Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
LEIJA
The spaceport smelled bad and was way too bright.
I winced as I looked around, wishing I had a visor or sunglasses to protect me from the artificial lights that glared from every corner, blocking out the night sky with their sheen, illuminating the huge hulking shapes of metal that were parked in large designated squares, spaced out with alleyways in between their forms. Each shuttle or small ship had a ramp that opened down into the main walkway that was filled with aliens I recognized and those I didn't. I wrinkled my nose at the smell.
It reeked of chemicals, tart and astringent.
I wished I had a mask I could wear to filter the air and keep whatever that was from getting into my lungs.
We'd gotten through the spaceport entry checkpoint without much issue, other than a sideways glance from the small rabbit-sized alien who asked me three times if I was sure I wanted to travel off planet with Eun.
I thought there would be some sort of terminal or place where we could purchase tickets, like in an airport, but there wasn't. Instead, there were long rows of ships docked in their individual spaces, with no rhyme or reason for what was docked where, only that there were a lot of them.
When a ship would take off, a transparent screen would appear around it, catching most of the heat or exhaust from the ships that had such a thing and funneling it away from the bustling pedestrian walkway through the ships.
The walkway itself was filled with market stalls, with ships unloading goods and setting up booths right outside.
Some were selling small goods directly to consumers walking by, while others were showcasing samples of what people could buy in bulk.
There were handcrafted goods, fabrics, food, everything I would have expected from a sprawling farmers' market in a huge city, but instead of buildings, there were ships and shuttles, large clunky forms made out of metal and other materials.
Those ships had aliens I hadn't seen before, but I didn't have much time to gawk at them.
Eun was leading me through the spaceport on a mission, his hand warm on my waist as he kept his arm around me, his tail curling around me as well, reaching out to physically push away an alien that got too close to me.
That resulted in a few growls and grumbles, but most moved out of the way of the tail before it got near them.
A few aliens did a double-take at the gems glittering around my neck.
After the second glance, I stripped my jewelry off and tucked it into one of the voluminous pockets of the silver dress.
We didn't even go into the apartment to change.
As soon as the family driver left, we were in another car, heading to the spaceport.
"How are we going to find a ride?" I asked him when we passed yet another ship that was loading up, getting ready to leave.
I would have gone to the first one and just asked to buy a ticket out of here.
If his family was notified that we got married, there was a chance they'd be notified that we went to the spaceport.
"We need to find someone who looks like they're leaving the system," he said. "Most of these traders only go back and forth between the planets in this solar system. We have to get out of here completely if we're going to be able to find your home planet."
I appreciated that he focused on the goal of finding my home, rather than just escaping his family.
What we would do when we found Earth was another matter.
I wasn't under the impression that Earth was particularly friendly to aliens, given that our government refused to disclose any information on their dealings with them.
I'd seen the reports of military officials or astronauts or scientists, all reputable people getting up and publicly swearing before a court of law that the US government had deals with aliens, but there was never anyone in the government who came forward to say what those deals actually were.
They just said that the truth behind it all was too horrible for the public to handle.
That was a bunch of bullshit.
Whenever I heard that, I knew what they were really saying: that the truth would make the officials culpable of crimes against humanity, and they didn't want to come forward because they would be drawn and quartered in the court of public opinion.
Perhaps that was what had happened to me.
Had I been packaged up and sold to aliens by my own government?
I couldn't find the answers by staying here.
"Tell me what we are looking for," I said as we passed what looked strikingly like a human-designed MECH suit carrying a large box up into the hold of a shuttle that matched most of the others we had seen so far, a smaller robot trundling along behind it with another box.
"I'm not actually sure," Eun said, worry in his tone as we continued past it.
"Everything I've seen so far looks like it was made in this system.
I haven't seen anything that looks alien to me yet.
Other than that odd-looking robot back there.
But it was loading up a standard short-range shuttle, not a ship. "
"You mean the MECH suit?" I asked.
