Alien Freak - Calista Skye Page 0,93

have you here, Averie. Did I hear that you maybe want to join us? With your husband? Is he not here— oh, my dancing stars, is that him?”

Zaroc and Xan’tor lagged behind us, talking about spaceships and all kinds of technical stuff, so Mila and I walked ahead of them.

“That’s a hot alien,” Emma whispers so everyone can hear. “Red hot.”

Xan’tor introduces him to everyone, and soon he’s deep in technical conversation with the mercenaries.

Mila takes my arm and we sit down on crates. “So this is the Space Brigade of the Earth Freedom Army. Not everyone here is part of it, but they are very firm allies. I’m working on getting Earth to accept aliens as full members, but we’re not there yet. Humans only as formal enlistees for now. I’m the commander of the outfit and a captain. Emma is a corporal. Averie, have you decided if you’ll join? Do you need some time to think?”

I grin. “Think about whether I want to fight for Earth to be free? No, thanks. I’m in. I need something to do with myself, anyway.”

Mila smiles. “All right! I just want to repeat that this could be dangerous. We are an actual army, and we do go on real missions. Also, keep in mind that we’re by far the weakest side in this war.”

I shrug. “I’ve been in danger for as long as I’ve been in space. As far as I can tell, that’s how space society is.”

“That’s the way it feels,” Emma agrees. “You’re in danger whatever you do. Might as well do something that has meaning.”

“You’ll need basic training,” Mila says. “Nothing we do is that formal, to be honest. It would feel weird when there’s only three of us. But we’ll do our best. Emma, you should see the spaceship she and Zaroc have! It looks like an Apache helicopter.”

“I know, right?” I exclaim. “Except without the rotors. Girls, thank you for finding me. I thought I had to start my own resistance group, and I had no idea where to begin. Do we know about other girls in space? Because there will probably only be girls, right? The Bululg aren’t selling the guys or allowing them to go into space.”

“We know of about a dozen Earth girls,” Mila sighs. “But they’re all in captivity, kept as pleasure slaves and breeding stock. We don’t know how to get to them.”

“Is there a chance,” I ponder out loud, “that there are already other groups like this? I mean, it was a total coincidence that you became aware of me. If you hadn’t, maybe I would be getting busy building my own Resistance, not knowing that your one existed.”

“It’s one of the things we’re looking out for,” Emma says. “We actually thought you might be doing exactly that when we heard you had a gun. But we know that we are the only officially accepted division of Earth Freedom Army in space. Our superiors don’t know of any other groups.”

Donnas voice rings in my head. ’Take me with you!’ “Will we do things like helping other girls to get free? I met one who… well, she eventually wanted to come with us, but it just wasn’t possible. I think about her a lot. She didn’t make it.”

Mila gently grabs my forearm. “Definitely. We’ll rescue all the girls we can. And it would be nice to grow our space army a little. Despite the help of all these guys, we’re not feeling all that powerful.”

I dangle my legs from the crate and twist the Uncertainty Bracelet. “Actually, we might have stronger friends than we think. Have you guys heard of something called ‘the Elders’?”

- Zaroc -

Averie and I talk to the others for a long time inside their strange base with the pyramidal room.

She shows them how the Uncertainty Bracelet works, melting first one metal nut into a pool of sweet-smelling oil, and then transforming an empty crate into a tiny pyramid-shaped heap of glass crystals. She does it effortlessly now, and everyone is impressed. My pride in my wife knows no bounds.

Then Frox takes me aside for a tour of the base.

“This is the trash section,” he says after we’ve been walking-slash-rolling for a while, pointing all around him with many tentacles. “Notice the smell. Actually, it’s not important. I just brought you here for some privacy.”

I tense up. Privacy can mean so many things. “I see.”

The best place to strike would be the creature’s midsection, where all the tentacles emanate.