by Vixa Moon
The huge CAT blasters make a horrendous zapping sound as they release their energy.
I duck to the side, moving diagonally towards the CAT.
This isn’t going to be an easy battle for them. It’s never as simple as simply pointing and shooting when you’re fighting a Tarnan warrior. And especially not when you’re fighting me.
As I move, I aim my blaster at the blue one that I already hit. His armor doesn’t cover his whole torso. I aim at his arm, squeeze the trigger, and the blast hits him directly at his thick elbow.
He howls from pain.
That’s the main disadvantage of the CAT. They can’t tolerate pain. It’s not that there’s any genetic difference between the CAT and the Tarnan. It’s just that we’ve learned to co-exist with the pain through extensive training. The CAT haven’t gotten that far. They believe pain is something to be feared and shunned.
He partially drops his blaster.
This is my opportunity.
I rush towards him from the side, sprinting at him as quickly as I can. I feel my muscles moving in tandem. I feel my whole body moving, every piece of it perfectly coordinated.
I slash at him with my Kambit, aiming low towards his legs, which are unprotected.
He screams in pain and drops everything. He becomes enraged from the pain, and tries to lash out at me. He’s lost control. He’s lost control of the fight, and this is why he will lose.
The other CAT is off to the side. He squeezes the trigger of his large blaster, and a jolt of the energy blast rushes towards me. It misses. But it hits my blaster, electrifying it and sending searing pain through me.
But I don’t try to control the pain. I let it run through me. I savor it, as I’ve learned to do.
I don’t let the pain distract me from my mission. I ready my Kambit again, and attack once more. This time I drive it deep into the blue CAT’s torso, piercing right though his armor. I push with all my force. He screams in agony and falls to the ground.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of Olivia peering out from the hotel window. She looks terrified. Her eyes are wide.
One CAT down and dead. One to go.
I’m injured, but I must keep fighting. My hand doesn’t work as it should, and the pain rushes through it. But I savor the pain. I am a Tarnan warrior, and I must protect Olivia with everything I have.
The remaining CAT rushes towards me.
He’s tilted forward, sprinting. He’s trying to throw his whole weight into me.
I lower my head and charge at him. There are only seconds remaining until we collide.
15
Olivia
I’ve never been more terrified in my entire life.
Korzak must have broken through the bathroom window to surprise the aliens.
The hotel employee finally got frustrated and opened the door with his employee key. I’ve never worked in a hotel, but I would imagine that doing that is a definite breach of policy. After all, how does he know we aren’t having sex? Or maybe he was trying to walk in on us. Who knows.
The sound of blasters rips through the air. It’s incredibly loud, a horrifying sizzling sound that rings right through the hotel room.
The employee stands at the doorway. He dropped the food tray on the floor with a clatter. He looks petrified with terror at the screams of pain from right outside the hotel room window.
I watch, with my face glued against the glass, as Korzak fights.
He’s killed one of the aliens, stabbing him right in the middle of his chest with his alien sword.
My right hand grips the pistol Korzak gave me tightly. Part of me wants to rush out and try to shoot the other alien. But I don’t have any idea how to shoot a regular Earth gun, let alone an alien blaster. I’d probably end up shooting Korzak by mistake, or getting myself hurt somehow.
Korzak and the other alien, who is just as large as he, are charging towards each other.
They each yell a loud battle cry. The CAT alien’s cry is loud and shrill. Korzak’s is deep and loud and equally terrifying, but in another way.
I watch as they collide together, like two huge, terrifying animals, like two bears in the wild, ready and committed to fight to the death no matter what.
They fall apart.
The CAT alien swipes at Korzak with his ax-like weapon. Korzak dodges it easily and comes right back around with a blow of his own. Korzak’s own sword jams right into the alien, who reels with pain.
It’s all over in a split second. The alien falls to the ground, his body huge. Smoke pours out of the wound. Korzak pulls his sword from it.
“What the hell was that?” says the hotel employee. He’s shaking more than I’ve ever seen anyone shake. He’s shaking so hard it looks like he might fall over.
I feel a thousand emotions at once. Strangely, I feel pride… Korzak defeated these two huge aliens by himself… and he did it for me… me alone. But I also feel fear, and disgust at the dead bodies.
Most strongly, I feel that I need to be at Korzak’s side. I need to feel him against me and know, really know, that he’s still alive. I need to feel his heart beating. He came so close to death, and now I know that I don’t want to lose him. But it’s not just that I don’t want to. I can’t lose him. I just can’t. I can’t allow that to happen. No matter what.
I rush into the bathroom and see that the wall is completely destroyed, leading to the outside.
The night is dark except for dim ambient light, and the light from the moon.
“Korzak!” I cry out, rushing towards him.
He’s sweaty. His shirt is partially torn down the side.
His hair is out of place.
His hand is bleeding and badly burned. He holds it in a way that makes me think it’s severely injured.
The two dead aliens lie on the ground, smoke and steam rising from their bodies.
“Are you OK?” I say, my voice high and frantic.
Krozak nods. “Are you?”
