by Sonia Nova
Finishing his drink in one long swallow, he wished he were on one of those freighters instead of this ship. Spending a couple weeks making some extra money moving crates around almost sounded better than trying to figure out how to comfortably fit in and enjoy himself like everyone else. Part of him wanted to march up to the control deck that very moment and ask the crew of the E’lania if there was any way he could help out, no payment needed.
The other passengers in the café looked so put together and ready to relax, like they had been doing it all their lives. They had been, Zeriq reminded himself. Going on vacation was something many races had in common.
Not the Ezak-X. “Vacation” for his kind had meant a day or two forgotten and starving in a cell while the Krezlians experimented on someone else…
Zeriq grimaced. He pushed the memories from his mind, something he had plenty of practice doing. The Ezak-X were free from the Krezlians now – he wouldn’t let his memories of their cruelty taint his freedom. At least, not right now.
A human family entered the café and Zeriq smiled somewhat automatically as the mother’s gaze accidentally met his. She let out a little gasp as she took in his appearance and pulled her two young children closer to her. The father of the family put his hand on her back and steered them toward the other side of the café’s counter.
Zeriq frowned and considered asking for another drink, but decided that it was probably best to keep his wits about him. Not only did he want to stay under the radar, he also wanted to be ready in case of a Krezlian attack.
It wasn’t likely – his unit had mostly been tied up defending ships leaving the Mars colony and smaller passenger ships leaving the other side of Earth, and he hadn’t heard of any Va’ii ships being targeted. But he had learned to never let his guard down long before he had been recruited by the Alliance military.
“So, you’re on military leave?” the barista asked after she handed the family who had avoided him their drinks.
The question surprised Zeriq. The human hadn’t talked to him at first and Zeriq hadn’t expected her to start now – but either way, her words distracted him from his thoughts. He watched as the female wiped her hands on her apron and leaned against the other side of the counter, too close to him for comfort.
Zeriq could hear the way her heart pounded in her chest, and he knew she was nervous. But it was like a sudden switch had been flipped inside her, and instead of avoiding him, she had an odd smile on her face and was practically pushing herself in his face.
Zeriq frowned.
“Yes,” he answered slowly, wondering for a moment what she was onto and how she knew he was Alliance military before remembering he was wearing his uniform.
The barista nodded. “I’ve worked on the E’lania for a couple years now and I’ve only ever seen a few of you,” she chattered on, as if to hide her anxiety. It was obvious she meant Ezak-X, not military men on leave.
“We’d rather be out there,” Zeriq answered her unspoken question, nodding upward toward space. “Fighting.”
She let out a laugh that made Zeriq furrow his brow. He hadn’t made a joke. “Well, thanks for your service. I, for one, feel safer with you on board,” she said, a smile on her lips. “If I can get you another drink…”
Zeriq’s scowl deepened. Was she… flirting with him?
Zeriq still wasn’t that familiar with the different customs of all the races in the Alliance, but he knew this was another possible reaction to his kind that he had noticed: either people pulled their children closer at the sight of his horns and sharp teeth, or suddenly became too interested in him as if looking to have an experience that would be a story to tell their friends.
With his heightened senses, Zeriq could hear the way the barista’s heart pounded in her chest and smell the sweat on her palms. Both of these told him that she wasn’t just interested in him like a girl was interested in a guy – she was half afraid, and yet she wanted to do it.
Zeriq just grunted to her in response and looked away as if there was something very interesting outside the ship windows.
Some of his kind was glad to play along and be used like that. Zeriq wasn’t interested.
He knew it was about the only way for his kind to get laid – that, or paid company – but he didn’t like the attention. It only reminded him of the kind of a freak he was.
He considered heading back to his room where he could avoid any more people, when a specific human female caught his eye on the other side of the café.
His gaze had just been pointedly directed away from the barista and toward the window, but he realized belatedly that he had accidentally ended up staring straight at a human female sitting alone by the window and reading something on her tablet.
Thankfully, she hadn’t noticed he was looking yet. Something about her made him not want to look away.
The female looked… soft. Zeriq couldn’t think of a better word for her. Unlike the barista who had come across as stiff and calculating, there was something sweet about this female and Zeriq couldn’t stop staring.
She had brown skin and dark, curly hair pulled back in a bun to reveal a pretty face with round cheeks and long eyelashes. She smiled at something she was reading, and the expression lit up her whole face.
“Welcome to the E’lania…” A voice over the loudspeaker brought him back to the moment.
He nearly looked away, not wanting to scare the female if she saw him staring, but it seemed like she hadn’t noticed him in the least. At the sound of the loudspeaker, she had glanced up and put away her tablet. She turned away from him to look out the window, probably excited to see the Fold Drive like the rest of the passengers who were moving toward the windows.
“Okay, well, let me know if there’s anything else I can get you,” the barista said in a chilly voice behind him, finally getting the signal that he wasn’t interested, before walking to the other side of the counter, away from the bar, and talking to some other customers.
Zeriq got up and moved closer to the windows.
