Star Kissed (4 page)

“Purebred human,” the man said, sharp gaze on her. “Our source was right.”

“Purebred human?” she echoed. “What else would I …” Her eyes went to the half-lizard beside her, who gave a lopsided, toothless grin.

“How many were with you on the craft?” the man asked. He stepped forward and took one of her hands in his gloved one. He peered at her fingernails. She was once again distracted by how real his leathery gloves were.

It wasn’t a dream.

“A couple hundred, I imagine,” she said. “Gonor said … most were dead.”

“The city gods would have stripped their tissues and bled them for their pureblood.”

She stared at him. Sensing her distress at his words, the man looked at her from her hand. The skin around his eyes softened.

“You’re safe,” he assured her. “We’ve been preserving humanity for a thousand of year.”

“I don’t understand.”

He drew a breath. “I know. We will talk.” He stepped away and nodded towards the half-lizard. “Pinal will take you somewhere to rest.”

She frowned, wanting to ask about Urik. The man walked away, and Pinal motioned her to follow him. He approached the hip-high blocks ringing the auditorium and leapt the three feet in the air with ease. Mandy’s frown deepened, and she hefted herself onto the block, swung her legs up, and stood.

Pinal was already three blocks ahead. He turned as she approached the next one and leapt back down to the block above her, extending a hand. She took it, and he pulled her up. He released her, leapt to the next block, and lifted her again. At last, they reached the top row. She made out tiny rooms lining the wall in the light of the fire. He walked halfway around the auditorium before motioning to one.

She entered, surprised to find the room cozy. Another of the flameless fires lit the room in an orangey glow. Pillows and a long, narrow bed close to the ground filled half the room, a low table and trunks piled to the ceiling along the other wall. Sitting down in the pile of pillows, she couldn’t help feeling disoriented. Akkadi seemed real. She had the sense of floating again.

The man soon joined her. He handed his weapons to Pinal at the door then entered and dropped onto the bed. They stared at each other, and she sensed he wasn’t entirely sure what to make of a
purebred
human. While not striking like Akkadi, he was handsome in the way of a roughened gladiator.

“Did Gonor give you something to smuggle out of the healing ward?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said and reached into her shirt to pull the tiny storage box free. He nodded in approval.

“May I see it?”

She hesitated, recalling Gonor’s words then obliged. “I had two but gave the other one to Akkadi.”

The man looked up sharply. “Who?”

“Akkadi. And he gave me a message for someone named Urik.”

“What did he say?”

“Are you Urik?” she asked curiously.

“I am,” Urik confirmed.

“I’m Mandy,” she said. “He said to tell you not to leave me alone anymore. He said to stay with you.”

The man lost all interest in the box to study her hard.

“Most people don’t survive an encounter with Akkadi,” he said at last. “Especially your kind.”

“I don’t understand,” she replied, puzzled. “He was somewhat nice.”
And sexy as hell.

“He’s a Naki, a race of extraterrestrials. We humans have always called them gods, even when they’re standing in front of us bleeding to death from grader …” He stopped at her gasp. “Forgive me, Mandy. I’ve been a warrior since the day I was born. From what I know of your time, it was not like now.”

“It’s ok,” she murmured.

“If Akkadi didn’t grab you …” the warrior’s features grew concerned. He shook his head. “I don’t know what that means. I’ve never heard of him letting any human go.”

A shiver went through her, and she pulled her knees to her chest. She’d sensed power but not danger from Akkadi. If anything, he’d taken pity on her.

“He’s an alien,” she repeated.

“Yes, one of two races that has been at battle for tens of thousands of years. One race, Akkadi’s ancestors, the Nakis, colonized this planet. The people lived for thousands of years in peace and eventually forgot their origins, calling themselves humans, our ancestors.

“About ten thousand years ago, something went wrong. We were protected and hidden from the universe by Akkadi’s people. Their enemies happened upon a purebred human in a primitive space vessel exploring the galaxy. They found the humans and brought the war to our planet.”

She listened, enraptured.

