"How many guns does this thing have?" Sergei asked, gripping the back of Davina's chair as he stared at the ships in front of them.
"Not enough to take on three ships that size!" Davina answered, "We've got turrets on the front and back and laser canons on the sides, but they'll blow us out of the water before we can get one of them in our sights."
"So we run!" Fin offered, "Get us out of here!"
"We're faster, but we won't be able to outrun them for long," Davina clutched the console in distress.
"We don't need to outrun them long," Erena said, looking over Davina's shoulder at the star charts she had open, "Look there at that nebula. If we make it there we can hide in the gas clouds. The radiation should hide us, right? They'll lose their advantage!"
"That might work!" Davina replied, already beginning to turn the ship, "It'll give us a better chance anyway!"
Davina pitched the ship away from their enemies and floored it, moving as close to near light as she dared, shouting orders down to Paulo in engineering as they dodged laser blasts from the three ships following them.
"Hellfire," Fin shouted as another blast connected, shaking the ship, "What did you do to piss these guys off?"
"Threw him off a balcony for one," Erena answered.
"I may have made the situation a little worse while you were recovering," Shang admitted, "He used to have five ships, not three, for one. And also-"
"He's trying to reach our coms," Davina reported, "I'll put him on the view screen."
A window opened in the corner of the screen. Rin'rokir stood there, missing one of his mandibles, his eyes burning with rage.
"Looking good, bug," Shang snarled as soon as he saw the other alien, "The asymmetric thing suits you."
"Ren’ai Shang I am going to tear your limbs off eat them in front of you," Rokir shrieked and chittered, drooling from his shattered mouth, "I am going to lay my eggs in that pet of yours while you watch!
A police dog like you, a gutter crawling terminarch, never should have been allowed to climb as high as you did!
I should have squashed you the first moment I saw you on that ship! If the captain hadn't favored, you I would have eaten you that day! But I'm the captain now, and nothing it going to stop me from digesting you like the worthless scrap of meat you are!"
Davina turned the com off before he could continue.
"I think that's more than enough," she declared, "What a creep."
"How close is the nebula?" Erena asked, a little shaken by Rin'rokir's threats.
"Almost there," Davina confirmed, "And we've put a little distance between us as well. This just might work!"
The ship shot into the astral cloud, the stardust billowing and rippling around it as it darted deep into the nebula, seeking out a place it could hide from the pursuing ships.
"They've followed us into the cloud," Davina reported as the image of the other ship vanished from her radar, "They can't see us, and we can't see them."
"Not quite," Shang corrected, "We have one advantage they don't."
He reached into his pocket, pulling out Rokir's detached mandible.
"You kept that?" Erena asked, wrinkling her nose
"I thought it might come in handy," he said, grinning, "This ship specializes in poaching. Snatching up rare or new species to sell as novelties. So it's outfitted with DNA tracking equipment. Most ships don't have that. With this sample of his DNA, we can track him in the cloud."
"Excellent," Davina's tendrils moved cautiously over the console as they drifted through the cloud, worried at any moment that they might stumble across Rokir's ships, "The only problem is I don't know how to work the DNA tracker. I never approved of that work. It's half the reason I wanted the old captain gone."
"I can work it," Shang said, taking the mandible to an open console and laying it down in an open circle on the dash, "You just fly. I'll get you the information you need."
"I can handle the guns," Sergei offered, "Just point me at them."
"There and there," Davina said, pointing in two different directions, "That side is turrets. The other is broadsides. Technically, you can man both from either station, but none of you has enough limbs for that."
"I'll take the turrets," Erena said, rushing to one of the stations while Sergei hurried to the other, leaving Fin the only one without a job.
"What should I do?" he asked, agitated.
"You're a medical officer aren't you?" Shang replied, "If any of us goes down, don't let us die!"
