by Maia Starr
“Yes, sir. Take care.”
I nodded stiffly. I wasn’t sure why, but despite my presentiment, I felt a strong urge to explore this dangerous planet. It was fascinating to be so near to a place so many species were claiming may be the downfall of the entire universe. It was probably important to see what sort of threat the humans were. I could end up as the Supreme Leader of Jenal’k someday, after all. I would kick myself later if I didn’t do it now, right?
Once Jerd had taken the men, I instructed the flight crew to keep watch and alert us if anything happened while we were away. My curiosity was impossible to keep at bay, and I followed my instincts.
I cloaked my body and hopped out of the ship, shocked at once by the heavy pull of Earth’s gravitational force. It was only slightly different, but I had been on my own planet so long, the beautiful and lavish Jenal’k, that any slight change was an unpleasant surprise. How surprised my crew would be to know that I was a homebody at heart.
A sudden roar filled my ears, and I looked around wildly for its source, shocked to find one of the most primitive transportation systems I had ever laid eyes on. Black smoke rolled out in waves, escaping the depths of dirty tubes as little metal boxes, on wheels of all things, sped past me one by one. There was little structure for these bizarre contraptions to follow – just a narrow path dug into the Earth and killing whatever life once lived there, preventing it from ever rising again. Who were these humans? Surely if their technology could send them to space, they could travel their own planet much more sustainably!
I found myself uncomfortable remaining on the ground and activated my hover gear. It would be a mistake to expend needless energy while exploring such a dangerous planet. The air was already beginning to make my lungs ache, and if I didn’t return to the ship at the same time as the crew, it could be perceived as a good chance for mutiny. Not that I didn’t trust the crew. It was just that my position was highly coveted, and a replacement for me had never been named. It was a secret, only to be uncovered should the worst case scenario befall us.
Once I had risen above the noise of the traffic, I felt a little bit better. The air was lighter, and I could almost see beauty in the scattered arrangements of buildings, lights, and structures unique to Earth’s surface, such as the trees and the hills. The colors were drab, but there was something comfortable about the way the leaves reached up toward the sky and streams of sparkling blue water threaded the surface.
The planet seemed doomed to suffer, but I couldn’t help but feel a small hint of warmth toward the oblivious humans. They tried so hard to build, to innovate. Surely there were good intentions there somewhere. There had to be more to humanity than their collective force of destruction. But even they wouldn’t know it if they saw it in each other. It was a bitter thought.
Suddenly, a human female emerged from a crude doorway (Hinges! They haven’t been used since my people were primitive!) and ventured bravely onto the rooftop of one of the tall, man-made structures. She was dazzling; the first human I had ever laid eyes on. Her shape was somewhat smaller than the typical Thressl’n figure, but her eyes carried a light and a depth that seemed otherwise lacking on my planet. Thressl’n had eyes that shone like heavy metals, while this human woman seemed to see the world through an orb of clear, beautiful water. I had never seen anybody quite so captivating in all my revolutions of life.
The woman looked toward me, and I froze in a panic, sure that somehow, those beautiful eyes had seen me. But instead of screaming in fear, she let out a soft sigh. The sound of her voice, even in that small little expression, made my hearts pound in a way they never had before. Without knowing how or why, I knew immediately that I wanted her with a ferocity I had never experienced for anybody before; not even females on my own planet.
But instead of rushing at her to complete my abduction, I lingered back for a few moments. She was fascinating. Her legs were long, and she strode along the edge of the building, her clear, beautiful eyes searching the sky as if for answers to a question I longed to hear her ask out loud. Her long hair was the color of gold, and tied neatly behind her head. She had a strange contraption on her face, over her eyes, held up on the bridge of her nose and secured with wire behind her ears. She soon pushed it up on top of her head, so that nothing was between her gaze and the stars.
Suddenly, I needed to know everything about this creature. What she was thinking. What she ate. What she was looking for. Who was this female? Whoever she was, one thing was certain: she was going to be mine.
Chapter 5
Dr. Lain Brousseau
I pushed my glasses up so that they were resting on top of my head and stared into the sky, my eyes automatically finding the spot where Planet 139 rested. I couldn’t see it in the inky darkness of the night without my telescope, but I had studied it for so long that my eyes could find its place in the sky no matter where I was. I couldn’t rest without finding the answers. How many of its inhabitants were on that ship when it disappeared? Where could they have gone?
It seemed that no matter how hard I tried, I would never uncover the truth behind the mysterious disappearance of the spacecraft. Our ships as they stood would never have made the long journey out to the reaches of space where Planet 139 was located and survived. The answers I needed were buried in the cosmos. And there was no way I would ever find myself close enough to fully understand. Somehow, I was just going to have to move on.
“Good evening,” a musical, masculine voice said suddenly from behind me.
I froze in terror. I knew I hadn’t heard anybody else come out onto the rooftop with me. And there was something strange about the voice that was speaking to me. It didn’t sound like anything I’d ever heard before. And although the words were pronounced perfectly, there was something strange about the way they were pronounced. As if whoever had spoken them had never uttered such harsh syllables with its perfect tongue. Even the Vellreq were harsher sounding – much more like the grinding of a machine’s motor than a harmonious, beautiful voice like this one.
