We entered the dining room and the table was already filled with communal dishes, and my family — the robust clan of our relations that inhabited the isolated continent on Devor II. As they welcomed me, I was expected to give a few words.
Jess sat, and I greeted my relatives, from my sister Thalassa, to my brother, Morpheus, to my aunts and uncles from the Southern tip of the continent, Hephaestus, Omega, Hymn, Epsil, Poly, and the youngest, Ariadne, who was one of the last to be born 150 years ago. I tried to ensure that Jess wasn’t overwhelmed, but I could tell she was. Ancient people, who all looked as young as the thirty and forty year olds on her planet sent her reeling.
The sound of our telepathic buzzing intermingled with conversation and the passing of strange dishes before her very nose, kept her quiet. But she got along well with Thalassa and Morpheus who did their best to make her comfortable.
> Thalassa told her.
Once dinner was finished, Jess and I returned to our quarters. My ship would be there before long, armed to the teeth and filled with a crew prepared to do my orders. I’d head into the fray of battle with my pregnant wife — for the safety of my planet, and for hers.
ELEVEN
JESS
When I metthe Prince of Devor, a sullen but not unkind old blue alien with light skin and a slow, commanding voice, I did my best to plead my case that I should become Kronos’ first officer.
When I met the Prince’s human wife, whom no one warned me about, and his human children, I knew there was another story there. I didn’t concern myself with her past, or with mine. My mission was to ensure my place on Kronos’ ship, so I could stand beside him, so I could save Earth.
My whole life, I’d wanted purpose, wanted something out of the ordinary. I had the chance to make something of myself. I had the chance to do something that would literally change the planet. I wouldn’t just be a poor girl from a small town whose daddy hit her. I didn’t have to be my troubled past.
I’d never considered that before meeting Kronos. The Prince was unmoved by my plea. He said I’d understand his decision as my pregnancy progressed. I told him he was cryptic and dismissive, and I didn’t like his tone. He smiled and said he was glad to find someone from Devor II who would stand up to him instead of constantly playing politics. Kronos flushed dark blueas he said it. I didn’t care enough about their politics to hold back. The Prince seemed to appreciate it.
We left Devor prime, home of the royal family, at midnight, if my watch were to be believed. It didn’t keep track of time in space obviously, but it kept me feeling tethered to home. It was the one thing I hung on to. Time. Now that I’d met aliens who had so much of it, I couldn’t help but think that I had precious little.
I was kept like a queen on the ship. My telepathic connections strengthened throughout our seven day journey back to Earth’s solar system. I had met my children in my dreams. Telepathic projections between the two of us made them appear in my mind. They looked about ten years old in my imagination and they told me their names. Apollo and Antigone. Greek. Human names.
The way Kronos explained it to me, when the first human was abducted to their home world and experienced their collective telepathy, they’d all stuck with Greek names. Before that, they didn’t have names. Strange. Their world was about to impact ours the same way ours had impacted theirs. Probably more.
I was only the fourth pregnancy to ever happen with a Devoran in over 150 years. The dreams were so vivid that when I woke up, I was often flushed and terrified as if I’d been having nightmares. We arrived on the outskirts of the solar system and Kronos took me to the bridge. My stomach had grown large too quickly, something else he’d neglected to inform me of, so I waddled to the bridge deliberately, avoiding undue discomfort.
Space. Every bit of it was different from how I’d expected, so much bigger than my mind had been able to conceive of back on Earth. Now that I was here. Now that I could see space with my own two eyes, the weight of what we fought for hit me.
On the bridge, I watched Kronos take command as he ordered the crew to make a few course adjustments.
Command worked well for him. So far, we had not had any encounters with alien ships that one could consider hostile. Still, the air was thick with tension and with a deep awareness that war could break out at any moment regardless of how peaceful and still deep space might appear. On the bridge, Kronos placed his hand on the small of my back and let me to the view screen.
"Do you see that?"
"Yes. It's a bit of blue or something."
"That's the planet Uranus."
"It looks so small from up here."
“It does, doesn’t it? We are quite some distance away because this way will get us through the asteroid belt much easier."
"What about the others? Have they arrived on earth yet?"
"We have heard troubling news. A Taurean confederate was apparently sent to earth in a similar mission to myself. However, while there, it is likely he wreaked much more havoc than anticipated. We will have to go down to the surface and find out what really happened. It’s possible Earth is not the planet you remember.”
A chill ran down my spine. He could sense how nervous I was, how terrified I was that life on my planet had changed so irreparably. It was one thing to experience space for myself when it came to thinking about how all of humanity would handle it? I found the question entirely overwhelming. Kronos tried to relax me. But his words were only words he could only say so much in front of his crew.
“Will we come across other planets?"
"Of course we will. All you need is a little bit of patience, sweetling.”
"It's beautiful up here. It's hard to imagine that most people will never see anything like this in their entire lives."
"Yes. There is something fantastic about all of this. I am pleased to have you in space with me."
