by Ellen Mint
Lashing my hands out, I ripped at the leafless branches, praying anything would slow me down. Twigs punctured between the gaps of my fingers and tore at my hair, but I ground my heels into the mud through the pain. And came to a halt right before another drop onto sharp rocks below.
“Holy Saint Barbara!” I shouted to my patron saint, then winced at the choice. Given the explosions in the kitchen perhaps I should have stuck with a more pedestrian patron.
The burst of blood from my brush with snapping my own neck rampaged through my ears. Panting, I placed a hand to my chest to try and calm myself. I was running from a murderous alien, but somehow my daily anxiety attack tore me apart more. Bodies were so confounding at times.
Wait. The sound wasn’t slipping away. Easing closer to the short but more jagged fall, I peered through the trees. A flash of twin lights burst through the curve of the mountain. The road!
I didn’t leap for joy because possible doom, but I did give a little shimmy. I made it! Now to flag down a helpful samaritan and try to call my sister. Hopefully, my phone survived all of that tumbling.
What was the best way down? Maybe if I eased a foot off and gently placed it on the spiky rocks. I dropped to a knee and slowly began to trail my leg against the chilled smooth slate.
Blackness darker than night whipped through the air. I tried to rear back, but it struck my face harder than any slap could and sent me tumbling to the dirt. Shit! I tried to scramble away, my useless toes thudding against the ground, but two tentacles wrapped around my waist and I flew through the air.
Straight into the murder-red eyes of the Kirkan.
“Run, run. So much useless running, creature,” it chuckled from the robot on its hip. Apparently, that wasn’t destroyed in the attack. Wait, Nolan took out its leg. How was it…?
I caught metal shining from below the tattered flesh of where the tentacle had been. The Kirkan seemed to sense my understanding as it explained, “Pity for the Yaxha. That’d have stopped any other of my kind who aren’t carrying around pure Lacon metal in their leg. Now…”
The tentacles squeezed tighter and raised me into the air. When those spindly fingers reached for my neck, a feral scream broke. I lashed out with my feet, but they were kept out of range. Still, the sound at least caused the monster to rear back and stop from strangling me.
“Where is the research?” it asked while raising the gun. There was no need for threats, idle or otherwise. We both knew what it would do.
And I was without my bargaining chip. For all I knew, Nolan ran back to his spaceship and puttered off into the cosmos to collect his reward. The idea brought an end-of-life laugh to my throat. With each burst of giggles, tears rose in my eyes. But I couldn’t escape the stupidity of the situation. I gave up everything because I thought I was being clever. Nope. Once again the universe outsmarted me.
“Tell me!” the Kirkan snarled, the beak spraying globs of spittle while the dead robot voice barely responded.
“Gone,” I gasped out between giggles. “I gave it to Nolan.”
“You stupid, ignorant…”
I screwed my eyes up, preparing for the blast. If it was quick enough maybe I wouldn’t linger in pain. But the ranting subsided and I felt the Kirkan staring long at me. “Then, I suppose I’ll have to take you instead.”
“What?” My stomach plummeted to my dangling feet while the monster that'd prepared to murder me the second it got what it wanted stared harder. An instant death was preferable to me being forced to work for him.
Or, you could play along and escape.
How? Alien. Spaceship. Insane things I didn’t think possible two hours ago.
A sharp finger drew down my cheek, slicing through the skin like a paper cut. The Kirkan pulled me close to its ravenous beak as it whispered, “You’ll solve—”
“Do not harm her!” a voice shouted through the trees.
As the Kirkan whipped its head around, I too twisted inside its tentacles to find my only salvation left. Nolan stood upon a rock, one hand on a weapon while the other clung white-knuckled to a tree. Sweat drenched his bare chest as if he’d run a marathon in minutes to reach us.
“Fire that weapon,” the Kirkan threatened, “and you kill us both.”
“You slimy, sonnofa…” I cursed, trying to wiggle out of its squirming grip as it swung me around to act as a shield.
