by Maia Starr
"Why would a Corillion warrior willingly return you to your moon base? You are a prized possession to them. This does not make sense. Please explain, Agent Lane," Commander Cook said.
"He helped me to escape after I murdered a Corillion leader. I am a wanted fugitive now in the Corillion galaxy. This Corillion warrior helped me to escape certain death,” I said to them.
Commander Cook laughed and said, “You did what? Good for you, Agent!”
"I didn't do it for fun, Commander Cook. The man was going to take me without my permission. I did what I had to do. But in doing so, I am now wanted by the Corillion galaxy. The Corillion warrior that you captured was helping me to return quietly to the moon base. I owe him my life, and I would think that we could reward him by giving him his,” I said.
"Do you know how we captured you with him?” Commander Cook asked.
"No,” I said.
"When you were captured, I was hired to analyze the defenses of the lunar base and I found many holes. The entire outside area of the base was not patrolled; now it is. We have various trigger wires set up to let us know of any activity. We figured out that this was the way the Corillion entered the base in the first place and took you. We weren't going to let that happen again. It is a treat to have you returned to us; we thought we would never see you again. But because of your disappearance, the base is now stronger, so we have you to thank for it,” Commander Cook said.
"I am glad my disappearance helped the E.I.A. in such away. I am glad to be home,” I said.
"Yes, it is a rare advantage for us to have a female that has seen much of the Corillion systems to return to us. Especially one that is trained with the E.I.A. Your knowledge is now invaluable. I will expect a full report once you are settled in. I want to know everything of what you saw and I want to know where you were taken. I want to know the name and tribe of the leader that you assassinated. In truth, we could turn this around and say that we planned it this way ourselves. Imagine what that would do to the Earth and Corillion relations in this war,” Commander Cook said.
"Yes, if the punishment for taking a human female from Earth is that the human female will then assassinate the Corillion that they are taken to, that might stop the Corillion from taking females all together. I think you may have stumbled on a solution for us accidentally, Agent Lane,” Mickey said.
"But that's not what I meant to happen. I wasn't doing my duty as an agent. I was just protecting myself. Thankfully I am trained; many women are not and are defenseless against the Corillion that are nearly three times their size.”
"Yes, we should start a training program to teach the females all over the world to defend themselves against the Corillion. Now that you have left the Corillion with a taste of what a femme fatale can do, it could be the start of a revolution, and an end to this war,” Commander Cook said.
"And what of the Corillion warrior you captured. Will he be let free?” I asked.
Commander Cook and Agent Mickey looked at each other for a silent pause, and then they both burst into laughter.
"Absolutely not. He will be kept here, never to be released. He is a prisoner of war. That will be all for now, Agent Lane. Get settled in, shower, change, and eat," Commander Cook said as he walked out of the office.
"But… !" I shouted after him, But agent Mickey grabbed my arm and stopped me.
"Don't agent Lane. You don't know Commander Cook like I do. He is ruthless,” he said to me.
"What is going to happen to the Corillion warrior?” I asked.
"Your old bunk room is ready for you. Let me know when you have those reports done. Welcome home, Agent Lane,” he said.
I stood there completely pissed off. He didn't bother to answer my question. I don't care if there was a new commander in charge. Treating Kai badly was wrong. He was only returning me, and he should be let go. I needed to take this up with the higher command. I needed to speak to the Earth Council, but I did not have direct access to them. I would have to figure something out. For now, I needed to shower and change. It would be a welcomed sight to sleep in my own bed again. I needed to gather my thoughts and focus in order to figure out how to get Captain Kai Spornium out of here.
I made my way out of the office complex and towards the showers. As I was rounding the corner, I overheard two men talking. I heard my name, Agent Lane. I stopped walking and leaned against the wall, quietly peeking around the corner. I saw Commander Cook and agent Mickey whispering about me.
"Do you think she's telling the truth?” Commander Cook asked him.
"Hard to tell. Agent Lane has never gave me reason to doubt her before. She is always been a good agent, very trustworthy,” Agent Mickey responded.
"She seems very eager to save that Corillion warriors life. It's possible they have had relations,” Commander Cook said.
"Yes, it is, considering that is what the Corillion warrior is after. They’re after it so much as to cause a war with the Earth.”
"Do you think she is now a double agent?" Commander Cook asked.
"Do you mean an agent for the Corillion?”
"Yes. She has been gone enough time to have been turned. She could be here gathering data and be an inside person for the Corillion intelligence,” Commander Cook said.
"I guess that isn't a far stretch. I will keep an eye on her,” Agent Mickey said.
"Good, keep me posted. I am going to see to gathering as much information off of the warrior’s ship and databases. Then we will get answers from the warrior himself,” Commander Cook said.
