Chapter 3
- Nora -
The darkness takes on a brighter shade.
I want to stop that. Because this is fine. This feels incredible. I don’t want to leave.
“Oh yeah…”
Wonderful little arrows of pleasure are shooting all over my body and all I know is rising warmth and the deepest bliss.
And I can tell I needed it. It was so cold just before, a coldness that went into my bones. But now…
“Ooooh,” I exclaim as another wave of pleasure rolls through me. Whatever this is, I want more of it.
Is it me? Am I doing this? I slowly flex my fingers. No, they weren’t moving before.
There are strange sounds and the movements stop.
“Nooo,” I whine, “keep going…”
The movements start again and the bliss increases. “Yesssss…”
And I don’t want it to stop again, so I move my hands right to my middle, where all the action is.
They hit something there. Something hard and warm. A head?
Is it… someone?
“Ohhh…” I moan as another wave of pleasure comes rolling.
My lips are dry. And why is my pilot’s seat this hard? This light is weird.
Where am I, anyway?
I open my eyes, then close them again. The light is too bright.
Must be Scout Station Six. I’m back from the mission and enjoying some free time. Some very enjoyable free time.
The sensations stop and when I check, there’s nothing down there except me.
“No, no,” I whine. “That was really--”
I open my eyes again to find out who’d do such a mean thing, just stopping–
Huh. This is a weird room. Am I lying on a table?
I lift my head and squint. There’s someone standing there, at the end of the table.
Someone big. Other Space Force personnel, I’m sure.
“Can you just… not stop?” I ask as I lie my head back down. “Because that was really…”
I wake up fully. Wasn’t there a fire? All the alarms… And Lucius giving me a formal goodbye…
My hands shoot down my body. I’m naked!
I open my eyes again.
Shit. This is no space station I’ve ever seen. This is…
I raise my head again. This is alien.
The guy at the end of the table puts a sheet of fabric over my lower half. There’s a lot of light behind him and I can’t really see much, but he seems to be wearing a suit of armor or something like that.
Suddenly all my memories hit me at once. The Intrepid 21! The minefield! The explosions! The fire! And… the Bliss Pack.
Shit. Am I dead? Is this the afterlife? I don’t remember being expertly eaten out as one of the things to expect, but I’m happy to be wrong.
“Lucius?” I try, my mouth and throat still dry. “Are you here?”
There’s no response.
The figure at the end of the table tilts his head as though studying me.
For a moment I focus on the light behind him. It shines through parts of his silhouette and makes it difficult to judge what I'm seeing. As my vision clears, more details emerge. The ridges around his shoulders don't move like armor. The shapes along his arms don't appear attached to a suit.
A cold feeling settles into my stomach. Those ridges belong to him.
I push myself upright despite the dizziness and force myself to look properly.
The creature is enormous. Even standing several paces away, he has to be close to eight feet tall. The broad shoulders and powerful limbs would look imposing on a human. On him they look almost absurdly strong, as though strength is simply his natural state.
The colors catch my attention next. At first I mistake the iridescent plates for armor, something worn, something strapped on.
Then he shifts his weight and the colors shift with him, blue bleeding into green, green into violet, gold and crimson chasing each other across his body like light moving through deep water, and I understand that every shimmering plate is him.
Not worn.
Grown. A part of him.
My gaze travels upward to his face, and something in my chest goes very still. Two dark, almond-shaped eyes look like pieces of carefully polished emerald, with some kind of inner light to them.
Long antennae rise from his head and move in small, almost thoughtful adjustments, as though he's tasting the air between us. Below all that, sharp black mandibles frame a mouth that looks better suited to dismantling machinery than holding a conversation.
Then he moves again and something unfolds behind him, enormous, translucent, veined with the same shimmering rainbow that runs through the rest of him: Wings.
They catch the light for one brief moment before folding back, and the colors that ripple through them look less like pigment and more like something alive, moving through the armor the way a thought moves through a mind.
Everything about him should look monstrous. Instead, my mind keeps circling back to a different word: Magnificent.
That realization rattles me almost as much as the fact that he's obviously a Locust.
