Chapter 9

Fox

Walking away with this poor excuse for a man between us gives me hope for my relationship with Helga. She called me first or, rather, she had Ella call me. Not the human police, not anyone else in her life, me. And I responded immediately as any man courting a woman would. I broke the rules and used our site-to-site transport for emergencies, which her friend Ella saw, but no one on Alliance Force is going to report me, and if anyone from the Empire is watching from afar, we didn't go far enough to register the device's use. Of course, I could have run, but when violence is involved, seconds can mean the difference between life and death.

When Adam gets out his keys to unlock his vehicle, I grab them out of his hand and order him to get in the driver's seat. "You'll never contact Helga ever again. If you do, you'll wish you hadn't. Understand?"

Fury builds up in his eyes but he nods after a second. No doubt slowly remembering the beating I just gave him.

I grab his neck, not hard, but enough for him to take me seriously. I wish I could have the doctor wipe all his memories of Helga, but we don't do that anymore. "Say you understand."

"I understand."

"What do you understand?"

"I'll never see Helga again," he says through gritted teeth.

I wait a few seconds before I let go. "Good. I never want to see you again. Go back under the bridge you came from."

Axl and I watch as he drives away.

"That's an impressive use of a human idiom," Axl compliments me.

"Thanks, Caroline said it last week, and I thought it was a brilliant insult."

"I'm surprised that Adam fellow didn't even try to run us over with his vehicle," Axl comments as we begin walking toward the metro station.

"What kind of man strikes women? No man at all."

"Do you think it was wise telling Helga everything? I know what Lev recommended, but you're treading dangerously close to breaking all our laws about not telling humans about us."

"I didn't tell her everything. Just enough to keep the relationship moving forward without lies."

"Her friend believed you," Axl says. "But that's the wrong woman."

"And as she stated at the time, she has no skin in this game, so what's it to her if I say I'm an alien?"

"She has Helga's heart to consider, but I guess luckily, you didn't get far enough to say Helga would have to live with you on the moon."

"True, but I think Ella is a very practical woman. Unless I'm harming Helga, if we're happy, I could say I was a wizard and she wouldn't object too much," I say. "Some humans are very open-minded about such things."

"Do you think Helga is going to see you again?" Axl asks the question that has been turning over in my mind as well.

"Yes. If I were her, I wouldn't know what to think right now, but in a few hours I would want to know more. At least Lev was right. She knows I never lied to her, and I think that carries a lot of weight. Especially now, knowing she had a man like that," I point to the direction where Adam drove off, "in her life before. A man who beats a woman is usually untrustworthy too."

We reach the hotel and decide to have one more drink in the bar to decompress. I also take this time to message Sem and explain the odd call. He, more than anyone, understands. He married Ivy without telling her who he was, which was a mistake that almost cost them their relationship.

Sem says, "I hope it works out for you. If not, I can arrange for the doctor to…"

I interrupt him, "I'm sure it will work out." I want to appear confident in this situation. "But I'll follow protocol if it doesn't."

Sem pauses for a second. "Fine."

I know he is going to hold me to the same strict rules I held him to. The first time he met Ivy, he rescued her from a human trafficking ship, but I made the doctor erase her memory so they had to meet again. That is one of my biggest regrets. I shouldn't have made him do that. But it's a testament to Sem's devotion to me, the goddesses, and our cause that he stood by that decision. "Anything else?"

"We've picked up more human-led ships than usual. They've not approached Earth, but it's clear they want our attention."

"Have you asked them what they're doing?"

"They've not responded. They know their GC rights."

GC law states that humans are allowed to come into Earth's solar system and even Earth's orbit and send messages. It's all legal as long as none of those messages talk about the greater galactic world and no one physically visits for more than 48 Earth hours. These ships are a pain in my side as most of them usually flout the rules, and it's up to Alliance Force to sift through what we are going to charge them with, if anything. "Are the ships known to us?"

"Two are. One is new. It has no GC registration."

"If they come too close and look too suspicious, bring them in on that technicality." This will be easy enough to do as no one will ever listen to human grievances over an Alliance search.

"Will do. My guess is that they're doing a run for human goods and want to show that we can't intimidate them. As sad as it is, they see Earth as their home planet."

"The galaxy is a cruel mistress," I say and mean it. "Humans born free in the galaxy are condemned to live on the fringes of civilization."

I sign off with Sem and finish my beer. Axl has been chatting with some locals. I overhear them but am content not to join in the conversation.

Ring. My human communicator notifies me of a message. I check, and it's from Helga. My heart leaps as I open it.

Thank you for everything. I don't know what we would have done if you hadn't come back.

I begin typing, unsure of what to say beyond, ‘of course.'

I will always protect you.

I see those annoying three dots flashing as she's typing, and then nothing.

…

I type,

I want to hear your voice. May I call you?

Yes. Please

I tell Axl I need to make a private call from the room and go upstairs. Once I'm in the quiet hotel room, I call Helga. She picks up on the first ring. "I want to see you," I say softly and she activates the video function. I can see a bruise on the side of her face. No doubt it's a result of the scuffle with Adam, and I become enraged all over again. I clutch the human communicator tightly and my other hand is a fist, but I try to keep my tone gentle for her. She's done nothing wrong.

"Thank you," she says.

"You don't need to thank me. Of course I will protect you. I made sure that man will never bother you again." Then I add before she can ask, "No, I didn't kill him. I just told him that if he hurt you again, I'd make sure he wished he hadn't. If he ever comes back again, no matter what our relationship is or isn't, I will protect you. I don't abide by men hitting women. Promise me you'll tell me if you need me."

