Chapter 7
Mara
And so life goes for the next number of indeterminable days.
I forget that I am on a small fighter ship. I am too busy being mated by Freak, and coming to enjoy the strangeness of his comrades when I get the chance to see them all interacting. The ship isn’t really big enough to have a lot of separation, so I am able to overhear much of their interactions.
They are more normal, for want of a better term, than I expected them to be when I first met them.
The home realm made every single one of them seem super calm and uptight, but it is obvious that being in the real universe changes them.
I don’t think beings of peace, calm, and light can remain that way when they have to interact with the worlds as they are.
There’s probably something deeply philosophical in there.
The days, such as they are, are filled with us flying about and acting, as far as I can tell, like the space police.
There’s a war on, I’m told. There’s always a war on somewhere.
A lot of planets have several wars happening, and then you get into the wars between worlds and they start getting numerous very quickly.
I’m familiar with some, and not with others. We are traveling outside the space my father used to take me now. I can also tell that some wars are personal. The aliens who took Freak are enemy number one, and their allies are not considered as being much better.
I listen to what is being said and I try to stay out of the way. I want to hear as much as I can hear, and understand as much as I can.
One day, without warning, our war starts, and everything changes forever.
“We’ve got incoming,” Fidas says. “Three units of Baktari fighters on their way to hijack a peace envoy. It’s against the timeline.”
“Eliminate them,” Freak says.
He shifts from tender and sweet to absolutely ruthless and remorseless in a moment.
I see him become the captain of this vessel, and I watch as the other three fall in with him.
Every one of them knows their jobs. They have their own stations and consoles, and they operate them with a smoothness that I wouldn’t have imagined when I first met them in their home realm.
“Do we have missiles loaded?”
“Yes,” Drak says. “Bays one through twelve all locked and loaded.”
“Open a channel,” Freak says.
“Open,” Aric confirms.
“Baktari vessels, your current actions are against the timeline. Retreat immediately or face quantum devastation.”
Something comes back. It sounds garbled to me, but the Psyons seem to understand it without trouble.
“Drak, launch one missile. Take out the lead ship. With any luck those bringing up the rear will think better of this plan.” Freak gives the orders smoothly and almost clinically.
He seems like a different creature than the one I have had hot trysts with.
This is an alien who wields power so easily it feels natural.
If I had to make a decision like that, I’d be sick to my stomach.
He holds power over life and death, and he makes calls about them like I order off a menu. One missile, over easy.
It must have been awful for him to find himself confined to that experimental lab. Someone with his abilities and his natural command would have suffered greatly. I feel angry at the idea of it.
“Launching,” Drak says. He presses a button and there is a soft sound as a warhead the size of a family sedan is ejected from one of the bays. It streaks across space, traveling so fast it is almost instantly nothing more than a speck.
I expect a massive explosion when the missile hits the vessel, but all that happens is both missile and ship stop existing. They just blink out of existence, like they got deleted off the monitor.
“Whoa,” I say.
His head snaps around. He gives me a dark stare, and for a moment I don’t really recognize him. I feel a pang of intense fear inside me, like I am looking into the golden eyes of a beast who has played gently with me, but is capable of incredible harm.
“You shouldn’t be watching this,” Freak says. “Go to our room, pet.”
“But I want to see…”
“Go,” he says firmly. “Now.”
I take a step back, but I don’t actually leave. I want to see what is happening. He assumes I’ve done as I was told. I might be risking more than I realize by staying, but I want to see all of what he is capable of.
“Erase the other two,” Freak says. “Reverse engineer their heading and we will deal with the source. I’m not having the disrespect spread. We need to remind this galaxy who we are.”
I clap my hand over my mouth. I thought he was going to be more chill about all this. Why did I think that? Because he’s sweet with me? Is he sweet with me? I am rethinking everything about being kidnapped by an alien and turned into his pet now. What if it turns out that he’s an absolute monster?
“She’s still here,” one of the others says. I don’t know which one. My eyes are locked on Freak. I am surprised he can’t hear me. Maybe it’s because my mind is frozen and no thoughts are escaping it. Or maybe he’s focusing super hard on removing his enemies from existence.
