Korzak's Mate: A Sci-Fi Alien Romance (Tarnen Warrior Mates Book 1)

by Vixa Moon

  Korzak nods. “Most definitely,” he says.

  “Then what do we do? How long did you say it would take before reinforcements come from your planet?”

  “Weeks,” says Korzak. “From my analysis aboard the Verdant Falcon, your planet has not yet reached space travel capabilities. Is that correct?”

  “Well, we’ve reached the moon,” I say, thinking that that must count for something.

  “So the answer is no,” says Korzak.

  “You don’t need to rub it in,” I say. But I also realize that he’s right. There’s no way that anything NASA has done is going to help us against the blasters from those aliens. And it’s not like little old me has access to NASA ships anyway… and they’re not exactly the sort of ships that you can just hop into and use to escape the solar system.

  “They’re going to be coming for us here,” says Korzak. “They know you live here. We’ve got to leave.”

  “But aren’t they just going to trace our signals no matter where we go?” I say. I’m terrified, but I’m lucid enough to know that this doesn’t sound like a great plan.

  “The scanners only work from a certain distance away from the planet,” says Korzak. “They do work to some extent from a closer range, but not as precisely. If we leave now, we have a chance of escaping them.”

  “A chance? That doesn’t sound very encouraging.”

  “There’s no other option,” says Korzak. “And don’t worry, I’m more than a match for them if they approach us on the ground. What we want to avoid is them arriving and landing in one of their ships, and using all their firepower to simply destroy your house. There’s nothing I can do to protect us from that. But if we go on the run, they’ll be forced to hunt us down on foot and in person. And that’s when I’ll be able to fight them and defeat them.”

  “Sounds like…. A lot of fun,” I say, my sarcasm sounding weak, weak with terror, as is my entire body. I feel like I might fall over.

  “Come on,” says Korzak. “Gather your essential belongings. I assume we can get food on the run, so don’t bother with that. But make sure to bring your weapons. They will be useful.”

  “Weapons?” I say weakly. “I don’t have any weapons.”

  “What do you mean you don’t have any weapons? You mean they aren’t in serviceable condition?”

  “No,” I say. “I mean that I don’t have any weapons.”

  “I thought your planet had developed some sort of weapon… I thought I read on the report that gunpowder had been in common use…”

  “I mean,” I say. “Sure, there are plenty of people who have guns. I’m just not one of them. I’ve never touched a gun in my life.”

  “Well,” says Korzak, looking disappointed. “I have my blasters, and my… I guess on your planet you would call them swords. Although they’re much more than that. I will teach you how to use them. But you should also take a large knife from the kitchen. I saw one in there earlier. Now go, get ready. I’ll get dressed while you gather your things.”

  Korzak, of course, is still buck naked.

  About a day ago, I would have never thought to flee my house with a huge alien. But I’ve seen how dangerous those CAT aliens are. And I don’t want to be around when they come here looking for me.

  I rush back into my room and find some old jeans underneath a pile of dirty clothes. They’re probably the cleanest thing I have, and I pull them on over my sexy panties. Next, I find an old flannel shirt that I’ve never worn much, and I put this on over my lacy bra.

  I look up and Korzak is standing in the doorway to the bedroom.

  “Their ships are moving faster than expected,” he says in his deep voice. “We need to leave, now.”

  “How much time do we have?” I say.

  “Not much,” says Korzak. “Are you ready?”

  I look around my messy apartment. I hope they don’t just blow the whole thing up. After all, there are quite a few things in here, buried under the mess, that have some sentimental value to me.

  But it’s time to go.

  I’d rather my stuff get blown up than me.

  I follow Korzak out the front door.

  The night is dark and the stars shine brightly. But somewhere up there among the stars, there are two heavily-armed alien space ships that for some reason want me dead.

  10

  Korzak

  “Do you have a transport system?” I say.

  “Of course,” says Olivia. “I have a car.”

  “Good,” I say. “We’ll use that.”

  She looks at me in the low ambient light of the dark night.

  “We’re going to have to get you some different clothes,” she says. “You’re going to stick out like crazy anywhere we stay. Too bad I don’t have anything for you.”

  I shrug. “We’ll worry about that later,” I say.

  “That’s my car,” she says, pointing to her old beat up vehicle with plenty of scratches on it.

  It’s extremely primitive looking, but I suppose it’ll have to work.

  “What powers this vehicle?” I say, standing beside it to examine it more carefully.

  “Uh, fossil fuels,” says Olivia.

  I chuckle.

  “That’s funny to you?”

  “It’s just a little…”

  “Primitive, yeah,” says Olivia, sounding a little annoyed. “I got you. Everything we have is primitive. Let’s just assume from here on out that I already know your people are way more advanced…”

  “OK,” I say. “ I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “I better drive,” says Olivia. “The controls might be too primitive for you to master. Plus, you don’t know any of the rules of the road.”

  I open one of the doors to get inside.

  “Not that one,” says Olivia. “I’m not going to be chauffeuring you around. Get in the front with me. That door over there.”

  She points to a door on the other side of the car.

