Chapter 3: Shipside
She woke up sharply. The lukewarm water rained on her. Unbidden a quote from a science program popped into her head: 'A comfortable bath temperature would be a couple degrees over the healthy body temperature.' Well, this water temperature was way below her own temperature, comfortable only maybe for fish. The goosebumps formed all over her body. All over her completely naked, stinging from cuts and aching from bruises, body.
The green eyes flew open and promptly scrunched shut again when a thin water spay hit her straight in the eye. Another one hit her up the nose and she coughed and sneezed trying to get the water out. Twisting this and that way she unsuccessfully tried to get out of the path of the annoying sprays seemingly aimed in all directions at once.
Blinking rapidly and squinting at her surroundings she felt panic start to set in; she didn't understand where she was, how she got there, or at the very least where the exit was located.
Her glasses were missing and the world around looked like a fuzzy soft-angled rainy grey box. The even less distinct moving shadows beyond the box walls and the muffled voices hinted that the box material was actually transparent. She was not alone. Whether that was a good or a bad thing she didn't know yet.
She closed her eyes, and took several deep breaths.
'I'm ok. Everything is ok. I'm going to look around and I'm going to find the exit.' She snorted at the absurdity of her own pep talk but it worked. The sticky pangs of irrational fear subsided. In another moment, she opened her eyes again and refocused on her surroundings.
She was situated unrestrained on a floating platform. The turn onto her side to look under the platform brought a sharp reminder of her ill-advised though life-saving sail over the garden wall the very first day of the Quarian attack. At the time she had so many other discomforts and concerns that the dull ache along the full length of her right flank was far from her mind. Now though the multitude of tiny sprays felt like a swarm of stinging bees on her skinned-raw back. She couldn't keep the pained moans in at the sensation, and immediately clamped the hand over her mouth; the shadows behind the box walls shifted and moved closer.
The chatter of alien voices rose in volume as well first when she began to move to get out from under the sprays, and even more so after the sounds of her discomfort. Soon after the water cut off, and the streams of warm air went through in its place. Then the platform slowly moved outside the shower box.
The sea of blue, purple and white at a close distance turned into the hands, heads and outfits of four individual aliens. The blue- and purple-skinned faces looked vaguely familiar and with a start she remembered the face she saw in her mind's eye and then through the helmet glass as the concrete plate was lifted and thrown away from her hiding place.
In short order she was scanned, injected with several differently colored vials, and had her back wound covered by some numbing material. When a blue hand reached for her badly scraped right forearm she grabbed it. The alien voices rose up again in alarm or warning she couldn't tell and didn't much care.
The owner of the hand didn't pull it back though and instead simply waited for her next move. The hand was surprisingly human-like, also solidly real and slightly unusual; unusual in the texture of the skin, in the shape and pattern of the bones under it. It all reinforced for her anew, as if other things were not alien enough, that these were not just strangely painted humans, not some foreign government ruse, and not a figment of her imagination.
After a long moment she let the alien hand go. It wasn't like they did anything horrible to her. Even if they did given their number and size she didn't achieve a great tactical advantage by holding one alien by its hand. The hand didn't retreat though; instead the alien motioned toward her forearm and quickly covered it with pink liquid which promptly seeped into her skin; the spot then was covered by some transparent goo which transformed into a skin-like surface protecting and numbing the deep painful slash.
Another hand appeared in front of her face holding her glasses, and with no small amount of relief she put them back on. At the same time the set of folded clothing landed on her lap, and all but one alien left the room.
The guard gave her a nudge toward the open doors and reentered the elevator.
Confused she stared at the open door. The discarded near the entrance boots and a tray with empty dishes on the table near the elevator hinted that the space was not unoccupied. She fought the urge to jump behind the guard into the closing elevator. At the next heartbeat the elevator doors closed fully and the option was gone.
Her confusion evaporated as soon as she felt another presence in her thoughts.
'You might as well enter.'
Self-consciously she pulled at the ill-fitting garments. She knew her clothing was torn and dirty but for the upteens time she regretted not having that instead of the items the asari provided.
The long light gown was so long that she had to tear off a half-length from it to be able to move without a threat of falling. Even after that, it still looked like a long dress! At least the liberated piece allowed her to fashion a wrap-around belt to keep the dress from flowing around her like a night gown of her grandmothers' youth.
