Roth Read online

  “Fine, I will leave now, but I need to know one more thing before I go.”

  “What?” she snaps at me, still angry at what she perceives as my weakness towards Mattie.

  “Mattie has parents and a sister that were taken weeks ago. I need to know if they made it out alive or not.” I hold my breath, knowing the answer to this will also likely influence Mattie’s mood and likelihood of agreeing to leave with me. I’m just not sure how extreme her response will be. If her parents and sister are alive and here on Oden, will she be willing to leave them behind? Instead of one reason to come here, she might find there are four.

  “I have no idea,” she snaps at me impatiently.

  “I need to know.”

  “No, you don’t. Make your decision now, Marduke, and decide carefully.”

  “Mother, please,” I beg.

  She continues to glare at me. “I had no idea I helped raise such a coward. Not only have you disgraced this family by mating with another species, but you are scared of your human. It’s disgusting. Perhaps I should just leave you and your human to your father to deal with after all.”

  I’m taken aback by her words. “Family means everything to us, so you must understand why she needs to know if her family is alive. It will give her peace of mind, and if she carries my child...” I swallow heavily saying that, “then she needs to be able to rest. She won’t rest if she doesn’t know where her family is.” I glare back at my mother, having never looked at her like this. I immediately feel disrespectful, but I hold my ground.

  “Fine, I will see what I can find out and will relay that information to you when I get it. Now, I suggest you leave right this second.”

  “I will need to know before I find her. Once I do and we escape, I won’t ever be able to contact you.”

  “I know.”

  I tell her their names and watch as she stares at me, no longer glaring. I think she might be taking me in. We both know this will be the last time we will lay eyes on each other.

  I imagine again what I would be like if I were raised on Earth. Emotions come much easier to humans, or at least happy emotions compared to us. I think, if Mattie could see her family again, she would embrace them. She would hug, kiss, cry and scream seeing them again. She might even do all of that just to a photograph.

  But here I stand, in front of my mother for the last time, and all she can manage is to stare at me. And sadly, all I manage is to stare back.

  Her green eyes match my own, and her long black hair is pulled away from her face, travelling almost to the ground. She’s tall, like me, and fit. She goes through her own separate training every day. She is expected to look fit and give an aura of strength to our people. I have never seen her cry before and rarely have I seen her smile.

  She has tattoos over her body, too, but they are of her own family history. Most women do not require them, but since my mother is mated to the leader, she had to get not only her own family out of respect for them, but also my father’s history. As such, she has them scattered over her entire body. I know this, but I haven’t seen many. She is always dressed in a deklu, which is a full bodysuit. She wears different colours on different days. Today, she is the colour of the sun. Her hands are clenched at her sides, and her fingers have weavings of tattoos over them. Her deklu hides most of her neck, but tattoos weave along the edge of that, too. Her face is the only place visible that is untouched.

  “Goodbye, Mother,” I utter the words before turning and opening the doorway where the screen of Logan had only just been. Outside the door is a garage of sorts. It houses many spaceships, ones from my great-grandfather’s era and some are from even earlier. With every leader, we improve on our technology and upgrade our spaceships. In this garage, there are several generations of spaceships that have been left as they were. I learned to fly in each other them, learning the improvements as my family did.

  The two medics my mother spoke of are standing by a small transport spaceship. This is neither old nor new. It has been used to transport research between the planets, and since there has never been a need to improve on such a vehicle, there has never been any.

  As I approach them, they bow low at me, giving me their respect. I bow back, just as low to give them my gratitude before I enter the spaceship and take stock of what we have on here. There is a small medical area with two beds, a holding area with four tubes, and the centre of the spaceship holds the controls to fly. There are also three bedroom quarters that are not within my view.

  The medics enter after me and get to work taking out supplies for Mattie.

  I have flown so many spaceships that I start moving just by instinct. My mind immediately moves elsewhere, residing in a place where I have let my mind wander often since I lost Mattie.

  I usually wonder how she is, if she’s been hurt, if she’s alive. I wonder what has happened to her since I have not been with her. I even occasionally feel jealous at the thought of someone else trying to comfort her and possibly mate with her. Would she ever consider moving on from me? As far as she’s aware, I am either dead or captured.

  None of those usual thoughts enter my mind right now. Instead, I allow myself to think of Mattie carrying my child. I don’t think I am ready to raise a child. In Oden, I’m not even considered fully raised yet. My trainers still have a lot to teach me. I have no idea how to be a father, not based on human standards. If I were to go by my own experience, I would gather other men to raise my child. Even Mattie would have limited access to the child. I already know that won’t work. Not only will we be isolated and alone, I also know Mattie would never want to raise a child like that.

  Maybe I don’t want to raise my child like that.

  Having Mattie wrapped up in my arms, safe and happy, is something I can’t quite explain. It makes me feel hundreds of different emotions and all of them good. I imagine holding our child, knowing she or he is part of Mattie and me, will bring me similar good emotions. I also think Mattie would have no hesitation kicking my ass if I do anything wrong.

