by Ashley West
"But they didn't," Haven pointed out, striding into the kitchen and sticking her head in the refrigerator to gauge what there was to make for dinner.
"But they could have, and you're being insensitive."
Haven sighed. Her mother was the type who went gooey at the slightest hint of misfortune in others. Whenever they played that commercial on television with the sad, abused animals and the cheesy song playing over it all, she teared up. She gave change to every person on the street who claimed to be homeless, and when those donation letters came in the mail asking for money for the Red Cross or the Feed the Children campaign or whatever else, she went right for her credit card.
It drove Haven up the wall, not because she was insensitive like her mother claimed, but because a lot of the things she gave her money to were scams. She tried to care about everything, and there just wasn't enough room in Haven's mind to care about so much.
She liked her life how it was. Aside from being twenty three and still living with her mother, she liked her routine. She got up absurdly early in the morning and spent time getting organized for the day. She went to her job at the coffee shop on Carter. She made coffee for rude people and people who were clearly not awake yet, and she balanced the books for the shop. Sometimes she did people's taxes on the side to make extra money, and she was saving up for a house of her own.
Maybe it wasn't exciting, but it was her life, and she was proud of it. There wasn't room in her routine for aliens.
"Man, how come nothing cool like aliens ever happens here?" Darren asked as he leaned against the counter at Sheila's, the coffee shop Haven worked at. He spent most of his free time there, trying to wheedle Haven into using her discount to feed his coffee addiction.
"Why would you want it to?" she asked, wiping down the counter. Just last night the news had said that several buildings had been destroyed in a blast from one of the ships, and there had been pictures of the creatures responsible. They were ugly and monstrous, and Haven didn't want to be within five hundred miles of them. It was already too close for comfort.
"Because Chesley is boring," Darren said.
"And it would be cooler if it was destroyed?"
He made a face at her. "Okay, fair point. Not destroyed, not like Valley Dale, but honestly, nothing ever happens here."
"Don't let the people who were evacuated hear you saying that," she warned him. "I'm pretty sure they'd prefer boring to what's happening to them." And people thought she was insensitive.
"Okay, okay. Fair enough. All I'm saying is that this makes history, you know? It's going down in the record books. The time great big aliens came down and messed everything up. I won't be able to tell anyone I was there."
"You could always go to Valley Dale and actually be there," Haven pointed out with an overly sweet smile. "I'm sure the aliens would be glad to help you go down in history."
"Has anyone ever told you that you're hard to talk to?"
Haven rolled her eyes at that. Darren had known her since she was sixteen, and he'd never had a problem talking to her. He said what he wanted, and she reacted like she wanted, and their friendship somehow seemed to work.
"I just wish everyone would stop talking about it," she sighed.
"What, you think it's like the Candyman thing or whatever? You say aliens enough times and they show up here?"
"Don't even joke about that. Aliens are not-"
"A part of the plan, I know."
He said it with the long suffering tone of someone who had said it many times before, and he had. Haven was determined to stick to her plan no matter what. Even if aliens did make their way to Chesley, she'd probably still try to stick to her routine. What else was she going to do?
For some people being spontaneous and hoping for surprises probably worked, but she wasn't one of those people. When things didn't go according to plan, she got nervous and those nerves turned into anger, making her lash out at people who tried to calm her down.
Darren had been on the receiving end of it more than once, so he was well versed in understanding how Haven liked for things to go.
The world was, by its very nature, a chaotic mess, and she seemed to only be able to find peace in it when she was imposing order and routine on the things she could control. It made it easier for her to deal with the stuff she couldn't control, but aliens were too big a thing to fall under the category of things she could ignore. At least they would be if they came to where she lived and started ruining things.
As long as they were far enough away that they weren't actively affecting her and throwing her life into chaos, then she could pretend like they weren't there.
Maybe that was short sighted of her, or foolish, but it was how she got through her days.
She’d tried being different. When she was younger, she had pushed aside her routines and need for structure and organization in order to fit in. She wanted to make friends and be happy and carefree like they were. She wanted to date and go to prom and have that stereotypical teenage girl life.
It hadn’t ended well, but the fact that it had ended was the best outcome, in her opinion.
Most of the time she hadn't really felt like herself, more like she was trying to play a role, and pushing aside her natural inclinations and reactions to things had just made her stressed out and snappy for the most part. Her friends noticed and commented on it, which made her more stressed out as she tried harder to seem like she was "normal". Whatever the hell that meant.
Of course, then there had been The Boy.
Not a boy, with lowercase letters and a lowercase importance, but The Boy, uppercase, capitals, showing the impact he'd had on her life. In some ways, The Boy was the worst thing that had ever happened to her, and in other ways, he was the best.
