Barbarian: A Science Fiction Alien Romance (Alien Barbarians of Zandipor Book 1)

by Kim Fox

  “Great,” Rolanda says, still at the controls, “because I can’t figure any of these squiggly lines out.”

  The buttons on the lit-up dashboard are covered with alien writing. It looks like a toddler scribbled all over them.

  Tin Tom lights up, blinking like a defective Christmas tree when he sees the three aliens lying on the floor. “You have incapacitated the pilots of this spaceship,” he says, his crackling voice higher than normal. “That was very rude.”

  “Get us home,” Rolanda snaps at him. “Now!”

  Tin Tom beeps once. “We are headed home,” he says. “The beloved Emperor Rsordan’s new palace is your new home.”

  “Our old home!” she snaps, looking like she’s about to show us Tin Tom’s insides. “Earth! Now!”

  He just blinks. “We are headed to the Europa galaxy to-”

  “Avery,” Rolanda hisses. “Close the door.”

  I hit the red button that’s out of Tin Tom’s reach and the doors slam shut.

  Tin Tom spins from me to Rolanda and then back to me. “That was inappropriate.”

  Rolanda slams her fist onto the dashboard with a crash. “You want to see inappropriate?” she asks, standing up with her broad shoulders thrust back and her hands clenched into fists. The thick vein in her neck looks like it’s about to pop.

  “How’s this for inappropriate?” She grabs the slumped body of the praying mantis-like alien and smashes his head onto the dashboard over and over again.

  “Yes,” Tin Tom says, blinking as he watches. “That is very inappropriate as well.”

  Rolanda smashes the bug’s head into the control panel one more time and the cockpit lights up in a red glow. A warning alarm triggers and Mandy screams. I turn around and she has her eyes squeezed closed with her hands over her ears.

  Alien clicking sounds come on over the speakers and Rolanda drops the pilot that she’s holding in her hands. He slides to the floor looking deader than dead.

  “What’s going on?” she asks, stepping towards Tin Tom. He glides away from her on his wheels and bumps into the closed door. Her muscular arms are flexed as she grabs him. “What. Is. Happening?”

  Tin Tom blinks. “The anti-matter compressor is broken,” he says. “Interplanetary travel has been rendered incapacitated. I told you that was inappropriate.”

  Rolanda leaps at the robot and I jump between them. “Easy. Easy!” I quickly spit out with my palms up. “I know you want to kill him but he’s the only one who can get us home. We need him.”

  “I don’t want to kill him,” she says, glaring down at the robot. “I want to rewire him and turn him into a toilet.”

  Tin Tom just blinks.

  “Tom,” I say, trying to keep my voice calm. “Can you please take us home?”

  “Beyond the bounds of possibility,” he says. “The anti-matter compressor is broken.”

  I’m afraid to ask the next question because I’m terrified of the answer. “Can you fix it?”

  “Yes,” he says and all three of us take a sigh of relief. “It can be repaired with a flortine reducer.”

  “Great,” I say, feeling lighter than I have since this whole thing started. “Where can we find it?”

  Tin Tom blinks. “In the Europa galaxy.”

  My stomach rolls and I suddenly have a hard time breathing. “There’s not one on the ship?”

  “Negative,” he answers. “A flortine reducer is four times the size of this spacecraft. Carrying one on board would be ludicrous.”

  “You’re ludicrous!” Rolanda screams, leaping forward. Once again I throw myself between them. As annoying as he is, we still need him. He’s our only hope, which isn’t saying much for our chances.

  I hear a thump on metal and I turn to see Mandy shaking her hand with a look of pain on her face. “Fuck, that hurt,” she yells as she shakes it out. “Stupid fucking robot.”

  “Fine,” I say, turning back to Tin Tom. “Land us until we can figure it out.” I have to get off of this fucking nightmare of a ship.

  “The Europa galaxy is four million light years in distance,” he explains. “And our anti-matter compressor is broken. Tom has said that twice already. You earthling women aren’t very smart.”

  “There!” Rolanda says, pointing out of the windshield to the brown planet in the distance. “Land us there.”

  Tin Tom blinks defiantly. “I am not authorized to land this ship.”

  “I’m authorizing you,” Rolanda says, pointing at her chest.

