Page 13 of I Married Amreth

That he was one of the most prominent figures of our organization seemed to confirm that they were indeed after our members.

My stomach knotted when I glanced back at Brett and our abductors. He appeared to be arguing with the female, whosuddenly waved her hand with an air of aggravation. A gasp escaped me when Brett’s head fell back onto his pillow, and he appeared to lose consciousness.

Does she have psionic powers?

Even as that thought crossed my mind, I remembered how the simian seemed to knock me out on the ship. But he hadn’t moved or even seemed to react when the female made that gesture.

The mattress—which had been tilted upward to have Brett in a semi-sitting position—lowered back to a horizontal state. As it did so, the two aliens started walking towards the glass wall separating my room from Brett’s.

The entire glass pane slid open with a soft swish. Heart pounding, I watched them silently approach, their gazes assessing me. Despite the absence of apparent aggression from either of them, fear twisted my insides.

As they approached, and now without the debilitating pain that had blurred my vision back on the ship, I got a better look at the pair. There was no question I had never seen either species before. The strangest black patterns adorned the female’s grayish-white skin. For the briefest instant, it brought to mind the sickness that previously affected the Xelixians, a species located in the Western Quadrant. But beyond the fact that their illness had been cured over a decade ago, her markings were a lot more organized, not the random chaos of the disease that had spread black, veiny tendrils all over the Xelixians’ bodies. This felt more like the patterns of a tiger but restricted to specific areas of her body.

She had long, pitch-black hair and very pale eyes with an otherwise very human appearance. Her companion also possessed the body of a human except covered in the same brown fur of an ape. His face had undeniably simian traits, especially the nose and eyes. But his mouth could have belongedto one of us. The thicker fur around his head acted like a fluffy and lustrous mane. He, too, was observing me with yellowish brown eyes brimming with intelligence. Thankfully, they were devoid of the anger he displayed on the ship before knocking me out.

Even as they completed their approach, the upper half of my mattress started tilting up, putting me in the same semi-sitting position that Brett had been. I didn’t see either of them activate the switch or issue any type of command that would have set my bed in motion.

“Greetings, Ciara Stark. I am Svira, and this is Kald Aku Ebaki,” the female said with a polished voice as she waved at her companion. “We have a few questions for you.”

For some dumb reason, my brain latched onto her undefinable accent. I couldn’t say why South African popped into mind. Although she spoke in Universal—which was a major relief—my translator kicked in when she spoke the wordKald. I initially assumed it to be part of his name, but the word Chieftain kept wanting to worm its way in. I could only presume my implant was attempting to translate what it perceived as a foreign language.

I meant to return her greeting, but my mouth had different ideas.

“Where am I? Why did you take me? What are you? And what did you do to Brett?” I blurted out back-to-back.

Svira snorted while Aku merely raised an eyebrow.

“Slow down, human,” Svira replied with a hint of amusement. “In case you had not paid attention, I said thatwehad questions foryou. But fair enough. I will indulge you this once so that we can proceed with the important matters. Brett is fine. He’s only sleeping as he is of no use to us.”

“Who isus?” I asked, my eyes flicking between the two of them.

“I’m a visitor to this Quadrant and a friend of the Kreelars, Aku’s species. They need help righting the wrongs done to them by humans,” she replied, her voice taking on a slightly harder edge.

“What? How did we wrong them? I’ve never even seen or heard of their species before!” I exclaimed, although I didn’t miss how she conveniently avoided naming her own species.

“And you never would have in your lifetime without Elias Jacobs’ trespass.”

My blood turned to ice. Her words reminded me how odd it seemed for Jacobs to get so swiftly escorted off the ship the moment the attack began. What did he do? When and where did he interfere with the lives of people from the Eastern Quadrant?

The UPO and the Galactic Alliance controlled different areas of the known galaxy. We remained in the Northern Quadrant. The Galactic Alliance controlled the Western and Eastern Quadrants. The Southern Quadrant was still a heavily disputed no man’s land. Residents of each Quadrant observed strict rules forbidding them from crossing into each other’s territories.

Earth was one of the very few planets that was a member of both the UPO and the Galactic Alliance. This privilege stemmed from the fact that our solar system was located in the Dead Zone between the Western and Northern Quadrants. Once we achieved warp travel, both the UPO and the galactic alliance attempted to lure us to their side. We were greedy enough to demand to be part of both and totally got away with it.

While it greatly benefited our home world, it didn’t subtract us from the strict rules observed by everyone else. Any human who left Earth couldn’t ping pong back and forth between the Sectarian territories of the Galactic Alliance, and the Allied territories of the UPO. The people from the Eastern and Western quadrants hated to be referred to as the Sectarians. But it was an appropriate description as the planets over therewere extremely divided and firmly indoctrinated in following their own rules, their own way. Furthermore, where planets of the Western Quadrant still heavily followed organized religions, mainly the worship of the Goddess, the Eastern Quadrant had abandoned all forms of faith and had rather interesting rules about indentured servitude and the ability to subject oneself to pretty much anything through a binding contract.

Therefore, Svira’s presence here violated enough rules to potentially trigger a major diplomatic incident between the Allies and the Sectarians. They had attacked a vessel hosting countless high-ranking officials from various planets of our Quadrant. What wrong could humans have caused that was so dire for Svira to take such a risk?

“What did Jacobs do?!” I asked, my mind reeling.

“What do you know of SS12?” Svira asked instead of answering my question.

I felt myself pale. Had he done something immoral to obtain the serum that propelled him to the very top of medical excellence in this generation?

“It is a revolutionary cure that Dr. Jacobs discovered a decade ago during his study of the Sangoths,” I replied carefully. “As I understand it, one of his team members was attacked by a rabid beast and got sick. They were able to track down the beast and derived the miraculous treatment from it.”

“A beast, was it?” Aku interjected for the first time, anger seeping into his voice. “Is that the description he gave?”

It was deep and a little breathy. Under different circumstances, I would have found him attractive. But a deep anger simmered under the surface. Whatever Jacobs did, it had to be terrible.

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