Page 20 of Alien Viking's Plunder

“I propose nothing,” the man said calmly. “Just that having gone through the Ice Caves doesn’t seem to shield anyone from being defeated in combat.”

Shielding her eyes against the worst of the disturbing images outside the ship, Josie spotted three dark specks ahead. They looked like other ships, and they kept getting closer.

“They friends or bad earl again?” she asked and pointed.

Nobody replied, because it wasn’t necessary. They were catching up with the ships fast, and they were obviously of the same type as this one.

Josie made her way to the railing at the side of the deck. Aretha was probably aboard one of those ships.

She could see people aboard them now, huge Viking aliens sitting down and standing around, not having much to do, except for the ones manning the rudder.

Josie’s ship overtook the rearmost of the others.

“What news from Gornt?” called a man on the other deck.

“He is thinner and paler!” Bragr yelled back. “And he kept us for a very short time!”

“That is the way we like him,” laughed the other. “Take the lead, Chief.”

Josie squinted. The ship was just a little bit too far away to see the details, so she zoomed in with her camera. Its images were projecting onto her retina, letting her see it as a dispay inside the image from her own eyes. And as she thought, there were Earth girls aboard. Two of them, as far as she could tell, sitting close together next to the mast, looking pale. She didn’t know them, but she didn’t need to. They were maybe not in the same boat literally, but in every other way their fates had become intertwined.

Josie waved with her whole arm. “Don’t worry, girls! We’ll get home to Earth before you know it!”

They both gave her a careful wave, then sent anxious glances towards their captors.

At the next ship, the same thing happened — Bragr yelled something that probably passed as a witticism to Vikings, and Josie looked for more girls. She spotted two, sitting together in the bow of the ship. She yelled the same thing, wanting to encourage them.

One of them got to her feet and waved back with both arms. “Yeah! We’ll escape the first chance we get!”

Okay, so at least one of them had the right spirit.

On the last ship they passed, there was only one Earth girl.

“Heeey!” Aretha yelled, standing by the railing, long hair blowing in the wind. “This is kind of fun, if you don’t look outside the ship too much!”

“There are four more girls back there!” Josie yelled and pointed. “We’ll bring them home, too!”

Aretha jumped up and down as her ship fell behind Josie’s. “Definitely! And we’ll get so fuckingriiich!”

Josie laughed. That girl was just crazy. But in the best possible way.

The encounter perked her up. Now these guys knew that she was not broken and that she wasn’t giving in to despair, in spite of the difficult situation. They had to know she was not a ‘thrall’.

Bragr called a command, and the crew got busy with the masts and ropes. After a while the swirling images that was space around them had slowed down and become less frantic.

The ships behind them were staying back there, so probably they were getting close to their destination.

Josie touched the handle of her hidden knife. She may have to assert herself in a convincing way, if they were about to get to where these guys came from. She didn’t like the ‘thrall’ thing at all.

Bragr gave more commands, and the ropes went slack. Soon the space around them was back to its normal black with millions of stars. The sails were no longer invisible, but hanging limply from the ropes. They shone as silver and looked as thin as facial tissue, the light from the stars behind them shining through.

Right ahead of them was a planet, blue with oceans and white with clouds. It looked so much like Earth that Josie’s heart skipped a beat — she’d had that exact view of her home planet many times fromUnity.

“Gardr ahead,” Bragr called from the rudder. “Soon we’ll be home, myherjere.”

The crew cheered. On closer inspection, the planet was too much ocean and not enough land to be Earth. There were no major continents that Josie could see, just several large islands grouped together.

The ships behind them had also slowed down.

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