Rennek
Kate’s body seizes and then goes limp. Her friend starts shaking her, giving her little slaps on the cheek.
“Stop that,” I tell her. “Your queen is sensitive now, she will need rest.” I move to scoop up my Kate so Reagan may have her turn receiving the translator chip.
“Wha-ooh buhdee, ghit yeer hanns awf er!” She comes around the table and starts trying to pull Kate from my arms. The other females seem alarmed.
“Whut thugh fuk deed ew dew to er?” she yells at us with accusing eyes.
“You misunderstand. It is the language implant. It is painful to receive, but she will be fine soon. You may get yours next,” I try to usher her towards Dax.
Dax pops the cell out of the med-gun and loads it with the next cartridge. We have enough for half the females. The rest can get a neural upload when we get them to the Mother Planet. Dax smiles and offers to place Reagan on the table. She cannot understand what we say, but I hope she understands our intentions and how helpful this will be in communicating.
“Yeer jokeen? Eye ham naut dewing thaht schit!” she recoils towards the other women.
Just then, Kate starts to come to. I set her back on the table. She moans, then rolls her head and vomits off the side of the table. Reagan is beside her again, pulling her hair back. I am filled with jealousy.
“I will do this task,” I say and push my way in front of her, taking Kate’s smooth red hair into my hands.
“Jeezus, fuhking dikh!”
“Oh my god, my head!” Kate sobs in my language. “It’s so bright in here, too bright!” she moans.
“Computer, dim lights,” I command.
She pops her head up, only to cringe and rub her temples. “Wait, I think I can…
“Sush, my queen. You must rest until you are feeling well again. There will be plenty of time to speak.”
***
Kate
“Well, looks like it worked,” Reagan says, “You speak alien now.”
“Agh!” I roll back onto the table. “I don’t know if it’s worth it.” I say in English. It’s a smooth transition between the two languages.
“Ask them to take us home,” Vivian’s eager voice is piercing in my current state, but the sentiment clears the fog a bit for me.
“Rennek, we need to get home. Can your ship take us there? Please, we aren’t meant to be here. Our planet...” another wave of nausea hits and I gag a little. I feel like I’ve done nothing but throw up all day. “Our planet,” I continue, “we don’t even have space travel--nothing like this. We need to get home.”
He stares at me; his eyes are jet black. His nostrils flare a bit and then he finally speaks. “Yes, Kate. Anything you wish. We will take you home. What sector of the galaxy is your planet in? We will set course immediately.”
I sit bolt upright. I look to the other women. I must be doing a great impression of a fish right now.
“What?” The girls ask, “What is it? Will they take us home?”
“He wants to know what sector in the galaxy our planet is in…”
They look back and forth to one another. Realization dawns on one or two.
“Fuck!” Reagan cries out and starts to bang her fist against the metal wall until she collapses in tears on the floor. Still woozy, I jump down from the table and hug her. Surly as she is, she lets me. I’m pretty sure we just became best friends.
“What? I don’t get it...” April says.
“What the fuck is there not to get,” Allison says to her, “Do you know what sector in the galaxy you are from? Or Earth’s address for that matter?” She turns away from us.
“Tell them Earth,” Vivian says.
“Earth. We are from a planet called Earth. Do you know where that is?” I ask, looking up at Rennek.
“Is it a member of the United Planets?” He asks.
“No… are there any scientists… or astronomers that might be able to help?” Dax and Rennek exchange looks.
Rennek comes to me and kneels. I take in his legs and feet. He has long feet like a cat or dog--the kind with an ankle high up on the leg and he walks on the balls of his feet. He has three toes with long… talons. Exactly like a raptor from Jurassic Park. I’m talking to a real-life alien, I think to myself as he stares at me like he’s choosing his words carefully.
“My Kate… you say your people have not yet traveled space?”
“Yes, that’s right… well just outside our planet. To our moon and back, but not our whole solar system or anything.”
