Ark: A Scifi Alien Romance (18 page)

“What? That sounds like a terrible plan!”

“Hear me out. I will attack them from the front, giving you time to sneak around and steal the power we need. You run away once you have it, and I will disengage and follow you back.” Ark smiled. “The plan is sound, we should implement it immediately.”

“Wait, wait, wait!” I almost shouted, then clamped my hands over my mouth when I realized just how much trouble we could both get in if we made too much noise around an entire legion of ghost wolves. “That makes no sense, Ark! You had enough trouble taking out one of them back at the crash site? How long do you think you’ll last against all of those? This isn’t like the movies, the bad guys don’t just attack you one a time!”

“I do not know what these movies are, but they sound far too easy for a warrior to deal with.”

“That’s not the point! I’m not letting you go in there by yourself, even if it is just for a diversion!”

“Do you have a better plan?”

I leaned against the rock, and the wind picked up, gusting strong and instilling me with new fear. “No, I don’t.”

CHAPTER 10 - ARK

“Then we go with my plan,” I said. “Since we have not come up with a better one.”

“We don’t have to go immediately, Ark, we have other options. We can take our time, plan something out, and get it right the first time. Mainly because if we don’t, there won’t be a second time.”

“We do not have as much time as you think, Melissa. We must get off this planet quickly.”

Melissa looked taken aback. “Why is that?” She asked, her voice growing quiet. “What will happen if we take too long?”

“The shuttle we crashed in is not built for deep space flight over long periods of time.”

“So? We can still use it to get off this planet, right?”

I nodded. “Yes, it will serve that purpose. But once we get back into space, we will be relatively unable to move anywhere quickly, even at warp. We will essentially float in space waiting for someone to pass by and pick us up.”

Melissa brightened. “But you said before the Kreossian fleet will be looking for us! They’ll find us, and we’ll be rescued!”

“That is correct, but they will only search for so long. This planet’s dense atmosphere makes surface scans impossible, which is why we did not know this power source or anything else was on this planet before we landed.”

“I don’t understand…”

“If we don’t get the fuel, get back to the crash site, and launch very soon, the Kreossian fleet will give up their search for us. They will head to Earth and destroy it.”
 

I saw Melissa’s eyes glaze over.

“This part of space does not have many ships passing through. The Kreossian fleet searching for us is our only chance of being found. So, in order to save your planet and ourselves, we must get back into space as soon as we possibly can.”

Melissa slumped against the rock. “I had no idea time was so short…” she mumbled.

I reached out a hand and curled it around her, drawing her into me. “I would be content to remain on this planet for the rest of our lives with you, Melissa Crane of Earth, but we do not have that luxury at the moment. We must get out of here so we can save Earth.”

At the mention of saving Earth, the fire in Melissa’s eyes returned. “Right!” she said. “But we still need a better plan. Maybe we can’t wait forever until they leave, but at the very least we can think up a couple more ideas first. You going in there blade-slicing is a suicide mission and I refuse to believe that’s the best way to do it.”

“I am open to different ideas.”

“That’s a start.” Melissa thought for a second. “The distraction idea is good, we need one of those. But not one that involves you taking on an army of ghost wolves by yourselves.”

“Perhaps we can help with that,” a new voice said, and I whipped around, shocked to hear another voice on this planet, and even more shocked that someone managed to sneak up on us. Being around Melissa was not good for my warrior instincts. “And I like the name ‘ghost wolves,’ I will start using that from now on.”

Standing in front of me was a Kreossian man, his survival suit a little worse for wear than mine, a huge smile on his strong and sharp features. Next to him stood a human woman, wearing something that approximated a Kreossian survival suit. She was athletic, dark haired, and clearly very intelligent.

“Who are you?” I asked. “Explain your presence here. This planet is-“

“Uninhabited by intelligent life, or so you thought, yes?” the other Kreossian said, smiling. “We thought the same thing until discovered you a few days ago.”

“You have been watching us? What is the meaning of this?”

He held his hands up, a gesture of peace. “Relax, brother warrior. We do not wish to harm you. My mate and I,” he indicated the woman next to him, who smiled, “wish to help you escape the planet.”

