Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
My eyes burned as I sent off another reply to a ridiculous request. It had only been four days.
The Krezikians were not going to arrange conjugal visits to earth just so someone could get their dick wet.
This was just one of hundreds of requests I’d gotten that were so stupid, they had to be jokes.
I couldn’t just ignore them, though. Not while everyone was so freaked out.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been staring at that computer, but I was starting to see double at this point.
“Enzo…” Aster’s worried tone drew me away from the monitor. I thought I was getting ahead of the requests, but I was starting to feel like Bruce Almighty, typing constantly for hours without making a dent in the requests.
I looked over my shoulder, blinking a few times to ease the burn a little. “Yeah?”
“You are working too much. You are fatigued. Take a break.”
Rolling my shoulders, I shook my head, turning back to the screen. “Some of these are important. I need to get to them.”
Room change requests for people who were uncomfortable with the people they ended up stuck with, medical requests for people who didn’t have access to their normal medications, even a few mental health scares for people who weren’t handling being trapped in a tiny ass room very well.
These people deserved to be heard. It was just hard to sort through what was important and what wasn’t.
I had to go through each and every email to make sure I didn’t miss anything.
“Maybe we should think about requesting help from other humans. He can’t do this forever,” Aster murmured.
He was speaking Krezikian, which meant he probably forgot that I could understand him.
He continued to use English to speak with me, mostly to make things easier for me.
We could both use our own languages if we wanted, but it was better to practice so our translators could expand their vocabularies.
“No. They cannot be trusted. Look at those leader meetings. They are arguing and cannot even settle on whether or not they will speak with us. The humans should have already been returned home by now. It is their leaders’ fault that they are still on the ship.”
That drew my attention, and I turned to look at where Aster and Trevuk were talking, both of them with their arms crossed, watching me.
“Wait. People could have gone home already?”
Trevuk grunted, annoyed, as per usual. That alien defaulted to irritated. I wasn’t even sure he knew how to smile.
“The plan was to hold the military for three days while the leaders came to an understanding on what’s to be done,” he growled.
“They have spent the last four days arguing with each other without letting us speak. They can’t decide amongst themselves if they will even allow us the opportunity to explain things to them.
It is no wonder your world is falling apart.
Why do you not have a supreme leader or council to dictate things planet-wide? ”
“Believe me, some countries tried,” I replied with a heavy sigh.
Of course, it was the government’s fault that we were all trapped here.
Even just in our country, important decisions like that took weeks at a minimum.
Sometimes years. I didn’t want people stuck here for that long waiting for them to decide.
“I don’t think you’re going to get everyone to agree on anything.
There are countries that hate other countries, rivalries, differences in beliefs.
The closest we have to a worldwide entity is NATO, and they often disagree amongst themselves on certain regulations.
Even just another country joining the conversation is a debate. ”
Trevuk snarled and stomped away before swinging back to come talk to me again.
I was surprised this guy didn’t hate me by now.
I was always the bearer of bad news to him.
When I finally told him there were more than just military who would take up arms against them, he was pissed.
I was lucky Aster was standing beside me because I was a little worried Trevuk would take his mood out on me.
Instead, he stormed off, and I didn’t see him again until the following day.
“Trevuk, my friend. Be at ease,” Aster urged in Krezikian. “Enzo is not part of the human government. He is working to ensure the humans on our ships are happy. And he has done a wonderful job of that so far.”
It was flattering to hear, even if I didn’t fully believe him.
What I was doing was a bandaid at most. I was meeting basic needs to keep people calm.
But if the expectation was that we were going to be stuck here until the governments of the world finally decided to listen to the Krezikians, then I was going to need a lot more effective solutions.
People shouldn’t be trapped in tiny rooms like that for weeks.
It would be awful for their mental and physical health.
Pushing away the weight of that knowledge, I looked up at my two alien coworkers.
That’s basically what they were. We worked together to keep the humans relaxed and happy.
Trevuk was in charge of ship security. He made sure humans didn’t cause trouble.
Aster was like an ambassador, a go-between for humans and his people.
He got permission for me to implement my ideas.
We couldn’t do anything without agreement from all three of us.
Which was easier said than done sometimes.
I couldn’t imagine what a conversation with hundreds of human government leaders would be like.
“There’s nothing we can do about the leaders. That’s not our job. We need to focus on here and now,” Aster finished. He turned to me and raised an eyebrow. “Including making sure you have enough time for rest. You cannot do everything in a day. Your human body needs sleep to function.”
I frowned, my brows drawn in tight. “Do you not need sleep?”
He tipped his head from side to side. “Yes, and no. Nowhere near as long as you humans do. And it is different. I’ve never experienced the thing you humans call dreams.”
Well, that was just sad. Yeah, not all dreams were great, but some were…
hot. Like the ones I couldn’t stop having about Aster and those damn tentacles.
