Page 3 of Swept By The Alien Pirate Prince

“I’m trying to get to my seat now,” I yelled above a few alarm sirens blaring through my eardrums. “What is that noise?”

“It’s the engine alarms coding,” Cyburn said.

My heart plummeted into my stomach. “Are they shot?”

“No, but they’re under stress from the sudden speed I’m putting on them. Not to mention how I’m having to cut in a different direction every ten seconds.”

Cyburn held onto the base of the control panel as he pushed buttons, moving the ship as quickly as he could. The veins in his neck and biceps bulged like mini rivers swelling underneath his skin.

Panic festered in my throat and tightened it until it became a chore to breathe. I took large gulps of air, my brain deprived of oxygen. My starved lungs craved oxygen, trying to draw in as much air as possible.

“What's… happening?” I choked.

“It’s the g-force,” Cyburn groaned through clenched teeth. “You might pass out.”

This wasn’t anything like riding the Graviton at an amusement park. This was the Graviton on steroids.

Dizziness assaulted my vision. A wave of nausea collapsed in my stomach, weighing it down. As the ship lurched forward, I had to clamp my mouth shut to keep the contents of my stomach inside it where they belonged.

I scraped along the floor grates, using its tiny holes to claw my way to my seat.

“I’m sorry,” Cyburn said. “I had to weave us out of this mess with no time to spare or we were done for.”

The vessel yielded, and some of the pressure on my head subsided. I still felt like I was carrying a tremendous weight on top of the rest of my body, but I’d managed to reach up and slither myself like a slug into the co-captain’s chair beside Cyburn.

We looked at each other as some of the g-force abated. Cyburn’s white-knuckled grip on the control panel released, and he leaned back in the chair with a long sigh. He was drenched in sweat, and it matted his white-blonde hair to his temples.

“We’re alive,” I said, feeling lightheaded as a better supply of oxygen rushed to my brain.

Cyburn’s nod was jaded. He stared straight ahead through the windows with carved lines in his jaw. I no longer saw the enemy fleets surrounding us, but it did little to pacify my hammering heart.

“You did it,” I proclaimed with a squeak — unable to provide a sound better than that.

“I got us to an asteroid field,” Cyburn said. “Luckily, we weren’t far away from one. We can hide here for a while.”

“Thank goodness.”

“It will buy us some time.”

I glanced over at Cyburn, wanting to reach out and take his hand but the weakness in my limbs made my arms feel like jelly.

I was grateful to be veiled behind the temporary shelter of the asteroid field, but I was still worried about the ship and how it had suffered through that whirlwind whiplash.

“What about the ship?” I asked.

Cyburn turned his head, his eyes huge but his movements fatigued. “We didn’t take as much damage as I thought we would.”

I smiled and touched each of my injured areas with the tips of my fingers. “My shoulders would beg to differ.”

ChapterTwo

CYBURN

“Cyburn?”

I was still trying to catch my breath. My hands were cuffed in a death grip against the armrests of the captain’s chair in the flight room.

“Yes?” I stared out into deep space. No Imperialist ships were detected on radar or seen out the window to the naked eye.

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