THE HALLANS
BOOK 1 - ZAWLA
Every Hallan has their fate, but where Bothaki least expects to find his is on a planet he’s never even seen or heard of.
When a meteor storm throws his ship off course, he’s forced to land on a planet of blue and green. His hopes that the strange land is uninhabited are dashed when its people take him hostage, but his thoughts of breaking free begin to change when he finds the woman he’s waited a lifetime for just outside his cell. Selina has always waited for opportune times to sneak into her father’s library and steal away the books she’s not permitted to read under Earth’s new law. This trip will be unlike any other. Beyond the books, she finds an imprisoned alien. She can’t take her eyes away from him, because his eyes look at her like she belongs with him. Or to him. * ZAWLA is book one in THE HALLANS series featuring a HEA, and no cliffhanger. TW for violence, torture, etc. |
*Amazon affiliate link upon which your use earns BK a small commission and costs you nothing.
BOOK 2 - WALIZ
Kings never die but living forever or finding his mate on a doomed planet is the last thing on Halun’s mind as he wages war against the humans of Earth.
With an altar of heads on spikes and a throne of melted weapons outside his camp, not even the sight of it is enough to quell the fire in Halun’s heart for what was done to his brother by the earthlings. The only reason he allows the leader of The Opposition in his presence is because he knows the females of this planet have a role to play in Hallalah’s future. But this one meeting will set the future king on a collision course with the fate he’s longed to find all his life.
Luna, the rebel daughter of The Opposition leader, has been taken hostage by The New Order and moved from one prison to another in the hopes that they can beat the answers they want out of her and avoid being found by her father. He is not who they should worry about. She can’t afford to wait for anyone to come save her, and when she sees an opportunity to escape, she uses whatever means necessary to make her way towards the exit.
She never expected to find a Hallan standing in her way.
He knows he’s found his mate.
She thinks she’s come up against her new captor.
The rules just changed.
*
WALIZ is book 2 in THE HALLANS series by authors Ava Mona and Bethany-Kris. ZAWLA, book 1, should be read first to best enjoy. TW: for violence and maltreatment.
With an altar of heads on spikes and a throne of melted weapons outside his camp, not even the sight of it is enough to quell the fire in Halun’s heart for what was done to his brother by the earthlings. The only reason he allows the leader of The Opposition in his presence is because he knows the females of this planet have a role to play in Hallalah’s future. But this one meeting will set the future king on a collision course with the fate he’s longed to find all his life.
Luna, the rebel daughter of The Opposition leader, has been taken hostage by The New Order and moved from one prison to another in the hopes that they can beat the answers they want out of her and avoid being found by her father. He is not who they should worry about. She can’t afford to wait for anyone to come save her, and when she sees an opportunity to escape, she uses whatever means necessary to make her way towards the exit.
She never expected to find a Hallan standing in her way.
He knows he’s found his mate.
She thinks she’s come up against her new captor.
The rules just changed.
*
WALIZ is book 2 in THE HALLANS series by authors Ava Mona and Bethany-Kris. ZAWLA, book 1, should be read first to best enjoy. TW: for violence and maltreatment.
*Amazon affiliate link upon which your use earns BK a small commission and costs you nothing.
BOOK 3 - MINA
There is always a choice ... even for a Mina who knows what cards fate holds better than most.
Vabila's future on Earth is both starkly clear and maddeningly vague. She knows what she will lose, but when what she is to gain becomes apparent as well, it flips her entire world upside down. How could fate be leading her to the human male who cannot possibly be her mate? Godric has been fighting against the oppression in Earth for years, but with the help of the Hallans, the future he's only dreamed of is closer than ever. Even more than victory, though, his focus seems to constantly be on the Mina who claims she hates him. He thinks there's something else going on behind her narrowed eyes and sharp words, maybe even the same thing he feels for her. Fate has more in store for Vabila and Godric than either of them could have imagined but will the events on Earth take away their chance to choose each other? MINA is book 3 in THE HALLANS series by authors Ava Mona and Bethany-Kris. ZAWLA, book 1, and WALIZ, book 2, should be read first to best enjoy. TW: for violence. |
*Amazon affiliate link upon which your use earns BK a small commission and costs you nothing.
READ THE FIRST 2 CHAPTERS OF ZAWLA BELOW!
Copyright © 2022 Ava Mona and Bethany-Kris. All Rights Reserved.
ONE
“You have critical fuel reserves remaining,” the computerized voice says.
I stare at the screen, with its blinking warnings of low fuel, and telling me I’m off course. I growl at it as if it’s my ship’s fault that there’s no way I can return home now. Or that a meteor shower cast me off course as I exited a black hole meant to direct me back towards my home planet hours ago.
Hallalah, the motherland, seems an impossible journey now. This pitiful galaxy with its mostly uninhabitable planets and an angry, hot sun-star sucking them closer by the passing seconds makes it impossible for me to imagine how I’ll find somewhere feasible to crash land.
Never mind, live.
“Shall I set a course for the nearest planet?” the voice asks.
I close my eyes, releasing a breath, and hoping it will take my frustration with it. It doesn’t help a bit. I need to figure out what to do and fast. Once my fuel runs out, the ship will start to shut down all functions. And if I have nowhere to land when that begins to happen, I’ll be stuck floating in space until someone finds me.
If someone finds me.
That’s not a good option, either.
I only have enough supplies to last a short while aboard my ship. It could have made the trip between the Star Valley and my home planet after finishing with the crew I left behind to tie up the semantics of shipping home our trade of Emululite for freshwater. We need the minerals in the Emululite to make fuel while the Big Greens—oh, they hate when you call them that—have suffered for a millennium on a poisoned planet with water that rots.
Alas, I’d be starving and freezing by the time anyone from my planet even thought to look for me. I’m not due back for a while, and wanting to surprise my kin by returning from my post early—with good news—I hadn’t informed anyone that I was on my way back in the first place.
The only one truly surprised now is me. That I’m in this situation. That I let myself be caught so unprepared. That I’m now left with no option but to land on the next planet I come across.
But since I have no choice, I open my eyes and begin to do what needs to be done if I want to survive.
“Bring the nearest sustainable planet up on the screen.”
Stars and darkness zoom by until the screen shows me a small planet. Mostly blue with patches of green here and there. Teachings that have been drilled into me all my life come to my mind in an instant.
Water is life. Honor the ground from which life grows.
Blue and green. Water and fertile land. What I need to survive is on this planet, but the presence of life-giving blue and greenery means the planet may already be inhabited. I can land there and use what time my ship has left running to send a beacon home. It will take a while to get here, as this is not any part of the galaxy that we have ever explored and the meteor shower exiting the hole threw me off, but at least I can survive while I wait for them.
When one travels through space at impossible speeds, things are rarely ever definite but most certainly finite.
That’s the one guarantee about the universe. It will go on forever. Meanwhile, I just have to survive until my kind finds me.
“Set a course to the planet.”
“Setting course.”
The ship revs up, speeding through the blue-black, star-speckled space now that it has somewhere to safely take me. I take control as we get closer, though, wanting to make sure this planet actually is safe before I land there. As we approach, I open the channels to pick up any signal that might be coming from the planet. Immediately, words pour through the speakers inside my control room. I can’t understand, but already I see the computer system analyzing whatever language is being spoken, and the screens zoom in on images of the planet appearing.
I slow the ship down while I look them over, needing to be sure I am capable of handling whatever life form awaits me down below. Males and females of different races co-mingle. The females wear black dresses that cover all but their hair and hands with hoods some keep up. Males wear all black outfits that cover them similarly. My brows furrow at how strange this species looks, and the apparent uniformity they have in an effort to look the same.
My kind, the Hallans, so connected to the lands upon which we are born, would never hide under so many layers of garments. It wouldn’t be natural when doing so means covering the markings that denote our birthrights and signify which family we belong to. Despite the modesty additive to the security suit I can wear if needed that leaves certain zones of my body androgenous to the naked eye, making loincloths and other preferred garments unneeded during travel, even the transparent nature of the suit comes from the need to recognize what we’ve always known.
