“Aachat 14, MMXV. Approaching atmosphere of host 716. Will reach destination in 1 hour.” The overwhelming disinterest in Aiduiin’s voice was not hidden as he made yet another report. For the 6 weeks now he had been trapped on this insufferable mission. His whole life he had been prepped for this, when the time would come that he must obtain a wife. Normally this task would be simple. Go to the courts, find a young woman of suitable upbringing then wed and bed her. Not for Aiduiin though. Being born at the wrong time meant that he would have to go far out of his way and work a dozen times harder to obtain his future bride. Tradition, tradition. One must always uphold tradition. Having been repeated to him his entire life, the words now forever echoed in his mind. Regardless of how troublesome or boring this mission was, it must be done, for traditions sake.

From the moment his people had managed space travel this mission had been repeated every 5th generation. By the time space travel had become a reality for his kind, they had long since known the advantages of a large biodiversity. Though after years of encouraging the populace to be adventurous in their breeding partners, they had reached a stagnation. After leaving their planet for the first time, they had found that life existed elsewhere. In a far larger quantity than ever anticipated and by the grave of the Mother they had been genetically compatible with a fair few. And so, with that knowledge the tradition of Mingling began.

Every 5th generation the current heir to the royal blood must research and document a species from a foreign host planet. And, upon reaching adulthood and marrying age, they were to travel to said host and obtain a partner. Together the heir and spouse would produce a large number of offspring to be released into the general public, increasing the diversity and subsequent strength of their people. This tradition had worked brilliantly. During the stagnation Knurrians had become close to identical to one another, but now they had quite a variance in their appearances. And the planning and timing had been exquisite, the new genetics were introduced frequently enough so that stagnation didn’t reoccur, but also far enough apart that they didn’t become a new species entirely.

Done with his musing Aiduiin removed himself from his seat. Gingerly he moved himself through the halls of the expansive ship, passing the many rooms contained within. Most of them were quarters for the team aboard, a large eatery at the center and the control console at the head of the ship. The rest of the rooms were classes, designed to teach the prince’s future bride in the ways of his people. The purpose being to decrease the shock endured when arriving at Knuddir. As he passed Aiduiin peeked into each one to assure all was as it should be. Satisfied with the results, he continued his walk towards the console.

Entering the room he was pleasantly surprised to see that they had now entered 716’s atmosphere. Earth as its natives addressed it. It really was a lovely looking planet. Quite unlike that of Knuddirs, this planets climate changed quite dramatically across its globe. Knuddir was hot and dry, a vast red desert with only few areas of lush forest. 716 seemed to be the opposite. While he spotted the odd desert, 716 had a far greater amount of woods and cold parts. The only cold parts of Knuddir were its polar ends. Admiring the view he saddled himself alongside Ecaeris, captain of the ship and Aiduiin’s younger sister.

“Where to, brother?” Her voice was sweet as usual, betraying her true nature of a cold and calculating. A voice and appearance of a flower, but the heart and mind of harsh commander. A combination that for anyone apart from Aiduiin and their parents had been a source of confusion. Scanning the 716’s surface he pointed towards a heavily forested area in the north-west hemispheres. It was hard to notice from their distance, but a small clearing laid within it. Most likely what the humans referred to as a campsite and the ideal place to pick a person up unnoticed. Nodding, Ecaeris changed gears on the ship and swooped down to just above the treeline.

Slowly they swept through the area before the finally stopped at the clearing they had seen from higher up. Aiduiin’s suspicions had been correct and with a flick of a switch they began scanning for life. It had taken some time, but they eventually came across a tent that held a person within. Luckily for them, based off the scan this person was also female. Meaning they had found a target in their first search. Aiduiin left his sisters side to face a large wall of controls. Quickly he set to work, adjusting the conditions within the ship to match the atmosphere and climate of 716. During the return trip it would slowly adjust to that of Knuddir, adapting the human captive. Once the process was complete, he opened up the hatch for the cargo bay and started the absorption beam. This device had been a genius invention. Before it existed, Aiduiin’s ancestors had to manually retrain and confine their targets. Now? With a flip of a switch they would be pulled off the ground and brought into the shape, as if pulled by a magnet.

