The Crime of Protection

by Gloria Martin

  “What do you need of me my lord?” I asked. My tone was grave and determined as my heart set out to do anything that would save my planet and my race.

  “They have gone for a full frontal attack and have brought all of their military assets to our space zones. They think we are helpless, but I need you to take out their central command to cripple all of their dependent weaponry and fighting means. You must destroy their mother ship,” said Lord Rixon.

  I quickly reset the coordinates back for Earth. I needed to get Melanie to safety.

  “Yes my lord, I will do this.” I assured Lord Rixon. He didn’t need to remind me that the fate of our race depended on my completing this mission. The transmission ended and Melanie cleared her throat.

  “Where are we going? Didn’t we already pass Jupiter?” she asked and I nodded.

  “Yes, I need to return you to Earth so that you will be safe in case anything happens. I will return for you as soon as I complete my mission Melanie,” I said. She reached forward to flick me on the back of the neck.

  “What do I look like, some helpless maiden? I want to go with you, I can help you take down the central command, or mother ship or whatever it is,” Melanie said resolutely. There was a steel edge to her voice. She was determined.

  “Melanie I would not be able to live with myself if anything happened to you, I must get you to safety,” I pleaded with her, but it was as if she did not hear a word I had uttered.

  “So what’s the plan for how we are going to take down the Lorax people?”

  All I could do was laugh at that moment.

  “The Lorascan peoples,” I corrected her. She sighed as if it did not matter much. Which it did not as I was intent on killing as many of those bullies as I could. I sighed deeply and reset the coordinates. The space craft slowed to turn direction yet again and it shot off at full speed for Rodon and our solar system.

  “The ship is built for speed, not combat, so we cannot sustain much of a gunfight out in space. We will have to board their central command and disable it somehow from within…I could possibly use you as a distraction…” The beginnings of a plan formed in my mind and I glanced behind me to see Melanie waiting patiently for me to finish my thought. “You might become imprisoned, but I will break you out before we leave the central command ship,” I ensured her.

  “Alright, let’s do this,” she said. Melanie perplexed me in that moment, but she amazed and awed me all the same. I was right in my decision to marry that woman.

  We entered Rodon’s space zone and the impressive silver fleet of the Lorascan space navy stretched out around our planet. I switched off the autopilot and took control of the craft. As I navigated around the many different kinds of ships, I managed to dodge the heavy fire of Lorascan titanium. That metal could puncture any hull. One good shot and Melanie and I would be floating dead in space.

  It was a light show as the shells were shot at dizzying speed, but our craft held up and soon we neared the central command ship. It was a giant disc in the midst of many other small fighter crafts and larger heavy artillery crafts. The one thing we outsmarted the Lorascans at was our ability to make a space craft that could move at nearly the speed of light.

  I rounded the large silver disc and flew underneath it where there was a small pocket for landing. It was dark in the hangar, and I was instantly wary of the implications. As our craft neared the landing strip the lights gradually lit until the entire hangar was visible. There was row after row of space craft and I quickly landed and hid our smaller, sleeker, craft in between the rows. I opened the small compartment by my left foot and pulled out the two breather masks that was standardly outfit to each Rodonian space craft. I handed one to Melanie and helped her put it on correctly before I secured mine and then we exited the craft.

  *****

  Josiah

  Melanie and I ran low to the nearest lit entrance into the ship and I forced the door open. Inside was a long lit hall with cream-colored concave walls. We cautiously hurried down along the hall, until we reached a sort of bustling lobby area. There were uniformed Lorascans everywhere. We stood out with our human attire. The Lorascans were average in height and looked largely humanoid apart from their third eyes and paper-white skin.

  I pulled Melanie back into the empty hall and she looked at me expectantly. “So what do we do now?” she whispered. I glanced back into the lobby area. There were cameras pointing down from the ceiling. Many other halls branched out from the lobby. I did not know which one led to their surveillance room. That was where I needed to send Melanie, so that they would have less a chance of seeing me as I made a break for the core of their ship to destroy it.

