Wednesday Briefs: Denied Chapter 89

“Hey kid, causing trouble again?” Deke showed up with a bunch of equipment and a grin. He wasn’t nearly as cranky as I expected. Captain stood to help him set down all the supplies he brought.  “What took you so long?”

I shoved his shoulder when he bent down to drop some of the bags he had slung over one shoulder but he didn’t even stumble. He swayed away with the force and then came back, grabbing my arm and putting me in a lock.

“Ow!” I twisted my arm in the opposite direction, leaning into the hold instead of following my instinct of pulling away from him… just the way he’d been training me. I broke his grip.

“Good!” Deke’s grin danced in the shadows from the fire Captain had started in the portable pit, but he didn’t move out of his crouch. I watched him warily; I’d learned how quick he was and how fast he could strike from that stance in our first session.

I opened my mouth to say something, but a hiss and slap distracted me. Sparkles was out of the water for the first time since we came, at least her top half, and one of her wings was splayed out. Had she slapped the water with it?

“Holy mother of mercy… what is that?” Deke turned and gaped.

Sparkles struck.

Deke reared back, but he wasn’t fast enough to avoid the wave of water that swept up from the pool and splashed his face and soaked his chest. Not a drop touched me.

Aparoe started laughing and Captain’s booming laugh followed suit a heartbeat later. Deke stared at Sparkles who’d sunk back under the water other than her eyes which seemed to dance with mischief. Or maybe that was just something I felt from her.

“What in the hell?” Deke just said. He wiped the water still dripping off his chin.

I died. I literally laughed until I could hardly breathe, sinking down to the rocks next to the pool and gasping for air. Sparkles swam closer, and I scritched the skin on her nose, rubbing the smooth skin there and up her face to between her eyes. She thrummed, or purred, or whatever it was that she did when she was happy.

“Someone made himself a new friend, huh?”

I looked over my shoulder at Deke who’d accepted a clean shirt from Captain. He was wiping off the remnants of the water with the back of his wet shirt. They were all watching me again. “Sort of.” I told Deke about my sense of being followed, and Aparoe explained about finding Sparkles on the ship.

“And you didn’t think you should inform the head of security?” It was like Captain all over again, down to the posture and tone of voice.

“It turned out fine. Though I’m guessing she’s watched us train before because she hissed at Captain when he came, but she didn’t try to attack you when you grabbed me.”

“But she soaked me.”

“That didn’t hurt you,” Aparoe. “Just made you stop.”

Yet another sign of Sparkle’s intelligence. I stared at her. “You’re just as unique as me, huh?” She nudged my hand, then went back to the eggs, fanning water over them. “Yeah, there’s those guys too.” I sighed.

We all worked together to put up a shelter. I left the door open, but it wasn’t that cold with a heater providing warmth and Captain at my back holding me close. It wasn’t a big space around the pool so Deke and Aparoe had to sleep close, so we weren’t doing anything intimate, but just having him close pulsed through the bond we shared.

Sleep took some time to come, and I never sank into a deep cycle. A deep hum woke me in the predawn hours before the smallest of the planet’s suns rose. I crept out of the tent, not waking anyone else. “Sparkles?” I whispered.

The fire was embers only, but they glinted on her shining skin as she curled around the eggs. She’d stilled, her wings no longer moving the water. She seemed excited, fine tremors shaking her body. I took a chance and got closer so I could see the eggs.

They were hatching! I still couldn’t quite see inside the sac but the body inside the one closest to the edge was squirming and moving, pushing until the egg stretched. I was so fascinated that I nearly missed when the egg on the far right stretched so far that it actually split, releasing a milky fluid into the water as a tiny body squirmed out of the slit.

“Stars!” Its little body was pale, an early echo of Sparkle’s iridescent shade maybe. Its tail thrashed, propelling it from the tumble it took into the water, and it clung with tiny claws to the empty sack of its egg.

Sparkle’s hum switched to a croon. She extended a paw with her claws retracted. It saw her and lunged, climbing on, rubbing its head on her and making tiny squeaks. “Adorable,” I whispered when it looked like she was presenting the baby to me. She held still so I reached out with one trembling finger.

The baby squeaked and cocked its head, then stretched out its neck. It touched my skin, nostrils flaring, and then it jumped onto my arm. I barely held in a shout of surprise. Its tiny body barely weighed a thing, but it startled me, so warm, slightly wet, soft.

So soft. “Hey baby, you should stay with your momma. You’re gonna get hurt.” It was a daredevil, that was for sure. I looked at Sparkles, but she was humming again, watching the eggs. Okay, so maybe I was babysitting already?

This tiny Sparkles replica was easy enough to cradle in one arm against my stomach. But as the eggs hatched, I gained two more identical babies to snuggle.

But one egg wasn’t moving.

TBC
Want more flash?