  I get in along with Olivia. She fumbles with some pieces of metal that are attached to a ring. She inserts one of them into the car, which causes it to start when she turns it. What a strange machine, I think to myself, but I keep my thoughts to myself this time, so that I don’t offend her again.

  I can barely fit in what I figure to be the co-pilot’s seat. I’m right next to her, but my muscular body is wide enough that my left shoulder almost touches her. I have to keep my head ducked down slightly to keep it from hitting the roof of the car.

  “Can you move your hand out of the way?” says Olivia. “I can’t shift with you in the way like that.”

  I realize that my left arm is overhanging some of the strange rudimentary controls.

  “It’s a stick shift car,” says Olivia. “Not all the cars are like this. But I like these better. The only thing is… you need to give me room to actually shift.”

  “Sorry,” I say, trying to keep my arm out of the way.

  We start moving down the road. I can hear the engine whirring and Olivia keeps “shifting,” by using the controls in the center console.

  “How fast does this machine go?” I ask.

  “Uh, maybe 100, but we’re going to have trouble going that fast legally.”

  “How fast are you allowed to travel?”

  “About 60 or 70.”

  “Miles per hour?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s pretty slow,” I say. “But…” I purposefully avoid saying anything that would make her think I’m calling the speeds primitive in any way. “But I think it’ll do. We’re going to have to keep driving for about… six hours. That should get us far enough away that it’ll be hard to track… Do you know where we should go?”

  “Go?” says Olivia. “Not really. Any ideas?”

  “I’m not nearly as familiar with your planet’s topical geography as you. Where are we now, anyway?”

  “Outside of Philadelphia. But that probably doesn’t mean anything to you. We’re on the eastern side of North Ameri
ca, one of the major continents. I’d show you on my cell phone, but it’s gone… I’ll have to get another one.”

  “Hmm,” I say, thinking this over. “I’d be good to head west, probably.”

  “West it is then,” says Olivia.

  I look out the windows with interest. Even in the dark, I can see plenty of this Earth civilization. There are lights on in many of the buildings, and there are even street lights. The buildings are made of metal and other materials, usually composites of various things found naturally in the Earth. The Earth humans don’t seem to have gotten to the stage of creating their own artificial materials, designing their own substances right from the building blocks of nature. But maybe they’re on the brink of that.

  Olivia seems to be a good, competent driver. She watches where she’s going, and that’s always very important for piloting any type of vehicle.

  Soon we’re on some sort of highway, where Olivia increases the speed. This is good, I think to myself. It’ll allow us to travel much faster and much farther, seemingly without interference from the ridiculous traffic signals that Olivia keeps stopping at.

  I take my scanner device and stare at the small screen. This is the device that saved us. Without it, the CATs would be arriving any minute to blast Olivia’s small wooden house into nothing but a billion particles. It looks like the CATs are still approaching Earth, but haven’t yet penetrated the atmosphere. Soon they’ll realize that we’re no longer at Olivia’s house, and they’ll realize that they’ll need to start the hunt by foot. Even the CAT aren’t crazy enough to think that they can fly around the planet fully visible in their advanced space craft. That would cause the entire planet to go into panic. The Earth humans would mobilize whatever military forces they have and cause complete havoc, not damaging the CAT in the least bit, of course. But even the CAT try to stay roughly within the boundaries of the intergalactic agreement on unnecessarily disturbing primitive planets.

  “So,” says Olivia, breaking the silence. “Do you want to talk about what happened?”

  “What do you mean?” I say. “You want to talk about the CATs? They’re coming to kill us and we have to get far enough away so that they’ll have to pursue us on foot. What’s there to talk about?”

  “No,” says Olivia, turning to look at me. She looks incredibly beautiful in the dim light. Her hair is slightly tousled and it makes her look even sexier. “I mean about what happened in bed, between us.”

  “Oh,” I say, realizing what she’s talking about. “Is it customary for your people to talk about those sorts of things?”

  “Uh, sort of,” says Olivia. “We like to kind of clarify relationships when we can.”

  “What’s there to clarify? You’re my fated mate and we’re meant to be together. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever encountered, which is why I was erect. And it’s only natural that you wanted to touch my cock. You’re a woman who’s attracted to me. After all, you’re my fated mate, so it’s only natural you would be attracted to me. It’s only a matter of time before we consummate this interest with sexual intercourse.”

  To my surprise, Olivia laughs.

  “What is it?” I say. “What did I say that’s funny?”

  “It’s just that things are a lot different here on Earth,” says Olivia. “I mean, you’ve got to remember that where I come from, and where you happen to be now, people don’t really believe in fated mates or whatever it is that you call them. I mean, if anyone else told me that some oracle had told them that they’re meant to be with me forever, I would have told them they were insane and possibly called the police.”

  “So why didn’t you do that with me?”

  “Well… for one thing, you saved my life. Even though it is kind of your fault that those aliens were after me in the first place.”

  “I admit that’s true,” I say.

  “But, um, also… I’m feeling some serious attraction to you that I can’t quite explain,” says Olivia.

  By the tone of her voice I surmise that it’s difficult for her to say this to me, even though I don’t understand why.

