Baki: Stranded With An Alien, A Sci-fi Holiday Tail, page 1
BAKI
STRANDED WITH AN ALIEN
A SCIFI HOLIDAY TAIL
ELLA MAVEN
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © November 2022 by Ella Maven
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means.
Cover design by Natasha Snow Designs
ABOUT BAKI
While on the run from the aliens who abducted me from Earth, I find an abandoned shack on this alien planet and hide inside. When a winter storm descends, I’m stuck inside with no food, no warm clothes, and only melted snow for water.
But I’m not alone. There is a blue alien outside watching me with his violet eyes. I’ve seen his bulk, his powerful tail, and the sharp blades that emerge from underneath his scaly skin. I figure that I’m done for, and that I’ll freeze to death in this shack like a lonely human popsicle. But then the gifts start appearing under a snow-covered tree. And I have to wonder—is this a lure to coax me out of my hiding spot, or is this some sort of miracle?
Baki is part of a shared series with talented authors in the science fiction romance genre. It is also a part of the Outcasts of Corin series by Ella Maven, but can be read as standalone.
Check out the rest of the books in the series:
STRANDED WITH AN ALIEN
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
About the Author
ONE
Baki
Vinz fiddled with the handlebars on my bike. With a scrunched nose, he eyed me. “How long are you going to be?”
Ever since bonding with his mate, Vinz had been quite the family man. And to him, that family included our entire village of Sari, which included me. I attached my pack to the back of my bike and pulled the strap tight to secure it. “As long as it takes.”
He frowned. “That’s not a good answer.”
I gripped him around the back of his neck and brought our foreheads together in the traditional Drixonian warrior sign of affection. “You know I’ll be fine.”
He huffed, and his hot breath puffed over my face. “The weather is supposed to be shet.”
I pulled away and patted my pack. “I have plenty of supplies.”
His tail swiped the ground behind as he nibbled on his lip. “Maybe I should go with you.”
We had just relocated to a new village after our old camp had been ambushed by our Joktal enemies and burned to the ground. Our new home was perfect for the mated members of my clavas and for the rest of our warriors, but for me, the closeness was suffocating. I had always kept to myself, and at our old camp I spent most of my time tending to my beloved yuza plants. We seasoned our food with the seeds, healed wounds with the juice from the stems, and dried the leaves to smoke when we needed to relax. We had to leave our old camp in a hurry, and the yuza plants had been too young to move without killing them. In the new village, I’d spent time fixing some of the structures and hunting. But I yearned to return to my field of yuza and retrieve the plants so I could once again grow them in our new village.
And a large part of me was eager to be alone with my own thoughts for the first time in a while.
I shook my head at Vinz’s offer to come along. “There are four females now for us to protect. Stay and spend time with your mate.”
“Maybe I can get another warrior—”
“Stop.” I patted his shoulder. “I have to harvest the yuza now or the entire crop will be lost. I’ve done it by myself for many cycles. I’ll be back before you can miss me.”
Vinz opened his mouth to likely protest again when a female voice shouted, “Baki!”
Amber, Vinz’s mate, jogged toward us carrying a small satchel. Her curly hair bounced around her shoulders while her pale cheeks carried a faint flush. I knew what that was from since my hut was next to theirs. Vinz was very loud in all aspects of his life, even under his furs with his mate.
Amber was kind and gentle. Some of the other females from Earth weren’t sure what to make of me—I wasn’t like most of the other Drixonian warriors, especially our drexel Kutzal who walked around scowling and barking orders at everyone who wasn’t his mate.
Handing me the satchel, Amber smiled softly. “The girls and I made you some treats. Vinz said it might snow, so we also packed some flavored drink packets that Frankie showed us how to make.”
Frankie was the mate of Daz, the head drexel of the Drixonian warriors. He lived in the rebuilt city of Granit. Through the trees surrounding our village, I could see the tops of the buildings that made up the city.
Vinz dropped a kiss on top of his mate’s head. “That was kind of you.”
Amber’s eyes sparkled. “Lu enjoyed the last of the yuza, so we’re eager to grow the plants again.”
Lu was the most recent addition to our clavas—Axton had rescued her and returned her home to reunite with her friends. Two more females of their group—all escaped from the clutches of the evil Uldani—remained missing. I had already promised them all I’d keep my eyes open for any signs of the human females. “I will return the plants safe and sound in time for the warm season.”
Amber squeezed my arm, and the feel of her small, thin fingers on my scales surprised me. “We care more about you than the plants, Baki. Remember that. Bring yourself home safe and sound.”
I glanced at Vinz, but he only nodded at me in agreement. I wasn’t use to this sort of care and attention. I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Why would Amber care this much about someone who wasn’t her mate? So I responded in a husky tone. “Of course.” I cleared my throat. “I should get going. I’m trying to beat the snowstorm.”
