Page 7 of Captured
Chapter Four
Juliet
I wake up still lying on the narrow medical cot, the room basked in deep shadows. The only source of light is a series of bioluminescent circles placed strategically on the floor and ceiling, glowing with indifference in the semi-darkness. It’s not much, not nearly enough for me to see any details about the room I’m in, apart that it’s mostly bare and the little technology that’s lined up on the neat cabinets is totally unknown to me.
I’m still naked. Butt-naked, from my toes to my boobs. The feeling of vulnerability is just overwhelming. I run my hands along my skin, smoothing the goosebumps away as I try to get rid of the seeping cold. I need to find my uniform; I can’t stand to stay naked like this.
As I sit up, a delicious soreness in my pussy brings a flood of memories to my mind. First, I remember the crash, my injury, and the pain. The certitude that I was going to die out there, on a strange planet, all alone. Then, the sensation of floating in a warm, liquid darkness, waiting for death. Yearning for its release.
And then, instead of death, the stranger. The stranger with his perfect male face, all angles and sharp bones. His blazing yellow eyes. I swallow as the memory of the incredible lust that had overtaken my body comes back in a flash. Then what followed. Nothing short of an animal rut, violent and raw.
Pleasure. So much pleasure.
Was this some incredible hallucination? But no. Not with the tenderness between my legs. I’ve been fucked all right. Fucked long and hard until the force of my orgasms pushed me into oblivion.
Who was he?Whatwas he? And where the fuck am I?
There are too many questions unanswered, too many possibilities. My feet hit the floor and a muffled, metallic sound ripples inside the room. I wince at the noise, but it can’t be helped. I’m still too weak to do better. I move around the room, my eyes running across the surfaces, my fingers lightly brushing against strange objects. The emergency bioluminescent lights provide too little information. I’m useless in such darkness. It doesn’t matter. I’m not looking for alien tech, I’m looking for my uniform.
I search for some time, my movements frantic and jerky, but I see nothing to clothe my body with. I have no idea who the stranger is or where, or even what. I need to ask him so many things, but he’s nowhere to be seen now and as I move across the room, a sense of danger comes over me. I swirl around, looking at the strange, alien space. All those details I overlooked before when the lust clouded my judgment, all those clues that I should have seen.
I have no idea what the stranger with the yellow eyes was, but I know where I am. Sort of.
“Shit and fuckery.” I whisper as low as a dying breath.
I am inside a Drakian ship.
Fear clears up my mind and adrenaline courses through my veins. I’m not weak anymore, I’m scared and I’m pissed.
Is this the reptilian bastard I shot down? Did he manage to track me down on this uncharted planet? Were there more around that I didn’t notice? I have no idea, and no intention of staying to find out.
I move in the near darkness, opening drawers, yanking doors, trying to find something, anything to clothe my body with. Then I find it. It’s just a sheet of fabric, something that looks like cotton, yet doesn’t feel like it. It’s some alien kind of woven fabric. I don’t know what it is, but I know it’s better than nothing. I wrap the large rectangle around me as well as I can, making it into a semblance of a tunic by tying a knot over my left shoulder, ripping the long edges so that I don’t trip on them if I have to run. It’s too bad I can’t stay around to find my boots.
I quickly move around the room and I’m silently thankful that the door was left open. Whoever rescued me doesn’t seem intent on keeping me a prisoner. As I go around the Drakian ship, the picture becomes more and more clear. Drakian writing on the walls confirm what I already know, even if I can’t read them. The walls are lined with luxurious white panels, reflecting the low light from the bioluminescent circles enough that it seems I’m walking in some kind of diffuse twilight. Open doors lay on each side of the long hallway with no exit in sight. I walk faster without even realizing it.
We’re on the uncharted planet, I can feel it, smell it in the air. It’s real air, from outside, not the aseptic, stale recycled air from space. This means I can get out. If I’m on the royal cruiser I shot down, I have a sliver of hope that he hasn’t sent a distress signal yet because of the damage I caused to his energy cells. In that case, I can beat him to the finish line.
Only if I act fast. For that, I have to get to my pod.
I take turn after turn in the dim light, not knowing what to look for or where I’m going. Any choice is as good as the other. Then I stop.
The door to my right is open like all the other doors. On the other side, I recognize monitors and command boards. I step in, looking around for clues of a Drakian presence, but I seem to be alone on the entire ship. The notion scares me a little, but not as much as the idea of finding myself nose to nose with a Drakian with nothing more to defend myself than a sheet of fabric.
I look at the control boards, at the strange and elegant, swirly writing. I can’t read it, so I don’t try. But I don’t need to read anything to recognize the large cables running from the wall and into the floor. That is a large capacity energy cable. Drakians use solar energy from the stars to power their ship, a coating on their entire surface acting like sails in the void of space. It’s an efficient, elegant technology that allows them to travel far and wide without storing fuel inside their ship, but they still need to store that energy somewhere.
The fuel cells. They have to be located just below this room. I’m no expert in Drakian technology, but whenever fuel cells are involved, anything can happen. Why they’re not providing the ship with power, I don’t know. But I know that if I take those cells out, then there won’t be a distress signal coming out of the Drakian ship at all. It’s my best shot.
I have no time to waste so I waste none. Rerouting the cable is the easy part. I have to figure out how to short-circuit it to take out the fuel cells. With a bit of luck, the explosion will take out the entire ship.
After I rig the cable to the fuel cells to short-circuit the whole thing, I stand back. Electricity runs along my limbs and my mind floats in a kind of fog. I did it. This ship is a goner.
And I am, too, if I stay inside it. I turn around and I run.
I run inside the alien ship, taking turn after turn. I need to get out and fast.
Then I do.
I see daylight, unmistakable and clean, from somewhere in the distance. I follow my animal instincts, taking turns inside the ship, following the ever-greater light until I finally stand at the edge of the landing platform. Its metal ramp stands down, the bottom of it touching the wet pebbles of some strange beach. The Drakian ship landed in there, halfway into the shallow water. It’s a good choice for the pilot but a disappointment for me. The water is cooling the fuel cells and the ship won’t blast into fireworks like I hoped, but it won’t prevent an explosion. It just won’t roast the Drakian’s scaly butt to a crisp.
“Where now?”
In the sky, one sun burns bright and white while the other is smaller and red. There’s a lake, or perhaps an ocean, stretching as far as the eyes can see to one side. On the other side is a forest so dense the shadows at the ground seem as black as night. It sends a primitive dagger of fear up my spine, but I’m all out of options.
So much for finding my pod. It could be anywhere on this planet.
I take off, ignoring the pain in my feet as my naked soles pound the ground. I’m running for my life here. I enter the forest, making my way through the dense growth, my small form sliding between trees and plant life. The plants are enormous, with leaves twenty feet wide and long, closing behind me. The forest swallows me whole and I get the distinct feeling eyes are setting on me.
I’m still running when the Drakian ship explodes, the conflagration blanketing the forest with a wind so hot and dry it’s like a breath from the desert. My face splits into a savage grin with the knowledge that I did it. That Drakian ship will never fly again.
Still, I don’t stop running.
