A S T R A

When I woke up Sol was sitting at the edge of the bed, right by my feet. She was slumped over, soft snores coming out of her mouth and I wondered why she wasn't in the sheets next to me until I saw what she held in her hands.

Memories of last night clouded my mind, all fast and covered in glitter as if I was watching them on a screen instead of having lived through them.

My arm felt a lot better now that it had been wrapped a lot more carefully and it felt like I could now focus on other things than the subtle throbbing it brought me. Sitting up, I shuffled closer to Sol before looking over her shoulder to see she had her thumb jammed in between the pages of a book.

I crossed myself over to grab my glasses on my nightstand and slid them up my nose but when I turned back my eyes met pools of milk. She blinked at me, her eyes drooped with exhaustion but open nonetheless.

"Good morning?"

Her eyes stayed on me, intense, unwavering, and unblinking. She didn't reply to my greeting, her lips didn't move from being pressed together. Her fingers moved to shut the book, the sharp sound filling our otherwise empty silence. Faster than I could blink she threw the book in my chest, I barely managed to catch it before it hit the floor.

"You wanna tell me," I adjusted the glasses on my nose, narrowing my eyes at the strange drawings scribbled in the book "What the attitude is about?"

"Where did you get that?"

I thumbed through the pages "Kofi's desk, thought it'd have something that could help us," I told her honestly, "I assume that by your reaction, you read it?"

Her eyes hardened "Your humans, are fucking disgusting."

I closed the book, running my thumb on the cover "Did you read all of it?" I asked, "Did he say anything about why they-

"Did you know when Martian women are impregnated against their will their body not only rejects the child but expels their reproductive organs outside of their body and the pressure of doing so puts so much stress on the body that it causes complete organ failure and makes them go into shock, effectively killing them and the child?"

I swallowed "I did not know that."

"Do you wanna know how I do?" The vein on the side of her head pulsed "Better question, do you wanna know how they found out?"

"Sol-" I tried moving closer to her but she raised her hand stopping me.

"Did you know that removing wings from a Martian is similar to severing part of one's spine, making them stuck in a paralyzed state unable to move the rest of their body from the neck down?"

She gestured to me to hand her the book and I did, she flicked through it before stopping at a page and showing it to me. It was a sketch of the Martian wings, or rather an x-ray of their bodies, showing how the bones lined up with each other.

I ran my tongue over my bottom lip, "How far did you get?"

"I fell asleep somewhere between the scientific experiments of their strengths and weakness and their pain tolerance," She closed the book, tossing it on the bed in between us "I didn't even get to the entire chapter dedicated to-

"You guys have a plan on what to do today?"

I answered immediately "We found some security footage in one of the human offices that we're going to look through today, to see if we can find where they keep the important stuff."

Sol's eyes ran over my face as I spoke, I wondered if she could hear the panic laced in my voice. I wondered what she thought of me now if she'd ever give me a chance to explain myself.

If she would even care.

My dreams felt so small now, so insignificant compared to the nightmares my actions had caused. There was no taking what I did back and I was way passed asking for forgiveness. I felt responsible for what the humans had done.

Guilty for loving them.

Embarrassed to want to defend them.

Desperate to prove to Sol that humanity was not the cruelty the minority of them displayed.

But instead, I said nothing, feeling like a parent holding their destructive child they'd left alone for a few moments. At fault because none of this would've happened if they'd kept an eye on it.

It felt almost disrespectful to ask the questions I had on the tip of my tongue, but one, in particular, had been plaguing my mind since I'd arrived at the planet and took in its empty sky.

Where on earth were their moons?

I sat on a stool in the kitchen with Kofi's notebook on the marble. Sol was in front of me, working quietly on the popcorn she quickly discovered she liked very much. I'd tried explaining to her that not only was it not eaten in the morning but it also wasn't a rather healthy food nor is supposed to be eaten frequently but she didn't seem to listen to me.

After Tempest had logged off Sol and I had silently agreed to finish our discussion at a later date until we were sure Tempest had logged off and instead focused on trying to decide what to look for next.

Whilst Sol argued by the stove I caught up on reading the chapters, something that I found made me quickly lose my appetite for the near future. I ran my eyes over the words of the page, subconsciously using my finger to follow each sentence but making sure to maintain a conversation with Sol.

"And you're sure you don't want to just look for the ship straight away?" I replied her.

"Of course, I want to look for the stupid ship!" She scoffed, throwing another popcorn in her mouth. I hid my smile at the little dance she did afterward feeling the kernel crunch in her mouth, it was becoming clear to me that she enjoyed the texture of popcorn far more than its actual taste. "I'd just like to find that bastard first, and make his sick ass pay for his crimes."

