by Maia Starr
“I quite appreciate it,” Professor Winston said, offering the device back to me.
“No, I made that one for you. Sorry it’s so tiny, but I didn’t have a lot of time last night—”
“Wow,” he breathed, studying the small device. I had never seen him so awestricken, and to be honest, it made me feel rather proud of myself. “You did all of this in just one night?”
“Yes,” I nodded. “But the research took over a year.”
“You’re brilliant, Emily,” Professor Winston said, shaking his head. “You’re far ahead of your time.”
“Hopefully I’m just in time,” I replied.
His face lit up with another handsome smile and he gave me a small nod.
“Yes,” he said, holding the little device up to the light and circling it in his fingers once more. “I believe you are.”
***
I always felt a little bit better about the world after talking to Professor Winston, and made my way to the waterfront with an unmistakable hope in my breast. If anybody could get people to care about the greater good of mankind, it was him. Vellreq be damned. There was a lot to say about the human spirit. Or at least I hoped there was.
I settled onto the beach as I did every weekend. Watching the water rolling was inspirational. All of those atoms moving together and apart, creating the rolling of the waves, sparked something creative in me. I probably never would have finished creating my unlimited energy device without it. But instead of seeking rewards, I was going to distribute my invention slyly to the people who knew how to use it. People like Professor Winston.
Suddenly, a cold wind lifted my papers from their folder and a dark shadow was cast over me. I frowned; rain hadn’t been in the forecast that morning, and meteorology and all of its related technology had really made advancements with the help of the Vellreq. There should be no good reason for this strange weather.
I squinted into the sky, shocked to see that only a patch of it was darkened. A shadow was being cast over me, despite there being nothing of note in the sky. My mind immediately went to the Vellreq, but their ships were quite loud and bulkier than the shadow being cast. What was going on?
“Got you!”
I cried out in pain as my neck was pierced by something cold and sharp. I whipped around, hoping to figure out what the hell was going on, but before I could, I slumped to the ground and entered into a deep, dreamless sleep.
***
When I woke up, my entire body was filled with pain. I tried to cry out, but no sounds came from my throat. I couldn’t even squeak.
“Welcome, human,” a terrifying man’s voice spoke suddenly from behind me. I wanted to turn to face him, but nothing I did could inspire my limbs to move. I was frozen, heaped on the ground like a discarded toy. Apparently, I had been given a large dose of some extraterrestrial date-rape drug.
“Ernng!” I finally mustered. I still couldn’t move though, and the voice laughed cruelly from behind me.
“You’re mine now,” he said. I could hear his heavy footfalls as he circled around me, and wished I could do something, anything, to injure him as he had obviously injured me. The back of my head was on fire, as if he had carried me by my hair, and I was fairly certain that blood was trickling from my nose and lip.
“It won’t do you any good to fight this,” he said, gripping my head so that I could look at him, his black eyes flashing with morbid pleasure. If I could have gasped, I would have. He looked and sounded nothing like the Vellreq. In fact, if he weren’t so cruel, I guessed his voice might have been somewhat pleasant and lyrical. As it happened, however, he was a very cruel man who seemed to delight in my pain, and every word out of his mouth was grating.
I wanted to spit in his face, but all I could do was study him in horror. His eyes were metallic and cold, and his skin was a deep teal color that made his dark demeanor seem even more menacing. He had only four fingers on each hand, and was bizarrely muscular. The appearance wasn’t necessarily revolting or fear-inspiring, but regardless, I was starting to feel very afraid.
“Captain Zod!”
A voice came from the man’s arm bangle, and he sneered at me before lifting it to his mouth.
“What?!”
They weren’t speaking English, but I had manufactured a translation device as soon as the Vellreq had made themselves known to Earth. It was a pretty clever invention, if I did say so myself, that was able to take a chunk of dialogue of any language and learn its nuances so that the wearer could get a pretty accurate translation of the language being spoken. It got more accurate over time, and was able to pick up little turns of phrase and metaphors that would usually be lost in translation. Therese had helped me with the electrical part. That’s how we had gotten to know each other.
“Should we deploy the soldiers?” the tinny voice from the radio asked. “We have a hundred beds to fill and only a few of us Thressl’n here to get the job done.”
Ah. So these men were known as the Thressl’n.
“Of course!” Zod said. “Do it now! And don’t bother me until you get back.”
“But sir—”
“Do as I command!”
“…yes, sir.”
Zod dropped his arm, and his cold eyes turned back to me. I wanted to scream at him, demand to know just what in the hell he was planning. A hundred beds to fill? Who were these horrible creatures, and what did they want with Earth?
Pain filled me as Zod gripped my hair once again and lifted me so that I was level to him as we met each other’s eyes.
“Oh, human,” he said, a cold smile parting his lips. “This is going to be fun.”
***
It was a horrific couple of days after that. Zod was a cruel and malicious captor, and nobody knew that I was on board the ship. Gradually, I learned that a hundred women had been taken captive for breeding purposes, and Zod had decided to claim a prize for himself.
While none of his cruelty had been sexual in nature, I was sure that it was heading that way. I feared arriving to the Planet Jenal’k more than I had feared anything in my life—even my end of the year exams.
