Star Side

Chapter 22

Stellar date (Earth Time): 02-03-2914

It was a lot easier than I thought.

I had just opened the door and smiled at the alien when it rolled off the table with a heavy thud on its reptilian hind legs. Its lips parted to chirp at me and I felt those strange waves washing curiosity over me. It's leathery, bat-like wings flopped clumsily down its sides like big, leathery blankets. The long line of spines down it's back shivered.

Levi gave me a bleary-eyed blink. He still sat on the chair he'd marked his 'post,' holding his gun.

"You need sleep, man," I said.

"No shit."

"Remember how to work the brig?"

He wrinkled his long nose. "We have a brig?"

Well, that didn't bode well. "Naomi said we did. Said it's used for storage?"

"Why the hell would three people on an empty space station need stor—" he stopped. "Oh. That storage."

"Now you got me all interested."

The alien had drawn closer to me, close enough to touch, and Levi's hands whitened about his rifle. But just as before, the alien never actually touched me, not so much as a hair on its mane. It did, however, do its best to fill in the space around me, rumbling like an engine and awkwardly raising its floppy wings.

Levi scowled. "I hate how it looks at you."

"Looks at me?"

"Like it owns you."

I rolled my eyes. "Levi, it's an alien. How do we know if its expressions are anything like ours?"

"It tried talking to me," he said, curling his lips back. "Those mental...waves or whatever you called them. I swear, it felt like being looked at by a predator."

"Well, you did shoot him."

"You're calling it 'him' again. I don't see no dick."

"He's an alien—"

"No alien dick, so 'it.'"

I sighed. Both him and Naomi, seriously.

"Well, Naomi's agreed with me to move him to the brig. If we can turn on the force field it can help us feel safer and you can get some sleep."

"And you know how to use a space prison?"

I glared at him, exasperated. "You were supposed to have the entire space station manual memorized to even come here."

"And you expect me to remember two thousand and sixty-five pages of technical crap? Sweetheart, if you don't use it, you lose it."

"Then let's use it now. It's better than shooting him off into space."

He snorted. "For you it might be."

I turned my attention back to the alien, which wasn't much a turning as it was finally acknowledging the yellow eyes begging for my attention and not-so-subtly trying to block my view of Levi.

"Hey...buddy?...you want to come with me?"

I tried to...um, well, imagine a sort of beckoning feeling, a 'come hither' towards the alien. I could feel my cheeks flushing with embarrassment even as I tried to figure out just what the heck such a feeling would feel like. I had to use a memory of being two when I thought in all images and intentions as a basis.

But, it seemed to work, as the creature's hairless eyebrows rose along with the rumble in its chest. It lowered its head to around my navel level, eyes still met with mine, as though to make a show of submitting by lowering its great horned head beneath mine.

"Just start walking," said Levi. "Either it will get it or it won't."

"Uh, I don't know where this brig is."

He groaned, rubbed his face hard, then swung his legs off the chair he'd been glued to for days. Got to admire his determination, at least.

"Got to do everything around here," he grumbled. "I was never young enough for this."

The spines on the alien rose higher the closer Levi got. But when Levi barely spared him a glance on his way to the door of the medical bay, the alien's spines slowly lowered back to their long, shiny dark line, and his rumbling purrs began again.

I felt the barest brush of its mane's tips along my arms as followed Levi out.

We'd only stepped out into the hall when Levi got all scowly again.

"No, no, nope. Up here by me. Like hell you're following out of my sight."

"How am I suppose to talk with—'

"It don't talk. Do whatever you did with your...whatever you did. Shit, I'm tired. This is stupid."

I rolled my eyes, but sped up so I walked beside Levi. The alien's purr-like-rumbles immediately stopped.

"If you're lucky, it's all just a bad dream." I glanced behind me. Sure enough, the alien was following, its tail swishing just above the floor and its large, clawed feet oddly silent.

"You're ass is a bad dream," grumbled Levi.

"Hey!"

"What? You want me to say you have a fine ass?"

"I want you to go back to being all cool and silent instead of digging yourself holes with your smart aleck pie hole."

"Nnngh. I'm tired. I get chatty when I'm tired. Or drunk." He groaned and dropped his head onto his shoulders. "I'm never gonna be able to be drunk again, am I?"

"You were never supposed to get drunk in the first place. Space station rules."

"But now there's a dragon alien who doesn't like me." He flopped his head around to give the alien following us a dead-eyed stare. "I don't like you either, bastard."

The alien bobbed its horned head and sped the swishing of its fur-tipped tail.

"You're lucky he doesn't understand you," I said with a weak smile.

"Oh, no, it understands me. We understand each other just fine."

I rolled my eyes, because I really didn't believe that. Fatigue-drunk Levi really wasn't all that different from normal drunk Levi, who was all bravado and mellow hatred of everything.

"This is insane..." he muttered at some point. We were passing a never-used conference room.

"You keep saying that every fifteen minutes."

"Because it is. I ain't no humanity's ambassador. I'm not even a good example."

"Really? I think you're a great example."

He stuttered a step to stare at me, but evened out his pace. I didn't think what I said warranted that much of a surprise.

"Don't say stuff like that," he said, bloodshot eyes a little buggy.

I frowned. "Why not?"

But he seemed to shake himself out of whatever funk that had given him, for he shrugged and just kept walking.

"If we die, it's because of your smart ass."

"Bad dream smart ass?"

"Stupid-fine, bad-dream smart ass."

I snorted. "That makes no sense. I like drunk you."

Levi hummed.