by Calista Skye
Crirux chuckles. “I have her pipe bomb here, and her stun gun is empty of charge. So I think you just proved my point. I wonder what's keeping Security. It is obvious that the Bululg have much to learn about keeping their station safe. I will teach them, because you plainly have not. Well, I will just take my female and leave through the back door, so to speak. Don't follow me or I'll blow you up with this bomb.” He starts to drag Emma towards the door to the auction hall.
Time just ran out.
I have practiced doing this, but never against something that was alive. I pull my arm back, concentrate on his golden face and throw as hard as I can. A thin, piercing whine fills the corridor.
Crirux suddenly stiffens, then gives off a weird, muted scream while letting go of Emma. In the same moment, she stamps on his foot and snatches the pipe bomb out of his hand.
He screams again, and now I see that little buzzsaw blade that Xan'tor gave me has gone in one of Crirux's cheeks and out the other. He must have turned his face just when I threw it. His lower face is all dark blood now, and he has lost all interest in us as he collapses to the floor again, mewling pitifully.
I drop the handle of the weapon, which is useless without the little coin-sized blade. “Come on,” I urge and drag Xan'tor with me.
Emma sprints ahead of us, all four chains in her own hand, ducks down by the heap of Bululg troops and grabs a long, black weapon. She opens the door to the hangar and run through it. “All clear!”
On the other side is a mostly empty hangar with Xan'tor's ship close to us.
We make our way over, and just as I think we've made it, a group of Bululg troops come running from the other side.
Xan'tor opens the hatch to his ship and I push him inside.
“Come on, Emma!”
She holds up the pipe bomb. “These assholes kept me a prisoner and then sold me. I have to give them something back.”
I know how she feels. “Just be quick.”
Emma coldly judges the distance, then presses the button on the pipe bomb and throws it at the Bululg. She dives into the ship and I close the hatch, a split second before the detonation rocks the vessel.
A trail of blood shows me that Xan'tor has gone up on the elevator plate.
I go up with Emma.
In the control room, Xan'tor is half sitting on the chair, wiping blood out of his face and trying to start the ship with fingers that won't quite obey him.
I lean past him and press the necessary buttons, then guide the ship out of the hangar and speed up.
“Lie down, my love,” I say and help him down to the floor. “Emma, see what you can do for him while I get us to lightspeed.”
“He has a tail,” my sister hisses as she bends over him. “He's blue! How am I supposed to use any of my medic training with him?”
“He's an alien,” I agree, setting up the right course and pulling the lever for the lightspeed drive. “But he's the most human man you've ever met.”
37
- Xan'tor -
The world has lost its colors. Anywhere I look, all is gray tones. Even Mila's dark eyes.
She strokes my face. “Will you be okay? What can I do?”
“You said 'my love',” I manage.
“Yes.”
“Does it mean that… you love me again?” I normally wouldn't even dare ask it. But right now, I might not have a long time left, and this is something I must know.
“No.” Mila uselessly strokes some blood away from my forehead with shaking fingers. “It means that I love you still.”
I struggle for breath. “Even after the… the invasion thing?”
“Crirux said you will never work for the Bululg again. Is that true?”
I try to laugh, but it turns into a painful cough. My body feels like it's still on fire. “Never again. I never should have done it in the first place. I'm truly sorry I did. Mila, the new mission... I didn't do it. I'm sorry I ever... even if I knew I would never actually...” Something hot wells up in my throat and I have to cough.
Her face scrunches up. “Don't try to speak. Xan'tor, I'm afraid for you. You're bleeding all over and there are some deep burns… you're bleeding from your mouth...”
The control room starts to draw away from me, and I hope I'm pointing to the right console. “Diagnostic kit. Automatic. Bring over. Turn on.”
She wants to get up, but I grab her hand and hold her back. There's a ringing in my ears that only gets stronger. But this must be done before the end.
“Mila.”
