Chapter 8: Regulate your heartbeat

If they could open a dimensional door...or whatever that triangle was...mid-flight, why couldn't they have cloaking technology that hid more ships? Or have more ships on the way?

Several minutes later, they docked inside the hanger of the spaceship, large enough that Washington, DC, might fit inside. What looked like hundreds of little spaceships were docked there. Row upon row of little ships - shuttles whose patterns were dormant. How was she supposed to save Earth from such a powerful threat? The president thought she could single-handedly save Earth from this? She'd have a better chance of stealing one of their small shuttles, going back to Earth, and searching for Ter.

"Why are you using a shuttle? Why not go directly onto the ship with your inter-dimensional door?" she hollered over the screaming engines. For that matter why didn't he use it to go from the mothership to the president's office? Why use the shuttle at all?

"Silence," Balthazar said.

He didn't move or even twitch during the whole docking procedure. None of the other aliens did either. She still thought the way they stood facing the wall without moving was the creepiest thing she'd seen in a long time. Almost as strange as flying in a shuttle whose walls behaved like breathing lungs.

She could see Balthazar's profile. He'd been standing with his eyes open, unblinking the whole time. He didn't look like what she thought someone who was half machine would look like. But he'd called himself a cyborg. For all she knew, their brains could interface with computers. Maybe they flew the shuttle with their minds. Which would be more evidence that Earth is toast. The engines screamed, and they landed with a jerk. She lurched forward, would've fallen if some invisible force field hadn't held her back. The cyborgs didn't move at all.

She'd give a lot right now if that triangular doorway would open, suck her in, and spit her out back on Earth. They'd arrived. This was really happening to her. What would they do with her? Her ears roared, as if the engines of the shuttle had suddenly revved high. Her muscles ached, they trembled so much. Sweat broke out over her skin, and the roaring intensified, the patterns on the walls moving with greater speed until everything around her took on a nightmarish, surreal quality. The chances of her seeing Earth again, of going back to her old life were slim. Aurora clenched her hands into the seat, gnashing her teeth when the chair tried to massage her fingers. She would get back to Ter. She'd rescue her and atone, see the forgiveness in her eyes at last, and help her start a new life.

Balthazar turned. Taking her hands, he drew her upright. She might as well have been weightless. Her hands appeared small and pink in his large, three-fingered grip.

For just one moment he stared down at her hands in his, his rough thumb rubbing softly over her palm. "My sensors show your heart and respiration rate are too high. Correct it now," he said.

So much for trying to hide her fear. "Humans can't do that." Aurora bit her lip. She was supposed to get information about the aliens, not give him insight into humans.

He led her outside, and Aurora had to concentrate hard not to draw back. She could at least appear dignified. Two rows of aliens stood to attention on either side of them. Large, menacing, and alien-looking, they made her aware of being smaller, paler, and vulnerable - a feeling she'd promised herself years ago she'd never again experience.

"Regulate your heartbeat and respiration now," he repeated, an unsettling note of "or else" in his voice.

"I told you I can't do that." She hated that she sounded apologetic. Just because she couldn't adjust her heartbeat and respiration didn't make her inferior.

He stopped and glared down at her with that fierce gaze. "Humans don't have that kind of control over their bodies?"

"No." She would have thought he'd have known this. Surely, they'd studied humans in the year they'd been circling Earth like a huge vulture. There were a lot of rumors about abductions and disappearances flying around.

He continued on, holding her upper arm, brushing the side of her breast. Goosebumps broke out over her body. Was that intimate touch on purpose?

The aliens came to attention. Their boots, striking hard against the deck of the ship, sounded like a thousand armies marching to war. The harsh sound assaulting her ears, Aurora flinched.

"Are you in command of this ship?" she asked.

"Yes." For a guy who insisted on her company, he didn't seem very big on talking to her.

His three-fingered grip on her arm firm, he led her through pulsing corridors that were not only wide but twisted and turned. If she tried to find a way off this ship, she'd get hopelessly lost. Even if she got to a shuttle, she couldn't pilot it. She was well and truly trapped.

"This is a really big ship. It must take a lot of crew to run it efficiently." Aurora wanted to roll her eyes at herself. Very subtle, Aurora Dawn Skuy. Still, taking into account the size of the ship, they'd had a fairly small welcoming committee.

Balthazar didn't modify his stride to match her shorter one and ended up dragging her to double sliding doors covered in pulsing tattoo markings the same as those on the walls. He waved her inside. "You will stay here."

She stepped inside, and her stomach dropped. The room was small and sterile with no windows. She couldn't imagine staying here for months on end. No windows, nothing soft to sit or lie on. The pulsing walls had the same tattoo-like quality as the rest of the ship.

She turned back to Balthazar. "You expect me to stay here? I didn't expect five-star treatment - " She motioned to the small bare room. " - but this?"

Her mind was bruised, and it felt as if a vicious hand had torn her heart in two. How would she save them all, trapped on an alien spaceship in this small cell, with the fate of the world resting on her shoulders?

"It is adequate for a human of your dimensions."

"Humans need more room than this. We need to be able to move around and to sleep in a separate area." Not that she planned to need space on this ship for long. If the only way she could get back to Earth was to seduce him and pump the butt-ugly cyborg full of picos, then so be it.

"The space is adequate." His threatening tone said, or else."

"You demanded my presence just to hold me prisoner?"

He walked forward, forcing her to back into the room to avoid bodily contact. "Yes." The word echoed in the small space. "I will now observe you move."

He stepped into the room with her, his presence shrinking it so that only a mouse might feel comfortable in it.

"Excuse me?" Did he just say he would observe her move? Visions of being made to dance like a harem slave flitted through her mind. She might be scared out of her mind, but she was no one's performing monkey.

He gestured at her with that alien three-fingered hand - a demanding, very masculine gesture. "You will move, and I will observe."

"Move how?"

He motioned to the opposite wall of the small cell. "Run to that wall."