by Maia Starr
“I will allow you to be in the government structure system and help us to defeat the rebels in exchange for your information of all things humans. And by that, I mean everything you know of the military defenses against us and of your own department. Real information that we can use,” he said.
I was quiet. He was asking a lot of me. He was asking me to betray my own race and planet. But in everyone’s eyes, I had already betrayed the humans. I thought about my unborn child and how it was taken from me. A fire lit inside of me.
“Deal,” I said. “When do I start?”
He smiled and clasped his hands together. Clearly, he was very impressed with his work in converting me. I didn’t consider myself converted. I considered myself a woman scorned and I was going to do whatever it took to bring down the rebels. I would even betray my own race for it. I considered it a successful meeting.
A year later, I stood on the sidelines of the war game complex. This was the real deal. This was not a practice. This was the war games we had been waiting for. Evlon was on the field ready to fight against another Zenkian soldier. They were the only two left after the mass battles, and now they would fight for the ultimate victory title.
I stood there feeling very nervous as the two soldiers faced each other warming up and getting ready for the game to begin.
The crowd was going crazy.
“Don't worry, Miranda. Evlon is going to win. He is in great shape and the best soldier in Waysaw” Tormunt said to me.
“You are right. He is going to win. No one can beat him. Not even you, Tormunt,” I said to him. He groaned in response to my adequate call on his skills.
“Yeah, well anxiety is not good for a pregnant human like you. You humans are so fragile. So do not be anxious for your Zenkian soldier. This fun, remember?” he said looking at my belly.
I took a deep breath and smiled. Tormunt was right. I needed to calm myself down and not get overworked. I was not going to lose this child this time. It took a lot for Evlon and I to get back to a place where we could welcome another child. Now it had happened, and I was being extra cautious. I laughed just to make myself not be so nervous.
I watched as Evlon lined up against the other soldier. The crowd suddenly calmed down and grew silent. Everyone was aware that it was about to begin. I took another deep breath and bit my lower lip. This is just for fun; this is just for fun, I repeated in my head.
The whistle blew. Evlon screamed and charged at the other soldier. Boom! A blow with his shield. Clang! His sword swooped through the air, hitting the soldier’s shield. The two went at it, jabbing and slicing at each other, but they were both very skilled. I felt like Evlon was holding back. I think he was doing it on purpose and I smiled to think that he was so skilled that he was holding back simply to give the crowd something to watch. The fight went on for almost fifteen minutes. It was a good show, and the crowd was loving it. Then I could tell that Evlon had enough. He did a quick maneuver and used his shield to knock the soldier off his feet then he aimed his sword at the soldier and plunged it through him. I gasped. I had never seen a real war game. The Zenkians fought to the death. I thought it was a waste of a good soldier, but they thought otherwise. The crowd cheered. I had to look away from the dead soldier. I looked at Evlon. He threw his arms up in victory. The crowd went wild for him.
Leader Rangellis got up on the platform at the end of the field and shouted into the microphone. “Evlon has won the war games for the sixth time in a row! He has broken the previous record held by a warrior that had five wins in a row! This is what a Zenkian Waysaw can do! We are invincible!” he shouted.
The crowd went wild again, and Evlon was hoisted on the shoulders of soldiers as they paraded him around. I was so very proud of him, and glad that he was not dead.
The soldiers set Evlon down on his feet. He ran directly over to me.
“You did it! I am so happy for you! You did it!” I shouted.
He kissed me. Everyone cheered.
We had done it. Evlon and I got through the most trying time in both of our lives as I had to endure the brutal end to my Earth peace mission and the loss of my team and child. He had to endure falling in love with a human and breaking a record. Now we were starting a life together.
“Congratulations, Evlon!” Leader Rangellis said patting him on the back.
“Thank you, Leader Rangellis!” Evlon said.
“You have made the Waysaw Renkians and your government very proud to have you as a soldier here and our second in command. You have made me proud,” he said.
The leader’s words made me proud. Yes, he was a snake, but he had been a very intelligent snake that had even got the better of me. There was something to admire about that. This was a moment of happiness for both Evlon and me.
As Evlon moved away from me, getting more congratulations and being passed around like a trophy, I looked around the war game complex and had an idea.
“Leader Rangellis, I do wonder…”
“Yes, Miranda?” he asked.
“Why the blue rebels of Grantsion are not invited to the war games? It would make more sense to fight against them instead of one of our own. That poor soldier out there could have lost his life in battle and been a great asset to us instead of losing in this game,” I said.
“The rebels would never come here. They would think we were tricking them,” he said.
“And we would be. We would lure them here under the false pretense of a temporary truce in order for us to have real war games against the regions of Anvin. We would play it out to the very end; then we would kill them all,” I said, looking at him with complete seriousness.
He looked at me surprised. “That is a devious plan of trickery,” he said.
