Page 34 of Chosen By the Dragon Alien

Cyprian

Cyprian’s heart pounded as he settled into the chair. The weight of the moment hit him like an ax across his shoulders. Beside him, Kaelen moved with the quick competence of one well acquainted with his ship. Cyprian watched, trying to understand the controls. He’d never flown this kind of ship before. In fact, he had flown a vessel in space exactly twice in his life. If Kaelen needed help, he wanted to be able to do so.

“We’ve got two options,” the smuggler said. “Option one: we veer off-course and head for an asteroid belt a few light cycles out.”

“Option two?” Cyprian asked.

“I’m still working on an option two.”

Fek. “Your outpost,” Cyprian barked to Kaelen. “How far are we from it?”

Kaelen tilted his head, his hands still a blur over the controls. “Too far. They’ll catch us long before we hit its safety fields. And I’m not too keen on leading them to my home.” Kaelen scowled at the monitors that displayed their pursuers closing in. Theship’s alarms blared in steady rhythm, filling the cockpit with an unrelenting pulse. “I suppose I’d better tell you what I was planning on sharing at my outpost. Just in case.”

Fivra sat just behind them, strapped in and as safe as she was going to be in this situation. Her pink hair was tousled from their lovemaking. She was deathly silent. Her aqua eyes were wide but calm. Cyprian caught her gaze for the briefest moment, willing her to hold steady. He couldn’t falter now—not with her life in his hands. “Talk to me, Kaelen,” Cyprian said as he opened the navigation panel and quickly scanned the controls. They were fairly standard. He’d be able to perform some basic tasks without too much confusion.

“I have a source,” Kaelen began. “And I have the data I stole from the Axis’ databases. It’s not the Terians they’re concerned about. Not really. It’syou.”

“Me?” Cyprian’s gut clenched as he studied the navigation console before him. His wings were crushed uncomfortably against the back of his seat, doing nothing for his already fraying nerves. “What do they want with me?”

“They don’t want to lose you—and the others like you. There are more Zaruxians, did you know that? I gave Glivar what I know about what happened at the Terian penal colony. That revolt put something in motion. Your Zaruxian brother easily destroyed several of the Axis’ best ships.Easily, Cyprian. He did it to protect his mate.”

“He did so in his dragon form?” It was a foolish question. Of course, this Zaruxian was in dragon form if he used fire to destroy the Axis ships. But Cyprian had never completed the transformation. Inside the confines of Erovik, there was no place to make the change, and no reason to do so. Flying was also out of the question on a space station, where corridors were small and open spaces were still filled with life forms. It was a luxury to even stretch out his wings fully.

“Yes. But here’s where it gets interesting. There is concern that Terians are natural mates for males of Zarux. That the rest of their collection of Zaruxians will rise up and revolt if they find their mates among the Terian females. Your rebellion has proven to them that this is a credible threat.”

“Collection?” Cyprian processed this as he began to grasp the controls of the navigation interface. The star maps unraveled before him, spreading out like the threads of a tangled web. He needed to find them a safe haven—a planet, a moon, anything that could shield them from the Axis’ relentless pursuit. Preferablynotthat asteroid cluster. The glowing markers of nearby celestial bodies blurred as he scrolled through potential destinations. None of them seemed particularly promising.

“That’s what the Axis calls them,” Kaelen said. “I don’t know how many Zaruxians they have in their, ah, collection. They’re down two, now. The one on the colony and you.”

A plasma burst slammed into their rear thrusters. Kaelen hissed through his teeth as the control displays flickered and dimmed momentarily. The entire ship shuddered violently, throwing Fivra against her straps with a sharp gasp. The Axis had closed the gap. Their sixlikswere up.

“I wish you would have told me this earlier.” Cyprian’s gaze moved over the star maps.

“I wanted to show you the data, not just tell you about it,” Kaelen said. “Something about your kind frightens them. But what? And the more I think about it, something about this isn’t right. They shouldn’t have found us.”

But they had. “We’re being tracked.”

“Not this ship,” Kaelen replied. “I run regular sweeps to check for tracking devices. Nothing.”

“There has to be…there!” A flickering blue marker caught Cyprian’s attention—a small moon hidden in the dense asteroid field he’d been hoping to avoid. It wasn’t ideal by any means,but it had an atmosphere and a surface riddled with craters for hiding. “I’m sending over coordinates to a moon in the Vypex system. If we can thread through the field, we can hide and regroup. Plus, the debris might throw off their scanners.”

Kaelen spared him a dubious glance, his gold eyes narrowing. “Vypex Belt?” He let out a low whistle. “Option one it is.” Kaelen tapped a series of commands into the navigation console and adjusted their trajectory. The ship groaned and protested but obeyed. “All right then, to our doom we go. Hold on tight, little Terian. We’re about to play a game of dodge the death rocks.”

“Anything else you want to tell me?” Cyprian clenched his jaw as red lights flashed to warn of incoming fire. Plasma bolts flared in the viewport’s edges. The ship’s shields shimmered faintly as they absorbed another glancing hit, the force rocking them sideways. “Just in case.”

“Just that your dragon fire is a serious threat to the Axis,” Kaelen said. “They’re tracking down the Terian females to keep them away from the Zaruxian males in the Axis’ custody—oh, and you’re also on an inmate list. Meaning that you’re a prisoner of the Axis. Clever of them to make you think you worked for them.” He shook his head. “Brilliant, I have to admit.”

Cyprian’s head swam with this new, casually delivered information. “I’m a prisoner of the Axis.”

“Yes. Since birth, I believe. See why I wanted to tell you at the outpo—fek. Shields are down to forty percent.” Kaelen set about rerouting power to the aft shielding. “One more direct hit and we’ll be getting very warm in here.”

“Time to get fancy with the flying.” Cyprian’s gaze moved between the map on his console and the glowing debris field growing larger by the second in the viewport. Each asteroid spun ominously, glowing faintly with reflected light from the local star. Their jagged surfaces jutted out like the teeth of amonstrous beast waiting to devour them. “We’re nearly at the asteroid field.”

Kaelen chuckled darkly, gripping the thruster controls tightly. “Relax, mate. I always do my best work under pressure.”

Cyprian heard Fivra make a little noise that was a half laugh, half whimper as the ship lurched again. He glanced back to see her determined expression and steely gaze. She was holding it together.

“Ha!” Kaelen put the ship into a sharp dive to dodge an incoming plasma blast that narrowly missed their tail.

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