Abduction

The buzzing at the door barely stirred Alex and I as we were still snuggled together on the oversized couch the grays had installed in our living assignment. I slowly began to open my eyes, not really wanting to get up, as Alexa's face was nuzzled against my chest. At eighteen I had never spent the night with a girl before and admittedly I didn't want it to end, nor did I want her to wake up and freak out that we had slept together like that. Unfortunately, it was destined to happen. The buzzing finally forcing me to slide my arm out from beneath my couch mate. As I crawled up and over her, Alexa stirring only slightly from my moving, I stumbled across the floor barefoot realizing how much I might miss carpeting if I don't get home.

“BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ!” I heard as I was getting to the door. I wanted to yell at whoever it was and tell them to hold their horses. What were the chances that any of the people of Phobos knew what a horse even was, I thought to myself at the time. Pressing a button at the entryway, the metallic door made a “swoosh” sound as it opened into the wall. I'll give them this, the good folks on Phobos had certainly seen Star Trek.

Unfortunately, it was Zahec at the door. He had come to retrieve us for the beginning of our orientation and training eluded to yesterday by Bahal. It was entirely too early for us to be doing any kind of training if the clocks meant what they did on earth, which was something I would learn was also different. Still, Zahec and the people of this planet would have to learn that humans required things like coffee and breakfast in the mornings before they could function well. Zahec greeted me with an unnaturally cheery “Good Morning” and unexpectedly called me master Stephen. It seemed odd, considering we were their captives. When I was young, my parents took trips frequently, and I learned that customs differ from place to place but calling your captives master defied logic. Not that any of what we were living through could be called logical.

“Jesus,” I sighed, turning toward the kitchen to find whatever they made that resembled coffee. I was still exhausted from the trip, my body slightly ached from the torture, and sleep had eluded me most of the night until I laid beside Alexa.

“Master Stephen,” Zahec said to me, nearly pushing me out of the way. “Allow me to teach you how to prepare morning nourishment on Phobos.”

Zahec was determined to teach me something, he could teach me how to get off that dam rock, I said to myself. Still, I knew, at the time, that it would be a while before I would learn to fly one of their craft and we could escape. I had flown in planes but never took even a rudimentary flying lesson on earth and somehow did not imagine flight simulators and starfighter games would be the same. Watching Zahec tinkering around in the kitchen was an experience. He knew where everything was located and how to get the replicators to make whatever we wanted. The programming was fairly comprehensive. When he wanted coffee he told the computer to manufacture it by using the terms, earth and coffee, the hot caffeine-filled beverage. It was a bit wordier than I figured an advanced race of aliens would use but when in Rome... In fifteen or twenty minutes Zahec had coffee brewed and it smelled like the coffee at home. There was also some kind of meat on a surface, sizzling as Zahec seemed to hum to himself. The two sounds were a lot to endure before caffeine so I took one of the mug like cups and poured some.

“What does master Stephen think of the coffee?” Zahec asked.

It was coffee, a couple of hundred million miles farther from the earth than I expected to travel in my lifetime and I was enjoying a good cup of coffee with an alien fixing breakfast. This was perhaps the best cup of coffee I had ever drunk, even though I was on a moon not known for being able to grow coffee beans. How was it possible, I wondered? I looked over at the sofa, seeing Alexa still sound asleep. I knew that Zahec would expect us to be ready to leave when he was so I poured a cup for her and placed it in front of the chair next to mine. From the appearance of things, breakfast was just a few minutes away. Sitting there, sipping the hot drink, I thought about questions I wanted to ask our guide. I wondered how many of them he would answer. I wondered how to get him to help us, imagining that he would refuse.

“You may ask me questions?” Zahec said, still cooking breakfast.

He heard me! I was freaked out by the revelation. Could he hear all of my thought? Were they all telepathically gifted?

“My people are not all telepaths,” Zahec admitted. “If you prefer, however, I could speak with you directly.”

