Monroe guides me on a brief detour across the shining hallways of Vax’s ship to the medica-port. On the way we cross more windows that look out into the depths of space, passing the window that held the image of the scorched earth before. The blue dot I called home has now been swallowed by the infinite black. The round view port is a sea of black space, filled with a million white stars. Cosmic clouds of blue and purple arc across the heavens.

“Quite something isn’t it?” Monroe says, having doubled back to come stand by me as I look through the window. “The majesty of space. My emotional circuits tell me that this vista is quite stunning.”

“It is,” I say, feeling myself overwhelmed with a strange well of emotion. I’ve never been a crier but looking across the infinite vastness of space right now, there’s something so beautiful about it, I swear I could just break down.

Monroe looks at a panel on his wrist. His eyes are blue now. It’s a soothing color. “Looks like your vitals are spiking. Do you feel the urge to cry?”

I pull myself away from the view, wipe a tear from my eye and look at the robot. “It’s this damn Aquigen, I just know it is. I haven’t been myself since Vax gave it to me.”

We walk the rest of the way to the medica-port, which is probably the most human looking room I’ve seen on the ship so far. The décor is still hyper futuristic. Monroe guides me to a chrome bed and I sit on it, watching him as he prepares the shot.

“Where are we, Monroe?” I ask the robot as I watch.

“We are in the medica-port madam, I am administering your stasis shot.”

“No, I mean… where are we. Where are we going? Are we near earth?”

The robot walks over to me with a silver pen in his hand and he chuckles. “Earth? Negative. We are 40,000 lightyears away. The ship is just cresting into the Alpha Centaurai summit. Vax is preparing the ship for its descent to answer the distress call. It originated from planet X32H5.”

“Hang on. Did you say we’re 40,000 lightyears away from earth?”

Monroe gives a simple nod back and rolls back the fabric on my right forearm. I sit there with my mouth hanging open. 40,000 lightyears? Is that even possible? How on earth could we have travelled so far in such a short time? I get a slight sick feeling in my stomach at the absurd distance, and I suddenly feel very small. Earth was so far away it might as well be gone. Would I ever see it again? Had any human ever been this far from home?

“Sit tight miss,” Monroe says as he holds the silver pen above my skin. A purple needle shoots out from the tip. He gives me the shot and puts the pen down on a silver tray beside me.

“Ow!” I shout. “That hurt like hell! Shouldn’t space tech be painless?!”

“We have advanced medical tech Miss Denzel, but it has never been tested on humans before. You’ve already had an adverse reaction to a simple Aquigen formula. There’s no telling how you’d react to our more sophisticated systems. This shot is very basic, it is on par with the medical technology you have on earth. It’s crude, and it will take a few hours before its subdues the negative side effects of the Aquigen, but it really is the safest way to treat you. Safety is of the upmost importance. Come. Captain Vax will be waiting for us back on the bridge.”

I spend a good amount of time thoroughly rubbing the sore spot on my wrist on the way back to the bridge, but also decide to make the most of the alone time with Monroe and ask him some questions. “Monroe, you seem pretty clued in about things around here. What’s going on? What happened to the Argonian mothership? Why did Vax abduct me? Where are we going?”

The golden android considers the questions for a few steps before answering. His blue eyes briefly flash with orange once more. “I’m afraid I’m not authorized to answer all those questions. I can tell you what happened to the mothership though. It was attacked by the Horkax.”

“The Horkax? What’s that?”

“They are a hostile locust breed. Raiding, thievery, chaos. Their kind thrives on rapid consumption.” Monroe holds his palm up and a blue hologram shoots up from the center. Locust was a great descriptive word, because the animated image before me is essentially a humanoid locust man.

The creature stands on two legs but has four arms that are twitching and moving with incessant fever, cleaning at its hollow-eyed insect head. Its half-crouched, like it’s going to jump. There are jagged blades in two of its hands. I look at the image a little too long and feel a sour taste in my mouth. Monroe snaps his palm and the image disappears.

“Those are the things that attacked earth?” I say in disbelief. Locust man or not, that thing looked primitive. It didn’t seem possible a creature like that could operate a spaceship.

“Yes. Don’t be fooled by their appearances. The Horkax are a predator race. They infiltrate other societies, take their technology and use it to advance their own goal: consumption. They are a plague across the stars, invading star systems and destroying everything in their path. A fleet of Horkax can exterminate all life on a planet the size of earth in a couple months. When the hosts are dead they go down to the surface and strip the planet of its resources. When there is nothing left to take they move on to the next star system and do it all over again.”

“That’s terrible. And they are going to do this to earth?”

“It was their intention, yes. Luckily the Argonian mothership was on standby to block the first assault.”

“But the ship was destroyed!” I say in dim realization. “If the Horkax attack again then earth will be doomed!”

Monroe looks over at me and I swear I can see despair in those blue lights he calls eyes. “That is correct. Alas, there is not much we can do. The mothership wasn’t completely destroyed in the attack, but it was severely damaged. There is a possibility the army of Argonia can save earth, but the chances are not good.”

The thought made me angry. Why were we fleeing from earth if it needed our help? We should have been back there helping to fight against the Horkax. “This isn’t right, Monroe, we need to get back there and help! We can’t just abandon earth and give up hope!”

