Page 14 of Swept By The Alien Pirate Prince

I twisted the volume button on the radio and called out again through the speaker. “Amada? This is Cyburn. Please answer me if you can hear me.”

I was met with silence. Every few seconds, an intermittent crackle came through the dead air, but nothing otherwise from my irresponsible and unpredictable ex-girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend who could now add ex-chief engineer of our ships to her list of failures.

Carmela sighed and collapsed into the back of her seat. She crossed her legs and folded her hands into the pocket between her thighs and gazed out the window.

If not for the torment and chaos that we had just endured, one might have viewed it as a serene moment from the outside looking in.

“She won’t pick up. She doesn’t want you to find her,” Carmela said.

I inhaled a deep breath and rubbed at my aching temples. “Well, we already know that she fled using an escape pod while we were fighting the Belic.”

“She could be long gone by now.”

“If only we could track her.”

“Is all the tracking equipment badly damaged?”

“Unsalvageable.”

I was angry, but at least I was alive, and so were the rest of the crew. I had to take the good with the bad.

“Maybe there is something I can do once I help Silver to get back up and running,” Carmela mentioned.

“At least her control panel has been wiped,” I acknowledged.

“We shouldn’t have any problems out of her anymore,” Carmela agreed. “I reset all the programming. Once she boots back up, she won’t remember what happened to her, but she should still be able to remember who she is and who we are. I can try to use her to help me get the tracking systems back up and running.”

“Like I said though, Amada will be long gone by then.” I tried not to have a defeatist attitude, but it was hard.

“Maybe not.” There was a hopeful ring to Carmela’s tone.

I tried my best to cling to that hope. “I’ve had enough drama for one day,” I said.

My eyes stung with exhaustion. My body was stiff and sore, and I had trouble unclenching my muscles from being so tense all the time. For once in my day, I just wished that something would go right.

“You did a phenomenal job keeping the Blade intact,” Carmela praised.

I chuckled at the irony. “We haven’t seen the outside yet. We could be hanging on by a thread.”

There I went, being pessimistic again. I needed to be strong for Carmela, for the others counting on me on this ship.

I met Carmela’s gaze and her eyes went wide with fear. “Don’t talk like that.”

My hardened features melted, and I gave her a kind smile. I reached for her hand and squeezed it. “I’m really sorry. I’m not trying to scare you on purpose.”

Carmela’s eyes gleamed with affection. “I know you’re not. You’re my soldier and you are doing a wonderful job, like I said.”

The pep talks helped. I thrived on Carmela’s encouragement. She didn’t know how much it meant to me, because I didn’t know how to express it, especially since I was so stressed out. At least not until I knew for sure that we were out of the danger zone.

I was about to hang up the radio when I heard the familiar roar of Amada’s unruly laughter storming through the speakers.

Carmela and I both sat up straight at the same time, our eyes planted on the device to find out what kind of atrocities Amada was up to now.

I froze in place and tightened my jaw. My senses heightened as I waited, barely breathing to see if Amada would say anything. My patience was spread thin.

When she didn’t elaborate, I said in a low voice, “I know you’re there, Amada. I can hear you. Stop with the act. Tell me what’s going on.”

I was trying to appeal to her sensitive side if she even had one left to save.

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