Dad smiles at the other man, nods at him, and proceeds to answer his question: “My dear friend, humans are short-lived creatures with even shorter tempers and irrational ambitions. They wouldn’t ask for our help even if they had a foot in the grave. The Alliance, however, retains the right to meddle with other species’ affairs if the situation endangers their neighboring civilizations. Incompetence can be a dangerous thing, especially when we’re talking about interplanetary politics. We’re not here to save the humans. We’re here to save others from the human problems.”
That’s my father then; the great diplomat, the man of the hour, the one that always seems to appease the angry crowds. Honestly, I don’t know how he does it. I would just have punched the guy in the face, between those antenna-like eyes that flop all around.
“You’re right, you Great Elder. I understand. But, I’m not only concerned about the crisis on Yaerus anymore. Humans seem so occupied on snatching the Second Rank from the Vlatall that makes their crisis management slow and sloppy. It’s not only that, but they also endanger other species with their incompetence. Even if we manage to find a way to save them all, it’s already too late to help them retrieve their planet without proceeding with a Purge,” the other man continues in a calmer manner.
Frankly, no matter how much I hate to agree with him, he’s right. Yaerus is done for. The reanimated corpses have ravaged most of the planet’s main cities, including Mosa. It’s almost impossible to find a solution now, not without risking more lives. Even with the overdeveloped Phadh technology and knowledge, it still remains a mystery how the humans stumbled upon such a dangerous disease.
My father sighs, probably searching for the right words to counter the ambassador's claims. That’s what I thought at first. When I finally catch up with the events, I have to use every ounce of my self-restraint from cupping my mouth. He’s angry.
When he finally calms down, at least to my experienced eyes, he proceeds into answering the other man’s question. “I didn’t claim that we can save their planet, fellow ambassador. Right now, I’ve lost my patience towards the human race as a whole. But don’t be mistaken. Humans have long surpassed their Third Rank Status. They’re already deep into the Second Rank and rising.
“Yaerus might be dead, but humans have countless planets at their disposal to colonize. This is far from being over, my friend.”
The other man stands in surprise before my father. To be honest, I’m surprised myself. His claims are dangerous, especially at a meeting hosted by humans. To openly speak about his worries over the human expansion is a sign of bad things to come.
“Excuse me, gentlemen. I couldn’t help but overhear your discussion.”
Oh no. The bad things came faster than I expected them. That’s one of the twelve human ambassadors of the meeting, a man plainly called Mr. Terasaka. He looks around a tenth of my age, meaning he must be around thirty years old. I never expected humans to send their children to fight their battles. He’s only a seed in front of my father and in no way prepared to rival my father’s political speech.
He walks right in the middle of the tightly pressed circle made of various ambassadors that have now amassed around them to observe the upcoming debate. The atmosphere is tense.
“Don’t worry about that, Mr. Terasaka. We weren’t trying to exclude the rest of you from our conversation. At this point I think all of us would love to hear your opinion on the matter,” my father says.
The black haired man, wearing a stylish black suit that highlights his eyes, quickly exchanges nods with my father and the Tote ambassador. He doesn’t seem all that bit bothered about the tense atmosphere.
“You seem to know many things about the way the human government works, you Elder of the Phadh. But, you’re also awfully quiet about the Phadh over-colonization of the 21st Sector or the misuse of the cloning method incident that came to light three years ago and still hasn’t been addressed by the council.”
“Make your point, Mr. Terasaka. This is not a public forum to express your concerns and worries about the strength and adequacy of the Phadh regime. None of our neighbor planets asked the Alliance’s help so far. That means--”
“That means nothing. You don’t have a home planet to start with. You keep the land of Zeania as a glorified graveyard. No one does even dare speak up against the mighty Phadh because of your military excessive power. And yet, here you are, calling for an emergency meeting of the Alliance’s Council to order a Purge you’re not authorized to--”
That was it. The last straw. The patience of the rest of the ambassadors is over. Everyone in the room starts talking at the same time. I cup my mouth with my hand and wait for the commotion to die out, but it doesn’t seem it’ll lose any of its intensity soon. Surely not before the meeting starts.
As I walk away from the grand hall, there’s something troubling me. Throughout my whole life, I’ve never—ever—heard anyone interrupt my father in a debate before. I haven’t even heard anyone talk back to him.
But sadly, everything the human said is true. We get complaints about the mistakes of the Phadh rule all the time, even if all the problems tend to mysteriously go away as soon as Elite Phadh Originators are assigned on the matter. I don’t want to admit it, but my father might be fighting a lost cause. Humans came to this meeting prepared to even go into an all out war against us to keep their claim over the Sixth Sector, even if their home planet it’s almost destroyed.
