Page 11 of Swept By The Alien Pirate Prince

Amada was still nowhere to be found.

ChapterFour

CARMELA

Cyburn rushed to the captain's chair. Beads of sweat glistened on his green skin.

“Here we go again,” he said, his voice mixed with a strange combination of defeat and vigor.

I spun around at the sound of hissing, gurgling, and popping sounds behind me.

Silver was standing in the doorway of the command center, her body rejecting the program settings undoubtedly input by Amada.

“What should I do about the AI?” I asked.

Cyburn tossed a quick glance at me over his shoulder.

"Amada clearly did something to her programming, can you see if you can undo it?"

I nodded. Computer and AI programing had been what I was good at before I'd been kidnapped by Jun. “Okay.” I took a deep breath. I had my work cut out for me, but I was up for the challenge. I really cared for Silver, and I hated to see her compromised like this — especially when she wasn’t able to defend herself from Amada’s manipulation tactics.

Cyburn cranked the engines and the throttle. The ship hummed and vibrated again.

Here we go again is right.

I jogged over to Silver and shut off her main power source so that she’d stop convulsing.

“She's fighting the programing that Amada did,” I called out to Cyburn behind me as the ship took a hard left. I placed my hands around Silver’s torso to prevent her from falling over. I didn’t want to inflict any extra damage on the poor AI. She’d been through enough already.

“What?” Cyburn’s distracted voice asked behind me.

The ship jolted to the right this time, but I felt the impact of the first Belic strike immediately. The walls shook and a few things fell off shelves, crashing to the floor. Even though I’d cut the main power to Silver’s control panel, she continued shorting out with aftershocks.

“She’s seizing like a human would,” I said, trying not to let the panic reflect in my voice. I'd never seen anything like it. It was so weird seeing her flinch and shake like that.

Cyburn either didn’t hear me or didn’t have time to respond to me. “They’re firing another round; shields are at seventy-five percent!” he shouted to Nix.

The sweat dripped down his temples. He clutched the ship's control panel, trying to keep this ship flying upright.

The walls bent in as another explosion slammed into the side of the ship. My heart jumped into my throat. The ship flipped. I lost perspective, and then the ship began to spin at a dizzying speed.

I heard shouting around me, but I couldn’t tell who it was coming from because my ears felt clouded.

Maybe I’d hit my head and didn’t realize it. I didn’t think that was the case. I didn’t feel pain anywhere.

Silver was sliding across the floor. I reached out, grimaced and cuffed my fingers around her slender arm to keep her from disappearing under a now opened air vent.

“Carmela!” a male voice shouted. It sounded like Cyburn, but I couldn’t be sure.

The ship bounced as another ripple fired through it. This time my body flew upward. My head hit the ceiling so hard that it knocked the breath from my lungs. I lost my grip on Silver, too.

The ship turned right-side up again. I scrambled to my feet. I’d knocked my head pretty good, but when I reached up to touch the tender area, my hands came back clean.

No blood was a good sign and meant I could keep going. It was just a dull pain in the back of my head. I could deal with it. There were more important problems to solve right now.

In the spin, Silver’s open control panel got switched back on. She began to tremor more violently. Her silver eyes were wide, yet empty. Her mouth hung open unnaturally.

“It’s okay,” I whispered to sooth her, even though I wasn’t sure if she could even hear me. “We are going to get you all fixed up. It’s not your fault for betraying us. The programming that Amada keyed in did it for you.”

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