Page 46 of Saved By the Alien Hybrid (Hybrids of Yulaira #1)

“Not that switch, not that switch!” Lidan was barking, swatting at Eunha’s hand as she tapped random buttons on the console experimentally.

She shot him a withering glare, batting his touch away.

“Quit shouting!” she shouted back with zero self-awareness. “You’re distracting me, you big, green dick.”

“Stop thinking about my dick while you’re meant to be flying,” he said.

Eunha’s look of disgust deepened. “No one’s thinking about your scaley lizard penis, stupid.”

“Don’t make me turn this ship around,” Cordelia interjected, studying the alien script on the console in front of her.

She was in the co-pilot’s seat, deferring to Eunha’s superior experience for the mission.

Eventually, she’d be caught up enough to take point, but her ego wasn’t big enough to ignore that Eunha really was the better pilot.

She had uncanny good instincts and the luck of the devil, and they would need both if they were going to get Thea back.

“He started it,” Eunha said, leaning back to meet eyes with her.

“Hush.”

Eunha huffed in annoyance, turning her attention back to their simulation. Lidan grinned at the back of her head wickedly, affection obvious in his eyes. Cordelia had a bad feeling that he was already in deep with Eunha, who seemed to still be deciding whether or not she hated his guts.

“Godspeed,” she muttered, turning back to her screen.

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” Cordelia said sweetly. “Let’s try to land her.”

“On it,” Eunha replied, sitting forward.

“Easy,” Lidan said as they approached the simulated hangar a little too hot. “Easy, easy—Cordelia, pull up!”

She cursed, overcorrecting as they approached the maw of the hangar. It threw off the landing gear, and they set it down roughly enough that a number of alien warnings she couldn’t translate flashed across the screen. A plume of flame and smoke scrolled across the viewport.

“Is that a game over?” Cordelia asked despairingly.

Lidan laughed, clapping her on the shoulder hard enough to nearly knock her out of her seat. “No, human. I mean, you did irreparably damage the ship, but no one died.”

“No one died,” she said with satisfaction, leaning forward to waggle her eyebrows at Eunha.

Eunha snorted, sitting back and kicking a foot up on the console. “I would have landed without any damage it you hadn’t borked it,” she drawled.

“Good job, Commander,” Cordelia said in a terrible imitation of Eunha’s voice. “You’re doing so great for someone who’s never flown an alien ship and can’t make any sense of the alien gobbledygook on all the buttons and monitors!”

Eunha just gave her a flat look of disapproval.

“Alright, that’s enough for today,” Lidan said, patting the back of Eunha’s chair with no regard for her glare. “We’ll run it again tomorrow.”

Eunha rubbed at her jaw, her expression hard. “I don’t need to run it again.” She looked toward Cordelia. “I can do it, Commander. We can roll out tomorrow, there’s no reason to wait. Thea’s up there, waiting for us to stop dicking around and come to get her.”

“We’re not dicking around,” Cordelia dissented, popping her safety harness loose. “We’re making sure that we don’t rescue Thea just to pile-drive her into the planet in a spiraling alien vessel.”

Eunha made a face that suggested she wasn’t happy with that explanation, but she didn’t press any further.

She shrugged out of her seatbelt and followed Cordelia out of the cockpit.

The Litha’s metal ramp bounced and rattled beneath their boots as they emerged into the stale, metallic air of the hangar.

Lidan trailed behind, and Cordelia knew it was at least in part so he could enjoy the sight of Eunha walking away.

“I’m gonna crash,” Eunha said, pulling her jacket tight against the omnipresent chill of the hangar.

“You’re not going to eat first?” Cordelia felt like a scolding mother.

Eunha shrugged, her gaze going distant. “I don’t have an appetite,” she murmured. “Doesn’t feel right, eating and shooting the shit in the rec room while Thea, Juno, and Celeste are still out there somewhere, probably starving and scared shitless.”

“Starving yourself won’t help them,” Lidan said, taking the words right out of Cordelia’s mouth.

“What do you know?” Eunha muttered, crossing her arms defensively over her chest.

Lidan laughed bitterly. “I am the manufactured slave of an empire that created me for their own financial gain and nothing more,” he said darkly.

“We were raised in batches. Did you know that? Thirty-two were born in mine. Only twenty of us were deemed worthy of our existence by the time we were sent planetside.”

Eunha paled, her mouth falling open as she realized her blunder.

“I know a great deal about setting aside my fear for others,” he said more gently. “More than you can imagine.”

Cordelia set a hand on Eunha’s shoulder and squeezed. Eunha looked up at her with a lost expression.