He and Dax look at each other again. They look troubled. “You see, Kate each star in the sky is actually a sun, and each sun has many, many planets surrounding it, and many of those planets have moons.”
“Yeah. I got that. Thank you for mansplaining it to me, can we get to the point?” I say, annoyed at how simple he assumed I was.
“Have you ever looked up at the night sky?” he asks with pity in his eyes.
“Yes.” I sob, closing my eyes. I get it. We are talking about a whole fucking galaxy worth of planets. Even if we aren’t that far away, which direction is it in? And if it is far, and I mean far in comparison to the amount of space these guys can trek, the same question remains: which direction?
Then other questions start to pop in my head. How long was I asleep? How long have we been gone? Isn’t there something about time and space travel? Like if you go and then come back more time has passed on Earth than for you traveling in space? Is that real or did I hear it in a movie? What movie was that? Who was in it? Was it Helen Hunt? Jodi Foster? Now I’ll never know, because as advanced as these guys are they don’t have fucking Google. I hang my head in defeat.
“Show me a picture of the galaxy,” Allison says in a way that makes me feel like we might have hope.
“She wants to see a picture of the galaxy; can you do that?” I ask.
“Of course,” Rennek says. He stands and offers me his hand, helping me to my feet. His hand lingers on mine and he searches my face.
“I got it, don’t worry about me,” Reagan says as she gets up.
He can’t understand her, but catches his faux pas. “Do you need assistance Rah-chin?”
She catches her butchered name, “REY-GIN!” she shouts and I put my arm around her, partially to comfort her and partially to steady myself. My head is still pounding.
“Follow me,” Rennek leads us all back to the bridge. I remembered. It’s called a bridge. We move to stand close to the window. Looking out, vertigo makes me weak in the knees. We are in space. Like deep in space. It goes on forever in all directions. It gives me this gut wrenching sense of fragility.
“Bossan, can you bring up an image of the galaxy?” The window clouds and an image of the Milky Way is before us. All of us humans step forward to examine it.
“Ask him to point out our current location,” Allison says.
“Can we see where we are now?” I ask and the one named Bossan flicks something so there’s a flashing blue light indicating where we’re at.
“And the location of the planet we woke up on?” I ask.
“That is too close. On this image, our current location would overlap the Mangan moon,” he tells me.
“Oh…”
“I could zoom in?” He offers.
“Just a moment,” I look to Allison, she is studying the image. “Anything?” I ask her. She stares for a few more seconds.
“Yeah, I have no idea at all. I just thought if I saw it maybe I’d recognize something,” she says.
“Could have warned us not to get our hopes up,” Reagan says.
“Whatever,” she responds, barely giving her notice.
I sigh. Rennek steps nearer. He’s been watching me closely this whole time. It’s like he wants to put his arms around me to comfort me, but doesn’t know if he should. And he shouldn’t, right? That’d be weird. Right?
Some of the girls are still looking at the image, as if still holding onto the hope they’ll recognize a landmark or something.
“Can you show us your planet?” I ask.
“The Mother Planet?” he asks.
“Is that where you’re from?”
“No… the Mother Planet was an origin world where space travel in the region began long ago. Currently, it is houses the United Planet’s Governing Core, but the majority of the planet is allocated to botanical gardens, history museums, wildlife refuges. I lived there for a short time as a fledgling. It used to be the home to many, many beings, but centuries ago the Governing Core decided to preserve the beauty and history of Mother Planet by turning it into what it is today. Bossan, zoom in on the Mother Planet.”
“Why did you live there?”
“My mother lives there. She is a member of the Governing Core.”
I explain to the girls this is their ‘origin planet.’
“Can we see all the systems that make up the United Planets?” Bossan strikes a few more keys on his control panel and a massive region of space is outlined on the screen. I am amazed. It looks like there are hundreds of planets within its borders.
