by Abella Ward
Chapter Nine
I slept in his arms. The sounds of the jungle lulled me to sleep, but when the morning came we were forced to face reality. He helped me clean up and pack the camp. He carried the heavier items and I only had to lift blankets and pillows. It was a strange thing to see a Goseb lifting and carrying more than a human, but it was Detro, so it made sense.
By the time we got back to the ship we learned that a tribunal had already been called to discipline Detro. He would be expected to present himself in front of them and make his case. The ship was abuzz with the news. Thankfully, no one knew I was the reason, but no one was happy that he was leaving.
We spent as much time together as we could without getting caught. Every time I brought him a meal he would grab me and pull me into his bed. There seemed no end to the pleasures we could share. We made love on every spare inch of his quarters in every position. I found heights of ecstasy that I could never have even imagined. I wanted nothing more than to be with him, to be held in his arms.
We couldn’t spend the night together, because people would notice and talk. Detro’s main concern wasn’t himself or his upcoming tribunal. It was me. He didn’t want there to be any gossip about our relationship. Neither of us had said anything to anyone and, as far as we knew, no one else knew.
The time passed so quickly. I resented every moment I wasn’t with him. I hated the Gosebs in a way I had never hated them before. It wasn’t just Detro’s tribunal. It was everything the Gosebs had ever done to me and my people. I hated that they enslaved us, that they forced us to work, that we had no rights, no possessions, nothing that was our own.
At night, when I lay alone in my small cot in the crowded human quarters, I imagined myself a warrior crusader. I would be strong and fast and a great fighter. No one would be able to touch me. I would march into the Goseb command center and rip every last one of them apart, piece by piece. I imagined myself leading an army of humans across the Goseb territories and defeating every last one of them.
In my dreams, I was powerful and strong. Nothing could stop me. I was impervious to weapons. I was stronger than all the Goseb warriors. In my dreams, I could be everything I wasn’t in real life. I was in control. I was powerful. It was nothing compared to my real life, where I had no control over anything.
I wept the day he left. I tried to keep myself together. I tried to be strong for him. But I just couldn’t. His room had been packed up. Only the empty bed and desk remained. I set his basda out for him as the tears poured down my face.
“Hush, Mereen, hush,” he said, as he pulled me against his chest and ran his bare hand through my hair.
“Let’s run away,” I said, pulling back and looking up into his eyes. “Let’s run away. We can find The Sanctuary together.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head.
He still wouldn’t tell me what his plans were. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust me. It was the Gosebs he didn’t trust. I would never last under their questioning.
“Do you trust me?” he asked, tilting my chin up so I was looking at him.
“With my life,” I answered.
“Are you prepared to go to the planet side?” he asked me.
I nodded. He and I had decided that would be for the best. I could blend in down on the planet and Detro still had soldiers down there loyal to him. I would get a new name, a new chip. I would be a new person, just another prisoner working on the colony.
He took my by the shoulders and looked into my eyes. “I’m coming back,” he said. “I am not abandoning you on this planet. I will come back.”
I nodded and blinked back tears.
“Promise me you won’t do anything foolish or impatient. Promise me you’ll wait.”
“I promise,” I said. We kissed then. My tears transferred from my face to his. His hands were on my neck and then my back. I held onto him, refusing to let him go. Finally, he pulled my arms from around his waist and kissed my forehead.
“It will be alright, Mereen. I love you and I will come back for you.”
“I love you and I’ll wait,” I said, looking up into his eyes.
From there I was taken straight down to the planet. Tears were so thick in my eyes that I couldn’t see anything in front of me. My first glimpse of the camp was nothing but the color orange swimming in my tears. When I finally managed to wipe them clean I saw the flat, orange landscape, the long lines of white tents.
I only did two shifts in the laundry before I realized they had everything needed to make alcohol. I brokered a deal with Marge and, after that, I started making alcohol full time. At first, I expected Detro every moment of every day. My eyes were constantly scanning the horizon, looking for his ship. Every time there was a noise in the night, I would rise, thinking that Detro had come for me.
Days turned into weeks. Detro’s kindness and accommodations were swept away and replaced with brutality, sickness and hunger. The people around me mourned the loss of Detro. They openly asked about him and wondered where he was.
I kept my head down. I went to work, ate my rations. Every day was like the one before it. My skin was dry, it was always hot, there was always sand and dirt everywhere. At night, I dreamt about Detro. I dreamt that he had been captured, tortured, killed. In those dreams, he never came back for me. I died a miserable, old, dried-out husk of a woman.
Then I started to feel sick and tired, all of the time. I was constantly nauseous and my breasts became tender and sore and began to grow. I wasn’t a fool. I had seen pregnant women and I knew what the signs were. I had been informed that the doctor was understanding and could be trusted. I began to buy the prenatal vitamins from him and he checked on my pregnancy.
The days and weeks passed and there was still no sign of Detro. I wondered what gender the baby would be. A beautiful little girl with dark Goseb hair. A bouncing boy with pale green skin and human eyes. Even here, in this camp, I smiled at the thought. A baby, half me, half Detro.
