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Eos #1

Escape by Consumption

By Fist_of_Fenris

The year was nine since the fateful evacuation of the Earth. Many of the starships that had fled the dying world had since settled together in a system of inhabitable planets where they began to their government, their cities, and their lives. It was amongst these days of societal rebirth that remorse was felt for those ships lost to the vastness of space following the flight from Earth. Little did they know, one tiny, forgotten freighter survived long enough to sow the seeds of civilization upon the fertile fields of a planet the settlers named Eos. The planet grew separately from the rest of the surviving colonies, thriving and expanding without the aid of a central power or trade with their fellow survivors.

Six hundred years later, a ship from the Central Human Government came across Eos by chance. At first, the people were happy to surrender the sovereignty they'd enjoyed, but that soon changed. The CHG brought with them laws and rules that seemed absurd to the people of Eos. After only five years under the rule of the CHG, the population of Eos overthrew their ruling governors and reestablished the loose government they had before.

For the next fourteen-hundred years, the people of Eos grew xenophobic and treated outsiders cruelly. They eventually severed all trade and communication with planets under the CHG.

And in doing so, wrought their destruction.

On the celebration of the New Year on the first day of 2014 A.E., a reptilian species of raiders from the Epinephrine system attacked and sacked the planet. They were preceded by an envoy from a friendly race that had remained in contact with Eos. The envoy came to warn of the raiders, but when their message fell on deaf ears, all of the envoy save one left.

The remaining one stayed to keep pressing the story, hoping to save as many as she could. Her efforts were rewarded with resistance and hostility until at last it was too late.

***

A boy, scarcely eighteen, hid amongst the scattered ruins of what was once his hometown. He leaned his back up against a shattered wall and braced his feet on some of the larger rubble. He clenched his eyes tightly as he was subjected to the sounds of rattling iron, marching feet, and the crack of a whip. Beneath his tattered shirt, red scars throbbed at the sounding of the whip and the horrible, bone-wrenching sound of men crying out in agony.

Amidst the painful screams of men, women and children being driven He heard a pair of boots approach the wall. Just inches away, a raider stood unaware, yet still ready to take the boy back into chains or worse; slaughter him for his insolence.

The boy held his breath and waited. The seconds crawled on slowly. He let his chest rise and fall with silent breath as he held on to the wall for dear life.

There was a knocking. The boy's heart jumped and his mind produced an irresistible paranoia that the raider might be coming through to get him. He looked around frantically; there was a tall mound of rubble nearby. If he ran, he might have been able make it there and not be spotted. Still, if he ran, he also risked being spotted by the other raiders escorting the prisoners.

The knocking came again and the boy prepared to run. His heart fluttered in his chest as he felt the tension rising and became more inclined to take the risk to make the dash for the pile of rubble. Adrenaline surged through his veins yet he dared not move.

The knocking came again. The raider was coming through. The knocking came again. The boy was sure he was going to die. The knocking came again. The boy pushed off from the wall and hesitated. Now that he had started, he was no longer sure it was the right move. Panicky as he was, the boy knew the wall gave him the best hiding place; even if he reached the rubble unnoticed, he could still have been spotted.

A new sound came of near by boots crunching through the rubble that was once pavement. The boy felt his heart slow and drew a relieved breath. The raider was leaving. He was safe. At least, he was for the moment.

The sound of marching eventually faded on until the boy could only barely hear it. He waited a moment until he was sure it was safe, and then crawled out from behind the wrecked wall.

With a glance left and glance right, he bolted and didn't stop running until he reached the outskirts of the city. He found a place to hide and lay down there. In that spot, he remained until sunset when he got up nervously and approached the city.

When finally the last throws of light were disappearing over the far horizon, he slipped back amongst the ruined walls and solemn rubble of the city. He clambered over the wreckage of his childhood home and approached a structure near the center that had not been touched.

The raiders dared not touch an embassy of the Azrulian Empire.