“You know why we’re here?” Melissa piped up, focusing on the woman standing next to the other Kreossian. They calmly sized each other up.

“We do. You guys talk pretty loud,” the other woman said, smiling. “It sounds like you’re in a bit of a pickle, gotta get back into space quick, or Earth’s in trouble, yeah?”

“That is the truth of things,” I said. “Who are you? How did you come to this planet?”

“My name is Makora,” the Kreossian said, pointing to himself. “And this is my mate, Sally Arment of Earth.”

“I am Ark, and this is my mate, Melissa Crane of Earth.”

Makora’s eyes twinkled with delight. “Another Kreossian man with a human woman for a mate! We are in an exclusive club, brother.”

“It would seem so. How did you both arrive on this planet?”

Makora raised a finger. “We have learned the planet’s name to translate roughly as ‘Garamond,' and we have begun calling it that.” He straightened up. “To answer your question, though, we landed our shuttle here 4 years ago after this one helped me escape from a pirate ship that had captured me.” Makora took Sally’s hand and held it close to him. “We have been inseparable ever since.”

“You have stayed on this planet?” Melissa asked.

“Why would we ever want to leave?” Sally replied, throwing her hands up. “We have everyone we could possibly want here.” She looked up at Makora lovingly. “And we have each other. There is nothing else for us out there.”

I felt Melissa grab my hand, and I closed mine around hers. “I understand the feeling,” Melissa said. “You’re very lucky to have found each other.”

“Looks like you two have done the same,” Makora added.

Melissa and I made eye contact before I replied. “It is new; but we…agree.”

“Then that is cause for celebration!”

Sally tugged at Makora’s arm. “Not now,” she said, rolling her eyes over the rock that shielded us from the ghost wolves and their gathering. “We have something else to deal with first.”

“Right, right,” Makora said, smiling. “Sometimes I lose track of things.”

“This is not your fight,” I said. “We need to get off this planet, but you are comfortable here. I would not have you risk yourselves to help us out.”

“Nonsense,” Makora said, waving his hand to dismiss my sentiment. “You are a brother warrior, and just because we have not fought together does not mean we cannot now, does it?”

“No,” I agreed. “And in truth, we would welcome the assistance.” I nodded over the rock. “There are more of them than we were prepared for.”

“Then it’s settled,” Sally chimed in. “You’re our guests here on Garamond, and we can’t just turn away guests in their time of need! What kind of hosts would we be?”

Makora and Sally shook their heads at each other. “Poor hosts, indeed,” Makora lamented. “The news would undoubtedly get out. No one would come visit!” He laughed. “No one visits anyway,” he added, sheepishly.

“We’re a little out of the way, here, as you can tell.”

“The planet’s interference does make scanning difficult - we did not know any of this was here before we crashed.”

“Part of the planet’s appeal, I say. Keeps others out naturally.”

“Wait, you called the planet something…Garamond? Is that its name?”

Makora and Sally shared a look that told me they knew more than they let on. “That is the name we have chosen for the planet, yes.”

“There is more to that then you are telling us.”

Makora smiled. “You are correct, brother, but now is not the time for that talk. We have bigger problems to deal with right now. I assure you, when we have the crystals you need well in hand and we are leaving, we will explain everything to you.”

Melissa chimed in. “That sounds super suspicious.” She gripped my arm tighter, and I nodded.

Makora raised his hand. “I promise you, as one Kreossian warrior to another, it is not important to the task at hand. I will explain all later.”

“I do not like this,” I said, skeptically, “but we do not have a choice.” I stood up and looked over the rock. “More of the ghost wolves have gathered.” I turned back to Makora. “Do you know how to distract them so that we may take the crystals?”

“I assume you do not need all of them.”

I pulled out my tracking device. “No. At the rate they are throwing off energy, we require only…3 of them to sufficiently power the shuttle to launch, break atmosphere, and signal the Kreossian fleet that we are still alive.” I did not add, for Melissa’s benefit, that this plan would only work if the Kreossian fleet was still looking for us and had not given up and flown back to Kreoss for reassignment.