“I’m afraid it’s not that simple, miss. You are a prime asset and your safety is a priority above all else. Captain Vax is following orders to get you as far away from the Horkax as possible.”

Prime asset? What the heck did that mean? Monroe turns onto the hallway that leads into the bridge and I jog to catch up to him. “Hang on, Monroe, what did you mean by that? Why did Vax take me? What’s so special about me?”

Orange flashes across those blue eyes and he shakes his head. “I’m sorry Miss Denzel, but I’m not authorized to—”

“All right, all right,” I say, swishing my hand in the air to silence the robot. “I get it, you don’t have to feed me the line.”

Monroe guides us through another aperture lens door and we reenter the bridge. Vax is standing at the central console as he was before, but he’s now holding a black metallic staff which looks both shiny and heavy. Monroe informs him about the shot and I jump straight to the part that interests me.

“Why did you bring me here, Vax?”

Vax raises a surprised eyebrow and steps toward me, closing the distance between us. I take a deep breath to steady my nerves. There’s a scent on the air and it’s intoxicating. “Let me guess. You plugged the robot with questions and got no answers. I heard humans were inquisitive.”

“He told me about the Horkax and why they attacked earth.”

He looks surprised. “I doubt he told you the length of it, because he is not authorized to. I get the impression you’re not the type to let something drop.”

I smile and cross my arms. “See, you are learning fast.”

“So, let me give you the long and short of it. Argonians lost all of our females. They died. We have no way to reproduce now, but then we found earth. There are several among your kind that possess the ability to reproduce. It’s all theory at the moment, but our scientists—”

“Hold up, hold up,” I say, putting my hand in the air to stop Vax. “You’re telling me you’ve been abducting human women to reproduce, but you don’t even know if it’s possible?” A look crosses Vax’s face at this point. I can’t say what it is for sure, but I think it’s self-consciousness. This is clearly a sore point for his people. I decide to tread a little more carefully on this topic in future.

“Human and Argonian DNA is a 99% match. There are no other closer matches in the known universe. Reproduction should be possible, we just haven’t achieved it yet.”

“And that’s why you took me? You think I’m one of these… women?”

His eyes look away from mine, and for the first time it seems I’ve found a way to mute the brute. I briefly consider the idea of what it would be like to bare an Argonian child. A newborn must be nearly a foot tall. That would definitely be a medicated childbirth.

“Not all women bare the ability,” he says. “There are only a select few in your population that do. We wanted to take our time with the integration process to make sure everything went as smooth as possible, but then the Horkax fleet invaded…” He drifts off, and the image of the bisected mothership flashes between my eyes as a brilliant image of red fire. In that moment I understand. Vax is just trying to help save his people. The Horkax invasion is a threat to his kind as well.

“Captain!”

Vax and I both turn to Monroe who is at the ship’s controls. As I look through the window at the front of the bridge I see a bright yellow planet in the distance. The giant orb nearly fills the panorama.

“We’re approaching the planet. It seems to be mostly uninhabited. Jungle. The distress signal leads to a spot a few hundred miles south of the equator.”

“Very well,” Vax says. “Land us a few miles away from the site so we can proceed on foot and keep low cover. Turn off all ship systems as we approach for maximum stealth. Just ensure the shields and cloaks are on.”

We all take a seat (as per Vax’s instructions) and I strap myself in, watching the yellow planet below us. As we get nearer the distant landmarks on the surface become more distinct, and I see the yellow is in fact an ocean of brightly colored jungle. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen.

Stats and vitals about the planet are flashing across the broad window while Monroe navigates us into the ship’s atmosphere and down to the surface. We land in a small clearing of trees that is hidden between three small peaks.

Vax unclips his belt and I follow suit. He stands and walks over to me. “Your bodysuit is Rengalian thread. It’s an extremely valuable armor. It automatically adjusts against external environmental temperatures and will keep you safe from attack.”

I look down at the orange catsuit and find I have a new-found respect for it. Maybe Vax’s fashion sense wasn’t so bad after all. “Got it,” I nod. “I’m coming too?”

“Damn right you are. I’m not leaving you alone on this ship with Monroe.” He turns to find the golden android. “Monroe? Do a quick scan of the area and tell me what you find.”

The golden android gives back a wordless nod and his fingers fly across a screen in a metallic blur. A second later a square pops up with what must be a map of the local area. There’s more of that alien text, and it’s flashing yellow. Can’t be good.

“Vutaz!” Vax says through clenched teeth. “I wish we’d seen that from the air.”

“Wouldn’t have be any good sir, I performed a scan at atmosphere. They must have been using signal blockers. I can’t find a location yet, but I’ll certainly keep you updated as I try.”

“What?!” I shout. “What’s going on?”

Vax turns to me, his blue eyes as grave as death. “There’s a Horkax fleet-ship on this planet. A medium-sized space freighter. Usually carries a couple thousand soldiers. I’d wager it’s got something to do with the downed Riga ship.”

I gulp. Crap. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“It’s not, and we can’t use the same stealth approach when we take off. Whenever we leave here they’re going to give chase straight away.”

I gulp again. Double crap. I feel partly responsible for this. “We should find these trapped women and get out of here.”

“If we get out of here.” Vax nods and leads the way off the bridge down to the exit ramp at the opposite end of the ship. I walk behind him wordlessly, half-wondering if I’ve just sent us to our deaths.