Ajos: The Restitution - A Sci-fi Alien Romance, Book 1, стр. 28
He must be in pain.
“Is… I don’t know if I’m crossing any cultural boundaries here. I mean, a few days ago, I was just a regular girl on Earth and today I’m eating breakfast with aliens, but…you sound like you’re in pain.” She studied Ajos. She could hardly see his face because of the hood of his clothing. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
She reached toward him, touching him lightly, and Ajos hissed. Kerena’s eyes widened, her hand jerking away at the speed of light.
Ajos groaned and stretched the muscles in his neck as a deep rumble left his throat.
“Actually, Ajos, the female could help with your—”
“Qef, V’Alen! Drop it!” Ajos slammed his fist into the counter and the thing must be made from the strongest material on that planet because it didn’t crack from the pressure.
Kerena was surprised she, herself, didn’t jerk and fall off the seat in shock at the sudden outburst. V’Alen didn’t budge.
Seconds that felt like minutes dragged by.
“As you wish,” the robot man finally said. “Should we continue our conversation later, brother?”
Ajos loosened his fist, but he didn’t answer his friend.
Kerena cleared her throat. She’d made him furious. It was evident.
“Did I interrupt something?”
V’Alen studied her. “No, but what we were discussing is classified.”
Ajos let out a breath. “Classified, yes, but the entire base is probably discussing it already.” His voice sounded different. Deeper. Raspier. “It doesn’t matter if she hears it now or later, the worry will reach the humans soon.”
“What worry?” Her spoon balanced in her fingers as her gaze moved from one alien to the next.
Ajos seemed to sigh and set down what he was eating—something that looked like a wonton.
“We do not know how the sky towers didn’t alert us of the fighter ships approaching. Almost four days and they still have not figured it out.” He took a breath. “The sky towers are there for this purpose. They monitor everything that comes into orbit close to us. It’s how we’ve kept safe all these years or the Tasqals would have bombed us to the ground already.” His eyes finally met hers. “Now we know they can. But we do not know how.”
Kerena blinked a few times and put down her spoon.
“So…” she began. “The Tasqals. You’re saying they managed to just…turn up? The sky towers didn’t pick them up at all?”
V’Alen spoke. “Correct.”
She must be dumb or something because it seemed obvious to her.
“Stealth? Could they have used some sort of stealth?”
V’Alen spoke again. “That would be the first assumption, but it is not that simple. The ships that attacked…”
“They jumped into the troposphere, then exited the same way.”
Kerena frowned before her eyes bugged out. “What?”
She glanced from Ajos to V’Alen then back.
“They entered from hyperspace so close to the surface, then exited the same way,” Ajos murmured, turning over another maybe-wonton between his fingers.
She was no rocket scientist, but she’d watched enough sci-fi movies to know that the discharge from doing that would have caused major damage.
Had that been what had happened?
Had it been the result of the enemies’ ships entering hyperspace and not the effect of bombs that had killed so many and destroyed so much?
“No,” Ajos answered, and she realized she’d asked the questions out loud. “But you are right, Keh-reh-nah. What they have done…what they did is theoretically impossible. They entered, bombed us, and left. They jumped into hyperspace right on top of us, but it had no effect. The bombs did.”
For a few moments, no one said anything.
“What does this mean?” she finally asked.
“It means,” Ajos answered, “the Restitution and all that it protects is in grave danger.” He paused. “We are all in grave danger.”
“And all vulnerable worlds within the Tasqals’ reach,” V’Alen answered.
Kerena stared at her bowl.
She didn’t feel like eating anymore.
Back on Earth, when she’d wished for a great new year with new horizons, she hadn’t been speaking literally. She certainly hadn’t been asking the universe to place her in the middle of an intergalactic war.
This is why you have to be specific with your manifestations, Kerena, because apparently, that shit works.
The silence between them continued even as Ajos popped the food into his mouth and continued eating. Taking up her spoon, Kerena ate more slowly than she had started, a bunch of thoughts swirling in her head.
This wasn’t a war the humans could escape from. They were in this now, and it was something they were going to have to face.
“How do we help?” She chewed the last spoonful and put down the utensil. “How can I help?”
“What?” Ajos turned, his words a growl and his eyes flashing what she was sure was liquid fire.
That made her lean away from him a little.
Gathering her wits, she continued. “I want to help. I can’t fight. I don’t know how to use a gun. But there must be some way I can help.” Those golden eyes of his studied her with an intensity that almost made her squirm.
“I’m a botanist. That might mean nothing in this world, but on Earth, it meant that I had at least something going on up here to have passed those exams.” She pointed to her head. “I want to help in any way I can.”
Ajos glanced at V’Alen before his gaze settled back on her. “We did not expect any of you humans to wish to join the fight so quickly.”
“Well, it beats sitting on my ass doing nothing when we all are in danger of being killed.”
Neither he nor V’Alen said anything.
Instead, Ajos’ golden gaze held hers in its grasp for such a long moment, she forgot to breathe.
There was that tingle again—a tingle like something was fluttering deep, deep within her because of the intensity of that gaze, and she wasn’t sure what it was…
It felt like, if she allowed it to grow, it would consume her.
Just then, there was a sound from what she’d thought was a watch on