Makora looked over the rock. “There are…at least 7 crystals there, which is good. As long as you are not taking all of them.”

“Why is that important?”

“The ghost wolves…they can sense the crystals. They can sense their movement and their use. If you were to take all of them at once, they would follow you without question, and they would not let you have them.” His words were stark and without rancor, like he was merely stating the facts.

I nodded. “The crystals call to them.”

“It appears that way.” He glanced at Sally. “We believe they are here to guard it, that the crystals are where the ghost wolves come from.”

“We must be stealthy in our approach.”

“That is clear.” Makora leaned in. “We have mapped this area out before.” He took out a small blade and began to draw on the ground, pushing the small pebbles of all shapes out of the way. “This is the meeting area. They come in large groups and watch the crystals form.”

“That is all they do?”

“When they are here, yes. They watch and they chant. We have not been able to comprehend any language in the chanting, but it is clear they possess more than animal intelligence.”

Melissa drew in a sharp breath. “They can think? And communicate?

“It appears that way. We have not been able to make enough of an extensive study of them, but they are definitely the apex predator around here.”

“We have seen that as well,” I agreed. “We need a distraction, something that we can use to clear them from the theater so we can sneak in and take the crystals.”

Makora pointed down at his diagram on the ground. “We have just the thing you need.”

“Oh?”

“A little piece of technology I have been working on that will help us with the ghost wolves.” Makora smiled. “There are only two of us here, how else would we survive amongst all of them?”

“I had wondered the same thing.”

“We’ve built some beacons,” Sally said. “We can control them remotely - we can use them to attract or repel the ghost wolves.”

“That should help, definitely,” I said.

Makora gave Melissa a wry look. “Is he always this serious?”

“Always,” she said, smiling back.

Sally pulled at Makora’s arm. “Don’t be like that, you were exactly the same way. I just recently got you to relax.”

“I know. I am making fun of my brother.”

I cleared my throat with a cough just loud enough for each around me to hear. “We should get back to the plan.”

“Yes, yes. We took the liberty of setting up beacons at strategic points around the theater. I set them up months ago, in fact, thinking that it would be good to watch how the ghost wolves respond.”

“Have you tested them out?”

“In general, yes. These specific beacons? No, they are an experimental type and we did not get a chance to test them first.”

“No time like the present,” I said with a smile.

“A Kreossian after my own heart,” Makora said. “I have no doubt of our success.”

We planned further. We needed only 3 of the crystals, so Melissa and I would work together, and Makora and Sally would as well.

They would turn the beacons on at different intervals, drawing the ghost wolves out of the theater while we made our approach. We would move in the moment the ghost wolves dispersed, and if we needed backup, Makora and Sally would come to our aid.

Everyone agreed on the plan. Makora suggested that we move quickly, as night approached soon, and the night was when the ghost wolves were most active. Having experienced that firsthand, I agreed.

Melissa and I figured out the angle from which we would make our approach while Makora and Sally took out their equipment and prepared to activate their beacons.

Without telling them of my suspicions, I gave the beacons a 1 in 2 chance of being successful - while I relied on technology to help me win battles and survive, I did not have much faith in gear that was cobbled together from a shuttle that had landed on a jungle planet. As I gripped my blade tighter in my hand, I knew that it would likely come to combat.

I glanced down at Melissa, getting ready as I was. She looked so beautiful and so brave, but I could tell that she was scared. “It will be alright,” I said, taking her hand.

“That’s nice of you to say,” she whispered back, jumping up. I grabbed her and we kissed long and deep. “I know you’re just saying that to make me feel better, but I appreciate it.”

“Makora and Sally will help us,” I said, looking over at the Kreossian man and his mate as they prepared their equipment. “Their beacons will help us clear the theater of the ghost wolves.”

“But how do we know they’ll work? Hell, they could call them all down upon us.”

Of course she was correct, but I could not agree with her without causing even more fear, and that would not help when bad things happened. I held my tongue, and I know that Melissa noticed me doing so.