Avren: An Auxem Novel

by Lisa Lace

  KENNA

  I was sure by now that Jakk and Elara were going to get us all killed. Not only the people aboard this ship, but the whole galaxy as well.

  The space craft was bucking and rocking and people were flying everywhere. It felt as if the hull were about to be ripped apart.

  I couldn't see Dar anywhere as my body was flung about the rapidly shifting space ship. I tried to remember a prayer, any prayer to any god, but couldn't think of anything.

  "Jakk!" Elara screamed over the deafening noise. "Get us out of here."

  There was a lurch like I had never felt in a space ship. I could actually feel the force of the acceleration pulling on the skin of my face and making it tight.

  As suddenly as all the madness had started, it stopped. The floor straightened out and the space ship flew smoothly again.

  Jakk sat back from his console and closed his eyes. Elara leaned forward and buried her face in her hands. I wondered if she was crying.

  I picked myself up off the floor and checked my body. It seemed intact, though I was sure I was going to have some bruising tomorrow.

  Now, where the hell was Dar? Other people who hadn't been strapped down were getting up, some with bloody noses or bad scrapes. Some were holding their heads or their stomachs. Some were still lying on the floor. But where was Dar?

  I walked quickly around the bridge and finally found him in a corner, on the ground. He was unconscious.

  Here we go again.

  I knelt beside him.

  "Dar?" I took his wrist, carefully feeling for a pulse. It was weak but it was there. He was alive, thank God.

  Jakk was beside me in an instant.

  "Is he okay?" he said, concern filling his handsome blue eyes.

  I shrugged.

  "He's out cold, I guess."

  Just then Dar moved. I glanced at Jakk. Then he moved again and moaned.

  "Dar, are you all right? Talk to me. Come on," I said, not wanting to touch him any more in case he was badly hurt.

  "Kenna?" he said, his voice rough.

  "Yes, yes, it's me," I said. "You must have got knocked unconscious when the ship was moving around so much."

  He blinked slowly and looked at me. Then he smiled and his eyes were filled with such love and...oh my God...recognition.

  He'd seen right into my heart. He'd always seen me. The Kenna that no one else saw. And he had always thought I was so amazing for reasons I never quite understood. I hadn't seen him look at me like that since he'd been thrown by the alien. Since he'd lost his memories.

  "Dar?" I whispered.

  "Yes." His eyes were filled with joy. "I'm back."

  "Back?" Jakk said. "From where?"

  "Never you mind, you scandalous flirt," Dar said. "I saw how you were looking at my sheeranla."

  "I was not!" He did a double-take. "Wait, did you call her your sheeranla?" Jakk said, eyes widened in surprise.

  "I did."

  "You didn't tell me." There was accusation in his voice.

  "So what? If I had, you wouldn't have flirted with her?" Dar said.

  "Oh, I would have flirted with her. I just wouldn't have done it right in front of you."

  Dar laughed then. His old laugh. He was back. I could see the confident set of his head and the look in his eye that meant he knew exactly who he was. The questioning, unsure Dar was gone. Or maybe he was in there somewhere. It didn't matter. I had Dar back. My Dar.

  Jakk gave him his hand and we helped him sit up and then stand. There didn't seem to be any injuries. The concussion that had given him his memories back seemed like such a miracle, it would hardly do to call it an injury. We held hands and he whispered as we walked.

  "We have some unfinished business, you and I."

  I drew in a deep breath. We did?

  "I have something to ask you, later."

  I had no time to wonder what he was talking about before we got to the middle of the bridge. Elara was staring out the view screen as we walked slowly over.

  "Well, we did it, Elara," Jakk said, flashing her a saucy grin and clapping her on the back.

  She didn't notice and she didn't return the smile.

  "What's wrong, Elara?" I said, worried again.

  "This isn't over," she said.

  "What do you mean?" Jakk said, frowning. "We did what we came to do."

  She gestured towards the view screen.

  "Most of the ships have been sucked back in but there is one remaining."

