by Ashley West
"Why should we help the humans?" asked one of the techs, scoffing at the very idea. "They don't even believe we exist."
"And if they did believe it, they'd probably try to go to war with us," someone else added.
Neither of them were wrong, and yet.
"Because the Alva are our responsibility," Malachi said firmly. "We've pledged to stop them, and that doesn't end just because they're on another planet. The humans will be powerless against them. It will be a slaughter."
No one seemed particularly moved by that, and to be honest, Malachi couldn't blame them. It was one thing to feel pity for those nearby, those who had been hurt by the Alva and who came to them for help. But humans were greedy and disastrous and far away, and no one felt inclined to risk their necks for them.
"I am ashamed," said the General, and everyone looked at him. "To stand here before self-proclaimed warriors who are willing to look the other way when our greatest enemies terrorize someone simply because they have moved on from us. Protecting the weak and those who cannot help themselves is part of our creed. It is a part of the oath you all took when you were initiated into the warrior ranks, and to stand here and listen to this makes me sick."
He didn't raise his voice at all, but everyone in the room shrunk back, even the techs, who technically had taken no such oath. The General's disappointment was almost as bad as his anger, and just as effective in this moment.
Once again, the room was silent, and they all sat there as the General looked over them, determination in his eyes. "We will not stand idly by," he said. "We will not let the humans suffer needlessly, and we will not let the Alva escape us. If you cannot find it in you to care about the humans, then care about the fact that the Alva have escaped us. Will we let that stand?" No one said anything, and the General narrowed his eyes. "I said will we let that stand?"
"No," piped up a few warriors, and then the rest of them took up the cry, eager to have their leader stop looking at them like that.
Apparently, that was all that needed to happen. Malachi hadn't expected the opinion of the masses to be swayed so easily, but things moved quickly from there. Working together, the warriors and the techs began the preparations, fueling a diplomatic shuttle and hunting down everything that would be needed for a trip to Earth.
Malachi was unsurprised when the General took him aside to speak with him in private.
"You already know I want you on this mission," he said, and Malachi nodded.
It wasn't that he wanted to go to Earth, really. Long distance traveling didn't agree with him, if he was honest, and the thought of being so far from home and far from his family made him uneasy. But it was a part of his duty. Until someone else was given the position, he was the Champion, and leading his people in this battle was important.
"We aren't going to go in ready for a fight," Malachi said as he briefed those who were going with him. Unfortunately, Thyrra was not one of them. He was so unused to going into battle without her, but someone had to remain on Dorn and make sure that their people were protected there. No one knew his strategies better than she did, and he wouldn't have trusted anyone else to lead in his place. Not really.
"I know the Alva are there," he said, standing in front of the group. In his opinion, it was too small. Twenty men and women ready to go to another planet to see what could be done to help the humans there. If the Alva was there in all their might, then their small force would not be enough. Luckily, there were several hundred more warriors ready to move at Malachi's order. As he explained to his people, this was mostly just a scouting mission. They would make contact with the Alva, see what demands they had, if any, the state of the humans and the planet, and then decide what to do from there.
Malachi wasn't optimistic that it wouldn't result in all out war, but that was a worst case scenario. No one knew how many humans had already been killed when the Alva had come to Earth, and neither he nor the General were eager to add to that number.
"I cannot believe you're going to Earth," Thyrra said, sitting on his bed, watching as he packed clothes for the trip. Each day that slid by brought them closer to the day of departure, and Malachi wouldn't admit it, but he was nervous.
"Neither can I," he said because Thyrra knew him well enough already.
"I'm going to miss you, I think, though it'll be nice to be in charge for a while."
He smiled at her while he folded a shirt and packed it away into the vacuum sealed bag he was using to hold the things he was taking with him. "I thought you'd be upset at being left behind."
She shrugged a shoulder. "I thought about it, but it's for the best. Being surrounded by humans and Alva doesn't sound like my idea of a good time."
"Not going to have a good time, Thyrra," Malachi reminded her.
"I know, I know." She got to her feet, clearly intent on something, judging by the look on her face. "You know," she said softly, stepping closer until she was right next to him. "I think I've just decided that I am going to miss you."
"Me?" Malachi asked, arching an eyebrow. "Or just certain parts of me?"
"It's a package, isn't it? You, your dick, your mouth..." She trailed off and slipped a hand up his arm. "All goes together."
"Mm." It was hard to stay focused on folding clothes with her touching him like that, and when she dropped to her knees and fumbled with the laces of his pants, he gave up on the task altogether, focusing instead on how lovely she looked on her knees.
She was one of the strongest women he'd ever met, and there was a thrill that came with seeing her down there, ready to put her mouth on him.
Thyrra never wasted any time. She was always ready to take what she wanted, and when she got his cock out and then eased her mouth over it, Malachi groaned, fingers tangling in her hair as he held on.
