The Wild One: The Labors of Darius Linard, #2

By Leah R Cutter

Kiki, the alien commander of the alien ship Lulu, must coax the ship into working with her and the crew.

 

 

The growing pains are nothing like she's seen before.

 

For example, why is the ship forming bubbles around the windows? Is Lulu diseased? Insane?

 

Or worse, bored?

Be sure to read all the labors of Darius Linard:

 

The Claim Jumper

Wild One

Runaways

Homecoming

Hero

• Language: English
• Publisher: Knotted Road Press
• Release date: Jul 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201670412

Book preview

The Wild One

THE WILD ONE

THE LABORS OF DARIUS LINARD: VOLUME TWO

LEAH R CUTTER

KNOTTED ROAD PRESS

CONTENTS

The Wild One

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About the Author

Also by Leah R Cutter

About Knotted Road Press

THE WILD ONE

Kiki squatted on her aerie in the middle of the bridge of her space-flier, scowling down on her crew. Though she had a smaller neck ruff than many in the flier clan, it still puffed out around her bald head like a mane of blue-black feathers. She flexed and straightened the three fingers and thumb of her hands, impatiently waiting for someone to figure out what in name of the four hells of Tipinia had gone wrong with Lulu, the ship.

Directly in front of Kiki, the great windows looking out into space were still tinted red. Stars glowed ominously through the colored windows, coated with a deadly crimson glow. Foam trickled down the edges of windows, like a washer had exploded and coated everything in soap bubbles. They smelled like fresh kill, which distracted Kiki, making her food stomach growl with hunger though she’d eaten just that morning.

The navigator had coaxed Lulu into staying still, but the ship insisted that he sing lullabies and recite silly, rhyming poetry to keep her there. Communications throughout the rest of the ship were static-y, as if the coms had broken down. The life cabins all functioned within normal parameters, but the temperature in the cargo bays had dropped to just above freezing.

Two ship-breeders knelt beside the window, taking samples, tasting the bubbles, mixing them with chemicals, then tasting again. The ship-herder stood at the back of the bridge, behind Kiki, glowering silently at the entire bridge, disapproving of her, the crew, as well as his charge.

No one understood why the edges of the windows had suddenly sprouted bubbles. Were they about to loose pressure? Would the windows suddenly crack and expose them to the cold, hard vacuum of space?

And what did the bubbles mean about Lulu? Was she sick? Was this a new disease none had seen among the space-fliers before?

Kiki’s greatest fear was that Lulu had gone insane and that this was just the beginning of her madness. She’d personally known some of the members of the crew of Lulithon, the space-flier who’d grown mentally ill and had committed suicide a few years before by flying into a nearby sun, taking all of her crew with her.

Lulu was young for a space-flier, and relatively immature. According to the ship-herder, after the ship-breeders had released her from the birthing vats, she’d been