Touchdown Desires

by Jenna Payne

  He laughed. "Thank you," Elric said.

  They talked with one another for a while. At one point, he looked alarmed and said, "Let's go check out the rest of where we are."

  *****

  Family Ties

  As they left the cabin they were in, he looked out the window and said, "We're approaching the bioship."

  "What does that mean for us?" she asked.

  "We're going to have to figure out an excuse for why you're with me."

  Mallory laughed when she said, "Well, we can't just say we were kissing off the coast of Maui?"

  "Not quite that, no."

  "Then what should I be prepared to say?" she asked.

  "Tell them that you were swimming near me and you were sucked up, too."

  They walked toward the exit of the spacecraft. It opened when they touched down in the hangar of the bioship.

  His family was waiting outside of it.

  "They're a little different looking than me," he told her.

  They were all bipedal, a lot like humans, with similar appendages and head structure, but their bluish green skin was scaly like that of a lizard's.

  Mallory stood very still. Her heart was pounding a little harder. She tried not to stare. She cleared her brain of any anxiety. She didn’t want his family to detect any fear, in case they could sense these things.

  His mother came forward first. "We hope you don't do that again, son." She noticed Mallory, turned her nose up a little more and then turned to Elric. "And who is this Elric?"

  "This is Mallory," he replied.

  "Oh. Mallory dear, are you here as a sacrifice?"

  Mallory was shocked and looked between Elric and his mother and said, "Uh. What, why? What?"

  "She doesn't know," his mom said, looking to him. "Son, you should have told her."

  "I didn't want her for the sacrifice." he growled at his mother. "I didn't want to get picked up at all. Let me return, now!"

  "Now?" his father asked.

  "Yes, now!"

  His parents both shook their head at him and his father said, "But, you would miss the holiday, son."

  "You can't miss it," said his younger sibling. "If you miss it, I get to miss it."

  "See," Elric said. "I don't want to go, too. It's the worst, Mom."

  "Well," she said. "You're going. And you're bringing your sacrifice, too. Contain her!" she yelled, and several reptile aliens came forward to reach for Mallory. She resisted and then Elric got between them and her.

  He said quickly, "No, she is mine to hold captive. Not you. I will deliver her. Not you."

  They nodded to him and backed away from Mallory, who had already punched one of them in the face.

  "Fine," his mother said. "Then make sure you don't leave the bioship and don't let her leave our quarters. I'll alert the guards."

  "Mom, please don't..." he groaned, as she turned around to leave.

  "You listen to your mother," his dad said, coming forward with a raised finger. "Nice to meet you," he said to Mallory. "I'm sure you'll make a great sacrifice."

  Mallory nodded curtly, enraged but hiding it well.

  "What are these people talking about?" she asked Elric. "I mean, aliens. What are these lizard aliens talking about?"

  "They're Lezarus, a race from a moon system near your home planet. A series of star formations made the Lezarus unable to live there though, and they created this bioship, with the help of a few other races of aliens. Like the Chibi and the Noodrels that you see around the hangar." She looked around to see dog-sized chipmunk-looking ‘people’ and slimy, ethereal slugs milling about the area.

  She moved in closer beside Elric. He slid his arm around her shoulder and squeezed her against his body.

  "It’s ok honey, they won’t come near you now that I have staked my claim." He leaned in and kissed her temple. Mallory felt her body relaxing against him. The confidence she felt for Elric was not troubling. There was something between them and it comforted her.

  *****

  Another Man

  He walked away from the hangar and slid his hand into Mallory’s and pulled her with him toward his quarters. As they walked, he talked. "The bioship exists primarily because it uses a large whale-like creature to push it through space, and every year it requires sacrifices to feed on and continue to power it. My family thinks you are one such sacrifice."

  "What are the chances I'll get fed to this space whale?" She shuddered as she asked.

  He looked her straight in the eyes. "Very minimal," he replied.

  She looked at him skeptically.

  "Okay, it's possible, but only if I can't pledge for you."

  "Pledge for me?"

  "Let everyone know you're mine, not theirs, basically."

  Mallory sighed and said, "There's not much I can do, besides try to find my own way home."

  "Impossible. All of these craft are race-specific. Only the race that made them can operate them. So, take that Chibi’s spacecraft over there," he said, pointing as they left the hangar. "I can’t drive that. But, I can drive another Lezarus’."

  "Unless," he said. "I can sneak you out. But it will take some work. The guards are all top tier."

  "What race are they?"

  He quickly replied, "Lezarus. The Lezarus do everything around here."

  "Where are you taking me?" she asked.

  "Don't be worried, I have your best interests at heart, despite what my family may think or want."

  "I want to believe you."

  "Then believe me."

  "It's hard when it feels like my life is hanging in the balance."

  "Don't think of it as such a black and white thing. You could be eaten alive, or you could have an adventure unlike any of your race has seen."

  "So a lot of humans come aboard this bioship?"

  "This time of year they do," he said.

  "For the sacrifice?" she asked.

