by Lisa Lace
“No right? Tell me, Leanne, what about the rights of the people here? My people? We have no hope of winning this war without you and your friends. If you don’t help us, we’ll all be dead or enslaved. Is that what you want?”
“Look, I’m sorry about your people, and of course I don’t want you dead or enslaved. That doesn’t give you the right to take away my life, though!”
“There is more to this, so much more than you realize. Your life was never your own.”
“Like hell, it wasn’t! if you think kidnapping is acceptable, no matter what the circumstances, you’re mad.”
Resek seemed done arguing with her. “Were you ever injured?”
“No,” Leanne said sullenly. She almost would have felt better if they’d continued with their screaming match. Resek didn’t need to have a screaming match with her, and he knew it. She couldn’t escape, whether she wanted to or not. That much had been made painfully clear.
“What are iluni?”
Resek looked surprised by the question but quickly made his face blank and expressionless. “Nothing you need concern yourself about.”
“Those Wescra called me an iluni. That sounds like it has to do with me. Is that your word for a human?”
“You have no idea how much danger you are in out of my protection. The Greli would love to kill you, possibly more than anyone else. You can’t ever leave here without me, do you understand?”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
“I’m not going to answer the question. You don’t need to know. All you need to know is that you have to train hard so that you can fight with me.”
This conversation was getting them nowhere. Leanne was still fuming, and judging by Resek’s expression, he hadn’t exactly forgiven her little escape attempt.
“I’m tired. I’m going to go to bed.”
“We haven’t finished training for the day yet. We’ve lost a lot of time, so you’ll have to work hard to catch up.”
“No. I’m not training, not today!”
Leanne didn’t give him a chance to argue, and flounced off, slamming the door to her room behind her. The training was exhausting, physically and mentally. She’d put up with it so far because, as much as she didn’t want to admit it, Resek had a point.
For the foreseeable future, she would be stuck in the middle of a war. Learning to fight may be the only thing that kept her alive. Right now, though, she was in no mood to be breathing the same air as Resek. Besides, she had something she needed to do. The attempt hadn’t been completely wasted.
Footsteps outside told her that Resek was close, and she tensed. He didn’t come in, though. A click told Leanne that he’d locked her in. Like she was going to make another attempt today. She’d by no means given up, but trying to get away when his guard was obviously high would just be stupid.
She sat down on her bed and pulled the communicator out of her belt. Examining it, she found that it wasn’t exactly like the ones she’d seen on the show, but it was similar. With a bit of guesswork, hopefully she could get it started up.
It took a few tries, but finally, she got a display of different channels to show up on the small screen. She scrolled through all the ones with the "ship" label in front, but couldn’t tell just from the names which was the ship that had her friends.
Leanne waffled for a bit, wondering what to do. She didn’t know how to find the ship, but she had to try contacting one of them, or there was no point in having the communicator. Resek would discover it and confiscate it eventually. She needed to act now, while she still had it.
Deciding to take the plunge, Leanne picked a ship at random and set it to call. Luck seemed to be with her – finally. An option popped up, asking whether she wanted to contact the pilot or the ship’s computer. She eagerly clicked computer and waited.
“Ship model E304, responding to communication,” said a cool woman’s voice that Leanne recognized as what must be used as the sound model for multiple ship’s computers. That wasn’t her immediate problem. The voice rang through the room, and she expected Resek to come bursting in at any second.
When he didn’t, she frantically looked for a volume button, but couldn’t find one. “Reduce volume,” she whispered desperately. It wouldn’t have worked with an Earth device, but a lot of the technology here seemed to be voice-sensitive.
“Volume reducing,” a tiny little voice said, coming from inside the communicator.
“Stop,” Leanne told it, once she was happy with the sound. “Computer, I need you to run a search. I’m looking for four humans who were brought here. Last I checked, they were in some kind of pod. I’m not sure if they were brought on this ship or another, but I need to locate them.”
“Are you referring to the iluni?”
“Yes,” Leanne said, hoping she had it right. There was a pause, then the computer spoke again.
“Iluni women were removed from their ship and taken to long-term secure storage.”
“Great, can you tell me where that is?”
“This information is restricted. Do you have an access code?”
Damn. Leanne supposed she should be grateful she’d at least gotten this far. “I’m living with Commander Resek. Doesn’t that give me clearance?”
“Commander Resek has clearance. Do you have his clearance code?”
“No. I can get it, though. Um… you can end the call now.”
The communicator gave a faint beep, and Leanne hid it in her cupboard, which was filled with clothes in her size. As creepy as that was, she was glad for them now, wrapping the device in a scarf and shoving it under a pile of jerseys.
She sat back down on the bed, thinking. There was no way Resek would give her his clearance code. From what she knew about him, she doubted he’d just leave it lying around either. If she wanted it, she’d have to be sneaky about it. She’d have to watch him carefully. That meant interacting with him.