The sheet slips lower around my waist, but I barely notice. My attention is fixed on the creature standing a few paces away while my mind struggles to make sense of what my eyes are telling me.
The stories come back in fragments. Refugees arriving in overcrowded transports.
News interviews that ended with aliens distraught.
Entire settlements abandoned with almost no warning.
Planets ruined. Nobody ever seemed eager to explain exactly what they had seen.
They talked about leaving, running, and escaping before it was too late.
One name always surfaced eventually: Space Locusts.
I stare at the alien while old memories rearrange themselves into something far more personal.
For years the words belonged to reports, rumors, and distant tragedies.
Politicians argued about them. Analysts produced threat assessments.
Refugees whispered about them in temporary settlements far from home.
Now one is standing in front of me.
Okay, so it’s not the afterlife. This is endlessly worse.
The creature clicks something with its jaw and takes a cautious step backward.
The movement catches my attention because it isn't what I expected.
Every story I'd heard painted Space Locusts as unstoppable horrors that stripped worlds bare.
Nobody ever mentioned one acting as though it was worried about frightening somebody.
That realization alarms me more, because it makes me wonder what it wants.
My gaze drifts around the room while I force myself to breathe more slowly. The walls pulse faintly, almost as though they are alive. Membranes stretch across distant openings and glow softly from within. Nothing resembles any ship, station, or habitat I've ever visited.
The implications come one piece at a time. I'm alive. I'm aboard a Space Locust ship. And somehow they rescued me from the minefield. Those facts refuse to fit together, no matter how many times I examine them.
I grab the flimsy piece of fabric and pull it up to my chest. Damn, they stripped me bare.
I’m fully aware that if I hadn’t triggered the Bliss Pack, I would be panicking hard right now. But that cocktail of drugs is keeping me calm.
The alien continues watching me. There is no obvious threat in his posture, yet I can't shake the feeling that he's studying me as carefully as I'm studying him. The idea should be terrifying. Instead, a small part of me is simply confused.
Movement catches my eye. Something small scuttles onto the edge of the platform beside the Space Locust. At first I assume it's some kind of robot. Then it rises on its legs and points a claw directly at me.
The tiny creature makes an excited clicking noise with its claws, looking like a metallic lobster, silvery and rounded, except with more legs and a longer body.
Yep, the Bliss Pack is absolutely keeping me calm.
I stare at the alien while trying to decide whether this development improves the situation or makes it significantly worse. The creature stares right back, apparently wrestling with the same question.
Neither of us appears to know what to do next. The silence stretches long enough to become uncomfortable.
The Space Locust finally moves first. He places a hand against his chest and says something with a deep bass voice. Then he repeats the gesture while watching me closely.
At first I assume he's issuing some kind of warning or making a threat that I'm simply too ignorant to recognize. Then he touches his chest again and repeats the same words. The motion is deliberate enough that another possibility slowly occurs to me: A name.
The realization feels almost absurd. Here I am trapped aboard an alien vessel with one of humanity's most feared species, and he's introducing himself.
The alien repeats the gesture once more and waits.
I hesitate while weighing my options. Every survival instinct argues against cooperating with a creature that might one day lead an invasion of Earth. On the other hand, refusing to communicate with someone who seems interested in keeping me alive doesn't strike me as a brilliant strategy.
Carefully, I place a hand against my own chest. "Nora."
The alien immediately straightens. Something changes in his posture.
The lobster taps its way to the edge of the platform and stands there, looking at me with three eyes on stalks.
"Nora," I repeat.
One clawed finger points toward me. Then he points toward himself and produces another sound. It's longer this time, with subtle variations that I know I have no hope of reproducing correctly.
The small lobster-like creature has become visibly excited. It waves both claws in the air, points at the Space Locust, points at me, and then repeats the sequence several times as though witnessing some historic diplomatic achievement.
"Congratulations," I mutter. "We've successfully established that we're both people."
The lobster pauses and tilts its head. The Space Locust does exactly the same thing. Neither appears to understand a single word.
The absurdity of the situation settles over me all at once. I'm sitting naked on a living alien ship after surviving a minefield and a crash that should have killed me. Across from me stands one of the monsters from the alien refugees's worst stories. Beside him is an enthusiastic alien lobster.