Fragile Flame
Lili sat in the back of the shuttle, staring out at the unfamiliar constellations as they flew silently through space. She was shaking violently, crying tears of betrayal and rage. She was ashamed of her tears, but she couldn’t stop them. She’d always been able to stop them before, but this time they poured forth in an angry torrent completely out of her control.
She couldn’t get the image of Liam lying there dead out of her mind. She knew it wasn’t really him, but it served as reminder that she didn’t even know what had happened to him. The last time she’d seen him before leaving earth, an explosion had cut off his global signal. He might really be dead. If not, he surely thought she was dead. So did Augur, for that matter. And Da’an, and anyone who might have cared about her.
She was so confused. What was real, and what wasn’t? What had really happened to her? Everything was jumbled together in her mind like a weird dream. Jaridians and Taelons, and Humans, oh my! the back of her brain whispered insanely to her. She stifled an irrational, hysterical giggle. She knew that she was teetering on the very edge of the breaking point, and she desperately clutched what shreds of sanity she could find like a lifeline.
Months. Months to get home, that Jaridian had said. And then what? What would happen then, what would happen to her? What more did they want from her?
Footsteps made her look up. It was the Jaridian who had played the part of Dr. Michael Reed. Her face burned with embarrassment and shame when she thought about how she’d felt about his human persona, things she’d done with him. Looking at his ugly, alien face and his rough, scaly skin, the thought of allowing him even to touch her in an intimate manner made her flesh crawl and her gorge rise. And, she remembered with revulsion, they’d done a lot more than just touching. She looked away.
“I brought you some food, Lili,” he said in his deep, harsh voice that made every syllable of English sound like a growl.
“Don’t call me Lili!” she hissed at him. “You have no right to use that name.”
The Jaridian was silent for a moment. Finally, he said, “Very well, Captain Marquette. But you have not eaten in quite some time. I do not know how often your body requires sustenance, but if you were one of us, you would be weak with hunger now.”
He was right, curse him. There was a pronounced aching emptiness in her stomach, and it wasn’t just from her emotions. She did need to eat. She thought for a moment about refusing food, starving herself, but the rational part of her dismissed it. Staying alive was her top priority.
Reluctantly, she turned around to take the tray he offered. None of the foods were familiar, but they smelled good and her mouth began to water. Still, she hesitated, crouched defensively in her corner with the tray in hand, like some caged, frightened, and vicious animal.
“The food is safe for your consumption,” the alien assured her, seeing her hesitation. “You body is now able to digest everything ours is.”
She tensed at that, reminded of what Sandoval had done to her. Apparently, he mistook her reaction, for he added quickly, “We can make it appear to be whatever you wish, Captain. If that food does not please you, it will be changed. But you must eat.”
She shook her head slowly. “Don’t try to make my imprisonment seem better than it is. I’ll eat it.” She picked up a piece of something bread-like and bit into it. It was dry and bland, but not horrible. She dipped the corner of it in some green goopy stuff and took another bite. It bit back, but it was good and she was used to spicy food. She took another bite of the plain bread to dull the fire.
She never took her eyes off the Jaridian as she was eating. She didn’t want to look at him, but her instincts wouldn’t let her turn her back on the enemy. When she’d eaten just enough to take the edge off her hunger, she put the tray on the ground, and slid it over to him with her foot.
He bent down, picked it up, and shoved it into in a receptacle. “Are you cold?” he asked gruffly. “You are shaking. Many animals on my homeworld shake when they are chilled.”
“Animals,” she echoed bitterly.
She could not decipher the tone of his grating voice. “You are not an animal, Captain Marquette, but I knew no other way of interpreting your shivering, for we do not. If you are cold, I will get you a covering.”
He might have meant it as an apology. She didn’t care. “I’m not cold,” she told him firmly.
His face betrayed no emotion to her eyes, used to reading Human and Taelon expressions only. His slitted, reptilian eyes regarded her with seemingly emotionless equanimity. He didn’t blink. She shuddered and hugged herself, feeling violated.
“What are you staring at?” she demanded.
Finally he said. “I…apologize? Is that the correct word? Yes, I apologize for the deception we practiced on you. It was the only way.”
She thought his tone was gentler, but she couldn’t really tell. “Why didn’t you just ask?” she snarled at him, brushing aside the apology.
“If you had said no, our kra’nak forbids us to force you. The risk was too great. Besides, it is not our way.”
Not our way, Lili thought. Those three words drove home just how alien this alien was. “This kra’nak of yours, it forbids forcing someone to do something against their will, but allows you to trick them into it?” she
“It was not desirable,” he admitted. “But it was the only way. I am sorry, Captain Marquette.” He turned to go back to the front of the shuttle. Braver now, she called after him.
“I fought along side one of your people, Jaridian. Because of him, I believed your species an honorable one. Now I see that I was wrong.”
He stopped and turned to face her slowly. She could see the insult to his honor had angered him. Very slowly, pronouncing every English word exactly in his croaking voice, he said, “My people have fallen on hard times, Captain. We do what we have to, to survive, and we will not be ashamed of it.”
He spun around and stalked back to his chair. Lili was left alone in her corner, trying not to think. And so time passed, ever so slowly. They all took turns piloting the shuttle. Well, not exactly piloting, for it was on autopilot, but sitting in the pilot’s chair and making sure everything worked properly.
The Jaridians didn’t start giving her a shift until she demanded it. They seemed to expect her to simply sit quiet for three months like some kind of cargo. She needed something to keep her from going completely mad with boredom. Sometimes, she took the shuttle off autopilot and flew it manually, to relieve some of her tension. She soon learned that the Jaridians only knew enough about the controls to know whether it was working right or not. They couldn’t really pilot the little ship. They would need her when they wanted to land.