"I promise."

"Are you okay? Is there anything else I can do?"

She shakes her head. I feel so sorry for her. More than anything, I just want to comfort her now.

"You must have been frightened. And I'm worried I might have scared you too," I say guiltily.

"Scared isn't the right word for what you said. Threatened maybe is better. Threatening my reality. I'll never forget those words in that language." She pauses. "Is it really true? I can't think of any other explanation."

"Yes, it's true. All of it," I say evenly. "I never want to lie to you."

"Even though logically I know there's at least 200 billion stars in our galaxy with solar systems and some of those planets must also have intelligent life on them, it's still difficult for me to believe. I don't want to accuse my planet of brainwashing me, but it's as if there's a mental block keeping me from looking at the evidence and making the most practical and logical assumption."

I don't want to tell her that she has been subjected to brainwashing because I don't want her to think I or the Empire is responsible. If she wants to know about how Earth's leaders have decided to hide their relationship with alien civilizations, I'll tell her later. "It's a new understanding of how you see the world," is all I say.

"I thought aliens were grey or green," she says with a bit of humor. "Is that a lie too?"

"No, you're more right than you know."

"Are you saying you don't look human? Is your appearance a lie?" I hear the concern in her voice.

"No, no. Our genetics are the same, and I look like this but…"

Then our connection is broken. My screen goes black. I try to get her back—nothing. "Helga?" I know human connections can be bad sometimes. I check my device. Everything seems to be working normally. I try calling her again. No answer. I message her. I call again. I call a third time.

Axl knocks and I allow him to enter.

"Is everything alright?"

"No, she's gone. I was just talking to her, and now she's not picking up."

"And she wasn't angry? Or upset?"

"No. She was very curious about the color of my skin."

"Goddesses, Fox! Did you take off your holo?"

"Of course I didn't take off my holo. We were chatting. It's so odd…" Then a thought occurs to me. "I'm going to go there with the site-to-site."

"You think it's Adam again?" Axl asks even while he prepares the site-to-site device, and then says, "I'm ready. We have to go to her last location. I can't put us politely outside the door because it's not clear on my sensor where the door is."

"Just don't put us in a wall. This tech is so new."

"Relax. I've been using it for a long time now. It's only new to you."

In a few seconds, we arrive at Ella's apartment.

"Helga? Ella?" We look around. No one is here. We search all four rooms. No one. The door is locked from the inside. I call Helga's phone. I hear it vibrating and find it in a bed under blankets.

"Where are they?"

He's already scanning. "There are traces of Dulu and Red tech here." We make eye contact. That can only mean one thing: The human traffickers. And it's too coincidental they'd take Helga and Ella.

I quickly RVM Sem. "What's the status of the human ships? Are any of them in orbit? I suspect my wife-to-be and her friend have been taken."

I can see Sem running to the command center. He's issuing commands to our communications officer on duty. "Sensors aren't showing anything…. Just a minute…. There…." He's talking to the command center officers just as much as me. "Yes, we have them. Send our closest fighters to intercept. Commander, we will get them before they leave the solar system."

"I'm coming back. Send someone immediately to retrieve us," I say and close the communication. Within five minutes there's an inconspicuous SUV outside Ella's apartment building to take us back to the base. Lev greets us as the door opens.

"Sorry to hear you're back under these circumstances, Commander."

"Has there been any news?"

"The humans have been intercepted. We don't know anything else right now. We'll get them back."

As soon as we dock, I run to the command center. My squire brings me a fresh uniform, and I quickly change in my ready room and put on all my ranking jewelry. I feel like myself again. As much as I enjoyed being with Helga on Earth, I prefer this, and a thought drifts through my mind; I hope Helga gets to see me like this too. I close my eyes and clear my thoughts. "Tell the doctor to get up here immediately and get this human language out of my head. I need to be able to think clearly now that I'm back at my post."

I'm watching what's going on onboard the human-led ship live with my officers. They're scanning everyone and checking their backgrounds. The problem is, humans aren't allowed GC numbers unless they have good reason, like being married to an Alliance citizen, so checking their identities against our own records only works if we've seen these humans before. It's pathetic that the GC documents every ship but not every person living in GC space.

One of my officers from the ship makes contact through my communications officer. "Commander, they claim a lot of the female humans are new to us, but we need the medical team to verify their truthfulness. Do we have permission to board the base?"

"How many of them?"

"Over fifty. Men and women. Mostly women."

I have to think about this. In some ways, it would be useful to check all these humans out and add them to our ongoing database of humans born free in the galaxy, but at the same time, this could be a distraction. I don't have enough men to check these humans and continue to keep a tight patrol if Helga isn't with them.

"No. Let them go this time," I say. "Take their images, DNA, and names quickly and let them go. Continue to check the other ships in the vicinity."

Axl says quietly in my ear, "One of those women might have been Helga."

"Unlikely. She and Ella would stand out, and I doubt they'd lie so easily if they'd only been taken a few minutes ago. This is a distraction."

"One ship just left Earth's solar system, Commander. Sorry, they just showed up. It's human led. They must have been cloaked. I see now it was the nameless ship," Sem tells me.

"Try to open communications with them."

"No answer."

"Check that ship and every other ship in this entire solar system," I say. "I want everyone out there." The doctor arrives on the command center and takes the human language out of my system. I thought I had the headache because of the German; it turns out I have a headache from the idea that Helga has been abducted from Earth because of me. And not only that, I can't protect her because I don't know where she is.