I head towards the observation deck. The cacophony of voices slowly becomes distant and muffled. Sure, it’s not like some of the greatest people of the Known Galaxy’s Alliance are fighting with each other. No, to me, the ambassador’s daughter, it’s another boring evening attending a diplomatic meeting with my father.
‘You have to come to this meeting, Alyce! You have to learn politics by experiencing them first hand. Our species is going through great changes, Alyce, and you’ll become one of its leaders someday in the future.’
God, I hate my dad’s voice when he’s asking me to escort him in one of those boring meetings. Nothing ever happens.
Until it does.
A small scale explosion erupts at the next room. I end up on the floor from the impact. I’m not sure what’s going on. Soon, the alarm goes off. At the same time, a thick cloud of smoke envelops the room. I hear steps closing in on my location.
“Help! Somebody! I’m in here,” I yell, trying to be heard above the ruckus the explosion caused.
Amidst the gray smoke, a man with a red, intimating mask appears. Three men follow him close behind. The three men wear plain gray masks, big enough to hide their faces.
The man with the red mask takes a step into the room and heads straight to me. The three men behind him stay put. When he’s close enough to touch me, he bends down and sprays something on my face.
I cough and crawl away from him as quick as I can. “Who are you? Are you the one that did this? What do you...?”
I feel my eyelids heavy. I can’t talk anymore. I try to fight it, but this is a fight I’ve lost before it even started.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 1
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Eladia
I’m not sure how many times it is now. Running away from the men with the black masks has become an oddly common activity during this last year. And the truth is that I’ve become good enough to not even worry about them anymore. The poor guys don’t even stand a chance. I know Caso’s alleyways and secret passages like the back of my hand.
I keep turning my head to check on them, but they don’t show any sign of exhaustion. It’s almost unnatural how easily they keep up with me. They keep running, keep coming at me like they’re robots, never tired and never giving up.
Honestly, I wish I could just stop and take them on. But Cross was downright clear about it. He doesn’t want me fighting them.
He always tells me to run and try to lose them in one of Caso’s labyrinthine alleys. That’s the reason why we decided
to move in this colony in the first place after all.
I stop thinking nonsense for a moment and look around me. The subterranean city of Caso is one of the most badly planned cities of the entire galaxy. Honest to god, there are some paths that start on one side of the city and end up on the totally wrong side like they don’t follow the rules of nature at all. I don’t know what is wrong or why, but being one of the first human settlements, my theory is that it still retains that archaic, somewhat sketchy, urban planning of the early human endeavors.
Caso is an underground mining station on planet Xioria. It’s the first planet of the Known Galaxy that we moved into since the start of this intergalactic chase between me, Cross, and the black-maskers. The plan was to stay in the Uncharted Region for as long as possible, expecting that they wouldn’t find us there.
But, they always did.
You make a mistake by using online transactions, they find you the next day. You share your name with one of the commoners, they find you the next hour. Honestly, I don’t know how the fuck they do it, but if it wasn’t for Cross, I wouldn’t be able to keep up with them. I wouldn’t be able to survive for a whole year without him, to be honest.
Nowadays, though, and after I had completed a great part of my training next to him, we decided to return to the Known Galaxy. I’ve asked Cross many times why we did that, but I think he avoids sharing his plan with me.
Back to the present, the three men finally seem to have trouble keeping up with me. I can sense them move slower now so I start looking around for a quick way out. I’m still in the lead, and it’ll be difficult for them to catch me if I’m careful. Running for a whole year now strengthened my feet and made me fast to react. My senses have been sharpened, and I’m in no way the helpless girl I was a year ago.
Especially that time when I lost them...all of them.
I take a steep turn to the right and on the next alleyway I find a concealed entrance into one of the local, abandoned factories. Nowadays, this place has been turned into a warehouse, with many local companies utilizing the free storage space to their favor. Still, not sure if the black-maskers will follow me in here, I keep running deeper into the old factory. I can’t stop until I’m sure they’ve lost me
Once, Cross told me that these men are mercenaries. Using state-of-the-art technology, they can trace the sound of my footsteps or use thermo-cams to locate my thermal signature. Even though it felt better knowing they’re just humans (for a long time I thought they were cold-blooded robots), I couldn’t get out of our hiding spot without shivering from fear.
However, Cross also told me that hiding all the time wasn’t a viable solution. And, I couldn’t let Cross do all the dirty work for me.
Unfortunately, today I managed to stumble onto the clever kind of grunts. They quickly find my the entrance to the factory and follow me inside. I run upstairs and search for a way out from the upper floor. Even though most of these places are still used as warehouses, Caso is a city of outlaws. You can bet your ass that there are secret passages everywhere.
