ALIEN PEOPLE by John Coon

Author:John Coon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-08-25T00:00:00+00:00

23

Every part of Jbali’s head throbbed when he first cracked open his eyes. His surroundings appeared so blurry. He tried to lift his head. A wave of dizziness smacked him like an ocean wave splashing his face. Jbali gasped and laid flat again. He could not remember the last time when he felt so disoriented. That included one morning after downing an entire jug of Uzakian Ale the prior evening.

His eyes gradually regained focus as he stared at the ceiling. Each one hurt as much as his skull, but at least his vision had improved. Jbali found himself laying on a small bed attached to a stone wall. The bed was wide enough to hold his body and not much else. He turned his head incrementally to the right. Two chairs and a small table occupied a spot in the center of the room. Nothing about this place looked familiar. Only a small room with dim lighting.

Where had the alien soldiers taken him?

Jbali gritted his teeth and lifted his head a second time. The woozy sensation returned, but Jbali fought through it and sat upright on the edge of the bed. His wounded shoulder felt numb. Jbali checked his arm. It rested in a sling. Fabric from both his uniform and flex armor had been cut away, exposing the entire length of his arm. Heavy padding and bandages covered his shoulder.

He opened his eyes wider and leaned forward to stand but stumbled off the bed. Jbali reached out and steadied himself with his healthy arm.

Both armored sleeves had vanished from his forearms. He looked down at his torso. His belt and chest pouch, along with all gear and weapons, were gone. Even his boots were confiscated.

Jbali pushed off from the bed and took a few tentative steps forward in the cramped room. White stone walls surrounded him on three sides. Gray metal bars formed a door and wall marking the remaining boundary. His surroundings resembled a prison cell.

Images from the mountain forest flashed through Jbali’s mind. Crawling on the ground. Helmeted alien soldiers emerging from among trees. Atch falling dead between the aerorover and the lake. Jbali now found himself imprisoned in an unknown location. New questions arose in his mind.

Why did these aliens take me captive?

What do they want from me?

What do they intend to do to me?

No doubt these soldiers wanted information. They went to the trouble of keeping him alive and patching him up. The possibility existed that these aliens mistook him for belonging to a rival clan or tribe and hoped to gain a strategic advantage through making him their prisoner.

Jbali had no desire to stick around and uncover their designs for him. Nothing in this cell or the forest revealed if these were the probe builders who had become an obsession for Calandra. At this point, Jbali did not care. Whatever intentions drove these aliens, their actions were hostile. This much became clear even before they brought him to this place. These Earthians tracked the aerorover and promptly ambushed him and Atch on the mountain.

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