Chosen By Them Read online

  Chosen by them

  Between Rebels Book Three

  Skye MacKinnon

  Contents

  What Happened Before

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  About Planet Athion

  About the Author

  Also By

  Chosen By Them © Copyright 2019 Skye MacKinnon.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book contains space pirates. Don’t be like them. Don’t pirate this book.

  Cover by Peryton Covers.

  Published by Peryton Press.

  perytonpress.com

  skyemackinnon.com

  What Happened Before

  Earth was invaded by Trads, an alien race who impregnate human women and kidnap them to their own planet, Tradrych. Wren, however, was abducted by the aliens who’re supposed to be the good guys: Athions, blue-skinned and known for being enemies of Trads and friends of humans. Not these two.

  Imprisoned on the ship of Athions Laki and Arri, Wren has to use her wits to keep them from taking her as their sex slave. She sends out a distress call, but has to pay for it dearly. The Athions beat her to an inch of her life, but luckily, two Trad pirates reach her before they kill her.

  Rafaz and Vuk have never met a human before, so they don’t quite know what to do with Wren. After a lot of misunderstandings, she slowly starts to trust them, but just when things seem to look up, the Phoenix gets pursued by Athion ships. They think the Trads kidnapped Wren and refuse to believe the pirates when they say that it was Athions who took Wren from Earth in the first place.

  During a daring flight through an asteroid field, both the Phoenix and the Athion ship crash…Vuk and Raf are unconscious…and when one of the Athions tries to shoot Vuk, Wren throws herself in the line of fire.

  The Athions, Kili and Kion, believe that the Trads kidnapped and hurt Wren, so they try and protect her from them. After a lot of misunderstandings (and Kili punishing himself for shooting Wren), they finally come together and slowly turn into a team. Of course the Trads and Athions don’t immediately become friends, but they try to be civil for Wren’s sake.

  That causes a dilemma though: if they’re rescued off the asteroid by Athion ships, the Trads would be imprisoned. Who knows what might happen to Wren. To avoid that fate, they rely on the help of some friendly space pirates.

  Ki’to’lok, the pirate captain, offers them the use of several escape pods, but there’s only enough space for four (conscious) passengers. Wren volunteers to be put into a coma so that she doesn’t register in the pod’s sensors. But did that work?

  Find out now by flicking the page…

  Chapter 1

  Wren

  The asteroid was fast disappearing, hidden amongst a sea of colourless rocks. I pressed my hands against the window, looking out into the darkness. This was a new chapter of my life, but I wasn't quite ready to face it yet.

  The last few hours had been a frantic mess of emotions. I'd only been unconscious for just over an hour and when I'd woken up, I'd been in the airlock of the pirate ship. All four men had made it. They'd refused to tell me who of them had carried me in their pod. They seemed amused that I wanted to know and had turned not answering my question into a game.

  Now, they were talking to the pirates, but I'd told them I needed a moment to myself. My head was still a little cloudy from the drugs I'd been given. I was looking forward to going to bed and sleep for many, many hours.

  There was no sign of any other ships following us, but for all I knew, the Athions were still out there, pursuing us with enough distance that I couldn't see them with the naked eye. I was sure the pirates were on the lookout for them. Neither they nor we wanted a battle.

  I sighed. All I wanted was my freedom. Living my life the way I wanted, without the threat of others controlling me.

  Having made it to the pirate ship was a first step in the right direction. I didn’t know how long we could stay here, or if they wanted something in return for their help, but for now, we'd escaped. And all five of us were alive. I had to be grateful for that. Earlier today, it hadn't looked like such a positive outcome would even be possible, yet here we were. Not a scratch on any of us.

  "Beautiful view, isn't it?"

  A rumbly voice made me whirl around. I'd never heard him enter. A translation of his words came through a speaker to my right.

  Ki’to’lok looked even more frightening in real life than he had on the video call. Mostly because I hadn't seen his lower body then. I was used to the Trads having tails, but this alien had three of them, each ending in a lethal-looking thorny spike. His horns looked even sharper than I'd previously thought. This was a killer, a species evolved to win any fight they got into. His skin was hard as rock, giving him an effective armour. The only thing not threatening were his eyes. They glinted like diamonds, but there was a warmth to them that made me trust him immediately.

  That was a foolish feeling. I pushed it away. I couldn't trust him. I'd been deceived far too often. He was an alien and I didn't know him. I should keep him at a distance.

  "I love flying through asteroid fields," Ki’to’lok continued dreamily. "They remind me of home."

  I could imagine his home being rocky. He'd blend into the landscape, looking a bit like a boulder himself.

  "Where are you from?"

  "Planet Xro'st'l," he replied as if that should mean something to me.

  "Is that far?"

  "Other end of the galaxy. Well, it used to be there." Sadness shone in his eyes.

