Page 8 of Into Orbit
Silence.
Elswyth took her own advice and dragged in a long, ragged breath.
The Pod roof slid back, and I blinked at the sudden light. Elswyth’s blossoms closed their tiny petals and budded tight as the vines around me loosened and my seat shifted. I moved my arms and rolled my shoulders.
And found something brown and knotted like an ancient branch – something that was unfamiliar and yet somehow unmistakably a fuckinggun– pointed straight at my face.
Elswyth began speaking – well, growling – softly, her hands held out in a universal gesture ofcalm the fuck down. She stepped gracefully from the Pod, growling all the while. I followed her out – significantly less smoothly – and found myself face-to-chiselled-chest with the wielder of said branch-gun.
I tipped my chin up to see a pair of beautiful brown eyes glowering down at me, lit from within by anger and worry.
For the second time that night, a jolt ofsomethingran through my body, as if I was a wire and I’d suddenly become live.
He might not have been human, but he was very definitelymale, with a square jaw, shoulders so wide they were a threat to doorways, and a pair of pecs that gave my rack a run for its money. His mahogany hair was pulled back in a half-braid, long enough for the remainder to brush his shoulders, and his breastplate and leathers matched Elswyth’s. The delicious sharpness of his high cheekbones was emphasised by an arrangement of small, sharp-looking triangular plates that I assumed were some kind of cosmetic enhancement and made him look all kinds of badass; my fingertips tingled with a sudden desire to trace those tiny plates just to see how sharp they were.
His jaw tightened; he moved closer, his eyes never leaving mine. Fear and arousal flared together in my stomach. It was a pairing I wasn’t normally into, but judging by the clenching of my core, my body did not care for what wasnormaland had zero consideration for the insanity of its current situation.
Elswyth gave a louder growl, the sound shot through with frustration. ‘Are human males so thick-headed?’ she muttered to me.
‘Yes,’ I answered, not taking my eyes off him. ‘Is he going to take that gun away?’
‘Oh, by the green gods –Ashton,’ Elswyth scolded, then fell back into a series of growling sounds that he returned. After a moment, he shoved the gun reluctantly back into a holster at his hip.
‘I’m trying to tell him you need a translator,’ Elswyth went on. ‘He’s telling me that I can’t bring strange aliens aboard the ship.’
‘That does seem like a sensible rule,’ I said. ‘Could you maybe tell him that I don’t mean any harm?’
Elswyth shot me a look that saidwhat do you think I’ve been doing, then resumed her growling at a slightly more aggressive pitch. The male –Ashton– stepped back, away from me, and I felt a pang of regret before I shook myself out of it.
I used the moment of space to look around. We were in a huge hangar, filled with craft. Some were the tiny Pods, positioned around the walls on small platforms. The craft taking up most space in the hangar were larger; I bit my lip so I didn’t laugh. There were two kinds, and one was shiny silver and half-spherical – just like the UFOs from b-grade eighties films.
The hangar wasn’t empty: there were twenty or so people – not people, not humans, butTirians– working, some with screens in their hands, others with tools. They were clearly fixing or checking the different types of craft, though most of them had stopped to watch the scene between Elswyth and Ashton.
They were watching me, too, though with less surprise than I’d expected. Perhaps they’d seen humans before.
‘Finally,’ Elswyth muttered, and I turned back to her in time to see another male approaching.
I really need to get laid, I thought, as my body perked up again.
This male was shorter than the gun-wielder and more slender, though he was still half a head taller than me. Instead of the breastplate, he wore a sleeveless tunic of forest-green over his leathers; his arms were so perfect they deserved their own wing in an art gallery, all undulating muscle that slid beneath his skin when he moved. Unlike Elswyth and Ashton, his skin was pale; his hair fell in loose waves around his face, a shining dark blonde under the hangar lights, curtaining his moss-green eyes.
Elswyth took my hand; a bolt of feeling – and heat – raced through me again.
Get a fucking grip, Maeve.
‘This is the ship’s Head Doctor, Willow,’ Elswyth said. ‘He’s going to insert a translator so you know what’s going on.’
I eyed the doctor warily; he stared back at me, expressionless. ‘What does inserting a translator entail?’
Elswyth gave a soft growl, which the doctor answered. ‘He said it will mesh with your eardrum,’ she explained when he’d paused, ‘and amend the sound waves you hear into something you can understand. The translators on the ship haven’t been updated to include Earth languages yet, which is why they can’t understand you. But once the translator is in, it won’t matter – you’ll be able to understand our language.’ She cocked her head as the doctor kept growling. ‘He said that the insertion will hurt. He doesn’t think he can give you a painkiller, as he’s not familiar enough with human biochemistry. He also said that you will experience a slight delay in the translation for a few days, until the device has properly meshed with your system. After that, it’s almost instantaneous.’
‘Can it be removed?’
She conferred with the doctor, then nodded. ‘Yes. He said he’d like you to be unconscious forthat, though; taking them out is trickier than putting them in.’
That didn’t sound amazing, but I didn’t know what else to do. If Elswyth was the only one I could communicate with, it would severely limit my ability to find any other information that might help me find Tessa. I wouldn’t usually put anything into my body I wasn’t sure of, but this wasn’t exactly a situation that allowed me to be picky.
‘Okay,’ I whispered, my stomach churning.
