Council of Magic

by J. L. Hendricks

  “Someone get a medic here immediately! I need my weapons officer back on task. “The Commander gave Rotna one more look and arched an eyebrow with the realization he wouldn’t get his weapons officer back on duty any time soon. The ship warbled as another torpedo hit a different spot on the same side of the ship. All of the warriors on the bridge looked to the Commander as he stumbled to the weapons console. His second in command made his way to the weapons station from across the bridge.

  The Commander loaded and launched four torpedoes and sent them off one after the other in rapid fire towards the enemy ship that had attacked them. This enemy had agreed to a tentative truce some years back, and would on occasion play chicken with the V’Zenian ships, but they never would have openly attacked like this.

  “Eereen, fire the laser cannons at will and target their port engine. Let’s see if we can’t damage their ship enough to keep them from firing any more torpedoes,” the Commander yelled as he handed over the weapons con to his First Officer.

  “Yes, Sir!” Eereen stated as he sat at the console. He quickly reviewed the ship in front of them and targeted the port side engines with both laser cannons and another round of torpedoes. He had to be careful since they did not have many left. This ship should not have seen any combat on this trip. It was only on a trip to Earth to pick up another load of slaves and possible mates for their species. In the four trips he has made, they never saw anything more than space dust in their path.

  The Chief Engineer reported to the Commander, “Sir, that last set of torpedoes damaged our engines along with the artificial gravity generator. I sent men to fix them, but I can’t guarantee that parts of the ship will have enough gravity to function normally.”

  “Listen up, this is the Commander. We have an issue with our gravity generator and certain areas could intermittently lose artificial gravity. Use the hand rails if you must move about the ship, otherwise strap in and prepare for a bumpy flight.” The Commander knew that his slaves in the holding cells had nothing to help them stay secure. He briefly wondered if he shouldn’t release their cell doors so they could at least find some seats to strap themselves into. But before he could think of it anymore, another round of torpedoes made their way past the energy shield his ship had up.

  “Someone tell me how those torpedoes are making their way past our shields! They should not have access to such technology! I want a solution before they blow us out of the universe! And I want something that will destroy them- five minutes ago!” The Commander sat down and strapped himself into his command chair. Then reviewed the schematics they had of the enemy ship based on their scans over the past twelve hours.

  The slaves in the holding cells had bumped around and most had nothing more severe than contusions. A few broke some bones and had cried out for help, but all of the guards who had been in their holding areas, had left before the battle began.

  “Hey, listen up! Grab ahold of the bars and wrap yourselves around them as best you can. This is worse than a ‘bumpy flight’”, one man yelled out to everyone. He believed that would be the only way to save them.

  The ship kept taking hits from torpedoes and laser cannons, and it jumped and jostled. When the gravity generator in the section housing the slaves died, most had already wrapped themselves around the bars. However, a few did not, they sat on the ground and held onto each other and tried to wait out the ride.

  This proved to be a fatal mistake. Three of the human slaves who had not held on tightly to the bars flew around like a cow in a tornado, hit their heads and died immediately. One had her head twisted so far back that she looked more like a rag doll thrown to the ground. The other two women continued to bump around their cell and hit the other women who were trying to hold on for their lives.

  “Oh please God, if you can hear me, help me to survive this, and I will do whatever you want me to do for the rest of my life. Even if that means I have to marry one of these alien freaks, I will do it.” One human woman, Natalie, prayed as she closed her eyes and tried not to think about the horrible ways she might die on this ship.

  One week earlier

  One minute I was checking out a nice looking man across the field, the next I was in his arms inside of some strange metallic room. “Wha…who are you? Where am I?” I whispered as my head spun.

  “Oh nuts! How are you awake already? I just transported you from Earth! You should have been out for hours.” This strange man looked at me with a scrunched up nose and a wrinkled forehead.

  I realized I was in his arms, which were as huge and firm as a cannon, no joke. “Hey big guns, you wanna let me down?” I looked into his violet eyes and was momentarily mesmerized by the most beautiful face I had ever laid eyes on. This man had to be pushing seven feet tall, with long, wavy, dark hair that went to his shoulders and a strong chiseled face. His clothes looked like something anyone would wear on the beach, tan board shorts and a conservative Hawaiian print shirt with surf boards on it.

  “I am not carrying any guns.” He had this perplexed look on his face, like he didn’t understand the name I had given him.

  “Dude, let me down! NOW!” I took my one free arm and banged it on his chest in hopes that he would get my meaning. Instead, my hand ached from hitting something as hard as concrete. There was a tingling sensation going throughout my hand, so I shook it out in hopes of that feeling dissipating faster, “Ow!”

  He set me down and took one step back. “I won’t hurt you.” Then he took one step closer and lightly brushed the hair away from my face. His touch sent chills down my back as I gasped from the connection I felt with him.

  In a whisper I asked him, “Who are you?” Then I took a step away from him. He was too close for me to breathe properly.

  “I am Commander Venay of the V’Zenian Empire. You are on my star cruiser, The Zamaya.” He looked down at me with something akin to pride in his eyes. I got the feeling that he was proud of his title.

