Ark: A Scifi Alien Romance Read online

I sighed and went to the supply closet. “What’re you doing?” Melissa asked, standing up.

  I opened the closet and searched inside, pulling a shovel out. “I must bury him; it is unseemly for him to lie like this. I must conduct the funeral ritual.”

  I heard Melissa walk toward me, felt her hands on my arm and waist. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Ark. Is there anything I can do?”

  I closed the supply closet, my shovel in hand. “There is nothing to grieve, Melissa Crane of Earth. Admiral Kaalax is gone from this existence. He will be remembered for all time across the Kreossian Empire, but all that is left is a husk that must be cared for.”

  Melissa nodded, and stepped back, giving me more space. “If there’s anything I can do…” she started.

  “There is nothing.” She looked away, clearly hurt by my harsh words. “I will let you know if that changes,” I whispered. She nodded, and smiled.

  “I’ll be over here.”

  I nodded and went outside the ship. The sun beat down on the jungle, and its heat made the work of digging slow and tiring. Still, it felt good to be doing something with my hands, something whose success I could measure, even if it was only a growing pile of dirt. After 30 minutes I had a hole big enough for Admiral Kaalax’ body, and after consecrating it in the way of my people, I went back inside to retrieve him.

  The Admiral looked at peace, his features softened and relaxed in the rigors of death. I said the warrior’s death ritual as I carried him out to the grave, chanting loudly and solemnly the chants that my people had used for untold millennia when a warrior of stature had moved on from this existence.

  I had never performed the funeral rituals by myself before and I was briefly worried that I wouldn’t be able to do a warrior like Kaalax justice. Again I was reminded of how strange he was - despite his legendary status as a warrior, I knew that he would never have wanted the huge funeral he had earned.

  The ritual was short and to the point. After it was done, I lay Admiral Kaalax in the ground and lit him on fire. Despite our natural resistance to fire in life, in death, we were just as susceptible as any other being would be to its effects, and Admiral Kaalax burned long and bright, a fire that warmed me as the light from the sun fell away and night came on, with all its pronounced sounds and movements in the deep brush of the jungle.

  I heard Melissa come outside and watch as the fire burned, and when it was out I used the shovel to cover up the body and lock him out of sight. I didn’t leave any marker in its place - the Kreossian Empire would undoubtedly designate this entire planet a fitting grave site for its most celebrated warrior, and an actual memorial site would be built right here in time. She did not say a word, and I appreciated that.

  This was a ceremony just for Kreossian warriors.

  Afterward, remembering Kaalax’ fire, I made another fire next to the ship and sat beside it. Melissa sat next to me, and we both stared into the flames. My people had a casual and easy relationship with fire - we were born of it, and though it pained us to be inside it, we could not burn in our natural form.

  I tossed Melissa her emergency ration brick and took a bite from mine, slowly chewing and making the flavor last. It was a strange thing to have all one’s nutrition compressed into such a small volume of matter - even though it was enough to keep me nourished and energetic for the next day, I still felt like I should be eating more.

  Melissa opened her container and broke off a tiny piece of the supplement inside, ruminating as she chewed. After sealing and putting the container down, she looked at me. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”

  I knew of whom she spoke. “Your Ambassador Fuller.”

  Melissa nodded, the flame catching her eyes again. “I keep expecting him to step out of the ship and ask me what’s going on and why haven’t we left yet. I worked for him for a long time.”

  “I know the feeling.”

  “This was his life’s work, you know? This meeting with Admiral Kaalax - this was all Fuller lived for, ever since they met the first time.”

  “I understand that first contact can be…difficult and tumultuous on the lesser species.”

  “Lesser? Is that what you think we are?”

  I set aside my own container. “Is that not the truth?”

  “No, Ark,” Melissa said, sadness in her yes. “Of course not. We’re not lesser just because you’ve been out here in the galaxy conquering worlds before us. You’ve got a head start on us, that’s all.”

  “That may be the case, but if the Kreossian Empire had less benevolent motives, or if you had made contact with another species first…”

  “You’re right on that point. We’re lucky you found us before anyone else did. But don’t make the mistake in thinking that makes you better than us.”

  After that, we sat in silence for a few minutes while I thought over her words. Admiral Kaalax had said similar words to me on many an occasion and I had not given them much credence despite how thoughtful and enlightened I knew him to be. “You may well speak the truth, Melissa.”