“I learned from the best. You practiced on me and my team. This would be the same, only much larger. I believe you could pull it off and of course, I would help, and my master, Evlon.”
“I like the way you think. It is something to be considered. I will bring it up to the rest of the government in consideration for next year’s war games,” he smiled. “I think you have completed your full conversion into a ruthless Waysaw Zenkian,” he said.
“Yes, I have a Waysaw inside of me,” I said putting my hands on my belly. “I must think of his safety. The rebels are a threat to him,” I said.
“What is my slave saying that you are smiling so?” Evlon said, coming over to us.
“She has the cleverest plan to defeat the rebels. Indeed, one so clever I have never even thought of it myself. And it just might work,” Leader Rangellis said.
“Yes, she is a clever slave,” Evlon looked at me seductively.
“And you are a great soldier. You are the victor of the war games,” I said.
“Then let us celebrate,” Evlon said.
“Yes, let the celebrations begin!” Leader Rangellis put his hands in the air and then drums began to beat wildly. I was surprised by it. The entire crowd came onto the field. Rangellis wandered off into the crowd.
Evlon looked at me. “I think you might be in danger of taking over this entire planet one day.”
“No, you are second in command. You will be first in command one day. I will see to it,” I whispered to him.
He moaned in my ear. “You don’t plan; you plot,” he said.
“Yes, and I and our child will be at your side, Leader Evlon,” I whispered.
He moaned. He was ready. “I like where your mind goes.”
“Yes, together we will conquer,” I said. He kissed me hard and fast. I wanted control of all of this and Evlon was going to get me there.
I kissed him back and put my arms around him. For now, we would celebrate this war game victory, but there would be many more to come for us.
The End
Zaine-Verian Mates
(Verian Mates)
By Stella Sky
Chapter 1
Regan Lawrence
“Next! Regan Lawrence.”
I cringed at the soun
d of my name being called and walked up to the desk.
“Regan Lawrence? Female. Age 26. Location: Zone Seven.”
I listened as my statistics were cited at me and nodded, pushing the auburn hair away from my face. It was hot today.
The frowning attendant handed me my basket of rations and I smiled mechanically as I took it. I had learned as a child not to try to interact with the attendants. Ever since the war between the Verians and Earth had started, when I was just three, you were expected to take what you needed and nothing more, then return home.
“Harbord Griswald. Female. Age 24. Location: Zone Three.”
The voice of the attendant grew distant as I walked the path to the shuttle, where everybody from Zone Seven was being ushered. I took my seat, the same as always, and waited for the driver to bring the last few people onto the bus.
Finally, my seat mate and the other six people who had still been in line returned, and the engine turned. We jerked forward and I kept my eyes peeled to the window. The shuttle had a tendency to give me motion sickness. The jerkiness of the sudden stopping and starting as we attempted to navigate the debris-filled terrain between zones always made me mildly nauseated at best, and borderline sick at worst.
“When do you think the war will be over?” my seat mate, a young man named Trevor, asked out loud.
It was the question on everybody’s minds, but nobody asked it except the very young. I glanced at Trevor and back at the window before answering him.
“It will be over when one side wins.”
Trevor’s restless fidgeting stilled and I heard the soft escape of breath from his lips. I knew how he felt. We all felt it. But we would just have to go on living the way we were living until it was over.
***
It was a relief when we finally rounded the smooth curve that indicated we were near Zone Seven again. I was anxious to get off the bumbling, rumbling bus and back into my house, where nothing was bound to nauseate me except maybe the smell of my neighbor’s failed attempts at cooking.
The shuttle dropped us off at the entrance and we walked inside, each of us heading to our own homes. Some of us had bikes parked by the fence, while others chose to walk. I was one of the latter.
Things had changed on Earth since the war started, but not by much. We weren’t allowed to drive cars or overindulge in resources, so the military had set up the shuttles and rations bases. The Zones were divided based on necessity, and they were considered relatively safe places for us to go about our daily lives. The only difference was that in the Zones, debris from space was unlikely to destroy our homes. A shield was erected over each Zone to protect us.
“Welcome back, group two!” the loudspeaker announced. Everybody applauded our safe return, and I couldn’t help but smile at the custom. Things had gotten very dangerous out there, and about a year ago we had lost a whole shuttle of people who had gone out to retrieve their rations. It was a very sad occasion. The man I had been destined to marry had been on that bus.
The group dispersed once safely settled into Zone Seven, and I found myself wandering slowly to my little apartment, not in any particular hurry. I don’t know what was different that day, but for some reason I wanted to take in the feeling of walking through the camp, to really relish in it. I wrote poetry sometimes, in secret, and thought that maybe I would be able to explore the feelings that the rose in me as I observed the groups of people going about their lives as if a war wasn’t raging just beyond the walls of our protective sphere.
“Give it back!”
