“How? We don’t have a ship. Or credits. We can’t pay anyone to take us home, or to protect us.” Kat felt the freak-out surface. The three of them stared at each other.
“Well, if we don’t have credits to buy our ticket home, we could sneak aboard one of the departing ships,” Lirid suggested after a while. “If they don’t know we’re on board, they can’t refuse to take us. Problem solved.”
“Are you nuts?” Kat squealed as softly as she could, suppressing the feeling to scream every word in her brother’s ear to get through to him. “Most of the aliens here are pirates and criminals. Do you know what they do to stowaways? They shoot them out of an airlock! If the stowaways are lucky.”
“If we stay here, bad things are certainly going to happen to us,” her brother replied, pointing to the square. “We have no choice.”
Mitha rubbed his chin in thought. “It certainly will be dangerous. No one likes uninvited guests on their ship. Well, in theory we could sneak aboard when the loading of the goods is in process. The cargo doors will be open then. The difficult part is not getting caught while we sneak inside.” He snapped his fingers. “Earlier, the station manager gave me access to the departure schedules. That’s how we found the name and code of the Zzjitzzeën ship that took Lucas. I can check if there are any ships leaving soon.” Mitha tapped frantically on his datapad.
Kat sighed. Could things get any worse? Immediately, she mentally kicked herself for thinking it, because yes, of course they could, as she experienced a moment later when the door of the tavern opened.
“Oh, fudge!” Kat quickly pulled the hood of her cloak over her head and hid her face.
“What’s wrong?” her brother asked.
Under her cloak, Kat pointed to the tavern’s entrance. “Makaen!” she murmured, not moving her lips.
Her brother turned his head to the entrance. Two huge Makaen walked in, scanned the tavern with their glowing eyes and stepped toward a free table in the corner. They dropped down onto the chairs, which creaked under their weight.
“Don’t look at them!” Kat slapped her brother’s hand.
Lirid looked back at Kat. “They’re Makaen. So what?”
“So what? So what?” Kat hissed. “They’re Makaen and I’m half-human. Do I need to explain more?”
“Um…yes, please,” Lirid answered. “I have really no idea why you’re freaking out.”
Kat sighed. “Until recently, humans and Makaen were at war with each other. Makaen hate humans. A lot.”
“Yes, I know that, but there’s peace now.”
Kat huffed. Now it was her turn to give her brother the you-are-so-stupid stare.
“Oh yes, and signing a peace treaty made all the hate and animosity Makaen felt for humans just poof away like magic. It doesn’t work that way.” The last sentence she said in a low voice, mimicking her brother, who had said the same words to her earlier. Okay, maybe that was a little childish, but frankly, she couldn’t care less. They were surrounded by mean ugly aliens who wanted to harm them big-time, and she was so close to a nervous breakdown.
“But you’re also half-Cassidi,” Mitha murmured distracted, persistently tapping his datapad. “They don’t hate Cassidi. As a matter of fact, I believe they are very fond of Cassidi women.”
Kat inhaled deeply. “You two look like Cassidi, I don’t.”
Her brother and Mitha both had the distinct silver-gray skin color, long blue hair and bright yellow eyes of a Cassidi male. Kat, on the other hand, only had the flaming red hair and the deep blue, almost violet eyes most Cassidi females had. But she wasn’t tall and slender and she didn’t have the light blue skin color or green lips of a Cassidi female. Overall, she looked more human than Cassidi. In comparison to the colorful Cassidi women, she looked rather plain.
Most likely, the Makaen would only see the human side of her. Makaen were a dangerous race; Kat knew that all too well. Especially for humans. A peace treaty between the two species hadn’t wiped away the memory of the war.
The war between Earth and Makaen had started a little over ten years ago, when an Earth vessel had fought a small Makaen cruiser with pilgrims on board. The conflict had been about a rocky planet the Makaen had claimed belonged to them and had religious value. The humans had other ideas about its ownership, though, and had wanted to mine the planet’s minerals. Some of the pilgrims had died during the battle that had followed, and the Makaen had been furious. Unfortunately, at the time of the attack, the humans hadn’t known how vastly superior the Makaen were in every aspect. The cruiser had only been a small ship, unlike their ginormous battleships. Furthermore, Makaen were fierce warriors and natural predators. When it came to confrontations, whether it was face-to-face or with ships in space, humans lost. That was a fact. Over the past ten years, Makaen battleships had blown to smithereens almost every Earth vessel they had encountered and that hadn’t surrendered.
The war had been the reason her father had been reluctant to let her go to Earth. He had finally given in when he’d realized how much Kat had wanted to go. She had to promise him, though, that she would run to the nearest Cassidirian embassy for evacuation if there were any signs of the Makaen planning to attack Earth. Kat had found her father’s reaction somewhat excessive, but his anxiety had nonetheless rubbed off on her a bit. And hearing all the news on Earth of Makaen destroying Earth vessels and how deadly they were had done the rest to thump the fear of Makaen into her. When, three years later, the captain of an Earth vessel that was going in the direction of Cassidiri had offered to take Kat back, her father had bluntly refused. He didn’t want his daughter on board an Earth vessel if there was even a small chance the Makaen would cross their path. Where humans were concerned, Makaen tended to shoot first and then shoot some more. So her father had picked her up with a Cassidirian vessel, and frankly, Kat had been relieved. Her human half didn’t feel safe around Makaen.
And now, occupying the same space as the boogeymen from her nightmares, Kat wished for the very first time in her life that she looked more like a Cassidi.
“If you don’t like Makaen, then you’re really going to hate what I’m going to tell you now,” Mitha murmured, drawing Kat away from her thoughts.
Kat’s eyes narrowed. “Because?”
“The only ship that’s leaving within the next rotation is a Makaen freighter.”
“No, no, no and no. We are not going to sneak onto a Makaen ship. No, no, no, no. Did I make myself clear?”
This was where Kat drew the line. She would rather take her chances on this station than be trapped on a Makaen ship in the middle of space.
“Whatever we’re going to do,” Mitha said, staring out the window, “we need to decide now. That bad-intention alien has just met several of his not-so-friendly-looking friends, and I think they’re waiting for us to come out.”
In the square, a group of about six ugly green aliens stood huddled together, eyeing the tavern mischievously.
Kat took in a deep breath once more and exhaled slowly in an attempt to calm her nerves. Again, it didn’t help.
“Can we make it till the next rotation?” she asked hoarsely. “Lie low until the next ship departs?”