  Could it really happen? Could we be a family and raise our child together? Never have to worry about being hunted or killed?

  Screens surround me, showing me the views from outside the spaceship and farther in the distance. There are planets on either side of Oden that we own. So far, the two on the left have only been used to house the animals. So I turn right and head to the closest planet to Oden in that direction. It’s two days travel.

  I hope she was placed on Fiyt, so I can find her sooner rather than later, and I hope she’s managed to stay out of trouble. However, it should come as no surprise that of course Mattie is doing the complete opposite, putting herself in more danger than I could ever have imagined.

  When my mother contacts me on news of Mattie’s family, I fear how to tell her what has happened and how she will react.

  In the upcoming weeks, I find a lot more to fear. In fact, there is no end in sight for my fear for not only Mattie’s safety, but also our future together.

  Chapter 3

  Mattie

  As I take the steps towards my certain death, clarity bombards me. Our plan involves a lot of holes. In fact, I have been aware of most of the problems we face with it. I think we all are aware of the issues that we face. I never brought them up because there has been an unspoken rule between us not to say them out loud.

  I think Hank and I have just hoped we would somehow magically get around them while knowing we would likely be killed doing this. Kane has probably been willing to kill his way through anything. Rob and John are happy to die doing something for the cause; they knew the problems and embraced them. They would die heroes, they would die doing something towards getting Earth back, and they wouldn’t have to take on any fallout that came from it.

  Because let’s get this straight, Earth is never coming back to us.

  Even if we have been able to delude ourselves into thinking we could take down the machines which hold us hostage here and on every planet we ar
e now scattered on, how the hell are we supposed to get back to Earth?

  Where is Roth in relation to Earth? I have never seen any planets other than the ones we were taught in school. That’s as far as any of us have seen.

  When I woke up on that spaceship after Marduke sent me away, I felt like it was only seconds between leaving Earth and waking up. However, I have heard others say their travels here took longer, even up to a couple of weeks. So how can we possibly travel for up to weeks in an alien spaceship without knowing what direction we are meant to head in?

  Another problem: Where are the other planets situated for us to liberate the other humans? Even if we do manage to find Earth and get away, we are only a few hundred thousand humans. So what about the rest of us? What happens if we run out of petrol or energy or whatever alien spaceships run on?

  What happens if we make it back to Earth and then the machines just come back? And instead of taking some of us this time, what if they kill us instead?

  For anything to work, we need to make it to Oden and kill Marduke’s family, maybe even kill his people. We need to disable all the machines and transport every human back to Earth.

  Now, as I wait for us to take our first steps towards our deaths, I realise another new problem. How can any of us actually fly an alien spacecraft?

  I don’t voice these problems, though, as we hide, waiting hours for the spaceship to arrive. Then, as the “brainwashed humans” begin to unload what they’ve brought to Roth, we sneak on board, one at a time. I know we will fail this doomed mission right away, but when we instead make it onto the spaceship unseen, I sort of hope that, maybe, we can stumble our way through the next step, too.

  We don’t find the controls for the spaceship where we thought they would be. Instead of along the edge with a window in front, showing the spaceships surroundings, something vital for flying I would have thought, we find the controls situated in the centre of the spaceship.

  I gaze at the blank benches, having no idea what is going on. The only reason we know it’s where the controls are is because of protruding levers that Kane assumes are part of the controls. It isn’t until we all step into the middle of the room that images come up in front of us.

  Everywhere I look, there are new images; images of planets and places which don’t mean anything to me. In fact, it’s only when Kane points it out that I realise what we are seeing is a disjointed map. The indecipherable scribbles written around the planets in seemingly random places don’t mean anything to me, but as I gaze at ten planets I realise what we are seeing.

  One is Roth. I can tell because there is a blinking blue dot flashing over us. I assume this indicates where this spaceship is now. The planet is coloured red and green, and it matches the stark red soil and lush green forests around us. The others are all different, but I assume the biggest planet on the map will have to be Oden.

  I try to touch the planet with my fingers, but my hand goes through the image. I am curious to see Marduke’s home planet. I want to know where he came from, see what he grew up seeing. I want to know where he spent time as a child, where his favourite place to go had been. What did his bedroom look like? What was his life like on a day-to-day basis?

  As the first tear falls from my face, anger quickly overtakes me. I don’t need to see any of that. If we in fact make it to Oden, there is only one thing to do. I need to find Ival and kill him. I want to avenge Logan and Marduke’s death. Morbidly, I want to see the life leave Ival’s eyes. I want to feel the last beat of his heart.

  I’ve never wanted to kill someone before; now I’ve made it my mission to become a murderer. It doesn’t even feel wrong to want that, either.

  “Fuck!” Kane hisses, and all our eyes leave the strange images around us and focus on him. He’s using all of his considerable muscle, which is a hell of a lot of strength, to try and move the lever.

  “Stop that. You don’t know what moving that will do,” I whisper.

  I think part of our hopes have included that the inside of this spaceship would look somewhat similar to something we had used at home. Kane has claimed he could fly anything. Commercial airplane, jet plane, helicopter, all were no problem. If it went in the air, he could handle it. Unfortunately, nothing here is like anything back home.