“I’m fine,” I say.
“I made a mistake,” says Korzak. “I shouldn’t have left you alone in the room. There could have been more…”
“Don’t beat yourself up,” I say. “It wasn’t a mistake. It worked… you fought for me and you almost died…”
Korzak shakes his head. “I’ll never forgive myself for this.”
Behind me, I hear the sounds of the hotel employee scrambling through the hole in the wall.
“What the fuck happened?” he says, his voice shrill and high with fear. But a new quality creeps into it.
Korzak doesn’t answer him. He simply doesn’t even look at him.
“This battle is over,” says Korzak, his voice deep and strong. “But we haven’t escaped yet. There are more coming. We need to leave. Now.”
I nod my head.
“I’m calling the police,” says the hotel employee.
“Why?” says Korzak, finally turning to him. “I was merely defending us. They would have killed us.”
“I… I’m calling them,” says the employee.
But before our eyes, the steam coming from the CAT alien bodies increases in volume. Steam is pouring out of them now, and a moment later, the bodies have vanished. They’ve completely turned to steam.
For some reason, this makes the hotel employee mad. His emotions have turned from fear to legal concern to anger.
“I… this is some sort of trickery,” he says.
“Come on,” says Korzak to me, putting his hand on my back. “We need to leave.”
“You still have to pay for the room service,” says the employee. “This isn’t right… And you’ve destroyed the wall here… Someone’s going to have to pay for this…”
“What a strange planet you live on,” says Korzak. He walks up to the large window that leads right into the hotel room. He punches it swiftly, and with one blow, the window shatters. “It’ll be easier to enter like this,” he says. “Get your things quickly.”
I do as he says, step
ping over the window frame and heading back into the hotel room.
I grab my bag and head back outside.
The darkness around us starts to fade and soon the sun is out again. It’s only now that I realize that it shouldn’t have been night.
“What was with the darkness?”
“A strategy of the CAT,” says Korzak. “It’s a piece of technology they have. They think it gives them an advantage in battle.”
“Obviously that didn’t work,” I say.
“They fought nobly,” says Korzak. “But they don’t know how to control their pain. Come on, we need to leave. There are going to be more coming. They will have communicated back to their ship. Word is out.”
“Is your hand OK?” I say, looking down again at Korzak’s severely burned hand.
“I’m fine,” says Korzak. “Come on.”
We walk away from the hotel towards my little compact car.
Korzak gets into the passenger seat, and I get into the driver’s seat and start the engine.
“I’m glad the car started,” I say.
“Is that often a problem?” says Korzak.
“Once in a while. It would just be my luck that it doesn’t start right now. I mean, that’s the last thing we need to deal with.”
“I don’t understand this Earth concept of luck,” says Korzak.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say.
“Before you start driving,” says Korzak, as I put the car into reverse. “There’s just one thing I need from you.”
“What’s that? Help with your hand?”
“Don’t worry about my hand,” says Korzak. “I’ll be fine.”
He leans in and his mouth crashes against mine. A wonderful kiss, passionate and intense.
I feel like a pair of criminals on the run in a movie. I feel light and free and suddenly I realize that I’m in love.
I don’t dare tell Korzak, though. I don’t know if he believes in love… it sure seems like it. But what if that’s not part of the Tarnan mating program, or the Tarnan warrior ideology.
Either way, this isn’t the time to tell him, not now, when we’re on the run, when dangerous aliens could show up at any moment. At least that’s the excuse I tell myself. The truth? I’m scared to tell him. Telling someone I love them isn’t something I do lightly…
I start driving and try to push all these romantic thoughts out of my mind. After all, we’re running for our lives. And the only thing that’s going to keep me alive is Korzak, seated beside me, an injured massive alien from a distant planet, one that I happen to be in love with.
I’ll tell him when the time is right, I tell myself.
I just hope we make it. I just hope we find the peace and tranquility we deserve. I hope we don’t end up dying in a battle with the CAT.
Soon we’re back on the highway, and I’m pushing the little car up to 85 MPH, despite the risk of getting a ticket.
Korzak is examining his hand.
“How is it?” I say, glancing over at it.
“It’s OK,” says Korzak. “I can’t use it very well, but it will regenerate in about two days.”
“So you Tarnan are like humans but…”
“We’re not that genetically different from you,” says Korzak. “But we’ve learned some mental practices over the years. We can deal with pain very well, for instance, by not trying to block it out. Instead, we let it… coexist with us. I think that’s the right way to put it.”
I nod my head, not really understanding what he’s saying.
“So you think we’re in the clear or what?” I say, checking the rear view mirror behind us.
“Definitely not,” says Korzak. “They know where we are now. They will have sent our coordinates back, like I said. That’s their standard operating procedure.”
“You sure know a lot about them.”
“We’ve been at war for… a long time,” says Korzak.
I’m dead tired, but somehow I find the strength to keep driving. If Korzak can not scream in pain with his hand like that, then I can drive without proper sleep. If Korzak can wage war like I saw him, then certainly I’m capable of doing a little driving.
The sun is rising higher in the sky.