  "I'm sorry, I don't know much about the universe yet. But what do you mean, it used to be there?"

  Ki'to'lok sighed. "It was destroyed fifteen rotations ago. Now, there's nothing left but rocks floating in space." Despite his face being only vaguely humanoid, his anguish was evident.

  “Was it an attack?” I asked carefully, trying to get my mind around the fact that an entire planet could be destroyed.

  “No, it was my people’s own fault. They drilled too deep. Disturbed things that shouldn’t have been disturbed. It turns out there was a strange vacuum in the centre of Xro’st’l. When they broke through the rock layer surrounding it, the planet literally broke apart. I was lucky that I was away at that time. My family wasn’t so lucky.”

  I couldn’t help myself. I reached out and put a hand on his arm, marvelling at how his skin felt like smooth stone. He stared at me, but didn’t pull back.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, meaning it from the bottom of my heart.

  I knew how it felt to lose your family. My planet may still be there, but I had nobody living on it who I felt it was worth returning for. Some distant relatives we had lost touch with after the invasion. For all I knew, they might all be dead too.

  “It was a long time ago. I should be over it by now.” He grimaced. “Look at me, downing the mood. I actually came here to give you a tour of
the ship while your males are busy making plans.”

  “Plans for what?” I was a little annoyed that they weren’t waiting for me with that. True, I’d removed myself from them to gather my thoughts, but I’d assumed they’d wait with anything important until I joined them again.

  “Vuk and Rafaz are talking to some of the crew to see if anyone knows of a spaceship that’s for sale, now that the Phoenix is gone.” He sighed deeply. “She was a good ship. Did you know that I sold them that ship?”

  I shook my head. “Well, I gave it to them for almost nothing. I didn’t think anyone could ever get her flying again, but your males managed to repair her and turn her into a true beauty. It’s why she was named Phoenix. She turned from the ashes into something beautiful.”

  As much as I liked that story, my mind was stuck on something he’d said. Your males. Your. I felt like I should correct him. They weren’t mine and I wasn’t theirs. Right?

  “How about that tour?” he asked, unaware of the inner turmoil his words had caused. “But first, I should fit you with a translator. There are many different species on this ship and having your own translator will make it a lot easier for you to communicate with them.”

  He beckoned me to follow him out of the room. I took one last look at the quickly disappearing asteroid field before joining him. His steps were so heavy that the entire floor seemed to vibrate. His three tails waved from side to side behind him, and I made sure to keep out of reach of them. How did he even sit down with those poking out from above his arse? With the Trads, it was different. Their tails were soft flexible, but Ki’to’lok’s were more like stone pillars. He certainly was an impressively strange alien.

  I followed him to a medical room; a lot bigger than the med bays on both the Phoenix and the Athion ship. Several beds were half-hidden behind a screen to my left, while the right side of the room was full of medical equipment as well as an examination table and a chair that reminded me of one you’d find at a dentist.

  A blue alien with mottled, scaled skin approached us. His white uniform marked him as medical staff; that seemed to be a universal colour for this profession.

  “Our latest passenger needs a translator,” Ki’to’lok said, his voice translated this time not by a hidden speaker on one of the walls, but by the comm bracer he wore around his massive wrist.

  The other male nodded, his two pairs of ears twitching. He pulled a tool from a drawer, looking a bit like the piercing guns humans used to pierce ear lobes.

  I stepped back, eyes fixed on the gun. It looked scary enough to make me want to keep my distance. Ki'to'lok never said where they'd fit the translator.

  The pirate laughed. "Nothing to be afraid of, it won't hurt. He's going to insert a tiny device into your ear which will then translate for you. You're still going to be able to hear what we say in our own languages, so it won't take away your hearing or manipulate it. It's basically a speaker that's going to sit inside your ear." He turned to the doctor. "Show her."

  The white-clad man opened his hand, revealing a silver bead the size of a dried lentil. Alright, that didn't look as invasive as I'd thought.

  He put it into the gun, which turned out to be less of a puncher and more of a plunger.

  "Sit down, please," he said with a soft, melodious voice that reminded me of a cat's purr. It matched his feline-looking ears, even though he had two pairs of them. Instead of hair, he had fur, but sadly no whiskers.

  I sat on the chair, but didn't lean back fully. That position would have made me more vulnerable than I wanted to feel. Luckily, he seemed fine with that. He held the tool to my left ear. The touch of the cool metal made a shiver run down my back. Just a lentil, I reminded myself. Nothing bad. I bet I had stuffed bigger things into my ear as a child. My mother always told me how often she'd had to take me to the doctor's because I'd either eaten parts of toys or injured myself climbing trees. I'd always been a careless, wild child, unaware of the dangers of the world. I kind of wished I still possessed that innocence now.

  I flinched when he pushed the tool into my ear, but it didn't hurt as I'd expected. Nothing worse than how a cotton bud felt. When he pulled it out, I looked at him in surprise.

