Page 4 of Captured By The Alien (Starbound #2)

She didn’t see him again until they landed on Vraxos two days later, though she heard his speech on the ship’s speakers. He was good, she admitted grudgingly. The right blend of empathy and authority. Sharing his grief for the passing of his father but reassuring his people about the future.

A future he vowed would be free of war.

She found herself listening to his words and hoping they were true. The mark of a good politician, she thought ruefully. Drawing you in with their promises. Her mother was the same.

There were no windows in the brig but when the engine vibrations changed, Kara knew they were starting their descent. Fear gripped her and she had to bend double for a few moments, forcing the breath in through her nose and out through her mouth.

Vahn won’t let anything happen to me . Despite everything, she did actually believe that. The blue asshole might have lied about who he was but he’d always protected her. Always.

She forced herself to stay calm. There was nothing to be gained by fretting over her fate. She’d find out soon enough.

It was several hours before she was taken off the ship. She guessed she was the last item to be unloaded – which meant Vahn had left her behind. Fear rose in her throat again and she swallowed it down.

The soldiers that came to get her were different to her usual prison guards, and not as gentle. She was pushed face-first against the bars as they fastened thick metal restraints to her wrists.

“Bondage already, boys?” she asked chirpily. “What, no dinner first?”

She knew they could understand her, thanks to the microbes all Vraxians carried in their brains. What they didn’t know was that she had them too. So when one of the seven-foot aliens told her to start walking, she feigned blankness.

“No comprendo, amigo. Hey!” This last as she was shoved unceremoniously out of the cell. “Watch it, you piece of snake-shit.”

The guards knew they were being insulted. ‘Snake’ was what humans called them because of their scales, their reptilian eyes, and the sinuous extra limbs which grew from their torsos. The guard shoved her again, snickering as she stumbled.

Kara swallowed her anger. Clearly these guys hadn’t got the memo. They didn’t give a shit how they handled her, and if she provoked them too much she might end up getting ‘accidentally’ hurt.

They walked through the ship back towards the main hatch. Apart from themselves, the corridors were empty. Everyone had already disembarked and the vessel was being powered down.

Small mechbots whizzed around cleaning the detritus left behind by hundreds of troops. Not that there was much. Even after living in space for God knows how long, Vraxian soldiers were pathologically tidy. If those cleaning bots ever had to deal with the crap that accumulated on an Earth carrier, the shock would probably fry their circuits.

She wondered where Vahn was. No doubt neck-deep in protocol and red tape, returning as he was to new duties and a new title. Presumably there was a funeral to organize. And maybe a coronation, she wasn’t sure.

Of all the lectures about Vraxos she’d been forced to sit through at the military academy, royal ceremonies hadn’t been included. Or more likely, she’d slept through that bit.

Whatever, it might be a while before she saw Vahn again.

The guards pushed her through the exit hatch and down the ramp. Warmth bathed her skin as she left the artificial environment of the ship, and her lungs filled with the fresh tang of non-recycled air.

She stepped off the ramp onto Vraxian soil and for the first time in her life, she saw the planet Earth had been at war with for nearly twenty years.

Wow was the only thought that came to mind.

They’d landed at what was clearly a military base. It was alive with activity. Vehicles zipped silently around the docked vessel, carrying soldiers and equipment. Other battle cruisers and smaller space fighters were being tended to by engineers and mechanics, instantly recognizable by the universal dress code of overalls and grease stains.

But that wasn’t what had provoked her reaction.

Around the edge of the base was a transparent barrier, a force-field of some kind. And through it she could see the start of a vast city. Taa’riz, she assumed. The capital of the Vraxian Empire. She gazed in awe.

Glittering towers and spires stretched into the distance as far as the eye could see. A vista of glass and steel, chrome and silver, all glinting under the sun. The single sun. It seemed strange to see only one orange ball in the sky after the months she’d spent in a twin-sol system.

She noticed the heat shimmer through the barrier and realized it wasn’t just there for military security. It was there to protect against the temperature.

In the distance, little black dots darted above the skyscrapers. She squinted at them, trying to make them out. Flying vehicles, she assumed, though they could equally be giant birds.

She was too far away to see any people but she knew Taa’riz was an old, old city even though it looked brand new. It had a population roughly the size of New York. It was built around a small inland sea which presumably was somewhere in the centre of the urban sprawl. In fact, she thought she could see the glint of water though the heat haze made it hard to tell.

