She moved in closer beside Elric. He slid his arm around her shoulder and squeezed her against his body.
"It’s ok honey, they won’t come near you now that I have staked my claim." He leaned in and kissed her temple. Mallory felt her body relaxing against him. The confidence she felt for Elric was not troubling. There was something between them and it comforted her.
*****
Another Man
He walked away from the hangar and slid his hand into Mallory’s and pulled her with him toward his quarters. As they walked, he talked. "The bioship exists primarily because it uses a large whale-like creature to push it through space, and every year it requires sacrifices to feed on and continue to power it. My family thinks you are one such sacrifice."
"What are the chances I'll get fed to this space whale?" She shuddered as she asked.
He looked her straight in the eyes. "Very minimal," he replied.
She looked at him skeptically.
"Okay, it's possible, but only if I can't pledge for you."
"Pledge for me?"
"Let everyone know you're mine, not theirs, basically."
Mallory sighed and said, "There's not much I can do, besides try to find my own way home."
"Impossible. All of these craft are race-specific. Only the race that made them can operate them. So, take that Chibi’s spacecraft over there," he said, pointing as they left the hangar. "I can’t drive that. But, I can drive another Lezarus’."
"Unless," he said. "I can sneak you out. But it will take some work. The guards are all top tier."
"What race are they?"
He quickly replied, "Lezarus. The Lezarus do everything around here."
"Where are you taking me?" she asked.
"Don't be worried, I have your best interests at heart, despite what my family may think or want."
"I want to believe you."
"Then believe me."
"It's hard when it feels like my life is hanging in the balance."
"Don't think of it as such a black and white thing. You could be eaten alive, or you could have an adventure unlike any of your race has seen."
"So a lot of humans come aboard this bioship?"
"This time of year they do," he said.
"For the sacrifice?" she asked.
"Precisely. Think of it like this, humans are like Christmas trees this time of year. The Lezarus all want to get one to decorate their home, then they want to toss them out once the holiday is over. Your race is like the Christmas tree. But I don't like the idea of it. I don't think we need to choose a race that can experience pain and gets sad, to be killed."
"That's reassuring."
A few Chibi looked up at them through their rodent-like eyes and she couldn't help but stare while they spoke to one another in a language not her own.
"Not a lot of humans walk around without being cuffed."
"Cuffed?"
He pointed to the cuffs a Lezarus wore around their belt and said, "For cuffing humans that are brought in for the sacrifice."
"This is a really bad time to get mixed up in this," she said.
Elric nodded and replied, "It is. The rest of the year it's different. That's how I have an idea. Someone I want you to meet."
They arrived at a door that he opened by saying his name into a small box over the sensory pad next to the door and they walked into the room behind it. It was well furnished, with satin draping coming from the ceiling and hanging low to the ground, covering all of the walls. There were plush, over-sized chairs and sofas and he sat on one.
"He'll be here in a moment. My friend James. He's a humanized Lezarus. Just wait, he's not shy about what he's done so don't be afraid to ask anything."
"What do you mean humanized?"
"Well, you see the human exterior I have? It's because I have been able to manipulate my body and become human-looking when I'm not in my Lezarus form. James has gone one step further and is never a lizard-looking person, but is always a human-looking Lezarus."
"I see," she said. "Will I get to see what you look like as a lizard-looking Lezarus, or just a human-looking one?"
"I may show you, but I don’t want it to ruin what..." he trailed off, then said, "what we have between us, I guess."
"Oh," she said quietly, and looked away, blushing.
She wondered if it would, though. The more she learned about his alien race, the more she was intrigued with him. It seemed like the stars had aligned for them to meet. They were, in fact, from two species that would kill the other if not under circumstances like theirs.
Elric stood as the door of the cabin opened. Mallory followed suit and stood as well. "James, hello."
"Hello Elric." James said. With James were several humans, just like Mallory. Or were they human-looking Lezarus, she wondered.
James smiled at Elric as he gazed at Mallory. "More for me, Elric?"
"No, not more for you. She's with me." He moved in closer to Mallory. Mallory smoothed out her robe and tried to keep a neutral look on her face.
"With you?" James asked, raising an eyebrow.
"She was accidentally abducted by an auto piloted spacecraft-"
"They do that," James said, cutting him off and nodding.
"So she needs," he said, then lowered his voice, "to get back."
"To get back?" James exclaimed.
The people around him smiled and laughed, then one said, "You don't want to do that, honey."
"No way, girl," said another man.
"But I don't want to be sacrificed," she said back to them.
A hush came over the room.
"I know about sacrifices. I have lost friends to sacrifices. I know about what they can do."
'Then you tell me," Mallory said. "What should I do?"
"To do?" James asked. "There is nothing to do."
"Sit, wait," she said. "What?"
"Guard her," James said to Elric. He turned to Mallory and said, "And let him guard you. Don't leave him for a moment. Don't ever be without him. That's when they'll," he said, almost yelling, "snatch you!"
"Snatch me?"