  “Is that difficult for you to say to me?” I say. “It’s only natural that there would be attraction between us, after all.”

  “Yeah, yeah, the whole fated mates thing… the oracle… I get that, but you’ve got to remember that I’m not used to those sorts of ideas. I’ve got to come to terms with how I feel about you based on my own beliefs and my own ideas…”

  “That’s only natural,” I say.

  “You really feel like that?”

  “Of course,” I say. “The oracle is merely a very accurate prediction. You have your own belief systems, and those will soon line up with the oracle.”

  Olivia laughs again. “You’re very sure of yourself. Some women find confidence to be an aphrodisiac, you know.”

  My scanner beeps at me. It’s one of the alarms going off.

  I check it. The CAT ships have already landed. For some reason, the alarm was slow to sound.

  “They’ve landed,” I say. “They’re by your house.”

  “They didn’t blow it up?”

  “I don’t know. But maybe they decided to attack by ground first… which is risky for them, since they’d be facing me if we were still there. But one of their ships is still in orbit, ready to blast it if necessary. Maybe they were looking to take us captive… Either way, it would have been bad for us. It’s good we’re already on the road.”

  “You really could fight them all?” says Olivia.

  “Of course,” I say. “They’re good warriors, but I’m better.”

  “You’re pretty sure of yourself.”

  “I have good reason to be.”

  “Have you fought them before?”

  “Yes.”

  Memories of past battles flash in my mind. I barely escaped the last battle alive. I was on a Tarnan mission to a nearby planet, looking for a valuable mineral that could be used to enhance our propulsion technology. Two CAT ships appeared on the horizon, and ten CAT warriors materialized in front of my small party.

  We lost two Tarnens that day. But the CATs lost everyone. I barely made it out alive, and I still have the scars to prove it. Blasters were useless on that planet, because of the atmosphere, so it was strictly hand to hand combat, the most brutal that I’ve ever experienced.

  “So we’re safe?” says Olivia.

  “For now,” I say. “We need to keep moving.”

  “And what, we’re just going to run forever?”

  “No,” I say. “I will fight them and I will defeat them.”

  “And what do I do?”

  “I’ll keep you safe,” I say. “Don’t worry.”

  Olivia starts explaining to me how hotels work here, how we can’t just drive forever.

  “A hotel sounds good,” I say. “We don’t want to sleep out in the open.”

  “It’d be hard to do that anyway,” says Olivia. “There are laws prohibiting that.”

  “Strange,” I say.

  “So,” says Olivia. “I think one thing we should work on is getting you some regular clothes. We’re going to have to stop for gas. You know, more fuel.”

  “This vehicle doesn’t have a long range?”

  “No, we’re going to have to stop at gas stations maybe every… I don’t know, 12 hours or so, depending. And we’ll have to get food. Trust me, people are going to have really strange reactions to you dressed like that, especially with those weapons.”

  “OK,” I say. “I’ll get some Earth clothes. Will it take long?”

  “Not if we go to one of the big box stores.”

  “Let’s do that, then,” I say.

  There aren’t many other vehicles on this highway, and the night is dark. My mind starts to wander again… I’m thrilled to be sitting beside this sexy creature, the woman that I will spend the rest of my life with. But there are many obstacles ahead of us. I’ll have to defeat vicious warriors, quite capable in their own right. And yo
u can never put it past the CAT to pull some kind of horrible trick. I’ll have to keep my eyes open every inch of the way if I want to protect Olivia, if we want to get out of this alive.

  There’s a sound behind us.

  “Shit,” says Olivia, glancing at the mirror. “It’s the cops.”

  “The police?” I say. “They’re making that strange sound?”

  “Yup, they’re traffic cops, I think. But I wasn’t speeding, and I don’t think I have a taillight out.”

  I turn around to look behind us. There are red and blue flashing light that light up the night, and they spin wildly.

  “Shit,” says Olivia. “This is just what we need right now.”

  11

  Olivia

  There’s nothing like being pursued by super dangerous aliens to make you nervous about being pulled over by the cops. Oh, that and the fact that my passenger is a super tall alien dressed in his traditional clothing.

  I pull off to the side of the road, slowing down, putting on my hazard lights.

  “You’d better hide all those weapons,” I say.

  Korzak removes them one by one from his belt and tries to stuff them under the seat. But his sword-like weapons are simply too big.

  “Put it in the back,” I say. “There’s a blanket back there. Put that over it. And quick, he’ll be here any moment.”

  Korzak hides the weapons. Not he doesn’t look armed, which is an improvement. But he definitely does look odd. But when was the last time someone got arrested because they had an odd looking passenger?

  “He’s coming,” I say. “He won’t understand anything you say, will he?”

  “Not unless I give him a pill.”

  “Let’s not do that. Better if you don’t talk. Just nod if he asks you a question.”

  “OK.”

  The cop walks slowly up towards my car. He’s holding a large flashlight and shining it towards me. He left the siren lights turned on in his car. He also seems to have the high beams on, because they’re partially blinding me as they reflect through the mirror. I turn the mirror up so that I don’t have to look directly into the light.