Page 16 of Her Alien Cyborgs
For reasons he didn’t understand, the calculations needed to navigate hyperspace included knowing the ship’s precise position the moment the engines activated. If they were out of position by so much as a meter, they could pass too close to a star and be torn apart by gravitational forces. Hezza explained the key points as they sped toward the coordinates chosen by the ship’s AI.
“Please begin deceleration. Failure to do so will result in our overshooting the coordinates.”
Hezza grunted in annoyance. “I don’t tell you how to do your job. You don’t tell me how to do mine.”
“You are incapable of performing the calculations required to carry out my function,” the AI replied. Its tone remained neutral, but there might have been a hint of sass in the response.
“That’s beside the point.” Despite her complaints, Hezza toggled the thrusters near the front of the ship in order to reduce its velocity.
“Ideally we’d come to a full stop before spinning up the faster-than-light drive, but these are not ideal circumstances.” She patted the console in front of her. “The AI doesn’t have much of a personality, but it makes up for it with raw computing power. We’ll be fine. I’ve done this…” She chuckled. “More often than I care to admit.”
“You’ve rescued research subjects like us before?” Fyr’enth asked.
“Hells no. This is a first. I meant that in my line of work, it’s sometimes necessary to get gone in a hurry.”
“I thought you were a freighter pilot? Why would that require you to make escapes like this?” Kalan asked with open curiosity.
She turned to flash them both a wicked smile. “I said I flew cargo. Truth is, a lot of what I carry isn’t exactly legal.” She waggled one hand back and forth. “Not illegal, either. Usually. Most of my work is somewhere in the murky gray area.”
“You’re a smuggler,” Fyr’enth said without judgment. Everything she and the others had done to get them away from the IAF probably fell somewhere in that same gray area. All that mattered to him was that she had risked herself for them. It was more than anyone else had ever done.
“I am.” She shrugged and faced forward again. “It pays the bills.”
“And it saved our lives,” he told her. Instinctively, he placed his hand on her shoulder. She leaned into his touch, and that small interaction filled him with a deep longing that eclipsed the lust he’d felt since the moment they’d met. He wanted her, yes. But he wantedmore, even if he didn’t understand what that meant.
“This female…”Kalan didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t have to.
“She has the heart of a warrior,”Fyr’enth sent back.
Kalan’s reply carried a tinge of amusement.“Her heart isn’t what concerns me. The life she lives, the way she flies. Do you think she’s sane?”
He turned to smile at his brother. “I hope not. I, for one, do not wish to be mated to some soft, gentle female who could never understand who and what we are.”
It took several long seconds for Kalan to reply, and when he did, his words were uncharacteristically measured and thoughtful. “Do you really believe she is our mate?”
“Maybe. How else do you explain what is happening to us? She believes it, and her physical reactions to us cannot be denied. I can smell her desire.”
“So can I,”Kalan agreed. “And it’s testing my will far beyond anything they did to us back on Orio.”
“Same for me. I have never craved a female like this before. My cock aches. My scales are tight and tingle in the strangest way. I want to hold her in my arms, bury my head in her hair, and drink in her scent.”
“Me too, brother. And so much more than that. Do you think she will say our names when we make her come? I would like that.”
A mental image of that scene made his cock twitch and his balls tighten. He’d like that too. Very much.
The seconds ticked by too slowly, but eventually they made it to their destination. Hezza pulsed the thrusters again, slowing them down as much as she could.
“Ship, activate the FTL drive when ready,” Hezza ordered.
“Activating.”
He’d experienced this many times in simulations, but the transition to light speed still caught him by surprise. Totaldarkness encompassed the ship. In the lightless void, there were no visual references at all, which made it impossible to judge their speed or even tell if they were moving.
“Weird, isn’t it?” Hezza said. “I know we’re moving faster than light right now, but I bet your senses insist we’re stationary.”
“It is unsettling. In training sims, it always felt like we were in motion.”
“They probably do that to make it feel more realistic, even though it’s not accurate.”
