Anders: An Auxem Novel

by Lisa Lace

  They called him to the Innermost Chamber of the Oretoz Capital Fortress in the middle of the night. Troxeo answered the call with efficiency and without protests.

  The leaders reserved midnight meetings for the most important of government actions. During those hours, the secretaries and other administrative personnel were at home. They were also the kinds of meetings that led to promotions once the assignment was complete.

  When Troxeo had arrived, Commander Reck was looking at digital maps and charts spread out before him. Troxeo had recognized Earth even before his commander spoke; it was a favorite source of controversy on Oretoz. Since Bonaan was close to Oretoz, they had watched the communication to Earth with the utmost scrutiny.

  Commander Reck and the other government officials had been considering invading Bonaan for years, once the weapons, ships, and soldiers were in place. But the prospect of assimilating Earth was more tantalizing.

  For one thing, it had more resources. The Oretoz could get a staggering amount of energy from its vast saltwater oceans. Earth’s inhabitants were also technologically inferior to the Bonaan, and the consensus was it would be easier to invade Earth despite the distance. As far as Troxeo knew, however, no one had reached a final decision.

  Commander Reck spoke as soon as he entered the room. “I have a top secret mission for you. I’ve considered all of my best soldiers, and you are the only one I can trust with the job.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I need you to go to Earth and bring back a human. I don’t want one of these egghead scientists that think they know everything about the universe. I don’t need someone to tell me about their environment or their weapons systems. They’re so stupid that they broadcast that information unencrypted. I want to see one in person. I want to talk to it. Can we communicate with them? What are they like? The average human will give me a better idea of what I’m dealing with than any ambassador or hand-picked diplomat.”

  Commander Reck leaned over his maps thoughtfully. “Take time to plan, but I want you to leave as soon as possible.”

  Several other council members were in the Innermost Chamber as well, hovering quietly in the background. They didn’t bother hiding the disgust from their faces as they watched the conversation.

  “I must once again advise against this move, sir,” a tall, lanky man at the back finally said. His drew the ends of his words out slowly like something sticky covered them. By his willowy build, it was evident that he wasn’t a soldier.

  Troxeo instantly resented him.

  “It’s true we don’t know much about the...humans.” He made a face as though the word left a bad taste on his tongue. “What if the one Troxeo brings back is smarter than we imagined? What if it escapes and warns the rest of its race? The last thing we want is for Earth to prepare for our arrival.”

  Commander Reck laughed. “That is exactly my point, Councilman Keyb. We don’t want to underestimate them, no matter how primitive they may be. But I’m not worried about a single human, even if it did escape. It could never be smart enough to disable the genetic weapons I have prepared.”

  Councilman Keyb nodded, but Troxeo could tell by the glitter in his eyes that he still didn’t agree with Reck. “Very good, sir.”

  Reck turned back to Troxeo, patiently waiting for his response.

  Troxeo bowed slightly. It was little more than a nod and included his shoulders. “It will be my honor to accept this mission and my glory to die in the pursuit of it.”

  “Excellent.” Reck dismissed him with a flick of his fingers.

  Now, as the fourth ship loomed larger in his sight, he increased the power to his engines. By the time the Earth spaceship flew past, he was already building up speed and beginning pursuit. He smiled. The pilots would never know what hit them.

  “How will you know which one to pick?” Arkhan watched Troxeo unbuckle his seat belt.

  Troxeo paused to look his cousin in the eye. “I’ll know.”

  Chapter Six

  “Let me off! Let me off of this god-forsaken flying death trap!” A woman sitting a few rows back had begun to whimper as the spaceship left Earth’s gravity well. The ride had been relatively smooth at first, but it had done nothing to calm her down.

  Katie could hear the woman’s breathing as she puffed and squealed in her seat. The attendants, like the passengers, were restricted by their safety belts until they reached the darkness of space waiting for them on the other side of the atmosphere.

  “Will you shut up?” A blonde girl a couple of seats away angrily glared over her shoulder. “You can’t get out of here unless you’re willing to float out into space and die, so you’re going to have to get over it.”

