“I thought you would be an expert in bringing two people together.” Ice crossed his arms and looked as frustrated as Alana felt. “But you’re not?”
“Not exactly. I mean, I am for one day. A wedding should be the happiest of days and one to remember forever. I’m good at making the event unforgettable and exactly what a couple wants. Hopefully that helps cement the relationship and gets the marriage off on the right foot.”
Ice and Storm glanced at each other, their faces brightening. “Then I think you can help us, Alana,” Ice said.
What did she have to lose? She didn’t have anything pressing to do, so she guessed she could humor them for a little while. And maybe if they worked everything out she’d get to plan their wedding after all.
Ice leaned forward in his chair. “What is it that makes two people want to be together?”
His light, silvery eyes held her attention. She’d never seen anyone who looked quite like him, or had the presence he did. She wished she had better answers for him, because she really wanted to see him smile, pleased with her response. But all she could do was shrug.
“I wish I knew. I’ve never had much luck in that department. But once two people find each other and decide to get married, I know what makes the wedding a wonderful memory for the couple.”
“And that is?”
Alana stood and walked around her desk to prop herself on the corner of it, nearest him. “It’s about feeling special, like the two of you are the only people in the world who matter for just that one day. For most brides, the wedding is the only day they get to dress and feel truly like a princess. But for you two, I suppose it’s about feeling like you’re each a prince who has found his perfect match.”
Storm straightened in his chair as if she’d said something insulting. Ice leaned toward him. “What’s the matter with you?” he whispered.
Storm shot daggers at Alana with a look and whispered back, “I am a warrior. Not a prince.”
Ice frowned and turned back to her. “Go on.”
“I didn’t mean to insult you by saying prince, but the concept is the same no matter who’s getting married. It’s a day you want to feel special, even magical.”
Ice dug into his bag. “We’ve purchased some instructional materials, but there’s no replacement for conversation and interaction.” He held up a DVD and a couple of books. “These may prove useful once we have time to study them, but I’d appreciate it if you could tell us which ones are the best, as well as answer more of my questions.”
Alana held up the book Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. “I’ve heard a lot of people talk about this book, but I’ve never read it.”
“I’m not sure how useful it will be for us, as we’re neither Martians or Venusians, but the clerk at the store highly recommended it.”
Alana chuckled. Ice wasn’t like anyone she’d ever met. His regal presence and seriousness were strangely charming. Storm frowned at that book and opened his mouth to speak, but when Ice glared at him, he closed it. His eyes were the same clear, almost transparent blue as Ice’s, but the hardness, and maybe even a sadness, in them was different. When he said he was a warrior, maybe he meant in the Crimean army? Alana was sure he’d been through things that Ice hadn’t, things that had hardened him.
The DVD was a porn-ish parody of a blockbuster film, and to Alana’s surprise, it was hetero porn. She lifted her eyes to meet Ice’s. “Seriously?”
“I don’t understand,” he said innocently.
The other book was a steamy BDSM bodice-ripper, the kind she might have read if she wanted to spend a little time in her bed with a battery-operated boyfriend. “Are all your books and DVDs like these?”
Ice offered up his bag, and yes, they were all like that. The Mars/Venus book was the only actual relationship advice book in there. The rest ranged from Harlequin-type category romance to out-and-out erotica.
“I’m not sure any of this is going to tell you what draws two people together or keeps them in love, frankly. You might learn some things about sex, but—”
“Sex!” Ice exclaimed exuberantly. “That’s exactly it. We need to know what makes two people want to have sex and procreate.”
She dropped the books and DVDs back into the bag. This had to be an elaborate joke. “People want to have sex for all sorts of reasons, and it often doesn’t involve procreation.”
“Tell me more,” he said, almost breathlessly.
A chirping sound drew the men’s attention. Storm wore something that looked like an Apple watch knock-off. He stared at the little screen intently. His lifted his head and his facial expression blanked for a moment before shot to his feet. “Sir, we have to go.”
“What is it? We’re finally getting the information we need.”
“The ship has uncloaked, sir.” He then leaned close and whispered in a guttural-sounding language.
The ship has uncloaked, sir? So this was some sort of a cosplay. They were probably pretending to be new to Earth, asking her questions in character for some kind of fandom challenge or contest. She might have done something like that for fun when she was younger, but these two were probably close to her age, so it annoyed her. Gimme a break.
“Good luck to you both,” she said as she walked around her desk.
“Please come with us,” Ice said. “I have so many questions.”
Alana sat down and nodded. “Sure, how about you go fix your little ship and come back to see me when you’re all cloaked up again, okay?” She opened her laptop and decided to pointedly ignore them until they left.
Storm tapped his watch a few times. “Sir, His Venerable believes it might have been sabotage. We have to go before the ship is discovered.”
“I’m sorry, Alana,” Ice said. “You may be the key to my planet’s survival. We need your help.”
Alana sighed and looked up at Ice, about to tell him to go take a flying leap off his uncloaked ship and leave her alone. But he waved his hand in front of her face, and the world went black.