“These are the sun systems they include.” Rennek adds something at a nearby control panel. “This is the space the UPC guards and patrols.” He shows us a larger area, “We are here now,” he indicates our location, “just beyond the border of the patrol zone is where Magna VII is, and our paths intersected on Magna VII’s red moon.” He shows us a small red dot. I regret not knowing anything about distances in space. It would be nice if I could compare how far we have traveled to the relative distance of things in our solar system, or the size of the territory they’ve shown us, for that matter.
I try to relay all he says to the other girls as he tells me. “Who were those… creatures back there?” I ask.
“Pirates, smugglers,” he says. “The race is called Ju’tup.”
“We’re humans. What about your race?” I ask.
Rennek looks stone faced. “Our people are products of war.” He looks away. Is he embarrassed? I don’t get the implications of what he has said. I hope I wasn’t accidently rude. I’m not trying to insult our alien hosts. I change the subject.
“And the UPC, is that like military or police? Is that what you guys are? Did you come to rescue us?” I ask.
“No, we were dealing with the Ju’tup--purchasing animals for biological research and we realized they had sentient beings as a part of their cargo,” he explains.
I start to relay this to the girls. They double take, “Research on animals? Is that what they intend to do with us?” April asks. My stomach drops.
“Rennek… are we to be used for… um… animal research?” I ask.
“By the Goddesses! No, my Kate! What the Ju’tup were doing is illegal! It is an unspeakable crime! It is simply not done, especially to females. Especially to females in the image of the Goddesses themselves!” He waves his hand at us.
“Ok, no on the research,” I say to the girls. “What do you mean by that, image of the Goddesses stuff?” I say to Rennek.
All the men look to one another. “You are in the image of the Goddesses, you must be their direct descendants--related to them in some way.”
“Yeah, I don’t know your people’s folklore buddy. Who are these Goddesses?”
“I do not know what is buh-dee.” He smiles. “I thought all beings knew of the Goddesses, the creators of the universe? You and your people are like them, in form and beauty.”
All the guys are looking at us… I take in their expressions and realization starts to dawn on me. I still don’t know who these Goddesses are, but apparently, we look like them and because of that they think we’re something special. I wonder if this could potentially be helpful to our situation.
Rennek suddenly looks solemn now. “I am so sorry my Kate, it is my deepest shame that I was unable to save the rest of your people. We sent a comm out as soon as we warped from atmosphere, the UPC will go after the Ju’tup ship---but it may be gone before they can arrive.”
“My people? What do you mean? Other humans were still onboard the pirate ship?”
“The cryo bags... lining the cargo hold of the Ju’tup ship. I do not know how many…” He starts, but can see on my face I am not getting it just yet. Then, I remember seeing them; all along the walls of the chamber we woke up in. There were large bags, they were white… no, they were filled with a milky fluid. Like the stuff we were covered in when we woke up. I didn’t fully take it in as it was happening, but in my mind’s eye I remember the room was filled with these “cryo bags.” How many women did we just leave behind to be raped or worse? Hell, was Earth invaded and did aliens take all the humans? I don’t know! I don’t remember anything after going to bed, anything could have happened.
“What the fuck is going on?” Reagan asks, likely responding to the horror on my face.
“Yeah, is it like no to the animal research, but yes we will eat you for dinner?” Allison asks.
“This is too much,” I tell them. “We need to get more of you understanding their language… there’s a lot to talk about… I want you guys to hear it too and I think we need to talk… humans only.”
“Oh no, is it bad?” Vivian asks with worry etched so deeply in her face I don’t know if she’ll ever be able to make another expression.
“Bad compared to what?” I try to say jokingly, but it falls flat.
“Rennek, there are more of those translation things? I’d like… my people… to understand as much as possible.”
“Unfortunately, there are only two more, my Kate. Our ship was not equipped for a situation like this. You must decide who would like the implant now and who would prefer to wait until we dock to receive a neural upload.”
“Is there a benefit to one over the other?”
“The upload is less painful.”
“Well, that’s certainly an incentive.” I turn to the girls, “Okay, who wants the worst headache of their lives?”