Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 51862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
He proceeds to do just that. I get the feeling that the exchange about father-murder was important, but I don’t get much chance to mull it over because once again blood is arcing in great arterial spurts. Zain doesn’t just kill, he erases. In under a minute the only breathing things on the ships bridge are him and me.
Zain grunts with satisfaction as he starts piling the bodies to the side. He wants access to the controls. He beckons me and points me to one of the chairs in front of the consoles, one with the least amount of alien blood all over it. He really is quite a gentleman.
“Don’t touch anything,” he says as I seat myself.
I fold my hands obediently in my lap. “What about the others on the ship? The other guards?”
“I’d say we got most of them,” he replies. “It won’t matter soon enough. I intend to return your people to their planet, then take this ship and wreck it on your moon.”
“But you can’t breathe on the moon.”
“Why would I need to breathe on the moon?” He gives me a confused look, then smiles. “I intend to give the ship a course that will send it toward the moon, where it will crash into more pieces than anybody can imagine.”
“How will you get home?”
“Home? Oh, you mean the planet I am from. The world from which I came, where I was declared a criminal and estranged from society, imprisoned for years. That home?”
“I… guess?”
“I won’t be going home. I intend to live on Earth until my brothers come and find me, if they decide to do so. I have been imprisoned for a long time. I yearn for open spaces and the companionship of a good pet.”
I am very pleased to hear that Zain does not intend to leave me so soon. I am also very pleased that most of our village will be returned home.
Zain sits down in the large chair before the controls and begins to manipulate them. “Hold on,” he says. “Better still, come sit next to me and fasten the security straps. I have never piloted a ship before.”
That revelation does frighten me slightly. “You’ve never…”
He looks over at me and flashes a grin with that wise yet brutal visage of his. He is somewhere between elevated elf and absolute beast.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “How hard can it be?”
He lays his hands on the controls and immediately the ship shudders and shakes so violently it feels as though it might break apart completely. I grip my seat and I reach for Zain, but I can’t reach him because my arms are too short and the gap is too big.
I cry out in fear and suddenly I am in his arms. I cannot move an inch with all this rough shaking, but he has pulled out of his seat, grabbed me out of my safety bindings, and is snugging me close, comforting me as intense heat burns the shielding of the ship and threatens to destroy us all.
“Have you flown us into the sun!?”
A deep chuckle reassures me that is not the case. “No,” he says. “This is just what ships feel like when they enter a planet’s atmosphere. There are layers of protective gasses all around the planet that allow you to breathe and experience life. But when a ship moves through at speed, it creates friction and friction creates heat…”
My mind is too soaked with fear to listen to the particulars of his explanation. It sounds and feels like being devoured alive. All I can think of is how terrified the others must be in that bay where we were sucked up. I should be with them. I should be offering them my protection. Instead, I am curled up in the arms of this alien beast and I am putting all my faith in his ability to save us and deliver us from evil.
“Don’t worry, pet,” he rumbles in my ear. “I am here with you and no harm will come to you.”
His words quiet my fears, and his arms make me feel as though there is something solid in the world.
Suddenly we are through the clouds and there is peace and what feels like a slowing down as the ship seems to know what is happening. Zain isn’t even touching the controls, and yet the view through the exterior windows that used to look at a big, black infinity is now rolling green fields which I recognize from around our village.
He has truly brought us home.
“Thank you!” I whimper against his neck, feeling waves of gratitude so intense I can barely contain them. He has saved not just me, but us.
2
Zain
“We’re home! We’re saved!”
Cries of appreciation and joy ring out as I lower the exit gangways from the ship and allow the humans who had been huddling in their imprisoned state to run free.