Out of the Ashes (Maji Book 1)

by L. A. Casey

  “This is your doing, you intolerable fool!” she hissed at him.

  Mikoh laughed, and the sound was almost human, only it had a lot more gruffness to it. I stopped screaming because I ran out of breath, but also because I wanted to see the exchange between the two Maji who eyed each other with such obvious distaste.

  “Must you blame everything on me, Surkah?” Mikoh asked, still grinning. “Surely, the little alien is terrified of your face, not mine.”

  “Leave!” Surkah shouted and threw a sharp object at him, but he ducked, easily avoiding it.

  I momentarily wondered where she got the sharp object from. I also wondered if there were more so I could avail of one and use it to defend myself if I needed to.

  “I’ll do so happily!” Mikoh snapped back at Surkah. “If the little alien attacks you, do not cry for my help like you did when the tiny Earth rodent entered your quarters yesterday!”

  “I didn’t cry for you,” Surkah mocked. “I cried for anyone, and it wasn’t tiny, it was the size of my foot! It could have killed me.”

  Mikoh laughed, ducking again when Surkah threw something else at him, then left the room quicker than he’d entered. I shook my head, feeling like my eyes and ears were betraying me. I wondered if I imagined things, or did I really witness two Maji argue with one another? It seemed like an awfully human thing for them to do, but that was impossible. Other species weren’t like humans. They were just … different.

  I blinked and looked at the female who was now watching me with more interest than before. She made no attempt to talk or move closer to me, and I felt better because of it.

  “Please,” I whispered when I was sure she wasn’t going to move. “Don’t kill me.”

  Surkah frowned, her thick white eyebrows furrowing. “I wish you no harm, tiny one.”

  Tiny one?

  “Why am I here then?” I asked, trying to keep my composure.

  My heart was beating so fast it felt like it would burst. It was then that I noticed the beeping I had heard earlier was louder now and faster. It began to hurt my head.

  “You were injured.” Surkah shrugged as she pressed the machine next to her, silencing the beeping. “I mended your injury, and now I’m tending to you because you’re still unwell. You’re in my charge, and it is my duty to care for you.”

  “I was injured?” I questioned.

  Surkah nodded slowly. “Badly. You lost a lot of blood, and I feared your bones would not set and mend correctly when you were brought to me. I healed them as best as I could then I tended to your minor wounds, bathed you briefly, and dressed you in a wrap made for humans … though, I think it is too small for you.”

  I was relived she had been the one to bathe me, but I didn’t linger on that thought long because confusion gripped me, so I closed my eyes and thought. Hard. What was Surkah talking about? She said I was injured, but how? How was I injured, and how on Almighty’s Earth did I end up in a Maji’s charge?

  Think, Nova.

  I remembered scouting the WBO, and I remembered being attacked by watchmen. I… I killed one of them and fled from the other, only I didn’t get far. I opened my eyes when my memories resurfaced. The watchman who would kill me was instead killed by the huge Maji with violet eyes and sharp teeth. I fainted, and they brought me to Surkah for treatment, but why?

  Why would they want to help a human?

  I looked down at my arm and stared at my virtually unmarred skin. I vividly remembered my radius sticking out of my flesh and a deep, jagged slice in my skin surrounding it that pooled with blood. I touched my skin carefully and pressed gently. There was no pain. There was no anything. Not even a mark.

  “How?” I asked, my voice raspy. “It was dislocated, and the bone cut through—”

  “I healed it,” Surkah cut in. “That is what I do. I am one of the healers aboard that is assigned to humans.”

  Healer?

  “So … you’re like a doctor?”

  “I do not understand.” Surkah frowned, her forehead creasing. “The word ‘doctor’ does not translate into Maji language.”

  “Um, a doctor is a person who cares for the injured and sick.”

  Surkah considered this. “That is what I am, but we use the term healer.”

  “Well … I … Thank you for … healing me.”

  I didn’t understand how she did it, but I was grateful nonetheless.

