“You’re like the little mermaid,” my dad said, and I quirked a brow. “Yeah, you live in this magical underwater kingdom that most little girls would kill to be a part of, and all you want to do is live on the shore like, like… like some typical human.”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, exactly!” Mom took the pot roast out and let it cool on the top of the stove.
“Well, it’s done,” she said, “but it looks kind of disgusting. We have some Keldeeri hash that we froze, we could just—”
“No, I don’t want any Keldeeri food or Europax food or… or any of that crap. I just want normal people food. I want the disgusting pot roast, all right?” I hadn’t meant to raise my voice. My mother put her hands up defensively in front of her, still wearing the pair of ridiculous red polka dot oven mitts. Then she exited into the dining room to set the table, and I was left alone with Dad, who was chewing contemplatively at his lower lip.
“Listen, pea,” he said, invoking my childhood nickname, “it’s not that we don’t want to give you what you want, it’s just that permanent settlement anywhere off the Atria takes a long time. You have to be coached, prepared. It’s a months-long process and the chances of us seeing each other once you leave the Atria are very slim.”
“Why?” I asked, suddenly wide-eyed.
“Because the Atria doesn’t spend much time anywhere near Earth. Human technology is too advanced. They can spot us too quickly nowadays.”
He pursed his lips in a thin smile before turning on his socked heel to head into the dining room, leaving me there alone with the steaming pot roast. I didn’t bring the subject up again while we were eating. I let them believe I’d dropped the whole thing, let them ask me about work, about my friends, about how I liked my new living quarters. I talked to them about their research, about their work with the Echelon, how the human and Europax placements on Qetesh had been going, and everything just sort of got back to normal.
But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I could have my cake and eat it, too. If I could somehow get aboard the transport vessel that made its monthly trek to Earth for supplies, I could go there for a month-long vacation, and be back aboard the Atria before they’d written me off for dead. I would leave a note for my parents to let them know not to worry, and that would be it. Easy, if slightly deceptive. I knew that the transport vessel had only recently arrived, given the Chardonnay, so if I worked fast, I could be on Earth any day now.
The whole business of figuring out which ship in the hangar bay was the transport vessel (the large one that looked like a giant box) and ascertaining whether or not it had life support (it did, it came standard) and whether or not it would have a manned crew (It would) was a fairly simple one. And, even better, the captain of the transport ship was a Europax pilot I’d grown up with: Teldara Kinesse. She was tall and slender, with long graceful limbs and skin the color of cafe au lait. She wore her hair in a tapered bob that ended in a sharp point at her chin and was longer in the front than it was in the back. With this hairstyle, she could pass for human: her earlessness was hidden, and she was only six feet tall — short, by Europaxian standards.
In any event, I waited on the scaffolding until I saw Teldara crossing toward the transport ship with an overstuffed duffle bag slung over her shoulder. She wore a fitted black jumpsuit and combat boots, and I could see the glint off the delicate jewel in her nose even from afar. I darted down the metal stairs and across the floor of the hangar bay until I caught up with her, tapping her on the shoulder even as she hauled her duffle bag into the cargo hold.
“Hi!” I said, beaming up at Tel from half a foot beneath her.
She inclined her head somewhat, then arched one thin brow high over a glinting blue eye. “Hi…” she responded, her tone as dubious as her expression.
“How are you?” I asked, all smiles and sunshine.
“All right, what do you want?” Tel crossed her arms beneath her breasts and glared down at me, though her look was not without a hint of playfulness.
“Why do you automatically assume that I want something?” I asked, full of feigned innocence.
“Because I have never once in my life seen you in the hangar bay, and I know by now that when any one of my shifty school friends turns up it’s because they want me to score them something from the shipment, or they want me to deliver something shady, or they want me to smuggle them off the Atria.” She looked at me, and something in my expression must have given me away, because she groaned audibly and slapped her palms against her upper thighs. “You want me to smuggle you off the Atria?”
