Eban's Command: Scifi Alien Abduction Romance (Science Fiction Alien Romance) (Survival Wars Book 2)

by Hana Starr

  Tullia laughed a little. “Isn’t it? Well, he didn’t quite say the word but it was implied. It’s not often that he suggests we all relax, so it’s best to take advantage of it when he does.” They walked on in quiet for a bit and were almost rejoined with the crowd filtering into the atrium when the bakery manager spoke again. “I know he’s just trying to lift our spirits but I almost wish that he would let us be sad for a little bit longer. I don’t think any of us are quite over our disappointment. I’m certainly not.”

  Saffron nodded, but then reached out and stopped the other woman. Looking right into her eyes to hold her into place, she said, “I know it’s hard. I hate it, too. I really feel like I belong with you all now, and it hit me hard, too. I just want to help. And I know that we’ll get somewhere eventually.” Hopefully sooner rather than later. “But, everything happens as it’s meant to be. We just weren’t meant to live there. The next place we come across will be better. And the one after that? The best.”

  Tullia stared at her for a moment, and then nodded. “That’s an interesting way to think about it. I will keep that in mind and spread it around when I hear anyone expressing their doubt. Thank you.”

  Watching the other woman head out into the atrium ahead of her, Saffron felt amused again. It’d be funny if I somehow managed to turn everyone into hippies.

  Resigning herself to having to spend just a bit more time hanging around with other people before she was able to sleep, she stepped out and started to look around for a good place to sit and enjoy the quaint music.

  Eban’s voice rang out over the din of the crowd. “Icari! My people!”

  Everyone turned in his direction. He stood in the midst of them. Saffron stood up on her bench to be able to see him over the surprised fluttering of wings all around her, not minding when feathers and firm mechanisms bumped against her.

  He wore his wings, pristine and beautiful, raised up high over his head to catch the light in a fading, somber halo. The noise died down rapidly, respectfully.

  “My people,” he began, “I know that the times have been difficult for us but we must remember that we have lost nothing! In fact, we have more now than we have in quite a few years. Our lives will move on, and we must be thankful for our new bounty. I propose a short celebration tonight, and then a day of holiday tomorrow.

  “I have already spoken with our wonderful chefs.”

  Saffron noticed her kitchen friends elbowing each other and giggling secretively. How they had kept something like this from her when they were such gossipers, she had no idea!

  “We have enough prepared in our future to have a feast tomorrow. Everyone will eat their fill, and we will rejoice in our continued existence!”

  He wasn’t much for eloquent speech endings, so he just shot into the air towards the end. Crying out and cheering, the Icari around him rose into the sky as well in a swelling wave. The air filled with jubilance, and Saffron watched the sky-dancers with a smile creaking on her face.

  A scuffle of wings behind her caught her attention. She turned, and felt her breath catch. Eban stood right behind her, looking tentative and youthful, yet incredibly old at the same time. “Saffron, can I talk to you? Please?”

  I can’t let him do this.

  “Shouldn’t you be looking for Karree?” she said icily, turning away. Then, he caught her shoulder.

  “If you think I’m in love with Karree, you are quite wrong,” he said, low and dangerous in her ear. Her breath caught.

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that I figured out the reasons you rejected me,” he murmured, “and I wanted to tell you that I understand. And explain to you that you are wrong. I do not belong to anyone, nor am I expected to be –or not to be. Our customs are very free as far as relationships. Each must decide their own. That is our way. And I decided quite a bit ago that I wanted you.”

  She looked down at her feet. “Eban, but…”

  “Please?” he said, not begging, but close to it. “Please just give me a chance? Just treat me as a man. Not a commander, and not an alien. Unless you aren’t interested?”

  Not everything will turn out the way I think. As it should be.

  Really, she didn’t have a choice if this was the way her life was meant to be. “Okay,” she said softly. “But, how?”

  Joy lit up his face, and he grinned happily. “Wonderful! I think we need some time alone. Why don’t we…”

  The ship shook, slamming Icari everywhere to the ground or against the walls. Several fell out of the sky, while others tumbled awkwardly before just barely managing to catch themselves. Feet tossed out from beneath her, Saffron fell to the ground, her reaching hands dragging Eban down with her.

  “What happened?” someone screamed.

  Another blast rocked the ship, an explosion that lit up the command room with hellish orange and white fire.

  “Eban!” Saffron cried out. “What’s going on?”

  His eyes were horrified. She stared at him. What was wrong with him? He was just sitting there on the floor with the flames reflected in his eyes, billowing black smoke melding with his dark irises. “Eban!” She grabbed his shoulder and shook it roughly, his head bobbling back and forth on a frighteningly loose neck. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “It’s them,” he whispered.

  “Who?” She shook him again. “Get up! Your people need you!”