The controls were not what Erena expected, but she figured them out quickly enough. Just touching the console seemed to transmit some basic knowledge of the weapons operations directly into her brain. She could see what Davina meant about not having enough limbs. Thinking about it, two was really inefficient.
By the time she was sure she knew what she was doing, Shang had figured out where Rokir's ship was.
"This'll only give us the location of his flag ship," Shang called out, "So keep your eyes peeled for the other two. They won't be very far apart. They won't want to lose each other in this cloud."
"Get ready!" Davina called, "Fire broadsides!"
Erena watched, her stomach aching with tension, as the laser canons fired into the spinning magenta clouds, lighting them up gold as they cut through the stardust.
For a moment there was nothing, and Erena wondered if they'd hit the target. Then suddenly the inside of the cloud was illuminated as though by lightning and Erena saw the dark silhouette of Rin'rokir's ship burning within the vibrant nimbus of the nebula.
"Direct hit!" Davina cheered.
"He's moving this way, get us out of here!" Shang called back to her.
"I'm bringing her around," Davina replied, "Prepare to fire again! Now!"
Erena and Sergei both bent over their consoles, pale with concentration as lasers lit up the nebula in great clashes of color. Rokir fired back at them whenever they exposed their position by firing at him, keeping them in a constant game of cat and mouse, firing and darting away before he could locate them. Erena flinched every time the ship shuddered with another impact.
"Davina!" Paolo's voice echoed through the coms from engineering, "Things are beginning to look dire down here my love!"
"We've almost got him!" Davina crowed, "I don't even need the DNA tracker any more, he's smoking badly enough to see it through the clouds! Hang in there a little longer, gorgeous!"
Suddenly another shot rocked the ship hard enough to make Erena shriek in surprise.
"That was a canon!" Davina gasped, "How did he target us?"
"Where are the other two ships?" Erena asked, scanning the view screen before them frantically.
"There!" Sergei pointed out, "Behind us!"
"They're just firing turrets into the void," Fin noticed, "Why?"
"He's using it to triangulate us!" Shang realized, horrified, "He lured us right into the middle of his ships!"
A second later, two more canon blasts hit the ship, shaking it until Erena was certain it would fly to pieces. Shrill alarms screamed, reporting the damage.
"The lower decks are venting atmosphere!" Davina reported, "They've torn her belly open! Another few shots will gut her!"
"We can't go down like this!" Shang demanded, "There has to be a way out! He's right in front of us!"
"Ram him!" Erena said, desperation making her voice shake, "He's more damage than we are, and this thing is shaped like an anvil. Ram him!"
"We'll destroy both of us!" Shang stared at her, wide eyed.
"Better both of us than just him!" Davina howled with mad laughter and threw the ship into full near light all at once, charging directly forward. Shang threw himself across the bridge to get to Erena's side a second before the point of the ship's anvil drove directly through the heart of Rin'rokir's ship like a sword.
Chapter Seventeen
There were a few moments of silence, during which Erena tried to gather her scattered thoughts. It was dark, and her head hurt.
There was a ringing in her ears, high and whining, that kept getting louder her. There were arms around her, strong and protective.
The lights flickered back to life as Erena's hearing returned gradually, revealing the shrill ringing as the sound of blaring alarms. A red emergency light was flashing on and off. The consoles were sparking and there was a fire in the corner. No one was on their feet.
And Shang was holding her, sheltering her with his body. She reached up to touch his face, worry blossoming in her chest, and he groaned, shifting into the contact. She sighed in relief.
"Shang, wake up," she said, shaking his shoulders, "We need to move. Come on."
He opened his eyes slowly, unsteady.
"Are you okay?" she asked, worried, "Are you hurt?"
He shook his head, looking down over her nervously.
"Are you okay?" he asked, "The baby?"
"I knocked my head, but I think we're okay."
"You're pregnant?"
Davina interrupted their conversation, stumbling to her feet behind the center console, holding her head.
"That explains a lot," she muttered, "Damn. That was a hell of a ride. Everybody okay?"