  "We'll have to capture and eventually destroy it."

  "The wormhole will take at least three weeks to stabilize. Ehron just ran the model again and the model predicts that as the wormhole restabilizes, Earth and Susohn will continue to experience disaster after disaster."

  "So we were wrong about our predictions. We'll have to deal with it. It's better than the alternative. It's okay, Elara. It's over," Jakk said.

  "There's also the little matter of that," she said and gracefully pointed to a small dot on the view screen.

  Whatever it was, it was going really fast and getting bigger as we watched it.

  "What the hell is that?" Jakk said, confused. "It doesn't look like a ship."

  We all watched as the dot enlarged. As it came closer, the ship's cameras were able to enlarge the image, and we were able to see what we were dealing with.

  No. It couldn't be.

  "If I had to guess," Elara said in an emotionless voice. "I can't believe I'm saying this, and I'm speaking scientifically, of course. I'd have to call it a fucking enormous space squid."

  She turned then and she faced the room.

  "It's headed right for us."

  Dilemma

  KENNA

  I couldn't believe it.

  There was not a space squid heading right for our ship. Was there? First terrorists. Then alien slave ships full of droids. Now a space squid?

  This was getting ridiculous. I felt myself waver a little bit and Dar looked at me and frowned.

  "Are you okay?" he said, concerned evident in his face.

  "Space squid?" I said, weakly. "Is that like a land shark? Are you kidding me?"

  He helped me to sit down before I fell.

  "So, I guess you're not ok," he said, accusingly.

  "Maybe I hit my head a little harder than I thought."

  We grinned at each other when I said that, thinking how fortunate it had been that he had hit his head.

  "I missed you," I said.

  "I missed me, too," he said and we grinned again.

  "You remember everything, including what happened when you didn't have your memories back?"

  He nodded.

  "Everything okay, Dar?" Jakk said. Interrupting our little reunion.

  "Yeah, Kenna's a little woozy, that's all."

  "The wormhole didn't destroy all the ships. There is one ship left that was suspiciously out of range, almost as if someone knew where it had to be to avoid being pulled into the wormhole. Our best guess is that the creature is from the remaining vessel."

  He glanced at Kenna apologetically.

  "I'm sorry, but the doctor is not available right now, Kenna. We need all hands at their stations, since we lost seventy crew members during the destabilization. But as soon as we deal with this space squid, we'll get everyone checked out by the ship's doctor, okay?" Jakk said. Kenna nodded.

  "No worries, Jakk."

  We watched it approaching.

  "This animal is massive. Do you have any ideas, Dar?"

  "You were always the idea guy, Jakk. I just followed you along."

  Without taking his eyes off the view screen, Jakk snorted.

  "I suppose it was my idea to sneak into the girls' camp to wake up Millaree and Vovavnu?" he said, looking innocent.

  "Midnight canoe ride in the oasis," he said, filling me in. "Nothing happened. The counselors caught us when our canoe bottomed out. It was the dry season. Not my best idea ever," he told me, shrugging. "As for what to do about the squid? Don't you ha
ve weapons?"

  Jakk looked at him with astonishment in his face. "Why didn't I think of that?"

  "What if it comes in peace?" Elara said out of nowhere. She had been listening to the conversation but had not spoken until now.

  "Are you serious, Aritza?" Jakk said, looking at her in disbelief.

  "I thought you were a peaceful race," she said referring to the Susohnnan culture's aversion to violence.

  "And so we are," he stared at her for a moment longer, until she blushed. Then he turned to the ensign in charge of communications. "Ensign, please hail the squid in as many languages as the computer knows, including squidish."

  Kenna and I smiled at each other.

  "Tell it we come in peace and mean it no harm."

  The ensign nodded and went to work. A moment later a gob of slime hit the camera of the view screen. As we watched, acid in the slime began eating away at the device, melting it.

  "Holy shit," Jakk said under his breath. "Get that camera washed off, Mellora, now. It's close to a main wall. We don't want that acid eating into the hull."

