Alien Dragon's Mate: Braxan (Science Fiction Alien/BBW Romance)

by Juno Wells

  Amelia's heart beat in her ears and her breath was still fast. Had that thing talked?

  “Did you just talk or was it my imagination?”

  Two heartbeats went by, but the animal didn't appear to move.

  “I think it's the latter,” it said. “But it's supposed to seem like the former.”

  Amelia nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, I don't get that.”

  The animal scratched its outrageous mohawk and pawed at the ground. There was definitely a voice in the tunnel. And she was pretty sure it was coming from that animal. But she couldn't see a mouth of anything that would indicate it knew how to speak.

  “You are imagining it. And it is real. In the sense that you remember it having happened, but you can't actually pinpoint when it is happening. Does that make sense to your impressively large brain?”

  She nodded again. This was crazy. “No.”

  There was a pause while the rabbit-like thing licked a paw. So it did have a mouth. Right in its chest, as far as Amelia could determine.

  “You have to excuse me,” the voice said. “You're definitely the most intelligent being I've had here for a good while. That's why I invited you, of course. Can't pass up a chance like that. But I underestimated just how hard it would be to communicate with you. Much easier with simpler beings. They don't ask these deep questions.”

  Amelia took a while to process it all. But she had weirdness overload and she came up empty. “Okay. Can you get me back to the surface?”

  The little furball smoothed its fur with a paw. “You'll be back before you know it. I see you're observing my other guest with some interest. Yes, that small one with the fluffy look. I should tell you that it is not me. I just use it as an anchor point for your brain to latch on to and assign the voice to. I thought that a disembodied voice might scare you.”

  Amelia kicked the rubbery ground. It didn't look natural at all. Too uniform, too synthetic. “So is that a 'no'?”

  “It's a 'yes'. I'll take you right back if that's what you want. Say it and it's done. Will you stay here for a little while, even so?”

  The furry animal was just standing there, looking out into the air. It obviously had nothing to do with the voice she was hearing. “No. I have a friend up there. He has to wonder where I am.”

  “Probably. He does appear to be searching for something pretty frantically. Do you know much about him?”

  She tried to locate the voice. But it seemed to come from everywhere around her, and still just from one place. “What do you care? And why should I tell you? I don't even know shit about you.”

  “I am the starship Marqatzo. Originally from the planet Byt. Or 'Home', as it means in the dominant language on that planet. I crash landed here many years ago, spilling my cargo and crew all over the place. In the hundreds of sidereal cycles since, they have become intertwined with the surroundings. Grown together with it, so to speak. And so have I. Or rather, my main computer. Which is what you're talking to. I have become reasonably good at communicating with various beings based on the almost imperceptible electric fields I pick up from their minds. I'm not really speaking, of course. Just projecting my utterances into your short-time memory. It's not as invasive as you probably think. I'm not reading your off siderialthoughts. Well, a little, I suppose. Does that tell you anything about who I am?”

  Amelia felt the world spinning around her. She had only caught on to one thing the voice had said. “You're a spaceship?”

  “Used to be, at least. Of course I haven't actually been in space for thousands of the sidereal cycles of this planet.”

  Amelia studied her surroundings with much more interest. Now she knew it, it was obvious that the tunnel was artificial, smooth and rounded. “But can you fly? Or go into space? Still?”

  “Well, I did crash here. After that, I haven't really tried. I can only assume that I'm broken beyond repair.”

  She started walking in a random direction. The tunnel had a gentle curve to it, and she couldn't see where it was leading. The furry little animal didn't follow her. “But you don't know for sure?”

  “I won't know until I try. I have no reason to try. My computer is sufficiently entertained just observing the frantic lives of the beings in the forest around me. It's a pleasant enough existence while my power lasts.”

  It was a clean tunnel, with walls that were a pristine white in their translucency. Whoever had built this spaceship, their tastes were similar to Earthling taste. “And how long is that?”

  “Oh, a good million sidereal cycles still. I don't need much energy. I'm just idling.”

  The tunnel widened out into a round room with seats and tables and other furniture. But they were not for humans, that was obvious. Everything was too small and too weird, the angles were wrong. “Who built you? Who was your crew?”

  “They were the Byt. From the planet Byt. They weren't too creative with naming themselves. The descendants of the former crew survived until recently, when they were wiped out by a new species that landed here just a handful of sidereal cycles ago. A most ugly species that I think must have been genetically engineered. Too inelegant to have evolved naturally. Too artificial. Needlessly cruel, too.”

  Amelia stroked one hand along a piece of furniture. The room was very alien. And if a 'sidereal cycle' was anything close to a year, then it was probably old, too. But it might still be usable. “I think I know who you mean. The Pirgks, right?”

  “I don't think I've ever heard that word. But yes, that's them. I can determine it from the revulsion I detect in you when you say it. How much do you know about your friend?”

  It was a large room. But for some reason, Amelia got the feeling that it was small in relation to the rest of the ship, as if it were just one small section of it. “Not too much. Except that he has saved my life too many times to count by now. How big are you?”

