Operation: Marauder

Chapter 2

As Rowan walked through the dull, concrete hallways of Connaville Army Base, humans turned their heads, sometimes stopping mid-conversation, to look at him, watch him. Study him. He thought after cooperating with them for a year, he'd get used to the stares. He hadn't. He had travelled a fair distance in his lifetime, visited a few galaxies and more than enough planets. No species stared more than humans. He blamed it partially on their ignorance and partially on their curiosity.

When his crew had first arrived on this planet, they had been shocked to find a species so similar to their own. He had run into many bi-pedal species in his time in space, some bore scales thicker than his own, while others lived only underground, so their eyes were larger than his fists. Some had four arms and were twice his size, sharing a similar bone structure to the apes on Earth. The Scad were known for their long, sinewy tails which helped them traverse the perilous jungles of Adoni. Humans had the closest physiology to Arthonians he had come across so far. So close, in fact, that they could be mistaken as humans themselves, which was why he and his team were finally allowed to leave the base--under very strict conditions.

What Rowan found humorous was that the females seemed to prefer his men over their own species. They were taller than the average human, stronger and fitter than every male on base, which seemed to house the most physically capable humans he had seen so far. In his culture, females favored the strong over the weak; it appeared to be the same on Earth. He found that the females on this base stared after him more than the males. Unsurprising. Once they were released from their cells from when they had first arrived, Cas ran tests, which the human scientists were more than enthusiastic to help with, to see just how similar their species were. Minus a few things like the regenerative capabilities of Arthonian blood, their thick hide, and humans' inferior sense, they were remarkably similar. Cas even took it upon himself to see just how compatible humans and Arthonians were. After he reported back that human and Arthonian reproductive systems were identical, Maliki and Knox volunteered to put his findings to the test. They were explicit in their findings.

At the time, Rowan hadn't seen the appeal in fraternizing with humans more than he had to--anything to avoid going back to those cages they called cells; they might have been an adequate size for a human, but it was tiny for an Arthonian. He was more keen on getting their ship fixed as fast as possible so they could go home. Fixing the hyperdrive was already going to take longer than he had hoped. They needed the material humans called Terbium, but, unfortunately, it wasn't as prevalent on Earth as it was on Arthos. Maliki said it could take years before they had enough to get the ship back in order again.

The news had been a blow below the belt. They had careened into despair, and it was Rowan who picked them back up, promising them they would return home one day. Since then, they had made a deal with the military, to share some of their technology and help them on special operation missions. In return, the humans would give them unlimited resources and help them gather enough Terbium to fix the Marauder. However, after a year of being stranded and seeing how little Terbium they had gathered, he was beginning to wonder if the humans were holding back the Terbium they promised so they could study their technology a little bit longer, abuse their expertise in the field for as long as they could.

The only human he trusted was their liason. Or "babysitter," as Knox called him. Rowan liked Jack. Despite how annoying it was to have someone tell him, a decorated Captain in the High Command Fleet, what to do and how to do it, Jack helped him and his men assimilate into human society. Without him, they would have been lost and in far more trouble than they were right now. The human had proven himself worthy in the heat of battle and more than trustworthy.

For the first time since Maliki had broken the news to the crew, he was okay with staying a little longer. After going through the motions for so long, keeping his men safe, learning all he could about human culture, scanning for any sign of the Wraythe entering the Earth's atmosphere, he never once stopped to enjoy the simple pleasures on Earth like his crew members had. Then he met a petite pilot, who was also a mechanic, who wanted to see the stars. Zoey Adams was unlike any human he had come across so far. Whenever he overheard humans talk about space, it was always "when the aliens attack" or "I got probed last night!" or "They were here! I found crop circles in my corn field this morning!" But not Zoey. She admired space for the beauty it was--something he had taken for granted. There had once been a time, in his youth, when he marvelled over the stars and nebulae around him, their beauty, the adventure they promised, but they soon blended into the cold, dark void of space.