by Stella Sky
The thought of staying in bed was rather tempting, so I lounged back against the huge, fluffy pillows and sighed. This was fine. If nothing else, I could escape out the window and get to know the mysteriously beautiful planet that I had been deposited upon against my will.
It struck me suddenly just how incredible it was that a human female like myself had been able, through no effort of my own, to view two completely different planets within the span of a month. Most humans had only ever seen Earth, and this was especially true of those of my sex. And yet, my mind had been filled with wonder at the beauty and complexity of life, my scientific heart filled nearly to bursting with the perplex ecosystems that created and sustained the delicate balance of life. In a way, this situation was beautiful.
But it didn’t change the fact that I had been lied to by the one being in all the universe that I had wanted to trust with my whole heart. I wanted to give everything to him, no matter how naïve that may have been. The betrayal I felt ran deep. I had believed that he wanted to help me. That he wanted to do what was best for me. But all this time, he had only been thinking about what was best for himself and what he wanted. It hurt more than I knew how to let on.
“Human!”
I frowned when Kecha barged into the room carrying a silver tray. On the tray was a sinfully delicious-smelling meal. He smiled at me as if he already knew all of my weaknesses and was working to butter me up.
In a way, I found myself succumbing to his charm. Frankly, I had loved spending time with this man, even though I had known he had something up his sleeve. Now that I knew what it was, it was almost a relief in a way: as if the ax had finally dropped and I could stop worrying about it. Now maybe I could invite him into the bed with me, and we could share some of that mind-blowing physical connection that had been so indulgent and satisfying back when we were on Hexa.
And yet there was still a part of me that was furious. I despised the fact that he could be so selfish. A million delicious meals would never be enough to make up for the fact that I had been betrayed by the one person I had allowed myself to trust. That pain might never go away.
“Please, eat something. We were malnourished on Hexa, despite our best efforts at saying alive. This meal should do you some good. I was able to look into human customs and dietary needs. I will be in my study should you need me.”
He didn’t wait for me to respond and instead disappeared from the room, leaving me with the obnoxious temptation of the meal he had prepared for me.
I looked at it bitterly, my stomach growling fiercely as I did so. It vaguely resembled something you might find at any diner on Earth, but if you were looking at it in a funhouse mirror. Why was everything so twisted sometimes?
And yet, I could not resist the temptation. Without Kecha there to know I was eating it, I consumed the meal and enjoyed the burst of flavor. It was similar to foods on Earth, but different: almost more soulful.
I finished the meal and sighed when it was completed, rubbing my stomach. He had given me a portion size that was far too large, but I had gone ahead and eaten it all anyway. Apparently now I was stress eating. That was the last thing I needed to do.
As much as I wished I could forgive him for what had happened, I just couldn’t. Things would never be the same between us. I had been betrayed, and until I went back to Earth, I would never be happy again.
***
“You can’t stay angry at me forever, can you?” Kecha asked. It had been a week since I had been brought to Yala, and in that time, he had gone back to Hexa and liberated all of his comrades. A few other humans had managed to join the ranks of the planet, but they refused to speak to me. We hadn’t exactly parted on good terms.
“I will be angry as long as I want,” I said stubbornly. “You lied to me.”
Kecha’s eyes flashed with an emotion that looked a lot like guilt, and he approached me, putting his hand on my shoulders and holding my gaze.
“I am sorry I lied to you. But I am not sorry that I brought you here. You are mine. I claimed you, and you accepted that claim. And one day, you will have my children, and we will help to repopulate Yala.”
I scoffed at him, disgusted, and pried myself out from under his grip.
“I can guarantee you that none of that will ever happen.”
His handsome face broke out into a smile, and for a moment I wished more than anything that I could once again smile with him and go back to the time when things were simple.
“We will see, human.”
“Stop taking my feelings as some sort of a challenge. I will never let you keep me here.”
Kecha shrugged, and I stormed away from him and locked myselff back in my room. I had been spending a lot of time there, and I would be fine spending the rest of my life there if he thought he could keep me on Yala against my will.
But what he didn’t know was that I had a plan brewing. I was going to get back to Earth, whether he liked it or not. And I was going to do it my way.
***
It took me a while to come up with a good plan, but when I did, it came to me like a bolt of lightning. The leader of the Raithers was organizing a search party for the humans and Raithers who were still lost on the planet, and then they were going to return them to Earth. I would just have to board the ship before it launched and stow away until we made it to Earth. It was simple.
That night while Kecha was asleep, I snuck into the kitchen and packed a bag full of food and water. I snuck into his room, where he lay sleeping soundly, and with trembling hands grabbed the security clearance card that he used for work. I hesitated before leaving, taking one last look at the man I had spent the past few months of my life with. He looked so beautiful while he was sleeping, his handsome face flawless and peaceful. I wished things could have been different. But some betrayals were just unforgivable.
