Approximately 30 Km. West of San José

Alajuela Province, Costa Rica

January 15, 2013

“Pass me another beer from that cooler!”

Her voice was barely audible over the loud cheering a raucous laughter that permeated the party bus, but eventually Elena Machado was able to attract the attention of her brother Miguel, who was seated conveniently enough next to the cooler she wanted access too.

“Oyé Miguel, gimme another beer would you?” Elena shouted again.

Miguel nodded and plunged his hand into the icy water that surrounded about two dozen clear glass bottles. A moment later he passed one of the bottles to Elena who popped the top off and took a long drink of the alcoholic liquid.

It was by no means her first of the night.

The revelers had spent the day in Palmares for the traditional festival that happened every year in mid-January. Music and entertainment; Costa Rican-style bullfights and lots and lots of beer. She and Miguel had joined a group of touristas that had chartered a party bus to take them to and from the festivities, because neither of them had managed to score a hotel in the city itself.

But no matter. They’d made it to the party anyway.

Elena smiled at Miguel and raised her bottle to him in a salute before taking another drink. Miguel, smiled back at her, his expression just a little bleary, before resting his head on the window of the bus and closing his eyes.

Elena smiled and shook her head, she’d warned him not to get into a drinking contest, but did he listen? Of course not.

No matter, they had a hotel room waiting for them back in San José, he’d be able to sleep it off there. And if Elena was feeling particularly nice the next morning, she might even agree to drive them both back to Quepos.

The revelry was interrupted by a loud bang, and a few choice curse words from their driver. The music cut off suddenly, and they drifted to a stop on the shoulder of the highway.

“Hey!” Someone yelled out in a slurred voice. “Wass…goin’on?”

“Nothing to worry about.” The driver called back, climbing to his feet and stepping through the bus door. “We just have a flat. I’ll get it changed in no time and we’ll be on our way.”

The announcement was met with a drunken cheer.

Elena drained the last of her bottle and climbed to her feet.

“Hey… where you going?” Miguel asked, grabbing her wrist.

“I gotta pee.” Elena responded. “I figure since we’re… you know… since we’re stopped, I’ll just go back into the woods a bit.”

“Can’t you just go off the side of the road…?” Miguel muttered distractedly.

“I’m a girl, pendejo!” Elena said just a little too loudly. “I can’t just whip it out and let it fly like you can!”

A few of the people around her laughed.

“All right, just don’t take too long…” Miguel mumbled, before laying his head back against his seat and closing his eyes, again.

“Yeah yeah.”

Elena carefully pushed her way through the seats of the bus towards the front. She stumbled down the steps and out the side door of the bus, and past the driver who was muttering curse words under his breath as he tried to manhandle the spare tire into the wheel well.

Elena ignored him and made her way to the side of the highway, where a shallow ditch separated the road from the surrounding woods.

Stumbling, both from the uneven ground and the alcohol coursing through her veins, Elena trudged down into the ditch and up the other side. She looked over her shoulder and saw the bus driver was still wrestling with the rather large tire, so she figured she had enough time to find a spot to relieve herself.

The young woman pushed her way into the underbrush and tried to find a suitable spot to squat down.

Unfortunately, she didn’t see the sudden drop off until she’d already tried to step over it.

With a yelp, Elena pitched forward and tumbled down the dirty incline, rolling down the hill until she came to a stop at the base of a very tall tree.

“Fuck!” Elena swore as she climbed back to her feet. She was covered with mud and quite a few abrasions thanks to her sudden roll in the dirt. Muttering darkly, she figured this spot was as good as any and leaned against the tree, adjusting her skirt so she could urinate without making a further mess of herself.

After several seconds, she finished and stood up, feeling immensely better. Of course, now she had to make her way back up to the highway.

And that’s when she heard the unmistakable sound of a tour bus’s engine starting.

“Oh shit!” Elena swore and scrambled up the incline, no longer caring what she looked like afterward. “Wait! Wait!”

She crested the hill just in time to see the bus round a curve and disappear from sight.

“Fuck!” Elena yelled, kicking at the ground. “Fuck! Okay… okay… no problem, Miguel will tell them I’m not on the bus. I’m sure they’re parked around the curve, waiting for me. It’ll be embarrassing, but really no big deal…”

Elena took off running at a quick jog, trying to catch up. Unfortunately, there was no bus waiting for her on the other side of the curve.

And there were no other cars on the highway either.

“Shit.” Elena swore and wiped a tear from her eye. She had to be at least another twenty six kilometers outside of San José. Feeling a lump settle into the pit of her stomach, Elena began trudging along the highway, hoping to see the tour bus going in the other direction to come find her.

She walked for what had to have been an hour at least. Her mind was lost in a haze and she steadily put one foot in front of the other.

