Page 8 of Pirate By Parrot

Alyla looked at Mel. “Mel, we are going to sort this out.”

“Good, because it is hard to move this body around. I am going to have to work out hard.”

Alyla smiled. “You have never shied away from hard work. Get hopping.”

Mel made a face, and Marko pitched in,“Fuck off, bitch!”

“What the bird said.”

Alyla laughed and said, “I will be in touch in a few days. I am getting to the bottom of this.” She ended on a grim note, “I am calling my dad.”

Mel sat up. “Whoa. Okay. Let me know what the big guns think.”

“It’s going to start with curse words, and he knows a lot.” Alyla smiled. “Glad you are safe, Mel. Stay that way.”

“Fuck off!”

Alyla smiled. “Nice to see you, too, Marko.”

The screen went dark.

Mel knew that a whole bunch of live relays had been used to get that message through so quickly, so Alyla had been waiting for that signal.

Mel looked at the walls. “Station?”

“Yes, Terran?”

“Call me Mel. I don’t qualify as a Terran anymore. There is not one fucking person on my world this tall.”

“Very well, Mel. You may call me Ves.”

“Thank you, Ves. You mentioned that there were rations.”

“There is a food centre if you follow the blue light. Marko has already been.”

Mel nodded and got up, walking slowly along the wall.

“You are doing very well, Mel. The gravity on the station is set to five times your Terran standard. I applaud your range of motion coming out of the med pod.”

Mel paused. “Five times. Wow. Well, it explains why the folks attacking the pod didn’t want to come in. Skevarik are a level three. They would have been crawling around.”

She walked with an arm on the wall and pushed herself upright now and then. Marko flew ahead of her, and the blue light continued to lead her further into the station.

Despite her knowing that she should be all stressed out, Mel just wanted to see what she could get out of the food machine. Being big burned a lot of calories.

* * * *

IMBOLT STARED AT THEcom. “They did what?”

“They tried to destroy the delivery vessel, but the vessel stowed Mel in a high-grav station and then used itself as a decoy. The station defended itself after that. I will send you the video.”

“Thank you, little star.” He watched the delivery unit skim beneath the station, eject the pod, and continue on without pausing. The followers had no idea that the woman was no longer in the delivery unit. The station took the pod in quickly, and the hunters were none the wiser.

“She is all right?”

“She and her cursing bird, but I am going to have to ask Mom why she let a parrot pick the human’s colouring.”

Imbolt frowned. “Show me.”

---