Kevin Harper: Part 2 A

“What happened?” I asked but did not receive an answer. An alarm aroused me from my unconsciousness, a blinding light shown on my face, making it difficult to see anything. As my eyes adjusted, I realized that a bright white sun beamed down its intense rays onto the escape pod I found myself in. However, that was not the first thing I noticed.
A spear, pointed at my face, with a tip of a jet-black material I could not identify, was the first thing I saw upon waking. Aside from the throbbing headache, I had no desire to become a pincushion and kept very still. The figure standing over the pod was tall and slender, but the light silhouetted the exact features, and I could not make heads or tails of who this figure was. Speaking of tails, that was the one feature that caught my notice almost immediately. If I was not mistaken, that tail moved just like a cat, but that was not possible, was it? Well, I met Neg on the ship, and he looked like a galactic werewolf, so maybe it was possible for there to be galactic felines.
The figure spoke in a strange language, almost in hisses and yips. I tapped the side of my ear for the translator to function, and in an instant, their language became understandable. “…who are you, furless biped?” the figure asked as he jabbed me with his spear.
“Ouch! Stop that, or I won’t answer any of your questions?” I said as the figure tried to jab me again. I caught the spear.
“Mister, you jab me with that spear again; you and I are going to have a real problem,” I growled. However, the figure kicked my face, causing blood to spray from both nostrils.
“Yu’vic! Leave that prisoner alone before I put you in shackles,” shouted a figure off to my right. The kick left my head throbbing in more significant pain than before, causing everything in my vision to distort. Nevertheless, my eyes beheld an anthropomorphic lion dressed in what I would describe as tech armor. I say that because the armor looked classic except for circuitry running through the entire structure. His mane’s top was tied back, while that bottom had two large braids that hung down to his broad chest. Each paw appeared to be the size of a small bike tire, holding dagger-like claws. He rode in on a hover-bike for lack of a better description, and though he had a saber in his scabbard, my instincts told me his claws made better weapons. He studied me with intense golden cat eyes before leaning close to one of his aides, who nodded and rode off.
“Who are you? Where do you come from?” The lion asked in a deep voice as I took a moment to spit out blood before answering.
“My name is Kevin Harper. I’m from a planet called Earth.” I said, trepidation rising thick in the back of my throat. One good hit, and I am a goner.
“General Ryos, your father sends word. We are to return to the city. There are two Seriani Warships in orbit, and we are going to level one alert,” said the aid that returned. General Ryos nodded.
“All right, salvage what you can from the escape pod. We will take the human with us. You three, stay behind to take care of the ship.” General Ryos said as they lifted me out of the escape pod. Surprisingly, despite the crash, none of my bones broke except for the cracked ribs I got on the ship. However, I still accumulated plenty of bruising.
The trip to whatever city they took me seemed to take forever. The whole trip, my consciousness drifted, sweating, and remembering things from the past that haunted me to this day. So many times, I tried to drown those horrors from my mind, but they only returned in the form of nightmares. I have suppressed those memories for so long, I cannot recall all the details of what happened. I suppose the drinking damaged my brain cells.
Then, finally, we came upon solid gold doors with power conduits running through, over, and most likely under this behemoth of a wall. As I watched, my rough estimation of the wall’s height placed it at fifty to sixty meters tall. A sarcastic thought ran through my head, noting that this race must value their privacy. A childish idea, perhaps, but my mind is a weird creature.
We stopped in front of the gate; a guard blew an antler, producing a low-pitched tone similar to a tugboat. At that moment, the ground rumbled as the gate let out a loud crack like thunder and slid apart. I didn’t know what to expect but knew that whatever waited for me in there wasn’t good for me. However, despite my fighting spirit, my body would not respond to my commands, or if they did, was way too slow to be of any help.
As the gate grew more expansive, my attention turned to the citizens of this city, noting the different subspecies of felines this world held. I wanted to ask about the origin of this race, but my mind was weary from the crash to worry about anything else but surviving. The people seemed to be fleeing the streets, closing down shops, closing window shutters, and erecting force fields around their homes. Probably from Neg’s people being in orbit.
“Neg!” I thought and tried to sit up quickly but found myself unable to move due to the cuffs and the wave of nausea from my injuries.
My thoughts raced. Where was Neg, and why wasn’t he in the escape pod when the cats found us? I couldn’t really blame him. He said he would get me off the ship, and that did happen. Neg probably felt like he fulfilled his obligation and left me to the mercy of these — people.
We progressed down the main street to a large structure that resembled a castle but, again, more advanced. “Right to the King, I suppose. Or, whatever they call their ruler,” I thought and didn’t like the idea of meeting royalty in this manner. It usually did not end well.
However, to my surprise, as we entered the central courtyard to the castle, we started descending down a flight of stop steps, which usually meant dungeons or some kind of prison. We finally reached the bottom, passing through large iron gates — surprising me even more — because I expected some sort of energy shield with all the advanced technology around us. Soon, I heard the grunting and yelling of prisoners as the guards passed out what I guessed to be lunch. If you could call it that. Anyway, someone suddenly picked me up and threw me into one of the cells, erecting an energy field.
“Damn it! In another cage,” I thought and heard voices from behind me. I turned to see several beings in the cell with me, all of which looked from ordinary to bizarre at best. From a quick count, a total of twelve other beings occupied the same cell. All but two clustered together, laughing, playing some kind of cards, and smoking. There seemed to be a mix between male and female entities just from listening to them, which meant these cat people didn’t care what gender you were. You just went to prison, was my guess.
As I continued to survey the room, a humanoid lizard-man leaned against the wall, using some kind of utensil to file his nails to a fine point. He was green in color with a dim yellow running down into his outfit, consisting of centurion armor or leather. His height was close to 3 meters tall with a well-proportioned body structure, similar to an athletic build. He seemed to ignore everyone and concentrate on himself.
Then my eyes shifted to the figure sitting over in the corner and did a double-take. That was a human woman, and she seemed to be in her mid-twenties by the look of her. Her russet color hair stood out in contrast to her skin; eyes of deep emerald stared back at me. From one moment, she seemed to just stare blankly at me before turning into anger.
“You! YOU MONSTER! MURDERER!” she shouted, charging at me at the others in the cell looked up the commotion.
“You fucking hot-shot pharmacist! You were good for nothing, CHEMIST! My whole FAMILY DIED because of YOU!” She screamed, tackling me and punching me wherever she could. I didn’t try to stop her. She was right, I murdered countless others, making claims that I could save them, but in the end, they were baseless, false. Saving one-third of humanity was not even close to repaying my debts. So many times, I thought a cure would work… So many failures.
The alarms blared overhead as the guards swarmed into the cell. They shot her with some kind of stun-gun and took her away while the guards pointed their weapons at me. “The King wishes to see you. Get up, now,” said the guard, and I clambered to my feet. The wave of nausea hit me again, and I felt blood running from my lip.
“Get him cleaned up and ready for the King!” the guard said as they carried me out of the cell, darkness clouding my vision.