Chapter 3

My body ached as I went about my morning ablutions and chores. I had trained hard for living rough, without the use of a latrine or cafeteria to get my food. It didn't make it any easier.

The morning brought about a sense of lightness. I woke up in time to exit my tent. As I pulled aside the flaps, I was greeted with a brilliant sunrise. The sky was a bright orange, with the cutest fluffy white and purple clouds lazily drifting through the sky. The valley before me was in shadow, the river snaking its way through the fjord still hidden from view. But the surrounding mountainside was awash with a golden glow.

Invigorating. It was enough to inspire hope.

This was why we had come here to planet Atraxis. We wanted hope. We needed it.

As I stood and looked at the world before me, seeing it stretch into the distance as far as the eye could travel, I was firm in my determination. Finding a home for us was my ultimate goal.

My backpack was in hand, fully stocked for a day of scouting. I quickly picked a direction and marched across the unfamiliar terrain.

It wasn't unlike walking off-path when hiking. The soil was a strange mix of red clay and grey rocks. The grass beneath my feet was lush and thick. If you ignored the fact it was more blue than green, you could imagine walking on Earth. At least, what was left of the greenery there.

Once I was a decent enough distance from my camp, I came to a stop. I pulled out my field kit from my bag and balanced it on top of a rock, making sure that it was in a strong patch of sunlight to maintain its charge while it operated. I gathered some of the loose soil into a collection tray, picking out as much leaf debris as possible, then fed it into the machine.

I plopped to the ground and rested my back against the boulder, staring at the alien surroundings. It was going to take time for the machine to calibrate and process the sample.

I was under no illusion that once I finished my job there, I was expected to take a husband and have children. Management had drilled that concept into us before we ever left home.

I wanted to have kids. One day. But I didn't like the idea that my identity, everything that made me who I was, came down to me being a fertile woman. A baby maker. I wanted more from life than just having babies. My dream was traveling the universe.

I chuckled to myself. I certainly traveled all right. Flying what felt like halfway across the universe to be involved with the first human colonization efforts. You couldn't get much more exploration than that.

I just wished sometimes… I just wished I would have the chance to find someone who actually cared about me, who wanted the best for me.

My field kit dinged, jerking me from my thoughts. I got up and inspected the results on the small screen. Promising. If my geological calculations were correct and my tools were giving accurate test results, then this region sat above a large cave network. The soil had notable quantities of Sorium, the element that was essential for the sustainability of our base. It was likely to be plentiful in the caves below us. The soil analysis also showed a variety of other nutrients and minerals that would be ideal for planting and growing crops.

I packed up my kit and moved to another location. It was tiring, both the work and carrying my gear around with me all day. I let my mind wander as the day went by. I purposely followed the edge of a cliff, giving me impressive views over the valleys and mountains. Far below me, the river twisted and bent. This high up, it was pretty easy to see that water would not be a major issue for any settlement. So many small streams, sometimes even big creeks, cascaded over the cliff sides all around me. Rainbow-producing waterfalls covered Atraxis, casting mist impressively high in the air.

I took as much time as possible just enjoying the view before my field kit dinged again and I was forced to keep moving.

After an entire day out exploring and gathering samples, I was exhausted. I had been circling my camp in wider and wider stretches, testing every short distance.

Only when the first sun in the sky began a slow and lazy descent did I decide that it was time to call it quits and pack up for the day.

Slowly, I trudged back to my new temporary home, trying to take in the surrounding nature. The air was filled with bird songs that I had never heard before. Colorful insects chirped and buzzed around me. A bright red bug flew towards me, and I gasped, nearly screeching when it practically flew into my face, but it soon enough flew off. I loved walking in the wilderness, but I despised insects crawling on me.

My feet came to a stumbling stop when I reached my tent. My heart rate jolted, missing a few beats before it flooded my body with adrenaline.

There, right in front of the entrance to my tent, was clearly a bowl of alien fruit.

