Promised to the Alien

by Ravyn Wilde

So, she stocked up on Jerky and granola bars just in case.

  She packed her own go bag with things she brought from home. Taking weapons and tools she was familiar with, along with clothing and other things she thought she might need. And then Falcon added a few things to it. Like the full-body covering that reminded her of the Bedouin clothing used in the Sahara desert.

  The long robes would shield all of her skin from the sun, with the added benefit of hiding her from the natives.

  Worn loose, they offered a cooling effect and yet they would be warm at night after the suns went down. The turban type wrap for her head and face would protect her from the wind and blasts of biting sand during the day. Again, it would provide warmth when the temperature took a dive at night.

  She got the idea this was a pretty harsh planet.

  He put his own bag together that she was sure would be heavier than normal. As he tried to second guess everything she might need or want.

  She appreciated the water and coffee. Those would be necessities, she was sure.

  She learned to change her look, and for the trip down to the planet she was going as Makayla from Earth. Not Makayla the silver Guardian Keeper. She didn’t want to freak out the girls.

  Falcon would also be going in his earthly body. For one thing, no one would realize he was a Guardian, so it would give him an element of surprise.

  She also figured out how to change her body into a couple of the humanoid life forms that inhabited the planet Falcon thought they were going to. This skill might come in handy if she needed to blend in with the natives. It was incredible how quickly she could pick up languages.

  She’d already passed the preliminary lessons on the three main dialects for Megoth.

  The last thing Falcon wanted to teach her was how to recognize a dimension aura. She did the reading he suggested, now he was going to try to help her see them. It often took months to develop the ability, but he was convinced they could hurry it along if she only knew what to look for.

  Mikayla wasn’t so sure.

  “So, because the girls are from Earth, they will have a green aura, but because I’m a Guardian mine has changed to purple?”

  Falcon nodded in agreement. “It is why you can move through the dimension gates, without being seen or detected by Guardian sensors. All Guardians are purple.”

  She squinted at Falcon again. “I just don’t see it. There is no purple haze around you.” It made her sad that he would probably never get her pop culture references. She imagined things like that weren’t important when he was in stasis and getting updates on current history and words.

  “Just don’t forget that sometimes you might get a feeling of generalized evil or specific intent, instead of simply feeling that something doesn’t belong. If you feel that, you need to search for cover right away and hide.”

  “So, is that how Guardians track things? They sense them and can “see” if something doesn’t belong, by the color of their auras.” Makayla reiterated, to make sure she understood.

  “Yes, my Guardian senses are stronger than yours. I can typically track Jumpers across universes, or at least their general location can be tracked across universes. To track them to a specific place where they can catch them, they need to be much closer. Kind of like we are now,” he said and looked at the monitor. “It won’t be long until we catch up to them. They’ve already landed.”

  She nodded at him and looked at the guidebook he’d given her. “I will also need to look for the endorsement seal that shadows their aura, so I’ll know if they are supposed to be here.”

  Falcon nodded again.

  She had pretty much aced his tests. Now she had to do it in real life. “So, we can track displaced people or creatures by the color of their aura. If they are in the wrong dimension they will stand out like a beacon, right?”

  “Yes. There is some intermingling of dimensions, but anyone who has the approval to be in an alternate reality, is marked with an endorsement seal and you will recognize one of those when you see it.”

  Chapter Eleven

  FALCON LOOKED OUT AT the red planet of Megoth and sighed.

  Makayla knew that sound by now. There was something he didn’t want to tell her. “What is it, Falcon?”

  He turned from the screen to meet her gaze. “This planet is not safe. They have auctions, and rebels, and marauding hordes.”

  She frowned. “What do you mean auctions?”

  “Of course, you would pick that piece of information out of my warning. There are auctions where they sell people. Beings they have taken from other planets.”

  “They have slave auctions?” her voice rose in disbelief and absolute panic. She thought back to the things those creatures said about using the girls for breeding. And now they probably knew they couldn’t take them to Brac.

  She had thought they might take them to a lab, or some type of facility and keep them together. Shit. Sold as breeding slaves actually made more sense and scared the crap out of her. If they were sold, they probably wouldn’t be together, and it would make it more difficult to find them. The thought of not finding her family made her crazy. She needed to get down to that planet.

  Falcon faced forward again. Tracking their decent. “Some slave, yes. Some for a mate.”

  Makayla was in shock. “The girls could be sold for mates?”

  Falcon looked at her. “You knew that. They said breeders. So, the options are for them to become mates or to be kept in a breeding farm where they are used to create half-alien/half-human babies to sell into slavery. What is worse?”

  She leaned forward. Trying to get them to hurry. “There isn’t a better. They are both really bad options. We need to hurry, Falcon. We have to get to them before they are separated and sold. Get down there. Quit worrying about me, I’ll handle myself.” She picked up a long knife and strapped it to her leg. She already had a large forty-five in a holster at the small of her back. She thought she’d go get a few more and just drape them all over her. Especially since she’d be wearing what amounted to a long bathrobe most of the time. “Get me down there,” she urged.