  Surkah smiled, and I was pleased to see she didn’t have fangs like Mikoh. Her teeth were sharper than mine, but they weren’t scary or something I’d stop and stare at. I silently thanked Almighty for that.

  “It is an honour to tend to you, tiny one,” she said, and she sounded very … excited. “You are the first human I have healed, and I am very happy there were no complications. While you were resting, I scanned you with my lissa because I feared your biology would differ greatly from Maji and that our medicines, or my ability, would have no effect on you, but to my delight, I discovered we’re one hundred percent compatible. I cannot believe the results; it is truly a gift from Thanas that we came here. My shipmaster and my people will celebrate greatly with the news.”

  What in the fresh hell is she talking about?

  I had a whole bunch of similar questions floating around in my mind, and I didn’t know which one to ask first. Instead of voicing them, I kept flicking my eyes from Surkah to the section of the wall that opened before. I heard a noise outside, and I tensed. I was so scared Mikoh would re-enter the room.

  I really need to get free and get a weapon.

  “Why are you fearful?” Surkah asked, gaining my attention. “I scent it on you.”

  Excuse me?

  “What did you just say?” I asked, baffled. “You smell my fear?”

  “Yes,” she replied, sniffing the air. “Fear has a sickly sweet scent, and you reek of it.”

  These aliens can smell fear?

  “Well …” I swallowed. “It’s just … I was kidnapped.”

  “By who?” Surkah growled. “I will break their bones in places they won’t mend correctly.”

  The animalistic noises she made silenced me.

  “Speak, tiny one,” she pressed. “Who kidnapped you?”

  I blinked. “Your people did.”

  Surkah gasped and placed her hand over her chest as if I’d physically wounded her.

  “We did not abduct you,” she stressed. “My people saved you.”

  I looked down at the straps that bound me to the bed and then back up at Surkah. She winced.

  “Those bindings are for your protection as well as mine. We weren’t sure how you would react when you awoke. The shipmaster ordered the restraints.”

  The shipmaster?

  “Okay,” I said, trying to understand her point of view.

  “Surely, I would not have healed you if we meant you harm?”

  I bit my lip. “Well, other species had kidnapped men, woman, and children from trading posts before and sold them into slavery on other planets, and they didn’t harm them as to not … devalue them. I guess I’m just worried about something like that happening.”

  And about you eating my flesh.

  I had heard all sorts of horror stories over the years about the aliens, and the worst one was that some aliens enjoyed eating human flesh while blood still flowed through their veins. The thought terrified me.

  I really needed a fucking weapon.

  Surkah’s eyes blazed with anger. “No one will kidnap or harm a human whilst Maji take hu—I mean rebuild Earth.”

  Her slip of tongue didn’t go unnoticed by me, and it only made me even more wary of her. She was lying to me, but I didn’t know why. To avoid drawing attention to the fact that I knew she was lying, I played dumb.

  “Rebuild the Earth?” I repeated, tilting my head to the side. “I’m sorry, but what do you mea—”

  “Surkah!” Mikoh’s voice shouted from outside the room, gaining both our attention. A second later, the wall opened, and Mikoh stood in the d
oorway but didn’t enter the room. “The shipmaster requests an update on your scan of the human. He disapproves of you unlinking your comm from the system, and so do I. I told you I need to be able to contact you at all times when I am not in talking distance. Our comms provide that, so why must you disconnect?”

  “Because I don’t like having males inside my head twenty-nine hours of the day!”

  Twenty-nine hours of the day? Comms? What on Earth are they talking about?

  “We aren’t just any males, though,” Mikoh said, his eyes focused solely on Surkah. “Just give me the update, and I’ll pass it onto the shipmaster since you won’t reconnect. He is giving me a sore head.”

  Surkah did something that surprised me then; she squealed.

  “It is a positive result, Mikoh.”

  Mikoh’s jaw dropped open. “Truly?”

  “Truly,” Surkah gushed. “Humans will be our salvation.”

