by Izzy Shows
"Well, you were the one who calmed her down. You were speaking some weird language. I absolutely have to find out what that was! I had no idea you spoke languages other than Common and English—and she listened to you," Walter said.
I glanced at him to see that he was looking quite happy with himself.
"You spoke to her?" Jessica raised her eyebrows.
"Not really," I said, feeling a little defensive. "I just… I don't know. It’s not important."
"Well, that seals it. You're responsible for her now, as far as I'm concerned."
And with that, she turned and headed back to base, the other scientists following.
Walter looked up at me, offering me a tentative smile. "It's really not going to be so bad, I promise. We'll just get her back to the base, and then you can be on your way. I'll assume responsibility for her."
I grunted at him, noncommittal, and started out toward the base.
I wished he hadn't mentioned the fact that I'd spoken to her, that I'd been able to communicate with her, and I really hoped that Jessica wouldn't repeat it to Anders. I had the feeling that they might want me to do it again, and I knew I couldn't do that.
What kind of trouble had I gotten myself into?
Xiva
Lonely, hurting… What’s going on? Can’t think…hurting…
My thoughts were sluggish as I surfaced from the darkness yet again. But this was different—the darkness I'd been living in had not been gentle. It had been full of pain, had never let me go.
This darkness had been abject nothingness. There had been nothing to feel in it, no pain. And on my way out, I couldn't seem to get myself together, couldn't string a sentence together. gods above, it was so difficult.
But I struggled through it, thrusting myself forward, forcing my mind to work.
No time for this. Have to get out, have to do something… Zvarr! Have to stop Zvarr!
I came to with a start, lurching to a sitting position with a violent scream torn from my throat. I looked around with wild eyes, briefly blinded by the white light, so different from the darkness I'd been in.
Colors began to form at last and solidified into objects.
Beneath me I could feel something soft but firm, and it wasn't comfortable.
Bed. I'm in a bed.
I looked down at myself—naked. My skin, its blue hue dimmed from the submersion my mind had been in, contrasted sharply with the stark whiteness of the sheets around me. There had been a sheet on me, but when I sat up so abruptly, it had not crumpled around my lap, baring my breasts to the strange creatures around me.
I didn't care. Nudity was not something to be concerned with, not for a High Priestess.
My body was the vessel of the gods. To look upon it was to receive a gift from the source of life. I had been taught that it was a gift to be shared.
These creatures were what I needed to worry about.
I looked down at my arms and saw little tubes running out of them, carrying the purple liquid that was my blood from my body to some unknown destination.
A snarl reached my lips—they would dare to take what wasn't theirs?
I reached for one of the tubes, and that was when one of the small, strange creatures hurried to my side and laid hands on me.
"Get off, skiva!" I shoved the creature away, then tore the tube from my arm and kept tearing at the others that were attached to my body. Dimly, I was aware of the pain it caused, but I didn't care. I was too consumed with rage at the insult that they would defile my body in such a way.
They would pay for this.
I raised one hand, my magic coalescing around it in a vibrant golden glow—but a strong hand on my arm gave me pause.
Why did I hesitate for this hand and not the other creatures’?
I turned to see who it belonged to and locked eyes with the strange creature who had spoken the language of the gods to me.
My heart raced. This creature, whatever he was, had a connection to the gods, and that meant he must be safe.
"You—you spoke Asifari. What are these creatures doing to me? Tell them that to take my blood is a defilement of a holy vessel, and that cannot be allowed. They must make the appropriate sacrifices to Vivoth and Nytoc in the hope that they will be merciful and not be angry with them for what they have done. And how is it that you spoke the language? Never mind—you have already said that you do not know. But how can that be? And what are you?"
The words poured out of my mouth rapidly, one after another, but the creature just stared back at me.
I would think him confused but for the hard look in his eyes.
This man had seen war. He had seen pain and endured much.
He endured your pain.
The thought, chastising though it was, stayed the anger in my soul. I had been foolish, allowing my rage to flow past the mental barriers that I should have kept up, and the pain had come along with it. I shouldn't have allowed that to happen—normally, I was much more careful when it came to those barriers.
My brother and I were the only telepaths I had known of among the Stryx. That was a strangeness that had been forgiven, for the most part, so long as we were careful with it. I had always tried not to touch the minds of others, out of respect for their privacy, and to keep my thoughts and feelings to myself.
"I apologize for lending you my pain. It was a gross overstep on my part, and you cannot fully comprehend how ashamed I am that it happened. I haven't been so lax since I was a little girl. The moment of unearthing came over me, and I didn't know where I was or what was happening. Will you forgive me?" I asked him, trying for a small smile.
He frowned, the skin above his eyes furrowing together, and he shook his head.
I gaped at him. "You refuse my apology?"
Before he could answer, the creature I had shoved away came back into view, and he spoke to the warrior in a harsh, guttural language. I shrank away from him—now that the rage was gone, I felt the discomfort that came with being around such strange creatures. Their use of another language, one that I didn't know, was very disconcerting.