"What is a MECH suit?" he asked.
A familiar chuckling sound caused us both to look over. A group of hyena aliens was standing there in the opening of a ship's ramp, all looking at us. One of them set down the box it had been holding, slowly, never taking its eyes off of us.
"Come on," Eun said, pulling me further into the crowd.
"They're following us," I hissed as I spotted one trailing behind us.
"I know," Eun said in a tense voice. "They won't attack us here, not with me with you and all these people around, but we don't want to risk it. If we have to fight, station security will hold us and contact my parents."
A pair of lumbering elephant aliens trundled towards us, and we slipped around them with the squish of the crowd.
As it grew denser around us, we took a turn, ducking down a walkway between two ships.
On the other end of the alley was another main pedestrian walkway.
As we got halfway down, one of the hyena aliens appeared at the other end, chuckling to himself.
We turned, and the others were behind us. Our escape had been cut off.
Eun pushed me behind him, my back facing one of the ships as the hyena aliens formed a semicircle around us.
"That alien belongs to us," one of the hyenas said.
"I belong to no one!" I said.
The hyena alien focused all four of its eyes on me, its lips pulling back to reveal that the deep yellow of its teeth was framed with blackened rot near its gums. It was out of the reach of Eun's tail, but I could still smell its breath, fetid and foul.
"You were an icicle treat, sold by another of your kind, dangerous female," it said. "We bought three in a fair trade. You belong to us."
He bought three? There were two other humans on this planet?
Hope surged in my chest only to be replaced in an instant by horror at his next words.
"First two were delicious," he said, his tongue snaking out to lick the edges of his maw.
"Didn't we kill you already?" I spat out, fury rising as I thought back to the sight of Eun hunched over dead bodies, the massacre, the second time he had saved me from a group of these fiends.
All of the hyenas let out a snarl, their bodies tensing.
"Their kind work in small packs that meet together to coordinate in a larger city-wide group that runs a large portion of the blood market," Eun said.
"It's hard to tell them apart when they all look so ugly," I said. It was a cheap insult, but these aliens were psychotic murderers who intended to eat me.
"You're the one who killed many of the pack," the hyena spokesperson said, his eyes focusing on Eun. Suddenly his head lifted, and he took a step back, all four of his hands going out to the sides, palms facing us. "I know you. You belong to the Wolf group. We will buy her from you."
"You can't just buy me, asshole!" I snapped. "I'm a person!"
Eun just growled, his hair standing up from his head like a bed of angry snakes. For a brief moment, I marveled at how long they had grown in the time I had known him, from a short cut close to his skull to long locks of Medusa hair.
"Everything is for sale," one of them said.
"Just tell us how much you want for her!" the first one barked.
"Say hello to my little friends," a voice boomed, deep and aggressive, followed by the sound of clunking metal. The MECH was standing there, cylindrical weapons dropping down out of its arms to point at the hyenas.
It took me several heartbeats to realize that the MECH hadn't spoken in the local language.
It said that sentence in English.
"You're from Earth?" I asked.
"Yes, I have a translator so I can understand their language," it said. "Are these guys bothering you?"
The MECH raised its gun arms, the mechanisms whirring menacingly as it pointed them at the hyena aliens.
The spaces between them widened as they backed away from the MECH, creating an opening.
I stepped around Eun, grabbing his hand as I pulled him in my wake towards the MECH, the only sense of familiarity I had so far.
It didn't matter that I'd never seen anything like that MECH suit on Earth other than in scifi shows; I could figure out the details later.
One of the hyena aliens reached for me, and Eun lashed out at him with his tail, knocking him down to the ground.
The hyena aliens looked at one another, like their courage as a group was failing, like they were waiting for one of them to make the decision to walk away or attack, and the rest would follow.
We could just walk away from this. If we moved back towards the crowds, the hyena aliens wouldn't attack. Eun was strong enough to take them on his own, but with the guns on our side, he wouldn't have to put himself at risk. This was easy to walk away from.