Any Hallan could take one look at the black pigment shaping the contours of my gray flesh of my body and crowning my head and know the blood I come from.
A device lights up on the panel, and I know it means the computer is done unraveling their language to the best of its ability for now. I pick the device up and put it into my ear canal. Like always, I cringe some as the device activates and burrows deeper into my ear. An unpleasant sensation, to be sure, but mostly harmless. I tap behind my ear and it begins emitting the words being spoken.
“The New Order is how we have set the world aright once more,” a male’s voice booms. “We had descended into chaos, but The New Order saved us. Taught us a man and woman’s place in this world. And through our beliefs we were able to pull ourselves, the human race, back from the brink to rebuild our civilization the way it was always meant to be.”
What I decipher first in the mess of words is that these people call themselves humans. It’s not unusual that I have no idea what he’s talking about, since I’m sure I can understand their customs and ways no better than they could mine if they came to my planet, but what does come through in the translation is not anything I particularly like. His words ring…radical.
Maybe here isn’t the best place--
“Shutting down non-essential electronics to conserve power,” the computer warns.
I don’t have a choice. I must land here.
I hit buttons on the panel to chart where exactly I want to come down on this strange planet. Just like I thought, the planet, a third of the size of my own, is mostly water. Something else our planets have in common. Most of where I see land appears to be inhabited in one way or another, and a lot looks to have suffered from wars and destitution if the scars in the land are any indication. I’ll land in the water in an effort not to harm anyone. With any luck, not that I’m particularly hopeful, I won’t be detected and can wait there until my planet sends a ship after me.
Any hope I might have had of that is dashed when the next signal comes through.
“Unidentified spaceship, you’re in Earth airspace. Identify yourself.”
Earth. That’s what this planet is called.
I can’t respond to them, though. Although the translator in my ear allows me to understand their language, I can’t speak it. It would take a few days for me to know it well enough to communicate at all. If I spoke now, it would only be in words and sounds they couldn’t understand.
“Identify yourself. We will not ask again.”
Oh, and then what happens?
Frankly, I can attempt a good guess.
I wonder what kind of technology and weapons they have on this planet. I’m sure nothing that compares to that of my own planet, or even the defenses I have on this ship. But with my fuel low, my shields will be weakened, and using some, or all, of my own weapons will drain the last bit of fuel I have. Fuel needed for my ship to send the beacon home to Hallalah for help once I land.
I’m so close to the planet now that I can see the body of water where I plan to land, and the very top of the trees of the forest beside it. I tap the screen, zeroing in on exactly where I want to come down. Then, I begin the sequence that will send the beacon to my planet, but before I press the final button, the screen flashes red while alarms blare throughout the control room.
“Incoming fire,” the computer informs me.
It shows the two missiles coming straight for my ship, one from each side. I grab the steering and jerk it back, stopping the ship short of the trajectory I see the missiles are on. But the missiles only change their course with mine.
Hmm.
Well, they have better technology than I thought. Still, no match for my ship, though. I only have a moment to eye my fuel level and take a measured risk before I press the button to fire the rockets off the front of my ship. There’s an explosion that lights up the dark sky when the rockets turn the missiles that were seeking me into nothing but ash.
I push the steering as far down as it will go, speeding towards the water, still holding some hope that once my ship is in the water, whoever inhabits this planet won’t be able to spot me.
Different alerts come through the speakers as I descend.
“Fuel levels are nearly depleted.”
“Brace for impact.”
“Incoming fire.”
My ship rocks with the turbulence of entering the planet’s atmosphere. I grit my teeth as I propel towards the sea of crystal blue water, missiles following me, and the fuel needle dropping to just shy of empty. The lights on the screen and panel blink and flicker, a sure sign they’re about to turn off. I fight against the gravity pushing me back in my seat to finish the beacon sequence. Just as I hit the last button necessary, I barely get a chance to see the success message before everything shuts off. I’m all on my own now, not even a ship to help me on this strange planet.
The blue rises towards me, and I wrap my hands around the straps crossing over my chest. Then, I crash into the water so hard that, if it weren’t for the safety straps, I’m sure I would have been thrown straight into the panel and screen. Water splashes over my ship, covering the window. My teeth feel as if they vibrate within my mouth even though I made sure to clench my jaw as I collided into the sea. After a few seconds, the ship begins a steady rocking with the huge waves the crash has caused.
I can barely think straight, but I know I must get away from the ship before any of the life that inhabits this planet finds me. And if their missiles are any indication, they’ll already have some idea of where I am. I unstrap myself and rise on shaky legs to go to the compartment near the exit. Reaching in, I grab the two things I need out of it, putting the bag on the floor while I place the square to my chest. I twist the mechanism on the front of the square to the right to activate the security suit I wear only when I need to leave my ship. Tendrils sprout from it, two going down to cover my groin, backside, legs, and feet. Another two go to my sides, covering my middle and wrapping around and up my back. Another two go up, crossing over my chest and expanding to my arms and hands. And the last of them goes up my neck, engulfs my face, leaving me breathless and blind as it goes around my head. The second skin tightens, conforming to my shape, sticking to me and becoming like me until it is me. Once it’s fitted itself to the contours of my face, a space opens for my mouth, nose, and eyes. Like the earpiece to help teach me the language of this planet, the suit isn’t particularly comfortable at first, and it takes some getting used to, but I quickly forget it’s there given the current circumstances.
No one looking at me would know I had on a suit at all, its thinness is totally transparent against me, but it protects me from any weapons that my kind has managed to create. Nothing sharp has cut through it. Nothing has been hot enough to burn it. The only thing that could destroy it, and me, would be a rocket the likes of which I just fired from my ship. And most importantly, no one can remove my suit but me, my thumb print being the only thing that can deactivate it.
I pick up the survival bag—a waterproof sack with a cord for me to pull it along—from the floor, giving it a shake to check the weight of it. It feels like it has everything I’ll need for a few days. I can only hope that there are some resources on this planet that I can use, like foods that I can eat and some animal I could hunt. Otherwise, my very last hope lies with the beacon I sent to my planet making it there, and them coming for me quickly.
For now, I need to focus on surviving until they can come. This ship is sinking and I need to get off of it. I look towards the shore about two hundred feet away. Not a long distance with how fast I swim, but I’ve always been taught to respect water. Not just what it provides and gives, but what it takes and the dangers of and in it. I have no idea what animals are in this planet’s waters, or even what awaits me on shore. But I am sure that if I stay here, this ship will become my tomb.
When I open the door, water rushes. I wade into it, and immediately gasp at how cold it is. It’s never this cold at home. I imagine it’d be even colder without my suit on. Tightening my grip on the bag, I take a deep breath and plunge myself under the icy water. I swim towards where I saw the shore, using my legs to propel me forward, hoping I don’t encounter anything before I reach the shore, and that I don’t encounter anyone when I do reach the shore.
As I rise from the water, though, I immediately realize that my hope was misplaced. A line of males, all with what are clearly weapons pointed at me, are there. They all wear the same black garb that I saw on the screen, and they are all head and shoulders shorter than me.
“Not another step!” one of them shouts.
I pretend not to know what he’s said. It’s clear they don’t plan on leaving me be, so better that they don’t know I can understand them. That strategy has kept my people from being harmed many times. Others thinking you don’t know what they’re saying means they’re ignorant enough to say anything around you. Even things about you.
“In the name of The New Order, place your hands in the air!”
I stand still, chest rising and falling with my heavy breaths, looking over each man, deciding how best I could kill each one. And how easy it would be. Not what I planned to do when I got here, but I will defend myself should I need to.
“Perhaps gentlemen, we can try another approach.”
I suspect this man is someone of authority from the way all the males come to attention at the sound of his voice. Then, he steps forward, the males easily parting for him, and his outfit confirms it. Still black, but with a red collar, and red buttons going down his jacket, his chest and shoulders are littered with pinned metals and patches. His outfit makes his already pale skin look almost ghostly. Does he never go into the sun? It beams unbearably hot down on me as I stand here, so surely this planet does not have a deficit of sunlight as some others do.