In training for his military position with the Alliance, he had studied the differences between Ghelian and Va’ii spacecraft models. And while he knew Ghelian ships pretty well, only the appearance and visible functions of the Va’ii technology were taught during Alliance training.
The peacekeeping race wasn’t interested in giving out the intricacies of their advanced tech to a bunch of less diplomatically advanced and occasionally warmongering races.
The limited training meant that Zeriq knew what to expect theoretically from the Fold Drive, but he had never actually seen it activated in person. He had to admit he was vaguely curious.
The tables along the windows were now full, and clumps of passengers stood alongside the tables to look out the windows. Zeriq would have been hard pressed to find a good spot to watch if not for his height. He leaned against a wall some distance away from the windows and watched as the docking bay and the Earth city of New York disappeared above the heads of the other, smaller passengers.
Soon, they were moving swiftly out of Earth’s orbit. The red orb of the Mars colony grew in size as they approached, glowing in the darkness of space around them.
The lights in the café flashed on and off once, indicating that the Fold Drive was about to be activated. The subtly mechanical humming noise intensified and Zeriq watched Mars start to blur as the drive kicked into gear.
Then, the floor under Zeriq’s feet shook with intense force. A few people around him gasped and stumbled on their feet in the room.
What the–?
The humming sputtered and fell silent. Mars came back into focus. They hadn’t moved a foot. Another tremor shook through the ship and Zeriq was forced to put a hand against the wall beside him to steady himself.
Passengers were looking around at each other with wide eyes.
This wasn’t part of the Fold Drive activation. Zeriq was too familiar with what this type of shaking meant, and it made his blood boil.
&n
bsp; An explosion.
CHAPTER 3
HAZEL
Hazel sat frozen in shock as the ship quaked around her. She had seen the Fold Drive before, and this wasn’t it.
Everyone else in the café responded similarly, going dead silent and looking around as if an easy answer as to what was going on would be somehow visible in the café.
And then… it was.
Hazel watched, horrified, as several ugly gray ships flew into formation in the space between the E’lania and Mars. Every horrible detail was clearly visible from the café windows. Too close.
No. This couldn’t be happening.
Her worst nightmare.
The ships were unmistakable. Working in the Communications Department at the Earth Agency had given her plenty of chances to review footage of Krezlian ships – especially lately – and she could have recognized them upside down and backward.
A cold shiver of dread crawled down her spine.
Before the Fold Drive had been fully activated and the ship had left the solar system, it seemed a Krezlian missile had hit the E’lania. And there wasn’t just one ship out there, there were at least ten – no, twenty – twenty large warships and that was only counting what Hazel could see.
They had brought an army.
Another blast shook the ship and people started to scream and panic around her. The power flickered out and lines of red backup lights began to glow on the floor and walls of the café and down the hallway, leading back to the passenger quarters. A howling alarm picked up volume, drowning out the terrified voices of the other passengers.
Hazel sat still, forgetting to breathe, totally in shock as she watched the chaos around her. Passengers backed away from the windows and began to crowd around the café exit.
“We are initiating an immediate evacuation protocol. Please follow the red lights to the nearest shuttle platform.” It was the same smooth voice that had spoken over the speakers earlier, except now the announcement was barely perceptible over the alarm. How did whoever was talking still sound so calm? It felt unreal to Hazel. “A crew member will assist you in your evacuation.”
The word “evacuation” somehow broke Hazel out of her shock.
This was really happening. And she had to get moving – now.
She grabbed her bag from the floor and tried to shimmy through the bottleneck of people that had formed at the café exit, starting to realize just how bad of a situation this was.
The Krezlians probably had the E’lania surrounded. Exactly how were the emergency shuttles supposed to make it to the Mars colony or back to Earth when there were enemy ships all around? And the E’lania was a passenger ship, so it didn’t have the ability to defend hundreds of shuttles taking off back toward Earth and deflect incoming missiles toward the ship itself.
As far as Hazel could see, their only hope was that a patrolling Alliance military unit would be nearby and able to guard the emergency shuttles. Otherwise, it could take at least a minute or two for the Earth defense or Alliance military to show up.
And the Krezlians could do a lot of damage in a minute.
The last few passengers in front of her managed to push their way through the café exit, and Hazel followed the flow of the crowd into the hallway.
The voice over the speakers had said something about crewmembers assisting with the evacuation, but Hazel couldn’t see anyone in an E’lania uniform. The hallway was packed as far as she could see in front of her. She was side to side with passengers shoving and pushing against each other.
If only she hadn’t done what everyone else had decided to do as well and gone to the café in front of the ship to see the Fold Drive activate. She remembered seeing the sealed door to an emergency shuttle platform nearby her room when she had first boarded. If she had just stayed there, she might already be on a shuttle…
But did she even really want to be out there? In a tiny shuttle while who knew how many Krezlian ships were in the area?
Follow the crewmember instructions, she told herself, shaking her head. This was not the time to question what was going on and work herself into a panic. She just had to focus on getting to the shuttles.