I returned to my room and crawled out the window, my heart pounding hard in my ears. I stood frozen in the yard, trepidation in my chest. Why did I feel so reluctant to leave? I had been coveting the idea of home so much that I should have been running as fast as my legs could carry me to the center, where the launch was going to take place early the next morning. I had to go now. No hesitation.
The night air was cool, and I took one final chance to stare up at the mesmerizing night sky. Yala was so much more beautiful than Earth. I had been there for a long time and had begun to explore all of the fields and hills, delighting in every new discovery I made. The thought of leaving all this behind to return to Earth nearly brought me to tears.
And yet, I had to do it. I had to go home. Didn’t I?
As soon as I made it to the base, I made a beeline for the area where I had both entered and exited with Kecha during several rounds of testing and interrogation by Yala’s diplomats, who wanted to know everything they could about humanity and my role in arriving to the planet Hexa and how I had managed to survive. They only allowed me to come back to stay permanently at Kecha’s house once they had conducted several lengthy tests to ensure that I would not be carrying any sort of contagion to their planet. Until the tests had been completed, I hadn’t been allowed out of Kecha’s sight; we had been stuck in his house together.
When I crept into the base, the lights were dim, and my eyes scanned the room to make sure that nobody was in sight, relieved to find that the coast. I knew my way around thanks to Kecha’s adamant insistence that he take me everywhere with him, though that had tapered off a little bit once the novelty of me being on his planet wore off.
I stepped forward as cautiously as possible, knowing that if I got caught, I would be in major trouble. Most of the Raithers were tucked safely in their beds at a reasonable hour, as their society worked like clockwork, so I knew that I probably wasn’t going to encounter any problems.
Finally, the huge, familiar ship came into view—the ship that Kecha had shown me so proudly—a ship that looked identical to the one that had crash-landed on the planet Hexa. I knew the inside of the ship intimatel
y after living there for so long at Kecha’s side, and felt a surge of guilt at the thought of leaving him forever. I had enjoyed being at his side, and he had truly gone above and beyond to protect me.
In his own way, I was sure he loved me deeply, but it was in a selfish way, in a way that refused to meet my needs and hopes of the future. I had believed at first that perhaps our relationship could be meaningful, at least just a little bit, but the sad fact of the matter was that it never could be. Not with somebody who refused to acknowledge my feelings and respect my wishes. Not with someone who lied to me and betrayed me in the worst ways possible.
I climbed into the ship, securing myself comfortably in the cargo bay. I was exhausted from the journey and emotionally drained at the reality of leaving the beautiful planet Yala behind forever.
The worst part of it was that if I could have truly believed that Kecha was sincere in his emotions, if he could have actually done as I wished, I could have loved him too.
I let the thoughts pass through my mind, too exhausted to pay them any more heed for the night. I was going to go back to Earth, and that was all there was to it.
I woke up suddenly, strong hands seizing my arms, and a deep, angry voice shouting Raither curses at me.
“Oh, it’s that gredding human that the commander brought to our planet! Now we’re infested with the vermin! And we don’t even know what they are after. What if they did some kind of weird alien mind control on them while they were together on the prison planet? They might be here to invade us. From right under our noses!”
“Alien menace! Scum! What are you really after? No criminals on Hexa deserve their freedom.”
“We will get the truth out of you!”
Before I could even scream, a rag was shoved into my mouth, and the Raithers were lifting me to my feet, shoving me out of the ship and into the darkness of the unknown. I fought my hardest, with one crushing thought weighing heavily on my mind: Kecha couldn’t save me this time.
Chapter 8
Commander Kecha Thornax
I had been roused sometime during the night for some unknown reason and lay awake in my bed thinking of the human. She had been with me for a long time now, countless months, and slowly, day by day, she seemed to be getting used to the situation at hand. And yet, there was damage done between us that only I could repair, and it did not feel good.
I wracked my brain to figure out the best approach to making amends with the human, but there seemed to be no simple solution in sight. This was something time would have to work out on its own, no matter how frustrating that might be.
I cared so deeply for her. Perhaps the only way to make things right was to take her to Earth and let her go. It was making us both miserable for her to be a captive in my home. Perhaps freedom was the only true resolution.
“Human, it is time. I shall return you to Earth,” I said, bursting into Alice’s room. She had treated it like a sanctuary, an escape from me, and I loathed violating it anytime I walked through the door.
I had expected a cry of surprise, or a laugh of pleasure, but there was no sound coming from the room. She was gone.
Gone? But where could she be?
I tore through the house, desperate to find her or any clue of where the human might have gone. When I returned to my bedroom to grab my weapons, I realized suddenly that my clearance card was gone.
The base.
Suddenly, her whole plan seemed to unfold before my eyes. She was going to stow away back to Earth on the rescue mission. Subject herself to a whole new level of torture back on the planet Hexa by staying stuck in the Raither ship until the search party had come to a close.
I took off full pelt to my hovercraft, grateful that it was still intact. Thankfully the human had no idea how to maneuver the ship and had apparently gone on foot. That would give me some time to catch up to her, if it wasn’t already too late.
