The Ithaden’s Slave

by Daniella Wright

  Since Ithaden didn’t sleep a lot, whenever they felt like taking a nap they would just nest in whichever room they seemed to be at the moment. There was a built-in function for hammocks from the ceiling, like the one Sid had hanging here, throughout the ship. Well, a hammock wasn’t going to cut it for Kate though. If the mighty Captain of this ship whom hadn’t spoken a word to her all day had a problem with her squatting in his comfy couch, he’d better come here and tell her himself.

  Working with Mech1 and Mech2 proved to be physically demanding for Kate in the most unexpected of ways. She should have figured it out by now: the notion of jewelry didn’t exist among the Ithaden. At least not in the human, ornamental sense. Any bling they were wearing served some functional purpose, like Sid’s illusion shield ring, the scanner bracelet or her own wrist terminal. And so the many rings, bracelets and piercings the two mechanics were sporting were in actuality external extensions of the ship’s interface and operating systems. Which meant that working a shift as a mechanic mostly translated to standing very still on a platform, performing micro-movements on your gear (adjusting a ring here, twisting a piercing there) and seeing how the ship reacted to it.

  It was nice at first, like a standing meditation. But after the first 30 minutes or so, Kate’s whole body started getting seriously antsy. She wanted to move, jump up and down, run even… but as long as she was hooked on the mech deck any sudden movement could conk out the whole ship. So she kept going, performing task after task under the supervision of the Mechs. She held on for a couple of hours, a testament to her character and her many years as a high-functioning workaholic. Thankfully, Mech2 seemed to take pity on her and eventually sent her on her way. Which, after some deliberation and yet another 3D printed meal at the cafeteria with Ror (turns out 3D printed tofu tasted better than ‘real’ tofu), brought her to Sid’s couch.

  Simultaneously annoyed and disappointed at the lack of interaction between Sid and her all day, Kate decided to browse some more archive footage of her past months on the ship to pass the time. It was still very weird to watch a projection of herself on the wall; a Kate that was working and talking to crew members, doing and saying things the Kate of now still couldn’t remember doing and saying. If there was such a thing as an opposite deja vu, Kate was definitely experiencing it. Still, at this point the footage was less a source of marvel and more like a source of information.

  Kate was trying to understand exactly how she fit within the dynamics of the team and crew (and with Sid, of course). Unlike her former Wall Street crew, or even her colleagues at the supermarket, this team didn’t always seem to have clearly defined roles. Many times on the footage, she’d seen the mechanics piloting the ship. On one occasion, Combat General Xuff was working alongside her on the mech deck (they seemed somewhat uneasy around one another, but there was nothing in their words or actions to depict a lack of mutual respect). Another time, Theth was reading probability lines along with Sid, the chameleon-like Ithaden’s scales turning green like Sid’s as they were standing next to one another…

  After watching a couple of clips, it became apparent that everyone seemed willing and able to pitch in to help their crew members. Which made Kate see that her original assessment of Sid as a stern, fear inducing captain was quite wrong. Even on busy days or complicated missions, the whole team seemed motivated and truly happy to work together towards solving the issue. More like a family, Kate realized, each person pulling their weight and pitching into the house chores. Which begged the question: what was her role in that particular, alien family?

  Family… A sense of uneasiness started taking over Kate. There was something Sid had said earlier that was really bothering her. “Given the magnitude of what’s at stake here, I am willing to be overly cautious,” isn’t that how he’d phrased it? Well, what’s the 'overly cautious’ thing to do when you want to make sure a future Ithaden emperor will definitely be born? You try and try again, Kate thought, a shiver down her spine.

  Her pregnancy started as a lab experiment after all. And lab experiments always have more than one test subject, don’t they? That thought made Kate ill: how many more were they? How many more human women had been abducted and impregnated against their will, for the sake of a civilization they’d never even heard of? How many of them felt alone and afraid, lost and cold like she once did? And more importantly, where were these women now? What had happened to them, to their children? Kate’s heart was beating so fast at this point, she practically didn’t notice the door opening and Sid entering the room.

  “Please try to breathe slower, Ith-rassil. Being in this state is not good for you… or for the baby.”

  Sid looked worried. He was now sitting next to Kate on the couch, his arms wrapped around her, his weird alien temperature super low. Kate felt like being hugged by an air-conditioner or taking a dive in a cool stream on a hot summer day; it was soothing. After what seemed like forever her body started relaxing, the thumping of her heart subsiding, her breath becoming steadier. Apparently she had worked herself to the verge of a panic attack when Sid found her. But she was calmer now and, like her dad used to say, “with calmness comes presence of mind”.

  Kate jerked free from Sid’s embrace. It seemed to her that it was becoming a theme between them, getting closer to each other only for one of them to pull away again. For various reasons. It was exhausting and emotionally draining but at the same time it seemed unavoidable until Kate could get all her memories back… or answers to all of her questions.

  “Sid, you haven’t told me everything, have you? About the, uhm, experiment?” she said pointing at her belly. “I realized earlier I can’t have been the only woman who’s been through this ordeal. It wouldn’t make sense to put all of the Ithaden Empire’s eggs in one basket. Literally.”

