by Maia Starr
“Thank you, sir,” I stammered, blinking hard as I tried meeting his eyes. The camera flashes were making it hard to find them though, and I looked away the first chance I got. The last thing I needed was to make a fool of myself in front of one of the most powerful men in the country.
“My pleasure. Now if everybody will please make their way to the reception hall, where food and drinks will be served, we can get this celebration underway.”
Cheers were deafening this time, and I had the distinct impression that the rest of my colleagues, mostly men my age or much, much older than I, were far more excited for the alcohol than they were about my discovery. I couldn’t fight the uneasiness in the pit of my stomach, either. Many of the men were glaring at me. Were they jealous?
I tried to ignore it as I was led to the reception hall, which was blissfully quiet for a few moments as everybody filed in and helped themselves to the free champagne. Soon though, I was bombarded by questions from curious colleagues, avoided by envious ones, and generally overwhelmed by the whole ordeal.
As the men surrounding me talked at me and to each other, I found myself wondering how a group of brainiacs could be so loud and overbearing. At social events I tended to retreat into a quiet corner, hoping I could escape the scrutiny of men who had deemed me “too smart” for them, and the good-intentioned friends who wanted to set me up with those very men. There never seemed to be a place for me among those I had the most in common with. It was pretty bewildering.
“A toast!” Kara suddenly exclaimed, silencing the chattering men surrounding me and drawing their attention to her face. I sighed in relief, quietly removing myself from the center of the group. “To one of the most talented up-and-coming researchers on extraterrestrial life!”
Everybody cheered and drank their champagne, patting me on the back as they dispersed to mingle. I was no longer the center of attention. I was allowed to retreat back into my own inner world.
But my inner world was consumed by one nagging thought. What had happened to the ship after it headed into the meteor field? I knew it hadn’t exploded or crashed – I’d been watching it carefully the whole time. It had simply vanished. There was something strange about the way it seemingly disappeared into thin air. What had happened? What was I missing?
“Lain, nice to see you again.”
A man was suddenly standing in front of me. My chest tightened. It was Brighton. The man who’d broken my heart in grad school.
“It’s been great,” he had told me after I won an argument about the Markagian galaxy with him in front of a group he had been hoping to impress, “But I think I need to be with someone a little more fun.”
What he meant was, he wanted to spend all of his time with a girl who made him feel smarter than she was. And I’d seen the signs. The red flags were there all along. The ego. The pretention. The teasing and condescension. But I looked past it because I wanted so badly for him to be the right guy. Maybe there was no right guy for me. That was okay. I had my career. That was enough. I’d given up on the idea of love a long time ago. Love just wasn’t for eggheads like me. Telescopes, on the other hand…
“Hello, Brighton,” I said coolly. I had nothing to say to him. In fact, I’d spent years rehearsing what I would do if I saw him again, and it was taking every ounce of my self-control not to go off on him. That wouldn’t look great in front of General Meyers.
“So…big promotion, huh?” he said as if he actually wanted to have a conversation with me. I looked hard into his eyes. He wanted something. It was obvious.
“Guess so,” I replied begrudgingly.
“You’re like, captain of the UFO chasers now,” he said, a wide grin creasing his face. “I’m almost jealous.”
Ah. So that’s what it was. He wanted to make a joke at my expense to make himself feel better for not being chosen to participate in the Orion Project. I should have guessed.
“Actually,” I said, flaunting my position for the first time since I’d received it a few moments beforehand, “I’m head of research of all of Sub-9. Let me know if you ever need help finding the big dipper.”
His jaw dropped, and I smiled sweetly up at him.
“Hey! I was just—”
“Excuse me,” I said, pushing past him, not waiting to hear another tired defense of his chauvinistic sense of humor. “I’ve got to use the ‘little UFO chaser’s’ room.”
And with that, I left my own party to stargaze on the roof alone.
Chapter 4
Captain Zerk’k Arkti
“We’ve arrived, Commander Arkti.”
I nodded, but said nothing. It was taking all I had to muster up the courage to venture off the ship. The Earthlings were a tricky race, and although most of their methodology was primitive, it didn’t mean we should discount the danger. Still, the others had managed to finish their jobs right on schedule. But they hadn’t been stuck with the assignment of clean up.
“With all due respect, sir, I think we should get this done as quickly as possible, before our craft is detected,” Jerd said, breaking into my thoughts. I hated that he was right. “Human technology advances at a snail’s pace, but they’re getting there. We should beat them to the punch and get out fast.”
“Agreed,” I said, standing up. “Take the men, full stealth mode, and abduct the women in peak physical form for breeding. I’ll check the premises to ensure that nothing traceable was left behind.”
“Understood, sir.”
“Leave no trace of our presence, Jerd,” I looked him hard in the eye. “I mean it.”
“Of course, Captain,” Jerd said, looking at me with his silver eyes as if I were stupid. Although most men I knew would have taken it as the beginning of a fight, I laughed despite myself. He was highly competent. One day, he would make a great commander in his own right.