The other two Jaridians spoke to her only rarely, obviously as uncomfortable in her presence as she was in theirs. When they did speak, it was only to communicate the barest possible information. But the one who had pretended to be Michael Reed spoke to her comparatively often. Sometimes she spoke back, usually she didn’t, but to her amazement she found that she didn’t hate quite him as much as she had at first. He tended to her needs as well as he could, and she learned to read some of his expressions after a while.
Her life became an endless cycle of flying, sleeping, eating, sitting, and exercising as best she could to keep her muscles from atrophying again.
Sitting in one of the back seats with the Jaridian in the other, when she estimated that about three weeks had past, she realized that she simply could not stand any more silence.
“Jaridian,” she said.
His attention snapped towards her. The other two gave no sign that they had heard her. They never did, unless they absolutely had to. “Yes?” he said, his slitted eyes betraying his surprise. This was the first time she had said anything without being first spoken to, and even then she did not usually reply.
“I have a question,” she said carefully.
He waited.
“I have never seen a Jaridian female,” she said. “May I ask why?” Her tone was calculatedly cool and formal, but to her surprise she was actually interested. She wrote it off as detached curiosity.
“Our females are not scientists or diplomats,” he told her. “They are warriors, as you are. They are canny and passionate and fierce and brave, but they have little patience. They defend our borders, do much of the governing, and teach our few children. We also fight, but nothing can compare to the skill of a Jaridian woman.”
Lili heard nothing but almost worshipful admiration from him. She was silent for moment, thinking it over. Do they love as we do? she wondered. Finally, she said quietly, not looking at him, “Where I come from, taking a…mate usually means something.”
“So it is with us. We mate with only one, our entire lives. He or she is the first, the last, and the only. We never take another.”
“I see,” she said softly. “Is it a crime to take a mate against his or her will?” She looked steadily at him.
He shifted uncomfortably under her piercing gaze, and she knew she had to upper hand. His own honor compelled him to answer.
“Anyone who did such a thing would be put to death,” he rasped quietly in his harsh voice. “But you did come to me of your own free will.”
“No I didn’t!” Lili yelled, snapping. “You lied to me, pretended to be someone else, something else. How could it be my free will if I didn’t even know what I was doing?! I didn’t know you; you weren’t even my species. It is the same as if you had forced yourself upon me. Worse, actually. I have to live with knowing that I could have said no, but didn’t.”
She sat there staring venomously at him, all her hate and anger back in full force. He recoiled visibly from her tirade.
“I am sorry,” he said almost inaudibly. “It was not my wish to cause you harm.”
“Well, you did!” she snarled.
They did not speak for a very long time after that. The Jaridian continued to see to her comforts and bring her food, but he didn’t attempt to speak with her. One “morning” about a week after their exchange, Lili felt severely nauseous. The very sight of her breakfast sent her running to the facilities in agony.
Her captors had modified the shuttle so that it was slightly bigger and had a bunk, a bathroom, and a supply hold. She knelt over the waste-disposal, heaving up all she had eaten in the past day, and still retching after her stomach was voided.
Her face burned with humiliation at her sickness. She never got space-sick, and if the food were going to effect her, it would have happened weeks ago. Sweat beaded on her brow, adding to the awful feeling of stickiness. Her face was pale, and she was too weak to do anything but slump against the hull.
All of a sudden, a scaly hand holding a glass of water appearing before her eyes. She realized the Jaridian had been there for the whole ordeal. She took the water, swishing the first gulp around in her mouth and spitting it out to rid herself of the vile taste. The rest she drank, knowing she had to replenish her fluids.
“Come, lie down,” he said in his gruff voice. “You must rest.”
He helped her to drag herself over to the tiny bunk. She flinched at his touch, even through the jumpsuit, but was too drained to resist. She lay down on her side, half-curled up. The Jaridian went away for a moment and came back with a wet cloth. He carefully, almost tenderly, wiped the sweat from her forehead and the vomit from around her mouth.
She cringed when she felt his beady skin touch her face. Cold blooded, she thought. Like a lizard. It didn’t make her sick this time, though probably because she didn’t have the energy to be sick again.
“Thank you, Jaridian,” she said grudgingly.
He nodded, and pulled a covering over her. “I would be pleased if you would call me by my name,” he said. “As you found it repellant to be compared with an animal, so do I dislike being treated as one.”
Lili realized that she been acting as though he were some semi-intelligent, unnamed dog. Even though he had done horrible things to her, he was still a sentient being, and he was at least tried to be kind to her.
“What is your name?” she asked.
“Vorjak,” he answered.
“Thank you, Vorjak,” she found herself saying. My mind must not be working properly, she thought.
“Is this sickness normal?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “No, I have no idea why I’m so sick.” She stifled a moan. She hated being sick in front of anyone. She usually locked herself in her apartment when she had a cold.
His eyes took on a very concerned look. “Do you think there is something wrong?”
She looked strangely at him. “Well, I just puked up my dinner, so I’d say something’s not right!”
“What do we do?” he demanded.
“Well, I don’t see what we can do except wait for it to pass,” she said. “I don’t suppose you have any Pepto-Bismol around here?”
Her joke sailed right past him. “We do not. Do you believe the baby to be at risk?”
Lili sat up so fast she nearly pulled a muscle. “What baby?” she asked dangerously.
The slitted pupils of his eyes widened. “You do not know?”
“Know what?” she asked, refusing to believe what she had already guessed.
“I am sorry, the females of my species know from conception. I had assumed you were the same way. You are pregnant.”