It was frustrating that I couldn’t do anything about it.
My shared room didn’t afford me any privacy.
There wasn’t even a real shower to hide the noise.
That frustration on top of everything else was exhausting.
It wasn’t like I could hook up with anyone here.
I wasn’t into Knightley that way, and we weren’t allowed to socialize with others.
And there wasn’t a chance in hell I was going to acknowledge my growing interest in a certain alien. His people literally invaded and abducted me. Nope. Not going there. No matter how curious I was.
“Come. We will go for a walk and stretch our limbs.” He nudged my shoulder, trying to get me to join him, but I was reluctant. The number of emails in my inbox just kept going up. “We can check on the solarium and see if it is nearing completion for the humans to enjoy,” he cajoled.
That had been almost as difficult to get permission for as the phone calls home.
People trapped in tiny rooms was making things worse.
When I suggested letting them move around the hallways at least, interact with one another, Trevuk shot me down saying they’d rise up in large numbers.
While there was the possibility of that, I found it unlikely.
They already separated out the people prone to violence, and while everyone wanted to go home, they understood the importance of following orders while we figured everything out.
Eventually, we agreed on an enclosed room with exercise equipment and sunlight, and people would be brought out in groups to enjoy it.
The solarium was the first place I stumbled upon while sneaking around, and it fit the bill pretty nicely.
It was close to the infirmary, in case anyone did anything stupid, and Trevuk checked himself that there was nothing in there that could be used as a weapon.
There were a few rooms on each ship being used for the same purpose.
They took a few days to install doors to the major hallways and there would be a full squadron of guards there the entire time, but it was the top request when I asked people to let me know what they needed.
They felt trapped and wanted room to breathe, even just for a little while.
I was hoping after a while, with good behavior, people would be able to move freely between the solariums and their rooms. The croxud could make sure people didn’t go where they weren’t allowed, and it would give the humans a lot more space to breathe.
Relenting, I pushed to my feet and trudged out of the Command Center with Aster following along beside me.
I was running on fumes. I woke up early, got to work on the requests, and stayed there until late trying to get to everyone.
That, plus video meetings with different military members—including high-ranking officers who were probably way more qualified for my job than me and unhappy that I was the one in this position—meetings with Trevuk and Aster to discuss the requests, and even sitting in on some meetings that Aster had with other ship leaders, I was feeling stretched thin.
This wasn’t my usual day-to-day, and it was hard to feel like I was making an impact when the emails just kept streaming in.
It was late, as usual, so the sky through the solarium windows was dark. There was still a decent amount of light pollution, this was LA after all, but the view of the city was still nice to look at. I leaned against a railing, staring out at the view, only partially seeing it.
Aster’s tentacles settled on my shoulders, and I stiffened for a moment, but then they dug into the muscles, kneading the knots there, and I practically melted to the floor.
“Oh, god…” I groaned, leaning into the touch.
“You are too tense,” Aster murmured, his hands joining in to rub at my neck.
Way, way in the back of my head, a tiny voice said I probably shouldn’t be getting this comfortable with my abductors, but that voice was easily silenced when a particularly tight knot was released.
As long as he didn't stop, I couldn’t give a shit that he invaded the planet. It wasn’t like he was hurting anyone.
My head dropped forward, giving him more room to dig into my neck.
Four days of tension melted away, and I almost wished I could lie down so he could get the rest of me.
Despite having coffee back and a decent night's sleep every night, I still had headaches, and I knew part of that was tension and stress.
A full massage would ease that by a lot.
Like he could hear my thoughts, or maybe he was just thinking the same thing, he wrapped a tentacle around my wrist and tugged gently, leading me away. “Come. You need to lie down. We will discuss how to make your job easier once you’ve had time to relax.”
And because I was too tired to think straight, I went with him.
Through the new set of doors and down another hallway to a set of elevators that brought us upstairs.
Aster explained to me that the humans were kept in one area of the ship, all stacked on top of each other, so they could easily be watched and blocked from the important areas, like the Command Center and the landing bays.
They hadn’t expected to keep them there that long, but it was easier to have them all together.
I mostly went between the Command Center and my rooms, so I had no idea where he was leading me, but eventually, he stopped beside a door and put his palm on the panel beside it to open it. When it slid open, he ushered me inside.
“Woah.”
This wasn’t a room. It was a suite. The main door opened to a sitting room of sorts, with wide windows showing a view of the pier, the ocean pitch black at this time of night.
During the daytime, the view was probably spectacular.
There were comfortable-looking white chairs on either side of a long matching couch facing a large TV, and a kitchenette along one wall.
It almost looked like a small apartment, and I could see another door that sat open on the wall opposite the kitchenette.
“Where are we?”
“My rooms,” Aster practically purred.
Uh oh. What did I just get myself into?