Alyssa

OK. Wow. Holy crap.

What just happened here?

One moment I was in that sterile room back in the New York DNA Clinic, and the next the transporter completely screwed up and I felt like I was going to die for sure. Then just seconds later I popped back into reality again … only it wasn’t the sort of reality I was expecting from the super-advanced and technologically proficient Firosans.

Not at all.

I press my palm against the sliding door to the teleportation receiver and slide it to the left. It jams, which gives me a jolt of fear that I am going to be stuck here forever, but after a swift kick to dislodge it, it slides the whole way and I squeeze out.

Into a room that is half the white walls of an ex-laboratory, and half … well, the great outdoors. Thick green vines curl around the crumbling walls, with big flat leaves that look as sharp as razors and, behind them, thick tree trunks that look almost like they would fit in on Earth but some are wide and tall as apartment blocks.

I look above me, away from what remains of the teleportation room, and to the rest of the planet, and I swallow hard. I am in the middle of nowhere. Tropical plants with thick, juicy-looking fruits hang above me, and the air is sweet-smelling and crackling with living energy.

The laboratory might be abandoned, but the planet sure isn’t devoid of life.

I have nothing else to do, so I begin to walk, trailing my fingertips against the cool green plantlife, more lush than anything I have ever experienced in Manhattan, and breathing in air that feels cleaner than anything anywhere on my polluted homeplanet.

It feels as though I am in some sort of a rainforest, one that hasn’t seen the touch of a sentient life in many a year, but that can’t be right. Earth has plenty of constant contact with the planet of Paxia … and that’s where I am, right?

Right?

I stop walking, resting my hand on one of those crazy thick tree trunks and for a second I swear I can feel a thumping deep from within, like the tree is truly alive. But that’s crazy, so I pull my hand away and cross my arms across my thin jacket, spinning in a small circle in the spot.

Nothing different in any direction. The only thing that breaks up the monotony of a brown and green landscape — sure I would find it totally beautiful if I weren’t lost and doomed in the middle of it — is the teleportation tube that I poofed into!

I am so frustrated that I consider just sitting down on the dirt and resting my forehead on my knees, but is that what my parents would do? Is that the woman they raised?

Hell no.

My father was a marine, and he gave me his richly dark skin color. Not completely, though; I was balanced out by my pale-as-paper Irish mother, and my coloring settled on a burnt sienna. I have long hair, black as my father’s, but with soft waves that I got from my mother. I tuck it behind my ears and smooth down my wrinkled clothing.

Tears prick at my eyes as I look up at the warm light filtered through the rustling canopy. It’s truly beautiful here. My mother would love it.

My mother is the reason I’m here.

I wish I could have brought her — she would take me by the arm and march me through the trees, poke every alien plant with a gasp, and pull the delicious fruit from the winding vines, break it in half, and inhale deeply. My mother was not — is not — afraid of anything, and she put my marine father to shame more than once.

The memories bring a smile to my face, and I remember to be strong. I stand up, brush the dirt from my jeans, and begin to walk again, circling the teleportation pod and its crumbled borders and sweeping my long dark hair into a high ponytail.

If this were Earth I would know what to do. I could make a compass using a hairpin and a goddamn leaf. I’m so far from a helpless little girl. But here? Even if I knew where north was, what would that help? There could be nobody on this planet; nobody sentient anyway. The thought gives me chills.

What alien horrors could this planet be holding? I was expecting a brand new life, alright, but it was one filled with bureaucracy, political intrigue, the occasional space battle. I have to admit — I was pretty excited about living life on an active military base again, having been an army brat growing up, but this?

Where the hell am I?

First things: I know that the water on this planet is perfectly drinkable, and the thriving plant life all around me proves that there is a water source nearby. Probably a huge one. I walk in concentric circles from my origin point until I find a cluster of thick flying insects, just like those found on Earth, but they are circular and a bright, glimmering blue like dragonflies. I avoid them, not knowing what kind of defense mechanisms they might have and not wanting to find out, but I wander from cluster to cluster. More life means water.

And then finally I come across it: a beautiful, serene and picturesque body of water that stretches on for a half mile ahead of me. Beyond it are some short mountains, and behind those there hangs a big orange-ish planet or moon in the bright sky. I stare for a while, taking in all the breathtaking beauty. The birds here have a sweet, confident song that I have never heard before, and round, flat fish burst from the surface of the water, spray shimmering droplets, and then plop back into the lake.

To my right on the lake’s bed are three animals that remind me the most of hyenas. They are yellow like the thick reeds behind them, and they have dark brown lashings over them in a sparse stripy pattern. Their muzzles are long and they have large fangs that curve like scimitars. They would terrify me if they were closer, but they are serenely lapping at the water. One of their young — and it’s really cute and fuzzy — takes a tumble and rolls into the shallows, and its mother grips its scruff and carries it back to the dry dirt before resuming drinking.

After I take a quick drink to alleviate my thirst, I am caught up in staring for so long that I don’t hear it when the final member of the pack sneaks up on me from behind...

I wheel around fast at the sound of a snapping branch, and the strong front paws on my chest send me crashing into the peaceful lake. I struggle under the surface in shock for a moment — no idea what else is in here with me — before I find the right way up again and splash back to dry land, coughing.

I cannot see the predator anymore, but I certainly didn’t imagine the thump of its powerful paws against my sore ribcage, so with one last wheeze I get myself to the low hanging branch of the nearest tree and haul myself up, dripping water as I go.

I just about bring my second leg up with me when the space-hyena launches from the reeds, where it was just completely camouflaged, using its incredibly powerful back legs to jump maybe ten full feet and miss me by inches. I stifle a shriek and instead yank myself up to the second branch. It looks too burly to me to be good at slinking around on tree branches, but its jump is high as hell and I need to be clear of that.

