Page 61 of Saved By the Alien Hybrid (Hybrids of Yulaira #1)

With a groan of pain, Kliath braced a hand against the console and eased himself up to sitting. Black blood dripped steadily from the blow at the back of his head, but she refused to feel guilty about it.

He twisted, tapping a series of buttons from where he sat. A big, red notice came up on the screen.

“It has to be his hand,” Kliath rasped.

She moved to grab Urien’s wrist, but his arm weighed a goddamn ton, and he was too far away.

Gritting her teeth, she held him by the fingers and blew his hand off his wrist with two quick shots.

Kliath’s grimace mirrored her own. The wounds were instantly cauterized, a small mercy offset by the sickly sweet smell of burning flesh.

Swallowing the urge to gag, she carried the hand over to the console, where she found a familiar square of smooth, black glass. When she pressed it down, the console beeped a warning, and the text on the screen changed.

“Black button,” Kliath said, pointing to the button near the top of the console.

She slapped it, and the red lights cut out, replaced by the soft white lighting when they’d boarded. The blaring alarms fell silent, leaving her ears ringing hard in their stead.

“It’s done.” Kliath sighed, sagging. “There will be a five-minute interval before another lockdown can be initiated.”

“Put the feeds back up,” she said, nudging him with her boot. “I need to see the hangar.”

With a groan, he lifted himself up just long enough to comply.

Her eyes flitted across the many feeds, searching for any sign of her people.

When they fell on the hangar, relief swelled within her.

Nyx was standing at the ramp of one of the ships, along with Ven, waving a swarm of children on board.

There was no way of knowing if everyone had made it, but at least they’d succeeded in getting the children to safety.

She was watching them seal the ship when Urien’s comm crackled.

“I would thank you to tell me exactly what you think you are doing, Urien,” an imperial voice said. “You cannot imagine the consequences you are about to face. If you are not dead already, pray to the Goddess that she reclaims you before I reach you.”

The line went silent. She shared a look with Kliath, whose features were a mask of dread.

“We did not know,” he blurted. “Not all of us. The recruiter did not mention the… circumstances of this posting. I would never have joined—but once we are here, we cannot leave. You understand, don’t you?”

Her mouth thinned. She wanted to argue with him, tell him that there was always a choice, but she saw Rentir’s shamed expression in her mind as he relayed his sins, and she couldn’t bear to be a hypocrite.

She sighed, at least refusing to be responsible for comforting this male over his choices.

Turning her attention to her blaster, she checked the rounds she had left.

Kliath blanched, eyes flicking to her blaster, and then his features grew resigned. He bowed his head, clearly ready to accept a final punishment.

“I need you to get up,” she told him.

“Why?”

“Up,” she snapped, yanking at his shoulder.

He staggered to his feet in confusion, glancing back at her as she shoved him toward the door. Understanding dawned on his face as they stepped out into the hall with her hand fisted in the back of his shirt.

“Please, they will not hesitate to shoot me,” he whispered, his eyes darting around the control room, where no one had noticed them yet. They were all preoccupied with shouting at one another as they flitted from console to console. “Don’t do this. I can help you.”

She eyed him hard, the raw anger of having been manhandled by one of his kind still burning bright in her veins. Shoving him, she nodded. “You fuck with me, I’ll put you down the same way I did your boss.”

He bowed his head in acknowledgment, taking a sharp breath before facing the chaos of the bridge.

Drawing himself up tall, he stepped out into the fray.

She pressed against the wall of the short hall, wary of any sign of betrayal.

She couldn’t take the dozen people flitting around in the room, but she would take as many as she could with her on the way down, starting with Kliath.

“Evacuate immediately!” he shouted, waving his arms.

At first, none of the others paid any mind to him. They continued flitting back and forth, shouting to one another in a chaotic tangle of voices and conflicting orders.

“You have to—” Kliath was shoulder-checked hard by a male in a shimmery silver uniform.

Damn it all, this was pointless. She’d given up a hostage for nothing at all.

Self-loathing consumed her, at least until Kliath darted to the closest console and slammed his hand down on something that made the entire bridge fill with a deafening shriek of feedback.

They all went still; they cringed and covered their ears. Kliath released the button.

“Everyone on the bridge must evacuate immediately!” he boomed in a voice she wouldn’t have guessed he could produce.

