Alien Mine

by Marie Dry

  But if that was the case, why the claws and swords? Why send warriors and not diplomats?

  "Don't you want to make contact with the government? Let them know you're here, sort of act as an ambassador." And become someone else's problem, she thought.

  He contemplated her words for what seemed an endless amount of time. "No."

  "But if you don't try to talk to them, you could have a war on your hands. They've already seen your ship."

  When he said nothing, a horrible thought occurred to her. "There's no way I'm going to be taken to some strange planet."

  "We stay always."

  "Always? You mean forever? You're going to stay on Earth forever? Why won't you return to your planet?" Was he seriously going to try to take over Earth with just the four of them? Although, after the total slaughter at the raider camp, she wouldn't be surprised, but she hoped that wasn't the case. Maybe he just simply couldn't return. "Is your spaceship beyond repair?"

  "Earth breeders plenty."

  So he really is just after women. "Are women scarce on your planet?" She stressed the word women.

  "My woman." He pointed to her then himself before continuing, "Warriors take women."

  She wasn't going to fall for the broken speech for one moment. "So you're saying warriors will find women and stay quietly in the cave for what? Decades?"

  "Yes," he said.

  "Do you have family on your planet? A wife? Kids?" Strange how that question never occurred to her before. It should have. She had some scandalous dreams a few nights ago that involved Zacar. What if she had those dreams about a married alien? Her intestines curled.

  "Wife?"

  "You know, a woman you have an exclusive relationship with."

  "Have you. No other." Again, he remained expressionless, giving her nothing with which she could gauge the truth of his words. For all she knew he had ten wives back on his planet.

  "Look, I don't know if you realize this, but I'm not going to sleep with you, at least not until I know you a lot better." Make that never, she thought, but he didn't need to know that. Sensual dreams or not, this was a situation she had to get far away from.

  "Yes, you will," he said with chilling certainty.

  If she was half as brave as he thought her to be, she would've pummeled him with something. It's ironic, she thought, having a civilized conversation for the first time in months with a being who scared the living daylights out of her.

  "Are you saying you'll force me?" That chip in his brain had better make the correct translation.

  His gaze moved over her figure and lingered on her breasts before blatantly staring at the junction of her legs. Then finally, he looked up. Her body heated as if hot coals had rolled over it. "No force," he said in what she assumed was a gentle tone.

  "Promise?" she asked, hating the tearful note in her voice.

  "What promise?"

  "It's when you say something and you mean it. Like when you promised not to hurt me earlier. And if you do hurt me, you will break your promise and be a warrior without honor."

  "Zacar have honor," he growled.

  She froze. Had she just found a weakness?

  She perked up a bit, eager to test her new discovery. She pointed a finger at him. "Anything you do against my will is violence against me." He looked down at her forefinger as she tapped his chest in time with her words. "And buddy, you had better sleep with your eyes open if you hurt me."

  "No make sense, sleeping with eyes open."

  She would've found his words and the slightly confused tilt to his head charming if he wasn't a muscle-bound, humongous alien that constantly called her his breeder.

  She was about to respond when the doctor alien, Viglar, came into the tent again and grunted something at him.

  Zacar surged upright with an ease she envied. "Natlia, stay in cave." He pointed to the TC. "Look at cell cast."

  Then he did the strangest thing. He leaned down and briefly touched his forehead to hers, the pressure warm and hard. She sat frozen, unsure what she was supposed to do. After a few seconds, he straightened again and went out.

  What could they be doing outside in the cold? And how long would they be doing it?

  Grateful for the opportunity, she hastily put her clothes back on, retrieved her inhaler from her pants pocket, and held it to her mouth.

  Catching movement out of the corner of her eye through the sheer plastic door of her tent, Natalie stilled, the inhaler poised in front of her mouth. The scarred alien stood at the cave entrance watching her, his lip curled. She stared back at him, frozen with fear, expecting at any moment he would come and take her head.

