by S. E. Smith
RITA knew Tink enough to know she wouldn’t stop until she confirmed that the changes she made worked. If they didn’t test it now Tink would go upstairs and worry that she should have changed this or done that.
Laughing, Tink let out a tired breath. “You know me better than that. Let me know when you get a power reading.”
Tink walked over to the metal stairs slowly, twisting this way and that to relieve her aching muscles from all the sitting, bending, and awkward leaning over she had done for over three hours. Glancing at her watch, she noticed it was almost five thirty in the morning. Well, no coffee for me this morning if I plan on sleeping the day away, she thought tiredly. As she moved past one of the panels on the wall next to the stairs Tink noticed some strange lanyards hanging next to it. Moving closer, she picked one up turning it over and over in her palm. She glanced up again. There were four of them with small cylinder devices hanging from them. They were absolutely beautiful! The cylinders had cravings on them that matched the craving Cosmos put on the metal frame of the ‘doorway’ thing. Tink could tell they were some type of electronic device. Tink placed the lanyard in the pocket of her skirt. She wanted to take a closer look at it when she wasn’t so tired. She would have plenty of time to replace it before Cosmos came back. Bending over, Tink picked up her guitar and her oversized purse. Sliding the purse over one shoulder so it draped across her and sliding the guitar case strap over the other, Tink moved to climb the stairs leading to the upper floor and her long awaited bed.
Chapter 2
Tink was just putting her foot on the first step when out of the corner of her eye she noticed a strange light emitting from the metal ‘doorway’. The entire thing seemed to shimmer and then it cleared up opening to another room. The room was a soft grey with low lights emitting from the floor and ceiling. Tink blinked a couple of times thinking she was hallucinating from being over tired.
“What the ….?” She thought as she shook her head again to try to clear her eyesight.
No matter how much she shook her head or rubbed her eyes, the room was still there. Hesitating, she slowly put her foot back down onto the concrete floor of the lab. Turning, she walked toward the metal ‘doorway’. Glancing up she looked at the metal surrounding the door noticing there were a series of lights running faster and faster around it. Shaking her head from the dizziness of watching the lights going around, she gently stretched her hand out to touch what should have been solid concrete where the wall of the lab should have been. She felt a slight tingling as her hand passed through the doorway but nothing that felt dangerous or disturbing. Tink pulled her hand back and glanced up towards where the console was with a frown.
“RITA, what do you make of this?” Tink asked in a slightly husky voice.
“I’m not sure, dear, but I don’t think it would hurt you. Why don’t you take a look and see what it is?” RITA replied, sounding almost eager.
Take a look? Was RITA nuts? Could a computer be nuts? Was Tink going nuts? Hooray, now all she was doing was thinking of nuts!
“What do the readings say?” Tink asked curiously.
“You were able to pull over 12.8695 amps out of the generator! What a wonderful increase, dear. It seems to be just what Cosmos needed to get his project running.” RITA said excited.
“Well, maybe you should power it down now that we know it worked. I’m not sure what Cosmos is doing but if he can create a room that wasn’t there before maybe I don’t want to mess with it.” Tink said, starting to turn around.
Tink hadn’t taken more than a step when she heard something coming from the other side of the ‘doorway’.
“What was that? RITA, did you pick up anything?” Turning back toward the doorway, Tink looked closer.
A tall, dark hair man was fighting with…Tink shook her head again. A… what the hell was that? Tink moved closer as the man raised his sword. Holy crap, the guy had a huge sword! The man looked like he was fighting a big Iguana! The other creature was hissing. Its tongue moving in and out as it swung what looked like a double-edged sword toward the tall, dark haired man. The dark haired man moved backward trying to stay out of the Iguana-dude’s reach. He was holding his right arm close to his body like he was hurt and he was dragging his left leg. Tink glanced down at it as he moved by and saw blood flowing from a deep gash that had to hurt like hell. As he moved by, Tink saw the dark-haired man’s face for the first time. The man’s features caused Tink to gasp. He looked more like a kid! Not more than sixteen or seventeen! The Iguana dude raised his double-edged sword over his head and struck a particularly brutal blow on the sword arm of the dark-haired boy. The power of the blow cause the boy to fall backward where he lay sprawled on the floor of the hallway. The Iguana dude roared with triumph and raised his sword over his head in order to deal a death blow.
Derik knew his time had come. He knew death would come quickly now. When their ship was attacked, he gripped his battle-sword ready to defend his shipmates and his brothers. A feeling of regret surged through him as he thought of his parents and brothers reaction to his death. He was only seventeen planet cycles old and had begged and pestered his father and older brothers to let him join them on this trade mission to a nearby star system. Everything was fine until they received a distress call from a starship two clicks ago. They were the closest ship and offered to help. The signals coming from the ship identified it as a class-five passenger starship on transport to Caldara Four to drop off its passengers. The distress signal also identified multiple system failures, including environmental. Responding to the distress signal, they encountered the Juangans instead. The Juangans had obviously high-jacked the starship. They used it as a decoy in an effort to get unsuspecting ships to come to its rescue. Known for their brutal treatment of not only each other but any species they encountered, they were a fierce species that prayed on anything that moved. They were not picky about who or what they ate. They were known to even sacrifice members of their own crew to fill their grisly appetites.
