by Sy Walker
“What do you think they’re like?” her mother asked then. “The Daskani? I assume they’re kind enough to offer to help…”
“You always assume on the side of optimism,” Celeste retorted. “I am not holding my breath. It’s quite possible that the only reason they answered our ruddy call is because they want to fuck our brains out and feed our entrails to their babies.”
“Language!!” her mother shouted. “Your sister might hear you!”
Celeste scoffed. “She should be paying attention now. It’s likely that she’ll end up having to follow suit someday.” Though Celeste really hoped not. Her little sister Ruby was twenty years old, one of the last babies born on Earth. She was of age, but according to Celeste and her mother, she was still much too young to be thinking about having babies or being abducted by mysterious aliens from another galaxy.
Her mother gave Celeste a sad little half smile. “Because of you, she probably and very thankfully will not have to volunteer,” she said. “Because of your sacrifice…”
“Please,” Celeste said with a grimace. “Don’t call it a sacrifice. That makes it sound like I’m noble.”
As her mother looked at her, Celeste realized that she was not looking at her in judgement or annoyance like she usually seemed to do. No. She was looking into Celeste’s eyes and smiling at her in a way that said she was proud of her. And maybe even somewhat sad to see her go.
Give a faint chuckle, Celeste pulled her mother in for a hug. “Hey,” she said. “I don’t leave until tomorrow. And even then, you don’t know that I’ll be gone forever. The Daskani are going to be taking care of our crummy planet from now on, so I’m sure you will still be seeing a lot of me.”
Tears filled Mrs. Monroe’s eyes now. “I hope you’re right. When your father died, I hoped that that might be the last time the family broke apart. And now… You’re not just moving to another town, you’re moving to another planet.”
“Like I said,” Celeste said, rubbing her mother’s back in a comforting sort of way. “Maybe I will meet a Daskani who is really interested in Earth biology for some reason, and he’ll want to start a colony of space sheep here or something! Ohio is not what it used to be, but it’s better for space sheep than, say, Texas would be.”
She was clearly joking. Texas was practically a pile of ash, and Ohio had not had a sheep in it in at least ten years. Still, it made her mother smile.
Of course, everything that Celeste said was a front for how she was really feeling. She did not want her mom or her sister to know that she was terrified. She did not want to be mated off to some alien brute that she had never met. The very idea repulsed her. Only when she was alone did she allow herself to think about what lay ahead and how much she was really, truly dreading it.
Celeste was a brave woman. She did whatever it took to keep her family safe. Ever since her father’s passing, she had worked hard and she had been the one to hold things together. But that did not mean that she did so without fear in her mind. It did not mean that she did not feel like crying for help.
The morning of the Fertility Enrichment Program came to greet Celeste before she was ready, even though she had been preparing herself for it for quite some time. She got out of bed, short auburn hair cowlicked in more than a few places. She stretched, and put on her black plastic glasses, thinking that they might make her appear better in the mirror. They just made her messy, sleep-deprived-looking appearance clearer.
She got out of bed and threw on the clothes she had picked out for this momentous occasion: a lavender jumpsuit with a belt that had a gold, star-shaped buckle. She thought that it would be better to dress like she was taking on a mission, not like she was trying to sex up a stranger.
As soon as her groggy mother took one look at her however, she was back in her bedroom putting on some black leggings and a purple dress instead. She kept the belt, though. Celeste liked the idea of eloping with an alien while wearing such an appropriately-themed belt buckle. She supposed that she was not always super mature.
Or perhaps she just had a silly sense of humor.
“You look like you want to be beamed up,” her mother said. “But I guess that will be appreciated. Do you know who you’re going to be assigned to?”
Celeste shook her head and bit her lip a little. She did not like that terminology. They were not going to be lab partners. They were going to be sexual partners. And she was not going to be the Daskani male’s ‘assignment.’ If anything, she hoped that she might be his friend. But she was trying to be optimistic about that. It didn’t do any good to be negative now.
The alarm sounded, signaling that the volunteers needed to make their way to the main area of the compound. If any household had been asleep before, they were awake now.
Celeste’s mother suddenly pulled her in for a hug. “I am very proud of you,” she said, choking back tears and then letting a bunch of them escape anyway. “I will miss you so much, but I am so proud of you. Ruby is too.”
“Ruby is too,” her little sister’s voice said from behind their mother. She smirked as she came into view. She looked a lot like Celeste, except shorter and with longer, blonder hair. The same galaxy of freckles darted across the bridge of her nose; the same twinkle was in her light brown eyes. Only, Celeste doubted that there was a twinkle in her own eyes right now.
At least, not a twinkle that wasn’t tears.
“I hope you get a hot one,” Ruby said, then she gave Celeste a hug.
“Ha,” Celeste said, doing her best to wipe at her eyes while her face was on Ruby’s shoulder. “You know I’m hoping that, too. Be good, kid. I will be back to check in on you. Though probably not until I’ve properly bred something.”