“Yes?” Her lips quiver and her eyes are red-rimmed and narrow with worry.
“Will you marry me?”
38
- Mila -
Xan'tor faints.
“Hold his head,” I say and bounce up to find the kit, my knees like jello, fighting to not collapse in scared sobs.
Emma sits down and cradles his head. “Who is this guy?”
I furiously search through the console, then locate a box that looks out of place and open it. “That guy is the love of my life.”
“You have a lot of history with him, huh?”
It looks so much like how an alien med pack would look that I decide that it's the right thing. Quickly bringing it over to Xan'tor, I put it down on the floor by his head and press the obvious button to start the thing working. “Yeah.” I can't form longer words, my throat is too constricted.
Emma just nods. “He seems pretty cool.”
The med pack comes to life and sprouts a lot of thin, robotic arms and little cameras and various sensors on flexible stalks. It beeps a loud warning and Emma scrambles to get out of the way.
The machine adjusts itself, and all the arms and sensors are suddenly a flurry of activities as they all get busy with Xan'tor's lifeless form. It keeps unpacking itself and grows to the size of a spindly and extremely complicated dinner table over and around Xan'tor. It blows up a large, plastic-like bubble with all of him and most of the machine inside it. A readout shows vital signs with pictograms that I can't understand, but all the graphs seem to be going down.
The whole thing is so alarming that I have to support myself on a console. Blood is still seeping out of his mouth, smoke is rising. If I lose him now...
Finally Emma comes over and touches my shoulder. “Hey.”
I wipe my cheeks. “Hey.”
“There's nothing we can do for him now. That machine looks like it has it under control.”
She embraces me, and I melt into her, just hugging her and holding on for dear life.
“I thought you were dead,” I wheeze when I can finally talk again. “Then alive. Then dead again. And here you are.”
“Yeah,” Emma says in a raspy voice. “We made it so far. And that guy there will make it too. He looks strong. Sandor?”
“Xan'tor,” I correct. “Took me a while to get it right.”
She wipes her face on the frilly sleeve of the pink wrapping the Bululg gave her. “God, did you see him change into some kind of giant and just attack that creepy alien and all those guys with the weapons? You do realize he did it just to buy you and me time to escape? And he just about died doing it.”
“He's like that.”
“And he's a freaking shifter!”
“That's right.”
“I never knew those actually existed.”
“Me neither. But it's a big universe.” As I watch, the medical machine becomes a little less frantic over Xan'tor's body, and the various graphs appear to be slowly turning back upwards. “Big enough to have him in it.”
Emma looks around. “Cool spaceship. Can you fly it?”
I see Xan'tor's fingers move, and the icy tendrils let go of my heart a little. “Of course. Evan taught me.”
“Yeah, I remember you and he would play that game for hours. He tried to teach me too, but I was too young to get it back then. But that was fine. I just wanted to spend time with my big brother and sister. So. You want to fill me in on things?”
I sit
down on the floor right beside Xan'tor. I'm not letting him out of my sight. “I really do, Emma.”
- - -
It takes a good while to tell her most of my story, although I make it as brief as possible. When I'm done, we've long since arrived in the solar system where Xan'tor's base is, and the graphs on the medical machine have shot way up and stabilized. The machine itself has removed the plastic and gradually packed itself back up, and it's not doing much right now except monitoring.
I get to my feet and check on Xan'tor.
His hand is warm again, and when I squeeze it, he squeezes right back and opens one eye. “About time. I thought you would never stop speaking your alien language. But it was pleasant to listen to.”
I smile at him, relieved that he's clearly much better. “Just had to catch my sister up on what's happened.”
“Then maybe now it's time to tell me?”
I scratch my chin. “I think you know most of it...”
“But not the ending!” His voice is weak, but insistent.
I frown. “The ending?”
He groans. “Yes! The only thing that matters. Was it a yes or a no?”
“Oh! You mean your question? Before you fainted?”