When she hummed around him, the vibrations made his toes curl, and he couldn't help pressing forward just a bit, sliding more of his cock into her mouth until it hit the back of her throat.
She didn't even gag for a second, just took it like the warrior she was, giving him an amused look and working her tongue out to lap at the underside of his length while she swallowed around the head of his cock.
All Malachi could do was moan and hold on, hips pushing forward almost lazily, again and again as he slid in and out of her mouth and throat. He knew that she liked it like this, and he watched with dark eyes as she slipped a hand into her own pants and began to touch herself, moaning around him as her fingers worked.
It was as good a send off as any he could have thought up, and he was definitely going to miss this while he was on Earth. He and Thyrra weren't romantically involved, but they were compatible when it came to sex and fighting, and that was enough for him for the moment.
Someday he'd want a partner, a spouse, someone he would plan to share his life with, however long or short his life was going to be, but for now, this was perfect.
Just Thyrra's hot, wet mouth, the sound of his moans and her muffled noises of pleasure, all of it distracting him from the chaos of the monumental task that lay ahead.
Chapter Three: Chaos
Chaos was a good word for it.
The people of Earth had always been secure in their knowledge that they were the smartest, most developed, most intelligent life forms in the universe. Those who believed otherwise were usually considered to be crazy or a variety of other derogatory things, and no one really worried about a race of hostile aliens coming to take over their planet.
For all the movies and books that covered that very situation, no one had plans for that. Humans didn’t batten down the hatches for alien attacks like they did for natural disasters and the threat of violence from their own kind, so when it happened to them, they were all woefully unprepared.
Being unprepared had been their downfall, in the end, and by the time they had gotten it together enough to muster some kind of counter offensive, it was too late. They were well and truly occupied by a race of huge creatures from another planet.
<
br /> Of course, everyone had a theory about what was happening and why.
People who were religious credited divine intervention. They said that their god had finally sent a force to wipe them from the planet, a modern day version of biblical events, punishment for their sins.
Others thought this had been a long time coming. That intelligent life far beyond their planet had been watching and waiting for quite some time. Waiting for them to be vulnerable enough to strike.
Ideas were tossed around concerning which countries the aliens might be allied with, who they might be coming for in particular, and whether this would lead to all out nuclear war. None of that was particularly helpful when it came to keeping them safe from the invaders, and so plenty of people died right at the beginning.
States of emergency were declared. People evacuated, trying to find places where these creatures couldn't find them.
It seemed that they weren't as widespread as they could be, and in general once someone got out of the United States, they would be safe enough. No one knew how long that would last. No one wanted to take bets on it, either.
For nearly a year, it was the worst kind of chaos. People being killed daily, slaughtered for standing up to the aliens or getting too close.
The creatures didn't seem to want to negotiate. In fact, they didn't seem to want anything at all. Any attempts to ask them for a convenient list of their demands was met with violence, and after enough 'expert negotiators' had met a sticky end, the humans stopped trying.
It seemed the invaders just wanted to invade. Maybe they wanted Earth itself and were willing to kill anyone who thought to get in their way.
No one knew for sure, and the fear of the unknown was almost as bad as the fear of the aliens themselves.
And there was fear. These weren't the little green men people talked about. They weren't even the more terrifying tall grey men from TV shows and movies. They looked human enough at first glance, though when looking harder it was easy to see that they had some sort of scales covering a good portion of their upper half. What was the most striking, however, was their size. The largest of them seemed to be nearly eight feet tall, and they were weighed down with muscles. As if that weren't enough, they were all armed to the teeth, and while their weapons were a bit medieval, their ships were not, and when they turned on the ship defenses, blasting large buildings to nothing but rubble with beams of green light in an attempt to prove a point, it was clear that they were in serious trouble.
For Emma, it was rather like the icing on the cake. She was doing well enough for herself, managing to get through each day, pushing aside the heavy veil of sadness that sometimes threatened to keep her cocooned until she couldn't even move.
Life had to go on, or so her mother told her. Daniel, her brother, her best friend, wouldn't want her to put her life on hold and do nothing but mourn.
Instinctively, she knew her mother was right, but it was easier said than done. She missed her older brother like she was missing a limb, and she felt the ache of it every day. They'd had a routine of texting each other every morning with some funny joke or just a silly thought. Just something to make each other smile as they began the day.
Even when it had been years since his death, Emma still had to stop herself from reaching for her phone when she woke up, knowing that even if the notification light was blinking, the text wouldn't be from Daniel.
She knew that death was permanent, but letting go and accepting that she wasn't ever going to see him again was one of the hardest things she'd ever had to do.
Of course, that was going to change when the world got turned upside down, but for the moment, it was a hard struggle.
Still, she got up most mornings, made herself breakfast and tea, went to her job at the coffee shop she worked at, looked for work performing. Some days were harder than others, but that was just a part of life.
Emma had accepted that. What other choice did she have, after all?
