Dr. Christina Evans (MD)
I clutched the picture of Luke tightly as the Verian man, who could scarcely move, forced me along with the butt of his laser. What the hell had I been thinking, helping the enemy like that? But I had taken an oath long ago to help anybody who needed it, and to me, that meant far more than letting a helpless man suffer and die right in front of me.
Besides, he had looked almost beautiful at the time when I’d found him, with his long silver hair glittering in the moonlight. His pale skin was flawless, and I knew that beneath his fluttering eyelids lurked a pair of otherworldly eyes that might just be able to see right through me. It was an odd sensation to have, just seeing someone for the first time, but it was overwhelming nonetheless, and I found myself drawn to the man, certain that if he needed me in any way, I would gladly serve him.
At first, I had been afraid he was dead. His handsome face had a type of stillness rarely found in the living, but it was lacking something else telling of death – a sense of peace. I could almost hear his mind working, even through his lack of consciousness, and when I had placed my hand over his heart, I was shocked to feel it faintly beating.
I didn’t know how different Verian anatomy was, but I knew that it couldn’t be much. There were rumors that Verians and humans could mate and breed, and evidence of those rumors supposedly existed in secret encampments in the outskirts, far away from the Zones authorized by the military for protection. According to those rumors, some Verians and humans had even mated and considered each other soul mates, living in happy families in homes with children who thrived.
My scientific mind was fascinated by the possibility, and I had secretly been hoping that, somewhere along my journey to find Luke, I would eventually find myself in one of these camps for myself, to find out just how it was possible for Verians and humans to coexist.
Apparently, I had romanticized Verian men a little bit too much, because I had made a lethal mistake in showing my pity to this one.
I don’t know what made me stop when I saw his ethereal body lying limp in the grass. He looked dead already. The only sign of life was his faint heartbeat. I took his pulse immediately after, which, I had learned in medical school, was actually found in the crown of the head, above the elaborate ridge of bone that gave the Verians their regal, almost beautiful poise.
“This way,” the Verian man said, hissing in pain as he stepped on his leg wrong.
“Serves you right,” I grumbled. “Don’t bend your knee so much.”
He glanced back at me, a pale eyebrow raised, but said nothing as he turned away and continued to lead me toward his ship. He had no fear that I would flee, as if he knew that his condition was no match for the weapon he liked to keep close to my flesh. I allowed him to lead without making any attempt to escape. All he had to do was aim that thing and I wouldn’t even have a body left behind to bury. My parents had both been killed by Verian weapons technology. It was horrifically efficient, the way their weapons worked. I guessed they didn’t want the planet to be cluttered with bodies when they won the war and eventually moved in.
“In here,” the Verian man said, his obnoxiously handsome face stern as he lifted one of his arms. I was confused for a moment until I realized that he was pointing into a clearing. There was nothing in it, and I raised an eyebrow at him silently. This appeared to fluster him, but he said nothing and gestured to the open field again.
“All right,” I said with a sigh, walking forward. My foot struck something hard, and I cursed under my breath. The Verian let out a chuckle: one that made my blood boil.
“What?” he asked innocently, his handsome face impish and provocative when I glared fiercely at him. I could have slapped him.
“You know, you don’t actually have to act like an ass just because you don’t like humans,” I grumbled, leaning down to check my foot. If I was hurt now, it could be very problematic in the future, especially if I ever hoped to escape from this ridiculous situation. There was no telling what I would encounter.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, clearing his throat and taking a small dial out of his pocket. He fiddled with it for a few moments, and a humungous ship appeared suddenly in front of us. “Get inside. And mind your manners. I’m a high-ranking officer, you know.”
“I bet,” I snorted, walking toward the entrance of the ship as it opened slowly before me.
He waited patiently, almost courteously, for me to step onto the long ramp before joining me. We rode up into the huge vessel together, and I glanced down at his foot. It seemed to have gotten worse over the journey. If he wasn’t careful with it, he might ruin his chances for recovery. But that wasn’t any of my business. My willingness to help this man had gotten me into this situation. There was no way it was going to do me any favors now.
