Cosmic Captain: Chapter 7

"We didn't drekking sign up to transport exotics!" An unnaturally deep voice snapped, muffled to my ears. My body felt heavy and I tried to open my eyes but they wouldn't budge. Where was I again?

"I wasn't...when I...job." A calmer, low voice responded, but I could barely hear what that voice was saying. Slowly, I managed to peel my eyes open. I was lying on my back, staring at all sorts of metal grates and tubing on the ceiling. Nothing like the sterile environment I'd been in before. My shoulders were cramped up, and I reached up to put my hand over the edge of whatever I was laying in. 

"Great, it's waking up." That first, angry voice boomed, and heavy footfalls sounded against metal grates as he stormed away.

Clasping my hand around the edge of the box I was in—I thought it was a box at least—I leveraged myself up into a sitting position. Fuzzy memories came back to me of being abducted again, of my body being violated in so many ways. Was I back on Earth? All at once the auction clambered to the surface of my mind and I sucked in a sharp gasp. 

Oh no, oh no, no, no, no! 

"Drek me, I guess I'll handle this." That calmer voice said, and my eyes skipped up to the figure approaching me. 

Green skin was the first and most obvious sign that he was an extraterrestrial, followed by everything else about him. Instead of hair he had long, tentacle-like tendrils splitting off from his head and draping over his shoulders much like locs. As he got closer I noticed he was wearing a vest-like shirt and I could see darker green, scaly patches of skin on his exposed forearms though his biceps were bare of them. Instead, black tattoos with designs I didn’t recognize wound up the upper half of his arms. Khaki pants of a strange material were tucked into boots that looked as if they had steel toes. 

"Hey there." The alien's voice sparked me into action as I realized belatedly that I was completely naked. I pressed to the side of the box, of which the sides only came up to my waist, and drew my knees up to my chest to hide as much of my body as possible.

"Who are you? What do you want?" My voice sounded wild and panicked, and I glanced around to try and take in my surroundings. Metal crates were stacked all around and this seemed like some sort of cargo bay. If we were traveling in space already, there would be nowhere for me to run to. 

The alien's features crinkled a bit and he frowned. "I'm Lovath, this ship's captain. We're uh...transporting you to your buyer. Apparently." He looked a little chagrined at that. "Your stasis pod just failed. We weren't aware we had live cargo."

I'd bet they were still going to deliver me to my buyer anyway. There was no room for delusions in my new reality. "Can I...am I allowed to have clothing?" My body had already started to shake a bit from the chill—and a healthy dose of fear—and Lovath's face softened.

"I'll go grab something." Turning to leave, he didn't seem the least bit worried about me being down in the cargo bay by myself.

And of course not. Where would I go? Out to space? I could hide in the ship but I was sure they'd just find me, and I wasn't in a hurry to go anywhere naked. Not for the first time, I felt the shame of how spineless I was. I'd never been particularly brave, nor brawny. I relied on wit most of the time, but that had been in short supply recently too.

Lovath came back, his alien appearance still a bit jarring, with a handful of folded clothes. When I just clutched them tightly to my chest, giving him a wide-eyed stare, he dutifully turned away so I could put them on. My legs were wobbly when I climbed out of the box—really it was a stasis pod nestled inside a metal cargo crate—and I steadied myself against the side all with acute awareness of my exposed skin.

I tugged on a pair of loose sweatpants that were a stretchy, yet durable material, kind of like a parachute with way more give. It felt weird to wear them without underwear but I didn't exactly have a choice. The shirt was a tank top that resembled simple cotton, and I was grateful to have one thing in all this feel familiar. 

When Lovath turned back around, I fought the urge to shrink away, and studied his face instead. He had a proud nose and lips that looked very human, but his eyes were a solid green with no sclerae and a thin, slitted pupil that reminded me of an alligator. Instead of eyebrows, he had those darker, leathery scales above his eyes that were extremely similar to human brows, and created the same facial effect as he drew them together in thought. Those same darker patches ran along his cheekbones and he had no facial hair. Given that the loc-like tendrils draping from his head weren't actually hair, it made sense I supposed that he would be hairless in general.

"What are you going to do with me?" I dared to ask, making the dark patches of his brows draw tighter together. 

"That's the drekking question of the day." He snarked, then sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. "Come with me." 

And what choice did I have but to obey? Lovath led me to the back—or front?—of the storage area and promptly climbed up a metal ladder welded into the corner. I wasn't sure how strong my limbs were, but I followed up after him anyway. My arms shook with fatigue after such a short climb, and I hated that the universe was giving me more and more reasons to feel humiliated. I was out of breath when I got to the top, and I came face to face with Lovath's hand as he offered to help me up. A hand that only had two fingers and a thumb.

A streak of obstinance bolted through me, and I pulled myself up the rest of the way, ignoring his outstretched hand. I was in an alien ship after being wholly violated and auctioned off, and Lovath was the one delivering me to my captor. I didn't need his help to get up a fucking ladder. He pursed his lips but didn't say anything, and I took the tiniest bit of pride in knowing I'd stood up for myself.

