I Married Amreth (Prime Mating Agency)

Chapter 4

Ciara

I woke up with a start. The bright lights of the room made me blink a few times before my vision adjusted. A glance at my surroundings revealed it to be the fanciest medical bay I had ever set foot in. In all my years, I had visited the infirmaries and laboratories of countless ships and species. None of them rivaled this one.

I fleetingly wondered if this belonged to the Xurgens. After all, they were the most advanced species in our sector of the galaxy. But for having drooled over their technology more times than I could count, I could say with great confidence that this didn’t feature in their line of products.

I tried to sit up from my lying position only to realize some sort of energy field kept me immobile. My initial confusion quickly gave way to a sliver of panic as memories of the recent events came rushing back. The pain from being torn to shreds by the terrified Darwandir female flashed through my mind. However, a quick self-assessment revealed no true discomfort aside from a little stiffness and soreness. Considering the grievous wounds she inflicted on me, I should be in complete agony without heavy sedation. As my mind was clear, this meant that whoever attacked the ship and stopped my deadly fall apparently also healed me.

I wanted to believe this to be a good sign that maybe their intentions weren’t as evil as my fertile imagination suggested. My heart leapt when I turned my head to the side. Through a glass wall, I stared in shock at a strange female with the simian-looking male I vaguely remembered from the ship. They were talking with Brett Dunham, another of my acquaintances with the Interstellar Doctors Organization.

What do they want with us?

Whatever question she asked him, his answers prompted a rather unimpressed reaction from her. Her male companion stood there stoically, occasionally speaking. I would have given anything to be able to hear their exchange. If nothing else, I took some small measure of comfort in that Brett didn’t seem scared, just confused.

A glance at the opposite side of my room revealed a second glass wall separating me from another staff member of the IDO. Discovering an unconscious Mehreen Aziz freaked me out. Sure, many physicians and medical professionals had been aboard the Gladius. But countless politicians, investors, corporate magnates, social and ethics advocates, and people from various other fields had also been present. Why did it feel like only members of the Interstellar Doctors Organization had been targeted?

They mentioned something about Elias Jacobs…

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, who suddenly 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 belonged to 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 word Kald . 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 that we had questions for you . 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 is us ?” 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 there were 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.

I licked my lips nervously and nodded. “Obviously, everyone in the medical community had countless questions about the source of the cure. But Jacobs—along with his entire team— stated that it was some kind of a wild beast that they couldn’t identify. It decayed too quickly from whatever disease was eating it from within. It had also mutated far too much to allow them to identify the original species it belonged to.”

“And you believe that?!” Svira asked with obvious disbelief.

I hesitated and then shrugged. “It was indeed a rather disturbing accounting,” I conceded. “Quite a few people expressed feeling troubled by it that they didn’t even have sketches or any preserved samples that could have allowed more advanced computers than the field ones to try and recreate the original creature from the DNA. But you cannot challenge an entire team of highly regarded scientists without solid proof or at least a strong cause.”

“And no one thought of coming back?” Aku challenged.

“Many of us wanted to. But the Sangoths’ home world is under strict Prime Directive guidelines. That beast did not naturally dwell in the areas inhabited by the Sangoths. Trying to track down a creature whose actual appearance they weren’t even certain of would have greatly risked disturbing the ecosystem. It didn’t feel justified under the circumstances. Anyway, the entire quadrant was too hyped about further digging into SS12.”

“Well they lied to all of you,” Aku ground between his teeth. “That wild beast was my older sister. She was training her son at tree hopping when she stumbled upon two humans. They were coupling by the river where they had been eating. We had never seen humans before. But my nephew, who was only five years old at the time, focused on the food left on display. He ran from his mother to go eat some of it.”

“Oh, no!” I breathed out.

If that couple had been on a romantic escapade, there was no way they would have brought the sterile rations that were authorized when eating in protected environments. God only knew what kind of negative reaction the local population could have to it. As if he had heard the thoughts crossing my mind, Aku confirmed my fears.

“The human male noticed my nephew grabbing the food. He chased after him. Naturally, my sister intervened to protect her son. The human shot her,” Aku snarled.

“Oh, my God!” I whispered, horrified. I would have pressed my hand to my face, but the energy field kept me restrained.

“She still managed to fight him. She bit and clawed him. The human female shot my sister as well. That succeeded in knocking her out. And they both fled, abandoning my sister and my nephew distressed about the state of his mother.”

“She died?” I asked, my voice constricted.

“No. They shot her with tranquilizers,” he replied.

I flinched upon hearing his words. You never injected new species with any types of drugs before performing extensive tests to see how they would react. In this specific instance, beyond the fact that they never should have been there, they should have used a stun gun to incapacitate their target. How the fuck did they compound so many mistakes in one go?

“What you need to realize is that the river where this took place is located more than a day’s run from the closest Sangoth village,” Aku added angrily.

“This means at least an hour flight in a personal shuttle,” Svira specified. “Those humans didn’t stumble there by accident. It was a deliberate choice, knowing they were violating the Prime Directive just so they could enjoy a pretty setting to fornicate.”

“I’m sorry this happened. The way they handled it was beyond poor. They certainly panicked, which made them act irrationally,” I said in an apologetic tone.

“And that makes it acceptable?” Aku hissed.

“Of course not,” I said in a soothing tone. “They never should have been there in the first place. But what happened? If I’m here, I’m assuming that she had some sort of negative reaction?”

