Page 20 of Alien From Nowhere

“Good luck, La’Nira.” He marches back into the hallway without a backward glance, his henchmen hot on his heels.

When the doors scrape shut, Niko and I are alone in the airlock.

Click.

I whip around and fall against his chest. A sturdy metal link is now clipping us together at the hip. His arms hug tight around me.

“What the—”

“You feel good against me,” he purrs as his pelvis presses against my stomach. “You’ll need to hold tightly to me for this part.”

When the doors open, my body acts on its own. I cling to him, expecting to be forcefully sucked out into oblivion. Instead, I simply hear a deep, sensual chuckle as our bodies float into the air.

I open one eye. “What’s going on?”

“We have a handful of taps before the ship leaves us in the dust,” Niko says. “What were you expecting?”

“Nothing,” I mutter.

“Without an atmosphere, it’s not comparable to flying out of a moving air vehicle.” He pushes off the ceiling so that we start drifting toward the exit. We move smoothly, unhindered by false gravity. I take a deep breath to assure myself that the breather is working. Asphyxiation is a real fear for those that venture onto spaceships.

“How long will these last?” I ask.

“The one I gave you? Days. Almost a standard cycle,” he replies.

I blink. That’s incredible. It must be expensive.

“And yours?”

He shrugs. “We’ll find out, won’t we?”

We are sailing farther from the ship, and I can finally see what the exterior looks like. It’s a medium-sized ship shaped like a flattened egg. It’s clearly been patched a few times, but it’s well kept. The lights around the sides start to blink once we’ve drifted a good distance away.

“If it runs out, we could switch back and forth, couldn’t we? Share it?”

“I’d like to share breath with you sometime soon,ti kori, but that’s not what I had in mind.”

I huff, irritated by his ridiculous notion that we’re soulmates. Aside from the sounds we make within our breather bubbles, it’s silent. I’m sure the ship is making noise, but it’s eerily unheard by my ears in this black vacuum. Cold creeps through my body. It starts in the tips of my fingers and spreads until I’m shivering. My flight suit is meant to preserve body heat, but even still, the power of empty space is fast-acting.

The silent ship trembles before it launches away from us, turning into a solid beam of color before disappearing altogether.

Now, the only thing keeping me from floating away forever is the little metal link attached to Niko’s belt. He’s the only thing keeping me from dying in this abysmal blanket of nothingness. At the very least, I can say with confidence that even if we die out here alone, I’d still choose this fate over a dank cell and a chain leash.

CHAPTERTEN

RAINA

“Great,”I grumble sarcastically for what feels like the umpteenth time. “Will you tell me your plan now?”

“Naturally, I shall call the authorities like an upstanding citizen,” Niko replies as he types on his comm device.

“What? Won’t you get arrested?”

“What crime did I commit? I’m the injured party here, stranded in space after rescuing a poor defenseless Alliance colonist,” he says.

“If that bald-faced lie gets us out of this, how long will it take to be picked up?”

“Unfortunately, there’s no way of knowing how close we are to the nearest authority drone.”

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