Ark: A Scifi Alien Romance

by Lucy Snow

  That was not a good sign. We had hoped that the ethereal glowing wolves were the largest form of life on this planet, but clearly we were wrong. At the same time, though, the glowing wolves might have been the top of the food chain.

  If that was the case, and we were walking right into their lair…

  With another hiss, Ark pulled me to the side, behind another rock, just as we came around a corner. He looked at me, and whispered as he held me back and close to him. “They are here, Melissa. Do not make any sudden movements.”

  I gulped, terrified. I searched Ark’s face for comfort and strength and while I could tell that he had both of those in spades, it did not make me feel any more at ease. “What is it?”

  “It is the wolves. This is where they live.”

  “What?” I almost gasped out loud. “They’re the source of the energy?”

  “We must watch and see. I do not know, but this is the location of the energy source. We must find it.”

  I nodded and Ark leaned over against the rock, looking around and gathering the lay of the land. He looked back down the path we had used to get here. “We must move, we do not want to be in the way if anymore use the same path.”

  “Good idea. Where do we go?”

  Ark looked around, and focused on a rock about 30 yards away, still in a ring around the path moving inward toward the source. “That is where we go,” Ark whispered, pointing toward the rock.

  I nodded, and took Ark’s hand. We quickly ran toward the new hiding place, and as we did I looked to my left through the clearings in the rocks as we passed by.

  I wished I hadn’t. At that moment, I wished we were back in the shuttle at the crash site, and I wished we had decided to just live out our lives in peace. I wouldn’t have minded a lifetime’s worth of peanut butter flavored nutritional supplements if they would have gotten us out of that place and back to the shuttle right in that instant.

  We were in some sort of amphitheater, concentric circles of rocks that had been set up. They weren’t carved like chairs or benches, but they were arranged so that someone could sit or lie on them and face what must have passed for a stage. I didn’t get as good a look as I wanted since we were moving so fast, but at the same time I did know one thing.

  There were more of the ghost wolves there. Many more. Dozens, if not a hundred. And they were all chanting. I realized in that moment that the chanting had started earlier, but it had grown in volume so slowly that I had subconsciously thought it was feedback from the power source itself.

  That was incorrect. “They’re chanting,” I whispered to Ark as we got into place behind the new rock.

  Ark nodded. “I heard it as we approached. It sounds like they’re performing some kind of ritual.”

  “A ritual to what?”

  “We must investigate, Melissa.” Ark looked down at me, then kissed me on the forehead. “We will both look now. Do not make any sudden movements, and if you see any of them looking at us, do not move, just pull on my arm and I will get us out of sight. Do you understand?”

  I gulped, trying to steel myself for what I was about to see, then nodded. “Let’s do it.”

  “You are so brave, my mate,” Ark said as he kissed me again, and my heart jumped out of my chest. In that moment I knew that whatever happened, we would be alright.

  We both crept out from behind the rock so we could get a better look. Almost without realizing it I started counting the number of ghost wolves I saw gathered around, but as they moved, I quickly lost count somewhere around 50. That wasn’t a good sign.

  It was almost like a theater in the round - there were rows of rocks behind the stage, and rings of stone arches that traveled above it, with more rocks on them. All in all it must have been possible for hundreds or thousands of creatures to sit and watch whatever was on stage.

  When my eyes finally turned to the stage itself, I drew in a long and deep breath. I knew right then that we were in trouble. It was clear to me that what we had come looking for was right there on the stage itself.

  The power source. It was glowing yellow, a large gold-looking urn, almost like a giant chalice. Waves of energy and light crackled around it, and the ghost wolves chant got louder and louder as the energy seemed to get more and more powerful.

  In the center of the chalice was a sphere that was clear, but had a definite boundary, like it had sealed something inside it. Inside were floating nuggets that glowed and sent off charges of different colored light. It was almost like a fireworks display back on Earth, but confined to a small volume, maybe the size of a poker table.

  That was definitely the power source we were looking for. Ark watched it with grim determination, and we both leaned down back behind the rock at the same time. “That’s what we came here for, right?”

  Ark nodded. “Indeed, that is the power source we seek.”

  “They’re not going to just let us walk away with it, Ark.”

  “We should consider asking them nicely. That has a chance of working, in my experience.”

