“Look, don’t you understand!” Jen exclaimed. “I care about him! I
care about my life here! This is my home now!”
“I’m under strict orders to bring you and Kar’Tohja back.” The
leader, Hon’Kaarn, protested. “You want to argue the case? Argue it to the
council when we get back!”
“But they’ll never let us come back. Please, Kaarn!”
“I don’t have any power to alter my orders. You’re getting too
involved. This is the exact reason we didn’t want you to in the first place.
When the war is over, we’d be coming to bring you back anyway, and if you had
connection here on Earth, it’d be harder to take you back!” Kaarn pointed out.
“No one told me I had to go back!” Jen gasped. “I thought I had
some say in this! Why didn’t you guys say something about this before I left?!”
“You never asked!”
“That’s unfair!” I exclaimed. The guards growled at me
threateningly and I closed my mouth.
“Now, Kar’Sanah, will you come home, or do I have to do something
to your friend here?” Kaarn asked casually.
She looked at me, and then back at Kaarn, before sighing and shook
her head in helplessness.
Kaarn gave an order in his native language, and one of the two
guards hit me over the head with his rifle, which they seemed to have a habit
of doing, but not as hard as to knock me out.
“Nick!!” Jen yelled.
When I had re-oriented myself I shot upright, and head-butted the
first guard into the wall. I spun around and kicked out at the second guard,
who was running at me, and bowled him over. The first guard had now recovered
and hit me from behind. I fell to my knees as the second guard got up and
raised his fist to hit me.
“Stop!” Kaarn barked. The Kindorians immediately backed off and
let Kaarn come forward to roughly shove me back on my seat.
“Very clever, Carter!” he grinned. “Where’d you learn that?”
“I didn’t, I just acted on impulse!” I replied, shooting him a
look of complete hate.
“Very good, trusting your instincts! You humans aren’t as stupid
as you look!” he sneered.
He walked behind me, “I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this,
but….”
He pulled a handgun out of his jacket and pointed it at my temple.
“No, Kaarn, don’t!” Jen pleaded.
“We haven’t killed anyone yet, but it won’t bother me if we do!”
Kaarn claimed. “And if you still won’t agree, we can always shoot his friend,
or your brother.”
Jen once again was lost for words.
Kaarn pushed the gun harder against my head and I squeezed my eyes
shut. This wasn’t how I imagined dying, but not everything goes as you plan it.
“NO! WAIT!” Jen cried. I opened my eyes as she said something in
her alien language.
Kaarn then put his gun away and instructed the guards to throw me
back in the basement. I looked at her despairing face as I was dragged off,
“Wait! What’d you just say! What’s happening!” I demanded. I was pulled outside
before I could get a reply.
Nick was brought back to the room. Tohja and me were immediately
concerned.
“Nick are you, OK?” I asked softly.
“What did they do to you?” Tohja added.
“Nothing, they didn’t do anything.”
“What?” Tohja exclaimed. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know, but I wanna find out as soon as
possible!” Nick stated.
***