  "Didn't it work?"

  "It's already done," he replied with a smile.

  I gasped as his voice was translated simultaneously. The translation was much faster than that of the ship and it sounded as if I was wearing headphones; close and natural.

  "That's amazing," I said, grinning at him. "Thank you."

  "You're welcome," the captain replied in the doctor's stead. "Now we can begin our tour. Unless you have any medical ailments you'd like Jaron to look at?"

  I shook my head. For once, I was all healthy. It was a nice change to all the injuries I'd suffered recently. Yes, my head was still a little mushy from being unconscious, but that would pass soon.

  "Great. Let's begin."

  Chapter 2

  He led me out of the medical area and along a shiny, elegant corridor. Strips of light ran along the walls, flashing in different colours occasionally.

  "They're synced to each person," Ki'to'lok explained. "See them blinking amber? That means I have unread messages. I can ignore those for now, though. Only red ones would mean I'd have to abandon our little tour."

  "What if several people walk next to each other? How does the system decide for whom to show notifications?"

  "Good question. It usually goes by rank, but if someone is on a break, their notifications won't be shown. This isn't for personal messages, only for work-related ones."

  I nodded, a little disappointed. That meant I wouldn't be getting my own light signals. I was just a passenger, without a job. Unemployed in space. I grimaced at the thought. Until now, I'd been too busy - and too scared - to feel useless, but soon, I'd needed to find myself something to occupy my time. I didn't want to have to rely on the guys either. I was a grown woman and I wanted to pay my own way.

  "We're now entering the crew quarters," Ki'to'lok said as we stepped around a corner. "Some share their rooms, while the higher-ranking members of the crew have their own. There's no reason for you to be in this area, but the relaxation area is at the end of this corridor, which is why we're passing through."

  So many doors. I hadn't realised how big this ship was. There had to be dozens of crew members under Ki'to'lok's command.

  "How many people live here?" I asked him.

  "At the moment, about a hundred, plus ten passengers."

  "You take passengers?" I hadn't expected that on a pirate ship.

  The captain laughed. "They're members of our pirate association who're travelling for private purposes, often to visit family. We give each other lifts if we can. It's all part of being in the same club."

  Vuk and Raf had mentioned that pirate association before. It was still a weird concept, pirates working together, following the same rules, but it seemed to work.

  We rounded another corner and entered a large room filled with comfy sofas and low tables. It looked more like a giant living room than something on a spaceship. Several aliens got up to salute the captain, but he waved his hand and they sat back down, going back to their conversations.

  "This is where everyone comes to relax," Ki'to'lok said with a smile. "There are some food and drink fabricators over there. Luckily, they only give my crew alcohol when they’re off duty." He pulled something from his pocket. “Give me your wrist.”

  I shot him a questioning look, but then held out my arm. He slid a simple golden bracelet on my wrist, like a smaller version of the Trads’ comms devices.

  “Just wave that in front of the food fabricator and you’ll have access to the full menu. Even the good stuff that is usually reserved for the captain.” He winked at me, his diamond eyes flashing with mirth. “Just don’t tell anyone.”

  “We heard that, cap’n!” a tiny alien to my right shouted. He looked a bit like a garden gnome, except that he had webbing between his fingers, no ears and a green beard
that resembled seaweed.

  The crew members around him roared with laughter, loudest of all a small female with four arms.

  “Hey sister, I’ll show you the drinks fabricator later. I think you should try all the drinks in there and I’ll help you empty them.”

  I couldn’t help but return her wide grin. Instead of hair, she had long tentacle-like appendages, reminding me of medusa. Her teeth were pointed and looked deadly. Her smile was genuine though.

  “I’m Lafah, by the way,” she introduced herself.

  “Wren.”

  “I know. Everyone knows by now. The fair damsel rescued by pirates. Then rescued again by us. You’re famous already.”

  I looked at Ki’to’lok who nodded in confirmation. “My second-in-command is correct. Rumours spread quickly aboard this ship. I’m sure Lafah and the others can fill you in on all the imaginary adventures you’ve supposedly experienced later on. For now, we should continue our tour.”

  I nodded and gave Lafah a smile. I hadn’t talked to another female ever since Tonya had killed herself back on Earth. I could do with some girl talk. There was only so much testosterone you could take before needing a break.

  I followed Ki’to’lok away from the relaxation area, trying to memorise everything he showed me.

  “The washrooms are over there…the prayer room, the AI inside will transform it to cater to whatever religion you follow…the galley, in case you prefer to make your own food instead of using the fabricators…that corridor there leads to storage rooms where we keep our loot, so you can ignore those…to the left is the gym, which is pretty much always occupied…and here’s the cinema, where you can watch films from around the universe. If you want porn though, you’ll have to use the screen in your own quarters.”