“Eat,” Cordelia said. “We’ll nail it tomorrow, and then we’ll be on our way up to get her. You need your strength.”

Uncertainty gave way to resolve on Eunha’s face, and she nodded tightly. Lidan looked pleased by her change in tune.

“Come.” He coaxed, beckoning her with both of his lower hands. “I’ll make you two packs of kethir steak. It’ll put some muscle on your bird bones.”

“Bird bones?” she repeated in disgust, drawing away from Cordelia to take a menacing step toward Lidan. “Who are you talking to right now?”

Lidan put a hand over his eyes and squinted, looking around the hangar mockingly. He shrugged, still walking backward toward the corridor. “Only little bird boned creature I see here is you.”

“Cordelia is only like an inch taller than me,” she objected, pointing back at her.

“Yes, but look at her.” He gestured vaguely. “That one has some strength on her frame. Probably because she isn’t skipping out on her protein.”

“You jerk,” Eunha griped. “I’ll have you know it’s unforgivably rude to comment on…”

Her voice trailed off as they disappeared into the corridor, Eunha waving her finger around animatedly. Cordelia watched them leave with a small smile, warmth blooming in her gut for the first time in days.

Two days had passed since her run-in with Yelir.

He was still hounding her every time they crossed paths, blathering on about loyalty and making his vague threats about Rentir.

He and Ven were now part of the team that would be storming the Gidalan—a decision she had to question, given that Rentir refused to give up his seat on the crew as long as she was going.

She hadn’t asked, though she’d considered it.

It was Yelir who kept throwing his weight around with Thalen, trying to get him kicked off the field trip.

They hadn’t spoken. Rentir had tried twice the first day, and she’d iced him out in a panic, too afraid to hear what he had to say. If it was as bad as Yelir made it sound… what if she couldn’t forgive those sins? What did it say about her that she wanted to?

This was the reason Laura had gotten herself far enough along in the mission on the Leto to blow up hundreds of innocent souls.

Her stupid misplaced empathy. And here she was, once again struggling not to give the benefit of doubt to someone she knew had proven themselves untrustworthy.

She didn’t learn—and if she didn’t learn, she wasn’t fit to lead.

Blowing out a sigh, she forced the spiral of self-doubt out of her mind. She couldn’t afford to think like that, not now. It was too late for regret. Her crew—and they were all her crew now—had spoken, and she owed them her best foot forward.

“Boo!”

She let out an involuntary and deeply undignified shriek as Nyx burst out from behind the transport she’d been walking past.

Nyx threw back her head and laughed so loud that the room boomed with the mocking echo of it. “Jumpy much?”

“Don’t you have someone else to annoy?” Cordelia asked wearily.

“Sure, but I picked you, cause you’re my favorite.

” Nyx batted her eyelashes, her hands clasped together under her chin.

“Plus, you’ve been acting weird as hell.

The others sent me to ask what your problem is—you know, with the barely sleeping and the snapping at everyone and all.

And the whole—” She pretended to rip her shirt and bulged her muscles up unsettlingly around her neck in the world’s most mortifying impression of the Hulk.

“There is no way that you got nominated for that responsibility.”

Nyx looked wounded. “Why would you say that, Commander? I’m the Communications Officer. It’s literally in my job description.”

Cordelia snorted at that gross misrepresentation of her skill set.

“Nyx!” Pandora was standing at the end of the hall in front of them, panting as she leaned against the wall with one hand. Her eyes narrowed on Nyx as she stormed over to join them. “We told you not to say anything yet!”

Nyx rocked back on her heels, her hands behind her back as she studied the polished ceiling. “Hm? I guess I didn’t hear that part.”

Cordelia sighed, leaning against the cool stone wall and crossing her arms over her chest. “I’m that bad, huh?”

Pandora’s expression softened. “Of course not, Commander. We’re only worried about you. And… Rentir has been in a bad way, as well. He keeps visiting the medbay.”

Cordelia straightened. “The medbay? Why?”

Pandora rubbed the back of her neck, looking sheepish. “I’m not sure I should say. It’s a violation of his privacy.”

“We’re on a freaking alien planet,” Nyx said. “Who the hell’s gonna sue you for violating HIPAA?”

Pandora pursed her lips, clasping her hands together in front of her. “All the same. You’ll have to speak to him yourself, Commander.”

Cordelia cursed under her breath, rubbing the throbbing pain at her temple with the heel of her palm.

It was probably nothing. Haerune worked in the medbay, and they were basically brothers. He was probably just going in to kick around ideas about how to breach the Gidalan.

But that look on Pandora’s face, the concern in her eyes…

With another curse, she turned and headed for the medbay.