Wishing Stars

Thalia was woken by the sound of her door opening. She blinked in the darkness, confused. The gearmen had the lights timed to mimic the sunlight on their home planet. When it was dark, the girls were required to sleep. For their health, of course. No one had ever entered her room while it was dark before.

"Hello?" She asked, trying to make out shapes in the total dark. Maybe she had imagined the noise.

"Hello," A deep voice responded.

The lights overhead came on. Instead of building slowly like normal, they blinked on in all of their full noontime glory. Thalia threw her arm across her eyes while they adjusted. Her breathing started to come fast.

"Who is there?" She asked, trying to stay calm. This was new. This had never happened before. She could not panic. She did not want to be drugged again. Her voice was strained by the sudden stress developing in her body. "What do you want?"

There was a soft, deep chuckle, and the breath caught in her throat. Adrenaline began to pump through her veins. Gearmen had soft, kind voices, almost the pitch of an alto. And they did not laugh.

She squinted her eyes in the brightness, trying to locate the man—a man!—in her room. Moving as slowly as possible, she shifted her legs beneath the blankets. They were off the side, the tips of her toes just brushing the floor, when he responded.

"It is not what I want that matters," His voice was in a different place now. He was moving around the bed! "It is what my prince wants."

"And who," She asked, quickly rising to her feet and dropping her arm, "Is your—"

It was not a man. It was a thing, a creature. And it was much closer to her than she had thought.

Thalia scrambled back from it, and in her haste ended up sprawling backwards on the bed. Keeping her eyes locked on the creature, she quickly crawled backwards and stood again, putting the bed between them.

The creature laughed.

She was frozen there, staring at him. His skin was perfectly white, like polished marble. Big, bulging muscles strained beneath his skin, as if they would tear through at any second. The only covering he wore was a white cloth wrapped intricately about his middle. He loomed over her, over everything in her small room. His head had less than a foot of clearance, and the ceiling was at least eight feet high.

And his head! It was too large for his body, bulbous, almost. He was completely bald, and he had huge, deep set black eyes that seemed to bore into her. He had no nose, just two inch long slits above harsh, black lips.

Before she realized she was backing away, she bumped into the wall. She was stuck, no escape from the thing. So she did the one thing she had once sworn never to do.

She screamed for the gearmen.

Two appeared in the doorway almost immediately, and she ran towards them. The first one she came to caught her by the upper arms and spun her around, so that she was still facing the thing. She begged the gearman holding her to let her go. She pleaded with the one beside him, blocking the door. She would be good. She would do whatever they wanted. Just, please, help her!

They ignored her completely, and instead looked to the creature.

"May we assist you, General Thruk?"

"No," The creature chuckled again, and little flecks of pink danced across his chest, as if he was blushing. "I guess it's too late for that. I see you have not been educating them properly, unless this one is just surprisingly dense?"

"Thalia is of moderate intelligence for her species," The gearman holding her chirped happily. Had it not been for the frightening creature in her bedroom, Thalia might have taken offense. Given the situation, she let it go.

"We were instructed not to educate the vessels on other species after a particular incident with a very promising vessel." The other gearman finished, and the creature sighed. "The General did not want to render them all comatose, when they could be of other use."

Comatose? Did he mean Sasha?

"Yes, yes," The creature—General- waved his hand at this idea, dismissing it. "Well, she seems calm enough now. Let us get on with it. We have a long way to travel and the Prince is not known for patience."

"No!" Thalia shrieked and dug in her heels as the gearman started drawing her backwards, through the door. "I'll scream, I'll wake everyone!"

The General made a flicking motion with his wrist, and the gearmen ceased dragging her. Her arms were still locked in their grips, and she was unable to pull away as the creature approached her.

"Oh, small one," He raised a long, white finger and let the nail drag along her jaw line. The pointed tip cut the skin like a thin razor, and a single drop of blood trailed down her neck. "Everyone is already awake and ready to see you off."

She stared at him, uncomprehending. He flicked his hand once more and the gearmen resumed dragging her backwards. She was nothing against their unhuman strength. Struggle as she might, she could not gain a fraction of freedom.

Finally she raised her eyes and found the General watching her struggling intently. His chest was glowing pink again, but now small specks of green had appeared as well. A small part of Thalia desperately wanted to ask him about the colors, but the rest of her was busy recognizing the look in his eyes.

He was enjoying this.

The realization hit her like a bucket of cold water, and she went limp in the gearmen's grasp. They did not seem to notice, and dragged her body forward through the ship without a change in pace.

The General, however, frowned slightly. The pink on his chest faded away, replaced by clouds of grey. Small dots of stormy grey and black began to appear near his eyes as well. Thalia tried to focus on them, to discern what they meant, but eventually she gave in to the sheer horror of his face and looked away.

The girls were all standing near the hidden stairway that led down to the sanctuary. They were all in rumpled nightgowns, with tousled hair. Fear seemed to ooze from their pores. The air was thick with it. Many of the girls were being held in place by the firm grasps of the gearmen.

When the General rounded the corner, screams echoed down the hall. Thalia winced, and looked over just in time to see the little girl, Emily, break from the group and attempt to run. A gearman was on her in seconds, and pressed a needle into her arm. The small girl collapsed to the floor.

Thalia wanted to scream, but her throat was raw. Her chest was so tight that breathing became a chore.

The General gestured, and the wall opposite the hidden stairs slid open. Within was a giant room that she was sure none of them had seen before. It was a docking bay. A large ship was docked there, waiting. Thalia heard the engine roar to life and a gangplank was lowered. Gearmen were everywhere, turning various knobs and staring intently at strange writing as it flashed across a wall of computer screens.

This was wrong. When a girl was taken, it was swiftly, silently. No one was present. No one was forced to watch. There were no creatures leering at everyone. This was not how it worked. Everything always happened the same way here, every single day was the same.

Until today.

The gearmen steered Thalia up the gangplank, into the enormous beast of a ship. She stumbled to get her feet below her, struggled to get air into her lungs. Dark spots began to form at the edges of her vision. Through the ringing in her ears, she heard the General begin to laugh again.

"Bid goodbye to your Princess, ladies," He called to the girls, "You will never see her again."

Without the aid of needles, Thalia lost consciousness.