  “That’s earned a huge what from me,” I cut in, feeling great unease about the conversation happening before me.

  Mikoh locked eyes on me, and I tensed when he leisurely ran his eyes over my form. I didn’t like how he looked at me; it reminded me of a wolf and how they would stare at their prey before they gobbled them up.

  “Are you sure we’re compatible?” he asked Surkah without looking away from me. “She is very small.”

  What the fuck does that mean?

  “My lissa does not lie; human female internal organs are very much like our females in function. They’ll benefit from our medicine, and the essence of a mating bond would even extend their lifespan. I’m positive.”

  “I’m going to throw out another what here if anyone is interested?” I said, my eyes wide with confusion.

  Mikoh switched his attention from me to Surkah, and he stared at her with disbelief.

  “I’m not convinced,” he said gruffly.

  I might as well be invisible.

  “What else would you have me do?” Surkah demanded of Mikoh. “My lissa does not lie. You know this, Mikoh.”

  What the hell is a lissa?

  Mikoh closed his eyes for a moment, and when he reopened them, he said, “I’ve sent for the shipmaster. He will be here momentarily; we will await his decision on the results.”

  “As you wish,” Surkah said through gritted teeth.

  Mikoh backed out of the room then the doors began to close, but before they shut completely, his electric red eyes flicked in my direction, and he winked. A second later, the doors closed, sealing him from the room.

  “Stubborn male,” Surkah grumbled to herself before turning her attention to me. “Are you well, tiny one?”

  Her voice was so clear and well-spoken that for a moment, I felt dazed at the soothing calmness it provided.

  “I have so many questions.”

  “Ask away.”

  You got it.

  “How can you speak English so well?” I asked, blinking.

  She tapped on the section of skin behind her right earlobe.

  “While you were sleeping, I inserted a tiny translator into the kornia section of your brain. There is no translation for kornia, but it is a region of the brain. I feared it would take a long time to work, but as we can hear each other clearly, it is working perfectly.”

  I touched the spot behind my ear, but I felt nothing.

  “So right now,” I began, “do you hear English or your own language?”

  “When you speak, I hear Maji language, and when I speak, you hear human language. Your selected human language anyway. I cannot believe there are so many. There is only one Maji language.”

  I exhaled. “That is crazy. I don’t hear anything other than perfect English when we speak.”

  Surkah smiled. “The translator makes it possible.”

  “I loosely understand that, but what I don’t get is the Maji who … saved me from the watchman. They spoke English, a choppy version, but it was English, and I understood that. I didn’t have this translator in my head then.”

  “It’s hard to explain, but the Maji would have thought their words, and through their comms, the translator would relay the message to them in your language, and they would just verbally repeat it. It is the reason it sounded odd. The Maji were just repeating the words since your language is foreign to us. The males informed me that it is difficult to make the correct sounds when speaking your language because their tongue moved too much. They’re trying, though; even now, most of them are talking in English, Spanish, and Italian to those without translators to try to … fit in. Many have practiced on our journey here, and others for even longer.”

  What is a Comm, and how can the Maji silently communicate with it?

  “I’m so confused.”

  “About the translator?”

  “About everything.”

  “Ask more questions,” Surkah encouraged. “I will answer them as best as I can.”

  “Okay … what is a comm? Mikoh said you disconnected your comm from the system, and you just said the males who saved me used their comms to speak English to me.”

  Surkah tapped behind her left earlobe.

  “Comm is short for communicator,” Surkah explained. “At birth, a Maji has his or her comm inserted into the vixer. I am also aware the vixer has no translation in human language, but it is simply another name we have for a certain region of the brain. After insertion, a comm remains dormant until our tenth year and then activates. We Maji use a greater percentage of our brains compared to humans. Our comms grow with us like an extra organ. With it, we’re all connected to a system that connects all Maji. Of course, the higher your rank in our society, the more access you have within the system. Mine is restricted on Ealra—my home world—and on board the Ebony—that’s the name of this ship. I am only allowed access to the medical wing, its equipment, as well as the life pods in case of emergency evacuation. Mikoh and the shipmaster are the only Maji I can contact and who can contact me, but I was tired of listening to them give me orders and telling stupid jokes, so I disconnected myself from the system. I’ll reconnect later, but for now, I’m enjoying a non-crowded mind.”