"For the harvest. For the great reaping."
Elric said, in a soothing voice, "James here has saved all of these people."
There were about ten or less people near James. Some lounged on the chairs and sofas and others poured themselves drinks and talked quietly amongst themselves.
"He saved them from the harvest just like I'll save you."
"Where did they come from?"
"Humans brought in by different Lezarus."
"Oh," Mallory replied.
"But it wasn't easy. I was a high-ranking official, then. "
"You still have so much," Elric laughed.
It seemed like James had a lavish apartment and Mallory now knew that his was the place of a wealthy Lezarus man. If she could call him that. He was a shorter, red-haired man with an open face and wore human clothes.
Mallory asked, "So, you got surgery to look like a human?"
He nodded. "I went full human," James replied.
Mallory turned to Elric and asked, "That's what you did?"
James answered for him. "Elric was lucky. Didn't have to pay."
Elric nodded and said, "It was done to me, not by me."
Mallory said, "You didn't want it?"
Elric shrugged his shoulders and then replied, "Well, at the time I didn’t but now I am glad it’s done."
"But it was forced on you."
"There are a lot of alien experiments that are like that."
Mallory gasped a little and turned to James. "But you like it, right?"
"Oh, yes, dear, yes."
"Then why don't you go back to Earth? Stay there?"
"Because, you see, the Lezarus are tied to the bioship," he said.
Elric said, "I don't believe it."
"Because Elric goes gallivanting to Earth so often, he thinks the tie to the bioship is just a myth. Much like the sacrifices."
Elric added quickly, "Which they are!"
"Not," James said. "I was in top intelligence. I would have known. I would have found out."
"So, you think people really don't need to be fed to this whale?"
"Not at all," he replied.
Mallory asked another question, "And you aren't tied to staying on this bioship?"
"No," Elric replied.
"Then there has to be another way," she said, thinking.
James said, "Do you want to stay for a drink?"
"No, no. Thank you," Elric said. They both said their goodbyes to James and his humans before they left.
"And remember," James said at the door. "Never leave his sight."
"Never," she repeated, looking to James, then Elric. She looked at his cyan eyes and creamy skin and wondered what lurked below it.
*****
Others
They were alone in the hall together and he asked her, "What can we do?"
"Well," Mallory said, "where are the other humans?"
"You sure you want to go there?"
"Yes," she said.
"Then I'll take you, but be warned."
He took her to a massive set of rooms that spanned miles that were filled with containment pens, a lot like those on the spacecraft that housed people. Each of them seemed calm and peaceful.
"Are they okay?"
"Yes, in the containment pen they are put into a deep meditative state, in which they only need sleep and to eat."
She stared at all the pens. "What can we do?"
Elric shrugged and looked at her. "I wake them up?"
"What if you did?" she asked.
Mallory watched in awe as he shifted his arm to lizard form.
He put his palm onto the sensory screen and said into the box, "Release them all."
The bars went down and they all looked around, dazed then listened as Mallory spoke.
"You have been held captive, my fellow humans, but here you shall not remain. Together, we can unite to free yourselves. Together."
The people began to stand and move about, toward her.
"They will know we're here."
"Then we should take them to the hangar."
"Storm it," Elric said.
Mallory could feel adrenaline coursing through her body. She looked at all the humans and said, "And get us out of here."
"Exactly."
"Everyone come with me," Mallory said, and waved her hands. They began walking fast toward the hangar, crossing the hallways and grand rooms to do so. Guards appeared and took down human after human, but at the hangar there was a massive amount of them, still.
"Which ships are big enough for this many people?"
"Only one of them," he told her.
"Is it a Lezarus ship?"
Elric nodded. "It is."
"Show me," Mallory said.
"Come on everyone, keep up," she said. "Onto that ship over there!"
They fought their way to the ship. Mallory was at the front of the action. She was elbowing guards and punching them in their lizard-like faces while they ran to the entrance of the ship. She was hand-to-hand fighting the Lezarus guards in front of the massive, oblong spacecraft that was being filled up with humans.
One came at her and she side-stepped him and back-handed the back of his head so that he fell to the ground. Another came from her rear and she spun around to punch him once in the chest and again in the face. He stumbled and fell backwards.
"They're closing the hangar doors," Elric shouted to Mallory.
"All right. Hurry everyone," she yelled, as she punched another guard and jumped onto the deck of the huge spacecraft.
They set off for the control room. They ran past the mass of people bombarding the spacecraft. The hallways were clogged with people and Mallory and Elric had to elbow their way in.
"Away from the controls!" Mallory said to everybody and they shifted their positions.
"All right," Elric said to himself, starting to mutter. "It has been awhile but I think I can still do this."
He began pushing buttons and controls, then pressed a sensory screen and said into the box, "Earth."
The spacecraft shifted into drive mode and exited the hangar as the doors were closing around it. Those in the control room cheered and looked out the window, towards space.
"I need to set it in overdrive," he said. "Here's to hoping there’s enough fuel in it."