Sixteen year old Haven had been fresh faced and eager to fall for someone who made her seem worth his time. All of her friends had boyfriends at the time, and she had to endure their talk about how great things were, how they'd kissed, how they had plans for prom, for the summer ahead, for senior year. Suddenly every teenage girl Haven knew was a poet, writing terrible verse about how in love they were, and giving Haven details she had never asked for about their love lives.
She found out firsthand about what it was like to give a blowjob, what a tongue felt like down there, what second base meant, but she'd already found out second hand from her friends before any of that had happened to her.
The Boy was in her Chemistry class. Cute, with wavy brown hair and soft brown eyes. He had a smattering of freckles across his nose and cheeks, and one dimple in his right cheek when he smiled his crooked smile. One of his teeth was chipped, and he told her it was from playing Little League baseball and getting hit in the mouth with the ball.
He told her all kinds of things. That she was pretty. That she was smart. That she was smart enough already and shouldn't spend her Wednesday night studying for a Calculus exam when she could be going out with him.
And later, when she almost failed that exam, Haven hadn't even blamed him. She'd blamed herself and her mother for letting her go out on a school night in the first place.
It was always little things like that, him pushing her to do things she didn't want to do, telling her that the things she did want to do weren't exciting or cool enough, that he hadn't signed up to date someone who just wanted to read in her room or who made three to do lists a day. He wasn't trying to change her, he always said, he was only trying to help.
Eventually, Haven couldn't take any more of it. Her grades, while far from terrible even then, were not where she wanted them to be. She wasn't happy, and she didn't even feel like The Boy was dating her. He was dating some knock off version of her that he wanted her to be.
So she ended it. Haven took back control of her life. It meant not going to prom with a date, not having that teenage dream she'd always thought she'd wanted, but she was better off that way.
It wasn't the last time she'd dated, but she was much more cynical about relati
onships and men who wanted her to be different now, and sometimes it just didn't seem worth the hassle.
Just like she had done with The Boy, Haven wasn't going to let what was happening in Valley Dale have control over her life.
There were people all over Chesley who were trying to cash in on the fact that aliens had been proved to be real. They were making bumper stickers and putting up flyers, entreating the aliens to come closer to them. Even after the devastation they showed on the news every night. Apparently reporters were still getting close enough to Valley Dale to get footage.
For her part, Haven was just going to be glad when all of this was over.
“What do you mean when it’s over?” Her mother asked when she heard her make that statement. “How do you think this is going to end?”
Haven shrugged a shoulder. “Someone will get control of them, of course.” They had to, right? The police or the military would figure something out and they would send these creatures back to wherever they came from.
“I don’t know if we can say that will actually happen,” he mother murmured, and Haven frowned.
“Well, then someone from their end will come and fix it,” she insisted. There was no way that this was just going to be how things were from now on. She refused to believe it.
“More aliens?” Her mother asked. “Do you really think so?”
Haven shrugged. “I don’t know, Mom, but they have to do something. Maybe they have governments like we do or something, and they’ll send people here to keep these guys in check.”
“Or maybe they’ll leave us to fend for ourselves.”
Haven was about ready to throw her hands up in the air. Everyone was either excited or fatalistic when it came to this whole thing, and she was ready to wash her hands of all of it. “They won’t,” she said firmly. “Something will happen to fix this. We just have to wait it out and hope they stay over there and don’t come here.”
That was all there was to it. They just had to wait it out.
No matter how long it took.
Chapter One: The Lingering Storm
"Storm on the horizon," said Sati, standing next to Kal on the wall. "You can see it growing, just there." He pointed, and Kal followed his finger to the growing mass of clouds that had gathered right at the edge where the sky met the land, or seemed to anyway.
Kallel sighed. "Third one this month. Do you ever feel like the weather gets worse the longer we live here?"
Sati laughed and shrugged. "The bounty of Horu, my friend. Gems in every size, shape, and color imaginable, and storms that could strip a full grown Garrup to its bones.
"You aren't kidding."
Horu was far from the twin suns that formed the center of their system, and so the weather there was often bleak and cold. Even when the suns were shining, they lent very little warmth to the planet, and there was ice on the ground year round. Storms gathered and spread across the land more often than they didn't, wind and freezing rain lashing down on the people as they either went to hide in the mines or made their way home.
Santelin, the capital city of the Hakkan's holdings on Horu was walled off from the rest of the planet. It was home of their Queen and home of the largest gem processing facility on the planet. Every gem that was mined on Horu went through the city to be quality checked and polished, and as such it was heavily guarded.
Warriors took up strategic spots on the walls, armed with spears, halberds, and long range blasters that could take a man out from a ways away. They guarded the gates to the city as well, both inside and out, and no one got in or out without being seen. Still more guards were in charge of making sure no harm came to those who did the mining, and even more were stationed at the processing facility, ready to stop anyone who wanted to cause trouble there.
The Queen had her personal guard, of course, but the gems were considered more valuable than the Queen's life in a time of crisis.