The hyena hunkers down, yellow eyes on me, and wiggles its butt like a cat ready to pounce. I draw myself up and press my back against the trunk, unable to get any higher, and curse under my breath.

“Fuluhk-canaar!”

At this nearby sound, the hyena pauses its hunter’s wiggle and turns away, and I use that opportunity to shimmy around to the other side of the massive trunk to break its line of sight.

Just as I am a few inches from grasping the next highest tree branch, I spot a purplish blur. Something large and two-legged launches straight at the hyena and they tumble through the wet underbrush, a flash of two opposing colors and twin growls.

Perhaps the food chain on Paxia is far more complicated than it is on Earth, because that impossibly strong hyena seemed to me to be more than enough to take out any nearby prey. But whatever this purple creature is, I’m betting I’m no safer now — in fact I may instead be face to face with the apex predator.

The scuffle disappears into the bushes and then I hear a sound like the crackling of electricity, a high-pitched whine, and then … a man stands to his full height and wades from the foliage into full view, his bright amber eyes scanning left and right.

And then they land on mine, and his face hardens while I melt with relief.

“You saved me,” I say, uncertainly. I know from pictures that he is a member of the Mahdfel species — the aliens that saved us from the Suhlik wars, which I am too young to really remember. He is the first one of this color I’ve ever seen before, though; he is a deep, rich purple color like some kind of delicious ripe fruit.

The Mahdfel aren’t aggressive to those that show no aggression; that would be completely against their nature, so I feel OK with revealing my position and gently lowering myself to the bottom branch, where I sit and blow out my cheeks.

First he says something that I have no hope of understanding, all guttural noises and hoarse sounds, and then slowly it morphs inside my ears into understandable English. The tiny earpiece they fitted me with at the DNA clinic is a translator, and it’s whirring to life.

“...irresponsible of you,” he finishes, and then turns away. He is clad in tight, dark leather pants and a loose tunic that reveals most of his thickly muscled purple chest. I stare at what must be almost seven feet of him, from his defined mountaineer’s calves up to his sharp, angular, handsome facial features.

“What did I do wrong?” I ask. I genuinely want to know, because I feel like I couldn’t really have done much better in this situation than climb and hide, but it must come out a little bit sneery because he narrows his golden eyes.

“You left the laboratory unaccompanied,” he tells me.

“Left the … laboratory?” I repeat. “Have you seen the place recently?”

There is a silence that crackles between us like the energy he discharged from the thick weapon in his hand into the hyena. “Why?” he says finally.

“Let me show you.” I hop onto the ground, careful to glance around for any glowing eyes in the bushes nearby before I do. “Where is everybody? I thought Paxia was pretty bustling. I expected ambassadors to greet me, but…” I gesture around. “It just looks like total wilderness.”

“It does,” he agreed, his voice low as he strides to catch up with me, clearing several yards in just a couple of steps. I am surprised by the tone of his voice so I look over to him.

“What … what happened to your planet? And are you an ambassador, or what?”

He returns the look, but then he looks away even faster. “I am a general, not an ambassador,” he says gruffly. I wonder if I have touched a nerve, but it would be ridiculous of him to be offended by a stranger’s curiosity. “And this is not my planet. This is not Paxia.”

I blink a couple of times and look around again, but the trees hold no answers. “Well … where are we, then?”

The Mahdfel stops suddenly and sticks out his hand to stop me in my tracks too. He leans in closer, just a little, but enough so that I inhale a noseful of his masculine, earthy scent, and points across the water we have just passed by. To the orange planet I spotted earlier. “That is Paxia,” he says. “We are on the moon. Aeo.”

“We’re on the fricking moon?” I repeat. “Talk about taking a wrong turn. How did that happen? I’m meant to meet someone on Paxia.” I squint at the planet. I have no sense at all of how far away it is, but it’s not like I can just hop on some public transport.

“I am aware of that,” he grunts, and starts moving again. “Keep up.”

I trot back to his side and have to continue jogging every four steps or so to keep up with his unforgiving pace. “You know? How?”

“You are the second human in the Firosan system. The second viable female. I am under the King of Paxia’s orders to get you back safe and sound to maintain our relationship with Earth.”

“Ah,” I say. “So you know who I’m meant to be, y’know, hooking up with?” I scrunch up my nose at the strange way I’ve found myself talking, but he is so stilted and uninterested that I seem to have gone super casual to make up for it.

“Do I know who your mate is?” he confirms. I nod. His gait slows as he thinks about the answer to this question, his eyes narrowed and darting across the forest floor ahead of us. I watch and wait with interest, half-tripping across the vines. “I know him,” he says finally. His tone is strange, but I put that down to the translator. “He is … back on the planet. I will bring you to him.”

He looks unconvinced by what he has said, but I don’t have time to unpick that. I realize, as soon as he says it, that I am disappointed somehow. My mate is not this capable, powerful, beautiful man, but somebody else entirely.

Somebody who couldn’t even be bothered to come and get me himself?

“I’m Alyssa,” I offer. “What’s your name?”

He looks at me, and holsters his weapon for the time being, before drawing up to his full height and staring out over the foliage. I watch his jaw clench as he watches for danger, and I dismiss the interest I feel deep inside, warming me from my core outward. He is not the one for me. My prince is in another castle.

“Tyr,” he says after a moment of silence. “General Tyr.”

I wipe my dirty palm on my jeans before offering it to him. “Nice to meet you, General,” I say. He looks at my hand as though I am dangling a strange alien creature in front of his face, and then he looks back at my face.

“I’m sure it is,” he says, and then he continues to walk.