Page 13 of Her Alien Boss

“Twenty-eight,” he reads as another hit makes the ship shudder.

I don’t know if I am going to get out of this alive, but in spite of the dire readings, Arkon truly does not seem worried. His tone has about as much energy in it as someone reading a pizza menu. Actually, I sound more animated when it comes to pizza menus.

“Hold on,” he says again. I am holding. I have my hands on the straps as if that’s going to do anything.

He pulls the stick back and the ship shoots up, enters a reverse loop and then spins again. The lock is on and he fires his weapon for the first time in this encounter. The ship in front of us explodes in a fireball that is almost immediately sucked into the vacuum of space.

I am glad for the firm grip of the binding to the chair as the swoop around the forces makes me swirl out of my seat only to be sucked back into it.

The same move does not work twice. Two more shots impact the ship. I think I can smell smoke.

“Fourteen percent,” he reads off, his tone as flat as anything.

I don’t want to know what happens if we hit zero. At least I got to come before the end? There was so much more that I could have experienced. I never got to work on this side of the galaxy. I never got to see the wonders of the universe. I never got to get married and maybe divorced. And then the worst thing occurs to me—Rustle is going to know I died. He’s going to be so fucking smug about it.

He hits the controls and the ship hits a rotation that effectively mimics a J-turn in deep space. We are now facing the oncoming ships, and I don’t know if I’m making it up in my head or not, but I swear to god I can see the other pilot in the vessel before us for just a split second before Arkon blows the ship up.

“Final ship departing,” he notes.

“Good work, Arkon,” the voice on the other end. “See you at home.”

Arkon glances over at me. “Are you okay?” He asks the question with some concern. “Did all of that flying around shake anything loose?”

“No.” I giggle at the audacity of the question.

“Good,” he winks. “I’m going to increase speed for a bit. Warp feels strange. Try not to be sick.”

“I…”

The ship phases out around me and I am in the middle of space without so much as another hint of warning. There’s a bubble around me, a warping, shifting barrier keeping me from getting all tangled up in the bits of existence that are streaming by at incredible speeds.

For a while, that is all that happens. The universe wraps itself around me and I curl up in it.

Then I hear voices.

“Warp sickness.”

“Might have lost her somewhere out there.”

I become aware of the fact that we have stopped. I open my eyes to find myself lying down in what I guess is an alien hospital bed. I am wearing a white gown. I don’t know where my clothes went. I am pretty sure I was wearing them, though.

“There you are.” Arkon smiles down at me, his alien features warm with relief.

“Where am I?”

“You’re at our base,” he says. “I’m sorry. I’ve been informed human consciousness can’t travel at warp speed. We had to go and retrieve yours.”

I try to process what that means and I get absolutely nowhere with it because I don’t understand. We were definitely going faster in the massive vessel that got me to that even more massive port, and I didn’t experience my brain falling out, not even once.

“I got lost in space?”

“Something like that,” another alien says. A doctor, I presume. She has the air of someone competent and medical. Her hair is dark and short, cut in a sleek bob that frankly would be fashionable in any place and at any time. Her eyes gleam green, and her teeth are slightly less obviously sharp. She is wearing a white robe that sweeps about her tall, regal frame.

“Am I fine now?”

“Your consciousness has experienced more in the last few hours than it was ever designed to hold,” she says. “When the psyche comes unglued from the mind, the effects can be unpredictable. But, having said that, you are human, and you are fairly simple, and it may be as easy as plugging it back in.”

She looks over my head at Arkon. “We will keep her for observation. You can leave for the moment and check back in a few hours.”