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Albert seemed to sense my doubt and unease because he paused his filing and straightened, meeting my eyes as he spoke. “We’re going to commandeer that little boat they have.”
He meant the pod.
Esther grinned at me from over his shoulder, waggling her brow bone as if to say,” See, my new man has aplan.”
I rolled my eyes so hard they nearly fell out but… Okay, so maybe weshouldbe following Albert’s advice. It was a lot better than playing possum to potentially violent aliens or finding ourselves back in open water.
When an alien walked out from between a row of crates, Esther and I nearly flattened Albert in our enthusiasm to climb him like a tree. The older man grunted, but took our weight like a champ, patting our backs as if to reassure us.
All the while the alien kept walking right on by us, his brows shooting up in the air as ifwewere the oddity in the room.
“What do you need from us?” I asked breathlessly, still a little shaky from the encounter.
Albert glanced at the two of us, his thin lips depressing into his face before he spoke. “I need a distraction.”
Shit.
Chapter7
LAYLA
There was a knock at the door of my cabin. I sighed in irritation, swallowing the last mouthful of brandy from my sea glass. “Enter.”
Lyv trudged inside, ducking to accommodate the size of his shoulders. He did not meet my eyes as he spoke. I braced for the worst of it. “Out with it, then.”
“Our guests have escaped,” he grunted, worry lining his mouth and brow.
I stared at him, annoyance sobering me up. I had not slept inmoons. “Escaped?”
Lyv winced, shifting his enormous weight uneasily. “They’ve stolen a vessel.”
Rubbing the exhaustion from my eyes, I stood. “Where are they now?”
“They’ve not figured out how to release from the chains.”
I stopped, glancing at him. “They are dangling portside?”
Lyv nodded haltingly.
“Why not reel them in?” I asked in exasperation, redressing but forgoing foot coverings.
Lyv winced, “They are notinsidethe vessel. I fear reeling them up to the deck will cause them to fall.”
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I trudged from my cabin, quickly navigating my ship to the deck. My crew parted hurriedly from my path, reading the displeasure I carried with me and not wishing it directed onto them. Rothe was already there, leaning casually over the railing and gazing down at the spectacle below.
He winced as I stopped beside him, straightening grudgingly. “I say we let them drop. They’ll be nothing but a nuisance.”
I glanced down and sighed, a reluctant chuckle leaving my lips. The creatures were perched atop the vessel, its curved hull not allowing them a decent grip. Seems they had not discovered how to properly climb aboard. They would need a Vyessan retinal scan to gain access. What little Vyessan technology that had survived the great flood was primitive but mostly still functional.
“Oi!” I shouted from above, startling the pair of females. The male did not flinch. He continued to surprise me, that one. If anything, my presence only spurred his persistence as he hammered away at the vessel with a strange metallic object. Unfortunately, all his efforts would be for not. Nothing short of the mother’s clearest stone could breach Vyessan steel. “Brace yourselves!”
The females gaped at me; their mouths open wide enough to catch dung flies. I sighed, nodding to the two males manning the winch. Twin feminine yelps echoed up from below, and I watched warily as they slid about atop the vessel. “Hold tight!” Lyv shouted worriedly, mothering the females as best he could, a side effect of having been raised in our female-ruled city,Lyessa.
“They will fall,” he grumbled, knuckles graying on the railing.
I huffed another chuckle, amused despite myself as the weak male tried to wrangle the panicking females. “Then that is their due.” No harm would come to them. A little dip in the Vyessan sea should snap some sense into them. “Reel them up.”
Lyv paced anxiously, refusing to tear his eyes from the rising vessel. I leaned against the railing, observing the species as they shouted back and forth. Though I was now certain they were not Loyobv, I did notice an eerie familiarity within their language. Had these creatures been taller, short an appendage or two, and blind as abansk, I’d have no choice but to accept them a Loyobv. But the differences were stark now that I studied them closer. The language, however, could very easily pass. I only had trouble understanding a few words. I wondered if they were a distant ancestor to the Loyobv species.
