Avren: An Auxem Novel

by Lisa Lace

  "Dar, we need you. Kenna needs you. Please," Jared said, his tone desperate.

  I pressed my lips together and suddenly felt the ability to move again. It didn't matter how I sick I felt. This person needed my help. And I needed to help her.

  I knelt beside her and tore open the first aid kit, finding packets that contained thick pieces of gauze. I opened two of them and used them as gloves. I picked up her arm, wrapping the pieces of gauze around at the same time. The raw exposed red flesh turned my stomach. But I ignored my nausea, focusing on the areas filled with blood.

  There was a spot that was gushing, and I quickly tore open medical packets, one after another, pressing them against the bleeding. The pads turned bright red immediately. I opened more and pressed them onto the wound, applying as much pressure as I could. These soaked through, too, but it took much longer. Finally, the outer bandages stayed white. For that, I was truly thankful.

  I found a roll of gauze and wrapped lengths of it around the pads that were already there. Then I continued wrapping until the whole bloody mess was covered.

  In the end, her arm appeared twice its normal size. It was a terrible job and looked awful. But she wasn't bleeding anymore. I felt a sense of satisfaction. These people needed me, and I had helped them.

  I wondered if I was the sort of person that helped other people.

  KENNA

  I was in agony. I couldn't think. I couldn't speak. I certainly couldn't move.

  But I could hear.

  "She moved. I'm sure she moved. She must be coming around," a man's voice said.

  "That's not good. I'm not done," said a woman.

  I heard myself screaming, over and over, as the excruciating pain became even worse.

  I became aware of strong hands holding me down. Was this alien torture?

  The darkness took me again.

  DAR

  Kenna was in really bad shape.

  We had escaped from the prison ship and stopped at the other smaller ship for only a few minutes to gather supplies. Mana continued to evade their transporter beams while Jared and I grabbed food, water, and medical supplies.

  We were on our way. After Jared had taken us into hyperdrive, the shuttle was well out of transporter range. Mana sat back from her console looking exhausted, but she got up a few minutes later and moved to Kenna's side. She looked at me and sighed deeply.

  "I wish you remembered your first aid training," she said, sadly. She likely wanted me to remember a lot more, too — like who the hell she was to me. "But that doesn't matter. You'll have to assist me."

  I nodded.

  "Okay. Are you a doctor or nurse or something?" I said.

  "No, but I have some basic emergency medical training. We have to cleanse the wound so it won't get infected, then rebandage it. You stopped the bleeding, but we don't know what weird stuff was on that metal that scraped her."

  Jared came over.

  "Isn't there any local anesthetic in here?" she said, poking around in a box that we had hastily grabbed from the med bay on the ship.

  There wasn't.

  "We have to work while she's unconscious, so let's get to it. Jared, come over here. You guys may have to hold her if she comes around while I'm cleaning her wound."

  She carefully cut off the blood-soaked bandages and peeled them away, layer by layer. When she got to the bottom layer, they stuck to her flesh. As she pulled them away, I saw the woman twitch.

  "She moved. I'm sure she moved. She must be coming around," I said.

  "I'm not done yet!" said Mana.

  The screaming started. The sound was terrible and indescribable. Jared looked at me with wide eyes.

  "Hold her," Mana said coldly. We grabbed Kenna as she tried to sit up and get away from the pain. After only a few seconds, she was unconscious again, to our great relief.

  "By The Three, we better get her to a hospital soon," Mana said, staring at the exposed arm. "Doesn't this look like it's getting infected already?"

  Mana had finished peeling off the bandages. Jared and I had an unobstructed view of Kenna's wound. It was nasty.

  "All I've got in here to disinfect it is rubbing alcohol." She looked upset.

  "That's going to hurt like a son of a bitch," Jared said.

  Mana nodded and opened the bottle. She emptied the whole thing all over Kenna's arm. We held her in case she regained consciousness but thankfully she didn't.

