Alien Assassin (9 page)

“I’m Adam Cain.”

They shook hands.

“You’re from the south somewhere, right?”

“How’d you guess? Kentucky, actually. A little town called Owensboro. It’s still the South.”

“I know where Owensboro is,” Adam said a little too enthusiastically. “It’s near the Ohio border?”

Sherri nodded. “How ’bout you? What’s your story?”

“I’m from southern California, but I’m in the Navy now – or I was in the Navy. Now…I don’t know.” He was feeling as nervous as a schoolboy around her.

Sherri smiled at him. “I’m sure we both have some stories to tell. How long have you been out here?”

“Around nine months now, as best I can tell. Time is all fucked up here—” he stopped, embarrassed with his language; it had been so long since he had to be careful around a lady, especially a Human lady.

“It’s okay, stud,” she said to him, smiling. “I’ve heard a lot worse than that. You need to relax. We’re a just couple of lost Humans a long way from home.”

“You’re actually the only other Human woman I’ve seen here. There was another Human male, but he’s dead now.” Adam noticed a cloud come over Sherri’s face and the smile drained away. “How about you? How long have you been here? And have you seen any other Humans?”

She looked away, and at the solitary window in the room. “It’s probably been three years now. You’re right, time is hard to track.” And then she looked back at him. “As far as seeing other Humans, you’re the first
free
one I’ve seen.”

“What do you mean…free?”

She frowned back at him. “You know… Weren’t you abducted like the rest of us?”

Adam nodded. “Yeah, but I was never a prisoner.” He went on to explain how he’d awaken aboard the alien spaceship and run off to hide while the ship had been attacked by pirates. He related the story of Kaylor and Jym and of his arrest on Nimor, before telling her of Riyad and their encounter with the Juireans. Lastly, he concluded his story with the explosion of the Klin spaceship.

“Klin!” she exclaimed. “Are you sure?”

“Positive. And I’ve been looking for them ever since. They know where Earth is located.”

Sherri wrinkled her nose and frowned again. “Yeah, right,” she said. “I’ve heard rumors of the Klin, and I don’t believe it. There’s only one group of people who can tell us where Earth is –
and they’re other people just like us
.”

Adam was shocked by her statement. “What do you mean?”

“Let me tell you
my
story.” Sherri sat up on the bed and wrapped the sheet around her. Adam was glad she did so; the continued sight of her naked breasts would have been very distracting.

“Woke up in one of those pods myself,” she began in her cute southern drawl, “but I was being helped out by other people –
other Humans
. There were a lot of us being revived, and even though I was real groggy at the time, I knew something wasn’t right.

“These young men, mostly, gave us all robes to wear then herded us down a long corridor to a room with bench seats running along each side. I didn’t know it at the time, but we were being put on a shuttle, and when the gravity shifted, several of us vomited. These other Humans just stood there and didn’t offer to help.”

Adam could tell it pained her to recall the story, but he needed for her to continue. This was valuable information he needed to know.

She took a deep breath and continued.

“Once we got to where we were going, they separated us into two groups, taking the men away while the women were paraded through a shower and given orange tunics to wear. One of the women protested to a male guard and he bashed her in the face with a baton. He told the room that no one was to talk unless asked a question. I was getting pissed.

“Then in a large room, a male doctor of some kind examined us – it was all so embarrassing and sterile. He was real rough and didn’t seem to care at all. A few of the women looked sickly, and they were taken away and we never saw them again. The rest of us, about thirty women, were moved to a barracks and feed plates of mush that I could hardly keep down.

“That night, some of us talked. We had all been out by ourselves, either jogging or returning from work or whatever, when we felt a hot bright light. Next thing we knew, we were being helped out of the pods. The time shift was almost non-existent.”

“I know. I felt the same thing,” Adam said, letting Sherri take a break from her story. “I was on a mission in Afghanistan when they took me.”

“I was on a jog in the desert,” countered Sherri. “I was a student at the University of Phoenix – a veterinary major – when I was taken.”

“Sorry,” was all Adam could say.

Sherri shook her head and continued: “The next day, this older asshole came into the barracks and announced that we were to be breeders, doing our duty for
the common good
, whatever that meant. By this time, I’d had enough. I was raised in the country and I’m pretty tough, for a girl.” She sent him a smirk. “You also have to understand, at this time I had no idea I wasn’t on Earth anymore. In fact, we all thought this was some super-elaborate sex-trade operation; we hadn’t run into any fucking aliens at the time. But I wasn’t about to let these assholes turn
me
into a sex slave.”

Adam smiled slightly and relaxed. It was refreshing to hear that the two of them shared the same vocabulary coach—

“So I attacked one of the guards and kicked the shit out of him,” she continued, not noticing his smile. “I tried to get away but was stopped by five more guards – and the first alien I’d ever seen. Needless to say, I was scared shitless.”

“What did it look like…the alien?” Adam asked.