  Everyone was screaming, panicked, flapping violently. Fights were breaking out, fists flying. And yet another explosion lit up the front of the ship. Eban turned his head, staring right into her eyes. His gaze was glassy and empty, shattered. “This fire,” he whispered. “The smoke is poison. These are the invaders who destroyed Daeden when I was a kid.”

  Fear seized her throat but she shoved it away, focusing on his eyes as he lost himself in a dark memory. But, she couldn’t let that happen. Shaking him again, she snarled into his face, “If it’s poison, you need to do something! Ramp up the air filtration! You’re not a kid this time. You’re a commander. You can fight back against them.”

  For a long moment, nothing seemed to register. His jaw was slack with terror. Looking toward the front of the command room, Saffron suddenly saw huge, dark shapes moving amidst the flame.

  Then, Eban blinked. His whole demeanor changed, and he lurched to his feet. “Icari!” he screamed. “To the rafters! All the way up, towards the center! Help each other! Safety first, retaliation later!”

  Nearly everyone was already doing that, but the grounded stragglers finally went aloft. Parents grabbed their children, and a group of elders held hands as they struggled to rise; Tullia swooped over and began to help.

  Strong arms wrapped around Saffron’s middle, tugging her upwards. Eban held her close to his body, his wings thundering as he dragged her up to the nearest perch. Settling down upon it, he took in a huge gulp of air and struggled for the next. On and on, they worked their way higher. Everyone else was already safe, fluttering and calling out nervously as they watched their commander save the flightless human.

  Far below, Saffron caught a glimpse of the attackers. They looked like golems, naked and forged from earth and crystal with hammer-like fists. In their very front was one twice as large as the rest, quite obviously their leader.

  “Grab this,” Eban grunted, and shoved her at a perch before letting go of her. Fear filled her, her stomach fluttering maddeningly as she struggled for a grip, the surface too round and wide. Still, she clung to it for all she was worth and shouted over her shoulder.

  “I believe in you, Eban!”

  “I won’t let anything happen,” he swore, and then receded from her.

  Twisting as best as she could to watch, she saw him dive to a group of mechanics. A few rapid words exchanged, and the small group broke away from the rest and quickly disappeared through the nearest entrance.

  I can only assume they’re going to the air filters. Good! Her heart raced. Her palms were slick with sweat, making it ev
en harder to hold on. But, what about the guys down there? How did they find us? Were they following all this time?

  Really, she knew there would never be an answer. Most likely, they just happened to be in the area. More worryingly, they might have seen the receptacle go down to that little planet and followed the signs.

  Eban was fluttering around, speaking with various men. He was too far away for her to hear, and she had to turn around and press herself harder against the perch to keep from falling, but she had faith in him. Whatever happened, he would pull them through.

  Even if they all died now, she would die knowing he did everything he could.

  Suddenly, her foot slipped. Then, her other foot. “Eban!” she started to cry out, but her hands were too slick to hold on long enough for him to notice. She couldn’t get back up. Then, she dropped.

  The last thing she saw was Tullia staring at her in horror, arm uselessly outstretched.

  The world started to spin crazily around her. Even with the low gravity, there was nothing she could do. All she could see were flashing colors. All she could feel was vertigo, her brain scrambling with dizziness, and the friction of the air system scraping her skin. There was no telling how fast she fell, how close the ground was. She couldn’t do anything, couldn’t move on her own, though the wind flailed her limbs and her head suddenly snapped back.

  Her neck cracked suddenly, and everything came to a jarring halt.

  “Don’t worry,” Eban murmured. “I’ll always catch you when you fall.”

  It hurt right at the base of her skull when she moved her head to look up. They were drifting now, pulled steadily downward, with half of her body cradled against the Icari commander. Directly below, the attackers were thumping their hammerlike fists on the ground and roaring.

  Saffron tried to speak, but no words would come from her struggling lungs. Nothing hurt, but everything ached from whiplash. Eban just smiled down at her a little. “Don’t worry.” Then, he looked up at the ranks of his people all crowded on the rafters. “Icari!” he called. “To me!”

  In a rainbow cascade, the Icari dove directly for the ground. Tullia was the fastest, wings pressed flat to her back as she dropped into a hurtling fall that saw her crashing right into one of the invaders. They fell to the ground and began to brawl, but the golem-like creature was too slow compared to Tullia’s lightning-fast jabs. Light flashed across a paring knife, the same one she always kept tucked into her harness. Blood spurted through the air as she slammed it into every available weak point in the gaps of the invader’s armor.

  The fighting began in earnest as Eban came to a rest on the ground behind a bench, one wing spread out to cover Saffron. The Icari were small and slender, tossed around like mere ants, and only a few of them had any weapons, but there was a strength in numbers that could not be denied. In only a moment, she watched as Karree launched herself from a perch, slammed one into the ground with her fists, and then leapt away again with blood seeping from her hands; the moment the creature hit the floor, a swarm of children leapt upon it, clawing and kicking. Here and there, she saw a broader pair of Icari who had never spoken to her. They were obligatory guards, and they flashed their weapons now, firing again and again. When they had to reload, one covered the other.

