Her Alien Savior (2 page)

“What about it?” Kal turned to face him, brows drawn together.

Finn scrubbed at his face. He didn’t know if his thoughts were from grief or if he was using this situation to gain the upper hand. Did it matter? He might as well forge onward. “I do not want to go. I am thinking to pass on this assignment.”

“It is not exactly optional. It is not one of those. And it is crucial. How can you turn it down?”

“You say that when we just buried my Earth-born human grandmother? She was captured and brought over in the First Wave.”

“And?”

“And I do not want to go to that planet. To see her people. To see the things she told me about.”
To see the things Finn wished he could have.
He clenched his jaw at that thought. He had no business trying to have something or be associated with anything human. He’d fought all his life to not be human. To be more like his Asazi father.
Curses be damned
, he was confused.

“You are putting yourself above the Asazi. Our people need this. Our women no longer are able to conceive. Our species is going to die out. And it will happen before we make it to our Ultimate Passage. To reclaim our Earth. Our lands.”

“Ultimate Passage. That is a myth. A myth that is kept alive by the old ones. I do not believe we had to make a passage here to this forsaken planet overrun by Kormic miscreants. A planet we have had to spend every moment hiding or fighting off attacks. If we are from Earth, we should have returned long ago. We are superior to humans. Here we are sport and victims for the damned native creatures.”

“It is not a myth. I believe the Sacred Writings.”

Time for Finn to use some leverage. “Your father has power in the government.”

“Naturally. He is one of the Governors-Select.”

“I will do the mission if you will have him get me out of the Binding.”

“Out of the Binding?” You wish to nullify your Binding to Alithera?”

“I do not want to be Bound to her.”

“She is fine marrying material. You have been Bound to her since you were two years old. The day she was born you were Bound to her. It was proclaimed. The ceremony is in a year. Your children will be born from those procured from the Third Wave.”

“No.”

“You have not even heard what the mission entails. What you have to do. Surely you realize how much it matters. I choose to believe that this is grief acting on you. You need a practioner to check you out, to verify that you are sound physically as well as mentally. You do not seem well.”

Chapter 4

Finn

Days later, in his living quarters, Finn loosened his collar.

Kal leaned against the doorjamb. “Humans, especially the female of their species are dangerous.”

Finn ignored his cousin’s cautionary words. It was five days since his grandmother’s passing and three days since he accepted the mission, begrudgingly. Very begrudgingly for he still did not want this cursed assignment, even if he had been released from his Binding to Alithera, and even though the mission had been explained to him—in brief. “When I joined the service, this was not what I planned to be doing. Posing as a human male to entice females.” He unsnapped his weapon belt.

“You thought you would always be wielding a weapon? Killing?” Kal’s skin fluoresced faint orange hues in ripples that traveled from his face to his arms, a sure sign he was becoming irate.

“I’m a soldier. So yes, something like that. Definitely not this.” Kal’s anger meant nothing to Finn, who concentrated on his pulse. That was the first step in conversion. Lower his heart rate to match a human’s. It wasn’t hard for him, not as hard as it was for others, because he was a quarter-human, after all. He bit back the smirk that threatened to appear on his face. He would have to make sure not to let it rise, especially not rapidly, as his wings would burst through the human skin.

“Do you need the machine?” Kal reached for the equipment used to help them in their human conversion.

“No, I got this.”

“Well done, cousin. You are already sounding authentic.” Kal didn’t let the smile out, but Finn could see it in his eyes. Of course Kal wouldn’t smile. That would be anti-Asazi. The Asazi prided themselves on being stoic and unemotional.

Finn snorted. Being converted into a human was definitely not how he planned to spend his military career. But like a good soldier, he did as directed. It was vital to the Asazi mission. Finn stretched in his newly-
acquired
human skin, looking in the mirror.

“Not bad.” Kal took a step back and studied Finn’s reflection. “Not a bad specimen at all.”