“Don’t push it too hard,” Vinz said.
“I can stay at the old camp if the storm gets too bad. Some of the shelters survived the fire.”
Vinz frowned. “Be careful. The Joktals are still out there, and likely looking for revenge.”
“You worry too much. You know I’m great at staying out of sight.”
Vinz huffed. “Whatever. Just get back here before I have to leave my mate’s warm, soft body to come find you.”
“Vinz!” Amber smacked him in the stomach.
He stretched his mouth into a cheeky grin in response.
I laughed. “I would never make you want to do that.”
“I swear,” Amber muttered, her cheeks pinking more.
Pulling my furs tighter around my shoulders, I sat astride my bike and turned it on. The familiar rumbling between my legs excited me. “See you all soon.”
As the bike lifted into the air, propelled by the powerful jets of air beneath, Vinz and Amber stepped back as dust swirled around them. Vinz waved, and I saw him mouth, “She is All.”
“She is All!” I shouted back our creed over the rumbling of my bike. Yuza was a close second for me, but females would always come first. It was in my blood. With a roar of the bike, I took off away from our village, heading north to our former home among the cold cliffs of planet Corin.
I rode through the night and all through the next rotation, eager to get to my destination. But as the sun began to fall on the second rotation, I stopped to eat a decent meal and get some rest. The storm was coming—I could feel it in the air—but it was still a few rotations away.
With a fire crackling in front of me, and the meat of freshly killed bilket in my stomach, I leaned against my pack on the ground and stared up at the twinkling stars in the sky. I could just barely see the outline of our sister planet, Torin, where I’d lived for more than one hundred cycles. Corin was the original home of the Drixonian race, but when a virus wiped out all our females and most of our elderly males, we traveled to Corin to work for the Uldani. It took many more cycles until we realized the Uldani were attempting to turn us into mindless servants for them. We fought to free ourselves, and only when we were truly out from under Uldani rule did we return to our former home on Corin.
But Corin had changed in our absence. New species had settled here—warring, violent species who were not willing to share the bountiful planet they’d recently found. The Joktal were one such race—four-armed warriors with bony armor and not many weaknesses. They were the ones who ambushed our former home and burned most of our camp to the ground. I was part of the Lone Howl clavas, a group of outcast warriors who had long remained distant from the Drixonian community. But on Daz’s urging, we moved closer to Granit, and Kutzal seemed determined to be less isolationist, mostly for the benefit of his human mate.
I’d been fine with isolation. I’d preferred it, actually. Long ago branded as a son of naught because my father deserted the Drixonian army, I, along with the rest of the members of the Lone Howl like Vinz, had never been privy to proper Drixonian training relating to fighting and giving females pleasure. I’d grown up on my own, cultivating plants and befriending wildlife because taking lives was never something I enjoyed. When I did hunt for food, I always thanked the animal for giving up its life for me.
So under the darkening sky and sparkling stars, I sighed with conte
I’d been dozing when I jerked awake. I took a moment to assess what had woken me, when a twig snapped somewhere in the distance. My cora slammed against the cage of my chest as I slowly reached for my bladed staff.
It was probably just a foraging antella, or maybe a bilket rummaging among the brush, but then a pair of glowing eyes flashed from behind the trunk of a tree. I gathered my feet under me and curled my tail protectively around my feet just as I heard the sharp intake of breath. A moment later, two Joktals burst through the clearing.
Striding forward on thick legs, they were fast fleckers. They each wore a harness lined with blades, and one bled from a wound on his arm. Their large triangle heads were nothing but leathery skin stretched over hard bone. “Where is she, Drix?” One spat through his mouth-hole full of sharp teeth. “We know you have her.”
I stayed in my crouched position. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sniff her out,” one growled at the other. “While I beat the truth out of this one.”
The last battle was still fresh in mind—I could still hear the war cries from my fellow warriors and feel the sticky blood on my face and in my hair. The smell of our burning homes remained stuck in my nostrils. Sometimes I woke up thinking I was still there cutting through Joktal bodies and stepping over them as they lay dying at my feet.
The blood. The smells. The death rattles. I never got used to them.
But I couldn’t turn tail and run. According to them, there was a she somewhere around here, and I couldn’t let them chase her down. It was either them or me, and I was betting on me. I let my machets emerge from my scales on my forearms, head and down my back. The Joktals snorted at the sight but didn’t back down.
I surged up from my crouch and slammed the blade end of my spear into an eye of the Joktal closest to me. The weapon sank into his skull with a wet crunch. Blood flowed down the shaft, and I went to my dark place.