Freak turns around, walks toward me, picks me up, and bodily carries me out of the room. I squeak and stiffen with fear as his arms wrap around me. There’s something hard and unyielding about him now.
“Stay in the room or we will be making a stop to get a cage for you,” he says. There’s a rough undertone in his voice that feels new. It makes electric tingles race through me.
He puts me down and leaves again.
I don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t know how to process what I just saw. The power these creatures wield is incredible. And to think I was in their realm, acting like the whole place was just sort of ugly.
“But it was ugly,” I say out loud to myself. “If I was a super advanced alien, and I could make a planet look like anything, it wouldn’t look like a piece of high concept art. It would have chocolate fountains.”
* * *
I sit on the bed and I wait for him to come back. I’m a little scared to see him again. Will he be furious at me for not obeying him? Will he punish me? Will he make my ass disappear?
It’s not all that long until he returns. Minutes, probably.
“Did you erase the planet that sent them?”
“No. We let them off with a warning,” he says.
“Nice of you,” I say, picking at the bedding nervously. I don’t want to look at him directly. The animal instinct in me tells me to show signs of submission. His teeth and claws don’t feel ornamental anymore.
“You’re afraid of me,” he says flatly. “You should be.”
That does not make me feel better at all. I look up at him, barely noticing how I’ve backed myself into the corner on the bed. The walls feel cozy and right around me.
“I am a warrior,” he says. “And part of my mission has always been to destroy our enemies. I know you’re probably used to a different kind of battle.
Fire being exchanged, casualties being taken on both sides.
But that kind of war does not make sense for our kind.
We are capable of tampering with the very mesh of reality.
This is why we prefer peace, but when war is necessary, we do not take prisoners. ”
“Okay.”
“The Baktari are particularly dangerous. They are attempting to destroy peace talks between two solar systems. What I just did will save trillions over the years. I don’t expect you to understand it.
But in guarding the best timeline, sometimes actions virtually indistinguishable from evil are necessary. ”
“Okay.”
I don’t know what to say to any of that. The guy can literally stop things from existing. Does he really care about my feedback? Has anything I have ever said or done mattered? I feel as though I am cowering before a power so great and so unfathomable there is no way I can comprehend it.
“How did you ever get caught by those aliens that experimented on you if you can do that?”
“I can’t do that. The ship can. It’s a technology. I am limited by my physical form as much as anyone is. I’m not a god, pet.”
“May as well be,” I mutter under my breath.
I don’t know enough about these people to know if he was right to eliminate them. It didn’t feel fair or sporting, but what if they’re super ultra evil? I have never felt more like a pet. I am stuck in a world I don’t entirely understand, watching things happen that don’t make sense to me.
“I care for you,” he says. “I’m going to make sure no harm comes to you. Do you understand?”
“Or you will disappear me,” I say.
“Never,” he promises. “You will never be harmed. Ever.”
The more he says that, the more I think I might be harmed at some point. Funny how that works.
* * *
Freak
She is afraid of me. I can feel her fear between us like a barrier. She couldn’t stop me if I wanted to touch her. She knows how helpless she is when it comes to me, but she never saw me as dangerous before. Or as in command as I was, either. I wonder which of the two was more disturbing to her.
I wonder if I shouldn’t let her sit with it. She can come to terms with my true nature and learn that she will be cared for regardless of how dangerous I may be. Nothing about me has changed, only her perception.
“How many people have you… disappeared?” She asks the question with a good amount of horror hidden in the tremor of the words.
“A great many,” I tell her. “All in service of protecting the best possible outcome. We are working toward peace at all times.”
“Nothing is more peaceful than erasing bad guys,” she says.
“Yes,” I agree, even though I am sure she is being sarcastic. “Nothing.”
She nods. Then she says nothing more. I can feel her thoughts roiling in her skull, but there are too many of them to pick out in this moment, and I do try to give her some privacy in her mind when she is agitated.
* * *
My pet is remarkably well behaved for the next few days, though quieter than I like. We have much to do in the name of Alara and the Psyon Empire. My rage, which felt as though it was dormant in the aftermath of my escape, is flaring.
They came for me.
They captured me.