  Calm down, Natalie. He's an alien. He can't possibly know what an inhaler is or what it's for.

  Trying to act casual and unconcerned, she put the inhaler back in her pocket and stepped out of the tent, walking over to the TC.

  When she glanced up at the cave entrance again, he was gone.

  Had he gone to tell Zacar about the inhaler?

  Pretending to search for a program, she tried calling the emergency number. She wasn't holding out much hope the emergency function would suddenly be working, but she had to try.

  A few minutes later, she slammed her fist against the wooden chest, rattling the TC. Why didn't anything work anymore? She hadn't even been able to contact Julia.

  I have to get out of here! With the TC not working, getting down the mountain was the only way she'd be able to inform anyone of the aliens' presence.

  She sat on the large cushion that served as her couch, pretending to watch the TC. Even though her heart raced with nervous excitement, she forced herself to wait. And it was a good thing she did, because fifteen minutes later the surly, scarred warrior returned, watching her from the cave entrance again. The moment she made eye contact, he walked away, with what she could've sworn was a disdainful sneer on his face.

  Waiting until he disappeared before getting up, she walked casually to the back of the cave. The moment she was out of sight, her heart pounding, she ran along the narrow passage to the storage room then took the even narrower passage leading to the hidden valley.

  How long would she have before they came looking for her? On foot, it would take her almost a day to get where her father's antique truck was stashed.

  She ran, convinced Zacar breathed down her neck. She swung around, only to find the path behind her empty. When she turned to run again she could vaguely see the red canvas covering the back entrance blend in with the dark rock surrounding it.

  She silently thanked her father for insisting that emergency packs be hidden in the valley at all times. He always believed that in the event of an emergency, they should be able to run out of the cave with only their clothes on.

  She pushed aside the canvas and stepped out into the bitter cold. For a moment, she just stood and stared. Never before had the icy white winter landscape been so desolate and threatening. But then, she'd never had to escape from aliens on foot through it before.

  Shaking off her dread, she ran to where her father had stashed their emergency supplies. A few meters away from the entrance, she found the small hole in the mountain, rolled aside the stone covering it, and lifted out one of the three backpacks stashed there.

  She blinked back tears. Her father would have enjoyed outwitting the aliens.

  With her rapid movements made clumsy by the cold, she slung one of the backpacks over her shoulders. Shivering, even in her thick jacket, she rolled the rock back in place before starting the long climb out of the valley.

  Would the people in town believe her when she told them she'd been captured by aliens? Probably not, she thought. As the daughter of two fanatic survivalists, her reputation had long since been tarnished. But at least Julia would believe her. She hoped.

  Just a week ago, she had laughed with Julia about the very idea of an alien invasion. Now it was her reality and she still had trouble believing it.

  Frantically looking back every few moments for signs
she was being followed, she kept stumbling over her own feet. She forced herself to face forward and concentrate on the path. This was the easy part. The valley sloped up gradually. But there was an hour's worth of sheer upward climbing ahead. The sun was out, warming the air just enough to slowly melt the snow, making everything slippery and muddy. The cold seeped marrow deep into her bones.

  For the next half hour, she managed a good pace up the gradual slope through sheer desperation. If he caught her now, he would never give her the chance to escape again.

  Her breath sawed painfully in and out of her lungs. Several times, she had to stop and use the inhaler.

  In all her years on the mountain, her endurance had never been tested as much as it had the last five days.

  She took a few sips of water from a canteen, as much to lighten her load as to quench her thirst.

  As the slope became steeper, everything turned more slippery, treacherous. She slid back two steps for every one she took forward.

  Her muscles ached and her hands felt like frozen claws, even with her gloves, as she tried to grip the rocks and pull herself up the slope. In spite of her need to hurry, she stopped every now and then to scan the area behind her for aliens.

  Tired and cold, fed up with constantly feeling afraid, she wanted to just lie down under a tree and forget about everything. Forget that aliens had landed on her mountain. Forget that Zacar was probably hunting her.