  “You are not the captain of the ship,” Tin Tom responds. “You cannot give authorization.”

  Rolanda clenches her jaw in frustration. She grabs the unconscious alien off of the floor and throws him against the control panel. “Watch this you tin piece of crap.”

  My stomach heaves and my skin tightens as I watch the scene before me. Rolanda places her foot on the bug’s chest and grabs his head with both hands. Her forearms are flexed and strained as she grunts, pulling with all of her might. The crackling and popping sounds make my stomach turns and I almost throw up when she rips the bug’s head off of its body.

  I almost throw up. Mandy is not as fortunate. She pukes all over the floor.

  “There,” Rolanda says, tossing the head against the wall behind her with a thud as the headless body slides to the floor. “Now I’m the fucking Captain. And I authorize you to land this Goddamn, motherfucking, cocksucking, titty fucking, piece of shit, spacecraft!”

  Tin Tom just stares at her blankly. “It’s spaceship,” he corrects.

  This time, he’s on his own. I’m not holding that she-beast Rolanda back anymore. But to my surprise, she just slumps down onto the chair and laughs. She laughs and laughs, each one coming out stronger than the last. Shit. She’s lost her mind.

  “Tom will instruct you how to dock the spaceship onto that planet,” he says and we all perk up, including Mandy who’s bent over after she puked a second time. “A recovery beacon will be planted for Emperor Rsordan.”

  “No recovery beacon,” Rolanda snaps. I place my hand on her arm and give her a look. We can figure that part out later. Right now, we just have to get to the ground.

  My throat is burning and my eyes watering from the sour stench of the dead bodies in the small cockpit. I got to get off of this fucking ship.

  Rolanda and I each take a seat at the controls as Tin Tom rolls up between us, blinking away. Mandy stays against the wall and watches. There’s a dead alien in the third seat and she doesn’t look like she’s about to move it.

  The robot gives us detailed instructions and soon we’re turning towards the colorful planet. Driving the spaceship is not so hard once you get used to it. I guess if a praying mantis can fly it, a human can too.

  A few minutes later, we’re cruising through the atmosphere and I can actually see vegetation and water down below. At least we’re not landing on some barren planet where we’ll starve to death. I want to tell all of the girls in the back that we’re almost on solid land but I’m needed here.

  “Hit that blue lever,” Tin Tom instructs and Rolanda pulls it until it clicks. The entire ship shakes like crazy as a deafening metal crunching sound burns my ears.

  “What the heck is that?” I yell over the tearing noise as I almost vibrate off my seat.

  The sound stops and just like that it’s eerily quiet, the spaceship smoothly gliding through the sky once again. “That was the release of the cargo hold,” Tin Tom says.

  My stomach drops. “The cargo hold with all of the other women in it?”

  “Yes,” he says flatly.

  My chest tightens as I shift in my seat, feeling my forehead break out into a nervous sweat. “Why would you do that?” I scream. “What’s going to happen to them? Are they going to die?”

  Tin Tom blinks. “The likelihood of them surviving a landing without the lead ship is roughly three percent.”

  “Why would you release them?” I yell. Mandy just cries behind me. Rolanda is staring out the windshield
with her game face on.

  “Releasing the cargo hold increases our chances of survival by 0.0006 percent,” Tin Tom answers.

  I drop my head. “That’s so fucked up,” I whisper.

  “This whole thing is fucked up,” Rolanda says. “Everyone who we’ve ever known is dead. What’s an extra twenty people?”

  She’s got a point. But still, I feel bad.

  Tin Tom guides us the rest of the way and we steer towards a valley with bright green grass with patches of pink dotted throughout it. We land hard.

  Mandy flies through the air and lands on the headless corpse of our once animated pilot. She begins a new round of puking. Now I definitely have to get off of this ship.

  Tin Tom tells Rolanda to flick a few switches and the engine shuts down. It’s eerily quiet without the hum of the engine or the purple electricity shit or whatever it was that was propelling the ship.

  There’s a loud hiss and the doors slowly open behind us. I hold my breath waiting for my head to explode or something but I can’t hold off for long and close my eyes as I inhale.

  It’s oxygen.

