Alien Apocalypse: The Complete Series (Parts I-IV)

by JC Andrijeski

  Watching her face a bit warily for a moment, Laksri finally nodded, his own expression unreadable.

  “Are you ready then?” he said after another minute.

  Feeling her arms tense as she remembered the drug was only the prelude to the main course, not the main course itself, Jet forced herself to nod. “Yeah. Sure...as much as I ever will be, I mean.”

  Laksri seemed to need to think about her response for a few more beats.

  Then he walked up to her, his movements more business-like than they had been that first time, a few weeks back. Pushing up her shirt on one side, the opposite side as last time, he didn’t wait but abruptly stung her right below her ribs. Jet let out a short gasp as he pushed the venom into her, and looked up at his face. She saw something in his eyes flicker briefly, then he looked away, retracting his tail, angling it expertly to get the barb out without tearing more of her skin. Jet grabbed hold of his arms when the venom hit her system, but he took a step away from her, disentangling her fingers, but again, more business-like than rough.

  Jet found herself clinging a bit to him, but released him once he was out of easy reach.

  Stepping a few feet away from her, he said, this time without looking at her, “Are you ready? Should I turn on the machine?”

  Jet wrapped her arms around herself, looking around the hollow-seeming room. She found she was having difficulty focusing, but her body felt okay. Despite the added distraction of the drug, she also felt oddly clear, like she had the first time. So after thinking for a bit, maybe longer than she should have under normal conditions, weighing her distraction around Laksri and the drug against her body’s relatively intact and healthy feeling, she nodded.

  “Yeah. I’m good,” she said. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  He gave her one last look, as if doubting her words. Then, nodding, he motioned for her to get in the starting position.

  “Wait!” she said abruptly. “We’re just going to start? Aren’t you going to tell me anything about what I should be doing differently? You said you were in the Rings yourself once, right?”

  He nodded, still watching her warily. “Yes.”

  “When? Was it here? At this Green Zone, on Earth?”

  He shook his head. After a pause, he walked over to her, laying a hand on her arm. The contact made her shiver a little, but when he began thinking at her through the connection, she found she understood why he’d done it.

  That time, when he answered her, he didn’t move his lips.

  No. Back at Astet, he thought at her.

  Your home world? she thought back at him. They had the Rings there?

  Yes.

  Jet didn’t answer, but she found herself remembering what Anaze had told her, weeks ago, under that tree in the dark. That Laksri had gotten in trouble on his home world once, badly enough that he’d been in prison. He’d been some kind of revolutionary back there, too.

  It is true, Laksri confirmed, again speaking through her somehow. His fingers tightened on her arm. I was a political prisoner. You must have seen, in the skag pits, that those games are shown only from the home world...? My home world, he amended, quieter.

  So those Rings are different, Jet said, a little disappointed. You won’t be able to help me out much with the course here, will you?

  “I don’t know,” he said aloud, releasing her arm.

  Jet found herself reacting more to the lack of the contact than she had to the news that he wouldn’t be able to help her, and again she wondered why. She had so many more questions for him, in any case. Like how no one recognized him, if he’d been a terrorist, and one with enough notoriety that they’d made televised sport of his torture.

  Jet found herself remembering suddenly what Alice and Tyra told her about the Rings on Astet. How they only had Nirreth criminals in that version, because everything in it could actually maim or kill you.

  The human version was more like a televised sport with players and points and wagers back and forth on the so-called ‘stars’ at any given time. Everyone knew the big players in the Rings televised from Earth, mainly because a lot of them came back to fight, again and again. Jet hadn’t known this in the skag pit, of course, where they only got the random broadcast during those periods when they managed to decrypt the signal before it changed. They also hadn’t gotten the secondary feeds with all of the ‘style points’ and ‘Board likes’ for each of the players, which would have made it clearer that it was more like a sport.

  Still, sport or no, this first match was critical for an unknown fighter like Jet.

  The judges might decide she was ‘boring’ and have her ‘killed,’ which would likely mean just booting her off the Rings, since she still had value as a human slave. From what Anaze told her, that shame would probably be too much for the Royals to keep her as a servant to their son, however. They would likely sell her off and then not only would she be useless in whatever plans Richter had regarding the Royals, but they would no longer be able to protect her in any real way, either. The exception would be if the Royals agreed to sell her to Richter or Laksri themselves.

  Otherwise, she’d be taken to some random home by some random Nirreth, probably to clean the house during the day and take turns sleeping with different members of the household at night. From what Anaze told her, the whole family would feel free to sting her whenever they felt like it, and she would be akin to the family dog...if humans had the tendency to occassionally have sex with the family dog when they were bored.

  Given that she was young and female, it was unlikely she’d be bought by anyone who didn’t have that purpose in mind...at least in part.

  “Are you ready?” Laksri asked again.

  Looking at the Nirreth, it hit Jet that she would bond with any Nirreth they sold her to, whether she liked them or not. The idea terrified her, for the first time maybe as it sank in...enough to clear her mind, and lift some of the effects of the venom.

  “Yes,” she nodded, feeling her hands clench. “Yes, I’m ready.”