What had he said?
"What did he say, warrior?" I asked, my voice rising to a sharp note.
He responded to the scientist—ignoring me—in that same harsh language.
"You're starting to scare me," I said, hating that I had to admit that.
I shouldn't be scared of anything. I was the High Priestess of the Aelodhari, Chosen by Vivoth. I commanded more power than others would see in their entire lives.
The warrior looked at me, his eyes softening for a moment, and he said something in that language again.
I shook my head. "What's going on?"
But there was no response, and the blackness took me again.
No…
Kaidan
I hated drugging her. Hated it with every fiber of my being.
But the scientists were adamant that she couldn't be awake yet, for some stupid reason, and they'd asked me to keep her occupied while they prepared the drug.
As they'd expected, she calmed for me just as she had in the tunnel.
Part of me didn't like that, didn't like the scientists being right, but I was glad that she'd stopped attacking people. Things had almost gotten hairy for a moment when she was about to blast a crater in the ground where the squint had been standing, but she'd stopped as soon as she saw me. As soon as I laid a hand on her.
Soft. Who would have thought skin could be that soft?
No, not thinking about that. And I sure as hell was not thinking about the way she'd looked when she sat up, the sheet dropping away from her. A sheet that I had promptly put back in place as soon as the drug had kicked in.
She deserved to have her modesty preserved, and it was wrong to ogle her while she was unconscious.
Not that I was ogling her.
Why do you care if you were or not? She's just another alien. Not that big a deal.
Whatever. It didn't matter, not really. I wasn't going to think about
that.
Point was, she'd calmed right the fuck down as soon as she realized I was in the room, and she’d said a bunch of shit I hadn't been able to understand.
Her language was like silk on the skin, soft and full of sss sounds. Like nothing I'd ever heard before, and I'd been around the block quite a few times. How was it that she had a language that didn't have any relationship with the others?
Every planet, at this point, had a little bit of the other planets in it when it came to culture and language.
Just like how a lot of the languages back home come from Latin, there were a lot of languages that paid homage to other planets’ languages. Things had been so interconnected for such a long time now that it was strange to find a language that didn't have anything in common with another one. But hers was different, and that was weird.
I bet even Walter wouldn't be able to figure it out.
"You can let go of her now," James said, looking at me with one eyebrow raised.
"Right," I said. I dropped her arm as if it had burned me and took two steps back.
"We'll have to keep a closer eye on her vitals going forward. Her metabolism is a lot faster than we expected. That’s why she came out of sedation before we were ready for her. But that shouldn't happen again. You should be good to go now, Norton."
Why did that make me ill at ease?
I didn't like the idea of leaving her alone with these squints so they could do God only knew what to her.
She needed someone to look out for her.
That someone doesn’t need to be you. You have better things to do than play babysitter for some alien chick, that voice in my head snarled, urging me to get gone now that I had permission.
"Are you ready to start the tests, James?" Ivan came forward, holding a clipboard in his hands.
"Tests?" I asked before I could stop myself.
"Yes, yes. We’ve got quite a lot of tests to run. We need to figure out what she is, what she can do…"
"Before we can start the experiments," Elijah finished for him.
I whipped around to see the squint standing by the door, arms crossed over his chest as he stared at the alien on the bed.
Before I could do anything about it, I felt the growl building in my throat, rumbling through my chest. Everyone froze, turning to stare at me. I knew that fear was pouring through them now, knew they were afraid I was going to flip, like some of the other modified soldiers had.
It was a touchy subject for me, experimentation. I had been on the receiving end of it, and I knew how much it sucked to wake up and find out that shit had been done to you that you hadn't signed up for.
James, apparently the bravest squint in the room, sent a nervous glance my way before he looked at Elijah. "Yes, it is rather exciting that we're going to be able to try that for the first time. We haven't gotten board approval for it back home, so this will be quite the opportunity."
"Over my dead body," I growled, closing the distance between the bed and me so that I was almost standing over her. I gripped the side of the bed so tightly, I almost worried about tearing through it.
"Now, now, Norton, that's no way to talk. It's really not up to you at all."
"No, it's up to me, and I'm not having this." Anders' voice filled the room. He had a booming voice that brooked no argument, and everyone quieted as soon as he spoke.
Including me. The rage backed down, and the warning growl slowed until it went silent.
"I never approved this alien being brought to the base, and I certainly am not going to keep her around for experimentation. She's a threat to the mission, and she needs to be put down before it can go any further."
I bit into the side of my cheek to keep myself silent, my hands clenching the soft material of the bed. A distinct ripping sound came from the bed now.
They were going to kill her.
I need her. I have to get the answers from her. I won't let them kill her.
But before I could say a word, there was a flurry of protests—Walter and Mercy, one of the mechanics, had apparently come into the room with Anders.