Sighing, she pushed on the door, intending to apologize as sincerely as she could manage. She’d forgotten that it was locked. She was sure that if she called for him, Resek would let her out, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. Leanne flung herself onto the bed and resolved to sleep until he let her out. Then, she’d start watching him.
Chapter Six
“Come.”
Leanne frowned but followed Resek. He was wearing his combat uniform, not his training clothes. Her concern rose when he started on his normal route to the battle scene.
“Why are we going that way? I thought I hadn’t had enough training yet?”
“You haven’t. You’re not going to be fighting. You’re going to see what the Greli do to us, and the consequences. You’re going to see why I fight.”
“And I’m going to see that how?”
“You’re to help the healers.”
That didn’t sound too bad. Leanne didn’t have any first aid training, but learning how to apply bandages couldn’t be harder than trying to land a punch on Resek, who moved so fast she sometimes wondered if he was on some kind of speed-enhancing drug.
She’d seen the healers before, a little back from the fighting, always buzzing with activity. Resek abandoned her on their doorstep, simply telling the head healer to put her to use.
The healer didn’t give Leanne her name, but Leanne heard others calling her Olia. Olia pointed Leanne to a Wescra soldier with what looked like a badly broken arm. “Set that, then bandage.”
Leanne gulped. There was a bit of bone sticking out of his upper arm, and he looked close to passing out.
“I don’t know how. I don’t have any medical training.”
Olia sighed, as though Leanne was a huge inconvenience. “Watch, then.”
Leanne crouched down beside her as Olia took the man’s arm in a firm grip and tugged.
He screamed so loudly it hurt her ears, then thankfully passed out. Leanne felt like she was going to be sick. The world spun around her.
“Watch.” Olia’s sharp voice brought
her reluctantly back to reality. She found a bandage being shoved into her hand.
“Wind here.”
Leanne wondered if all Wescra were this stingy with words, or if it was just a product of being under attack constantly. Leanne wound the bandage around the arm, her hands shaking. Olia corrected her twice in her technique and finally showed her how to tie it off.
Apparently, Leanne had done well, because Olia started funneling all of the mildly wounded patients to her. Leanne felt like she was drowning. She was in over her head. People were screaming in pain, and there was blood everywhere. One man had his hand pressed against his stomach. When one of the healers gently pulled the hand away, she saw what looked awfully like intestines poking out. She was going to be sick.
Some of the soldiers took it in stride, but others were pale and shaking. A man who didn’t look much older than she was helped to drag his friend in, whose leg was barely hanging on at the knee, and then started throwing up violently outside.
She wrapped bandages around wounds and set bones. Olia showed her how to pull shrapnel out of wounds too, and she was sent even more patients.
It seemed to go on for hours with no end. Once, Leanne stumbled outside to throw up. No one paid any attention to her discomfort, and she was handed another patient before she’d even finished wiping her mouth. She could feel tears threatening behind her eyes.
The men and women working on the wounded didn’t show any of the horror on their faces. All Leanne could see was horror, and she’d do anything to get away from it. She’d even prefer to be fighting than this, surrounded by blood and screams of pain.
Leanne staggered out. She couldn’t do it. The fresh air outside did little to make her feel better, and within what seemed like minutes, Olia was calling her back. She wanted to refuse, but there were wounded soldiers everywhere, and not enough healers to tend to them. Was she even much help? She was in a daze, just doing what she was told.
When Resek came to pick her up, Leanne nearly burst into tears of relief. She didn’t care about anything other than getting out of here. Dimly, she noted that the light was fading. Had she really been here all day? She vaguely remembered someone shoving food and bottles of water into her hand.
It was all she could do to stop herself throwing her arms around him. “Take me home,” she whispered, and for once, she didn’t mean Earth. She meant his home, or anywhere away from here.
His face flickered with concern as he looked at her. “I hope you learned something?”
Leanne nodded, barely aware of what she was agreeing to. She wondered if Resek didn’t know quite how horrific this day had been for her. Perhaps most people here grew up used to seeing injured and dying soldiers. Maybe it was normal for them. Leanne hadn’t even seen things this terrible on TV. Her legs were shaking so badly she wasn’t sure if she could walk.
Resek seemed to realize this and picked her up again. “Don’t tell me you’re really injured this time.”
“Not injured,” Leanne managed to get out.
The second they got back, Leanne bolted into the shower. She was covered in blood and grime, so she scrubbed herself over and over until she was sure it was all gone. When she got out, Resek was waiting for her.
“Tell me what I do not understand.”
Leanne was so tired, she just wanted to go to sleep.
“There’s a lot you don’t understand.”
“When I fetched you, you looked like you had been stabbed in the chest. You look only slightly better now. I do not wish to harm you. You must tell me what I do not understand about you.”
“How do you do it?” Leanne knew her voice was trembling, and she couldn’t seem to stop it. “Seeing all those people? Some of them died. Others may take months to heal, even with those healing machines they use.”
“Those machines are rare and difficult to maintain. The healers use them only on the most critical of patients. In times of peace, such devices were freely available for everyone who needed them. Manufacturing of anything but the bare essentials needed to survive has been disrupted by the war.”