The embassy was decorated by many flags, both Azrulian and Eosian, along its steeping walls. It was a sort of half-pyramid in shape, but there were many places where the wall was vertical rather than sloped. Many windows looked out at the city between the red, dotted lines that ran parallel to the edges. A larger, abstract, "bubble" window jutted out from the middle of the face closest to the boy.

Around the embassy, many small trees native to Eos were allowed to grow about the grounds. Past them, a high wall topped with barbed wire blocked the much of the boy's view. There was a man-sized hole where the wall had been penetrated by an explosive.

The boy approached a low wall just across a torn up street from the Azrulian embassy. He held his breath and flattened himself against the wall as a patrol of raiders passed by without noticing him. Nervously, he checked to make sure they had passed. They were a good distance back and he was preparing to sprint across when one of the raiders happened to turn around and spot him.

The raider screamed out a horrible, high-pitched yell in his native language. The boy, who didn't speak the language of the raiders, didn't have to know exactly what was said to know he had been caught.

He threw himself over the low wall and bolted for the hole in the embassy. Weak as he was, it was difficult for him to sprint at full speed. Even with fear and adrenaline surging through his thoughts and through his veins, the pain slowed him down significantly. The raiders were closing quickly. A bolt of super-heated plasma exploded a fraction of an inch from the boy's face and he felt the sting of a drop of it landing on his face.

A raider reached out to grab him just as he dove beneath the hole. The boy spun around onto his back in time to see the raider dive into the hole after him. The seven foot, giant-like, indigo lizard creature became stuck in the wall. The boy looked into the raider's yellow eyes, they were hostile and angry. The raider's face was covered in black markings of a random pattern that covered the faces of its species.

The raider twisted loose of the hole and went prone. It took aim of the boy and fired. The boy twisted away at the sight of the rifle and the bolt went past without touching him. The raider jerked a knob on top of the gun and set up to fire again. It took its time, thinking that the boy had no where to run.

The boy leapt to his feet and took off towards the embassy. He made it a few feet before the raider opened fire. Bursts of light and plasma sailed around him as he sprinted for the embassy. The ground around him exploded with the high energy of the bolts from the raider's rifle.

As he neared the wall, a window opened and a dark figure extended a hand from inside. The boy couldn't see the owner of the hand, but he could see that the hand was furred and had short, pudgy fingers. What little he could see of the forearm was skinny compared to the hand.

The boy was unsure whether or not to take the hand until a bolt landed near his bare foot and the residue from it seared into his big toe. He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth in pain. He took the hand without anymore hesitation and the owner drew him up and pulled him inside though not before a bolt slammed into the boy's back.

The boy slammed to the floor on top of his rescuer. He rolled over and arched his back in agony as his savior recovered its feet. All he saw of the creature that had rescued him was a fuzzy outline before the pain caused him to lose consciousness.

***

The boy awoke to the sensation of a wet cloth draped across his feverish forehead. It was a good feeling to have the drops running down the sides of his face, cooling and soothing a headache that already seemed to be receding.

He was lying down somewhere soft; a luxury he'd not had in a long time. Trying not knock the wash cloth off, he felt the ground beneath him and discovered that it wasn't ground at all but a mattress. He shot up to find an oversized bed beneath him.

He glanced around. The walls of the room were a robin's-egg blue. There was a metallic bookshelf stocked with all sorts of books and records in one corner. A solid grey, automatic door with a pressurized lock lay shut behind him. He could hear people moving around and talking outside in the hall. There was a door like the one with the pressurized look, but it was smaller and opened to a closet.

He laid back down and thought about the night before, how he'd made the dash for the embassy. Remembering the hand from the window, he sat up again in the bed. He searched frantically for anyone or anything else in the room. The room was empty. He was alone.

He inspected his foot. Someone had bandaged it where the plasma had burned him. He ran a hand as far down his back as he could; someone had bandaged it. Looking down, he found that his entire torso had been carefully wrapped by a careful, steady hand. Beneath the wrappings, the scars no longer stung quite as badly.