She knew that it was time to go. She hated goodbyes, so she did not allow herself to linger. Giving a quick nod and wave to her mother and sister, Celeste turned from their house and walked out under the bright early morning sun.
The Earthen compound was made up of thousands and thousands of small, squat homes. They were all gathered in groups, with a large dome-like structure at the center. That was where important Presidential presentations were given and things like that.
Today, that was where Celeste and all of the other ready-to-breed young women were to meet. And wait.
She joined the throngs of young, nervous women and stood there in the rows along with them, gazing up at the dark triangular shape in the sky. The Daskani ship was coming in for a landing. At first, it seemed like it was just going to land and crush all of Earth’s last hope.
But instead, it landed a hundred and twenty yards to the left of them. Before long, with a loud squeak that suggested they needed some oil, the hatch of the space ship opened and a long, shiny gangplank came down. This was soon filled with tall, uniform-wearing Daskani men as they marched down onto the ground and towards the nervously tittering women.
As each one passed her, picking out his mate that thankfully was not her, Celeste could not help appraising these men. They could hardly be called men. They were all at least seven feet tall; with skin that was a bright blue complexion that glowed. However strange, Celeste could not deny there was a certain beauty they carried.
And as her eyes darted from one Daskani to the next, Celeste wondered if any of these one hundred virile aliens would appeal to her.
That’s when her eyes met with the moss green eyes their leader. He marched towards her with an expression that said less that he wanted to mate with her, and more that he wanted to devour her alive.
Her heart told her to run, but her brain told her to stay right where she was.
She had been selected.
CHAPTER TWO
General Zephyr
“To the ship!” this moss-eyed Daskani shouted to his men. Suddenly, the Daskani grabbed the women that they had selected and carried then, thrown onto their shoulders, back up the ramp of their space ship. Celeste let out a half-scream before her apparent mate grabbed her and tossed her onto his hard, rocklike shou
lder.
His blue skin was even scaly like a serpent, but she was oh so thankful that he was not slimy. At once, she took offense to the way these aliens just took hold of their new brides as if they were prized cows instead of women deserving of love and compassion. Celeste was not under the illusion that the Daskani were looking for love on all the wrong planets, but she did not think that she and all the other women had volunteered to be mere sex slaves to a horny alien race.
She knew that the Daskani were helping the people of Earth, and she should not complain because of that, but there was helping and then there was taking advantage.
As soon as the lady volunteers of Earth were brought aboard the space ship, it became abundantly clear that these males liked to keep rather hot conditions while travelling through space. The whole place felt like a sauna. It was difficult to even breathe; that’s how hot it was. Several of the ladies, including Celeste, began coughing.
The Daskani paid that no mind and instead started shoving the women into cages. Each of them apparently had a cage that was designated for their new female mates from Earth. Celeste’s moss-eyed leader tossed her into a cage like all the others, as though she was a mere rag doll, and almost slammed the metal door but Celeste reached out and stopped it.
“Hey!” she shouted at him, practically spitting in his face because she was salivating and sweating so profusely. “You are treating us like cattle! You can’t do this! If you keep it this hot, we will all die before you get us to your planet.”
Her mate stared at her a moment, and at first, she wondered if he could understand what she was saying. She had always assumed that the Daskani could speak English, at least well enough to converse with the President and the other Earthen leaders. “We will die,” she said again, for emphasis, in case that made things clearer.
Suddenly, he clapped his two great claw like hands together and another of the aliens rushed towards him. “Lower the temperature,” he told the alien of lower rank. “Let’s make things a bit more… hospitable for our mates.”
Celeste did not like the way he emphasized that word. Nothing about this was hospitable. And she also did not like the way he glared at her, almost as if he felt burdened with her like she was burdened with him.
He did nothing to address the fact that the women were all in cages however. As soon as the temperature noticeably went down to a comfortable eighty degrees, her Daskani turned and walked away down the long hallway, leaving the Earthling women crying and shouting in their room of cages.
They were in kennels like dogs.
Celeste was pissed. “Hey!” she tried shouting after him, but he made no motion as if he heard her. He reached the end of the hall and went into an office, shutting the door behind himself. “UGH, you ASSHOLE!” she shouted then, hitting the front of her cage forcefully with the palm of her hand. All that really achieved was making her palm throb, but it was better than just sitting in her cage and crying like all the other imbiciles.
“What did you all expect?” she asked then, under her breath, as she sat in her cage and waited for a Daskani to come her way again. “Were you expecting a pleasure cruise through space? Because I certainly wasn’t…”
She had not been expecting this either, though. She sat there and waited, always making sure to keep one eye open in case a Daskani came to her cage to throw in some food or grab her or something. As soon as the door opened, she planned to attack using teeth, nails, whatever she could to get back at them.
They wanted to treat them like animals? Fine. Then she would respond in kind.
Several hours later – Celeste tried to keep track, but she lost count once she got drowsy – a Daskani came to her cage to give her a metallic dish of foul-smelling meat. As soon as he opened the door, he realized his mistake. She jumped out at him, utilizing all of her energy, and bit and scratched at him with her short but sharp nails. “Get me out of here!” she bellowed. “I want to get out of here! Let me speak with the leader!”