I furrowed my brow and whipped around, annoyed at the shrill voice of one of the children. Although we were under great protections, life existed mostly as normal within the zones, but children were definitely not supposed to yell unless there was real danger.
“No way,” an older boy said, taunting the young girl that had shouted. “It’s mine now. You shouldn’t have left it lying around.”
“Come on, Alex, please; just give it back!”
I found myself watching the exchange between the young girl, probably no older than six, and three boys whose ages must have ranged between seven and twelve.
“You know the rules. If you leave it on the ground, it means you don’t want it anymore, right?”
“That’s not fair!” the girl exclaimed. “I had to-”
“It doesn’t matter! It’s mine!”
The boys laughed and ran off, and I watched in surprise and amazement as the young girl chased the boys down, tackled the biggest from behind, and grabbed her small bundle away from him, then took off running just as the sirens for lock down began to blare.
“Gracie! Stop!”
But the boy shouting, who bore an uncanny likeness to the girl (he was probably her brother), couldn’t go after her. The sirens meant that there was an enemy spotted nearby and everybody had to return to safety.
“I’ll go after her,” I said to the boy, surprising both of us as I thrust my basket of rations to the ground and took off after the little girl. She was heading to the danger zone. If I didn’t catch her soon, it would be too late.
The soldiers were running from their posts as guards and heading to the frontlines, climbing the walls and pointing their guns out into the sky, ignoring the citizens below them. We were supposed to know our places by then. We should have been running toward safety.
Gracie crossed into the danger zone easily with nobody there to tell her to go back home, and I ran as hard as I could to catch up with the little girl, whose wide eyes were wild with fear and confusion.
“Go home!” I kneeling down and looking into the little girl’s eyes. “You’re in danger here. There’s been a sighting!”
Gracie gasped, her eyes suddenly locked onto the sky above my head. A feeling of dread gripped me as the little girl scrambled away and ran back in the direction she had come from.
“Keep running until you’re home!” I exclaimed, trying to stand up from the spot where I was crouched on the ground. But it was already too late. My limbs were powerless.
Confusion, and then dread, gripped me, and I knew that I had made a grave mistake. They had gotten me.
I squeezed my eyes closed, hot tears leaking down my face. I knew that I should have immediately returned home, especially after hearing the siren, but if I hadn’t followed Gracie, it would have been a small child abducted and taken away from her home. That would be a tragedy for her family and the community as a whole. No, I wouldn’t regret it. It was better that I had been abducted over a small child.
Still, as my body grew weightless and was carried closer and closer to the ship, I couldn’t help but shiver. I could see Zone Seven growing smaller, until finally, it disappeared behind heavy silver doors with a loud clank.
In that instant, I had the sinking feeling that I would never see home again.
***
“Into the cell with the others!”
I bit back the bile rising in my throat as the stout, Pelin man, covered from head to toe with long auburn hair, nudged me back with a long, prodding cane.
It was more than a cane though, I knew; it was a powerful weapon.
The cell was overcrowded with terrified women, their eyes wide with terror at the sight of the Pelin guard.
“We will be back on the planet Helna in approximately six Earth hours. I expect nothing but your utmost compliance. The prison guard is a Verian. As you can imagine, he does not tolerate any less. You’ve been warned.”
“Fuck,” one of the women whispered as I was shoved into the cell. “We’re being abducted by the Verians?!”
I landed hard on the ice-cold floor of the cell, and none of the other women made a move to help me up.
“I recommend all of you stay quiet, or suffer the consequences.”
The Pelin guard disappeared, and I got shakily to my feet to watch him go.
He was a small, ugly man, proud even though it was widely known that the Verians were bloodthirsty enemies of Earth, and the Pelins did their b
idding. Apparently, their own planet had long ago been compromised by the warrior race, and now all that was left for the Pelin to do was accept their fate as the slaves to the Verians.
“Hey,” a woman’s voice hissed. “I know you. Regan, right? You’re that girl.”
I cringed. Why was it that even as I was being abducted, people could pick me out of a crowd? Wasn’t it bad enough as it was without being tied to my past?
“I don’t know you,” I said pointedly.
“Well, that’s just too bad. We’re from the same Zone.”
I sighed, turning to face her. “What do you want?”
She grinned. “Why don’t you tell us all a story then? Maybe ease up a bit of the tension we’re all feeling right now.”
I frowned. “I don’t know what you mean. I’m not a storyteller.”
“That’s not the way my dad would have it told,” the woman insisted. As I studied her, I realized she was actually more girl than woman. Just barely a teenager. She had probably been caught necking outside the zone with one of the soldiers. I knew her type a mile away.
“Your dad doesn’t know anything about me,” I mumbled.
But now, all the women had stopped their chattering, and I could feel their gazes heavy upon me.
“Is that right?” she asked, a soft, mocking laugh escaping her lips. “Well, some things never change.”