He gave another nervous glance at the automatic door and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. Curiosity took him and he went to the bookshelf. It was racked with all manner of color and language. He could only read the titles of the books that appeared to be about his planet. On the second row, he found a book titled "Eos: A History of a Cosmic Island," and another that read "The Military History of Eos" in red letters on the spine.

Scouring the bookshelf, he found another title he recognized as being in his language. The book was tucked away on the lowest shelf, nearly impossible to see unless one got on their hands and knees. The boy crouched down and slid the book out and glanced over the title which read "A Kick out the Door" in big bold letters and beneath that in smaller ones, "The History of the Human Evacuation of Earth and the Formation of the CHG."

The book crackled freshly as it was opened and the pages fell stiffly to the center-most page. The boy went to the front of the book and flipped forward until he reached a sort of table of contents. Midway down on the second page of the directory, he found the word "Eos" underlined and the page number highlighted. He flipped forward until he came across the section titled with the name of his home planet and stared at the page. On it was a picture of an old freighter of technology now ancient. He looked at the starship the same way a man living in the twenty-first century might look at a ship of an ancient era.

He was so engrossed by the book that he failed to hear when someone began to creep up on him until their shadow fell across him. He threw the book up in surprise and backed away quickly into one corner of the room.

He could only assume the creature was Azrulian as he had never seen one before. It had four legs like a lion, and a half-man, half-lioness body assembled like a centaur. It towered over him with a most massive presence and stared down at the boy with soft, gentle eyes.

Over its more human half, it wore a sweeping, formal dress adorned in reds and blues and all sorts of green stripes, stretched out by its decently sized breasts. Its other half was left bare for the most part as there was no reason to cover it.

It offered a hand that the boy immediately recognized as the one from the night before. He realized that the creature he looked upon was in fact his rescuer and grew to trust it slightly while at the same time maintaining a healthy amount of paranoia. Upon the boy taking its hand, the creature smiled.

"That's better," she said in a caring voice. "Why don't you go back and lie down? You've had a very eventful last few days and I'd hate for you to collapse while in my care."

The boy lay back down on the bed and positioned himself to face the Azrulian leotaur. The Azurlian ran a caring hand through his hair and looked over his bandages.

She smiled at him again and he found it hard to resist smiling back.

"I am Ginasa," she said. "What is your name?"

The boy looked down and wracked his brains. Months of working in the sun had taken its toll on him. The raiders rarely used names to refer to the Eosians, preferring to use insults to identify their captives.

"It's alright if you don't rememb-..."

"Theron," the boy blurted out, interrupting Ginasa. "My name is Theron."

Ginasa put her padded palm on Theron's forehead and smiled at him again. She looked at him with her soft, carrying eyes.

"I've got to leave for a moment," she said. "Will you be alright on your own?"

Theron nodded. The door opened with a hissing sound and Ginasa stepped into the hall. She turned before the door closed and said to Theron: "I'll be back shortly. Try and sleep some more. It will help your recovery." The door closed a couple of seconds later and he heard Ginasa moving away.

Theron turned over to face the near wall the bed was lined up against. He closed his eyes and let himself drift away with the comfortable knowledge he was hidden away in safe hands.

***

Something shook Theron in his sleep. He snapped up wild-eyed and frightened only to find that it was Ginasa who woke him. He took a deep breath and his heart slowed to a normal pace before he looked her in the eyes.

There was something different. Besides the lack of a smile or the warm, friendly, almost loving look, there was a startling change in her expression that sent chills back down Theron's spine. Fear. She was afraid of something, and whatever it was involved him.

"Do you trust me Theron?" she asked.

Theron was too choked up with tension and merely nodded. The gesture only seemed to make Ginasa more worried. She glanced at the door and then back at Theron. Gently, she bit her lip so that she didn't cut herself. She looked down at Theron and thought for a moment.