  Maybe being a breeder wouldn't be that bad.

  A shiver snaked through her at the thought, spurring her on. She tried to pull herself up by holding onto a bush, but she couldn't feel the branch. Her hand was too numb and weak and it kept slipping from her grasp.

  Her feet were cold, and her mind had trouble commanding them to move, to climb. She knew she was risking developing frostbite, but she continued to move on, sluggish and cold. She had to get to town. She just had to.

  She fought the nagging desire to lie down on the soft snow and just go to sleep.

  Just another half an hour and you can rest, Natalie.

  Even her own thoughts were starting to sound strange, slurry. She lifted her tired arm in slow motion and gripped the rock above her.

  Her glove made contact with something. Even with her numb fingers, it didn't feel like a rock or a bush.

  Confused, she lifted her head, and stared up into Zacar's frighteningly emotionless face.

  Chapter 7

  Up until that moment, the winter's normal eerie silence of snow falling on the mountain--broken only by the soft whispering sounds of trees moving and the plaintive cries of animals far away--was all she'd heard. Now the silence was absolute, as if even nature feared Zacar.

  Natalie's lashes fluttered as she stared up into the glowing red, menacing gaze glaring down at her. They stayed like that for what felt like hours, her cold hand shaking on his ankle while his eyes pinned her in place.

  At last, she managed to tear her gaze away and sag down onto the snow with a soft plop. She curled herself into a ball. At least now she didn't have to climb anymore. If he wanted her back in the cave, she'd make it his problem how to get her there. She settled in to sleep, but a question nagged at her sluggish mind.

  "H--How'd you f--find me?" she slurred, barely able to keep her teeth from chattering.

  "Knew you left."

  She wanted to cry. And she would have if she could've mustered the energy. Every muscle in her body ached. Hunger and thirst competed with her exhaustion and she felt helpless, unable to even control her own body.

  All for nothing. It had all been for nothing.

  "You knew? You knew I escaped and are only trying to stop me now?" She tried to grab her hair, to give it a good tug, but her fingers wouldn't grip.

  "Teach lesson," he said simply.

  Cruel, stubborn, rotten...

  "You horrible red-eyed alien." She tried to scream it, but it came out as a whimper.

  His arms held loosely at his sides, his legs spread, he looked down at her. "My breeder cannot leave me."

  "You can't just decide to keep me, as if I'm some kind of pet. I'm not an animal." If only she had her club. She wanted to jump up and hit him, again and again, but she could barely move. She tried to glare at him, but dropped her face into her hands. How pathetic. She didn't even have a good glare left in her.

  "I will escape," she mumbled through her frozen fingers. "Even if I have to kill you in your sleep to get away."

  "Punish. You never try again."

  Punish? Wasn't it bad enough she was a prisoner in her own cave, that he was going to use her as a breeder? Every torture method she'd ever heard of flashed through her mind and she shuddered.

  She stared at him. His body seemed unaffected by the biting cold.

  I can't win, can I?

  Her shivering increased. Too cold and tired to put up any further fight, she said, "I d-don't care what you d--do to me, just as long as you do it somewhere w--warm." She curled deeper into her jacket, but it didn't provide the heat or safety she craved.

  In a motion so fast she only saw a blur, he threw her over his shoulder and strode down the mountain. At first, she was so grateful for the heat of his body and not having to walk, she didn't notice how uncomfortable she was being carried like a sack of potatoes. The muscles beneath her were as hard as rocks.

  He moved so quickly, she expected him to stumble at any moment, her heart hammering every time she looked down. They'd be killed if he lost his footing and fell down the slope. But he strode down the path, surefooted and confident, the way she would stroll in a meadow.

  "P--please don't drop me," she said, her teeth chattering as much from the jogging motion as from the cold.

  He didn't answer. He simply tightened his hand on her thigh and continued to leap down the mountain.