  Mellora was out the door in an instant and we saw her a couple minutes later outside the ship, in her space suit, cleaning the camera. It fell to pieces in her hands and she gave up, simply replacing it instead. We once again had a perfect view of the hostile squid.

  "Are you convinced he's not peaceful now, Aritza?" Jakk said, turning disapproving eyes on her. She shrugged, clearly trying to look nonchalant.

  "Who knew he had acid spit and an incredible range?" she said.

  "Lock on to the hostile alien," Jakk said, giving Elara a look.

  "Locked on," the ensign said.

  "And fire," he said. We all watched as the photon torpedoes shot out of our ship, moving at a terrific speed.

  The squid barely moved, but it was just enough to evade the torpedoes. We looked at each other in astonishment.

  "Oh, you did not just do that," Jakk said, looking stunned and then furious. "Double the payload and fire when ready."

  We all held our breath as we watched the torpedoes go out and once again miss their target. The squid was almost to the ship by now.

  What was it going to do when it got here?

  It got closer and closer and then suddenly and completely without warning, it seemed to disappear.

  "Show all cameras on the outside of the ship on the view screen," Jakk ordered. "We need to know what that damn thing is doing."

  "Where is it?" Elara said.

  "More importantly, what is it?" Jakk said, looking troubled. "This doesn't make any sense. A biological life-form that can withstand the vacuum of space? How can it fly at speeds similar to a space craft? It spits acid at long-range that melts some of the hardest materials known to science, and can disappear without a trace."

  "Don't forget, it can shape shift, as well," a voice said from behind us.

  We whirled around.

  I saw something I never wanted to see again. The last time I had seen him in real life was on an alien ship, but he had shown up every night in my nightmares.

  I glanced at Dar, willing him not to do anything stupid with my eyes. He looked back at me. Did he understand my eye movements? I hoped he was saying that he certainly wouldn't and that he knew better now.

  It warmed my heart that we could have an entire conversation with one glance.

  "Who the hell are you?" Jakk said. "And what are you doing on board my ship without permission?"

  "You little folk, always going on about your funny rules. You should know by now. I don't need anyone's permission to do anything."

  "He's the alien that was aboard the first ship that showed up out of the wormhole," I told Jakk and Elara.

  "You are still trespassing and I still ask you to leave," Dar said.

  "I should have mind-wiped you when I had the chance," the alien said. "But your mind looked so nice and clean at that point, that we thought — why go through all that bother? When I get you back on my ship, I won't make that mistake again."

  Jakk and Elara looked at Dar.

  "I had amnesia," he explained. "We hid it. It wasn't a good idea for the king of Susohn to suddenly be unavailable for duty. At first we thought I actually was mind-wiped but I kept having flashbacks. And just now I hit my head again and regained my memories."

  They stared at him, opened mouthed.

  "I know, it sounds like something out of a movie or a book," he said, looking sheepish.

  "No," Elara said. "It sounds like traumatic amnesia which is caused by a brain injury. The memories disappear suddenly and usually reappear suddenly."

  "Two years of a psych degree before she switched to astrophysics," I told Dar. "Because physics just seemed simpler than psychiatry."

  "You bastard," Jakk said, finally finding his voice. "You never even told me. I thought something seemed off."

  "Sorry," Dar said. "I know I should have told you. I wish I could have. But it was almost like a state secret."

  "Your conversation bores me," the alien said, drawing our attention back to him. "It's time to get down to business."

  He sounded testy. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Elara was backing up very slowly towards the door.

  "Why are you here?" I asked.

  "So I can take you all prisoner, of course," he told us with a wicked smile.

  DAR

  Not this again. Kenna was right. Enough was enough. This alien squid-man-thing was a caricature of a villain. I had a feeling that he had studied up on bad guys and was doing his best impression of one. We needed to deal with this asshole permanently.

  I drew in a deep breath and felt the full knowledge of who I was and what I was capable of flowing through me.

