In Good Company by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0000000000000
Published: 2023-01-07T09:54:06+00:00

Taylitha’s heart was beating hard enough to hurt her ribcage, but floating over her body made that feel distant… her mental state, as well. She was aware of every muscle tensing as she punched or kicked, with a dreamlike precision that fascinated her—was this the effect of adrenaline? And when one of the creatures picked her up and put her under an arm, she knew she was the only one, because she didn’t hear any of the other women being lifted.

Now she was in a tunnel being carried Bast knew where, and she was strangely calm about it. This time, she thought, it wouldn’t be Alysha taking the ridiculous risks, alone in an ocean with dangerous aliens, fighting duels by herself, getting her bones broken in the rapids. Some part of her pointed out that last time the ship had been plunged into misadventures, Alysha had been safe and she’d been the one getting shot at by pirates, but really, that was a minor detail. If Alysha had been there, she would have been the one getting shot at, so that didn’t count. Obviously.

There was something off about this line of thinking, but she was good with it. She was going to get them out of this situation. She would handle it. She would be the handler. Then she’d write a message to Beringwaite about it and he’d tell her to stop being a hero. Hells, maybe she’d send a press release to what’s-his-name, the warcruiser captain who’d watched her fall apart, and he’d say, ‘Why yes, she’s gotten it together since that regrettable incident on Amity, hasn’t she.’

It was possible she wasn’t as calm as she thought she was, but if this was what was on the other side of panic, she’d take it.

Taylitha had grown so accustomed to the dark that the faint glow down the corridor made her eyes water. She squinted into it until her eyes adjusted, then glanced up at her captors. Three of them, as big as she and Alysha had guessed, lumbering with dipped heads. They had bluntly beaked faces, like reptiles, with enormous hooded eyes and an armored plate extending from the backs of their skulls. With feathers? Maybe? She couldn’t tell from her angle. And the arm around her really was enormous, fat as a tortoise’s in places, and hard and corded in others.

The odd gait was explained by the bird-like leg arrangement, with hips balanced by a long tail like….

“All right,” she said aloud. “All right, so dinosaurs. Laelkii was right.”

But any interest she had in the creatures vanished when they stepped into the next chamber, because they flung her into its center and she skidded over the lip of something and into a hole. Hitting the bottom pushed a squawk from her throat… ridiculously, because once she looked up she discovered the hole was barely three feet in depth.

She immediately hated being here, and couldn’t have said why. Her fur rippled until it was standing on end all the way down her spine and arms.

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