Chapter Three
Ice should have considered his actions a little more carefully before he incapacitated Alana. Now they had to take an unconscious woman outside and walk with her all the way to their ship. It would have been much better if he’d persuaded her to go with them. There just hadn’t been time.
Storm moved to lift her from the chair and scooped her up into his arms. “We must hurry.”
“I have a hard time believing that no one will find it suspicious if you carry her like that the entire way.” And they’d be right. It was suspicious, because they were essentially kidnapping this woman.
“What choice do we have?” Storm said, already at the door.
Ice wanted to argue, but Storm was right. If they could be sure that their particle beam would work in earth’s atmosphere, they could be aboard the ship in seconds. As it was, they couldn’t take the risk. They didn’t have time to worry about appearances. They could almost certainly outrun any humans, but he wasn’t sure about their weaponry. If they moved fast enough, perhaps that wouldn’t be an issue.
They left the shop and walked away quickly, just short of running. A man walking a dog watched them coming and asked, “What’s going on?”
Already someone was suspicious. That wasn’t good.
Storm shook his head. “My female companion fainted. We must get her medical attention quickly.”
The man frowned and pulled out a communication device. Ice fought the urge to rub his nose.
“Did you call nine-one-one?” the man said.
“No time,” Storm said. As the man started to protest, he waved a hand in front of his face, letting the disruptor chip in the palm of his hand render the man unconscious.
As soon as they reached the edge of the paved street, they ran. Storm only had to use the chip with two more people, both in a park. They located the cloaked mobile cruiser and rushed to it. They had to leave before the humans took notice.
With hurried urgency, they
boarded the compact cruiser. Ice strapped an unconscious Alana in an empty seat as Commander Storm prepared to take off. Her head lolled on her shoulder, and her dark silky hair caught his attention. A person with dark hair was almost non-existent in Crimea. Centuries of tinkering and perfecting their genetic material led to the extinction of certain traits. Alana is beautiful, he thought to himself. Strange, new feelings curled out on the back of his head; feelings to which he was totally unaccustomed. But Storm’s curses pulled him back into reality, sobering him at the urgency of their situation.
Ice quickly took his seat and strapped himself in. The cruiser’s engine hummed quietly and a second later, with a shiver and renewed jolt, they lifted off, slicing through Earth’s atmosphere with supersonic speed towards the Campania.
They all stared at the evidence with great dismay. The ambassador and the high-ranking crew members crowded the Command Station at the Campania’s main bridge. The alert that Grim had sent during the first-contact mission was even more dire than Ice had anticipated.
Ambassador Grim wrung his hands in exasperation. “It has to be sabotage,” he declaimed. “If one thing had gone wrong, I’d consider that pure chance. But look at everything that’s happened.”
A short-haired Crimean lieutenant with turquoise eyes snapped to attention. Lieutenant Eagle Windbane, Campania’s XO touched the screen and brought up another display. “There’s more. Our fuel reserves. Someone manipulated the manifest and gauges to appear that we departed with full capacity. Earlier, the maintenance team checked the reserves manually and noted the discrepancy in weight and usage. At present, we’re flying with low reserves.”
“What about backup fuel?”
“That also had been rendered obsolete. We’ve been given utility compact energy instead of ship fuel.”
Ice regretted kidnapping Alana even more now. Not only would she not be able to help his planet, she would most likely die with them in the cold void of space. Damn, there was so much he wanted to ask the female human now that he had his hands on a genuine live specimen. Humans. The holy grail of their civilization.
“Our mission,” Storm said, “is to bring back knowledge that will save our civilization. We may not have enough fuel to get home, but we have to find a way to complete the mission. It is imperative that we not fail.”
“If I may, Commander?” Rain asked timidly.
Storm spread a hand. “Please.”
“We should, at least, send our findings and the specimen in a rescue pod. Once we stop flying in superluminal, it is only a short distance to our patrolled territory. The pod is bound to be found by our Imperial cruisers. So then others could continue our works even when we couldn’t.”
Ice turned to Rain. “You mentioned the specimen. Just how much of the specimen do you plan on sending in a pod?”
Rain looked uncomfortable. “The whole human?”
“We need her knowledge. Sending her corpse to Crimea wouldn’t solve our problem,” Ice scolded her harsher than he intended.
“I was thinking we should preserve her in cryo, Minister Silverkiller.”
Something inside his chest erupted within. And he didn’t understand why. The feeling was alien to him. He felt the need to protect her for a selfish reason, not for the benefit of the mission. “No,” he refused flat out. “I won’t permit it.”
“Are you planning for her to die in space with the rest of us?” asked Storm.
“I was thinking to send her home to Earth in the rescue pod,” said Ice. “After we studied her, of course.”
“You know we can’t spare resources in our dire situation. With all due respect, Minister,” said Rain.
Damnation. Rain was right. He only planned to bring Alana to the ship, conduct a few interviews, collect a few samples and then send her home. He guessed that wasn’t possible now. He had suspicions that the schemer was someone in a high place. The Tempest Court was a cauldron of bubbling intrigue and treacheries. It had been a constant power struggle since Emperor Chaos was coronated. Many deemed the emperor unfit to rule due to his young age.