"I am leaving this planet soon," she said. "Eos has fallen and there is nothing that can be done for it." She stopped, looked away, and then back at Theron. Finally, she added: "I want you to come with me."

Theron was shocked and unpleasantly surprised by the notion of leaving his planet. Even ruined the way it was, all the dirt and grass and every building that had been razed were still the pieces of the only home he'd ever known. He was as much a part of Eos as a leg is to a dog, and through years of toiling in the fields, running his fingers through the dirt and seeing the crop come to fruition, it had become a part of him as well.

In his mind, he could never leave no matter what condition he or the planet might have been in. Eos was his planet; it was the ground beneath his feet and the air that filled his lungs. He could never leave it, especially not in the hands of the cruel, destructive raiders that now crushed the once fertile land into sand and dust beneath their feet.

"I've..." Theron stammered. "I've never left Eos before."

"Very few born here do," said Ginasa. "It is an opportunity to go out and do what few of your people have done. I give you but one chance to see the stars."

"I'm sorry, but I can't. I can't leave this planet. I can't... I can't go with you."

Ginasa became angry with him. She drew her head back and her face twisted into a fearsome expression.

"Be sensible," she flared. "There is nothing here for you but a lifetime in servitude beneath the cruel whips of the Epinephrine raiders." Then, upon seeing him scramble frightfully against the wall, she added in a calmer voice: "I can not leave you here Theron. I will not leave you here. Come with me and maybe someday, we might together find a way to liberate your people. Stay and all hope is lost."

Though still resistant to the idea, Theron knew that her logic was correct. Only a coward would stay to be picked up again by the raiders. He looked at her and saw truth and rescue in her large eyes.

"So I ask just once more," Ginasa said. "Do you trust me, Theron?"

Theron nodded. Ginasa left again and returned several minutes later. When she reappeared in the doorway, she was holding a strange device that looked like a lantern of some sort. But it was like no lantern Theron had ever seen. It had an odd sort of hourglass shape to it, only the lower part was far larger than the other. There was a base to stabilize it clipped to the bottom that attached itself to a u-shaped, neon filament sealed tightly so that it wasn't able to oxidize.

Ginasa moved over to the bed and placed the lantern at the head. Then she went over to the book case.

"Do you like to read?" she asked.

"Yes," Theron said. "Does this have something to do with leaving?"

Ginasa ignored his question and picked out five or six books written in Theron's language. These she placed on the bed next to the lantern and went quickly about gathering a few other things. She filled up a small bag with some of her supplies and went to the foot of the bed. She pressed a hidden panel and a section of the wall vanished into the floor with little more than a hiss; a private bathroom, a luxury fit for the ambassador of Azrulia.

Theron heard her shuffle around for a minute, and then saw her reappear in the doorway bearing a bag filled with toiletries and bathroom supplies. She put this bag on the floor and the small bag she packed earlier went on top.

Next she went to the closet and brought out some of her clothes. She set a more casual, plain, light-green shirt on the bed and packed the rest away into a bag. Then she took the shirt into her secret bathroom and came out wearing it. It covered all of her upper torso but left her stomach almost entirely exposed.

She cleaned out her bookshelf into an empty box left tucked away into her closet and then taped the box shut.

Theron couldn't help but look at the flatness of her abs and the ruffled fur of her belly. It was almost enticing.

"Things have become complicated as of late," she said. "We will be searched for those of your kind, which is why I've come up with a plan in order to sneak you out."

There was a clanging of boots on the floor outside as a few people moved past. Ginasa glanced nervously at the door.

"My people have the ability to store things away inside ourselves until we need them again," she said.

"Why are you telling me this?" Theron asked, oblivious to what Ginasa was talking about.

"Because it's how I plan to smuggle you out."

Theron's eyes shot open wider than he'd ever imagined they'd go. He scrambled until he felt his back hit the wall and the scars burn and kept digging into the mattress with his heals as he tried desperately to escape the Azrulian. He started breathing heavily and broke out in a light sweat.

