Stranded in Space

by Rinelle Grey

  Tyris had dispensed with the guards, after Kugah’s help in the engine room, but he’d quietly told the crew that he’d prefer the alien not be left completely alone.

  Kugah stopped outside his door, and looked back at Amelie. They didn’t have a tablet with them, so Kugah was limited to his broken speech. “KaGeeGee.” He inclined his head.

  Amelie suspected it was his way of saying goodnight.

  Trouble was, she didn’t want to leave it there. It felt uncomfortable and unfinished, and she didn’t want that.

  “Can I come in for a minute?” she asked.

  Kugah stared at her for a second, then jerked his head in a nod.

  Not the most elegant acceptance ever, but Amelie would take it.

  As she followed Kugah into his room, she wondered what she was doing. Tyris had asked her to learn more about the alien, and up until now all her interactions with Kugah could fall under that umbrella.

  Going into his room with him, alone, somehow felt like it took their relationship from professional, to personal.

  What excuse did she have that could explain it? It wasn’t like anyone couldn’t ask him questions now, and he didn’t seem averse to answering them. Her job was done. She should be getting back to her patients and moving on.

  But that wouldn’t satisfy the craving she felt. She wanted to know more about him. What was his family like? What was his favourite food? What did he think of everyone here on this ship?

  What did he think of her?

  The question in her mind startled her.

  What did she care what Kugah thought of her? She was just his doctor, nothing more.

  The door slid closed behind them and they were alone in the room. Suddenly Amelie felt distinctly uncomfortable. She shouldn’t be here.

  Kugah was unaware of her discomfort. He stood over near the computer terminal in the wall in his otherwise bare room, and turned it on. As soon as the screen came on, he started typing.

  Amelie couldn’t just walk out. Not after the day he’d had. He’d been upset at Talah’s accusations, she was sure of it. If she walked out now, she’d just exacerbate that feeling. She’d have to stay for a short while.

  But she’d remember not to put herself in this situation again.

  “Kugah sorry for making Amelie uncomfortable.”

  Kugah’s words on the screen caused Amelie’s heart to take a leap. Did he know what she was thinking somehow?

  Then she realised he was referring to the scene back at the mess hall. Just as she’d thought, it had upset him, and he thought it had upset her.

  “That wasn’t your fault Kugah. Don’t let it get to you,” she said. “Some people have trouble accepting people who are different to them. There are always people like that.”

  “Kugah not people.

  His response was painfully true. Amelie stared at him for a moment, really letting herself see him.

  It was hard to get more different. The black armour glinted in the artificial light, and though his wings were folded back and unusable in the tight interior of the ship, they still added to the size and bulk that made people afraid. His emotionless eyes made them uncomfortable too. How could you predict how someone would act when you couldn’t see any expression in their eyes? And even though they were retracted, no one who had been outside the ship the day he had flown at them would ever forget the spurs that hid behind his wrists. They were a constant reminder that he could kill and destroy.

  He stared back, and Amelie swore she could see his shoulders slump.

  No matter how he looked on the outside, he still had thoughts and feelings, just like everyone else. Amelie took a few steps forwards, covering the distance that separated, and put her hand on his arm. “You might not be human, but your feelings are just as valid and important as everyone else’s.”

  Kugah shrugged, the movement strange with his solid black exoskeleton, and turned to focus on the screen.

  Amelie watched the words appear. “Kugah not valid. Kugah a weapon. Weapons not need feelings. Not other than anger anyway.”

  The hurt he felt went deep. Amelie wondered what the experience had been like for him. Had it been forced on him, or had he volunteered, not knowing what it would be like?

  Maybe one day she would find out the answers to those questions, but right now, she needed to deal with the hurt.

  An unhappy warrior alien, capable of killing everyone on this ship, wasn’t good for anyone. Looked like she did have a good reason for being here after all. It wasn’t just about her curiosity, or the feelings she couldn’t explain.

  “Kugah, you may look fierce on the outside. You may even be capable of horrible things. But all of us are. Your skin and weapons don’t make you a bad person, how you act does. And so far, I haven’t seen you do anything other than help people.”

  “That’s because you don’t know me inside. If Amelie did, she wouldn’t like Kugah now.”

  The written words conveyed the hurt just as well as a tone of voice would have.

  “We’ve all done things we’ve regretted,” Amelie said softly. She almost had herself. If Marlee and Tyris hadn’t been around, to show her another way, who knows where she might be now. “But we can’t change the past. We can only choose a different future.”

  Was she talking to Kugah, or herself?

  She had her own set of regrets. Maybe they weren’t as serious as Kugah’s, she didn’t know what he’d done, and she didn’t need to. She blamed herself enough for that one incident in college. If only she’d known then what she did now. She would have stayed away from Malo, never gotten pregnant. Even if she had, she would never have left it so long to seek medical attention when she realised something was wrong. If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t be facing the fact that she would never have children of her own.

  Who was she kidding? You couldn’t escape the past. It just kept following you wherever you went.

  “Kugah don’t want to be angry,” Kugah typed. “Don’t want to hurt people. But it’s hard without a working spaceship.”