  I looked around at my surroundings and tried to process what he just said, but a headache was developing. “Are you punking me?” There was an ache behind one eye, and I closed it and tried to rub my eyelid while breathing heavily.

  “What is ‘punking’?” He tilted his head slightly while looking at me with narrowed eyes, and then he scratched the back of his head.

  “This is some sort of joke, right? I mean the last thing I remember is seeing you from across the field and then waking up in your arms here. Something isn’t adding up. There is no way we are in space right now or even on a spaceship…” I looked around with pursed lips and rubbed my arms as they had goosebumps on them from the cold.

  “Did you drug me and take me to some sort of sound stage? I didn’t sign up to be on a reality TV show or anything like that. So if this is some sort of TV or movie production, you have the wrong person.” I slowly moved away from the giant and walked around the room. We were standing on a metallic floor, and the room was small, maybe a ten by ten square room. On one wall was what looked like a door, but it didn’t open out; there appeared to be no way for it to open. I could see the lines of the door, but no hinge. There was one small, circular window. Outside, they had done a great job of making it look like I was in space.

  We must have been facing out towards space because I couldn’t see Earth or even the moon. The view was filled with stars as far as I could see. One small speck looked like it could be a planet, as it was bigger than all of the other stars around us, but I couldn’t be sure. The room was pretty cold, so they were doing a great job of simulating outer space with environment as well as with the view.

  I looked back at the man who had taken me; and he was smiling at me. What was that about?

  “Do you believe me now? That planet you can see is actually what you humans call Jupiter.” He looked out the window, and I took the opportunity to get a better look at him. His skin color wasn’t different from mine, but he did have some weird colored veins going up his arm. I could believe the veins were sticking out, just like
any huge muscular guy’s arms. But the color had me perplexed. The veins pulsed and changed colors. One moment it was pulsing in a blueish tint, then the next it was pink, then orange. What kinda show was this?

  “Um, I think you have done a great job with the special effects outside this room. But I don’t believe that we are in space.” I walked over towards what appeared to be the door and pushed on it, nothing happened. “How do I open this door?”

  Venay walked up behind me and ran his hand over something on the side of the door, and it swished open, just like in the movies. The door moved sideways into the wall, and what I saw on the other side of the door freaked me out. There were more people, but they were in cages! Surrounding them were guards of some sort that looked similar to my captor, but they all were wearing some type of military uniform. The uniforms were tight fitting, button up shirts with a rank of some sort on the collars, not too different from an Army uniform. The pants were black cargo style, and they had a weapons belt with a dagger on one side and what appeared to be a toy phaser gun on the other.

  I started to walk out into that room, but he put his arm around my waist and brought me back inside as the door slid shut.

  “What are you doing? I want to go home! NOW!” I turned into him since he hadn’t let go of my waist yet and tilted my head up to look into his face.

  He looked down at me and with a smug look and said, “It isn’t safe for you to go out there, unless you want to end up in a cage with the other humans?” Then he arched one eyebrow.

  “Look, I don’t know what is going on here, but I did not sign up for this, and I want to go home. Would you please stop playing these games and let me out of here?” I put my hands on his chest and tried to push myself away from him, but he held on tight.

  “Human, tell me your name. Unless you want me to keep calling you Human?” He used his free hand to move my hair so that it fell along my back. Then he ran his hand through it. I had goosebumps again, but this time it wasn’t because I was cold. In fact, it was just the opposite. There seemed to be some sort of supernatural attraction. I didn’t want to be attracted to him, but I was. His pulsing veins were calling my name and asking me to kiss them, maybe even nibble on those along his neck. Sweat was starting to form on my brow as this man held me.

  As soon as I came back to my senses, I moved my shoulders in an effort to get his hand out of my hair.

  “Paris, my name is Paris. Can you please let me go now?” I couldn’t look into his eyes any longer; he was doing something to me with those hypnotic eyes of his. Instead, I focused on those cannons for biceps and watched as his veins pulsed out different colors, but the purple color seemed more dominant than the rest.

  “You are named after a city in France? Why?” He looked down at me with that perplexed look of his again, and then let me go. I walked back towards the wall and took a deep breath.

  “Wait, how do you know about the city in France?”

  “The last group of slaves I picked up came from there. Not too many of them spoke English, but our Universal Translator worked just fine with them. Well, until they tried taking it out of their head.” He chuckled at that moment and had a far off look on his face, as though he was remembering something funny.

  “One of them swore we were conducting human experiments on them and that the sub-dermal translator we installed into the side of the skull, near their ear, was an alien listening device.” Again, he laughed at the memory, while motioning with his arms out wide. “Where do you humans come up with this stuff? I mean, really, an alien listening device?” He shook his head as he continued to laugh.

  “If we wanted to listen in on your conversations, we have much better devices for that. The sub-dermal implants used over 60 years ago were never any good, so we only used them for a short time. But we did take them out of everyone we implanted them in, well… almost everyone. There were a couple who had died so we left them alone. It isn’t nice to dig up graves.”

