“Look, don’t you understand!” Jen exclaimed. “I
care about him! I care about my life here! This is my home now!”
“I’m under strict orders to bring you and Kar’Tohja
back.” The leader, Hon’Kaarn, protested. “You want to argue the case? Argue it
to the council when we get back!”
“But they’ll never let us come back. Please,
Kaarn!”
“I don’t have any power to alter my orders.
You’re getting too involved. This is the exact reason we didn’t want you to in
the first place. When the war is over, we’d be coming to bring you back anyway,
and if you had connection here on Earth, it’d be harder to take you back!”
Kaarn pointed out.
“No one told me I had to go back!” Jen gasped.
“I thought I had some say in this! Why didn’t you guys say something about this
before I left?!”
“You never asked!”
“That’s unfair!” I exclaimed. The guards
growled at me threateningly and I closed my mouth.
“Now, Kar’Sanah, will you come home, or do I
have to do something to your friend here?” Kaarn asked casually.
She looked at me, and then back at Kaarn,
before sighing and shook her head in helplessness.
Kaarn gave an order in his native language, and
one of the two guards hit me over the head with his rifle, which they seemed to
have a habit of doing, but not as hard as to knock me out.
“Nick!!” Jen yelled.
When I had re-oriented myself I shot upright,
and head-butted the first guard into the wall. I spun around and kicked out at
the second guard, who was running at me, and bowled him over. The first guard
had now recovered and hit me from behind. I fell to my knees as the second
guard got up and raised his fist to hit me.
“Stop!” Kaarn barked. The Kindorians
immediately backed off and let Kaarn come forward to roughly shove me back on
my seat.
“Very clever, Carter!” he grinned. “Where’d you
learn that?”
“I didn’t, I just acted on impulse!” I replied,
shooting him a look of complete hate.
“Very good, trusting your instincts! You humans
aren’t as stupid as you look!” he sneered.
He walked behind me, “I was hoping it wouldn’t
come to this, but….”
He pulled a handgun out of his jacket and
pointed it at my temple.
“No, Kaarn, don’t!” Jen pleaded.
“We haven’t killed anyone yet, but it won’t
bother me if we do!” Kaarn claimed. “And if you still won’t agree, we can
always shoot his friend, or your brother.”
Jen once again was lost for words.
Kaarn pushed the gun harder against my head and
I squeezed my eyes shut. This wasn’t how I imagined dying, but not everything
goes as you plan it.
“NO! WAIT!” Jen cried. I opened my eyes as she
said something in her alien language.
Kaarn then put his gun away and instructed the
guards to throw me back in the basement. I looked at her despairing face as I
was dragged off, “Wait! What’d you just say! What’s happening!” I demanded. I
was pulled outside before I could get a reply.
Nick was brought back to the room. Tohja and me
were immediately concerned.
“Nick are you, OK?” I asked softly.
“What did they do to you?” Tohja added.
“Nothing, they didn’t do anything.”
“What?” Tohja exclaimed. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know, but I wanna find out as soon as
possible!” Nick stated.