Aevar: Trekkers (A SciFi Alien Human Military Romance)

by Terra Wolf

  “You just said that I could take care of myself!”

  Ivy relaxed a little, hearing her sister’s strong and confident tone. This was exactly what she meant by being able to take care of herself. “Fine. You're right. But I would still feel better if I knew the commander was looking out for you. Your favorite pilot will be joining us on this mission.”

  Maggie had a devilish smile playing on her lips. “Do you think the commander knows how to play cards?”

  Ivy rolled her eyes and playfully pushed her little sister. She would be fine, there was no doubt about it.

  Chapter 14

  Ivy

  Ivy strapped herself into the pod seat, her trembling hands fighting against her. She watched as the other men of Aevar's team confidently did their own jobs inside the pod. This time, she was sitting on one of the seats on the interior of the pod. Raelor was piloting and Aevar would be sitting next to him, directing the mission. But as she put the last latch into place, he sat down next to her.

  “Shouldn't you be sitting in the lieutenant’s chair?”

  He shook his head. “I'd rather be next to you.”

  He strapped himself in and then took her hand and intertwined his fingers with her own. “How do you feel?”

  She set her lips into a thin line. “Fine,” she lied.

  “That all sounded semi-confident. Good job,” he said as he squeezed her hand a little tighter. “I won’t let anything happen to you,” he whispered into her ear.

  “I believe you. But we don't know what we're up against. Doesn't that scare you?”

  She watched as Aevar surveyed the pod, looking at each team member. “No. The Trekker team is the best one that the Alliance has. These guys have fought everything in the galaxy. We’ll be fine.” He sounded so sure that it calmed her nerves a little.

  She felt a jolt in her stomach as they took off, speeding away from the Titan. It would only take a few hours to get to the space station, and the plan was to enter from the rear. Since it had been an Alliance station at one point, they knew of all the false entrances and secret passageways.

  The plan was to enter into a small entrance that only held one or two pods. They would then make their way to the main control room and pull the power on the station. They would use their advanced goggles to see into the dark and determine friend from foe. Then once they had disengaged the enemy, the Titan would come and retrieve all of the colonists, returning them to their homes. This would be the end of the Harvesters. At least, that was what everyone had told her.

  “Just close your eyes. Visualize the mission. That's what all of these guys are doing. It'll help you stay calm,” Aevar instructed her, lightly rubbing her arm with his free hand.

  She nodded and took a deep breath, doing as she was told. She imagined herself holding the blaster out in front of her and decimating any Harvester in her way. She would make them pay for what they did to her and her family. For her people. For everyone that had died at their hands. Revenge would fuel her to do the unthinkable. She would take lives. She would go home to Maggie.

  Chapter 15

  Aevar

  “Hey boss, the commander was right. The pod entrance that we were hoping was open is closed. But I know of another one underneath the ship. How is that going to factor into our endgame?”

  Aevar released himself from the straps. Ivy looked up at him with terrified eyes. He had just been telling her to visualize the mission, that they would be safe if they could put all the pieces together in their heads. But this changed everything.

  He walked across the pod and the new recruit that was sitting in the lieutenant’s chair got up and offered him his seat. Aevar couldn’t sit down; this change made him far too anxious. He leaned on the back of Raelor's pilot chair and said, “How long will it take us to get to the control room if we enter through the bottom of the space station?”

  The recruit spoke this time. “An extra eight human minutes by my calculations, Sir. And we’ll be entering right through some of the living quarters. I don't know how many men they're going to have on this ship, but entering through the living quarters sounds awful risky.”

  “I know it sounds risky. But I don't really have another choice. It's either that or abandon the mission. If I come into the front door, we’re sitting ducks,” Raelor argued. “All the weapons are on that side of the space station. I know there are several other entrances on the bottom, probably some passageways that no one knows about, without weapons.”

  Raelor had a point. They had to stay underneath the space station or behind it, and as it spun on its axis, Aevar realized that he needed to make a decision and fast. “Go from underneath. That's the best way to do it. Blasters up, everybody. We’ll be docking shortly.”

  The entire team disengaged their safety belts and pulled their blasters up in front of them. Four men stood at the back of the pod, ready to run out of the hatch as soon as it opened. Ivy stood behind them next to another new recruit.

  “Tallon, this is Ivy. You are to stay with her at all times, do you understand me?”

  Tallon, the newest member of the team, nodded his head vigorously. “Yes, Sir!”

  Ivy turned around and wrapped her arms around Aevar. “I know that this is unprofessional right now, but I can't help myself. I just need to feel you next to me, just one more time.”

  He smoothed her hair with one of his hands. “Nothing is going happen to you. Tallon and I will stay with you the whole time.”

  She chewed on her lower lip as she backed away from him. He knew she was scared, but they couldn’t wait. It was time to move.

  “Goggles on, communicators on. Blasters up!” The pod rocked as it docked onto its station. “Raelor? Ready?”

  Raelor left the pod running and pressed the button to open up the hatch. In only a second, he was next to Aevar with the blaster in each hand. “Ready.”