I raised an eyebrow at the revelation of this new motive she hadn't mentioned before "Who?" I asked.

She put her bowl down and sauntered over to me, flipping the pages from where I was reading despite my protest before landing on a single chapter far ahead from where I had been. "Look."

'On order from Mr Melbourne, we have decided to begin the program to test the compatibility of a cross-breed of offspring between Humans and the people of Mars.'

I frowned, the new piece of information making my head spin "Mr. Melbourne?"

This made her cross her arms over her chest "I thought you knew everyone on that planet?"

I ignored her jab, flipping through the pages to find a first name but not discovering one. "Yes by both names, human last names are re-used by many. Even when there isn't a relation between the two-

"How is that poss-

"Long story," I waved her off.

She tilted her head "Well can't we do an elimination test? How many powerful scientists have the last name Melbourne on Earth?"

My brain brought two names to light "Only two, a couple. They were both famous for their astronomy discoveries but they died ages ago. Too long ago for any of them to have been responsible for this."

"Well that's helpful isn't it?"

I snapped the book shut "It shouldn't be hard to find him though, with enough power to command people to begin forcefully impregnating other species he has to be some sort of big guy around here. And considering Kofi was close enough to him we should probably be able to meet him if we ask the right people."

This made Sol chuckle "I don't want to meet him, Astra, I want to make him pay."

The promise hung heavy in the air as the motives for the mission silently switched in both our minds. Sol wanted justice and so did I but I was more curious about the identity of this 'Melbourne'. It almost made me wonder if I had forgotten someone, but I wasn't one to forget names.

And a man who could think of such an idea is not typically one that'd skip your mind.

Even as we settled for bed the possible identity of the person causing havoc on Mars stayed unknown to me. If I was a bad protector before I was definitely the Solar System's worst one now, how could I have not seen this coming?

I'd only been gone a few years but planning something as large as an entire takeover of another planet surely had to have taken decades to plan, to prepare for. But I did not even remember a a single instance where any of the world's leaders had discussed such an idea.

The thought of leaving earth had always been a buried solution to Earth's problems but even they had made it clear that they would rather kill billions of people to decrease the population manually than to even think of leaving home.

And for it to be one man behind it all?

Dr Ambrose!

Who is that?!

"Astra are you going to bed soon?" Sol grumbled softly as her face was half stuffed into a pillow. I felt sorry for her with her hand stretched out into an uncomfortable postion in my lap as I fiddled with our handcuffs with a bobby pin I'd found.

An excuse I'd given to her for why I was staying up.

"These things are designed to bee impossible to take of Astra, go to sleep," She told me, reaching my hands with hers but I moved away from them so I could focus.

"I'm so close," I promised her.

"Okay," She hummed before snuggling into the pillow more.

I caught myself looking at the way her nose had scrunched up as she tried hard to go to sleep, her lps parted in a silent snore. Looking away I focused again on the metal in front of me, trying to remember what the video I'd watched had said about picking locks.

I pushed my slipping glasses back up my nose and leaned in closer so I could hear every noise the metal was making. If I said I had much hope for what I wwas doing I would be lying, I doubt something I'd seeing being done on Earth could even make a dent in real alien technology.

But, it made me feel like a spy or like I was doing some top secret mission which I guess I was but it made me feel more in control of things, especially considering I was feeling like everyone was spiralling out of my hands lately.

The idea of control made me think of Sol who I sneaked another glance at that ended up being more than a quick look. She was calm, all the time and she almost never felt overwhelmed. I thought she would've been a lot more upset at me but she wasn't which made me feel worse in a way.

I would never admit it to her but there was no one else I would rather be in this situation right now than her. Not a single person I could think of that I would rather be chai-

The sound of metal clanking broke me out of my train of thought.

She was free.

All emotion dripped off my face as I realised that Sol's hand was loose. Her wrist laid bare, still around the handcuff but the metal flap was open. Slowly my eyes trailed up to Sol's face to see if she'd notice, instead I noticed her eyebrow twitching slightly but other than that she stayed asleep.

I noticed the green pigment in her skin becoming richer and she almost swellled as if she was physically growing in size. Tearing my eyes away from her shifting muscles I reached down to try slowly pull the handcuff off her wrist without triggering it's sensitivity when her hand shot out to grab my shirt in her fist.

"Bed Astra, now," She demanded me, using my shirt to pull me into her. I tried to protest and she wrapped me in her embrace clearly not hearing the sound of metal snapping back in place. "You'll be cranky in tthe morning and chat my ear off and I don't want to hear it," She held me close to her, being careful of my arm, "Go to sleep now."

She began pulling the covers up our bodies, "But I-I was so clos-

"Shush," She hissed, switching off my bedlight, "You can figure out how to get as far away from me as possible tomorrow."

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