned over the back of the alien’s chair, studying the screen.
Landu was in a room, surrounded by a group of humans.
The doors must have been messed with, because there were only supposed to be two in each room.
There were at least six surrounding the little alien, who only ever wanted to help.
Fury filled my veins, and I growled, shoving away from the monitor.
“Where is that?”
“Uh… Sector 17, Hallway B. Room 400.”
“Okay. I’ll handle it. Knightley, explain what a fucking submarine is so we can stop them before we all die. I’m not going to let them shoot us down with so many of our people on board.”
Knightley didn’t argue, thank fuck, giving me a sharp nod before booking it over to where Aster and Trevuk were trying to figure out what was happening. Spinning on my heel, I marched toward the door, beckoning the guards who stood beside it.
“There’s trouble in the human section. Landu needs our help. Let’s go.”
I couldn’t name half the workers on the ship, and I doubted the guards knew every one of them, but everyone knew Landu.
They were sweet and eager to learn. They went to a lot of trouble to get humans coffee, and they were the first to volunteer to make deliveries if a human needed something.
They were also tiny, and it was messed up that a group of trained military members would corner someone so much smaller than them.
The guards redirected me when I almost went the wrong way, racing through the halls to get to Landu before overzealous military members killed them.
I’d given them the room number we were looking for when we started running, and they knew the ship better than I did.
It felt like hours of endless hallways before we finally reached the one we were looking for.
They weren’t in the room anymore. Instead, they were dragging a semi-conscious Landu down the hall away from us, using them as a hostage when they heard us coming.
“Stay back! We’ll kill him!” an army specialist shouted, his arm tightening around Landu’s neck. I could hear them choking, and their face was swollen and bruised, big tears shimmering in their eyes.
The guards who joined me shouted back, but they didn’t have translator chips. They shouted in Krezikian, demanding the humans release Landu. I was forced to translate, because no one could understand each other.
“Let Landu go,” I bellowed. “They aren’t part of this!”
“Yeah, right! Like we’re going to listen to a traitor like you!”
It felt like a slap to the face, and I jerked back for a second before baring my teeth. “Me? I’m not the asshole trying to shoot down a ship full of allies! It’s our own fucking government that’s trying to kill us right now!”
Two of them looked stunned by the idea, but the rest all glared at me.
“Why the hell should we believe you? They’re probably trying to rescue us!”
They were all junior enlisted hot heads, too damn young to realize their stupidity.
If I could, I’d show them all the truth.
But I wasn’t going anywhere without Landu.
I glanced at the guard beside me. He had a spear, but there was no way he could get close enough without them seriously hurting Landu in the process.
“You don’t happen to have a gun on you, do you?”
His gaze flicked to me momentarily, and he shook his head. “We have something similar, but we are not supposed to use them. We aren’t supposed to kill the humans. Only subdue.”
Yeah, I figured as much. But Landu’s already blue skin was turning almost purple from lack of oxygen, and I wasn’t going to sit around waiting for them to die. The other guard’s weapon was on his hip, and I snagged it, pointing it at the group of idiots.
“Let him go, soldier. I outrank you. That’s a fucking order.”
He sneered at me, tightening his grip, and Landu’s eyes fluttered shut as he went limp.
Fucking motherfuckers. I knew they were only scared, but I was also seriously pissed off, and I didn’t like seeing innocents get hurt.
I shot off a round, the force of the weapon jerking my hands enough for me to miss the shot.
It hit the wall instead and the whole ship shuddered.
Whoops.