Earth Fathers Are Weird (Earth Fathers #1) - Lyn Gala Page 0,1

it on over his uniform when the alarms had gone off. He couldn’t handle captured and naked.

Fear made Max’s mouth dry, but he called out, “Hello?” The walls deadened the sound. When Max touched the wall, it was smooth, warm metal. The ceiling was covered in what might have been alien pipes or intestines or electrical conduits. He had no way to judge.

An archway appeared on one wall a half second before the crack of light turned into a full door that slid away. Max slipped into a fighting stance. His heart beat against his ribs and the edges of his vision turned gray. Then the alien appeared.

It was short—four and a half to five feet—and the violet mouth reminded Max of his Great Aunt Velma’s crazy lipstick. However, the alien’s wide face was ringed with the same color, with stripes of purple pointed at her broad nose, and her nostrils were set wider than the corners of her lips.

Max breathed heavily. He braced himself for anything from vivisection to questioning, but instead the alien opened her mouth and wailed. The sound was like an opera singer mimicking fingernails down a chalkboard. Max cringed as shivers ran up his spine.

“Ahh. Okay, I didn’t understand that, assuming you were trying to say something to me.” Max’s chest hurt. He wasn’t sure if that was from pulling too many Gs or if he was on the verge of a fear-induced heart attack.

She wailed again, and the sound was so bad it made Max’s mouth water, and he had no idea what the hell would cause that. Apparently frustrated with his inability to communicate, she grabbed his arm and jerked him forward so fast that he didn’t have time to defend himself or counterattack. He stumbled after her, struggling to keep his feet under him to avoid getting dragged. The ship reminded Max more of a submarine than any aircraft carrier he’d been on. The corridors were narrow with heavy doors separating the sections. If they were in space, that probably made sense.

“That’s my planet down there. What are you people doing?”

She dragged him through a door into a corridor with deep bronzy-red walls. Max stopped. Every six or seven feet, a tiny alcove created enough space for one... individual. Many of them were humanoid, but far too many had tentacles or lacked heads. Or both.

“Fuck,” he whispered. Next to insectoids, tentacles were on his list of worst nightmares. He hadn’t even been amused when one of his boyfriends had wanted to play with a tentacle-shaped dildo.

The short female stopped near an alcove and wailed. A second later, another humanoid appeared. This one was taller and more bulky. The alien’s upper lip was huge compared to the lower one, making it look like the victim of a bee sting attack. The alien turned his head, and a half dozen nostrils went up the bridge of something vaguely nose-like. He wailed at the alien holding Max hostage, and she wailed back.

Max said, “I want to go back to my people.” He wanted that, but he wasn’t sure anyone cared. “Who are you people?” Max demanded. The pair holding him hostage, and probably discussing his painful death, were joined by a third alien. It was shaped like a pith helmet with a curtain of tentacles hanging below. Max shivered in horror.

The lavender alien shrieked, and the helmet wrapped a tentacle around Max’s leg. Terror made Max jerk back, but the tentacle held firm. When Max lost his balance, he tried to recover by grabbing lavender alien. That was a mistake. The boss alien shoved Max, and he fell to the ground hard enough to lose his breath. Luckily the floor was the consistency of a wrestling mat, so he didn’t injure anything beyond his dignity. He used his new freedom to scuttle toward the door.

Alien bogey one wailed, and Max got his feet under him. He threw himself toward the exit when tentacles wrapped around his knees. Max punched and kicked in every direction. Aliens chittered and bellowed and sang and wailed, using every note on the piano. Tentacles caught Max’s wrists, and soon Max could only thrash as the helmet-tentacle alien sat on him. Max might have bitten the nearest tentacle except he did not want that in his mouth and he wanted to retain a grain of dignity. He was a military officer. They couldn’t strip him of that honor or that responsibility.

A tentacle punched the air next to Max’s head, and he