“I will give you the drive, as long as you leave her alone,” Nolan said, causing both me and the Kirkan to gasp in shock. I assumed the monster gasped in shock. The belt robot voice gurgled as if it couldn’t process whatever the beak snapped out.
“Very funny, Yaxha. I know a trick when I see it.”
“No trick, no lie. Here.” He opened his palm to reveal my pen drive. I recognized the chipped off clip where I kept anxiously chewing on it while working. “You know this is it. The Oracle said as much.”
The what?
Well, whatever that meant, it changed the Kirkan’s entire stance. “Give me the drive.”
“Give me the human.”
Great. I got to be the ball in a game of keep away. The longer the Kirkan flailed me around the more my fear seeped into annoyance and an urge to kick it in the…wherever its species kept the gonads.
“What is to stop you from killing me the moment I hand her over?” the Kirkan asked.
Nolan bowed his head. “My word.”
That creepy robotic laugh rolled out of the box, causing me to shiver. Negotiations were breaking down. I had to do something. “This is your best fucking offer,” I cried, “because I will never help you.”
“You wouldn’t have much of a choice. Then again, I’d rather not suffer your filth infesting my ship. Pass it over.”
“Trini first,” Nolan said.
The red eyes narrowed. “You must think me a fool.”
“No, you’re clearly a galactic genius who’s just about to receive his tank invitation.” The bite struck hard into the Kirkan who harrumphed out of the beak.
“Pass me the drive on the count of three, or I shoot her in the heart. One. Two…”
Fuck.
As the “three” erupted from the robot box, I felt myself go sailing through the air. My pen drive, barely visible by the forest moonlight, whipped across my path. While it landed safely in the Kirkan’s grip, Nolan hooked one hand around my waist and guided me to the ground.
Anger tried to bubble through me until I realized he needed to keep his gun pointed at the Kirkan about to betray their compromise. Would he kill it? The monster deserved no less. But as I rose off the ground, I watched black tentacles receding into the night.
“Can you not hit him?” I asked, squinting to follow the shake of tree branches as the Kirkan vanished into perfect camouflage.
“Of course I can, for another thirty yards at least. But…I promised. Are you hurt?”
I winced at how honorable he was. Still, the bastard did try to kill and threatened to imprison me, so I think I had the right for some vengeance. “My sides,” I groaned as I tried to stretch and pain shot through my ribs. “And my arms,” I said thanks to the blood dripping from the numerous cuts. “I can’t even feel how bad my toes are.”
“Here,” Nolan said, pocketing the gun away and catching my hand in his. “I’ll get you somewhere safe.” Before I could argue, he lifted me into his toned and disturbingly strong arms. I wanted to settle into the warm embrace and thrill of his naked chest touching me, but the pain the Kirkan squeezed from my body wouldn’t let me.
As Nolan took off for the road, I rested my weary cheek right above his heart. Somewhere out there in the forested night, an alien ran off with my research and I grew more incensed about that with every step away.
CHAPTER SEVEN
STRONG FINGERS WRAPPED around my ankle, guiding it closer. The heel of Nolan’s palm rested right below the bone while he let his thumb caress down the part that killed Achilles. Each slow, gentle glide along my skin was probably going to do me in too.
&nbs
p; “Your foot,” he said and the beam of light from his handy-dandy cylinder zapped off. I looked down at the man at my feet. He’d propped me on this boulder after running the both of us deeper into the woods. It might have been hours, I couldn’t say. Thanks to the mysterious nature of relativity it felt like I only spent minutes pressed to his chest.
“How does it feel?” Nolan asked. He shifted his stance, which he’d been in while silently repairing the damage I did to myself.
Opening his hand to release me, I bounced the no longer ripped apart heel against the rock. “Good. Better than…” I reached down to brush against the skin now baby soft. In doing so, I nearly knocked against Nolan’s not-retreating forehead. For some reason, I thought he’d leap to his feet and wander off. But no, he remained below me, gazing in a growing concern.
