Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 87050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 435(@200wpm)___ 348(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 435(@200wpm)___ 348(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
From my new vantage point, I could see the destruction wrought upon the ward room. Scorch marks marred the walls, and the acrid smell of smoke still lingered in the air. Fragments of shattered screens and twisted metal littered the floor, crunching under Alpha’s boots as he strode purposefully toward the bridge.
As we passed through the doorway, I caught a glimpse of Captain Voss and Lieutenant Bavo, their bodies crumpled on the floor. Their unseeing eyes stared blankly at the ceiling, a testament to the sudden, violent end of the Conqueror of Bresla’s reign.
Alpha’s steady gait barely faltered as he navigated the debris-strewn bridge. My panic began to subside, replaced by a growing sense of mortification. What had I been thinking, trying to run? Where could I possibly have gone? The absurdity of my actions hit me full force, and I felt my cheeks burn with shame.
But along with the embarrassment came a surge of defiance. I couldn’t just give in, couldn’t let this Magisterian captain think he had broken me so easily. With a burst of desperate energy, I began to struggle against his grip, my hands beating ineffectually against his broad back.
“Let me go!” I cried, my voice hoarse and strained. “I won’t be your prisoner!”
Alpha’s stride didn’t falter, but I heard him sigh deeply. “Honey,” he said, his tone patient but firm, “or whatever your name is, I understand you’re frightened, but this behavior isn’t helping anyone, least of all yourself.”
CHAPTER 4
Alpha
I knew I shouldn’t be spending so much time trying to persuade one Vionian naval concubine to trust me. High Command wouldn’t take me to task, of course: they had long since acknowledged that what generally went by the name of ‘Alpha’s eccentricities’ didn’t impede the efficient operation of the Prince Hend.
Frankly, I felt more concern for my crew, since I had, it seemed, chosen to deprive them of the opportunity to lead the victory tour the rest of the fleet were currently doing around Vion Prime.
“Sir,” came my first officer’s voice through the comm in my ear, “High Command is asking for an ETA. They say they can hold off on initiating the final barrage for fifteen minutes, but no more.”
“Thank you, Mero,” I replied, just as the naked girl who refused to tell me her name almost kicked her way off my shoulder and onto the deck, almost certainly acquiring an injury as her sweet but fragile body met the hard surface. “Tell them we’ll be there. I’m bringing back a survivor from the Vionian ship. I’ll be across to the Prince in two minutes.”
“Thank you, sir,” Mero replied. “Will do.”
I heard in his matter-of-fact, compliant tone, as I often did, only the tiniest note of his ongoing exasperation at serving under the only alien captain in the Magisterian starfleet. With just three known non-humans in the entire galaxy, and the other two not even interested in commanding a military vessel, I could practically hear Mero thinking, why did he have to end up as first officer to the blue giant?
We had designed these bodies as a mixture of basic human anatomy and alienness and manufactured them at an orbital cloning facility five standard years ago. We had wanted to keep the humans we met from worrying that we meant to pass unnoticed among them—that was where the blue skin had come in.
We had also designed them to give us the chance to explore a specific dimension of the human experience that had fascinated us. When, as members of the Collective, we had begun to study this new species who had spread so rapidly across their galaxy, we had discovered within their reproductive requirements and practices a particular mixture of sexuality and power. The three breakout entities—myself and my ‘brothers’ (as the humans inevitably thought of us) Beta and Gamma—had embodied ourselves in large, blue-skinned human male bodies as a way to explore sex with power as we thought of it. Or, as the Magisterians to whom we had come first called it, dominance and submission.
I had fallen in love with one of the young women I had dominated, and settled on Magisteria. My brothers had set out to explore more of the human worlds, hoping to fall in love as I had done. As of the last time we had communicated, neither of them had found the right partner, but they had certainly enjoyed the search so far.
That communication had occurred a year ago, now; just before the outbreak of the Vionian Revolt. Sala and I had been away from Magisteria for nearly that long, aboard the Prince Hend.
My origin in a practically omniscient and omnipotent alien energy-species meant that I had certain skills and capacities that made me a valuable commander for a Magisterian military starship. The Magisterians certainly would have put down the revolt and put an end to the Vionian Empire without my assistance, but I did like to think they wouldn’t have done it quite as easily as they had.