Page 27 of Swept By The Alien Pirate Prince

There was this weird disconnect between my heart and brain. They couldn’t get on the same page.

“Get yourself in gear,” I said to myself for what felt like the hundredth time. “Before someone else does it for you. You have a whole crew to protect. Sitting here feeling sorry for yourself and wallowing over your own sadness isn’t doing anyone any favors.”

I glanced around the room. It swirled in front of me, a direct effect of all the bourbon I’d chugged.

My head felt woozy, my limbs numb. My heart pounded. I clenched my fists and my jaw, willing myself not to have a panic attack.

The booze made me paranoid and jumpy. Every noise I heard, no matter how hard I tried to shut my mind off and relax, wouldn’t comply.

When the ship groaned, I sat up straight. When a crackle was heard out in the corridor, or the shuffle of footsteps, I leapt to my feet, panting hard. My eyes darted left and right, but they couldn’t focus on anything.

I was a prisoner, locked inside my own head.

Now what was I supposed to do?

Carmela wasn’t one of us. She wasn’t even a member of our own race. She had no reason to stay loyal to me and my crew, whom I still ached with every bone in my body to protect, no matter the cost.

I loved Carmela, but at what expense? Was it going to end up being worth it to endanger all these lives? What if she pulled the same stunts as Amada? Apparently, I wasn’t good at paying attention to the signs.

I reminded myself that the potential was always there with Amada. She had poison running through her veins from day one. I just chose to ignore it all at the time.

It was different with Carmela. She was so spunky. She was a free-spirit, a robot loving bright spot in my otherwise dark-encompassed life.

I was drunk, but I searched the back of my mind to try and find any reason whatsoever to doubt her, or her love and loyalty to me.

I came up empty. However, my mind was clouded with angst even though Carmela had presented no red flags thus far in our relationship.

However, was I smart enough to see the warning signs when they were staring me in the face? I’d certainly had enough experience with that sort of thing involving Amada, but the nervousness still wormed its way through my brain, one slow and excruciating inch at a time.

ChapterNine

CARMELA

“I’m going to have to use the air brake to land us on the water,” Cyburn said.

His jaw was set tight, and his eyes were rooted to the window — where thrashing rain whipped at the ship and huge waves crested over the top of us, pounding into what was left of the metal. The pounding rain severely impaired our visibility but miraculously, Cyburn seemed to manage.

“What is this place called again?” I asked.

“Hold on tight,” Cyburn said beside me, gritting his teeth. The veins in his arms bulged as he braced himself and flexed. His hand was clasped on the edge of the control desk.

“It’s Machinoor,” Nix said from the seat behind me. “One of the Free Planets.”

Cyburn had explained it to me before. The Free Planets were the planets in the Alesian solar system that hadn’t yet been either inhabited or completely controlled by the Belic Imperialists.

The purpose of docking on this new planet was to start on some much needed repairs to the ship, recover some of our supplies, and just get some rest in general.

Morale among us was low overall, and if we didn’t take a break soon, we wouldn’t last very long out there roaming through space.

Not to mention, the Blade couldn’t handle many more miles before the engines completely gave out on us.

The ship lurched forward as we landed with an enormous, jolting splash in the water. Cyburn had explained to us that landing in the water would be the safest and most fuel efficient option for us, and that there was a docking station at the shore that we could attach the ship to. Once the weather cleared, we would be able to start making the necessary repairs.

We’d had to use our back up coordinates to navigate a precise landing location, and we’d been able to use the default program in Silver to accomplish the job. She still needed some fine tuning, but overall, she was functioning better than she had been when Amada had gotten her hands on the A.I.

Still, we weren’t out of the danger zone just yet.

It was nighttime on Machinoor. A grueling storm churned around us. The waves slammed into us with such violence that it seemed deliberate, as if this world wanted to punish us for invading its habitat.

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