Alien Romance: Caged By The Alien: Scifi Alien Abduction Romance (Alien Romance, Alien Invasion Romance, BBW) (Celestial Mates Book 4) Read Free Page B

molding to her shape as she lowered herself into its embrace, her heart rate still a little elevated by nervous excitement.
    She saw Ian and Rivera lying down on either side of her. Rivera's face was set and thoughtful, still preoccupied with the mission. Ian seemed unbothered by the situation, actually yawning as he laid back. On the other side of the room, Cho and Salome were still talking about the last transmission.
    "But don't you think it's weird how regular the structure of each transmission is?" Salome was saying, "Don't you think there's a chance they're being generated automatically?"
    Cho shook her head, waving it off.
    "No, see, your problem is you're imposing a human mindset on things," Cho replied, "Think about how different their culture will be from ours. They may have a totally different conception of language. Their form of life may, in all likelihood, be entirely unrecognizable to us. So making any kind of assumptions is pointless. Yeah the messages could be procedurally generated. Or it could be a kind of formal letter format reserved for interstellar messaging. Dear aliens, how was your day, sincerely whoever.
    That kind of thing. Or maybe their culture regards language as sacred and only allows them a limited vocabulary for sharing with other species. There's no way to tell until we get there, because we could never hope to conceptualize what they're really like-"
    "Lights out girls," Rivera called, fiddling with a touch pad near her pod, "That's enough chatter. I'm about to close the pods."
    "I just hope it's intentional," Salome said as she laid back, the pods hissing pneumatically as they powered up, "I hope it's the invitation we thought it was. I'd hate to show up there with the equivalent of their day time TV reruns..."
    "Hey, it could be worse," Cho replied as the pod's lid began to slide closed, "Some of the first TV signals we ever sent out into space were recordings of wars and injustices..."
    Penny thought about that as she watched the lid slide closed over her, sealing closed with a hiss as the inside of the pod began to fill with a mix of specialized gasses, carefully calibrated to Penny's exact weight and chemical makeup. What an incredibly human and horrible thing, she thought.
    The most hateful, ugly part of humans on proud display, like a confederate flag waving over the funeral of a teenager killed in the street by police brutality.
    An emblem not just of their history but of a lingering pustule on their collective consciousness, a cruelty that still flourished within them, like a blood infection long after the wound has closed. But that wound was not so long closed, she reminded herself.
    There were still humans alive who'd seen that wound opened. She'd read once that a certain omnipotent clown-themed burger joint was founded just a few days before prisoners began arriving. What a thing to contemplate over your chicken nuggets. Perhaps with a little more time, the scars of that wound would fade a little. Humanity’s hateful blood infection might be cured.
    But that image of cruelty raving, spewing hate in stark black and white, would go on bouncing through the stars till long after humanity was gone. Thinking such dark thoughts before cryosleep, Penny wondered if she'd have nightmares.

Chapter Two
     
    She had no nightmares. Slowed down so dramatically by cold, her neurons weren't firing fast enough to dream. She drifted in peaceful darkness, untroubled by anything.
    She woke for the first time just after Oshun exited Earth's solar system. They celebrated that first awakening. They were some of the first humans to ever leave Sol system, the first to ever go as far as they were planning to.
    Groggy and a little freezer burned, they drank sparkling white grape juice and wished for champagne. Dr. Maurea played classic rock over the ship's speakers. Through the view screen, Hermes, their constant companion, was a reassuring silver dot of stability.
    They exchanged chatter with the other