  I let my head fall back against the seat and take a deep breath of the cool fresh air flowing in. The three of us step up to the door and gulp as we look out at the spectacular valley in front of us.

  I take the first step out and let out a huge breath when the ground doesn’t swallow me up whole. It’s good old-fashioned dirt. There are low mountains on either side of the valley and besides the vibrant colors everywhere, it looks a lot like earth.

  Well, except for the six moons in the sky, the dozens of meteors hurtling through the sky, and the fact that there’s no Starbucks, yoga classes, or any other cool shit.

  Rolanda jumps up and down with her fists in the air. “I’m the MMA champion of the planet!” she hollers.

  “Are you?” Mandy asks.

  Rolanda grins. “On this planet I am.”

  Both Mandy and I take a step back. We’re not about to challenge her for her made up title.

  “Welcome to Zandipor,” Tin Tom says as he rolls up to the open door of the spaceship.

  “Zandipor?” I ask, turning back to the blinking robot. That doesn’t sound too bad.

  “Yes, Zandipor,” he repeats. “Land of the dinosaurs.”

  Wait. Did he just say freaking dinosaurs?!?

  four

  “Dinosaurs?!?” Mandy screams as she whips her head around. “Like, dinosaur, dinosaurs?”

  Tin Tom beeps as we anxiously await his answer. “I’m not familiar with a dinosaur dinosaurs,” he says. “But Zandipor is the home of the dinosauriforms. What earthlings call dinosaurs.”

  Even Rolanda is freaked out. Her face is turning as white as Mandy’s. She’s a tough bitch but even the best fists in the universe aren’t a match against a freaking T-Rex.

  “Observe earthling women,” Tin Tom says. “There is a dinosauriform coming now.”

  My blood runs cold and every hair on my body stands at attention as I slowly turn around. There’s a fucking dinosaur alright, and it’s a goddamn T-Rex. It’s far enough in the distance that I don’t have to pee my shorts yet but that can all change in an instant. I’m assuming, by the three dinosaur movies that I’ve seen, that it can run over here in the time it takes me to tighten up my shoe laces. I really should have tightened them on the ship.

  I can’t take my unblinking eyes off it. It’s huge. Even bigger than I thought a T-Rex would be. We’re probably the three only humans in history to lay eyes on a Tyrannosaurus Rex but I don’t feel particularly lucky. Watching Jurassic Park was good enough for me. I don’t need to see the live version.

  The T-Rex doesn’t see us and begins walking in the other direction towards the mountain. All three of us take a breath of relief.

  “Why did you let us land on a planet full of dinosaurs?” Rolanda asks with narrow eyes.

  Tin Tom just beeps. “You are the Captain of the ship. I go where you tell me to.”

  Rolanda throws her hands in the air and groans. “I hate you, so much right now.”

  Every few minutes there’s a soft thumping in the distance. Dozens of white lines decorate the sky as meteors fall from the heavens. “Why is it raining rocks?” I ask Tin Tom.

  He blinks. “It appears that Zandipor is in the midst of a meteor shower. It is the debris from Orunta, a nearby planet that has recently exploded.”

  “Holy shit,” I say, looking up at the falling rocks. “Recently?”

  “Yes,” Tin Tom answers, “ninety-eight thousand years ago. Roughly.”

  “Rocks I can handle,” Rolanda says, jerking her head from side to side. “Dinosaurs I can’t.”

  “Let’s get a closer observation of the dinosauriforms,” Tin Tom says. Before I can scream ‘no’ the stupid robot lets out a screeching alarm that echoes down the valley.

  It only shuts off when Rolanda kicks him over.

  But it’s too late.

  The enormous T-Rex is staring right at us and whatever it was interested in before apparently isn’t anywhere near as interesting as us. It starts running. Fast.

  It’s so far away but I can still feel the vibrations through my feet. I can still hear it grunting.

  Mandy is frozen with fear as she stares at it with wide eyes. “Let’s go!” I scream at her as I grab her arm. She shakes out of her daze and we turn back to the ship to hide inside. It’s sturdy enough to travel through space so hopefully, it’s sturdy enough to withstand a T-Rex’s jaws.

  “No!” I scream as my legs turn to jelly. The door of the spaceship slams shut. Tin Tom has his hook connected to a panel on the outside. He closed it.