  “What the fuck are we supposed to do then?” Kane growls at me, taking a step in my direction before Hank hurries forward and blocks his path to me.

  “How about we just find a good hiding place and wait until the brainwashed guys get on board. We’ll either overpower them, or hell, we can just stay hiding out until we make it to their home planet, and then we come out and destroy those machines,” Hank suggests.

  “With what?” John throws his hands in the air. Rob and John are so silent I’m always surprised when they decide to speak up. I often just forget they are even around. “We don’t have any weapons!”

  “Guys!” Rob hisses, distracting us again. When we glance over at him, we find he’s left the centre. We creep towards him, wary that he might have heard someone coming, but then realise he’s pointing to several crates piled in a corner. He has managed to pry one open and inside are guns. Earth guns.

  “Whoa,” Hank whispers as Kane reaches down and grabs one, checking the chamber to see if there are bullets already loaded. “Fully loaded,” he murmurs, reaching down to take another.

  We all do, and I feel oddly relieved to be holding the handgun. I place one in the back of my pants, tucked under my sweater so it isn’t visible and then take another.

  “I wonder what else is here.” Kane eyes the other unopened crates.

  “Why do they have these?” Rob asks.

  We’re all armed now.

  “I bet they’re just on here for their final destination. I bet theses are meant for their lair.” John suggests.

  “Then, if we stay on here, hidden away, we won’t have to fly this thing. We can surprise them with our attack once we have reached our final destination.” Hank grins at us.

  I feel uneasiness settle in my stomach. I’m not sure if it’s because I think Hank is doing some wishful thinking, or because maybe this could actually work. Even though it is believed we need to take down the machines that have been deemed the true enemy of Earth, we also know they are getting help from the “brainwashed humans,” so there is an unspoken knowledge that, with this mission we will be killing humans. I can’t exactly tell Hank and the others that our true enemy lies with Marduke’s people. The machines are slaves to them and not the other way around.

  I want to kill Ival. I wouldn’t even mind putting an end to Marduke’s father’s life, which is something we will have to do if we want this war to end, but what would Marduke think of me if we slaughter his people?

  I rub my forehead, feeling a headache coming on, and lean back along the bench where the controls are. My hand moves back, and I feel something come loose in my hand. I lift it up, bring it to my eyes and feel a vibration from the strange thing. There is something familiar about it, something scratching at the back of my mind. I’ve seen this before, or at least, something similar. But when?

  My fingers graze over the bright, strange symbols, realising this is what Marduke had used to send me onto that spaceship. This is the control that Ival used to send Hank, Lisa and the girls away from Earth.

  I shake holding this, and as my fingers shift, I accidently slip and touch one of the symbols. A red light shines from it and the vibration up my arm increases.

  I glance at the others, only to find that the light moves over the others and they all disappear except Hank. Right before my eyes, they are gone. Where did they go? What have I done?

  “What the hell?” Hank gasps, and unfortunately, it draws my attention. I look at him, taking the red glow with me and he vanishes before my eyes as well.

  “No!” I scream, realising I have lost him. I can’t lose Hank; he’s all I have left.

  Without thinking about the consequences, I leave my fingers in place, not wanting to lo
se what I have managed to accidently touch, and then twist the control so I’m facing the light.

  The red glow encompasses me, and after an uncomfortable pulling sensation that hits me, I find myself somewhere else entirely. I drop the control in shock, the red glow disappearing. I have about three seconds to adjust to what is around us. We’re on another spaceship, but this one is different. It’s dirtier, faded, and smells of something dead or soiled. It brings bile up my throat and I gag. Hank and Kane are to my right, Rob and John to my left.

  The next thing that I take in is the fact they are firing our newly acquired weapons. My three seconds to adjust to our situation are now up.

  By then, a loud screech drowns out any thoughts I have. It’s not a human sound, but something so high-pitched it hurts my ears. It’s piercing enough to burst our eardrums, maybe even the windows behind us.

  I stand on shaky legs and hold out my handgun. I leave the control on the ground, afraid to hold it in case it does something worse than what it has already managed.

  We’re trapped in a room full of strange and terrifying creatures. Not the mechanical ones that attacked us on Earth. No, these are flesh. They are an off brown colour; their skin is flaky and shines strangely in the light. Moving on three legs, they have two extensions attached to their front, which are almost like two long arms with sharp claws on the end of them. They snap harshly and draw my attention. Those claws look familiar, which is beyond strange. Perhaps I’ve seen it in a nightmare.

  Their screams leave puddles of drool dripping from their mouths, which hisses and bubbles as it touches the floor. That is when I take in their faces. I think it’s a face. It has one large, beady eye that is an off white colour. They all have long, thick necks with their heads resting over a foot away from the rest of their bodies. As they scurry forward, they alternate on what feet they use. When one close to me hisses, I get a look at its teeth. They are razor sharp and not just one set, either; there are three sets that I can see. It has a conveyor belt of teeth!