“General Lockett. I was not aware you were with us,” one of the males says.
He gives him a smile that I can’t help but feel is dripping with condemnation. Already, I don’t like this male.
“I was sent to try diplomacy with our…” He turns and looks at me now. “Visitor.”
“That thing doesn’t understand us.”
“He understood well enough to stay still when you had your guns on him, so I think he understands some.” He spread his hands out wide. “Welcome to Earth. I am General Lockett. And you are?”
I’m Bothaki, but I won’t be telling him that. I only tilt my head and he gives another of those smiles.
“Where did you come from?”
He points to the sky, but I keep my eyes on him instead of looking up.
“We are called humans. What are you?”
Yes, humans, on planet Earth. But are they good or bad? Friend or foe? I’ve been greeted with both weapons and a welcome. Which is true?
“I see.” The male sighs at my lack of response.
“We should kill him right here and now,” one of the males closest to him advises. “We have no idea what his intentions are, but he shot down our missiles. Clearly, he is a danger, and we don’t know if there are more.”
“And since when,” the general starts, turning his intense eyes to the other male, “did The New Order begin asking for the opinions of soldiers regarding how things are run?”
The male nervously swallows and bows his head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t…I meant no—”
The general waves him off and the male scuttles away.
“We have other plans for this … specimen.”
I fight not to arch my brow. In my head, the translation for specimen shows me something very undesirable in my language. I fight the urge to smirk even harder. He has plans for me? Well, whatever they are, they won’t matter the moment I know my people have come for me.
“We only wish to get to know you better,” he says to me. “We will not harm you.”
He waits a few moments for me to respond, and when I don’t, he gives me a tight smile.
“If you all would escort him to the van,” he tells the males around him. “No weapons.”
I could fight. I could probably kill every male here, but I’m no murderer. Those are last resort actions in almost every situation. Someone crash landing on my planet would too have been met with weapons, so I cannot blame them for this. And while I do not at all think this male has as good intentions as he claims, if I fight against him from taking me wherever he intends to, it will only make things worse.
I need only be here when the other Hallans come. My suit will make me aware of it, vibrating against my skin when another of my kind is near.
Or, should that not be the case for whatever reason, I will hear the horns.
The males holster their weapons at their hips and the general watches me with his hands behind his back. They approach me carefully, hands outstretched, although none of them touches me even when they get close enough to. I try to see myself through their eyes, how strange I must appear to them, as they do to me. Now that they’re closer, I find that none of them barely even reaches my chest. Whereas their skins are varying shades of yellow and brown, mine is gray. Their hair is cropped very close to their heads, but my black hair hangs down my back in thin braids. They have small hands and blunt fingers, whereas my hands are large enough to grip their heads, and my fingers end with black claws. I don’t know if they have any markings beneath their clothing, but how then could they identify what families each other belong to without them? My black eyes watch them as they fan out around me, their own eyes, wide and cautious, are white with different colored orbs surrounding a black pupil at the center.
Hazel. Browns. Greens … Blue.
Could it be that--
I cut my thoughts off. This is no time to be thinking of fates and a pair of multicolored eyes that I long to find.
Once the males have formed a semi open circle around and behind me, the general gestures towards the white rectangle waiting beyond the sand of the shore. He, again, smiles, but it still looks just as false. I walk towards the … van, as they called it, the relief of the males around me palpable. The general gets in first, folding his body onto a seat attached to the side of the van, extending his hand to invite me to do the same. I step into the van and it drops down under my weight, creaking as I enter. When I sit on the seat, barely because it’s far too small, the van leans heavily towards my side. I place my bag beside me while two other males get in, sitting beside the general. Another closes the doors from outside.
“Straight to my house,” the general says.
“Yes, sir,” someone in the front of the van, beyond a partition, replies.
The van lurches forward and a ride that I’m sure will be filled with tense stares and silent mouths begins.
TWO
The van turns a corner, the sound under the tires changing from a smooth road to gravel. Curiosity makes me crane my neck to try and see through the small gap in the partition, but all I can see are more vans like this one lining the road we’re on. The van comes to a stop and the general’s eyes drift to me.
If I didn’t know better, I would say there’s a warning in them. For what? To behave? To follow him without question? Not to fight back against something he has waiting for me beyond these doors?
The doors open and their blinding sun shines inside. The two males who rode with us get out first, standing at attention as the general exits the van. The general points towards the ground at his feet, clearly meaning for me to come stand before him. Although, I’m content to act like I cannot understand much of anything here, the arrogant way with which he chooses to instruct me to do things is already starting to annoy me. He thinks I am one of his…I believe he called them soldiers back at the shore.
They behave like paid guards. People meant to do his bidding simply because he utters the words. Little does he know, I could rip his tongue from his mouth before he ever even knew what happened if I didn’t like the words he said.
I stand and tightly grip my bag as I begin walking towards the exit. With my height, even hunching over, my shoulders are touching the roof of the van. I jump down, mere inches from the general. I can see that he tries to hold his ground with me so close to him, but it’s only a few seconds before he clears his throat and takes a step back.
“Right this way,” he says.
He begins walking, and I follow behind him, but my eyes aren’t on his back, and instead on the grounds around me. There is green grass as far as I can see, clearly carefully tended to bushes and flowers, stone monuments spitting out water, and pathways leading toward a structure that looks nothing like what I would call a home. For a second, the movement of clouds overhead draws my gaze upward. The formation of weather is familiar enough to remind me of the skies I should have been flying back into when I would have arrived at Hallalah. But that’s where the similarities end.
Without the scent of the sea, the air is sourer here. And my feet on the ground can sense that it’s just now beginning to thrive again. This planet has seen much destruction, the land and air much toxicity. There is a certain … death here, and it makes me anxious to leave this place, this planet. They have not cherished the gift of water and land. You can’t trust people who misuse the very things that sustain them.
As if I needed another reminder not to trust this male before me, it’s that instead of walking towards the huge doors of what I think is the front of his home, he instead veers to the side, peeking over his shoulder to make sure I’m still following him. We continue down the road for another minute before we reach a door so stark that the sun’s rays bouncing off of it makes me squint. The general knocks twice and someone opens it from the inside. The male’s eyes widen, his mouth dropping open as he takes me in.
“Is everything ready?” the general asks.
It takes the male another second to look away from me and back to the general.
“Yes. I’ve set things up in laboratory two.”
“Ah, right near the library.” The general nods and gives me another smile. I wish he would stop doing so. Each time he does, I dislike him more. He wants something from me. That much is clear. I would have some type of respect for him if he’d just say it instead of pretending as if he has any concern for me beyond how I can benefit him.
“That will make things easier to see just how much he understands.”
The general steps through the door and I follow, even though I feel I shouldn’t. What choice do I have now, though? I need only survive here until my people arrive. I have no idea yet what survival means here.
We go down a steep flight of stairs and then I’m led down one hallway after another, craning my neck to the side so as to not hit my head on the ceiling. I look into the rooms we pass as we go, finding each one is pristine. Nothing out of place, white walls, beds that could never comfortably fit me in them. I also notice not a single one has any windows. We must be underground now.
We stop when we reach a large room, with overhead lights that blaze down on me. I guess this is to be where they’ll keep me. The room has two chairs, and a stack of rectangular cards on the table between them. There’s a sink, with a set of … tools, I think, beside them. Some of them resemble tools we use at home, but they would not be things I allow them to use on me. Between this room and the next, although well hidden within the roof of the space between them, are clearly the ends of some type of steel bars. I’m sure that once I’m in the second room, there’s a way for them to come down, caging me inside.
This whole room is a cage, really, just a nicely fashioned one. I have to fight not to tilt my head as ideas of how I could escape when the time comes fill my mind. But for now, I need to take in everything first.