She was surprised to discover how much she knew about Vraxos. And it wasn’t just from her SDF lectures. A lot of it had come from Vahn during those long days on Minerva-6 when they’d done nothing but talk.

Automatically, she looked to the east. Even though it wasn’t visible from here, that was where the Imperial Palace was. Where he was. She bit her lip.

“ Alekt. ”

A guard barked at her and gave her a push. She was taken to a driverless, windowless black pod and unceremoniously bundled in.

“Hey, watch it,” she protested as she fell to her knees on the hard metal floor. The guard leaned in and snarled in Vraxian.

“You are lucky. The last vermin I saw, I tore him to pieces. He screamed and begged like the cowards you are.”

Kara’s knuckles went white with the strain of not lashing out. He doesn’t know you can understand him. The need to keep up the ruse was the only thing that stopped her kicking the smug bastard in the face.

She pushed herself into the farthest corner, an awkward maneuver with her hands secured behind her back. As a parting shot, the Vraxian soldier casually spat in her direction. The phlegm landed on the toe of her boot and he grinned.

“Goodbye, human.”

The door of the pod slid shut, entombing her in darkness.

What did he mean, goodbye?

Panicked, Kara struggled onto her knees and kicked at the walls.

“Hey, let me out of here! I demand to see your Emperor! I have rights, I’m a prisoner-of-war! Hey!”

The pod rose into the air so fast that gravity pinned her to the deck.

“Fuck,” she groaned, struggling to breathe.

It seemed an eternity before the pod halted its ascent. It hung for a moment, as if pondering. Then without warning it hurtled off in a new direction. It was impossible to know where it was going but if she had to guess, it would be towards Taa’riz.

As prison transports went, it was supremely uncomfortable. There was nowhere to sit and nothing to hang onto. Every time the pod altered its route, she went flying. She couldn’t even use her hands to protect herself.

She tried to lessen the umpact by curling into a ball but it didn’t stop her careening off the smooth, featureless walls.

Mercifully it didn’t last long. But it was long enough. By the time the pod landed, she was dazed and bruised.

She barely registered the door opening, rousing only when a new set of guards dragged her from the vehicle. These ones wore different uniforms, she saw. Not the military black and grey, but a more elaborate blue and gold.

Blinking, she tried to clear her head and focus. The pod had landed in a large courtyard surrounded by gleaming walls. They looked like marble but ripples of color undulated through them, changing from one moment to the next.

Enormous statues stood in each corner, depicting people or gods, she wasn’t sure which. And in front of her, soaring hundreds of feet into the sky, was a huge domed building. It was constructed from a dark material she’d never seen before which appeared dense and black as night.

But when she was led into the building she saw it only appeared dark from the outside. Inside, it was light and airy. The walls were wholly transparent and Kara looked around in awe. In every direction she saw only blue sky and sunshine, as if the palace was built on clouds. Yet it was neither too hot nor too cold, as she might have expected under a glass dome.

She was impressed. More Vraxian engineering.

They entered a long corridor where the décor was more traditional. It was lined with pillars and columns, almost Grecian in their design, and the walls were painted with glowing murals.

She thought she saw something move within the pictures and stared at them more closely. She wasn’t mistaken. Small parts of the images were animated. A leaf blowing in the wind. A bird opening and closing its wings. A person lifting his head.

How was that possible, she wondered? The murals looked as though they’d been painted directly onto the walls, they should have been completely static.

She tried to make out what they showed. One of the scenes sparked a flash of recognition – a handsome young man kneeling before a Vraxian woman, offering her his sword.

Ayanlesh and Vannla. The original enemies-to-lovers. The Vraxos version of Adam and Eve.

Vahn had told her the story down on Minerva-6 and it had stuck with her. The mortal and the goddess who had met in battle and fallen in love.

Kara started to get an inkling of where she was. The opulence of her surroundings, the collection of statues and paintings, the decorative uniforms worn by her escort all pointed to one thing. She began to walk faster, almost outpacing her guards.

The end of the corridor was marked by another door, this one made out of a golden metal and inscribed with alien pictographs which her microbes couldn’t translate. Perhaps they were from a long-dead language like the Egyptian hieroglyphs on Earth.

She didn’t have long to wonder about it. The door swung open as they approached, revealing a large room beyond decorated with sumptuous wall-hangings and ornate furniture.

Several Vraxians turned as she entered but only the one sitting on the throne caught her attention.

“Finally,” said Vahn. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d escaped.”