“You’re going to have to stay in the cell until we arrive on Helna,” the Verian man said, his deep voice much closer behind me than I thought it would be. It sent unwanted thrills throughout my body, and I shuddered despite myself. I hadn’t expected my first one-on-one experience with a Verian to be with a man quite so handsome. Too bad his personality didn’t match his looks.
“Would it offend you if that didn’t surprise me?” I retorted. My hand found its way into my pocket again and brushed up against the picture of Luke. My heart felt like it was being ripped in half as I suddenly realized that being abducted meant my search for my little brother was over.
“Not in the least. I doubt anything a human could say would ever offend me,” the man said, fixing a charming smile on me. I was dazzled despite myself but turned away quickly. If he realized how stupidly attracted to him I happened to be, who knew what kind of stupidity that might stir up? The last thing I needed was to have a captor with an ego trip.
He led me deep into the ship and deposited me into a tiny room with a long cot and a small bathroom. It looked as if it had never been used before, and I gazed at him as he carefully pulled the barred door closed and locked it, staring hard at the control panel as if to ensure that he was doing it properly.
“Let me guess,” I said, wishing, not for the first time in my life, that I would just shut up. Apparently, I had a death wish, because every time I got nervous, I would babble. “I’m your first human!”
The Verian’s crystal-like lavender eyes caught mine and the hint of a smile creased his lips. “You are correct. My job doesn’t give me a lot of time on the field. I have a lot of other responsibilities.”
“You do realize what a jerk it makes you to abduct someone who was only trying to help you, right?” I went on, kicking myself for the words that just seemed to want to spill out of my mouth without any consideration for my safety. “I really don’t think you should be walking around like that.”
The Verian just pursed his lips and limped away quietly, reaching into his belt for a square device. He held it to his lips and cleared his throat before speaking.
“Mission successfully accomplished. Operation Super-Soldier underway, times one.”
“Understood,” a growling voice said from the device. I winced – it was a much more unpleasant voice than that of my captor. I had a feeling that he would have been much crueler if I had encountered him than the simple Verian man who I had happened to stumble upon. Would I have wanted to help him the same way I had helped this man? It didn’t matter. Either way, I was stuck now.
“There isn’t any room left in the cells for any more females. We will have to keep her with the males.”
“Is that really necessary?” my captor exclaimed, a deep frown on his face. “You know how dangerous that is.”
“Well unless you have any other options, then yes, I’m completely serious, Jaize.”
Jaize. So that was my captor’s name. It seemed to suit him. It was strong, as he clearly was, but also mysterious and enigmatic. I realized suddenly that I had hundreds of questions for the man, not least of which, why were women from Earth so highly coveted on the planet Helna, and would I ever be allowed to return back to my planet?
When Jaize was done speaking with his superior, I couldn’t stop myself from calling to him.
“Don’t you find it wrong to kidnap me when I was only trying to help you?”
The man didn’t answer, and anger was stirred in my breast. “I need to find my brother, you son of a bitch!”
Again, no answer. He simply nodded slightly at me and left the room, leaving me with more questions than I’d had to begin with.
***
The trip to the planet Helna was eerily quiet, and I found myself singing songs from my childhood, both to pass the time and to keep myself sane, until we finally arrived.
When Jaize opened the doors of my small cell and led me to the door, we were again quiet. I had lost all my will to talk to him. No matter how attractive and interesting he might have been, he had done the unforgivable. He had interrupted my search for my little brother. The only family I had left might as well have been dead for all I knew, and there was nothing I would ever be able to do about it. It was beyond agonizing.
“Look, a human!”
“She looks like your mom.”
“Shut up!”
I grimaced as I was pulled forward by the tight chain locked around both of my wrists, and looked around for the source of the small voices. I gasped, realizing that they were the voices of children who clearly had been products of inter-species breeding. Their smiles were wide, and their eyes a brilliant rainbow of colors. Unlike the Verians, their skin tones were not quite so milky white but had a ruddy undertone of copper that made them look very vibrant in comparison to both human and Verian alike.
“Look ahead of you at all times, human. This is not your world anymore. Doing the wrong thing could mean execution.”
I sighed deeply, wondering if the execution would be at his hands or if he was simply reciting laws passed down to him from the evil sounding man in charge. I didn’t have a lot of time to speculate about this though. Jaize soon led me into a huge, ominous building with a shadowed doorway, and a chill crawled up my spine. The place was a lot like a monstrous cathedral, only without the sense of peace or hope. Only despair.