* * *

I stared at the present that had somehow turned up on my door for a long time. It was a bowl of fruit. Not just any fruit, but a whole assortment of alien fruit. It wasn't as if a nearby tree had dropped the stuff and it had rolled here by mere chance. There were at least five or six differently sized, shaped, and colored pieces sitting there, not to mention the clearly hand-carved wooden bowl.

I lowered my bag and looked around the camp, but I couldn't see anyone. It was times like this that I wished the ship had agreed to send down the Hunters with us. They could track whoever was playing this prank on me because it had to be a prank, right?

I walked towards the bowl, watching it intensely as if it might suddenly come alive and jump at me. I prodded it with my foot, but it didn't move. It wasn't like I really expected it to move… but how did it get here? I should have been the only person for miles.

I looked around at my surroundings. That vulnerable feeling I had gotten the night before came back full force, a shiver racing along my spine.

"Very funny, guys!" I called out, doing my best to keep my voice level. I was pleased that my shout drifted out across the landscape filled with more confidence than I actually felt. "Nice joke. Scare the only girl on the team. You can come out now."

No one moved to show themselves. No giggled or laughed. The world was silent all around me. Even the birds and insects seemed to have quieted.

"There's a prank, and then there's a prank that has gone too far," I muttered under my breath.

Someone had left this here for me. Some of my team members might have been jerks—looking at you, James—but they weren't vicious. They wouldn't hurt me. You wouldn't make something look like food if it wasn't edible, would you?

No, the more I thought about it, the more I believed that this must be a gift. Maybe the Commander had come to visit, but I was out doing field work, and we had missed each other? He might have left the fruit behind. It was just freaky to come across something you didn't own when you were by yourself in the middle of an alien planet.

Deciding that this had to be some terrible joke by my team, I put my fears aside and got on with my work. As the two suns drifted below the horizon, I worked steadily plotting my samples. Now that I had graphed them on the topographical map, I determined that there was definitely a concentration of Sorium ore in one direction. Tomorrow I would explore further that way.

It was hard to concentrate. I had left the fruit bowl sitting undisturbed, and it taunted me. Every time I looked up, it was right there. Something that shouldn't exist.

After a while, I decided to give up. I had been doing brainless data entry work, and it hadn't exactly engaged me. It probably didn't help that I hadn't eaten that day, making it harder to concentrate.

I packed up my field kit. I could have left it out and dealt with it later, but I was a bit of a neat freak. Everything had its place. If it wasn't in use, it was stored safely away.

Pulling out my ration bar, I glared at it. At least the Federation had sent us out here with biodegradable wrappers, even if they took a few days to decompose. The bar itself was a solid brownish square that looked unappetizing. It seemed like someone had taken actual food, blended it into a paste, rolled it flat, and dehydrated it. They probably had.

I took a tentative bite, gritting my teeth hard to break a piece off. It required a bit of effort, similar to jerky. The taste was somewhere between peanuts and spaghetti. The texture was initially hard, but after a few bites, it broke apart and coated my mouth with a powdery texture. By the end of the bar, I was grimacing and forcing the food down my throat. My mouth felt dry, and my stomach rebelled against the unpleasant food. I was forced to pull out a hydro-ball. Water flooded my tongue and mouth when I bit down, popping the resilient casing.

Neither was particularly satisfying.

All the while, my eyes kept glancing at the bowl of fruit. How had it gotten there? I didn't recall anyone on the team knowing how to carve. And how long did it take to carve a wooden bowl? A few hours? A day? Surely whoever was behind this prank had to actually work. We didn't have time to slack off and do things like carve wood and collect alien fruit.

I was still hungry, but even one ration bar was enough for me. I wasn't looking forward to surviving off them for a month…

Was the fruit even edible? I bit my lip as I contemplated my options. After a moment of intense internal debate, I nodded to myself. I pulled out my emergency kit and set it up. We were only supposed to use these in emergencies when we were literally running out of food, and our only hope to avoid starvation was eating the local fauna and flora. But… I had come all this way for an adventure, hadn't I?

