Alien Insertion: An Alien Warrior Romance (The Tuorin Legacy Book 4) (3 page)

Juordin and I sit together on the bridge, captain and copilot. We’re only hours from Lla’ei, and Juordin has slowed our flight to go through the asteroid belt between us and my home.
Funny to think I didn’t even know what an asteroid belt was a week ago.

The closer we get to Lla’ei, the more restless I’m becoming. I’m almost sitting on the edge of my seat, wondering what hue the red tinge will be. I want to see my father—and my people—again. In my mind, I visualize the worst.

Juordin looks tired, his tattoo indicator creeping ever farther into the red. I don’t want to think about him getting weaker.

“Do you want to rest for a short while before we arrive?”

His lips tighten at the corners. “No, dammit. I just want to kill these cat bastards.”

“It’ll be soon enough,” I reassure him.

He gives me a sad smile. “It’s strange how time can suddenly seem so precious when you know how little of it you have left.”

My heart skips a beat. “Juordin, don’t talk like that.”

He glances at his red tattoo, then back at me. “All right. But Ande…the time is getting close. And when it does….”

A lump forms in my throat. I try to swallow, but I can’t. “I understand,” I whisper.

And I do understand. He wants to face death like a man.

But then his jaw goes slack. “My gods.” From the expression on his face, I don’t want to look out the viewscreen to see what’s ahead. But I know I must.

I know instantly it’s an Ardak spaceship. It looks like an Ardak lander. The gray metal seems to suck all the light from the space around it. The only problem is that it’s a lot bigger than the Ardak landers. About a thousand times bigger.

“Get the scientists. And my cousins,” he orders, going to sit in the captain’s chair.

The urgency in his voice propels me and I nod and sprint toward the door. When I burst into the science room, Redonim and the other two scientists are watching vids and taking notes, each engrossed in their work. “Juordin needs you, please come quickly.”

They all drop what they’re doing and I head back out into the hall to the next door. “Please come to the bridge. Quickly.”

“What’s happening?” A gruff voice from behind me makes me makes me turn abruptly.

Casin and Corin are standing in their doorway, along with another warrior. Actually, they are all trying to be in the doorway but it’s tight so they don’t quite fit.

“Juordin is asking for the scientists and you two to meet on the bridge.”

We hurry back to the bridge.

“Gods, what is that?” Corin asks, aghast. The Ardak ship lies just on the other side of the asteroid belt, huge and ominous.

I’d thought the asteroid belt was bad enough—even now I can see the huge rocks flying past at immense speeds in front of us.

Juordin stands to face the crowd. “I think we all know what it is.”

“What?” I ask, looking between everyone, confused.

“An Ardak mother ship,” Casin whispers. “But we’ve never seen one that big before.”

Juordin turns to Redonim. “If we put the malworm on that ship, will it work?”

Redonim turns to the two women on his team. They whisper for a moment, then he says, “We honestly don’t know.”

One of the women looks at him, then steps forward. “We don’t know for sure…but it could be better than inserting it into an exoskeleton or a lander. A lot better.”

“Why?” Juordin asks.

She looks at Redonim for a second, then answers, “Well, the malworm will only spread to those devices that have a connection to it. While a lander would only connect to certain teams, we can probably assume the mother ship has a connection to every cat in the vicinity.” The scientist swallows, staring out the viewscreen at the large ship.

“I need to make a quick decision. Do we proceed to the planet, or try to install the malworm in this massive ship?”

“We don’t even know if we can. Their technology is ahead of ours and it’s…different.” Redonim answers. “It could be shielded. They could have automatic countermeasures that will detect and destroy us.”

“Then the best chance we have is to go into the asteroid belt and get as close as we can before attempting to land on it.” Casin says.

“Land
on
it?” Redonim asks incredulously.

“Well, it’s the only way we’re going to get inside.” Casin answers.

“I don’t have time for a lengthy debate. Final arguments,” Juordin orders.

“There are so many we could die trying to get into a ship that big,” Redonim says, “I can’t even list them all.”

“We’re all going to die anyway.” Corin counters, speaking for the first time. “And it’s our chance to get the most cats possible. I say we do it.”

Juordin seems surprised, but he nods. “I will do as Redonim suggests and use the asteroid belt to get us as close as possible. Then we will land on the ship and enter to plant the malworm.” His gaze falls on each of them. “Go back to your quarters and strap yourselves in. At least if it’s our last, this is going to be one hell of a ride.”

He sits back down in the captain’s chair, and I strap in beside him.

He holds out his hand to me. I take it, gazing into his face. “In case we do die, I want you to know…”

I hold up a hand to stop him.

He closes his mouth, looking at me.

“Now we have to live…so you can finish your sentence.”

Surprisingly, he laughs. “I’ve never tried that strategy before. Let’s hope it works.”

He presses a button and a strange kind of handle pops up.

“What is that?”

“Manual control. Hang on tight, Princess. Here we go.”

With those final words, he steers the ship straight into the asteroid belt.

Suddenly, rocks that are much too large are flying around us in a chaotic mess. Some are the size of mountains, others much smaller. Each on its own path, they barely miss each other, or collide and break into smaller chunks that fly off into unpredictable directions.

I grip the handles of the seat so tightly that my knuckles turn white.

Juordin pilots the ship with breathtaking skill, weaving between the rocks as we get ever closer to the Ardak ship.