  "Precisely. Think of it like this, humans are like Christmas trees this time of year. The Lezarus all want to get one to decorate their home, then they want to toss them out once the holiday is over. Your race is like the Christmas tree. But I don't like the idea of it. I don't think we need to choose a race that can experience pain and gets sad, to be killed."

  "That's reassuring."

  A few Chibi looked up at them through their rodent-like eyes and she couldn't help but stare while they spoke to one another in a language not her own.

  "Not a lot of humans walk around without being cuffed."

  "Cuffed?"

  He pointed to the cuffs a Lezarus wore around their belt and said, "For cuffing humans that are brought in for the sacrifice."

  "This is a really bad time to get mixed up in this," she said.

  Elric nodded and replied, "It is. The rest of the year it's different. That's how I have an idea. Someone I want you to meet."

  They arrived at a door that he opened by saying his name into a small box over the sensory pad next to the door and they walked into the room behind it. It was well furnished, with satin draping coming from the ceiling and hanging low to the ground, covering all of the walls. There were plush, over-sized chairs and sofas and he sat on one.

  "He'll be here in a moment. My friend James. He's a humanized Lezarus. Just wait, he's not shy about what he's done so don't be afraid to ask anything."

  "What do you mean humanized?"

  "Well, you see the human exterior I have? It's because I have been able to manipulate my body and become human-looking when I'm not in my Lezarus form. James has gone one step further and is never a lizard-looking person, but is always a human-looking Lezarus."

  "I see," she said. "Will I get to see what you look like as a lizard-looking Lezarus, or just a human-looking one?"

  "I may show you, but I don’t want it to ruin what..." he trailed off, then said, "what we have between us, I guess."

  "Oh," she said quietly, and looked away, blushing.

  She wondered if it would, though. The more she le
arned about his alien race, the more she was intrigued with him. It seemed like the stars had aligned for them to meet. They were, in fact, from two species that would kill the other if not under circumstances like theirs.

  Elric stood as the door of the cabin opened. Mallory followed suit and stood as well. "James, hello."

  "Hello Elric." James said. With James were several humans, just like Mallory. Or were they human-looking Lezarus, she wondered.

  James smiled at Elric as he gazed at Mallory. "More for me, Elric?"

  "No, not more for you. She's with me." He moved in closer to Mallory. Mallory smoothed out her robe and tried to keep a neutral look on her face.

  "With you?" James asked, raising an eyebrow.

  "She was accidentally abducted by an auto piloted spacecraft-"

  "They do that," James said, cutting him off and nodding.

  "So she needs," he said, then lowered his voice, "to get back."

  "To get back?" James exclaimed.

  The people around him smiled and laughed, then one said, "You don't want to do that, honey."

  "No way, girl," said another man.

  "But I don't want to be sacrificed," she said back to them.

  A hush came over the room.

  "I know about sacrifices. I have lost friends to sacrifices. I know about what they can do."

  'Then you tell me," Mallory said. "What should I do?"

  "To do?" James asked. "There is nothing to do."

  "Sit, wait," she said. "What?"

  "Guard her," James said to Elric. He turned to Mallory and said, "And let him guard you. Don't leave him for a moment. Don't ever be without him. That's when they'll," he said, almost yelling, "snatch you!"

  "Snatch me?"

  "For the harvest. For the great reaping."

  Elric said, in a soothing voice, "James here has saved all of these people."

  There were about ten or less people near James. Some lounged on the chairs and sofas and others poured themselves drinks and talked quietly amongst themselves.

  "He saved them from the harvest just like I'll save you."

  "Where did they come from?"

  "Humans brought in by different Lezarus."

  "Oh," Mallory replied.

  "But it wasn't easy. I was a high-ranking official, then. "

  "You still have so much," Elric laughed.

  It seemed like James had a lavish apartment and Mallory now knew that his was the place of a wealthy Lezarus man. If she could call him that. He was a shorter, red-haired man with an open face and wore human clothes.

  Mallory asked, "So, you got surgery to look like a human?"

  He nodded. "I went full human," James replied.

  Mallory turned to Elric and asked, "That's what you did?"

  James answered for him. "Elric was lucky. Didn't have to pay."

  Elric nodded and said, "It was done to me, not by me."

  Mallory said, "You didn't want it?"

  Elric shrugged his shoulders and then replied, "Well, at the time I didn’t but now I am glad it’s done."

  "But it was forced on you."

  "There are a lot of alien experiments that are like that."

  Mallory gasped a little and turned to James. "But you like it, right?"

  "Oh, yes, dear, yes."

  "Then why don't you go back to Earth? Stay there?"

  "Because, you see, the Lezarus are tied to the bioship," he said.

  Elric said, "I don't believe it."

  "Because Elric goes gallivanting to Earth so often, he thinks the tie to the bioship is just a myth. Much like the sacrifices."

  Elric added quickly, "Which they are!"

  "Not," James said. "I was in top intelligence. I would have known. I would have found out."

  "So, you think people really don't need to be fed to this whale?"

  "Not at all," he replied.

  Mallory asked another question, "And you aren't tied to staying on this bioship?"

  "No," Elric replied.

  "Then there has to be another way," she said, thinking.

  James said, "Do you want to stay for a drink?"