I look beyond the bars and into the next room, finding a bed, which, from what it looks like is two of the beds I saw in the other rooms put together for my form. White sheets that do not look at all comfortable cover it. There’s a desk across from the bed, and a chair pulled up to it. There is also a large steel bowl protruding from the floor, full of water, with a basin on the back end against the wall. Taps of some sort sprout from it.
Surely, that is not what I think it is.
Surely, they do not use water to eliminate into.
What truly interests me, though, is what I see beyond the thick, transparent glass that makes one wall of my room. Rows and rows of books. Different colors and widths, some books open on tables between the tall shelves. The room seems endless with all the books within it from floor to ceiling. I’ve seen these things before on other planets.
Then, a chair scraps behind me and I remember I am not in a room full of books but being contained in a room of uncertainties. Well then, let what we are truly here for begin.
*
A throat clears as a door clicks shut, and General Lockett takes his eyes away from me for a moment. Long enough to scowl at the young man who returned from a utility room stacked so full of boxes he struggled to get the door open.
I couldn’t help but watch the struggle. These males aren’t exactly providing me with a lot of entertainment.
“I could only find this,” the younger male says, holding a white garment that flaps uselessly above the table.
I can’t stop the curious arch of my own eyebrow at the confusing item. Similar to an overcoat or fancy shawl my kind might use for a special event, the plain white, coarse looking fabric is not at all appealing. Especially when the general takes the item from the male and shoves it in my direction.
The curious lift of my brow deepens into a knot as I stare at the item.
“Take the coat, see if you can put it on—or cover something up,” the general explains, his gaze avoiding the androgenous zones of my lower body that have clearly made some in the bunker uncomfortable. How would they react to the entire lack of modesty beneath my security suit?
The thought almost makes me chuckle.
Still trying to be careful about letting the man in on just how much I understand him, I don’t immediately take what he calls the coat. He waves at his own clothing, and even pulls on the metal buttons of his coat, but his stare doesn’t wander below my middle, and that alone explains a lot.
Unceremoniously, and without any warning, I snatch the coat from General Lockett’s grasp and before he realizes the transaction, I tear the fabric straight down the back of the middle seam. Memories of my grandmother explaining how to tear strips of fabric to fasten for ropes or to braid and turn into bracelets scuttle through the back of mind as I make quick work of turning the item of clothing into something useable for myself. Not that the scratchy fabric is anything I would have chosen to tie around my hips or let cover my intimate areas.
My new loincloth does, on the other hand, help with a few of the avoiding stares in the room. Not that I want them turning on me.
“The moon,” General Lockett says as he goes back to our previous business, and flips over another card from the pile of pictures meant to represent, in my opinion, basic things.
I caught onto the intent easily enough. Mostly because those back home with a fancy for drawing things were known to make similar games meant to teach our children, as few as they are now, how to speak our language. Except I am no child, and even if I had interest in learning that what we call Kahada, they named the moon, I would not tell this human male as much.
“We’ve gone there, Alien,” he tells me, tapping his stubby index fingers against the shiny paper. Proud as can be. It almost makes me laugh. Or scoff. “Back in…”
I choose to tune him out, then.
Why I’d care to hear about his moon landing is beyond me. I am the creature that just traveled through space to land here out of necessity, and he wants to educate me on the moon? A thing my planet has an entire ring of that new pilots learning to fly ships use as practice? Their moon, and sad excuse for space exploration, is not at all impressive.
If anything, it makes them weaker.
Nonetheless, the human drones on and the translator in my ear picks up every word. I might not care to listen, but the device takes in the language and my mind adds the pictures to new words, making certain things easier to decipher and understand. I’ll have a better grasp on his language than he will shortly, depending on how long the human wants to continue his name-the-picture game with the so-called alien.
Oh, yes.
He showed me a picture of one of those, too.
Their aliens look nothing like the ones I know.
“Surely you know this one,” the man says, drawing me back to the conversation even though I would really rather not. Scanning the underground bunker full of glass beakers and glossy, metal tables for an exit plan feels like the better thing to do at the moment. Except it didn’t take me very long to realize after we arrived beneath the man’s massive home that there weren’t any windows to find underground and even fewer doors that didn’t lead straight to cement walls.
Instead of working on my plan, he holds up a black and white image of stick figures. I can tell just by the shape of the figures alone that one is intended to be a male, or man, and the other, a female, or woman. The way the figures in the image hold hands, like lovers might or those of close kin, takes my mind back to a planet where people who look and talk like me and share my blood, have no idea that I am staring this man in his face, wondering when he might get bored and try to kill me.
Not that it would be a successful attempt.
Amusing, however… well, that might be a different story.
His bushy, dark brows lift in anticipation of me possibly lifting my talon-tipped fingernail to point in his direction to say I understand the implication of the figures being humans.
But no.
I let my black gaze linger uncomfortably on him. I can tell the general dislikes the fact that he cannot distinguish where exactly my gaze pinpoints on him because while his pupils follow me acutely, he rarely makes eye contact with me for very long knowing I could be looking at, through or past him all at the same time.
Perhaps, I like that.
I like that he knows, and it’s visceral.
A part of my very being senses how my size, presence, overall appearance, and undoubtedly the unknowns surrounding me are all compounding on the general’s mind as the time passes us by and he gets no closer to chatting with me than when I first emerged from the water. I am a threat, even though I have yet to act like one. I am a problem, even if I am not being one.
Despite the human indulging my silence for hours beneath his home in this lab-slash-bunker with his stack of images meant to entice me into some form of communication, he didn’t let me forget the truth.
He sighs harshly, standing from his side of the metal table in the middle of the room. Pushing in the chair he’d used to sit, he gives me another glance. I, too, was offered one but standing felt more appropriate even if it did leave me closer to the bright lighting overhead than I liked. Especially considering how the human’s guards still fill the main lab space in various doorways and corners, all with weapons held close while their untrusting gazes keep a close watch on me.
All the lighting makes it feel like I’m on a stage. I regret to inform these humans that there will be no show. At least, not one they will like.
“You’re going to have to explain your intentions here,” he tells me.
Again.
At least this time he doesn’t repeat the same spiel about detailing my home planet, the ship I arrived in, and what last entered, or exited, for that matter, my body cavities.
These humans are strange beings.
“Or,” General Lockett says, uttering the word an octave lower and more threatening, “your visit here might become far less pleasant, Alien.”
Well, actually, I am not at all sure that I will enjoy my stay. Nor did I assume he would care if I did.
So, at least that makes two of us.
*
I wish the large cage in the general’s laboratory might be easily explained away, but the males who direct me into the other room offer nothing except the jut of their weapons in my direction. Following their unspoken orders, I walk inside where I know will become the cage. The moment I’ve passed from one space to the other, the bars quickly come down, ensuring I have no way out. I smirk as I look at them, watching how it unnerves the males on the other side of the bars. I’m sure I could escape with the right inspiration and a little time, and some part of them knows that, too. I walk towards the bed, but don’t sit on it, instead standing with a tight grasp on my survival bag that none of them has tried to take.
Yet.
Anything is still a possibility.
General Lockett, having already taken his leave to return to his sprawling home aboveground, ordered the males to remain where they will watch me until told otherwise. I’m not exactly sure how long that is, but the stretch of silence between the human males left to guard me and my unmoving form in the cage is almost unnatural.
“Is it even breathing?” one of the younger males asks another from where they stand near the paneled exit across the room.
I answer that question by turning my head in their direction and letting out a hiss that peels back my upper lip enough to show the enlarged canines that would surely tear the little human’s throat apart. If only I cared to know what their blood tastes like.
“That!” the male shouts suddenly. “You saw that, didn’t you? He heard what I said!”
“I think you mean he understood it, idiot,” the other human on the left replies, dryly.
He doesn’t, however, look towards me.
“Maybe don’t provoke it,” someone else mutters.
Wise, I want to say.
I don’t.
It would be odd to say I can smell their fear, but it’s true. It permeates their sweat, changing the very air in the room the longer the males are locked in the illuminated space with me, and I taste it with every breath. Another time and place, and the feral side of me might consider the weaker males in the room a nuisance needing removed. Considering the current state of my circumstances, that might not be the best option at the moment. Time continues to tick on, but there is no way for me to gauge just how much of it passes before the stationed males begin to take their leave.
