Page 25 of There’s an Alien Down My Chimney

Towering inside the small, cramped bridge, stood a cloaked figure. Taller than Ru, even Yatzel, this presence was also wide as a barn door, with hooks tipping the shoulders of the cloak they wore. It was definitely a bad guy look, and there was something charging the air, something static-like and cold. I couldn’t see anything beneath that cloak, no face, no defining features, this person was just a large, looming shadow dressed like a villain.

“Hello Ru’ol the Scavenger,” a deep voice drawled, a hint of amusement tinging the voice. Without seeing a face and a mouth moving out of sync with the English words I was hearing, it was even harder to tell they were speaking another language, it made it even creepier. At least it definitely sounded male.

“You’re the Master of Strewn,” Ru said, but even though he’d recognized who it was, his shoulders didn’t lower, and he remained in a defensive position in front of me. His hands were steady as he kept his laser-pistol aimed at the threat standing on the bridge. This Master of Strewn was making the Scintilla look like it was a kid’s playhouse, he even had to tip himself forward a little to fit beneath the ceiling. That only made the impression of a looming shadow worse.

“So I am, and you have something that belongs to me,” the shadow responded, and it was only then that I realized that the cylindrical artifact was lying at his feet. That wasn’t where we’d left it, so this male had dug it out from the hiding place Ru had tucked it in, deep beneath a floor panel and several pipes.

“Finders keepers, isn’t that the rule out here?” Ru said, a cocky confidence to his tone that belied the tension in his body. I was ready to hand over anything this guy asked of us but Ru was somehow standing up to that looming shadow. I thought he was ten times scarier than Yatzel, but Ru had a thing about standing up to bullies, which I admired, even if in this case it might just be prudent to give our visitor what he wanted.

“So it is,” the shadow said, his hooded face, like a grim reaper, turned a little and I had the feeling that he was now looking at me. I felt chills running down my spine, I did not want to draw this creature’s attention. “That is why I will compensate you for the find,” he added, and movement rippled through his cloaked figure. A long, narrow finger appeared from the folds of black fabric, pointing at a stack of something on the consoles that lined the front of the Scintilla. “I believe those are more than enough credits.”

Ru lowered his weapon, at last, holstering it at his thigh again. “I suppose that will do,” he said calmly, reaching back to curl his arm around my shoulders and tuck me tightly into his side. Yeah, it would, the big bad was giving us money for that thing! It wasn’t like Ru and I ever wanted to touch that time-traveling device ever again.

The Master of Strewn tilted his hooded head at an angle, a deep laugh rumbling through the ship’s bridge. I was struck with the atavistic desire to flee, the sound was just so scary. It felt like I was standing in the presence of the biggest predator of them all like I had just stepped into a nest of hungry alligators.

“I’ll require the gun too,” he added when he was done laughing, and there was that bone hand again, sliding from beneath the folds of the black cloak. I thought he was talking about Ru’s gun, or the weapon we’d taken from Yatzel, but Ru fished the laser-pistol from his pocket that we’d taken from the Dragnell back on Earth.

“Can’t leave any trace of time travel, huh?” he said as he held the weapon out, barrel first, to the shadow looming in front of us. There was no answer from the Master of Strewn, he simply took the weapon in his bony hand. Man, he really was like a grim reaper. Although, closer inspection of that hand made me realize that it was probably some kind of metal claw, not an actual hand.

“My crew will be in to fix up your ship,” the Master of Strewn said. “Thank you for retrieving my possession. I wish you and your mate all the best in this timeline.” At those words, the shadow simply vanished without a trace, leaving the bridge of the Scintilla oddly empty. Ru and I both stared in shock at the empty place, even the cylinder had simply vanished.

“I guess transporters are real in the future?” I asked Ru, hoping that this wasn’t nearly as strange to him as it was to me. Except he turned around and shook his head, his eyes wide, no trace of his usual cocky smirk.

“If you mean that teleportation of some kind exists? No, it definitely does not, I don’t know what that was…” he trailed off as he searched around the empty bridge. Then, almost as if he was approaching a bomb, he looked at the stack of money left for us. “At least he paid well, this is enough for us to live comfortably for the rest of our lives…”

With the gleam back in his eyes, he smirked, “Hey, what do you say, want to build a cabin with a chimney on the land on Ker that I own?” How could I say no to that?

Epilogue

Stella

Curled up inside one of the oversized chairs that stood to each side of the massive fireplace Ru had built us, I contemplated what I was going to say. How did you tell something like this to the love of your life, the man you’d traveled a vast distance of space and time for to share your life with.