But the beauty of the voice behind me didn’t take away my fear. I was too frozen to turn around and face it. But whatever he was, he didn’t seem to mind. He continued speaking, and I could feel him coming closer.
“I hope this doesn’t hurt,” he said, close to my ear. His breath sent a seductive shiver throughout my body, but I tried to fight it. Nothing about this situation was sexy.
I cried out when I felt a sharp pain in the back of my neck. I could feel every inch of a long, needle-like puncture disappearing deep inside of me. I tried to run or to scream, but before I could make a sound, I collapsed to the ground as a pool of black drowned my vision.
“Let me out of here!” a woman shrieked.
The words shook me to the core, and I frowned, trying to sit up to look at whoever was yelling. I barely made it up half an inch before my head fell heavily back on a metallic surface and filled with pain. I was paralyzed.
“What’s going on?” another woman’s voice said. She was slurring, as if she were drunk. But I realized that if I opened my mouth and tried to speak, it would come out sounding a lot worse than what she was managing.
“Everybody, please remain calm,” another musical voice, different from the one I heard on the rooftop, filled the room from a loud-speaker. He spoke in the same careful way, and despite his perfect English, I knew it was a foreign tongue to him. I tried to open my eyes and look around, but there were no lights. We were in a pitch black room, darker than the darkness behind my eyelids. I had to steady my breathing as panic began to well in my chest. I had never felt so claustrophobic in my life.
“Who are you?” the same hysterical woman who had first spoken shouted. “Let me out of here!”
“I assure you that you are all safe. You will not be damaged. We are the Thressl’n. From the planet Jenal’k. We will do everything in our power to protect you.”
“Let us go!” the hysterical woman sobbed.
But from the sound
of the feedback, it was clear that the matter was settled. We would not be leaving the dark abyss of our cell. Nor would we be seeing much of anything.
Through my panic, my scientific mind began to turn. My intrigue was almost enough to combat the chill of fear in my breast. Who were the Thressl’n? The Vellreq had never mentioned them before. They had only spoken of a handful of inhabited planets nearby, one of them being Planet 139: the one I was assigned to. I was stricken by a sickening thought. Did the disappearance of their ship have anything to do with our abduction?
The Vellreq refused to tell the humans proper names for anybody in the galaxy, not even themselves, delighting in the strange conglomeration of syllables that we came up with to name things from distant lands. I had always found their manner of interacting and commenting on humans very insulting, but I couldn’t blame them for withholding information. With knowledge came power. Without it, we were nearly as clueless as before. With their knowledge came leverage in our societies and governments as well. And it wasn’t as if humans treated each other much better than the Vellreq treated us. I couldn’t blame them for acting the way that they did.
I was pulled out of my thoughts by another announcement from our Thressl’n captors.
“This is Commander Zerk’k Arkti,” the voice said.
My heart pounded hard in my chest. It was the same voice I had heard from behind me. It surprised me to hear it so much that I gasped out loud. Apparently, my paralysis was wearing off little by little.
“I’m sure you are all very unnerved right now,” Commander Zerk’k Arkti said. I found myself wondering if Zerk’k was a surname or a first name, or if his whole name was Zerk’kArkti. “But I give you my word. We will travel safely, and no harm will come to you once we reach our destination.”
There was something so tranquil and soothing about his voice. It had a masculine rumble, a dangerous edge to it, but somehow it made me feel safe. Maybe safer than I had ever felt in my life. Though that could be attributed to the fact that, to my knowledge, I had never been in life-threatening danger before. Until now.
“Please respect each other and our staff throughout the duration of our journey. Those who cooperate will be rewarded upon reaching the Planet Jenal’k. That is all.”
With a click and a brief moment of feedback, the beautiful voice left the dark room. And although I had the impression of other women around me…at least ten…maybe as many as a hundred…I had never felt more alone than when Commander Zerk’k Arkti’s voice left me in the dark.
Chapter 6
Commander Zerk’k Arkti
I released the button for the microphone and sighed. I couldn’t get the look of fear that had been etched on the human female’s perfect features out of my head. I felt guilty. Long after she was paralyzed, that look remained frozen in place by the strong Thressl’n compound in her blood stream. Once activated, it left most creatures weak or unable to move completely. It didn’t take much to paralyze the humans. They were much smaller and less dense than most beings we encountered. It probably had to do with their high water content.
Thressl’n people had learned a more efficient way of functioning, and our cycles tended to be more focused on the energy we could utilize from the sun. Our bodies are far more sustainable than those of the humans, and, in fact, most other beings in the galaxy. It’s an honor to be a member of the Thressl’n race.
“Is everything all right, sir?”
“Sorry?” I snapped out of my thoughts and looked up at Jerd.
“With the females?” he asked reluctantly. He knew better than to second-guess my command.