Jesus, yes, I thought. The idea of Zahec crawling around inside my mind was totally freaking me out. How would I think about getting away from them, stealing a ship, and escaping from the moon? Of course, if I did manage to achieve that list of goals I still had to figure out where we were going. I wasn't an astronaut and navigating back to earth was not going to be easy. I really had a long way to go.

Zahec put two plates down on the island table with eggs, bacon, and toast. God, it looked good, so good I nearly forgot to wake Alexa. When I did, she nearly jumped off the couch, seeing Zahec standing in the kitchenette. Holding up her cup of coffee I put my hand on her shoulder and assured her it was alright. She was shocked to see Zahec, telling me she thought it was just a dream. The look of disappointment spread across her face quickly, telling me that it must have been a really good dream. As she calmed down, she sipped her coffee, as surprised as I was that it was real. We both smiled at each other, taking a moment to enjoy the small win of having something real there with us as we were trapped by the crazy circumstances that thrust us together. It didn't last long as Zahec interrupted us.

“Come, come children, eat,” Zahec insisted.

After breakfast, we were both told to put on fresh uniforms and prepare ourselves for orientation. Alexa used the main shower and I used the half bath in the downstairs of the apartment. We were ready to go and Zahec leads the way from the apartments to the village. The Village was called Tonaire' and Zahec described the villagers as the working class. Their society was divided that way; between the working class, the leading class, and the military class. The working class all lived in the village of Tonaire', most of them near their businesses or place of work. There were shops that sold “threads” or clothing. The working class all wore rag style coverings, rivaling coverings worn by slaves in Egyptian during the time of the Pharaohs. In the middle of town, the natives had a bizarre filled with vendors, grays selling food, handmade items, and what appeared to be toys. They ran a watering hole, neon lighting hanging over the entry with its' name, written in their native language. Zahec advised against going there unaccompanied.

“And we won't be going there,” Zahec told us.

We were promptly taken from the village area to the main building again. Entering the main building we passed through a security checkpoint. At the checkpoint stood four of the grays in regal dress, all with armor on their shoulders and across their chests. They carried with them five-foot staffs. As we passed by the security staff, they were making crude comments about the pale-faced humans. The security staff made it obvious that some of the natives did not care much for our presence in their world. Once we were past the security checkpoint I counted ten other aliens lining the corridor leading to the courtyard area of the main structure.

Their courtyard was majestic, brightly lit, and the center was decorated by a lush garden area that several of the alien natives were congregated within. Trees stood tall, reaching up through the center of the building. They were taller than that of earths' trees, with many branching sections, and a strange, purple, fruit that hung from the branches like apples back home. I looked up the length of the trees, all three of them, as they stretched halfway up the twenty-floor high building. We walked through the courtyard, hearing a strange sound echoing overhead.

“What's that noise?” I asked.

“Our great leader plays those notes at the beginning of our days,” explained Zahec. “It inspires our workers.”

Alexa asked, “What do they do here?”

Zahec explained how they did everything there. The top five floors were living space for their leader, the leaders of their people, and the military members of the people of Phobos. They worked and met in offices and training facilities on the five floors beneath their leaders, being checked on and supervised by even Bahal, the leader of the people of Phobos. The following floors, floor six thru ten, were production floors where the slave laborers of the compound manufactured military weapons and components for the fleet of craft they maintained. This was where the operations of their space force were based out of and they kept the operational details of the recruitment in their archives.

“So all of our information is kept there, including the plans for us,” I posited the theory aloud.

“Yes, yes,” Zahec replied, “We shall keep records of your training and adventures there in the hall of historical documents. It will be there for our youth, someday, should we need more recruits.”