  What. The. Fuck.

  “I’ve never heard of anything like that before in my entire life,” I said, amazed.

  Even our augmented humans couldn’t mentally talk to one another, not that I knew of anyway.

  “Is it strange?” Surkah asked, seemingly amused at my shocked reaction. “I have never given it much thought. It is part of the Maji way and always has been.”

  “This is a lot to take in.”

  “I am sorry; I thought humans were educated in other species.”

  “We were aware of other species, but we were never allowed to be thoroughly educated beyond what the Earth’s government wanted us to know. Knowledge is power, and that is something our government doesn’t want its citizens to have.”

  “That is a great shame.”

  You’re telling me.

  “Where is the Earth’s government?” I asked, frowning. “Why am I not with a human doctor right now?”

  Surkah licked her lips. “It is not my place to say.”

  That was another red flag in my mind, so I tried to steer away from the topic of Earth’s government until I wasn’t strapped down to a bed. Surkah had healed me, but I knew it wasn’t out of the goodness of her heart. No one did something for no reason; there was always a reason for someone to help someone else, and there was also always a price to pay. Surkah was being kind and answering my questions, but I knew it was just to keep me calm. I was in this room for a reason, and I didn’t want to stick around to find out what that reason was.

  “So,” I said, changing the topic. “Why did you say you didn’t like to have males in your head twenty-nine hours a day? Why that number?”

  Surkah raised a brow. “Well, a typical day on Earla is twenty-nine hours long.”

  Woah.

  “It’s only twenty-four on Earth.”

  Surkah smiled. “I am aware.”<
br />
  Clearly, her kind was aware of Earth if they were here. That brought me to my next question.

  “I’m confused as to why you are here, and why you think humans are the salvation to Maji, and about how humans and Maji are compatible. What does all that mean exactly?”

  “Well—”

  I jumped when the doors to the room opened once more, and instead of Mikoh standing there, it was a different Maji. A tall Maji with grey skin, violet eyes, and menacing gold-capped teeth. It was him, the Maji that saved me from the watchman. He had on the same uniform as Mikoh, but my alert state allowed me to notice what I hadn’t noticed about him before. He had cropped black hair, and on the section above his ears, the hair was tightly braided to his scalp, keeping the hair from falling forward into his face. His eyebrows were dark, thick, and nicely positioned above his large eyes. His jawline was so sharp it could have cut something, and on his neck, a jagged white line peeked out from underneath his jumper top.

  Oh, my Almighty.

  “Greetings, Shipmaster,” Surkah said as she closed her fist, placed her right arm on the left side of her chest and bowed her head. When she looked up, the shipmaster nodded, his lips turning upwards at the corners.

  “Greetings, Surkah.”

  His voice was super deep.

  “My lissa garnered positive results from my scan of the human, and they’re better than we could have ever possibly imagined.”

  The shipmaster’s eyes seemed to light up with curiosity. Those hypnotic eyes flicked to me for a moment then switched back to Surkah.

  “Mikoh informed me… It is a definite match?” he questioned.

  A match of what?

  “Yes. It is a hundred percent match,” Surkah beamed, sounding giddy. “We have succeeded in finding our primary objecti—”

  The shipmaster suddenly said something in a strange language that cut Surkah off. She frowned and glanced at him then me and back again before nodding once.

  “What was that about?” I asked Surkah. “Why couldn’t I understand him?”

  “Because I momentarily disabled your translator so you could not understand me.” He answered instead.

  Oh, shit. That didn’t sound good. He didn’t want me to know what they were talking about, and I didn’t need to be educated in their species to know that was bad news for me.