Chapter 7
brAXTON
My mind is a mess, and the Derecko control room is no place for a mind this conflicted and distracted.
I should be monitoring and managing a number of important things related to our mission, but ever since a mouthy, insolent human came into my life nothing else—even the mission that brought me to his planet—has seemed as important as whatever was going on with him.
That—Jaxus—is why I have trouble focusing on what General Trembly tells me, as I hop off a hover chair and begin pacing, hands on my hips with my head down.
Thankfully, he can’t see me. This is just a quick voice call with the general that he usually has with Hex, every other week, to update us on talks the militaries of the world have with each other about the role we aren’t playing in human affairs.
The one big upside of humans distrusting NVs is that it has given them a common enemy to focus on that isn’t of their world, so major global conflicts halted not long after our arrival.
And as long as humans are certain we aren’t taking a side in any of their former conflicts, and forming an alliance with one human country to fuck over another human country, those nations have promised to be good to each other.
“I know it must be hard, being so thoroughly distrusted by so many humans,” General Trembly says matter-of-factly, making a few crew officers roll their eyes as they float around in their hover chairs.
“But the unprecedented peace Earth is experiencing right now couldn’t have happened without you. I hope you’re taking comfort in that.”
I’m not, but I politely tell him that I am, end the call, and decide to take a break from playing captain while Hex is away.
A room full of webs and spiders is where I go to find peace. I’ve had humans call me batshit crazy for that, giving me some of the strangest looks of disgust I’ve ever seen another species give someone for bonding with another life form.
But, without fail—no matter where the Derecko travels in the universe—there is always some poor creature just about everyone on a populated planet loathes, and my kind are fascinated by universally condemned life forms, since this type of universal condemnation does not occur in our sector of this galaxy.
It has been our tradition for thousands of years to construct sanctuaries for these creatures on our ships, and to bring them home with us when our mission is complete.
Most of the Derecko crew has grown tired of Earthlings, and can’t wait to take our arachnid friends to the Deppoxyl System. I wish they could be accepted here though, by the Earthlings, along with everyone from the Derecko.
I sigh and sit on a large, mossy rock, among the plants my hairy, fanged pets travel to and from with their webbing. There is only one thing that is as calming to me as watching them spew and weave their threads of sticky silk: the sound of Jay’s breath when he sleeps.
He should travel home with us, with the arachnids. Like them, the humans chose to exclude him from their lives—so why should he care about their rules and diplomacy?
I’ve argued about that with the Council so many times. I’ve lost count of how many times I lost my cool with them, banging my fists on buttons and switches in the control room, telling them to stand up to the fearful and paranoid Homo sapiens.
They refuse to budge, though. They say humanity is not used to working with others in space, yet, and we have to give them the opportunity to mature and make the right choices.
If we overrule the decisions they make for members of their species, they may see us as the enemy forever.
I get where they’re coming from, but I will never accept that the decision to permanently ground Jay is fair or right.
Watching the nestling grow into a man showed me just how resistant to reason humans can be.
He is proficient in chemistry, has mastered their higher math subjects, and is a gifted linguist, but there have been numerous occasions when common sense could not be employed to reason with him, and his species has excelled at that kind of pigheaded stubbornness for centuries.
There is no way humans will advance enough in his lifetime to change their minds about us, which will make life on Earth difficult for him. He will always be an outsider, who is rejected and despised.
Sometimes I think about running away with Jay to a place where the Council would never find us, but I could never just take off like that without Hex and Xan.
They would have to come, but Hex is too loyal to this ship for that to ever happen, and Xan is too dedicated to our greater mission to ever just walk away from it.
Over war and destruction, we chose to be protectors of weaker species in the universe, and I would never expect them to turn their backs on that duty.
So, I find myself shackled by duty as well, simmering with anger at these chains I can’t break.
But there are still some things that are within my control; decisions that I have the power to make.
And I’ve decided, while Hex is away and I am left in command of the ship, that some of Jaxus’s wants will come before my duty.
If he doesn’t want his first joining to be with a human, then that will not be his fate.
He is the one soul in the stars who I love more than the stars themselves, and if he wants to lose his virginity to me, I’m happy to oblige.
My givers pulse as I use a thought transmitter to open my thoughts to the crew members, and tell them to find Jay—then send him to me.
“Hey, you,” he says, when he enters the web room. “What are you doing in here? I thought it was Sep’s turn to feed these little creeps this week.”
“Do not speak about our eight-legged friends that way, Jay,” I say gruffly. “You know I don’t like it when you do.”
“Why do you think I said that?” He folds his arms in front of his chest. “I’m not in the mood to filter what I’m really thinking for you guys.”
“When have you ever been in the mood to do that?” I challenge.
“Is that why you won’t fight for me?” he questions, his voice suddenly small.
“You were always defending me, all these years, when Xan or Hex were being really strict. You’d tell them to let me speak my mind, and make more decisions for myself.
But now you won’t help me be in charge of making the biggest decision of my life. ”
I stand and go to him as some of our little friends crawl off the wall he just came through, like they’re trying to give us privacy.
They take to the ceiling and move to the other side of the room as the air thickens with the tension that’s followed me and Jay into every space we’ve shared for the past month, and I feel it tightening around us like we are the prey of our spider friends, trapped and suffocating in their web.
“I wish you could know how much I am on your side—and how much I want that for you—but I have been overruled.”
“By the Council, who isn’t here,” he argues. “If one of you really wanted—”
“You know I really want—”
“—to give me what I want—”
“I would love nothing more—”
“—you could and they couldn’t stop you!”
“Enough!” I roar and pick him up by his sides, like I used to when he was just a hatchling, holding him above me as he looks down in shock.
“I do not want to fight about decisions that will not be reversed. I can’t make you a hybrid—no matter how much I want to.
But, I can honor another request you made. ”
I bring Jay closer so I can capture his mouth, and his soft brown hair brushes against my much larger face as he cups the back of my head and accepts the slow, gentle kiss, becoming very compliant.
We are too caught up in too many emotions to have a reasonable talk right now (that won’t put us at odds), but this is something that can bring us together. The kiss cuts through everything else and lets us just feel something pure and good that no one can take from us.