"Yes, sir,” Agent Mickey said as they saluted each other and went on their ways. I quickly made it to the showers. I now knew that I had to act normal and do everything routine. I was going to be watched. They did not trust me. They thought I was a double agent, or could be. Now I would not be able to go to the Earth Council. They would definitely think I was up to something. I had to figure out another way.
I settled into my bunk and found comfort in my possessions. There were pictures of my parents and a few from college. It was comforting and felt like a lifetime ago. I had now lived an adventure that I could not live down. I had been to another galaxy. I had killed in another galaxy. I was I wanted criminal by the Corillion race. And more than that, I had been with Captain Kai Spornium, and it woke something inside of me that I was not wanting to admit to myself. I missed him. I missed our banter together. I missed being on an adventure with him. I missed looking at his strong, tall alien warrior body. And of course, now I missed him being inside of me.
"Shit, Karissa," I whispered to myself. “You have it bad.”
This meant that I really had to do something to get him out of there. I didn't know what Agent Mickey meant about Commander Cook being ruthless, but I knew that it could not be good for Kai. I couldn't rely on pleading my case to the Earth Council; instead, I had to come up with my own discrete to plan to get him out of here, and it wasn't going to be easy. Commander Cook said that they had reinforced the base after I left and this meant that no ground was left uncovered. I was going to have to be very resourceful. It would be the only way.
The next morning, after getting some rest and trying to blend in back into the routine, I made my way to the working stations.
"Agent Lane, good morning. Do you feel rested and settled?” Agent Mickey asked me as I entered the workstation.
"Yes, sir. I have come to start on the reports that Commander Cook requested of me. I do not want to disappoint him. Always a good thing to be on the good side of a new commander; don't you agree?” I said with a big smile.
"Yes, I agree. That's the spirit. Take to your workstation and get started,” he said, smiling at me.
I smiled and got to work. I began to write a report on everything that had happened from the moment I was taken from the lunar base. I left nothing out. I even provided very simple information about Corillion technology that I had witnessed. If I intentionally left it out, then it would look bad on my part; it would support their theor
y that I was a double agent. So I had to put it in, but maybe I left a few extra details out. But more importantly, I was doing surveillance with my eyes and ears. I couldn't use the workstation to search the database for architectural plans of the lunar base without them finding out. But I could sit there and listen to other agents speak about what was going on, including what was happening to Kai. Only then could I devise a plan to get him out.
Chapter 8
CAPTAIN KAI SPORNIUM
I was pissed that Karissa had not come to me. Even if she could not through permission of her higher officers, I knew that she was resourceful enough to figure out a way on her own. She was the woman that had single-handedly killed a leader of the Corillion three times her size all by herself. So I knew she could figure out how to get to me if she wanted to. Now I discovered that she did not want to at all; no, it's what I was being told.
There I was, strapped to a wall, my arms high over my head wrapped in chains, and my ankles chained to the ground.
"Tell me what you know about any future raids the Corillion have planned. Raids on Earth, on the lunar base, and on our ships out in space,” the man that had introduced himself as Commander Cook said as he walked back-and-forth in front of me with a whip in his hand.
"I will tell you nothing, as I have told you before,” I spit the words out at him.
Whack! The whip struck my flesh. They knew exactly what side to hit on too; they hit on the side without the protection of scales.
"There's no reason to keep quiet. You are not betraying your race. You will not be returning to them, so no one will ever find out. Agent Karissa Lane has already told us that you were the one that took her from the base. She told us that you were returning her only so that you could gather intelligence on the weak spots of the base for the next Corillion attack,” the commander said.
I narrowed my eyes at him and sneered out the words, “She said no such thing because that was not the plan. I was simply to return her and leave. That was the only reason why I came here. Why else would I come here alone? It is a death mission.”
"Do not lie to us. We already know your true purpose in being here; Karissa wrote it in her report before she left for Earth,” the commander said.
My eyes grew wide. She had left? She had gone to Earth? Why? This meant that she was not going to come to me, not even to visit me. She had abandoned me. My blood boiled and I filled with anger, and I had no reason to. She did not owe me anything. I was the one that showed her everything. I was the one that had taken her from her home and did her wrong. Then she repaid me by saving my life, so why was I filled with rage now as the commander looked at me with a smirk on his face.
"Oh, were you expecting her to come to you? Tell me, did you have relations with Karissa Lane?" he asked.
"If you're going to kill me, then kill me,” I angrily said.
"Oh, we're not going to kill you. We are just getting started. And the fact that you avoided the last question let me know that the answer is yes. I don't blame you. I wouldn't mind getting into that myself. Maybe when I see her again, I will. We will continue tomorrow,” Commander Cook said as he whipped me one more time and then called it a day. They left me tied up there, fuming.
