Page 5 of Argen Mate
Chapter Three
Argen
Zoey and I got our tea from the dispenser and took it to the far corner of the mess hall where we could be alone. I sat across from her with my back to the wall, hardly able to take my eyes off her face. She was exotically attractive with golden tan skin and obsidian black hair that fell in soft curls around her face. Her eyes were deep dark brown and so expressive I could almost read her thoughts in their depths.
She looked at me like she was enjoying the view.
“You are obviously not Uatu. Where did you come from?”
“Commander Maktu calls it ‘dirt’ but we call it Earth,” she said. “My friends and I were stolen by the Picans to be sold into slavery, but your warriors rescued us. They don’t know where exactly our world is, and since we didn’t have much hope of getting back there, we joined the Brigade.”
“Well, I am glad you are here,” I told her. “I’ve had a rough couple years myself.” I didn’t say any more, because I didn’t want her pity.
The pain, when they tortured me, was horrendous. What had really torn at me was being helpless to fight back. I never wanted to kill beings so badly, and I never got the chance. Some of that must have shown on my face because Zoe reached over and curled her smaller hand over mine.
“We’ve all been through a lot. We were just lucky to get taken on the same slave ship as the governor’s daughter of Halor,” she told me. “Your outfit rescued her for the money and brought us with her. That’s how they financed the mission to get your people back. They still didn’t have enough money, so they pirated this ship.”
“I know what you mean about being lucky. I sure never thought getting shipped to Julconi would be a good thing.”
“We should be at the rendezvous in a couple days and back on Dread One,” Zoe said. “We were told this ship is going to Farseek with these people, so they are going to need another ship before we go to Nadoo for two thousand more people.”
“I’m surprised they are not more worried about the Sargans.”
“It seems like the Sargan Fleet might be spread a little too thin. There’s speculation that one of the reasons they agreed to the peace treaty was because the war took out too many of their military personnel and ships.”
“Tell me about what it was like on your world,” I said. “I will find out soon enough about the missions. I want to know about yousolmatu.”
“Well on Earth, they would call my parentage mixed racially. Our people come in different colors from black to white. My mother was Afro-Hispanic, and my father was Hispanic and Caucasian. We don’t have the variations of skin and hair color like your people seem to. I mean, the only people on Earth that have your hair color made it that way.”
“You don’t like my hair color?”
“No, I love it.” She smiled. “I’m just saying we have more muted variations in skin, hair, and eye color.”
I took a sip of my tea without taking my eyes off her. I was so attracted to her I couldn’t stop looking at her.
“My father was a soldier, and he got killed in one of the wars. Then my mother remarried when I was ten and had a couple more kids. But, he is a good man and treated me as his own. I went to college and learned how to be a personal trainer and fitness instructor. I earned a decent living, but never found the right guy.”
“Because you never met me.”
“That could be…” she murmured and looked at me through her thick dark lashes.
“We practically rub sparks off each other,” I asserted.
She gave a little chuckle. “That we did.” She paused a moment then went on, “Before I was taken, I didn’t really believe that aliens ever came to Earth, and I sure as hell never expected to be taken by them. Our world doesn’t have this kind of space travel. At least we didn’t before the Alliance started coming to Earth. But ordinary people don’t know about them.”
“So, Earth is not spacefaring.”
“They’ve only sent men to the moon a few times, but it’s not habitable by itself. Our tech is nowhere near the standards you have. My stepfather worked in a factory making car parts, and my mother worked as a waitress---a food server. I even did some waitressing while I was in college.”
“We lived on a farm just outside of town. Farseek was mainly agricultural. We raised crops and livestock for meat and shipped farm products to the high-tech Consortium worlds like Halor,” I told her. “We didn’t have a lot of tech at home except for farm machinery. We had a home AI, but it was not nearly as sophisticated as the AI’s on our ships.”
We talked for a long time. When Zoey told me about herself, I found her utterly fascinating. I liked the sound of her voice. My life on Farseek wasn’t so different from hers. As long as I could remember, I wanted to be a space pilot and a warrior, so I joined the Farseek Brigade.
“We had a large family with six children. Most of them had still lived on Farseek, and I don’t know if any of them were still alive,” I told her. “But I know I’m not alone in that.
“I grieved for them along with my fate during my two years of captivity. A lot has happened that I haven’t come to terms with yet,” I said slowly. “Those bastards made my life a living hell for the year before I was dumped on Julconi. I have flashbacks, and I can’t get a handle on it.” The memories filled me with anger and left me trembling.
“Don’t worry. Once we get back on the Dreadnaught, they’ll give you a medical assessment and probably gene therapy for the flashbacks you’re was having,” she said. “Hopefully stabilizing your brain chemistry will make them stop.”’