  The hatch opened and they stealthily moved out into the docking bay. It was eerily quiet. Considering they were right near the living quarters, if there were men on the ship, they should've heard something. But there were no sounds. Their goggles had an oxygen mask attached, but still, some of their skin was exposed. He watched as Ivy rubbed her cheeks with her hands. The dusty air must have stung. He kept forgetting that she was human, not as strong as they were. Though she would never admit to that.

  “Alpha Team, take the right. Find the control room in the center of the ship. Beta Team, you’re with me. Ivy stay behind us. Raelor, do you have my six?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Aevar took the front of the line, with Tallon flanking him while Ivy walked behind them. As they made their way through the maze of hallways in the lower portion of the space station, Aevar couldn’t believe the silence.

  “It's a little weird, isn’t it?” he heard Raelor say into the communicator.

  “Very weird. They supposedly have almost a thousand souls on this vessel, but I'm not hearing anything.”

  Suddenly, they turned a corner and Aevar realized why. What had once been living quarters was now some type of medical bay. A huge glass window stood in front of them with an eerie blue light illuminating the room. Several hundred people were laying on the cots, the floor, any available open space. Some were even stacked on top of each other. He heard Ivy stifle a scream. He turned and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Don't look! Just don't look.”

  Her hands came up, covering the oxygen mask. “Aevar, what if it’s my parents? They’re all dead!”

  Aevar shook his head. “Don't think like that.”

  Tallon cocked his head at the glass, examining the people. Aevar wished that he would just leave them alone. “Sir? You need to look at this.”

  Raelor walked up and stood next to Ivy. “I've got her, Sir.”

  Thank the stars for Raelor; he was a solid friend. “What is it?”

  Tallon pointed beyond the glass. “They're not dead, Sir. I think they're sleeping.”

  As Aevar squinted, his eyes looking for signs of lif
e, he realized that Tallon was correct. Their breathing was low and shallow, but every person inside the room was alive. These weren't dead bodies; they were put into some type of a coma.

  Ivy came up behind him. “What is it?”

  “They're not dead.”

  Ivy's eyes widened. “They're preparing them. Harvesting from live bodies would be more difficult. They could fight against them. They must be subduing them, like an animal with its prey. Ugh! This all makes me sick!”

  Aevar felt the same way. These beings were monsters. But were these all the colonists on the ship?

  “Tallon, go in there and figure out a way to wake these people up. Signal back to the Titan that we have several hundred people to evacuate. We’ll work on taking care of the Harvesters.”

  Tallon saluted and then took off running down the hallway toward a different entrance. That kid had skills with electrical; he would get these doors open no problem as soon as he found a box.

  Aevar motioned over his shoulder to keep moving. Ivy followed him, with Raelor just behind her. They slowly crept through the hallways until they reached a staircase. The lights were on up here. Aevar could hear people moving above them.

  “Time to go to work,” he said before sprinting up the staircase and pushing open the door in front of him. There were three of those soul sucking demons standing there, looking lost. He unloaded the blaster three shots at a time into the first two, but the third one whipped around and saw him too quickly. He got close to him as he shot into the third but he only got one shot off before a blaster beam came over his right shoulder and directly into the head of the beast. It fell to the ground, twitching like the other two. He hit each one in the chest just once more and they became immobile.

  He turned around, expecting to see Raelor with his blaster up, but instead, Ivy had her eye on the gun. She had taken the shot.

  “Good job. You're nearly as good as I am.”

  She pushed up against him. “If you're not careful, better than you by the end of this mission.”

  Swuya, she was feisty. He smiled at her as they stepped over the bodies and continued to move through the space station. Once again, it was quiet, except for footsteps above them. They must've only had a few men on each level; the space station was massive. And hopefully, there weren't as many of the Harvesters as they thought. This might be an easier mission that he originally thought.

  Suddenly, he heard shouting above them. Swuya, confidence always got him into trouble. The sound of blasters barely drowned out the deafening roar of one of the Harvesters. A scream erupted and they moved back to the staircase as quickly as possible, ascending the stairs. Aevar pushed open the metal door in front of him and immediately started shooting anyone that wasn't in the Alliance’s dark gray uniform. He got two Harvesters right in the head, and they collapsed, twitching on the ground just like the others had. Another one was feeding on one of the new recruits. Ivy and Raelor shot at that one until it stopped moving. Where was the rest of the team?

  He watched as Raelor kicked the soul sucking body off of the recruit and checked his pulse. But he just shook his head. The kid was dead.

  “Where is everyone else?”

  Aevar shook his head. “I don't know! I don't understand. A Trekker would never leave one of our own behind.”

  Ivy pointed on the ground. “Look! Blood marks. I don't think your men left willingly.”

  Suddenly, they were plunged into darkness. Someone had cut the power. Was it one of his guys, or one of the enemy?

  Tallon came over the communicator. “I signaled the Titan, Sir. I also figured out how to cut the power from down here on the lower level. I'm inside the medical bay, but I've no idea how to wake these people up. I'm doing the best I can.”

  Ivy and Raelor looked as relieved as they could be as Aevar saw them through his goggles. “Good job, kid. We’re just taking care of some things up here, so we’ll come back to help you as soon as possible. Ivy has medical knowledge. She may be able to help.”