The socks and boots provided to her were large enough that the socks by now were off and bunched somewhere at the toes of the boots. The boots were at least five sizes too big. She managed to keep them on and not tumble by sliding rather than walking behind her guard-guide much to the amusement of the asari they passed by. At first she bitterly attributed her wrong-sized outfit toward the petty trick for entertainment of her hosts; but the cursory look at the staring Asari as she and her guide walked through the corridors revealed no one shorter than six feet. The boot size to height ratio of the aliens was more like what she would expect in human males than females. Sliding through the corridors in her oversized fare and staring obsessively at the strangers' feet, she eventually decided that it was possible that they just didn't have the smaller clothing and shoes. That did make her feel a bit better about the aliens.
What didn't make her feel better though was the fact that the aliens either didn't believe in underwear or didn't want to waste it on her for some reason. Even now standing still, she was disconcerted and annoyed recalling how her not exactly tiny chest bounced all over with every step and slide she took.
Awkwardly she folded her arms over her chest and stepped inside the large room.
The form rose from the bed situated at the far wall and came closer.
The alien looked a lot more like a person and much less like a telepathic humanoid transformer now that it was out of the battle suit and massive boots. Now that she was out of the battle suit and boots. Aria. That was the name. If the voice in her head and the name were not female-leaning enough the full breasts barely covered by a tight thin top at exactly her eye level validated her assumption.
She swallowed nervously.
Of course, this can be a male alien... Maybe their women had four boobs... or six... or none... Involuntary her gaze dropped lower over the flat stomach, hips and muscular legs to the sock clad feet. Thin form-hugging material of the top and mid-thigh shorts left little to imagination.
'Asari don't have males or females.' echoed coolly in her mind. 'We are monogendered. Not that it is relevant in your current situation.' So distracted by the alien appearance and proximity she somehow forgot that her thoughts lacked privacy now.
'Right, sorry' she blushed and folded her arms even tighter.
'And where are the two ...or four... more breasts supposed to go exactly?' the Asari circled her, briefly and lightly running hands over her hair, the bare skin of her arms, the shape of her ears.
'Well I'd need to inspect you closer to say.' A hand flew to cover her silent mouth, she wished she could cover her brain mouth along with it. 'Sorry!' The blue form was way too close for comfort, the curious touches too distracting.
Bemused blue eyes met human's eyes, there was a new flavor to the last human thought, a flavor she couldn't place, eventually Asari shook her head dismissing the strange exchange.
'Does it hurt?' Asari was twirling and bending the lock of hair.
'Uh no... The hair is dead, the nerves are only at the roots where it connects to the scalp.'
The asari hummed her understanding, then let the chestnut lock go and walked around to stand in front of the still blushing human.
'Is it always this color?'
'The hair?'
'No, the sky'
'I suppose... Unless I color it; but it will grow back the same brown of course. Or if I grow old it will turn gray... which is highly unlikely now.' She was very confused. The topic of conversation the alien chose was so strangely inconsequential.
Aria's face was now a breath away from her own. The narrowed eyes curiously studied her own.
'You are uncomfortable.'
She lowered her eyes, breaking the contact with the bright blue and ran flat into the open cleavage of the Asari shirt even more revealing now that the asari was leaning down to her eye level.
'You don't say!'
Asari straightened, surprised; there was the strange flavor to the human thought again.
'Why?'
For a moment her brain stopped, like an overloaded computer trying to pick the best option among many, the best reply of many valid ones running through her head. The faint amusement she felt from the foreign presence in her mind didn't help the situation either; it just made her feel contrary, frustrated and very much exposed.
'Your guess is as good as mine.' She finally settled on rudeness and some questions of her own. 'Why am I here? What do you want with me? I am a nobody, if you are after the government secrets you picked the wrong human'
The Asari laughed out loud at that. A sound strange and loud breaking the silence of telepathic conversation.
'You think your primitive species have secrets I'd want?'
'I don't know! And we are not that primitive! We went to the Moon and Mars. And Venus, sort of.'
'Ah yes we saw the tiny observation crafts on and around the nearby red planet.' The amusement was clear.' Very cute… Very advanced.'
'You didn't destroy them did you?!' she followed the postings the tiny rovers sent from Mars, had a framed picture on her desk at home actually. She couldn't explain why the image of the barren surface that she would never see with her own eyes brought her happiness and hope, but it did. Completely illogically given the current state of the Earth affairs, or her own current situation, she felt the tears form at the thought of the destruction of those tiny robots.
'Those things present no threat and so are of no consequence.' There was a distracted confused tone to the alien thought. 'We do have other concerns than to chase teeny scanners right now.' The Asari was standing behind her, still playing with her hair.
'Oh, ok... good'
'Human, you have very strange priorities.' Aria was growing wary of the conversation.
'So am I free to leave or...?'
Asari shrugged mentally and the sentiment translated into a slight up and down flip of the palm.