With a deep breath, Hazel plowed forward. She squeezed herself between the two people in front of her and ended up running straight into another passenger and stumbling. She was just about to apologize and keep pushing forward when she noticed what this passenger was wearing.
A soldier uniform.
The dark grey of the regulation Alliance fatigues was unmistakable. Who knew why there was a single Alliance soldier in the hallway, but Hazel wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass.
She jogged beside the soldier to keep up with his pace as he moved through the crowd, and she realized this was actually the perfect space to be. The soldier was giant and the passengers around him seemed to part away to form a path without him having to do a thing.
She looked up toward his face, trying to see if he had even noticed her since his pace hadn’t slowed, and was momentarily shocked.
Horns. Black eyes. Gray skin.
She had never been this close to an Ezak-X, one of the newest races in the Alliance, but there was no forgetting those features. She found their story fascinating – although gruesome. A race bred for military might and tortured into submission, only to be rescued and find a natural place in the Alliance military…
It didn’t matter if this soldier was Ezak-X or one of the intelligent sponge species that had been discovered on Titan, one of Saturn’s moons. All that mattered was that Alliance military uniform.
“Hey, excuse me,” she said, raising her voice so it was audible over the alarm, all the while trying to keep up with his lengthy footsteps. The man didn’t seem to hear her, however, and she repeated her request. “Excuse me!”
The soldier didn’t slow down, and Hazel nearly tripped over her feet again, trying to keep up with his pace.
Okay, then that left her no choice. Leaping forward, she grabbed the soldier’s wrist in her hand, her fingers barely making it halfway around. She was surprised by how soft his skin was, almost like velvet, but she didn’t have long to marvel at the fact.
The soldier’s pace finally slowed, and he turned toward her, looking down at her with a deep frown before shaking her hand off of him.
“What do you want?” he asked, clearly annoyed by her presence.
His gaze was piercing, as if he was looking straight through her, and under normal circumstances, Hazel might’ve backed off after seeing his expression. But as it was, she didn’t let it faze her. Whatever adrenaline she had in her system due to the situation was enough to face his menacing glare.
“You’re Alliance military,” she said, now only having to speed walk to keep up with his slower pace. “Can you tell me what’s going on here?”
“I don’t know anything you don’t know,” he grunted and picked up his speed again. Hazel broke back into a jog beside him.
“I think you do,” she said. “Why would they give the evacuation order when the Krezlians are right outside? Wouldn’t it be safer to stay on the ship until military backup comes?”
The Ezak-X soldier’s expression was so serious, Hazel knew she wasn’t going to like whatever he had to say next. “I don’t know any details. I’m a passenger just like you.”
“But?” Hazel prompted, knowing he was thinking something he hadn’t told her yet.
“But initiating the evacuation protocol like this means the enemy must already be on the ship.”
A wave of cold terror swept through Hazel at his words. She almost froze right then and there in the middle of the crowd, unable to take in the consequences of such information, but she came back to her senses just in time. She continued to match the soldier’s pace, trailing behind him by only a foot or so.
Her brain was suddenly filled with thoughts, none of which were good. But out of anywhere she could be on this ship right now, next to an Alliance-trained soldier seemed like the safest place to
be, and so she continued to follow him. Though, she realized, he probably didn’t have a weapon. The pacifist Va’ii weren’t about to let a passenger take a weapon on the ship no matter their training.
“What should we do?” Hazel asked, almost to herself, knowing there was no real answer to the question.
“As we’re told,” the soldier said shortly.
Hazel didn’t have an answer for that. She followed behind him to take advantage of the wide berth the other passengers were giving him, until she saw the glowing red border of a doorway to an emergency shuttle platform.
About ten or fifteen passengers were jostling to get into the doorway that was only big enough for one or two bodies, and Hazel watched as another group came running down the hallway from the other direction. So many people fighting to get past each other at the doorway was only going to slow the evacuation down even more.
The soldier stopped and Hazel just barely managed to not run into him again, coming to a stop beside him.
“Step back,” he barked to the people by the entrance, his deep voice easily audible over the alarm. “Alliance military!”
Passengers turned toward him, fear on their faces. Whether it was at his alien appearance or because of the whole situation, Hazel didn’t know. But either way, the crowd parted for him quickly as he strode toward the doorway.
“You three, in,” he ordered, gesturing toward the nearest clump of people. He continued directing small groups onto the platform, a few at a time, until he and Hazel were the last ones in the hallway.
It had only taken a few minutes to get everyone inside, when before it had seemed absolutely impossible to manage to get through the doorway from where they had been standing.
“Okay, so that was helpful of you,” Hazel said, and he looked at her in surprise as if he had forgotten she was there. “But do you even think there will be a shuttle left? Now that everyone else is already in there?”
“We’ll see,” the soldier said, and ducked through the doorway.
Hazel followed him onto the platform and knew she had been right. Because this was the nearest shuttle platform to the café, and just about everyone had been there to see the Fold Drive activate, the area was clearly filled beyond capacity.