We entered a hall on the opposite side of the main level. The doors were open as we approached and saw the rest of the recruits. They were all aligned with the walls. With all the captives that were caught and drug across the galaxy, there were only fifty of us remaining in the group. As it turned out, only Alexa and I remained as the representatives of the United States. Thirty other pairings were reported as being reassigned. Humans, stuck in the slave mines of Phobos. Just thinking about the horror of members of our species being enslaved there made both of us nervous. The slave mines had sent one of the creatures running from the mines, running with no place to go.

Zahec guided us to our place in line, wishing us luck before moving on to meet with the rest of the guides. We were greeted shortly after Zahec and the guides disappearing. It was the voice of Bahal, the supreme leader of the grays. As a hush came over the room Bahal welcomed us and again, apologized for the crude methods used to bring us all together. She went on to explain things more thoroughly to the recruits. I'm sure, in hindsight, as a way of assuring us all that there was just reason for their deceptions and their brutality.

“Our people are in grave danger. For centuries we have been here, living in peace. We have grown our culture and our technology while keeping ourselves connected to who we are. Unfortunately, even with all of our technology and exploration, we have found ourselves with one fatal problem,” she explained.

Due to the lack of atmosphere on Phobos, the grays' time was coming to an end and they were desperately trying to preserve their legacies. They were a civilization that could no longer produce new offspring. Their abilities to pro-create had diminished over the past one hundred years and now, as they faced a threat, they did not have the manpower to defend themselves. Bahal described their enemies as being an invasive species, a warring species that conquered and decimated other worlds after stripping them of their resources. Their enemies had long ago taken most of their female counterparts, leaving only the old and the sickly behind. The creatures of Phobos fought a grand battle, long ago, pushing their enemy back into the galaxy but it cost them the thing they were fighting for, their futures. They were called the horde.

“They come from a planet called Andorria, it's two galaxies from here or to make it simpler, many thousands of light-years away,” she announced, showing us the planet on an image the was produced by something on her hand. “Most of your worlds don't know of Andorria, because you are from worlds that are not as advanced in space exploration and travel.”

Standing there, listening to Bahal, I phased out as I thought about how I had seen this movie and it did not go well for the majority of the recruits. Perhaps they should have come to earth, used a video game as a way to gauge our skills, or I don't know...shanghaied some pilots. How in the world were a bunch of misfits from planets around the universe going to help them defeat a warring species from a savage world?

“Your group has been chosen based on your DNA, your reactions to certain, unfortunate experiments and your homeworlds. You will be the ones to help save my people,” she announced.

Chatter, even quiet chatter among a large grouping of people, will ring out through a room like a freight train if the room is quiet and this was what happened as the rest of the recruits began to rationalize what she was telling us. We had been selected to fight their war for them. It was not something that we would have taken easily, the idea of fighting in a war. Most of us were young, most of us had never fought in a war to begin with, and like myself, none probably ever wanted to be soldiers. Now, we were being forced to fight for someone else's cause.

“I'm scared,” Alexa whispered in my ear.

I wanted to comfort her but she wasn't the only one frightened. As I looked down the line, seeing the faces of our fellow captives in the different colored uniforms, I saw the faces of fear in them all. Even the green, scale-covered, lizard creatures that were halfway down the line, seemed to be frantically communicating to each other, no doubt telling one another they were frightened.

“Recruits, I am sorry, but I could not simply allow my people to die. I regret how we brought you all here, but we do need your help.”

As the chatter continued, it was easy to tell that Bahal was not accepting the resistance to her grand plan of turning us into her own personal army. I felt my heart beating loudly, so loudly that I could hear my heart in my ear canals. My palms were starting to sweat and my cheeks were flush with that anxious feeling that I would never see home again. If not for it being so loud, I might have heard him sooner. Zahec was in my head.

“If we don't stop them here, Master Stephen, they will move on to earth.” His voice echoed in my head as his doomsday prophecy, while it sounded crazy, made sense. I tried to drown him out, however, as it appeared to me there might be an opportunity here if one played their cards correctly.

“What are you thinking?” Alexa asked, holding my arm tightly as she clung to me.