  “Open the door,” I scream as we rush over.

  “That is inadvisable,” Tin Tom says in his choppy voice. “The dinosauriforms could do significant trauma to the interior of a spaceship.”

  “He’s going to do significant trauma to us!” Rolanda screams banging her fists on the locked door. “Open it!”

  “He’s coming,” Mandy whispers. And then she throws up.

  For someone who hasn’t really eaten anything in days, she’s throwing up a lot. I’m impressed.

  Rolanda is furious. “Open it now you Tin Tom piece of crap!”

  “Uh, guys,” I say as they’re fighting and Mandy retches again. “He’s coming.”

  Boy is he coming. A flock of birds takes to the sky, flying out of his way as he thunders forward. Fuck the door, fuck Tin Tom, and fuck this!

  “Let’s go!” I scream, yanking Mandy’s arm as I sprint away. She follows me as I run to…wait, where the fuck am I going?

  Rolanda flies past me, pumping her muscular legs at a speed that I didn’t think was humanly possible. If I knew I would have had a T-Rex chasing me one day, I would have spent much more time on the treadmill at the gym. I might even have put my magazine down and tried to break a sweat.

  I don’t know where I’m going but wherever it is, I can’t get there fast enough. Mandy is on my heels and I’m jealously watching Rolanda get smaller and smaller as she runs over to the crest of the hill.

  I take half a second to glance back over my shoulder and Mandy passes me. Damn it! She’s my best friend and all and I would hate to see her get eaten by a dinosaur, but if I have to choose who gets a scenic tour through the T-Rex’s digestive tract, it’s not going to be me.

  But the T-Rex is stopped at the spaceship. He’s smelling Tin Tom with his baby pool sized nostrils.

  “Good daytime to you dinosauriforms Tyrannosaurus Rex,” Tin Tom says to him. “Wondrous to be meeting your acquaintance.”

  The T-Rex quickly loses interest and turns back to us. Oh shit. I try to run a little faster but it’s not happening. Especially, now that we’re running up the slight incline of the hill. Rolanda already disappeared over it. Lucky bitch.

  The thunderous footsteps resume as the asshole T-Rex keeps coming. “Avery!” Mandy calls out to me as she sprints over the crest of the hill. “There’s a river!”

  S
he says it in an excited way but to me it’s just one more scary thing. I’ve never been the best swimmer.

  I finally get to the top of the hill and she’s right. There’s a river. A fast, vicious, flowing river with sharp rocks jutting out every few feet. And that’s just the surface. Who knows what kind of terrifying monsters are hiding under the water waiting for a chubby, out of shape American girl to have for lunch?

  Rolanda is nowhere to be seen.

  “We have to jump in,” Mandy says, flailing her arms as she runs down the hill toward the water. The river is so loud. The rough water froths into whitecaps as it smashes into the sharp black rocks ready to pull down anyone foolish enough to jump in.

  Mandy is that foolish. She leaps into the river without a second of hesitation and the violent current immediately carries her away.

  I glance back when I reach the bottom of the hill and it’s my turn to jump in. The T-Rex is standing at the top of the hill with what I swear is a smirk on his face. I know you’re gonna say that T-Rex’s can’t smirk but this fucking thing is smirking. Just trust me.

  He just stands there watching (and smirking), daring me to jump in.

  “Fuck you!” I scream, giving him the finger, and then close my eyes and jump.

  It’s a decision that I regret immediately.

  My head gets pulled under the cool water and I swallow a gallon of the foul tasting river water. I kick and flail my arms, trying to break the surface but my wet clothes are weighing me down and the current is so strong. My lungs are burning. My chest tight.

  I want to take a breath. So. Fucking. Bad.

  Finally, the river shoots me up and my head pops out. Glorious air. I’ve never been so appreciative of a breath of oxygen.

  The appreciation is short lived. I’m flying down the river at a speed that would make Mario Andretti jealous and these sharp black rocks keep coming out of nowhere, whizzing by my head.

  At least the T-Rex is gone.

  Shit.

  Maybe he’s gone but there’s a louder dinosaur up ahead. The constant roaring is deafening and I’m afraid I’m heading straight to him.