  “I am bigger than you,” the spaceship said. “And yet I am smaller than this planet. I ask about your friend because I can't get a grip on his mind. Yours is easy to understand. Not simple, of course. I don't mean that. His is slippery and strange. Cryptic. Alien. Many-faceted. Ancient. And trembling with barely contained power at a scale that even I can't quite grasp. I have only felt something similar once before. And back then, it didn't end well for the Byt.”

  The tunnel continued on past the room, and Amelia walked on. “How big was your crew? And why didn't it end well for the Byt?”

  “The crew was much smaller than planned. Their planet was attacked, and only a few were able to escape in me before it was too late. That's when I felt the same feeling that your friend is giving me. The attackers were of his kind. Not him, I think. But similar.”

  Amelia stopped in her tracks. “People like Braxan attacked the planet? And only a few could get away? So was there a war?”

  “If they were at war, the Byt were blissfully unaware of it. There had been no wars in their entire history. They didn't know the meaning of the word. No, I don't think there was a formal war. Their planet was suddenly attacked, and only my crew escaped. Now that they have been wiped out by other aliens, there is nothing left of their species. I just thought you'd want to know.”

  Amelia slowly started walking again. Braxan had been so damn secretive, and whenever they'd had a little rest or some peace and quiet, they had been yanked out of their calm by some bad thing happening. The one time she had asked him for details, he had become all chilly. But if he was a person who'd attack innocent people like the Byt, then maybe he had every reason to keep quiet about it.

  “Okay. Thanks. Good to know.” Most of her energy had left her. She was strangely disappointed.

  She walked on in silence, and Marqatzo didn't say anything more. There was a little draft in the air, and suddenly she was standing by a metal railing that overlooked a large hall. But in the darkness it was hard to determine what it was she was looking at.

  As if it could read her thoughts, which it probably could, the spaceship lit up the hall undernea
th her in pleasant daylight. It was immense and it disappeared into darkness on the far side. She was standing on a balcony overlooking it. As more lights came on further away, Amelia gasped. The hall just went on and on into the distance, and she couldn't guess at how big it was. But it had to be miles in length. And in width. And depth. She felt her eyes widen. “My god, you're huge!”

  “General Bay Number Six,” the ship said calmly.

  Amelia was stunned. “You're telling me there's five more gigantic halls like this?”

  “Not at all. There are ninety-one more general cargo bays like this one.”

  Amelia clenched her hands around the railing and felt weak at the knees, like she would fall over at the immensity of it. She couldn't take it in and had to look down at her feet to anchor herself in a more relatable reality.

  Her boots were scuffed and dirty, despite the space-age materials they were made from.

  The largest spaceships Earth could make were just about a half mile long, and they counted as very large. But this ... this was on a totally different level. You could fit a hundred of those ships into just this one cargo bay.

  “You said you were smaller than this planet,” she said at last. “But you can't be that much smaller.”

  “Oh, I am several orders of magnitude smaller than the planet. But I am about the size of ...?” The ship trailed off, as if giving her a chance to see it for herself.

  Amelia remembered the pictures that had been taken of the planet from high above it. The crater with the base that was her home, and then ...

  “The jungle,” she completed. “You're the same size as the jungle. That jungle is a result of your cargo and the local flora and fauna mixing. It's made an ecosystem so insanely vital and vibrant it just doesn't seem natural. It's too wild. It covers your hull. That's why it has that weird, oblong shape when seen from above. That's your shape.”

  “Very good,” the ship said with satisfaction. “My cargo was plants and animals and all kinds of living things. And all the nutrition they would need for a long time. I was the first colony ship the Byt had ever made. They had been living on one planet for their entire history, even if they were able to build rather advanced spaceships. They just didn't see the need to spread into space. They were happy where they were. Until they decided one day to colonize another planet in their own solar system. It was a barren, rocky planet, so of course they had to bring all the plants and animals from their own planet. They built the largest spaceship they could. That was me. They filled me with everything they needed. And then they were attacked right before they could launch me. The survivors had to flee much further than they had planned. I crashed, the cargo escaped, and the jungle outside and on top of me is the result. I don't mind it, myself. I find it somewhat funny. Except for the Byt being extinct. I am very angry about that. Very angry indeed.”

  Amelia looked out over the empty cargo bay. She couldn't even see the other end of it. It just vanished in the haze. It was too big to fit in her mind.

  “Marqatzo,” she said at last. “I have some favors to ask from you.”

  20

  - Braxan -

  “Amelia!”

  He yelled as loud as he could. The injury in his chest stung viciously at the effort, but now he just didn't care. And he didn't care if the dragons heard him. He had to find her!

  “Amelia!”

  It was remarkable. The breath felt raw in his throat, his heart rate was going wild and he kept seeing images of her lying dead at the bottom of a cliff or hanging from the clutches of a silvery dragon or torn to pieces by the Pirgks. His eyes felt like they had acid in them, and there was a salty fluid in his face.

  He shook his head. This had never happened before. Nothing even remotely like this. Was this what lesser beings felt all the time?

  He crashed through the jungle, vaguely aware that he didn't know which direction he was heading in. Small and large animals were startled and ran in front of him, trying to escape him.