Flipping that very switch, the outside lights of the ship turned to shine down on the camp as the beam made its descent.

Jaq flipped open her satellite phone and let one leg dangle out of the open door of the cockpit. Her eyes peered around the small site and then she grinned. It was perfect. Just perfect. And with the sudden draining of the beaver lake, she was bound to find some interesting things. Tomorrow was shaping up to be a good day. It was just too bad she hadn't managed to have enough day light to explore on her return flight. Not that she minded camping out, but it was a bit of a pain in the ass to get someone to watch over Rocky.

“APJ-798, calling for flight restructure.” She bit her lower lip and tried her best not to squirm in her seat.

“Flight restructure, go ahead APJ-798 and what are you doing calling out like this?” Owen snapped. “You take that generator?”

“I'll be sure to use it tonight,” she leaned to the side and patted the hand crank generator at her side. She'd have to recharge the phone so that it could be used again – the downside of being a woman in a man's job while the oldest crab at the field was her adopted grandfather. Other pilots could keep their phones off. She was expected to have it on at all times.

“GPS coordinates.”

She relayed her position and then hopped out of her plane with the phone to her ear. Opening the side door under the wing, she pulled a small pack out of the mid section and let it thump on the ground. “Beaver Lake is drained, Pops – I'm going to take a look at it tomorrow. I'd have landed in it, but at a low drive, it looked mucky so I landed just south east of the old dam. It looks to be a four mile hike in. I'll be back tomorrow night in time to take the Masters party of three up to Ron's place.”

“Was gonna have you fly in a kayak crew tomorrow,” Owen grumbled.

“Have Steve take that on. He doesn't earn his keep anyway,” she grinned. “Gonna sign off. Need to set up camp. Love ya.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

He didn't remind her to take precautions. He didn't tell her to sleep in her plane or to put her food up into a cache or to make sure she had cleared the ground or any of the other, silly things you have to tell those from the lower forty-eight to do in order to keep them alive. He knew she could take care of herself and besides, he had his pacifier, her phone was still on.

The tent went up with the swift deft hand of practice in a matter of moments and a fire was made. She cooked a can of ravioli and drank from the water tank in her plane. Jaq took off her clothing and replaced everything with sweats that she could wear just about anywhere, then she pulled out a couple of bottles of beer from her cooler in the plane and cracked them open.

There was the sound of the fire popping and the feel of the beer and an adventure the next day, Jaq could have said, at that moment, there was no other place she ever could have wanted to be. She nestled into the thin sleeping bag, smacked her lips and reminded herself that she had to brush her teeth the next morning. She hadn't done it before bed. Not that anyone would care.

Yes – perfection was the life she led at that moment. Most people had no idea what they were missing out on.

That was, of course, all before the sudden flare of light. Jaq blinked, it was silent and the light was as if she were in the middle of a high school football field during a home game. Her skin rushed all over prickles and she blinked, stared at the roof of her tent as she tried to get her head into the reality of whatever had just, very unexpectedly happened.

“What the hell?” she covered her eyes and scrambled out of the tent, grasping for the five hundred magnum she kept under her pillow, holding it at her side as she crouched and looked around. The entire field was aflame with bright light, unnatural light. Holding her hand at her brow, she sought out the source which was, unaccountably overhead, and then scrambled slightly to one side. If it was a helicopter, it was a silent one, and if it was silent, it was something new and military or research based.

No one was doing research as far north as she was. It didn't make sense. She went for the trees, her inner voice screaming at her to get moving. Something wasn't right and she really didn't have time to figure out what it was and decide on a perfect response to it. No – there were times when flight and then reconnaissance was the answer. She had left her phone back in the tent, but she had her gun and no matter who was flaring a light into her camp, she was fairly certain she'd set things straight for all parties concerned once she knew who it was she had to set things straight with.

So, it was with a bit of a hiccup of surprise that, before reaching the edge of the clearing, a beam of even stronger light fell around her and she suddenly felt as if every part of her was in water.

