Rescuing Ash

Chapter Six

Ash could hear the water in the bathing room. Her reaction to something as simple as water was disturbing. He didn’t know of many species that could survive without it. Thinking back to her earlier mention of surviving on liquid protein, he realized she’d lived at least a year with nothing more than that slop in a bag they had given him. It was a pathetic excuse for a nutritional system and had tasted wretched.

Once she had bathed, he would try and give her something better to eat. They didn’t exactly have gourmet dining aboard but just about everything they had was better than that putrid liquid. He pulled an extra blanket out of the cabinet and spread it on the end of her bed. She was so small there was no doubt she didn’t create much warmth for herself.

Ash left her room and walked down the hall a bit to his room. It was the room that adjoined their shared bathroom but he wanted to respect her privacy so he’d not gone back into the bathroom as a shortcut between the two rooms. Though the notion of privacy seemed strange in regards of nudity. He’d seen just about everything she had to show. Maybe she was still shy because her nudity in front of him had been forced. Female humans were so confusing and his people had much to learn.

Digging through his drawers left him with few options in terms of clothing the little human. He wore a uniform and they certainly didn’t have anything that would fit someone as small as her aboard. One of his black undershirts and a pair of his socks would have to do until they hit an outpost, or Earth.

He brought the items back to her room and set them down on the bed. The room had been empty for some time because the ships capacity was meant for five warriors but a few years back, one of their members were killed and they had never found anyone they deemed worthy to take his place. Septimus had been a good friend and brother to them all. His loss was devastating to each of them in their own way and the thought of taking on another warrior into their group was still unfathomable.

After explaining to Sadie that she couldn’t waste water, he wasn’t terribly surprised she was still in the shower. In fact, he expected her to be in there for a long time. So, he left to find his brothers.

 

“I just don’t get it,” Jax said with the golden plaque in his hand. I thought that the humans would be bigger than what they are. “It was like squashing pests.”

“Despite their size,” Lore added, “I don’t see how we are going to save our race with their females. They seem a tad crazier than our own women.”

Ash sat down in the captains chair and swiveled to look at his crew chatting. Doc was still analyzing her genes from a hair sample he’d taken and hadn’t joined them.

“What did she do?” Jax asked Lore. “Why is she crazy?”

“She cries a lot. Or she did in the medbay. The female went wild in there fighting us off with a chair,” he laughed.

“Sadie,” Ash said.

“What?” The two looked up at him.

“Sadie. Her name is Sadie. It’s no surprise she tried to fight you fools off. She couldn’t understand you and after everything she’d been through in that place, she was frightened.”

It was a miracle she’d fought at all. Trevorian women would not have done so. They would have succumbed despite their strength. Submissive creatures by nature when around Trevorian males, things had changed a little now that they knew they were a commodity. Ash wasn’t looking forward to Sadie’s reaction when he told her that his people might need human females for breeding. Especially since he knew how that had made him feel when the General wanted the same thing from him. The only difference was that he didn’t want Sadie for power, but for the continuation of his species.