J Alan Veerkamp

Carol Pedroso

Julie Lynn Hayes

Wednesday Briefs: Denied Chapter 88

“I don’t think so,” said Aparoe. “I found her right before we left the other ship. I never told anyone I did scans, but I was just as wary as you about unknown life signs after what we’d been through. I didn’t want to have any more surprises. But no one has tried to find her, like you think would happen if she was going to be used against Kohen.”

“You’d think telling your captain would have been on your agenda, at least,” Captain said. “How did you know this wasn’t part of the Elite’s plot? Or something else the scientists cooked up? Kohen figured out that it was a plan to get his DNA within minutes.”

Aparoe shrugged. “You had a lot going on trying to overcome your guilt at bonding with Kohen. He was afraid he was a threat to the ship and crew. I had it handled. Besides, no one knew I had her and she was tiny.”

“Key word there. Was.” Captain turned a narrow-eyed glare on Sparkles.

“Hey, stop that. It’s not her fault,” I said. She chirped and rolled quickly in the water, ripples splashing the edge of the rock around the pool.

“I was forced into the water by Lakshou, and the egg was just there. She didn’t ask for this any more than we did. The question now is to find out if this was part of the plan to use my DNA to create… something, whatever super soldier they were trying for originally mixed with her species, or if we’re just looking at another tiny part of the puzzle that Danie and I represented to the scientists.” I skirted around Captain and knelt next to the water, putting my hand inside the warm pool. A nose instantly nuzzled my hand.

“Meanwhile, we protect her and the eggs. She brought me here for a reason. I don’t know—”

“The eggs will probably hatch within a day,” Aparoe interrupted. “The sacs have grown more transparent and you can nearly see inside them. She’s been attentive to them, checking back frequently, but nothing like this.” Aparoe indicated the long curl of a wing around the eggs swishing water around them gently.

“Oh. Well… um, do they need help, do you think?”

“Doubtful. She seems to be self-sufficient, if given the right environment.”

Captain huffed as he crouched beside me. “You’d be safer at home.”

“What will hurt me with you here?” He was armed to the teeth and it wasn’t like I was helpless, even if he tried to treat me like I needed protecting. “Do you need to comm anyone? I’m sure you have Deke freaked out, right?”

“Freaked? Probably not. Excited to hunt with some of his toys? Definitely.”

“Well, he’ll just have to be disappointed,” I snapped. “No hunting Sparkles; I told you that before.”

Captain made a sour face. “I’ll let him know where we are and to bring supplies for a stay outdoors.”

I settled into my spot, my hand in the water next to Sparkles and not far from the eggs. I didn’t want to touch them, but there was an urge to stay close. “How’d you do this, huh? Are these babies gonna be okay?”

Sparkle’s eyes rose above the water. She blinked, then nodded once.

“Are they like you?”

She just blinked several times. I sighed. Too many answers possible for that question. Then again, would she understand DNA? Or the connection between us? She understood words, but advanced concepts or abstract ones? But then again, she also knew she couldn’t answer.

I looked over my shoulder. “How much did you do with her, Aparoe? Talk to her, teach her?”

“She had a space in my quarters. I left programming on the vid for her, to mask any noise she might make or her movements from others. During the evenings, I spoke to her often, I guess. Before I took her to my quarters to hide her, I often spoke to myself in the evenings.” Aparoe huffed. “Hard to find anyone else to have an educated conversation with most times.”

So maybe Sparkles would understand. Perhaps her kind were intelligent and not just naturally sentient. “How smart are her kind?”

“Not this smart. Something in the genetic link she shares with you has made her different,” Aparoe said.

“So I’m going to have to share you?” Captain’s warmth settled down beside me. Sparkles sank below the water immediately.

“I felt a tie, but it’s not like our bond.” I leaned back against his body. “You’re in here and in here.” I tapped my head and my heart. “Every time we’re close, it gets stronger. This is like… recognizing someone or something you know you know but can’t really remember how you know them. Or it. A gut feeling.”

“Your gut feelings have saved us before,” Captain said. “I should have listened. I’m still trying to learn how not worry.”

“Like how you instantly thought Sparkles being here meant someone on the crew had to be a traitor? Even though you know everyone who came with us is loyal to you?”

“You are the most important thing in the universe to me.” Captain nuzzled my neck, his arm creeping over my chest and locking our bodies close as he spoke softly in my ear. “I don’t know if I will ever be able to fully trust anyone else is completely safe around you. I want to keep everyone and everything away, even the people I trust with my own life.”

At least he didn’t want to say he wanted to lock me away. “We’re stronger together.” There was going to be danger in our lives, but this crew was not just a random group of aliens brought together for a mission. They were a family, one who stuck together, fought together, and had each other’s backs. “Whatever mystery Sparkles and her eggs hide, we’ll figure it out. All of us.”

Want more flash?