"Davina!"
Paolo burst onto the bridge, bleeding from a cut above his eye and looking terrified. As soon as he saw Davina standing he threw himself at her, hugging her tightly. Davina looked a bit startled at first, then embraced him as well, her expression softening with affection.
"Sergei is still unconscious," Fin, his face lined with worry, was leaning over the other man, checking his pulse, "He needs medical attention."
"We need to get off this ship first," Shang said, eyeing the sparking consoles, "I've got a feeling it's not going to be in flyable condition for a while, and there's still two other ships out there to worry about.
"Damn it," Davina muttered, "I was really looking forward to taking over this ship."
She leaned over to the coms, slapping the console until it lit up.
"All hands to the life boats," she called, her voice echoing through the corridors, "Abandon ship!"
"To the hanger," Shang said, standing and pulling Erena up with him, "We can take my ship. It's got DNA tracking, so we can still get to earth. A little slower maybe, but we can make it."
"Good plan," Davina agreed, "Let's go."
Paolo helped Fin pick up Sergei and together the six of them hurried through the burning corridors of the massive ship towards the hangar. Around them, the other crew men were rushing into life pods that lined the corridors, which would automatically shuttle them to the nearest inhabited planet.
"There it is!" Erena said with a sigh of relief as their battered group reached the hangar and she spotted the sleek black ship, still in one piece despite the damage they'd passed on the way here.
They hurried towards it, eager to get off the smoking wreck, only to stop short as a dark figure stepped out from behind the ship.
Rin'rokir, missing much more than a mandible, stood panting, dripping cerulean ichor on the hangar floor. Erena's stomach turned at the sight of him, missing a distressingly large chunk of his torso as well as his left arm. None of which seemed to be stopping him from pointing a laser rifle at them.
"Do you have," he gasped, sputtering blood between every few words, "any idea, how long it's going to take me to regrow all this? I'm going to be chewing on your bones while I'm molting, Shang."
"I think you're misreading the situation, bug," Shang growled as he and Davina both pulled small, sleek pistols from their coats, "You're not ever going to have another molt."
"Then I'm at least taking something you care about with me," Rokir snarled and jerked his rifle towards Erena, pulling the trigger.
Shang stepped into the path of the blast before Erena even had time to process what was happening. She saw him go down in slow motion while Davina opened fire on Rokir, forcing him to take cover behind the ship. She went down with him, barely aware of her companions ducking rifle fire above her.
There was a burning hole in Shang and he wasn't moving. Shock was giving way in Erena to a molten rage like boil rising in her throat behind a scream. She was taking the pistol he'd dropped before she'd had a second thought, charging the ship he'd taken cover behind so suddenly that her team had no chance to react. She caught Rin'rokir off guard too.
Compound eyes wide he raised his rifle too slow. She slammed one hand down on the burning barrel of that gun to shove it down and pressed the pistol to the bug's head with the other.
Inches from his face, her teeth bared like an animal, she didn't hesitate before she pulled the trigger. She pulled it five more times before she dropped it and picked up the rifle to shoot the puddle Rokir was swiftly becoming.
Paolo wrestled the weapon out of her hands before she could get more than a few shots in, Davina struggling to hold her back. She spat on the insect's corpse and aimed a kick at him as she was pulled away.
"Come back from that one, creep!"
Chapter Eighteen
The rest was a blur as they bundled her onto the ship. Fin was hard at work on Shang already, moving between him and Sergei with the ship's med kit. Davina assured them the kit was paltry, but what it contained seemed like miracle drugs to Fin.
Erena was too far out of her own head to help, just sitting at the back and watching as Davina flew them out of the nebula. She hadn't had time to process yet how horrified she was by what she'd done.
She was six layers of numb around a core of cold horror at the thought that Shang might die before they'd really resolved things. Before she'd had a chance to explain that she felt the same way.
