Alien Primal's Claim

Chapter One

Merrit

It’s a bleak morning.

I mean, it’s a desert so every morning is pretty bleak but I swear, things look grayer today than they did yesterday. Usually, the earth has a golden hue to it. Was this what the Drokan meant when they said we damaged their land? The earth looks like the life has been sucked out of it.

Or maybe, it’s just us.

As I walk through our sad little camp, I notice everything has a gray tone to it. Not just the earth, but the tents, the gaunt faces watching me as I walk by, and even the sky which is normally brilliant blue.

My stomach grumbles. Usually, the rations are enough to satisfy me but not today. Today, I can’t ignore the hunger pains. It’s starting to feel like I’m truly starving.

Cress will be back today or tomorrow with extra supplies, but there are others who need it more than me. I can tough it out. I’ve always been able to do so. It’s just hard when things look grayer and grayer every day.

“Hey, Merrit,” Rosalie calls from the center of the camp. She’s taken on ration duties again today. She’s the only one everyone trusts to be completely fair. She won’t take extra for herself.

“Ready for breakfast?”

“Don’t say breakfast,” I groan. “It makes me think of eggs, bacon, pancakes and all of those other things we can’t have.”

“Sorry,” Rosalie offers a sympathetic smile. “I’m trying to make it sound better than it is.”

“It’s a nice thought.” She hands me a ration bar, a greyish-brown block that tastes much like I imagine the desert sand would. It’s packed with all of the nutrients our body needs to survive.

Survive. Not thrive.

The ration bar and a half cup of water are all we get at mealtimes. It’s exactly enough to keep us from death.

I’ve lost ten pounds since we crash-landed.

The weirdest part is, I don’t remember the crash at all. I remember the alarm going off. I remember Cress and I splitting up because there weren’t enough empty safe rooms. After that, nothing. The next thing I knew, I woke up in the safe room I was lucky enough to get to. It took the surviving crew nearly twelve hours to find me.

“Want me to wait for you?” I ask Rosalie.

“No, I’m waiting for Saelia,” she replies. “She’s not doing well. I’m going to give her half my ration bar.”

“Saelia?” I frown. “I thought you were sharing with Dallin. Is he better?”

Rosalie bites her bottom lip and looks away. She doesn’t have to say it.

We lost another one.

Dallin is the twelfth human we’ve lost to starvation, dehydration, injuries, or the elements.

We can’t carry on like this much longer.

It’s even more frustrating knowing there’s a potential solution but I can’t get my damn hands on it. Two weeks ago, Cress was able to contact me through her comm unit. She held some kind of magic stone thing in her hand and – before it short-circuited her comm unit – she was able to project a signal. The craziest part? Other than the fact the stone made her comm unit explode after less than a minute of close contact, the power projecting her comm unit’s signal was so strong it was able to power mine.

Unfortunately, Cress wasn’t allowed to bring the stones out of the Drokan lands and, as far as I know, is no closer to getting permission than she was two weeks ago.

The Drokan, the bipedal, intelligent, horned alien race that dominates this planet, protect their land above all else. The stones are sacred to them. Cress told me they contain power, but she wasn’t able to give me anything more specific than that. She spent days on end with the Drokan when our ship first crashed into their planet but she barely understands their ways.

The only thing she, and all of the humans, know for certain is that they believe it’s their duty to maintain the natural balance of their world. Ordinarily, I’d have great respect for that kind of dedication. However, their need to maintain balance is the reason we’re starving. They won’t take more from the land without the guarantee of something in return.

As unfair as I think this whole mess is, I’m willing to play nice in order to get what the humans need.

I might have the solution if I could just run some tests on one of those stone things. It wreaked havoc on Cress’s comm unit but if I could tweak the energy into a manageable level…

Something across the desert catches my eye. It’s one of the Drokan gliders coming through the mountain pass.

Apparently, our doomed ship, The Precursor landed in the desert on the northern side of the Snowy Mountains, the farthest of the Drokan territories. Cress mentioned that there were Desert Drokan at some point, but no one has seen them in a century or so after they split off from the main tribe.

Frankly, I don’t give a rats ass about the Desert Drokan that may or may not exist. What I care about are the Drokan who, according to Cress, have an oasis at the center of their lands. Her mate -yes, mate. That’s a thing here – is a Plains Drokan. A hunter, if I remember correctly.

He’s a nice enough alien. I’ll admit that. The whole mate concept is still fuzzy for me, but he obviously loves Cress. The human’s survival rides on that love. Kor, the Plains Drokan, and Cress are working tirelessly to get the Drokan Chief to sympathize with us.

However, the Chief remains firm. Once we have something to offer, he’ll be willing to trade. Cress already came up with the brilliant plan of exchanging tech for resources.

