by Mara Frost
“Fine,” I sigh. “Where to and what do we do?”
“I was only able to secure a couple of food replicator rods while I was in the shuttle before the shuttle collapsed and we should save those for when the situation becomes dire.”
I smirk and he stops short, glaring down at me questioningly.
“This isn’t dire enough for you?” I wave my arms around, gesturing at pretty much the entire planet. “What part of being stranded on an alien planet after being chased by a megalomaniac doesn’t scream ‘dire’ to you? Because if it’s going to get any more ‘dire’ I might as well just plop down right now and let that flower eat me.”
I dramatically point at the pretty flower and his eyes slowly follow my finger. And I’m proud to say that a layer of confusion now rests on top of the perma-scowl on his face. I cross my arms almost proudly while his eyebrows rise ever so slightly. He glances up at me and then glances back down at the flower.
He then nods his head absently as he lifts the larger of the two reserve packs and then glances down at me.
“We will walk for a bit and then I will find us food.”
I blink a few times. “Okay…” my voice trails as I lift the smaller of the two packs that’s still lying on the ground. I was rather expecting a different response than that. Granted, I might have just thrown a minor temper tantrum, but I think I had a point in there somewhere.
“You need food. I think you get angry when you’re hungry,” he says matter of factly. And then he silently turns and begins to walk.
I stand there silently for a moment with my mouth open. My first instinct is to tell him that he’s a ridiculous and arrogant alien who has no idea what he’s talking about, but I’m quickly silenced by the loud rumbling in my stomach - conveniently deciding right then to remind me that I haven’t eaten in over a day.
I growl and follow behind.
I eye the little daisy-like flower and wonder if I should take it just in case? Maybe it likes to eat big blue know-it-all aliens.
Chapter 2
Dakhar
“We’re lost.”
“No, we’re not lost.”
To be lost would mean that we knew where we were in the first place or where we’re headed, I think grudgingly to myself, and we don’t. But I will keep that fact to myself. The last thing I want to deal with along with my sore rib is a human telling me that I have a poor sense of direction.
My sense of direction is fine. It’s this cursed planet that is all fucked up. It doesn’t help that the polarity of the planet is completely backwards and fucking with my senses. That is definitely contributing to our state of “lostness”.
And Trees. Why must there be so many damn TREES?
“Are you sure? I think we might have past that big rock with a tree growing out it at least twice before…”
I sigh as my side begins to throb with hot pain. Unfortunately, the pain has to get a lot worse before it gets better. It’s true that my kind is fast healing, but the healing process is extremely taxing, especially if you don’t have food or rest. And at the moment, we haven’t had either.
“There is more than one rock with trees growing out of it. If you hadn’t noticed, there’s one over there as well.” I point to the nearby tree and she follows my gaze.
And suddenly there’s silence - sweet, wonderful silence – presumably because she’s taking a moment to look around to see all the other giant rock trees that are currently surrounding us.
“Oh,” she mutters.
I smirk and I feel a small smile touch my lips. Fortunately, she’s behind me so all she hears is the smirk and doesn’t actually see the smile. But it’s undoubtedly enough to get some sort reaction out of her. I hold my breath, patiently waiting for one of her snappy comments. And I’m strangely caught off guard when I hear nothing.
She must be tired.
Her general chatter and…critical opinions…have actually lessened a bit. With the setting sun cresting the horizon, we’ve been walking for quite a while. Realizing that she must be getting tired, I abruptly stop and turn around to face her.
She stops and looks up at me, blowing stray strands of hair from her sweaty brow. “What?” she asks as she adjusts the pack on her back.
The little human actually doesn’t look bad. Annoyed? Perhaps. But she’s still holding up well. Humans are physically stronger than I realized. I silently walk over to her and without saying a word, grab her pack and sling it over my other shoulder.
But there’s no point in adding to her discomfort and hunger.
“Hey! Hey! What are you doing? Why did you do that? I can carry it!” She reaches for the pack, but quickly learns it’s a hopeless cause since her extended arm can barely even reach my shoulder.
“We won’t be walking for much longer. It’s no problem for me to carry both packs until we make camp.”
“Yeah, but it’s a problem for your side! And I’m perfectly capable of carrying a backpack,” she barks.
“Carrying a small backpack will do no further damage.”
I turn and continue to walk, not interested in continuing the conversation. Mostly because yes, my side is being an asshole and it hurts, but there’s no reason for her to know that.
“Well…alright, but are we stopping soon? The sun is setting…”
“Yes, soon. There’s a ridge not that far ahead of us. We can make camp there.”
She shakes her head and looks around blindly and then throws her hands up in defeat.
“Ridge? What ridge? I see no ridge! I just see trees. Big alien trees,” she growls in mild frustration.
“While we were in the process of crash landing, I noticed a long ridge north of our crash site. My plan is to get us there before dark. It wouldn’t be wise to be completely exposed come nightfall, so the ridge to our backs will offer a small amount of protection. It will be a good defensible position.”
“A good defensible position,” she repeats under her breath. “Great.”
