New Horizons: Chapter 1

I hated this fucking place.

I hated aliens, space, and most of all this horrible planet. I wanted off. But every time I mentioned making enough credits to get back to Earth I was just given sympathetic gazes. Even the few humans I’d come across had grown stupid and complacent.

Well I’d decided they couldn’t keep me away. All their laws were bullshit, and I knew if I could get myself onto my own planet, they wouldn’t bother getting me back. One human who knew about alien society wasn’t worth the trouble to try and abduct me again.

So I learned. After Gray left me on this godforsaken planet to gallivant around the galaxy with Lovath—a fucking alien—I’d begun to work on spaceships. Lucky me, I’d been a mechanic on Earth.

I still was, I reminded myself.

Regardless, turns out I was able to pick up on spaceship mechanics fairly easily. Who knew? Finding a job as a traveling mechanic had proved difficult in the six long months I’d spent grueling over ship parts, though. I needed to work on a ship that traveled so I could hijack it and get back to Earth. Did I know how to hotwire a ship just from working underneath their hulls? Or navigate? Not really. But I was certain I could figure it out.

Not for the first time, I resented Gray for leaving me here on the planet Pretia to be with the alien who’d been paid to transport him to a buyer. He really thought Lovath was a better option than me? I still remembered every detail of the first day I’d met Gray, of how he’d chosen to meet at a coffee shop just to order a cup of tea. Of how he’d looked hollow and tired, but achingly sweet and attractive. When he’d blurted out a bunch of shit about alien abduction, I didn’t even really think he was crazy; I knew crazy—my sister Michelle, for one—and he wasn’t like that.

I guessed Michelle hadn’t been crazy either; all that garbage about being abducted by aliens was true. It just turned out they’d returned her because she wasn’t desirable to keep as a human exotic for the space slave trade. When I got back, I’d tell her she was right about everything, and that there was more to the galaxy than she ever could have imagined.

I was a skeptic when I met Gray, though; I gave him a chance anyway. There was some sort of hope in me that he could make me understand my sister and why she’d cracked. Except he’d been right about the whole fucking thing. Worse still, at some point during all those evenings I’d pored over star charts and maps with him I’d fallen in love. And I think, given time, he would have loved me too.

Instead he couldn’t give up looking for E-fucking-T and we were abducted and separated for months. Icing on the cake, he’d been Stockholm Syndrome-d into letting an alien in his pants. A god damned ugly one at that, though I’d admit I found them all ugly. Inhuman. Disgusting. Alien.

I suppressed the urge to kick the hull of the bus-sized ship I was working on. The traakian owners would probably sell me on the illegal exotics market if I so much as scratched their precious baby. Or they’d set their pet ksiva on me.

Traakians—like Lovath, I’d come to learn—had these weird cat-like creatures called ksivas. Some kept them as pets and some didn’t disclose when they’d left their ksiva in the car I’d been working on. It attacked and scratched my arm up pretty good.

Dust kicked up as I sat on the ground to get a better angle on the offending hunk of metal, and a rattling cough racked my body. Then it didn’t stop. I hacked so hard my eyes watered, barely able to pause and take a breath.

That was the thing about Pretia—it was a sandy, dusty planet that eventually became toxic to most creatures that didn’t evolve to live there. Unless you got cybernetic lung implants that could filter the air. Those were offered to Pretian inhabitants at a massive discount by the Shukasi Federation. The same space dictators who’d decreed humans couldn’t be returned to Earth once stolen.

Class 3 planet, my ass. Earth was considered a Class 3 planet, meaning we hadn’t invented advanced space travel yet. Therefore, off limits. It was some prime directive bullshit to not interfere with developing societies. To me, it just meant they’d never take me home even if it had been illegal to steal me in the first place.

I’d refused the lung implants, anyhow. I hadn’t planned on staying in space long enough for it to matter, and I couldn’t exactly go back to Earth with fancy metal implants in my lungs. But as I finally got the coughing under control and pulled my hand away from my mouth, it was hard to ignore the blood on my palm.

Yet another reason I needed to get off Pretia.

“Still being stubborn about breathers?” The voice of my middle-aged idesira boss came from the other side of the shop. Idesira were a snowy white, lightly furred alien with two sets of horns on their heads. They were also generally taller than humans, with bent forward legs so they stood naturally on their toes. It was creepy.

“Can’t go back to Earth with breathers, Zyxen.” At my comment, he snorted. I knew he found it ridiculous every time I said it, but that didn’t change that I meant it. The communicator strapped to my belt made a noise, and I pulled it out to check.

Communicators were dinosaur tech apparently, and not that functional, but I was able to use it instead of implanting a jabber. Jabbers were communicators that got surgically placed under the skin on the back of your wrist—where a watch would go—and it created a holographic display around your forearm that was like having a phone right in your body.

Gray’s jabber had been torn out by an idesira who used to be Lovath’s mechanic, and just the thought of that made me sick. Jabbers were connected to your nerves when they got implanted, and Gray had almost lost movement in that hand.

I’d been cruel to him when we’d finally reunited after being abducted from Earth. My opinion on his alien lover or his decision to stay out in space on Lovath’s ship, the Event Horizon, hadn’t really changed. I still thought Gray was being a lovesick idiot and Lovath was taking advantage of a guy who was vulnerable. But I was also smart enough to realize I’d been an asshole when I tried to keep him on Pretia with me. I’d sent him a vid apologizing, and Gray was a forgiving person so we’d been in touch.

In fact, he was the one who’d sent me a message.

On Pretia. You in the shop?

My stomach did a funny little twist. Gray was on Pretia? I hadn’t seen him since he’d first showed up hanging all over his traakian lover like it wasn’t a huge fucking problem that he was having sex with the captain of the ship that was meant to transport him to the alien that had purchased him at an auction. I’d made some nasty implications, and even convinced Lovath that it was best for Gray to stay on Pretia with me.

Gray hadn’t wanted to be away from Lovath for even a day. It still hurt to think about. I wanted to be Gray’s friend—more than his friend—but I didn’t know if I could keep myself in check if I had to see him and Lovath together. Not when I knew it could’ve been me if I’d just convinced him not to go searching for aliens that night we got abducted.

Never have anywhere else to go. I thought about the response for a long time before sending it, tacking a smiley face on at the end so it seemed nicer. It wasn’t a secret that I was a bit of a miserable sod. I didn’t make friends, or go anywhere, or do anything. Because this was all temporary. What use would a friend on Pretia be when I made it back to Earth?

Not five minutes later, as I’d gotten myself to my feet and sifted through my tools, Gray’s voice from behind me pricked my ears. “Derrick!”

As I turned, he bounded over, all smiles, and hugged me tightly. Gray wasn’t much of a toucher—except with fucking Lovath—so he released me in a matter of seconds. He was just as lovely as I remembered, with softer features, a long, straight nose, and clean-shaven. Actually, he’d told me the krexxians who abducted us lasered his facial hair off.

Since I’d seen him six months ago, his long brown hair had been cut a bit shorter, feathering to his shoulders instead of how long it used to be. He was still pretty thin and small, not bulky and muscled like I was. Not for the first time I wondered if maybe he was a bit too pale, but he’d always been that way.

“Gray.” I grinned, my excitement genuine. “What are you doing on Pretia? I would’ve been more prepared.” Maybe he’d decided to leave Lovath after all. Last time I’d seen him, the alien had marked up his neck with hickeys and bruises, but Gray’s skin looked clear today.

And then Lovath rounded the corner.