by Lucy Snow
I walked toward Kaalax’ grave and did my morning calisthenics routine, rejoicing in the feelings of muscle usage that coursed throughout my body. It felt good to be alive for another day. The way I lived my life, that was the most I could hope for.
Except, today, there was something new, and she lay back near the ashes of the fire. For the first time, after we had kissed last night, I felt like there was something more to live for than another day serving the Kreossian Empire. I had felt that the morning after we met, but now it was even more real. There was something more personal.
It was a good feeling, and I looked forward to exploring it more once I could be reasonably certain that Melissa and I were both safe and off this planet.
I walked back to the fire and saw that Melissa was sitting up and yawning, watching me with the beginnings of a smile on her face. “Did you sleep well?” she called out to me as I approached.
“I did, despite your weight on me the entire night.”
She looked appalled for a moment. “That was a joke, right?”
The way she looked at me suggested that it would be a good idea for me to agree with her. “It was a joke, yes.”
She narrowed her gaze at me and raised an eyebrow. I took the opportunity to pick up our ration containers and pass one along to her. Melissa accepted it, still looking at me skeptically. I sat down beside her and opened my container, taking a larger segment than usual. It would be a long day, and I needed energy for the hunt ahead.
We ate in silence, enjoying the morning as it came across the jungle.
When we had both put away our ration containers, we spoke at the same time. “Today I will hunt-“ I started.
“-About last night,” Melissa said, before cutting herself off.
We looked at each other. “OK, you go first,” she said.
I grunted. “Today I will hunt the beast we heard last night and learn of its capabilities.”
“That sounds like a good idea. Do you need me to come with you?”
I shook my head. “That is not necessary. You do not have the hunting skill and experience that I possess. You would be a hindrance to me.” I did not mean anything by it, I was merely stating the facts.
Melissa clearly did not see it that way. She stiffened. “Well, when you put it that way.” She put her hands on her hips. “And what if I’m actually a really good hunter?”
I narrowed my gaze. “Have you ever hunted before?”
“Well, no.”
“Then my assessment was correct.” I stood up and brushed myself off.
“What should I do?” Melissa asked, sullenly, standing up as well.
“Stay with the ship. Take a stock of our supplies and an inventory of our weapons. This shuttle had been used extensively before this mission; it is possible it had not been refitted before the Admiral and I left the fleet.”
Melissa nodded. “You’ll take care of yourself?”
“I will be fine, Melissa.”
She stepped closer to me. “Good. You make sure of that, alright?”
“I will do so.” I studied her and then remembered. “You had started to ask about last night.”
“Oh, yeah.” Melissa bit her lip; it was a very cute gesture, like she was embarrassed or unsure of herself. It was the first time I had seen her so flustered, and I almost enjoyed it a little. “I just wanted to tell you that I really enjoyed it, and I wanted to thank you for holding me like that. After the crash and Ambassador Fuller’s death, I just, well, I didn’t really know what to do for a little while there.”
“I understand. You were in shock.”
“I guess so, yeah.” She took a step closer. “Even so, though, what we did…” She trailed off, unsure of herself again. I knew what she was referring to.
“I enjoyed it too,” I said. “I enjoyed kissing you.”
Melissa smiled. “Yeah? OK, good. I just wanted to make sure.” A questioning look came over her face. “Wait a second, you Kreossians do kiss, right? That doesn’t mean something weird in your culture, does it?”
I laughed. “I have a feeling a kiss means the same thing to any species that has mouths, Melissa Crane of Earth. In any case, from the advanced scouting reports I have received from our team on Earth, both our species intend the same things by kissing.”
A wave of relief washed over her, and I saw Melissa relax. “OK, good. I just wanted to make sure. I didn’t want there to be any intergalactic incidents because we got some wires crossed.”
“That would certainly not be good for the already tenuous relations between your planet and the Kreossian Empire.”
Melissa smiled. “See, you’re making jokes about us already. There’s no way you can destroy Earth at this rate! By the time we get out of here you’ll want to move there!”
“That would make my job very difficult.”
“Well, keep it in mind.”
“I will do that.” We walked back to the ship. It had nearly finished rebuilding itself, I was satisfied to see.