  After Mana had rebandaged the wound neatly, Jared and I carried her to the dorm room. The shuttle was so small that there weren't individual quarters. There was only a small room with six bunk beds. We put her safely on one of the lower ones and returned to the bridge.

  Mana was checking our coordinates.

  "Hey," Jared said. She ignored him, continuing to tap at her console. "Mana."

  "What?" she said, looking up at him in irritation.

  "You need to go rest. You're dead on your feet."

  "I'm all right," she said. I could see the dark circles under eyes and the way her body was sagging.

  "You've been awake for over twenty hours," he said.

  "So have you," she said, glaring at him. He was slowly blinking his eyes; he must be just as tired as she was.

  I watched the two of them in their standoff. Then I walked over to the captain's console. They turned to watch me as I did.

  "I still remember how to pilot this thing, and I've had a lot of naps." I said.

  I wasn't sure if I could do it right now, but I knew for sure that I had done it before, and I was awake.

  They glanced at each other, not sure what to say. Mana had told me that I would retain some of my basic knowledge. All the memories would be lost, and specialized skills like piloting a shuttlecraft would be forgotten.

  "Show me," Mana said, so I sat down at the controls. I was nervous, but I was able to do some simple maneuvers. When I looked up, she was giving Jared an incredulous look, which she wiped off her face when she saw me looking at her. "Okay."

  "Okay, what?" Jared said.

  "Okay I'll go and rest, you jerk," she said. "And so will you."

  He grinned and slung his arm around her shoulders. She smiled a tiny smile as he did so. I heard him as they walked down the hall.

  "You can sing me a lullaby, Mana." And I snorted. As if Mana would ever sing anyone a song, I thought.

  It occurred to me that this was another thing I shouldn't know about her.

  KENNA

  I was awake, but I kept my eyes closed.

  My first thought after I woke up again was that my arm hurt.

  My second thought was that we needed to get to Earth. We needed help dealing with the alien attack force. Before I could finish thinking, I was interrupted by a familiar sound.

  "Kenna?" I moved into a more comfortable position when I heard Dar's voice. I opened my eyes, and a wave of sadness washed over me.

  He was right here with me. He was right beside me.

  So why did I miss him so much?

  "Are you all right?" he said, hesitantly. "The pain must be incredible. I'm sorry, but we used up all the painkillers in the first two hours."

  "Two hours. How long have I been out?"

  "About eight, same as Mana and Jared."

  "Who was piloting the ship?" I asked.

  "The guy without a memory," he said with a grin.

  I wrinkled up my nose.

  "I thought that Mana said that would be impossible." I trailed off. He shrugged.

  I stared at him for a moment.

  That's when I realized that I was stupid. Dar could have died. They could have killed him. Instead, he had only lost his memory but like Jared had said — he was still here with me now. I hadn't completely lost him, and I needed to be thankful for what I still had.

  If he had fallen in love with me once, then he could do it again.

  I smiled at him, and I knew it was a happy, hopeful smile and he wouldn't understand it. But I couldn't help it.

  For the first time sin
ce he had looked at me with his blank, unknowing eyes, I had hope that maybe everything wasn't over.

  "Are you in pain?" he said.

  And as I thought about my arm, I realized how much it hurt. But it was nothing to what it had felt like when I had got my scar.

  "Yeah," I said. "But it's not that bad. I've had worse."

  "You have?" He seemed skeptical.

  I nodded.

  "Why don't you tell me what happened after I passed out?" I said.

  After Mana and Jared had woken up, I discovered I was the only one who thought to go to Earth was a good idea.

  "Mana," I said. "I know you don't like to depend on anyone but the Susohnnan, but you know that there have been changes in the relationship between our planets." My eyes darted to Dar, but there was no reaction. He probably had no idea what I meant. "We have a treaty now. Everyone's going to help each other."