  And so it went on.

  The fire at the front of the ship was spreading, smoke blown closer and closer to the battlefield by the air currents. Most of it drifted up due to the lack of gravity but some of it was far too close to the delicate-bodies Icari. Saffron swallowed hard, already able to taste the acrid tang of poison in the back of her throat. “Eban, the smoke…”

  “I know,” he said tightly. “I dispatched the filtration workers first thing. With any luck, they’ll…”

  A peal of thunder sounded in her ears, so painful and enormous she thought her ears might split and her brain would liquefy. Clamping her hands to the side of her head, Saffron shut her eyes tight; nothing would have been able to stop her from hearing Eban’s cry of pain, and a resounding crash as his body was flung.

  “Found…you,” a garbled voice groaned, sounding like an earthquake. The sound of it thrummed in her chest like a bass drum beat. Hardly daring to open her eyes, she saw a mountain standing over her. It was the largest invader, the leader with jagged protrusions thrusting up from his back. He wasn’t look at her, however.

  Rolling her eyes, she saw Eban struggling to sit up. One of his wings hung crooked and she had to strangle a gasp, forcing herself to remember that the wings weren’t actually part of him.

  “Nothing better to do, huh?” Eban grunted, reaching to the floor and pushing himself up to his feet. “Must be really bad at your job.”

  The mountain grunted, then flashed a mouthful of sharp teeth. Lifting up one foot, it took an eternity to fall again before the next could rise. He lumbered, but so steadily that Saffron had no idea how anyone was managing to knock these creatures over at all. “I remember…you,” the invader said. “You…ran away.”

  Finally standing up, Eban shrugged out of his vest and his wings crashed to the floor. “Yes. I ran away. But not this time.”

  Just then, an enormous howl of wind, like a hurricane, swept through the atrium. Icari everywhere went tumbling like drifting weeds in old Western TV shows. Even Saffron was pushed across the floor, her back and neck pressing painfully into the legs of the bench.

  The mountainous invader turned his head nearly all the way around to look over his shoulder. The fire was blazing as strong as ever, but the smoke was being sucked rapidly into vents. Already, the burning in her lungs faded.

  The mechanics reached the filtration system, she thought.

  It wasn’t enough to distract the invaders for long. Once more, their leader turned to face Eban, but the commander was already there. He held in his hand a slim piece of machinery with an open circular area at one end, resembling a gun if not for the glowing coming from within.

  “Don’t think I haven’t studied you,” Eban said grimly. “And collected every bit of information I could find on you, from those you terrorized. It ends today. Go back to where you came from.”

  A clublike arm lifted into the air.

  The shot was soundless but glaringly blue, not at all like the soothing interior lights. It burned her eyes, and a much cleaner scent of burning caught in her nostrils as the invading leader reeled back, a hole burnt so severely into his upper arm that she could see…

  She didn’t want to see, and looked away.

  The end came quickly, after that. Injured and warned, the invader retreated and gathered his people to him with a long, drawn-out call. They returned to him like dogs, and wandered back the way they came without so much as another word.

  That’s impossible!

  “Not quite,” Eban grunted, leaning down over her. She hadn’t been quite aware that she’d spoken aloud, but it didn’t matter because he was holding her, cradling the back of her head firmly in one hand, and her neck with the other. “They’re just like any other bully. Took them twenty years to try and come back for more, but when the victim pushes back, they scurry away like that. So it is with anything else. But, they won’t be bothering us ever again.”

  Nothing he said in that moment would have really convinced her of that fact, but it didn’t matter. His hands on her body, cradling the part of her that hurt the most, felt almost heavenly. And she was so, so tired, her body slumping against his.

  “I cannot stay,” he confessed softly. “My people need me now. But I swear to you that I will return.”

  “I believe you,” she sighed, and the last thing she saw before another Icari bent over her to take his place was the promise in his eyes.

  Chapter Ten

  The damage was extensive but not nearly as bad as it could have been. That was what Saffron would say, wasn’t it? He tried to believe it because he knew it was his job to find a way to bolster his people, but they hadn’t even had time to recover from the last letdown and now this! Would he never se
e peace?

  He sighed, and lightly stroked the smoke-smeared surface of his command console. Poison buzzed unpleasantly at his skin, but it would do no harm unless he decided to lick it for some reason. Really, nothing was ever really as bad as it could have been but that didn’t lessen the reality that they had taken some very heavy blows. The explosions had broken screens and scrambled equipment, though the resulting fires and smoke had only clogged and overheated other assorted machinery. With the dust all settled now, and with everyone having removed their wings before entering to avoid stirring anything up, eventually it would be cleaned enough to the point where they could start checking and repairing systems. As it turned out, metal was much more resistant to burning than simple homes.

  Unfortunately, not everything could be so easily fixed as computers.