The Earthly Queen: The Woman of Worlds Apart

Chapter 7: (Caine)

Eris is... not what I was expecting. In fact, the "news breaking" part of the rescue operation is what I was dreading the most. I was expecting there to be a lot of vacant stares and a lot of sobbing. There hasn't been a single tear from Eris and, though irritable, seems to be taking everything in stride.

It pains me every time I glance Eris' way. While she doesn't appear as though she'll break down fully, she does look traumatized as she processes everything we've told her.

Seeing that look of horror, pain, confusion... I hate it. It makes me feel hollow.

I don't try saying anything comforting. If I thought it would help I would, but, what is there to say at this point? I've come into her life out of nowhere and taken her from the only life she knows and plopped her in the middle of an intergalactic fight. I've ruined her life in some ways.

The concept of other cultures and other planets is nothing to me. Learning of other races, of new worlds is nothing to me. But for Eris, or any earthling for that matter, it changes their entire perception of reality.

I don't blame her for being reserved but do hope she recovers soon. Those sad eyes are making me so uncomfortable!

I've prepared meals for the both of us. It took some time to coax Eris to eat any of it. I guess earthlings don't have food synthesisers. If that's true, just how do they eat exactly? She commented that the food synthesizer looks like a cross between a "coffee maker" and a "microwave" as I was prepping the meals. I have no idea what either of those things are but didn't say anything.

She requested bizarre foods. When I told her the machine could make anything she said she wanted a "hamburger" and "fries." I've never heard of such things before and apparently the food synthesiser hasn't either. Mack-He ended up having to hack the machine's operating systems and literally force it to make the food to Eris' specifications.

It'll be a cold day in hell before I ever agree to take on another underdeveloped citizen again. Everything so far has been an extremely unpleasant ordeal.

Eris refuses to make eye contact with me as she nibbles the remains of her fries - these salty greasy twigs made of starch and empty calories. What is it with women and the teeny, tiny little bites they take instead of actually trying to consume? I finished my meal in, like, five minutes and she's still working on hers? Then again, in the Legion you learn to scarf, not something Eris would be accustomed to.

During the twelve hours Eris was unconscious i took the liberties of rifling through her bag. I took no pleasure in it but felt it was necessary i learn as much about this woman as possible and make sure she wasn't carrying anything dangerous. Turns out there was nothing of danger.

Mack-He hacked her - what do earthlings call them, "cell phones?" - and discovered a diary she's been writing on an online document. It was a dull read for a lot of t. Just a lot of trivial blah, blah, blah. The last few entries have gotten somewhat troubling. Lots of talk of budget cuts, hunger, low heat, barely scraping by.

The last entry answers the question I've been asking myself. Apparently she was having an egg donation surgery to get paid money to better her family financially. Damn, that is devotion right there. I don't know many people who'd make a sacrifice like that.

I show Eris how to deconstruct the disposable plate and utensils and then return to the portable controls for the shuttle I was issued.

I'm a little upset I wasn't able to use the shuttle more, I've missed piloting big ships. We had to remain off the radar. Not from the earthlings of course, their systems are easy to scramble, but ships from my side of the Verse. Had to drop to the planet by pod. Being so small they are nearly impossible to track once they touch the planet surface. The shuttle has been orbiting the outskirts of the galaxy for the past couple days in hiding and I now have to pilot it back here. It's taking forever for it to return as it has to go slow. If I could portal jump it it would be here in meer minutes. However, the space-time residue would blow my cover if discovered.

"Alright, we have a few minutes," I say. "Grab your things. Your purse is over on the table."

She gasps when she approaches the table.

"What's wrong?"

"What's wrong?" Eris says looking at me incredulously. "They tried killing me with this thing!" She jabs a finger at the weapon on the table I collected during the clinic fight. Oops, forgot I set it there.

"Relax, I wasn't planning on using it," I say. That weapon is called a 'miligasher.' It's an ancient torture device. They aren't made anymore and highly illegal due to their excruciatingly painful and grizzly nature."

"How did these Glimmer things get it then?" Eris asks.

"Glimmers are a particularly violent race and enjoy the sight of pain in other species they dislike - that being all of them. They love devices like this. Considering Lord Kris is the one who sent them here it doesn't surprise me they'd be equipped with one. Although there isn't any big proof everybody knows he's ordered hits like this using Glimmers. He's willing to equip them with whatever arcane weapons they want as long as the job gets done."

I toss the milligasher into a storage trunk. "These things are almost impossible to find anymore, even on the black market. You find the right collector and you can make quite a mint off it."

I give her a wink, hoping to cheer her up at all. She manages something resembling a smile though it's more like a straight line versus a frown.

Mack-He went back into the grid while Eris and I ate to continue working on fixing the damaged gene gun.

"Yo, Mack-He."

He pops up from my tablet, to which the gene gun is connected with a thin wire. "The gun isn't done yet, if that's what you're asking. It recorded the match but the data has been corrupted. I'm still trying to fix it. It'll take time."

He looks over my shoulder at Eris. "How's she doing?"

I teeter my hand.

"Well, I'll leave you to it. Be careful, I don't trust her."

Mack-He vanishes and I walk around and collapse the disposable machines around the camp. Eris watches in fascination as, when i press the self destruct button on the back, the machines fall to pieces. The shells come undone, the holo-screens glitch and vanish, and the internal components spill out. In seconds the pieces all dissolve away into vapor like sugar cubes in water.

"That's pretty incredible," Eris says, lowly. "How is that even possible?"

"Don't have an answer to that. I'm a soldier not an engineer. I just use em, don't know how they work."

"Soldier?" She asks.

"Yeah. Well, I was one. I used to work for the Legion. It... didn't work out for me terribly well in the end for me. I now work for Lord Zander as bodyguard and security personnel on his pleasure barge. Of course, he does have me run errands every now and then."

"More space gobbledygook, who'd a thought?" Eris grumbles rubbing her brow. "What's the Legion exactly?"

"They're like cops" I say, and deconstruct another machine. "They keep all the civilized planets in check. They range from simple security to police work to army to highly trained warriors and assassins..

"Legion" Eris says, tilting her head from side to side, saying it as though testing out the word. "Space cops. Sure, why didn't I think of that?" She chuckles with a little bit of mania in her voice.

More explaining. Jeez, I might end up breaking her yet.

I turn to check the shuttle controllers and make sure it's on course.

There is a sudden pain at the base of my skull as I'm hit from behind hard. Colors flash as my knees give out and I find myself on the floor. I was not expecting that. There's rushing footsteps and I'm just able to catch a glimpse of Eris as she rushes out the door.