Relkor

by C. R Corbin

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Relkor

  It's been far longer than I could ever imagine. How long have I been stuck in this cell? Bound by sterile metal walls and emptiness? An emptiness that has only been birthed from her absence. Has she betrayed me? Was she behind the crash itself or was this another matter entirely? Was this some sort of operation by the humans that she didn't know of? I didn't know, I needed to hear it from her mouth. Most of my crew was dead, Xuhar had survived and was in the same predicament, from what I heard he was being immensely difficult.

  I stayed in place for the first few moments and gave the humans only the hint of an answer. I never outright told them any facts about what the ship was doing or where we were going. The most that I did was stay in place with my eyes glued to the wall in front of me. My frown deepens as I think back to those days on that horrible red planet. She had cared for me, she had to aid me in my recovery by helping me while I could do nothing but lay on the ground like some sort of useless toy. It was shameful that such a thing had occurred! I needed to see her! To make sure that she was alright and that this entire encounter wasn't just some scheme that she has been plotting behind my back!

  Why would she force us to the gardens that day when she has shown no interest in them before? Was it simply because she wanted to see them or was it because the gardens had ample water and were especially durable due to their role as oxygen tanks? Her actions began to seem more and more suspicious the more time went on and I could only shudder as I think of the implications.

  What would happen to me now? My existence was starting to regain meaning when I met her, I had a mate and a ticket home and now I was in the confines of some sort of human cell without any hope of a rescue. After all, I had seen the images, the sight of our crash. Our warriors were too battered and broken to fight back.

  So here I laid in a blank white cot, awaiting my final judgment.

  Had I been wrong to trust so openly? Should I have kept an eye out and watched my mate more closely to ensure that something such as this would have never happened or was I merely being foolish? Was my entire thought process wrong? Some part of me felt...happy for her now that she didn't have to deal with the laws of Rialan society and the fact that she was safe from our tyranny, she was happy this way, at least I hoped that she was.

  Perhaps my rule over her and my control has resulted in his. I had taken her unwillingly, claimed her unwillingly, this was my punishment in a sense for straying so far from the light and finding my company with decrepit swindlers and mercenaries.

  And then I heard the knock.

  It was soft at first, that sterile white door to the side clamors for a bit and I watched it with bated breath, hoping that it would be her. I had already been questioned by a litany of psychiatrists and military personnel, I just wanted a more friendly face to appear and take me away from this fate of mine. I cared for her far more than I ever thought I could have. I thought that love was foolish and that these passionate thoughts that were infecting me would soon cease. I understood that my own lust had its repercussions but I deemed it superior in every way and saw Kelly as merely a means to an end, a way to purge myself of my lustful inhibitions without any real effort on my part.

  I was beginning to have my doubts, the absence pained me. I would have given a thousand years in the light just to feel her hand on my cheek once more or to feel her breath scratch the wind in front of me as she grinned and spoke words that could pierce the stone wall that I have erected around myself. This stoic facade crumbles around her, I could feel the sunshine falling onto me once more and now with her absence all that rained down was the void itself.

  The door slowly cracks open and I watched as she stepped in. It slams shut behind her and I shivered as I watched her fold her hands in front of her and frown. That blue shirt of her's was spotless in contrast to those dress shirts that she wore on the ship that were constantly wrinkled and distressed. Her face hadn't an inch of dirt or grime on it, it was flawless. She looked far healthier than she had ever been and despite the concerned frown on her face, I could tell that her mental state was far better than when I had been with her on the ship. There was a light in her eyes that wasn't there before, there was the presence of laugh lines that were a bit more pronounced. Her brown hair creates a beautiful frame around that pale face and those sun dipped eyes. She gazes through me as I laid there, covered in the marks of my wounds that were just healing. I grimaced as she steps forward and takes a seat in front of me on a chair that has been bolted down with far more metal rivets than I could ever count.

  "You look well." I muttered, rubbing my knees nervously as we both appraised one another before returning our gazes to our feet. "I see that you are enjoying your freedom."

  "I would be if it wasn't for the fact that you look considerably worse." she reflected and glanced at me while biting her lip. "How are you? Have they been feeding you enough?"

  "I'm fine physically." I coughed and stared at her with a frown slowly spreading on my lips "Did you know that they were coming? Was this some sort of plan?"

  She sighs and turns away from me to watch the white wall off to the side. There were tears welling in her eyes and her hands were quivering, I took note of her distress and cursed myself for causing it. I hated when she cried, when sadness overtook her. Her anger was something that I could stand and could tolerate but this sadness isn't something that I could be a witness to, let alone cause.

  "I was ...It was a plan made by the mechanic. He was going to crash the ship and...Free us. I don't know where your leader is though. He's missing." she admitted with a horrid frown spreading on her lips. The tears begin to drip down her cheeks, she sighed before wiping her tears away with her forearm while I watched her with bated breath. I was angry, I was bitter, I felt betrayed in the worst way but perhaps this was the same thing that she felt the moment I raided her ship...I didn't care. I just wanted to lash out at her but something stopped me from completely damning her and driving her out of my heart.