Melissa was surprised. “Wait a minute,” she said, grabbing my arm. “What the hell? All the holes are gone?”
“Of course, the ship has repaired itself.” I looked at her, surprise on my face before I realized that she did not understand.
Melissa stared back at me. “Ships don’t just repair themselves, Ark.”
I shrugged. “Ours do. As long as certain key systems are still functioning and the ship has enough power reserves, it will eventually rebuild itself and be ready to fly again.”
Melissa walked around the outer hull of the ship, looking skeptical. When she came back around her eyes were almost jumping off of her face. “There are only a few holes left. So…it fixes itself?” She looked like she had seen something that should not exist.
“That is how our technology works. I gather you do not have the same level of sophistication.” I did not need to say that - from the advanced scouting reports, I already knew the answer. Melissa’s incredulity only confirmed the fact.
Melissa shook her head. “No, we have nothing like that. That’s insane, like something straight out of science fiction.”
“I assure you it is real.” I looked over the ship from stern to aft. “And it is the reason we will get off this planet alive.”
Melissa smirked at me. “You knew this all along, didn’t you?”
“I saw that we had enough reserves to complete the repairs when we landed, yes.”
“And you didn’t tell me.”
“You seemed to be accepting the situation the right way. If I had had any doubt that you would lose control, I would have said something.”
“So…you were just testing me?”
“In a manner of speaking, you could put it that way, yes.”
“Have I ever told you how much I hate you?”
“That sentiment is contradicted by our kissing last night.”
“It’s more of a love and hate, thing, really.”
“That sounds very complicated.”
She nodded. “It is. I’m still trying to understand it myself.”
“You will clearly have lots to do while I am away.”
Melissa punched me in the arm. I barely felt it. “I better get started, then.” She walked toward the shuttle, still shaking her head when the door opened to allow her in. Last night that door had been a hole in the side of the ship.
Before she entered the ship, Melissa turned and asked, “When will you be back?”
I looked up at the sky again, thinking about it. I knew the correct answer was, ‘when I have killed the beast,’ but at the same time I knew that I did not want to spend the night away from her. “I will return before nightfall.”
Melissa nodded. “That should give me plenty of time to do a complete inventory.” She smiled. “Don’t be late for dinner!”
“I will be on time.”
Melissa waved and disappeared into the ship, leaving me all alone with the sounds of the forest.
I waved back to her and h
oisted my supplies, checking my blade, water, and rations. The sun was starting to get high in the sky, and it would get warmer, but my survival suit would regulate my temperature well enough.
I had no reason not to leave that instant, but before I did, I found myself rooted in place, like I didn’t want to leave Melissa alone, even for a couple hours.
It wasn’t that I thought she was incapable of taking care of herself - Melissa was clearly very resourceful, and her will to stay alive rivaled that of the warriors I was so used to commanding in battle. No, it was not that. It was that I wanted to be around her, wanted to protect her myself.
I stood watching the ship for a minute longer, listening for any signs that anything dangerous was close by. I had not seen any indications that the creatures came in this direction, but not knowing much about their biology yet I could not hazard a guess as to how they lived or their movement patterns.
I sighed and headed off into the dense brush, in the direction the calls had come from the night before. There was no path to speak of, so almost immediately I had to bring my blade out and start hacking at the trees, clearing a way for me to proceed. I knew that I was inviting trouble by making so much noise, but there really was no other way to move in that direction.
In the back of my head I knew I was only helping this creature out should I prove unable to capture it today. If it were indeed nocturnal as I suspected, creating a simple trail for it to return to the ship after the day’s hunt was not a smart move. Still, it was the only way to get to where I needed to go.
It took 2 hours of traveling directly away from the ship before I found any hint that the creature was in the vicinity. I took a break to sit down and eat, looking up at the hot afternoon sun and wondering what Melissa was doing at that moment.
It was the first time in my life that my focus had wavered while I was on a hunt or in a battle. I did not relish the experience, but thinking about Melissa and how she felt lying against me last night, and how…correct it felt for her to wake up in my arms like she did this morning made the discomfort pass very quickly. The things that woman could do to me with just a look astounded me.