  Katie peeked at the blonde out of the corner of her eye. She wasn’t wrong, but she didn’t have to be quite so rude about it. She was sure most of them were uncomfortable. The Earth Aviation Administration usually restricted commercial flights into space to celebrities, government authorities, and the uber-rich. It wasn’t likely that any of them were on this flight.

  “It will be all right,” said a calm voice closer to the woman who was panicking. “Why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself?”

  The two women began speaking in low voices, and the passengers breathed a collective sigh of relief. It was hard enough to watch Earth slowly shrink below them without someone yelling about it.

  The brunette turned to Katie. “So, what’s your story? Why are you here?”

  She shrugged. “My rotten boyfriend cheated on me. I guess it was a bit of a sudden decision, but I was ready for a change.”

  The other girl nodded sagely. “Girl, I hear you. I was sick and tired of all those stupid college boys. I mean, I’m all in for a good time, but they’re just so immature, you know?” She chomped loudly on a piece of gum and rolled her eyes up toward the off-white ceiling as she thought. “I wonder if these aliens know anything about commitment or cheating or anything. I mean, I know we’re going here to marry them, but what does marriage mean to an alien? Is it just a mating thing, or are you together for life?”

  Katie, surprised by the philosophy coming out of the young girl’s mouth and started to reply, but the blonde interrupted her.

  “Who cares? All I know is that we’re getting laid!” She snorted a loud laugh that echoed throughout the cabin.

  Katie prepared herself for another conversation about extraterrestrial genitalia, but it didn’t come. Instead, the passengers were silenced by a shaking that pulsed down the ship. The lights blinked off for just a moment before they flickered back on again. The woman a few rows back, who had been momentarily calmed by the chatterbox next to her, let out a bloodcurdling scream.

  “It’s probably just turbulence,” Katie said casually to her neighbor, trying to assure herself in the process. Was there turbulence in space? There wasn’t any air, right? How far did they have to get past the atmosphere before they were gliding along smoothly like the people in Star Wars?

  The lights flickered again. A loud crashing noise came from the back of the ship. Katie stiffened in her seat, all the muscles in her body tensing. Another crash rang through the air. Katie tried to look over her shoulder, but the backs of the seats were too high for her to see anything.

  “What the hell was that?” the blonde whispered, losing all of her carefree attitude in an instant. The other women were murmuring in a susurrus of panic.

  A voice boomed from the front of the plane. “Silence!”

  Katie looked up to see a tall man filling the doorway that led from the pilot’s area to the passenger compartment. His wide shoulders bulged out into muscular arms that were at least as thick as her waist, and they were well-displayed in a sleeveless shirt. The rugged green pants he wore over heavy boots made Katie think about someone from an overdone action movie. He had several weapons strapped to his back, but he didn’t reach for any of them. Blonde hair was trimmed so tightly to his head on the sides that she could see his scalp. Green eyes glittered out of a s
quare, angular face as he surveyed the passengers before him.

  Despite the newcomer’s commandment, no one was quiet. Most of the passengers started screaming. Katie was vaguely aware of the cacophony that surrounded her, but no cries of terror fell from her mouth. Instead, she instantly became aware of every part of her body. Her vision seemed to sharpen suddenly. Even her nose was working overtime as she caught a whiff of his natural scent, which smelled like a smooth musk.

  She watched his head slowly swivel, surveying the starship. Part of her wanted his eyes to land on her and take in every curve of her body. But the rational part of her brain was on high alert. There weren’t supposed to be men on this flight. Certainly not a big, brash, scary man that looked like he could have ripped through the hull of the ship with his bare hands.

  As she tried to make herself invisible, his gaze came to rest on her.

  Arkhan had to stay behind and maintain the connection between the two ships. Troxeo was on his own, maneuvering through the access hatch alone. He was prepared to exert himself pulling open the door to the Earth ship, but it was only slightly harder to open than his own. Apparently the humans could occasionally make high-quality parts.