Finn’s heart rate sped up. His chest expanded. He couldn’t allow that to happen, it would convert him back to his native form. He bit back the growl of frustration. He was reverting. His skin glistened iridescent under the human layer of epidermis. His shoulders ached where his Asazi wings threatened to reemerge. He would be in so much trouble if he reverted when he was on Earth. Imagine if his wings erupted from beneath the human skin while people were around. Stupid wings. Why did the Asazi have them anymore, anyway? They were like appendixes in humans. Useless wings.

He asked his father about them when he was a child.

Asked him why the Asazi had wings they couldn’t use. “Once, long ago, we could use them. They were taken away from us,” his father replied, but wouldn’t tell him who took them away or why.

“Have you ever flown, Father?” He’d asked. “Or were they taken away before your time?”

His father put his hand on Finn’s shoulder. “Never flown. It was long, long before my time, Son. You know this already. The Sacred Writings say Asazi have not flown since the Banishment. It was part of our punishment.”

“Finn, you cannot fail.” Kal interrupted his reverie. “You must not fail our people. Every targeted human female we can get is valuable—”

“And why are these women specifically crucial? Why can we not grab any women? Earth has an assortment of lesser populated areas where we don’t risk discovery.”

Kal’s chin raised a notch, and he continued as if Finn hadn’t posed a question. “—and you are crucial to this mission. Please control the conversion.” Kal’s took a step back, his eyes expressionless in the mirror.

Finn grit his teeth. “I’m trying, dammit.” He didn’t understand why they needed human women for this. “Why humans? Why can’t we—”

“Much better. But I fear that your emotional outburst is not a result of your pretending. It is the human factor. You are part human, and that still wreaks havoc on your Asazi emotions.” Clearly Kal didn’t plan to address the second question.

Finn fought back the anger. No, he wasn’t going to let that side of him win. He would control his emotions.

“The last thing you need is to convert in front of humans.”

“I know. I get it. They’ll capture me. Like they did the others.”

“They killed Asazi with their experiments. I do not want that to happen to you, cousin.”

“I know. I won’t have a dissected body for you to retrieve if I’m caught anyway. I’ll make sure I’m dead and leave no trace of myself to be examined. So when am I to be dropped off? How many of us will be going?”

“You and nineteen others are slated for insertion tomorrow morning. You memorized your targets’ files? All eighty of the targets are crucial. You have four, just like the others on your mission. Lucky you, you do not have to procreate with them. Do not lose your meal packs. Make sure you eat regularly. And do not eat human food. Ever. Your life depends on it.”

Finn huffed his irritation with his cousin. “I’m not a child. I’ve been on countless missions. I know not to lose my meal packs. I know I must consume sustenance at regular intervals.”

“Fine. Fine.” Kal had the decency to look embarrassed at his micromanagement.

“Cousin.” Finn put a hand on Kal’s shoulder. “Is it so bad? This procreation they indulge in?”

Kal looked away. “We do not want to be like them. They are an uncontrolled and uncontrollable breed.”

“But once, long ago, that was the method our people used to mate with humans. To produce . . . half-breeds.” Like myself, Finn wanted to add but didn’t.

“Like what happened with your mother.” Kal continued. “Our methods have evolved, we are far more advanced than we used to be. We will handle that once they are brought to the temporary station we will set up outside of Houston.”

“What will happen to the women? What will be done with them? To them?” Finn’s curiously wouldn’t let him rest.

“Enough.” Kal’s voice was gruff. “Do not reproduce with them, or indulge in copulation—sex, as they call it. It does strange things to human hormones. It makes them feel. It makes them do stupid things.”

Finn didn’t want to be on the receiving end of a lecture and he regretted asking. “Enough already. Can we get going?”

“It makes them impatient.”

Not funny. “Asshat.” Finn frowned and took a swing, almost a mock-swing at his cousin.

Kal ducked with an uncharacteristic laugh. “Very authentic human dialogue. Asshat? Really?”

Finn joined him in the laughter.

“Do not make mistakes.” Kal turned serious. “I do not want to lose another family member to this cause.”

“I won’t.” Finn became somber. Kal’s oldest brother was a part of the failed Second Wave of insertions. “So all I have to do is make sure they consume the formula. They’ll be unconscious and I can deliver them to your team. That’s it? But what happens to them?”