Derik was a member of the Prime, a proud warrior people who lived in a galaxy that had several habitable planets. There were three planets in the Prime system that supplied a wide variety of materials the Prime used for trading with other nearby galaxies; though, only one was fully inhabited. Baade was the home world of the Prime. Two smaller planets, Lacertae and Carafe, had only small, isolated cargo ports, miner facilities, and military sites. Their most important resource was base crystals that helped to power their world and their ships. Mined on the smallest of the three planets, Carafe, it was heavily protected. Their ship on this trip had not contained stores of the crystal but fruits and other natural products the nearby galaxy of Grus used for their space stations and planetary needs.
While this ship was a military warship, they used it sometimes to transport products to nearby galaxies as a cover to gather and observe data on the neighboring inhabitants. They had already dropped the shipment off and were returning with a variety of materials that could not be found on their home planet.
One of the things they would have liked to have found was females from the other galaxy that were a match for their men. Women on their home planet where held in very high regard. Unfortunately, there were not very many women available. Most of the women on Prime were already spoken for through the mating rites which are done as soon as the female comes of age. The problem was the birth rate of females remained low making it difficult for the unmated males to find mates.
Prime males were matched to their mates though a mating rite ceremony; and, if no match is made, life for the unattached males meant a solitary existence. The mating rites were a chemical reaction that occurred when a Prime male had a physical and emotional chemical reaction bonding them to a female. The males become overwhelmed with feelings of possessiveness, protectiveness and sexual desire. A mating mark, a series of intricate circles denoting the unbreakable bond between mates, appears on the palm of the male and matching female when they come into contact with each oth
er. Each mark is as individualized as the bonded pair. It would not appear until the male and female reached the age of mating.
Due to the decline in the birth rate of females, fewer and fewer males where finding a mate. This decline had reached an almost critical level. The Prime males were desperately looking for an alternative solution. One of the main reasons for the trips to other galaxies was a hope of finding a compatible species that could procreate with the Prime males. A mating rite had never been done outside their species before even though some of their males tried to bond with other species from nearby galaxies. All had failed. It was impossible without the mating rite and with the fact the species found so far were either incompatible or downright unappealing to the males. It was hard to get turned on to a green, scaly creature with six arms and four legs or one that had more hair on their body than a Prime Tookey; a long-haired, long-limbed creature found in the thick forest of the mountainous region of Prime.
I’ll never have the chance to find my bond mate, he thought disheartened as he stared into the cold, dead eyes of the Juangan standing over him. Derik stared defiantly at the Juangan determined to end his life with honor. The Juangan took one step toward Derik then suddenly stopped. Its mouth opened slowly and a green slime slowly trickled down its chin. It slowly dropped to its knees before pitching face-first toward Derik. Derik scooted back looking down at the dead Juangan with wonder before glancing up to see which of his fellow warriors came to his rescue.
“Ja tasn meszk talkock” he muttered. “I must be dreaming.”
Derik stared at the vision in front of him. It was a goddess! It could only be that as he had never in his life seen anything so beautiful. Behind the vision, a shimmering wall of color swirled in the narrow corridor. The vision of the goddess before him appeared out of it. Light danced around her and she looked like she was - furious. All he could do was look at the tiny figure standing before him. She truly was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen and she just saved his life!
Chapter 3
Tink didn’t know what else to do. When she saw the boy fall and the Iguana intent on cutting him in half she moved without thinking. Grabbing her hammer out of her tool belt, she stepped through the doorway and up behind the Iguana dude when he moved by the opening of the doorway. When he raised his sword, she knew she couldn’t let the boy die so she did what any self-respecting girl would do in the same situation, she popped Iguana dude in the back of the head with her hammer. She had no idea his head would crack like a walnut spilling green goop all down its back.
“Gross!” Tink cried out lowering her hammer coated in the green slime and bent over to wipe it clean on the back of the creature’s clothing.
Glancing at the boy on the floor Tink gingerly stepped over the dead Iguana dude’s body so she could see how badly he was hurt. From the amount of blood, it looked pretty bad. Tink slowly put her hammer in her tool belt and shrugged the straps of the guitar and her over-sized purse off her shoulders. She set them down next to the wall and held out her hands, palms up. The last thing she wanted to do was frighten the poor kid and have him attack her.
“It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.” Tink spoke softly. “I just want to see if we can stop some of that bleeding.” Tink smiled a reassuring smile and took another hesitant step towards the boy.
Derik looked at the beautiful creature moving towards him. He couldn’t understand what she was saying but could tell she was trying to reassure him. I must have died and gone to the world of the gods and goddesses. That was what happened, he thought to himself. He didn’t think the next plane of life would have hurt the way he did but it was the only explanation. How else could a goddess appear suddenly to save his life?