“Sweet stars, I never knew you to be this slow. Yes, that is what I mean. I am extremely sleepy, so if you don't tell me right now, I may never know.”
I stroke his blue forehead, lean over and kiss his lips. “I said yes. I will marry you.”
His eyes light up. Then he closes them and falls asleep with a little smile on his face.
I set the autopilot to take us to the huge planet Gypp with its moon and the base in orbit around it.
Emma stretches. “So you're actually going to marry this guy?”
I grin, finally able to let the relief wash over me. “As soon as possible. If you could officiate, I'd do it right now. Well, after he wakes up, I guess.”
“I don't think I have the authority to. And I think you need a maid of honor, too. I can't be both.”
I grab her hand, just to confirm that she is really here. “We'll work it out. But now I want to hear about you.”
Emma takes a deep breath. “Ohmigod. So yeah. The break-in. I ran out and the fresk was right behind me and of course I was sure I would die. But I ran like crazy, and the fresk was caught in the outer door. Can you imagine? I mean, it got loose in a few seconds, but that gave me a good lead. I don't think the door recognized it as a sentient, so it tried to keep the monster inside. Anyway. I ran right into the human sentries doing their rounds. They saw the fresk and started running from it, so it changed its mind and went for them instead. There was some screaming later, so I guess it caught up with them.”
I shudder. “Almost makes me feel bad for those guys. But hey, they knew the risk of working for the enemy. And then?”
“So I kept running, and I was starting to think I might actually make it to the safe house. And then I ran right into a web trap about ten yards away from the boundary to the restricted area. I was so bundled up in sticky wires that I got worried I would never get loose. And even more worried that the fresk would come back. I was stuck like a fly in a spider's web. I was almost relieved when a new group of sentries came and got me. They were really puzzled that I had run into the trap from the inside. Those things are supposed to keep curious people out. They handed me over to the Bululg. And then I spent the next weeks in a cell until they took me up to space and… well, you know the rest.”
I hug her again. “I can't tell you how worried I've been!”
“Yeah, me too. We got really close to having some really bad stuff happening to us. At least I got some time to run the language app for the alien languages. I concentrated on Spaceish, because that has the most complete grammar. And I did some of the others, too.”
“Good choice. Most of them understand Spaceish, which they call Interspeech.”
“Interspeech. All right.”
“I actually thought you were coming up in space on the same ship I was. I called your name, and it was as if you replied. Really faintly. Wishful thinking, I guess. It would mean you hadn't been caught by the fresk.”
She squeezes me harder. “Our minds can really screw with us, huh? But I was still on Earth. Okay, that is one ugly moon.” She looks past me, out the canopy.
“That's no moon,” I explain. “That's a space station. It's not even round. Yeah, looks like a heap of trash, doesn't it? It pretty much is. It's Xan'tor's home. His base. Wait, I'll just land in that hangar.”
I have practiced landing with the two-seater, but Xan'tor's ship is much easier to deal with and the landing is almost soft.
“Stay here.” I go down to the lounge and get a suitable ray gun from the armory locker. Opening the hatch, I get out, close it again and carefully make my way to the Pyramid.
They're all there, sitting on crates and sipping from those pipe bomb-like cans.
When they see me, they're plainly surprised, but not unpleasantly so.
“Hi, Mila! Where have you been?” Prash calls.
I make sure they see the gun. “Hi, guys. Frox, would you come with me, please? Xan'tor is badly wounded.”
They all get up and exchange glances. The huge Renerak quickly takes a step towards me to make their tactical situation better if I start shooting. The situation is pretty tense.
Frox rolls up to me with all six eyestalks staring. “Wounded?”
“In his ship, in the hangar. Come on. Nobody else right now. I don't know who I can trust.”
Frox rolls out of the Pyramid and into the Toblerone corridor, accelerating fast. I follow him, making sure nobody else is coming. But they're all slowly sitting back down, staring suspiciously at me.