My body constantly ached as Zod drug me around the room, keeping me limp and compliant by injecting me again and again with the same serum he had used initially. Whenever anybody would call or come to his door, I would be shoved unceremoniously into a tiny closet that smelled terrible, a scent I couldn’t identify and doubted would even be found anywhere on Earth.
Zod would tend to his duties and then return back to the place where he had left me, stretching my fingers too far apart or poking at my eyes. I felt like a fly that had been captured by a curious, cruel child. Everything he did seemed to hurt.
“Just wait until we get to my place,” he would tell me, eyeing my body with grotesque lust plastered on his face. “Nobody on the planet Jenal’k will even know you’re there. You’re going to regret ever laying eyes on me.”
As if I didn’t already! But he seemed to get off on his cruel joking. I was almost relieved by the time I heard the announcement that we were arriving on Jenal’k; I had built up so much fear and anguish worrying about what was to come that it would almost be a relief for it to be over with.
“Now arriving. Everybody, secure yourselves please.”
The announcement was loud, and Zod looked down at me and grinned.
“You’re going to like it at my house,” he said, his metallic eyes glittering. “I have a lot of fun things planned for us to do there.”
If I could have thrown up, I would have. Unfortunately, the concoction he had been injecting me with over the past few days worked as a muscle relaxer of sorts, and I had no way of being able to move, let alone indulge my gag reflex.
A sudden turbulence shook the ship, and Zod’s eyes lit up. “Time to get ready to go home!”
He dragged me across the room by the hair and the pain made my eyes water. He always moved me by tugging the same patch of hair directly on the top of my head. When he let go, his
fingers were full of strands of auburn hair, and the smile on his face was alarmingly sadistic.
“Let’s get you into the bag.”
I tried with everything I had to struggle against him when I saw the long, black bag he pulled out of his closet. It was clearly a body bag, I imagined for the crew that were lost to the dangers of space exploration.
Zod seemed to be able to see the fear in my eyes, because his smile took on a level of cruelty I hadn’t witnessed yet, no matter what he was doing to inflict pain on my body. I realized that the only way to survive this situation was to remain as stoic as possible. The fear just seemed to fuel his dark desire to do terrible things. I would have to tap into something very strong within myself to get through this. But I didn’t know if I could.
“There we are,” Zod said. “Into the bag.”
He cackled and draped the black bag over my face, quickly zipping it shut. I immediately felt cut off from the air around me and nearly dissolved into hysteria. But now of all times was when I had to keep calm. I had to be strong.
It took a remarkably long time before the ship landed. The turbulence was very excessive, and then there was about half an hour of calm. Finally, the announcement that we had arrived on the planet Jenal’k filled the ship, and everybody began bustling around preparing themselves to leave.
It wasn’t until about two hours later, however, that the bag was lifted from the floor of Zod’s room.
I had been mute and unable to move for so long that I, and the person holding my bag, were shocked when I squirmed in the bag. It fell to the ground, and I couldn’t help but gasp in pain.
“Help,” I whispered weakly.
But there was no help for me here. I was trapped on the Planet Jenal’k with a race of cruel extraterrestrials. And I was headed to the home of the worst of them all.
Chapter 2
Laike Ostra’ki (Repair & Maintenance)
To say I was shocked when the body in the body bag moved is an understatement. My grandmother had always told me about the spirits of the dead, and how if they felt like their fate had been tampered with, they could come back to seek vengeance. She was a superstitious soul, my grandmother, and the haunting mental images seared into my mind from her stories kept me up at night. Sometimes they still do.
So naturally, while scouring the ship on my routine patrol to check the wiring, I was horrified to find a body bag. A full one. Captain Zod was known for being careless with his casualties, so it hadn’t been surprising at first to see that he had lost his temper and chosen not to spare a life.
What was surprising, though, was the gentle human voice begging for help.
I had never heard a human voice in person before. It was my job to stay on the planet Jenal’k and tend to maintenance matters. That meant I could work on ships, but never fly in them. It wasn’t my place to learn about the places my ships went or what kind of people were transported in them. In fact, as far as I knew, I could have been executed for even thinking about it. That’s what my grandmother would have said.
But there was something about that voice that made me feel like maybe it would be okay to bend the rules, just this once. Captain Zod was remarkably cruel, and to think that he could have harmed a human girl? It wasn’t right.
Still, all the captive humans were accounted for. Right now, Zod was probably receiving his medal of honor from Supreme Leader Aloitus for his bravery and leadership in space. They would congratulate him for saving the Thressl’n from extinction by bringing human females for breeding purposes, even though that praise should have gone to the man in charge of the mission.
The Supreme Leader seemed to favor Zod above all others, even Second in Command Zerk’k Arkti. Zod and Supreme Leader Aloitus had more in common, though nobody would be foolish enough to call them friends. It made me worry about what kind of world they were molding for us. Wasn’t it bad enough that the gender disparity had caused an underpopulation of Thressl’n women?
The soft voice in the bag sounded again.
“Please.”
I suddenly knew what I had to do.