  That was a joke, she made a joke. Kate was pleased with her newfound ability to joke about such a terrible subject. She hoped that this cooler attitude of hers would make Sid feel less attacked and ultimately share more. Like, what was his true part in all of this?

  “I’m afraid I wasn’t fully briefed from the beginning.” Sid’s eyes were downcast. He wasn’t enjoying revisiting those memories, clearly. Well, tough. From the very few things she could recall about that time, Kate was sure she didn’t enjoy living it either.

  “I realize this may sound like cowardice to you,” Sid said while getting up from the couch, perhaps to put some physical space between them. “The truth is, I didn’t care enough back then to ask more questions. I trusted on the benevolence of our scientists, way too much as it turned out. I was aware of the project and its importance of course, but I was also busy with my own work, my missions… The thought that actual people would be suffering from this process didn’t truly cross my mind, not until I visited the lab myself to check their progress. When I got there, I found out there had been 16 failed… experiments. You were attempt number 17, Kate.”

  Bi-species fertilization, as it turns out, was no walk in the park. For the first ten years or so ever since the Time Agency identified that the Ithaden timeline had been altered, the scientific division of the Agency wasn’t doing anything nefarious, merely working on combining Ithaden and Earthen cells. The scientists were trying to fulfil the Third Sun prophecy by fertilizing an Ithaden egg that would then be given to the royal family to raise. Ithaden are not mammals, they don’t gestate, Sid explained. And most of them have fertility issues. So the few of them who are deemed worthy of becoming parents are given a pre-fertilized egg with their genetic makeup, which they have to basically keep warm until it hatches. Then they can either raise the younglings themselves as part of their family, or give them to the state to raise as civil servants — and some of them, as warriors.

  The scientists’ attempts failed spectacularly however: no eggs were successfully fertilized. At some point, a group of radicals within the scientists’ group who were determined to see the glory of the Ithaden Empire rise no matter the cost, started a parallel, top secre
t project. A project that involved kidnapping human women and attempting IVF on them, combining their DNA with that of the only fertile Ithaden prince.

  “That way, the child would be Ithaden royalty and lawfully rule one day,” Sid explained with a strange bitterness in his voice. “I really don’t know how they managed to keep it from us, from the Time Agency, for as long as they did though.” He was pacing up and down the room now, his hands clasped behind his back.

  Kate was listening, her current emotional landscape a mix of terror and relief. They were finally going to address her worst nightmare: the Lab she was being held in, the place that appeared in all these white flashes of hers. That was terrifying. But on the other hand, it was liberating to know that Sid, this person she was feeling so attracted to, had nothing to do with it. In fact, he was the one to put an end to the horror.

  “We have Ror to thank that we even found out,” Sid went on. “Something in the probability lines didn’t sit well with him. He was trying to convince me to do a surprise visit at the Lab for a long time but I thought he was being…silly. You have to understand, Ith-rassil, when this project started I was still a youngster. No more than 14 or 15 years old in human years. It was going on for so long with practically no results, we’ve all just stopped paying attention to these scientists. Ror didn’t.” Sid’s voice beamed with pride for the intelligence and stubbornness of his friend.

  By the time he and his team stormed the lab, it was too late for three of the women.

  “I went through all the files later, to understand what these bastards had done. Apparently they had kidnapped 22 women in total, from different Earthen times and places, to account for all possible chromosomal variations. They had officially logged in their trips as ‘DNA gathering’ so that the Agency thought they were only collecting human cells, not actual humans…Their first three attempts…the women didn’t make it. Based on the footage from their archives, this divided the group further. Most of the scientists realized they had taken things way too far, that what they were doing was monstrous. But two of them decided to keep going.”

  “Nineteen more women… What happened to them? To us?” Kate’s voice was shaking a bit. Just a little bit. If Sid noticed, he didn’t acknowledge it.

  “Subjects 4 to 11 were never successfully fertilized. After a few failed attempts with each, the scientists put them on stasis. I don’t think they knew what to do with them, returning them would raise suspicions with the Agency, you see. Subjects 12 to 16 were successfully impregnated… but unfortunately they all had miscarriages within the first month or so. Their bodies just couldn’t support the bi-species fetuses. We found these women on recovery pods when we arrived, thankfully all of them in a stable condition. And then, there was you.”

  The first time Sid laid eyes on Kate, she was already 5 weeks pregnant. The scientists were monitoring her day and night, so thrilled their experiment seemed to be successful this time that they weren’t paying much attention to security. It was relatively easy for Sid’s team to overturn them and take control of the lab. The project was stopped, the scientists incarcerated and the rest of the women memory-wiped and returned back to the exact time of their disappearance. But deciding what to do with Kate was a whole other thing.

  “I’m sure you understand by now, how important the success of your pregnancy was for my people. Although officially distancing themselves from the program and its ‘crude’ methods, the Royal Palace couldn’t ignore the fact that the Third Sun could now be born. The prophecy could happen, the timeline could be corrected! Most within the Palace and the government wanted to keep you on a lab, sedated until you give birth. And then wipe your memory and send you back at the moment of your disappearance. You wouldn’t have a clue what had happened to you, that you had given birth… They said it was the least ‘invasive’ thing to do toward you. I, well, I disagreed.”