Or, something. She screamed and twisted, tried to grab onto a bush but whatever it was (not water, she breathed and she wasn't wet, but she felt 'buoyant' of all things) pulled at her and she felt the bush leave her hand. She spun a moment and then straightened out. Her arms and legs felt like they were no longer in water so much as up against molasses and she took in deep breaths in an attempt to keep calm.

Oh, that was so not going to happen. She couldn't catch her breath. Her body was so tense she might as well have been made of stone and her lungs felt shrunk; no air in the universe was going to make it inside of her, not when every cell of her body wanted to run and run NOW.

The light wasn't warm, but it was blinding in a way that the previous light had tried to be. She couldn't see the ground, couldn't see what was going on, but she knew she had left the trees because a wind which had rustled the tops of the trees before, brushed her side. That didn't make sense, because it was molasses and who ever heard of wind in molasses, she found herself thinking hysterically.

It wasn’t any surprise that the lights had awoken the creature that rested inside. Neither was the dramatic reaction that she displayed. To his right Ecaeris smirked as the being flailed around trying to resist the force the pulled her ever closer to entering the ship. A look of sick pleasure had plastered itself to her face. Aiduiin tried to share in her joy, knowing that he should having captured a specimen with such ease. Still, he couldn’t find the whole ordeal to be anything more than lack-lustre. Despite this he continued to watch as the woman drew nearer to the cargo entrance until, eventually, he heard the hum of gears as the hatch closed beneath its newest shipment. Knowing that his captive was securely within the ship, Aiduiin sauntered from the console and back down the halls.

He was in no great hurry, and so, took his time to the hold. About halfway down the stretch there was a sharp jolt that caused him to use the wall for support. Turning to peer through a nearby window he saw the cause. Faster than the eyes could properly take in, mountains rushed by as the ship hurtled itself from the atmosphere. Why his sister opted for such a hasty retreat, Aiduiin could only wonder. It did however cause his mind to wander, as it so often did. This time to pitiful creature stuck in the cargo hold. Unlike where he stood, the cargo had very limited stabilisation. Most shipments, seeing as they weren’t living, would be tied or bolted down. He doubted that the handlers would have done so to a person. If he had lost balance, he could only imagine the force felt down below.

Pushing his thoughts away he ventured further through the ship, stopping at the medical ward.

“Rhistel, is your team ready?” Aiduiin didn’t wait for them to notice him, or announced his arrival. He just spoke. And though it took a moment, the doctor did turn to him a smile stuck to his face. Giving a curt bow before replying.

“Of course, ch’Tadous.” Still smiling, almost unnervingly so, he turned to his staff and barked out instructions. Within minutes they had gathered, tools in hand. From restraints to needles. There was no denying that come what may, they were prepared. Leading the group Aiduiin finished his trek through the hall, until he reached the elevator to the cargo bay. Just before entering however he stopped and pushed the medical staff in front. In case this specimen was hostile, he preferred to have some obstacles between her and him.

Once they reached the bay the automatic door opened, revealing the girl standing in the center. Without a moment’s hesitation the group launched towards her. Together they wasted no time in restraining her as Rhistel readied the sedative. From the doorway Aiduiin stood and watched, only approaching once the drug was administered and the woman began to drift off. He came in closer to get a proper look at her features, briefly wondering if she could see him through her now hazed vision. Grabbing a hold of her dainty chin he moved her to and fro, becoming familiar with her features. Most remarkably was the lightness in her eyes, to which Aiduiin couldn’t help but stare at until they closed. With his curiosity sated he handed her off to the medics who, after strapping her to the gurney, sped back to the ward.

---

Several hours later, at the urging of his parents and sister, Aiduiin found himself seated in the corner of the woman’s room waiting for her to awaken. More than once he had questioned if the dosage had been too for her small frame. He had also remarked on how her form was so like, and unlike, that of the Knurrians. From his father’s warnings, he had expected to be wedding a monstrous beast. Which she was clearly not. Admittedly many aspects of her appearance were odd, they were not unpleasant to look upon.

