Page 7

Chapter Seven

MAYA

T hree guards stand before me, staring at me with fish faces—eyes wide, mouths in the shape of an ‘O’. None of us ever expected to find ourselves in a situation like this. I mean, it’s a small colony, who would have thought someone here was doing illicit activities?

Until a couple of days ago, I certainly didn’t.

“I can explain,” I stammer.

Doesn’t the hero always say that, right before they get captured and framed by the villain? Not the best start to this situation.

Unfortunately, I don’t recognize any of the guards. They are all younger than me, probably haven’t even reached twenty years of age yet.

One of the males has his hair spiked and the tips dyed a bright green. He points towards me with a finger and with a voice loaded with uncertainty, he says, “You aren’t supposed to be in here. I think we need to arrest you.”

I clutch my tablet closer to me as if I can use it as a shield. Still, given the way he seems unsure about the situation, maybe I can still take control here. As long as I don’t panic.

“Is that a question?” I ask green-tips. “You think you need to arrest me?”

He glances, unhelpfully, back at his companions.

“I’m just here to do some maintenance,” I further impress upon him. “Didn’t they tell you that I was coming today?”

Maybe if I buy myself some time. I just need a couple of hours to analyze the data; I’m sure there’s enough incriminating evidence in what I’ve collected to keep me out of Atraxis jail. Wait, do we even have a jail? Will Commander Davis be forced to throw me into, what, a bathroom or a closet?

“Maintenance?” The green-tipped boy squeaks. “You decided to do maintenance right when a bunch of aliens attack us. They’ve got swords!”

I raise my finger to say that I wasn’t aware of the aliens, but right as I do a scream cuts through the air. Yeah, that excuse isn’t going to cut it.

“I, ummm…” I stammer, trying to come up with any other reason why I might be in this room.

“No one’s allowed to enter this room,” the boy advances toward me, his face settling with determination. “Once that problem out there has been sorted, I’m sure they’ll get to you. Until then, just come along quietly… and give me that tablet.”

Panic hits. If it were just this one kid alone, I might be able to take him. But three against one, there’s no way. The three of them clearly exercise and train, hoping to one day become glorified Hunters. Meanwhile, I sit at a desk all day. I can handle being arrested, but to have my tablet taken away from me…

“Just stay away from me!” I point my finger at green-tips. “There’s no reason to make this into a big deal.”

His eyes narrow, and I instantly realize it was the wrong thing to say. Oh, wait! Hiding! I could have just said I was hiding. I’m supposed to be smart, so why does my brain always think of the best response after the fact?

I smack my forehead, probably looking like a complete madwoman. Wait, maybe I can actually pretend to be driven insane by fear… I could claim I hid from the aliens in here.

Green-tips isn’t having it. He reaches for me, grabbing hold of my arm with a strong grip that I have no hopes of breaking. Unlike my friend Christina, I have never once taken a self-defense course. I should have accepted her offer…

“Hey! Let go!” I shout. I duck and squirm to avoid the second guard grabbing at me as I try desperately to clutch my precious tablet to my chest. Green-tips grabs hold of me around my waist, lifting me clear off my feet. I buck against him, trying to break free, to no avail.

I’m panicking. A scream is building in my throat as I frantically fight my captors.

Then the room is cast in shadows.

We all stop moving to stare at the new guy, standing in the doorway. He’s so large, his body blocks the weak sunlight. For a brief, very brief moment, he’s surrounded by a halo of light like a savior. Then his body, his very skin, flashes and the room is lit up with blinding light. Immediately the spell over all of us breaks.

Suddenly everyone is screaming. The guards are shouting to each other about who should try to stop the alien from entering. Me? I’m shouting because I apparently can. Like what else am I supposed to do in this situation?

Oh, I get it now why people always scream and run around like headless chickens. Apparently, I’m in the same crowd after all.

One moment I’m surrounded by my guards trying to arrest me, and the next moment the room erupts in chaos. The third guard, the guy furthest from me, looks at me with a white face before he falls unconscious. He didn’t even need a beating; he just fainted!

