Victor didn’t care, tucking the weapon in his waistband then retrieving the other guard’s functional unit. He turned to the other prisoners.

“Come on! This is our chance!”

“Do not be a fool. Your ill-conceived attack has already placed this group at great risk.”

“So we make the most of it,” Victor replied. “I’m not wasting this one chance. You said it, we’re livestock and dead meat anyway. At least this way we might get lucky.”

The other prisoners muttered amongst themselves. Some rushed out to join him, while others remained frozen in place. Heydar looked at the group and made another difficult decision.

“I will help,” he said. “But I do not think this will end well.”

Victor merely nodded and took off out the open door, followed by more than half of the prisoners. Heydar saw the fear in the eyes of the remaining livestock.

“Close the door behind us,” he said. “If the ship decompresses you will be safe.”

With that he stepped outside. Maureen moved to the door to close it, but Darla hurried past her.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to see about getting out of here,” Darla said. “Look, I’ve got to do something. Thank you for all your help. Be safe.”

Maureen paused a second, nodded to her, then hit the control panel. The door slammed shut in her face.

Darla turned to Heydar.

“Okay, big guy. Now what?”

“Now we catch up with the others. This way.”

The large alien hurried through the corridors as the ship bucked and rocked from more Grommix attacks. The frequency of the blasts was shortening. Their ship must have gotten a lot closer in the time it took to escape their holding cell.

Victor and his group had spread into a ragged column far ahead, eager and motivated, but not terribly organized. And with the ongoing attack, the men and women were being tossed side to side with every blast.

Heydar closed the distance as fast as he could with Darla following close behind, but the ship was being bombarded with ever-increasing ferocity. He stopped, cocking his head, the tattoos behind both of his ears seeming to churn under his skin, as if amplifying sounds inaudible to the normal ear.

His head whipped around in as close to a panic as Darla had seen him. He roughly grabbed her by the arm and lunged for the nearest door, keying it open and shoving her inside, closing it behind them in an instant, holding on tightly. She couldn’t help but notice just how hot his skin was. They were in luck at least. The compartment was empty. Another holding area that was currently without inhabitants.

“What the hell do you think you’re—” she began.

The lights flickered as a massive explosion shook the ship, followed by two more. The violent bucking threw them both to the floor in a heap. Heydar scrambled to the wall and grabbed on tight, pulling Darla close to him, placing his body over hers, his weight pushing her against the floor and wall, his mass creating a protective cave of sorts.

The lights flickered again then abruptly went dark as another blast shook the Raxxian ship. Faint emergency lighting kicked in, but only barely. Darla was grasping for words when the world went upside down and the distinct tearing sound of shearing metal rang through the craft’s hull. Loud pings of heat shielding burning off followed a moment later as the Raxxian craft began burning up as it hit what had to be atmosphere.

“What the hell—?”

“We must be close to a planet,” Heydar interrupted. “The ship is breaking up.”

Despite his heat so close to her, Darla felt her blood run cold. They were out of the frying pan and very much in the fire. Literally, it seemed, as more heat shield panels melted and broke free.

Heydar drew her even closer, pressing himself down against her.

“Hold tight.”

“Why? What’s going to—”

The ship tore apart, the constituent parts flung far and wide across the atmosphere as the Raxxian ship ceased to be. Weightlessness came and went as they plummeted toward the surface, but Heydar held strong, pinning them both in place. Then, just when she was sure they were done for, a rumbling thrust drove them both hard into the deck as emergency landing jets kicked in, slowing the falling wreckage in a painful instant.

Darla struggled hard against the Gs but her body was simply no match for the abrupt pressure forcing all the blood from her head. She caught a final, brief glimpse of gold-rimmed eyes staring at her curiously in the dim light.

Then she slipped into unconsciousness.

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER SEVEN

Darla didn’t know how long she’d been out, but when she came to, it was abrupt. She jerked up, smacking herself against Heydar’s rock-solid chest in the process. He looked down at her calmly and moved aside, rising to his feet and towering over her.

“We have arrived,” he said, his voice low and rumbling in the silence of the downed craft. “In one piece, I would add.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” she replied with as much snark as someone who just narrowly avoided a fiery demise could muster.

The emergency lights were still on, but Darla noted there was an additional source of illumination. Daylight. The hull had been breached at some point in their crash landing. That meant the air she was breathing was alien air.

She sucked in her breath and held it in a panic, her eyes wide with fear. Heydar chuckled.

“Do not fear, little one. If this was a hostile atmosphere we would have met our end long before now.”

He stepped to the compartment door and pulled hard, his girthy arms flexing hard, the muscles rippling from the effort. His forearms were massive and his fingers lengthy and strong, but despite his strength-enhancing tattoos, the door nevertheless refused to budge.

“Hmm,” he muttered, stepping back and pulling open the panel beside it.

The formerly hidden seam was now visible as the metal had buckled from the impact of their landing, and the internals were unlike anything Darla had ever seen before. No wires anywhere, for one, and nothing that remotely resembled any sort of tech she had ever come across.

“Are we stuck in here?” she asked.

“Not necessarily,” he said, then carefully opened the little pouch of tattoo implements on his hip, withdrawing a fine tipped needle.

Carefully, he pressed it to what seemed like any of the other utterly alien bits in the panel. Satisfied it was in place, he gently pushed it in deeper, penetrating the Raxxian tech until it was fully inserted. Slowly, he wiggled it in place, testing the resistance against his hand. A little grin crept onto his face.

“Be ready to move,” he said quietly, his eyes on the door as he pulled the tool out slowly, the tip grazing the upper indentation he’d inserted it into. The lights flickered a moment, brightening bit by bit, then without further warning the door slid open, straining hard against the warped frame.

He tucked the needle back into its case, not taking his eyes off the opening, then stepped towards it, muscles tense and ready for a fight. Heydar set foot outside, the sun illuminating his skin far more than the artificial light ever had. Darla felt her breath catch in her throat. In the sun’s warm light he was absolutely radiant.

What’s more, his tattoos seemed to gently pulse under his skin, absorbing the energy from the sun’s rays. He turned back to his companion, his shoulders relaxing slightly. The gold rims around his violet irises were gleaming in the sunlight.

“It is safe to come out. But watch your step. The landing made something of a mess.”

Darla pushed up to her feet and clamored out of the ship onto the upturned soil. He had certainly gotten the mess thing accurate. Clumps of dirt and rocks were mixed with fallen trees where the segment of the Raxxian ship they had been in somehow managed to land without breaking apart. It seemed the emergency deceleration system had worked. They’d survived. Living to see another day.