Chapter Ten
Roxie
Before we land, I need to know more about the Ferathorns. I excuse myself to go to the bathroom, and I stand and look at myself in the mirror, straightening my messy dark hair with my fingers and wiping away streaks of red dust from the Earth desert from my cheek.
“Of course I would be glad to help you,” the translator AI tells me smoothly. “The Ferathorns are a generally peaceful species--”
“Yeah,” I say. “Vyken told me some of this.” I am mostly curious to know if anything he told me wasn’t true. Maybe then I could help by finding a clue. If I were to solve an intergalactic tragedy, maybe my sentence would be shortened, or dropped altogether.
That’s the plan, anyway. It doesn’t seem too unlikely an outcome to me, but maybe I’m just being optimistic.
“They are known for having one of the most difficult languages to translate. Despite being one of the most treasured allies to the Firosans, who programmed me, it is difficult for me to fully comprehend their tongue.”
“Oh,” I say, not particularly interested in that. “That’s cool. Anything else? Anything about … I don’t know.” I deflate; this was a long shot. It looks like it’s failed.
“Their language consists of high and low tones and accurate pitches so specific that most aliens would never be able to naturally learn how to speak it.”
“Right,” I say, trying not to be impolite to the robot voice in my ear, but not really certain how to continue with this conversation. When I know what to enquire about, maybe I’ll ask more. I exit the bathroom just as we touch down and I feel the cold clutch of nerves in my chest.
But still I strap my sandals back on, tighten my huge robe around my waist, and walk across the metal studded ship’s floor to meet Vyken at the ship’s doors.
“Are you ready?” he asks, looking a little nervous himself. Like me, he has life in prison to worry about right now. I can relate to his fear.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I guess I won’t ever be more ready than I am right now, though.”
This makes his unfairly handsome, solid features twist into a sweet smile that reaches his golden eyes, but then the expression drops from his face as quickly as he arrived, and he pulls in a deep breath.
“Let’s do our best,” he says. “A meaningless platitude, but…” He trails off.
“I understand,” I say, and I think I do. “We can’t do any better than our best!” I have to laugh, the situation is so absurd. All that stands between both of our lives being taken away from us right now is the idea that somehow we can solve a mystery with zero clues, zero leads, zero help.
Both of us giddy with the thought of a life behind bars, we step through the opened door of the Spitfire and step onto the planet Fera, excited and terrified together about what we might find when our feet touch solid ground.
And what we find is perhaps so unsurprising, that it surprises me.
Absolutely nothing.
The ground is cracked and dry, vines and leaves lie scattered over the dirt, brown and curled. Everything is just so very … not alive. I don’t feel death all around me, it’s just a really noticeable absence of life. Nothing is lush or green or sprouting or moving.
Everything is just strewn, dusty, dry.
I step carefully over some cracks, some tangled dry plant matter, and follow Vyken’s confident footfalls as he makes his way to the Oracle. Who, I have to admit, I’m pretty excited to be meeting. We have nothing at all like this back on Earth. I never thought I’d be so interested in exploring outside my home planet -- after all, I think back to all the laws I broke in order to stay put right there -- but so far I’m having a pretty good time, learning a lot about my universe, and not missing a single thing back on that old blue and green marble I call home.
I am surprising myself. And that’s pretty cool.
He guides me downwards, and soon I realize that we are moving into the planet itself. The light from the bright white sun fades and soon everything is dusty, cool, and dark. We wind through stiff roots and then we come to a chamber lit by what I recognize as bioluminescence.
“Oracle,” Vyken demands, and his voice rumbles at the roots above our heads, sending a cluster of dry dirt tumbling onto me. I wipe it off and blow air at my bangs.
When the glowing orb of tiered fungus lights up fully, I feel a presence tingling at the base of my skull and a voice all around me; inside me, I don’t know.
“Vyken and Roxie,” it says in perfect English. I don’t know if that’s due to my translator or the Oracle itself, and it doesn’t really matter. I’m in over my head now, drowning in alien tech and impossible beings of light and power. And it’s only day one of my space adventure.
To be honest, screw Earth at this point. My adrenaline is soaring sky high right now and I don’t see how I could ever go back to being a lounge singer at a dim little bar right now.
“What is our mission now?” Vyken asks, and I can feel next to me that he is all tension and impatience. I don’t blame him.
The glowing orb brightens and then dims, almost like it’s taking a deep breath before ‘speaking’, and it interests me to watch.
“Nothing yet. You will have to wait for it.”
“For what?” It’s my turn to speak, and its light judders momentarily, as if surprised that I’d address it.
“You’ll know.” A beat. “You’ll have to excuse me. I am exhausted by the fate of my people. I must stop speaking.”