The second guard rushes toward the alien, who promptly backhands him across the face. The young male flies through the air, hitting the wall with a heavy thud. He looks up at us with a dazed expression, and is clearly second-guessing rushing at this alien again.

The alien stalks towards green-tips, whose hold on me is now shaking.

“Don’t hurt him!” I cry out.

Human and alien alike turn to me with shocked expressions. I’m equally as stunned at my outburst. Just who am I defending exactly? My fellow man, or this extraterrestrial who’s appeared out of nowhere?

“Me or him?” Green-tips cries out, his eyes ping-ponging between us so fast that he must be making himself dizzy at this point.

“I don’t know!” I squeal in reply.

At this point in time are they both my enemy or are they both my allies? Enemy of my enemy and all that. Even if we fight off the alien, the guards are going to report me and all my goals will come crashing down. The alien… who knows what he wants? Given the way they are attacking our colony right now, I wouldn’t trust him as far as I can throw him. To be clear, that’s not very far—I’m pretty sure I’ve established by now that I’ve never excelled at sports.

The alien seems to recover his senses first. He grabs hold of green-tips and slams a hand against his neck. Green-tips’ whole body convulses and then he drops to the floor like a dead weight.

Oh, no.

Is he dead?

I’m frozen to the spot, staring at the crumpled guards. I probably should be running, but of course my brain chooses now to power down. I’m like a computer - I work most of the time, but when you need to do something right now, I’m slow as heck.

Green-tips’ chest rises and falls, and I find my own breath gushing out of me with relief. He’s alive!

“Female?”

Pale blue eyes and a gray face fill my vision. I gasp and stumble away from the alien. At some point, he has knelt before me, and is now trying to get a good look at my face. His long black hair drapes over one shoulder, matching the light dusting of a beard on his cheeks.

“Female, are you hurt? Do you need medicine?”

“Medicine? You just attacked us! Why are you offering me medicine?” I laugh shrilly as my mind tries to process the contradictions of his words and his actions.

“These males were harming you. I heard you screaming,” he replies. He holds up his hands in the Galactic Common sign of peace. Funny how so many species consider holding hands out in front of them as a sign of trust. Makes me briefly wonder what a species with multiple tentacles does.

It clicks with me that he’s not speaking English, or even Intergalactic Common. The translator that was surgically implanted behind my ear when I was a child is processing his words. It feels like it’s been years since I heard the device overlay what I was hearing through my ears with the translated words. It’s a pretty high-tech model, at least it was back in the day, and even somewhat simulates the husky and deep timbre of his voice.

I kind of want to scream and shout at him for busting in here, but he’s not wrong. From an outsider’s perspective, the four of us humans were making a fair bit of noise. If he thought he came in to help me, rescue me from some unpleasant and unthinkable situation…

“Thank you,” I say.

The alien’s eyes widen and he looks absolutely shocked that I might thank him. The lights on his body pulse, lighting up the area around us with a soft glow.

Oh, at first I thought he was wearing some cool futuristic sci-fi uniform with LED lights running through it all… but instead the lights look like they are coming from beneath his skin.

His very bare skin.

I tilt my head, considering this male before me properly. Even kneeling, his head is at the height of my own. I’m not exactly tall, but this guy must tower over me when standing. His skin is more gray than a human’s, like someone desaturated the color out of a photograph. His aquamarine eyes watch me with an intensity that glows, literally. It nearly matches the constant pulsing and flashing of the lines along his body. If they just glowed, I would have thought someone painted glow-stick paint on him. But no, they pulse in drifting waves down his neck, shoulders, and abs.

“Why are you naked?” I blurt out. My cheeks burn with embarrassment… I blink, realizing belatedly that my whole body is heating up in this guy’s presence.

The male tilts his head, then his lips peel back in a grin. My heart rate picks up. It’s because he scares me, it’s definitely not because he’s drop-dead gorgeous. His high cheekbones, and that flop of long, sleek black hair that falls over his face…he could rival a high-end fashion model.

“I am not,” he smirks at me. He waves a hand, encompassing his entire body, showing me that he does indeed still wear dark-colored pants and leather boots. Across his chest is a leather strap, which holds several small blades and pouches, and a larger strap belted low on his waist.