  It was those damn tears that began to fall.

  "So you betrayed me? Your mate? I treated you well and did everything for you and yet you almost kill me? Why?! What have I done?!" I roared and she jumped to her feet with an indignant expression forming on her face. "Why did I ever trust you or get close?"

  "You fool. You really think that you were the only one that's lost anything?! Many of my friends are dead! I might be pregnant with a child that I never intended to have and now my best friend is nowhere to be found. She's likely getting raped by a prince that's thousands of light-years away for all I know and I can't do a goddamn thing! Don't tell me about betrayal or imprisonment or the vices of your capture when you don't know a damn thing about it! You are a fool that's been spoiled by the power of your own tyranny and you don't want to admit any part of it! You are a selfish bastard!" she cries while glaring at me. Her face was flushed and the tears freely began to drip from her cheeks and onto the floor.

  "You...I treated you well. I was going to give you the life you wanted! I was going to get my life back!" I growled while pacing around the room, trying to control myself so that I didn't strike the wall in my blind rage. "I was so close to freedom, to a joy that I haven't experienced in years and yet you betrayed me and stripped it all away from me. Now here we are in this cell, farther than we have ever been."

  "And your happiness is that worthy? It was worth the joy and sacrifice of hundreds of others? Just to make you happy? Give me a fucking break. You don't give a damn about anyone else, do you? You just know that you're unhappy and that's the only thing that's wrong in this universe. Your freedom is not worth the cost of everyone else's." she snarls back as I finally lose it and slam my fist into the metal wall which leaves a small dent. I feel a searing pain rush through my wrist and glance at it as my hand falls to the side while I frowned. She gets to her feet and walks to the door while I make a move to stop her.

  "What are you going to do
to me? Stop me? Fuck me until I love you again? Is that it?" she questions me and I flinched, stumbling back while caressing my injured hand. "Face it...The only way we're going to be together and the only way that you're going to find peace is if you change, if you become better than what you were ...until then enjoy the cell. I don't know what else to say to you except for that."

  She opens the door and stumbled out and I make no move to stop her. I watched as her heels disappear behind the shadow of the steel before she completely exited. I could have torn the door open while it was still unlocked and made my way through and yet I don't, I was frozen in place by her commands and her declarations. There wasn't a bone in my body that could have moved towards my freedom because I understood that I didn't deserve it. Deep down I knew that it was all a lie that I had been living with a guilt that I attempted to bury.

  And yet I can't let it go. My own pride won't allow me to. Rialan culture won't allow me to. It was carved into my bloodstream.

  I walk back to my end and stared at my bruised and presumably broken hand. They would likely send a doctor in soon to heal me but even that wasn't actually certain at this point. I was merely an animal for them to study and to force to do whatever they wished me to do. That was the only reason that I was still alive wasn't it? To be stuck here in the midst of all of this emptiness and hostility was something that I hadn't experienced in quite a while and it was...troubling. I have to admit that some part of me found it a bit disconcerting that the tables have been turned and that I was now the one that was imprisoned without any hope of escape. I was now the prisoner and...It didn't feel right in the slightest.

  Perhaps I was wrong on some level. Perhaps they have earned their freedom, truly.

  The next day, or what I presumed was the next day, starts with me attempting to heal my hand on my own. This medical box is slid into my room and I popped it open with a simple tap on the button on top of the case. The lid lifts and I stared at the medicine inside, the syringes, the packs, the ointments. I glanced at them and frowned as I reached for the tools, I didn't even know what to use really since this was human medicine and I was more acquainted with the Rialan tools. I gazed at the pamphlet included but it was written in a variety of human languages and I wasn't equipped to read them without my helmet or my armor.

  And then she appears.

  "You look like you need help." Kelly quipped as she poked her head in before walking through. She stands there in front of me for a moment while I hold the box in place, my hands were trembling while I tried to stuff my pride down and simply ask her. And she keeps on chiding me during it. "Are you going to ask me to help you or not?"

  I paused while gazing at the bruises and the bones that were misshapen, pressed out of place. My hands quiver before I look at the box and at her, my hand was throbbing with pain when I finally relented and hung my head in shame. She approaches with her hands outstretched before she wrapped her fingers around the tools and began to deftly use the medication on me.

  "How do you know how to do this?" I asked.

  "All members of the crew are required to understand at least some medical procedure. That's just how it works."

  "Ah."

  "I never thought there would be a day when you asked me for help but I guess that this is it..."

  She glances my hands over and wraps some bandages around it to keep it in place while I sighed in relief. Those red eyes travel upwards to meet her brown orbs but she was looking away from me. She stumbles back to the doorway and gives me a short nod while I stared at the medical kit and my broken hand, wondering if I should have asked her to stay longer.

  I missed her more than I could ever imagine and now she was out of my life.

  "What should I change? What was wrong with what I have done? Have I sinned so much that I need to be punished to this degree?" I laminated why pacing back over to my bed and laying down. My body ached at certain points from the wounds I had received from the crash so it was a bit of a struggle to move around as much as I did and I occasionally accidentally bumped into the furniture in the room.