  The passengers had acted in the way he had expected. They were a mindless mob. If he had raided a ship full of animals, it would have been the same. Most of them crouched into their seats, trying to make themselves invisible by becoming smaller. Some screamed and yelled, but none of them made a move against him. He felt like he could do anything he wanted. Troxeo found it hard to focus; the acrid smell of sweat mixed with the allure of females hung thick in the air.

  He tried to study each one of the humans in turn, but it was hard to compare one to another when they all cowered in their seats. He never had any doubts that he would know which one of them to take. He didn’t think he needed to know their identities in advance. It was unlikely that a significant person in Earth society would sell themselves as a mail-order bride. Commander Reck said he wanted an average human, and this was the place to get one.

  It didn’t take long for one of them to stand out from the crowd simply by being still. When his gaze landed on her, she stared back at him with equal intensity from her large blue eyes. Her dark hair contrasted with her fair skin and made her seem more exotic than the monotone female a few seats away that was all blonde and pink.

  Perhaps her most surprising feature, though, was her behavior. While the other females were in full panic mode, this one sat as still as a statue, studying him just as much as he studied her.

  He strode forward down the aisle and noticed that the female’s eyes followed him. She was definitely the one. He reached across the passengers sitting next to her, who were now babbling and crying. It only took a single swipe of his massive hand to undo her safety belt. He scooped her from the seat and threw her over his shoulder with ease.

  She was surprisingly soft, unlike the Oretoz women made of nothing but sinewy muscle and pure venom. Troxeo was pleased to find that she weighed little, and she barely struggled against him. Perhaps she was smart enough to understand that there was no point in fighting him. Maybe she was too stupid to know she was in danger.

  Either way, he had the human. Troxeo turned and headed back to his ship.

  Chapter Seven

  As the large man advanced down the aisle of the ship, Katie suddenly realized he must be an alien. For a moment, she felt slightly perverted admiring his physique, but she remembered that she was on her way to marry an alien, after all. No men on Earth were quite that big or that scary. At least, no one she knew. This man would be entirely out of place in the business attire Ben always wore. The wool wouldn’t hold his bulging muscles for an instant.

  When he batted her restraint away like a child’s plaything, Katie’s stomach contracted. What was he going to do? Was he going to take her? She couldn’t seem to do anything other than watch him dumbly.

  He lifted her out of the seat and tossed her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes before she knew it. He felt like nothing but hard lines and solid muscle. His arms were smooth rocks as they wrapped around her waist. He was so solid that he might as well have been a machine.

  When she looked up from her odd position, she realized something was terribly wrong. Yes, this man had hijacked their ship and forced his way inside. Yes, he was most likely an alien. Even if he was from Earth, he wasn’t the kind of guy with whom she wanted to be associated. Yes, she was currently slung across his shoulder like a girl in an old black and white movie.

  But when she looked up, she saw the faces of the other women on the plane. She saw fear in their eyes, and it was because of her.

  Their fellow passenger was being removed from the ship when she was supposed to be headed to Bonaan. She saw terror in their widened eyes, nails clawing at their carefully colored lips, hair that had suddenly pulled loose from little buns to stand on end like halos around their heads.

  Her body and mind finally got in sync. Katie struggled against the great hulk of a man. This couldn’t be happening, could it? Maybe she could do something to save herself. Katie swung her feet, but her sneakers only swiped through empty air. She hit something. Unfortunately, it was only the head of another Earth woman.

  Katie beat her fists against the man’s back, but her only reward was faint thumping sounds. She scratched at his fingers around her waist, at the back of his head, and at his eyes. The alien barely noticed her struggle. He continued to walk to the front of the spaceship, his arm tightening around her. She started thrashing around, pummeling against every part of him that she could reach.

  As they reached the doorway, she shoved her fists into his back and pushed against him with all of her might. His arm never moved, but she heard a crunch as she accidentally slammed the left side of her head against the wall. Katie saw sparks that danced and spun, and then everything went black.

