We reached a metal door and Derrial stood in front of it as a purple light started streaming out of the door and scanning him.
“Access granted,” came a robotic voice and a second later I found myself in a room that looked straight out of a scene from Independence Day.
I had no idea where we were, but now… my mouth dropped open… now, we stood inside a room the size of an airplane hanger. And in front of me...was a freaking real-life spaceship.
It was a marvel of design. Utterly seamless, smooth matte charcoal colored metal with no visible means of propulsion or weaponry. No windows or doors. And no wings either. The vessel just sat there like an oversized crouched wolf, waiting for instructions to leap. A sense of claustrophobia started rushing over me, tightening around my chest at the idea of getting inside that thing. Unlike the vessel that Corran had used to take us to Hawaii where you could see through the walls to the outside, this ship was different. Sleaker. Powerful. Intimidating.
The alarm heightened, and Derrial sped up as we headed towards the spacecraft.
I squirmed against him, not ready to go in there.
An opening appeared in the side of the ship, pulling sideways into itself. Thane waited for us there, grasping a menacing black gun… or maybe a laser. “What took you so long?” he barked at us as we took a step inside.
“You apparently were trying to starve her,” Derrial replied back in an accusing voice.
“It was what we agreed,” Thane growled, running his gaze over my body as if he was checking to make sure everything was intact. But it wasn’t… my mind was haywire with fear.
“I don’t want to go in here,” I mumbled but no one heard me.
“How close are they?” Derrial demanded as we rushed down a hallway inside the ship. It was the same licorice color inside as the ship Corran had created. We moved through passages with sharp corners at the vertexes, and there was minimal light, shadows in every corner.
“What are we doing?” My words quaked, and I hated showing my fear, but right now, the two Vepar were on high alert, stiff and focused on anything but listening to me.
We hurried through another opening wall, and I found myself in some sort of control center room. Gadgets and darkened windows lay across the front of the ship. I had either stepped into the set of Star Trek or I was hallucinating because I had never seen anything like it.
There were gadgets and screens all over it, but what caught my eye the most was Corran, standing in front of a screen, pushing his hand on various buttons frantically.
He turned when he heard us, his eyes widening a fraction. He looked frazzled, his hair all over the place, his sexy glasses askew.
“Took you long enough,” he barked in a very un-Corran like tone.
Derrial rolled his eyes, evidently not feeling like sharing again that he had to stop and give me his blood.
“How close are they?” Thane strode to the screen and peered closely at it.
“Five miles out.” Corran tapped his fingers anxiously on the side of the screen. “They’re locked in on her.”
“Why don’t you just let them have me?” I said petulantly.
Thane just shot me an amused smirk at my outburst.
“Want a repeat of last time, pet?” he warned, and I recoiled back against Derrial.
“That’s what I thought,” Thane said.
“Three miles,” Corran added, scrolling through another screen that showed an incoming convoy of trucks going down a road.
“It’s time to go to sleep now,” Derrial said to me as he stroked the side of my face almost lovingly. I stared up at him, trying to read his eyes until I spotted Corran approaching with a silver device in his hands. It was one that I knew would make me pass out.
“No,” I begged as I began to thrash. Derrial just made a shhhing sound and held me tight. Only a second passed before I felt the small sting on the side of my neck signalling that Corran’s device has arrived.
“I hate you,” I whispered as my eyes immediately started to droop.
The last thing I saw were Derrial’s piercing blue eyes, full of what looked strangely like regret.