  For a moment, Amelie was confused about what he meant. Then she remembered. Kerit had agreed to help Kugah find a new home. That was what he’d been searching for when he’d crashed.

  Now she realised more. “You want to go somewhere where you won’t hurt anyone?” she guessed.

  Kugah just nodded.

  Amelie’s heart ached for him. “Kugah, you’re not going to hurt anyone here. Just because they’re afraid of you doesn’t mean that what they fear is true.”

  “Kugah get angry when people yell at him. If he lose control, too strong for you to stop. Could hurt all of you. Don’t want that. Need to be alone, away from others.”

  Amelie looked at him. She should feel afraid. He had just admitted to not being able to control his anger. But though he seemed worried he might hurt someone, she hadn’t seen any actual evidence of that herself. Everything he had done so far had shown remarkable restraint.

  “You’re not going to hurt anyone, Kugah,” she said softly.

  Kugah shook his head, as though he couldn’t believe her words. His shoulders were slumped, and he couldn’t even meet her eyes.

  She wished there was something more she could do to take away the pain. She’d spent a lot of time hating herself for the mistakes she’d made, but she’d found solace in her medical career. Being able to help others had relieved some of her self-loathing. Maybe she could help Kugah find that too.

  “The fact that they’re alive to feel afraid of you at all is all due to you,” Amelie reminded him. “If you hadn’t helped Nerris turn the AWP off, I don’t think any of us would have survived that jump.”

  Kugah lifted his eyes to hers, and nodded slowly. “Kugah want to help Amelie and the other humans.”

  “And you did. Very much. You should be proud of that.”

  Kugah stared down at her, and took a step towards her.

  Amelie’s breath caught in the back of her throat as he reached out his hand and ran it thr
ough the hair that fell down the side of her face. In the process, his fingers brushed her cheek, ever so slightly, like a feather touch.

  She hadn’t thought that the huge, armoured alien could be so gentle.

  Before she could react, his fingers brushed her cheek again, deliberately this time. Goosebumps rose on her arms.

  Her mind told her she should pull back, that this was totally inappropriate.

  The outraged image was spoilt by a sudden curiosity over whether humans were in any way compatible with the alien. She had to force her eyes not to drift down to his crotch, looking to see if he had the right equipment.

  He wore no clothes and she had already given him a through medical exam. He didn’t have any of the bits a human male had. Not unless they were hidden somewhere under that armour.

  Heck, she was just assuming he was a male even. Or that this race had male and female divisions.

  She didn’t know anywhere near enough about him or his species to make that assumption.

  Pulling back, Amelie said hurriedly, “I should go check on my patients. There could be someone who needs me.”

  This time, she was glad for Kugah’s expressionless face. She was sure her words were hurting him, but she didn’t want to think about that. She tried to convince herself that maybe he didn’t mean his caress like that. Maybe he was just being friendly.

  What she was really more concerned about was her reaction. If he’d been a regular old human guy that she felt like this about, she wouldn’t be responsible for her actions right now.

  And that thought made her uncomfortable enough to back towards the door. “I’ll catch you later, Kugah, okay?”

  Without waiting to hear his answer, she fled from the room, not looking back.

  She didn’t head to the med bay though. She had no current patients, and she’d get a notification if anyone urgently wanted to see her out of hours. She almost wished someone would. She needed the distraction.

  Instead, she headed for her room. She needed to be alone for a while, to not think about this.

  No such luck. Half way down the corridor, Tyris fell into step beside her.

  “Hi, Amelie.”

  What did he want? She’d already found out everything he needed to know about the alien. Did he have another task for her now?

  She forced her voice to be neutral when she replied. “Hi, Tyris. What’s up?”

  “Oh, nothing.” Tyris’s reply was a little too innocent. “Just wondering how you were going? That was a pretty intense situation back at the mess hall, but you handled it well.”

  “I just did what I had to,” Amelie said gruffly. “That alien has some pretty serious hurt under all that armour, but he’s doing a lot better at responding politely than many of the people here.”

  “I know,” Tyris nodded. “I can understand people being afraid of him though. Do you think it would be better if we kept him separate? Nerris suggested bringing him to dinner, and I thought people would be okay with it after all he’d done to help us.”

  Amelie stopped walking to turn to look at Tyris. “That would probably sweep the problem under the carpet, yes. And I guess since Kugah is only with us until we find him a new home, it might be the best solution for us. It’s just going to hurt him more though.”

  It made her immeasurably sad to realise that Tyris’s suggestion was probably best. She wished she could believe people would be able to see past the armour and weapons Kugah wore, to see the man she could see underneath.

  But they couldn’t. They didn’t know him like she did.

  Tyris’s eyes searched her face, and Amelie couldn’t help feeling scrutinised. “Amelie, are you sure you aren’t getting a little too close to him?”

  His words were uncomfortably similar to what she’d been thinking herself, but she still couldn’t help feeling outraged. “It’s my job to see everyone as equally valid. And yes, I’ve become friends with Kugah, since I’ve spent a lot of time with him in the last few days. Just like I’m friends with a lot of people on this ship. Is there a problem with that?”