The cabin that Ru and I had built on the large stretch of land his government had granted him on Ker, was an amalgamation of my grandfather’s home, and the building styles of Ker. The fireplace took the center of pride in the living area, built with the slate gray and silver rocks we’d dug up ourselves from the bank of the stream that ran past our home. From it dangled several colorful stockings, some of which I’d attempted to knit myself, and some which had expertly been crafted by Ru’s very military mother.

I couldn’t believe that I’d been here, on Ker, for nearly a year. It hadn’t taken much adapting at all, to fit in with the Kertinal people that lived in this area on Ker. It felt like home, rugged, mountainous, and covered with a thick forest that while alien, still reminded me of growing up in Oregon.

When we got here, I didn’t think I would have anything of value to add, and since Ru was flush with money and a government pension from his service in the Kertinillian army, neither of us needed to work. That hadn’t lasted long, we were both much too active to sit on our butts, though the three-month honeymoon phase had been pretty awesome. It still made me blush to think of how we’d christened pretty much every surface in our cozy home.

Ker had taken in several thousand human refugees just before we’d arrived and they were still struggling to fit them into their society. Lots of things had changed with the arrival of so many Earthlings. Now, I taught regular classes to Kertinals who wished to understand human culture, and frankly, the ‘how to date a human’ portion of the class was the most popular part.

Ru was teaching classes on navigation at the nearby school, the only way in which he was willing to still be part of his previous profession. He was about to finish up his last class for the year, and I couldn’t wait for him to get home.

The cabin was decked out in our best approximation of Christmas decorations, and the scent of hot cocoa filled the air. A tree which resembled a fir but with a more red needle, stood in one corner, decorated with shimmering strands of light, and glass-blown spheres in many colors that Ru had commissioned from an artist in town. They almost looked like Christmas ornaments if not for the fact that they littered floated between the branches of the tree.

It was perfect, Christmas might not be celebrated on Ker, or pretty much anywhere else in the Zeta Quadrant, but for Ru and me… It was about celebrating the day we met, remembering my roots, and going forward today, we’d be celebrating something else too.

The snick of the lock disengaging on the front door had me leap from my comfortable spot and rush to meet my guy, my mate as the Kertinals had started calling our union. “My lovely Stella,” Ru said as he stomped his boots clean of snow just inside the door. He kicked them off and picked me up into his arms for a proper greeting, nuzzling the side of my face with his mouth before he captured my lips in a kiss.

I curled my arms around his neck, eager for contact after he’d been gone all day. That had suited me just fine this morning when I’d needed to hide a visit to the doctor from him, but sitting on the news all day… That had been so difficult.

So difficult in fact, that all my ideas on how to share the news flew from my mind as soon as I had my arms around his neck. “Ru, I have something to tell you!” I said, and when he shifted me in his arms so he could look me in the eye, I added the news. “We’re going to have a boy, I want to name him Ar’tax, is that okay?” It was the only name that made sense to me after Ru had told me of the pilot friend that had died.

He froze, like a dear caught in headlights, staring at me with his mouth slightly open. “What…?” he stuttered, and then his eyes dropped from my face to glance down between our bodies at my belly. “You’re pregnant?” he asked, his voice raw with emotion.

I nodded, cupping the side of his face with my palm, “Yeah big guy, you’re going to be a dad. How’s that for a Christmas present?” I smiled at him, loving the fact that he had broken out the worn, and bullet-hole-riddled Santa hat again for this time of the year. It sat lopsided on his wild mane of hair, the antler-shaped horns curling up around the sides of his head. He was so handsome, and he was all mine.

His hands slid from my waist to fold over my still flat stomach, “A little boy… I have no words,” he said, which was saying something, Ru generally always had something to say, even if it got him into trouble.

“Are you happy?” I asked him, already knowing the answer, but needing to hear it anyway. He nodded his head empathically, which made me smile in return. Then I was suddenly up in his arms and he was striding through our modest cabin home to the kitchen. “What are you doing!?” I laughed.

“Celebrating this momentous event in the place where it all started,” he shot back, planting my butt on the kitchen counter. It was the first location we’d had sex in back on Earth, and the first place we had celebrated our new home when we moved in. I threw back my head and laughed, of course, Ru would think of that for this occasion too.

Soon, I was naked, and so was my man. He dropped to his knees between my legs, pressing kisses to my tummy and rumbling with satisfaction. “I will take such good care of you and your mom, I promise.” And then I forgot all about being pregnant with a half-alien baby and focused only on the pleasure that Ru could bring me with his sexy mouth and clever tongue.

When he pushed his pierced cock inside of me after my first orgasm had faded, I clutched him tightly to me. So happy that I’d made the choice that I had, I had never once looked back and missed Earth. How could I when Ru was such a sweetheart, and the life we had made here was better than anything I could have had back on Earth.

This was the best Christmas ever, even better than the last one. I wondered how we could possibly top that next year, though I was sure we’d try.

THE END