Page 5 of Mated By Twilight

It wouldn’t be a problem for much longer though. When she was taken off the planet and brought to the spaceship embassy that orbited Earth somewhere beyond the moon, she would be taught the language he was speaking. There were some other things about immigration she’d have to go through, but she didn’t really know much about it, and she was kind of afraid to ask.

So, she just followed Trixie as she was brought up to the roof of the building. This facility was isolated, out in the middle of nowhere, only accessible through a single car lane that was guarded on both ends with another guarded checkpoint in the middle. A huge gate in a tall wall separated the compound from the wild area around it. There was a lot of security here becausethis was where aliens from the orbiting spaceships would land and live when they came to Earth.

Mating an alien wasn’t an easy process. After Leah got the email, she had been given Trixie’s number – she was the coordinator for human immigrants into space. Trixie had, in turn, given her step by step instructions for what she needed to do, but it was a lot, and Leah had never been the person in charge of these things before.

She had to pack what she wanted to bring, sell everything else, and apply for a passport because the only spaceport off Earth was in Switzerland. Leah had never even thought about leaving the States. Her parents would wonder why anyone would since the world, in their eyes, were a bunch of godless, worldly blasphemers, and the only good people were the ones in their little privately owned suburban paradise. It was just another thing that Leah had internalized without meaning to. She didn’t even realize until she had to go through the process of getting the passport just how afraid she was of the outside world.

When she got to Switzerland, Trixie was able to take over handling her. She spent one night in a hotel here, and then was driven to this compound by a severe faced man in a dark vehicle. She had everything she owned in a few suitcases that were taken when they arrived to be loaded onto the landing shuttle. Waiting for that shuttle was all she had to do.

But it was here now, and Leah was about to throw up. She couldn’t believe she was leaving Earth to meet up with a guy she’d only ever communicated with through messages. She hadn’t sent very many to him, bothered by how bad the translation software was. She would think that aliens would have better technology than that. But maybe she was being unfair. They had only learned English a couple years ago, andit took decades for human technology to get good at translating between human tongues that had the same root language. It wouldn’t be fair for her to expect perfection from aliens. She just had to struggle to read past the errors.

What did come through, strong and clear, was his desire to meet her. To have her come out to space to join him – he couldn’t come here. Aliens could only live on Earth if they worked for the Coalition embassies, or if they gave up their entire life, and all their comfortable technology, to live on a planet that still had prejudicial issues with different species.

It was much easier for Leah to leave. It wasn’t like she had anything left for her on Earth anyway. Her family refused to speak to her, she didn’t have any friends, and her job as a waitress was one that anyone could fill.

‘Come out to us! We’ll love you. We’ll give you tenderness. We want you. Please.’

That was the message that finally convinced her to go. It was more terrifying than the day she left her family. She didn’t know what it meant that he wanted to give her tenderness – that had to be a translation error. It was also weird that the translation software kept making him say ‘we’ instead of ‘I’, but she understood the gist. At least, unlike when she ran away, she was choosing this.

She chose this, she repeated to herself like a mantra as Trixie brought her to the open door of the landing shuttle.

It wasn’t a large ship. She’d compare it to the lead car of a bullet train – slick and shiny, but not that big, all things considered. The shiny metal was trimmed in silver and bronze. It was decorative in some places, someone had clearly gone through the trouble of making it look nice.

Leah just stared at it, discomfort roiling in her belly.

The landing pad was on the roof – like it was a helicopter. All around, a sea of green trees swayed gently in the breeze. The world smelled fresh and clean here.

And behind the shuttle was the bright blue sky.

Beckoning her. Daring her to run. To flee from the fear that was eating her up inside.

It was a call that was all too tempting to answer. It wasn’t too late. She could just turn around, leave this place, and forget this crazy idea ever popped into her head as a possibility.

The bright blue sky promised freedom. It promised escape.

It promised a life always on the run, never getting the rest and safety she desired.

Her hands tightened on her bag as she banished the thought. She was runningtoher future. She wasn’t running away from her past. That’s what the bright blue sky was beckoning her towards. And that’s where she would go.

“So, you just climb on and take a seat,” Trixie explained calmly, unaware of the internal struggle Leah was facing. “The pilot will take care of everything. When you arrive at the orbital, someone else will take you through the medical and imprinting processes. We have a transport ship coming in tomorrow to pick you up. It will take you to a place called Holotulle – that’s the capital of the Coalition. There will be someone there to oversee you until you’re picked up. You won’t be left alone at any stage of the process. Okay?”

Yeah, that was definitely better than running out of a church, away from her family, with no job, nowhere to go, and only the ridiculous clothes on her back.

Leah nodded. “Okay. Thank you for helping me.”

“Sure,” Trixie smiled and stepped back as the door opened. “Have a great life, Ms. Williams. And remember, if you ever need help, you can go to any domini or ratchi embassy at any time. We’ll conduct our mandatory review after you are picked up by your mates.”

Leah had been climbing the short steps that dropped from the bottom of the open doorway as she spoke. She turned, confused, certain that she heard her say ‘mates’. But she didn’t get a chance to say anything to the smiling Trixie as the door slid shut behind her. She must have just misheard because she’d been reading the mistranslated messages, that’s all.

The pilot was in a closed cabin, but his voice came over the intercom urging her to sit wherever. Every seat was open, though there were only twelve. It made the small space seem incredibly huge as she picked the nearest one and sat back.

She was still searching for a seatbelt when she felt the ship begin to lift.

“Oh, wait, hold on. I don’t have my seatbeltyet!” She finished with a yelp as they suddenly took off. The jolt wasn’t too dramatic, but it was enough to make her clench the arms of the seats. No seatbelt on a moving vehicle just feltwrong.

She was still searching for it a short time later when the shuttle rocked, and she heard the distinct groan and thuds of huge pieces of metal banging together. But there was no way theywere already here, right? It had only been a few minutes; surely, it should be longer than that.

However, the door opened as she was debating what to do and she flinched. She wasn’t met with the unforgiving vacuum of space, however, but instead a large, green reptilian man in a charcoal gray suit with a blue tie, and long, bright yellow quills on his head.

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