Alien Ascension

by Tracy Lauren

  “I have been in that cell for weeks now. I do not know what V has been through in my absence,” I tell them, feeling ashamed.

  “They say she’s done some fucked up shit. That she killed a guy, cut someone’s eye out—” Allison begins, but the expression on my face causes her to stop short and she looks down, embarrassed by her words.

  “Who is her target?” Da’vi cuts in.

  “Vigere, the lieutenant for Ju’tok Magoh.”

  “Wait, Ju’tok Magoh? I know that name. Isn’t that the guy who runs the human slave trade?” Allison recalls.

  “That is right,” I reply.

  “Shouldn’t we help her kill him then?” she demands.

  “If she wants Vigere dead, so be it. But I will not allow it to happen at her hands. She has been through enough already.” I fall silent, considering my worst fears. “Any more trauma might break her beyond the point of repair.”

  “We have heard many stories about her,” Da’vi confirms.

  “Yeah, she sounds like a real badass—” Allison adds, but Da’vi gives her a look that stops her short.

  “It sounds as if Dax’s concerns are valid,” Da’vi tells her pointedly.

  “Whatever,” Allison mumbles under her breath. She begins to search the interior of the craft, digging her small hands down into the seats, looking for a latch to open the storage compartment. Eventually she finds an opening.

  “One dozen males,” Da’vi recalls the information the man in the dungeon gave us.

  “Yes,” I acknowledge.

  “Three of us,” he points out.

  “Four,” I correct. “Once we find V, that is.”

  He looks at his own female and frowns, scales flicking in agitation. Allison fishes something out of the hidden compartment she located. “What’s this?” she asks, holding up a heavy metal object.

  “A gun,” I tell her.

  “Huh,” she says, looking at it. “Dibs.”

  The trip across the Quar desert is a short one. In a situation like this, every second can count. So, we don’t bother with a discreet entrance through a back alley. Instead we pull up close to the front of the building and spill out of our craft. I lead the charge and Da’vi and Allison flank me.

  We pass through a small and empty sales office, manned by a companion droid who smiles blankly at us. Then we push into the main pleasure lounge. Each of us running at full speed, ready to fight, ready to kill. But the sight we are met with is one of such unexpected horror that we grind to a halt.

  The occupants of the pleasure lounge have been seemingly frozen along with their sexual companion droids. Naked and mid-copulation, a still life of primitive desires. The only thing amiss is the frothy sprays of bile spilling from every orifice of each male, still bubbling, even though they have been dead for some time now. In the absence of life, the droids have reverted to their stand-by positions…sultry and seductive, beckoning expressions, staring blankly at the dead bodies still linked with them.

  “How may I service you?”

  “How may I service you?”

  “How may I service you?” comes a cacophony of voices, responding to our entry into the room.

  “Freeze and silence,” I call out to the droids, and they respond to my command with obedience.

  “My god…” Allison gasps in horror. Instinctively, Da’vi and I both protectively surround her. I see her grip her gun a little tighter.

  “What did this?” she asks in a low voice.

  Da’vi nods to spilled cups littered around the room. “Poison,” he says.

  “But who—” Allison begins, but cuts herself off. Her jaw goes hard.

  “We need to find her. Now,” I tell the others.

  We disperse, running to tear open doors along the far wall. Each one I near seems silent on the other side, and when I swing it open there is nothing but an empty bed waiting for the next customer.

  “Shhh, shhh, shhh! Guys! Listen!” Allison hisses at us. “I hear music,” she says in a low voice, motioning toward one of the doors. Da’vi and I hurry to join her. We press our ears to the door. Sure enough, there is music. Music and a muffled struggle. We all hear it at the same time. I throw my body against the door, causing it to burst from its frame.

  The sight in the middle of the room is hard for me to reconcile. There is a female, Aritine by all appearances, wearing a heavy breathing apparatus. She is hanging from a long curtain in the center of the room. Vigere stands before her, his neck wrapped tight in that curtain. He is being strangled. The startle we give the female is enough to cause her to falter. Suddenly, Vigere rips himself free and makes a mad dash for the door.

  Struggling to process all this, I don’t even give chase.

  Chapter 53

  Allison

  I knew this had to be some kind of a mix-up. Never in a million years could weepy old Vivian have been the person everyone was talking about. Nope, this weird alien bitch is the one who did all that crazy shit. I could chase Vigere…and I will chase Vigere, but first I have to find out what this bitch did to Vivian.

  So, when she flips down from the weird circus thing she’s hanging from, her face is met with my boot. The force knocks her to the ground. She slides backward but is quick to roll and recover.

  I pay close attention to my opponent, looking for all the things Da’vi tries to instill in me on a daily basis. First, I scan for a weapon. It doesn’t look like she has one, other than the fabric she was just using to strangle Vigere with. Mentally, I prepare myself for hand to hand combat.