She was covered in cobalt colored blood and her head was spinning, but there was nothing she could do but watch Fin scrabbling to save the man she was beginning to realize she loved. What else could have overcome her that way, enough to make her do a thing like that?
Fin kept the two men alive until they could get back to the Crystal City, where Doctor Yll urged them into her office, her eyes wild with worry at the state they were in. It might have taken hours or days. Erena's sense of time had left her. She could only watch Shang and wait for him to open his eyes.
"He's going to be okay," Yll said at last, sighing in exhaustion as she dragged her gloves off all eight hands, "It seems like he's worse off every time he comes in here. If he doesn't retire this time, next time he'll come in dead."
Erena barely heard the end of Yll's statement. Relief overwhelmed her, allowing all the stress and injury to catch up with her at last. She slumped into unconsciousness, her thoughts clinging to those words. He was going to be okay.
When she woke, Yll had treated her for her head wound as well as her exhaustion. She was once again in that clean white room, this time sharing it with Fin, though Fin hadn't left Sergei's side since they'd arrived.
Erena suddenly had a theory as to why Paolo had never succeeded in convincing Sergei to date him. She'd never considered the man might already be taken.
She was still shaken by what she'd done to Rin'rokir, but being with her team mates again helped a lot. She told them about the pregnancy at last.
Fin, who still didn't approve of Shang, tried to insist she get rid of it, but Paolo was on her side, and it wasn't hard to guess why, judging by the moon eyed way he gazed at Davina every time the subject came up.
After a few days, Shang woke up. Erena was there as soon as he opened his eyes.
"Welcome back," she smiled down at him and he smiled back, those dark eyes full of love as he took her hand.
After a few more days, he was back on his feet. While he recovered, he and Erena talked about anything and everything they could think of. Anything but the future.
He told her about growing up in the Labyrinth City alone after his mother passed, and about the legends she'd told him of his people, about giant elders thousands of years old, their lives tied to massive oak trees.
She told him about growing up on earth, trying to convince people to take her love of scienc
e seriously, and about the movies she loved and the books she'd read.
With everything he told her and with everything she told him, Erena became more certain that she loved him. And more than that, she became certain she could build a life with him.
When Shang was well enough, they took Shang's ship out into the darkness. It was cramped and uncomfortable, but the humans had trained for those sorts of conditions, and though Shang and Davina got irritable, for the most part things were uneventful.
They stopped frequently, a last tour of the stars on the way back to earth. In a roundabout way, Erena thought, they'd still completed their mission out here.
And then one day she looked through the view screen and saw Earth floating in front of them, as though it had crept up on her. Suddenly, she didn't know what to do.
"I can't wait to feel grass under my toes again," Finn sighed with longing, looking out at Earth as they approached, "This has been the most amazing ride of my life, but I'm glad to be home."
"Me too," Erena said softly, glancing at Shang, who sat silent in the pilot's seat.
"It will be nice to see home again," Paolo agreed, "But I'm not staying."
"What?" Sergei sputtered and everyone turned to look at the other man.
"I don't intend to stay on earth," he repeated, "I plan to go on traveling with Davina. We're going to go back to that nebula and try to repair her ship. There was never much for me on Earth. I said my good byes to it when we left. But there's love and a whole universe out here! Why wouldn't I choose to stay out here?"
"I suppose you're right," Fin said, blinking in surprise, then smiled and shifted closer to Sergei, "But I think everything I'm looking for is going to be on Earth."
"So do I," Sergei agreed, smiling.
"What about you Erena?" Paolo asked, and Erena looked up at him in surprise, "Will you stay on Earth?"
Erena stared back at him for a long moment, then shrugged, shaking her head.
"I don't know," she said, "I haven't decided yet. I just... want to go home."
Alien Romance: The Alien's Pregnant Mate: Scifi Alien Abduction Romance (Alien Romance, Alien Invasion Romance, BBW) (Celestial Mates Book 2) Page 10