Authors: Jenna Payne
Melanie was still sound asleep. My left arm was feeling a bit strange and I needed to fix the stiffness in the elbow joint before she woke up. I carefully replaced myself with a pillow and wrapped her arms around it while I sat up against her headboard. I flexed my arm and felt that there was indeed some stiffness. The doctors who had given me the robotic enhancements told me that if this ever happened all I needed to do was detach and reattach. Whatever was the cause of the stiffness would reset and fix itself. I pressed against the depression on the inside of my elbow and then turned my forearm. There was a muted click, and then the arm twisted off cleanly. I saw the stainless metal of the inner working of my new arm and the odd blue coated wire ends that waited to be reattached.
I quickly twisted on the arm once more and the muted click was heard. The numbness that spread through my arm, when I detached a part of it, quickly fled and I flexed my arm and made sure everything was normal once again. I was ready to take Melanie in my arms once again, but when I looked down at her she was staring up at me with wide, horrified eyes.
“What are you?” she said, her voice a choked whisper. She slowly sat up and moved away from me. I briefly panicked at the thought that she could be frightened of me and not want to see me any longer.
“Please do not be afraid…I am not all mechanical, I simply have robotic arms and legs…” I expressed myself in completely the wrong way and I closed my eyes in exasperation with myself. “Can you listen to my explanation without running from me?” I asked her and she studied my face before she gave a slow nod.
“I am not from this planet…I come from a planet called Rodon a few galaxies away. My race is endangered due to a devastating war that nearly wiped us out. My king so to speak sent me here to see if it would be possible for Rodonian men to mate with human women, if it would be possible to bring human women to our planet without any messy repercussions. I’ve been here for six months observing the lives of women and that is how I came across you…” I hoped she did not find any offense or any reason to throw me out of her apartment.
“So you’ve been studying me? That’s why you were following me?” Melanie asked, anger creeping into her tone. I saw as she quickly masked the hurt in her eyes. Melanie pulled the blankets higher around her body to hide herself from me. “How many other women have you done this with? How many others have you followed around and seduced?” Melanie could not mask the hurt in her voice and I moved to comfort her, but she was a stubborn woman as I was beginning to see, and she gave me a warning glare. “Answer my question,” she said angrily.
“I have not done this with any other woman; you are the only one I have followed around at length. The only one I found myself attracted to and enraptured by…I was hoping to bring you back to Rodon with me so that we could be married,” I was truthful with her and transparent. I wanted her to see that I meant no harm.
“You want to…you want to take
me
back with you?” Melanie’s voice was slightly dazed and her expression confused. I nodded in earnest and she bit her lip before a shy smile spread across her face. “It would be a cool adventure.” Her small smile turned into a full-on grin and I breathed a sigh of relief.
“You would not spurn me then?” I asked in all hopes she would agree to come with me.
“No…I’ve got nothing here so I’d like to come with you. Yeah.” Melanie smiled up at me, her expression free and clear of doubt. She really wanted to be with me! I smiled joyously and picked her up from the bed into an enveloping hug.
“Well, let us go now then! My term on this planet is up and I must return to Lord Rixon with my report.”
I quickly dressed, excited to present Melanie to Lord Rixon and to be married to her so that she would belong to me in all ways.
“Wait, don’t you want to shower with me first?” Melanie walked towards the bathroom completely naked, her hips swaying enticingly and her round backside moving in kind with every step. I was enraptured and briefly forgot about my haste to return to Rodon. I all but ripped off my clothing and chased after her into the shower. I could scarcely keep my hands off of her and I wondered how we would ever get back to Rodon in the time that I was expected to return.
We finally managed to get ready to depart and I advised her that the city of Voltaire in Rodon was also in the beginnings of winter. She dressed in a blue sweater, jeans, and black boots. Her hair was styled as it always was, enticingly curly and seemingly wild as it hung loose around her shoulders. As I watched her take a few pictures and things she wanted to keep with her all I wanted was to take her back to that bed again.
I refrained though, and once Melanie had collected all of her sentimental items into a duffel bag I took her hand and we left her apartment for the last time to travel the short way to my space craft. I had hidden it in an abandoned subway tunnel that let out to a cave where people slept and hid from the cold at night. Those people would not be believed if they told of their having seen a sleek black jet fly out of the tunnel and into the sky.
*****
Josiah
Melanie and I made it to the space craft and her eyes widened. “I mean I figured you had to be telling the truth because I
saw
your cyborg arm, but…this just made it all real,” Melanie whispered as I helped her get into the hatch. She settled in the seat behind mine and I made sure she fastened the protective restraints before I got in and the glass hood enclosed around us.
“So Rodon and Earth are similar right? I won’t die if I breathe the air?” Melanie asked. I chuckled.
“If that were so I would never bring you there in the first place,” I said.
She was excited, yet nervous. That much was easy to tell. The space craft came to life and I inputted Rodon’s coordinates and told the craft to launch. It hovered off of the ground and then shot forward out of the cave and into the sky. If any of the homeless men had blinked, they would not have seen us whizz by.
“It goes so fast! But we’re not stuck to our seats, that’s incredible…”
I smiled, she would be dazzled by many of the advancements on Rodon compared to those of Earth. We had just broken Earth’s atmosphere into space when I received the transmission.
“Josiah, comment.” It was Lord Rixon. His voice echoed through the small craft and brought me to attention. I sobered at the gravity of his tone. Why was he transmitting to me personally?
“Lord Rixon, I am on my return to Rodon,” I informed him and waited for his reply.
“Rodon is under attack; word got out to our Lorascan enemies that we are now an endangered race. They have moved against our planet with endeavors to eradicate our race altogether.”