“Smuggle is such a strong word,” I said, even as Tel turned around to attend to her bag. “It’s more that I want you to… give me a lift.”
“Um, let me think…. No.”
Teldara shouldered past me, and I followed close on her heels as she headed out of the hangar bay. “Just hear me out,” I said, struggling to keep up with her long strides.
“Lore, you are always trying to get me into trouble,” she said, and I could see the corner of her mouth hook up in a smile.
“When have I ever—”
“That time we went to Europa for spring break, and got drunk on that stuff… oh, what was it called…”
“Larandi wine!” I said, smiling at the memory. “Nectar of the Gods, I swear.”
“Yeah, it was delicious—”
“See?” I interjected. “We have fun.”
“Until we stumbled onto the Keldeeri Embassy and they nearly took our heads off.” Tel pushed through a door at the far end of the hangar bay, and we were admitted into a bustling corridor full of merchants and military coming and going from the ships they’d docked in Hangar C.
“It was just a misunderstanding,” I asserted. “And we still have our heads. No harm, no foul.”
We rounded the corner and made our way toward the lift that would take us back to the heart of the Atria. But before we could, Tel rounded on me, forcing me to stop lest I run square into her. “Tell me this,” she said, crossing her arms in front of her as she peered down at me. “Why do you want to go to Earth?”
“Because,” I began, and tried to make myself a little taller, “I want to know what it’s like to have a normal human life. And when I asked my family about it, they told me that if I moved there permanently, I would never see them again. I couldn’t live with myself if I just…cut my parents out of my life. And I don’t want to make a rash decision about up and moving to Earth before I’ve even seen it.”
“Yeah,” she begrudgingly conceded, “but what if it’s awful?”
“Exactly. What if it’s awful? So I just want to check it out a little. I thought if I could travel aboard the transport vessel, I could just see a little bit of it and come back. Maybe sate my curiosity.” She nodded. I had her hooked. “And hey, what if I help you out a little, huh? I know your job is to load the transport vessel, so I could do some manual labor for you. Make it a little easier. What do you say?”
Her nostrils flared as she exhaled sharply through them, and I could see the wheels turning in her mind as she considered my proposition. People of all different shapes, colors, and sizes were filing past us in both directions; we were the only still creatures in a hive of activity.
“Well,” she said at length, “I haven’t really seen any of Earth, the two times I’ve flown out there.”
“See? And now you’ll have an excuse to do a little sightseeing while you’re there! It’ll be fun, like spring break all over again.”
“Except without ending up with automatic laser rifles pointed at us.”
“Except for that.”
And thus, we had an accord. It was great, actually, in the days preceding the launch. We had dinner or drinks every night, and talked about the things we wanted to do or see when we were on Earth, with our tablets on the table between us as we scrolled through images and articles about the things to do and see. We'd be landing in the middle of the ocean, whereupon th
e spaceship would disguise itself as a water ship and we’d end up somewhere in a place called Florida, which looked pretty nice all things considered. Lots of palm trees and beaches. I couldn’t wait.
The plan was that Tel would list me as a labor hand on the ship roster. She’d have me sneak on board the night before launch, and that would be that. We’d be en route before anyone became aware that I was somewhere I shouldn’t be, but they wouldn’t halt the mission for one inconsequential stowaway, so I’d be allowed to go on with the ship and face a slap on the wrist when I got back. Free and easy.
Except that’s never how things work out, is it?
CHAPTER TWO: LORELEI VAUSS
The transport vessel didn't get far before it was intercepted and ripped violently out of lightspeed travel, slamming to a lurching halt. I’d strapped myself in, and I gritted my teeth against the force that pressed me forward into my restraints as my stomach pitched and turned over when I settled back again.
I wasn’t alone in the passenger’s quarters, and the other three people looked just as green as I felt. We were seated in a small chamber with a foot or so of space around each of us.
