Love From A Star: A BWWM Alien Romance (2 page)

He
drifted the glider upwards, until the light became bigger the closer
he got. He was within a few hundred yard of the light when he saw the
silver torpedo shaped vessel he recognized well. It belonged to the
Brocoy. Antash instantly recalled the battle that took place when he
was a child and his heart beat increased rapidly as he hovered,
contemplating his next move. He was slowly turning the vessel around
to avoid being spotted when instinct propelled him to wait. What were
they doing there? He knew he couldn’t live with himself if they
stirred up trouble again and he hadn’t said or done anything
about it.

He took
up his communicator and touched the green button that read ‘speak’.
“Hello, is anyone there?” he called. There was only
silence, and then static. He knocked the device and cursed under his
breath. “Hello!” he said louder as if his pitch had been
the problem. “Stupid thing,” he said as he silently
wished Jaquar had come along to fix it for him. As he hovered there,
watching and waiting for something he was unsure of, he saw another
vessel come into view and began to drift down towards him. It was
much bigger than his, and he managed to make a hard left behind a
meteor rock to escape detection.

That
angle allowed him to see not just one vessel now, but three. His eyes
bulged, and his adrenal fluids coursed through his body as he began
to sweat profusely. He was forced closer to them now, feeling
compelled to discover the reason behind there being so many of them
stationed just outside Solaris. The Brocoy were old enemies of
Solaris, and possibly everyone else in the galaxy. They lived on the
other side of the galaxy so they had no business here, unless they
planned to stir up trouble.

Closer
inspection revealed to Antash that the ships had been docked and
there was a small assembly of them standing on a moon stone below.
Antash hit the button that cloaked his vessel and leaned in for a
closer look. He was within hearing distance now and his heart
practically stopped beating so he could hear their words.

“A
fortnight is too long,” one of them was saying.

“Patience
Neka,” an elderly one advised. “They are not so easily
beaten. Remember the last battle?”

Antash
was horrified as he realized what they were planning. But he had to
be sure.

“I
have been checking, and they don’t seem to be that strong. I am
telling you, if we attack by tomorrow night we will have the
advantage of surprise,” the first persisted.

“We
will have the advantage of surprise either way; but we don’t
just want to beat them this time. No,” he said as he walked
away from the group with his hands fastened behind him. “This
time we want to make Solaris our own.”

Antash
fell back as he heard the words the old man had spoken. His hands
dropped and before he could do anything about it, his left hand hit
the button that uncloaked his glider. “Shit!” He spun and
hit the button quickly. But it was too late. He had been seen.

“What
was that?” he heard one of them ask.

“Someone
is there,” the elderly shouted. “Quick, before he
escapes. We can’t let him get back there with this sort of
information.”

Antash
needed no further warning as he turned the glider around to make his
way back to Solaris. But he had forgotten the vessel he had seen
earlier that now sat right at his back. He froze as he saw the giant
metal tin hovering over him. He tried to pass it, to head back home,
but it only came lower, forcing him back and further away from his
intended destination.

“You
are not taking me this night,” Antash vowed silently as he
swung his vessel around and darted between the too wide open wings of
the enemy. But he was not home free as he thought he would be. As
soon as he got behind the vessel he realized why they had probably
allowed his movement. Trained on him now were two enormous lasers,
the blue light surging forward. Antash could almost see himself
disintegrate in his mind’s eye as the beam caught him, and with
a quick mind and even quicker hands, he lunged right, brushing the
wing of the vessel and barely managed escape.

He
started to panic, and even as he hid under the vessel now, swinging
both ways in an attempt to determine the safer route, he was knocking
the communicator and shouting for help he hoped would come. “Can
anyone hear me? The Brocoy have me pinned down. I repeat, red alert,
the Brocoy have me pinned down.” He didn’t hear anything
on the other end, but he was forced to let the communicator fall as
he gripped both sides of the control and shot from under the vessel.
He would have better luck if he stayed at a thirty degree angle as no
guns could aim directly there.