  She had to wait for her heartbeat to slow down before she could talk again. "What are you going to do with me?" Despite the heat of his body slowly thawing her middle, her face still felt frozen, her numbed lips still having trouble forming words. Would he whip or beat her? Or was there some other horrific form of punishment he had in mind? "You can't really blame me for trying, you know. Any sane person would've tried to get away from an ugly baby-killer like you."

  He stopped abruptly, with one foot squarely planted on a rock. Natalie held her breath, waiting for him to retaliate, to punish her for the insult. Maybe she shouldn't have called him ugly. But he was holding her captive after all, so he shouldn't complain if she called him names.

  When he moved suddenly, she flinched, only to realize he was leaping over a boulder. He landed hard and her breath escaped with a small oomph. Her bruised stomach and ribs protested, her meager breakfast threatening to launch from her mouth.

  For a while, she bounced over his shoulder, cold and miserable, without any breath left to complain with. On top of that, her body ached where it jostled against his shoulder. His muscles had no give in them. Blood rushed to her head until she thought it might explode. And she still couldn't feel her fingers and toes.

  "My stomach hurts. Put me down. I can walk."

  Ignoring her, he jumped over another boulder.

  As soon as I'm warm and able to move again, I'm gonna clobber him, but this time it'll be with a lead pipe.

  He walked faster, leaping over boulders as if they were pebbles, no doubt for the sole purpose of causing her discomfort.

  "I promise I won't run away. Please put me down." She didn't have the strength left to walk, but she'd prefer to crawl back if she had to than be flailed around like a rag doll.

  Again, he ignored her.

  At last, they reached the back entrance to the cave and his shoulder dipped. Something gleamed silver in her periphery vision and she turned her head to get a better look. A thick silver door now covered the opening where the sheet of canvas had been. It slid open easily, without making a sound.

  "Where--When'd you do this?" she mumbled in shock.

  "When you ran."

  She heard his words
but her brain, still numbed by the cold and shock of her situation, couldn't register what they meant.

  His body lowered and pain shot up her legs when her feet touched the floor. Natalie stumbled, nearly collapsing to the floor before something stopped her. Why had she been so stupid, to think she could survive out there on her own?

  A loud roar echoed around the cave but she was too weak to even react. She could hear footsteps thumping across the cave floor. Had he called the others to help him punish her?

  At least I'm too numb to feel any pain when they beat me.

  She forced her eyelids open. Zacar held her, cradling her in his arms like a new bride. He roared again and the doctor appeared, pointing one of those silver gadgets at her. Zacar continued to roar, while the doctor growled in response, his words sounding urgent.

  The earth spun and she scrunched her lids closed, trying to quell the dizziness. When she opened them again, she was on her bed in her tent. Zacar's big hands tore at her wet clothes, frantically trying to remove them. Miserable, cold, and wet, she didn't care that he saw her naked, or if he thought her too tall and thin. That had been one of Andre's biggest complaints about her, probably one of the main reasons they were no longer engaged.

  Why is he in such a hurry? Did her punishment require her to be naked? Or had Zacar decided he was no longer going to wait to make her his breeder?

  Through half-open eyelids, she watched him cut her boots off her feet. Those are my only pair, she thought, too tired to protest.

  Handling her with hurried care, he placed her beneath the covers. She stiffened when the cold linen zapped the last of the heat from her body, a moan escaping her lips. When the alien bellowed again, she tried to focus on his blurry figure standing next to the bed.

  Did that last roar sound worried or was her exhaustion making her delirious?

  Someone hurried into the tent, his footsteps loud and urgent. Zacar dragged off his jacket, exposing a thin silver T-shirt like garment underneath.

  Why is he taking off his clothes when it's so cold? They didn't look wet like hers had been. When he pulled off his boots and stepped out of his pants, panic tingled at the back of her mind, but her numbing exhaustion won out and her eyelids slipped closed. She just wanted to sleep, to be warm again.