I hear earpieces beep around the room at different intervals, calling the humans away one by one until only two are left to shut off the lights of the laboratory, leaving me in darkness swathing the space around me in shadows that I struggle to see through. I don’t even bother to watch them exit behind the sliding panel that will take them back upstairs.
The silence of the lab echoes.
I am truly, and finally, alone.
I only wait a beat or two longer before stretching my legs in the cage by pacing the ten or so strides it takes me to get from one side to the other. At least, I can appreciate the size and girth of my prison, even if the welds into the casing around the floor makes me curious to see if I could tear it apart by putting a bit of pressure--
Don’t get yourself in trouble, Bo.
I can practically hear my father warning me to be mindful of my trouble-finding nature the same way he would when I was a boy that promised to be back before dusk fell.
He never did like that much.
At home, a day stretched on and on …
How long is a day here?
My quiet musings and private thoughts keep me company as I finally open the survival bag to dig for a couple of items that will get me through a bit of time even if it isn’t much. I find my way into the far corner of the cage, knees bent and widened with the bag placed to the cold, stone-like floor between my legs. I eye the space around me a while longer as I palm the items.
One, a sharp, small carving knife.
Perfect for food.
In my other awaits a bulbous bottomed fruit that stores particularly well in long travel thanks to the thick, yellow skin, and also happens to be my favorite from Hallalah. Slicing wedges from my treat, I use the tip of the knife to spear into the fruit before popping it inside my mouth. Nothing about the laboratory is different in the darkness, but without so many pairs of eyes watching me, it’s easier to freely survey the space.
Or what I can see of it.
I highly doubt sleep will find me, and I know my thoughts are correct when I finish my snack, but the last thing on my mind is rest. Instead, I pack away the carving knife and stand to pace the length of the cage again, just a step away from the bars lining my only exit from the floor to the ceiling overhead.
I’m still looking that way when a quiet gasp just a room away has me spinning around inside the cage to face a sight I least expect standing just beyond the wall of glass.
It’s no longer the library and all its books that interest me.
My attention is solely on the female standing within it.
“You have critical fuel reserves remaining,” the computerized voice says.
I stare at the screen, with its blinking warnings of low fuel, and telling me I’m off course. I growl at it as if it’s my ship’s fault that there’s no way I can return home now. Or that a meteor shower cast me off course as I exited a black hole meant to direct me back towards my home planet hours ago.
Hallalah, the motherland, seems an impossible journey now. This pitiful galaxy with its mostly uninhabitable planets and an angry, hot sun-star sucking them closer by the passing seconds makes it impossible for me to imagine how I’ll find somewhere feasible to crash land.
Never mind, live.
“Shall I set a course for the nearest planet?” the voice asks.
I close my eyes, releasing a breath, and hoping it will take my frustration with it. It doesn’t help a bit. I need to figure out what to do and fast. Once my fuel runs out, the ship will start to shut down all functions. And if I have nowhere to land when that begins to happen, I’ll be stuck floating in space until someone finds me.
If someone finds me.
That’s not a good option, either.
I only have enough supplies to last a short while aboard my ship. It could have made the trip between the Star Valley and my home planet after finishing with the crew I left behind to tie up the semantics of shipping home our trade of Emululite for freshwater. We need the minerals in the Emululite to make fuel while the Big Greens—oh, they hate when you call them that—have suffered for a millennium on a poisoned planet with water that rots.
Alas, I’d be starving and freezing by the time anyone from my planet even thought to look for me. I’m not due back for a while, and wanting to surprise my kin by returning from my post early—with good news—I hadn’t informed anyone that I was on my way back in the first place.
The only one truly surprised now is me. That I’m in this situation. That I let myself be caught so unprepared. That I’m now left with no option but to land on the next planet I come across.
But since I have no choice, I open my eyes and begin to do what needs to be done if I want to survive.
“Bring the nearest sustainable planet up on the screen.”
Stars and darkness zoom by until the screen shows me a small planet. Mostly blue with patches of green here and there. Teachings that have been drilled into me all my life come to my mind in an instant.
Water is life. Honor the ground from which life grows.
Blue and green. Water and fertile land. What I need to survive is on this planet, but the presence of life-giving blue and greenery means the planet may already be inhabited. I can land there and use what time my ship has left running to send a beacon home. It will take a while to get here, as this is not any part of the galaxy that we have ever explored and the meteor shower exiting the hole threw me off, but at least I can survive while I wait for them.
When one travels through space at impossible speeds, things are rarely ever definite but most certainly finite.
That’s the one guarantee about the universe. It will go on forever. Meanwhile, I just have to survive until my kind finds me.
“Set a course to the planet.”
“Setting course.”
The ship revs up, speeding through the blue-black, star-speckled space now that it has somewhere to safely take me. I take control as we get closer, though, wanting to make sure this planet actually is safe before I land there. As we approach, I open the channels to pick up any signal that might be coming from the planet. Immediately, words pour through the speakers inside my control room. I can’t understand, but already I see the computer system analyzing whatever language is being spoken, and the screens zoom in on images of the planet appearing.
I slow the ship down while I look them over, needing to be sure I am capable of handling whatever life form awaits me down below. Males and females of different races co-mingle. The females wear black dresses that cover all but their hair and hands with hoods some keep up. Males wear all black outfits that cover them similarly. My brows furrow at how strange this species looks, and the apparent uniformity they have in an effort to look the same.
My kind, the Hallans, so connected to the lands upon which we are born, would never hide under so many layers of garments. It wouldn’t be natural when doing so means covering the markings that denote our birthrights and signify which family we belong to. Despite the modesty additive to the security suit I can wear if needed that leaves certain zones of my body androgenous to the naked eye, making loincloths and other preferred garments unneeded during travel, even the transparent nature of the suit comes from the need to recognize what we’ve always known.
Any Hallan could take one look at the black pigment shaping the contours of my gray flesh of my body and crowning my head and know the blood I come from.
A device lights up on the panel, and I know it means the computer is done unraveling their language to the best of its ability for now. I pick the device up and put it into my ear canal. Like always, I cringe some as the device activates and burrows deeper into my ear. An unpleasant sensation, to be sure, but mostly harmless. I tap behind my ear and it begins emitting the words being spoken.
“The New Order is how we have set the world aright once more,” a male’s voice booms. “We had descended into chaos, but The New Order saved us. Taught us a man and woman’s place in this world. And through our beliefs we were able to pull ourselves, the human race, back from the brink to rebuild our civilization the way it was always meant to be.”
What I decipher first in the mess of words is that these people call themselves humans. It’s not unusual that I have no idea what he’s talking about, since I’m sure I can understand their customs and ways no better than they could mine if they came to my planet, but what does come through in the translation is not anything I particularly like. His words ring…radical.
Maybe here isn’t the best place--
“Shutting down non-essential electronics to conserve power,” the computer warns.
I don’t have a choice. I must land here.
I hit buttons on the panel to chart where exactly I want to come down on this strange planet. Just like I thought, the planet, a third of the size of my own, is mostly water. Something else our planets have in common. Most of where I see land appears to be inhabited in one way or another, and a lot looks to have suffered from wars and destitution if the scars in the land are any indication. I’ll land in the water in an effort not to harm anyone. With any luck, not that I’m particularly hopeful, I won’t be detected and can wait there until my planet sends a ship after me.
Any hope I might have had of that is dashed when the next signal comes through.
“Unidentified spaceship, you’re in Earth airspace. Identify yourself.”
Earth. That’s what this planet is called.
I can’t respond to them, though. Although the translator in my ear allows me to understand their language, I can’t speak it. It would take a few days for me to know it well enough to communicate at all. If I spoke now, it would only be in words and sounds they couldn’t understand.
“Identify yourself. We will not ask again.”
Oh, and then what happens?
Frankly, I can attempt a good guess.