  Learning that Sid risked the future of his people in order to give her the opportunity to choose what to do with her pregnancy, was beyond moving. Of course, the numbers were on his side. As he was quick to tell her, giving her the choice to go through with the pregnancy in an Ithaden environment, was the best thing to do from a probability perspective. The emotional bond created between a mother and a child during pregnancy was crucial for that child to develop a sense of empathy when he would grow up. And without his famous, human-like empathy, the Third Sun would never manage to unite so many different alien races…

  No matter the reason, Sid cared enough to give Kate a choice. That was all she needed to know, really. She got up from the couch and walked toward him, in the middle of the room. Before he could react, Kate hugged the green-scaled alien and held on tight.

  The next few moments, Kate felt as if time had come to a halt. Her head was buried in Sid’s chest, breathing the soft cotton fabric of his t-shirt and, underneath that, the scent of his body. It was earthy and musky, spicy almost — a bit like that cocoa herb blend he had served her earlier. Her hands were on his shoulder blades, his shoulders too wide for Kate to properly envelop in a hug. Not that it mattered. After his initial surprise, Kate could feel Sid’s body literally warming up. His hands moved slowly toward her head.

  “Ith-rassil, I wanted to tell you everything from the beginning. I wanted…” Sid’s voice was rasp, his palms now cupping her face. The look in his eyes was so intense, so full of tiredness, sadness and longing that shook Kate to her core. And there she was, wondering if their kiss meant anything to him.

  “You wanted to give me a choice, Sid. To give me a choice once again, since you couldn’t give me my memories back. I get it. And, thank you.”

  This time it was Kate who kissed him first.

  Sid returned her kiss with an urgency. One of his hands now slipped through her hair, holding it tight, perhaps giving it the tiniest of pulls… but it was still enough to make Kate moan under her breath. He seemed to enjoy that reaction of hers. His other hand traveled to the small of her back, pulling her closer to his own body, to his heat. Kate felt completely enveloped in his strong arms. There was no other way to describe this than a feeling of coming home after a very long day. This felt comfortable, familiar. And at the same time, because her brain didn’t remember it, every touch felt brand new and exciting.

  Kate had the uncontrollable urge to touch his skin, his real skin, under his t-shirt. Her hands went further down his back, finding their way under the fabric, her fingernails tracing up and down his strong waist. It felt liberating touching this skin, a skin so different than her own. And now it was Sid’s time to moan… and break off their kiss. He looked her in the eye quizzically, as if to make sure what it was she truly wanted, how far she wanted to take this. Kate didn’t know what her eyes were telling him right now, but she was certain she wasn’t going to deny her urges any longer. With a forwardness she didn’t know she possessed, she grabbed Sid’s t-shirt and tried to undress him.

  Well, tried being the operative word. His eyes opening wide, Sid uttered one last “Ith-rassil,” full of awe before quickly grabbing a hold of his t-shirt and taking it off with one hand. With the other, he lifted Kate from the ground as if she weighed nothing and took her back to the couch, laying her down gently. Supporting himself on his arms, Sid climbed on top of her. He was smiling now, as if all tiredness and sadness had been washed away by having her in his arms. He kissed her again, more playfully this time, giving her the chance to feel the odd shape of his tongue as it explored her mouth… It was longer and thinner than a human’s, Kate realized. For some reason, it turned her on immensely — and she wanted him to know that.

  Grabbing his face with both hands, Kate pressed him closer to her, deepening their kiss. Her back arched. Her whole body found his, squirming slightly until her pelvis was touching his bulge. A distant voice at the back of her head, what would have been her old, rational self, whispered that she had no idea what she was up for. What was Ithaden anatomy like, anyway? Were they even physically compatible? But Kate didn’t care about th
at voice anymore. She knew their bodies would find their own way. Her hands let go of his head and traveled across his sculpted shoulders and his back, tilting her head and allowing him to explore her neck with his fingers and his tongue.

  Kate did not remember being in bed with Sid before. But she definitely remembered how she felt when she was in bed with her few other lovers: either bored, or in a hurry to get her release. Everything was different this time though. She was enjoying every second, every touch. The slow caress of Sid’s hands, who had by now found his way down to her breasts; the bulge between his legs pressing on to her pelvis; the temperature of his skin, making her feel as if she was having the most exquisite fever dream… She never wanted any other man like she wanted Sid, Kate was certain of that much.

  Her nipples responded to his touch, hardening underneath her blouse. Now it was time for Sid’s hands to find their way under the fabric and lift it up. He did it much slower though, rolling it gently up as he went, his mouth following suit. Feeling his lips on her belly, giving her soft little kisses at first that turned into the gentlest of bites as he moved up to the curves of her breasts, was almost enough for Kate to explode… And then, his mouth found one of her nipples and started suckling. A deep moan escaped her lips. Her legs, as if having a mind of their own, wrapped around his. She could feel her whole body trembling with desire.