  "No more of this crap," I said. "You're not taking us prisoner without a ship."

  "That's what you think," he said, reaching into his pocket.

  The security officer didn't waste any time waiting to see what he pulled out. She just whipped out her gun and shot him in the head.

  We could add bulletproof to the list of characteristics that made this alien really hard to kill. He seemed to absorb the bullet into himself and stood there looking chipper.

  "You little shit," he said, flinging his arm out towards the security officer, who went flying into the wall. All of a sudden, I understood why it had seemed like he had barely touched me when he'd thrown me. He was using an explosive pulse wave that pushed the people he threw without him touching them at all.

  I winced as the security officer hit. I hoped she woke up with her memories intact.

  While the alien was busy with the security officer, Elara had slipped out the door and he hadn't noticed. I hoped she had a plan. Well, I could keep him busy.

  "What do you want from us?" I asked. Might as well cut right to the chase. "You've gone out of your way more than once to capture us."

  "You're right. You, in particular, are very important. I want you to use your influence to help me round up more slaves. No one else has to get hurt."

  I blinked in surprise, completely taken aback. I hadn't expected that answer. Kenna stepped up beside me and he looked at her. The moment he looked at her, I wished that he hadn't because he was leering in a way that made me want to tear him limb from limb.

  "Apparently this body still remembers how to procreate," the alien said, taking a step towards Kenna. Her eyes widened in fear. My stomach turned and I moved so that I was in front of her. He glanced at me. "Oh, yes, I forgot. You creatures come in pairs. Well, this body doesn't want you. It only wants her."

  "You're not going to have her," I said.

  The alien stalked over and with a sick feeling in my stomach, I noticed his bulging pants. Gross.

  He began to lift his hand to send me flying out of the way. But just as he got ready to send out the pulse wave again, he disappeared. What the fuck?

  We all looked around in confusion.

  "Mo, get a lock on the alien. Where is he?" Jakk shouted into his comm unit.
/>   "He's in the pedestrian air lock," Mo said.

  "What's he doing there?" Jakk said, confused.

  "Elara asked me to transport him there," Mo said.

  "On screen," Jakk ordered, his voice short.

  We watched as the alien struggled to transform back into a squid shape, but couldn't because the airlock was only big enough for one human-sized body to enter. There was no way an enormous squid could fit into the tiny airlock.

  At that moment, we saw the light come on that signaled the lock was being depressurized. The air began to be sucked out of the room, leaving only a vacuum. We saw his eyes bug out as he realized that soon he would be subject to zero atmosphere in a frail human body that was ill equipped to deal with the rigors of space.

  "That's it. Try to get out of this one, you bastard," Jakk muttered.

  As we watched the screen we saw him trying to change his shape. After several false starts, he finally managed to do something. He shifted part of his body. His squid mouth was in the place of his human face. Gross.

  In horror, I realized what he was going to do.

  He shot a large gob of spit at the door of the air lock. It immediately began to melt and as it disappeared, he shifted more and more of his body into its squid counterpart. As soon as the hole in the door was big enough, he began shifting his squid form out into space until he was completely free.

  He turned back towards the camera. A squid's face cannot show much emotion, but he seemed to mock us.

  Fuck. He was getting away. And there was nothing we could do about it.

  I supposed we should just be glad he was running instead of trying to take us all prisoner — me especially, since he wanted me to aid him in enslaving all our peoples. That was not a desirable promotion.

  As I watched the disgusting creature fly away from the ship, I wondered how long it would be until he came back again for me.

  We would destroy the last remaining alien space craft. We had to. There was no need to worry. He would be blown up along with his ship and the threat to our galaxy would be at an end.

  "Mellora, grab a team and get out there with lasers. Cut off any piece of the ship that's been touched by the acid. We don't want that stuff eating its way into the main supports of the hull."

  "Yes, sir," she said.

  Jakk could take a crew and run down that last ship. I trusted him to mop up this mess. If there was anyone who could take care of the last remnants of this problem, it was him.