Page 21 of Alien Viking's Plunder

Josie hoped they were going to the same place — if they landed on different parts of the planet, it might get really hard to meet up with Aretha.

The planet came closer fast, and now she could see details. The larger islands had mountain ranges and lakes, plains and even deserts close to the equator.

If she was going to make plans for the arrival, she better think of something smart. Just running might be an option—

A yell from Bragr made her spin around. He was pointing to the side of the ship, frantically trying to draw his sword while also keeping his hand on the rudder.

“Skrymtir!” the other Vikings called and ran towards the middle of the ship.

Josie saw them now — two of the creepy zombie things must have attached themselves to the outside of the hull and were now climbing the mast. They were holding huge, scythe-like blades that they used to cut the ropes as they climbed.

The ship veered to the left, and Josie saw Bragr struggle with the rudder.

There was a chaos of cries and commands. A Viking was climbing the ropes, but fell to the deck when the skrymtir cut the line he was holding. Another tried to climb the mast itself, but it was too thick and slippery and he fell, too.

The two enemies kept cutting ropes, and soon the sails came loose. They fluttered and flapped wildly as if caught in a storm.

The Vikings ran to stay at a safe distance when the sails came crashing down.

And they werecrashing, Josie couldn’t help but notice. The crumpled-up sheets of seemingly tissue thin material hit the deck with hard bangs, breaking through the deck planks as if they were lead balls dropped from a thousand feet. They had to be from an incredibly exotic material to have that kind of weight, the science-oriented part of her mind reflected.

Bragr yelled something urgent, and she looked up. One of the sails was about to come loose from the mast, and she was right underneath it.

She quickly stepped away, but her foot got caught in the rat’s nest of ropes and she tripped onto the splintered deck planks.

The sail came fluttering down towards her, looking as light as a bedsheet. She tried to roll out of the way.

Something big hit her hard, knocking the wind out of her. She sensed she was tumbling, but she couldn’t move and it was dark around her. Dark and warm, she noticed. Both hard and soft.

Then the sail hit the deck and splintered the wood.

7

- Bragr -

Bragr got back on his feet and pushed Josie away from him, still holding her arm. “Nothing crushed?”

She looked down herself, wiggling her fingers. “I not think crushed.”

He had let go of the rudder and thrown himself at her to get her away from under the falling sail. His foot ached where the edge of the heavy sail had hit him, and he was pretty sure something was broken. The ship’s deck was all broken from the falling sails, and the mast wasn’t standing straight anymore.

“Not crushedyet, anyway,” Herjolf said grimly. “But we’re out of control, Captain. We are going to crash.”

Their home planet Gardr was now filling all of the sky above them, and it was spinning in a way that Bragr didn’t like one bit. Sigrid was at the rudder, fighting to regain control. But it was clearly not happening.

“We were on course for Hjalmarheim,” Bragr said, his voice calm. “We won’t land too far away.”

“Crashland,” Siv pointed out as she replaced her ax in her belt. “At least we got those two skrymtir.”

“We don’t want to bring those home,” Bragr agreed, then gave a warning yell and grabbed Josie again as the unsupported mast suddenly fell to the side, splintering the ship’s sides and cutting the vessel in half, pieces of wood flying.

Grabbing Josie, Bragr threw himself to the deck and got hold of a coil of rope. He wrapped one end around his wrist and the other around the carved dragon’s head in the bow of the ship, tying it tightly.

“This will get interesting,” he yelled to be heard over the terrible noise of the ship being shaken to pieces and the thin air starting to whistle past them.

Josie looked up at him with big, scared eyes. Her mouth was moving, but he couldn’t hear her. He bowed his head to get his ear close to her mouth.

“You have killed me,” she said in perfectly clear Garda.

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