“At first, she seemed to fully recover once the sedatives wore off. But then she started getting sick about a week later. As she was a wet nurse, she was breastfeeding many of our infants, including my nephew.”

“Oh, heavens!” I whispered, my chest constricting.

“The younglings got sick, as did the ones who no longer breastfed but played with them. And then it passed on to their siblings, their parents, and to the entire village. Our young breastfeed until the age of six or seven. Most of our females only have two, or maximum three, babies in their lifetime. In the two months that followed the incident, four out of five of our infants died. Barely a third of our females remain. Some are starting to show early signs again. We are becoming extinct!”

Despite the horror his words awakened in me, my scientific mind kicked into gear, thanks to years of dealing with these types of situations.

“Only the females, not the males?” I asked.

“Both genders are affected, and have similar death rates, except it becomes even more fatal for the females, if they become infected after puberty,” Aku explained.

Could it be impacted by estrogen levels?

If their hormonal development followed a pattern similar to humans, males and females would have similar testosterone levels in their infancy, but women would see a significant increase in estrogen.

“What do your doctors say about it?” I ask carefully.

“Our healers do not possess advanced enough technology to be able to fully understand what is happening,” Aku said begrudgingly.

“Kreelars fall under the strictest guidelines of the Prime Directive for a reason. They’ve only recently developed basic electricity. They don’t even have connectivity,” Svira explained.

“But you do!” I challenged before giving a meaningful glance at the high-tech med bay around us.

She shook her head, her face closing off. “We have reached the limit of how much we can interfere in this matter.”

“What the heck is that supposed to mean?” I asked, baffled.

“The Oracles saw the paths. If we meddle any further, things will end extremely badly for the Kreelars, and for many others. Our contribution in saving their people is coming to a close.”

“Oracles?” I echoed with confusion before my eyes widened with shock and sudden understanding. “Wait! Are you saying that you’re Korletheans?!”

I recoiled, and my heart skipped a beat when she bared her teeth, an air of pure hatred descending over her features.

“We are not Korletheans! We hate those sons of krilliks! They have done to us what you have done to the Kreelars. But they did so with malice!”

“Hold up right there!” I exclaimed with outrage. “ I did nothing to the Kreelars. Humanity did nothing to them. From what you are telling me, it appears that Elias’ team did. What I can promise is to do everything in my power to help undo some of the damage and prevent this tragedy going on any further. But… but you don’t look Xelixian either.”

From what little I remembered of the Sectarian history, the Korletheans had harmed a heck of a lot of species with reckless experiments. The only one that I could think of in those Quadrants that had a grayish skin with dark markings were the Xelixians. But they had oversized irises without pupils, chevron shaped bone ridges on their foreheads, and unusual ridged ears, none of which matched Svira’s appearance.

She snorted and shook her head. “We’re not Xelixians either.”

“Then what…?”

She waved a dismissive hand, interrupting me. “Never mind that. The only thing you should focus on is undoing the damage to the Kreelars. You have an epidemiology background which will be of great use for the challenge ahead.”

“Absolutely. I can and want to help. But shouldn’t Elias—”

“He will be dealt with,” Svira interrupted again. “There’s a reason he fled the minute our vessel attacked yours. He knew what was coming.”

Although I didn’t voice it, I had suspected as much. Nevertheless, I narrowed my eyes at her, still struggling to understand why they were handling things this way.

“All right, but why attack the Gladius? If what you’re saying is true—and I have no reason to doubt it—why not simply expose him? The UPO and the galactic community would hold him accountable and do everything in their power to do right by the Kreelars. This attack could trigger a major political conflict between your Quadrant and ours.”

She nodded. “Believe me, Ciara, that had been the original plan. Sadly, all those paths lead to tragedy. But you...”

To my surprise, her voice trailed off, and her eyes went out of focus. I cast a confused look at Aku, who simply observed quietly. Moments later, Svira blinked and returned her full attention to me. A triumphant smile stretched her lips.

“You can be the key,” she said at last. “So long as you work with your mate, you will find the solution.”

I recoiled again, this time truly confused. “My mate?! I don’t have one!”

She gave me a mysterious smile. “Not yet, but soon.”

Oh, my God! Is she talking about Amreth?!

Her smile broadened as if she had read the thought that fleeted through my mind.

“What are you?” I whispered more to myself than truly to her. “You are not a Xelixian or a Korlethean, and you display the type of powers that the Veredians possess. And yet you’re clearly not one. So what are you?”

“We are the Korletheans’ worst nightmare,” she said with a hint of cruelty in her pale eyes. She then turned to Aku with something akin to a triumphant smile. “She’s the one.”

An air of relief washed over him.

“I’m the one what?” I asked, instantly worried again.

She ignored my question, and the outer rim of her eyes began to glow as she stared at me with great intensity. “Ciara, obey my command. Once I leave this room, you will fall asleep and forget you ever saw me as well as any discussions and allusions ever made during this discussion regarding my people, the Korletheans, the Veredians, and the Xelixians.”

“But why? Wait!” I exclaimed when both of them simply turned around and started walking towards the glass wall separating my room from the one Mehreen was lying in.

Before exiting, she stopped one last time and looked at me over her shoulder. At first, I thought she was going to answer my question, but her eyes went slightly out of focus again.

“There should never be red rocks in the river. Remember this well.”

“What?!”

She didn’t respond and looked back towards Mehreen’s room. The upper half of my bed began lowering again as I once more called out to Svira. But as soon as she stepped through the open glass door, I felt my consciousness get swallowed into a dark void, and I knew no more.