“Oh, of course,” I said. “The others should be arriving back to Jenal’k about now. There are seven other ships with the same capacity to hold 100 females comfortably for the duration of travel back to the C’loggh galaxy. We’re bringing the last of them. The camps should be set up by the time we arrive. It was orchestrated this way. So if anything went wrong on the other missions, we’d be there to clean up their mess.”
“Of course, sir. I’m sure you’ve got a lot to do. I’ll retire now.”
Thank the gods. I had far too much on my mind to waste time on this trivial small talk. Still, I enjoyed Jerd’s company. It was just a bit overbearing for the mood I was in.
“Good night, Jerd.”
“Good night, Commander Arkti.”
I waited for a moment after Jerd left before gazing down at the control panel. For some reason, I was tempted to speak again to the female captives. Anything to get me closer to the enigmatic human I had met on the rooftop. I just couldn’t seem to get my mind back on track.
It was unusual for me to get distracted so easily. I could list about twelve different things I should have been doing that moment to ensure swift and safe travel back to the C’loggh galaxy, so why was it that all I could focus on was the face of the female I’d found on the roof of the shoddy human building? Maybe it was because she was the first human I had ever seen. Or maybe it was nearing breeding time. It made sense that I’d want to claim a female and breed. It was possible that my enthusiasm was due to the fact that our entire race was at stake.
Whatever the reason, I was sure I would feel better once we returned to Jenal’k. Being out in space always made me feel a million miles away from my body. It was one of the most unsettling parts of my life. Sometimes, space travel was made me feel so disjointed that I almost wished I had been selected to patrol the neighborhoods. Being so far from home was difficult for me every time. But everything would go back to normal soon, and I could forget about the strange human female that, for better or for worse, continued to intrude my thoughts.
Chapter 7
Dr. Lain Brousseau
“Hello, Earth females,” the Thressl’n voice from the night before said cheerfully over the speaker. It wasn’t the masculine voice I’d craved for the rest of the night though. It was the first one.
“I hope you are having a pleasant morning.”
Whether it was morning or not, we wouldn’t have known. The area where we were kept was darker than the deepest cave on Earth. But one thing was for sure – pleasant was not on my list of adjectives for this experience.
Throughout the night, a few women had panicked, shouting and rattling against the metallic tables we were chained to. A glow would light the room, and then a sweet purple fog would put us all back into the same paralyzed trance we’d been in when we arrived. Soon, we all learned it was better not to make a fuss. It was one thing to get kidnapped and then get knocked unconscious. It was quite another to be responsible for a collective coma shared with the other abducted women in the room.
“By now I’m sure that you have all had sufficient rest. We will be arriving at our destination soon. Please be prepared to encounter the unknown. Again, keep in mind that the females who keep calm will be rewarded. Thank you, and enjoy the rest of your travels.”
“Enjoy?” the woman next to me whispered hoarsely. All of us were parched. In fact, I couldn’t remember ever feeling so thirsty before. The combination of the strange gas and the stale air in the room was enough to make my lips crack.
“Do you think they’ll hurt us?” another woman whispered.
“It’s hard to say,” someone else said.
“I knew we shouldn’t have let the Vellreq stay on Earth so long!” a loud, angry woman across the room said shrilly.
“This ship doesn’t even belong to the Vellreq!” someone else retorted, mirroring my exact thoughts.
“They were probably gathering intel to sell us out to the highest bidder!” the angry woman exclaimed.
I couldn’t see her, but I formed a picture of what she looked like in my head. She sounded like she was in her mid-forties, and probably had frown lines on her lips and scowl lines on her forehead. She seemed like the kind of woman who would jump on the bandwagon and start a riot over something very little. Maybe her hair was dark brown, or perhaps dirty-blonde and shoulder length. Her face wouldn’t be friendly, and
maybe she’d be overweight. She would look like the kind of person who could chew you up and spit you out on a whim. But she was probably sweet as sugar to the people closest to her.
Of course, I had no way of knowing any of this. I was learning a lot about my own nature, as well as the nature of other humans and Thressl’n from being confined in the dark, with nowhere to go but my own mind. I was used to the isolation, but the darkness was something new entirely. We had trained for similar situations for Project Orion, but the darkness only lasted for about thirty minutes. Once you were in the deep black room for over 12 hours, strange things started happening in your head. I was surprised by my own biases when people spoke and I attempted to match their voice to a face. It was such a human instinct for me to have, but it was one that was off base and hardly founded in reality.
“The Vellreq did this to us, I’m sure of it!” the angry woman cried.
“Please lower your voices or face the consequences,” the cheerful voice said over the loudspeaker.
We all held a collective breath. If the gas was going to come again, I was going to miss my first time ever landing on another planet. I couldn’t think of anything more disappointing. As horrifying as the experience was, I would be able to publish an entire book series out of just the last few hours. The knowledge I’d bring back to Earth would be coveted for generations to come.
Fortunately, nobody else said anything, and we were all conscious as the spacecraft shook rapidly upon entering the atmosphere of what I could only presume was the planet Jenal’k. After about 12 minutes of furious shaking, the craft came to a complete stop, lowering with ease until it stopped moving entirely.