  The times when I try to sleep are the worse and I could barely live with myself when I laid there and thought of her. I had messed up far more than I had initially thought and I was letting it all slip away. If I could just apologize and answer their questions I would be much better off than I was at the moment. I could simply give all the intel that I knew of, the location of where they were taking the girl, where the crew as going. To do so would be to never return to see Rial ever again but perhaps there was something that was far better than a homecoming. There was something that could bring me even more joy and it was something that I had been ignoring up until this point.

  Her.

  "Just tell me what I need to know." she said with a frown on her face as I glared at the doorway, she was sitting beside me and holding something to write on, it was a primitive tool, I think she called it a clipboard and a pen.

  "I would rather not." I admitted and she sighed before getting to her feet and stumbling over to the doorway. Her frown deepens as she glances back at me and shakes her head.

  "If you want to be happy...you have to change." she states and leaves while I am left there to see in my own discomfort. My hands grip the sheets below me as I sighed and shook my head, could I really go through with it?

  They would lead me to the shower every once in a while. Strong magnetic cuffs cinch my wrists as I stumbled around the facility. There were no windows, nothing to indicate our lactation in anyway. I would have imagined that the scientists here would have been desperate to do some experiments on me but somehow they didn't. All they did was lead me down a hallway to a dark room in a corner that was not even that far away from my room. I stumble inside and am held at gunpoint while I wash up before I returned.

  I had been wrong, I knew I had been wrong.

  Should I give her up I would be sacrificing every trace of happiness that I had up until this point. If I gave into their demands I would be sacrificing my dreams of returning but she was far better. I wanted to simply be with her again, to be freed and absolved of the crimes that I had committed. I knew that my redemption would require work and it was something that I was willing to pursue should it mean that I would be able to see her smile for me once again.

  Those long nights of trying to sleep pulled me closer and closer to simply swallowing my pride and I eventually did. I give in after nearly 10 days of self-reflection. It is when she stumbles inside and I looked to her while she waits there in the seat with the board and pen in her hand...

  It is when I finally give her every last detail about the plan and where her friend was being taken. "Will you help me now?" she questions me with a worried look and I nodded.

  I would. Soon her frown is replaced with a gentle smile and she nods as she takes her notes to the right people. I wouldn't see her until the next day when she enters with a variety of soldiers that were eyeing me suspiciously, she reaches out to grasp my hand before pulling me to my feet. She gazed back at the doorway and stumbles forward while dragging me behind her. I follow her and smiled as I am led through into the light, a smile finally creeping onto my face for the first time in several fetras.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Kelly

  He sat there in the room to discuss the whole plan with our general.

  Rel was well equipped to handle military types, that wasn't the problem at hand. The problem was that the general wasn't in any position to truly understand Rial and thus a conversation couldn't be held without me being the mediator. I sat in between the two and listened to them discuss battle strategies with regards to the raid that they were going to do. Turns out that they were delivering her to a planet that was only a couple light years away and that it would take about a week to get there. I wanted to leave as soon as possible and simply raid the place but I understood that with our technological disadvantage we were in no position to be assaulting a Rialan world,
to take on their military like this would be suicide.

  So what did we do? The general proposed another idea.

  "I understand that your tech is far better than ours, that is something that I have already learned from observing the bodies and the wreck. What I propose is something else entirely. An infiltration to retrieve the girl without any of our troops ever getting harmed." the general explained with a scowl forming on his face. I don't like where this was going, especially with the way the general was glancing at Rel during the entirety of it all. "You're going to be the one to enter the prince's airspace and take the girl from him. With your credentials it should be easy to gain access and to take the girl and depart. I'm not going to risk thousands of troops in an all-in assault when I know that the risk is war with an empire that could surely annihilate us. That's why you need to be the one to do something about this hostage crisis until my people can successfully reverse engineer your tech and learn something from it. "The general stated and I winced.

  Yep, this was a bad idea. The odds of Rel getting killed during mission like this was extremely high and I was about to speak up in objection but Rel spoke first.

  "I agree. I should have the means of retrieving her with little to no risk...It is only a matter of when I shall pursue her and how I shall get there. That's the chief concern on my mind. We need to find a suitable excuse for my absence and my arrival. Perhaps I could say that I repaired a ship from the wreckage and took off, that would be believable enough." Rel admitted with his eyes shut and a deep sigh sliding across his bottom lip. "I will do whatever it takes to earn my freedom and the freedom of that girl. I must atone and I will if you would let me general. I wholeheartedly accept your offer."

  "Rel..." I muttered and he shakes his head while glancing me over with a gentleness that I didn't know that he was capable of.

  "I'm going. This is my crime, my mistake, there's no need for more humans to suffer." he admitted and I feel the tears begin to sting my eyes as the general continues to discuss the strategy at length. None of it mattered, the only detail that I understood was that Rel was going to undertake an operation that would be immensely dangerous to himself, I almost wanted to say that I would charge in with him despite knowing that I would likely perish.