“It was tall and pale, with long white hair. It looked something like that wizard-guy from
Lord of the Rings
, if you ever saw it.”

Adam nodded. “I think you saw a Klin.”

“You’re kidding?” she said, her eyes growing wide. “I thought it was just another stinking alien that the Humans were in bed with. Humm, a Klin in the flesh… Well, needless to say, the other Humans didn’t like the idea that a girl could beat up one of their buddies, so they did a real number on me, and I ended up in a hospital bed. That actually saved my life.”

“How so?”

“When I woke up, there was no one else in the room and I wasn’t even restrained. So I took off out of there. I was still in shock about seeing the alien. In fact, at that time, I thought I was hallucinating.

“Anyway, after awhile, I made it to a loading dock in a large warehouse and climbed into a crate full of green containers. It was tight as hell, but at least I felt safe. Then someone came and loaded the crate onto a spaceship, even though at the time, I still thought I was on Earth, so it was a truck I thought I was on.

“After several hours, I’d pissed myself – is this too graphic for you?” she asked.

“Nah, go ahead. This is fascinating.”

“So I climbed out of the crate and made my way into a series of metal hallways. That’s when I encountered the ship’s crew for the first time. There were eight of them, all aliens, mainly Sileans I found out later. Well, needless to say, they didn’t take too kindly to me being on their ship uninvited.” Then she winked at Adam. “You know we Humans can be pretty bad-ass when we want to be?”

Adam nodded. “I’ve noticed. It’s really comes in handy being out here with these aliens. Riyad said we were the Supermen – eh, super-people – in this part of the galaxy.”

“He’s right. And knock off the politically-correct bullshit. I’m just your average little southern republican woman. I don’t get all twisted up over the
way
things are said. It’s the meaning that counts to me.

“But continuing: I spent a day or so killing off all except one of the crewmembers. It was mainly self-defense, but I was also pretty pissed off at the time. I’d come to the conclusion that I was not in Kansas anymore, and that my whole life had been high-jacked. I took it out on any fucking alien I could find.

“But this one slippery little bitch was able to lock me in a metal-lined storage locker until she was able to get her ship to Silea. Once there, I was in for the shock of my life – as I’m sure you’ve been through as well.
There was nothing but aliens everywhere
. Big ones, small ones, smelly ones and things that would make you puke just to look at them. I was arrested and placed in a prison cell for awhile, maybe about two months, as best as I could guess. If the day-night cycle on Silea is close to Earth’s, then it was about two months.

“Then one day, a fat, pimply Silean named Kroekus came and put me in some gladiator-type fight with another female thing with six breasts. I know now she was a Malforian. It wasn’t much of a fight. I whipped her in about a minute flat.”

Sherri was growing more at ease with her story and Adam reasoned this was the first time she’d ever been able to tell it to someone who could actually relate. As she spoke, Adam felt a real bond developing between them that even went beyond that fact that they were both Human. Yes, she was a woman, and they had just had incredible sex – multiple times. Of course,
that
could have had something to do with the feelings he was experiencing.

Yet he didn’t experience any such bond when he’d first met Riyad Tarazi. All he’d felt from the beginning was fear and apprehension. Many times Adam had attempted to understand his irrational feelings upon meeting another Human, but the best he could come up with as to why he felt no attachment was the instinctive male-to-male competitiveness and distrust that was part of his very DNA. It had to be a primal territorial thing.

Of course, at the time he’d met Riyad, he’d only been away from Earth for a couple of days, as far as his perception was concerned. But even by then, he’d already met a whole cadre of various aliens and was fully aware of his situation. Still, he’d felt nothing but distrust for Riyad.

Yet a
female
did
not
bring out that instinctive distrust in him. Instead, it brought out other instinctive urges that were much easier to explain…

“I’ve heard of this Kroekus character before,” was all Adam said aloud, as the thoughts continued to swirl around in his head.

“Yeah, he’s some big-wig on Silea. But to make a long story short, he got me out of jail and hired me to perform in more of his games. I was so good at killing that soon I started performing hit jobs for him and some of his friends. We all have to make a living, and alien prostitutes are not in very much demand unless you share the same genetic make-up as your Johns.” She laughed, and it made him feel good that she was letting it all out. Her spirit and personality were refreshing.

“So you became an assassin?”

“Yep. It’s really not that hard of work, not out here.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.”

Sherri stopped speaking and stared hard at Adam. Then her eyes began to grow big and bright. “Wait just a damn minute,” she said, pointing a finger at him. “Are you the one that’s been going around blowing up shit and whacking dozens of aliens at a time?
The Exterminator
, they call him?”

Adam flashed a big grin. “That’s me,” he said with pride.

“Well fuck me!” she said loudly. “What are the chances that two stranded Humans would end up in the
same
profession?”

“It’s just killing aliens, just like in a video game. And besides, you said it yourself: We all have to make a living!”