The rest of the hike was spent mostly in silence, which I had no complaints about. I need some time to think about how we are going to get off this planet. Yes, I contacted Vorak, but that means absolutely nothing until I see that the weasel actually did what I asked.
By the time we make it to the ridge, there is only a sliver of sun left on the horizon, which is more than enough light for me to find something for us to eat. Realizing that we’re stopping for the night, the little female quickly runs to a big rock and proceeds to sit down on it with a loud and luxurious moan.
My entire body tenses almost immediately, remembering similar noises that she made on the ship while I was buried deep inside of her. The way she felt, the way she smelled while her body was wrapped around mine – I can almost taste her on my mouth. Her softness beneath me while I pushed into her. The need to consume all of her…
“Hey, Big Blue? What’s wrong? You’re looking a little…weird.”
I blink several times, trying to bring myself back while telling my cock to shut the Hell up. What is this human doing to me? It’s as if I’m some hormonal youth who doesn’t have control over my own body.
“Big Blue?” she repeats.
I growl.
Apparently, this response is one that she has come to expect from me and accepts it to mean that all is well, so she moves on. “Alright! So what do we do next?”
I lower the packs onto the ground, doing my best to ignore the burning pain that radiates from my side. I don’t want to draw attention to myself or the pain, so I try to not make any noise while I bend into my broken rib.
Unfortunately, I forgot to remove the look of pain and misery from my face.
“Are you okay? You don’t look so good.” With her brow furrowed in concern, she adds, “I’d like to take a look at that if I-“
I straighten. “No. I’m fine. I will set up a protection field around our perimeter and then find us something to eat. You will stay here and not go outside of the perimeter. And stay out of troubl
e.”
She smiles up at me a little too sweetly. I eye her cautiously, waiting for her to say whatever she plans to say.
“Hey, if you want me to just lay here and do nothing, I can totally do that. In fact, I’m really good at that. So please feel free to go be Mr. Hunter-Gatherer and I’ll just sit here and do whatever you say.”
I snort. Even when the little human actually does what I say she does it in a way that is frustrating.
“Good. I’m glad you’ve realized that you should listen to me. It’ll be very useful for you to know when you need to follow the instructions of your superiors. It’ll increase your chances of survival.”
Not interested in hearing her response and knowing full well it’ll be an earful, I turn and walk towards the forest to sit up the perimeter stakes.
“My superiors?! What the f-“
“Stay put,” I yell back as I walk away. “I’ll set up the perimeter and then hunt for food.”
I was already in the woods and on the outskirts of the camp when I just barely hear her grumbling under her breath, referring to me as a certain unsavory body part. A low grunt of approval sounds from my throat.
There is strange satisfaction in pissing her off.
As I hear her grumbling words fade, I walk deeper into the alien forest and gauge where we are. Since the ridge is to our back, it won’t take long to set up the perimeter stakes. Most will avoid the barrier as it sends out neuro impulses and compels potential invaders to turn back, but if anything actually does cross the invisible boundary, the electro-magnetic fence will give the intruders the jolt of their life and an alarm will go off. It’s not perfect and doesn’t offer as much protection as I’d like, but it’ll have to do.
For some reason, the idea of anything happening to the little grumbling human irritates me. But the fact that I even care what happens to her, irritates me even more. What’s wrong with me? Have I gotten so weak since my Peacekeeper days that I can no longer complete a simple trade without going soft?
Vorak might be right. I didn’t want to admit it when I spoke to him, but I think I fucked up and let this human get under my skin. She’s just merchandise and I got too damn attached. Her and her ridiculous talk about “morality” and right vs wrong – it all just got to me. The best thing I can do is get rid of her the first chance I get.
Once we get out off this damn planet, I’m going to find some overstuffed rich space lord who likes to collect exotic pets and I’ll sell her to him. The pets these merchants buy usually end up living in the lap of luxury anyway. She’ll just be a status symbol to him.
And she won’t be killed or harmed.
Fuck Vorak.
***
Dani
“What is that?”
I scrunch up my nose in open disgust and stare at the large dead rodent-like creature in Big Blue’s hand. I’ve obviously never seen anything like it, but the closest thing that I can compare it to is being the weird love child of a lizard and a beaver. Specifically, the head of a lizard and the body of a beaver – super freaky looking.
And it smells even worse.
“Ugh, how long has that thing been dead? It smells rotten.” I cover my mouth and nose and motion for both Big Blue and the mutant rat to stay away.
He just looks at me blankly and then looks at the unfortunate creature in his hand, as if he has no idea what I’m going on about.
Interesting. Apparently, he has zero sense of smell. Lucky him. Good to know that perfume would be completely lost on him.
“It is food. And I just killed it. His smell has nothing to do with his time of death. He smelled like this even while he was alive.”
“How unfortunate for his friends,” I reply, my nose pinched firmly closed.
“I saw no friends. He has no friends. He was alone.”