  "But how are we going to get in to see the President of Earth? Dar has no memory of any protocols or passwords." She gave me a Look.

  Of course, she was right. How could we get in to see the President without Dar?

  He hardly looked like a king. He had let his beard grow, and there was something different about the way he projected himself. He lacked a sense of confidence.

  Mana's position as Senior Advisor wasn't enough to get us through the door. Jared and I were nobodies. None of us had identification, as we had lost many belongings during unexpected transportation.

  Shit.

  "You're probably right, Mana, but do you have a better idea?"

  "I don't think this would be a great thing to do," Jared said. He looked more uncomfortable than I had ever seen him. Mana and I exchanged a concerned look.

  "Why?" I said, confused. "We need help, right? There's no way that Susohn can handle this threat on its own. We might not have a chance even if we're together. Maybe other planets need to get involved, but it makes sense to start with Earth."

  Mana nodded. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I agree with Kenna. My problem is the logistics."

  "There's got to be another way." He stared down at his hands, then ran his fingers through his hair, making the golden curls stand on end.

  "Of course, there are plenty of other ways but they don't make sense." She sighed. "We're going to Earth. We'll figure everything else out after we get there." she said in a tone that brooked no opposition.

  Jared glanced my way, but he would get no help from me.

  Even if we couldn't get an audience with the President, there would be something we could do. We could ask Dar's mother to intervene. We could stage a protest, lie down on the street in front of her office — we had to do something, anything.

  The aliens could come back anytime.

  "Well, what now?" I said, staring up at the skyscraper that housed the offices of the President. Mana and Dar and I had tried get in to see her and had been politely asked to leave.

  There was no way we were going to get past her gatekeepers. They didn't believe that Dar was the king of Susohn and that Mana was his Senior Advisor. Didn't they have a picture of them? Maybe they thought everyone from Susohn looked the same.

  We had cleaned up as best we could, but we didn't have enough money to outfit ourselves as a delegation from Susohn.

  They thought we were a bunch of pranksters.

  "Let's meet Jared back at the hotel and tell him what happened. Maybe he'll have some ideas."

  I doubted it. He had been silent the entire trip back to Earth and refused to come with us.

  We got back to the hotel, and I flopped down on the bed, gazing up at the ceiling.

  My mind drifted to Carson, my favorite engineer who I had eaten with a few times before he had been stolen away for a life of slavery in the mines. I remembered his smile and how he had always been so kind to me. It wasn't right that he should be forced to live out the rest of his life under inhumane conditions.

  We had to get in to see the President. She was the key. She would get everything going.

  Mana finished telling Jared what had happened. When she finished, he closed his eyes as if asking for strength from the divine. Then he opened them and spoke.

  "I can get you in."

  We all stared at him.

  "What do you mean?" Mana said, puzzled.

  "I can get you in to see the President."

  "What are you going to do, flash your AEA terrorist card and they'll buzz you right in?" Mana said, and I laughed.

  "No. But the President will listen if it's me that shows up at her door."

  "Why? She didn't listen to Kenna. Her staff didn't believe Dar and I. Why is she suddenly going to listen to a nobody like you?" Mana said.

  Jared sighed deeply and rubbed his forehead with one hand.

  "She'll listen to me because I'm her son."

  We were back at the President's offices very quickly.

  "Tell her Jared's here," Jared said. When we had entered the building, he had assumed an authoritarian air.

  I didn't even know how to describe it. It was like he expected people to listen to him and do what he said.

  The people in the office apparently felt it, too. But they also knew they would be in big trouble if they gave unauthorized people access to the President.

  "I'm sorry sir, but that simply isn't possible," the small officious secretary said. He pressed his lips together and nodded.

  "If you don't tell her, and she finds out I was here, you'll be wishing that you hadn't kept me waiting," Jared said. He planted his hands on the desk and leaned towards the man, the menace in his tone unmistakable.

