I poked my head out, searching for Lee. The errock held him over his head. He slammed our scientist over his knee, snapping the man’s spine in half.
My head spun, terror lodging tight in my throat. I hit the panel on the other side of the door, locking myself inside.
The capsule was designed to take us off the Anomaly upon completion of our mission if the ship failed.
My entire team had been annihilated in seconds. Screw the mission, the documentary I was supposed to make, and the astronomical reward I’d been promised.
With trembling fingers, I strapped myself into one of the six seats inside the capsule and initiated the take-off sequence on the on-board computer.
I was the last survivor of our ill-fated expedition, and I was getting out of here.
A red warning flashed on the control panel in front of me.
“Not enough power to complete the take-off sequence.”
What exactly did it mean? I feverishly searched my brain for any mention of this message during my year-long training for this mission.
The capsule was much smaller than the spaceship. Its engines, however, were many times more powerful than the ship’s. The sole purpose of this thing was to take us off the Anomaly. Why wouldn’t it do just that?
Had something been damaged during our crash landing? I punched more buttons on the control panel, trying to troubleshoot the problem.
The dreadfully familiar sound scraped against the capsule door from the outside.
The errock!
He had murdered my crew and was now cutting through the door of the capsule to get to me, too.
Again and again, I re-started the launch sequence, getting the same message.
“Not enough power.”
The shower of hot sparks blew into the capsule. The errock was cutting through the door, and I was trapped here, like a mouse in a jar, with nowhere left to run.
Panic shot through me.
“How much power do you need? To lift off a capsule the size of a bus?” I yelled at the control panel. Shaking with anger and fear, I punched it with my fists.
I heard a loud thud behind me. The fine hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I sensed his presence inside the capsule. His heavy breathing reached my ear.
I didn’t want to turn around and face him. Everything inside me urged me to curl into a ball and make myself invisible. Only, there was no place to hide in the capsule.
I’d been cornered.
“Where do you think you’re going?” the errock growled, mockingly.
Hearing him speak somehow made him even more monstrous. He obviously was a self-aware, intelligent being, not an enraged animal. Yet, he had killed my entire team in cold blood.
His words spurred me into action. I scrambled to the wall, avoiding his hands as he reached for me, then scurried for the opening he’d just made.
If I made it past him, I could get off the ship the way he had come. Fingers crossed, there were no more creatures like him out there.
Tripping over my hands and feet in panic, I climbed out of the opening and back into the spaceship.
“Not so fast.” The errock’s heavy hand swiped me off my feet.
I fell face down. Then the enormous weight of the errock crashed on top of me.
Nearly crushed under him, I could barely breathe. Clawing at the floor tiles with my fingers, I attempted to crawl from under him, but that was like trying to shift a tank off me.
“I’ll fuck you fast before anyone gets here,” he growled in my ear, yanking at my suit. “But I will fuck you, even if it’s the last thing I do.”
He hooked his fingers into the neckline of my suit from behind, and tugged it down, almost choking me. The material held, frustrating him. Painfully grabbing on to my shoulder and hip, he flipped me over.
I came face to face with my attacker. The look in his yellow eyes terrified me even more than his actions. There was no thought in them, no emotion other than the unhinged, feral lust.
Pinning my hips under his pelvis, he straddled me.
The moment his chest lifted off mine, I greedily sucked some air into my oxygen starved lungs.
“Female,” he smirked, pawing at my breasts through the suit. Leaning closer, he sniffed my neck. “Smell good, too. Good enough to eat.” He dragged his tongue down my throat.
“No. Please...” I whimpered, already knowing that my pleas would make no difference to him. He acted as if he didn’t even hear them, sniffing down my body.
Hooking his arms under my knees, he yanked them open and dropped his head between my thighs.
Around my core, I felt the heat of his mouth through the suit. Then a sharp pain blinded me as he bit down.
Anger cut through the terror from the pain. I thrashed in his arms, slamming my fists at his bald head. The three hard ridges running along his skull hurt my hands, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything other than getting as far away from this monster as possible.
“Yeah, fight me.” Satisfaction was thick in his growl as he effortlessly caught my both hands in one of his and fisted his other hand in my hair.
Tears sprang to my eyes at the pain on my scalp as he yanked.
“You didn’t wait for me, Nocc,” a new deep voice suddenly sounded from above us. “It’s against the rules to board a new ship on your own.”
Through the blurry film of tears, I saw another errock standing by. His arms folded across his chest, he seemed unaffected by the horrors that one of his species had inflicted on my spaceship and my person.
Did he come to join my attacker?
The thought made me wish I’d been killed along with Lee, Val, and the rest of my crew.
“Fuck off, Wyck,” the one called Nocc gritted through his teeth. His hand in my hair, he yanked my head back, grinding his crotch against me.
I screamed again at the sudden pain in my neck. It felt like it would snap any minute. Maybe he would kill me sooner than later?
Wyck, the second errock, grabbed Nocc around his throat and shoved him off me. I was able to draw a full breath once again.
“What the fuck!” Nocc leaped to his feet with a speed shocking for his size.
Wyck shifted from foot to foot, as if confused by his own action.
“You’re killing her,” he muttered.
“Not yet. First, I’m going to fuck her!” Nocc bellowed, lunging for me again. “You can stay and watch, but don’t you dare get in my way.”
I rolled on the floor, scrambling away from him. Nocc tripped over my foot with a long, filthy curse.
Wyck quickly stepped over my legs, placing himself between Nocc and me.
“Kill those who are aggressive,” he said. “Let the captain deal with the rest. Those are the rules for each new ship’s arrival.”
“Since when do you care about his rules?”
“There is no need to kill her.” It sounded more like a suggestion than a call to action. My defender wasn’t that passionate about defending me.
“I’m not killing her,” Nocc snarled. “I’m fucking her. Just as soon as I get her out of that damn suit.”
“Fucking and killing is the same in your case,” Wyck observed calmly.
“In our case, Wyck.” Nocc shoved at the other errock’s shoulder. “Don’t you forget that. Errocks are one and the same around here.” He threw a lustful look down at me. “Help me strip her. I’ll let you have what’s left of her after me.”