Jayla watched everything around her at Griffith Observatory. Fifth Under Captain Third Assault waited patiently in line, smiling at her occasionally, greeting other soldiers occasionally, but mostly just waiting.
Tiny planes, like the one that waggled its wings at Jayla, flew everywhere. When a group returned to their aircraft, soldiers climbed in and the vehicle vanished. Lots of the aircraft vanished, and it felt like waiting in line for a roller coaster after the amusement park closed.
Jayla had questions, many questions, but the Under Captain didn’t speak English and the Over Sergeant who did speak English had gone elsewhere.
When their turn finally arrived, it felt like it had taken an hour, the Under Captain inserted his tablet like a cartridge into a big machine and waited. A light next to the insertion point turned yellow and after a couple of minutes, it turned blue. The tablet ejected.
“That’s it?” she asked. The Under Captain just shrugged and took the tablet. He headed back toward their aircraft. Little planes converged on it, landing on the vehicle and fitting themselves onto the outside of it.
The Over Sergeant met them at the hatch and nodded at the Under Captain. The Under Captain nodded back, then entered first. Jayla started to follow, but the Over Sergeant put his hand up.
“You are now Second Under Private. You must go last.”
Jayla almost giggled, but she remembered military people took certain things seriously. If she wanted to be a soldier, she needed to do the same. She waited until the sergeant entered before her.
Inside, she buckled into her seat next to the Under Captain. She felt like she probably possessed certain privileges most privates didn’t. She didn’t see any other privates sitting next to their officers.
The Over Sergeant sat across from them, facing them. Between the jump seats was space for cargo, but little cargo had been moved in.
“Have you ever been in space before?” the Over Sergeant asked.
“You mean, like an astronaut? No. I’m not an astronaut.”
The Over Sergeant scrolled his personal tablet. “Ah,” he said when he found something. “Do your people call everyone who goes into space ‘astronaut’?”
“Yes.”
“Then, Second Under Private, you are an astronaut.”
Jayla’s stomach lurched, trying to make its way back up her neck and she felt like she was in the back of a roller coaster going over the top of a hill. The feeling of falling didn’t go away. The Under Captain pointed forward and Jayla looked. Blackness filled the cockpit windows.
“We’re in space?” Jayla asked, knowing the answer.
She was in space! What would her Daddy say? Her sister would freak!
If her sister could freak.
Jayla felt a pang of guilt but pushed it away. She was in space.
Just like that, the Hrwang aircraft had jumped into space. She wanted to know how that was possible. She wanted to know so much. She started to unbuckle from her seat, but the Under Captain put his hand on hers. A thrill went through her at his touch.
“You must stay in your seat,” the Over Sergeant explained. The Under Captain said something to him in their language and the Over Sergeant translated. “We will not be in space long. We just need to recharge.”
Jayla stopped unbuckling, reattaching the buckle she’d opened before being stopped.
“How long?” she asked, but then she felt like the roller coaster she was on started going straight down. Earth came into view out through the cockpit window and quickly filled the scene. They fell faster.
Jayla had ridden some scary roller coasters, but none compared to this ride. The falling continued and continued and never stopped. The aircraft, or the spaceship, she decided if it could go into space it must be a spaceship, bucked and rattled. She grasped her harness and closed her eyes. The vibrations increased and Jayla might have cried out a little. Someone laughed and then she felt a hand on hers and heard the warm, mellifluous voice of the Under Captain saying something comforting.
She took his hand in hers, squeezing it, holding on to it. The Fifth Under Captain said something.
“You will be fine,” the Over Sergeant translated.
“Mmm, hmm,” Jayla nodded. She couldn’t speak.
The falling continued.
Her fear grew. Her grip tightened. The vibrations worsened.
She opened her eyes and saw bright lights flashing outside the cockpit window and she watched until the window turned black.
“What happened?” she asked in terror.
“The window darkens during entry,” the Over Sergeant replied. “It gets too bright.”
Jayla nodded.
The joy at having been in space couldn’t overcome the fear she felt now. The falling wouldn’t stop.
After another minute of bumping and shaking and falling, bile rose in Jayla’s throat and she felt more nauseated than she’d ever felt before. A bag appeared from nowhere, the Under Captain no longer holding her hand, and Jayla threw up into it.