The Drokan, though their culture and belief system is complex, are a primitive species. They use wood and stone weapons. They dress in leathers and firs. The weirdest part for me is the fact that they don’t question anything.

They have no idea how their planet works. Hell, they didn’t even know it was a planet until Cress started using the word around them. They’d never heard that word before. Planet, human, space ship, Alliance, Coalition. All new concepts to them.

It’s amazing to me that such a large race on such a large planet managed to stay isolated from the conflicts that have spread to all corners of the galaxy.

I make my way toward the towering Snowy Mountain range. Near the foothills is the remains of a small Drokan camp. Kor and some of his Drokan friends occupied it for a short time when it seemed like some kind of alliance would be easy to accomplish.

Kor is the only one who uses it now, but it’s only to drop off extra supplies he manages to smuggle out to us.

I arrive at the camp just as Cress lands her glider.

We always do handoffs here. Cress spends almost every night with Kor in the Center, the bountiful oasis at the center of the Drokan lands. A small part of me resents her for it. Why does she get to live in comfort while the rest of us suffer?

I know it’s not fair of me to feel that way. She’s working harder than anyone to smuggle extra supplies and broker an alliance. She deserves to have a warm bed and food in her belly. It’s because of her that the Drokan haven’t killed us all.

Our Captain, if he can even be called that, seems to want nothing more than to prevent any kind of positive relationship with the Drokan. He thinks they’re going to trick us, betray us, or take advantage of us. I don’t believe his paranoia is unfounded, but the ruthless hatred that drives his actions is pure poison.

It’s because of him that Cress can’t make headway with the Drokan Chief. Though it’s impossible to prove, Captain Kincaid manipulated the men he chose as his confidantes. He used fear to make them nervous. When ten Drokan warriors approached our camp, one twitchy man fired an old blaster, killing a Drokan.

It would’ve been a slaughter if Kor and Cress hadn’t stopped it. There are less than two hundred and fifty humans left from the original one thousand. Ten Drokan could’ve wipes us all out.

“Welcome back,” I grin.

“I brought water,” Cress says, passing two oiled leather sacks to me. “I couldn’t get anything else without looking suspicious. The Drokan are starting to wonder why Kor and I go through our stores so quickly.”

“You’re taking this from your personal larder?” I ask.

“Of course,” Cress smiles. “Kor and I keep a little to eat and drink. We send the rest to you guys.”

Hmm, maybe she’s not living as comfortably as I assumed.

“Are you expected back immediately?” I ask. She gives me a reproachful look.

“If you’re going to ask what I think you’re going to ask, don’t,” she warns me.

“Just let me fiddle with that glider for an hour!” I plead.

The Drokan gliders are the most advanced tech I’ve seen from their land. They strap onto one’s back like wings. There’s a small switch that, through a crude system of pulleys, forces two pieces of flint to strike together. When the flint sparks, the spark hits one of the very stones I want to study. The reaction between the spark and the stone isn’t understood, but it generates enough power to push the glider off the ground. That’s how Cress can journey through the mountain pass in only a few hours.

It’s inconvenient either way, but it’s better than nothing. Every time I see the gliders, I think about the Multi-Terrain vehicles we have on the ship. They don’t work, of course. Nothing works. But they could work if I was allowed to look at the damn stones.

“I can’t cross Chief Tahakan like that,” Cress sighs. “Any alliance we forge is going to be built on trust. I can’t go behind his back. He doesn’t want the humans to know about the stones. He thinks Captain Kincaid will raid the Center for them.”

“To be fair, Captain Kincaid would try to if he knew about them.” Cress, Rosalie and I were the only humans who knew about the stones. We never spoke about them within the human camp. “But we’re running out of time!”

“I’m working as fast as I can,” Cress pleads.

“Dallin died last night.” It’s low of me to use Dallin’s death as leverage, but I’m desperate. “Saelia’s fading fast, according to Rosalie.”

Cress goes pale.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“I know what you can do,” I say, gripping her hand. “Take me into the Center. You’re Kor’s mate. Doesn’t that make you royalty or something?”

“Not really,” she frowns.

“But you won’t be killed on sight and that’s better than what the rest of us can get,” I counter. “Take me into the Center. Let me just look at the stones. I already know about them and what harm has that done?”

Cress hesitates.

“Cress, more are going to die if we don’t do something.”

“You’re right,” she sighs. “Drop off the water, then we’ll go. I only have this one glider, it’s not set up for two riders. It’s going to be a rough ride in.”

“That doesn’t scare me,” I grin and scoop up the water sacks. “I’ll be right back. Thank you, Cress. I’ll take all the flak from the Chief.”

“You better.”