Kilania Part One

Adriane

BANG!

Running through a giant spaceship full of trigger happy aliens was not the way I wanted to start my day.

Loud bang after bang after bang echoed through the hallways as I dodged and weaved through the maze, trying to find some place to hide. But eventually, I was outmaneuvered.

I slid to a halt, almost becoming a human pancake on the wall, and turned only to feel blaster fire gently graze my shoulder, drawing blood.

Uh, ow! That fucker just shot me! I thought angrily.

"You're dead human!" the alien screamed making his antennae twitch. His giant, bug-like eyes stared me down, full of fire. His red skin oozed with various burns, blisters, and open wounds. The blaster in his hand looked menacing and his talon scratched off some of the paint of his gun just from holding it. His species were called Xunans and they are fucking terrifying.

I quickly ran through my options in my head:

1. Let him kill me,

2. Escape, or

3. Kill him.

The first two were impossible. The third would have to do. Thundering footsteps rang in my ears. That could only mean that more guards were going to come and join the party.

The alien shot at me again. I ducked and rolled, pulling out my own gun in the process. I didn't aim, didn’t need to; it was a perfect shot to the heart. My ears rang from his screams. His carcass fell to the floor smoking; blue blood spilled from its wound and dyed its red skin purple.

I am NOT cleaning that up, I thought to myself.

And to add to the mayhem, the voices and pounding footsteps were getting closer and closer. Even if I ran, I would be caught in seconds.

I pressed a button on my suit right next to my neck and a cherry red motorcycle helmet appeared, melting into the needed shape and automatically tucking my long black locks into it. Only I could remove the helmet, unless you know, someone cut off my head or something. Well, that’s not entirely true. One other person can remove my helmet but we can talk about him later. With my helmet on, no one would recognize me as myself, but instead as my alter-ego, Kilania. But it also had a built-in voice changing system to make me sound like...well, a dude.

Oh I DREAM about the day that Viti finds out that "Kilania" is really a girl.

Finally, I got to see what the pounding footsteps had brought. Six Fartins ran into the room with laser guns trained on me. "You WILL surrender. We will take you to Master Viti," the Fartin clicked, my translator buzzing the translation into my ear.

Now, Fartins are certainly interesting aliens. They live on the planet Givob and are some of the ugliest things that you'll ever see. They have these huge, ugly round heads with about twelve small, beady eyes that always look like they're glaring at you. They are usually a rusty orange and brown color but oddly, these ones were iridescent blue with warts covering their "humanoid" bodies. Their arms stretched almost all the way down to their feet and ended with curled talons. They are extremely skinny and look like they've never eaten anything. Despite their weak appearance, Fartins are actually some of the strongest aliens in the known universe; something about how dense their muscles, skins, and bones are that make them practically impenetrable. Plus, with their razor sharp talons and jagged teeth, they were also the most dangerous carnivorous creatures in the galaxy.

One of the Fartins tied my hands behind my back with a strong plastic cord. Despite my being stronger than ordinary teenage girls, I still wasn't strong enough to break plastic cords. They also took the time to take all my weapons away from me. Two blaster pistols, three knives, a couple grenades, and even my hidden blade in the front of my boot. Ha. And I packed light for that trip.

The guards marched me into what I could only assume was the grand hall. The entire thing looked like something out of a medieval movie with knights and horses and shit that doesn't exist in our timeline. There were painted pictures of a man, a woman, and a boy lining the walls on both sides, which I found odd since no one really painted nowadays what with the technology available. Colorful banners lined with gold were hanging from the ceiling, gently fluttering in the breeze coming through the air vents. There was a red carpet that led to a huge throne like you would expect any other rich, evil megalomaniac to do. And that's where I saw the villainous traitor, Viti Von "Destroy the Human Race" Vega.

Viti Von Vega stared at me venomously, bristling. His blood, red eyes seemed to shoot sparks in my direction. "Kilania, we meet again," he growled, obviously angry that I was still alive much less on his fucking spaceship.

