Tov Kyle pointed to a section in the wall that looked absolutely blank, but he’d taken a couple of courses on Lusundai tech while at the academy and he knew that this section of wall, if it was hit just right, would open up.

He punched it and a door swung outward revealing a control panel. He didn’t know shit about this control panel, and couldn’t speak anything but the very basic Lusundai language. But he did have a plasma pistol. He aimed it at the section he’d seen his teacher aim at and fired.

Their cell door opened up. He grinned at Hanna who appeared flabbergasted. “I can’t believe just randomly shooting a panel actually worked.”

He thought about mentioning that it wasn’t random but figured that this wasn’t the right time.

“Okay, let’s go get Brandon and get out of here.”

“Hanna, I can only carry one.”

“Kyle is awake, I can help him out.”

He really did not want her brother touching her... but he supposed it was only temporary. And he had faith that he wouldn’t try anything now that he figured out that Kyle had switched to liking Chelsea.

“Let’s go!” she whispered.

When they reached the stasis pod with their target inside, Kyle hit the big, ‘emergency eject’ button, and prayed to science that it meant eject into the cabin and not outside the ship.

A few seconds later, he sighed in relief as the door steamed open. He quickly wrapped his tentacles around the human Brandon.

Finally! Their objective on the ship had been completed, though, this wasn’t exactly the way they imagined it happening.

Since they had to continue to escape, he crept up to the next door. With his ear pressed against the metal, he listened, then hit the ‘open’ button. Fortunately, the door slid open and didn’t do something weird. Frankly, there was no telling on these Lusundai ships.

The sex party that had left this way was nowhere to be seen. If he could have left the brig some other way, he would have, but unfortunately, the way to the outside was this way. Waiting for the other shoe to drop, Kyle carefully snuck up to the ship’s exterior doors. There was no easy open this time.

“Oh god! Prince Brandon!” a voice coming from the left yelled.

He just barely stopped himself from jumping and stared in horror towards a mostly closed door.

“Keep going!” the human Kyle hissed. “Before one of those women gets bored and comes out here.”

“Yeeeeaaah,” Hanna whispered. “No need to worry. Those girls are probably doing each other while they wait.”

“Hanna!” the other Kyle hissed.

His human twin turned bright red, while he just refused to think. There were other, more important things to worry about. He pressed on a side panel near the door, placed his pistol just right and once more fired into the panel... and prayed that his teachers were up to date on the current Lusundai technology.

For one heart pounding second, nothing happened. He had the horrible feeling that someone was going to walk into the room and find them before it could happen. Sweat beaded on his forehead.

Then, ever so slowly, the doors to the ship cracked open. Then, taking their sweet ass time, they slowly revealed the forest outside.

“You know. Now might be a good time to go in and shoot the bastard,” Hanna said.

Kyle shook his head. “No. I have civilians here I need to protect, and those girls in there are innocent, even if they are stupidly helping him. The idiot prince also gave them access to plasma gun tech, so I’d rather not risk one of them shooting us.”

She hesitated, then nodded. “Safety first.”

“Safety first,” He agreed. Like fuck would he let anything happen to her.

Kyle carefully stepped out, Brandon locked in his tendrils, and carefully walked to the SUV.

Shit. They didn’t have the keys.

Hanna sauntered up to the vehicle and opened the front door. It was unlocked. She looked to Kyle and grinned.

“Danni has a bad habit of leaving her keys in the car.”

“Thank fuck!”

She helped her brother into the back seat while he shoved human Brandon in next to him. Then he got into the driver’s seat, waited for Hanna to enter and put her seatbelt on, then booked it.

He couldn’t believe that they’d escaped so easily. But it wasn’t over yet. As soon as the Lusundai Prince realized what happened, he would come after them. And in all likelihood, he wouldn’t let them go. Not in a hundred years. That meant, that the only safe place for them, was in space. And hope that the white ship’s androids hadn’t had time to fix it enough to get it ground-to-space ready.

But even if he did, Kyle had a plan to take care of it.

***

This time, since the SUV wasn’t Kyle’s rental, he didn’t give too much of a shit and drove as close as possible to his ship, losing a mirror. They grabbed everyone and made it to the front of the ship. This time, there was no one waiting for them. He did, however, check the outside of the ship for any tampering. It turned out that the damn prince had placed an anti-cloaking device on the beautiful black surface of his vessel. It took some doing, but he detached it.

Thank fuck the Lusundai hadn’t actually made it inside the ship, which he could tell because he wasn’t full of holes or sabotoged in any way. He had a feeling that this prince may have had good genetics, but may not have applied himself in the intelligence department too ardently outside of the social aspects. He was likely leaning too heavily on his genetic memories.

Tov Kyle threw the unconscious Brandon into the second stasis chamber while Hanna helped human Kyle into his.

Of course, he wasn’t just doing that. He stretched out his tentacles and started warming up his ship. Then he sent a signal for the drones in space to begin their activation procedures.

Soon he was sitting in his usual seat... he realized he had to do Ju’niak’s part too and mourned a bit. If only he hadn’t been such an ass. But without him, he wouldn’t have gone after the prince. And he wouldn’t have met Hanna.

Thank fuck he did, because she was quickly becoming the most important entity in his life.

He fucking wished he could leave her here, but after what the prince just pulled... there was no way she’d be safe here. And he wanted her with him.

“Kyle. They’re fully in stasis now. Ah, where should I sit?”

“First, we need to get you into a suit.”

Her eyes grew wide.

He smiled. “If something happens out there and we have a hull breach, the only way to keep you safe is to keep you in a spacesuit.”

He helped her undress and then undressed. She grinned. “Hey! Now doesn’t seem like a good time for hanky-panky.”

He kissed her cheek and went through the process of reverting to his Tov form. Then he helped her into the suit he’d started fabricating for her after her first visit to the ship. Then, once he was fully in his natural form, he stepped inside his own suit.

After sitting down where Ju’naiak used to sit, he patted the space next to him. She awkwardly walked over and climbed into the large seat where he usually sat. Slowly, he helped Hanna with the harness. In all likelihood, she would find the seat uncomfortable since it was built for one of his kind. It had an open lower back so Tov tendrils could still be used… and humans were short.

She smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

Fuck, but he wished he could kiss her again. But there was no time. They’d already spent too much getting ready for take-off.

He double-checked the conditions of his ship, then activated the launch sequence.