  I wanted to laugh at his increasingly good grasp of gallows humor, but this seemed hardly the time nor the place for it. “We need a solution here, Ark, not more jokes.”

  “I know. I am thinking of one.” Grasping the rock with his huge hands, he leaned upward to get another look. I didn’t join him - I had seen enough for now. Those animals scared the shit out of me, and that was when there was only one of them.

  “What’re they doing to it?”

  “It appears they are conducting the ritual around it.”

  “You mean…they’re worshipping it?”

  “That would appear to be correct, yes. They are worshipping it.”

  “I dunno about your experience, but in humanity’s past, no one gives up something they worship easily, and certainly not without a fight.”

  I saw Ark nod almost imperceptibly. “The Kreossians have seen this before as well. They will not give it up without a fight.”

  “Your species is religious?” It seemed like the complete wrong time to ask, but it occurred to me right then and there that I had no idea what the Kreossians believed in.

  “We are not. We believe in ourselves and what we can accomplish. That is all we need.” He glanced down at me. “It is the other species that we have met along the way who believe in supernatural things.”

  I nodded. “So, what do we do about it? We don’t need all of what they have, but I have a feeling the language barrier is gonna make trading for even a small part of the stuff in that giant cup thing really difficult.”

  “I agree. My universal translator is not giving me any insight into what they are chanting. It is possibly not a structured language.”

  “Universal translator?”

  “How else could we speak to each other? I do not understand your language and you do not understand mine.”

  “I guess…I guess I hadn’t thought about that yet.”

  Ark laughed mirthlessly. “Now is a good time to think about such things, Melissa.”

  I shoved him lightly at the waist. “Shut up. I’ve never been involved with an alien before. Hell, I’d never even met one until a few days ago.”

  “Judging by how frequently you attack me, I have no difficulty in believing that.”

  “You’re really taking to making jokes at the wrong time, aren’t you?” I smiled. “Guess I’m having a positive influence on you already.”

  “Let us figure out how to get off this planet before we discuss influences and whether yours is positive or negative.”

  “Good plan. Any ideas coming to mind?”

  Ark lowered himself down behind the rock and turned to press his back against it. “I am still considering that.” He looked like he was thinking hard, but then he seemed to make up his mind. “I will attack them directly, head on.”

  “What? That sounds like a terrible plan!”

  “Hear me out. I will attack them from the front, giving you time to sneak around and steal the power we
need. You run away once you have it, and I will disengage and follow you back.” Ark smiled. “The plan is sound, we should implement it immediately.”

  “Wait, wait, wait!” I almost shouted, then clamped my hands over my mouth when I realized just how much trouble we could both get in if we made too much noise around an entire legion of ghost wolves. “That makes no sense, Ark! You had enough trouble taking out one of them back at the crash site? How long do you think you’ll last against all of those? This isn’t like the movies, the bad guys don’t just attack you one a time!”

  “I do not know what these movies are, but they sound far too easy for a warrior to deal with.”

  “That’s not the point! I’m not letting you go in there by yourself, even if it is just for a diversion!”

  “Do you have a better plan?”

  I leaned against the rock, and the wind picked up, gusting strong and instilling me with new fear. “No, I don’t.”

  CHAPTER 10 - ARK

  “Then we go with my plan,” I said. “Since we have not come up with a better one.”

  “We don’t have to go immediately, Ark, we have other options. We can take our time, plan something out, and get it right the first time. Mainly because if we don’t, there won’t be a second time.”

  “We do not have as much time as you think, Melissa. We must get off this planet quickly.”

  Melissa looked taken aback. “Why is that?” She asked, her voice growing quiet. “What will happen if we take too long?”

  “The shuttle we crashed in is not built for deep space flight over long periods of time.”

  “So? We can still use it to get off this planet, right?”

  I nodded. “Yes, it will serve that purpose. But once we get back into space, we will be relatively unable to move anywhere quickly, even at warp. We will essentially float in space waiting for someone to pass by and pick us up.”

  Melissa brightened. “But you said before the Kreossian fleet will be looking for us! They’ll find us, and we’ll be rescued!”

  “That is correct, but they will only search for so long. This planet’s dense atmosphere makes surface scans impossible, which is why we did not know this power source or anything else was on this planet before we landed.”