He shot
past Varen, and looked back, but as he did, he wished he hadn’t.
He could see they had a torpedo locked onto his vessel, and he swung
and dipped between meteor rocks and debris as he tried to get it to
connect with a different target. Antash could feel the tension rising
steadily in him, and with clammy hands he gripped the control as he
swerved skilfully past some rocks, dip below some others and made a
sharp turn that led him back to the ship. He shot forward, as if he
intended to make impact, and just when he was close enough he pulled
the control as far back as he could as his glider barely grazed the
ship. One quick turn again and he was headed away from the sound of
the explosion as the torpedo ripped a hole into the ship. It dipped
and threatened to crash, but Antash’s troubles weren’t
over as yet.

“Come
in, come in,” he cried desperately as he hit the button on his
communicator. “Is anyone there?” His cries were frantic
now as he kept circling around to find a way back to Solaris, but he
couldn’t get an opportunity. The other two ships kept on his
tail, and as he swerved and danced across space, he eyed the fuel bar
on his glider. He could not keep doing this all night; sooner or
later he would be hit or run out of fuel and be forced to make a
landing, or crash. Either way, that spelled death for him.

Antash
looked ahead to the black abyss and the expanse of space that was
unfamiliar to him. He looked back and saw the Brocoy, still firing
mercilessly at his glider, and he did the only thing that made sense
to him. He pushed the vessel hard and fast as it sailed further into
outer space and away from home. He hoped he could find somewhere safe
to land, but that would take a miracle now. He had less than the
recommended level of fuel to fly, and he hit the speed button again
as he shot forward, leaving fire marks like a tail behind him. When
he felt like he was safe enough, he looked back and saw that they had
disappeared. He was sure they hadn’t given up the chase, but
they were much too large to chase him.

Suddenly
there was a loud beeping sound. The adrenalin that was just about to
return to its normal level suddenly hit the roof again; he was almost
out of fuel. There was no way he could turn back now, so he sailed
further, hoping to find some solitary hiding place where he could
regroup and get his communicator working well enough to radio for
help. There was only darkness as he plunged deeper into space. He was
now over fifty thousand miles away from Solaris, much farther than he
had ever been. He was beginning to think he would die out there, or
drift forever, which had the same effect. He knocked the communicator
several times against the seat, but nothing came from it.

The
beeping sound kept getting louder, and with each one, Antash could
see his life story as a canvas before him. He had hoped he would die
a noble death in battle, not drifting into outer space until he
starved, or became food for something else. He was beginning to lose
hope when he saw a white speck in the distance. Holding onto the last
ray of hope he could find, he sped forward, hoping the fuel would
take him that far. He didn’t know what object it was, but he
hoped it would be friendly. As he neared he could see that it was
possibly another planet, and whether they would be enemy or friends,
he didn’t know; he couldn’t care at the moment.

He
pressed the control forward and as he hovered over the strange planet
he was awed by its green and blue hue. He began to drift downwards
until he entered the atmosphere. Just then his glider began to make
even weirder noises as it shook. Antash could barely hold onto the
control as the vessel took on a life of its own. He was almost sure
it would be torn apart by the speed at which it propelled downwards,
and he grabbed the control as he tried to pull it upwards,
desperately trying to avoid a crash.

Antash
could make out what resembled the mountains on Solaris, and he hoped
the texture was the same as the glider bore down on the green mound.
Antash cried out as he felt the glider hit the surface and roll
several times as it bounced on the ground. When it came to rest, he
fell against the control panel and slid to the ground like molten
lava. Antash couldn’t feel his legs, could hardly move, and as
he lay there he could feel what felt like blood trickling down his
forehead. His eyes slowed their blinking, and as they closed this
time he could hear a crackle and some static as a voice called over
the communicator.

“Antash,
come in,” the voice said. “You are way past check point.
Antash! An..”

And that
was all Antash heard, when it was too late, before he lost all
consciousness.

