The Gender End by Bella Forrest (the giving tree read aloud TXT) 📕

to keep the nervousness out of my voice. “I’m sorry we crashed on your tower, but we needed to or we would have died. Please, we only need a small amount of time to fix our ship, and I really don’t want to kill anyone if I can avoid it.”

The two closest to me stared at my face. Then Pencil-Mustache looked up at the second person, and gave a little shrug, looking exceptionally baffled. I glanced between the two of them, noting the second person was grasping a similar black stick to Pencil-Mustache. A horrible thought suddenly occurred to me.

“You guys speak English? Right?”

There was another pause, and then Pencil-Mustache looked at me and nodded. “We do at that,” he said, slowly picking himself up off the ground and dusting off his suit.

The other figure took off his mask, revealing a rather handsome blonde-haired man with a strong chin and surprisingly hard look in his ice-blue eyes. “Knight MacGillus, shut up.”

“Well, we have to talk to her,” MacGillus whispered as he climbed to his feet. “The council will want a meeting with her. This is the first contact we’ve had with anyone from the outside.”

“For all we know, they’re all pirates and thieves, come to rob us of our technology.”

“Sir, it is not our jurisdiction,” MacGillus stressed, his eyebrows leaping into his receding hairline. “The law clearly states that the solar panels are under the jurisdiction of the—”

“Farmers,” the other man finished with a sigh. “Although an argument could be made that jurisdiction has never had to be stretched out externally, so the purview of the outside could be seen as our concern, but…”

He trailed off as he noticed me watching. I gave a polite little smile, and he held off saying anything more.

“Violet!” shouted Belinda angrily from behind him, and I leaned to peer over his shoulder at where she and Kathryn were standing, encircled by the three other figures in white.

“Call them off,” I said, looking at MacGillus’ superior. “Please. You’re the first intelligent life my people have met, too. I really don’t want any hostility to start because of a misunderstanding.”

The man blinked, and then rolled his lips tight over his teeth, emitting a shrill whistle that was exceptionally loud. The figures in white stopped their advance, and I eased up on the gun a little, lowering it a few inches. His eyes tracked the progress, but he made no reaction to the gun either way. His indifference was surprising, but maybe he was that unfazed by violence. Viggo had seemed weathered like that, when I first met him.

“My name is Jathem Dreyfuss, Knight Elite,” he said after a long moment. “You may refer to me as Jathem. You and your companions will accompany me inside the tower, so that we may get to the bottom of who you are and what your intentions might be.”

I shook my head immediately. “No way. My people stay out here and continue their work. I’ll be the only one heading inside, and if they don’t hear from me in one hour, they will be instructed to leave.”

“I would need permission from my superiors before I could agree,” Jathem said, his voice sounding almost tired.

“Then get it.”

Jathem turned his head and closed his eyes. After a moment, he opened them and then nodded. “Very well, the council has agreed.”

I frowned, my eyes flicking all over him, trying to figure out how he had managed to communicate without at least moving his mouth. His neck didn’t seem to have anything on it, but… Maybe there was something under the skin? It was deeply unnerving, either way. For all I knew he could be talking to voices that didn’t exist anywhere but in his head, and I had stumbled onto some sort of prison where insane people were kept.

I shuddered at the grim depths my imagination would go to as Jathem lifted his arm. “Shall we?”

“Not just yet,” I reminded him. “I still need to relay my instructions to my people.”

He said nothing as I moved between them, heading over to the heloship like my pants were on fire.

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7

Violet

“What is going on?” Belinda demanded as I made my way toward where she was standing. Kathryn was awkwardly trying to stand next to her, although her legs didn’t look like they were cooperating.

“These are the residents of the tower,” I said, looking at the three other white-clad figures, those same black rod things clutched loosely in their hands. The tip of one glimmered blue, and I realized that those must carry the electrical charge that had dropped me a few minutes ago. “They’ve invited me inside to, uh, meet their leaders. The excellent news is that they speak English.”

Belinda’s eyes grew wide, and I motioned her toward the rear of the ship. She pondered me for a long moment, and then straightened up. “I’ll be right back, Kathryn,” she said, rising to her full, impressive height. She stood a handful of inches over the tallest person in white, which I hoped intimidated them slightly, although it was hard to tell behind the reflective face plates on their masks.

“It’s all right,” called Jathem to his people from behind us, and I turned to see him and MacGillus drawing nearer. “Let them talk.”

The group collectively took a step back, solidifying my impression that Jathem was definitely in charge. He was already waving them over into a quick conference. I followed suit, and led Belinda around and into the cargo bay. “You’re going to go with them?” she asked as soon as we were inside.

“I have to. There are far more of them than us, and we have no idea how lethal their weapons are.”

“Those stick things?” She squinted at me. “What do they do?”

“They deliver some sort of electrical shock,” I said, my shoulders twinging in memory of the experience. “I already got hit once, and I don’t want to feel that again. Listen, we don’t have much time. I lied about the other guns.