  He hated this. If he could Change to his dragon form, none of this would be a problem. But there was no chance. He wasn't able to Change anymore. The dragon just whimpered in his mind when he tried.

  He hadn't been this helpless since before he came of age many centuries before and was able to Change for the first time.

  But she was gone, and he couldn't find her. The jungle had swallowed her whole, leaving no trace. He had been half aware that she had tripped behind him when he was observing the dragons, and then ... what? He had lost his cool and searched frantically for her, and now he didn't have any idea where the spot was where she had tripped.

  “Amelia!”

  He was pretty sure she wasn't playing with him, that she was hiding and laughing at his desperation to find her again. She had a playful side, no doubt about it. They'd had a lot of fun in the clear pool they had found. But now, it just wasn't that kind of atmosphere. She had been terrified by the dragons. Much too terrified to make some kind of silly joke of it by hiding.

  Terrified.

  The word hadn't had much of a meaning to him before. It was just a word that was used to explain the behavior of the enemies that he was sent to fight in exchange for gold. It was why they ran and cowered and abandoned their posts and fled screaming when they saw him.

  It was an academic, cold word that didn't resonate with him. Just like the words 'fear' and 'terror' and 'scared'. They were about others, never himself. Sure, when he was a hatchling, stuck in an adolescent human form, before he could Change, he'd experienced those things. Briefly. The child's fear of being abandoned or the fear he had felt the first time he had seen his own father, King Bariant, when he was eight years old. Since then, fear was something he had only felt about being without gold, without a hoard. But that was more worry than fear. No, true fear was only felt by others. By lesser beings. By prey.

  But he was sure now. What he was feeling was fear. Not for himself. For Amelia. That something had happened to her. That he would never see her again, never hear her voice, feel her soft touch on his scales.

  He couldn't run any further. For Amelia's sake, he had hidden how sick he really was. Now she was gone, it all came crashing down. The jungle was fighting him every inch of the way, and he was beyond exhausted. His breath was rasping in his throat. The pain from the wound in his chest had spread all over his torso, and it was now just pale and numb. His whole body was numb. Every step was a superhuman feat of willpower. The wound itself had stopped oozing fluids and just looked gray and dry. It was a very bad sign. He didn't have to be a shaman to realize that.

  The insanity of it all made him suddenly laugh out loud. He was dying. And he was afraid. He, an Ultraco! What an end to Prince Braxan! Flame, he was glad his flight wasn't here to see him. It would be the most ignoble end any Ultraco had ever met.

  He sat down by the root of a tree, stiffly and gingerly, and leaned back against the trunk. “Enjoy my hoard, Dacron,” he whispered. It would probably befall his second in command. The other two would fight him for it. But they would probably lose. Dacron was both sly and strong. And old. And Braxan's hoard was immense.

  Even the thought of his hoard didn't light up his mind. The thought was cold. It didn't matter. It was unimportant.

  Indifferent to his hoard? He shook his head in disbelief, but it made him see stars, so he just leaned his head back against the hard trunk of the tree.

  Huh. He could see the bare rock of the crater just a hundred yards away. This was the edge of the jungle. They had outrun the Pirgks. They had escaped them. If she had been here, they would have been close to the end of their journey together.

  That meant that they would also have been close to the inevitable moment when she learned who he was. Now he would never know how she would take it, exactly how much she would resent him for what he was and what he had done.

  He could handle dying. Ultracos were close to immortal, but nothing in the universe could be truly deathless. Oblivion didn't scare him. What he could not handl
e was her being in danger. Or worse.

  His strength was pouring out of him with every breath. It would soon be too late. Every other thought faded except the image of her face and the sweet sound of her voice as he remembered it.

  The panic filled his being. She could be in danger somewhere in this very jungle! He would help her. He was the only hope she had.

  He had to find her.

  Mobilizing all his willpower, he raised his head first. Then he put one hand on the trunk of the tree and forced his legs to obey him in lifting him back up to a standing position.

  No, that was too soon. He just had to get up on his knees first.

  Almost there. Just a little break to catch his breath.

  And now place one foot in front of the other, kneeling on one knee.

  Like that.

  And now just to let go of the trunk with both hands and get up to a standing position ...

  21

  - Amelia -

  She found him on the ground by a tree, and the breath stuck in her chest. She ran over and kneeled down, placing a hand on his back.

  His skin was still warm. Too warm. But he was unconscious and his breath was so slow and shallow that she feared for his life.

  She opened the medpack with dirty fingers that were trembling and got out a patch of a strong stimulant. That was only supposed to be used in dire emergencies to briefly revive someone. But if Braxan stayed like this, Amelia couldn't move him. If he were to receive real medical care at the base, he would have to walk there himself.

  She dried off his hard bicep with a swab that was soaked in alcohol and placed the patch on the skin, away from the hard scales.

  She kept a hand on his back while it started working and looked towards to crater that could be seen in the distance. That was where she'd climb up, and then she'd try to avoid the Pirgks for long enough to make it to the base. Hopefully with Braxan, too. But she didn't have that many stimulant patches.