We walked through a series of winding hallways until we finally reached a tall doorway that opened narrowly, and again I was reminded of how much taller the Verians were from humans. All of them, even the women, were at least a head taller than the tallest man I had ever seen.
“Commander,” Jaize said into an intercom outside the door.
“Jaize, come in. Doyan Vera, this is Commander Jaize Lorna.”
Jaize knelt abruptly, and suddenly his strong hand was on my shoulder, urging me to the ground with him.
“Doyan! Please excuse my intrusion.”
“It’s no harm at all, Jaize. I see you’ve brought somebody with you.”
“I have,” Jaize said, scrambling to his feet and pulling me along with him. “A human.”
He said this with pride and presented me to a rather stern-looking woman, whose eyes flickered over me and then back to Jaize as if she were unimpressed.
“You’re aware of the overpopulation issue in the prison?”
“Yes,” Jaize said, shifting uncomfortably. “But I’ve got a solution to propose.”
The doyan nodded her head and Jaize, heartened, continued.
“I’m sure you are aware of the unfortunate fertility issues plaguing so many of our yula.”
“Of course,” the doyan said, glaring at Jaize as if he had insulted her. Or maybe she had dealt with the same infertility issues herself. Both were equally possible.
“I was wondering if I might be permitted to bring this human home with me,” Jaize said, glancing back at me as if to gauge my reaction.
His home? Who knew if that would be better or worse than a prison cell? At least in prison there would be other humans, and I would be guaranteed a predictable level of treatment. Going into this man’s home as a prisoner seemed much riskier somehow.
“What do you want with a human in your home?” The doyan asked, arching a suspicious eyebrow.
“My wife has been overwhelmed with every loss of life that has come from her womb. I would like to take the household responsibilities off of her shoulders. Our staff mostly left to assist in the war effort. Perhaps with some extra help, then she might be able to focus her healing powers inward as opposed to on tasks that are menial enough for a human to do.”
“I see,” the Doyan said. “But why just this human? You could trade her for any other. I’m sure those who are experienced in the prison system have a greater sense of propriety than one you just randomly plucked off of Earth. We teach them etiquette in there, you know. The rules.”
Jaize nodded.
“Of course. Well, as you can see, I was injured. The human treated me with aid and set the bone to heal. I would like to have her on hand. It would spare the army the resources of looking after my wounds so that they can focus on the men who have been injured in the line of duty.”
“I don’t see an issue with this,” the doyan said with a lazy shrug. “But you do know what it would mean to keep a human in your home. You have a sense of duty.”
“Duty?” Jaize asked, clearly puzzled.
The commander’s gravelly voice cut into the conversation, and as soon as I laid eyes on him, I knew it was the man I had heard speaking to Jaize. He looked just as unpleasant in person as he had in my mind’s eye, and I did my best to look away before he could catch my gaze. The last thing I needed was to have him acknowledge me in any way. Who knew what might happen? Ever since I had been abducted, only two things seemed to ring true: I couldn’t count on anything as a certainty, and I had to keep myself more well-guarded. If I was caught unawares again, it could mean the end of the line. Not only for myself, but for Luke. The search had to continue, no matter what.
“The same duty you have to your wife, you have to your people now, son!” the older Verian man exclaimed, slapping Jaize on the back. Jaize furrowed his brow and glanced back at me as if he didn’t want me to hear what the commander was about to say. But of course, it made me want to hear it even more. The more I knew about the situation I had landed myself in, the better. If nothing else, I could mentally prepare myself.
“It is our job to create the super soldiers, son. As many as we possibly can. With our genetic code, they grow fast and strong. Within the year, we’ll be able to send the first batch of boys in.”
“But they’re just children!” Jaize exclaimed, looking from the commander to the doyan in shock. “What do you mean you’re sending the boys in?”
“You haven’t seen them fight, Jaize. It’s miraculous. It’s really going to turn the tides of this war around.”
“Still, I hardly think it’s fair…they’ve hardly had the chance to just be kids.”