"You're... you're going to eat me," he said.

"Yes," Ginasa admitted, but only to protect you. "It will not be painful."

"So I'll die quickly?"

"You're overreacting."

"No YOU'RE overreacting!"

"Keep your voice down, there's no reason to yell. Look, I'll show you."

Ginasa took the smaller bag at her foot and shoved it into her mouth. She threw her head back and the bag slid down behind her tonsils and disappeared in her throat. The bag made a bulge until it reached the chest and finally disappeared into Ginasa's body. She felt the lump strike the bottom of her stomach. Sucking up the flat belly on her human-like torso, she made it thin enough for a small, square-shaped bump in her stomach to make itself visible. She pointed to it.

Theron stared at the bump with awe and general shock that Ginasa could swallow such a thing without having to chew it first. She released her breath and her belly filled back out. The bump disappeared back into her body.

The Azrulian's face contorted in a silent struggle. Theron was getting up to offer her some help when the bag reappeared in her throat. It made its way up a little slower than it had gone down but she soon hacked it up back into place on the larger bag. Besides a little bit more cylindrical shape, the bag was unharmed and more importantly, it was dry.

"Now do you believe me?" Ginasa said. "If you want to escape, you're going to have to trust me."

Theron nodded, bewildered. If there was any doubt left of Ginasa's intent, it disappeared. He stood, shaking a little from what he was about to do or rather, what he was about to have done to him.

"No," Ginasa put a paw-like hand on his chest and forced him back onto the bed. "It will be easier with you lying down."

She ambled on her four legs to the foot of the bed and looked directly at Theron.

"Ready?" she said softly.

He nodded and she opened her mouth as wide as she could. Her maw grew larger as she began massaging it. With time, it grew slack enough that Theron could clearly see the back of her throat.

She closed her mouth and lowered her head to the same level as Theron's feet. She began the process of swallowing him by wrapping her lips around his toes and quickly worked her way to his ankles. Her mouth glided up Theron's legs as she felt his feet cram into the back of her throat. Her cheeks filled with his legs as she gulped him up to his knees. Theron's feet and legs made a recognizable bulge on her throat as they were pushed farther in.

Ginasa ran into the first real trouble at Theron's hips. No matter how hard she pulled, her cheeks refused to give way. Finally, she managed to work them in by jostling her head left and right.

Theron watched with a petrifying blend of horror, disbelief, and confusion. He was afraid to move because he feared he might hurt her, and yet at the same time he wanted to pull himself free and bolt. He saw her begin to slide onto his torso and felt terrible fears and anxieties that threatened to overtake his willpower and cause him to move. He took a deep breath and shut his eyes tightly.

Ginasa sped up when she reached the middle of Theron's torso, but had to slow down to let her stomach catch up as it began to fill up with Theron's feet. She felt him twist into a better position that allowed her to pick up the pace again.

While she couldn't see her swollen belly, she could feel it pushing out over the mattress. It grew larger as more of Theron disappeared into her throat and behind her chest.

Finally, Ginasa found herself at his chest. It was going to be a difficult battle to get her mouth around his chest, a challenge made harder by the fact Theron's arms remained free. She strained forward over her massive stomach to grab hold of his arms and force them into her mouth.

By the team she reached his shoulders, her progress had slowed until she was barely moving. With some hard swallows, she managed to gain some ground. She shoved down on Theron's collar bones and felt more of him slide in.

His head came easiest as her mouth and throat were already stretched by the passage of his shoulders. It disappeared into her mouth and then slid into her throat where the face made a recognizable bulge.

Ginasa rubbed her sore throat until she felt it empty. It was hardly much longer before Theron cleared her esophagus entirely. With a lazy yawn, she snapped her mouth back into place.

She looked her belly on her human-ish torso. It had swollen out in order to permit Theron. She rubbed it gently as she began to get used to the added weight.