Lili’s foot lashed out lightening quick and hit him full force in the midsection. He fell to his knees on the ground, even though she knew she could not have possibly hurt him through his thick skin. She let out a string of every profanity she had ever heard in her life.
Vorjak could not have understood them, but the sound of a curse word is universal, and he got the message.
“I am sorry,” he said again. “Let me say my piece first, and then my life is yours to take, as is your right. I do not regret my actions, but I do regret that they have hurt you. My race is dying, Captain Marquette, as are the Taelons. Humanity is the missing link between us, and without you, we will die. All of us, Jaridian and Taelon alike. And so will your race perish also.
“A Jaridian/Human hybrid was and is the only answer. The child you carry will be the salvation of not only my race, but yours as well. It was a repugnant thing to do to you, but we had no choice.” Vorjak drew a wickedly jagged knife from a hidden sheath, and handed it to her. “You know I speak the truth, Captain Marquette. But my life is forfeit, if you desire it. I did what I did for the survival of my race. Nothing else matters, now.”
Lili took the knife and gripped it so hard her knuckles went white. Her hand trembled and she tried to force it to strike, but it wouldn’t. She’d never had a problem taking vengeance before. She simply could not bring herself to kill this man kneeling before her.
With a start, she realized for the first time she had thought of him as a man, a person, and not just an alien. His eyes stared at her intently, not pleadingly, and they no longer seemed frightening. She threw down the knife, confused, and it clattered to the floor. Tears sprang to her eyes again and she bit her lip hard to keep herself from sobbing outright.
She expected Vorjak to smugly pick up the knife and put it away, say something self-righteous, and leave her to her shame. Instead, he ignored the knife completely, and moved to sit beside her on the bunk at a fairly non-threatening distance.
She tried to get herself under control, but the tears kept flowing. Her entire world had come crashing down, and this was the last straw. Pregnant. With an alien child. How could this be happening to her?
Vorjak very slowly and very carefully reached out and took her hand. His skin felt warmer than it had early, but it was rough and dry and big and awkward. It could have easily crushed her hand. She wanted to pull away, to fight him and beat him off, but she couldn’t. She just sat there, crying and staring at her hand in his.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered again.
She nodded, swallowing the knot in her throat.
“I…” He reached up carefully with his other huge claw and ever so gently wiped away her tears. She didn’t even cringe this time. His touch almost felt good. Must be Stockholm syndrome, she told herself absently. They warned us about this.
Vorjak’s hand drifted to caress her hair briefly and then settled awkwardly on her shoulder. A little corner of Lili’s mind screamed at her to push him away, but she was still frozen.
“Captain Marquette, your langauge has no words to tell you how sorry I am that this was necessary and how grateful I am for your sacrifice, unwilling though it was.”
She managed to look at him and half-smiled. “Hell, Vorjak, if you’re going to be the father or my child, you might as well call me Lili.”
“Lili,” he repeated, his rough voice almost soft. “Li’a’li.”
“Li’a’li?” she asked, pronouncing it carefully.
“A figure from our mythic history,” Vorjak explained. “Your language would call her ‘the star-eyed mother-warrior’. She was very beautiful, Lili.”
“You can’t say you find me beautiful, any more than I find you handsome.” she said. “Not if your women look anything like you.”
Vorjak made the Jaridian equivalent of a smile, the tiniest up turning of his reptilian mouth. “You look nothing like the females of my world. But you are…attractive, in your own way. Like a blown-glass doll.” Lili raised her eyebrows. “And your…hair,” he continued. “It is most lovely.”
Lili looked away. Her emotions were reeling. One moment, she was ready to kill this…man and damn his whole race to hell, and the next she was allowing him to comfort and compliment her.
“Um, Vorjak,” she said “Something you said a while back…about Jaridians only mating with one person, their entire lives.”
“That is correct,” he said, impassively. “Once we mate, we are completely devoted to our mates for the rest of our lives. It cannot be otherwise.”
Lili took this in quietly. “So, does that mean that because we…since you and I have…um…”
“Yes,” he finished for her. “I can never have another.”
“I see,” she said.
“Sleep now,” he told her. “You must rest, for the child’s sake.”
She almost snapped back that she didn’t care a fig about the child, but she was still too sick to argue. Sleep sounded good. Sleep, rest, and only then think about it. She lay down and pulled the coverlet over herself. Vorjak patted her hand in an almost human manner, and went away, turning off the lights so she could rest.
Her train of thought ran helter-skelter in her mind. She was being pulled in different directions. Half of her hated Vorjak and all Jaridians and wished them all dead, and the other half was actually…attracted to him. Part of her was willing to help save their people, and another part wanted to rip out the tiny life growing inside her. So it ran, on and on and on until, finally, sleep claimed her.
Things changed between Lili and Vorjak after that. He began to tell her about his people and their ways, and their history. She began to understand, really understand who Vorjak and his people were, how they saw things, and how truly desperate they were.
He told her about how they lived, and worked, and played. Everyday things, old traditions, even their religion. He spoke to her so plainly and simply that she began to feel that she knew the people and places and things he was speaking of. Slowly, the Jaridians became real to her, almost as real as anyone she knew back on Earth. She actually saw him get emotional as he talked about how few children had been born in the past generation.
Almost without thinking, she laid a hand on his shoulder. “There’s always hope,” she told him.
He regarded her curiously. “I have often heard that word used by your people, but I have always had the sense that I do not truly understand it.”
Lili thought for a moment. “Think of being in battle. You’re in a situation where there the odds say there is no chance of getting out alive. You’re as good as dead. But you don’t give up. You don’t give up because there is the tiniest little impossibility that you might be able survive.