  I follow her retreat. When I get close enough, I pull my fist back and let it swing. Just as I expect to connect with her face, she sidesteps and grabs my wrists. I try to block while tearing my wrists free, but her hold on me is tight. She’s stronger than she looks. A lot stronger. I throw all my body weight into her, but instead of pulling free, we end up rolling to the ground.

  For a second, I think I have her pinned, but that second is a short one. It isn’t just her strength that throws me. No, it’s the fact that liquid metal materializes on her skin, encasing her hands. My only saving grace is that she appears to be as surprised by this as I am. I take the opportunity, because it might be the only one I have, and I head butt the shit out of her. It’s my first head butt, and holy fuck, it hurts. She rolls off of me and I scramble a few feet away, trying to regain my footing for a new attack, but when we look up at each other, the gas mask thing is all askew. This is my chance, I think as I lunge. The air is knocked out of me as two strong, scaled arms wrap around my waist and pull me away.

  Da’vi. What the fuck now?

  The son of a bitch tosses me aside, leaving me feeling distinctly like a rag doll. I’m still coiled to fight, though, and I look up at him with a challenge, but he isn’t looking at me. I follow his gaze to the crazy alien bitch.

  Frantically, she pulls off her mask, likely unable to see with it off center the way that it is. Instantly, even like this: bald, with the tattoos, and the weird implants… those wide, wet eyes are unmistakable. She locks eyes with me first and the sob she sucks in seems to hit her like a punch to the gut. She curls into it. Dax is there to catch her before she falls to the ground, overcome with emotion.

  Their tear-filled reunion… It’s easy to see what’s going on between them. More alien mates. This is definitely not my thing. Vigere, on the other hand, is getting away.

  I don’t waste time running my thoughts past Da’vi. I’m out the door before Dax and Vivian even have a chance to speak. Still, though, I hear Da’vi close at my heels.

  “Kitchens and storage rooms,” he tells me as he sprints toward the front door.

  “Got it.” Let’s find this son of a bitch.

  Chapter 54

  Dax

  “Dax?” she questions, disbelief in her voice despite the fact that she’s wrapped tightly in my arms. “How?”

  “I am here now, my mate. Nothing beyond that matters,” I assure her, though I worry about how I will get my V out o
f here with all those bodies in the front room. Does she know the carnage she caused out there?

  V collapses against me, and I hold her close, stroking her back as she weeps. My fingers roam over the processing center for her TASE, embedded deeply into her nervous system. What did The Oscillion do to her?

  I do not know if we will ever be able to remove the weapon from her body. Tears well in my eyes as I look down at my mate and the changes she has undergone. It pains me that she did not speak of this when she visited my cell. It pains me that I was not there to protect her. But her appearance does not affect my love for her. Nor does the pile of bodies out in the pleasure lounge. All that matters is that she is safe and we are in each other’s arms once again. Anything beyond that, time and our love will heal.

  “Your heart,” she says quietly, her hand resting over the place that drums within me. “It’s practically beating out of your chest.” My heart.

  “I suppose it is,” I tell her, finally understanding that this pounding in my core is solely for her. “This is nothing compared to what it had been,” I laugh, placing my hand over hers. “This feels more like peace,” I tell her, noticing the change in my heart’s song.

  She wipes the tears from her face. “Where do we go from here?” she asks, her tears already drying.

  “We go home to Elysia. To our people.”

  She looks down at herself. “How can I go back there like this? I mean, look at me, Dax! I’m not even human! I don’t know what I am. I’m certainly not Prudence, and I don’t want to be V anymore.”

  “Do you want to be Prudence?”

  She scoffs. “Dax, I couldn’t be Prudence anymore even if I tried.”

  “And what is wrong with V?”

  “I hate her. I hate this woman I’ve become. She’s ugly and callous and a thousand other things I don’t want to be.”

  “You could never be ugly—”

  “I mean in here,” she tells me, placing her hand over her own heart. I look deep into her eyes. There is no longer a bottomless well of tears there, but there is a deep pool of hurt.

  “Look at me,” I command. “You are not your name. You are not your appearance. You are everything that is inside you. Prudence is a piece of that, and so is V, but you are not only Prudence and you are not only the person that V had to be to survive. I see you for who you are and I love you for it. So will the others.”

  She shakes her head in disbelief. “I’m a monster, Dax, in my appearance and in my soul.”

  “I refute that. I have seen who you really are—”

  “The Oscillion saw me for what I was,” she counters angrily.

  “He has been lying to you, V. Filling your head with poison in an effort to manipulate and control you. He doesn’t see you, he sees only what he can corrupt. I see you and in you, I see strength and resilience, and the power to overcome great obstacles. When I look into your eyes, there is no monster staring back at me. Only a goddess.”