  He looked at Ivy, but she adamantly shook her head. “I'm not leaving you! Nice try, though.”

  She turned around and put her blaster up, stalking down the hallway. “What level are we on? How much further to the bridge?”

  A scream ripped through the air. “Should be up only one more level and down to the left. Let's go!” Aevar said to them as they took off through the hallway toward the screaming. They found another staircase at the end of the hall and ascended it slowly as the screams continued. Whoever they were torturing, he wasn't going to make it.

  Aevar was at the back of the pack this time, with Raelor taking lead. He had his hand on the metal door and opened it just slightly, throwing a smoke bomb into the open space in front of them. A loud boom rattled the staircase that they were in. Aevar switched his oxygen mask to diffuse the smoke in the air as it came into his suit. Raelor pushed the door open in front of them and they heard shouts and yelling from all directions.

  Blasters went off to Aevar's right multiple times and he felt the floor shake as one of the creatures fell at his feet. Ivy took off in front of him, directly disobeying his orders to always stay behind him. Not that it surprised him in the least.

  He followed her and watched as she took down two of the creatures in front of her. He couldn't wait until all this was over and he could get her back into his bed. Watching her with that gun in her hands and a black jumpsuit that hugged every curve of her body was more than he could handle.

  He looked behind him to see Raelor with both blasters going at once. A couple Harvesters descended upon him but he took care of them with ease. Ivy found herself against a metal door and she looked to Aevar for permission to push it open. At least she had enough sense to not go completely off on her own.

  Aevar nodded to her and helped push the massive door open, which led them into the bridge. Only one man stood at the helm, the bluish creature that the man on Goya had described.

  “I see you found our little station,” he said without turning around.

  “Drop your weapons and surrender!” Aevar yelled, his blaster pointed at the man’s head.

  The man turned around. He was dressed in all black, with a collar that went all the way up to his blue chin. Buttons were placed every couple inches all the way down to his knees. Black pants then went all the way to the floor. It made the blue tint to his skin stand out even more.

  “Surrender? Why would I do that?”

  Aevar could feel Ivy seething just behind him. “Because you're sucking the lives out of people! I don't know what you've been told, but we don't really eat people in this galaxy.” Aevar looked over his shoulder at her; she still had her blaster up, ready to strike. Good girl.

  “We do what we need to do to survive.”

  “Is that what you're doing here? Because I could've sworn you were building an army,” Aevar said as the realization dawned on him. They weren’t subduing these people in order to feed on them, they were doing it to give them the plague. See who would survive and turn into one of the Harvesters. Anyone that had been eaten was already disposed of.

  “An army?”

  Ivy also shifted her eyes in Aevar's direction. “That's why all those people are downstairs sleeping. You're going to give them the plague, to make them like your other minions. What did you do with the bodies of the people that you ate?”

  The man laughed. It was a high-pitched cackle that made Aevar’s skin crawl. “We floated them long ago! Don't worry. None of them were your beloved Jubarians. They're all still downstairs.”

  “Why are you building an army? What is it that you want?”

  The man walked around the control station, dragging his finger along the metal. “Complete control. Though we will have to start somewhere new after you've ruined my space station.”

  Ivy shook her head. “You're not starting somewhere new! You're going to die.”

  And that was when Aevar noticed it, a flicker of the man's features. His flat nose against his bluish sk
in. “He's not really here,” he said, lowering his weapon.

  “What do you mean?” Ivy asked him, startled.

  “You're not, are you? You’re somewhere safe, far away from here.”

  He was a hologram, just as the Chancellor had been. But he wasn't recording; wherever he was, he was doing this live. He could see them just as much as they could see him. Aevar looked around the bridge and immediately saw four cameras shining down on them. He took his blaster and took each of them out, one by one. Only one camera was blinking from above the main control panel.

  “You figured me out. But will you figure out the rest of my plan? Before I take out the Alliance you love so much?”

  Aevar raised an eyebrow at the hologram. “You’ll never take out the Alliance. Good luck trying.” He shot one more time and took out the final camera.

  “Now we've got rid of your eyes, let's get rid of the rest of you.” He shot into the main control panel and the hologram disappeared. The man was gone.

  “But if he's not here, where is he?”

  Aevar shook his head. “There's a chance we'll never know. But at least for now we saved all of those people downstairs. Got rid of as many Harvesters as we could.”

  His communicator buzzed and he turned it on. “Lieutenant here.”

  “Sir, it's Tallon. Are you secure?”

  “Yes Tallon, go ahead.”

  “The rest of the A Team found me. They were dragged away by some of the creatures but they escaped and killed them all.” Aevar closed his eyes, thanking the stars that they only had one casualty. “The Titan should be docking shortly. Has your team secured all the assailants or do you need back up?”

  “They're dead. All the Harvesters on this vessel are dead.”

  Tallon responded. “Then you should probably come down here, Sir. I think those people that Ivy has been looking for are here. There’s a lady who looks just like her, at least. One of the recruits turned off the air supply in here; it seems that they were sleeping because of the gas. They are starting to wake up. Also a member of the A Team needs medical attention. I think you said Ivy has some skills?”