He wiggles his eyebrows at me, as if saying that he knows I was caught staring at his highly detailed wash-board abs and that V shape that leads your eye directly downwards…

I force my eyes back to his face. Now is not the time to be checking out a guy, not even a sexy alien guy. I have a job to do. Geez, I have a duty to every human in the colony. I need to figure out what the council is hiding, and expose each and every one of those dirty liars.

Now that I’m really studying him, is he the same male that Ariana spoke to in the marketplace? Did he follow me all the way out here?

I glance down at my tablet and the map displayed upon the screen, where one symbol is larger than any other—this here is my destination. It’s my fate.

I move to walk past him, but he just stands there staring down at me.

“Umm… I’m going to leave now,” I tell him. I bite the inside of my cheek as I try to find the courage to look up, and up, at his face. This close up he’s huge and intimidating, even if he did just rescue me.

Still, he doesn’t budge at all. He’s blocking the only way out.

I sigh. Aliens! There’s clearly some cultural misunderstanding going on. If he’s expecting me to pay him credits for coming to my aid, then he’s got another think coming.

Unlike Ariana, I’m broke.

“I’ve got lots of things to do, you know how it is,” I tell him as I edge my way around his body and make my way toward the door. I’m not going to wait around on him to decide what he wants to do with his life.

I’ve got places to be. In fact, I’m already doing the math.

“If I walk about three miles an hour, and the map implies this location is what, maybe fifteen to twenty miles away then I can make it there and back again in probably two days,” I say to myself, already absorbed in the data and statistics of my quest. I have a quest!

“Where are you going?” The alien calls out to me as I step out through the communication tower’s door. I fiddle with my communicator, which is honestly just a fancy watch. With a few clicks, I open the compass app, and spin on the spot as I try to gain my bearings. To him, I probably look like I’m doing some weird dance ritual.

“It’s a lovely day out today. You know, the sun’s out, there are only a couple of dark, stormy clouds in the distance. Perfect day for non-existent aliens to attack the colony. I was just thinking of adding a walk in the creepy forest to the list,” I reply. I barely lift my eyes from my beloved tablet. As long as I have it, I’m fine. And I thankfully don’t need to worry about its battery dying since its case has several tiny, but powerful, solar panels built in.

I pat all my pockets. I have maybe sewn just a few extra ones into my skirt’s lining. In one, I have my small water bottle and water filtration straw. It weighs the fabric down heavily, but I don’t go anywhere without it. My life revolves around my bottle and my digital tablet—the only things I need to survive. Finally, my hand lands on the pocket holding a small slingshot. It’s not mine, meant as a gift for my friend Chrissy who’s always wanting to explore the wilds, but it seems I have more need of it right now.

I grin when my compass finally settles, and the companion app on my tablet starts planning out a route across the alien terrain. It’s not quite as straight as I had hoped, though. In fact, it twists and turns a lot around the mountain. That two-day jaunt might turn into three at this rate. Better get going. I’ll collect water and forage for food along the way. I’m sure I can figure out what’s safe to eat along the way, as long as I don’t touch the mushrooms. Mushrooms are universally considered dangerous, right?

Plus, yuck.

I spare a glance back at Eve’s Rest Village. If I had the opportunity, I’d go back for Stacy. She’s the youngest of my friends, barely even an adult. Thankfully she wasn’t due to meet us today at the marketplace, opting to go on some date with someone closer to her age. Of course, I had planned to spy on her, just to make sure that she was safe, at least before Ariana had shown up again…

Only a few days ago, life was somewhat simple. Keeping my friends close, should anything happen to them, and just doing my routine coding. How did my life turn so hectic and dangerous, so fast?

But then again, maybe I shouldn’t take Stacy with me. I’m about to set out on some quest across an alien wilderness. She doesn’t need me dragging her into this mess, no matter how much I wish I had her support. The whole point of me doing this is to keep her safe.

Stacy will be better off staying at the colony. Once this is all over and done, I’ll tell her of my adventure.

Firming my resolve, and gripping my tablet between white, shaking fingers, I start following the dotted GPS line.

This is my adventure.

Just watch, I’m going to be the heroine of this story.