I stifle a laugh. How tragic. The little stinky guy didn’t even have friends before Big Blue extinguished his life. Sigh. Sometimes I forget that I’m dealing with Captain Literal. He looks so ridiculous holding the carcass of the smelliest creature in the universe while wearing a look of mild confusion, and yet he still manages to look insufferably big and sexy.
How does he do that? That’s so annoying.
I swallow back a chuckle and clear my throat. “Uhm yeah, that was just a joke. You guys aren’t a very funny people, are you? You don’t do jokes, huh? Anyway, I just meant that dino-beaver over there is super smelly and it would suck to be someone who had to be close to that thing all the time.”
Satisfied with my explanation, he simply shrugs and then plops down onto a rock across from me and begins to go to town on the poor little guy. With his handy dandy mini light saber, he begins to skin and gut it with a hunter’s precision. My eyes instantly water.
Apparently, it’s even smellier on the inside.
“Yes, I know what jokes are. And yes, my people ‘do jokes’, but we are not accustomed to laughing unless something is funny. In terms of the smell, fortunately for you, we don’t have to be around it for very long. Once we eat it, it will be gone.”
I fight the overwhelming urge to make a face and stick my tongue out at him. Instead, I just sit quietly, with my nose plugged, as I watch him skin the unfortunate alien creature. And I have to say – it’s a pretty grisly scene. There’s blood and guts everywhere and the squishy noise that the guts make as he skins and guts it is enough to make me gag a little.
Nope. Looking away now. There’s an entire alien jungle that I could be looking at and it won’t even make me hurl. I’ll just take this opportunity to look at our surroundings instead. I turn my head and gaze into the trees.
It’s completely dark and if it weren’t for Big Blue being part of an advanced alien race, we would have been shrouded in complete darkness right now…or we would have had to build a fire. Instead, he has an awesome glow stick-type thing that emits an insane amount of light and heat.
After a few minutes of allowing my eyes to adjust to the contrasting darkness, I start to notice something weird. I start to see specks of glowing light…everywhere. They almost look like glowing blinking…eyes…!
I slowly reach for Big Blue silently and hit his arm spastically to get his attention.
“What…is that? There are things watching us!” I say in frantic but hushed tones. I nod over at the surrounding forest, towards the glowing eyes.
Immediately at alert, he snaps his head up and looks into the forest, trying to see what I’m talking about. And then just as quickly, he relaxes and goes back to his task, without saying so much as a word.
“What? Hey! What the Hell?! What are those…”my voice trails as I point frantically at the glowing dots and then continue, “Those things! Are they going to eat us?!”
Without looking up at me, he replies, “Plants.”
“What?”
“They’re plants. Vegetation.”
“Plants?” I repeat. Plants have eyes here? Excellent news.
He nods. “I noticed them earlier while I was hunting. I suspect they glow like that once it gets dark as a defense mechanism to protect themselves against predators.”
I relax as I breathe out a sigh. Okay, so the plants don’t have eyes. Best thing I’ve heard all day.
“Oh…I guess that makes sense,” I reply slowly, trying to force my body to relax. The animals on Earth have evolved into some pretty funky-looking creatures too – especially those freaky deep-sea animals that I’ve seen on the Discovery Channel, so it makes sense.
“Although, it seems a little odd that a little plant would need to have that sort of defense. I mean, how much protection does a plant need? It seems a little silly.”
He pauses briefly from his bloody work and looks at me and shakes his head, as if fascinated by what I just said.
Well, I am pretty smart. I’m an astronaut after all.
“What?”
“I am just surprised that you have learned nothing since your travels through space.”
“You mean ‘abduction’ not
‘travels’. This isn’t like a post graduation backpacking trip through Europe, sparky.”
As expected, he ignores my remark because it makes absolutely no sense to him at all.
“Have you not learned anything since you’ve been out here? Just when you make me think that humans are advanced beings that deserve recognition in the universe, you say something that makes me wonder how your people have managed to work your way up the food chain. It is no wonder that we want to eat you for breakfast.”
At this my eyes widen. Well, that was just…mean. I’m torn between being insulted at his “food chain” comment and freaked out that he just suggested I should be his breakfast.
“Well, aren’t you rude. Who’s the one that gets grumpy when he’s hungry…” I mumble under my breath to myself, because he’s certainly not paying attention to me. He seems to be in the middle of some sort rant.
“You look around and see ‘simple plants’ and you’re surprised that they have evolved as they have, but your closed perception doesn’t allow you to realize that the plants might be more than they seem.”
“I don’t understand. What do you mean? They’re just plants.”
He nods towards the surrounding blinking ‘eyes’. “True, they are. And those plants might be part of a bigger organism or a race that’s older than you humans by 100 fold. There are beings classified as ‘plants’ out in the universe that walk upright and travel the stars just like you and I.”
I just stare at him. That sounds both absolutely ridiculous and amazing. It’s true, I would have never considered something like that as a possibility…honestly, I’m not sure if many humans would.
But why is it now I can’t stop picturing a daffodil walking around with arms and legs and a brief case on its way to a very serious meeting?