One time, while I was again running away from another persistent batch of black-maskers, I ended up inside one of those warehouses on the other side of the city. My pursuers were getting dangerously close to me, and I was running out of options. That was until I stepped onto one of the many platforms lying on the floor. This one though was connected to a pulley on the roof with a balanced counterweight on the other side of the building.
Suddenly, I’m on the air, heading straight to the skylight on the ceiling and out of the warehouse, the three men below me standing still, trying to find a way to follow me. It was awesome, but only now I see that it was truly dangerous and risky.
I keep searching around me for a sign that will lead me to freedom, but I can’t find anything. I try to keep my cool, but the soldiers push me deeper into the warehouse. Things have taken a turn for the worst, and I’m not sure I can avoid fighting them this time.
And I’m right. Only that it was too late for me to see all the signs.
It’s a trap.
The three men behind me were the bait, and I was foolish enough to bite it. They weren’t chasing me, but instead herding me to this place, a place full of black-maskers. They surround me, five of them jumping from above and the remaining three coming from behind.
Out of breath, out of rhythm, not even carrying my weapon with me, there’s only one thought passing through my mind right now: shit, I’m done.
“Who the fuck are you?” I shout, raging over them.
None of them answer to me. I didn’t expect them to. I was just trying to buy me more time to find something to defend myself with. You would expect that in a warehouse which contains goods, there would be something useful against a group of goons. But, surrounded from every possible angle, not able to move a muscle without someone capturing me, even if I could find a weapon, I’m not sure I would be able to get to it fast enough.
I squeeze my palms into fists and relax my stance. I’m not so good at hand-to-hand combat, but it’s better than standing still letting them get me without putting up a fight.
I close my eyes and try to get a clear sense of my weak spots. My back and my right side are vulnerable in a fist fight, but I’ll have to manage by moving my weight to the other side. Cross always says that I have to take the fight to them, so I’m planning to do exactly that. But it’s not that easy. I have a good idea of my surroundings, but still, they’re the ones that set me up in here. There’s a high chance that there are more traps hidden around.
Still, I don’t have time to think it over. They finally decide to make a move before I can come up with a decent plan. Three guys come at me at once, one from behind and two from each side. The other men move closer to me, tightening the circle.
I’m almost certain that there’s nothing I can do. I get ready to kick the one behind me, the one I would have more trouble beating otherwise, but it won’t do me any good. Even if I take him out, and the one coming at me from the right side, simultaneously, it’ll leave me without a way to deal with the other one. The same thing applies to every scenario.
I breath out and relax. I close my eyes and decide to persist with my first choice: take out the one coming at me from behind first and then improvise. I’m done anyway. Taking as many as I can with me is the best course of action right now.
“I told you to never get in a fight with them.” An oddly familiar voice suddenly comes from above.
Abruptly, I look around me and see all the five men surrounding me collapsing on the ground. A shadowy figure with a green mask falls from above, tossing me my weapon in the process. The three men coming at me don’t stop, even though the tables have now turned considerably.
Quickly, I kick the one coming from behind. He manages to dodge my hit, but still, that gives me an opening now. I use my staff to push the other two men out of the way and then I back-step through the opening. After that, the three men stop and cover me and Cross, one in each side. They’re ready to attack, but then they notice that all of their companions are on the ground, knocked out.
They look at each other and nod. They decide to turn and flee for their lives. Reporting to their boss, whoever that guy is, it’s more important than taking us on.
When they’re gone, I toss my staff on the ground and gasp for air. Cross, never taking off his mask, gets closer to me and rests his hand on my back.
“You’re lucky, Eladia. You know that, don’t you? You would have died if I didn’t find you in time,” he said.
He’s right. Fuck, I hate it when he’s right.
“I’m sorry, Cross. They set me up. I couldn’t get away from this,” I say.
“Eladia...I’ve told you many times already, my name is...”
“Don’t read too much into it, Doctor. We’re not friends, even though you’ve saved me too many times already. I just want to find my real friends, that’s all.”
The man nods and huffs. I know I’m rough with him, but after
everything I’ve learned about him during this last year, I can’t let him get to me. I have to find Jay; I have to let him know how I feel about him.
“Okay. I understand. You’re right. Anyhow, can you walk?”
“Yes, of course. Why? What’s going on? Where are we going?”
He turns and removes his mask. That perfect face, with those beautifully dangerous blue eyes, looks at me. He has also changed so much throughout this year; I’m not sure I recognize him anymore.
“We’re going home, Eladia. I got news from the Organization. They want us back on Yaerus as soon as possible.”
I try to keep myself from cheering out loud. Finally, this nightmare is over.
I’m going to see him soon.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 2
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Alien Romance Box Set: Alien Cube: The Sci-FI Alien Invasion Romance (Books 1-5) Page 21