She yawned again, this time because she was growing tired. Having Theron inside her made Ginasa feel full and sleepy. She sat back on her rear and slowly slid her front paws forward. Carefully, she moved her human-ish torso until her head rested on the mattress in front of her. She closed her eyes and continued to stroke her ample belly as she felt herself beginning to drift off.

Inside her stomach, the darkness was getting to Theron. He began to panic as he felt Ginasa shift position. He fell against the front of her stomach as she was lying down and that was just enough to set him off.

He thrashed about in terror, throwing himself against the walls of Ginasa's stomach, punching and kicking and frantically squirming about. On the outside, Ginasa felt Theron panicking and woke up immediately. She began to feel ill and became fearful of what damage was being done to her innards. Lifting herself off the floor, she bent over to speak to her belly.

"Theron, please stop," she pleaded, a note of pain in her voice. "Calm down. Everything is alright."

The attacks on her insides stopped. She felt Theron readjust to an upright position and sit down again. Somehow, Ginasa's stomach had been bloated farther than before by Theron's tantrum. Now that his space was slightly larger, Theron felt a little bit less claustrophobic.

"That's better," Ginasa said.

She walked over to the lamp and picked it up.

"Hold on," she said. "I'm sending something down."

She forced the lamp into her mouth and down her throat. It made its way down to where Theron was waiting and he caught it before it fell on to his head. He set it down and flipped the switch on the base to turn it on. The lamp gave off no heat but completely illuminated the stomach in a bright glow. It was a while before Theron's eyes adjusted to the light.

On the outside, Ginasa discovered that the lamp's light was visible on the outside.

"It's too bright," Ginasa said. "Someone will see."

"How do I turn down how bright it is?" the reply came from her belly.

"There's a knob on the base to turn down the setting."

There was a clicking sound and the glow from the light became nearly unnoticeable on her stomach. Once it was, she grabbed the stack of books and swallowed them each one-by-one until her belly grew too heavy and she had to just pack up the last one with the others.

She glanced around and grabbed the bag with her clothes in it and, with hardly a look back, left the room.

***

The ship Ginasa was to leave in was a small, yet luxurious looking craft with a triangular shape and a good, long length from nose to engine. It was bright colors, a mere formality enforced by a Galactic Agreement Treaty; all diplomatic vessels were to be colored brightly so that they would not be fired upon. As they made ready to go, Ginasa and the crew could only hope that the raiders remembered this.

Ginasa took her place on the bridge with the crew while her stuff was being loaded into her quarters at the rear of the ship. The captain noticed her and her distended stomach. He was a lighter color than all the rest and wore a shinier uniform, and was made all the more unique by the fact that he and Ginasa were the only Azrulians on the ship.

The crew was a mix of races that lived peacefully inside the Azrulian Empire. They took their positions around the bridge as the captain watched the monitor. They spoke in Azrulian for a moment and then the craft shuddered. It began to hover as its captain and crew eagerly awaited the clearance to leave. The screen crackled and the face of a well decorated Azrulian appeared. He said something in Azrulian and the craft lurched and shot into the sky. The screen went dark and all of the equipment went soon after it.

The tiny Azrulian vessel propelled itself forward into the upper reaches of Eos's atmosphere and then finally into space. Once out of the atmosphere, the ship slowed to only a few knots.

A much larger ship than Ginasa's ship circled into the path of the Azrulian ship and trained all her guns on it. A squadron of High Altitude Orbit Fighters flew along side and made sure the ship didn't circle off course or try to escape.

A door opened on the side of the raider warship and the Azrulians sailed in to a tight fit. The door closed behind them, sealing off any chance of flight.

Raider marines circled the ship with guns, moving aside only to let a team of five through before closing the hole again. The captain ordered the outer hatch be opened and the raiders entered. They moved in quickly and took the crew at gun point. As it was the only common language among the Azrulian crew and the raiders, any conversing was in the human language.

"Clear the ship!" a larger, more dominant raider said.