“So you clutch that little tiny ray of impossibility as hard as you can, because there’s not really anything you can do, and you keep fighting. That little ray keeps you alive even when you should be dead, and eventually, because you kept insisting that you weren’t beaten and weren’t going to give up, you survived and even triumphed. That’s what hope is.”
She could see Vorjak mulling it over. “Hope,” he repeated. “That is a wonderful concept.” He looked into her dark eyes, and she found herself blushing, as she often did when confronted by his unblinking eyes. “You are my hope, Lili. You are all our hopes.”
Lili mumbled something about having to get some exercise and went in the back to work herself until she was exhausted.
Later, as she was lying in her bunk, she heard Vorjak talking to his companions. She crept silently out of bed towards the front in order to hear better. They were talking very quietly, probably so as not to wake her.
“The woman is doing well,” Vorjak informed the Jaridian who was piloting.
“That is good. Does her pregnancy appear to be progressing on schedule?”
“As far as I can tell, the fetus is developing normally. The woman is strong, she will do well.”
“Agent Sandoval sent us a good one, then?”
“Yes. A very good one.”
Lili couldn’t take it anymore. With a choking sound she ran to the bunk and sat facing the wall, her face twisted in pain. Moments later, she heard Vorjak’s heavy footstep.
“You heard that, did you not?” he asked.
She nodded, not turning.
“I did not wish for you to hear it.”
Now she turned to look at him, angry and hurt. “Why? Because you wanted me to keep believing that you care about me, that I’m more than just a lab experiment, a tool to use? That’s all I am to you, isn’t it? Just thing, an item that might help you.”
Vorjak came nearer, real pain on his face. “No, Lili. You are not.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because,” he took a step closer, “I do care about you. You are my frak’neth, my mate. I care a great deal about you.” He sat down next to her. He tried to touch her, but she shied away. “But you must understand that this child you carry and the lives of my species mean more to me than anything else ever will. As they would to you, if our positions were reversed. As a soldier and a patriot, you must understand that.”
Lili nodded reluctantly.
“Please, do not be angry with me when I refer to you in a way that seems less than affectionate. I must do what I have to. We all must. I do not care about you any less, but my first priority must be to the child you carry. But believe this, I would never willing let you come to harm.”
He held up his hand, palm towards her, and she found that her anger at him had evaporated. She reached up and grasped his hand tightly with both of hers, and smiled a little to let him know she forgave him.
“It is good you understand,” he said. Tentatively, he pulled her gently towards him, giving her a chance to resist if she wanted. She didn’t. She allowed herself to be pulled closer until she was resting up against him, their hands still entwined. What am I doing? she asked herself as she laid her head on his shoulder.
He reached up to stroke her brown hair. He loved its silky feel; it was like nothing of his world. They sat there, companionably for a long time, as Lili absorbed the fact that she had actually begun to really care for this huge, ugly, beast-like alien sitting beside her.
Because she knew in her heart, from all his kindnesses, from all the pain she saw in his eyes when he knew he had hurt her, and from all the emotion she felt from him, right below the surface, when he spoke of his home, that Vorjak was no beast. He was a warrior and a scientist and a person. She knew from his gentle touch that she meant something to him, as far more than just a pawn or a means to an end.
She knew it, and she couldn’t turn a blind eye to it any longer. Nor could she turn a blind eye towards her feelings for him. Perhaps love was too strong a word, but it wasn’t infatuation either. It was something deeper and indefinable. He had been good to her, as good as he knew how.
Part of it, she knew, was that she had been effectively alone for almost five months, the five months in her life in which she most needed someone. There had been no one to hold her, or share her burden when her DNA had been changed to that of an alien. No one to talk to for the long months of the shuttle ride to Jaridia. Even in her fantasy world, she hadn’t really known who to trust.
Vorjak, as himself and as Michael Reed, was the only one who been there. Rationally, she tried to tell herself that that was the only reason she was responding to him the way she was now. That she would have responded to anyone the same way, no matter how repugnant, because she was so desperate for any form of contact, physical or emotional.
In her heart, however, she knew that wasn’t true. There was something about him. Something…roughly noble in his manner. And there was no doubting his honor. It had cost him a high emotional price to use her the way he had. She had come to respect the Jaridians, in an odd way, and she knew they deserved more than the fate they were facing without her. If it was in her power to be a savior, she could do no less, even if they had violated her so completely that she wasn’t even the same person she had been. Besides, she reminded herself, a member of her own species had been the one to violate her even more than the Jaridians had ever considered doing.
Vorjak and Lili had more common than she wanted to admit. They both had a warrior’s heart, they were both intensely loyal, and they were both in difficult, pivotal positions regarding the future of their respective species. It scared her, but now that she had more information, she realized that understood him and his point of view almost perfectly. It was strange to have such a perfect rapport with such a completely alien creature.
Suddenly, she felt a movement from within her abdomen. Surprised, she sat bolt upright.
“Is something wrong?” Vorjak asked. He seemed concerned.
“I don’t think so,” she replied slowly. “The baby just kicked. But it’s much to early for it to be moving around, isn’t it?”
Vorjak shook his head. “Human and Jaridian gestation periods and developmental rates vary greatly. Early movement in this case would not be a surprise.”
The baby kicked again, and Lili smiled. She felt an intense, overwhelming love for this child growing inside her, now that it was real. Until a few moments ago, it had been an abstract, ignorable concept, with the exception of the morning sickness. At best, it was better left forgotten, because of all it represented.
It’s amazing how fast your perceptions can change, she thought to herself. Aloud she said, “Do you want to feel?”
His eyes said yes, and she took his scaly, no longer revolting hand and guided it gently to her belly. His reptilian eyes widened with surprise as he felt the child move under his hand. She smiled at the look on his face, really smiled at him for the first time.
