by Hana Starr
Arden’s Mission
By Hana Starr
Copyright © 2016 by Hana Starr – All rights reserved.
The author holds exclusive rights to this work. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form including photocopying, recording or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior permission of the publisher.
WARNING: This book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language. It may be considered offensive to some readers. This book is intended for adults 18+ ONLY. Please ensure this book is stored somewhere that cannot be accessed by underage readers.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are used in a fictitious manner and not to be construed as real. Similarities to real people, places or events are entirely coincidental.
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Contents
Introduction
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
About the Author
Introduction
Zipporah Clayton was a resident of planet Earth before it all went dark. Working as a janitor on the Star Liner, a luxury space ship, Zipporah wondered when her life was going to really take off. Penniless, nearly homeless, and out of luck in love, she believed she was at the bottom of the food chain. When disaster stuck in the form of a meteor strike, she ducked down to the deepest levels of the center, hoping to find safety.
Instead, she found a man. Or so she thought. Nameless as he was, he took her by the hand and together they were transported through the depths of space.
Now Zipporah is on an Alien planet, surrounded by extraterrestrial beings who have unnerving plans for her. Afraid, enthralled, and strangely seduced by her savior, she forms an unbreakable bond of loyalty to him. Plopped right in the middle of an alien war, Zipporah must summon the courage to become a part of something bigger than herself.
Chapter One
Zipporah dipped down to wring out the mop, splashing her hands into the dirty water. Lacking enthusiasm, she began to work her way around the Star Line Luxury Space Cruiser. This was her life. Endlessly mopping, sweeping, and cleaning up after more important people. It had been that way for years—since the day she turned nineteen, all Zipporah knew was the diamond studded atmosphere of space and the smell of dirty mop water.
“Zipporah,” a familiar condescending voice droned her name. She spun around, noticing the Head of Maintenance looking even more displeased than usual. The tall, muscular man wore an ill-fitting jacket and grew out a beard to hide his disdain for others behind. Zipporah sighed. She knew what it meant when Jacque paid her a visit in person.
“Yes sir?” She asked him quietly, careful not to make eye contact with his dark orbs. His foot tapped heavily on the metal floor of the spacecraft.
“Some passengers have made complaints against you. Any ideas why?”
She knew it was rhetorical. Passengers lodged complaints against her constantly for one thing other another. She was too quick with her cleaning, she was too slow with her cleaning, her hair was too long, or she was too unattractive. It could be anything with the pompous people that lived on the spacecraft.
“I couldn’t say, sir.” Her eyes dared a peek into his, before quickly darting away.
It took Jacque twenty minutes of lecturing her about her performance for Zipporah to know what crime against humanity she had committed. She wore her hair in a braid.
“That’s it?” She asked incredulously. A braid was nothing but the mark of femininity on their home planet. And she was, in fact, a female.
“Some passengers feel that the staff should be genderless in their presence. I happen to agree.”
Zipporah mumbled something about wearing a paper bag over her head from now on, but Jacque didn’t catch it. Turning on his heel, he left Zipporah to ponder the seemingly fleeting goodness of human kind. There was nothing she liked about her current situation. So far from home, so far from anyone that ever mattered to her. She had taken the job on the Star Line hoping to build a family fortune. But what had happened instead was almost too heartbreaking to think about.
Her mind flashed back to that all too familiar sound: sirens. They were wailing up from the earth, begging for rescue. Zipporah had been working on the Star Line for a few months then, and had made enough money to keep her family secure for years. But two years ago, when the sirens hit, she knew she had no more family to care for. The ship never returned to Earth, but it was assumed that a catastrophic disaster had struck down the human population. Ever since that day, the Earth was dark. There was not a solitary light twinkling from the once illuminated planet. There was no communication. Nothing.
Zipporah felt something tickle her cheek to realize that she was crying—mourning the loss that was too huge to comprehend. Silently, she untangled her dark hair from the long braid that hung at her waist. She remembered how her mother used to braid her hair for parties and social gatherings—how her father had admired her, swearing that she was the most beautiful woman on the planet. All of those memories seemed so far away for her now. They were gone. Buried on a dark, quiet planet.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking.” The captain’s voice boomed through the communication systems, reaching the ear of every guest aboard. Zipporah usually ignored such announcements, but today she felt inclined to listen.