The light dims considerably and I turn to Vyken, eyes wide. He clears his throat. “Well, but we really don’t know what it is we’re supposed to--”
“You will.”
Vyken turns to face me and runs a hand over his jaw, looking concerned but like he doesn’t want me to know how much. “The Oracle is never wrong,” he explains, and his voice is hoarse with a thousand harsher things he is leaving unsaid. I appreciate it, actually. Although I see exactly where he’d be coming from, it wouldn’t be helpful to curse and damn everything. Restraint and level-headedness are actually qualities I am particularly drawn to.
In humans, anyway. I turn away from Vyken with a blush as all sorts of thoughts creep into my head. If he were human? Sure, I’d date him.
Ugh, no, I’d do more than that. I’d let him pick me up with that insane upper body of his and push me against the wall of his spaceship … press himself against me so I could feel every impossibly hard ridge of his body…
I snap myself out of it. Not so much because I’m about to have a vivid fantasy about a man who is walking right in front of me, but mostly because I realize a big part of that doesn’t appeal to me. Vyken as a human doesn’t exist. Human men don’t have those values. They certainly don’t have his build.
I might just have to suck it up and admit to myself that I’m attracted to an alien. What is wrong with me?
We emerge onto the planet’s surface and already the sun has halfway dipped below the horizon. “Days here are a little shorter than Paxia or Earth days,” Vyken mutters, as much to remind himself as to educate me. “It will get very cold shortly. The Ferathorns move themselves below the surface for the chill weather and travel back up again when the sun is out to photosynthesize.”
I nod, only half listening. “Right, so we should get ourselves warm,” I say. “In the ship?”
He opens his mouth to speak, his perfect lips parted and his harsh golden gaze in the middle distance. “I don’t know about that, Roxie,” he growls. “That’s the first target if we find ourselves, you know … targeted.”
Right.
“We’ll utilize a tent.”
A tent? “Will that be warm enough?” Cold wind sweeps across my skin as I speak and he sighs in response.
“Yes, for me. I don’t know anything about optimum human conditions, but I have never seen Cara or Alyssa require more than an extra layer of clothing on our planet. You will be alright if I am.”
I don’t know how encouraged I am by that, but it’s more than nothing.
I follow him into a secluded area. Twisted roots and branches so devoid of life they could be made of stone curl in archways above us and twirl across our path, intertwined. We duck under and hop over them until we find a patch big enough for his two-person tent, which he pulls from the belt of his military uniform. It’s just a tight tube of lycra-looking material, and he presses a tiny button on it and tosses it at the space on the ground, motioning for me to get away. I do.
It inflates like a balloon, finding its shape and forming walls and a curved roof, and then sitting proudly on the dirt floor. It flickers lightly and then it changes its hue to match the grey-brown surroundings. I raise my eyes, impressed. It even has a couple of streaks across it like shadows.
“Well done, aliens,” I say. “Your stuff is all pretty cool.”
“In terms of sentient beings, humanity is just a sapling in a forest so tall it blots out the sun.” Vyken pats the dusty bough by his head to illustrate his point, and then gives a smirk that has his eyes sparkling. He’s baiting me, but not in a cruel way. In the way someone might speak to somebody they liked. He’s a schoolboy pulling on my pigtails, and it makes me smile up at him.
“What?” he asks.
“Nothing,” I say, airily, in the way only a human woman can. Meaning the total opposite of what I say and knowing he knows it. He’s been away from women for too long, and the space between his eyebrows creases as he watches me move to the tent’s entrance.
“Should we?” I ask over my shoulder, and his gaze flicks upwards, making me bite my lip. He was staring at my butt as I bent over. Amazing. Maybe these guys aren’t so alien after all.
“After you.”
“Yeah, I bet,” I tease, and when he frowns I bend over and give my butt a little wiggle, and laugh when he looks no less confused. “Never mind.” I climb in and am astonished at how much warmer I already feel. It was chilly outside, but it’s maybe just a few degrees too cold to be perfect in here. That probably means it’s ideal for thicker, larger Mahdfel.
But the tent comes with a thin, slightly crinkly blanket and the floor is puffed up with air, so it’s really not uncomfortable. Not my first … OK, ten choices … but I won’t exactly die like this.
“But how do we know what we’re waiting for?” I ask, settling down on the puffy floor of the tent and eyeing Vyken through the opening.
He pauses before entering and looks around. “Well, nothing seems to be happening right now. I haven’t detected any movement whatsoever within over one square mile the entire time we’ve been here.”
I get up onto my knees and hook my fingers around the tent flap, still looking up at him with an eagerness exacerbated by all the adrenaline in my system. “Let’s keep watch outside until it gets too cold,” I say. “I’ve never even left Earth before today.”