I wonder what kind of technology and weapons they have on this planet. I’m sure nothing that compares to that of my own planet, or even the defenses I have on this ship. But with my fuel low, my shields will be weakened, and using some, or all, of my own weapons will drain the last bit of fuel I have. Fuel needed for my ship to send the beacon home to Hallalah for help once I land.
I’m so close to the planet now that I can see the body of water where I plan to land, and the very top of the trees of the forest beside it. I tap the screen, zeroing in on exactly where I want to come down. Then, I begin the sequence that will send the beacon to my planet, but before I press the final button, the screen flashes red while alarms blare throughout the control room.
“Incoming fire,” the computer informs me.
It shows the two missiles coming straight for my ship, one from each side. I grab the steering and jerk it back, stopping the ship short of the trajectory I see the missiles are on. But the missiles only change their course with mine.
Hmm.
Well, they have better technology than I thought. Still, no match for my ship, though. I only have a moment to eye my fuel level and take a measured risk before I press the button to fire the rockets off the front of my ship. There’s an explosion that lights up the dark sky when the rockets turn the missiles that were seeking me into nothing but ash.
I push the steering as far down as it will go, speeding towards the water, still holding some hope that once my ship is in the water, whoever inhabits this planet won’t be able to spot me.
Different alerts come through the speakers as I descend.
“Fuel levels are nearly depleted.”
“Brace for impact.”
“Incoming fire.”
My ship rocks with the turbulence of entering the planet’s atmosphere. I grit my teeth as I propel towards the sea of crystal blue water, missiles following me, and the fuel needle dropping to just shy of empty. The lights on the screen and panel blink and flicker, a sure sign they’re about to turn off. I fight against the gravity pushing me back in my seat to finish the beacon sequence. Just as I hit the last button necessary, I barely get a chance to see the success message before everything shuts off. I’m all on my own now, not even a ship to help me on this strange planet.
The blue rises towards me, and I wrap my hands around the straps crossing over my chest. Then, I crash into the water so hard that, if it weren’t for the safety straps, I’m sure I would have been thrown straight into the panel and screen. Water splashes over my ship, covering the window. My teeth feel as if they vibrate within my mouth even though I made sure to clench my jaw as I collided into the sea. After a few seconds, the ship begins a steady rocking with the huge waves the crash has caused.
I can barely think straight, but I know I must get away from the ship before any of the life that inhabits this planet finds me. And if their missiles are any indication, they’ll already have some idea of where I am. I unstrap myself and rise on shaky legs to go to the compartment near the exit. Reaching in, I grab the two things I need out of it, putting the bag on the floor while I place the square to my chest. I twist the mechanism on the front of the square to the right to activate the security suit I wear only when I need to leave my ship. Tendrils sprout from it, two going down to cover my groin, backside, legs, and feet. Another two go to my sides, covering my middle and wrapping around and up my back. Another two go up, crossing over my chest and expanding to my arms and hands. And the last of them goes up my neck, engulfs my face, leaving me breathless and blind as it goes around my head. The second skin tightens, conforming to my shape, sticking to me and becoming like me until it is me. Once it’s fitted itself to the contours of my face, a space opens for my mouth, nose, and eyes. Like the earpiece to help teach me the language of this planet, the suit isn’t particularly comfortable at first, and it takes some getting used to, but I quickly forget it’s there given the current circumstances.
No one looking at me would know I had on a suit at all, its thinness is totally transparent against me, but it protects me from any weapons that my kind has managed to create. Nothing sharp has cut through it. Nothing has been hot enough to burn it. The only thing that could destroy it, and me, would be a rocket the likes of which I just fired from my ship. And most importantly, no one can remove my suit but me, my thumb print being the only thing that can deactivate it.
I pick up the survival bag—a waterproof sack with a cord for me to pull it along—from the floor, giving it a shake to check the weight of it. It feels like it has everything I’ll need for a few days. I can only hope that there are some resources on this planet that I can use, like foods that I can eat and some animal I could hunt. Otherwise, my very last hope lies with the beacon I sent to my planet making it there, and them coming for me quickly.
For now, I need to focus on surviving until they can come. This ship is sinking and I need to get off of it. I look towards the shore about two hundred feet away. Not a long distance with how fast I swim, but I’ve always been taught to respect water. Not just what it provides and gives, but what it takes and the dangers of and in it. I have no idea what animals are in this planet’s waters, or even what awaits me on shore. But I am sure that if I stay here, this ship will become my tomb.
When I open the door, water rushes. I wade into it, and immediately gasp at how cold it is. It’s never this cold at home. I imagine it’d be even colder without my suit on. Tightening my grip on the bag, I take a deep breath and plunge myself under the icy water. I swim towards where I saw the shore, using my legs to propel me forward, hoping I don’t encounter anything before I reach the shore, and that I don’t encounter anyone when I do reach the shore.
As I rise from the water, though, I immediately realize that my hope was misplaced. A line of males, all with what are clearly weapons pointed at me, are there. They all wear the same black garb that I saw on the screen, and they are all head and shoulders shorter than me.
“Not another step!” one of them shouts.
I pretend not to know what he’s said. It’s clear they don’t plan on leaving me be, so better that they don’t know I can understand them. That strategy has kept my people from being harmed many times. Others thinking you don’t know what they’re saying means they’re ignorant enough to say anything around you. Even things about you.
“In the name of The New Order, place your hands in the air!”
I stand still, chest rising and falling with my heavy breaths, looking over each man, deciding how best I could kill each one. And how easy it would be. Not what I planned to do when I got here, but I will defend myself should I need to.
“Perhaps gentlemen, we can try another approach.”
I suspect this man is someone of authority from the way all the males come to attention at the sound of his voice. Then, he steps forward, the males easily parting for him, and his outfit confirms it. Still black, but with a red collar, and red buttons going down his jacket, his chest and shoulders are littered with pinned metals and patches. His outfit makes his already pale skin look almost ghostly. Does he never go into the sun? It beams unbearably hot down on me as I stand here, so surely this planet does not have a deficit of sunlight as some others do.
“General Lockett. I was not aware you were with us,” one of the males says.
He gives him a smile that I can’t help but feel is dripping with condemnation. Already, I don’t like this male.
“I was sent to try diplomacy with our…” He turns and looks at me now. “Visitor.”
“That thing doesn’t understand us.”
“He understood well enough to stay still when you had your guns on him, so I think he understands some.” He spread his hands out wide. “Welcome to Earth. I am General Lockett. And you are?”
I’m Bothaki, but I won’t be telling him that. I only tilt my head and he gives another of those smiles.
“Where did you come from?”
He points to the sky, but I keep my eyes on him instead of looking up.
“We are called humans. What are you?”
Yes, humans, on planet Earth. But are they good or bad? Friend or foe? I’ve been greeted with both weapons and a welcome. Which is true?
“I see.” The male sighs at my lack of response.
“We should kill him right here and now,” one of the males closest to him advises. “We have no idea what his intentions are, but he shot down our missiles. Clearly, he is a danger, and we don’t know if there are more.”
“And since when,” the general starts, turning his intense eyes to the other male, “did The New Order begin asking for the opinions of soldiers regarding how things are run?”
The male nervously swallows and bows his head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t…I meant no—”
The general waves him off and the male scuttles away.
“We have other plans for this … specimen.”
I fight not to arch my brow. In my head, the translation for specimen shows me something very undesirable in my language. I fight the urge to smirk even harder. He has plans for me? Well, whatever they are, they won’t matter the moment I know my people have come for me.
“We only wish to get to know you better,” he says to me. “We will not harm you.”
He waits a few moments for me to respond, and when I don’t, he gives me a tight smile.
“If you all would escort him to the van,” he tells the males around him. “No weapons.”
I could fight. I could probably kill every male here, but I’m no murderer. Those are last resort actions in almost every situation. Someone crash landing on my planet would too have been met with weapons, so I cannot blame them for this. And while I do not at all think this male has as good intentions as he claims, if I fight against him from taking me wherever he intends to, it will only make things worse.
I need only be here when the other Hallans come. My suit will make me aware of it, vibrating against my skin when another of my kind is near.