“Dad,
I am not going back,” Jalicia said as she lifted the hamper
filled with dirty clothes and headed towards the back of the house.

“Why
not?” her father asked as he limped along behind her. “I
am perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

She
continued to walk as she listened to him drag himself after her. He
was still nursing the injury he had sustained a while back when he
broke his hip. Her mother had been alive then, and it had taken him
almost a year before he was able to walk comfortably on his own
again. Jalicia hadn’t been there; she had been living in the
city then. But everything has changed since, and she now ignored the
old man as he tried once more to dig up memories of the past.

“If
you were capable, then I wouldn’t still be here would I?”
she asked as she set the hamper down. She began sorting through the
clothes as she separated the whites from the colors. “Besides,
you are my father, and I love being here. This is where I grew up,”
she said as her face took on a nostalgic expression. She paused in
her duty and reflected on the little girl who would have been outside
frolicking in the hay, or running wild across the farm with the
neighbors’ children.

“You
love being here more than being a doctor? I didn’t want this
for you Jalicia, and had Ruth not passed away, you would not have
been here,” he argued for what was possibly the thousandth
time. “You wanted to be a doctor ever since you were a child.”
He shuffled closer to her until he was rubbing shoulders with her. He
folded his arms and rested against the washer. “You know, most
children wouldn’t know what they wanted to do when they grew
up, and if you ask most of ‘em they will tell you they want to
be a teacher, or a doctor, or a fireman.”

“Toby
wanted to be superman,” Jalicia said as she grinned at the
memory. It brought a chuckle from her father as well.

“But
not you,” Samuel continued. “You stuck to being a doctor;
the only thing that ever changed was the kind of doctor you wanted to
be. You knew what you were about and you stuck to it, and I don’t
want to stop you from being the person you were meant to be. When you
got that scholarship...”

“Dad,
stop,” Jalicia said as she bent to take the remaining clothes
from the hamper and stuffed them into the washer. She turned the knob
and soon they could hear the sound of water running. “I wish I
had this when I was a child,” she said as she tried to change
the subject. Her father didn’t move, respond or take the bait.
“Dad, I have to be here. End of story. Now can we drop it?”

“No
we cannot,” he said as he walked off, now behind her and into
the kitchen. He had to raise his voice over the din she was creating
as she moved the pots and pans about. “Would you stop that for
a moment?”

Jalicia
stopped for a second, but only to dissuade the conversation. “Dad,
I am tired of the talk; what’s done is done and will not be
undone. Maybe the greater purpose that I am to serve is here. Have
you ever thought of that? What would you do without me?”

“I’d
spend my days boasting about my daughter the doctor,” he said
as he smiled sheepishly. “I’d be fine, and you know
that.”

“I
don’t know that,” she said as she tossed the pan into the
sink, making quite a clatter. “Maybe if I had stayed Mom would
not have gotten that fever. I could have been here to help, and then
maybe she wouldn’t have died.”

“We
know that’s not true. Ruth was already weakened physically,
what with the chemotherapy she had undergone before. She had no fight
left, and she knew it. She asked that you didn’t come,”
he replied sadly.

“That
was wrong of you. I could have done something,” she said as the
emotions of a year ago returned to her like a tidal wave and she
gripped the edge of the counter for support.

Samuel
reached over and gripped his daughter on the shoulders. “Look
at me,” he commanded sternly. Jalicia turned slowly to face
him, and he could see the tears glistening on her cheek. He softened
as he witnessed the liquid show. “You will not blame yourself
for this, you hear me? There was nothing you could have done. She
wanted you to stay there. There was nothing you could have done other
than watch her die.” He held his daughter close to him as her
sobs rocked her petite frame. “Now, no more talk of this.”

“I
know you would rather I go back to Washington, but I am staying here.
You can’t do this alone,” she said as she dried her face
on her sleeve and wiped her hand across her nose. “Maybe one
day I will go back, but not now.”