Panicking at the nearness of another human being, I sat up higher and stared toward the horizon. We’d moved up the mountain instead of down. I could almost make out the city in the distance, streetlights speckled like candles floating on a black lagoon.
“Oh.” Nolan’s voice flattened to one of pain. The hand that’d only scooped along my feet brushed up my leg. “There’s damage here, too.” Before I could say anything he turned on his magic crystal and placed it against my skin.
While it did its science healing, Nolan’s palm began to roll and caress across the vast landscape of my calf. A gym coach told me I had the legs of a shot-putter. I still don’t know what that means, but it can’t be good. And there was the attractive man, face to face with my meaty legs, his thumb dipping into the indent where bone attached to the muscle.
It was the hormones. My body had to be flooding with all of them. Adrenaline. Epinephrine. Serotonin. Oxytocin. Every single one must have kicked into high gear thanks to all those brushes with death and maybe whatever he was using to pump me full of healing juice. That was the only way to explain how I couldn’t stop staring in wonder at the long swoop of his nose, the flat then high-peaked bow to his upper lip. Or how I was lost in the warm touch wafting across my skin and wondered what would happen if he raised it higher.
“Do you need anything else?” Nolan whispered, his voice dusky as twilight.
Yes. Get this dress off of me.
Oh, God. The cringe snapped out of my brain and across my face the second the thought appeared. Hormones. It was all those hormones. Nolan hadn’t…he never glanced twice in my direction before. Why would that change now?
“No,” I said, shaking my head as if that would clear away the sexual tension I kept imagining.
With that, he rose to his towering feet and I slid off the rock right back onto the cold, stabby ground. But the pain I’d feared and grown used to had vanished. I felt so free in the moment I twirled in surprise. “Wow, this is… It’d have taken days, maybe weeks to heal all of those cuts. And they’re gone just like that. Your doohickey is amazing.”
Nolan snickered and buffed the tips of his fingers across his cheek. He offered no resistance as I picked up the cylinder and twisted it around. Smiling, he said, “This is standard aid repair. Though costs a bit extra to make it pocket-sized.”
“It could save so many lives,” I began, examining it. A single obvious button took up the top, but there was no digital interface along the chassis. Automatic programming? That’d have to mean some way to update software. Probably hidden below the case. What if I…?
“That’s,” Nolan picked the device out of my curious fingers, “not such a smart idea.”
Like a petulant child, I watched him take my curiosity away. “So, what, you’re under some prime directive?”
“Huh?”
“The prime directive. To not share technology with primitive species. Which would make me primitive. Great.”
“No, no. I’ve never heard of…no. It’s only,” he shook the little device and a small strip of blue appeared along the side, “it’s low on juice and I don’t see any charging stations out here.”
Oh.
Silence stumbled into our conversation like a drunk bear. We both awkwardly skirted our eyes from the other, but we couldn’t deny what squatted at our picnic. The villain got away with the research. Not all of it, because it wasn’t complete. But enough that, in time, he could solve it. I mean, I could try as well, but not as if I could import it for the big payout in this galactic data bank.
“I should—” Nolan began when I interrupted.
“How will he, it, the Kirkan use my data? Can it, he just turn in what’s available?”
Nolan laughed. “No. The galactic bank only cashes out for finished and provable theories. Well, what you call theories. Though, if someone ever does disprove an accepted galactic theory, they’re set for life, assuming the original owners don’t have them assassinated before.”
“That can happen?” I gasped.
“Frequently. Being the Owner of a Fact is equivalent to a…there isn’t one. Think of a rockstar who also gives symposiums and is wealthy enough to buy a planet to blow up for a seven-year-old’s birthday party.”
Holy shit.
Nolan watched me try to digest the concept of that much wealth gained for doing science. How backwards was the earth that the best I could hope for was living comfortably?
“Oh, and the Kirkan is technically the egg bearer of the species so female is probably the closest of pronouns. They have five genders.”