"Hello Viti Von Vega," I greeted, forcing myself to act pleasant. I knew for sure that it would get on his nerves. "Love the decorations. Very....medieval," I said, taking a step forward but the guard next to me grabbed my elbow roughly and pulled me back to stand next to him.

"Thank you. Not that I needed your opinion for MY home," Viti sneered, combing his long red hair while he looked into a handheld mirror that a boy around maybe fifteen or sixteen was holding towards him. He was cute with his little shock of blonde hair that fell over his eyes. He was a few inches taller than me, but definitely weaker. He was struggling to hold up the mirror. It must’ve been pretty heavy, considering it was made out of only the finest and largest diamonds and glass. When he shook too much, Viti kicked him down. "HOLD STILL!" he screamed. The boy sprawled and the mirror came within centimeters of the floor. Then, shaking, he obediently stood up and tried to hold it as steady as possible until Viti was satisfied with his hair. "I have to ask, Kilania. What brought you to sneak on board my ship? Do you have a death wish?"

I shrugged nonchalantly. "I don't know. I just felt like dropping by to say hello since I haven't seen you in a while." In reality, Orion (a human military organization) had recruited me to discover Viti's plans. He had a lot of activity around the Zoryan galaxy but none of their agents could get close to finding out what he was up to or how he planned to destroy the human race.

Now, Viti and I have some history. I’ve foiled way more of his plans than he probably knows. It was usually stereotypical: he catches me, tells me his plan, and I escape. He never thought once to actually kill me. Except last time. I think I was finally getting to him.

"If I recall, correctly, the last time we had seen each other, I had thrown you out of an airlock. And yet you survived. I won't be making that same mistake again," he sneered, waving at his guards. The two next to me grabbed me roughly and held me in the air so my feet didn't touch the ground. "This time, I'm going to feed you to my pet, Mathal."

Well shit.

Right underneath me, the floor opened up to reveal a black hole leading down into God knows where so I could be brutally eaten by whatever the fuck he liked to keep down in his basement.

"So long, Kilania. Have fun...DYING!" Viti bellowed as his guards dropped me into the pit of darkness. I yelled the whole 50 feet down and rolled over onto the ground. Sounds of skittering and what also sounded like breathing echoed in the large black chamber around me.

"Fuck me in the ass with a cactus," I grumbled, standing up gingerly. No weapons, no light, and no idea what his 'Mathal' was. It sure sounded like my idea of a good time.

Reaching up to my helmet, I pressed a hidden button next to my ear to activate night-vision and immediately I saw a grainy green version of what was around me. I was surrounded by webs. Thousands and thousands of tiny webs blanketed the rocky interior of the giant chamber.

So Mathal had to be a giant man-eating spider. Of course.

I had to get out of there before it realized that I was there. I couldn't climb any of the webbing because if she felt any of them move, she'd skitter over immediately to eat her prey. I couldn't climb up the way I came in since the top was closed off. There had to be a way for the caretaker to take care of the habitat and make sure there was plenty of water and places for the giant spider to nest. I tread slowly over the blanketed rocks, trying to step where the web was thinnest so none of them would vibrate. Every time I heard a loud scuffle, I'd freeze, waiting to be bitten and eaten. It felt like hours before I reached a metal wall instead of a rock and sure enough, there were seams in the wall indicating a door. A small panel was next to it, maybe an emergency panel but it was completely black with no electricity running through it.

My small wrist watch came with power cables attached to them that would release an electric frequency maybe strong enough to liven the panel. It was worth a shot. I pressed the button on the side of my watch and turned the small dial just so and the side popped out with the two wires automatically attaching to the panel and emitting the frequency. The panel flickered to life but booted up slowly.

As I set to work on the panel, I felt the webs underneath my feet start to sway.

No. FUCK No no no no no no no.... I thought to myself as I quickly hacked my way through the fifteen firewalls needed just to open that stupid door.

