Alien Avatar: An Alien Sci-Fi Romance (8 page)

Marko did not sleep. He had nightmares all the same. When morning came, and he could look over the city and begin to take toll of the previous night's destruction, he rose to his feet and woke Naeesha.

Her face was wracked with rage and sorrow before she fully awoke, like rising from a bad dream only to find reality is even worse.

“What’s going on?” she asked, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

“It looks like everything’s cleared out. I think I see a few groups of survivors down south. We should go see if we can help.

“Okay.”

They left the woods and walked through the meadow that surrounded the city. There were scorched craters and long scars in the earth. He tried not to see the carnage hidden in the tall grass, but he couldn’t look away.

“Marko!” a voice cried out.

A small Halian appeared from a hiding place in the tall grass. It was Kiran. They were alive.

Marko dropped to his knees and wrapped the child in his arms.

“You’re alive,” Kiran said, echoing Marko’s same thoughts.

“Have you seen others?”

“Here, in the trees.”

Naeesha walked alongside him, her arm in his, helping him along through the pitted field. Kiran lead them to a stand of trees where a few dozen Halians sat, trembling and wide eyed.

They told him that they were hungry. That they couldn’t go into the village for fear of the horrors that they might find there.

Marko was scared himself, but he knew that at least his own feelings would not spread to the others. He volunteered himself and Naeesha to go to the bazaar and to find some supplies.

They did not speak as they started the macabre task of picking through the ruined wastes. Both of them had seen their fair share of death and destruction, but that didn’t make things any easier.

The bazaar had been the center of fierce fighting and most of it had been utterly destroyed. Naeesha managed to find a few crates of bread that remained intact after being blasted across the meadow. Marko found a few jugs of water that still seemed potable.

They started carrying their finds back to the trees. There were more survivors there now, naturally gravitating to the point. Some of the Halians got to work distributing the supplies to the survivors, and Marko and Naeesha went back to their soul-crushing work.

By the time the suns were high, they’d managed to gather food, water, medicine, tents, and some bedding. It wasn’t much, but it would be enough.

The population of nearly two-thousand had been reduced to less than fifty overnight.

The Halians mourned, and Marko and Naeesha mourned with them. They did not delay for long though, because there was no time for it. They had to decide what to do next.

It was impossible to say for certain, but the guess was that nearly a dozen Halians had fallen to the Wild and scattered. It was most likely that they had all pursued the military back to wherever they came, but there was no knowing for certain.

The question of the military also weighed heavily on the minds of the survivors. They could not afford another encounter. That would be the end of their band.

Marko and Naeesha answered questions about the trail towards the capital, but the final decisions lay with the survivors as a whole. They deliberated for an hour, and then ate, as was their custom.

In the end, the tribe decided that their best hope for survival was to turn around, and head back for their own world.

              “What do they mean, go back to their own world?”

Naeesha and Marko hung towards the back of the group, keeping up the stragglers as they fell back from the pack.

“The Halians say that they came through a portal beneath the Dynasty facility. That portal links their world and ours.”

“And they want to go back?”

“They don’t see another way. Our kind refuse to coexist with them. I can’t even imagine what the capital’s response will be to their attack.”

“What do you think happened to the soldiers that massacred the village?”

“Dead. All of them.”

There seemed to be very little doubt in Marko’s mind about that fact. From what he’d told her of the Wild, she was inclined to believe him.

“What will you do?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, they’re going home, how far are you going to take them?”

Marko gave her a sort of sad, sympathetic look.

“Our people drove them from their homes in the first place, and then refused to take them in. The least that I can do is to make sure they get home safely. I’m taking them all the way.”

Naeesha didn’t like the sound of that. The Dynasty compound was hundreds of miles away, over rough terrain filled with unimaginable danger.

“It’s not your fault, you know. You don’t have to repay the evil of others.”

“We’re not innocent in this, Naeesha. Neither of us. Anyway, I’ve made up my mind. I don’t blame you if you don’t want to come.”

She bit her tongue. She
didn’t
want to go. She wanted to be somewhere safe. Somewhere with Marko. But she knew he wouldn’t change his mind. That was impossible.

“Hey,” she said. “I just noticed your nose. It’s crooked.”

Marko looked at her out of the corner of his eye. The glance was a good deal less than friendly.

“Maybe you don’t remember punching me? I’m pretty sure you broke it.”

“Sorry,” she said. “I was pretty on edge.”

“You were-” he cut himself off. “Yea, you were. What happened to you? After I left?”

Naeesha put her head down and walked a little faster, eager to avoid the conversation. But Marko wasn’t having it.

“You looked half-dead when you showed up. I just want to understand what you were going through. That’s all.”