“There have been some sightings of meteors in the area. We will be changing courses, but I advise all of you to remain in your cabins and away from the observation deck. Please review your emergency pamphlets and call upon an attending if any questions arise.”
Meteors didn’t often fall from the depths of space the ship was in, and the thought of it made Zipporah’s skin crawl. She remembered a very similar announcement being made as the earth went dark before her very eyes. Without even thinking, she dropped what she had been doing and made her way quickly to her safe space.
The safe space the she often employed was a shut off area in the depths of the space craft. She would crawl between several crates and cry for what seemed like hours—or at least until she got paged to return to the deck and get on with her job. Her feet clicked against the metal belly of the ship, ringing out for only her ears to hear. Above her she could hear the nervous shuffling of feet, and she knew that the guests aboard the ship were beginning to worry.
Her eyes found the small corner in which she often came to. There was a small blanket and pillow tucked between several boxes. Tenderly, Zipporah ducked down and cur
led up with her things. This is often where she slept, although she shared a very small living space with several other “workers.” She wrapped the blanket around her body and closed her eyes, waiting for the announcement that they were out of danger. But that announcement never came.
The shuffling of feet above her head became more agitated, and she began to hear muffled whimpering. Zipporah was now beginning to sweat profusely. There was nothing she wanted more in life than to get off of the wretched ship and find a new planet to settle down upon. But she didn’t want to die with these people—all alone.
The first crash happened so quickly that she could scarcely describe it. First she was jolted from her bubble of home, and then every light went out. The lights were set to diminish when an attack had been made against the ship, so that the power could be otherwise used to protect the passengers. But all in all, it wasn’t a good sign. The ship had never suffered a major blow, and they had been fortunate enough to have many repair members on board the day the earth went silent.
Zipporah took hold of the watch on her wrist. The screen came to life and prompted her to submit her password. She quickly mumbled the name of the first boy she had loved, and the screen expanded into the air to give her some light. She had an urgent message from Jacque: Report to the employee’s deck IMMEDIATLEY. But Zipporah had no intentions to die serving people she despised. She deleted the message and pulled up the picture of her family. The picture was from several years ago. She was only seventeen. The image hovered before her, comforting her as she realized she was perhaps in her final moments. Her eyes found the warmth of her mother’s, and she pretended that they were all huddled around her.
Another meteor struck the ship, this time sucking air out of the upper rooms. Zipporah was flung through the air and landed sharply on the metal side of a crate. Her head began to throb mercilessly as blood blurred through her eyes. She looked at the edge of the crate, considering taking fate into her own hands. If she couldn’t live the way she wanted, then perhaps she could die with some power. Her tanned fingers wrapped around the sides of the crate again, this time with fierce determination—with every purpose to end her own life.
Memories flooded her mind as her head took the plunge, determined to deliver a fatal blow. Heart racing, mind throbbing, Zipporah believed herself to be dead for a moment. For a second in time, she wondered if she was in the afterlife, and if her family would be waiting for her. But the pressure on her face was entirely real. She opened her eyes to realize that someone’s hand was plastered against her face, stopping her from ending her life.
She looked up to see a man—a very strange looking man. He was handsome, wrapped in tanned skin and olive eyed. And utterly naked, standing before her. Tight muscles exposed themselves and Zipporah wondered again if perhaps she was dead.
“What are you doing?” She said eventually, once words became available to her again. He cocked his head to the side, his eyebrows knitting together in a confused expression. In the distance, the emergency sirens began to sound. The man looked around, surveying the area.
“Do you understand me?” Zipporah tried again, wondering if perhaps he spoke a different language. Her watch should have taken her voice and translated it for him in whatever language he spoke. The mysterious man took her by both sides of her face and traced the outline of her jaw. He pressed hard against her cheeks, as if he was looking for something.
“Acquiring language,” he whispered in a strange accent. She stared at him, mildly horrified. No human could acquire language by merely touching.
“We must go,” his hands dropped from her face and he looked around decisively. Hope and fear twisted around in Zipporah’s stomach. She was coming to the realization that this was not a human man standing in front of her, and whatever he was, he wanted to save her. He took up her hand and squeezed ferociously. Her body began to tingle uncomfortably, as if something was separating inside of her. Her hands began to dissolve into particles in the air, floating away from her body. Then it began to spread, filling her entire being with the terrible feeling and ripping apart from her.
