by Maia Starr
I frowned, my mind racing for any possible way to overcome this barrier. Surely there was a way.
“Did you try the code?” I asked.
“What code?”
“Oh gred. The code,” I growled, hurrying into the ship and running to the control panel. Baarva and a handful of other Raithers followed me inside, where I typed the code to the Federation’s mainframe into the dashboard. The radio crackled, the static interference making me anxious. It didn’t work.
I growled in frustration and pounded the code in once again, determined to reach someone who might be able to send for help. Anyone.
After another few moments of silence, I sighed. It was futile.
“What code is that, Commander?” Baarva asked once it became painfully clear that my plan had failed.
“I was entrusted with a direct link to the Resha Federation. But clearly, it is useless here.”
The disappointment on their faces was palpable, and made me, once again, feel like a terrible leader.
“We will find a way out of here. Don’t worry. This is a planet that is meant for those who deserve punishment. We are noble warriors of Yala, and we will return in the favor of our superiors.”
“Yes,” Barvaa agreed. The others nodded their heads, and we began to make our way out of the control room.
“Commander Thornax.”
I froze, my chest growing tight at the quiet but commanding female’s voice coming from the dash. I rushed back to it.
“Yes!”
“Why are your coordinates in the Black Zone? Is everything all right?”
“No, no. Nothing is all right. Our ship crashed on the planet Hexa. We’ve lost a few crew members, and the ship is out of commission. We need someone from Yala to come retrieve us before it is too late. Can you please pass the message along to the Heatham?”
“Of course, Commander Thornax. How drastic is your situation?”
“We are surviving,” I said, unable to keep the relief out of my voice. “But it would be best for my crew to be able to leave as soon as possible.”
“What are your coordinates?”
I glanced down at the device on my wrist and read the coordinates out to the dispatch, all in a daze. I could hardly believe that I had actually located my crew, and my ship, and that help was on the way. I had never given up hope, but the truth was that the odds had been stacked against us. Thankfully, there was a chance for the survivors to thrive back on our home planet.
“All right, Commander. We will be in touch. Take care out there.”
The radio cut out and we were left in silence in the control room. I took a deep breath and beamed out at the small crowd that had followed me in. They were looking at me as if I had just performed some kind of miracle, and I couldn’t help but feel just a little bit caught up in the magic of what had just happened.
“Well,” I said, finally, trying to keep the shakiness out of my voice as I addressed the men. “It looks like we have some celebrating to do.”
***
The next day went by quickly. The crew, including myself, was still working hard on repairing the ship, but it seemed impossible. The radio was manned by Baarva, who was adamant about keeping in close contact with the Resha Federation. A ship had been deployed as soon as my message had been received and processed by the board, and we had been informed that a small carrier vessel was on the way.
The larger ships took longer to prepare for launch, and the Raithers, though fierce and powerful when need be, preferred to proceed in delicate matters with caution. They wanted to know my impressions of the planet and the best way to go about a rescue mission without rousing the suspicion of thousands of bloodthirsty alien criminals who might attempt to sabotage our mission and hijack our crafts into space to use for the purpose of utter destruction.
This meant that the majority of my crew would have to be left behind on the cruel prison planet while I instructed the Federation on how best to proceed with the rescue. It was going to be a delicate mission if ever there was one. The most dangerous and vicious creatures in the universe found themselves on Hexa, and it was shocking that any of us had survived even this long. Fortunately, my race had a vast knowledge of the life present in the universe, and that was the only thing we had to keep the monsters at bay.
“So, you guys are going home?” Alice asked me, once I had returned for the night to the small bunk we had been sharing. The crew had reluctantly welcomed her, though she was treated with suspicion and kept at arm’s length. She had been spending most of her time in our cabin, avoiding the glares and whispers. I was going to have to talk to the crew about what she was doing there with me, but first I was going to have to figure it out myself.
“Yes.”
“Does that mean Earth is out of the question?” Alice asked, leaning against the wall and staring at me with eyes that did not tolerate any dishonesty whatsoever.
“No. I will take you to Earth.”
“How are you going to do that if you are leaving me behind?” Alice demanded.
“I will have the Federation rescue all humans,” I said, not knowing whether or not this was even possible. “And I will take you with me so that you aren’t stuck on this planet another moment longer. All right?”
Alice seemed stunned by this and nodded slowly. “You’re going to take me to Earth?”
“It’s right on the way to Yala,” I lied, kicking myself for doing so. Why was I still so reluctant to let her go?
“You would really do this for me?” she whispered.
Again, she looked so sincere at the moment that I nearly wanted to tell her the truth. No, I did not want to take her to Earth. No, I was going to take her to Yala and see to it that she had the life she deserved with me as her mate for all of time. Nothing was on my mind more than this human. I could still feel the trace of her fingertips against my skin when I closed my eyes at times, and the thought of never smelling the sweetness of her breath again filled me with anguish. She would see one day that I had done the right thing. And when that day came, we would be one.
