Page 8 of Rescued By The Alien Prince Pirate

"The Belic are the cyborgs who abducted you from Earth," Nix added.

"You came here to rescue me?" I asked, blinking at them.

"Yes, and to raid any supplies to bring back to our own ships," Cyburn mentioned. "The Belic race is our sworn enemy. Their empire successfully overran our home planet of Alesis."

My head was getting bogged down as I desperately tried to process all this strange, new information. Of course, I had no reason to doubt what they were telling me, but it was overwhelming, nonetheless.

"We roam through space on experimental generation ships," Cyburn explained. "There are roughly ten-thousand of us Alesians who were lucky enough to escape our homeworld before the Belic killed the rest of us off. We live on these three ships, along with the remnants of our military force. We are waging war against the current Belic outposts. We are trying to conquer their shipping lanes whenever we can and take back whatever worlds in our solar system that we can harbor and harvest along the way."

"It sounds difficult and complicated," I said, trying to sympathize with what they were telling me, but I still didn't fully understand the magnitude of it all.

"It is, but we make do the best we can," Cyburn said. His black eyes flickered with resolve. A humble smile curled at the edges of his lips that helped me relate to him better, even though I was still daunted by his stature and his alien look.

"A few thousand of our own kind have already been liberated and have now settled on a few of the outer worlds in our solar system," Nix added.

"What about you guys?" I asked, glancing between them, wondering aloud about their fate.

"I am the crown prince of our republic and the planet of Alesis," Cyburn said, pointing to himself again.

"You're aprince?" I asked, feeling another ripple of shock.

"My father was the king of our planet. He died on the ship, and I took over for him, attempting to take our worlds back from our enemies," Cyburn explained.

"That sounds like a lot of pressure," I admitted.

"It hasn't been easy," Cyburn agreed with another humble smile that lit up the corridor where we stood.

Part of me wondered whether he was trying to subtly flirt with me. Of course, I didn't really have much experience in that department. I was just a robot-constructing nerd.

I found it highly ironic that I ended up on a ship with a bunch of cyborgs who wanted to take me apart piece by piece, just as I did on a routine basis torobotsback on Earth. Was I somehow getting a dark and twisted taste of my own medicine?

"So…nowwhat?" I asked.

I was trying to circle back to the catch I still expected— the curve ball so to speak.

"If you agree to help us, we can provide safe refuge for you on one of our ships," Cyburn said.

"That seems fair enough," I said. I was willing to agree at this point, especially since neither of them seemed particularly fixated on hurting me.

Cyburn and Nix exchanged a relieved glance with each other.

Cyburn steered his glance back to me. "Excellent. How long ago did the Belic abduct you?"

"You know what, I'm not really sure," I explained, attempting to job my memory. "I remember leaving work one evening in Boston, a city where I live on Earth." I glanced up at them to make sure they were keeping up with my story. Their eyes were curiously rooted on me as if they were hanging on every word I said.

I pressed on. "I'm Carmela Cosgrove," I said, since I hadn't formally introduced myself up to this point. "I'm thirty-two years old, and I'm a doctoral candidate."

"What does that mean?" Cyburn studied me with a frown.

"It means I'm a roboticist graduate. Ironically enough, I was working on my own prototype AI when I was kidnapped. I felt this weird sensation come over my body. Then I couldn't move, and this weird light encapsulated me. The next thingIknew, I woke up, naked and strewn across a cold, hard, metal table where there were a bunch of probing cyborgs huddling around me with sharp looking syringes and other nasty looking instruments that looked like they could do a whole hell of a lot of damage."

"That must have been so awful for you," Cyburn said with a genuine frown. "You must have been so afraid."

"It was horrible," I said. "Once this shrill alarm went blaring through the room, the cyborgs panicked and started scattering. They all but forgot about me and left me on the table. I quickly fetched my clothes from another table and then disabled a remaining guard in the room who started charging toward me. I managed to steal his ray gun, too." I held up the gun again and grinned proudly at my own accomplishment against the odds.

"You said you were a roboticist?" Cyburn arched a curious eyebrow. "We could really use someone with your experience on our team. It seems too good of a coincidence tonottake advantage of it. Pardon me for being so forward but—"

"No, it's okay." I smiled warmly at him, and that gooey sensation of pure, uninhibited attraction and longing flooded me once again. "Like I said, it's kind of ironic. I believe that in life, that there are no accidents. Everything happens for a reason. I don't knowwhyI'm here yet, but it has to be for something."

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