“The race that was our protector was beaten out, and their enemies, the Ishta, began massacring humans. They weren’t able to kill us all, so they started bioengineering us to become warriors, organ donors, and slaves. The humans rebelled about a thousand years ago, and the Naki attacked the Ishta. The planet has been immersed in battle since. We fight both sets of gods, and they fight each other and what remains of humanity. Both races think we are the key to curing a disease that’s been spreading among their races and so vie for control over a dead planet with a diseased population.”

“How awful!” she exclaimed.

“When the people began to talk about the purebred humans who appeared in a craft …” he looked at her. “Many think genetic experiments with purebred humans are the key to ridding us all of disease. People like me, however …”

She held her breath.

“…believe purebred or impure, we are not going to cannibalize our own like the gods do to us.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” she said with a sigh. “He told me to find you specifically. Why didn’t he take me or kill me?”

“He’s planning something, or he would’ve acted by now,” Urik said with an edge that made her think he knew Akkadi better than he let on. “We’ll need to get you out of Aratta.”

“What about going home?” she asked.

“To your … time?”

“I’m in the future?”

“I imagine, unless purebred humans are recreated in the future and came back in time,” he said with humor she didn’t find remotely funny. “I don’t think you can get home. The gods used to travel through time, but their war has drained the energy needed to open a star gate between times.”

“But it is possible.”

“Yes, it’s possible. Akkadi can open a star gate. But the chances of him doing so are not good.”

She ignored his last statement, concentrating on a deep-felt sense of relief at the acknowledgment she wasn’t trapped.

“You could stay,” he said. “I never knew how beautiful purebred humans were.” He spoke too matter-of-factly to be hitting on her, but she couldn’t help the blush that warmed her face. His considering gaze lingered on her before he shook his head to clear it and rose. “Rest here. We require food and water only sporadically. I’ll have to find someone to supply us with enough to sustain you and arrange to have you smuggled out of the city.”

“Can I ask you something else?”

“Of course.”

“What is this?” She turned around and lifted her hair to show the metal circle at the base of her neck.

“Ah. Good Gonor,” Urik replied. “It allows us to reprogram your brain’s electrical impulses. It’s probably why you’re able to breathe this air. It’s got a heavy concentration of heavy metals that would otherwise poison you. I’ll send the cyborg up to see what Gonor’s already programmed.”

Mandy twisted to stare at him. He spoke too candidly about reprogramming her brain for her to be anything other than uncomfortable.

“We’ll get you fixed up,” he assured her.

“Thank you, ” she replied. “Hey, where’s the bathroom?”

He gave her a long look.

“You know, the place you go when you have to go?”

After a moment, he answered. “Waste room,” he corrected her. “Right next door.”

Half afraid of what a futuristic bathroom entailed rose. He walked her to the room next door then into it with her. It was empty.

“I’m not getting this,” she said.

“It’s easy. The radiation vaporizes any waste in your body.” He held out his hands on either side of him.

Mandy echoed his movement, doubting it would work. Heat went over her from head to foot from a source in the wall. When it reached her toes, she no longer had to pee.

“Wow,” she said. “That’s awesome.”

“It decontaminates you, too.”

“Good to know.”

He led her back to her room. Mandy settled with her back against a wall and squeezed her knees to her chest. She watched him go, taking in his muscular body.

She dwelled on his story and this new place and finally decided she just couldn’t quite accept it all yet. Maybe, if she took a nap, she’d awaken on the plane. Mandy stretched out on the bed but couldn’t sleep with the thrum of panic running through her body. The sounds of movement from the auditorium drifted to her. Her thoughts returned to Akkadi and the sense she’d felt standing so close to him. Any doubt that this place was real had melted away.

Now, the doubt returned. The sense she was dreaming again softened the edges of the world around her. The air conditioning didn’t seem as cold, the walls didn’t seem like they’d be solid.

As she drifted into a doze, she thought she heard the flight attendant ask the man beside her what he wanted to drink.

Diet Coke.

There wasn’t Diet Coke in the future. Her body eased into slumber as she realized the dream was over, and she was safe aboard the plane again. The beverage cart rattled away.

Something warm was against her chest. Mandy swiped at it sleepily. It grew hot, and she snapped awake, disoriented once more. She wasn’t sleeping in a seat on the plane but was on her back, staring at a ceiling made of big blocks.