There isn’t much traffic. We’re well away from Philadelphia now, past Harrisburg, and headed towards Pittsburgh, a city I’ve never been to.
The trees that line the highway are beautiful, full and green, tall and straight. There’s something about trees in Pennsylvania and this part of the country, some unknown quality that you know when you see but that you can’t describe. I’ve seen trees all over the country, but I’ve never seen trees like these. When I was in California briefly, I saw those beautiful tall trees that seem to reach to the heavens, but I felt homesick for my Pennsylvania trees.
If I feel homesick in California, how would I feel if I left Earth entirely? How would I feel if I left to go with Korzak back to Tarnen and abandoned everything and everyone I’ve ever known? I’d be homesick, that’s for sure. I can almost already feel the pain in my heart starting to grow as I picture my life far, far away from Earth.
But would I leave it all for Korzak?
The answer is a resounding… yes. It’s the most impossible “yes” I’ve ever come to in my life. It’s the most insane answer to the most insane question that I’ve ever dared to ask myself.
My life was so different only a few days ago. My day was going to be binging on Star Trek. Instead of watching adventures in space, I got the real thing.
Never in my wildest fantasies could I have imagined anything like this happening. Never in my wildest imagination could I have imagined a man like Korzak. And he’s not just with me. It’s not like we’re merely dating. No, he’s committed to protecting me. I know that he’d die for me. But that’s the last thing that I want.
I try to picture my life on Tarnen with Korzak, but I realize that I don’t know anything about it. I don’t have the slightest idea what his planet is actually like. Except that it must be incredibly advanced, considering that he’s been calling Earth technology primitive since I met him.
“How’s the hand?” I say, realizing that some time has passed since we’ve spoken. We’ve fallen into a comfortable silence.
“Fine,” says Korzak.
But his hand looks as bad as ever.
“Maybe we should stop and get you something for it,” I say.
“There’s nothing to do but let it regenerate,” says Korzak.
“So is that one of the small genetic differences between Tarnens and Earth humans?” I say. “That you can regenerate your own body parts, or heal more quickly?”
“Sort of,” says Korzak. “But it’s a little more complicated that. Some of it is genetics. Some of it is our medical technology. I’ve been treated, as all Tarnens have, with chemicals that modify our cellular functions. My cells generate more ATP than an Earthling’s cells because of those chemical treatments.”
“Huh,” I say. “So the same thing could happen to me, if I took those chemicals?”
“Yeah,” says Korzak. “On Tarnen, you will receive the proper medical treatment that will make you healthier than you can imagine…”
“Healthier? I already feel like I’m pretty healthy.”
“It’s not that…” says Korzak. “It’s hard to explain what it feels like to have your cells functioning differently… But you have much more energy… We Tarnens function with what you would call uncoupled mitochondria.”
“Uncoupled mitochondria?” I say. “What’s that? I feel like I’ve heard it before.”
“According to my now destroyed ship’s computer,” says Korzak. “Your scientists actually have figured out ways to uncouple mitochondria. Some common substances cause it to happen, but apparently your scientists haven’t realized how important uncoupling mitochondria can be to health.”
“Interesting,” I say, not really understanding a word of it. “You mentioned Tarnen… I was just thinking about it… What’s it
like?”
Korzak smiles at me. He seems to realize that I’m actually considering going to Tarnen with him. He seems to sense that my feelings for him have… intensified, for lack of a better word.
I continue to drive, staring straight ahead as the road rushes up and under our car, taking only occasional glances at Korzak. He seems to smile at me the entire time as he tells me what his planet is like. His hand is bloody and burned, singed to almost nothing, but he seems to show no signs of pain. If my hand were like that, the last thing I’d be able to do is give a loving verbal portrayal of my home planet.
Korzak paints me a vivid picture of what Tarnen is like.
To my surprise, it’s not all high tech cities covering the entire planet.
Instead, much of the planet is left wild. There are ice covered mountains and wild deserts and dangerous jungles. These are left wild, but the Tarnan routinely go on journeys through them, in order to test their own strength and to strengthen their own character.
There are cities, of course, on Tarnen, but as Korzak explains it to me, they are very different from our cities here on Earth. There aren’t any roads, obviously, since most transport is done by flying. Either flying or walking.
Sometimes the Tarnan ride animals. There is a species of animal that is something like a very ferocious horse. Korzak has one himself, and it’s one of his best friends, in a way. He had to work hard to tame him, capturing him from the wild, but little by little Korzak gained his trust.
Korzak tells me about his journey to the oracle high in the ice-covered mountains. It’s a journey that all male Tarnan take. And they’ve been doing it for centuries, if not longer. I forget exactly what he says. After all, I do have to drive, and I’m doing my best not to fall asleep. I forget how many hours I’ve been awake for without sleep, but it’s a lot.
Korzak tells me how much I’ll love Tarnen, the natural wonders, as well as the wonderful cities. Despite being a planet of warriors, apparently everyone is friendly with their neighbors. I think back to previous apartments I’ve had, where I probably barely exchanged five words with my neighbors.