“Oh, God,” I muttered, and turned as far as my chair would allow to be sick onto the cold metal flooring, away from the rest of the passengers. “Sorry,” I murmured, but the act had a sort of chain reaction, and the blonde Europax sitting next to me vomited up bright green bile. For a second, I thought I recognized her from somewhere, but couldn’t place her.
When I was confident that the vessel wasn’t going to shoot back into faster-than-light travel, I unlatched my harness and scrambled to my feet, shaking as I walked.
“Where are you going?” one of the passengers demanded, a human woman who was about ten years my senior.
“To see what the problem is,” I replied, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. “Don’t worry, I know the pilot.”
I made my way forward, and rapped lightly on the door to the cockpit. Tel threw it open, looking just as shaky on her feet as I was. Behind her, the control console glowed and buzzed in protest, all sorts of alarm lights blinking. Her co-pilot furiously flipped switches and typed in commands, his broad shoulders hunched forward. I furrowed my brow. “What’s going on?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Tel breathed, steadying herself in the doorway. I tilted my chin toward her co-pilot.
“What is he doing?”
“Trying to get our nav system back online.”
I started. Our navigation was offline? Tel registered the fear on my face, and her stern look told me well enough to keep my shit together lest I incite a panic in the rest of the passengers. I looked past her to the co-pilot, who eventually turned to look at me and Tel. He was a human male, mid-forties probably, with salt and pepper hair and a five o’clock shadow. If I weren’t terrified, I may have thought he was kind of cute, in a “daddy issues” kind of way.
“I got nothin’,” he said, throwing his hands up in resignation. “Whoever snagged us has totally overridden our controls.”
“Send a distress signal to the Atria. We can’t be more than a couple clicks away, and they should be able to send someone to our coordinates with some speed.” Tel sucked in a deep breath before she moved into the passenger seating area. The faces of the three other women turned up to look at their leader, who presented a demeanor of calm. But I knew Teldara well enough to know that she felt anything but.
“Ladies,” she said, pressing her fingers to her lips for a moment as though she were going to be sick, “we’ve been thrown out of hyperdrive, and someone has taken remote access of our navigation. I have my co-pilot sending a distress signal back to the Atria, along with the names on our passenger roster and our cargo list. I’m confident that we should be on our way in short order.”
The other women began to chatter amongst themselves in desperate whispers, even as Teldara turned her attention to me. “Keep them calm,” she muttered, and all I could do was nod, my jaw hanging slightly agape. But when Tel turned to go back into the cockpit, I caught her by the arm.
“Tel,” I whispered, “what do you really think is going to happen?”
She considered me levelly, and spoke: “I think we’ll be boarded, and I think all our cargo will be taken. If we’re lucky, we’ll leave with our lives.”
***
The Keldeeri, not to paint with too broad a stroke, are not exactly what you would call a peaceful people. At least not historically. Their war-torn planet had necessitated the evacuation and relocation of some three million Keldeeri. And while their women are not extinct, per se, they are so few in numbers that they have been continuously petitioning the Echelon for a cross-breeding program, the same way they did for the more peaceful Qetesh. The Echelon, however, have denied this request, saying that it is too invasive a maneuver for a ratio of three males to every one female, and that the Keldeeri would do well to try to fix the problem on their own. This has been met, thus far, with begrudging compliance.
The Keldeeri are also not what you might call a beautiful people, what with the mandibles and carapaces. They tend to be on the stouter side, rippled with muscle, and looking rather like someone had crossed an insect with a lizard. Hairless and aggressive, with a sibilant style of speech, the Kaldeeri I had known had never really become my best friends.
Given all that, I had to say that I wasn’t entirely surprised when a contingent of Keldeeri smugglers strode aboard our tiny little transport vessel. I was, however, slack-jawed with shock when Teldara’s co-pilot strode over to them and shook hands with one.
“Five females, three Europax, two Human,” the co-pilot said, and I saw Tel’s jaw tense with the onset of her rage.