“I don’t think you understand, son. You have to see them in action. They’re not going to just be kids when we send them in. They mature quickly, and the scientists are saying they’re going to have longer life spans as well. We have a twenty-year-old hybrid who says he reached maturity at age ten, and has a sharp mind and a warrior’s body.”
Jaize looked incredulous, and Doyan Vera turned to him, her voice a condescendingly gentle tone.
“Hybrids have been around for years, Jaize. Even before the war started. You’re just going to have to trust us. Those boys are going to turn this war on its head, and the humans won’t know what hit them. It’s your job to help that happen.”
The doyan looked meaningfully at me, and my stomach churned. If they were suggesting what I thought they were suggesting, they wanted Jaize to impregnate me with a hybrid child so that it could aid in the takeover of my planet. Did everybody on the planet think I was some kind of an idiot or something? There was no way I would be a traitor to my people. Especially if it meant my offspring would quickly be sent to war. It was unfathomable.
“If you think I’m going to let you anywhere near me, you are mistaken,” I said, shaking my head and backing up toward the door.
The doyan laughed lightly.
“She’s spunky. We need that in a soldier. Good luck, Jaize.”
Doyan Vera knelt briefly, nodding at each man before she stood up and headed for the door, leaving me alone with Jaize and the commander. The commander cleared his throat and grinned at Jaize.
“What I wouldn’t give to see my daughter’s reaction when you drag that thing in through the door like you found a stray,” the commander chuckled, his hard, beady eyes boring into Jaize unkindly.
Jaize pursed his lips, and suddenly I realized that the two of them didn’t have a great relationship. In fact, it sounded like Jaize was married to the commander’s child, and I felt a sudden, involuntary pang of jealousy jab at me. But what did I care if the man was married? I was going to get off this planet as soon as I could and go find my brother.
***
“Malnia,” Jaize called timidly. I almost laughed. It sounded as if he were terrified of his wife, not in love.
“It’s about time you got home.”
The woman’s voice that greeted him sounded irate, as if everything Jaize did caused her great distress. I couldn’t blame her. Everything he’d done to me so far had certainly done the same.
“I had a meeting with the doyan and your father.”
“The doyan?!”
Suddenly, a tall, beautiful Verian woman appeared, her eyes thin slits when she realized that Jaize wasn’t alone. I couldn’t help but wonder how this was going to play out.
“What is this doing here?”
I looked expectantly at Jaize, curious to see whether or not he would admit that my being there had been all his own doing. But he simply smiled charmingly at his wife.
“Malnia, this human has been granted to us so that you can rest easy and recover from the recent loss of our child. You can ask her to do anything, and she will do it. Won’t you?”
Jaize looked meaningfully at me, and I sighed, nodding begrudgingly.
“She hasn’t been trained in our ways so it may take a while, but there isn’t any room left in the prison right now, and we need her here.”
“What happened to your leg?” Malnia said, not acknowledging Jaize’s words. “I swear, you’re the most bumbling—”
“It wasn’t my fault,” Jaize said as evenly as he possibly could. “I was outnumbered. The human is also experienced in medicine. She will be tending to my wounds so that Verian resources can be utilized out in the field. Perhaps when we are done with her, she can be sent to the field as well.”
My heart lurched at the thought. What kind of life would it be to run around a battlefield all day, right on my own soil, tending only to Verian soldiers? I would be a traitor to my people. And worse than that, I would never find Lucas. Still, it could afford me a good opportunity to escape. If I did my job well, perhaps I would be able to join the ranks on Earth and find my way back home. It was worth a shot.
Malnia wrinkled her nose. “She looks dirty. Make sure she is cleansed before she touches any of my things.”
Jaize nodded, but I could tell from his jaw that he was clenching his teeth. Was it possible that he was offended on my behalf? If so, it was somewhat sweet, in a way. But I could hardly allow myself to grow a soft spot for this man. He had been the bane of my existence. And now he wanted me to be his housekeeper? He had a lot of nerve.
“Come,” Jaize said as his wife turned away and disappeared into one of the rooms deep in the hallway. “We must get you settled in.”
My heart fluttered when I felt Jaize’s long fingers pressed against the small of my back, and he led me the opposite direction of his wife, down another dark hallway. I had no idea what the Verian meant by “cleansing,” but I had a feeling that I wasn’t going to like it.