He smiled back, mimicking her, and revealing his sets of jagged, pointed teeth. Then his smile faded and he took on what she now recognized as his serious face.
“There is something I have not yet told you, Lili.”
Her heart sank, but she kept her tone and expression light. “Vorjak, if it’s twins, I’m gonna kill ya.”
“I have no information about whether it is twins or not. However, there is something you should know about the pregnancy.”
“I’m listening,” she prodded.
“Our studies indicate that beginning a little more than halfway into in the term, you will begin a transformation into…” He trailed off, reluctant.
“Into what?” she demanded.
“A Jaridian.”
“Woah, there!” Lili said, standing up. “You mean, with the skin and the eyes and everything? A Jaridian Jaridian?”
“Are you alright?” he asked.
“Oh yeah, I’m just peachy, Vorjak. I’m just hunky-dory with the idea of turning into an alien! What, the black blood thing wasn’t enough for you?”
“Once the child is a certain age, he or she must have a fully Jaridian mother. We have tried duplicating the conditions in a lab. We can not. It must be the real thing or the child will die. Do you understand that, Lili? It. Will. Die.”
She ran a hand through her hair. “I know, I know. But damn it, you might have told me earlier, not waited until I was having a maternal moment!”
His expression was unreadable. “Your reaction was precisely why I waited.”
“Bastard,” she told him, affectionately.
“Someday, you will have to explain to me that meaning of that term,” he said.
Over the next few weeks, Lili began to talk to the other two Jaridians. At first they responded in monosyllables, saying as little as possible. But after several days of pestering, they actually began to open up to her, in their own, Jaridian way.
She learned that their names were Kodact and Nestchik. They told her about their homes and families. Nestchik had a mate, and one, rare, child. They told her about their homes and their lives, and she told them about hers. The last month of the journey almost sped by.
At last, however, Vorjak told her that they would reach Earth in only a few hours.
“Well,” she said, looking out at the stars. “This is it, huh?”
“Yes,” he replied, serene.
“What’s going to happen?” she asked him.
“I do not know.” He turned to look at her. “However, we will face it as one.”
She smiled worriedly. “Vorjak, even though I’ve only known you and Kodact and Nestchik, I’ve come to care for your people as I do my own, love them as my own. I don’t know why exactly, but the things you’ve told me…”
He put his arms around her. “Perhaps you care for my people because you have come to realize that we are not so different. And that it is not your people or my people, but…people.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “Just people.”
After a quiet moment, Vorjak said, “You should get ready to bring us out of interdimensional. You are the only one who can do it.”
“Piece of cake,” she told him, patting his massive arm.
“Cake?”
She laughed. “Never mind.” They went to the front of the shuttle, and Nestchik relinquished the seat to her with a slight bow of respect.
“Okay, here’s goes,” she said, clearing her throat and orienting herself to the controls. “Establishing signal with Earth.” Her fingers danced over the insubstantial controls. “Receiving confirmation signal and coordinates. Preparing to exit ID in four, three, two, one…now!” She moved her hands sharply and they all felt the strange transition back to realspace.
Lili took a deep breath. “Reentry successful, preparing to—” Her words were cut off as a blast hit the shuttle with such force that she thought it was going to rip itself apart. They began to plummet.
“Damn!” she swore, fighting the controls. “Vorjak, Kodact, get in harnesses now! We’re going to crash!” Try as she could, she couldn’t slow their descent. The controls simply weren’t responding. Transfixed and helpless, she watched the Antarctican terrain rush up towards her as they spiraled down. She threw her hands in front of her face as just as they hit the ice.
The first sensation she had upon coming to was that of extreme cold. She opened her eyes to find that she was under a piece of wreckage. The shuttle was half buried in the snow, but it seemed in fairly good condition. Taelon shuttles, thankfully, did not explode or otherwise catch fire. She pulled herself to her feet and stumbled over to the ship.
“Vorjak!” she shouted, the wind stealing her words as she spoke them. She crawled through the hull to the inside of the shuttle. “Vorjak!”
She heard a sound coming from the back. Rushing over, she found her companion still strapped into the chair, which had come loose and overturned. She fumbled to unstrap him and pull him clear of the chair.
“Vorjak?” she asked, trying to bring him around. “C’mon Vorjak, talk to me, let me know you’re okay.”
He coughed and his eyes refocused. “I am, as you say, ‘okay’.”
Lili smiled with relief and helped him to his feet. “You had me scared there for a minute.”
He reached up to touch her forehead. “You are injured.”
She felt the spot he was touching. “It’s just a cut,” she dismissed. “I’ll be fine. Help me tend to the others.”
They made their way up to the front of the shuttle. Only when Lili’s back was turned did Vorjak allow himself to wince at the pain from the wound in his stomach. It wasn’t fatal, but it did need treatment.
“Kodact, Nestchik, can you hear me?” Lili said. “Vorjak, help me, I don’t know how to get a Jaridian pulse.
Vorjak moved beside her to see their bodies, covered in black wounds, no longer oozing blood. He shook his head.
“Are they…?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
“Yes,” he said, his voice not betraying his emotions.
A choked sob escaped from Lili. Vorjak looked at her. “They were…my friends…” she said. “They were my friends.”
“And mine,” he replied solemnly. Just then, they heard the sound of snowmobiles outside, and voices, human voices. “We must leave,” he said. He led the way through a hole in the other side of the hull and they sheltered themselves from the storm, watching as men in white parkas examined the crash site.
“We cannot allow ourselves to be captured by them,” he whispered. “Stay low.”