  “I don’t understand…”

  “If we don’t get the fuel, get back to the crash site, and launch very soon, the Kreossian fleet will give up their search for us. They will head to Earth and destroy it.”

  I saw Melissa’s eyes glaze over.

  “This part of space does not have many ships passing through. The Kreossian fleet searching for us is our only chance of being found. So, in order to save your planet and ourselves, we must get back into space as soon as we possibly can.”

  Melissa slumped against the rock. “I had no idea time was so short…” she mumbled.

  I reached out a hand and curled it around her, drawing her into me. “I would be content to remain on this planet for the rest of our lives with you, Melissa Crane of Earth, but we do not have that luxury at the moment. We must get out of here so we can save Earth.”

  At the mention of saving Earth, the fire in Melissa’s eyes returned. “Right!” she said. “But we still need a better plan. Maybe we can’t wait forever until they leave, but at the very least we can think up a couple more ideas first. You going in there blade-slicing is a suicide mission and I refuse to believe that’s the best way to do it.”

  “I am open to different ideas.”

  “That’s a start.” Melissa thought for a second. “The distraction idea is good, we need one of those. But not one that involves you taking on an army of ghost wolves by yourselves.”

  “Perhaps we can help with that,” a new voice said, and I whipped around, shocked to hear another voice on this planet, and even more shocked that someone managed to sneak up on us. Being around Melissa was not good for my warrior instincts. “And I like the name ‘ghost wolves,’ I will start using that from now on.”

  Standing in front of me was a Kreossian man, his survival suit a little worse for wear than mine, a huge smile on his strong and sharp features. Next to him stood a human woman, wearing something that approximated a Kreossian survival suit. She was athletic, dark haired, and clearly very intelligent.

  “Who are you?” I asked. “Explain your presence here. This planet is-“

  “Uninhabited by intelligent life, or so you thought, yes?” the other Kreossian said, smiling. “We thought the same thing until discovered you a few days ago.”

  “You have been watching us? What is the meaning of this?”

  He held his hands up, a gesture of peace. “Relax, brother warrior. We do not wish to harm you. My mate and I,” he indicated the woman next to him, who smiled, “wish to help you escape the planet.”

  “You know why we’re here?” Melissa piped up, focusing on the woman standing next to the other Kreossian. They calmly sized each other up.

  “We do. You guys talk pretty loud,” the other woman said, smiling. “It sounds like you’re in a bit of a pickle, gotta get back into space quick, or Earth’s in trouble, yeah?”

  “That is the truth of things,” I said. “Who are you? How did you come to this planet?”

  “My name is Makora,” the Kreossian said, pointing to himself. “And this is my mate, Sally Arment of Earth.”

  “I am Ark, and this is my mate, Melissa Crane of Earth.”

  Makora’s eyes twinkled with delight. “Another Kreossian man with a human woman for a mate! We are in an exclusive club, brother.”

  “It would seem so. How did you both arrive on this planet?”

  Makora raised a finger. “We have learned the planet’s name to translate roughly as ‘Garamond,' and we have begun calling it that.” He straightened up. “To answer your question, though, we landed our shuttle here 4 years ago after this one helped me escape from a pirate ship that had captured me.” Makora took Sally’s hand and held it close to him. “We have been inseparable ever since.”

  “You have stayed on this planet?” Melissa asked.

  “Why would we ever want to leave?” Sally replied, throwing her hands up. “We have everyone we could possibly want here.” She looked up at Makora lovingly. “And we have each other. There is nothing else for us out there.”

  I felt Melissa grab my hand, and I closed mine around hers. “I understand the feeling,” Melissa said. “You’re very lucky to have found each other.”

  “Looks like you two have done the same,” Makora added.

  Melissa and I made eye contact before I replied. “It is new; but we…agree.”

  “Then that is cause for celebration!”

  Sally tugged at Makora’s arm. “Not now,” she said, rolling her eyes over the rock that shielded us from the ghost wolves and their gathering. “We have something else to deal with first.”

  “Right, right,” Makora said, smiling. “Sometimes I lose track of things.”

  “This is not your fight,” I said. “We need to get off this planet, but you are comfortable here. I would not have you risk yourselves to help us out.”