  Surprise flickered across Laksri’s face, along with a slow smile, then a more approving nod.

  “Good,” he said, nodding again.

  Working through Laksri wasn’t exactly a direct line, but Jet did get a better idea of the differences between the various forms of the Rings over the years, as well as the main similarities. The Rings on Astet, as far as she could tell, had a lot of the same structures and even the same layout as the practice arena where she and Laksri now worked...but everything on Astet was larger, more spread out, so she had to calculate distances accordingly.

  The other thing she discovered was that the Rings did scans of Laksri’s brain while he fought. As a part of that, the Rings controllers had a direct line into what frightened him the most, his reflexes and fighting strengths, etc.

  In Laksri’s case, it had been seeing his little brother get eaten by some kind of large lizard creature with spine-like teeth, each about a foot long, He’d also seen a childhood friend, a female he’d grown up with, get raped and stung repeatedly by other Nirreth while he couldn’t get to her.

  In his case, since he’d been a prisoner, they’d actually done those things to him and to his family and friends. Apparently, in Nirreth society, if you were a criminal and a traitor, the whole family was implicated...as well as close friends and anyone else who ‘should have known’ and ‘should have put a stop to it,’ or at the very least, turned him in to the authorities. Parents were the worst offenders, according to the state, since they’d raised the child into a citizen who could turn on the Royals or anyone else in authority.

  The whole thing made Jet sick...like actually, physically ill. Especially images of the thing with Laksri’s little brother, which she’d turned away from by refusing to let Laksri touch her until he’d agreed to stop thinking about it.

  Laksri showed Jet all of this with the same indifference of emotion, however, which made it hard for her to know how to feel...much less whether or how to comfort him in an
y way. She felt currents under that indifference, of course, but she didn’t know what to do with those glimpses, either. When she gripped his arm during one of those breaks, while he was giving her more information, he carefully extricated her fingers a second time, keeping his firmer grip on her upper arm instead, so that he could continue to relay information. By the end of him sharing his experiences in the Rings, Jet found it almost unbearable, and told him so.

  When he didn’t say anything in reply, she fought once more to clear her mind, to view this as objectively as he seemed to. Once she had, other questions came pouring through the cracks in the venom.

  How did you survive?

  Others in the Rebellion got me out.

  How? she pressed.

  He gestured vaguely. It would be difficult to go into specifics, he thought back.

  Feeling his avoidance, she tried to feel more off him, but again, he pushed her away, using his tail to break her concentration as if nudging her with a hand.

  How is it that no one recognizes you now? she said.

  Again, Laksri seemed to hesitate. After another pause, she felt him give a mental shrug, even though his body didn’t move.

  They do not show our real faces in the Rings. It causes less distress to the population if we are anonymous, or portrayed as deformed or ugly or sick...especially when they harm family and friends. In my case, my family had ties to the Royals, so it was especially important that my true identity not be known...

  What about those who did know? Jet thought at him.

  They think I am dead, he thought back simply.

  But aren’t you afraid someone would recognize you?

  Who? Laksri thought back. For the first time, his thoughts held more of a bite. They killed everyone who knew...all they could reach, anyway. They killed my family, my friends... His dark eyes met hers. All but those who were actually rebels, of course. And one of my sisters, who we managed to get out in time, since she was away at school. They would be looking for her, but we supplied another body in her place, as well...

  But who did the killing? Jet pressed. Someone must know who you are!

  Rebels attacked the Royal Fortress on Astet, Laksri thought back, his mental voice holding almost no emotion again. They killed all who could identify me. They even kept my true identity from most branches in the Royal bloodline. Unlike humans, our faces are not widely known to one another in the Royal court. I was from the first family, the oldest son, so they said I was killed in a rebel attack. It is about saving face for them...that is all...

  What about those who ran the Rings? Jet persisted.

  Dead, Laksri shrugged. Or in prison on Astet. Everyone was under suspicion when I was caught. It was not difficult to make some of those in high up positions, including in the Rings, appear to be complicit in the conspiracy...

  “Oldest son,” Jet muttered under her breath. At Laksri’s sharp look, she switched back to her mind. So you should have been the next king?

  Laksri gave an indifferent shrug. “Yes,” he said aloud. Frowning, he thought at her a little more bitterly, I, too, could be playing with otters and demanding female mammals take their clothes off for me...

  Jet sighed, speaking aloud without thinking. “You heard about that?”

  “I did.” He looked at her, his eyes sharper once more. “Did he force you to do it?”

  She shook her head. “The guard was Parente. He told the Prince that his request was ‘inappropriate’...and also an illegal infringement of a formal coupling. He also threatened to tell his father...”

  Laksri snorted a little. Jet realized suddenly that he’d wrapped his tail around her waist. Lightly, but clearly not accidentally.

  “I don’t like you sleeping with Anaze,” Laksri said after another moment.

  Jet looked up, startled. “Anaze? Why?”

  Laksri didn’t look over, or shrug. “I don’t like it.”

  “We’re not doing anything.”

  “He wants to,” Laksri said.