“You are going with me when the first ship arrives. I don’t care who says otherwise.”
“Thank you!” Alice exclaimed, running up to me and throwing her arms around my neck.
I held her close, my mind at odds with my body. I knew I did not deserve this affection, but I also knew that leaving the human here was not an option. She was going to love the planet Yala. Some creatures just couldn’t make a home in the place where they were born, and she didn’t seem to understand that life could be better for her somewhere else.
She was not going to like what I was doing. Not by a long shot. But I was going to make sure that she was able to have the perfect life. It was my duty. She was my human. I had claimed her, and in that mind-blowing night of passion, she had surrendered herself to me, body and soul, and my kind took that kind of vow seriously. She was going to listen to my wisdom and hear the truth in my words one day. Even if it meant that, until then, she was going to hate me.
***
“What the hell is this?”
“Lauren! What are you doing here?” Alice asked, her beautiful face perplexed.
The ship had finally arrived, and with it came the obnoxious group of human women once again. Apparently, they had followed us all the way through the forest until we had come upon my crew and ship, and had been keeping an eye on us from a distance.
“These people have to take us home. We don’t belong here!” Lauren shouted, running forward to try to get close to the ship. A Raither gripped her shoulder and prevented her from moving any further, and Alice pursed her lips.
“You belong here more than these guys do!” Alice said. “They crashed. They never killed anyone!”
“We never did either!” Lauren exclaimed. “Just what are you thinking? Did these freaks brainwash you or something?”
Alice glared.
“It just so happens that they are wonderful. And they’re taking me to Earth.”<
br />
“You can’t be serious. We all deserve a chance to go home.”
“Maybe if you back off a little, I will put in a good word with the Committee to get you girls back home,” Alice said.
She was playing with fire, burning the bridges she had left remaining with the humans on Hexa, but I admired her for it. I had never been prouder to have claimed her.
“No,” Lauren said, shaking her head and struggling against the force of the Raither who was constraining her. “What you’re going to do is tell these guys to let us on that ship!”
But Alice stood her ground, her hands folded over her chest.
“That is not an option,” she said firmly. “You can wait here patiently for the next ship out of here. I’m done waiting. I helped to make this happen. Don’t you get that? I deserve a way out.”
Lauren opened her mouth to reply again, but the pilot of the ship stepped out, silencing us all.
“We are ready to board,” he said, casting a cold, steely look out over us, clearly unimpressed with the scene. “Those of you who are leaving today, stand in a single file line. You will be seated one by one, starting with Commander Kecha Thornax.”
Hearing my name being spoken from the pilot’s lips snapped me into action, and I quickly rounded up the crew members I had chosen to bring back to Yala with me. When they were ready, I walked up to Alice, who was still exchanging an electric hot glare with the other, more disagreeable human.
“Come,” I said, touching her shoulder gently. “It is time for us to leave.”
As I led her toward the ship, I could hear the shouts and protests of the other human females, and the crowd of Raithers who stepped in to keep them at bay. My men were strong, much stronger than a few pesky humans, and soon we were all boarding the ship, leaving the noise of the planet Hexa behind us.
***
“I can’t believe this is really happening!” Alice exclaimed, taking her seat beside me in the small ship. It had been able to enter Hexa’s atmosphere undetected, but we had to leave quickly lest that change.
Every once in a while, huge Federation ships would come in. They employed a brawny race known as the Urgs to maintain the planet and orchards, and man the vessels that deposited the most brutish creatures onto the planet Hexa. The Urgs were virtually featureless, like large, mechanical beings made of terracotta clay. They had square heads, with no discernable eyes or mouths, and a broad torso with huge rectangular arms that were strong enough to pick up one of the terrible red Jorgans where they stood and place them carefully into the habitat on Hexa that might best suit them.
They were a surprisingly gentle breed, prone to landscaping and other forms of botany, and as such made the perfect candidates to man the savage planet and ensure that it was able to maintain its purpose effectively.
I had expected an Urg to be manning the ship, quite frankly, but the Federation’s resources were limited. Urgs wouldn’t be available for a mission for another few weeks; they were all required to be back on their home planet to observe their Veshna ceremony, apparently a time-honored and family-oriented tradition that happened only once every third generation.
“Let’s go,” I ordered. The ship’s engines rumbled to life, and I gazed out at the group of Raithers that I was leaving behind. They all looked happy and hopeful, except for the ones who were still fighting with the mob of humans, but I couldn’t help but feel nervous on their behalf. It would be another week at least before they were rescued, and yet the hope and trust on their faces was unmistakable. They all believed that fate was on their side, and I didn’t have the heart to tell them that without tenacity and pure willpower, none of this would have been possible.
I had brought along a few other crew members, as many as we could fit in the ship with us, most of which were young and homesick, or malnourished from trying to conserve the food on the ship by sticking to a diet of fruit and berries. Fortunately, they would be all right with a little bit of time and medical attention on Yala. The entire ship was all of two rooms: a cabin and an engine room. We were all crowded inside behind the pilot’s seat in a circle, making it nearly impossible not to touch somebody else no matter which way we moved.