  “Thank you for saying that,” she said, softly. I looked over at her and I saw the tears falling free from her eyes.

  “You miss Ambassador Fuller,” I said. It wasn’t a question.

  “I do,” she whispered back. “More than I ever thought possible.”

  “I didn’t know anything about him.”

  “He was the best humanity had to offer. He was fond of saying that all he did with his life was take a meeting, but the truth was that he did so much more for the people of Earth. He was a symbol of what we could be when we put aside our differences and reached for the stars.”

  “He sounds like a very important man to your planet.”

  “He was, and he was so much more than that. He wasn’t just a symbol - as much as he gave credit to others, he was working tirelessly behind the scenes, trying to make sure that humanity was ready for what was to come. Whatever he and Kaalax talked about during that first meeting 50 years ago really resonated with Fuller - he spent the rest of his life trying to make sure Earth was ready for the meeting on the station and whatever would come after it.”

  The reverent tone in which she spoke of this man she had worked with for so long touched me, and I knew that she held Fuller in as high a regard as I held Admiral Kaalax.

  “I am sorry for your loss, Melissa Crane of Earth,” I replied after a moment. “We have both lost important people.”

  Melissa nodded and shuffled closer. I saw her shiver as the night approached and grew dark and cold, despite the embers of the fire before us. Almost without thinking about it I reached my arm out and pulled her in close to me.

  Melissa sighed as she snuggled in to my arm, pressing herself against my side. Neither of us spoke, and I looked deep into the fire, trying to learn something new about the path I should take going forward.

  I still thought the humans had the most reason to sabotage the station and short circuit the initiation into the Commonwealth. Of course, at the time humans didn’t know what that would entail, and I knew from the reports sent back by the advanced scout team that there existed a sizable network of groups of dissidents spread around the planet, all working together to try and make sure any further engagement with the Kreossian Empire did not occur.

  It was by far most likely that one of these splinter groups had managed to infiltrate the apparatus set up to build and launch the station into orbit and fly it to the assigned location and plant the explosive devices inside, programmed to go off just as the conference was ending. This made the most sense to me.

  At the same time, though, I had two voices, one in my head and one pressed comfortably against me, spreading pleasurable thoughts throughout my body, that both said the same thing: humans did not do this. This wasn’t the fault of Earth.

  I knew neither of these voices spoke with the force of evidence, but at the same time I couldn’t just ignore them. Admiral Kaalax had been a fearsome warrior and commander - if he had reason to believe h
umanity was responsible for this disaster, he would have led the fleet to reduce Earth to a charred mass of rubble himself.

  That he cautioned me against this course of action was a testament to both his charity and his belief in the value of humans. Besides Melissa Crane cuddled up against me, I had yet to share that belief.

  Melissa was doing a very good job of changing my mind, however. The idea of her being my mate no longer troubled me as it had before. It would have been simple for her to fall apart and wallow in despair at our situation, but she had taken it in stride so far and shown remarkable courage, given her previous life experience.

  She was not only beautiful and intriguing, she was also far more resilient than I had initially given her credit for. I blinked as I realized that I was quickly growing fond of her.

  “Hey,” Melissa whispered, her face close to my ear as I gripped my arm around her tighter, pulling her closer to me. “What about us getting rescued?”

  “The Kreossian fleet will come after us soon, once they realize we are late in returning from the conference.” I turned to look at her. “Your people won’t mount a rescue operation? Do they not value their people’s lives?”

  Melissa tapped me on the chest, and her voice hardened. “We went over this - we don’t have the technology or the logistical support to send out rescue missions into deep space. It took almost the entire planet working at full capacity for a decade to build the station itself and send it to the rendezvous point. There’s no budget for rescue operations.”

  I shook my head, staring back into the fire. “One wonders why Admiral Kaalax took such an interest in your people in the first place. He could have waited another one hundred or two hundred of your years before making contact - you would have been much better prepared to assume your place in the galaxy.”

  Melissa smiled. “At least you’ve started to sound like you think we belong here at all. That’s a big change in such a short amount of time.” She curled her arms around my neck and I felt her heart beat against my chest. It felt so small and fragile, like it needed to be protected from the jungle all around us.

  The jungle that probably wanted to kill us. The only thing keeping us alive was our will to survive.

  I leaned my head toward her, making eye contact. “My views on humanity may be…evolving, as the situation develops.”