I turned to look at them, taking in the horrified look on Walter's face and the way Mercy's features contorted into fury. Mercy was normally a very well kept together woman, with short sandy blond hair and green eyes. She was on the short side too, which usually led to her not being taken very seriously, but, lord, did that woman have a set of lungs on her.
"You can't do that!" she shouted at the same time that Walter joined in.
"Absolutely not!"
Anders turned to look at the two of them, the look on his face perfectly calm. "And why not? I'm in charge of this mission. This is my decision to make."
"Intergalactic law," Walter said, fixing his glasses, which had slid to a crooked slant when he burst into motion.
"Basic rights," Mercy said, snorting. "You can't just kill someone."
"Not to mention, she’s protected. She's a sentient life form, and they have rights. The UPC does not allow anyone to slaughter sentient life forms. You know that."
"I can't believe you would even talk about murder, Anders. What the hell has gotten into you?"
I stared at them, content to let them scream their hearts out at Anders, it having been clearly established that it wasn't necessary for me to join in the fuss. I stayed quiet, keeping an eye on the squints so they couldn't sneak over and start any of their nasty experiments.
This woman was my responsibility. I hadn't relinquished that to Walter, although I was feeling better about that idea now that I knew he wasn't willing to have her murdered.
How did he feel about experimentation, though? I’d have to find out. That was going to be the final note in his file, in my mind, anyway.
I couldn't respect a guy who was OK with shit being done to anyone who hadn't given their consent.
"All right, all right, calm down," Anders said, sounding a little exhausted. "You've made your point. She won't be touched—and I mean in any way, James, Elijah. Walter has a point: she's protected by the UPC, and the last thing I need is a case being brought against us that we violated any laws while we were here. This is going to be enough of a headache without that."
I felt my breath rush out of me as relief filled my bones.
I hadn't wanted her to die. Hadn't wanted her to be experimented on.
Not because I care. I don't give a shit about her. I was going to kill her myself. I just want those answers. I can't get answers from a dead body.
After all, she might be dangerous. Anders thought she was a threat to the project because having a sentient species on the planet meant we couldn't terraform it, but she could be much worse than that.
She had come at us with a hell of a lot of firepower—firepower I still didn't understand.
How the hell was she firing at us? No one found any guns on her when they stripped her.
That was something I intended to find out as soon as she was conscious again and could answer questions. I hoped she spoke Common, because whatever the fuck she'd been speaking, I wasn't about to figure it out anytime soon.
I need those answers.
Maybe it was selfish to want her to live just because she could help me, but damn it, I needed to be selfish.
I hadn't had anything to care about in a long time. And she was the only one who could help me.
Kaidan
Two days.
Two days of keeping her knocked out to run tests on her and figure out what breed of alien she was—two days to figure out that they had no fucking clue and weren't about to get that answer anytime soon.
Whatever this woman was, it was something that had never been recorded before.
That was impressive, but honestly, it wasn't that surprising to me. Everyone had said this planet wasn't inhabited; if she was native to the planet, it made sense that her species wasn't catalogued anywhere.
But how was it that they had gone so long without detection? She didn't exactly blend in.
Maybe t
hey live under the sand. That would explain what she was doing under there.
Yeah, that made sense. If people had come here before and hadn't been able to find anyone because they were all underground, that would explain why it was considered uninhabited.
Pretty sure that's not how it works. Pretty sure they have machines that can scan for life forms.
My mind was at war with itself, and I couldn't figure out what side I was on. All I knew was that I was damned confused.
And tired.
I hadn't slept a wink in the two days that they'd been observing her, and that was starting to wear on me. I didn't need a lot of sleep—small doses would do the trick; another gift of my fucking gene manipulation—but I did need those small doses, and I hadn't been giving myself any of them.
I just didn't trust the squints with the woman. Didn't trust them to not come in and start experimenting on her as soon as they thought the coast was clear.
I'd sleep as soon as she was awake to defend herself—because, damn, that woman sure could defend herself, all right.
"Good morning, Norton," James said as he came into the room, looking quite chipper.
I grunted at him. He could be chipper all he wanted; he wasn't fooling me. He was a piece of shit squint. He would cut her up for parts to figure her out if the fuckers would let him, I was sure.
"I see you're just as pleasant as always," he said dryly. "But hopefully that will turn around today. We're going to wake her up."
I sat up a little straighter. "Oh, yeah?"
"At my request," Walter said, appearing in the doorway. "I finally got through to them."
I looked at him, uncertain what to think of the kid I had written off the first time I'd met him. Walter had done a damned good job of proving himself—what with being so concerned about patient privacy and wanting to save the woman even when she'd been about to kill us, and defending her rights when they'd wanted to experiment on her. Apparently, he'd been lobbying to wake her up this whole time while all I'd done was sit around like a guard dog.
Hey, someone had to make sure she was safe. And they damned well weren't about to listen to me about waking her up.