She looked up at him, but couldn’t hold his gaze. She lowered her eyes and kept walking.

“I guess I just got lost.”

“We all get lost, you know. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I don’t know.”

“I do.”

She smiled at him, but said nothing else. They were both happy to walk in silence. Most of their time together had been spent like this. Some things just didn’t need to be said, and they both knew that. Or maybe some things just didn't need to be spelled out. It was whatever it was, and that was okay.

Anyway, the quiet made it easier for her to think about last night. Before the attack. Gods she’d been so happy for just a moment. All the emptiness and worry and fear had vanished, pushed back by joy and belonging. At least for a few wonderful minutes.

It still gave her hope. After years of trouble - they could still get right back to it if the time was right. She just wondered if the time would ever be right again. She wondered how much time they had left.

As far as Naeesha was concerned, the world had been over for about three years now. The fleeting happiness that she’d had with Marko was so brief that it barely counted as a dream. Now she was back to reality. The world
really
was coming to an end.

He went up ahead of her to help carry a wounded elder in a makeshift stretcher. He was so at home here. So comfortable with these people. The uncomfortable reality was setting in that Naeesha didn’t resent the Hala because of who they were. She hated that Marko had chosen them instead of her.

A familiar shape dropped out of the long line ahead of her. Kiran. The child was all smiles, as usual, and beamed up at her as they walked by her side.

“I’m glad you came to visit us,” Kiran said.

Naeesha cocked her head and smiled.

“Why’s that?” she asked.

“Because you’re nice, and Marko is happy because you’re here.”

She blushed.

“How do you know that Marko’s happy because of me? Can you feel
his
feelings?”

Kiran laughed.

“No, I can just tell by looking at his face.”

She wondered if it was true. Marko’s spirits
had
seemed high, all things considered, but she thought that was just how he was these days. It seemed like he’d been getting along just fine without her. Why should her sudden arrival make any difference?

“How old are you?” she asked.

“I’m four and three quarters. How old are you?”

“Four?” she asked, wondering if Hala used a different measurement of time. “You seem so much older.”

“That’s what Marko said. He said that Hala children grow up fast. You didn’t answer my question.”

“I’m…” she had to stop and think about it. Another sign that the last few years had really gotten the better of her. Her age wasn’t the only thing that had gotten away from her over the last few years. She’d lost track of everything that mattered. Forgotten everything that had ever been important. “Forty six, I think.”

“You think?” Kiran laughed.

“When you get old, sometimes you forget things,” she said.

Marko had his doubts about making it back to the Dynasty compound. The way he figured, it was a two-week journey, best case scenario. They didn’t have a real map - the only one they
did
have was one that Naeesha had brought and was set to a planetary scale. They’d have to navigate based off rough guesses at lakes and mountain ranges.

If the jungle around the compound was as thick as it had been twenty-eight years ago, then they wouldn’t have a hard time walking right past it even with a good map.

And that wasn’t the least of his concerns.
Getting there
was. He took stock of all the things that their rag-tag group had to worry about.

1)
 
The Alderoccan military.

2)
 
Halians who’d given in to the Wild.

3)
 
Animals, assorted.

4)
 
Exhaustion, dehydration, starvation, exposure, heat stroke, etc.

5)
 
Despair

It was by no means a complete list, but Marko was confident that if anything was going to kill him over the next two weeks, it would be on that list.

If they
did
make it to the compound, their odds of survival were a complete mystery. Well, not a
complete
mystery. Everything that he’d heard of the Halian homeworld suggested that it was a splendidly dangerous world. So the odds of survival remained low. The difference, he thought, was not when, but how.

But for all the ways that he and everyone else in the city could ie, he sure as hell wasn’t going to let it be standing around here.

The group would need to move efficiently. That meant no doubling back, no getting turned around. And resting every minute that they weren’t moving. The majority of the survivors were very old or very young. The more able bodied Halians had helped them to a hiding space before going back to help others. Most of them never made it back out of the chaos.

Marko discussed this with the group, and it was decided that he and Naeesha would scout ahead of the group. They would blaze a trail, and the group would follow their markers. That would ensure that when the group was finally ready to move, they’d already be headed somewhere safe.

That was, of course, provided that Marko and Naeesha could
find
somewhere safe. They’d only be able to cover about ten miles a day, and there were more than a handful of stretches where safe places were a hell of a lot further apart than that.

Anyway, “safe” was a relative term, and anywhere that that wasn’t an active battleground was safe enough.

He found Naeesha, still sitting with Kiran, and told her about the plan. She was all for it, and was up with her pack before Marko had even thought about getting ready to head out.

“I just don’t want to sit around anymore. I feel useless here.”

“You’re being a good friend to people who need one. There’s nothing more important than that,” Marko said.

