The Zoran's Baby (Scifi Alien Romance) (Barbarian Brides)

by Luna Hunter

  The flower I sent Woods, the chief mechanic.

  I plucked a small yellow flower and sent it to him…

  And now this horror has taken control of the ship.

  I look around, desperate for a way out, and my heart skips a beat when I see there are other people in the mass of vines. Arms and legs stick out, the rest of their bodies hidden under the vines.

  A heavy ball of fear, shame and guilt fills my stomach.

  What have I done?!

  Panic fills every inch of me now. I try to escape, but the grip only tightens. It feels like my zipper is being pulled down, the vines trying to slither into my suit. One crawls over my helmet, leaving a trail of yellow mucus, blurring my vision.

  “Aria!”

  I recognize that voice in an instant. Dost! I turn my head as far as I can, with the vines trying to weigh me down. My Zoran mate is charging towards me as fast as he can, jumping over the mass of tentacles.

  My heart is beating like mad as I watch him. What is he doing?! A single vine that slips around his ankles and he’s gone!

  He shouldn’t be risking his life for me.

  This mess is my fault.

  The plant must have felt the vibrations of Dost’s heavy steps, for tentacles attack him from every direction. He twirls his blade around like a whirlwind, chopping and cutting and slicing while keeping his speed, severed vines flying in every direction.

  But, despite his sword-skills, there are simply too many vines. They regrow as quickly as Dost can cut them down, and panic grips my heart when I see him stumble and vines instantly coil themselves around his arms and legs like snakes. I try to stand up, to do something to save my mate, but a tentacle slips around my neck and pulls back so hard I see stars.

  This is it.

  The end.

  A hellish, red light, so bright I can see it through my closed eyelids, fills the room. The vine around my neck falls slack and is pulled away.

  I open my eyes to see Dost stand in front of me, ripping the vines off my body. His face is lit up in red by laser fire. From the door opening I see Trent and the other Zoran soldiers, opening fire right at the bulb of the monstrous flower. The constant barrage of lasers has weakened the plant’s grip on us both, but from the corner of my eye I see vines sneaking towards the squadron.

  Dost grabs my arms and pulls me free from the writhing mass of plants. He lifts me up and carries me in his arms as he sprints towards his crew, while they provide us with cover fire.

  Everything is happening at once — it’s almost too much to take in.

  Flashes in the dark.

  Vines slithering across the floor.

  Screams.

  The constant, high-pitched laser blasts.

  I don’t dare to breathe until we’re all back on the bridge. Dost places me on the captain’s chair, his hands quickly patting down my body.

  “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

  His beautiful, bright eyes are filled with concern. He’s so sweet, which only will make it harder to tell him that the monstrous flower is my fault…

  “Yeah,” I answer. “I think so.”

  Trent and the rest of the squadron follow us onto the bridge. Thank god they’re all safe as well. My eyes quickly scan the room, and I see they’ve barricaded all the air ducts in here. We’re safe. For now.

  “You shouldn’t have saved me,” I say. “That was much too dangerous.”

  Dost frowns as if I said something insane. “You are mate. My everything. Of course I will save you.”

  “Can we talk about what the fuck that was?” Trent says. “I’ve never seen something like that in my life!”

  I swallow the lump in my throat.

  “That thing is my fault,” I croak.

  Every single head in the room swivels towards me, a dozen Zoran eyes staring me down.

  Oh boy.

  20

  Dost

  A Breach of Protocol

  “What do you mean, your fault?” I growl.

  “I… I sent a flower to Woods, the chief engineer. He… he’s a botanist. He likes flowers. I thought I’d send him a gift. A small thing. So I plucked a flower. Just an ordinary flower.”

  Aria’s face is pale, her hands shaking. She takes a deep breath, and continues talking.

  “It seems the flower merged with the warp engine… somehow. How, I have no idea, but perhaps that’s why it has grown so quickly, and has become so… powerful.”

  She drops her head.

  “I’m sorry.”

  A myriad of emotions overtake me. I am furious, sad, relieved and ashamed at the same time. I have trouble controlling myself, and I can’t help but burst out in anger.

  “How could you be so careless?!” I growl. “We have protocols! We have dozens of scientists down on Delta Y, whose job it is to make sure things like this don’t happen! Anyone of them could have checked that flower, prevented this…”

  My voice trails off. Screaming and raging won’t help now, I know that. The look on Aria’s face is one of pure guilt.

  I don’t have to tell her any of this — she knows.

  “It was just a flower,” she mumbles.

  I close my eyes, take a deep breath and straighten my shoulders.

  “What is done is done,” I say. “We can’t change the past. All we can do is act in the present. And in the present, we have a monstrous growth that has set up shop in our engine room. What can we do?”

  Trent slings his rifle over his shoulder. “Our weapons seemed to distract that thing, but it didn’t kill it, that’s for sure. We gave it our all, and what did it give us? Thirty seconds of weakness, max?”

  I rub my temples as I try to think of a solution. I’m the general, the leader. I have to come up with a strategy, a course of action, but right now I’m drawing a blank. Another head-on attack seems useless.