“Fitz, you disease-ridden son of a whore,” she spat, and her co-pilot, Fitz, just chuckled low and shrugged.
“It’s nothing personal, Tel,” he said, “It’s just business.”
“You promised us six, Fitzgerald,” one of the Keldeeri hissed, his words caught in the trap of his mandibles. His eyes looked like those of a bee, and they were trained intently on Teldara. “The difference will come out of what you’re owed.”
“How about,” Fitz offered, holding his hands out to the side, “I throw in the cargo. We’ve got Earth wine, Qeteshi greenery, clothes, electronics, some Keldeer grains.”
“He’s lying,” Teldara spat, looking smugly satisfied as he absently tapped the place on her hip where her gun would have been if this hadn’t been a standard run with someone she trusted. “We haven’t picked up our cargo yet.”
“I meant,” Fitz insisted, “that I would bring it to you after I picked it all up.”
“No,” the Keldeeri said. He led the contingent, and gripped a large rifle in his three-fingered fists. “We will take the girls and dock you for one.”
“Fine,” Fitz conceded, and another Keldeeri, with scales the color of piss, began to swipe his fingers over his communications tablet.
“Your account number, please,” he said to Fitz, who took the tablet in hand.
“You’ll explain to everyone what’s happening, won’t you, Tel?” Fitz asked as he handed the tablet back to the Keldeeri, and secured a cloth over his nose and mouth.
“She can explain it,” the Keldeeri in charge interrupted, “after she wakes up.” The Keldeeri put their gas masks over their horrible faces as Fitz disappeared into the cockpit. Then, one of the smugglers rolled a small silver ball into the middle of the room. When it stopped, it hissed and sputtered as smoke began to rise out of it. In an instant, everything went black.
CHAPTER THREE: LORELEI VAUSS
I clawed my way back to consciousness, and awoke on the metal plates of the bottom of a cage. I sat upright, and rubbed at my eyes; I could feel my heartbeat in my temples, hard and fast, and my head ached from the sudden change in angle. The cage wasn’t large enough for me to stand in, and if I stretched my arms out at my sides, I could touch both ends with my fingertips. I tried to force myself
not to panic.
“Lore!” I blinked rapidly at the whispered hiss of my name, and made my eyes focus on the space around me. Teldara hunched over to my immediate left.
“Tel!” Glancing around, I saw the other three women: two other humans and one other Europax, all of whom slowly roused to consciousness. “What’s going on?”
“Slavers,” she said. “I knew immediately when they walked on board.”
“How did you know?” I asked, willing myself to focus even though my head swam from whatever it was they’d drugged us with.
“Insignias on their uniforms,” she said. “The crossed-crescent — they’re the Quarter Moon slavers.” I’d never heard of them, but Tel’s expression told me that they were not to be trifled with.
“Where are they taking us?”
“To Keldeer, probably,” she said, curling her delicate fingers around the bars of her cage. “That’s where they’ll have the most need of us.”
“What will they do with us?” I asked, envisioning fields to plow, cargo to hoist, that sort of thing. Manual labor. Maybe some house service. I knew I’d burn if they had me working outside too long, and assumed that they did not provide sunscreen to slaves. Housework, that I’d be better suited for. I began to construct a little speech in Keldeeri to convince them to keep me indoors.
“They’ll test us for fertility,” Tel said, “and if we’ll breed, they’ll send us to the auction block. If not, to the brothels.”
I started. “Fertility?”
“Yeah, Lore,” Tel said gently, catching onto my naiveté even before I fully did. “They’ll want to see if we can produce offspring.”
“Oh, shit,” I muttered, eyes so wide that they began to sting from the air. Of course they wouldn’t have been seeking a group of women to put to work in fields or factories. In houses, yes, but it wasn’t cooking and serving and cleaning that I’d be doing there. I swallowed hard. “What do we do?”
Alien Prince: (Bride of Qetesh) An Alien SciFi Romance Page 2