Page 7 of My Alien Jewel
The seka rolls, however, are a common breakfast food all over the galaxy and the machine excels at preparing them. Right now, their sweet scent permeates the room, making my mouth water.
I stay still like a statue. Hidden in shadows near the hatch, I’m waiting for the stowaway to come into the room so I can cut off her escape route. It makes me feel like the worst villain of alltime, tricking her like this but I need her to listen to me, if only for a minute.
I must have dozed off, because the quiet sound of bare feet pulls me out of a dream. Holding my breath, I watch as the stowaway tiptoes past me, drawn to the supplies like a moth to a flame.
She’s short. The top of her head would barely reach my shoulders if we were standing next to each other. Despite the baggy clothes she’s wearing, I can see she’s alarmingly thin, probably malnourished. She’s trembling, her breaths coming in sharp, shallow pants as if she’s on the verge of a panic attack but she bravely keeps moving forward. I have nothing but admiration for her and I feel like an utter bastard for what I’m about to do.
Silently, I stand up from my hiding spot, but she senses me anyway. Her entire body goes rigid as if she’s turned into stone. I think she’s stopped breathing, too.
It’s breaking my heart to see her this frightened. “It’s alright. I’m not going to hurt you,” I tell her in my broken Omnispeak. I’ve repeated these two sentences to myself over and over for the past few hours because I wanted her to hear it from me, not from the robotic voice of the automated translator.
She turns to face me, shaking to the point her entire body seems to vibrate. I can’t see much of her expression because there’s a scarf over her mouth and nose, and the little skin that isn’t covered by fabric is smeared with some dark sludge, but I do see her eyes. Her huge, beautiful purple eyes and the pure terror in them.
A single tear forms up in the corner of her eye and drops down. I hear a soft clink as it hits the floor as if a shard of glass just fell. Under different circumstances, I’d be intrigued, but right now, it’s unimportant. The only important thing is the all-consuming fear I see in her eyes.
I recognize that fear. That’s how people looked at my father, knowing he was about to kill them and their families.
My stomach churns when I realize I have, unintentionally, caused the same emotion in an innocent being. “Oh, blin(Oh, damn),” I curse to myself, cringing when I hear the stupid datapad translate it.
The female still stares at me, unblinking, barely even breathing. Aside from turning to face me, she hasn’t moved an inch, her hand still stretched out from when she was reaching for the water. She’s truly and completely frozen in terror. Because of me.
The thought makes me move. I step as far away from the maintenance hatch as the cargo containers surrounding us allow, while still keeping my distance from her. “I’m sorry for scaring you,” I say, hating the flat tone in which the datapad delivers my heartfelt apology. “I didn’t mean to. I just want to talk to you but if you’re not ready, you can go.”
She blinks, her eyes darting between me and the hatch. I can see she’s comparing her and my distance to it and coming up short.
With a sigh, I turn away from her and sit on the floor, cross-legged. A position that would give her a precious second or two if I decided to chase her. “I won’t come after you,” I say. “You’re free to go wherever you want. You’re safe.”
I strain my ears, listening for quiet footsteps. Has she moved? Is she about to smash me over my stupid head? I’d deserve it. “It’s okay. You can go. Nobody on this ship is going to hurt you, I promise.”
I hear her move and force myself to stay absolutely still as she races past me. “Take the water, at least!” I call, but the only response is the loud slamming of the hatch.
Another sigh escapes me. I’ve really fucked this up.
Chapter 5
Z’Ree
I run until Ican’t run any longer, then run some more. Frightened that the man is following me, I keep looking over my shoulder. Every time I do, I bump into something and soon, my entire body hurts. Still, I don’t stop, not until my legs give up on me and I collapse on the dirty floor.
Pushing myself against the pipes lining the wall behind me, they give off a sinister rattle, I change my mind and give them a wide berth instead.
The signs surrounding me are all orange and filled with ominous warnings. It seems I’ve wandered into the part of theship where important things like air filtering are handled. I laugh at the irony. I could probably kill everyone on the ship if I messed with something in here. Too bad that would include me dying in the process.
Even after everything that’s happened to me, I don’t want to die. I’ve never had the chance to live in the first place!
I’ve always been running and hiding. All I remember is my parents looking over their shoulders wherever we went. We always lived on the outskirts of cities, never really interacting with anyone except for messenger bots and the few UGC officers tasked with protecting us.
I used to hate those officers for not doing their job properly. If they had, then the slave traders wouldn’t have found us! But the truth is, those males and females gave up their lives in attempts to protect us. It didn’t do us much good in the end but at least they tried. Since then, nobody has ever tried to help me for the sake of helping me. It was always about their own gain.
It’s stupid, really, this whole, ‘me wanting to live’ thing. I can’t ever have a normal life. There will always be someone hunting me down, wanting to take advantage of me. The less Silithrae that remain in the galaxy, the more valuable I become. The slavers will never give up.
I smirk as I remember their stupid attempts at creating more of my kind. It’s impossible. No amount of cloning or forced breeding can ever produce viable offspring. The only way a Silithrae can conceive is with their crystal kin, the one person in the entire galaxy that is destined to be our partner. We can enjoy ourselves with whoever we want, but there can never be a child unless our crystals resonate at a certain frequency. This was the main reason our population was in decline even before the slavers began to hunt us. And after they did…
There’s no hope for my species anymore, just like there’s no hope for me.
I whimper like the pathetic wreck I am. I knew the human was setting a trap for me and I still walked straight into it. Has the galaxy ever seen a more stupid creature? Perhaps extinction is just what I deserve.
No matter how hard I try, I can’t make sense of the man’s behavior. He’d caught me. He had me right where he wanted me. Cornered, with nowhere to run. Then he…apologized? And let me go?