“Shh!” I demanded. There was a small wiggle in the bag, and then complete stillness. I felt bad; she probably thought I was Zod. But if I had my way, he wouldn’t touch another hair on her head.
Still, that meant problems for me. If I was discovered stealing Zod’s private property, even if it was a body bag, it could be the end of the line for me. Even though he wasn’t supposed to have her there in the first place, as Supreme Leader Aloitus was very stern about bringing back one hundred humans per ship, and one hundred only, I was sure that Supreme Leader Aloitus would have made exceptions for his poster child.
I grimaced, wondering how to go about removal of this earthling without anybody being any the wiser. Fortunately, it was a rather common occurrence for me to perform custodial work on the ships upon their return, and many people were used to me taking the bodies of casualties to the crematorium for preparation. If they were crew members, a ceremony would be held. If enemies, then it would just be a quiet riddance of their body and everybody would go on as if nothing had happened. It was a bleak task, but one I was used to.
The human was light compared to other body bags I had carried out of Zod’s room. All too often, the casualties were our own, densely muscled Thressl’n people. We were a heavy breed; even our women rivaled the men in strength and size.
“Laike!”
I froze at the sound of my name and prayed that my bundle would remain quiet.
“Greetings to you, Absle,” I said, smiling quickly at my best friend since childhood. He glanced at the bag and back at me.
“Zod has been at it again, huh?” he asked grimly.
“So it seems,” I replied.
“So are you coming tonight?”
I had totally forgotten about the community dinner to celebrate the arrival of the crew of Zod’s ship. Every time a ship came back successfully, we found it a reason to celebrate. Space could be a cruel place.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, my voice trailing off. I hated social events with the Thressl’n. I had always been a loner at heart.
“Well, I’ll save you a seat. I hear there’s going to be performers at this one.”
“Already?”
They usually saved the performers and big celebrations for the arrival of the Second in Command’s ship. It seemed that Supreme Leader Aloitus wasn’t thinking twice anymore about showing his favoritism.
“You know how it is. Maybe things will be changing a little around here,” Absle said with a sly smile. “Could be about time.”
He turned his back on me and waved, and I watched him walk away, puzzled. Was Absle really a supporter of Supreme Leader Aloitus? That was an unpleasant surprise.
The bag shifted a little in my grip, and I shook it sternly. I didn’t want anybody else to stop me before I got it out of the ship. Especially if my cargo was feeling troublesome.
I walked briskly through the familiar labyrinths of the ship, my hearts pounding hard as I went. I had to come up with a plan to get this Earth female out of here. If anybody discovered me, I would not only risk my own life, but I could also be putting Captain Zod’s reputation on the line. That meant that if I were caught, my punishment would be infinitely crueler. Who would dare to challenge the Supreme Leader’s lapdog?
Apparently, Laike Ostra’ki (Maintenance and Repair) did.
***
After a few more close calls, I finally made it to the emergency exit without being spotted and disabled the alarm. Luckily, I had parked my maintenance vehicle close by and reached it briskly, despite much commotion from the recent arrival of the ship. I tossed the bundle onto its bed with a sickening thud. The female inside grunted in pain, and I felt regret over my rashness.
Still, I couldn’t apologize. Instead, I climbed inside the hovercraft and sped away from the ship as quickly as I could, before anybody would find that the Earth female was missing.
I arrived at m
y home in Mount Zennith in record time and hauled the bundle inside. Luckily, it was out of the way and living there meant I had a comfortable amount of isolation.
Most Thressl’n preferred to live in the red desert of Armath, where the environment was more nourishing to our bodies. The Thressl’n receive energy from solar sources, and many develop seasonal and weather disorders when they are not in warmer climates.
However, I had a solid constitution and had always been a loner at heart. My favorite place to explore as a child had been Mount Zennith. There, I had the quietude I needed to design ships for the royal fleet and build them and take them apart. I was an expert on the subject, though my placing ceremony had identified me as more of a maintenance worker. That meant I was never truly celebrated for my designs, just asked to work on them when they failed.
I suppose you could say I had developed a healthy intolerance for the other Thressl’n, who just expected me to accept my lot in life without any question. Of course I enjoyed helping to make technological advances for my brethren. But letting the clueless Thressl’n with engineering titles take all of my credit was a different story. And thus, I had chosen to make my home in the mountains. Although it was colder there, it was quiet and peaceful.
I took a quick glance around to confirm that nobody had seen me take the Earth female out of the bed of my hovercraft. Of course, my property was deserted, and I hurried inside with the bundle. I had to think fast. They had seen me remove the body, and if a cremation didn’t happen soon, it would be investigated.
“Let me out of here!” the human cried, her soft voice muffled from the bag. I frowned, my mind racing in search of a plan. “Please!”
Without thinking, I knelt down to the bag and unzipped it.
“You must be silent!” I exclaimed. I was trying to think, and her insistent shouting was driving me to agitation.
I felt immediate regret when my eyes finally fell on the human. Her face was the most gentle and vulnerable I had ever seen, with large, clear eyes that I felt immediately trapped in. They were the color of amber, and the thick, auburn curls that fell over her shoulders were astounding. It was a hair color coveted by my people, but one which occurred only rarely by natural means.