Rescuing Ash

Chapter Eight

A firm kick to the shin jolted Ash awake. He blinked despite being instantly aware that Lore had been the one to do it. “What the frux was that for?”

“Go get some sleep. The captain’s chair isn’t meant to be a bed and frankly you look like shit.”

“Thanks,” Ash muttered. “Where are the others?”

“Jax is sleeping. Like you should be.” Lore pressed a few buttons checking their trajectory. “Doc is still in the lab looking through the data on the female.” He said the last word like it tasted bad.

“What is your problem with Sadie?” Ash figured he had some idea. Ten years before, Lore had fallen in love with one of their own named Freyla. He’d committed himself to her, relinquished most offworld duties of a warrior and stayed with her. He’d never seen his friend so incredibly happy. They had tried to conceive for a while and finally it took. When the time came for her to give birth, she gave birth to a stillborn male child. It destroyed Freyla. From what Ash understood, she didn’t want to live anymore. After the accident that had Lore hiding under his cowl, Freyla committed suicide leaving Lore completely alone, save Ash.

“I really don’t think we should be breeding with such a weak and selfish species.”

“What about Sadie says she’s weak or selfish?” The familiar tightening in his muscles warned Ash of his impending anger.

“Her species in general is weak. We stomped on how many of them on that ship? Too damn many. They didn’t even put up a very good fight. Our offspring will be weakened by them. What if our impervious flesh isn’t passed down?”

Ash sighed and rubbed a hand over his face and through his hair. He was tired. The stint in the cell was enough to leave him exhausted and now Lore was bringing up the negative. Always with the negative.

“You don’t know what will happen, Lore. We could play the ‘what if’ game forever if you want, but it won’t change what’s happening on our own planet. If we don’t fix things soon… This is the closest we’ve come to finding another being similar to us. I think we at least need to try.”

Lore turned back to the controls. Ash thought back to the females on the ship. It hadn’t been a pretty sight but there really hadn’t been anything he could do without jeopardizing their escape. It made his stomach turn thinking about whatever experiments they were doing on them being done to the human female aboard his ship. Sadie was fragile on the outside and one tube stuck in her was more than enough for him.

Why do I care? It was a stupid question when their race depended on this mission. What is it about her? She was that first and only female human he’d ever met and protecting her was necessary if they were going to use her to breach the gap between his people and her’s on Earth. Would he have felt the same irritation toward Lore if Sadie had been a different human female?

“Just go to bed. Why are you still awake?”

“I have something I need to take care of first,” Ash sighed.  “Connect me with Tron’s team.”

Lore’s hooded head turned toward Ash for a moment and then back to the controls. He typed in a few keys and the vid screen opened up. As Ash waited for the hail to be accepted by Tron, he wondered if he was about to make a mistake.

The moment Tron’s face appeared, Ash knew he’d woken him from sleeping. Heavy lidded orange eyes looked back at Ash with a whole lot of irritation.

“You better have a damn good reason for waking my ass up.” Tron’s fingers combed across his neatly trimmed beard.

“I need to make sure your connection is secure on your end,” Ash said without responding to his previous statement. It was enough to widen Tron’s eyes. He brought up a security code on his screen and put it in place.