The swaying became more and more intense but I just focused on my work, I was almost through. Just as the sways were getting too erratic to stand, the door slid open and I dived through just as webs flew over my head into the caretaker's room. I barely saw a glimpse of the large eight-legged beast before the door slid closed and it slammed into it several times trying to reach me through the metal wall.

I sighed with relief and lay on the floor for a second, listening to the incessant banging Mathal felt was oh so necessary. My heartbeat started to slow and my thoughts came back into focus.

“Alright, come on, Kilania. No time to fuck around,” I chastised myself as I got up, stretching out my arms and rolling my shoulders.

Exploring the ship was an interesting experience. The entire bottom of the ship was Mathal's chamber and the dungeons. Thankfully most of the guards were dumb Xunans and were easily knocked out from behind. I stole two blaster pistols off of one so at least I had weapons again.

The next level was the kitchens, bunks, gyms, and etcetera of the alien army Viti required to just run his stupid spaceship. All of it was medieval themed rather than the normal smooth silver and white furniture. It was all dark browns, reds, and purples with axes and other torture devices on the walls as decorations. If it wasn’t so fucking creepy, I would actually appreciate the small bit of history he chose as his decor.

Finally, finally, I had reached the docking bay where all the ships (including mine) were. And there she was, sitting very prettily, waiting patiently for her master to come home.

"And where, pray tell, do you think you're going?"

I whirled around to see the red headed boy from the paintings standing right behind me, arms crossed over his chest. He had this smirk on his face that indicated he knew I was cornered and knew he had won.

"Oh you know, out. But don't tell Dad. He'd kill me if he saw me going out in this!" I laughed nervously, tugging at my spacesuit and helmet combo.

He didn't laugh, but his smirk never left his face. "Oh I won't if you do something for me, Kilania."

I paused, contemplating murder. "I'm listening."

He slowly started to walk around me like a lion would his prey. "You see, I don't agree with my father on everything that he does. He plans to completely wipe out the human race and start over with me, him, and his wife. I like other humans, especially females and would like to keep them around. As a male, I'm sure you understand," he hissed and I just thought, Oh yeah, totally, ya sexist pig. "I will allow you to escape if you take my slave with you to keep tabs on you for me and relay information to me. I will also send you information on my father's whereabouts and...activities but I require one thing from you."

"Just one?! Bullshit. I’m already babysitting your slave!" He stood there, the constant smirk infuriating me but I tried not to let it show, so I sighed. "Ok. What is it?"

"The Stone of Naru. I'm sure you've heard of it."

I froze and took a rather large step back. "No one has ever come back from just searching for the Naru Temple... I thought it was just a myth."

"So did I," the smirk was gone, instead it was replaced with a look that was too old for the sixteen year old who wore it. "But it is very, very real and my father hunts it. If he has the stone, then all will be lost and no one will be able to stop him. But if you were to get to it before him and get it to Orion, it could be protected and we could stand a chance."

"You're serious. You don't share his beliefs?" I asked carefully and his red eyes flashed angrily at me. His hands balled into fists and I could just barely see that he was shaking. Maybe in anger. Maybe in shame.

"How could I? How could I believe that every single human is flawed and needs to be put down? That we're nothing but a disease among the stars and we pollute everywhere we go? Aliens do it too and they aren't trying to wipe out their whole race. It needs to stop. I just hope it will before any more blood gets spilled," the boy looked at me, rather sadly. "Unfortunately, I have to resort to you, my father's enemy, to save the lives of every human in the universe."

"How unfortunate for you," I said dryly, shaking my head. "What’s that saying? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?” I looked at him and took a step forward. “Well, I promise I will hunt down the stone and do everything in my power to keep it from your father." I reached out my hand to shake his and he hesitated but his hand met mine in a firm grasp and we shook our agreement. "I will ready my ship. Send your slave aboard immediately and I will depart."

"Good luck, my new ally. Keep in contact.”