Derik watched as she pulled her smaller bag towards her. She seemed to be looking for something in it. When she found what she was looking for, she turned to him with a triumphant smile. Derik caught his breath at how her face became even more beautiful as she smiled. She was saying something but he didn’t understand what it was. He only knew she could do whatever she wanted with him. He was happy just looking at her.
Tink pulled her over-sized purse towards her. She always carried a small first aid kit with her. When you were a mechanic and worked on machinery you were always getting cuts and scrapes. She pulled the small plastic case containing bandages and antibiotic creams out with a triumphant smile.
“And the guys say I’m paranoid!” She muttered under her breath.
Turning towards the boy who continued to stare at her like he had never seen a woman before Tink smile softly and tried to explain what she was doing. He really was adorable, Tink thought as she watched his eyes following her every movement.
“I’m going to see if I can stop some of this bleeding. It might hurt a little while I’m doing this but everything will be okay once we get you patched up enough to get to a hospital. Although, I don’t have a clue how I’m going to explain Mr. Iguana-dude to the police.” Tink pulled on a pair of blue latex-free gloves and pulled out the butterfly bandages, gauze, larger bandages, and antibiotic cream.
“Let’s look at your leg first” Tink said softly as she scooted forward on her knees until she was next to Derik’s leg.
Pulling out her razor knife she cut his pant leg from the knee to the top of his thigh. Tink drew in a sharp breath when she saw how deep the wound was. It had to be at least four inches long and half an inch deep. Taking a clean piece of gauze, she cleaned the wound as best she could and slowly pulled the edges together running a small amount of antibiotic cream along the cut then using most of her butterfly bandages to hold it together. Once she was done doing that, she pulled out some gauze patches and laid them carefully over the wound and followed it up by taking a roll of gauze and winding it around the boy’s leg slowly reaching up and under to make sure it held the butterfly bandages in place. Tink glanced up a couple of times to make sure she wasn’t hurting the dark-haired boy too much. She smiled gently at him as she continued to work on patching up his leg. He really was adorable with his dark hair falling down over his forehead and his silver - silver?-eyes gazing at her with a look of pure adoration. He reminded her of a lost puppy looking at someone who decided to take him home.
“Okay, your leg is done as best I can fix it right here and now. Let me take a look at your arm. You know, you really shouldn’t have pissed off someone bigger than you without someone to cover your back.” Tink said in a teasing voice trying to distract the boy. His staring was beginning to make her feel self-conscious.
Pointing to his arm Tink smiled gently again and said, “I need to take a look at your arm.”
Derik looked down at his arm. Realizing she was pointing to it, he held it out for her to mend. He watched as she pulled a sharp knife from her strange looking belt and cut his shirt sleeve from his elbow to his shoulder. She smiled again at him and reached for the same type of materials that she used for his leg. He realized his leg didn’t hurt as much as it had. The beautiful goddess smiled at him again as she began cleaning and bandaging his arm. When she was done she leaned over pushing a tuff of hair from his forehead with a gentle hand. Derik’s breath caught in his throat as he felt her lay her palm against his cheek.
“All done, I think we should try to get you out of here in case any more of those things come looking for their friend.” Tink said as she nodded her head toward the dead Juangan.
She quickly cleaned up all the left over first aid materials packing them back into the case and putting it back in her purse. Sliding her purse over her shoulder so it crossed over the front of her, Tink moved over to the side of the boy with the unhurt arm. Bending her knees, she leaned over and helped him stand slowly. He wobbled a little but then straightened up. Grabbing her guitar with her other hand, she wrapped her arm around his waist and they slowly began a shuffling walk down the corridor with Derik’s arm around Tink’s shoulder on one side and holding onto his sword and the wall with the other.
In all the confusion of
what had happened Tink didn’t even realize the ‘doorway’ that brought her to this strange hallway was no longer there. Tink stopped at the spot she came through earlier. Blinking rapidly she looked around, glancing back and forth as much as she could while trapped under the weight of the boy’s arm. Tink studied both sides of the corridor for a good ten feet on either side. There was no opening! She couldn’t see Cosmos’ lab or even a glimmer of the doorway she came through. Beginning to feel a sense of panic, Tink took a deep breath. The boy holding onto her said something and pointed towards the end of the corridor. Tink didn’t understand a word of what he said but figured he knew where she needed to take him. She would come back after she got him some help and find the doorway. Nodding to the boy to show she understood what he was trying to tell her, Tink took one last look before moving towards what looked to be a door.
Chapter 4
Derik glanced down at the woman holding him around his waist. He noticed she seemed to be looking for something as she kept glancing around the corridor as they walked down it. She had a funny expression on her face as they walked towards the elevator. He knew his brothers had defeated the remaining Juangans who boarded the warship. He was listening carefully to the communicator he had in his ear to see what was going on. It was a relief as J’kar, his older brother and commander of the warship, ordered them not to use the communicators during the battle for fear the Juangans might use it against them. They haven’t had much contact with that species to know what level their technology development was. Their current files on the Juangans just documented how dangerous and deadly they were. J’kar was giving the all clear to use the communicators again. Derik wanted to head to the bridge to see what damage was done to the warship. He wanted to know how many brave warriors were hurt or killed during the battle.