“What are you—” she stared to ask, but gave up. He was already out of hearing range. She could barely see through the snow, but she could make out Vorjak’s figure dimly. He lifted his arm and a surge of energy leapt out at the men. She ran from behind the cover of the shuttle towards him. Taking another shot, Vorjak grabbed her by the arm and pulled her after him as he ran for they snowmobile parked only meters away. Lili heard shots behind them, but knew the men had little hope of hitting them in this weather.
“Rostok!” she exclaimed, seeing the markings on the vehicle, as she and Vorjak climbed onto the snowmobile. “Oh, this is wonderful.”
“May I assume this is an example of
your Human ‘sarcasm’?” Vorjak asked, his arms holding tightly to her waist as
she sped them over the icy landscape. The wind was howling and snow was blowing
everywhere. Lili was freezing, but not nearly as cold as she should be,
considering she was in the coldest place on earth wearing only a Taelon
jumpsuit. Must be the new body chemistry.
“Rostok is a criminal empire,” she explained. “These are not nice people we’re talking about. Who the hell shot us down, anyway?”
“Taelons,” he replied tightly. She felt him tense up, could sense his barely restrained hate for them. “The never wanted us to make contact with Earth, never want humanity have a chance to hear our story. That is why it is vital that we stay alive and out of Taelon hands. Even the hands of a criminal would be preferable to Zo’or’s.”
“That’s what you think,” muttered Lili. After that, there was only ice and cold and speed and more ice and snow and wind for a very long time.
Until the snowmobile ran out of fuel.
“I knew we should have taken the power cell from the shuttle!” Lili exclaimed, angrily kicking the useless vehicle.
“No time,” Vorjak told her. “And we would not have been able to make it compatible in time either.” He looked at her intently. “Are you well, Lili?” he asked. She could detect carefully hidden worry in his voice. She was very pale.
She shook her head. “No, not really.” She sagged against the snowmobile. “In fact, I feel like I have the flu.” She was panting, too.
He helped her sit down, sheltered from the worst of the wind by the snowmobile.
“Sandoval said I couldn’t survive on earth by myself anymore,” she said. “I didn’t really believe him, but I’m having trouble breathing. I’ll die within twelve hours.”
“No, you won’t,” he told her firmly. “Is the child…?”
“Junior’s still moving around. I think he’s fine,” Lili said.
He nodded, inspecting her condition. “You are hurt more than you led me to believe!” he said, seeing the severe laceration on her hand. The wound on her forehead was still bleeding.
“So are you,” she said with a weak, wry smile. “There should be a medical kit under the seat,” she said. There was, and he bound her wounds under her careful guidance.
“I need to see if we are being followed,” said Vorjak. “Can you stay here alone?” he asked apologetically.
“I’m a Marine,” she said. “Go.”
He was only gone a few minutes, but when he came tramping back through the snow to where he had left her, he could see that she was much worse.
He hurried over and knelt beside, putting his hand to her forehead. She only half opened her eyes.
“You have a fever,” he said, stroking her hair gently. It was getting colder. None of them could live for much longer in this cold, assuming their wounds didn’t drain them completely of energy first.
She coughed slightly. “Among other things,” she agreed, taking his hand in hers and pressing it to her belly. The baby moved only slightly, and Lili knew it, too was weakening quickly. She could see Vorjak shared her thought. His first concern was for the child, she knew. So was hers. “I’m so sorry things turned out this way,” she whispered.
“Sorry?” he replied, his other hand on her shoulder. “Was it not you who taught me the word ‘hope’?” He smiled at her, even though she knew he was afraid for her life, and the baby’s.
Just then, a shaft of light blinded them. It was a Rostok soldier. Lili brought her gun up and fired, automatically pushing Vorjak down behind her. She felled the soldier, but she knew there would be more coming.
“We have to move, she said, painfully struggling to her feet. She coughed. “Wait, take the radio. We might need it.”
Vorjak didn’t argue, just grabbed the radio from the derelict vehicle and then slung her arm around his shoulder. They limped on as quickly as they could, and he had to admire her stoicism. It befitted a Jaridian woman.
They went on for nearly an hour, until they found a tiny cave, just big enough to shelter them. They crawled in, huddling together for warmth.
“We can’t survive much longer,” Lili said. “I’m radioing for help.”
“You can not!” he exclaimed vehemently. “The Taelons will discover our signal.”
“They might,” she conceded. “But the chances are low if I use a closed, military-band frequency. It’s a risk we’ll have to take.”
“No, it is not acceptable,” Vorjak said firmly.
“Damn you,” she returned. “Look at yourself. You have maybe an hour before you bleed to death. We will die if no one finds us soon, and there’s a good chance that if I called for help now, the right people will find us first. You can have your pride and rot for all I care, but I’m not going to let my child freeze to death in Antarctica, when we could have been rescued!”
They stared each other down for a moment. Finally, Vorjak nodded. “You are right, Lili,” he said.
She nodded and picked up the radio, trying to get it working. She prayed that Liam and Augur had figured out she was alive. If anyone can find me, it’s Augur, she though to herself.
“Mayday,” she spoke into the radio. “Mayday, this is Captain Marquette, is anyone listening?” She took a deep breath and said again, with more than a hint of desperation in her voice, “I repeat, mayday. This is Captain Marquette. Mayday.” She paused for breath in the thin air. “Mayday this is Captain Marquette. Augur, Liam, if you’re listening,” Please be listening, she prayed silently, “I’m in Southern Sector Rostok. Coordinates Alpha-7-9. My companion is critical; we’re both hurt. Our vehicle is disabled. Can you read?”
Nothing but static. Then, suddenly, the most wonderful voice she had ever heard in her life crackled over the little field radio. “Lili, just hold on!” Liam’s voice, tinny through the static, told her.
She grinned her relief at Vorjak. “Everything’s going to be alright she told him.”