“Are you mad? If we abandon our stations, the Gidalan will fall to these creatures! Do you think they will welcome us on their planet as we await rescue from the Celtalair?”

“Failure to comply will be marked as an act of insubordination!” Kliath said, slashing his hand through the air. “It is not for you to question the will of the High Sentinel!”

The others clamored at that, a few hastily heading toward the door. Kliath rounded on the others.

“Get to the pods at once!” he commanded. “We must evacuate!”

A few more scampered off, arguing in hissed tones with one another, leaving a handful behind, wavering between escape and their stations.

“I don’t believe this,” the first man who’d questioned him piped in, eyes narrowed.

“I’ve heard the way Urien speaks of you.

There’s no chance he’s left you in charge of such a vital announcement.

And why isn’t it coming over the loudspeakers?

The Lord Commander himself would be the voice of such a matter! ”

There’s no time for this.

She stepped out of cover and trained her blaster on the male, who was unprotected by armor and slow to react as she came into view.

His eyes widened, jaw going slack, and his hand drifted up to point at her in accusation before it halted, jerking as the plasma round tore through his shoulder.

He wailed, clamping a hand over the smoldering wound.

Kliath cried out in surprise, whipping around to look at her in stark horror.

“Get the fuck off this bridge or die on it!” she shouted at the others behind him. “How is that for a command?”

When they did nothing but gape at her, she fired a warning shot and aimed at the closest, a male with gray skin that paled to white at her threat. “Move!” she yelled.

Stumbling over one another, they complied, leaving her alone with Kliath.

“Which one of these stations is the flight controls?” she asked, turning the blaster on him.

With a shaking hand, he pointed to a sunken spot just in front of the glass viewport that made the nose of the ship.

“Great. Now get out.” She tucked the blaster away and climbed down into the pilot’s seat, eyes darting as she tried to memorize the location of everything, straining for anything that looked familiar.

“What will you do now?” Kliath asked in an uncertain voice so unlike the one he’d just used to command his colleagues.

“Land it. Crash it. Toss a coin.” She leaned forward and flicked a switch, and the whole ship shuddered.

“Gravity anchor disengaged,” a robotic voice announced.

“Female, you cannot truly intend to pilot the Gidalan. Have you any idea the amount of schooling we require of pilots for a ship of this class?”

“I’m sure I told you to go away.”

Where was Rentir? What was taking him so long? Had the struggle with Urien wasted time he and Thalen didn’t have? Were they already…

She shook herself hard, focusing on the task at hand. Another switch jumped out at her; when she hit it, the ship began to whine.

“Engines priming,” the computerized voice said.

“I… I want to help.”

She looked back at Kliath, eyes narrowed. “It would be immensely helpful to me if you would go the fuck away.”

“I have done things,” he blurted. “Terrible things which shame me, all in the name of surviving this post unscathed. A hundred times I have thought about playing the hero—defying my commander, initiating a mutiny, rescuing the hybrids from their quarters. And every time I have balked. Every time. I am begging you, let me have this chance to do what I should have done a hundred times before. Let me help.”

She sighed hard, slamming her fist against the control panel in frustration. He was dividing her attention and pulling at her stupid, witless heart strings besides. “Fine,” she barked. “Pull up the security screens and tell me where my people are if you want to help so badly.”

There was silence except the sound of his boots against metal, and she took the moment of peace to pick out the switches she still needed to activate.

Lidan had done his best to prepare her, but he’d never seen the cockpit of the Gidalan, and there were so many more damn buttons than there had been on the ship they’d practiced in.

“Engines ready,” the loudspeakers announced.

“There!” Kliath said suddenly. “They’re breaking free of the ship now, look!”

She twisted in her seat, but he was pointing toward the front window, where a small ship was rocketing away from the Gidalan. Relief sang in her heart so acutely that tears pricked in her eyes. She blinked fast and swallowed the lump in her throat. “Are there any left on board?”

“It’s hard to say; I can screen for hybrid signatures, but there are still a number of hybrids who must be working on board.”

“Any others like me?”

“…No. You are the last.”

Thank God for that. She turned back to the controls. Thrusters on. The ship lurched forward, but after that, it glided with no sense of movement. Shields up so we don’t fry on reentry.

“Female?”

“Cordelia,” she said.

“C-Cordelia?”

Scowling, she turned toward him. “What?”

“There is someone at the door.”