If only our entire lives had been different. If only we had been completely different people born in a completely different time and place. Then the baby would have been good news, but for us it would only be a danger. It would be a death sentence for me and the baby inside of me. Detro would lose everything.
I kept it a secret, telling no one but the doctor, and even he didn’t know it was half-Goseb. I wished my mother was here. I was desperate for anyone to talk to. I wanted someone else who had been in my situation, but there was no one in my situation. I was alone, all alone, just trusting and hoping that Detro would come back for me.
Think of future bliss, Detro said. So that was what I did. At night, I closed my eyes and imagined The Sanctuary. Humans and Gosebs living side by side. I imagined sitting on a wide green lawn with Detro. Our baby ran around in front of us, jumping and laughing under the sun. We could be free there. We could be together without fear of reprisal. I would be free there. I would be my own person. I would answer to no one.
Chapter Ten
I stayed on the planet, whiling away the days, wondering where Detro was. I spent the day in my small closet in the laundry. It seemed that overnight my pregnancy had blossomed. I could feel a definite swell now. In the small closet I unzipped my jumpsuit and looked down my body.
My breasts were larger than they ever had been. My already large hips looked even bigger. But even more noticeable was my belly. Always soft and round, now there was a clear protrusion. I ran my hands over my own warm skin. I wondered if the baby could feel me. Did he or she know who I was yet? Would this little baby ever get to know Detro?
At least the nausea had passed for the most part, and the tiredness. But that had all been manageable. What would come next would be even worse. I would only get bigger from here on out. My feet and ankles would swell, my back would ache. It would be hard to hide, but easier down here on the ground than it would have been on the ship.
I wrapped myself up and stood in front of a glass cabinet where I could vaguely see my
reflection. I zipped my jumpsuit back up and turned to the side, but still it was impossible to see that I was pregnant. Hopefully, I could hide it a little longer. Detro would come back for me. He had promised, and I had promised to wait for him. I needed to keep my end of the promise. I and this little thing inside me would wait for Detro. He would come.
I moved slowly back to my tent. It was one of the few pleasant nights at the camp. The larger sun had gone down and a chill wind was pushing through the camp. I could almost detect the scent of something in the air. A spice or a sweetness I had never smelled before. I wondered what else was on this inhospitable little rock. We only lived here in this little section. In another life, this planet could have been teaming with civilization. But the Gosebs were only interested in what they could get from it, not what they could build on it.
I found my way back to my tent, closing the flaps once I was inside. I didn’t bother lighting any lamps. There was nothing to light. Instead, I lay back on my bed and stared up at the shadows of my tent. They seemed to shift and change in front of my eyes. One was a tall tree with many branches, then the wind blew and the shapes rearranged and appeared again as a wolf with its teeth bared.
I drifted off to sleep. If I had any dreams, I didn’t remember them. I was woken by a hand pressed against my face. I opened my eyes with a start, but in the darkness I could only see the shadow of a man standing above me. I struggled as the man’s face came down, but then I heard his voice.
“It’s alright, it’s me.” My eyes adjusted to the darkness. He had a simple cloth wrapped around his face and I watched as he pulled it down, revealing his face.
I grabbed at him and pulled at his clothes. His arms were around me, holding me up. Tears streamed down my face. At last. At last, he was here. He had come back. I tried to stop the tears. I had a thousand things I wanted to say to him. I wanted to kiss him.
He put his hands on my chin and smiled down at me.
“You’re back,” I said, my voice hitching with a sob.
“I told you I would be,” he said, brushing my hair out of my face.
“What happened?” I asked him.
He shook his head. “I’ll tell you when we’re on the ship. Right now we have to go.”
I nodded and stood up with him. Out of habit, I reached for my rucksack, but then I realized I didn’t need it anymore. I would never come back here. Tomorrow I would be missing, although whether I was dead or alive was still to be decided.
“Are you alright?” he asked me. “Are you hurt? Did anyone hurt you?”
I shook my head and he breathed a sigh of relief.
“We’re going to have to run. Can you run?”
I nodded and then he took my hand and pulled me out of the tent. We walked out into the darkened camp without a backward glance. Our shoes crunched on the rough stone ground of X29. We stayed out of the main pathways of the camp. Instead, we hugged the shadows of the tents themselves. Moving as silently as possible we made our zig-zag way through the camp towards the western wall.
We stopped at the western edge of tents. Detro stopped suddenly and I kept close to him as we looked up and down the road. It was technically still night, but X29 had no real night, only the portion of the day when the more distant sun shone. We were open and exposed. If even one person saw us we would be doomed.
Detro crouched down and pulled me with him. Not far to our left were the Goseb guards. They were leaning against the western wall and didn’t look like they would be leaving for a while.
“My sensor!” I hissed, as the realization hit me. “It will signal an alarm if I cross the wall,” I said, putting my hand on the back of my neck.
“Don’t worry. My ship is right on the other side of the wall. I still have some friends on the orbiting ship. They’ve been covering for me on the scanners, but we don’t have much more time.”
He looked over at the guards and then to the right.