I slipped my hand into the plastic gloves that came with the kit and selected a fruit. It was bright yellow like a banana and looked somewhat like a dragon fruit with small leaf-like protrusions bumping off its surface. I carefully cut the fruit. I was worried that as soon as my knife pierced the skin, it would squirt acid or poison or something in my eyes, but none of them did. They looked bizarre, but they smelled like fruit. So they were safe, right?

The emergency kit did its thing and then flashed a green light at me. I didn't even realize I was holding my breath until it came rushing out. Theoretically, the fruit was safe to eat. Theoretically, it wouldn't kill me or poison me.

With shaking fingers, I popped a small piece into my mouth.

Taste exploded across my tongue. I moaned. The fruit juice flooded my mouth like a delicious coating of sugar. It tasted strongly of mango and strawberries mixed, only sweeter. After I swallowed, there was an undeniable rose aftertaste.

It took everything in me to hold back from devouring the entire bowl of fruit at once. The scientist in me knew I needed to wait and study myself for reactions. A small dose might be the difference between mild food poisoning. A large dose could be guaranteed death.

Either way, I spent the entire evening with a huge, goofy grin on my face.

* * *

I wasn't usually a morning person, but getting out of bed had never been easier. I flung back my covers, got dressed, and rushed to fling open the flaps of my tent. As I expected, a fresh bowl of fruit was filled to the brim. I laughed as I picked it up.

For days, someone had been leaving food for me just outside my tent. At first, I was sure it was the Commander or maybe one of my team members. But then I asked myself why I never saw them. I missed them once or twice, but constantly? Who would walk all this way just to deliver me fresh fruit? If they came by my camp, why didn't they leave some kind of message behind?

Then I thought, what if it was someone else? So I tried to test my theory. I left a gift of my own in the bowl: a ration bar and a water hydration packet. When I returned from a day of gathering data and testing soil samples, my trade had disappeared. A flash of guilt hit me. I had nothing to trade. The ration cubes were nasty, tasting like old socks in solid form. But it wasn't like I had anything else I could trade.

It took me longer than I felt proud of, but I was now convinced that it wasn't my team leaving the gifts behind. Though honestly, it wasn't entirely my fault. Earth Government had told us repeatedly that the planet had never been occupied by sentient species. There had been no sign of sentient life. There shouldn't be anyone living there.

But there was.

These little offerings were proof of it.

Last night, I decided that if I woke up with fresh food in the morning, I was going to do something different. I came to Atraxis hoping to make a groundbreaking discovery. Finding this alien could be it!

Normally, I would sit and eat straight away before rushing off to work. Not today.

As I took several steps away from my tent, the sweet fragrance of the nearby wildflowers filled my nostrils. The blue grass here was short, brushing at my ankles as I walked. A slight breeze blew past, helping to cool my skin under the soft but persistent rays of the dual suns. I couldn't ask for a better day. It was like the very universe was giving me a sign that today was going to be successful.

I placed the bowl on the ground. With shaking hands, I picked up a couple of pieces of fruit and then walked back towards my tent, stopping after I had left a short distance between me and the bowl. And then I sat.

And I waited.

I could only hope that whatever was out there recognized my invitation. I doubted I could communicate with it verbally or with written language, though that would be nice. Whatever intelligent life that lived there didn't seem aggressive, at least it hadn't attacked me yet.

The longer I waited, the more my heart rate climbed. At first, I was nervous, but as the minutes ticked by, my mind thought up all the different horror vid situations. Wasn't it always the girl who went off by herself that got killed by the monster?

I jumped when I saw it emerge from the trees right in front of me. One moment, the trees were just blowing in the wind. The next moment, a green alien was standing there.

I had never actually seen an alien in person before. Humans had known about their existence for quite a while, but only the very rich and famous usually met them. The rest of us had to pore over vids and pics of them shared through the Network. Some looked quite humanoid, while others were monstrous.