  We could retreat back to Delta Y… and then what?

  Abandon the whole ship? Sacrifice my entire crew to that monster?

  We’ll be stuck on a foreign planet, light-years from home. We could survive on the surface, hunting and farming… but my crew have families back on Earth. They entrusted their lives to me, and I’ll do everything I can to get them back to Earth, safe and sound.

  “I know one way…”

  To my surprise, it’s Aria who is offering up a solution. We all turn back to her.

  “Go on.”

  She clears her throat.

  “The plant seems to be have fused itself to the warp engine somehow. I could… overload the engine until it explodes.”

  “And then what?” Trent says. “How are we getting home without a warp engine?”

  Aria shrugs. “How are we getting home with a monstrous plant absorbing all of the engines power? How long will we survive without breathable air? I see you’ve blocked all the vents, which keeps that thing out, but we do need air to breathe. And every second we stand here, that thing keeps growing and growing and growing…”

  “You’re right,” I say. “Time is ticking. We need to act — now. Aria, what do you need?”

  “I need to be… back in the engine room.”

  “Where that thing is?”

  “The controls are there. That’s the only place I can overload the engines from.”

  “So we need a diversion.”

  “Say no more,” Trent says, grabbing his rifle. “If you give the order, we’ll give that thing the biggest fucking diversion it’s ever seen.”

  I nod. I’m glad I can always trust Trent, even if he doesn’t always agree with my decisions. “Thank you, Trent.”

  I turn back to my mate. “What exactly will happen if the engine overloads?”

  “Best case scenario? It will implode, the plant will absorb the impact and die, the ship survives, and all we need to do is place a new core in the warp engine. Thrusters and com should still be online, so we should be able to reach some race in this quadrant of space and barter with them. That’s the best case.”

  “An
d what’s the worst case scenario?”

  Aria shrugs. “That depends on your imagination. To be honest… I don’t know. I’ve seen engines overload, but those were small. Micro-sized. A warp drive of this size, with the power to move an entire starship faster than the speed of light…”

  “Give me an educated guess. You’re my chief engineer now,” I say.

  Despite our grim situation, she smiles. “I told you, I’m not a starship mechanic.”

  “You are the best we have, and our only hope,” I say truthfully. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

  “Well… the explosion could rip the entire ship apart, if we’re unlucky. Or, it could be so strong that it would form a black hole, that could tear us to pieces, or warp us to the other side of the galaxy, or a whole different dimension, or whatever it is that happens when you enter a black hole.”

  “With all due respect… this sounds like a bad idea,” Trent says.

  “Noted,” I say. “Either we do nothing and we die, or we blow the engine, and we might not die. Those are our option. I pick the latter.”

  I grab Aria’s hand and pull her to her feet. My arms slide around her waist, and I rest my forehead against hers. Normally, I try to avoid such displays of affection in front of my crew, but this situation is far from normal.

  We’re in a fight for survival, and I don’t care if everyone knows how strong my feeling for Aria are.

  “I apologize for my outburst,” I say softly. “You couldn’t know this would happen. It’s not your fault.”

  “No, it is,” she whispers with tears in her eyes. “No matter what I do, I make everything worse. I should just stop trying. I should stop doing anything.”

  “Before you do that, I need you to overload the warp engine of a multi-billion credit starship, though. Can you do that for me?”

  She smiles through her tears. “ I suppose…”

  “Good.” I kiss her deeply, wiping her tears away. “Come. Let’s blow this place up.”

  21

  Aria

  A Billion Credit Bomb

  I still feel wretched for bringing that horrible monster on board, but luckily, I have a distraction now.

  I’m going to blow the warp core.

  It’s among the first of its kind, a wonder of modern engineering. The ‘pinnacle of human development’ it has been called. It cost a billion credits.

  And I’m going to overload it until she explodes.

  When I was shadowing Woods, in between telling me about his favorite plants, he was careful to explain to me what I should absolutely avoid doing to the engines, because it would made her go critical.

  Let’s put that knowledge into practice.

  We make our way back to the engine room, the Zoran squad with their rifles drawn, me following closely behind them. I’m not letting another vine get the drop on me.

  “Ready?” Trent asks.

  I nod, doing my best to appear confident. If this doesn’t work like I think it will, we’ll all die.

  But there’s simply no other option.

  “Ready.”

  The Zoran officer cocks his gun. “Showtime,” he grins.

  The metal doors to the engine room slide open and immediately the Zoran soldiers open fire on the monstrous, green bulb. It looks even bigger than before, yellow flowers now covering its massive surface — it’s still feeding on the warp core’s energy.

  Vines fly through the air, trying to reach the Zoran squad, and their fire can only barely hold them off. While the monster is distracted, Dost and I sneak off to a control panel to the side.

  The screen is overgrown with thick, meaty vines.

  “Allow me.”

  He uses his sword to cut the vines down, and luckily, they don’t retaliate against us. I’m glad to see the screen is still working — if it was busted, it would be game over.