When things got really hard, she remembered being a kid and how Daniel would push her to keep going or go faster. How they'd ride bikes with their dad and he'd tease her until she reached the top of the hill. It always inspired her to keep going, to push harder, dig herself out of whatever hole of misery she'd been burying herself in, and find some way to keep going.
She’d found solace in her singing, in taking gigs at clubs and parties, singing and letting herself not think for a while. It helped quite a bit, but none of that mattered once things went all to hell in a handbasket.
She remembered how bad things were to start with, how unprepared people had been. They tried to evacuate, but some couldn't leave. Some people were killed in that first wave of attacks, and their family members mourned.
Emma remembered rushing to her parents' house that day, when she'd first seen the ships darken the sky. She'd found them in their living room, watching the news.
Her dad, true to form, wasn't sure that this was real. "What if it's all a big joke?" he asked, amusement crinkling the corner of his eyes.
Her mother hadn't seemed so sure, and she'd been fretting, standing behind the sofa in the living room wringing her hands together while her husband laughed. "Terrence," she'd said. "What if it's real?"
And then Emma had burst in, breathing hard, eyes wild. "We have to go!"
"Emma?" Her mother had come around the couch in seconds, arms held out for her daughter. "What do you mean? Go where?"
"It's not safe here," Emma insisted. "The ships. I saw..." she had to pause to catch her breath, her heart racing frantically as she tried to make them understand.
"You saw what?" her dad asked, getting to his feet.
"The ships! In the sky. I saw them, hovering over the city."
Her parents exchanged looks, and her dad didn't look amused anymore. "What in the world is happening?" he asked.
Everyone was asking themselves the same thing. It all became clear after a while, when the aliens started blowing things up. When they landed their crafts in the middle of busy plazas and squares, when they came off the ships ready to kill.
By then, her parents were on board with leaving, taking it on good faith that there was somewhere out there they could be safe. It seemed like this was a localized thing, and the news stations that were still reporting were urging people to save themselves.
"Leave anything you don't need and go," said Mandy Stevens, the usually bubbly morning anchor. Gone was the bright smile and pink lipstick that set her apart from her colleagues, and her blue eyes were wild with fear as she listed off the interstates that were clear for the moment.
Her parents heeded that warning, of course. They grabbed up anything that couldn't be replaced and piled it into their truck, ready to leave that same night.
Emma had planned to follow them. She'd gone back to her apartment, relieved to see it in one piece. People were in the streets, some screaming, some crying, some taking pictures for their facebook pages. She pushed past all of them, and went up to get the things she needed. Her laptop, chargers for her phone and tablet, credit cards and all her emergency cash. The bracelet and stuffed animal that Daniel had given her for her fifteenth birthday. Most of it got stuffed into a duffel bag and then thrown into her car before she raced back to her parents' house to see if she could catch them before they left.
When she got there, it was a terrible scene. The house was on fire, as were the houses on either side of it. The house to the left, which had been home to a family that had six kids and a mom who made the best cookies on the block, was missing its roof. The one to the right looked like it was burning from the inside out.
The house she had grown up in was smoldering from the outside, flames licking at the wood and brick, smoke billowing out from the top.
Frantically, she looked around for her parents' truck, too afraid to call out for them, in case more of the invaders were lurking, waiting for kill her.
The truck wasn't there, though. The garage was still standing, and it was clearly e
mpty, her dad having neglected to close the garage door in his haste to drive off.
That was good. That was okay.
They were safe then.
She got back in her car and started it up, just in time to hear an explosion somewhere to the west.
Not that way, then.
Emma turned on the radio, tears pouring down her face and heart in her throat. She wasn't processing her emotions well at the moment. She knew she was sad and scared, but it just felt like cold numbness to her at that moment. If she let herself think about it, then she wouldn't be able to keep going, and she couldn't afford to let that happen.
"Just find a way out, Em," she said to herself, trying to use the tone of voice that Daniel would have used when trying to get her to see past her fear to do something. "Just find a way out."
The radio was mostly static and the droning beep beep beep of the emergency siren, but she managed to find a station talking about traffic out of the city. Apparently it was getting bad out there, accidents happening left and right in people’s hurry to get out of the city. She chewed on her lip, wondering if it was worth the risk.
She could wait until morning, maybe? Surely there was somewhere safe enough that she’d be alright until some of the traffic had thinned out. But there was no guarantee that it wouldn’t be worse in the morning, really. There was no guarantee of anything anymore.
Sitting in her car wasn’t an option, but she didn’t know what else to do. Where could she go?
In the end, she drove back to her apartment.
The place was a mess of confusion, people standing in the halls screaming at each other, throwing clothes out windows and loading up cars. Her neighbors were nowhere to be found, and she let herself back into her apartment and closed the door, locking it up tightly.
In a fit of fear, she closed all the windows, too, locking them and drawing the blinds closed. Maybe if no one knew she was here she’d be safer.