Ice himself had never been concerned much about politics even though he was born from a noble family and noble house. His interest solely lay in science. It was his diligence and unwavering devotion for the betterment of Crimea that the emperor made him the Minister of Science. To think that sabotage had impeded his work made his blood boil.
And as for the culprit, though it could have been anybody, even someone Ice had no idea existed, he kept thinking about Prime Minister Hallow and his resistance toward this entire mission.
Ice examined a screen detailing the mass and weight of onboard equipment, then held it up for Grim and Storm to see. He cleared his throat. “I might have a solution.”
Everyone paid him attention.
“We’ll fly in superluminal with bare minimum. We cut the left and right wings, environment, sickbay, galley, mess hall, weapon room, anything that could allow us to fly lightly. Comfort would be sacrificed. Food would be rationed. Anything that can be converted into energy would be used to further our flight.”
Storm moved to stand between Ice and Grim. “I can stay behind. Me and my men. Less people in suspension, requiring resources for the journey, may be enough.”
Ambassador Grim looked as if he might consider it, but Ice kept scrolling through screens. “No, we’re not leaving you behind.”
“If it’s the only way to complete the mission, I will insist.” Storm gazed at him defiantly.
“Then we’ll have to find another way.” Ice wouldn’t allow Storm to sacrifice himself. That wasn’t the mission he signed up for. Even though the only one of them who really needed to reach Crimea for the mission to be complete was Alana.
That was it.
“As I was saying before, we’ll shut down every non-essential system, dump unnecessary weights, and do everything to streamline the Campania to be as energy-efficient as possible. And we’ll program Alana’s pod to jettison if the ship is about to run out of fuel, along with a beacon to alert Crimea’s border patrols that she’ll need to be rescued. Once she exits the superluminal, her pod is bound to be found by the patrols. Once she’s safe our mission is completed.”
“And what happens to us?” asked Ambassador Grim.
“If my calculation is correct, Campania would lose total power just after the superluminal. If Alana’s pod is rescued, we might have a chance, although it might be very slim. The patrol’s cruisers can tow us from there. All we can do is wait.”
They were all considering the option.
“Then so be it,” said Ambassador Grim. “This mission comes first.”
Storm agreed. “I’ll see to my men. We must give everything we have so Alana has a chance to survive.”
“Very well.” Ice left them to prepare instructions for his underlings in Crimea so that they could continue his research properly. Once all the preparations had been made, he went to see if Alana was ready for the trip.
Chapter Four
Alana opened her eyes and instantly gasped, snapping them shut again. The bright light made her head pound. Carefully, she peeled them open with her head turned to the right to avoid the glare this time.
What the hell happened to me?
Her mind was kind of foggy.
How did I get here?
She didn’t recognize the room she was in now. The sterile white walls with blinking apparatus in the background. The overhead round light that was bright as sunlight.
And then, someone came into her peripheral view.
A tall woman with long, silver hair in a braid that fell forward over her shoulder regarded Alana with lifted eyebrows. She was a great beauty, looked neither old nor young. Her face was a testament of Nordic descent: high cheekbones, slim nose, and thin lips. Her figure was slender and willowy wrapped in a jumpsuit with a clean, modern line. Its fabric was light and had a slightly metallic sheen with badges sewn on the left breast, as if they signified her rank.
She smiled when their gazes clashed. Her irises were white with a hint of blue. They reminded her of ice chips.
Ice.
It all came back to her in a rush.
That bastard. He knocked me out!
The reality of her situation sank in as she tried to move and sit up.
She couldn’t.
Her body was strapped down to some kind of padded gurney that was firm but not uncomfortable. And she was naked, covered only by a thin sheet that was cool to the touch, and ended just above her breasts and at the tops of her thighs. She pulled against the straps on her wrists, but couldn’t budge them. A band around her chest, midsection and thighs kept her from being able to move much at all.
The woman’s mouth moved, and a strangely melodic sound came out, not quite like singing, but not speaking, either. Another voice joined hers with the same kind of sound, only higher-pitched. Alana turned her head to the left to see another woman, similar to the first, leaning over her.
Then pale, almost elegantly long hands reached for her, and though she squirmed and shouted, “Don’t touch me!” she couldn’t move away. A cool band of metal was snapped into place around her neck, and the melodious sounds miraculously turned to English.
“Please don’t be afraid, Alana Watson. We mean you no harm.”
“No harm? Then why am I tied down?”
“For your own safety, of course. We didn’t want you moving during the procedure. We’re nearly done.”
So many horrifying scenarios ran through Alana’s mind. She’d been kidnapped and they did something with her body. Fuck. Just her luck. Ice and Storm must be the procurers of this human trafficking ring. But why did they kidnap her? She wasn’t even pretty enough to be a sex slave. She wasn’t a blonde beauty with a slender figure. She didn’t have a wealthy family that would pay her ransom, if these people were after money. There had to be some mistake.
Yeah, it had to be.
Swallowing the panic that steadily rose into her throat, she mustered another question. “Are you going to sell me?”
Alien and the Wedding Planner Page 3