As I approached the alien, I was taken aback by his imposing stature. Towering over me at seven feet tall, he had a build that resembled that of a body-builder, with broad shoulders and rippling muscles that were clearly visible under his tight-fitting clothing. What stood out the most was his vibrant green skin. It was a bright shade of green that seemed to glow in the sunlight, a stark contrast to the muted colors of the surrounding environment. As I looked closer, I noticed the intricate design of black lines and swirls that spread across his upper arms. They appeared to be tattoos.

He made a movement, and I jerked. I had only just noticed he had a long tail firmly wrapped around the spear. Instead of pointing the weapon at me, he slowly lowered it to the ground and then used the tip of his foot to push it further away. I got a good look at him as he did this. He wore what looked like tight-fitted leather pants and a vest tied loosely closed with thick string. He lacked boots. His feet were a bit peculiar since they were a tad longer than a human's, and his toes were tipped with claws. For some reason, my brain immediately wondered if aliens and humans shared the same anatomical proportions.

I berated myself. It wasn't every day that you met an alien and thought, oh hey, I wonder if his other appendages are just as big? But I had been kind of conditioned to see aliens and think of good sex. Most of the vids I had seen on the Network were pro-alien, with many shows of women talking about how happy they were with their spouses. I had always thought it was just propaganda, but now that I was staring at this male specimen, I almost wanted to test the claims.

"Hello." I had to clear my throat and try a second time just to get the greeting out. If we couldn't communicate, then there was no point in me going on some rant about ‘I come in peace' or whatever.

The alien male tilted his head. As he moved, his long and sleek raven hair flowed down onto his shoulders, tilting on his head and revealing the pointed tips of his ears.

He said something to me. His voice was low and guttural, almost a growl. It took me a moment to realize that he was trying to repeat ‘hello' back to me.

"Where did you come from? Do you have a spaceship nearby? There wasn't supposed to be anyone here." My excitement was climbing, but I had to ask. What if he wasn't a native? What if he had somehow become trapped on the planet?

He scowled at me and tapped his ear. His tail had stopped its casual swaying, resting gently on the ground beside him.

"What? You can't hear me… Oh." I frowned, trying to understand his gesture. "Oh. You don't speak Common? Hmm… that makes this harder."

Common was the alien language taught in all schools. It was a simplified language covering some of the most basic necessities that one would ever have to talk about if encountering someone without a translator. Stuff like ‘where is the toilet' and ‘how much does this cost'. Everyone learned it, as it meant basic survival in today's intergalactic society.

The alien gestured at the fruit I held. I had invited him here to eat breakfast with me, after all. I bit into it. Without knowing a way to thank him, I moaned and over-emphasized just how much his gift meant to me.

His face took on an entirely changed expression, and I laughed whole-heartedly. All my nerves were turning quickly into excitement, giving me a buzz.

"Maybe I'm dreaming," I muttered. "I didn't expect to meet a super hot alien in the middle of nowhere."

We sat and ate quietly, each blatantly staring at each other's differences. If I was able to look at him, it was only fair that he could look at me in return. He didn't seem to mind my eyes wandering over his body, hovering over his perfectly sculpted muscles. He looked like a bodybuilder.

We finished the food and stared at each other for a long while. Not being able to talk certainly put a damper on our new relationship with whatever-his-name was.

"Eve," I touched my chest. Then I pointed at him. I had to repeat the gesture several times for him to understand the meaning.

He sat tall and proud, puffing out his chest. "Balroth."

He looked down at his arms in a curious gesture before his gaze returned to mine.

"Eve," the way he said my name sent a shiver racing through me, my nipples hardening and my stomach clenching. I flushed in embarrassment at the way my body perked to attention.

What was wrong with me? I had only just met him. If I stayed here any longer, I would get even more turned on. At this rate, it could turn into a different kind of ‘first contact'. I had to get out of here.

I shoved to my feet and collected my bag. I threw it over my shoulder and gave Balroth a small wave. There was no way of asking if he would be here when I returned, but with the way he watched me, I could almost guarantee it.

