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Curious to see if she was going to try to stab me with it, I handed it over. But she only moved to the closest prisoner and cut his bindings before moving to the next. I wasn’t about to trust another knife to one of the other humans and moved to at least help her by cutting through the bindings of the others, who all mumbled excitedly to each other.
Some hugged, some cried, some laughed.
When she was done, she came back to me, returning the knife. “Thank you,” she repeated.
“You’re welcome.” Again, I send her my most winning grin.
“We need showers and clothes and food,” she demanded without flinching.
“I was sent here to rescue you, not for babysitting duty,” I informed her. Maybe my charms would work better on her once she realized who I was.
“Well, too bad. You rescued us, so now you’re stuck with us. I don’t imagine we smell that appetizing.”
I ground my jaw because she did have a point. I also needed to fly this large ship by myself since I had killed the entire Cryon crew. Which reminded me that they also needed to be cleaned up.
“Tell you what. Why don’t you put your brethren to work first? You clean up the dead Cryons while I set the ship to our new destination. Then I will show you how to discard the bodies, and we will find showers and the mess hall?” I suggested reasonably.
She pulled her lower lip between her teeth in the most sexy way I had ever seen. Her head tilted, and she gave me a nod. “Alright.”
I blinked a few times. Alright? Even though I hadn’t formed my words as an order, any sensible person would have understood it as such. Before I could voice my consternation, she turned away from me to address her fellow ex-prisoners.
I stopped her by holding her back by her elbow. “Aren’t you going to tell me your name?” That wasn’t what I had wanted to say, but it was more diplomatic than the words I had in mind.
“Oh.” A pink hue moved over the part of her skin on her face that wasn’t covered in blood. My eyes narrowed. “Did you break your nose?”
“My name is Zoe, and yes, I think I broke it, but it’s okay for now.”
“I’ll mend it once we get everything taken care of. Are you their leader?” I asked, impressed by her resilience.
“I suppose now I am,” she stated as if it was the most natural thing in the universe. That female was fearless, and I liked it.
“Hey, can I have everyone’s attention, please?” She clapped her hands to garner the human’s attention. “I’m Zoe. I know that probably doesn’t mean anything to you, but that’s okay.
“As you heard, this Space Cadet—”
I blustered, “Space Guardian.”
“Space Guardian,” she repeated without missing a beat, “has rescued us and is taking us to a safe place. I know we’re all hungry, tired, and in need of rest. But he needs our help right now.
“The aliens who took us are all dead, so if we don’t want their stinking bodies around for the next…” She turned to me in question.
I shrugged. “I have no idea about Earth time, but it will take approximately five space days to reach Astrionis.”
“How do we know we can trust him?” a man in the back asked, giving me a first taste of the cantankerous trait of the humans that as I would find out was second nature to them.
“I think since he came here, killed the aliens, and took our bindings off, it should be safe to assume that we can trust him,” Zoe stated.
It wasn’t quite the vote of confidence I was used to, but I was willing to take it. For now.
“I can’t even walk a step. How am I supposed to carry a dead alien?” a woman protested.
Zoe was losing them, so I stepped in. “Let’s go!”
Without waiting for their reply or giving them another chance for a protest, I marched to the entrance, stepping over the four dead Cryons plus the ones who had followed me.
“Here, grab one,” Zoe said, taking one arm of one of the Cryons and pulling her along after me. Unseen by her, my grin deepened. Yeah, I thought, I think I will like this female.
Raasla showed us where to stack the dead Cryons. Cleaning drones would take care of the blood and other… bodily fluids . Death was ugly, no matter if it was alien or human.