They were well protected in case something happened, but with one very noteworthy exception, nothing ever did. After an attack by the Alva nearly twenty years before, the Hakkan had pulled themselves together and into a force to be reckoned with. That served to scare off most of the petty criminals who would try their luck at getting into the walled city.
This meant long, dull shifts for the warriors who guarded the walls, watching the seemingly endless frozen land for any sign of life. Aside from the miners coming back at the end of a long, cold day, there was hardly anything to see.
It wasn't a glamorous life, but then anyone who wanted glamor and excitement had probably left years ago. There wasn't much to be found on Horu if you didn't care about gems, and the longer he stayed, the less Kallel found himself caring.
There had been a time when this was the life he valued. When protecting his people had been high on the list of things he knew he was destined to do. But that time has passed because there was precious little to protect them from, and now he just felt like an accessory, standing on the wall for no reason, watching for something that would never come.
A brisk wind whipped up, and Kal pulled his coat closer around himself. It was made of thick fur from the Garrup, one of the only animals who could survive the weather and the general lack of plant life on Horu. The fur kept them warm and did the same for the Hakkan on their patrols. Their uniforms always consisted of a thick coat, thick pants made from a weather proof material, boots, gloves, and their face covering. Most of the time, only their eyes were visible, keeping their skin shielded from the harsh winds.
Sati leaned against the stone of the wall and watched as lightning flashed in the distance. "It's kind of beautiful when you think about it," he said, breath misting in the cold.
Kal looked at him askance. "What is? The storm?"
"No, Horu. Whole planet is like a glittering gem, really. Just a rock covered in ice most of the time, and then the suns hit it, and it sparkles."
"You should have been a writer instead of a warrior," Kallel said, teasing. "Wax poetic about our frozen home."
Sati shrugged. "No shame in appreciating where you're from, Kal. Especially when you don't have much chance of leaving."
"Don't say that," Kallel replied, making a face. He didn't want to think he was whining (he was much too old for whining), but the thought of being here for the rest of his life...it was almost too much to even consider.
Sati's laugh was warm and rumbling. "It's not a death sentence to everyone," he reminded Kal. "And some of us have families, you know. We don't want to leave."
Kal knew Sati spoke of himself. He had a partner and more kids than he knew what to do with, so the likelihood of him leaving was very small. And he seemed content with that.
He looked out over the land and tried not to shudder, and when he couldn't help it, he passed it off as a shiver instead. This was his home, and he was grateful to have it, determined to protect it if need be, but he didn't want to live and die here. Not when there was so much more out there to see.
His soul itched with the desire to move, to explore, and as the storm broke in the distance, thunder and wind turning the previously silent afternoon into a cacophony of sound, Kal's resolve to leave one day was only strengthened. He just needed an opportunity.
His mother had always had a saying about getting impatient: 'when it happens, it'll happen'. It had driven Kallel crazy as a child because she mostly said it to him to get him to sit down and stop waiting impatiently for things like his name day or the winter festival. "When it happens, it'll happen," she'd say, petting his head and guiding him to a chair. "And bouncing around won't make it happen any faster."
As luck would have it, he only had to weather about ten minutes of the storm before there was a shift change. The warriors who were taking up their guard positions grumbled about the weather and having to stand around in it, and Sati and Kallel exchanged claps on the back with them in solidarity.
By the time they got down from the wall and had made their way back through the gates into the city, they were
cold and wet, frozen rain melting on contact with their clothes and skin. The ground was rapidly becoming a slippery mess of water and slush, and Kal was careful to watch his footing as he made his way from the gate towards his home.
A hot drink and maybe a picture on the screen would do wonders for his mood. He pulled his hood up higher as a gust of wind threatened to knock him back.
Over the howl he heard someone shout his name.
"Kallel!"
He turned and saw a cluster of the gate guards standing off to the side under the overhang of a building. "Yeah?" he called back.
"You off shift?"
He nodded. "Why?"
"The Queen is summoning us!"
A summons from the Queen. Now that didn't happen every day. Usually if Queen Kamina of the Hakkan had something to say, she made a general address or sent her guards out as messengers.
Kal could count on one hand the number of times he'd been close to the Queen and still have had fingers left over, even if he did live in the capital city.
Kamina lived in a fortress at the heart of the city, and the homes of her people spread out around it. The warriors in her personal guard had rooms in the fortress, and it was there that all the Hakkan warriors trained and took their oaths, but Kallel hadn't been inside since his days of training had ended.
Now there was a steady stream of warriors climbing the slippery hill to the fortress, murmuring amongst themselves about what this might be about.
"Do you think we're under attack again?" someone asked, and Kal's heart leapt. He tried to tell himself that it was fear and not excitement that caused the increased thumping in his chest, but he wasn't so sure. Another attack would be terrible for the people, but it would be something to do.
"Who would try it?" someone else asked in return. "Even the Alva aren't that stupid."
"They tried to take Earth," someone pointed out.