I have to sprint to keep up with Frox.
“What happened?” he asks tightly.
“The baron and his twenty bodyguards. Xan'tor attacked them. In his monster form, but they had some nasty weapons.”
Frox doesn's reply, only accelerates harder and pulls away from me, even if I break into a run.
When I get to the control room, Frox is checking on Xan'tor and Emma is pressing herself up to a console, trying to make herself invisible.
“That is a real alien,” she whispers.
Frox turns one eye on us. “Actually, you two are the only aliens here. And this lumbering blue moron. Hey, chief! You awake? No?” Extending one eyestalk, he studies the screen on the medical machine. “Oh, he got a sedative. And lots of it, looks like. Let's see... multiple internal injuries to vital organs, deep burns, some of them chemical, some electrical. Severe blood loss, poisoning, sepsis, broken ribs, broken fingers, about thirty deep lacerations…”
I'm suddenly nervous again. “Will he be okay?”
Frox keeps reading. “Did he at least win the fight?”
I nod jerkily. “He won.”
He sighs deeply. “Mila, nobody I know would survive even a tenth of these injuries.”
My hand flies to my mouth. “Oh my God…”
Frox drops all the medical items and leans against the flight console. “Except Xan'tor. Looks like he'll be fine. Shall I understand that you… hm… like him again?”
I take a deep breath. All these emotional roller coasters are going to kill me. “As it turns out, I never stopped liking him. But Frox…”
“Right here.” He waves with one tentacle, many eyes casually looking out of the canopy and at least two focusing on Emma.
“When Xan'tor fights, like during the invasion on Earth… does he prefer to kill the defenders himself? To go crazy and… just rip them up?”
Frox stiffens. All six eyes slowly swivel to stare at me.
“Because,” I continue quickly, “someone told me that when he's in that monster mode, he changes and becomes wild and bloodthirsty.”
“Who told you that?”
“I will tell you. But is it true? Please. I have to know.”
“Xan'tor only changes physically in Combat form, his personality stays the
same. He is always very careful to use the psychological shock against the defenders, not more physical force than necessary. As far as that is possible. The invasion of Earth is the least violent I have ever seen. Just the sight of him seems to have been enough. To my knowledge, he didn't personally kill a single defender himself. He was there to show himself and roar and supervise from up close, terrifying and demoralizing the enemy. Specifically so that none of the other mercenaries do any excessive massacring. That's all. Again, who said something so demonstrably and insanely wrong?”
I breathe out. It never really believed it, but I couldn't be totally sure. I'm not used to dealing with shifters. “It was Crirux. He was a traitor and tried to kidnap me and Emma. It's a long story.”
“Ah. That's why you came to the Pyramid and demanded I help you. At gunpoint. But I assure you that nobody here would pick him over Xan'tor. Is he dead?”
“Crirux? I don't think so.”
Frox scratches his wheel. “Something tells me we'll come to wish he was. Okay, let's get this blue heap of fatal injuries into the base.” He takes a communicator out of some alien pocket. “Renerak? If you can pull yourself away from the mead, how about giving us a hand in the hangar? Very well. Be quick. Mila, I have to say my patience has reached its end. Must I seriously introduce myself to that stunning human female behind you?”
- - -
The huge Renerak carries Xan'tor to the Pyramid, and there he's placed on a stretcher with all kinds of medical machines right next to him, just in case.
“So weird that Crirux would turn traitor,” Renerak says. “I know he had debts, but still... turns out he is nothing but a turncoat.”
“A regular alien creep,” Emma says with disgust.
Everyone is surprised by Crirux's treachery. I guess I wasn't the only one who was taken in by his friendly manner.
Emma and I go to my cabin to freshen up, and we take some time rummaging through all the clothing we can find. Finally we put together some garments that are sufficiently similar to pants and sweaters that we don't feel too silly wearing them.