I didn’t know what I did after that—I never did. All I knew was that suddenly I stood near my dying fire, my staff held limply at my side, and two massacred Joktal bodies still twitching. I’d nearly decapitated one, and the other lay with his guts strewn near my bike. I registered some pain near my shoulder, and I glanced down to see a wound bleeding black blood, mingling with the yellow blood stains of the Joktals.
My muscles ached and trembled while my head spun. This was always the worst part—the realization after the blackout. Sometimes I wondered if this had happened to my father too, and if that was why he’d deserted the Drixonian army. If that was the case, I couldn’t say I resented him for changing the course of my life. With every act of violence, I found a little bit more of myself slipping away.
I ached for a puff of yuza, but we’d used the last of my stock a while ago back at the village. Yuza was what brought me back into myself. Kept me centered and focused. Without it, I might have gone mad long ago. Violence would never leave my life, I realized that. Yuza was how I coped. And once I couldn’t find a way to cope… then my life might not be worth it anymore.
I kicked dirt over the fire to suffocate the last remaining embers and gathered my things. I tried to rinse the blood off my scales as best as I could, but I could feel the dried flakes sticking to me. My hair was heavy with it. I wanted to vomit.
I couldn’t stay there with the bodies at the scene of the crime so I retied my pack to the back of my bike and took off in the darkness for the settlement. The air grew cooler the farther north I traveled, and the wind picked up. The sun was just rising over the horizon when I cleared the last treeline and crested the last hill before coming to a stop on the cliff’s edge—the former home of the Lone Howl clavas.
All that remained of Kutzal’s hut was a foundation of blackened char on the rocks. The stairs on the cliff leading down to the ledges where we’d built our huts had been smashed. Leaning over the edge of the cliff, I watched the waves of the freshas smash against the bottom rocks.
The bridge leading to Vinz’s hut on the next cliff was long gone, and so was his building. Our communal fire pit on the cliff’s edge was covered over with dried twigs. Anger flared at the way we were erased from our home, but I couldn’t dwell too long on it. This place was also tainted with a bloody battle that almost killed several of our warriors. One of our youngest—Trapt—nearly gave his life in an effort to get help for us when we’d been under siege.
Leaving my bike hidden under a large bush, I strode off in the direction of my crops and my drying shack which had also doubled as my home. I used to sleep there among the drying yuza away from the rest of the clavas. While Vinz was friendly with me, I had never been very close with any of the warriors. I think they thought me odd. And they were not wrong.
Vinz lived for battle. So did Kutzal. They reveled in protecting their females with bloodshed. I wanted the females safe too, but I didn’t enjoy killing to do it. I wished I did. My hands shook as I held them out of in front of me, still stained with the Joktals’ blood. Why couldn’t I be like every other Drixonian warrior?
I reached the edge of my crop fields and my shoulders slumped in relief at the sight of the yuza plants standing tall and ready to be harvested. It was a little past their prime, but the plants would just be a bit sweeter. I had managed to arrive before they turned bitter, which was all I hoped for.
A freshwater stream that led into the freshas trickled nearby, and I crouched on the bank to wash off the rest of my skin. Intent on washing my machets as well, I lifted them from underneath my scales. The black blades were still sticky, and I was just smoothing the water over my back and hair when a splash caught my attention.
I didn’t have my staff on me, but I kept my machets raised as I slowly stood. There couldn’t be more Joktals here, could there?
I thought about running when the sight of a patch of skin caught my eye. It wasn’t the red of the Joktals or the brown furred skin of the Wutark. Long dark hair dripped down a pale back, and then a head turned. One brown eye stared at me, while the other could only be seen through a bloody, swollen slit. The human female stood on one leg while the other was tucked against her, the ankle at an awkward angle. Bloody, wearing nothing but a stained, torn shirt, she stood frozen.
What I didn’t expect her to do next was let out a scream so piercing that I had to cover my ears moments before she cocked back her arm and whipped a rock directly at my head.
TWO
Thea
As soon as the rock left my hand, I took off on a sprint. Well, as much as I could sprint with a seriously messed up ankle and wonky depth perception as my one eye was nearly swollen shut.
I splashed through the water without any finesse, hoping my rock hit its target and would buy me some time, but I wasn’t very hopeful. That blue alien had been huge, with glowing purple eyes and freaking blades sticking out of his arms. Any second now, I expected to feel the slice of those spikes tearing my back into ribbons.
I hit the bank with a cry and scrabbled up the mud with two hands and one working foot. A grunt behind me let me know the alien wasn’t far behind, and I ran harder, putting weight on my ankle that I feared broken. Sobbing as pain lit up every single nerve receptor in my body, I hobbled across a field of plants that appeared more like crops than wild foliage. Planted in a row, they were all the same height and towered over my head. Footsteps pounded behind me, and a desperate cry bubbled up my throat. I didn’t even know where I was going, or what I was doing. Pain warped my thoughts, and fleeing seemed like the only option to survive.
