Page 5 of Her Alien Savior
“I know that,” I grumbled with my mouth closed and not losing eye contact with Klemon through the vid augmented display to reply back in Trillix, “In many we rise.”
I smiled thinking of that meeting, as I loaded onto the shuttle. That was how the trill accepted contracts, by giving their names, and exchanging proverbs. What reason would she have to give her name if I weren’t going to have need of speaking it again? This was happening, I assured myself.
After all these years, and losing everything, I’d finally know the truth of my brother’s death. I wasn’t stupid, I knew government officials kept how he died from me. Before he left that night, I had told him that trust had to be earned, but not to work against the aliens. Like humans there would be good and bad… and then, well, that was the last I saw him.
Joel stopped at the shuttle ramp, scuffing his shoes on the rubber non-slip mat making it squeak. I turned back to smile at him, though it didn’t reach my eyes. He finally gave me some semblance of respect after my exchange contract was accepted and had been nothing but nice to me for the past two weeks.
“I’ll miss you too, Joel,” I said giving him a wink.
He mock scowled, and then turned trying to hide his own smile as he walked away. That was the best I was going to get from the old brute. He was probably bitter about not being eligible for human exchange with his bones being too brittle to go into space.
I settled into my seat next to the other H.E.T. recruits.
One was a very muscular man flexing his biceps. I shook my head; he’d still be less than impressive compared to the necia warriors of Necias Prime. Plus, we didn’t have an extra skeletal system used solely as internal weaponry that could protrude from our skin on command. Joel told me all about necia warriors after he found out that I knew their language without actually knowing much about where Cial came from. I was so focused on learning the language because it was nearly as popular as Trillix that I hadn’t really known it belonged to the necia warriors.
Sure, I did a bit of research on the necia because they were part of the galactic enforcers, but embarrassingly I hadn’t really done much more than a basic paragraph overview. Since I wasn’t cleared with a Necias Prime assignment, there were still advanced training programs I didn’t have access to.
Necia:A tribal warrior species from the planet Necias Prime who quickly became the primary enforcement for the entire Trillume Galaxy after their assimilation with the trill. With their thick dermis and lethal secondary skeletal structure, they are brutal adversaries to those that do not follow their tribal laws of honor. They keep their mane of hair long, only cutting length off when it is cut during battle, or used in braiding talismans for their tribe. Praying to their goddess that guides their hearts for victory and honor.
It made sense thinking about it now. Necia... Cial, not sure why I didn’t make the connection before now. Cial translated to something like silver song, or something, and necia meant strong silver, at least that’s the closest translation to English I could figure out. I still had a feeling that it meant more than just a color, or metal, but something more for them than what my own language could understand.
I giggled to myself and the guy next to me on the shuttle grunted, obviously too much testosterone to appreciate my excitement at finally getting to use the language outside of talking with an A.I. not designed for conversation, but for more as a database interface. I could finally experience living with aliens and come to peace about what happened to Nate. I stared at the screen projecting our shuttle course away from Earth, it flickered as we broke the atmosphere. We would meet up with a bigger vessel to transport us to Trillume, since the journey there took a couple of months in a stasis chamber.
“He’s just upset because the necia didn’t recruit him for an exchange,” an attractive yet slimmer man across from me joked, lightening the mood. “Name’s Bryce. The grumpy one is Chester, and—“
“My name is Ashley,” the woman next to me interrupted the introductions with her own. I liked her already. She wasn’t taking a backseat to anyone, and there was a fierceness to her that I could relate to.
“We’re all part of the anthropology research study abroad program. Part of our final thesis studies is seeing how our education about what we know about human civilization can translate to studying alien societies.” Bryce leaned in and whispered, “The aliens are just as curious about us as we are about them, and now we know there are more than us outside of our seeable star system. It’s incredible.”
“You don’t have to be creepy about it,” Ashley shook her head at Bryce and she nudged me with a knowing look that said, ‘You agree, right?’
I nodded hastily more out of the need of acceptance than whether I found any one of them more creepy than the other. Smiling awkwardly, I thanked the chime that indicated we’d be docking at the newly arrived Trillume vessel shortly.
A silence passed over the small room. Chester finally spoke up with more than a guttural noise, “That’s odd.”
“What’s odd?” Both Ashley and Bryce replied in unison, making Ashley glare at Bryce who sheepishly lifted his hands surrendering the conversation to her.
“He means the chime,” I answered, and he nodded making me finally think about it more objectively than simply ending an awkward conversation. I thought it would be an indicator of preparing to dock, but I’d never been on a shuttle before, and obviously Chester knew more about it than me.
“What does it mean?” I dared to ask.
Now, he had the attention of every face within ear shot watching him, listening. This shuttle had over 1,000 people from Earth aboard.
“The chime usually indicates that we’ve already been connected to another vessel, and it signals to disengage control of the shuttle.”
So, I was partially right. What’s so bad about that?
“What aren’t you saying?” Ashley was now gripping my hand on my thigh, and I could feel her nerves through the way she squeezed. I gently squeezed back and found myself bonding with this stranger over an unknown threat that was probably just our hyperactive imaginations running away from us.
“I’ve studied some Trillume vessel procedures hoping to be assigned to necia warriors, and as we are part of the H.E.T. program. Chimes are always followed by announcements, vid calls, and guidance through the whole process so they don’t scare fragile life forms such as humans.”
“What was odd wasn’t the chime... it was the silence after...” I deduced and my nerves skyrocketed before the hatch to our door slid open with no preamble, and Chester was quickly undoing his seatbelt, but it wouldn’t budge. Another bad sign.
A tall humanoid man entered with spikes down his arms, and smaller ones circling his skull like a crown, but I recognized his species right away making me relax my shoulders, a necia warrior. They were protectors of the galaxy, we were fine, I tried to soothe the worry building in my gut. Of course there would be necia warriors on the ship to another planet. Probably a protection detail for the exchange program. And the cropped white hair was stunning in comparison to his amber-colored eyes.
I mean, since I saw a picture of the necia warriors, I had to admit they were quite attractive in a dangerous sort of way. I kept staring at his hair, and thinking I should be remembering something about it. His hair wasn’t white, it was silver! He was mostly likely highly regarded on Necias Prime with hair like that. Silver was a big deal for them according to Joel.
“My apologies for startling you. I’m looking for a particular human who was not authorized to be joining our voyage, and didn’t wish to alert them to their discovery,” he said with a smooth lilt speaking in his own Cial tongue, my translator didn’t fill in the words I wasn’t fully fluent in, but I assumed what he said based on context. Unfortunately, they didn’t upgrade the translators with any other language but the one you’re assigned to visit, plus Trillix. Good thing I took an interest in learning it for myself.