The grave news sent ice through my veins and my heart grew hot with anger and hate for the Lorascan villains who thought they could stomp us out.
“What do you need of me my lord?” I asked. My tone was grave and determined as my heart set out to do anything that would save my planet and my race.
“They have gone for a full frontal attack and have brought all of their military assets to our space zones. They think we are helpless, but I need you to take out their central command to cripple all of their dependent weaponry and fighting means. You must destroy their mother ship,” said Lord Rixon.
I quickly reset the coordinates back for Earth. I needed to get Melanie to safety.
“Yes my lord, I will do this.” I assured Lord Rixon. He didn’t need to remind me that the fate of our race depended on my completing this mission. The transmission ended and Melanie cleared her throat.
“Where are we going? Didn’t we already pass Jupiter?” she asked and I nodded.
“Yes, I need to return you to Earth so that you will be safe in case anything happens. I will return for you as soon as I complete my mission Melanie,” I said. She reached forward to flick me on the back of the neck.
“What do I look like, some helpless maiden? I want to go with you, I can help you take down the central command, or mother ship or whatever it is,” Melanie said resolutely. There was a steel edge to her voice. She was determined.
“Melanie I would not be able to live with myself if anything happened to you, I must get you to safety,” I pleaded with her, but it was as if she did not hear a word I had uttered.
“So what’s the plan for how
we
are going to take down the Lorax people?”
All I could do was laugh at that moment.
“The
Lorascan
peoples,” I corrected her. She sighed as if it did not matter much. Which it did not as I was intent on killing as many of those bullies as I could. I sighed deeply and reset the coordinates. The space craft slowed to turn direction yet again and it shot off at full speed for Rodon and our solar system.
“The ship is built for speed, not combat, so we cannot sustain much of a gunfight out in space. We will have to board their central command and disable it somehow from within…I could possibly use you as a distraction…” The beginnings of a plan formed in my mind and I glanced behind me to see Melanie waiting patiently for me to finish my thought. “You might become imprisoned, but I will break you out before we leave the central command ship,” I ensured her.
“Alright, let’s do this,” she said. Melanie perplexed me in that moment, but she amazed and awed me all the same. I was right in my decision to marry that woman.
We entered Rodon’s space zone and the impressive silver fleet of the Lorascan space navy stretched out around our planet. I switched off the autopilot and took control of the craft. As I navigated around the many different kinds of ships, I managed to dodge the heavy fire of Lorascan titanium. That metal could puncture any hull. One good shot and Melanie and I would be floating dead in space.
It was a light show as the shells were shot at dizzying speed, but our craft held up and soon we neared the central command ship. It was a giant disc in the midst of many other small fighter crafts and larger heavy artillery crafts. The one thing we outsmarted the Lorascans at was our ability to make a space craft that could move at nearly the speed of light.
I rounded the large silver disc and flew underneath it where there was a small pocket for landing. It was dark in the hangar, and I was instantly wary of the implications. As our craft neared the landing strip the lights gradually lit until the entire hangar was visible. There was row after row of space craft and I quickly landed and hid our smaller, sleeker, craft in between the rows. I opened the small compartment by my left foot and pulled out the two breather masks that was standardly outfit to each Rodonian space craft. I handed one to Melanie and helped her put it on correctly before I secured mine and then we exited the craft.
*****
Josiah
Melanie and I ran low to the nearest lit entrance into the ship and I forced the door open. Inside was a long lit hall with cream-colored concave walls. We cautiously hurried down along the hall, until we reached a sort of bustling lobby area. There were uniformed Lorascans everywhere. We stood out with our human attire. The Lorascans were average in height and looked largely humanoid apart from their third eyes and paper-white skin.
I pulled Melanie back into the empty hall and she looked at me expectantly. “So what do we do now?” she whispered. I glanced back into the lobby area. There were cameras pointing down from the ceiling. Many other halls branched out from the lobby. I did not know which one led to their surveillance room. That was where I needed to send Melanie, so that they would have less a chance of seeing me as I made a break for the core of their ship to destroy it.
“I need to get you to the surveillance room so that you can distract them,” I informed her. She nodded. Her eyes were wide, but she was not too scared.
“You don’t know where it is though correct?” she asked and I nodded once. “Fine, I’ll just walk out there and most likely wherever surveillance is, is where they take prisoners, or near there.”
She was logical in her thinking and I fell deeper in love with her than I already had been. Melanie was amazing.
She said, “Just lay low and I’ll get myself locked up, then you can bust me out and we can find the surveillance room.” I nodded and Melanie ran out into the lobby. There was a commotion and I inched out of the hallway. She was seized by two Lorascans and taken into the hall directly across from the one I hid in.
I used the speed my robotic legs brought me to be largely unseen and unheard as I ran across to that hallway. The Lorascans were preoccupied with staring at Melanie as she was taken towards wherever the holding cells were. I went ahead to locate both the holding cells and the surveillance room, which was indeed in the next corridor over from the room where the holding cells were kept.
I hid behind a bend in the hallway that led to the surveillance corridor and waited as they took Melanie into holdings. The two Lorascans took Melanie inside and returned a moment later. I jumped out of the shadows and made quick work of first strangling one Lorascan to his death and then breaking the other’s neck with my robotic leg, before either could have much reaction to my presence. I had to say the speed my new body afforded me was quite handy.
I searched the bodies of the Lorascans after I pulled them into the shadows once more, and found a set of keys. I quickly went through the doors that led to the holding cells. I found myself in a circular chamber which five cells. Melanie was sitting on a bench in the center cell, patiently waiting for me.