“How the hell does that work?”
Nolan laughed. “I had no idea you were into tentacle porn. There are some helpful videos if…”
“Very funny,” I groaned and punched at his arm. He took it all with a laugh the same way we would back in the lab troubleshooting problems. The lab that was destroyed by an alien monster who turned out to be a woman? “I knew the Kirkan wasn’t wearing any clothing, but how could you tell it was a woman?”
“The eyes, all red means egg carrier. And it was wearing a full body suit, rather expensive investment for Kirkans too.”
A blush burned across my face as I realized how fast I jumped to ‘Evil invading alien must not use clothes’ stereotype. Questions continued to linger. How the lady Kirkan would use my data. And how Nolan could know so much about all of this.
I leaned into the former first because a part of me didn’t really want an answer to the latter. He was a helpful guide; no reason to go rattling that cage. “So the data it…she stole?”
He absently licked his lips and began to pace around. Despite being in less clothing than me, and no shoes as well, Nolan didn’t complain once about the multitude of debris. “How close to completion were you?”
“Barely a working theory. Far from working, at least.”
“Hm, she must have jumped the data point,” Nolan said cryptically. I stared at him for clarification, but he resumed his pacing.
“I mean, I guess if it…she planned to kidnap a bunch of other alien mathematicians and force them to—”
“That’s it! The tank. Of course, why didn’t I think of that? It would be like a Kirkan to steal research prior to completion and pay to have the Tank finish it.”
I shook my head to try and clear away the fog. “What tank?”
“It’s…” Nolan began looking as excited as ever, but he suddenly deflated. “It’s not important. What matters is that I get you home. With the data now in slimy suction cup, the Kirkan and no one else will bother you.”
So that was it. A daring race from the lab to Nolan’s mountain mansion, then a run deep into the woods all for the night to end with the bad guy winning. I frowned deeper at the injustice of an entire damn galaxy. Maybe even the universe itself not caring who put in the work, only rewarding who takes the credit. That wasn’t fair in academia and not in alien bounties either.
“No,” I thundered, stomping my foot as if I was making a stand. But without shoes on, all it did was snap a few twigs dramatically.
Nolan turned back to me, his brows raised in no doubt concern he’d have to heal me yet again. “You wish to go somewhere el
se?”
“What if I…?” I dashed closer to him, my mind churning with half and quarter thoughts. Was it even…? Could I start all…? But then again… Why not? “What if I finished my research?”
“Nothing is stopping you from sharing it on Earth.”
“No, no. I cannot stand the idea of that…lady octopus stealing all the credit from me. The credits from you. What if I finished it before this tank does?”
“You would do that?” Nolan asked, his gaze drifting from the star-dusted horizon down to my eyes. “For me?”
“You know how all this works. Have a way to get to whatever planet this knowledge bank is on. And, I doubt I could use galactic credits to fill up my Tahoe.”
Plus, a chance to go into outer space. I didn’t care that there were death squid and probably worse out there. I could dance among the stars and wash my hair in comet dust. Fine, I got a C in poetry.
Nolan laughed a moment, then his lips flat-lined. “This could be dangerous. There may be others hunting as well.”
Never more certain of anything, I gripped his hand tight. “What’s a little risk when it comes to the reward?”
It was the hormones, hundreds of small peptides piping through my system. They made me act bold, adventurous, and suicidal. But at that moment, I felt nothing but glee as Nolan smiled. “Then, to my ship.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
WE DIDN’T HAVE to walk long, barely a jog up the hill when Nolan revealed a tiny shack hidden amongst the trees. It looked less like a murder cabin and more a DIY shed available at a home improvement store. I eyed up the shack no bigger than a gas station bathroom.
Maybe it was an illusion placed over his ship?
Nolan tugged off a scrap of wood hanging by the door and plunged his finger in. Like at his house, I felt the same strange tingling and stared around excitedly for the reveal of a spaceship.
All I got was a soft crack of the door as it rattled inward. “This way,” he called.