  "No, no. Thank you," Elric said. They both said their goodbyes to James and his humans before they left.

  "And remember," James said at the door. "Never leave his sight."

  "Never," she repeated, looking to James, then Elric. She looked at his cyan eyes and creamy skin and wondered what lurked below it.

  *****

  Others

  They were alone in the hall together and he asked her, "What can we do?"

  "Well," Mallory said, "where are the other humans?"

  "You sure you want to go there?"

  "Yes," she said.

  "Then I'll take you, but be warned."

  He took her to a massive set of rooms that spanned miles that were filled with containment pens, a lot like those on the spacecraft that housed people. Each of them seemed calm and peaceful.

  "Are they okay?"

  "Yes, in the containment pen they are put into a deep meditative state, in which they only need sleep and to eat."

  She stared at all the pens. "What can we do?"

  Elric shrugged and looked at her. "I wake them up?"

  "What if you did?" she asked.

  Mallory watched in awe as he shifted his arm to lizard form.

  He put his palm onto the sensory screen and said into the box, "Release them all."

  The bars went down and they all looked around, dazed then listened as Mallory spoke.

  "You have been held captive, my fellow humans, but here you shall not remain. Together, we can unite to free yourselves. Together."

  The people began to stand and move about, toward her.

  "They will know we're here."

  "Then we should take them to the hangar."

  "Storm it," Elric said.

  Mallory could feel adrenaline coursing through her body. She looked at all the humans and said, "And get us out of here."

  "Exactly."

  "Everyone come with me," Mallory said, and waved her hands. They began walking fast toward the hangar, crossing the hallways and grand rooms to do so. Guards appeared and took down human after human, but at the hangar there was a massive amount of them, still.

  "Which ships are big enough for this many people?"

  "Only one of them," he told her.

  "Is it a Lezarus ship?"

  Elric nodded. "It is."

  "Show me," Mallory said.

  "Come on everyone, keep up," she said. "Onto that ship over there!"

  They fought their way to the ship. Mallory was at the front of the action. She was elbowing guards and punching them in their lizard-like faces while they ran to the entrance of the ship. She was hand-to-hand fighting the Lezarus guards in front of the massive, oblong spacecraft that was being filled up with humans.

  One came at her and she side-stepped him and back-handed the back of his head so that he fell to the ground. Another came from her rear and she spun around to punch him once in the chest and again in the face. He stumbled and fell backwards.

  "They're closing the hangar doors," Elric shouted to Mallory.

  "All right. Hurry everyone," she yelled, as she punched another guard and jumped onto the deck of the huge spacecraft.

  They set off for the control room. They ran past the mass of people bombarding the spacecraft. The hallways were clogged with people and Mallory and Elric had to elbow their way in.

  "Away from the controls!" Mallory said to everybody and they shifted their positions.

  "All right," Elric said to himself, starting to mutter. "It has been awhile but I think I can still do this."

  He began pushing buttons and controls, then pressed a sensory screen and said into the box, "Earth."

  The spacecraft shifted into drive mode and exited the hangar as the doors were closing around it. Those in the control room cheered and looked out the window, towards space.

  "I need to set it in overdrive," he said. "H
ere's to hoping there’s enough fuel in it."

  "Here's to hoping all of these people aren't used as fuel."

  Elric gave a chuckle then was serious as he adjusted controls. "We need to go fast, and I mean it."

  "This was a long ride when we came."

  Elric replied, "That was on the auto-pilot spacecraft. That thing was dinky compared to this. It'll do the same distance ten times faster."

  She laughed. "So not long at all."

  "Let's see if we can out-maneuver them," he said, seeing two crafts approaching from the flank. He moved a few fingers and laughed.

  "We just went into a slip stream. Virtually undetectable."

  A shudder went through the craft and he looked around, concerned.

  "Apparently that didn't work," he said. "No matter. We'll just slip in and out," he said as he maneuvered the controls. "We can make it work."

  They waited to feel any more shudders, but none were felt and it remained quiet.

  *****

  Lifted

  They landed on the same island she had been vacationing on and where she had met Elric. But, now, they weren't on the beach side but in the jungle, hidden from view. Elric landed the bioship, slipping in between trees and plant life under it in a strange, non-uniform pattern. They released all of the passengers and made their way back to the road nearby to walk back to the resort.

  "That was easier than I ever dreamed it could be," he said.

  "I remember you saying that people needed to be shown order. What changed, Elric?"

  "Well, I met you. I realized people didn't need to be told what to do, that they should be able to just do it."

  "And you just did it, too," she said, looking up to him. He bent his neck to kiss her and they stayed together for a moment before looking into one another’s eyes.

  "So, what now?"

  "Well, Elric, I think you should try living on Earth for a while. See if Lezarus really need the bioship."

  "And if they do?" he asked.

  She smiled. "I might just have to be one of the only humans in space."

  He laughed. "You might just have to be," he said before kissing her again.

  They felt at peace until hearing a blast sounding through the air. It was a small spacecraft and before they could react, it took them both up in a containment shield.

  They were brought up into the ship and watched as a few others were brought up too.