'Do you want us to drop you off surface-side the next time my shuttles fly down to the planet?' she felt the smug amusement roll off from the foreign mind inside her head, the alien was sure of her answer even before the question was formed into words, and the human just glared.
For a time Asari just stood there playing with Human's hair and soaking in the emotions from the creature's mind, the fear, the sadness, the awkwardness, and even some curiosity. Aria didn't have anything else to say to the creature. She didn't feel like sending the thing away to the holding cells or alien bioform containment either. The human did save her life.
'You will stay here until I decide what to do with you.' The mind retreated for a moment and then was back, the hand running through the hair tightened and the human yelped. 'Keep in mind, if you behave as a threat you will be dealt with as with a threat.' The alien ran the hand one more time through the chestnut tresses, and stepped away.
Aria's mind withdrew completely. She moved back onto the bed, activated the Omni tool and pulled up the latest reports on the Quarians. Something was off about the latest run-in, they gave up too quickly.
Human gave out a sigh of relief as she felt the alien leave her mind. She didn't know what to do next. The creature didn't indicate whether stay here meant the room or the ship. Then again, she doubted that she would be allowed to walk around what was clearly a military spaceship. She wouldn't know where to go anyway. So here most likely meant the room...
She stood frozen for a bit longer. The alien didn't say that she had to stay put though. She looked around. The bed with the lounging alien was in front of her. Behind her, diagonally left from the bed, was an armchair. A large empty couch was to the right of her. Next to the couch was a low table with several bottles and glasses and an empty decorative bowl or possibly a vase on top.
She stepped out from her boots and moved slowly toward the armchair. When no objection sounded, she sat down. The chair was fluffy and huge, built to be comfortable and spacious for someone of the alien size. She sat for a while just observing the asari, who was engrossed in something on the holographic screen. Bored with that she looked around at her surroundings.
The wall furthest from her, on the other side of the bed, was full of weapons and armor pieces. A transparent shelving unit in the shape of a half a cylinder ran from floor to ceiling. Its pale violet backlight was one of the main lighting sources in the dimly lit room. The unit contained various knick knacks, photos, and holo projections. Though curious to see more, she decided against moving too close to the display. The weapons were quite close to the cabinet, and she didn't want to give Asari any excuse to be cruel. The threat and the feel of steel grip on her hair still fresh in her mind.
She shifted her eyes to the wall next to the chair she was sitting in. It had another built-in fixture shaped as a half a cylinder running from floor to ceiling. Unlike the fully transparent cabinet on the opposite wall, this cabinet had the bottom two feet covered in the metal wall panels. The backlight here was pinkish.
Closer inspection revealed the insides similar to the terrariums. The short growth and stones covered the container's bottom. A stone-clad small pool, no bigger than two large dinner plates, formed along the back wall of the fixture. The thin stream of water started somewhere close to the ceiling and cascaded over the stone-clad wall feeding the small pool. The stones were uneven forming ledges and indents. The wall surface untouched by water accumulated colorful luminescent moss-like growth. The deep navy and rust colored vines ran over the wall, twisted over the stone ledges, bunched into the leafy cushions over the bottom and inside the wall crevices. Several thicker stalks run the full length of the container. Tiny animals, most of them luminescent insects, amphibians and reptiles, crawled, rested and hid in the beautiful space. For a time she observed the tiny pale lavender octopus swimming in the pond and a tiny pink and green snake spying on it from the vine offshoot right above the pond.
She could feel the sad mood creeping up on her. She wasn't unlike these captive creatures now.
She settled more comfortably and stared at the ceiling wondering what would happen next. The alien didn't hurt her so far. The mind game was disorienting but she was getting the hang of it. And aside from the scare of waking up naked in what appeared to be a medical room, she was safe and probably better off than anyone left on earth. Her thoughts jumped to family and friends left on Earth, and her mood soured. The reality that she may never see anyone she knew started to set in.
Aria read the same sentence for the tenth time. The creature was distracting. Annoyed, she gave up on reading the report. It wasn't even that the thing was doing anything in particular. Currently, it was sprawled diagonally over the armchair. Its head rested on one arm. Its legs swung over the other arm with one bare foot quietly but endlessly bouncing off the side of the chair. The creature's arms were folded on its belly motionless. The eyes were fixated to the ceiling.
Aria turned off her Omni-tool, and turned the lights to the night mode. The cabin fell dark and with only faint terrarium lighting illuminating the space. The Earth creature was still in the armchair, still staring at the ceiling, one of its legs still soundlessly bouncing off the armchair side.
She watched as the alien turned off the lights, removed clothing and settled under the bed covers. Time passed in silence and she started to drift off to sleep. The now familiar voice popped into her head and instructed her to come to bed.