“What is happening to me?” She could barely talk. The man looked over at her, his face beginning to dissolve as well.
“We are leaving. Your body will come back together once we are safe.”
Now Zipporah was nothing more than a sparkling cloud in the air, floating about freely. She felt no more pain. He wrapped himself around her particles and pushed them towards the side of the craft. Sweltering fear built up in Zipporah’s mind, but his presence around her was calming began to put her at ease. The thought crossed her mind that he could be luring her to her death, but she asked herself if it would really matter. Die here or die there, either way there would be death, but only this way could bring light.
Together, the two intertwined clouds of particles traveled through the walls of the ship and out into the exposed atmosphere of space. Zipporah struggled to understand how any of this was possible, but she didn’t make a sound. She turned to see the Star Line burning in the sky. Soon, it would drop from the atmosphere and burn up into nothingness. If Zipporah focused, she could hear the screams of everyone on board. Her heart wanted to ache for another loss of humanity, but it couldn’t. She had grown too much hatred for the people aboard that ship, and she knew that humanity suffered nothing by losing them.
“Your thoughts are cruel,” his voice was in her mind. If she had a body to show shame, surely it would have been apparent in heated cheeks. Zipporah turned her mind to other things, now knowing that he was able to read it.
“Did they deserve to die?” He asked her, nudging her gently with pieces of himself. She pondered it for a moment. No, they did not deserve to die. No one deserved to die. But she couldn’t help but feel that if a ship had to go down, she was glad it was the elitists.
He carried her through space, allowing her to drink in the wonders of the universe first hand. She had only ever seen space from the small windows that the Star Line allowed to the employees. The observation deck was not a place she was permitted to go. But it was beautiful. Every star she ever saw from earth was magnified, multiplied, and glorious.
“Where are we going?” Zipporah asked through her thoughts. She hoped that she had done it right, not wanting to look like a fool in front of her new friend.
“My home.”
She stopped asking questions. In fact, she stopped thinking at all. Instead of struggling against what was happening, she just allowed herself to relax and be drifted through the depths of space with a mysterious stranger.
Chapter Two
Ethra was a beautiful place. There were trees tangled into technology. The sky was perpetually purple and red, like an everlasting sunset. There were four moons ever present in the vast sky. There seemed to be music in the air, but it was coming from nowhere. The buildings were made from crystals. They were translucent and stood absolute.
Zipporah’s body had formed back together, and her companion landed beside of her softly. She looked around, taking in everything her eyes could see. She saw beings flying in the air, suspended by iridescent wings. Their bodies were translucent and shimmering, a single orb of light coming from their chests and illuminating their bodies. She had never seen anything like it.
“Are you one of them?” Zipporah asked, looking over to the man. He looked human enough—he even looked a bit like her. They shared a complexion, eye color, and hair color. It was odd for Zipporah. She didn’t often see people who looked as she did.
“Yes. This is Ethra.” He held his hand out as if to reiterate the beauty. She took it in again, allowing her eyes to see a whole new world. Of all the time she spent in space, she had never seen something so beautiful. She’d met aliens before. She had even befriended one or two, and their worlds were interesting. But nothing like this. She wondered if she was even in the same dimension.
“I’ve never seen anything like it before,” Zipporah leaned up against a nearby tree and stared at the man in f
ront of her. She was filled with curiosity, and questions flooded her mind relentlessly.
“How am I breathing?” her hands instinctively went to her throat, feeling the air enter and exit her body. He smiled at her and sat down on the grass, tangling his hands into it and pulling it up.
“Ethra is life sustaining. She will give you what you need in order to survive. She feels the presence of newcomers and makes Herself habitable for them.” He showed Zipporah the grass he had pulled, and the two of them watched as the ground opened up and reached out, connecting the dead grass to a new root. It was magical.
“Why did you save me? Out of all of those people, you only saved me. Why?”
His face lowered to the grass again. “I could feel you. You were pulling me through space. I could not ignore it.”
Zipporah blinked several times before considering saying something. She was nothing but questions, sadness, and relief. And she was exhausted, but she couldn’t say why.
“I am Zipporah,” She said finally, holding her hand out to him. He stared at it for a moment, unsure what to do. No one had ever given him their hand before. He thought perhaps it was a gesture of friendship. He reached out and took her hand, holding it there in a strange angle.