She couldn’t stop throwing up; dry heaving once she’d emptied her stomach. The Under Captain changed bags and she held the second close to her face while he put the first away, under his seat. She heard laughter and stole a quick peek. Some of the other soldiers joked and laughed. At her, she was sure. They didn’t seem bothered by the ride. Maybe they did this all the time.
She cried and felt a strong arm around her and a hand on her hand. She leaned into the Under Captain and laughter from the back of the ship grew. She didn’t care. Her captain held her tightly.
As quickly as the ride had started, it ended. The view out the cockpit window returned, first blue sky, then haze, then gray. The falling stopped, the dry heaving stopped, the vibrations lessened, and Jayla felt like she sat in an airplane again.
It landed.
With the Under Captain’s help, Jayla stepped shakily out of the hatch. The Over Sergeant followed them and told her they would set up camp there for the night. The little gray planes detached themselves from the vehicle and began flying patrol.
The sun hid somewhere behind the low, gray clouds, but still provided enough light for Jayla to recognize that they were back in the desert, in foothills with scraggly bushes and a few pine trees. Majestic mountains decorated distant horizons.
“Where are we?” she asked.
No one listened to her as they set up camp, so Jayla simply tried to help. But the team of soldiers worked efficiently, and she found nothing to do other than set things down where they pointed. Tired, she ended up taking a proffered camp chair. She found a spot with a good view of the mountains and sat down.
She awoke with the Under Captain sitting on her left, the Over Sergeant on her right, and the smells of cooking food permeating the area. Day had turned to dusk. The men laughed when she rubbed her face with her hands.
The Under Captain said something.
“He wants to know if you slept well.”
“I’m sorry. I’m a private. I should be helping.”
“He says you are recovering. Your duties won’t start for a few days.”
“Okay.”
The Under Captain nodded. He seemed to understand a few English words but still spoke in his native tongue.
“Where are we?” she asked.
The Over Sergeant consulted his tablet.
“Oo-tay.”
“Show me.”
He handed the tablet to her.
“Utah,” she corrected. “Why are we in Utah?”
“This is our patrol area.”
“But this isn’t where you picked me up.”
“Ahh. We were assisting with an assault on a fortress when our scout drone discovered you. The men that...” The Over Sergeant fumbled with the words. Jayla helped him out.
“The men who were going to rape me.”
&
nbsp; The Over Sergeant looked ashamed and only translated her words with prompting from the Under Captain. The Under Captain put his hand gently on Jayla’s arm. Suddenly she wanted his protection, his warmth, and she scooted her chair closer to him. He put his arm around her and held her.
“You killed them, didn’t you?” Jayla whispered.
The Over Sergeant nodded. “In time of war, rape is punishable by death. Anyone who would hurt women or children does not deserve life.”
“But this isn’t your country.”
“We have been authorized by your ruler to prosecute crimes during time of war.”
“My ruler?”
“Yes, the Ambassador.”
“Who’s the Ambassador?”
“You don’t know him?” the Over Sergeant asked, not waiting for the Fifth Under Captain to respond. “Your people call him Stanley Russell.”
Jayla shook her head. “Never heard of him.”
“Strange.”
Dinner turned Jayla’s stomach. Heavily spiced meat, too peppery, and strangely spiced vegetables were too much for her. She ate almost nothing despite her growing hunger.
The Fifth Under Captain held her arm up, encircled it with his fingers, and said something gently.
The Over Sergeant scrolled his tablet, then translated.
“The captain says you must eat. You are like a skeleton.”
“I can’t,” Jayla replied. “Sorry.”
“This is food from your world,” the Over Sergeant said.
“It tastes strange.”
He shook his head.
“Spices from our home. They are unfamiliar to you.”
After the translation, the Under Captain yelled. One of the Hrwang soldiers came up to them, nodded at the officer, and held out a cardboard box to Jayla. The box contained a couple of apples and several spears of raw asparagus. Jayla took an apple.
“Thank you.”
It hurt her teeth to bite into the apple. They felt like they’d become loose in their sockets. How malnourished was she?
The Under Captain noticed her distress and pulled out a pocket knife, taking the apple from her and cutting it into cubes. He also yelled at the men who cooked and they got to work on something.
After Jayla finished her apple, the same soldier who’d brought her the apple brought her a cup of broth. She thanked him again and drank slowly. It had only a small amount of the spices they’d used with dinner, and although she didn’t like the taste, she finished it.