Leanne didn’t think he was getting the point. “I can’t do that. I can’t see people like that.”
Perhaps yesterday, Resek would have dismissed her protests. Today, even he could clearly see that she was telling the truth.
“You need to understand. If this way is unacceptable, I will find another.”
Leanne didn’t want another way, but she guessed that anything would be better than what she’d gone through today. Resek hesitated, and for a moment Leanne hoped he’d take her in his arms and tell her everything would be ok.
He turned and left. She supposed she had no one to blame for that other than herself. She’d repeatedly made it clear to him that she resented being here. He was just respecting her space. Perhaps she wouldn’t mind if, just right now, he gave her a little less space.
The next day, Leanne was tense, not knowing what Resek would expect of her. To her relief, he didn’t try to make her leave the house again. Instead, he set up a screen.
“This is live footage from the battle,” he told her. “You are to watch it. You need to see what we’re fighting, and why.”
“I think I understand already. There’s really no need…”
“You will watch it. This is not a discussion.”
Leanne resisted the urge to stick out her tongue at him. She wouldn’t put it past him to have some kind of sensor that told him if she hadn’t watched, so once he left, she sat down warily to watch.
The first thing Leanne noticed was Resek. The men’s eyes brightened when they saw him. Maybe he hadn’t exactly treated her fairly, but it was clear that they looked up to him.
She watched him run into battle with the others and caught her breath. He was incredible. She couldn’t believe how much stronger and faster he was than all the others. Did being with a woman really make that much difference? She guessed it did.
Though Resek was clearly more than competent, she found herself biting her nails as she watched. There were a couple of close calls, which should have made her jump for joy. If he was killed, she’d have a much greater chance of escaping. Logically, she should want him dead. That didn’t stop her sighing in relief whenever he barely evaded some grenade-like explosion device. It blew a hole mere feet from where he had been standing moments before.
Soon enough, Leanne got her first close-up look at the Greli. They looked almost human, the same as the Wescra, except their skin was purple, and their eyes were red. They fought with the same ferocity that the Wescra did, but this was Resek’s home planet. The Greli were the invaders here.
Leanne found herself getting angry. All those people she saw hurt yesterday, all this because the Greli wanted to rule? For a moment, she wished she was in the battle herself, striking out at the people who had caused so much pain and suffering.
She felt a savage sort of satisfaction as Resek and his men struck them down one by one. As the fight went back and forth, Leanne started paying more attention to the surroundings. She could see a couple of houses in the distance, far away enough that they were unlikely to be destroyed by the battle. They were tiny compared to the one Resek lived in, and she wondered how many people had been displaced by this crazy war.
It went on and on. Leanne didn’t want to watch anymore, but she was sure that Resek had a way to know if she’d chickened out early. As she watched, she began to reconsider. Yes, it had been wrong of them to kidnap her. Now that she was here, though, wouldn’t it be the right thing to do, to help them?
If her help could really make a difference, then perhaps she needed to stop fighting this. She imagined herself in Resek’s position, with a whole planet relying on him. She honestly couldn’t say what she’d do. She found herself becoming angry and frustrated with the whole situation. Why couldn't the Greli just leave the Wescra alone?
After a few more hours, something must have knocked the drone with the camera, because the feed flickered and died. Gre
at. Now she didn’t even know if Resek was ok or not. Who knew what was happening there?
She waited impatiently for Resek to get home, and when he did, she flew into his arms. He hesitated before embracing her back. After a few moments, Leanne backed away, embarrassed. She shouldn’t have been worried about him. He was her captor.
“Tell me more.”
She expected Resek to dismiss her, but instead, he gestured for her to sit. “What do you want to know?”
“How did the Greli come to invade? I mean, I know they wanted to rule, but there must be a history behind it. These things don’t happen randomly overnight.”
“It seems you know more about matters of war than you give yourself credit for.”
Leanne couldn’t tell for certain, but she thought Resek was pleased.
“I did learn history. I just never participated in any battles myself.”
“We had a system of government in place that put no one person in an ultimate position of power. The Greli didn’t. They had a king, and he ruled their planet. Once he started seeing our people come and go, he began to resent the fact that he didn’t rule them as well.
“He started by trying to merge our two governments, but my people resisted. So he slowly, quietly, started to turn his people against us. He even went so far as to stage horrific accidents, claiming that they were attacks from Wescran. Our leaders tried to negotiate peace, but the Greli became increasingly hostile towards us.
"Within a matter of years, war broke out. The king sent his troops to Wescran and attacked. That was three hundred years ago.”
Leanne gasped. “Three hundred years? You’ve been fighting that long?”
“Not quite. It’s more complicated than that. The royal family on Denoli made sure to train their heirs to adopt their views, but not all agreed. Over a hundred years after that first attack, King Fel the Third died, leaving his son, Fel the Fourth, in charge. Fel the Fourth had never approved of the war, but he’d kept his views on it hidden from his father, lest he be taken out of the line for the throne.