The crew along with Ginasa and the captain were shuffled out onto the flight deck of the raider's battle cruiser. Once there, they were lined up and searched one after the other. By some fortune, Ginasa was towards the end of the line, but relief turned to worry as she watched the raiders work their way towards her.

Those that had been searched were sent over to sit under guard next to the ship. Slowly but surely, the line shrank and the group next to the ship grew until at last only Ginasa and the captain remained to be searched.

Left no other sane option, Ginasa stepped forward to be searched. The raider felt about her lion half first as part of the standard procedure. As it was uncovered and unlikely for him to find anything out of place, he quickly moved on to Ginasa's human-ish half.

He started high, around the neck and made his way down. He gently frisked her chest and back before his hands found their way down to her belly. He carefully ran her distended stomach through his hands and felt the hollow shake as he bumped it. He put an ear to it and acted as though he'd heard something. Turning, he motioned to a pair of raiders who took Ginasa by the shoulders and lead her over to a menacing-looking machine.

By now Ginasa understood. They would look inside her and find Theron, and then they both would be killed. Frantically, she searched for an exit as her heart raced and thudded against the inside of her chest. They shoved her close to the machine and she heard it charge as she began to realize the full implications of her actions.

"Wait!" the captain said. "I will not stand for this. To have my unborn child subjected to such an atrocity as this. Take her away from that machine immediately."

The raider who'd done the investigations was startled by the captain's outburst. In his language, he called out to the raiders for them to bring Ginasa back.

The captain was briefly searched before being sent to join his crew. The team that had cleared the ship came out and announced that the ship was clean.

At gunpoint again, the crew and Ginasa were forced to get back on the ship. The crew did so without hesitation and quickly prepared the vessel to depart. The flight doors opened and the Azrulian ship passed through. Ginasa waited until the ship had fully left the hangar of the raider ship to approach the captain.

"Thank you," she said in a low tone, speaking in Theron's language for his own benefit.

"I didn't do it for you," the captain snapped. "I did it for my crew. Do you know what they would have done if they'd discovered we were smuggling something off of this planet? We'd all have been dead."

Ginasa stared guiltily at the floor. The captain bit his lip and averted his eyes, trying to distract himself from the conversation by taking an interest in the readouts coming from his personal console.

"When did you realize what I was doing?" Ginasa asked after a pause.

The captain sighed.

"I figured you were bound to do something from the moment you entered my ship."

She stared at her belly and gave it a reassuring rub. She could feel Theron moving as he shifted place in her stomach.

"Now it's going to be a long trip," the captain said, putting a pudgy hand on her shoulder. "Why don't you get some rest?"

***

Three months of space travel journeying in the belly of an alien cat had taken its toll on Theron. He was glad on the day that Ginasa finally told him that their ship was going to land soon.

That morning, she had the cook make a dish Theron had once enjoyed on Eos. He felt homesick and took comfort in the books about his home planet as he dined.

The ship landed at about noon on Nagasyl, the esteemed home planet of the Azrulian's and the center of their empire. From space, it was a beautiful planet pockmarked by only one, grand city.

The ship became a fireball as it reentered the atmosphere, and even Theron could feel it in the sudden shifts of his host. He closed his eyes and whimpered, as he was afraid and not used to the hazards of space travel. Ginasa heard him and stroked her stomach to

The ship docked in floating port that adjusted to catch them as they fell off course slightly. There were a few Azrulians waiting when they landed and when the crew finally made their way off the ship, they shuffled through to Ginasa eagerly awaiting her arrival.

The tallest of them stepped forward upon spotting her. His robes were decorated with gold and silver, though the fabric beneath was little more than a dull green. In his eyes, a sort of nervous, impatient, angry sort of look danced about as he eyed her with a stoic urgency.

"Where is this boy of whom you have spoken?" he said. "Where is this refugee of Eos?"

"Safe, Egraver," Ginasa replied in a weary tone. "He is safe."