  Falcon babbled while he landed the ship, “This planet doesn’t have any restrictions for landing. We can simply land the spaceship anywhere there is room. We don’t need to go to a docking bay we can just pick a spot and set down. Being out in the countryside can be a lot safer if we do it right. Shielding will keep the ship from sight. If thieves can’t see our ship, then they can’t try to break in. Hopefully, there won’t be anyone around to see who we are or where we are going. It will also allow us to follow the aliens who took your sister and cousin. They didn’t go towards any of the landing docks, so we will assume they plan to park their craft away from the larger villages. We are tracking their essence, but since they don’t have to set down in a populated area, we may not be able to stay close. If they lose us, then they could go anywhere on this planet. It will make it more difficult to search and very difficult to find the girls if they are taken from the ship.”

  Her heart was beating fast as Falcon cut through the atmosphere and tried to follow the trace he felt of the Jumpers. Intently she watched the monitors. Wanting to see what this planet looked like. It was just a bit smaller than Earth, with part of the planet covered in sand and heat, the other in ice. There were few trees and a lot of windswept mountains and dunes. And more red sand than she thought was possible.

  Falcon told her that this wasn’t the home of the Siloth, that it is inhabited by many varieties of aliens and dimensional beings. It was labeled an outlaw planet.

  “When the ship cleared the atmosphere of Megoth, they came this way. We might have been gifted with a break. I think the ship is just over that bit of mountain.” He pointed. “It feels as if they stopped.”

  She watched the countryside carefully while Falcon tracked the ship. The quick scan of information on the planet told her many of the people lived in caves. There were elaborate tunnel systems to keep them underground where it was coole
r during the day and still get from one place to another.

  Buildings were often built as additions to caves, using the sand to make a red brick that blended with the countryside.

  He slowed their spaceship down and crept forward, skirting the base of the red sandstone mountain for several minutes, using the cloaking ability of the ship to keep anyone or anything from seeing them.

  She didn’t see any caves or buildings out here. It looked barren. She supposed the tunnels could be hidden pretty easily.

  He swore as he skirted around a corner and came in sight of a spaceship. He motioned at the monitor. “That looks like the drawing of the spaceship you gave me. Does it look the same to you?”

  When she nodded, he scooted closer to the spaceship Makayla had seen the night it had taken the girls. She sat forward and looked at the ship in horror. “Something is wrong. The ship is damaged, see over there at the end. It looks as if someone blew up the side.”

  She couldn’t take her eyes off the ship. Her heart swelled with mixed emotions. “I need to get out there.”

  “I’m sorry...”

  She put her hand up. “Don’t. We don’t know that the girls are hurt or gone. This could be a good thing.”

  Falcon frowned at her. “How would it be a good thing.”

  “My sister is pretty resilient. So is my cousin. They are tough, Texas girls who might have gotten free and caused this. I need to look for signs.”

  FALCON SHOOK HIS HEAD. His Keeper confused him. “What kind of signs would you look for?” He settled an Earth mile from the wrecked ship and scanned the area for life forms. “There doesn’t appear to be anyone around the ship. Or nearby. But if there are caves or underground facilities on this planet, the rock could interfere with the life scanners. We will need to be careful.”

  Falcon watched his Keeper. He worried about her, worried more about what she might find. She searched through the rubble of the ship for a bit and looked around with her hands on her hips. “Something’s not right,” she said.

  He frowned and walked over to her. “What do you mean?”

  Gesturing to the ship with a gaping hole in the side, she said, “Why did this wreck. It doesn’t look like it hit the mountain. And there is no fire. It doesn’t look like it got shot with anything from the outside. It feels as if it was just parked here, in perfect condition. And then someone blew a hole in the side from the inside of the ship. Maybe because they were being held prisoner and wanted out.”

  Falcon went into the ship from the hole in the side and started his own search. He looked through the engine area and the cargo bay that was set up with several human-size cages. The place smelled bad and looked worse. It was obviously where the girls were held.

  Makayla stayed right with him, studying some of the scratches she found on the walls and little areas that interested her throughout the ship. He suddenly realized that the girls had probably been trained together as children. They would think alike. His Keeper was looking in places she would have used to hide in if she escaped her captors. And he felt sure that some of them had. Maybe all of them for part of the time.

  His Keeper thought so too. “This is the room they were originally kept in. But I think the girls got out. It looks like they were free for a bit, playing hide and seek. And probably tormenting their captors in every possible way. And it isn’t just my sister and Lauren. There are several others with them.” She frowned at the signs scratched into the wall. “Maybe five or six, but it could be more. There isn’t a clear indication of how many.

  “I agree,” he said.

  “You do, why?”

  “Because someone tore off these electrical wires. They basically pulled all the power out of the ship with that one action. It is a wonder the ship isn’t in worse shape than it is.”

  Makayla grinned. “I bet they waited until it landed. They kept themselves hidden or maybe got out just a bit before. But they wouldn’t know what tearing the wires would do to the ship, so they waited. They didn’t want to die. They just wanted a chance to escape.”

  Makayla frowned. “It worries me that I only see sign from Kaitlyn.”

  Falcon frowned at her. “What do you mean?”

