by M E Williams
I was about to turn to keep walking when I spotted Marriah coming out of one of the tents, the one belonging to Rachael. Rachael followed behind her and they started in a light jog toward me. Whatever it was they were excited about, I knew I would not like it.
Rachael’s suit hid her blonde hair, pale skin, pink lips, and hazel eyes. She and Marriah stood at roughly the same height, about an inch shorter than me. They’d been best friends since before I arrived. I’d often wondered how they’d become so close, but I never took the time to ask.
Marriah looked at me and I thought I saw a glint of mischievousness showing through her brown eyes. Then, she spoke in a small voice, “We were wondering if Rachael could come along for the trip?” I looked at them both in disbelief. “It is an unnecessary risk.” I turned to walk away, but Marriah made me double-take with her next statement. “Mother will say yes.” I smirked at her, “Ask her then and we will see. My answer is no.”
I approached the front of the compound. Rance, Roci, Lesley, Shaylah, Eman, Aya, and a smaller recruit were all loading up the two vehicles with their rucksacks. They already moved like an efficient team. I took my sack off my back to do a quick check before we made the journey. While I was doing my count, Queen Lisa approached from the side with two horses, as well as Marriah, and Rachael.
“Rachael will accompany you all on this trip.” Marriah looked at me with a proud smile as the Queen spoke. Seemed I might be the only one with any reason in this conversation. Or maybe I just needed to understand what the Queen was thinking.
“My Queen, it is an unnecessary risk as I am sure you know. She will need her suit to protect her from the sun from dawn to dusk. Even afterward, she may have damage with the lingering UV rays. Some days, we do not know if the sun will stay up and for how long.” The Queen let me ramble on for quite some time. I decided to just stop. It seemed her decision was made. She did tell me her reasoning, which was rare.
“We would have to test the suit outside of the confines one day. Rachael and Marriah clearly understand the risks.” Queen Lisa looked again; she could tell I was not satisfied with her answer. “One day, the sun will be too much, even for us.” So, now she confessed the truth.
She did know the risks of the death of her daughter’s best friend, but it was acceptable because she was thinking about the future of her people. What if they knew I still must complete my mission no matter what the risk? I immediately started thinking about my arrival here, my tactical mission to use Earth as our next battleground. It had taken this clan a long time to trust me.
CHAPTER ONE
They told me I would look like a ball of fire once I entered the atmosphere of ‘ND. The BM’M and ZMGN’M were busy fighting with each other so I and the other K’LM-‘KM had no choice but to enter this way. We knew it would be harder and we’d have to explain ourselves if captured. We knew how dangerous and insidious humans could be but we were prepared for torture and death.
Each of us would land in different territories, find the best locations suitable for our fight against A’ABM, find the strengths and weaknesses of this planet ‘ND, and bring the TV-WBK here where there were the fewest living things.
I stood with my WBM spread wide as I took inventory of myself. I heard a single twig snap behind me, and knew I was no longer alone. Two females approached with hesitating steps.
When I began to turn around, I heard one say, “What is it? It has wings.” “It’s at least nine feet tall,” the other one said, voice shaking. I wanted to turn around but remembered if you laid eyes on me in this form, you’d go mad and experience an excruciating death.
Before I could take my chosen human form, I felt several piercings against my back and expanded WBM. The stabs in my back would stay until I could remove the objects, but ones against my WBM were deflected. Some landed on the ground, some bounced back. They took my natural defenses as an attack. I heard several guns loading, “Do not.”
I wrapped my WBM completely around myself as they unloaded. “Hold your fire! Her wings are causing the bullets to ricochet.” They stopped but the last of the bullets were still flying around. I heard a scream.
Unable to complete my transformation since I was trying to defend myself, I turned around and the female who had tried to comfort the one screaming looked at me. I saw the madness forming in her facial features. I walked up to them both, took her weapon and shot her in the head. It was better to be killed this way instead of the death she faced. The other one had passed out from the pain. I used this time to begin the transformation before others arrived.
The WBM would be the most painful, feeling like a million tiny razors coming out of my collarbone and shoulder blades. The process of them disintegrating would take a few minutes, but it felt like hours. I dropped down to one knee to try to withstand the pain, but it turned out to be too great.
I ended up on both hands and eventually curled into a ball as the last of the WBM vanished. I lay there on the ground, momentarily catching my breath and could hear more humans coming in the distance. I needed to hurry the transformation before they reached my location.
When choosing the human form I would take, I studied the life left on this planet ‘ND. It seemed as if trees thrived the best, especially with humans no longer cutting them down before they had an adequate chance to grow and reach their full potential. The intermediate shade-tolerant lasted the longest. They could go weeks without sun but could also have direct exposure to the sunlight. It would be nice to be a tree.
Instead, I chose the best human form I could find and mimicked it. After extensive research, my calculations showed that black skin, brown eyes and lips, intelligence, and beauty would be one of the best to survive a time like this.