"Here's to hoping all of these people aren't used as fuel."
Elric gave a chuckle then was serious as he adjusted controls. "We need to go fast, and I mean it."
"This was a long ride when we came."
Elric replied, "That was on the auto-pilot spacecraft. That thing was dinky compared to this. It'll do the same distance ten times faster."
She laughed. "So not long at all."
"Let's see if we can out-maneuver them," he said, seeing two crafts approaching from the flank. He moved a few fingers and laughed.
"We just went into a slip stream. Virtually undetectable."
A shudder went through the craft and he looked around, concerned.
"Apparently that didn't work," he said. "No matter. We'll just slip in and out," he said as he maneuvered the controls. "We can make it work."
They waited to feel any more shudders, but none were felt and it remained quiet.
*****
Lifted
They landed on the same island she had been vacationing on and where she had met Elric. But, now, they weren't on the beach side but in the jungle, hidden from view. Elric landed the bioship, slipping in between trees and plant life under it in a strange, non-uniform pattern. They released all of the passengers and made their way back to the road nearby to walk back to the resort.
"That was easier than I ever dreamed it could be," he said.
"I remember you saying that people needed to be shown order. What changed, Elric?"
"Well, I met you. I realized people didn't need to be told what to do, that they should be able to just do it."
"And you just did it, too," she said, looking up to him. He bent his neck to kiss her and they stayed together for a moment before looking into one another’s eyes.
"So, what now?"
"Well, Elric, I think you should try living on Earth for a while. See if Lezarus really need the bioship."
"And if they do?" he asked.
She smiled. "I might just have to be one of the only humans in space."
He laughed. "You might just have to be," he said before kissing her again.
They felt at peace until hearing a blast sounding through the air. It was a small spacecraft and before they could react, it took them both up in a containment shield.
They were brought up into the ship and watched as a few others were brought up too.
"Ah, so I see we've caught the initial aggressors," said the Lezarus man, waiting for them in the craft. They were in the cage they had found themselves in before, but the crew were guarding it and Elric couldn't reach his hand around to open it.
The man talking to them directed their attention to a small screen that showed Elric and Mallory when they had been in the human containment rooms. It showed him as he pressed the button and queued the release of all of the humans. It was good evidence against them.
"There is a reason we all trust one another not to do such a thing," he told them. "To feed our bioship is the reason for the season! It's why we celebrate and how we live! Without the bioship, we are nothing!"
"But the bioship doesn't need humans!" Elric cried out. "It only eats that because it's what we feed it."
"You think there's any other way?" the man asked.
The man turned and left the containment area, but the guards stayed.
"Elric..." Mallory began, but was quieted by the presence of the guards.
Elric looked at her then reached out his hand and held hers. She squeezed it back and dreaded what was to come next.
*****
New Start
/> They were locked in the containment pen for the short ride back to the bioship, where they were greeted by Elric's stern looking family as well as an ensemble of what looked like officials.
"The Supreme Chancellor," Elric whispered to her, as they looked at a tall Lezarus woman in the center of the grouping. "Not a good sign."
"I hear you decided to free the harvest," she said, after they had been brought before her.
"Yes, Chancellor."
Mallory could feel her anxiety skyrocketing. Elric stayed calm. He gripped her fingers and she squeezed back. They appeared as a united front. They were not going to let their hard work so far be in vain. Elric stood taller and Mallory was proud of him.
The Chancellor looked them both up and down, assessing them. She sneered through clenched teeth. "I hear you freed humans. We were only able to pick up an insignificant amount compared to what we had for our almighty bioship. Do you think you can get away with this? I'm interested to know."
"No, Chancellor. I do not."
"Oh, yes you can."
Elric looked up astonished, and asked, "What?"
"You will get away with this. As a Lezarus you have the privilege of living another day. We do not keep our own in captivity or jail them. You should know that of our culture by now, no matter how much you seem to despise it."
"I do not, Chancellor."
"Hush," she said. "But, as for your companion, an example will be made."
"A what?" he asked, incredulously.
"I want to make sure everyone knows just how severe a threat humans like this one are."
Mallory was aghast and spoke up, "You can’t do this!"
"You will not be a martyr for some cause, but an example for all of the Lezarus to see what happens when the natural flow is disrupted."
"Then show me where to go," Mallory said, steadfast in her decision. "I would rather go with dignity than kicking and screaming."
"Let us, then." The Chancellor turned to the audience in the hangar. "Let us go to the feeding arena."
They were escorted there in cuffs and stood inside a large circular arena with seats on all sides for the Lezarus, and a funnel in the center, presumably where the people would be served.
The Chancellor stepped onto a podium near the funnel and stated, "This is the one thousand seventieth time we get to celebrate our majestic bioship. Through celebration, we nourish the ship and continue our ineffable tie to it. Without the bioship we would have nothing. No home. No energy. Because of it, we have all of those things. This woman who has defied the bioship's needs will be offered."
Alien Mate Page 114