Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 63580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Time chimes, and we step back to the world that my pet would probably consider real. A place where time flows in the usual way, and actions have consequences, rather than the other way around.
I feel her breathe a sigh of relief, taking air deep into her lungs. I wonder if she noticed that there wasn’t really oxygen where we were, and that she did not need to breathe? I won’t ask. I don’t want to panic her. She did so well to tolerate it for as long as she did.
“Where are we?” She asks the question, and it is a good one.
“This is a battleship,” I explain. “I did mention that we’re at war, did I not? It would be a big thing not to mention.”
“At war with who?”
“Our enemies,” I say. I hate to be vague, but being specific might cause her to become panicked, and she has been through enough.
“And who are they?”
“Well, there’s a few species. The World Eaters are our main opponents at this stage.”
The image of something like a giant fish opening its jaws leaps into her mind as she suddenly imagines a universe that feels as though it is made up of vast distances and massive planets being nothing more than a pool with baubles of life dancing in it, being consumed by creatures multitudes of times bigger.
“They’re big enough to eat worlds?”
“No. They have fleets of small robots that can consume entire planets within a matter of years. It’s interesting to watch, but horrific to experience.”
“Sounds like a lot of life,” she says.
She is not wrong.
“Captain Tasin, what’s our heading?”
CHAPTER 4
Mara
Just like that, I find myself a captive pet on an alien warship.
They defer to the alien I have known as Freak, but hearing him referred to as Captain Tasin makes me start to think of him that way as well. The other soldiers are also in their underwear for a bit, but after the first few hours of flying about in space, they all put on uniforms. Black boots to the knees, black jumpsuits everywhere else. Shiny. Tight.
Freak looks hot. He was already wildly attractive, but seeing him in charge adds a little extra zing to the whole affair.
They really are at war, I realize.
I overhear tactical discussions about things I don’t understand, and I am sure I am only getting half of the information because they’re probably just thinking the worst parts to each other.
I watch them walk around the ship in their shiny, shiny uniforms and sometimes they’re so shiny and so muscly that I forget I’m traumatized and have been abducted. It’s like being on tour with a bunch of alien strippers.
I was supposed to be doing something, though. Getting water. Finding my dad.
Finding my dad.
I haven’t even let myself think that as a possibility since he went missing. When he first failed to return, I did try to go after him. I asked where his mission had taken him. I asked to be able to purchase a ship. He’d taken ours, but I could sell the assets accumulated over the years, the house, the stock, and go after him.
I asked, and then I asked again. I sold what was left to be sold, then I had no goods left and the question of how I was going to feed myself started to become an issue. Then, of course, they suggested marriage. Because selling my body to a man for his use forever was what they considered to be a happy ending for me.
No matter how many times I requested it, the elders wouldn’t let me go off planet on my own. Well, not until I agreed to fly directly into the sun, anyway, and I am pretty sure my dad is not there.
The memories have an odd sensation to them, because I’d already started to forget the part where I tried to find him and they stopped me. They broke me of my desire to find him by refusing to honor my wishes. They grounded me, effectively.
It was a matter of months, and each of those days in those months represented another little chink taken out of my armor. At first I tried not to panic. Then I did panic. Then I tried to do something, and then I couldn’t, and it broke me. It broke me so surely that when they offered me the chance to fly into the sun, they believed me when I agreed.
The fact that my father left me behind when he always took me on trading missions was what cracked me in the first place. Now that I think back to it, I have to assume he knew there was danger. I wish he’d taken me into it. I’d rather be in danger than be left behind.
“Pet.” Freak puts his head around the door of the little space room we share.