J Alan Veerkamp

Julie Lynn Hayes

Wednesday Briefs: Denied Chapter 87

Prompt: How many times must I tell you that?


“She?”

“Well, bearing young does not have to mean a female gender in all species, but it is the most common expression of gender identity for bearing species. She seems to be using your DNA and hers to create them, and you are male. I scanned the eggs and they show your distinct genetic make-up as well as hers, which is quite unique, as you know.” Aparoe turned and sat on a pile of rocks not far from the pool.

“You didn’t harm one of them to find that out, did you?” I asked, my stomach roiling at the thought of her ripping open one of those shining eggs bobbing in the water to find out what was inside.  

“Of course not. I would never experiment on a sentient creature. Captain Querry only asked me to avoid treating you in my medbay to prevent you from having flashbacks, not because he’s worried I would do anything to harm you. And I’d never harm one of the eggs. Do you see any harm to Sparkles? And I cared for her for weeks.”

Captain did trust the rest of his crew, those people who had been with him for so long. But look at what Lakshou had done to me, and he’d trusted him before that. “Weeks?”

“And she never grew an inch, not until we got here. Then she began to grow steadily. The eggs showed up overnight.”

“How long ago?”

“Two days.”

“Just two?” They were as big as my hand.

“And they were only as big as the tip of my thumb when I first saw them.” Aparoe leaned forward. “And quite a bit darker. They are nearly opaque now.”

“Maybe you just missed seeing them?”

“I didn’t just see them, I scanned the pool. I scan every time I come close after the first time I came too close while she was eating. So no, they weren’t in the pool before that.”

“Did you know she could fly?”

Aparoe’s brow rose. “Fly? No, I did not. Most creatures who swim do not fly.”

“She did. She flew us here from my house. Captain is probably frantic.”

“Would you like to contact him?” Aparoe pulled out a comm from their robe.

I should. I didn’t really want to because I knew he was going to be very upset, but I sighed and nodded. Of course, I was right. The second the comm connected and he heard my voice, he was frantic.

“Stop yelling,” I finally yelled back. “I’m not in any danger, I said. How many times must I tell you that. Aparoe is here with me. They’ve been taking care of this creature for weeks. No one on the ship was hurt. It’s been following me this whole time, and I haven’t been hurt.”

Captain’s nostrils flared. “It flew away with you.”

“You have my location. Come here. But quietly, carefully, because there are little ones.” I cut the connection.

“So I made the call. Captain is coming. Sparkles brought me here for some reason, you’re here, and the eggs are here.” I sank down on the warm rocks, enjoying the heat in the chilling air. “Why? What does all this mean?”

Aparoe cocked their head. “You think there is some purpose or meaning behind all this, beyond coincidence and strange genetic luck? The universe is a diverse place.”

“It is.” I’d been thinking about everything that Aparoe said, about where Sparkles came from, and about how our DNA was mixed. The universe was a diverse place, but it was also immense. And we had not gone to that planet unbeknown to those who had plans to put me back in that cell. So even if Captain’s cousin was under arrest, even if the Elites were dead, that didn’t mean all their plans had been stopped.

But was I right or Captain? Sparkles was swimming in the water, fanning the eggs that swayed in the ripples from her circles. Her movement was the only real way I could see her. The same for the eggs. Sparkles seemed to understand me; if Aparoe was right, she’d been inside me.

She was meant to carry my DNA.

“That’s it.” A back up plan. When I’d been pushed under the water, I’d swallowed some of the water. That was the real reason for the attack. “Plans within plans within plans.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know. Danie’s is way more important than I am. He’s a living Artificial Intelligence.”

“But they kept going after you. Not him, you. Lakshou’s plans were for you. When we arrived at the Elite’s planet, they separated you from the rest of us.”

“What is so damn special about me?” I frowned.

“Everything,” a voice said behind me.

I twisted, knowing the voice and not afraid of being snuck up on by the owner of it. He’d managed to surprise both of us though. “Captain.”

Jumping to my feet, I let him pull me into his arms, nearly squeezing the life out of me. I could feel the hum of our bond ringing in relief and tension I hadn’t realized I carried inside me eased. Inhaling his scent, warm and sweaty and mixed with the dirt and vegetation of the planet he’d had to pass through to get to us, the hot heat of his skin under all of that still stood out.

Sparkles raised her head out of the water and hissed.

“Shush. He’s not going to hurt you or the eggs,” I assured her. “Right?”

“Kohen—”

“No. This is important. I think someone did plan for her to get my DNA inside her, but I don’t think they ever planned for us to meet after I expelled her egg.” Aparoe and I filled Captain in on what we knew and what I’d been thinking about.

“But then someone else on my crew is a damned traitor,” Captain snarled.

Want more flash?

