Page 3 of Taken By The Alien Warrior Pirate

She looked slightly younger than me but was probably not far behind if I had to guess. She was slimmer and more petite in stature than Nix and Cyburn.

I didn’t know why I had been expecting to see much larger women, but maybe it was just Nix’s wife who was on the larger side. I wasn't judging, just making an assumption based on the suit I was wearing. Nix was huge himself, so it made sense. I supposed I’d soon find out, if I ever got a chance to get past this watch dog of a woman who seemed eager to protect her ship at all costs.

Amada wore heavy-looking, golden, and flashy beaded necklaces, earrings, and bracelets adorned with colorful stones and gems attached.

Here I was thinking thatCyburnwore an elaborate display of wrist and neck decorations, but this woman had taken the art of jewelry wearing to a whole new level.

The jewelry was stacked on so thick to her body that it actually looked weighted and uncomfortable in my opinion.

Something gave me the sneaking suspicion that she probably wouldn’t be bothered with what my opinion might be of her.

“Who isthis?” Amada challenged, not bothering to wait for the rest of Cyburn’s explanation. She pointed an incriminating finger at me.

Cyburn held his hands up defensively by his sides. “This is Carmela. I’m sure Silver told you about—”

“What is shedoinghere?” Amada demanded, her eyes cutting between us. “You brought her onto ourship?”

She spoke the words as if Cyburn had committed a heinous crime against her, personally.

“Calm down, Amada,” Cyburn said, attempting to pacify the nearly hysterical woman. “She is going to be working for us—”

“She iswhat?” Amada roared, looking beside herself with bewilderment.

“We desperately need a robot programmer, and she has the experience,” Cyburn advised calmly.

“I’m sure she was willing to tell youanythingto get you to take her with you,” Amada berated, folding her arms across her chest as she cut me another cold look.

“I wasn’t going to leave her on the ship to die,” Cyburn said flatly.

Amada opened her mouth to debate, but Cyburn cut her off.

“If you aren’t going to be helpful right now, then I need you to get back to your post,” he strongly advised.

“But—” Amada’s bottom lip jutted out as she attempted to form another bratty protest.

“This is a direct order from your captain,” Cyburn said, his eyes narrowing surprisingly darkly at her.

She seemed to recoil slightly at his shift in demeanor — but contention still flickered in her black eyes.

I didn’t have acluewhat the history was between them, but their dynamic was laced with tension that made me severely uncomfortable.

Amada spun on a heel and began aggressively stalking from the hangar.

“These are dire circumstances right now,” Cyburn called out from behind as if he suddenly had a change of heart and wished to appease the disgruntled woman. “We all need to work together.”

Amada didn’t respond, nor did she bother to give either of us a second glance as she stomped off.

Cyburn placed his hands on the top of his head and released an exasperated sigh.

“Come on,” he said. “We need to get to the control room and strap in. We’re going to have to go full steam ahead to get as far away from the harvester ship before it’s reactors go critical.”

* * *

How didwe evengetto this point?

It was a complicated question with even more complicated answers that didn’t make sense.

I was a thirty-two year old roboticist graduate of MIT. I lived in Boston before I was obscurely abducted in plain sight and in broad daylight by a pack of ruthless Belic Imperial Harvesters. The Belic were a race of aliens and Alesian and human-hybrid robots whose only diabolical plan in the world was to do just that — harvest humans.

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