Mostly during his wait though he stayed in the corner, curled up with a book. Just as he was when he heard the telltale stirring come from her bed. Slowly he looked over to where she lay,

“Good Morning,” His tone was entirely neutral with neither animosity nor amity held within it. He wanted to make it clear that this was all just a formality. Though it wasn’t entirely lost on him that she mightn’t have clue to what he was saying. During his studies he had learned that 716 contained many, many languages and could only hope that he had chosen the right one to learn.

Jaq managed a scream half way up and the sound did little to ease away the way there seemed an attraction to every part of her body. So when she was drawn through a large hole and deposited somewhat roughly against the …

Not an idiot and just because something was unlikely, didn't make it impossible. Highly improbable, no doubt, but never impossible. And if there was metal under her knees where she knelt, boneless, then someone had put it there. She sucked in breath, coughing past the pain in her throat, then looked around her.

The room was cavernous. Large, storage tanks sat against walls and stacked upon one another, tethered with some manner of thickened rope. Not military issue then. It was silly to think “military” just because she'd been sucked into a room in the sky, but she wasn't ready for what else could be doing the same thing. At that point of time, the probability index got so large and open-ended that anything was possible and she wasn't ready to deal with time travel, aliens, or heaven being a warehouse like space with what had been a very direct beam of light as an elevator.

Her body wracked with another choking cough, almost fell and she planted her hands down, one hand coming down on her magnum. She hadn't lost it. She laughed, lost a bit, then reached for it. If nothing else, she could make some damage for whomever thought it was a good idea to nab her.

Fingers closing around the gun, suddenly the entire floor juddered underneath her and a force, very similar to thrust (who was she kidding? She'd been flying long enough to know thrust – only she hadn't flown jet planes and this was less like her old Cessna and a bit more like a F-13 press), threw her headlong, skittering down the floor. Everything inclined (ascent, then) and she scrabbled at the smooth flooring, losing the gun, and tumbling hard into one of the large crates. Her head hit the side of the container hard and she held tightly to the rope (smooth, thin, like silk almost) as the entire warehouse (c'mon, you can call it a ship) inclined and then put on an extra burst of speed.

There was a knock through the entire space, like atmospheric interference, and then the ride smoothed out. She knew, intellectually, that they had to be going fast or there would have been some deceleration forces to contend with but she'd never thought anything could be so fast without some interaction with the air.

Unless they weren't in air any more.

Her head hurt. And the air smelled funny. She coughed again, pulled herself to her feet, and wobbled across the floor just as a door opened opposite of her.

Frozen at the sight before her, her mind spinning to wonder where in hell her gun had flown, she stared at the... They were strange, alien. With a burst of panic, she turned and bolted back toward where she'd been thrown. She had to find her weapon.

It wasn't like she'd learn any time soon, but it seemed to her that she might have thought of the whole resistance is futile bollocks when she'd been pulled in by their tractor beam. Still, she had to try and she knew the foregone conclusion of something sharp pricking the back of her shoulder was going to take her down. They were fast, too. Faster than she was. She was concussed and couldn't breathe from all the panic and they – well, they were weird alien thingies with alien technology. When she hit the ground, her cheek bloomed into pain and she rolled to one side, pushed weakly at hands that grasped her arms, and then went dark.

Nothing of the panic and all of the pain in cheek and head and back were present when she woke, however. Jaq reached up to touch her forehead. She blinked and instead of the usual white of a hospital room, she saw muted colors and rounded corners. She frowned. “How bad?” she groaned out around the musty feeling of her mouth. How bad had the crash been?

”Good morning,” an unfamiliar voice with a strange accent intoned.

Turning her head toward the sound, she blinked and then rubbed her eyes. “Sorry, morning. My eyes are acting funny. What drugs you guys got me on?”

It didn't matter if she rubbed her eyes again or not. It was worth a try and she found it failed as miserably as the first time. A man sat there, undoubtedly a man. But he wasn't really a man. He looked like a Trekkie cos-player from her brother's geeky friends' facebook accounts. Only, there was something painfully different.

She'd been told they used color tints in movies to help the computer generated images work more smoothly with the real things around them, so that the eye saw movies from a distance, the colors not quite right. Maybe the tint, then, was wrong. This man looked decidedly orange and very much real, down to a slight twitch on his cheek under, was that scaling?

