Silas: Imperial Warrior (A Sci-Fi Alien Warrior Romance) (16 page)

“It’s entirely possible.”

“But why are they coming
here
? There’s nothing here. I thought aliens didn’t even like humans,” Katia interjected.

Silas held her hand tighter. “As a general rule, they don’t,” he agreed. “But I don’t think they’re coming for the humans. Your planet is rich with resources and even if the Fremeri were just pretending to be wiped out, their planet is still dead. There’s only so much they can do with stolen and bartered resources.”

“Colonization,” Cress said, sounding grave. “It would make sense, and it matches the cryptic confession we got out of the one we held prisoner. Take over the planet, keep a few million humans around to dig tunnels or as a snack.”

Katia paled and swallowed hard, and Silas reached over and cuffed Cress in the back of the head. “Stop that,” he snapped. “It’s going to be fine.”

“How do you figure?” Katia wanted to know.

“Because you’re not fighting them alone. The might of HIMA will stand behind you.”

“How do you figure?” That was from Cress, and when Katia turned her head to look at him, he looked confused.

“Because she wants a war. You said yourself that she’s been waiting for the Fremeri to come back to Gathra so she can start something with them. Well, if the Fremeri are coming here, then she can start something here.”

Cress looked apprehensive. “You’re going to tell the Empress that she needs to bring HIMA to Earth? Just because of—” He glanced at Katia and then broke off.

“
No
,” Silas said firmly. “It’s not just because of Katia. It’s for all the humans. Do you think they would stand a chance at defending themselves against the Fremeri? Those things would destroy them.”

“Maybe it would keep them off of our backs?” Cress suggested.

Katia shot him a dirty look. “Thanks so much for that.”

“That isn’t...I don’t mean it to sound like I don’t care.”

“Oh. Really? Then how do you mean it to sound?” Katia snapped. “Because I’m getting a whole lot of apathy and not much else.”

Cress shot Silas a helpless look over her head, and Silas just laughed. “Cress is afraid of the Empress,” he said. “He doesn’t want to have to call her and talk about this.”

“I’m not
afraid
of her!” He protested. “She’s just...she’s hard to read.”

“She’s nearly transparent, Cress. That’s why you’re afraid of her. It’s going to be a hard sell, telling her that we need to protect Earth. I know that. But we have to try.”

She listened to them as they spoke, but something was bothering her. “Wait, wait, wait,” Katia said. “Cress, you just said the Empress was gunning for a war, right? But you don’t think she’s going to want to come here to fight it. What’s her plan, then? Just wait for them to come back to Gathra? That doesn’t seem very...efficient.”

The two of them exchanged looks again.

“Captain,” Empress Ammaline said. “It is good to see that you are neither dead, nor a prisoner.”

“It’s good to be neither dead, nor a prisoner, Majesty,” Silas replied, inclining his head in a little bow. “I would have tried to speak with you sooner, but I didn’t have a way to communicate off planet.”

She waved a hand at that, and Katia was struck by how graceful she looked, even while seeming impressively strong and powerful. Yeah, she could understand why Cress was afraid of her. “I understand. Cress has told you of what is happening, has he not?”

Silas nodded. “He has. And I think I have an idea, Majesty, but I wanted to hear yours first.”

She gave him an arch look. “How gracious of you, Captain. My plan is this. The Fremeri have deceived us and everyone else for a very long time. They hid in their tunnels and they used their power to sneak around. We will cut them off at the source.”

“What does that mean?” Silas wanted to know.

“It means that their planet was once thought to be dead, and now we will make sure it is. Anything they have hidden there, anything they have been stockpiling for later we will destroy.”

“And what about the Fremeri?”

“Well, they will be distracted.”

Katia’s eyes widened as she picked up on what the Empress was saying. “Distracted killing my people, you mean,” she said without thinking.

The Empress wasn’t even there in person, but just the way she cut her eyes over to Katia from the screen of Cress’ tablet made her want to shrink back and never open her mouth again. She could see why Cress had trouble talking to her. All the same, she knew she was right. The Empress was willing to sacrifice Earth and the humans in order to do this her way, and Katia couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Are humans so inconsequential to you that you’d let them just get slaughtered as a distraction?’ she asked, figuring that she was already in for a penny. How much worse could it get?

“Who are you?” the Empress asked. “You’re a human, obviously, but why are you there.”

“This is
my
house,” Katia snapped.

The Empress just looked bored.

Silas finally stepped in, placing a hand on Katia’s shoulder. “Your Imperial Majesty this is Katia. She’s a human, yes, and this is her home. Without her, I might not have survived long enough for Cress to find me. She’s offered me shelter and food since I’ve been here, and was extremely helpful when I was trying to find a way to contact you.”

“I see,” the Empress remarked. “Well, then I am grateful for the assistance you’ve given my Captain. It would have been a blow to lose him. All the same, I will not be spoken to like that by a
human
of all things. Do you understand?”

Katia understood alright. She understood that this woman didn’t think she was worth her time or her respect. The way she said the word
human
like it was something dirty and foul tasting in her mouth was proof enough that she didn’t even see her as a person worth listening to. And she wasn’t going to keep sitting there, listening to them basically plan to let her home be destroyed. “Excuse me,” she said, getting to her feet and storming off.

The longer she sat in her room alone, the sillier she felt for storming off in a huff. It was a childish thing to do, when she really should have been telling the Empress where she could shove her superiority complex. But she hadn't wanted to get Silas and Cress in trouble, and she didn't want to make an enemy of the leader of another planet because that probably wouldn't do anything to convince her that humans were worth saving.