“We’ll meet here again in 60 rotations,” I said, bowing deeply to him. Whether we were friends or simply men forced to work together, I respected Jerd a lot. He was very capable and had been indispensable to me throughout our time together. It was my own private way of separating from him during dangerous situations, in case something unforeseen happened to either of us. But such dark thoughts never left my mind, and it was going to stay that way.
“Yes, sir. Take care.”
I nodded stiffly. I wasn’t sure why, but despite my presentiment, I felt a strong urge to explore this dangerous planet. It was fascinating to be so near to a place so many species were claiming may be the downfall of the entire universe. It was probably important to see what sort of threat the humans were. I could end up as the Supreme Leader of Jenal’k someday, after all. I would kick myself later if I didn’t do it now, right?
Once Jerd had taken the men, I instructed the flight crew to keep watch and alert us if anything happened while we were away. My curiosity was impossible to keep at bay, and I followed my instincts.
I cloaked my body and hopped out of the ship, shocked at once by the heavy pull of Earth’s gravitational force. It was only slightly different, but I had been on my own planet so long, the beautiful and lavish Jenal’k, that any slight change was an unpleasant surprise. How surprised my crew would be to know that I was a homebody at heart.
A sudden roar filled my ears, and I looked around wildly for its source, shocked to find one of the most primitive transportation systems I had ever laid eyes on. Black smoke rolled out in waves, escaping the depths of dirty tubes as little metal boxes, on wheels of all things, sped past me one by one. There was little structure for these bizarre contraptions to follow – just a narrow path dug into the Earth and killing whatever life once lived there, preventing it from ever rising again. Who were these humans? Surely if their technology could send them to space, they could travel their own planet much more sustainably!
I found myself uncomfortable remaining on the ground and activated my hover gear. It would be a mistake to expend needless energy while exploring such a dangerous planet. The air was already beginning to ma
ke my lungs ache, and if I didn’t return to the ship at the same time as the crew, it could be perceived as a good chance for mutiny. Not that I didn’t trust the crew. It was just that my position was highly coveted, and a replacement for me had never been named. It was a secret, only to be uncovered should the worst case scenario befall us.
Once I had risen above the noise of the traffic, I felt a little bit better. The air was lighter, and I could almost see beauty in the scattered arrangements of buildings, lights, and structures unique to Earth’s surface, such as the trees and the hills. The colors were drab, but there was something comfortable about the way the leaves reached up toward the sky and streams of sparkling blue water threaded the surface.
The planet seemed doomed to suffer, but I couldn’t help but feel a small hint of warmth toward the oblivious humans. They tried so hard to build, to innovate. Surely there were good intentions there somewhere. There had to be more to humanity than their collective force of destruction. But even they wouldn’t know it if they saw it in each other. It was a bitter thought.
Suddenly, a human female emerged from a crude doorway (Hinges! They haven’t been used since my people were primitive!) and ventured bravely onto the rooftop of one of the tall, man-made structures. She was dazzling; the first human I had ever laid eyes on. Her shape was somewhat smaller than the typical Thressl’n figure, but her eyes carried a light and a depth that seemed otherwise lacking on my planet. Thressl’n had eyes that shone like heavy metals, while this human woman seemed to see the world through an orb of clear, beautiful water. I had never seen anybody quite so captivating in all my revolutions of life.
The woman looked toward me, and I froze in a panic, sure that somehow, those beautiful eyes had seen me. But instead of screaming in fear, she let out a soft sigh. The sound of her voice, even in that small little expression, made my hearts pound in a way they never had before. Without knowing how or why, I knew immediately that I wanted her with a ferocity I had never experienced for anybody before; not even females on my own planet.
But instead of rushing at her to complete my abduction, I lingered back for a few moments. She was fascinating. Her legs were long, and she strode along the edge of the building, her clear, beautiful eyes searching the sky as if for answers to a question I longed to hear her ask out loud. Her long hair was the color of gold, and tied neatly behind her head. She had a strange contraption on her face, over her eyes, held up on the bridge of her nose and secured with wire behind her ears. She soon pushed it up on top of her head, so that nothing was between her gaze and the stars.
Suddenly, I needed to know everything about this creature. What she was thinking. What she ate. What she was looking for. Who was this female? Whoever she was, one thing was certain: she was going to be mine.
Chapter 5
Dr. Lain Brousseau
I pushed my glasses up so that they were resting on top of my head and stared into the sky, my eyes automatically finding the spot where Planet 139 rested. I couldn’t see it in the inky darkness of the night without my telescope, but I had studied it for so long that my eyes could find its place in the sky no matter where I was. I couldn’t rest without finding the answers. How many of its inhabitants were on that ship when it disappeared? Where could they have gone?
It seemed that no matter how hard I tried, I would never uncover the truth behind the mysterious disappearance of the spacecraft. Our ships as they stood would never have made the long journey out to the reaches of space where Planet 139 was located and survived. The answers I needed were buried in the cosmos. And there was no way I would ever find myself close enough to fully understand. Somehow, I was just going to have to move on.
“Good evening,” a musical, masculine voice said suddenly from behind me.
