Chapter 20
I startled awake, sprawled on my belly, breathing hard as I peered through the half light that disguised my surroundings. I was sore and sticky, my neck stiff from the way I’d been sleeping and a shiver wracked me as I realized I was naked and the room was cold enough for my breath to fog.
Licking my dry lips, I pushed myself up to my knees and scratched the sleep wrinkles on my chest as I tried to remember how I got here.
Carn was sprawled on the floor beside the low couch, one big arm resting beside my leg like he’d passed out trying to touch me.
My heart gave a little jolt at the thought and I felt a stupid smile creep across my face as I looked down at my. .. mate.
I’d done the deed, said yes to an act that meant forever to an alien.
Holy cow.
His ears hung limp, his body slack and a beastly snore emanated from his open mouth. I couldn’t help but smirk at the sight even as I wondered if his snoring had woken me up. The officer’s lounge looked different somehow, but I couldn’t quite pin down what had disturbed me.
A small red light flashed from under the door to the comm suite and the hair on the back of my neck prickled as I watched the color flare and fade in a steady pattern.
My bladder made itself known and I sighed.
Carefully crawling around Carn, I made my way to the bathroom, using the wall for support as my tired body resisted my commands.
I needed to find some crutches or a cane soon.
My good leg could only hold all my weight for so long before I was attacked by muscle cramps and risked straining my knee and hip.
For the first time since my capture, I let myself miss my prosthetic.
When it had first been confiscated, I’d been too focused on surviving to be upset.
In the confines of Carn’s cell, there wasn’t anywhere to walk, so I didn’t really miss it too much.
But now I needed to be able to run at a moment’s notice, be quick on my feet and ready for anything. I missed my leg and the foiled stickers I’d added to the titanium in a fit of boredom and then couldn’t peel off again.
“Stupid alien invasion,” I grouched, closing myself in the bathroom and taking care of business in the half dark.
The water in the sink was cold and I hesitated to use disinfectant pods on my lady parts, but I needed to get clean.
Proof of Carn’s ‘enthusiasm’ reached from my belly button to my knees and I felt disgusting, even if I had enjoyed it at the time.
Who would have thought the virgin alien would have a kink for playing with his own cum?
Not me, but then again, I wouldn’t have guessed I’d enjoy it as much as I did, either.
I’d just finished scrubbing down when I realized why the lounge felt different.
The lights were out. The air was cold.
We were floating in the vacuum of space, hundreds, if not thousands, of miles above my planet, and I had a bad feeling the cruiser’s life support wasn’t working.
“Alert, Occupants of Cruiser Four, make arrangements for evacuation. Life support is expected to fail in four standard cycles.”
The monotone voice echoed from the ceiling and I froze as I absorbed the message.
“Alert, Occupants of Cruiser Four, make arrangements-”
The message was repeating but I wasn’t listening anymore. Bursting out of the bathroom, I collided with Carn’s chest and he caught me before I could fall on my ass.
“Did you hear it?” I demanded, searching his face for a sense of calm I didn’t feel.
The tightness around his eyes didn’t comfort me at all.
“I heard.”
“What do we do?” I demanded, my head whipping from side to side like the answer would just paint itself on the walls.
“Naomi-”
I stopped him with a raised hand and headed for the closet. The door whipped open faster than I expected and Gigi fell to the floor like he’d been leaning against the door. His eyes bulged as he looked up at me and I realized I was still naked.
Whatever, bigger fish to fry.
“Gigi,” I snapped. “What the hell did I just hear?”
He gulped, large eyes jumping from me to Carn and back again.
“It was an evacuation order. The revolt must have damaged something. I expect life support will be rationed for the next four cycles. It’ll get colder, darker and harder to breathe until the ship shuts down.”
Yeah, I was afraid of that.
***
AN HOUR LATER, GIGI was hunched over the control panel in the comm suite, glowing green text reflecting alien words on his blue face and his shoulders were drooping more every minute.
Even his tentacles looked like they’d given up, curled limp and pale over his shoulders like the world’s biggest, most disturbing ringlets.
Carn and I loomed over the back of his chair, effectively trapping him in the suite. Not that he looked eager to escape us. From the details he was pulling from the alert system, we were his best bet.
According to Gigi, there were a few pockets of officers and guards holed up around the cruiser, the elite sytos had retreated to their emergency shuttle and were waiting for a response to their distress call from the rest of the fleet of cruisers.
Gigi couldn’t find a response to the SOS or if he had, he wasn’t sharing it.
I couldn’t really blame him, we were on opposite sides and he had watched Carn kill his buddies yesterday but depending on the enemy, our information made me want to crawl out of my skin and the thought of being locked in this lounge as the temperature dropped and the oxygen disappeared was even worse.
My teeth dug into my lower lip a little too hard and I winced.
“What are we supposed to do?” I asked. In front of me, Gigi’s tentacles coiled around themselves like he was dying to know the answer to that question, as well.
Carn let out a long breath and tugged me into his side.
“I have no experience with battle plans,” he said, casting me a sad look. I forced a smile and rubbed his washboard abs soothingly.
“We’ll figure it out, I don’t expect you to have an answer for everything.”
Gigi cleared his throat and cast a wary look over his shoulder.
“What happens to me when you don’t need me anymore?”
I didn’t know how to answer that. Carn would probably say killing him would be easiest, but I wasn’t a gladiator numb to the consequence of killing someone. In the heat of the moment was one thing, but I couldn’t see myself executing poor Gigi, especially after he’d been so well behaved for us.
“We could tie you up and leave you somewhere,” I offered, like we wouldn’t be leaving him on a dying ship.
He blinked at me and I swore I could see his thoughts fighting behind his strangely large eyes.
“I heard you two... breeding.”
I choked.
“We weren’t breeding,” I managed to force out.
Carn’s tail stroked the back of my leg and I shot him a look.
“Ok, technically we were doing the thing that makes babies. But that’s not why we were doing it!”
Gigi crossed his arms, looking more confident all of the sudden.
“Syto drones don’t breed. We’re created in labs, our genetic make-up edited to best perform the duty we’re being made for. Only Elites practice intercourse for pleasure.”
I didn’t know where he was going with this, but the options I could think of weren’t good.
“I’m not having sex with you,” I warned him.
His head tentacles spasmed like I’d electrocuted him and he glanced Carn’s way like just the suggestion would get him pummeled. From the low rumble beside me, Gigi wasn’t totally wrong.
“I don’t want you,” the syto mumbled. “But you want to go to Earth and there are more human females there. Listening to you awakened thoughts I’ve never had. Urges that would get me reprogrammed for efficiency if I stayed here.”
“So you wish to join us on the human planet?” Carn asked.
Gigi shrugged. “This cruiser is doomed, even if we’re rescued, I have nothing to look forward to but existing, performing my function until I can’t, and then having my biological material harvested and recycled.”
My stomach pitched at the casual way he talked about the way he’d be treated by his own people. It wasn’t even a punishment, just his expected life cycle. No wonder he was ready to try something else.
“You can’t just pick a woman and have sex with her,” I said. “She has to want you back.”
The ghost of a smile crossed his face. “If the Butcher can find a willing female, surely I have a chance.”
My gaze snagged on his freaky, freaky hair equivalent and I silently wished him luck.