  “I need to get you to the surveillance room so that you can distract them,” I informed her. She nodded. Her eyes were wide, but she was not too scared.

  “You don’t know where it is though correct?” she asked and I nodded once. “Fine, I’ll just walk out there and most likely wherever surveillance is, is where they take prisoners, or near there.”

  She was logical in her thinking and I fell deeper in love with her than I already had been. Melanie was amazing.

  She said, “Just lay low and I’ll get myself locked up, then you can bust me out and we can find the surveillance room.” I nodded and Melanie ran out into the lobby. There was a commotion and I inched out of the hallway. She was seized by two Lorascans and taken into the hall directly across from the one I hid in.

  I used the speed my robotic legs brought me to be largely unseen and unheard as I ran across to that hallway. The Lorascans were preoccupied with staring at Melanie as she was taken towards wherever the holding cells were. I went ahead to locate both the holding cells and the surveillance room, which was indeed in the next corridor over from the room where the holding cells were kept.

  I hid behind a bend in the hallway that led to the surveillance corridor and waited as they took Melanie into holdings. The two Lorascans took Melanie inside and returned a moment later. I jumped out of the shadows and made quick work of first strangling one Lorascan to his death and then breaking the other’s neck with my robotic leg, before either could have much reaction to my presence. I had to say the speed my new body afforded me was quite handy.

  I searched the bodies of the Lorascans after I pulled them into the shadows once more, and found a set of keys. I quickly went through the doors that led to the holding cells. I found myself in a circular chamber which five cells. Melanie was sitting on a bench in the center cell, patiently waiting for me.

  “You are amazing Melanie,” I said and she grinned.

  “I know, so did you find the surveillance room?”

  I smiled, unlocked her cell door and led the way. We passed by the fallen Lorascans and went down the short corridor to the double doors that read ‘vigilance’ in Lorascan writing. All Rodonians learned the languages of the planets in other solar systems within our galaxy.

  I forced the doors open and Melanie ran in while I sprinted back out to the lobby area and down another hall. While I looked for the surveillance room I came across a map of the ship painted on the wall. It was meant to be artistic, decorative. But it told me exactly where I needed to go.

  I sprinted down to the ship’s depths and made my way to the power core. I needed to destroy it rather than disable it. The heart of the ship was compact with not much room to navigate through the many cooling and heating systems, controls, and different power sources. I found the heart of it all directly in the center of the circular room. It sat in the middle of the floor, sectioned off by an electromagnetic field. I could not see it, but I could sense the charge in the air as I neared the giant mercury-like device. It was a glass dome that surrounded obscure looking steady white lights set in mercury. Its base was connected to several of the other engines in the room and branched out via thick black cables.

  I wondered how I would destroy it as I had no weapon. I wondered if what was protecting it would also destroy it. I walked along the wall of charge and f
ound the source of the flow of energy along the far wall. It was a thin strip of blue light that was shaped into a half circle and attached to the wall. I simply detached it and made sure to keep it aligned with its mate on the other far wall, so that the charge would continue to flow.

  I began to walk around the core, as I angled the electromagnetic wall. To close in on it. Thankfully the Lorascans had chosen to make these strips circular so that I could keep up the alignment as I moved around the core. The first spark was made as the field came into contact with the glass enclosure. I made sure to keep the alignment as I dragged the field through the direct center of the core, subsequently cutting it in half.

  Whatever technology the Lorascans were able to harness within this core, simply caught fire. Alarms started going off. I dropped the strip, found Melanie, and hurried back to our ship.

  *****

  Josiah

  I held Melanie in my arms, as I moved quicker than she. We ran and dodged through the sea of Lorascans to the space craft hangar to escape the central command ship.