The tiny amount of food filled her.
“The captain says we are sorry. We didn’t realize how little you had eaten. We should have fed you more. Unfortunately, we do not have much food.”
“Why not?”
“Our spaceships fly very far. Can only bring a little food. The rest, we get here,” the Over Sergeant explained.
“I know where there’s a lot of food. At least, there was a lot there when I left,” Jayla offered.
After the translation, the Under Captain called out to his men, yelling what Jayla had told him so all could hear. There was a cheer.
“We go tomorrow to get your food.”
“I hope it’s still there. No guarantees. Bears could have gotten in and eaten it. Or someone else. Although the entire area was abandoned when I left.”
The Over Sergeant struggled to keep up, and Jayla repeated herself several times until he was satisfied with his ability to translate her words. He translated the captain’s response.
“Small hope is better than no hope.”
“Why is Utah your patrol area?” Jayla asked, feeling better from the broth and having a million questions.
“It is our assignment. Third Assault covers half of this northern continent.”
“Assault. That means like ‘attack’, right?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you attack our world?”
“We came in peace,” the Over Sergeant translated and Jayla thought he sounded like an alien from a movie. “Your people attacked us. Our commander woke us up and gave us assignments.”
“We attacked you?” Jayla asked. The news reports at the start of the war had been confusing, the reporters had been confused, but she thought the aliens had attacked Earth first.
The Over Sergeant nodded solemnly.
Jayla would have to think about it.
“You were asleep when all that happened?” she asked.
“We sleep for a long time. Two and a half of our years.”
“Two and a half years,” Jayla exclaimed. “You slept for two and a half years? That’s like hibernation sleep. Don’t you miss your family?”
“Most of us have little family,” the Over Sergeant translated the response. “The captain has a sister with nieces and nephews. They will be grown up when he returns.”
“How long will you be here?”
“Two and a half years traveling here, two and a half years home, and as long as we need to stay here to help your world recover from the war.”
Something in his words didn’t make sense to Jayla, but she kept her mouth shut. Why would the aliens want to help them recover from a war that she was pretty sure they had started. Unless she had it all wrong. She didn’t know and she didn’t want to debate it with her new friends, particularly not with her captain.
“We don’t know why your people attacked us,” the Over Sergeant continued. “We defend ourselves. Everywhere we go, your people still attack us. Everyone on your planet has a gun. Where we brought your sister. Only place that does not shoot first. We respect their country’s airspace.”
Jayla’s mind couldn’t process that much information, she was too tired, and she didn’t ask any more questions. They’d have to talk about it again, later, after she’d slept and eaten more.
Some soldiers lit a fire and the three moved their chairs closer to it. Jayla snuggled into the Fifth Under Captain and some of the men laughed, teasing him. Jayla couldn’t understand the words that were spoken, but she understood their intent and her captain took the ribbing good naturedly. His men liked him.
After the camp settled down, men surrounding several small fires, Jayla, still nestled in her captain’s arms, asked the Over Sergeant, “Why are you the only one who speaks English?”
“Our area of responsibility has many languages. I learned English. He learned Paiute,” the sergeant replied, pointing out a soldier. He pointed to several others. “Apache. Navajo. Goshute. Shoshone. Ute.”
“Native American languages? But they all speak English. Why learn their languages?”
“They all speak English?”
“Of course. Everyone speaks English,” Jayla said.
The Over Sergeant shrugged. “Our men will be disappointed. I am the only one who learned English.”
“What do you speak?” Jayla asked the Under Captain.
“He learned Spanish.”
“Really?” Jayla sat up and pulled away from him, facing him, her back to the Over Sergeant. She spoke in what little high school Spanish she remembered. “Hello. My name is Jayla. What’s your name?”
The Under Captain laughed then said something in his native tongue. The Over Sergeant translated.
“Fifth Under Captain says he is not prepared for marriage yet.”
“What?”
The Over Sergeant explained the intimacy involved in using names and asking someone’s name was how they proposed marriage.
“I’m sorry,” was all Jayla could say. The Fifth Under Captain laughed and put his arm around her, comforting her.
“He likes you,” the Over Sergeant said.
“I don’t need a translator to know that,” Jayla replied. The Over Sergeant translated and both men laughed.