  “We all grew up together on the farm in Texas. Before our parents died, we hunted, fished, hiked, and Lauren’s father taught us how to leave a trail sign. In the beginning he would leave camp an hour before we did, and we would search for the signs he left to figure out that it was him, where he went, and the warnings he gave us along the way.”

  She pointed at the circle with a small x at the top. “That is Kaitlyn. If Lauren was with her there would be an x at the bottom. If I was with them there would be an x on the right-hand side.” She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. “The small circle in the middle tells me she is going home. In this case, she is telling me she escaped, but Lauren didn’t.”

  He already knew some of her history but this brought everything into focus.

  “Let’s go look outside. This ship has told us as much as possible for right now. Other than it isn’t going anywhere and if the aliens who piloted it want to leave this planet, they need parts for this ship or another vehicle.”

  She nodded and paused at the hole in the side of the spaceship before going outside. She looked around to make sure there wasn’t anyone out there and she slid out and to the side.

  Falcon was so very proud of his Keeper. She was strong. Her leg had healed, and her mind accepted their bond and their new life together. She had skills that he never considered. She was combat trained and could use her body as a weapon. She would be an asset as part of their Guardian pair. “It’s pretty obvious they went this way—toward the small village of what the map says is Tandor.”

  Makayla nodded her head in agreement. “Yes, they did. Most of the alien captors and several of the women. I think Lauren is with them.” She fell silent.

  Falcon studied her when she didn’t move, she just kept looking at something in the dirt.

  Finally, he couldn’t take it. “And Kaitlyn?”

  She looked up with tears in her eyes. “Kaitlyn went that way,” she pointed in the opposite direction. “My sister took off with several others. And look!” Makayla squealed. Her voice rose in excited glee as she scrambled to a pile of rocks and sticks. “It’s a sign. It’s Kaitlyn’s sign. And she isn’t alone. I’m not just guessing.”

  She frowned and motioned to the ground. “Trail signs are made on the ground, close to the left-hand side of the trail. They should never be made where they will damage or disfigure property. See here, three stones piled one on another mean danger or help needed. But she doesn’t want help for herself, she wants help for Lauren.”

  She moved around and looked at a few more areas. “She indicates that Lauren definitely isn’t with her. But there are three others who are.”

  She was silent for a moment and then looked up at Falcon. “There are Siloths after them and someone else is following. I don’t think the pursuers are traveling together.”

  “So, we follow Kaitlyn? he prompted.

  Kayla shook her head “No. Kaitlyn’s trail sign is clear.”

  She turned around and faced him. “Lauren is in imminent danger. Kaitlyn is free for now and will work to stay that way. I need to quickly get a few things off our ship and create a cache for her. If she is close to the ship, she could come back to check for Lauren or try and use parts from the downed alien spaceship for something, maybe scavenge food or water if they don’t have any.”

  “What do you mean by cache?”

  Kayla stood and looked around. “I’ll probably dig a hole and put in food and water, weapons, clothing. Just a few things they could use to take care of themselves. Then I’ll cover it with rocks and make a sign for her. That way Kaitlyn, or Lauren if she gets away, will know it’s there. But none of the aliens following my sister should have a clue it's there.”

  Falcon stood and looked all around the downed spacecraft. “I can’t sense anyone near. If
you make me a list, I can go get the stuff you want and get back in less time than if the two of us went together.”

  “Good idea. I’ve got my gun, water, and a little jerky. So, I’m set. I’ve even got something to write on.”

  As Falcon left her, Makayla took the all-purpose tool out of her backpack and formed it into a shovel. She searched for a place to dig that didn’t seem to have many rocks and started to work. They had parked their ship about a mile away in case the wrecked ship caught fire. They also didn’t want anyone just running into their ship, so it was off the main trail. It wouldn’t take Falcon that long to get there and back, but it might take him a bit to go through the boxes and packs to find everything she listed. Maybe she should have gone with him. It hadn’t taken her as long to dig the hole as she thought it would. Now she just needed to gather some rocks and brush to cover the cache and make her sign.

  She stood up and looked around, wondering why she felt so on edge. Then she remembered the last bit of training she had worked on with Falcon. She closed her eyes for a moment and let her body relax.

  Her lashes popped open.

  Shit, she should have asked Falcon what color the Siloth’s aura would be. Someone was out there. Several someone’s. Carefully she moved to put her back to the solid wall of the crashed alien ship. She didn’t want someone sneaking up on her. She wasn’t far behind a small pile of rocks. She could duck down for cover when she needed to. Then she tried to open her awareness to the night.

  Falcon had said that as a mated Guardian pair they would be gifted with certain abilities. Abilities to sense and track other creatures that weren’t where they were supposed to be. Her new powers would help her find the monsters that were out of place in any Realm, or on any planet. She thought the Siloth would be evil enough for her to feel. But the problem was she didn’t know what three little blue dots and a big yellow dot meant.

  Hell. Three cookie monsters and big bird were coming to play?

  She discovered that she had a little vengeful, bloodthirsty streak. Once those aliens had taken her family, she was going to make sure they paid and never took another woman again.