“Who is that?” he demanded, wincing at the pain from his wound.
“That’s the best friend I ever had,” she told him. She turned back to the radio, to give some sign to Liam that she could hear him, when weapons fire hit just above their hiding spot. “Oh, God!” she yelled, her finger still on the call button. “Vorjak, get down!” she screamed, diving to cover him.
The next shot hit the radio, killing it just as she heard Augur’s voice saying, “Lili? Lili, come in!”
Seconds later they were overrun with Rostok troops. “We have to surrender,” she whispered to Vorjak. “There’s no other option.”
He gritted his teeth in human manner but assented.
“Don’t worry,” she told him, not at all sure. “We’ll get out of this one.”
“Hope, correct?” he rasped.
“Yes,” she said, smiling bravely for his benefit. “Hope.”
The soldiers took them, firmly but gently, into a closed vehicle. It was actually fairly warm in there. They said nothing.
“Where are you taking us?” Lili demanded. They didn’t answer. Finally, she gave up trying to find out what was happening and focused her attention on her own injuries, the baby, and Vorjak’s wounds. The ride wasn’t long, but the pain and difficulty breathing made it seem like an eternity.
Finally the vehicle stopped and they were herded out and marched across some ice to a ship. Lili put on her stoic, proud Marine face as they were taken below, to the hold. She hid her surprise to see Sandoval standing there. He handed the head of the troops that had captured them something, and congratulated him.
The man uttered a not-so-veiled threat about what would happen if everything was not in order and left.
“Alright,” Sandoval ordered to the doctors in the hold. “Let’s get them prepped.” He walked over to Lili. She stood there straight and tall and very much aware of her thickening waistline and the child she carried. Her face betrayed no emotion.
“Welcome back, Captain,” he said in that way of his that always made her want to rip him apart. “I trust you had an enlightening journey.”
She could sense Vorjak standing behind her. “I never thought I’d live to say this, Sandoval,” she said evenly. “But finally, you did something right.”
Sandoval turned to that wretched, worm of a man, Tate and nodded. “Release him.” Tate signaled the guards and they let Vorjak go. Then they came and took Lili over to a gurney and helped her lie down. She was too weak to resist, and it would have been pointless anyway.
“Welcome back to Earth, Vorjak,” Sandoval said.
“Who fired on us?” he demanded, already knowing the answer but wanted confirmation. Lili could see that his mood was a delicate one, built of rage at the Taelons, fear for her, and worry for the child.
“Taelons.”
“Then Zo’or knows we are here.”
Sandoval explained that Zo’or only knew that two Jaridians had been killed, and that he had no knowledge of Lili and Vorjak’s presence.
Vorjak nodded his satisfaction. “You have done your species proud, Agent Sandoval.” His eyes met Lili’s across the room and his entire posture and expression softened. “And the female you provided us. She is quite…extraordinary.”
Lili smiled at him and nodded. She understood. Her attention was taken from the conversation between Vorjak and Sandoval by sharp pains coursing through her body. She knew, distantly, that Vorjak was talking about her as though she were an object again. But it didn’t bother her. He did what he had to, and it didn’t make him care her any less.
Dimly, she saw his wounds being treated. The doctors tried to get him to lie down as well, but he insisted upon standing. He stayed mostly at Lili’s side, but often moved away to pace off his frustration.
“What is her temperature?” he demanded for the tenth time.
“104,” Tate replied. “But we’re pumping fluids,” he assured the Jaridian. “We’ll bring it down.”
The man’s smug superiority angered Vorjak. He stepped protectively between Tate and Lili. “You may know your medicine, but you do not know mine,” he growled at the agent, who took a reflexive step back. “Leave us!”
Tate left and Vorjak turned his attention to Lili. He scanned her with a device he’d managed to rescue from the crash.
“I warned you, Vorjak,” she painfully. “Sandoval changed my blood so that I can never come back.
“Lili,” he said, putting down the device and stroking her hair soothingly. “The transfusions you were given were of my blood, my biology. To prepare you.”
Lili closed her eyes, momentarily at peace under his touch. Then her back arched in pain, and she heard a machine beep in the background. “Vorjak!” she cried, clutching his hand.
“It’s the hypermetabolic agents,” he muttered, still with his hand comfortingly stroking her head. “The Human blood chemistry cannot neutralize them.” He turned to look at Sandoval. “She needs Taelon energy, energy that allows them to live for centuries.”
Lili could hear the clear desperation in his voice, and she was fairly sure even those not familiar with him could pick it up too.
“We must infuse her with it immediately, or the fetus will die!” He turned back to Lili, who was only half-conscious. Her forehead was hot like fire his touch. He said more softly, but no less desperately, “Lili will die.” His face twisted in agony at seeing her so helpless and pain-wracked. He spun around to face Sandoval.
“Where is the Taelon?!” he thundered.
“The Taelon is right here, Vorjak,” he replied, nonplussed. Lili only peripherally sensed the other gurney being wheeled in, but she felt the presence immediately. It was Da’an.
She looked up at Vorjak. “I’m dying, Vorjak,” she whispered. “I know it.”
“No,” he said firmly, placing a hand on her shoulder. “The Taelon energy will stabilize you.” He looked straight in her deep, dark, eyes to hold her with him. “And then our child will be born. The first Jaridian/Human.”
Now he was the one giving her hope. With the briefest of smiles she turned her head so that she could see Da’an. Their hands reached out together and they met in the Sharing. Everything else faded away. It was only him and her.
Their relationship had always seemed undefined to those around them, but Lili and Da’an had always known exactly where they stood with each other. There was just no way to express it in Human words, Lili had tried. He was not her lover, but also in no way less than a lover. He was far more than a friend, but not like a sibling. He’d taught her the Taelon word for it. Euaie’lithal. Soul-partner.