“We do not harm them. Unless . . . But even then, we are not the reason they come to harm, they have a reaction to the formulas and anti-serums. Don’t concern yourself with that. You simply perform your role.”

“But I didn’t sign up for this. I signed up to be a soldier. Not to lure human females to our cause.”

“They’re called women. They’re soft, sensuous, and occasionally . . . interesting.”

Finn was pretty sure
interesting
wasn’t the word Kal originally planned to use. “You sound like you have experience with them.”

“Only what I’ve heard.”

Finn wasn’t sure if he could believe his cousin, but it didn’t matter at the moment. “I should talk to Alithera.”

“You’ve been told not to. We will handle telling her of the breaking of the Binding when you are gone.”

“That seems evasive and underhanded. It’s not my style. Let me tell her in person, let me explain.”

“Negative. Her father is a Governor-Select as you well know.”

“So? What does that matter?”

“She may press on him to delay the mission, to keep you here.”

“She can’t do that. Surely she wouldn’t. Surely he wouldn’t.”

“We are not willing to take a chance. These missions will be Asazi salvation.”

“I don’t agree with that methodology of handling her. She deserves better. Even if I don’t—”
Was he really going to say even if I don’t love her? Since when did that come into play in Asazi Bindings? Finn switched track immediately.
“That doesn’t change what I said. I didn’t sign up to be a part of this. To be a part of your squadron. Anyway, isn’t it against regulations to have relatives in the same squadron?”

“An exception was made. You’re uniquely qualified.”

“Because I’m a ruthless bastard.”

“No one said that. Because you will fight harder than anyone to keep emotions out of it.”

Finn didn’t want to hear this. It all boiled down to having a human female—a woman—as a grandmother.

“There are not many left with the genetic composition you have.” Kal clearly wanted to convince him, though Finn knew that the number was one, just him. But he’d put money on it that he was brought in because of all the ones with human derivatives, he was the only one that was born of an actual human, and raised in proximity to a human. He knew humans personally. Well, one human—Nana. He had no siblings. And his grandmother only had one child, his mother.

“Years of military training. Years of Elite Measures training. And what am I doing? I’m brought in to be an abductor. A kidnapper. Practically a seducer.” He fought back the grunt of disgust. “Ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous? How can you say that? Ridiculous to endeavor to propagate our species? To save Asazi. Your arrogance and belligerence is what I find ridiculous.” Kal opened the door to Finn’s quarters.

Finn snapped a salute.

“Not a seducer.” Kal snapped one back.

Looking in the mirror, he studied his cousin’s reflection. Comparing it to his own—his new, human reflection. Not so very different. Not really, but yet in some ways, very different. The skin tone. The wings that Asazi folded, with barely a hint of protrusion. Nevermind. Very different. If a human saw him in his natural form, he or she—would think he was an otherworldly creature, but not likely to think he was from another planet. They’d assume he was an angel. Of course they would, what with the shimmering iridescent colors of his Asazi skin, and those wings.

They’d never believe this his people used to reside on Earth, long ago, before they were removed. Taken to another place, forced to learn new ways.

~*~

Finn lay on his bunk. His environment-controlled room suited his raging emotions. He knew this would change as soon as he was on Earth. Tumultuous, chaotic, disorderly Earth, populated with emotional, chaotic, tumultuous humans. Hunger seized him with a fierceness that reminded him it had been a while since he ate. He pressed a button on the headboard. One swoosh and ten seconds later, a meal appeared, perfect temperature, perfect nutrition. He held back the sigh, knowing that things weren’t so simple on Earth, with its restaurants and fast food, processed foods. Processed? Asazi foods were processed, a part of him wanted to argue. Probably the human part. He took a bite of the sustenance, devoid of flavor, but full of nutrients. What would his body do with different food? Kal warned him not to eat any, but then again Finn did grow up with a human in his family. He couldn’t indulge this thought. He needed to do as he was ordered, not to think about deviating. Yes, no point in thinking about human food. He wouldn’t be indulging.