The area we were in split in two hallways, curving around a middle area with a door sealed tightly shut on it. As I followed Lovath to the left, I noticed there were multiple doors down the side of the middle area as well. Private quarters maybe? Or entrances to an engine room? I doubted I could even figure out how to open the doors, much less be clever enough to utilize the knowledge to escape if I had it.

The two hallways converged back into a large open area, with metal tables and benches welded to the floor on the left and what looked like it could be some form of kitchen on the right. Directly ahead was a solid wall, but I could make out a section that seemed slightly different from the rest.

A chill ran through me as I realized how out of my element I was. No wonder Lovath wasn’t restraining me or watching me like a hawk. I doubted there was anything I could do to try and escape without either being entirely useless or inadvertently crashing the spaceship.

Spaceship.

My head couldn’t quite wrap around it. I’d had memories and I’d known aliens were real. But sci-fi spaceships and whole alien societies who didn’t look so different from humans and talked like them too? Seeing was believing, because even the old me would never have guessed the extent of it.

Lovath turned his wrist like he was looking at a watch, but instead a holographic band appeared around his entire forearm. “Everyone come out to the communal. We have a situation.” He eyes flicked to me—the situation—and I wished he would just toss me out the airlock and let me die. Then I’d be no one’s problem and I’d have no problems.

As soon as he finished speaking, that area in front of us that I had suspected was a door began to slide open from the side, revealing what looked like a flight deck that narrowed to a point, with a chair and control panels all over. More importantly, there were windows, and my eyes rounded as I saw space—fucking space—whizzing by.

Then the chair spun and its occupant stood, and I sucked in a sharp gasp. Another alien the likes of which I could have never imagined. He stood on legs that bent forward at he knee so he was on his toes—digitigrade, was that what it was called?—and his skin was a striking shade of deep purple. Dark blue spots dotted him all over, and as he moved in the light I could see glint of fish scales framing his entire facing and licking up his forearms.

“I was right here, you could’ve just—what the drek are you doing with a human?” When he tilted his head, dark green hair slid over his shoulder, and I noted that it was probably long enough to reach his lower back. He looked at me with huge, round eyes, filled mostly with gigantic dark blue irises. His nose was flat and nearly bridgeless, and when he tucked hair back behind his ear I saw it was pointed with a frondy, fin-like part along the lobe. Those same fins lined the underside of his forearms.

Just when I thought things couldn’t be any fucking weirder.

“That’s what I need to discuss with everyone.” Lovath leaned back on the table, arms crossed over his chest. “Human, this is Talisaar.”

“I have a fucking name.” I snapped. “It’s Grayson.”

Lovath raised one dark patch of scales that passed as a brow at me. “’s that so?” When I could only give one, shaky nod in response, he turned back to the fish-like alien. “Talisaar, this is Grayson.”

I felt immediately silly for even caring; it was clear Lovath was mocking me. Was a human having their own name akin to a cat telling you to call it ‘Meow’? Maybe in their eyes. But I felt I could be afforded one dignity at least in all this.

“What’s going on, boss—whoa, is that a human?” A slightly higher pitched, feminine voice came from behind us, and when I turned to look another fish person was emerging from the opposite hallway to the one we’d come down.

She was very similar to Talisaar, what with the scales on her face and bent forward legs, but she had most of her body covered in a skintight bodysuit that reminded me of scuba gear. It had packs of what looked like water on each arm and each leg with tubing that connected to the suit. From just her face, I could see that her skin was a bright golden color with deep red stripes that matched the color of her enormous eyes. Her hair was just as long as Talisaar’s, but a deep blue instead, and I thought I was getting a bit light headed.

“That’s what you’re here to talk about.” Lovath answered as the tall woman came over and peered at me closely. “He calls himself Grayson. Grayson, this is Zenkara.”

I took a large step back from her, but it didn’t go unnoticed that Lovath referred to me as he. Not an it. I thought he was the first alien to do so. It shouldn’t warm my heart as much as it did given the situation, but it felt nice to not have someone act like I was a pet.

Even if he was delivering me like one.

After another moment, Lovath brought his arm back up to his mouth and said, “Kryn, Qwexil, get your asses up here.”

Funny that my translator got the word ‘ass’ right, but it kept translating ‘fuck’ into ‘drek’.

“Geez, I’m here Lovath.” A new voice spoke, and so far none of them had been recognizable as the one I’d heard arguing with Lovath earlier. “Dammmnnn, a human?” So ‘damn’ translated correctly too; good to know, I guessed.

“Qwexil, this is Grayson.” Lovath waved someone over, and when I looked, I blanched. Qwexil was solid white, his skin seeming almost fuzzy, and he had the same bent forward legs as Talisaar and Zen…Zen-something? But his most prominent feature was the two thin sets of horns coming from his head. The first set began as hard ridges right above his eyes, traveling along his temples before splitting off as horns above his ears and pointing straight backwards with the slightest upward curve at the ends.

The second set emerged from his forehead, curving back between the other set, the tips of the horns coming to a stop underneath his ears. His ears were pointed and adorned with earrings all the way up to the tops. White hair began as a widows peak between the two horns emerging from forehead, and I could see a long braid swinging behind him.

“I’m here.” A deep, grumpy voice I recognized came from behind Qwexil, and I knew it to be the person Lovath was arguing with about me earlier.

When he came into view, all my thoughts skidded to a halt.