I made my transformation. Hair sprouted from my head, long and twisted like wool, dark brown, almost black to match my eyes and eyebrows. My body became burnished bronze all over from my scalp to my toes. For optimal performance, I must also be female—otherwise, I would perish right after my transformation, from inhaling too much of the air. I am shorter; instead of the several feet I would have stood above humans, I am now a mere five feet seven inches. A slight perspiration begins to form on my forehead, over my arms.
I heard several people around me. I looked up and was surrounded by people, cars, horses, weapons, makkunrai, oroani, calalai, calabai, and bissu, various forms of men and women. Soon, I was blinded by a bright light and felt disoriented and confused.
I started spinning in circles trying to make out the figures and placement of where I was. I leaned over and closed my eyes while I started throwing up. Now, I felt hot and sweaty all over and moist all over, then became unable to feel anything and for a moment, I thought things went black. My eyes were not actually closed; I was just unable to focus.
When I was able to briefly place myself, I realized I was on the ground, on my side. A really black-skinned woman was in front of me, slapping my face—only gently—to gather my attention. This time, I did actually pass out. My eyes rolled back in my head, and for the first time since the landing. I felt a release of all tension.
I woke to a rocking feeling in my stomach that caused me to heave, but nothing would come out. In a sense, it felt worse than the actual throwing up and I wished I could get it over with again. I felt like I could not breathe again.
A voice next to me forced my head down. It was very uncomfortable because my hands were interlocked and I could not move my arms. Then, I heard her telling me to breathe slowly and control it. “One…Two… In… Out.” I focused in on her voice mostly, until I could make out what she was saying and get a rhythm to my breathing. It slowed dramatically, even the ill feeling in my stomach starting to recede.
I tried to sit up, “Stay down,” a voice said to me. I stayed down but opened my eyes. We were definitely moving in a vehicle. “What’s your name?” the strong, deep, female voice asked me. “‘JHS," I tried to reply, I could tell by her silence that she did not understand me. Well, this was an overs
ight.
In my natural form, I could appear to humans with a message from BM’M. Perhaps since it was not willed, I was not granted this gift. If the others were having similar issues, how would we overcome them? Fortunately, I could still understand them, not a big hindrance, I hoped.
There was something sounding like birds all around us, and the vehicle came to a sudden stop. I was pulled out of it by the wraps around my wrists by the same woman who asked me my name.
When we landed outside of the vehicle, I fell to the ground, looking around. It took a while for my eyes to adjust again to the light. As I began to get to my knees, I felt a hand on my shoulder. “Stay down.” My right knee and right hand were on the ground, but I kept looking up.
The first thing I noticed clearly was the dark brown hand resting on my shoulder. My eyes ran up and followed the hand to the rest of the woman. She had on a black fitted outfit covering her body, a cloak, and her hair was braided back in neat rows. She could have been close to six feet, if not over the six-foot mark. She had a spear in the opposite hand.
I looked around, and other women formed a semi-circle around us. On my knee, I could not see around the human-made wall.
“Queen Lisa.” It was a statement but sounded more like a question. This Queen Lisa standing next to me must have also felt this was a question. “Yes, what are you doing along my borders?”
The Queen, so it seemed, was relaxed, whereas I felt all the emotion of those surrounding us. They were all tense. I could see the muscles and veins throughout some of their bodies, some holding their weapons and shields so tightly. The energy of the Queen seemed the only thing holding everyone together.
“We saw it too. Whatever it was that came from the sky.” Instead of answering their question, she made her own observations. “You know, Kellyann. Those suits you have won’t last too much longer out here.” She waited. Time was indeed on the Queen’s side.
One of the women beside me made a bird noise again, and one was returned from the distance in similar fashion. A voice from the other side spoke. She tried to be quiet but I was sure we all heard it along with the fear in her voice. “Kellyann, we’re outnumbered.”
“Form up, let’s go.” Kellyann said again but I did not hear her leave her position. “Queen Lisa, our people should work together.” She said it with a drained voice. It must have been a conversation that had happened before and would continue to happen again and again.
“We don’t need your people. I told you before, once you have something to offer, that will be our conversation starter.” Kellyann turned away with a deep sigh. Queen Lisa did not let up, “And Kellyann, if you come near my borders again, I’ll consider it an official sanctioned attack.”
When Kellyann broke into a run to go back to where she came from, the Queen gave another order as she removed her hand from my shoulder, “Mikishia, follow them. Keep us updated with their location and movements.”
I stood up and looked around for the first time. There were a few trees around us, but we were in a more open part of the land. Mikishia jumped down from one of the trees, exchanged weapons from one that was oversized to a smaller women’s variant she could place on her person. This freed her hands. She took off, back to the trees.
When she did that, a lonely leaf fell slowly to the ground. The wind blew it until it reached my foot and landed near my left big toe; I wiggled all of them, realizing for the first time that I was naked. I looked at my calves, knees, stomach, and outstretched my arms. My wrists were raw from the ties, my attention to myself broken once I realized some women in the circle had wandered off to other places. The Queen was allowing them to take a break. She on the other hand, was looking intently at me.