  I was shocked and looked at him carefully. Was this the same cheerful, easy-going guy I thought I knew?

  The secretary was unsure of what to do.

  "Look, why don't you take my name back to her and see what she says," Jared suggested.

  "Fine, since you are insistent. I'm sure she won't see you, sir. What is your full name?"

  "Jared Mahaar."

  The man froze.

  "Pardon me?" he said, his eyes wide.

  "You heard me." Jared's eyes showed a hint of a smile at the man's sudden change of manner.

  "I...I'm sorry, sir. I didn't realize. Your mother asked us to screen everyone. I was just following orders. Your appearance has changed."

  Jared cut him off with a hand gesture. Then he marched towards the President's office without waiting to be announced.

  We followed him as the others in the office stared at us. I would never have imagined that Jared had been born into affluence. He was always down-to-earth, friendly, and personable! He had never once acted like he was better than me or anyone else.

  To learn that his mother was the President was quite a surprise.

  When he opened the door, we heard a woman's irritated voice.

  "Jeffers, I asked you to leave me for the next hour, I've got work to do!"

  As Jared appeared in the doorway, her voice trailed off.

  It wasn't the tearful reunion that I had imagined. I guess he had told me the truth when he said that he had a falling out with his mother.

  "JJ? Is that you?" she said. Her voice projected uncertainty and fear.

  Right now, this was not the dominant woman who ran our planet. She was a mother, hoping for forgiveness from her only son.

  As we came through the double doors, I was surprised by her appearance, now that I saw her compared to Jared.

  I had seen her before on TV but now that I thought about it, Jared looked nothing like her. He was tall and blonde and wiry. She was small and had straight, dark brown hair, with a compact, sturdy body and darker skin.

  I had always assumed she was from the Middle East. I had read about her before, but I didn't remember her home country.

  She and Jared were nearly complete opposites in terms of looks, and I assumed that either he took after his father or had been adopted.

  He certainly didn't look like his mother.

  "It's me, Mama," he said, dropping the
aura of power he had carried since we had walked into the building. He looked hurt, and he was trying to keep his distance from his mother. Was he were worried she might hurt him again?

  "What are you doing here?" she asked.

  Jeez, was this woman the brilliant mind that ran the entire planet? Couldn't she see that Jared just wanted her to love him?

  Perhaps she was an intellectual, but inept in relationships. How could she ask him what he was doing here? Why wasn't she running over and giving him a hug? I shook my head, stunned by the scene unfolding before me.

  "Could it possibly be because I want to see you?" he said, his voice bitter. "Do you have time in your busy schedule for me?"

  "You told me the last time we spoke that you never wanted to see me again. You didn't want me meddling in your life. You didn't want to go into politics and that I should leave you alone." She seemed close to tears. "I left you alone because that's what you wanted."

  Jared shook his head, staring at his mother. The rest of us watched the drama unfold.

  "No, you were doing what you have always done — ignoring me." His voice was harsh and filled with pain. My heart ached for the boy Jared had been and the man he still was, who had never been loved the way he had needed to be.

  "It took years of hard work to get where I am now. It doesn't happen over night. I had dreams, Jared, and I had to follow them. They were important. That doesn't mean that you are not important."

  She walked around the desk until she was standing before him. The difference in their heights was evident as they stood facing each other. They were completely oblivious to the rest of us in the room.

  "Jared." she said, but he stared stubbornly at the floor. "Jared, look at me."

  Reluctantly, he lifted his stormy green eyes.

  "Ever since we fought, all of this..." She gestured around at the luxurious room. "...has been empty. I'm sorry I wasn't the mother you wanted me to be. I regret that every day. But it's in the past now. I can't fix it. There is only now. We can only go on from here."

  She reached out tentatively and took his hand. He let her take it, staring at her with troubled eyes.

  "And what does that mean?" he said.

  "I don't know," she said. "But maybe we can figure it out together?"

  She looked scared.