* * *

I trundled back towards my camp, exhausted. I had spent every moment, every second, working. While the machines ran tests, I plotted the data and made plans for the following days. I had something to pass the time now that I had left paperwork to do in the evening. Well, someone. I just hoped that Balroth would be waiting for me.

I couldn't believe my luck. An alien! I had just met a real-life alien. Earth had known about aliens for many years. You just needed to be in one of the very upper tiers of society to even have a hope of meeting one. Only the filthy rich had the privilege of meeting one.

Coming to this planet meant a new life surrounded by lush plants and a guaranteed family. There was no mention that we'd meet aliens. I scowled. In fact, no sentient life should have been living here. So where had Balroth come from? Why hadn't our ship noticed another spaceship?

He should have been able to speak Common. Even if he had crashed and gotten trapped here, even if it had forced him to live rough for a while, he should have known the intergalactic standard language. So just who was this mysterious alien?

A cloud passed over the sun, casting me in a dark shadow. Glancing up from my tablet, I frowned at the sky. What was clear a few hours ago had now turned gloomy. Heavy clouds blocked out the sunlight. Even the pleasant and warm temperature had dropped several degrees, leaving me shivering slightly.

It was time to leave and head home. I quickly grabbed my bag and started walking. Soon, I stumbled across a bush that had the same banana-yellow dragon fruit Balroth had left for me the first night. I grinned at my find, pulling several from the branches. This time, I would offer him something in return.

Pastel-blue ferns brushed against me as I walked. The plants grew thick beneath the forest's canopy in this area. I could have lived here forever. The planet exuded a sense of peacefulness that spoke to my soul. I wondered if Balroth would have appreciated this scene as much as I did, or if he thought it part of everyday mundane life?

Normally, the ferns looked like an ocean that gently swayed with the wind. However, the wind had picked up and that gentle sway had turned choppy. I didn't need to see the sky to know that a storm was coming—a terrible one.

I broke through the tree line, a grin on my lips as I prepared to shout out Balroth's name in the hopes he was nearby. I was hit with a wall of disappointment when I saw the clearing around my tent was empty. He wasn't waiting for me.

Well, of course he wasn't. He had a life to live outside of me. I was just some curious stranger in his eyes. It wasn't like I meant something to him.

Thunder rumbled overhead, and I was hit with a blast of cold air. It was so sudden and strong that I was sent stumbling forward, thrown off balance.

Crap. The storm was getting worse, and fast.

When I first camped there, I purposely put my camp in the middle of the clearing. I figured it would let me see if any monster was trying to sneak up on me. But now, glancing up at the bleak, looming storm clouds, I questioned my decision. I felt exposed.

What on earth was the standard protocol during a severe storm? Commander David had drilled survival tips into us until they went in one ear and came out the other. All I could think was that I had to seek shelter. I didn't have the slightest clue what shelter would be suitable for a storm this violent. I could only pray that my tent would be enough.

The first large raindrops fell from the sky and splattered icily against my head, signaling to me that I didn't have time to grab everything. I decided to prioritize, shoving all the necessities and critical equipment into my bag.

The heavens opened up. Water poured down with a gush, as if someone had just tilted a bucket over my head. With a squeal, I threw myself through the tent opening, scrambling to zip it closed behind me to keep the worst weather out.

Huddled inside my tent, I could feel the entire structure creaking ominously as the storm raged outside. The wind hit the walls and I cried out as the roof practically fell on top of me. A second gust caused one of the metal support poles to emit a terrifying crack noise. I eyed it, praying it would hold.

It snapped, sharp metal splinters spraying out and through the tent walls. A loose piece flew towards my face. A shrill scream escaped my mouth.

The tent wouldn't hold out against the storm. It was as dangerous as the storm outside, perhaps more so. I'd hate to be trapped inside. If the wind caught the tent, it would blow it off the cliff, sending me to my death.

With a panicked cry, I fought to get the zip down enough for me to push my way out of the death trap. Staying there was not an option. But where could I find shelter?

With no idea where to go, I set off at a run, screaming Balroth's name.