Page 22 of My Big Scaly Alien Naga
Clare
I was speechless.And now that I had most of my memories back, I knew that this was an unusual occurrence.
Had this guy – thisnaga –just proposed to me?
I felt a little queasy, as if I wasn't quite in my body anymore.If this was a dream, it was high time I woke up.
"Are you alright?"he asked cautiously.His eyes were somewhere between snake and human, with a slitted pupil surrounded by warm shades of brown.He had no lashes, but there was a dark line around his edges.Unless he'd gone through the effort of applying eyeliner before being sent to this torture planet, it had to be a natural marking.
I realised I'd been staring into his eyes for a little too long.My cheeks heated with embarrassment.He may have been an alien, but that didn't give me the right to stare at him like an exotic animal.As much as he fascinated me, I had to stay rational.
"I don't know," I said, surprised at my honesty."I really don't know.My brain is still grappling with the fact that I'm on an alien planet and that aliens are watching me for their entertainment.It's sick.And then there's you...It's too much.I can't process this.Why did you say that?This...mate thing."
He looked at me with sad puppy eyes."Because it is true,” he said, lisping slightly, probably due to his forked tongue.I swallowed hard.Hisforkedtongue.“But you are right.It is a lot to take in.I should not have overwhelmed you with so much information at once.Shall we...I propose we go back a bit.Let’s figure out how we get off this planet first."It was obvious that he was not happy with that decision, but I was glad he'd found a compromise.
“Can you take me back home?”I asked.“How far from Earth are we?”
That sentence felt very strange.I was used to thinking in small distances, the bus journey between my home and work, the two-hour flight to see my auntie in Switzerland.Usingplanetsas my point of reference was a new thing altogether.
He didn’t answer right away.Then… “Yes.Probably.I don’t have a spaceship myself, but I have enough credits saved to hire one.Or the Bloodstar might be able to help out.But let’s discuss that once we’ve actually made it to safety.We are safe for now with the chii, but as we speak, the game makers will be wondering where we’ve disappeared to.If we were normal contestants, they might wait and see for a while in the hope that one of the drones will track us.But we are not.I killed Jarra, the Prime Game Maker, and they will see you as somehow involved in his demise.They want us to suffer.My former supervisor, Briarra, is the vengeful kind.She will stop at nothing to make sure that I die a brutal, horrible death.”
My heart sank as I listened to him.This did not sound like we stood much of a chance at all.But I wasn’t prepared to die.Not after all that had happened.I was more prepared than ever to do whatever it took to survive.
“What do we do?How do we leave this planet before they can find us?”
“There is a spaceship, the Bloodstar.Three other Peritan…human women and their mates are on that ship.It is a long story, and I will tell it to you some time, but not now.Safe to say, they have a vested interest in rescuing you and the remaining females from the station.What I need to figure out is how to get in contact with them.The chii don’t have their own technology; they rely on relics and artifacts from times long gone, left by a civilisation whose name has been forgotten.I doubt they will have the ability to contact a spaceship through the virtual barriers in place around the planet.”
Something had niggled at the back of my mind while he’d spoken.“You mentioned other human women.How many of us are there?”
“Thirty pods arrived on the station.Three females sadly died.One, Penny, woke up early and became a slave until she met her mate and escaped.Two others, Fay and Pria, were sent to the Trials, but again they managed to escape along with their mates.One other, a female called Hazel, is somewhere on this planet, but she was sent here while I was trying to save you from Jarra’s clutches, and I don’t know what happened to her.The other twenty-two are still sleeping in their cryopods on Kalumbu Station.”
“We have to save them,” I said immediately.
Venom gave me a small smile.“I agree.But we cannot help them while we are trapped on this planet ourselves.We need allies and we need resources.Just before I was sent to the surface, I sent a distress call to the Intergalactic Authority.If we are lucky, they will mount a rescue operation – but it’s unlikely.They have no resources in the area, as far as I know.It would take them too long to reach Kalumbu.By the time they’d get here, we will be dead.For now, the crew of the Bloodstar are our best hope.I sent them a message just before I was captured.If we’re lucky, they will have received and deciphered it by now.”
I could see he was trying to give me hope, but he didn’t seem entirely convinced by his own words.There were a lot of ‘ifs’.A lot of luck.I preferred to make my own luck.I didn’t like to rely on other people.
“What can we do ourselves?”I asked.“I’m not going to sit here and wait for a rescue that might never come.What if we’re stuck here forever?Can we live with the chii?”
“No.The game makers would find us eventually.They would not be kind to the chii for harbouring us.I don’t want to put the chii in danger more than I already have.But we should talk to them.They are intelligent and wise, more so than they appear at first sight.I believe they have survived for this long by pretending to be prey animals, driven by instinct rather than sentient thought.That makes it easy for the game makers to ignore them.”
I had to admit that when I’d first seen the chii that had led me here, I’d assumed it was just an animal.Only the intense look in its eyes had given away its intelligence.
“Then let’s talk to them,” I said, getting up from the mossy heap.“As much as I have about a thousand other questions that need answers, I also don’t want to sit here all day if that delay could mean we’ll be in danger later on.”
Venom inclined his head, his expression serious.“You are right, mate.We shall talk to the clan mother.”
Sa’quii and a silver chii with two tails, slightly bigger than her and looking decidedly grumpy, were waiting in the main cave.They were having an animated discussion, chittering loudly, but stopped when Venom and I approached.I wasn’t sure what word to use for how Venom moved.It definitely wasn’t walking.His lower body moved in a slithering motion, while his torso stayed upright, his eyes fixed on me.He smiled when he noticed me staring at him.
Sa’quii grabbed one of the silver chii’s tails and held it towards Venom.My idiot Chosen just admitted to me that he hasn’t mind-linked to you yet, naga.Until he does so, he cannot talk to your female.She does not speak our language like you do.
Just like before, I heard her voice in my head, but this time, she was also chirping in her birdlike language for Venom’s sake.I looked at Venom in surprise.He could understand their language?He rose a little in my estimation until I remembered the translation implants.Maybe his could translate the chii’s language while mine couldn’t.
Venom’s eyes widened at her words.“He is your Chosen?”He sounded dubious.
Sa’quii chuckled.He can be a little rough around the edges.He grew upfar from civilization and is still learning manners.I apologise if his behaviour offended you.
“I am not offended,” Venom said quickly.“I just hadn’t realised that the chii who led me here was the Chosen of a clan mother.”