  “It doesn’t feel like you have implanted anything into my skull.” I moved my hands around my head feeling for anything out of place and found nothing wrong.

  “Because I haven’t-not yet anyway. During the trip, we examine and perform the implantation so that all of you can understand us before we arrive to your new home. All of the guards and soldiers on this ship speak English so there shouldn’t be any linguistic issues until we get home.”

  “Does that mean that all of your prisoners are from North America?”

  He thought for a moment, “Hm, I believe so. We picked up a few in Japan, but they were speaking English before we picked them up. We do try to keep similar languages on each trip. It’s much easier that way for the crew to interact with you humans until the translators are installed.”

  I thought about his earlier question and decided I might as well answer him. Maybe he would let me go if he thought I was a real person. Isn’t that what they teach you to do if you are ever kidnapped? Make the assailant view you as a real human being and hope they decide to release you, or at the very least not hurt you. But does that work if they are crazy? Cuz this guy is certifiably nuts!

  I looked at him and gave him my best smile, “My parents wanted to honeymoon in Paris, but they couldn’t afford it. Both of my parents were teachers, and as you know, they don’t make much money. But they were happy to honeymoon in Vegas, where I was conceived. Instead of naming me Vegas, they decided to name me for the place of their dreams. She always said that she loved me more than Paris, which was kinda funny when I was a kid.” I looked down and stopped smiling when I remembered what happened to them.

  “That’s a pretty story. I like your name.” He walked over to a different wall and pushed a button I hadn’t noticed before. The wall opened up and a sofa slid out before the wall closed. He motioned for me to sit down, and then he sat next to me. He was a bit too close for my comfort.

  “Alright Venay, tell me what is really going on and where I am.”

  “I might not look like it, but I am not from Earth, and we are on a spaceship heading to my home planet to be precise.” He put his arm along the back of the couch.

  “Um, I hate to break it to you, but we aren’t moving. Did your special effects equipment breakdown or something?” I giggled at my stupid joke, but there was no way I was falling for this lame story of his.

  “Of course we haven’t left yet. We still have a shipment of slaves we are waiting for.” He shook his head like he couldn’t believe what I said.

  “What do you mean slaves? Slavery was abolished a very long time ago and is illegal all over the world.” Who was this guy to joke about something like that? Slavery isn’t a joke; it is really serious. But something in the back of my head was starting to warn me. What I was seeing and hearing was beginning to sound like it could be real.

  “Human slaves are very real on my planet. I make one trip a year here to pick up a ship full of slaves to bring back. However, some of them are lucky enough to become mates to my species, if they so choose.” He stopped talking and started checking out my body, and his eyes spent too much time on my chest for my liking.

  “Hey, alien boy, up here.” I pointed to my face, “My eyes are up here in case you were wondering. You know, since you are an alien you might not understand human anatomy.” Hmph men are all the same no matter where they come from.

  “Oh, I understand human anatomy just fine. My mother is human. That is why I look so similar to you.” He stood up and turned around so I could admire his fine “assets”, which only made my body hum and feel all tingly inside.

  “Then what is your father?” He was taking this story pretty far, but sadly I was starting to believe him. This belief caused my heart to speed up and my head to feel foggy. I hoped I wasn’t going to pass out.

  We were interrupted by a communication in some foreign language that was quite guttural. I had no clue what they were speaking, maybe Klingon? He stood up and turned towards me.

  “Paris, you might want to watch this.
” He put his hand out for me to take. I hesitated, wondering what he was up to. “You are safe with me; I promise you will not be harmed.” He put his hand out again, and I took it. Venay pulled me up, and we walked towards the one window in the room. He still held my hand. With his body so close to mine, I wanted him to do more than just hold my hand. My stupid body was aching to have him hold me in his embrace again. What is wrong with me? This guy is crazy, and I want him to hold me?

  He kept a hold of my hand and motioned for me to look out the window, which was more like a porthole in a cruise ship than a window. “Wow, are we really moving? It doesn’t feel like it.” The stars outside were slowly moving and that planet looked as though we were approaching it. It didn’t feel like we were moving, more like a 3D ride where we were stationary and everything around us was moving. Then I felt it, gravity was shifting, as was my reality. I felt heavier for a moment and almost fell over, but Venay let go of my hand and stood behind me with his arms wrapped around me, just like I wanted a few moments earlier.

  This feeling was strange, my head was spinning, and my eyesight was a bit blurred. I think the cause was two-fold; blurry eyesight was from the movement in “space,” and the head spinning was from him being so near me. “What is this, one of those 4D rides at an amusement park? I know we are not in space. It is impossible.”

  “Paris, it is very possible. Technically, I am part of a superior species that has had the ability to travel through space for well over 200 Earth years.” He whispered in my ear, which just served to send a shiver down my spine. It was either excitement or fear, or maybe both. The idea that his species had been abducting people from my planet for two centuries was very frightening, but at the same time I couldn’t quite believe it.