  The screen is flickering, its light fading, for the plant is sucking up all the engine’s power, but the control panel is still online. For now.

  I stretch my fingers and get to work.

  Okay… think.

  What was the right combination again?

  I click through the panels, feeling like a fish out of the water. It was a lot easier with Woods here, but the constant fighting, the laser rifle, the slithering of the vines… it all makes it rather hard to concentrate.

  I close my eyes and try to focus.

  “Any day now,” Dost growls.

  “Yeah yeah, give me a second.”

  “You have three. They’re losing. Two. Aria, please. One…”

  “Wait!”

  Of course! I remember! So obvious now! My fingers move at a rapid pace over the touch screen as I overload the warp core. I don’t dare to look to the side, to see how the squad is doing. Vines could be creeping up around my legs and I wouldn’t have noticed. I’m focused on the task at hand.

  “Done!”

  I turn back to Dost. I’m happy to see he’s still by my side.

  “We have ten seconds before she blows!”

  His eyes grow as wide as saucers. The Zoran warrior grabs me, throws me over his shoulder and runs towards the exit, taking big strides.

  “Clear out!” he screams at his squad.

  Their laser fire covers our exits, and they follow us into the hallway, running for their lives.

  A dull thud in the distance.

  For a moment, nothing but silence.

  Then, a terrible, ear-splitting roar thunders through the ship, followed by an incredible shockwave.

  We’re thrown against the ground.

  I wrap my arms around my mate, my eyes shut tight, holding him as best I can.

  If this really is the end, I want to die in his arms.

  22

  Dost

  A devil’s bargain

  My arms are wrapped tightly around my mate. My face is buried in her neck, her scent filling my nose, her soft curves pressing against me.

  If I have died, then am I in heaven.

  With my eyes still closed, my fingers slide down her back. It hurts to move, but I want to feel her ass fill my hands. When I do so, a soft moan leaves her lips, and my cock responds in turn.

  This is not death.

  I open my eyes to find Aria’s big brown eyes looking back at mine.

  “Hello,” she whispers.

  Around us I see my men scrambling to their feet, but at this moment I only have eyes for her.

  “Hey,” I say. “It worked?”

  “I think it did,” she says.

  I plant my lips on hers, energy surging through my body as we kiss. Nothing can stop us when we’re together.

  “General, are you alright?!”

  Trent is standing to our side, begging for our attention. He’s a skilled warrior, an excellent second-in-command, but a feeling for personal space, he has not.

  “I am fine, Trent,” I growl between kisses. “I am fine.”

  Aria smirks. “Let’s see how our alien friend is doing. We’ll continue this later.”

  What we find in the engine room is beyond our wildest dreams. The monstrous growth has absorbed most, if not all, of the blast. Its vines are black and withering, turning to ash before our eyes.

  Bodies appear as the vines disappear, previously hidden in the tangled mess Our colleagues. We spread out, rushing towards them. Some have died, unfortunately, but a few are still alive, although barely. We carry them to the med-bay as fast as we can.

  The rest of the day passes in a blur as we try to restore order to the ship, carrying the wounded to the med-bay, and paying our respects to the deceased.

  At the end of the day I’m exhausted both mentally and physically. This is the first ship I have under my command, and I’ve had to say goodbye to a dozen good men. Their families entrusted their lives to me… it feels like a personal failure.

  Once we return to Earth, I will inform their families personally. It’s the least I can do.

  If we return to Earth…

 
We have defeated the growth, but we’re missing one warp core. And they don’t come cheap, or grow on trees…

  I plop down in my chair and open a bottle of kuhla. A strong drink will help me unwind.

  Aria walks into my office, and my heart quickens. It does so every time I see her.

  “Ah, there you are,” she says as she sits down in my lap. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

  She kisses me and then makes a face.

  “What’s that?” she stammers as she wipes her lips clean.

  “Kuhla. You don’t like it?”

  “It tastes like, like… I don’t even know where to begin. A spicy glue?”

  I can’t suppress a chuckle. “It’s an acquired taste. You’ll learn to love it. Just like you learned to love me.”

  “Maybe,” she smirks.

  I nuzzle the back of her neck. “How is the engine looking?”

  “Fairly good,” she says. “A new warp core and we can head back home. The engine will probably need to be scrapped after that, but it should be able to handle one more warp. Do you have any leads for a core?”

  “Not yet,” I answer. “I had Trent send out a call. How do you feel?”

  “How do you think?” she answers. “A dozen men are dead, more are injured… all because of me.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I answer. “You couldn’t have known. You couldn’t have expected this. No one’s seen anything like this.”

  “That’s sweet, but you’re lying. Bad luck seems to follow me, no matter what I do, and people keep getting hurt. How many times are things ‘not my fault’, before they are my fault? I ought to just stop trying.”

  ‘Never stop trying,” I growl, placing my hands on her stomach. “That’s not the example I want to give to our children.”

  “Children? As in, multiple? Do you know something I don’t? I’m not having twins, am I?”

  “This is only the start of something great,” I grin. “I hope you do carry twins. Or triplets!”