  With his mission accomplished and the human female draped over his shoulder, Troxeo reboarded his ship. Even though he had never been one for sentiment, he couldn’t help feeling relieved to be back in familiar surroundings. The broken lines and dull colors of the Earth vessel couldn’t compare to the artistic efficiency he had come to know so well.

  His ship was much smaller that the one he came from, but there was no doubt that it was far more comfortable than the Earth design. Instead of a long tube with windows and fins like the other ship, it was the shape of a sphere, making it much more efficient for space travel.

  His captain’s quarters were the epitome of a well-organized space, with everything he needed within arm’s reach. There was even a small holding cell, which he used whenever he had the opportunity. The bridge had a spacious floor plan, with plenty of room surrounding the captain and co-pilot’s seats. He dumped the human unceremoniously in the open space.

  Arkhan turned his head briefly and eyed Troxeo’s payload over his shoulder. “Is that your chosen one? I didn’t realize it would be this small.”

  Troxeo moved back to his seat, trying to keep his mind off of the way the human felt in his arms. It wasn’t like him to feel sentimental, and now wasn’t the time to start. “She was the easiest to carry,” he replied curtly. “The others were all bellowing and pulling their hair like primitives. She was the calmest one.”

  His cousin shrugged. “She couldn’t have been too calm if you had to tranquilize her.”

  Troxeo’s shoulders became tense as he replayed his exit from the plane. He had wanted to laugh at the human for struggling. He was obviously physically superior, so what was the point of fighting? The memory of the terrible sound her skull made as it hit the doorway made him cringe. He must be running on insufficient sleep or something. Why was he so concerned about whether a stupid animal hurt itself? He didn’t bother correcting Arkhan on how the human became unconscious.

  “Setting course for Oretoz,” Arkhan said formally as he maneuvered the controls of the ship.

  Troxeo was happy to leave Earth in the distance as they headed back to
their planet. With luck, he wouldn’t have to return to this region of space until it was time for the invasion. Commander Reck hadn’t made him privy to all the details of his war plan, but he knew from experience that it would be quick and efficient. Perhaps promptly retrieving the human would prove him worthy of another promotion, and he would get to lead part of the onslaught personally.

  As they moved out of Earth’s solar system, Troxeo could see out of the corner of his eye that Arkhan had turned in his seat and was casually looking at their cargo again. “Is something on your mind?”

  Arkhan shrugged, and a slight red tinge crept into his skin. “She’s not as horrific as I imagined she would be.”

  Troxeo felt angry, but he wasn’t sure why. “What is that supposed to mean?” He wondered if there was something about being close to Earth that was making them both get weak.

  “Look at her yourself for a minute,” Arkhan urged, and Troxeo reluctantly obeyed. The human’s dark hair was spread out around her head on the floor. Her arms were loosely spread out. If Troxeo didn’t know how she came on board, he might have thought she was taking a relaxing nap. Her breasts gently rose and fell in the rhythm of her breathing. Her shirt had ridden up, exposing the soft skin of her belly. Hips curved in a way he had never seen on Oretoz women. For a moment, he allowed himself to imagine what it would be like to hold onto them.

  “I don’t see anything special.” He made sure to keep his voice flat and uninterested.

  Arkhan snorted. “Me neither. She’s just like all the other ones. Since they’re all the same, how about you let me have this one? We can go back and get you another one for Commander Reck. He’ll never know the difference.”

  “What do you plan on doing with it?” Troxeo asked.

  Arkhan grinned and waggled his dark eyebrows. “I can think of plenty of things.”

  Unbidden, an image entered Troxeo’s mind. He saw the human woman underneath him, writhing and moaning. The women from his planet were soldiers, just like the men. They viewed sex as another mission for them to accomplish so they could ensure the future of their species. They took no pleasure in the act of mating and didn’t expect to give any. It was the way of their people. Troxeo had never questioned it before in his life. But as he looked at the soft, supple figure on the floor of his ship, he couldn’t help but wonder if he had been missing something. What would it feel like to have her velvety skin pressed against his hard and lusty body?