I struggled angrily to get out of the chains. I was so mad that I could kill someone, a human. I was angry that they were torturing me when I had come in peace and planned to leave in peace. I was angry that the commander was so casual about torture. I was angry that Karissa had left me. She had gone to Earth and probably happy to leave this all behind her. I had got her home and then she washed her hands of me. It had been stupid of me to hope to see her again. I was her enemy.
Was the commander telling the truth? Had she turned over all the information about me as a true spy would? I should never have stopped thinking of her as the enemy. She knew too much. I was betraying the Corillion race by being so casual and letting my guard down around her. It only allowed her to gather a lot of intelligence. Especially after she told me what her profession was, I should've locked her up then, but I didn't.
Instead, I showed her how to fly the ship; I felt stupid for that now. She had handed over all the information to the commander, and they would use it against us, the Corillion.
The commander said that Karissa told him I was returning her to the base so that I could gather intel on the base for a future raid. Why would she tell him that? Maybe she did want to see me locked up. If I returned to the Corillion galaxy, they would find out that I had helped her escape back to the moon base and maybe she was just protecting herself by not allowing me to return at all. She was thinking of herself just like a spy would. She was trained and she was doing what she was told; why did I think anything more of it? She was the enemy.
A week passed.
A week of torture. Every day I grew more and more angry with myself and with Karissa. I hated this Commander Cook more than I could understand, and my hate for the human race had grown exponentially. I had hoped they would just kill me and get it over with. Then on the seventh day, something happened, something I was not expecting.
BOOM!
The whole building shook. Then again, BOOM! There were explosions going off all over the place.
"Down here!” I heard a very familiar voice say. It wasn't the voice of a human; it was the voice of a Corillion warrior. I was in complete shock. Just then, three Corillion warriors poured down into the dungeon where I was being tortured and was still chained to the wall.
"There is a Corillion warrior down here! Cut him down!” one of the warriors shouted.
"How did you get down here?” another asked me as he pointed his gun at the chains and fired. I was free.
"It's a long story. What's going on out there?” I asked.
"We are attacking the Earth’s lunar base. It is retaliation for what they did to the base on Altid. Come on, no time to speak now; let's get him out of here. Check in there for more Corillion prisoners!” the warrior in charge shouted.
"Kai! Kai!” I heard another familiar voice shout, a voice that stung my heart deeply. It was Karissa.
"It is a human female!” I heard one of the warrior shout.
"Capture her. We might as well take what bounty we can while we are here, if we get out of here,” the one in command said.
As soon as Karissa came running down the stairs calling my name, the Corillion warrior grabbed her in his arms. She struggled. I walked to her and stood directly in front of her. She saw me and stopped struggling. Her face turned to a frown and tears filled her eyes.
"What have they done to you?” she said through tears.
"Do not act like you don't to know. For all I know, this is your doing,” I said, motioning to the wounds on my body, the wounds of torture.
"What? But no,” she began to struggle again.
"You know this human female?" the warrior asked me.
"I do. She is the reason I am in here. She is a spy. She is dangerous,” I said as I looked away from her. I could not stand to look at her anymore. I could not stand to look into the eyes of betrayal anymore. She was a dangerous woman, and if I looked at her any longer, she would be able to talk me out of anything.
"Take her prisoner. She is valuable,” the warrior said.
"No! No! Kai, tell them. Tell them I cannot go with them!” she shouted. But I ignored her. Instead, I followed the other warriors out of the dungeon and toward the safety of their ship.
Once we got upstairs, I could see that there was a full-on air raid going on and the Corillion were winning. It was complete chaos. There were wounded warriors and Earthlings all over the ground. Complete carnage. There were Corillion spaceships on fire crashed into the lunar dirt. Laser blasts were being rained down from above from Corillion spaceships, while cannons on the ground shot laser blasts into the air. We ducked and ran across from one building to another. A warrior threw a gun my way. “You're gonna need this!”
"Thanks,” I said is I cocked the gun and draped it across my body, ready t
o run and shoot anyone in our path. I looked back at Karissa. She was now unconscious, being carried over the shoulder of a warrior. I assumed he had knocked her out because she struggled so much and put up a good fight. It hurt me to see her that way, to see her being taken once more against her will. But the rage inside of me won the fight. I was really pissed off with her.
BAM! Bam! Shots were fired at us. We took cover and fired back. Laser blasts popped all around us. I didn’t care if I died. I had nothing to live for anymore. The hurt of betrayal from Karissa was too strong. I didn’t care if I died.
"On the right!” a warrior shouted. We saw a group of Earthling soldiers headed our way.
"Fire!” the warrior in command shouted. I took to the front of line and began shooting and running toward the group of Earthlings in a mad rage.