Page 4 of Time Traveling Space Bastards

W e broke her. We broke the Devouring Mother. Torrek caught her before she hit the ground and brought her somewhere soft to lie on. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go, and we didn’t exactly have time for all of this.

There were two teams looking for her. Mine and my brother’s and we both wanted different things. We wanted to protect her and stop what was coming. My brother did not. My parents said they weren’t picking sides and may the best man win, but my father slipped my brother extra funding.

Valtens and I used to be friends. Then, a bunch of shit happened, and we found ourselves on opposing sides of a planet on the brink of civil war. We also became two brothers competing for the throne. The fate of the planet hinged on which one of us won.

“Is she dead?” I asked.

Torrek grabbed the bottle she had been drinking from. He was a Saki, so he had all kinds of senses I didn’t. He sniffed the bottle and then drank it. Which was bold because we didn’t know if we could handle any food or drink on this planet. Torrek was the wild one of our group. The Saki usually were, but they were handy in a fight. He wouldn’t blend in on this planet, but we brought him anyway.

Torrek let out a growl and set the bottle down.

“This is some kind of spirit. It’s strong enough to be like the ones at the taverns back home where anything goes, and you might get in a fight. Pretty sure she’s just a little drunk.”

“It’s true,” Enix said, scanning her. “Humans get drunk just like we do. I think it’s also a combination of what we just told her. Remember that girl at Nori’s you were flirting with? She also fainted when she found out Kuka was the prince.”

Torrek snorted.

“She was just hoping Kuka would catch her and take her back to the castle to care for her.”

Probably. I didn’t catch her, either. Our Devouring Mother wasn’t out long. She was also an angry drunk. She popped up swinging and got Enix right in the face. I had to remember she was human and didn’t know you should never hit a cyborg.

She grabbed her hand and howled. I hoped it wasn’t broken. She looked around wildly before settling down. I guess she remembered we were here. She must have forgotten and thought we were some kind of pervert that had broken in. We had those back home, too.

“I’ve never hit anyone before, but shouldn’t it hurt you as much as it hurt me?”

“I’m a cyborg. I’m one of the pleasure models. I’m equipped with an eight-inch phallus and the ability to give and receive pleasure. You have to pay extra if you want my programming to receive pain. My previous owner did not, and Kuka never asked for it to be added after he stole me.”

“What the fuck?” she asked.

Cyborgs were capable of independent thought once they were fully programmed. Some people did terrible things to them and if they didn’t like it, they’d just take them to be factory reset so they’d be compliant. I stole Enix from a tavern where he was being sold in a back room for sex. I managed to catch him on a night when he didn’t want to do it and his owner was talking about taking him to be factory reset again.

Based on what his owner was saying, he was being factory reset a lot because he didn’t like having sex with strangers. I was about to explain all this, but she held up her hand and stopped me.

“First of all, there are size queens in real life and then there are size queens in smut books. Eight-inch ding-dongs are for fictional size queens. Which was why I wrote that in my book. I’m going to need all of you to explain how what I wrote is true.”

Torrek just smirked.

“Only if you explain how that cute child we met by the pool grew up to be a stunning woman who set the design for pleasure cyborgs on my planet.”

Ugh. Torrek would flirt with anything that moved. He had some pretty questionable taste back home, but in this case, he was right. She was stunning. Long, blue hair, bright-blue eyes, and curves for days. Curves were a status of wealth back home. It meant you could afford food. How did she have this glorious body if she was worried about money?

She flushed red. Yeah, Torrek seemed to have that effect on women. I thought it was the flirting and because Torrek was considered a handsome man on our planet, but I realized that wasn’t it at all.

She was pissed.

“Well, twenty-one fucking years have passed since you left me by the pool! A lot of shit went down. I grew up. I waited for you and fought my parents about going back inside. I was a kid! I told everyone I knew about the aliens who crash landed in my pool. Everyone thought I was insane.

“They started throwing antipsychotics at me and when I insisted I was telling the truth, they’d think they weren’t working and switch them. I’ve been on all of them. I lactated for a little while on risperidone and I nearly died on clozapine. All because you assholes didn’t come back when you said you would!”

I knew what lactating was because certain species did it back home to nourish the younglings. I didn’t know what anything else was. Enix could connect to the data online on this planet and I knew he’d be scanning to find out what all that meant, so he could tell me.

Torrek didn’t care. He didn’t need to know. She was upset, and it was our fault, even if we didn’t mean to. He stood in front of her with his hands up. Torrek was deadly when he wanted to be. His kind were one of the largest races on our planet and now that I’d seen humans, he was massive compared to them. He still just had this way of putting people at ease.

“Hey, if you need to hit someone, hit me. You can hit me right in the face and I’ll let you.”

“Oh, no! I already tried to hit him when I thought he was a burglar, and I’m pretty sure my hand is sprained.”

“He’s a cyborg. I’m a Saki. We’re softer.”

She just snorted.

“Doubtful. Your muscles have muscles. I’m not risking fucking up my other hand.”

“I’ve scanned the entirety of the human internet, and it says when a woman is upset, she doesn’t need to hit you, she just needs a male to tell her to calm down,” Enix said.

She forgot all about her hand and that Enix was metal underneath. Torrek caught her as she shrieked and flew to attack him. That pretty much had nothing to do with saving Enix and everything to do with preventing her from hurting herself. Enix sometimes didn’t pick up on emotions and just kept going.

“It also says human women get violent on their menses and that you should give them chocolate and something called Midol. Should we search the house?”

“I think you should actually shut the fuck up,” I said.

Because this wasn’t going well at all. We were trying to protect the Devouring Mother, and we’d already messed up.

“I’m guessing there’s some bad information on the human internet, right?” Torrek asked.

“I find it hard to believe you scanned the whole ass internet and landed on the misogynist portion. For the record, telling a woman to calm down instead of fucking listening to why she’s upset never works. Being on your period sucks sometimes, but don’t be annoying and you’ll be fine.”

“Let’s talk then,” Torrek said. “You told us a little about what you went through. Tell us everything. Then we’ll tell you our side.”

And our side was honestly going to be a lot for any human.