“My plane?” she grasped onto her first supposition that she'd been in a bad crash and fought to quell the sudden wash of bad memory from that awful dream. “Where's Papa Owen? How is my plane?” Her head hurt and she wasn't sure she could sit up, considering she was seeing things across the way.

A smirk cracked across Aiduiin’s face. Partly at the words in the book he held, it had just reached a decidedly inappropriate scene, and mostly from the bewilderment of his newly awoken guest. Compared to what he expected, her reaction was very subdued. From the lifelong lessons and classes he had been subject to, he was expecting every manner of fuss when she came to. Screaming threats and violent actions, instead she seemed to not fully grasp what had happened. Which was understandable given her, uh, predicament, for lack of a better word.

Listening to her increasingly panicked voice did come with some relief however: He had indeed chosen the right language. Admittedly it was very different listening to a, presumably, native speaker than computer that had been programmed to repeat words it was fed. Most notably was the speed. Computers were relatively slow when trying to produce language of any kind, and like with any native speaker, she spoke at a rate that was rough to follow. It took him a tick longer for Aiduiin to register and translate what she was saying than it normally would have.

“Sorry, morning. My eyes are acting funny. What drugs you guys got me on?”

Aiduiin simply looked at her, perplexed. She thought she was on drugs? Well, technically she had been on a sedative but that was clearly gone from her system. And he had never known a drug that caused a person to see something as outlandish as living person. Clearly, though, Earth must have such components. Though in that moment, Aiduiin couldn’t fathom why one would want to consume them, even if they proved to help medically.

He shook his head in response, “You are on no drugs.” His assurance tough seemed to have little effect on her as she continued on.

“My plane?” Her voice seemed slightly more frantic than before, “Where’s Papa Owen? How is my plane?”

Straight faced Aiduiin removed himself from the seat taking a small step forward, “I do not know what is a pupah-owan…” He was another few steps closer to her bedside, “But your craft is fine.” With that he closed in on the bed, reaching a hand out for hers. Now that she was awake, he thought it prudent to get to work and not waste time. He grabbed hold of her hand, dwarfing it within his own, and tried to urge her to get up, “Come, much to do.” First, and most important, would be to get her health examined.

Jaq felt her hand taken and the sensation was so alarming that her entire being focused on it. His (he looked like a he, sounded like a he, was more than likely a he – though her dizzy alarm that the rules suddenly no longer seemed to apply around her burbled into a half-hysterical thought of it genders were consistent across …. No. No reason to put any paltry word to what she found herself in) hand was soft and firm in a way that a human hand would not be. It was as if his skin had a different function, similar but for a different environment. She'd felt that strangeness once when she'd met a rancher friend of her father's and his hand had felt like an old suitcase, widened at the tips like his hands had spent years flattened against hard, rough surfaces. But then, it had been a hand. The rest of him, tanned and wrinkled and sweet voiced, was human.

She froze. It was the last action available for her. She'd already tried to run, she did not know what to fight, was not sure she should be crying – there was nothing short of falling over in a dead faint left but she had never been the fainting type.

He was strong and he drew her upwards and in her fading certainty, she followed the almost real presence of certainty in his voice and his hold on her hand. Robotically, she pulled out from under the (were they blankets?) covering that had been on her, rising beside him.

Standing, the change of position, shook her out of her lethargy and she tilted her head to look up at him. He was very tall, slightly more slender than she was accustomed to, but it settled well upon a bone structure that might have been human except there was a loose limbed nature to the simple twist of his arm as he tried to move her as if his joints weren't quite the same.

She went. Her mind struggled to assimilate the world around her. It was bright. Metal, and white and he was a smear of brilliant plumage at her side, like a very tall bird of paradise. She dimly was aware that there was more to take in, but she wasn't able to do more than the feel of his hand.

To do, he had said. “What,” she was surprised by how soft her voice was and took a breath to steady herself. “What to do? I mean, what is there – What do you want from me?” There. That seemed like a better question, considering he was obviously intending the much to do in regards to her being up and going.