Rogue Alien's Escape: Alien Abduction Romance

Chapter One Part One

After six years, homesickness was little more than a dull throb for Andie Munster. She woke up every morning and could almost forget that she wasn't in a dingy apartment in Atlanta. It wasn't until she spotted the twin suns outside of her window that her new home, such as it was, intruded on her. As far as prisons went, the place wasn't that bad. The tiny apartment she slept in was bug free and her food processor always had enough to satisfy her. The job she'd been assigned when she'd arrived wasn't too taxing; all she did was supervise the short-range teleporter that transported goods from the ground to ships orbiting the planet. She wasn't even tempted to box herself up and try and escape that way. At least, not most days.

The city of Ixilta hardly looked like it was run by a blood-soaked dictator, and except for when the guards showed up to collect her taxes or one of the supervisors dropped by and asked for a 'favor' Andie could pretend that she was just on an extended work study, that someday she'd be allowed to go home. After all, they didn't call her a slave. It didn't matter that pirates had kidnapped her and sold her in a lot of people to the Ixiltan Council. As soon as they'd removed the control collar from her neck the representative had welcomed her and her fellow newcomers as citizens of Ixilta. They were free to make their lives in the city, and so long as they caused no trouble, there would be no reason for them to ever be punished.

But they couldn't leave. That question had brought on the first beating, and Andie had been lucky that she only had to witness it. She didn't know what had happened to the young man who'd asked it, but after the guard laid him flat and kicked him until his blood stained the white tile floor, he'd been dragged away and the representative had asked if anyone had other questions.

They hadn't.

And somehow since then, six years had passed. At first Andie had spent her days and nights dreaming of ways to escape, how to make it to the gates of the city and get past the guards there, how she could find a ship willing to take her back towards Earth, and how she could return triumphant, having suffered through an adventure and learned something from it. But she stumbled at every step. Getting towards the gate risked falling under the watch of the guards, and she didn't want to draw suspicion to herself.

She didn't know the first thing about finding a ship to take her home, and she knew just how bad it could turn out if the ship's captain was untrustworthy or weak.

And finally, there was no one back on Earth to witness her triumphant return. Her parents had long since passed, she had no siblings, no cousins, no aunts or uncles, and she'd kept everyone back at work at arm's length. No one back home was missing her, if they'd even realized that she was gone.

So over the years the need to escape had changed from a driving force to a weak pulse that occasionally pounded. And on the days where she felt the need to leave, she let herself stroll around town and witnessed what the guards did to those who seemed out of place. They rarely gave her any trouble nowadays, but their evil smiles sent a chill down her spine when she saw them catch sight of a new victim.

She hated Ixilta, but now it was her home and there wasn't anything she could do about it.

Andie got ready for work, donning a boring gray outfit and covering her head in a dark cap. Ixilta was made up of dozens of alien races, so no one looked at her twice for being human, but the drab clothes helped her blend in, showed everyone around her that she belonged. Not that Ixilta got much in the way of visitors. Still, the work outfit made it clear that she wasn't planning anything and looking the part was the most important tool for survival that Andie had learned since arriving.

She locked her apartment up behind her and took the elevator down the thirty stories to the ground floor. Outside was a riot of noise as street vendors hawked food, workers hustled towards their stations, and children shoved their way to school. It could have been any city on any planet, except for the castle that sat on a hill at one end of town and looked down on everyone, and the prison that sat at the other end, a silent promise that any transgression could get a person sent away behind thick walls, where the screams echoed through the city on especially quiet nights.

Andie shivered and looked away. Work was only a few blocks down the street and if she didn't check in on time, her boss might worry. Or report her. She didn't want either of those things to happen.

The day went by in a blur. Her co-workers and the robots they programmed for the especially heavy lifting came in and out of her station, placing their wares on the transporter. She stayed in constant contact with the receiving station in space above her, and when she was given the go, she pressed the big red button and sent the goods on their way.

By dinner time, the shipments had slowed to a crawl, and Andie spent several minutes finishing up her reports before the skin on the back of her neck tingled, warning her that she wasn't alone. She looked up and practically jumped out of her chair. The man in the shipment room wasn't one of her co-workers. They hadn't received a new one in several weeks, and they had no need for more workers, not right now.

But it wasn't her knowledge of the staff roster that let Andie know that this man was out of place. It was the black uniform he wore, ripped in places where identification numbers and stun suppressors might once have been. Everyone knew the look of Ixiltan prison uniforms, and the bright purple alien standing in the shipping station was wearing one.

She wanted to duck out of sight, to hide until he was gone. Even knowing how dangerous the man could be, Andie didn't reach for the communicator on the dash to call for security. For all she knew, they might decide that she was working in conjunction with the escapee and throw her in a cell, never to be seen again. She couldn't risk it. No, she just had to stay away from him until he went on his way. She was safe behind thick, las and fireproof glass. He couldn't get to her.