She glanced over. The blue creature was motionless. Lying in the middle of the bed, flat on its back with eyes closed. She shook her head and for a second thought that she imagined it when the voice echoed again.
She got up, slowly walked to the bed and climbed in fully dressed, carefully keeping space between herself and the blue shape.
Aria didn't believe she was going to do it but the temptation of the new mind was too much to ignore.
The time passed and she started to fall asleep when the voice inside her head woke her up.
'I want you to think of something really happy and bright. You have to hold on to it even when my consciousness tries to change your memory. Especially when my consciousness tries to change your memory.'
'uhm… What happens if I can't do that?'
'The more successful you are in holding on to yourself, the more chances you have to keep your mind fully intact.'
'What?!' the sleep evaporated from her mind immediately.
'You'll lose your sense of reality, your memory, maybe even basic muscular functions if you fail to do what I said.'
She half sat and stared at the creature. The blue form was still, if not for the conversation in her mind, she would have said the thing was sleeping, or dead. The desire to poke it with a finger, to see if it was even awake or if she was simply going insane from too much stress and hearing voices was very strong.
'So did you come up with a memory?'
'Uh sure.'
'Then I suggest you get comfortable and show me.'
She didn't remember closing her eyes; yet the faintly illuminated room faded from her view. Then she realized that she actually didn't close her eyes at all, she felt her eyelids blink and painfully strain to get at least some light in. She wanted to move away from the bed but her body wouldn't listen, it felt heavy and weightless at the same time. She heard her own heartbeat pounding in her ears rapidly increasing in speed.
'You must relax,' a voice echoed somewhere far away. 'Think of your memory. Show me your memory.'
And suddenly she was inside a memory. Not the one she meant to show, but the one close to her mind. She wasn't thinking of it either, she was standing in it.
It was the sunny afternoon several minutes before the robots attacked. Once again she felt the excitement of freedom. She enjoyed the walk home, and anticipated an enjoyable evening.
Something changed in her memory. The mood started to shift from happy to angry. Yet she didn't remember being angry at the time. She realized there was another consciousness inside her memory, imposing itself onto hers. The sky started turning from bright sunny blue to purplish gray. Dark alien forms replaced humans hurrying home from work on the street around her.
She pushed back at foreign thoughts, willed foreign forms to morph back into humans. All but one form did so easily. Something was different about the one remaining form standing impassively next to her. It had to be the blue creature that brought her on this spaceship, that dragged her inside this memory. Carefully she took the creature's hand, and when no opposition happened she wrapped both her hands around the larger hand, willing cheerful memory to seep into the dark figure, to have her become a part of it.
On the back of her mind she felt more than saw the ugliness of war, not her war, not her memory, and she pushed back at it. Not her memory, not her problem, not her reality. She willed Aria back into her memory to see the beauty of the sky and the lake and the sun on her skin. The figure in her arms radiated anger. She pushed against those foreign feelings, and willed back the mood of her memory, the excitement of being out and free for the evening and the anticipation of her uncomplicated plans. It became harder and harder to hold on onto the memory and the image, with alarm she realized it became harder to breathe, but the guest of her memory was getting tired as well.
Abruptly, the connection severed, and she was back in the dimly lit room, once again staring into the pink and purple glow on the ceiling. Only now she had the headache the size of the spaceship, and the naked form of the blue alien sprawled on top of her. The creature seemed passed out, face down into the pillow.
All and all, after the initial scare, the encounter seemed innocent enough. It wasn't that hard to keep her thoughts on track, so either the creature was holding back or the threat of losing her mind wasn't as serious as was advertised.
Out of curiosity she wrapped her arms around the creature and slid her hands up and down the blue back. The skin was cool to the touch and more tough and leathery than her own, yet still smooth. She was curious to touch the tentacle protrusions on the creature's head, but her arm angle was wrong, and she could only reach the tips. Skin there felt softer and warmer, but the alien stirred and she withdrew.
And then with the startled inhale she realized that all those moments earlier when asari was touching her hair and skin and she was heroically trying not to jump out of her skin or burn the ship down with the power of her blush, the alien was not flirting or molesting her, well at least not molesting her in a sexual manner, the creature was curious.
'Gosh, even aliens from outer space have only clinical interest in you. This is just pathetic'
She really really really hoped the creature was fast asleep. The thoughts that ran through her head at the press of the full breasts into her chest, at the unconscious shifts of the muscular limbs over her body, at the tiny puffs of the alien breaths against her neck, those thoughts and feelings were definitely not for public viewing, and most definitely were not just out of curiosity.
End of Chapter 3