  Jet just stared at him for a moment. Then she shook her head, snorting a laugh. “I really, really doubt that,” she said. “If you want your bed back, you should just say so––”

  “I don’t,” he cut in. “...Doubt it. I know.” He looked at her directly then, his black eyes holding a faint glimmer of anger. “We see heat, you know. Nirreth. Not only color. We see other lights...other kinds...”

  “You mean infrared?” Jet said, a touch of wonder in her voice. She thought about his words in relation to their conversation then and laughed. “So you think there’s ‘heat’ between me and Anaze? Is that it?”

  “I did not say you,” he said. His face tightened a little as he clearly frowned. “I said he wants you...that much is clear.”

  “And it’s less clear with me?” she said, still laughing a little in spite of herself, but more incredulous than anything. “Are you really jealous, Laksri?”

  “Yes,” he said. He looked straight at her, as if daring her to laugh again. “Would you want me sleeping with another Nirreth? A female?”

  Jet looked at him blankly.

  The thought had never occurred to her really...that he might do it, or that she might mind if he did. Through the far greater clarity of a single sting, as opposed to multiple ones, one after the other, she tried to view this idea objectively, too, based on what she could remember feeling about Laksri when she hadn’t been stung. It was difficult to sort it all out, but she could remember thinking a few times that she viewed him strangely...not completely like a stranger, or even a friend, much less an alien entirely.

  She couldn’t really get it all straight in her head though, not now at least.

  Laksri waited for her to answer, then he refolded his arms, tighter.

  “You get warm around me,” he said, looking down at her with those dark eyes. The ridged knot of bone on the back of his head was visible, she found herself noticing, since he wasn’t wearing the cloth covering that most male Nirreth wore. Even as her mind wandered around this, she found herself puzzling over his actual words, then finally understanding them, and what he meant by them.

  “More than I do around Anaze?” she said.

  He made a vague gesture, then exhaled sharply. “Yes. You do not know this?”

  Turning his words over again in her mind, Jet nodded. “I guess I did.” Pausing, she gave him a curious look. “So why do you get jealous?”

  Because I think you stay away from me because of my race, he thought at her at once, using his mind that time. Also, you don’t trust your reactions. Because of the sting...

  Pausing again, he added aloud, “...Neither do I.”

  Jet thought about this, too. “So you think I’d be more likely to act on something with Anaze...because he’s human.”

  “Yes,” Laksri said at once. Switching to his mind, he added, touching her arm, Moreso, if he hadn’t brought you here. Taking his tail off her long enough to flick it sideways in some annoyance, he added, You don’t trust him. It blocks any heat you might have for him. I can feel it, this lack of trust...you see him as Richter’s statue...or... He fumbled for the word. ...Game piece. You think he only does as Richter says. When it comes to whether he tells you lies or not, or puts you in danger or not...

  Jet frowned, feeling a denser flush of anger. “Well, it’s true, isn’t it?” she said. “I can’t trust him...and he’s not honest with me.”

  Laksri shrugged, still holding her arm in one hand. Maybe you can. I don’t know. But I don’t understand why you trust me more.

  Jet thought about this too, feeling some of her anger evaporate.

  I don’t know, she admitted. But I know it’s different, Laksri. Anaze and I were friends for years, and he lied to me pretty much every day, that whole time. He got me caught by that culler ship, and you and Richter...after only befriending me in the first place so that he could maybe use me in some plan to bring down the Royals that I still know nothing about... Jet shrugged. So far, anyway, I don’t have as many
reasons to not trust you. Mostly because I’ve never fully trusted you, either...

  Laksri nodded, still holding Jet’s arm. So I’ve neither gained nor broken your trust...?

  “Exactly,” Jet said aloud.

  And if Anaze won your trust back? the Nirreth thought at her warily. Would you have warm feelings for him then?

  Jet signed a little, leaning on his side. That time, Laksri didn’t push her away, but curled his tail tighter around her.

  “I honestly don’t know,” she told him, then added in her mind, How can I trust what I feel about anyone here? After all, without the stinging, who knows if I would ever have been warm to you? I’m a prisoner. Tell me, if you were me, would you trust anyone?

  “No,” Laksri admitted. His tail coiled around her a little tighter. ...But you did get warm around me, before I stung you. The second time, at least... he added mentally, as if suddenly remembering their fight on the culler ship.

  At Jet’s puzzled look, Laksri shrugged.

  That time, she felt embarrassment on him.

  ...It is why I got carried away. Last time. Not entirely... he added. ...Only partly. It was easier to convince myself you were okay with it...with me doing those things...

  He looked at her, as if waiting for her response.

  That time, though, he didn’t let it drop. When she didn’t speak, he prompted her again.

  “Were you?” he said aloud. “Okay with it?” Again, he tightened his hold on her, speaking to her mind. ...I expected you to be much more angry with me. Once the empathy wore off, I mean...the residuals from the sting...

  Jet shrugged. “I seem to remember us both being pretty high on life when that whole thing went down...”

  “But I could have taken the drug then, too,” he reminded her. I didn’t. Some part of me wanted to see what might happen between us...

  Jet laughed aloud. “Which part was that?”

  Laksri shrugged, his lip curling in that slight smile.