And yet, the human was happier than I had ever seen her before, her beautiful eyes shimmering in excitement as we prepared to launch.
“I’ve never been able to see out the window before,” Alice said, sitting beside me. We were intimately close to one another, as the ship was crowded, and I turned to her to smile. I loved the way her face glowed with excitement, even if that excitement was soon going to be bitter disappointment. But she was going to understand that I had her best interests at heart. I had to believe that.
“It is going to be beautiful beyond words,” I told her. “Make sure that you close your eyes during lightspeed, though. You may end up feeling sick, and I don’t need you losing your stomach’s contents all over me. This is a small ship, and the smell would affect everybody.”
She laughed lightly and gripped my hand in hers, bringing a hot, thunderous desire throughout my body. It was hard for me to keep from acting upon it. All I did was close my hand around hers and allow myself to appreciate the closeness of her body and the warmth it brought to me on the last legs of the voyage.
The idea of returning to my planet was extremely satisfying, as well as knowing that I had found my crew and had provided them with an avenue of escape. However, most satisfying of all was knowing that I was returning home with a prize: a human with whom I could spend the rest of my days.
I could only hope that I would be able to keep the truth from her long enough that I would enjoy peace and pleasure with her until the rest of the men were off of Hexa and the other humans had already been returned to the planet Earth.
Chapter 7
Dr. Alice Tanner
“Wait a minute,” I said, frowning. I didn’t know a lot about space travel, but I did know how to identify the Milky Way Galaxy. And during the three days that it took to travel toward Yala, I hadn’t seen it anywhere. “Where’s Earth? I thought you said that it was on the way.”
The tension in the small ship grew unbearable, and nobody spoke. I turned to Kecha to confront him, but he appeared to be asleep. As much as I wanted to wake him, I feared the persecution of his crew. They had demonstrated a high degree of loyalty toward him, and anything that might be perceived as an attack against him could probably result in my untimely death. I would have to be careful.
When nobody answered me, I sat back against the wall with my arms folded over my chest. This was not going the way that I had expected it to. I thought that I would be roaming the Earth by now, back on my home planet, pondering the mysteries of the alien seedlings that sprouted into tiny, inconspicuous flowers that provided Earth’s ecosystem with a genetic boost. Instead, I was sitting beside a Raither, who was probably pretending to be sleeping so he wouldn’t have to answer my questions, in a ship full of his kind, who would kill me with no questions asked should I act up in any way, shape, or form. I had never been more trapped in my life.
And yet, as angry as I was, I was exhausted as well. I had barely been able to rest on Hexa after the attack that had rendered our shelter uninhabitable and engulfed in flames. The image of the Grechen haunted my dreams and had left me tired and anxious, terrified that I might run into another.
Now, being out in space, I was able to sleep deeply, although not comfortably. Still, it was better than the ground of a planet where, at any given moment, I might be burnt to a crisp.
I closed my eyes and chose to let the question rest, knowing that if I made a scene, it would be my last. I would confront Kecha when we were alone, and I knew that we would be able to get away with having an honest conversation without his loyal followers keeping a stern eye on me and making me feel as if I were the most unwanted creature they had ever met. There was a time and a place for everything, and I would just have to find the time to confront Kecha on what surely was turning out to be a lie. I hoped it was ju
st a misunderstanding, but something was making me nervous.
I would just have to hold my tongue and allow my body to get the rest it needed. Because if it did turn out that Kecha was lying to me, that would mean that I would need to save my strength because I was going to try to beat the living hell out of him.
***
“Wake up, human! We are here!”
I was startled out of my sleep by Kecha’s excited voice, and I stood up, my heart pounding in my chest.
“Earth?”
Kecha looked confused for a moment, and then sheepish.
“Come. We will take good care of you here.”
Before I had the chance to reply, I was being ushered off the ship and out the doorway.
I gasped in disbelief. Yala was breathtaking. The sky was vast and filled with as many colors as the eyes of the Raithan man that had been taking care of me, and as far as the eye could see, there was beautiful, hilly terrain on patches of pastel purple and tan earth. It was almost like stepping out into a painting, only here, I could smell the sweet scent of the lavish wind and feel the tickle against my neck as it lifted my hair.
“I want to go home,” I said halfheartedly, suddenly remembering my latest complaint.
But the words felt hollow to me now, and I followed Kecha and his crew absently as we left the ship.
Outside was a crowd of Raithers clamoring around the ship and seeking words with those of us who had emerged. I was greeted with shocked stares and points, but mostly ignored in favor of the crew that had apparently been presumed dead.
“All right, all right,” Kecha finally said, his loud, deep voice cutting through the clamor. “We will answer all of your questions in depth at a later time. We are tired from our journey and would just like to get some rest now. So, if you don’t mind, please part and allow us through.”