The Daskani – seemingly frightened of he, nodded his head as he backed away. She stood there, a bit of blood under some of her nails, and stared at him like a creature possessed. She was dirty and she felt disgusting, and she wanted answers.
The Daskani guard was too afraid to touch her, but he nodded for her to follow him. Immediately upon realizing what Celeste had achieved, the other women started calling out for them to be freed and taken to the leader as well. But the Daskani guard had no time for anyone else. He was not going to make this mistake again.
Celeste walked along the long, shiny hallway towards the back office where her mate had gone. The walls appeared to be made from metal, but she could not say which. They looked silver at first, but then they looked green like old copper, then actual copper-color, then gold. She thought she would have to ask about that, but then she realized that it did not really matter to her in the grand scheme of things. Besides, everyone knew that dragons liked gold and shiny things. And the Daskani were a race of dragon-shifting aliens.
So far, to her mind, they were just a race of assholes. She had no patience for their cutesy quirks. One of their cutesy quirks almost killed everyone.
When they got to the closed door of her loving, caring Daskani mate, Celeste read the name that was engraved upon it. General Zephyr. That explained why the others listened to him. He was not just some hot-shot; he was the one in charge. Officially and everything. She felt like she should be more impressed than she was, but she was too annoyed at him and the way things had played out thus far. She did not care if he was the king. She wanted to officially tell him to go fuck himself.
The nervous Daskani guard knocked on the door and then turned to her. “Wait here,” he told her.
“No, I’m going in to ta—”
He shook his head and said, more firmly this time, “Wait. Here.”
Celeste threw her hands up and sighed, but she did not want to disobey in case she would end up dead otherwise. She was not one to mess around if things were that serious. She watched as he lumbered into the room and slammed the heavy metal door behind him. The office or whatever that General Zephyr was in was apparently soundproof. That figured.
Finally, just as Celeste was about think she could not stand it any longer, the door opened and the Daskani guard came out. He gestured for her to go inside and then made his way back down the hall to the cages. She hoped he would be a little kinder to the other ladies now, but she could not be sure of that.
She entered the office and noticed right away that it was at least a hundred degrees in there. Heh. She might have considered that. The general was sitting at a large, bulky black desk. His attire did nothing to hint at the fact that he was a higher rank than the others. He was wearing the same maroon uniform pants and vest. He would have looked more like a bellhop than a general, were it not for the gold tassels that anointed his uniform here and there.
His outfit did not make him look menacing. What made him menacing was his sheer size. The Daskani were all large, but the dragon man who had picked her out was a behemoth. Celeste had not had time to contemplate that when she stood gaping at him out in the compound. But now that they had arrived in that tiny office, she was beginning to think about a lot of things…
“Is your planet a volcano by any chance?” she asked before she could stop herself.
General Zephyr glowered at her. “Have a seat,” he said.
She sat.
“I am told that you complained about our system aboard my ship,” he said. Everything he said was like a snarl with an extra hiss thrown in. “I am sorry that you find our methods uncomfortable, but you see we must quarantine you females before we can become… what’s the word you use? Ah, intimate.”
Celeste furrowed her brows at that. “Quarantine?” she asked him. “So, you’re treating us like animals because you think we might be infected?”
General Zephyr blinked at her. He was not used to his orders or rules being questioned. “Well,” he said, faltering a bit. “Yyy
es.”
She felt content when she realized that she was cracking him a little. She had somehow penetrated his molten exterior. She just hoped she would not find magma or something underneath.
“That might be normal where you’re from, but where we’re from, it’s considered inhumane and abusive to lock people up in cages like they are animals.” Celeste looked him in the eye when she spoke, another thing that jarred Zephyr. She realized this and so she kept it up. Intimidation by disrespect. That was something she could surely do. “You won’t get into our pants that way.”
He clearly did not understand that terminology, but the dumb look on her face made Celeste laugh. It had been worth saying just for that.
“We do not want to get into your pants,” he said. “We desire to mate with you, to help your people survive and help bring new blood to our people.”
She did not see the appeal of having Earthen blood mixed in with their clearly more powerful Daskani blood… “But Earth people aren’t special,” she tried arguing. “We aren’t made of fire. We can’t fly. And we’re nowhere near as massive as you.”
Zephyr suddenly smiled. He had a surprisingly handsome smile for a dragon man. Sure, his fangs were frightening and he looked like he was trying to threaten her instead of show a little joy, but Celeste knew that he was making the effort to appear more friendly, and that put her at ease that she did not know she wasn’t feeling until then.
“But you are special,” he told her with all sincerity. “Your weakness and lack of any trained powers makes you attractive and different to us. You are called the weaker race, after all.”
“Oh, thanks,” Celeste said.
Then she laughed.
It felt nice to talk to a Daskani in an actual conversation. It made her feel better that she was now being treated like a guest, not a bounty. But she still wished that there was a fan in his office.
