A Warrior’s Heart

Chapter 1-1

Chapter One

“What do you think will happen now?” Aaron Cooper asked as he leaned his head back against the cold metal wall of their prison cell. “Do you think this might be the end? Do you think they’ll kill us?”

“I don’t know,” Ben replied grimly, looking over his shoulder at his younger brother. “I’ve heard some nasty things about this species.”

“Hell, heard! You saw what they did to the rest of the crew on the freighter,” Aaron said tiredly. “Maybe it is just as well. I’ve given up hope of ever making it back to Earth.”

Ben didn’t say anything. What could he say? He had lost hope of ever seeing Earth again years ago. He might only be sixteen months older than Aaron, but he was always more pessimistic about life than his brother.

Life had never been easy for them. Their mother deserted them and their father shortly after Aaron was born. If that wasn’t bad enough, their father began drinking so much that by the time they were old enough to open a box of cereal they were pretty much on their own. Then the unbelievable happened. They were kidnapped by an alien slave trader from the Kansas farm where they lived.

It has been almost ten years since that day. He was fourteen and Aaron twelve at the time. They were repairing barbed wire fencing along one of the less used fields when they were taken. Their dad was supposed to do the work, but he was too drunk to get his ass out of bed. Ben drove the old pickup truck and he, along with Aaron, did the work instead of their father. It was the only way to keep a roof over their heads and food in their bellies, though they spent more time hungry than fed.

If they thought life was hard before, it became brutal for the first five years after they were taken. It wasn’t until the captain of the last freighter won them in a game of chance that things changed slightly for the better. Life still hadn’t been easy, but at least they were able to scrape a little bit of a normal life together.

Ben convinced every one of their previous owners that he and Aaron must stay together or they would die. It was the only thing he could think of to keep them together. Since their species hadn’t been seen before, it had worked.

They had spent the last five years working on the freighter; cooking, cleaning and doing repairs. The captain even let them have a few credits from the sale of the illegal merchandise that he carried. They saved every credit in the hopes of buying their freedom or escaping, whichever came first.

That dream came to an end when the freighter was attacked. All of the crew members were killed except for him and Aaron. He didn’t know why. Maybe it was because the Marastin Dow, a Spartan type species, according to what they learned over the years, had never seen a human before. Or, it could be because the purple bastards wanted to have fun as they killed them. He didn’t know, and truthfully, he was at the point he didn’t give a damn anymore.

Aaron stood up when the door leading down to the prison cells, opened. A large Marastin Dow male walked up to their cell door. He looked Ben up and down before turning his gaze to Aaron.

“Do you understand me?” The male asked gruffly.

“Yes,” Ben replied.

“You will not fight. You will do what you are told. Do you understand?” The male stated.

“Yes,” Ben replied again.

“What are you going to do to us?” Aaron asked.

The male looked at Aaron. “You will work. You will keep your head down. And you will live if you are careful. Do not trust anyone unless I say you can. Most of the crew would sooner slit your throat for the fun of watching you die than help you. If you do as I tell you, you might live long enough to get off this ship alive,” the man explained in an emotionless voice.

“Why?” Ben asked, puzzled. “Why don’t you just kill us like you did the rest of the crew?”

The man shrugged and briefly looked away. “I saw that you were different,” he said quietly. “I saw the way you protected the younger one. You did not try to push him in front of you so you could escape. I want to learn more about you and your species. In exchange for information, I will do what I can to protect you both.”

“Why?” Ben asked again, pressing the male standing in front of him. “Why do you want to know more about us?”

The man stared taciturnly back at Ben. “I am a scientist. I study other species. I believe there are other ways to… live. I want to know… learn about them. Others of my kind want it as well. You will give me the information I need.”

“For how long?” Aaron interrupted. “How long will you protect us?”

The man finally sighed. “For as long as I can or until someone on this warship decides to kill me,” he stated in resignation. “I am the Chief Science Officer. If someone else desires my position, my life expectancy significantly drops.”

“Then I guess we better make sure that you have someone watching your back as well,” Ben said quietly. “My name is Ben Cooper, by the way. This is my brother, Aaron.”

The male looked at the hand Ben was holding out through the metal bars. He looked back at Ben’s face for several long seconds before he hesitantly held out his own hand. He started when Ben shook it and released it.

“That is called a handshake,” Ben explained. “You said you wanted to learn more about our species. Here’s your first lesson. Humans shake hands as a way of greeting each other.”

The man looked at his hand, turning it over to stare at his palm before his dark eyes rose to study Ben and Aaron. “My name is Behr De’Mar, Chief Science Officer of the warship Disappearance. It is best until you learn your way around that you stay on the levels I tell you. Those levels have crew that I trust and that is not an easy thing to find among the Marastin Dow.”