  Melissa let out a short laugh. “You are a master of understatement, Ark, but I won’t complain about it too much. At least you’re evolving in the right direction. That’s better than planning Earth’s destruction.”

  I gave her a long look. “I still have not my made up my mind about that, Melissa.” She looked shocked and hurt. “And plus, were I to decide to destroy your planet, I would not need a plan to do so.”

  She raised an eyebrow at me.

  “All I would have to do was issue one command and your planet would disappear.”

  Melissa leaned forward against my chest, and I felt her breath on my neck. “In that case, I’m especially glad your views on humanity are evolving in the right direction.” She sat up again, getting right in my face. “You still think we were the ones who did this? You still think we sabotaged the conference?”

  “It does make the most sense, given what I know about your people and how much they resist outside influence and cooperation.”

  “You don’t think that might be because all your people do is say ‘here, build this when you’re ready and we’ll come back and talk some more?’ You don’t think that might be just a little ominous? How did we know you weren’t coming back here to cook us and serve us for dinner?”

  “I doubt humans would taste very good as a meal, or be effective sustenance.”

  “This coming from a guy who prefers nutritional supplements in their natural and tasteless form.”

  “I rarely concern myself with the taste of food. I have more important things to do with my time.”

  “Whole lot of worlds to destroy out there, yeah? How do you keep track of them all?”

  I gave her a side eye. “You mock me.”

  “I do. I’m sorry about that.” Melissa sighed. “It’s just that a lot has happened in the last couple days and making terrible jokes is the only way I can deal with it. Plus, there’s the whole ‘you can destroy my planet and everything we’ve ever done with a single command’ thing - that has a way of bringing out the gallows humor in me.”

  I looked into the fire again. “Everyone deals with loss in their own particular way.”

  “Most people don’t have the option to blow up a planet to get revenge, though. You gotta admit, that’s a little rare.”

  “It is. But Admiral Kaalax was no ordinary Kreossian. The empire will have satisfaction for his death.”

  “Earth didn’t have anything to do with that.”

  I could tell we were about to get into a further argument about humanity’s culpability in Admiral Kaalax’ death, but we were cut off by a sound, long and loud and shrill, that pierced the night and made Melissa sit up and look all around.

  It was an animal’s call. And from the sound and volume of it, it was not far from us; and it was large. Scanners from orbit hadn’t suggested the planet was inhabited, but with the denseness of the atmosphere from the outside looking in it was entirely possible there were civilizations living here that we had missed on our initial orbital survey.

  I had not planned on telling Melissa that, but now she knew.

  We were not alone here.

  “What was that?” she whispered, still looking around from side to side, trying to see if something was coming closer. My senses told me we were safe for now, but that could change at any moment.

  I reached up my hand and curled it around the back of Melissa’s head, guiding her back to my chest. “We are not alone here. But we are safe, for now, Melissa,” I whispered.

  She shuddered as the side of her head made contact with me. “It sounded angry and mean.”

  “It may very well be both of those things, but we will be fine for tonight.”

  “And tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow I will go and see what we are dealing with and whether I can reason with it.”

  Melissa shuddered, clearly remembering the call. As if to remind her, the beast called out again, and she clung to me, snuggling even closer to me. “It doesn’t sound like something that can be reasoned with,” she whispered, affixing those eyes to me once again.

  Words could not describe how much I enjoyed that look, and how much I realized I wanted more of it on me.

  “If that is the case, Melissa, I will find a different way to reason with it than words.”

  Melissa smiled, and leaned in closer, and without waiting for a second thought I moved closer and kissed her. She didn’t draw back or recoil from my kiss, and we lay there beside the dying fire, our faces joined together, for long enough that I stopped keeping track of time.

  I had no idea when we finally fell asleep.

  I woke up the next morning as the sun came up and the wind picked up in concert. I opened my eyes, immediately alert, and found Melissa laying across my chest, her arms still wrapped around my neck. She was sleeping peacefully, and I greatly enjoyed the feel of her warm breath against my skin.

  Without disturbing her, I removed her arms from my neck and got up, taking care to set her back down on the ground in roughly the same position she had taken lying across me. Melissa did not seem to know the difference in her state, and she kept on sleeping without interruption.

  I stretched and moved further away, looking up at the sky to try and determine the coming weather. It looked like it would be another warm and windy, but thankfully dry, day, and for that I was grateful. We had many challenges on this planet, and luckily the weather worked in our favor.