J Alan Veerkamp

Julie Lynn Hayes

Wednesday Briefs: Denied Chapter 86

Sparkles shivered, the light dancing around the small clearing. It inched closer. “Come on, don’t be afraid. I’m not.” It was probably stupid, Captain might be right. Someone, or something, might have motives to hurt me with this beautiful creature—but if they did, then they were the dumb ones.

Its scent enveloped me, that sweet odor tickling my nostrils. Its nostrils, a row of them going up its snout, flared. Then it shivered again. “What do you smell, huh? Is there something about me?” I held out one hand, palm down, and waited.

A low thrumming croon throbbed in the air. In an agile move no creature with a spine should be able to make, Sparkles twisted and exposed its neck and belly. The scales were hard and smooth under my fingers as I stroked its neck, first with just two fingers and a soft stroke. The croon grew as I gained confidence and leaned in closer, mapping out the path of the iridescent scales as they covered the being’s flexible neck and down to its powerful chest and abdomen.

“How did you get here, huh? Someone bring you to me? Captain is worried you’re here to hurt me.”

Sparkles opened its eyes wide, shaking its head, kicking up some dust and leaves.

“You do understand me!” I hadn’t been one hundred percent sure before, but I was now. “You answered yes or no. Let’s see…. Um, are you here alone or is someone forcing you to come to me?”

I got another head shake but that wasn’t really clear. I asked two questions. Was that no to both or to one? Those shining eyes were staring into mine, and I could just tell the language barrier was as frustrating for it as it was for me. I sighed. “I’ll get better at this. Though I wish you could just talk to me. Or I could understand you. You must be trying to speak to me. I thought these damn translators worked for everything nowadays.”

Or maybe that the junk the scientists had put in my head would be good for freaking something. I jerked back when Sparkles rolled abruptly, crouching on its six limbs. Its head came up over mine where I was sitting, then it wrapped the first two limbs around my chest and reared up.

Wide wings unfurled, flapped once, and then we were in the air. I didn’t even have time to suck in a breath and yell for Captain where he stood outside our little home staring wide-eyed up in the sky as we passed overhead like a speeding shuttle.

“What are you doing?” My legs dangled uncomfortably until I tried to lift them and Sparkles then used its lower set of limbs to support them. “Where are you taking me? Take me back, Sparkles!”

It ignored me.

Shit. Fuck. Had I been wrong? My heart was pounding, but I was startled by the abrupt changes. I’d never see the wings that perfectly matched the scale pattern of Sparkle’s back when they were folded, and I certainly didn’t expect to be flying around being held up by a creature who might be as tall as I was vertically, if I ignored its tail length, but was only half my width. Still… I wasn’t really scared or angry.

We didn’t travel all that far, though the speed might have been deceptive. Sparkles descended in looping circles under the canopy of some of the stone spires that made up the canyons and rock cliffs to the south of the town and our property.

Sparkles landed somehow on their middle limbs and one arm of their front and back limbs, keeping me tucked close enough not to hit the solar-warmed rocks that still radiated heat from the second sun. It scurried under cover and into a round bowl, putting me down.  Then Sparkles eased down to a pool of water, slipping into the liquid.

That’s when the true worth of its scales became clear… or nearly as good as clear. I couldn’t see anything but its eyes and where its limbs were moving to keep it at the edge of the small pool.

“Stars! You live in the water. It’s like… camouflage. But you’re a fire breather.” How the hell did that work? Why?

The water rippled, and I crept closer. I should be trying to get back to Captain, but there was a mystery here, something drawing me closer. How had this creature followed us from another planet? Or had it?

I gasped. “Are those… are those eggs?”

“They are.”

I spun, stumbling on the rocks. “Aparoe?”

“Careful! You don’t want to crush the eggs. I don’t know how you managed to keep the first one intact through the attack and trip back to the ship, much less how it survived the reclamation system.”

“I did what?”

Aparoe smiled gently. “I have a theory that you might have actually swallowed the egg, because you seem to have sloughed some of your DNA into the… well, I don’t know if it has a name—”

“I call it Sparkles.”

“You do, do you?” Aparoe raised their eyebrows.

“It seemed right,” I said defensively. “What are you doing here? How do you know about Sparkles? What do you know about Sparkles? I just started seeing it a few weeks ago.”

“I found it when I was doing a biological scan on the ship for contagion after our last stop on Central to ensure we hadn’t been infected with anything deliberately to prevent landing on another station or planet.

“It was much smaller, only the length of my forearm, but it had your DNA. I didn’t want to alarm Captain Querry until I had more information, but it hardly seemed a threat or dangerous once my scans proved it was safe biologically.”

“And he won’t let you study me,” I said shortly.

Aparoe shrugged. “Perhaps.”

“Sparkles isn’t the size of your forearm now.”

“No. She’s not.”

Want more flash?

J Alan Veerkamp

Julie Lynn Hayes