  I quickly got us into the craft and then flew out of the mother ship just as the first of the chain of explosions started up. I flew well away from the explosions within the Lorascan navy, caused by the destruction of their mother ship. Their fighter crafts lost power and began to float off into space. Anything in the immediate vicinity of the central command ship was destroyed in glorious fiery explosions. Space was bright that night and Melanie and I had managed to destroy the impressive Lorascan navy singlehandedly.

  “Holy shit we did it Josiah…” Melanie’s voice was hushed as we watched the explosions and disarray of the Lorascan fall.

  “We did, and if it weren’t for you I am not sure how I would have pulled off this mission,” I admitted to her gratefully.

  “Told you I could help.” Melanie reached her hand forward and I held it in mine before I kissed each of her knuckles.

  “Let us return to Rodon then,” I said, before I rounded the large blue and green planet to fly to the city of Voltaire.

  I landed atop Lord Rixon’s palace, on the same landing pad I started my journey from six months ago. There a small crowd was waiting for us. Once the glass enclosure opened up Melanie and I could hear the cheers of the people. I got out and helped Melanie down, the crowd grew hushed as Lord Rixon stepped forward.

  “My lord…” I bowed as he studied Melanie and she him. “This is Melanie, I found her on Earth and wish for her to be my wife and mate. She helped me destroy the Lorascan mother ship,” I added for good measure. I spoke in English, so Lord Rixon would know to do so as well, for Melanie’s sake.

  Lord Rixon smiled widely and he bowed to both Melanie and I, causing the rest of the welcoming crowd to bow as well. I felt humbled and at a loss for words. Lord Rixon was bowing to us? “You both have been given the highest honor here on Rodon. You have saved our planet and our people from ultimate destruction,” Rixon said sincerely as he straightened from his bow.

  “Josiah…perhaps you have already mated with Melanie?” Lord Rixon asked me curiously as he continued to study her closely.

  “Yes my lord…why do you ask?” I was growing bemused at his intent gaze on Melanie; she was growing uncomfortable and I did not want her to be.

  “You know I have a gift of sensing life Josiah. I believe you have conceived with her,” he said.

  Shock turned me into a statue, and Melanie’s jaw dropped.

  “I’m…I’m pregnant?” said Melanie. Lord Rixon nodded, a slow smile spread across his face.

  He said, “This is a truly joyous day, you have saved Rodon and proved that we can rebuild our race! As soon as you are married you will be named first family of the new generation and treated with as much honor and respect as the royal family.”

  Lord Rixon actually embraced us both in a tight hug. The man was big and obviously had trouble tempering his own strength. Thankfully he let us go soon enough and we were able to breathe once again.

  Lord Rixon gave orders for people to prepare for our wedding ceremony and the palace was a hub of excitement as preparations were being made. Lord Rixon made sure to send a fleet of our warriors to clean up our space zones of the fallen Lorascans. Melanie and I were allowed to rest before our nuptials in one of the palace’s guest suites.

  Melanie and I both collapsed on the bed and simply stared up at the ceiling as we recounted the day’s events. “We’re getting married…and we’re going to have a baby Josiah,” Melanie said with a smile in her voice. I grinned in return and turned to face her. She rolled onto her side to face me as well.

  “I love you Melanie,” I said simply and her smile seemed to light up the room.

  “I love you too Josiah,” she said before she leaned forward and kissed me softly on the lips. I knew that our future would be bright and full, as long as we had each other.

  THE END

  Thank you for downloading this book.

  Please sign up to get your FREE Sexy, Steamy Romance Book NOW!

  Click HERE to sign up OR

  Copy and paste below link into your browser.

  http://bit.ly/2a9ZNbQ

  (We value your privacy and would never spam you)

  CHECK OUT other STEAMY HOT Romance stories that you may enjoy!

  In the Arms of her Dragon Princes

  Heart of the Werewolf King

  Cyborg Warrior’s Son

  Mated with the Cyborgs

  Alien King

  Alien Twins