Or, should that not be the case for whatever reason, I will hear the horns.
The males holster their weapons at their hips and the general watches me with his hands behind his back. They approach me carefully, hands outstretched, although none of them touches me even when they get close enough to. I try to see myself through their eyes, how strange I must appear to them, as they do to me. Now that they’re closer, I find that none of them barely even reaches my chest. Whereas their skins are varying shades of yellow and brown, mine is gray. Their hair is cropped very close to their heads, but my black hair hangs down my back in thin braids. They have small hands and blunt fingers, whereas my hands are large enough to grip their heads, and my fingers end with black claws. I don’t know if they have any markings beneath their clothing, but how then could they identify what families each other belong to without them? My black eyes watch them as they fan out around me, their own eyes, wide and cautious, are white with different colored orbs surrounding a black pupil at the center.
Hazel. Browns. Greens … Blue.
Could it be that--
I cut my thoughts off. This is no time to be thinking of fates and a pair of multicolored eyes that I long to find.
Once the males have formed a semi open circle around and behind me, the general gestures towards the white rectangle waiting beyond the sand of the shore. He, again, smiles, but it still looks just as false. I walk towards the … van, as they called it, the relief of the males around me palpable. The general gets in first, folding his body onto a seat attached to the side of the van, extending his hand to invite me to do the same. I step into the van and it drops down under my weight, creaking as I enter. When I sit on the seat, barely because it’s far too small, the van leans heavily towards my side. I place my bag beside me while two other males get in, sitting beside the general. Another closes the doors from outside.
“Straight to my house,” the general says.
“Yes, sir,” someone in the front of the van, beyond a partition, replies.
The van lurches forward and a ride that I’m sure will be filled with tense stares and silent mouths begins.
TWO
The van turns a corner, the sound under the tires changing from a smooth road to gravel. Curiosity makes me crane my neck to try and see through the small gap in the partition, but all I can see are more vans like this one lining the road we’re on. The van comes to a stop and the general’s eyes drift to me.
If I didn’t know better, I would say there’s a warning in them. For what? To behave? To follow him without question? Not to fight back against something he has waiting for me beyond these doors?
The doors open and their blinding sun shines inside. The two males who rode with us get out first, standing at attention as the general exits the van. The general points towards the ground at his feet, clearly meaning for me to come stand before him. Although, I’m content to act like I cannot understand much of anything here, the arrogant way with which he chooses to instruct me to do things is already starting to annoy me. He thinks I am one of his…I believe he called them soldiers back at the shore.
They behave like paid guards. People meant to do his bidding simply because he utters the words. Little does he know, I could rip his tongue from his mouth before he ever even knew what happened if I didn’t like the words he said.
I stand and tightly grip my bag as I begin walking towards the exit. With my height, even hunching over, my shoulders are touching the roof of the van. I jump down, mere inches from the general. I can see that he tries to hold his ground with me so close to him, but it’s only a few seconds before he clears his throat and takes a step back.
“Right this way,” he says.
He begins walking, and I follow behind him, but my eyes aren’t on his back, and instead on the grounds around me. There is green grass as far as I can see, clearly carefully tended to bushes and flowers, stone monuments spitting out water, and pathways leading toward a structure that looks nothing like what I would call a home. For a second, the movement of clouds overhead draws my gaze upward. The formation of weather is familiar enough to remind me of the skies I should have been flying back into when I would have arrived at Hallalah. But that’s where the similarities end.
Without the scent of the sea, the air is sourer here. And my feet on the ground can sense that it’s just now beginning to thrive again. This planet has seen much destruction, the land and air much toxicity. There is a certain … death here, and it makes me anxious to leave this place, this planet. They have not cherished the gift of water and land. You can’t trust people who misuse the very things that sustain them.
As if I needed another reminder not to trust this male before me, it’s that instead of walking towards the huge doors of what I think is the front of his home, he instead veers to the side, peeking over his shoulder to make sure I’m still following him. We continue down the road for another minute before we reach a door so stark that the sun’s rays bouncing off of it makes me squint. The general knocks twice and someone opens it from the inside. The male’s eyes widen, his mouth dropping open as he takes me in.
“Is everything ready?” the general asks.
It takes the male another second to look away from me and back to the general.
“Yes. I’ve set things up in laboratory two.”
“Ah, right near the library.” The general nods and gives me another smile. I wish he would stop doing so. Each time he does, I dislike him more. He wants something from me. That much is clear. I would have some type of respect for him if he’d just say it instead of pretending as if he has any concern for me beyond how I can benefit him.
“That will make things easier to see just how much he understands.”
The general steps through the door and I follow, even though I feel I shouldn’t. What choice do I have now, though? I need only survive here until my people arrive. I have no idea yet what survival means here.
We go down a steep flight of stairs and then I’m led down one hallway after another, craning my neck to the side so as to not hit my head on the ceiling. I look into the rooms we pass as we go, finding each one is pristine. Nothing out of place, white walls, beds that could never comfortably fit me in them. I also notice not a single one has any windows. We must be underground now.
We stop when we reach a large room, with overhead lights that blaze down on me. I guess this is to be where they’ll keep me. The room has two chairs, and a stack of rectangular cards on the table between them. There’s a sink, with a set of … tools, I think, beside them. Some of them resemble tools we use at home, but they would not be things I allow them to use on me. Between this room and the next, although well hidden within the roof of the space between them, are clearly the ends of some type of steel bars. I’m sure that once I’m in the second room, there’s a way for them to come down, caging me inside.
This whole room is a cage, really, just a nicely fashioned one. I have to fight not to tilt my head as ideas of how I could escape when the time comes fill my mind. But for now, I need to take in everything first.
I look beyond the bars and into the next room, finding a bed, which, from what it looks like is two of the beds I saw in the other rooms put together for my form. White sheets that do not look at all comfortable cover it. There’s a desk across from the bed, and a chair pulled up to it. There is also a large steel bowl protruding from the floor, full of water, with a basin on the back end against the wall. Taps of some sort sprout from it.
Surely, that is not what I think it is.
Surely, they do not use water to eliminate into.
What truly interests me, though, is what I see beyond the thick, transparent glass that makes one wall of my room. Rows and rows of books. Different colors and widths, some books open on tables between the tall shelves. The room seems endless with all the books within it from floor to ceiling. I’ve seen these things before on other planets.
Then, a chair scraps behind me and I remember I am not in a room full of books but being contained in a room of uncertainties. Well then, let what we are truly here for begin.
*
A throat clears as a door clicks shut, and General Lockett takes his eyes away from me for a moment. Long enough to scowl at the young man who returned from a utility room stacked so full of boxes he struggled to get the door open.
I couldn’t help but watch the struggle. These males aren’t exactly providing me with a lot of entertainment.
“I could only find this,” the younger male says, holding a white garment that flaps uselessly above the table.
I can’t stop the curious arch of my own eyebrow at the confusing item. Similar to an overcoat or fancy shawl my kind might use for a special event, the plain white, coarse looking fabric is not at all appealing. Especially when the general takes the item from the male and shoves it in my direction.
The curious lift of my brow deepens into a knot as I stare at the item.
“Take the coat, see if you can put it on—or cover something up,” the general explains, his gaze avoiding the androgenous zones of my lower body that have clearly made some in the bunker uncomfortable. How would they react to the entire lack of modesty beneath my security suit?
The thought almost makes me chuckle.
Still trying to be careful about letting the man in on just how much I understand him, I don’t immediately take what he calls the coat. He waves at his own clothing, and even pulls on the metal buttons of his coat, but his stare doesn’t wander below my middle, and that alone explains a lot.
Unceremoniously, and without any warning, I snatch the coat from General Lockett’s grasp and before he realizes the transaction, I tear the fabric straight down the back of the middle seam. Memories of my grandmother explaining how to tear strips of fabric to fasten for ropes or to braid and turn into bracelets scuttle through the back of mind as I make quick work of turning the item of clothing into something useable for myself. Not that the scratchy fabric is anything I would have chosen to tie around my hips or let cover my intimate areas.