It was no secret that the Raithers had a deep mistrust of the humans; anyone from the planet Hexa was treated with suspicion. She hadn’t had a very warm welcome, but I knew that once the situation was sorted out with the Resha Federation, an official announcement would be able to change all of that.
When I arrived at the base, I felt a chill creep through me. Something wasn’t right.
I got out of the craft quickly and looked around, worried about what I might find. I couldn’t get inside without my clearance card and cursed loudly.
As if prompted by the sound of my voice, I heard a muffled scream followed by a harsh hiss. I took off running toward the noise and found the human on the ground, being dragged, one Raither tugging each of her arms as they moved toward an idle hovercraft.
“Release her at once!” I demanded.
Instead of heeding my words, the Raithers shuffled even faster toward their craft. I pulled out my laser and shot one beam into the air as a warning. Still, they did not stop, and Alice’s wide, frightened eyes bore into me, terrified and ashamed. But I would save her. I always saved her.
I fired again, this time striking the shoulder of the Raither on the left. He cursed but did not slow himself, and I ran as fast as my legs could carry me, shooting at the other man.
They surprised me by dropping Alice in unison and turning toward me simultaneously, drawing their own lasers and firing. I leaped out of the way of one shot, but a shooting pain seared through my abdomen and I knew that I had not been so lucky when it came to the other. I shot blindly at them both, and they ran away from the human, their sole mission now to murder me in cold blood.
Although I was outnumbered, I also outranked them, and soon had one lying on the ground struggling for life while the other was cornered. I shot the weapon out of his hands and he whimpered, trembling violently as he cowered away from me.
“What were you doing with her?” I demanded, aiming my weapon at his head. “You answer me now!”
“We were just going to get a little information is all,” he said, cowering.
“The Federation already conducted its investigation on her!” I shouted. “You are not to lay a hand on her or on any other humans! Do you understand that?”
He nodded emphatically, and I growled, pulling the radio out of my belt and radioing the Federation.
“We have a Raither who is going to go with the search party in the morning,” I informed them. “He was not a part of the original plan, but he is to be part of the team and stay behind on the planet until every last human and Raither are rescued.”
“Understood. Can we have his ID?”
I read the number from the tag on his wrist, glaring at him all the while. He quaked in fear, and I bound his hands and sat him down on the steps of the Base with a note for the crew when they arrived in the morning.
Once he was fully dealt with, I retrieved the human, picking her up carefully in my arms and looking her over.
“Are you all right?” I asked her.
She nodded, clinging to me, tears springing in her eyes. She could not speak, and I didn’t expect her to.
“Good,” I said. “Let’s go home.”
***
The human watched me, her oceanic eyes dubious as I slowly peeled off the layers of clothing away from my body. A creep of red colored her cheeks once my abdomen was bared, and then quickly turned pale.
“You’re hurt!”
She ran forward, her hand hovering over the wound as if she were going to touch it. I chuckled and nodded.
“I have survived worse,” I said, sighing painfully as I moved toward the cupboard in my greeting room, where I had found it most convenient to store my medical supplies.
Alice took them from me and led me to a seat in my common room, gently pressing my shoulder down so that I sat.
I sighed, pursing my lips as she worked, expertly tending to the wound and occasionally asking me what the liquids in the medical kid were intended for. I explained them all in depth to her; it was a welcome distraction from the pain searing my abdomen where the laser had pierced me.
“You could have been killed,” she finally sighed, her brow furrowing miserably. “I don’t want you to get killed…”
“I don’t think it was that bad,” I said. “I know what I’m doing. Human…”
I trailed off, unsure of how to proceed with the conversation. I had given in to the possibility that I might have to surrender her to her home planet. Now, her plan had failed, and I still had the option of providing her safe passage. But the words were stuck in my throat.
“Is it true?” Alice asked, her eyes heavy with emotion and serious. “Would you do whatever it takes to protect me?”
“Of course,” I breathed. “Every day of my life.”
She nodded, and for a moment I thought she might just lean down and kiss me. Instead, she sighed and turned away from me, looking over her shoulder before disappearing back to her room.
“Thank you,” she said. “Get some rest.”
***
“Come on, human,” I said.
A week had passed, and my wound was healed, and I had decided that it was finally time for me to bite the bullet. Despite my claim on her, our relationship was going nowhere. All I wanted was to make the human smile again, and so I was going to do the one thing I wanted to do least in the world: return her to her own planet.
“Where are we going?” Alice asked.
Ever since I had saved her, Alice had been kinder and more soft-spoken, doing small, considerate things around the house for me and even on occasion bringing me meals. It was strange, these shows of affection, but it almost felt as it had been when we were together on the planet Hexa. And yet, there was still tension between us. The pain of my betrayal. It was time to make that right.
“I am going to take you home.”
Alice froze, her face filled with a strange apprehension that surprised me.