“You can understand me, can’t you?” Very dominant. And to the untrained ear, it appeared to be a question. I knew it was not, so did not answer. She smirked, almost like she’d figured out some secret. The white teeth slightly showed behind the swollen but thinly-parted lips, a stark contradiction to her dark skin. She almost seemed inviting. Almost.
I just witnessed her turn another group away with no help, so maybe only saw just enough of what she wanted me to see. “You were the one who came from the sky?” This sounded like a statement but was actually a question. “O’IDN.” I wanted to answer her with an affirmative, but she did not understand me.
Queen Lisa took a step back, nodding toward the sky and down toward our feet.
“Yes.” She did it slowly and repeated herself, “Yes.”
Then she moved her head left to right. “No.”
“Do you understand ‘yes’ and ‘no’?” she questioned, looking me directly in my eyes. In a way, it made me feel very small.
“O’IDN.” I nodded my head back and forth like her first example, but much quicker.
“You have no clothes, no weapons, we found no flight equipment at the landing site where we found you.” She was thinking out loud, I took it, because she was not focused on me or anyone else around us. “The ball of fire? Was it you?”
“O’IDN,” I said and nodded once again.
“Can you write?” I wondered where all these small questions were leading. No doubt, she did not actually want me to write unless there was some greater purpose.
“NPH.” My head went from left to right. It was the truth. We did not write in that language. There had never been a need to write it when we delivered our messages in many other forms and ways to many species, including humans.
“Look at me and don’t lie.” She completely squared with me, made sure she was standing at her full height. She was in my space, really close, and I had nowhere to go. We both knew how intimidating she was with her height and muscular build. “Are you here to attack us?”
I stared back at her and mimicked her stance. She was taller than me, and maybe even more muscular, but I was a ‘JHS, a true ‘JHS, so was my name. I did not cower in the face of any fear. I shrank for no one. “NPH,” I said, sound and true. Again, the truth. I did not care for petty human squabbles, or even if they lived or died. And they would die. My job here was to be sure this planet, ‘ND, was a good location for our forces.
Queen Lisa used the ties around my wrists to pull me closer. She spoke slowly as she made sure they were even tighter. “If you disobey anything anyone says, you will die.” With each new rule, the restraints grew even tighter.
“If I sense your betrayal at any point, you will die.” Tighter.
“Until I know you are no longer a threat to my people, you are my prisoner.” Tighter.
“Until we discover an effective way to communicate, you will keep the chains.” Tighter.
When the restraints felt like they could not move any further, she tightened them still, almost to make a final point. She looked over my shoulder, “Rodney, grab clothes from the scout and place them in the back of the truck.” An older male with a breathing device immediately followed her orders.
“Now, go to the truck and put on the clothes once they’re delivered. After you’ve changed, someone will be in to shackle your feet.” So, this was my first test. She gave clear direction, but I suspected as much, as she wanted to see my first choices and also to find out how much I actually understood.
I nodded my head again with a sigh of resignation. I expected to be treated much worse. The sigh was not due to my treatment or even being taken as a prisoner by these people. I sighed because for the first time of my brief stay on this planet, I felt tired. Not just physically, but mentally drained as well.
We were taught to sustain the physical wear and tear before we arrived. We were not told of the mental aspect. Our trainers did not know. These bodies of flesh were indeed weak. I wondered how I would manage if these were the first side effects of becoming human; I would have to complete the mission quickly so I could ascend and aid in the real fight.
The truck was not too far away, but I lingered as I walked toward it. And for the first time, I was truly able to look around. I did not know how much time had
passed but it was no longer as bright out. I looked up and noticed the sun in the beginning phases of setting. The sky was grey but there was not a cloud in sight. Several stands of trees were surrounding our little area, all various colors and different types, and I wondered how they all survived in the same environment. I wiggled my toes and felt a patch of what must have been grass. I glanced down for a second, to find my leg in a bush of flowers.
I tilted my head to the side when I looked up. Makeshift homes were being created in preparation for a night against the elements, maybe. Whatever the reason, it seemed we would be staying here for a while, or at least overnight.
There were people walking around, talking with each other. Some had similar symbols on their wrists, and yet others had symbols looking completely different. The same with the clothing and colors. I wondered what it all meant. They were part of the same KGNRV?
“Ahem, ahem…” I looked back in the direction of someone clearing their throat. The Queen was standing in the middle of two additional people with weapons, both women, dressed in similar fashion with identical markings and colors. The noise did not come from them.
“Ahem.” I looked up. In the trees were several people, small men and women, sort of overhead protection for the Queen. The one who looked in charge of those in the trees pointed toward the truck. I looked at the Queen, who simply pointed her chin toward the truck and walked to her left. I refocused on my original intentions.
When I made it to the edge of the truck, I took one step. Once my foot was secure on the running board, I looked toward the Queen. She was no longer watching me which meant she had complete faith I wouldn’t stray from her instructions, or she knew if I did not follow the directions, her people would act. She was examining two others. I finished stepping up inside of the truck and went back to the place I was sitting before our travels were interrupted and I was forced out.