  “No, not at all,” Tyris said quickly. “Just so long as that’s all it is.”

  Amelie flushed hot, then cold. Had she somehow given away the strange feelings she had for Kugah? How could Tyris guess when she didn’t even know what it meant herself?

  Without stopping to think, she reacted, pushing those thoughts away. She summoned all the outrage she could, partially fuelled by Talah’s reaction to Kugah and Tyris’s decisions. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded.

  Tyris hesitated, then said quietly, “Look, I know you went back to his room with him.”

  Relief flooded through Amelie. That was all. He couldn’t see all those thoughts inside her. She wasn’t giving her feelings away. He was just looking at her actions.

  Even so, he had no right to question them. “You asked us to make sure someone was with Kugah when he was walking around the ship. That’s all I was doing.”

  “That doesn’t necessitate going inside his room.”

  Amelie stared at him in disbelief. “Were you spying on me?”

  Tyris had the grace to look slightly uncomfortable. “As you said, I need to keep an eye on him. I might have dispensed with the guards, but I’m not about to let him just wander around the ship without even knowing where he is.”

  His explanation only slightly mollified Amelie. “That changed from keeping an eye on him to spying when you asked me what I was doing. That’s my business. It’s outside of my work hours, I can go where I like.”

  This was most unlike Tyris. He took his duty to protect those on the Resolution seriously, but he had always respected their personal rights.

  “Of course,” Tyris said quickly. “Your time is free to spend however you like, you know that. I’m just concerned about you, as a friend.”

  That made Amelie feel even worse. “Kugah isn’t going to hurt me,” she said gruffly.

  “That’s not what I’m worried about.”

  Amelie’s heart beat a little faster. Tyris did suspect something. How could he when she’d only just realised herself that her feelings for Kugah were more complicated than she wanted to admit. How could Tyris know?

  He had to be talking about something else. Something she couldn’t see because she had sex on the brain.

  “What do you mean?” she demanded.

  “Look, he’s not like us,” Tyris said uncomfortably. “We don’t know anything about his people or where he comes from, or even really what he thinks yet. I just don’t want you to get hurt, that’s all. And from where I’m standing, it looks like you’re heading right for it.”

  “That doesn’t mean that being friends with him is going to hurt me,” Amelie insisted.

  “If it’s just a friendship, then no. But it’s starting to look like more than that, Amelie. The way you were holding his hand back in the mess hall, and the way he looks at you. If you don’t have the wrong idea, he certainly does. Don’t get me wrong, even though I was concerned when Kerit brought him back to the ship, he’s proven his worth. I have nothing against him. But how can we even be compatible with an alien? There’s no way you’d ever be able to have children with him.”

  Amelie just stared at him. She’d barely even noticed holding Kugah’s hand in the mess hall. She’d just been helping him feel more comfortable. Hadn’t she? Her face heated. Had everyone else noticed? Were they all whispering about this?

  Then his last words hit her, and the irony of it wasn’t lost on her. Tyris might be focused on babies right now, with one of his own so recently, but that was the least of her concerns. She was never having kids anyway.

  “I appreciate your concern, Tyris, but you have nothing to worry about. My relationship with Kugah is purely platonic, and will remain so. I have no interest in a relationship—with the alien, nor anyone else.”

  She hoped her brisk tone would put him off, but she should have known better than that. He looked at her searchingly for a moment,
then nodded slowly. “Well, if you ever need to talk, you know where to find me.”

  And with that unexpected comment, he turned and walked off, leaving Amelie staring after him in surprise.

  He hadn’t been horrified by the thought of her caring for Kugah, he’d been concerned about her getting hurt. That wasn’t what she had expected.

  Chapter 13

  Kugah suppressed a shiver as he caught sight of the black spaceship lying in the shuttle bay. He hadn’t seen it since it had been brought on board the Resolution. In fact, he hadn’t seen it since he’d left after the crash. He’d had no wish to.

  He didn’t now. It only reminded him of the Gokak, and he didn’t want to be reminded of them. He didn’t want to remember how sinister it looked, or how like his own black armour its hull was.

  Those were the last things he wanted to remember right now. They marked him as alien and dangerous. The connection didn’t help his mood any.

  Even Amelie had fled last night when he had given in to the impulsive urge and tried to get close to her.

  He pushed the thoughts away before they could pull him down, and focused on what Nerris was saying.

  “It took some damage, didn’t it?” the engineer commented.

  Kugah nodded, enough of an answer. He’d brought a tablet for replying where necessary, but typing was so awkward that he saved it for when it was really needed.

  Instead, he took another look at the damage himself.

  The asteroid impact had left a huge rent down one side, tearing out half the guidance systems. That was what had caused him to crash. That damage though, looked minor compared to the panels that had smashed and buckled when he’d hit the ground.

  Kugah’s heart sank. He’d forgotten how bad the destruction was. Nerris was imagining things, if he thought this ship would ever fly again.

  Nerris though, wasn’t deterred. He walked once around the ship, examining the damage from all sides.