After I finished eating I stood back up and prepared to keep moving. I finally found signs of a large beast - broken branches, and the beginnings of footprints that told me I was nearing its stomping ground. I readied my blade and sharpened my senses, drowning out all other thoughts but that of the hunt.
This was what I lived for, even though this was the first time I had hunted alone since I was a child. All the other times since I had been in the company of my warrior brothers, so this was a long-dormant memory to me.
As I trekked further away from the ship and the day grew long as the afternoon stretched toward evening, I kept finding more and more signs that the animal itself was close by, and signs that it was larger than I suspected. I made sure that I was prepared for an attack at any moment, but no attack came, no sound or sight troubled me.
It should not have been this way. I stopped for a moment to catch my bearings. I knew that I would have to turn around now if I planned to return to the crash site before nightfall, but I had not yet accomplished my mission.
I was not used to failure, and I wanted to remain out in the wild and do what it took to catch the beast and trap it, and figure out what kinds of creatures we were dealing with on this planet, but I knew that Melissa would be waiting for me, and I had no way to contact her to tell her to explain that I would be detained overnight.
Of course, I also wanted to be back by the fire with her in my arms again, which was a stronger pull to head back toward the crash site than I would have liked to admit.
With a sigh, I gathered my things and turned around, retracing my steps toward the crash site. The trip back was much quicker since I had done all the work of cutting through the thick jungle on the other side of the journey.
Along the way I ruminated over what had happened so far with Melissa. After last night, despite my initial hesitance, I was ready to admit it to myself - Melissa Crane of Earth was my mate, and I would defend her and protect her and love her as long as I drew breath. I had had dalliances with women of many species from across the galaxies in my day, but none had ever affected me the way she did, and in such a short time as well.
No, there was no doubt in my mind - the human woman was to be my mate for the rest of my life, and it was now my job to ensure that both our lives were long and full of love and happiness. The thought of spending the rest of my life with her filled my dormant heart with longing - being even this far away from her bordered on causing physical pain to me.
The forest came alive as the sun began to set, and an entire new set of sounds emerged from beyond the lush trees. There were far more creatures and species present than we had thought before. This was not out of the ordinary - jungles were known for their vast varieties of life.
Only one of them concerned me, though, the one that had made those ominous and angry sounding calls last night. Of course, it was possible they were benign in nature, but if my experiences throughout the galaxy taught me anything, that was the call of a creature who protected its territory. Territory that we had invaded by crashing into it.
My frustration at not being able to find, let alone capture, this creature was tempered by the anticipation and thrill of seeing Melissa again, despite only having been gone for a few hours. As I got closer to the ship my spirits grew even bolder and happier - I wondered just what she and I would do this evening by the fire.
And then I heard the scream. Long and piercing and coming from directly in front of me.
The scream came from the crash site.
Melissa was in trouble.
I broke into a run faster than I ever had in my life, exercising the muscles I had spent years building and honing in battles across the galaxy. I charged through the brush of the forest, pushing branches out of the way, thankful that the initial trip had resulted in so many branches cut to the ground.
It was not fast enough for me, though, not when I could still hear the screams coming from the crash site. I snarled with each one, looking around for a place to shift and fly there faster, but the jungle was so dense in this portion of the forest that I would get there faster by running.
It took me less than 5 minutes from hearing the first scream to reach the crash site, and I was momentarily happy just before the ship came into view that Melissa was still screaming - that meant she was still alive.
I pushed through the last of the brush, coming to our campfire, and found Melissa cowering up against the ship, her knife in her hand. Standing before her, menacing her and pressing her back against the side of the ship, was a beast the likes of which I had never seen.
It was black. Not in a dark sense, in a black hole sense. It seemed to absorb the light around it, only letting out a thin and eerie light blue glow that hovered all around it. It was nearly impossible to make out any features on it, but I could tell it walked on four legs and had a tail.
And teeth. It had very, very large teeth, light absorbing like the rest of it, still with that blue glow.
I let out a wordless bellow of rage as I charged toward the beast and jumped just before reaching it, throwing my arms around its neck and holding on. The beast yelled in frustration in return, angered that I had denied it the satisfaction of the kill just yet.