Naeesha blushed. She’d never been good at taking compliments, even when she deserved them as much as she did now.

The change that she’d gone through in just a couple of days was astounding. When he’d first run into her, she’d been just like every warmongering, xenophobic Watcher in the capital. And now she was getting antsy because she felt like she wasn’t doing enough to help the Hala.

But he wasn’t surprised. She was a good woman, with a good head, and a good heart. He knew that as soon as she got a chance to meet the Hala, she’d come around.

“Alright,” he said. “I’m ready.”

He tossed Naeesha a long, straight-bladed knife. More like a sword, really.

“Oh no way are you making me clear brush,” she said.

“Do you know Halian trail signs?”

She turned around and stepped into the brush swinging.

***

              The going was slow. Marking trails is time consuming work, and so is making them. It didn’t help that they couldn’t find any game trails whatsoever (another fact that gave Marko grave concern. What did it say that even the animals had abandoned this part of the world?).

              After a couple of hours and a couple of miles, they fell into a nice rhythm. Marko would pick his way through the brush, blazing a trail between one marker and the next. Naeesha would follow through, clearing it out as she went. He taught her some of the trail signals so that he could help with the clearing.

He did most of the work in his combat form, shifting his arm into a huge serrated scythe that could clear even small saplings.

It had him laugh, using his combat form ike this. He’d trained for thousands of hours trying to perfect it into the ultimate killing machine. Seemed like an awful lot of work just to beat up a few tiny trees.

It was exhausting work, moving his now eight-foot tall, three hundred pound body through the forest, but it made a nice, wide trail. He figured that the survivors could use an easy day’s hike, so he pushed through.

Marko turned around after marking a trail sign on a tall gumsap tree and saw Naeesha picking through a small bush.

“What’d you find?”

“Sourberries,” she said.

“Not a very good snack.”

“No,” she said, standing up with a shirt full of soft pink berries. “But they make a damn fine cobbler.”

He helped her pack the berries into her travelsack and they moved on.

“How far do you think we’ve gone?” she asked.

“Oh, six miles. Maybe seven.”

“How much farther do you think we’ll get today?”

“I’d planned on stopping as soon as we found somewhere to make camp. We’ve got a short day and some weary travellers.”

Naeesha looked like she wanted to say more, but didn’t. She started hacking away at the brush ahead of her, and Marko started trudging through to the next promising tree.

An hour later, he spotted a wide clearing a few hundred feet from their trail. He pointed to it, and Naeesha whooped, hacking away faster than ever. They both worked quickly, forging a trail to their destination for the evening and stumbling into the open space with gleeful smiles.

“Think there’s enough room?”

Marko looked around and laughed. They’d be able to fit their group into the space about five times over without even getting cozy.

“What do you want to do while we wait for them to catch up?” Marko asked, waggling an eyebrow at Naeesha as she dropped her heavy pack to the ground.

“Well,” she said stepping towards him and running her fingers down his arm. “I was thinking that maybe…”

She leaned in and kissed him, long and slow and suggesting so much more.

“Maybe we could clear the rocks and sticks out of the way for the sleeping tent.”

Marko groaned as Naeesha pulled away from him and started picking rocks and branches out of a big open space ahead of her. He cursed her commitment to getting the job done right and joined her, trying to make a nice, flat space for his friends to sleep on.

“How do you see this ending?” Naeesha asked.

“Hopefully with everybody sleeping comfortably through the night.”

Naeesha gave him a glare that could have melted steel.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Do you think you’ll go with them? Back to their home planet?”

“Maybe. I feel more at home with them than I ever did on Alderoc. What will you do?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know if I’ll have much of a choice.”

“If it comes down to it,” Marko said. “I’ll fly you back wherever you need to go. This doesn’t have to be forever for you.”

“Aw, you’re so sweet, giving me a choice of how I spend the rest of my life,” she said mockingly.

“Then again, I can just leave you at the compound.”

“Psh. I’d be better off than ever. Five hundred miles from the nearest soul. Sounds like paradise.”

Marko looked around for anything else that might be unpleasant to sleep on top of, and found nothing.

“What do you think?” he said.

“I told you. Paradise.”

“About the clearing,” Marko nudged.

“There’s only one problem,” she said, obviously avoiding his real question.

“What?” he asked, figuring that the fastest way to get a real answer out of her would be to go along with whatever the hell she was getting at.

“I wouldn’t be able to do this.”

In one fluid motion, Naeesha knocked him onto his back and ended up sitting on top of him. She had his hands pinned over his head, and something told him that she was enjoying his struggles to get his hips free from her.

“I’m sorry we didn’t get a chance to finish what we started the other night,” she whispered. “Want to make it up?”