“We need a distraction,” I said, and he nodded.
“Wait here,” he said.
“No, I don’t want to be separated from you.”
“It’ll be fine,” he said.
I nodded and watched as he slinked back behind the tent. I sat on my haunches, looking up and down the lane for any more guards. There were pins and needles all over my body. It felt like I had been waiting forever, but it couldn’t have been longer than a few minutes.
A commotion to the left. The sound of something ripping. The guards stopped their talking and looked towards the sound. The commanding officer nodded his head and the others fell in line to investigate.
It had worked! Detro’s distraction had worked. Now I just needed to wait for him to come back and then we could climb over the wall and be gone. I looked for Detro but didn’t see him coming. I took the chance and stood up, but still there was nothing.
Then I saw something straight ahead. It was two guards and, to my horror, I saw that they held Detro between them. He was wrestling and fighting, but they had his arms pinned behind his back and then they furiously threw him against the wall.
Panic flooded my veins. I was frozen. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t scream. I couldn’t do anything but watch. And then my entire body began to shake. From head to toe, uncontrollable shivers ran down my body and I thought for a moment I might be sick.
The baby. I looked around. I had to do something. This was our one chance. There were two guards with Detro, but where was the third? I crouched down and ran between the tents until I saw him. A Goseb guard in his faceless mask, lying face down on the ground. I needed his gun. Where was his gun?
Carefully, I moved to his body. The Goseb guards weren’t far away. If they turned around, they would see me. I could hear them still scuffling with Detro. He wasn’t done fighting yet.
I knelt down by the body and felt up and down his armor for his gun. But it wasn’t here. Then I saw the way he was awkwardly laying. His right arm was crossed underneath his body. Taking a deep breath, I put both hands underneath the guard and then with a heave I hefted him over and saw his gun still clasped in his hand.
I pried it free of his already stiffening fingers and shakily stood up.
I didn’t shout a warning. I just fired the weapon right at the back of the guard who had Detro. The other guard turned around in shock, reaching for his weapon. But he was too slow. I pushed the trigger button and in an instant, he was dead. A shock of electricity strong enough to put down a beast twice his size had just been shot into his body.
Detro looked at me, his mouth hanging open. “The keys,” he said. His hands were cuffed behind his back. I could see the keys laying where they fell in the dirt. I grabbed them and raced towards Detro. I unlocked the cuffs and without a word he grabbed my hand and we headed towards the wall.
The wall was short, only four feet. The prisoners had the sensors in their necks, but that wasn’t the only deterrent. There was nothing out here. A human might run, but he would be dead within a few days.
Detro gave me his hand and helped me over the wall. Once on the other side I could see the faint shimmer of his ship.
“Open the bay door,” he commanded and, as if by magic, a door lifted and I could see the interior of the ship.
He made sure I was inside first and then he ran in and closed the door behind him. It was just a small shuttle, barely more than two chairs and a console. But the chairs were supply level and the air in here was fresh and cool. I collapsed into a chair as Detro took off. I could see the camp below us. The small white tents grew smaller as we left X29 behind.
Epilogue
We docked with the main ship. It was a smaller ship, meant to transport only a few individuals. He and I were the only two people on board. We docked, and from the shuttle he charted our course out of the system.
“I imagine you’ll be excited to sleep in a warm bed tonight,” he said, caressing my cheek.
“I have to tell you something,” I said. I took his hand in mine and stood up. He looked up at me in confu
sion as I led his hand down my body, stopping at the swell of my stomach. He blinked slowly, his mouth open.
“I didn’t know until you left,” I said. He nodded, put both of his hands on my belly and then looked up at me almost in awe.
“I’m sorry,” he said, standing up and pulling me into a hug.
“For what? Saving me?” I asked. He leaned down and kissed me. I had forgotten the taste of his lips and the feel of his tongue. I had thought of nothing but him for the last few months, but all of my dreams were nothing compared to the real thing.
“I found it,” he whispered. “The Sanctuary. It’s real. I’ve been there.”
“How?”
“I didn't go to the tribunal,” he said, with a shrug. “I headed toward Earth system and told the rebellion I wanted to join them. I’ve spent all this time getting them to trust me. They thought I had been sent by the Gosebs to trick them. But I told them about you and what I had done here. They had heard of me. I offered them everything I knew about the Gosebs. The only thing I wanted in return was to come back here and get you and then go with you to the Sanctuary.”
“Our baby will be free,” I said.
“And safe,” he agreed. I looked up into his purple eyes.
He led me onto the ship. I showered. I have no idea how long I was in there. I let the hot soapy water cover my body and remove every last particle of dust. I got out of the shower and into the ship's lone bedroom. There was a closet and I opened it and saw a wide variety of clothes for a human my size. Dresses, pants, t-shirts, sweaters were lined up in all different colors. I could wear anything I wanted. I didn't have to wear a jumpsuit. I didn’t have to be anywhere. I touched the back of my neck where I knew the sensor still rested. That thing would never again get to dictate where I was allowed to go.
Detro came in and wrapped his arms around my towel-clad body.
“I missed you every moment of every day,” he said.