But it wasn't right.

No one should talk about another group of people, of living, working, breathing beings, like they were just lambs for slaughter. If the Fremeri were really as bad as Silas and Cress said they were, then there was no telling what they would do to the humans when they came to Earth.

Humans wouldn't know how to defend against them, especially since a good number of them probably didn't even believe they existed.

It wasn't like Katia could go around confirming the existence of life on other planets and convince them to take up arms against the lizard people. She'd be laughed out of the room. And even if she took Silas and Cress with her, as proof, they'd most likely want to study them before anything got done.

She groaned and flopped back onto her bed, pulling her pillow over her face. "Humans really are the worst," she muttered.

Seconds later, there was a knock on the door, and she pulled the pillow down from her face to glare at the white painted wood. More than likely, Silas was on the other side of the door, and she didn't know if she wanted to talk to him at the moment. He hadn't made things worse with the Empress, but he hadn't made them better, either. She knew he had to be in a hard position, but if he believed that humans were fair game for a distraction, then...

Katia sighed. "What is it?" she called.

"May I speak with you?"

She snorted, amused by his formal tone. "Come in," she said.

Silas pushed the door open and then stepped into the room, eyes solemn. "I'm sorry Her Majesty was...the way she was."

Shrugging a shoulder, Katia sat up. "From what I hear, she's always like that."

"She is. But that doesn't mean she's right."

"Of course she's not right!" Katia said firmly. "That should go without saying. She's...she wants to use humans as a diversion. Hundreds of my people could die or be turned into slaves and we have no defense against that. And she doesn't even care!"

"She's just looking out for the good of the galaxy," Silas pointed out.

"Excuse me? The good of the galaxy? What, you mean like sacrifice the few to save the many? Sure, that makes total sense. And you know, it's not like we're important anyway. No one would even miss us if we were wiped off the face of our own planet by the lizard men."

"Katia."

"No. Don't try to reason with me, Silas. Not about this. I know that's how she thinks, and maybe—maybe that's what you think, too. Maybe you're just here, having fun before you go back to your real life and everything that entails. Are you even going to remember me when you leave?"

She hadn't meant to let that come out. Her feelings and insecurities about what was going to happen when Silas had to go back to his planet were kept deep inside, bottled up because there was no point in dealing with them right now.

Neither of them had made any promises to the other, and they both clearly knew that this was going to have to come to an end eventually.

But it hurt her to think that Silas would be able to walk away and write it off. She knew that she wouldn't be able to forget him. She'd always remember the time when she was involved with an alien because honestly, that sort of thing didn't happen every day, and how many people in the world could say the same? It was something she'd always think was special, but apparently, Silas wouldn't feel the same way.

She didn't even give him a chance to respond. "I know what's going to happen," she said, and her voice was heavy with sadness. "You'll go back to Gathra, back to your life. Maybe sometimes you'll think about me. About how you had a place to stay and food to eat and a fun little diversion while you were stuck on Earth. But it won't mean anything to you, will it? It won't be something you tell your friends about. No point in bragging that you were with a human, right? There's no glory in that. You'll go back and you'll meet some beautiful alien woman, and you'll forget all about me."

"Katia, you're talking crazy," Silas said. "How could that happen? How could I forget you?"

"I don't know," she said, shrugging glumly. "Apparently humans are no better than vermin. Why would you want to think about that?"

"Because you matter to me."

"Because I took you in."

"That's part of it," Silas admitted, and Katia turned her face away from him. "But that's not all. And it's mostly because that's a part of you. Helping people, wanting them to be comfortable. That's all you, Katia, and I like that so much about you. How much you care and how much you want to help."

When she didn't reply to that, Silas sighed. "I told Ammaline I don't like her plan," he said. "She wasn't happy. I'm surprised you didn't hear her reaction from in here."

"So what are you going to do?" Katia wanted to know. "What did she decide?"

"She's...undecided at the moment. There might be a division of our forces, half sent to the Fremeri planet to do her plan, half sent here to keep you and your kind safe. I told her that most of HIMA would balk at turning their backs on the humans."

"Is that true?"

"More or less."

Oh, wonderful. She felt so much more assured now. "And if they decide they don't care? What will happen then?"

Silas sighed, and it was a heavy thing. "I don't know."

She didn’t want to put him between his people and her, she really didn’t, but she had to know. “Will you just leave?”

He didn’t look at her for a long moment, and Katia felt cold. This morning, she hadn’t known she had anything to worry about. Everything had been warm and soft, and the only thing that had been weighing on her was how much she was going to miss Silas when he left. She hadn’t known that him leaving would mean that she was going to either die or be enslaved or worse. If there was anything worse.

And what was she going to do? At the moment, she was the only human on the entire planet who knew what was going to happen. It wasn’t like she could just march up to some government official and tell them that the end times were upon them. She’d be laughed out of the place and probably arrested. And even if she could get someone to listen to her, what would they do? They weren’t equipped to fight aliens. They were too busy fighting each other most of the time.

This was a disaster.

“Katia,” Silas was saying, and she realized he had been calling her name while she’d been worrying. “Breathe.”

She dragged in a heavy breath and felt her head stop spinning. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” Silas glanced away and drew in a deep breath of his own before nodding and looking back to her. “I am going to make you a promise,” he said.

“Silas, you don’t have to—”