A rock flies in the wrong direction, coming forward over the top of us. At just the last moment, it impacts us, the thud sounding deep and painful. I hear the unmistakable sound of cracking.

Looking up, I see splintered cracks appearing in the ceiling.

Another bump from the back of the ship and red lights start to blink on the glass in front of us.

How much more can we take?

“It’s all right, sweetheart, this ship can take a lot more than this.”

I can’t take my eyes off the rocks in front of us. “Did I ask that aloud?”

“No.” He weaves around another enormous rock. “I could feel you thinking it.”

Another bump to the right of the ship and he curses. “Almost there. Hang on, baby.”

I don’t know if he’s talking to me, or the
Helios
, but I can’t believe I’m actually relieved to be closing in on the Ardak ship.

One thousand one. One thousand two. One thousand three.
I begin to count to take my mind off the horror.

Three more breathless minutes pass, then we break free of the asteroid belt not far from the ship.

As we near it, however, we start to veer downward.

“What’s happening?”

He’s looking at all the blinking lights. “I don’t know. For some reason, we’re being sucked toward the underside of the ship.”

“Is that bad?”

“Well…” He starts pressing buttons and forcibly pulling against the handle. “…if it’s built like the landers, the underside is where the turbine engines are. We’ll be pulled in and incinerated.”

“
What?!”
I press the release on my belt and hop over to his chair, trying to help him pull back the handle.

“Find something else we can use for leverage,” he orders urgently.

I look around but don’t see anything. Then I reach behind the seat for my swords.

He glances over. “I don’t think killing me is going to work.”

I lop off the safety belt at the bolts, and in a flash I’m at his seat again, handing it to him.

“Great thinking.” He ties the handle to the captain’s chair, holding it in place.

He’s up in a flash, trading places with me. “Get in the chair.”

I sit down and he has me grab the controller. “Hang on to this, just in case the belt doesn’t hold. I’ll send Casin back in while I amp the power.” His fingers fly across the blinking lights on the glass in front of me.

The controller jerks wildly against my hand.
The belt isn’t strong enough.

“Hurry!” I cry.

But it’s slipping.

He’s gone in a flash.

And only seconds later, the belt snaps.

The ship jerks sharply downward and I scream with effort as I pull the handle back toward me with all my might.

I succeed in righting the ship, but we’re much lower than before.

Don’t let it go.

Hold on, Ande!
I’m breaking out into a cold sweat. I try to clench my hands more tightly around it, but my hands are slippery with sweat.

Hold on! Not just for you.

For all of them.
My muscles are screaming, my fingers going numb.

For Lla’ei. Tuorin. And every other planet.

We need to kill these cats!

Just then, two strong hands close around the handle above my own.
Casin.

“Thank the gods.”

“I don’t think…we should thank anyone yet.” He grunts, pulling back on the handle. He looks at the handle closely. “We’re going to break this fucking thing off if Juordin doesn’t hurry up.”

I hear a crack and realize the fissures from our earlier asteroid hits are widening.

Casin lets out a stream of curses.

Another crack.

The ship is about to come apart. I can feel it. The handle jumps back and forth in our hands.

“Jourdiiiiiiin!” Casin’s half yell half scream is one I’ll remember for the rest of my life.
For however long that is. Please hold together,
Helios
.

The hairs on my body are standing on end.

When the viewscreen starts to spidercrack, I can’t even scream. My arms are shot, my fingers numb from the pressure.

And then I feel it. A surge of power, and we start to rise. Another surge, and Casin pulls back on the handle, the muscles in his hands and arms shaking. I try to help, but I’m fairly useless. But I can see we’re slowly climbing upward toward the top of the ship.

Another surge of power comes, and it’s sustained this time.

“Thank the gods,” I say.

Casin’s heartfelt curse makes me smile weakly.

We’re alive. For the moment.

Juordin sprints in moments later.

He takes in our position, the cracked screen, and the cracks in the ceiling in a glance. “Fuck.”

“Yeah, that’s been said already.” Casin’s voice is dry.

“Are we out of the draft?”

“It appears that way. I think we’re drifting along with the ship inside of it. How did you do that?”

“I threw in the fuel reserves and amped up the engines to maximum power,” Juordin answers. “The end result is we’re alive, but I ended up cracking the engine case so we won’t be going back through the wormhole.”

Casin opens his mouth, then closes it abruptly. His expression is a mix of sadness and resignation. Finally, he speaks. “I guess we’d better make this mission count.”

Juordin nods. “Agreed.”

Casin rises and Juordin takes the chair, punching some buttons on the console in front of him. A smaller screen pops up within the larger picture, showing a much more detailed view of the top of the craft.

I peer over his shoulder. “How did you do that?”

“A telescoping lens. It allows us to see things more closely.”

“It’s amazing.”

“There.” Casin points to a circular object. “That’s probably an opening to get inside.”

Juordin pilots the craft and lands directly next to the circle.

By this time, others have gathered on the bridge. We’re all quiet for a long moment.

“How are we going to get in?” Redonim asks.

“I guess we’d better put on some damn space suits and find out,” Corin answers.

“Space suits?” I ask. “You have space suits?”

Juordin’s lips quirk up at the corners. “This is a spaceship.” He points to the door. “Straight back to the cargo bay, in the wall to the right.” The men file out.

I try to follow them, but he steps in front of me. The expression on his face is fierce. “Don’t even say it,” I warn.