Page 26 of Rescued By The Alien Prince Pirate

"We're out," Cyburn said to Silver, panting hard. "We made it to the other side."

"Excellent," Silver said. "You should be in the mainframe chamber at this point, or at the very least, you should be approaching it from the northern side in a few steps."

Cyburn looked straight ahead and frowned. I followed his gaze and then I realized what had him looking so upset.

"It's heavily guarded," Cyburn whispered to Silver. "By regular robot patrols."

"What are you going to do?" Silver asked nervously.

Cyburn's gaze landed on Nix. They looked at each other as if we were all but doomed, which didn't help ease my jolted mind.

"We're going to do what we have to do," Cyburn said grimly, but his face was stoic, marked by the bravery of a fighting spirit determined not to ever give up— no matter how grueling the circumstances became.

"Maybe we can distract the ones in the front first," Nix suggested.

"I don't think we are going to have much other choice," Cyburn said. His expression was bleak again. "I hate to get them flustered, but we can't exactly sneak past them without them noticing."

"I can throw a flare from my backpack," Nix said. "That should get the first wave of robots out of the way, so it won't be such a thick fight."

"That's great." Cyburn nodded his approval. "Go ahead and do it. We'll just have to fight the rest of them off from there." He turned to look at me. He cupped his large hand in mine and gave it a gentle squeeze. His smile lit my world on fire in the best possible way. His eyes were dark, but genuinely kind and concerned. "I know you want to help, but please— just try to stay in the back. I'm not trying to offend you. I'm just trying to protect you from these ruthless assholes."

I smiled back at him. "No, I understand. Got it."

He had my word… and even if he didn't know it, maybe my heart, too.

Nix pulled the flare out of his pack. It was shaped like a little vile tube. It was small and fit in the palm of his hand.

"Count of three?" he asked, his eyes searching both mine and Cyburn's.

Cyburn and I nodded, our eyes fixed on him.

"Yes," Cyburn whispered.

We hung back in the shadows so the robots wouldn't be able to tell what direction the flare would be thrown.

"Once they scatter toward the flare, that's when we are going to run in for our ambush," Cyburn advised. He looked at me cautiously. "Stay back here unless we get into the same trouble that we got into in the last fight."

"Got it." I nodded my approval, but I was still extremely anxious about what the outcome of this encounter was going to be.

There were more robots protecting this section of the ship and I wasn't sure we were going to be able to win this one. I just hoped that Cyburn and Nix's size would help them persevere.

"One… two…three," Nix enforced and then threw the flare as hard as he could.

It went flying through the corridor and landed with a clunking noise on the right side, directly in front of two robots standing near where it landed.

Just as expected, the robots sharply turned around, peering down the corridor— undoubtedly looking for the source of where the flare had been thrown.

A cluster of other robots began huddling around it, inspecting it as if they weren't sure what it was or whether it was capable of harming them. The distraction worked, but we didn't have much time before they charged in our direction.

"Run," Cyburn hissed to Nix, and they rushed forward.

My heart jumped into my throat as they jogged toward the scattering chaos. It was like they were moving in both slow motion and the speed of light all at once.

I watched in awe as Cyburn fluidly thundered forward like a soldier prepared to save the entire universe. He began disabling the robots, one by one, piece by piece.

They fell to the floor as he stripped them of their power sources. It was incredible to watch him stream through the second row of robots.

They didn't see him coming until it was too late and there was nothing then that they could do about it. I started to feel more optimistic about Cyburn and Nix being successful, but it was still too early to celebrate. We still had a long way to go until we got to the finish line— if we made it at all.

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