In this Sharing, they were “standing” face-to-face in while place. There was nothing, literally, but them.
“I’m sorry, Da’an,” Lili blurted out. “I didn’t want them to do this to you.”
Da’an nodded gracefully. “Things have changed, Euaie’lithal,” he said.
“Da’an…I may have to make a decision that will hurt you very much. Will you ever forgive me?”
“It is already done,” he replied, even though he couldn’t have known what she was referring to.
“I don’t want to hurt you, ever. You know that, don’t you?” she begged him.
Da’an half-smiled secretly. “Yes. Go in peace, Euaie’lithal.”
Her face crumpled as she held back tears in the face of his nobility. He couldn’t know what she was asking of him. “Da’an…I may never get a chance to say this to you. I love you.”
He closed his eyes in silent acknowledgement and broke contact. Lili was left alone. She slept only fitfully, think she his voice in her dreams saying, “It will all work out.”
When Lili awoke she felt different. Her skin felt dry and itchy, and her vision was blurry. She touched her forehead and her skin was bumpy and scaly. “Vorjak!” she cried out softly. He was instantly at her side.
“What’s happening to me?” she asked, afraid.
He stroked her hair in that way of his, and she relaxed. “It is the change I told you about. It is happening more quickly than I anticipated.”
She nodded. “I’m afraid Vorjak. Don’t leave me.”
He brushed her forehead and cheek with his lips, in the human way she had once done to him, when she had seen him worrying over the future of his people. “I will never leave you, Lili.”
She smiled, reassured. After a moment she asked, “I know this is silly and adolescent, but…will I lose my hair in the change?
He looked kindly at her. “I do not know. I hope not.” He ran his hand through it. “What you look like will not change what is between us. Nothing can do that.”
“Nothing,” she repeated tiredly.
“Rest now,” he said. “Save your strength, my brave frak’neth. My beautiful, strong, Li’a’li.
She nodded, pleased, and closed her eyes, listing to his soothing words.
As Lili lay resting, the sudden sound of gunshots was heard from above. Lili heard Sandoval frantically trying to figure out what was happening. As all the people seemed to be leaving, all except Vorjak and Da’an, who was still asleep, the hatch door burst open.
Liam and Renee Palmer, whom she had been acquainted with for sometime, ran in, guns blazing. As Lili watched, Vorjak standing protectively over her, Liam and Sandoval raised their weapons at each other. Lili wanted to scream at them not to fire, that they were family, but she couldn’t
Sandoval seemed surprisingly resistant to shooting. The distance between them narrowed, until they were only a meter apart. Finally, Sandoval fired first, Liam a spit second after. Lili could see from the color of Sandoval’s blast that Raven had no intent to kill. The energy blasts met in midair and the shock threw them both backwards.
Sandoval limped away as fast as he could, and Renee helped Liam to his feet. He hurried over to where Lili was laying. She was so glad to see him, but too weak to show it properly. She could tell that he wanted to take her in his arms, but Vorjak’s body language prohibited it. Liam could see that they were lovers, and that Vorjak had the right of being the one to be closest to her now.
She could also see the shock register in his eyes at the appearance of her mottled skin and lizard-like eye, and his confusion at Da’an’s presence.
“Lili!” he said, emotions of gladness, horror, and fear for her warring within him. “My God, what’s happening to you?”
She looked up in to the gray-green eyes that were so familiar to her. “I’m changing, Liam,” she said with difficulty. “The final metamorphosis before I become a Jaridian mother.” Her soulful eyes held all the affirmation of her love and friendship he’d ever need. Suddenly, her back arched in pain, and Vorjak put his hands to her shoulder and belly.
Through the pain she dimly heard Renee say, “She’s dying!” Liam’s jaw clenched at the news. He couldn’t lose her again.
Her pain ebbed then, and she heard Da’an say, “You come in peace.” He sat up. “Yet death remains rooted in your methods.” He was looking directly at Vorjak. “Do you expect Captain Marquette to make the ultimate sacrifice for this hybrid child?”
Lili forced her to look at him, her eyes filled with sorrow. “No, he doesn’t.”
Da’an looked at her for long moment, those blue eyes she loved so well regarding her sadly. “Then I have been anointed,” he said calmly.
Liam saw the expression on his Companions face and guessed enough to be worried. He hurried to the alien’s side. “What are you talking about, Da’an?”
Lili half sat, though Vorjak tried to stop her. She uttered the words that hurt her more than anything else she had ever said in her life. She almost couldn’t do it. But she knew what the right choice was. No, not the right choice she told herself. When someone must die either way, there is no real, right choice. But it was the only that she, as a soldier, and a mother, and sentient being could make.
“This child,” she forced herself to say, “is Jaridian and Human. If it is to survive, Da’an must be sacrificed.”
Their eyes met for a moment, and she could see his hurt, even behind the understanding. *I’m so, so, sorry* she thought to him, knowing he would hear.
*So
am I* he responded, his soothing voice inside her head. *It is all right, Euaie’lithal. You must do
what you must do. I am one. You must consider many. I am old. You must consider
the young one. It is all right*
It wasn’t all right, Lili thought. But his acceptance was the only thing that allowed her to live with it. She turned over on her side and squeezed Vorjak’s hand for comfort. Pain was still coursing through her body. And inside, her heart was breaking with a feeling of anguish a hundred times worse than anything she had ever felt before.
She wanted to cry, to release the awful feeling inside her, but her reptilian eyes didn’t make tears anymore. Her body shook with the silent sorrow she couldn’t express. I’m sorry, she sobbed wordlessly over and over again. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.