She dug through the necklaces and shirt until she saw the medallion Akkadi had given her. She held it away from her chest. Its unusual glow faded, along with its heat. She touched it. It was cool again, and she dropped it to her chest.

There was no beverage cart. She was stuck in the small room at the top of the auditorium. Some time had passed while she slept. The auditorium below had emptied out of all but two men in black. Someone had brought her a bowl of space Twinkies and another filled with water. She nibbled on the foamy confections, more out of anxiety than out of hunger. She stopped short of venturing to drink the cloudy liquid. Some sort of future space bug was swimming in it.

Mandy leaned forward. It appeared to be a beetle with a triangular shell.

“You saw Gonor, human?” The voice came from outside her room.

Mandy leaned out to see the half-lizard, Pinal seated to the side of the doorway.

“I did,” she confirmed. “He helped me escape.”

Pinal’s scaled features appeared pleased by her words. At least, she interpreted the sudden display of toothless gums as a smile.

“He has not forgotten our ways,” he said. “I’d lost hope in him. But no longer. You have restored it.”

“He was very kind.”

“He always has been, until the
Ishta
-gods took him. He is the best in the medical field of genetics on the planet. I feared they brainwashed him made him one of them.”

“Ishta-gods and Naki-gods,” she said, recalling Urik’s history lesson from earlier. “Akkadi is a Naki.”

“How do you know of Akkadi already?”

“I met him. He was very …”
hot. Sweet. Dangerous, in a sexy way.

“Frightening?” Pinal supplied.

“I suppose.”

“I never saw him before,” Pinal lowered his voice. “They say he is twenty feet tall and has fangs larger than my legs.”

“That’s not entirely accurate,” she said, puzzled.

“How large are his fangs?”

 “Not much bigger than my teeth.”

Pinal bared his gums, pensive. “Was he twenty feet tall?”

“He was about your height.”

“I’m not twenty feet tall,” Pinal mused. “You are the only I have known who has looked upon his face.”

“Are we talking about the same person?” Mandy’s frown deepened. Akkadi had radiated danger but caused her no harm. At least, no harm she knew of. She touched the necklace he gave her. She hadn’t sensed his danger directed at her. He definitely didn’t look like a monster.

“There is only one Akkadi,” Pinal replied wisely.

“Has anyone else here seen him?” she asked.

“Not that I know of. The Naki and Ishta don’t like coming here, not after that they’ve done to the planet. He stays in their cloud-ships or stations or negotiates treaties and battles.”

“Of course. Why not,” she murmured then shook her head. “If I see him again, I’m definitely asking him if I can use his star gate to go home.”

Pinal looked at her for the first time since they began talking. His mouth was slack in the only sign of his surprise. He didn’t object to her idea, and she glanced towards the auditorium, where the bear-like leader of this strange faction had appeared with a satchel.

Satisfied she’d found the right man – even if by accident – she also couldn’t help wishing she’d known what she did now about Akkadi. If she had, she could’ve asked him to take her home.

Home. The world around her was real again, from Pinal’s lopsided grin to her growling belly.

She looked around. Was Urik serious about what happened to the rest of the cabin crew and passengers from the plane? The leader of what remained of humanity was leaping up the tall block stairs towards her.

“How many star gates are there?” she asked curiously.

“Um, an infinite amount,” Pinal replied.

“What?”

“This will regulate your temperature,” Urik said. He squatted and handed her a black uniform as soft as cashmere but made of tiny chain links.

Mandy took it, fascinated by the texture. She’d tried on everything from yard sale clothes to some of the most exclusive haute couture threads in her line of work. None of them were anything like this.

“This is water.” He held out what looked like a lunch box with soft walls and a spout for drinking. “There is more food in here. We will leave you alone to change.”

She accepted the satchel and retreated deeper into the room. The uniform was two pieces: a long-sleeved shirt and pants. They fit snugly, like the clothing she wore to her Pilates training three times a week. She pulled the fabric away from her arm, astonished when it stretched a full two feet without ripping. She released it, and it snapped back into place, like a second skin.