Page 2 of Protected By the Alien Commander

2

Doshax

“Commander Drerzix,”a member of my squadron called over the comm, “I am seeing multiple smaller ships converging on the freighter.”

“Have any clocked you?” They better not have. This was the first chance I or anyone in the IGS (Inter-Galactic Systems) had had to find the pirate’s secret rendezvous locations, which changed every time.

“Cloaking is still active, and the chimes are silent, sir.”

A grin slowly unfurled on my face. Got them. “Stay on target and stay sharp. We are following five klicks behind.”

It was a standard IGS capture formation. The lead ship would be bait, and the rest of the squadron would swoop around the target, then lift our cloaking, letting the prey—I mean target—realize they were flaxxed.

As long as the chimes on our ships stayed silent, we were fine. If their weapons locked on us, they would blare, which was annoying. They were called warning chimes, but they sounded more like the death cries of an urlak back home than an alert system advising of an impending plasma strike.

“Lahsek, what are the smaller ships doing?” I could have looked at his ship’s vid feed instead of asking, but anyone paying attention could have detected the transmission spike. And these pirates were twitchy, paranoid bastards. I did not want to start a firefight, even if my squadron was flying the latest and greatest fighter ships off the IGS production line.

“They surrounded the freighter but are staying at respectable distance. No ship has docked yet.”

The pirates could not unload in space. That was too dangerous even for them. So, what were they doing? More importantly, would today be the day that I finally found the pirates who had killed my family?

I narrowed my eyes at the pirate ships hanging around the freighter. They were not escaping me this time. But I had to be careful not to spook them, or they would scatter and disappear, leaving me empty handed.

Again.

Just the thought of not capturing them had me gritting my teeth so hard I could hear the grinding. I had vowed to avenge my slaughtered family, and I would.

This had been my best chance yet, and I was not giving it up for anything. Not even for Captain Veckex, who wanted me to ignore the lone pirate ship my squadron had stumbled upon. He had requested me to continue directly to Delta Yav Station, even though stopping the pirate scourge was a top priority for the IGS. And IGS Intelligence had never been able to find any of the pirate’s bases or meeting points.

My intuition had paid off again. No one had ever seen more than two pirate ships together at once. This had to be a secret rendezvous point, and I was going to capture them. And Goddess help me, because I was not sure I would not blow them all into particles instead.

The speakers in my helmet squealed as members of my squadron spoke at once.

“Hey, pull back! Something just—”

“What the herrex is that?”

I thumbed my comm to calm my men down, but nothing happened. Then I realized the normal background hum of my Raptillion ship was missing. It was dead quiet and lifeless.

With my squadron’s cloaked ships suddenly visible, they were out of commission as well. The pirates too as their ships slowly started to move in the same direction, pulled down by…

An entire planet had just appeared out of the darkness of space.

A small part of it was in my vidscreen, the gentle curve of the orange giant bright against the black of deep space. It grew larger as the planet’s gravity sucked my ship towards it.

“Fraxx.”

Our rescue should be imminent, this being Delta System, the most populated system in the IGS. But first we had to survive the crash landing. On an unknown planet. Because there should not have been a world there.

Large geological features started to appear the closer I got. Canyons, mountains. But it was what I did not see that really bothered me. There were no signs of civilization. This made even less sense than several spaceships going dead at once and a planet suddenly appearing.

I worried for my men, but I knew our training had prepared us for any eventuality. Even for a crash landing with an unresponsive spaceship. I needed all my attention on controlling the impact because those pirates were also currently crashing on the same planet.

And I wanted to be alive to hunt them down.

The ground loomed closer as I kept the ship in a glide with the nose up, only leveling it out close to the orange dirt. Instead of slamming bow-first and shattering, the ship bounced, then bounced again, and finally, after a long slide spewing dust that covered my vidscreen, it abruptly stopped.

My neck hurt. My dorsal quills hurt. There was room along my back and head for my spikes to rise, but not enough when trying not to die and your quills are standing straight up.

Now that I had survived, it was time to determine if any part of my ship had. Then I would find my men and finally go after the pirates. I grinned again, the same one I wore while hunting urlak with my family’s tribe on Sunda. Those pirates’ days were numbered.

They just did not know it yet.

The interior of the Raptillion was small; it was a deep space fighter, not one of the bigger survey ships with a crew. There was room only for a bunk, a locker, and a liquid reclamation system, which was currently in pieces on the floor. I needed to find drinking water if the IGS did not rescue me soon. That was not a big concern. With an entire squadron’s crash beacons going off at once, the IGS would be here within an hour at the most.

I stepped out onto the hard, packed orange dirt and raised my sensor. The atmosphere was within safe parameters for the majority of IGS citizens to breathe, which was another oddity to add to the growing list. A planet with breathable air and no civilization? My dorsal quills rose at the impossibility of that scenario.

A bright light barreling high through the violet sky caught my attention. A ship tore through the atmosphere, the metal stern glinting while flames licked at the bow. It was oddly shaped and boxy.

I frowned. It was nothing like I had seen in my four years of service in the IGS.

The ship slammed into the ground with a horrific bang, close enough that I could feel it. I hoped that was not a civilian spaceship.

I doubted anyone could survive that crash.