“How did you learn English so well?” Jayla asked the Over Sergeant.
“We had recordings played to us in our sleep. For two and a half years.”
“And that works?” Jayla asked.
The Over Sergeant shrugged. “Enough. I still have to study, but when you say things to me, I remember what they mean and then it’s easier for me to use those words.”
“My Daddy told me that Socrates said that all learning is just remembering what we’ve already been taught before we were born.”
“Some of our people believe we lived with God before we were born.”
“Really?” Jayla asked.
“Of course. Don’t you?” her captain asked her, through the Over Sergeant.
“I don’t know,” Jayla replied. “Most people just believe you’re born and you die and that’s it.”
The Under Captain asked for a translation. Jayla found she was beginning to understand a few words of his language. The Over Sergeant translated and the men spoke back and forth.
“The Under Captain would like to know if that’s how all Malakshians on your world believe.”
“What’s a Malakshian?”
The Over Sergeant looked at her quizzically but translated.
The Under Captain held his arm up next to Jayla’s. His skin was slightly darker than hers.
“Malakshian,” he said in his deep timbered voice.
“You mean black people?”
“You call yourself black?”
“Black. Or African-American, because we’re descended from people from Africa.”
“Africa is a continent, correct?” the Over Sergeant asked after he finished translating.
“Yes.”
“Malak is the continent where we live. Thus, we are Malakshian.”
“All blacks on your world are Malakshian?”
“Some have moved to other places, but most live in Malak. And we say ‘brown’, not ‘black’.”
“Oh. White people used the whole spectrum of colors to describe other races on our world.”
The Over Sergeant frowned.
“White people fight us. We win. We conquer Malak. Now, no one else but us lives there. We are fierce warriors.” He puffed his chest out. Jayla almost giggled until she realized he was serious.
“When did that happen?”
“Many hundreds of years ago. We are still fierce warriors.” He translated and the Under Captain shouted some kind of chant. Others echoed the chant in the camp and the Over Sergeant smiled.
“Est lead our army but they need us. We are stronger.”
“Est?”
“The white people in charge.”
“I guess things are the same no matter what planet you live on,” Jayla said, disgusted.
The Over Sergeant shook his head in disagreement.
“They pay us,” he said.
“I don’t understand.”
“We join their army for pay.”
“Soldiers always get paid. Wait, you mean you’re mercenaries?”
It was the Over Sergeant’s turn not to understand. He had Jayla repeat the word into his tablet.
“Yes,” he nodded. “We are...”
“Mercenaries,” Jayla filled in when the man couldn’t pronounce the word. She said it slowly and he practiced.
“So, if I gave you more money than the Est, you’d fight for me?”
The Over Sergeant translated and the Under Captain laughed, speaking rapidly when he finished.
“He says we are honorable. We would not change sides once we are committed. He also said the Est pay us lots of money. We are paid for sleeping.”
“Sleeping?”
“Our pay started before we left our world and continued for two and a half years. Two and a half years return. Five years pay for sleeping. A lot of money.”
“You could get killed.”
“Five years pay,” the Over Sergeant repeated.
“And you fight other countries on your world?”
“No more war on Hrwang.”
Jayla whistled in surprise.
“My Daddy says war is a condition of humanity. We don’t know how to live without it.”
The Over Sergeant translated and the Fifth Under Captain asked a question.
“Where is your father?”
“I don’t know. He was a big wig for the government, so I suppose he’s dead.”
“The Under Captain apologizes. He would like to know why you came with us and left your sister. Why did you not stay with your family?”
“I...” Jayla started. What should she say? How could she answer that question? She only knew she wanted to be with these men, with this man, and she knew it was because he rescued her and all she’d seen since the war started was the worst side of humanity and finally someone had shown her compassion.
Emotions tore at Jayla. She should have stayed with her sister. But then she would have lost the captain. What if she never saw Jada again? But Jada didn’t even recognize her. She could be in a vegetative state for years and then what would Jayla have done? What if the men in Utah weren’t any better than the men in Idaho?
“I don’t know,” was all she could manage. Thankfully, the soldiers didn’t ask follow-up questions. They simply stared into the fire with her, her captain allowing her space. She started to doze as it got dark and the fire died, and he brought her a heavy blanket. She slept under it in the chair.
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