Tamed By the Alien Pirate by Celia Kyle Page 0,4

our last mission, I went undercover as a slave, and he my owner. I played up the part… perhaps a bit too well, and ever since he’s been more nervous around me. All I did was press my head into his foot and beg him to take pity on me. Maybe the miniscule amount of clothing the role required had something to do with it.

But that was out of character for me, and now I’m simultaneously trying to figure out how to avoid ever putting him off like that again while also wanting to relive it in my mind. It can be thrilling, the thought of those massive arms gathering me up and taking control of my body…

Ahem. I’ve reached the bridge, and it seems Grantian is getting a hard time about the lipstick on his neck. Fortunate because it means mine and Zander’s late arrival goes unnoticed.

“I could sit and make fun of Grantian all day,” says Swipt, our happy-go-lucky pilot. “But we have a crewman to save.”

Solair nods in his direction as he gets his chuckling under control.

“Spot on, Swipt.” He encompasses us in his gaze, golden eyes flicking over each of us in turn. Varia, my friend and his mate, stands next to his command chair. “We’ll be reaching the M’Kal system soon. Hopefully, we’ll find that Lokyer is still there.”

He gestures to the navigation console, where Lokyer used to work, and that Fiona now occupies. She taps on her keys and brings up holographic image of the planet M’Kal. Then she zooms in, the lines on the map growing more numerous until we’re looking at a depiction of the largest settlement.

“This is K’Patel, the city where the video I downloaded originated from. I was only able to narrow down the tracking to a ten-mile area, which is most of the municipal area and outlying suburbs.”

Solair sighs and rubs his chin.

“Ten miles is a lot of ground to cover, particularly in a populous city like K’Patel. We need to figure out a way to narrow down our search… somehow.”

Grantian, who is wiping at his neck with a cloth to remove Lamira’s lipstick, perks up for a moment.

“There’s always the time-honored, old-fashioned way of gathering information, Captain. Talking to people and asking questions.”

A chuckle goes up around the bridge—though neither Zander nor I are easily swayed by such incidental “humor”—but Solair cuts us off.

“No, Grantian is right. That’s exactly what we’re going to do. An operation like Project Blue Dawn is going to leave some traces of its existence, especially in a city like K’Patel.”

“They say every brick in every building has its own set of ears in K’Patel.” Grantian nods. “Someone will have seen or heard something.”

I raise my hand, and Solair glances at me.

“Yes, Thrase?”

“We can safely assume that Project Blue Dawn is continuing with its modus operandi, vis a vis maintaining the ruse that they are officially aligned with the Interstellar Human Conglomerate.”

Solair’s brow ridges rise high on his face.

“Indeed. Good point, Thrase. We should be on the lookout for IHC marines, or more likely mercenaries disguised as such.”

“They also employ the Star Crushers, Solair. We should be on the lookout for them as well.”

Swipt grins like he’s said something clever, but Grantian shakes his head with some measure of patience.

“Perhaps, good Swipt, but the Crushers have their origins on M’Kal and still have a strong presence there. Just their merely being in the area can’t be relied upon as a clue to our quarry in and of itself.”

“There’s something else we should consider, Solair.” I feel a bit nervous when all eyes fall on me, but I manage to get through it without putting my foot in my mouth. “When we saw the… the video…”

I can’t say it out loud, though I know we’re all thinking it. The video where Lokyer was tortured.

“…anyway, when we saw the video in question, the K’Patel harbor whistle at M’Kal Capital Docks—if you want to call that ungodly ruckus suck a name—sounded in the background. That would seem to limit our search to an area where one can hear it.”

Solair turns to Fiona.

“How far away can you hear the whistle, Fiona?”

“Just a second.” She taps on her console, doing a holonet search for the manufacturer’s net site, and finds the schematics. “Five miles, Solair.”

“See? Thrase just cut our search parameters in half.” Solair grins, but then it fades to a solemn grimace. “I’m not going to lie to any of you. We have no proof that Lokyer is