Vyken backs up and allows me to exit the tent again without further comment, so I scramble back out into the cool, dusty air and stretch.
“Shall we, I don’t know, patrol a little before it gets too cold to stay outside?” I ask, bouncing a little on the balls of my feet in excitement. He gives a lazy shrug but begins to walk beside me, slowing his natural pace considerably for my benefit.
“Why did you never leave Earth?” he asks after a few moments of delicately picking over the tangled roots that surround our camping spot. “You know there is a whole universe out there, and Earth is considered…” He thinks for a moment. “Well, it’s not exactly a pleasure planet.”
I wrinkle my nose. “What’s a pleasure planet?”
“Exactly what it sounds like.” He holds a branch up while I duck under it, then lets it spring back. I stare at it for a moment, and then turn back to him.
“Sounds like it’s full of prostitutes or something.”
He looked deeply confused, and then back to the front and continued to walk.
“Hold on, Roxie. I am trying to find a way to explain ‘prostitute’ to him.” The AI in my ear was making me jump a little less each time she spoke, but not by much. That made me laugh.
“You people pay each other for that?” he asks, golden eyes wide with confusion and concern.
“Well, I don’t,” I say with a smile. His face is cute.
“Well, I think things like that would happen on pleasure planets. Intoxicants and sunsets and companionship.” He looks upwards at the stars. They almost light up the sky as much as a full moon back on Earth. “I think maybe I understand now exactly what companionship might mean in that context.”
I smirk. “You really haven’t had any women on your planet in five years, huh?” I tease. He looks thoughtful, but not sad about it.
“No. After the Firosan species sacrificed themselves to save our shared planet, Paxia, we were no longer able to produce heirs. No women in my solar system for five years.”
I hadn’t known this. “They all sacrificed themselves, huh?”
He nods. “The Suhlik were trying to invade and drain dry Paxia. She is not only the planet that gives us life, she is our goddess and the reason the Firosans had access to a millennia of technological breakthroughs. Paxia watches all and learns all. She is not just a rock; a resource to be tapped and extracted. The Firosans joined hands and shorted out their bionic implants. They died so that Paxia and the Mahdfel could live.”
I have no idea what that means so I just nod with confidence.
“No species has ever wiped themselves out for humanity,” I say, conversationally.
“The Mahdfel fought the Suhlik to protect Earth,” Vyken reminds me. There’s no hint of bitterness at my not mentioning it, but he did say it very quickly.
“Of course they did. Sorry.” They didn’t wipe themselves out to save Earth, but I know that a lot of Mahdfel warriors did die. However, I don’t need to feel too bad: it was just one series of battles in an intergalactic intergenerational war. The Mahdfel and Suhlik are sworn enemies.
I don’t want to get involved with all of this, to be honest. That was why I just wanted to stay back on Earth and mind my own business. It’s too late for that now, though. And I have no regrets.
Yet.
“Do you ever miss the Firosans?” I ask, and then flinch. “Sorry. Of course you must. What a stupid question.” I roll my eyes. I never get tongue tied or say stupid stuff normally. My eyes wander down to Vyken’s bare chest, criss-crossed with scars from battle. Countless battles. Perhaps some from the very fights that saved the planet I was able to live on peacefully.
I feel like a jerk…
But being with him, it makes me feel flustered. He’s not only the most physically strong man I’ve ever met, he’s also probably the most emotionally strong. He is a rock of morality and honor and I hate the idea that I might not be good enough for him. That I might say the wrong thing and get met with disapproval.
It hasn’t actually happened yet, I remind myself. Vyken has looked at me with nothing but respect and acceptance.
I look down at my feet, hating that I’m making myself feel this way. Because I know full well it’s me and no one else.
“Vyken,” I say, before I can stop myself and actually figure out what it is I’m about to say to him. I just want to convey that I’m grateful. Grateful he took me with him on this journey, even though it was without my permission. Grateful he’s been a perfect gentleman … even though I’ve seen the way he looks at me when he thinks I don’t notice. Grateful he’s shown me a world already that’s better than any life I could have clumsily carved out with bad decision after bad decision back home.
‘Home.’
Already that concept seems laughable. Earth was never my home.
It was my prison.
I’m free now, and the universe is my oyster. Once I help Vyken with this, I can do whatever I want to do. Go wherever I want to go.
I owe this man my life.
But as I’m about to convey that as casually as humanly possible, my mouth hanging open and my eyes narrowed and staring up at the sky, instead all that comes out is a scream. The ground has crumbled beneath my feet and I’m once again having my choices taken away from me as I plummet for what seems like forever.