I froze in terror. I knew I hadn’t heard anybody else come out onto the rooftop with me. And there was something strange about the voice that was speaking to me. It didn’t sound like anything I’d ever heard before. And although the words were pronounced perfectly, there was something strange about the way they were pronounced. As if whoever had spoken them had never uttered such harsh syllables with its perfect tongue. Even the Vellreq were harsher sounding – much more like the grinding of a machine’s motor than a harmonious, beautiful voice like this one.
But the beauty of the voice behind me didn’t take away my fear. I was too frozen to turn around and face it. But whatever he was, he didn’t seem to mind. He continued speaking, and I could feel him coming closer.
“I hope this doesn’t hurt,” he said, close to my ear. His breath sent a seductive shiver throughout my body, but I tried to fight it. Nothing about this situation was sexy.
I cried out when I felt a sharp pain in the back of my neck. I could feel every inch of a long, needle-like puncture disappearing deep inside of me. I tried to run or to scream, but before I could make a sound, I collapsed to the ground as a pool of black drowned my vision.
“Let me out of here!” a woman shrieked.
The words shook me to the core, and I frowned, trying to sit up to look at whoever was yelling. I barely made it up half an inch before my head fell heavily back on a metallic surface and filled with pain. I was paralyzed.
“What’s going on?” another woman’s voice said. She was slurring, as if she were drunk. But I realized that if I opened my mouth and tried to speak, it would come out sounding a lot worse than what she was managing.
“Everybody, please remain calm,” another musical voice, different from the one I heard on the rooftop, filled the room from a loud-speaker. He spoke in the same careful way, and despite his perfect English, I knew it was a foreign tongue to him. I tried to open my eyes and look around, but there were no lights. We were in a pitch black room, darker than the darkness behind my eyelids. I had to steady my breathing as panic began to well in my chest. I had never felt so claustrophobic in my life.
“Who are you?” the same hysterical woman who had first spoken shouted. “Let me out of here!”
“I assure you that you are all safe. You will not be damaged. We are the Thressl’n. From the planet Jenal’k. We will do everything in our power to protect you.”
“Let us go!” the hysterical woman sobbed.
But from the sound of the feedback, it was clear that the matter was settled. We would not be leaving the dark abyss of our cell. Nor would we be seeing much of anything.
Through my panic, my scientific mind began to turn. My intrigue was almost enough to combat the chill of fear in my breast. Who were the Thressl’n? The Vellreq had never mentioned them before. They had only spoken of a handful of inhabited planets nearby, one of them being Planet 139: the one I was assigned to. I was stricken by a sickening thought. Did the disappearance of their ship have anything to do with our abduction?
The Vellreq refused to tell the humans proper names for anybody in the galaxy, not even themselves, delighting in the strange conglomeration of syllables that we came up with to name things from distant lands. I had always found their manner of interacting and commenting on humans very insulting, but I couldn’t blame them for withholding information. With knowledge came power. Without it, we were nearly as clueless as before. With their knowledge came leverage in our societies and governments as well. And it wasn’t as if humans treated each other much better than the Vellreq treated us. I couldn’t blame them for acting the way that they did.
I was pulled out of my thoughts by another announcement from our Thressl’n captors.
“This is Commander Zerk’k Arkti,” the voice said.
My heart pounded hard in my chest. It was the same voice I had heard from behind me. It surprised me to hear it so much that I gasped out loud. Apparently, my paralysis was wearing off little by little.
“I’m sure you are all very unnerved right now,” Commander Zerk’k Arkti said. I found myself wondering if Zerk’k was a surname or a first name, or if his whole name was Zerk’kArkti. “But I give you my word. We will travel safely, and no harm will com
e to you once we reach our destination.”
There was something so tranquil and soothing about his voice. It had a masculine rumble, a dangerous edge to it, but somehow it made me feel safe. Maybe safer than I had ever felt in my life. Though that could be attributed to the fact that, to my knowledge, I had never been in life-threatening danger before. Until now.
“Please respect each other and our staff throughout the duration of our journey. Those who cooperate will be rewarded upon reaching the Planet Jenal’k. That is all.”
With a click and a brief moment of feedback, the beautiful voice left the dark room. And although I had the impression of other women around me…at least ten…maybe as many as a hundred…I had never felt more alone than when Commander Zerk’k Arkti’s voice left me in the dark.
Chapter 6
Commander Zerk’k Arkti
I released the button for the microphone and sighed. I couldn’t get the look of fear that had been etched on the human female’s perfect features out of my head. I felt guilty. Long after she was paralyzed, that look remained frozen in place by the strong Thressl’n compound in her blood stream. Once activated, it left most creatures weak or unable to move completely. It didn’t take much to paralyze the humans. They were much smaller and less dense than most beings we encountered. It probably had to do with their high water content.
Thressl’n people had learned a more efficient way of functioning, and our cycles tended to be more focused on the energy we could utilize from the sun. Our bodies are far more sustainable than those of the humans, and, in fact, most other beings in the galaxy. It’s an honor to be a member of the Thressl’n race.
“Is everything all right, sir?”
“Sorry?” I snapped out of my thoughts and looked up at Jerd.