My new loincloth does, on the other hand, help with a few of the avoiding stares in the room. Not that I want them turning on me.
“The moon,” General Lockett says as he goes back to our previous business, and flips over another card from the pile of pictures meant to represent, in my opinion, basic things.
I caught onto the intent easily enough. Mostly because those back home with a fancy for drawing things were known to make similar games meant to teach our children, as few as they are now, how to speak our language. Except I am no child, and even if I had interest in learning that what we call Kahada, they named the moon, I would not tell this human male as much.
“We’ve gone there, Alien,” he tells me, tapping his stubby index fingers against the shiny paper. Proud as can be. It almost makes me laugh. Or scoff. “Back in…”
I choose to tune him out, then.
Why I’d care to hear about his moon landing is beyond me. I am the creature that just traveled through space to land here out of necessity, and he wants to educate me on the moon? A thing my planet has an entire ring of that new pilots learning to fly ships use as practice? Their moon, and sad excuse for space exploration, is not at all impressive.
If anything, it makes them weaker.
Nonetheless, the human drones on and the translator in my ear picks up every word. I might not care to listen, but the device takes in the language and my mind adds the pictures to new words, making certain things easier to decipher and understand. I’ll have a better grasp on his language than he will shortly, depending on how long the human wants to continue his name-the-picture game with the so-called alien.
Oh, yes.
He showed me a picture of one of those, too.
Their aliens look nothing like the ones I know.
“Surely you know this one,” the man says, drawing me back to the conversation even though I would really rather not. Scanning the underground bunker full of glass beakers and glossy, metal tables for an exit plan feels like the better thing to do at the moment. Except it didn’t take me very long to realize after we arrived beneath the man’s massive home that there weren’t any windows to find underground and even fewer doors that didn’t lead straight to cement walls.
Instead of working on my plan, he holds up a black and white image of stick figures. I can tell just by the shape of the figures alone that one is intended to be a male, or man, and the other, a female, or woman. The way the figures in the image hold hands, like lovers might or those of close kin, takes my mind back to a planet where people who look and talk like me and share my blood, have no idea that I am staring this man in his face, wondering when he might get bored and try to kill me.
Not that it would be a successful attempt.
Amusing, however… well, that might be a different story.
His bushy, dark brows lift in anticipation of me possibly lifting my talon-tipped fingernail to point in his direction to say I understand the implication of the figures being humans.
But no.
I let my black gaze linger uncomfortably on him. I can tell the general dislikes the fact that he cannot distinguish where exactly my gaze pinpoints on him because while his pupils follow me acutely, he rarely makes eye contact with me for very long knowing I could be looking at, through or past him all at the same time.
Perhaps, I like that.
I like that he knows, and it’s visceral.
A part of my very being senses how my size, presence, overall appearance, and undoubtedly the unknowns surrounding me are all compounding on the general’s mind as the time passes us by and he gets no closer to chatting with me than when I first emerged from the water. I am a threat, even though I have yet to act like one. I am a problem, even if I am not being one.
Despite the human indulging my silence for hours beneath his home in this lab-slash-bunker with his stack of images meant to entice me into some form of communication, he didn’t let me forget the truth.
He sighs harshly, standing from his side of the metal table in the middle of the room. Pushing in the chair he’d used to sit, he gives me another glance. I, too, was offered one but standing felt more appropriate even if it did leave me closer to the bright lighting overhead than I liked. Especially considering how the human’s guards still fill the main lab space in various doorways and corners, all with weapons held close while their untrusting gazes keep a close watch on me.
All the lighting makes it feel like I’m on a stage. I regret to inform these humans that there will be no show. At least, not one they will like.
“You’re going to have to explain your intentions here,” he tells me.
Again.
At least this time he doesn’t repeat the same spiel about detailing my home planet, the ship I arrived in, and what last entered, or exited, for that matter, my body cavities.
These humans are strange beings.
“Or,” General Lockett says, uttering the word an octave lower and more threatening, “your visit here might become far less pleasant, Alien.”
Well, actually, I am not at all sure that I will enjoy my stay. Nor did I assume he would care if I did.
So, at least that makes two of us.
*
I wish the large cage in the general’s laboratory might be easily explained away, but the males who direct me into the other room offer nothing except the jut of their weapons in my direction. Following their unspoken orders, I walk inside where I know will become the cage. The moment I’ve passed from one space to the other, the bars quickly come down, ensuring I have no way out. I smirk as I look at them, watching how it unnerves the males on the other side of the bars. I’m sure I could escape with the right inspiration and a little time, and some part of them knows that, too. I walk towards the bed, but don’t sit on it, instead standing with a tight grasp on my survival bag that none of them has tried to take.
Yet.
Anything is still a possibility.
General Lockett, having already taken his leave to return to his sprawling home aboveground, ordered the males to remain where they will watch me until told otherwise. I’m not exactly sure how long that is, but the stretch of silence between the human males left to guard me and my unmoving form in the cage is almost unnatural.
“Is it even breathing?” one of the younger males asks another from where they stand near the paneled exit across the room.
I answer that question by turning my head in their direction and letting out a hiss that peels back my upper lip enough to show the enlarged canines that would surely tear the little human’s throat apart. If only I cared to know what their blood tastes like.
“That!” the male shouts suddenly. “You saw that, didn’t you? He heard what I said!”
“I think you mean he understood it, idiot,” the other human on the left replies, dryly.
He doesn’t, however, look towards me.
“Maybe don’t provoke it,” someone else mutters.
Wise, I want to say.
I don’t.
It would be odd to say I can smell their fear, but it’s true. It permeates their sweat, changing the very air in the room the longer the males are locked in the illuminated space with me, and I taste it with every breath. Another time and place, and the feral side of me might consider the weaker males in the room a nuisance needing removed. Considering the current state of my circumstances, that might not be the best option at the moment. Time continues to tick on, but there is no way for me to gauge just how much of it passes before the stationed males begin to take their leave.
I hear earpieces beep around the room at different intervals, calling the humans away one by one until only two are left to shut off the lights of the laboratory, leaving me in darkness swathing the space around me in shadows that I struggle to see through. I don’t even bother to watch them exit behind the sliding panel that will take them back upstairs.
The silence of the lab echoes.
I am truly, and finally, alone.
I only wait a beat or two longer before stretching my legs in the cage by pacing the ten or so strides it takes me to get from one side to the other. At least, I can appreciate the size and girth of my prison, even if the welds into the casing around the floor makes me curious to see if I could tear it apart by putting a bit of pressure--
Don’t get yourself in trouble, Bo.
I can practically hear my father warning me to be mindful of my trouble-finding nature the same way he would when I was a boy that promised to be back before dusk fell.
He never did like that much.
At home, a day stretched on and on …
How long is a day here?
My quiet musings and private thoughts keep me company as I finally open the survival bag to dig for a couple of items that will get me through a bit of time even if it isn’t much. I find my way into the far corner of the cage, knees bent and widened with the bag placed to the cold, stone-like floor between my legs. I eye the space around me a while longer as I palm the items.
One, a sharp, small carving knife.
Perfect for food.
In my other awaits a bulbous bottomed fruit that stores particularly well in long travel thanks to the thick, yellow skin, and also happens to be my favorite from Hallalah. Slicing wedges from my treat, I use the tip of the knife to spear into the fruit before popping it inside my mouth. Nothing about the laboratory is different in the darkness, but without so many pairs of eyes watching me, it’s easier to freely survey the space.
Or what I can see of it.
I highly doubt sleep will find me, and I know my thoughts are correct when I finish my snack, but the last thing on my mind is rest. Instead, I pack away the carving knife and stand to pace the length of the cage again, just a step away from the bars lining my only exit from the floor to the ceiling overhead.
I’m still looking that way when a quiet gasp just a room away has me spinning around inside the cage to face a sight I least expect standing just beyond the wall of glass.
It’s no longer the library and all its books that interest me.
My attention is solely on the female standing within it.