  She shakes her head in denial but is unable to find the words to argue.

  “You do not have to believe this today, my mate. I will be happy to spend the rest of my life proving it to you.”

  She looks into my eyes for a long while. I can almost see her letting go of all the pain from the last few weeks. “Can we start now?” she pleads suddenly.

  “Start what?”

  “The rest of our lives.”

  I nod and get to my feet, scooping her up into my arms. Right then, as I had done a thousand times over while locked in The Oscillion’s dungeon, I swear to myself that for the rest of my life I will never leave my precious mate’s side again.

  Chapter 55

  Da’vi

  I circled the building and searched the alleyway. There was no sign of Vigere outside.

  I hurry back into the pleasure house. Allison may have already found him. While she is a skilled fighter, I am a protective male and cannot stop myself from rushing to join her.

  I run past the naked and half-fucked corpses sprawled throughout the lounge and find the service door. I run past the kitchens, the droid docking stations, and down a long hall. I run as fast as my legs will carry me.

  I cannot stand the thought of Allison going head to head with Vigere all alone. A male like Vigere is pure evil. Those are the ones you have to worry about in a fight. Someone with that much darkness inside of them is willing to do anything to win. They will act without honor and they will enjoy it.

  I sprint down the hall, hurriedly checking doors as I run past them. It’s a laser blast that gives their location away. It came from the far end of the hall—a maintenance room. Adrenaline propels me forward. I pray that it was Allison who fired.

  A few short seconds later I burst through the door. Allison stands there, admiring her work. I recoil when I see it.

  A single knife holds the man in place. She has run his hand through with her blade and it is buried deep into the wall. He hangs there, arm pinned above his head, the top half of his head gone. What’s left smokes and sizzles. My eyes roam over his corpse. He has numerous bloody wounds.

  She stabbed him in multiple places, torturing him before she killed him. I frown at the realization.

  She looks back at me, indifferent. “I almost castrated him,” she informs me. Her tone is casual. “I thought about it. It would have been fitting. Poetic justice for all the women out there getting raped because of him.”

  “Instead you killed him?” I question, displeased by the obvious answer.

  “Yup,” she answers, walking over to me. I almost think she might break, snap under the weight of whatever it is she carries on her shoulders. Instead she pulls the knife from my belt and turns to face her kill. For a moment I think she might castrate him just for good measure, but instead she digs around in the remnants of the man’s mouth with the tip of my knife.

  “Got it,” she says, flashing me a small and bloody data chip.

  “What is that?” I ask.

  “Did you really think I’d kill him without getting any information first?” she asks, frowning at me as if I insulted her.

  “Honestly, I am surprised you killed him at all,” I reply.

  She freezes, suddenly defensive. “Why? We’ve both killed people. You’ve killed a lot of people. How’s this any different?”

  “I have been teaching you to kill in defense, Allison.”

  Her frown deepens, clearly offended. “I was defending. I was defending humans from this motherfucker.”

  “And the torture? Was that for humans as well?” I nod toward the wounds in his thighs and torso.

  She walks close to her kill, pointing at his thighs. “That was for this,” she says holding up the data chip. “And this?” She jabs my knife at his stomach wound. “This was just for me,” she declares brazenly. She flips the knife around hilt first and hands it to me before she strides out the door.

  “Where are you going?” I call after her.

  “Back to the ship. I’m done here. I think I’m done with a lot of things,” is her icy reply.

  Chapter 56

  V

  I weigh my emotions on the flight back to Elysia. I feel more Prudence than V right now, I decide, more worry than grim resignation. I don’t feel shame in my worrying anymore. I worry because I’m emotionally invested and that’s okay. I also don’t feel like the emotion is as all-consuming as it used to be. I guess I’ve learned to take things in stride.

  I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately and I’ve come to a realization. I don’t need to run away anymore. It didn’t take me anywhere anyway. What I want is to be back on Elysia and be a member of the colony that they call Beacon. I want to be with the other humans. I still have work to do…on me, I mean. I still need to find myself and I truly think that Beacon is the best place to do that.

  I guess part of me figured I would have found myself by the end of this adventure. And I learned a lot, I really did, but I’m still not there yet. I know more about who I am, what I’m capable of, how strong
and resilient I can be. But I think there’s still more to learn. I still have more to discover. Maybe that’s true for everyone.

  I look down over the massive green and blue planet below. I see dots in the sky in the distance. Vendari ships. Dax’s people are here now. This is their home and it’s my home too, I think to myself, trying to take it all in. Dax’s hand squeezes mine.

  “There is no reason to be nervous,” he tells me.

  I smile and sigh. “That’s easy to say, but a lot less easy to do,” I tell him. “Don’t worry about me. I’m nervous, but I’ll survive this.”