Page 107 of Alien Prince's Fake Bride
“Better than having to bring an armored vehicle,” I comment, genuinely shaken by the fight. “If you have two buddies, you can just jump on their shoulders and you’ll all transform into a tank.”
One of the Phrexz twitches, then goes still like the two others. Dark green blood pools under them, starting to smoke.
“It was effective,” Gramjeon says. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” He sends me a glance. “And it got you, sir.”
I look down on my left arm, where the blood is running down my forearm and dripping from my fingers. “So it seems. Well, one more scar won’t kill me.”
“But more of those things might,”Bellatriz says. “Have you thought about the consequences of finding Phrexz inside a Vyrpy ship, Prince?”
“I have,” I state grimly. “Thiswasa trap. The Vyrpy are dragging us away from Khav, because our planet is about to be attacked by Phrexz. They’re working together now. They must have an alliance against us. Sergeant, we must get back to theGladiux. Then we’ll set a course home and stretch our engines to the limit.”
A spear of ice goes through my stomach. Sweet gods. I left her on Khav. Now the Phrexz are coming, an enemy that’s mostly known from old legends. “Come on. Everyone out. Signal all ships. Return to Khav. Prepare for battle. And signal Khav itself and warn the forces there.”
Umbra is there. Alone.
I start to run through the corridors of the broken Vyrpy ship.
“Sir, you’re making it hard to protect you,” Gramjeon protests from behind me.
“I must signal Colonel Grast,” I yell. “There may still be time to activate the extraction plan!”
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- Umbra-
“That’s it?” I ask, peering out the window of the gunship. In the distance I spot the gray spaceship that’s approaching us fast.
“That could be the one,” Sigise says, checking the screen in front of her and asking the pilot for details. “It looks strange, but it’s the closest ship in orbit right now. And it has changed its course to come towards us. Most of the other ships are with the Prince on his campaign. I couldn’t arrange a Navy ship like this without Prince Mareliux’s help, so I don’t know what it would look like. I only know that our escape ship would reply with the correct password if queried. Which this one is not doing yet. It’s only signaling us to dock with it.”
“Maybe Mareliux gave us an old one because it stays at Earth,” I think out loud. “It may be easier for our scientists to reverse-engineer than other ships.”
“That’s possible,” Sigise says absentmindedly as we approach the ship. ”Or it may be the only one he can spare— ah, there wego. It’s transmitting the code word on a tight beam that can only be seen by us.”
“So it’s the right one?” The ship gives me a weird feeling. It looks unusual.
“If it has the code, it must the one Prince Mareliux arranged for us. I can see other ones further away, but only this one is transmitting the code continuously, right at us.”
“Is it supposed to?” For some reason I don’t like that. It seems too eager, somehow.
“Not really. But it saves us time. We don’t have to ask all the others ships here if they know the password.”
The gunship flies a slow circle around the other ship. It looks nothing like theGladiux, or the gunships I’ve seen. The proportions are wrong. Where Khavgren spaceships are smooth and have a sleek elegance to them, this one is all jagged edges and protruding spears and spikes. It is asymmetrical and plain ugly.
“I think Mareliux pointed it out last time, when we first arrived on Khav,” I say slowly. “But it could be another one.”
Sigise listens to something on the comms.
“The pilot thinks it looks weird, too,” she says. “We’ve never seen one like that. Either it’s really old, or it’s a ship we have gotten from somewhere else. The Empire owns a lot of ships. I’ll check with its crew.”
She gets busy with the comms. I check my gun, just to be sure. This could still go wrong. But it’s a good sign that I recognize the ship. Probably, Mareliux made me subtly aware of it back thenso that I’d remember it if I saw it again. It would confirm to me that it’s the right one, without him having to tell me directly.
“It checks out,” Sigise finally says. “‘Ashlynn’. They say if we don’t think the ship is pretty enough for us, we should take a hard look at our own gunship.” She chuckles. “Those Navy guys are something else.”
The gunship flies into the spaceship’s hangar with an exaggerated use of engines and advanced moves that tells me the army pilot wants to show off for the navy staff.
It touches down, bounces once on its suspension, and then the engines spin down.
“There’s air outside,” Sigise tells me as she unsnaps our harnesses. “Navy air, but I suppose we can’t be too choosy.”