“Fuck!” She raged quietly, more as a distraction technique than anything. “Stupid fucking bus! Dumbass driver, I swear I’m going to sue their entire company for this! Who just fucking leaves a passenger? And why didn’t Miguel say anything? Idiot’s probably passed out in his chair, I told him not to drink so much!”

A sudden stiff breeze swept across the highway and Elena huddled into herself, her heart pounding from fear. Every shadow seemed to move in on her, and she was pretty sure this was where she was going to die.

She continued to plod along, her anger and fear sinking into a quiet sort of depression. She just had to keep walking, and eventually she’d reach the city and be able to hire a cab.

A loud noise snapped her back to reality and she covered her ears with a cry of pain. The sound was unlike anything she’d ever heard before, like a thousand helicopters all flying at once.

A bright light flashed around her, outlining her in a searing white brilliance that made it difficult to see anything. Elena squinted against the illumination, trying to discern just what was going on. Maybe they’d sent a rescue team to find her.

But what Elena could make out told her there wasn’t a helicopter above her. It was hard to make out against the glare of the searchlight, but the… thing above her looked much bigger than any plane Elena had seen. It hovered menacingly, blacker than the darkest night. The searchlight narrowed and the drumming sound of the machine’s engines intensified. The incessant drumming rattled her bones and made her entire body vibrate painfully.

Elena let out a piercing scream… before everything went black.

*.*.*.*.*

Imperial Observation Outpost Titan
Sol System, Sector Seventeen

“I don’t know why so many people find this place so fascinating.”

Rady Tingmott resisted the urge to roll his eyes at his girlfriend. “We’re just here for a couple hours, Tsisa. Then we’ll be back on our way home.”

“Yeah, but then we still have another stopover in Archavia before finally making it home to Navyenev.” Tsisa sighed, pushing her orange and red hair back behind her ears. “I just think we should have booked a non-stop flight.”

“This was cheaper.” Rady countered. “By a lot.”

“Credit-scraper.” Tsisa groused.

Rady shrugged. “I’m an Aementi, after all.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her closer. “Come on, we’ll go up to the bazaar. If you’re good, maybe I’ll buy you a present.”

Tsisa smiled, she teased her boyfriend about his thriftiness, but in truth she liked how well he managed his money. So many of her past lovers hadn’t done as well in that department and it had often caused her problems. And anyway, he did know when to loosen the purse strings a little.

The Titan couple caught the nearest lift and rode it a few levels up to the tourist trap of shops and boutiques.

The two of them spent the next hour or so wandering the shopping district. Tsisa did find a fair number of itmes she was interested in purchasing, and even Rady found a souvenir or two. Tsisa put several of these items in one of her bags.

“Hey what’s that shop over there?” Rady asked, nodding towards the far end of the corridor. They wandered aimlessly in that direction until they reached the boutique and found it to be some sort of exotic pet shop.

“Oh wow…” Tsisa whispered, before bending down to look into one of the terrariums. “They’ve got little Earth animals.”

“See anything you like?” A voice asked behind them. Startled, Tsisa and Rady turned around to find a short woman with curly brown hair standing behind them.

“Oh uh, no.” Rady finally said. “We’re mostly just looking.”

“Very good.” The saleswoman responded, smiling pleasantly. “If you need any help with anything, please let me know.”

“Right.” Rady muttered as the woman turned to walk away, “We will.”

“Ooh Rady come look!”

Rady winced, he knew that tone. It meant Tsisa had found something she wanted. Resigned to his fate, the young man strolled between the shelves of cages and terrariums filled with miniature livestock, looking for what had attracted his girlfriend’s attention.

“Look! Humans!” Tsisa said, pointing to a display of small Titan-like creatures frozen in cryogenic tubes. Curiously, Rady bent down to examine them. Each of them had the placid look common to beings in suspended animation.

“Do you want one?” Rady asked before even realizing what he’d said.

“Oh do you mean it?” Tsisa asked, a wide smile lighting up her face. “Oh well, then I think I’ll take this one!”

Her long fingers deftly plucked one of the palm sized cryo units from the display. Through the hazy glass of the viewing window, Rady could see his girlfriend had chosen a young looking female, with tan colored skin and long dark hair. If Rady was able to judge correctly, she looked to be about four years old.

“Sure love.” Rady smile hid the fact he was kicking himself on the inside. “I’ll go find the saleswoman and we can get out of here before you find something else that’s cute.”

“Credit scraper!” Tsisa called him again, but there was a lot more affection in her voice.

Rady rolled his eyes and lead her to the back of the store where the shop girl was waiting at the Register.

“I see you found something.” The young woman said with a smile.

“We did!” Tsisa said enthusiastically. “She’s adorable.”

“Well, only the best in my store. Genuine Earth human that is, guaranteed.”

“Earth?” Rady asked, glancing back at the display, where a sign did in fact proclaim the humans as being terran in origin. “Isn’t that illegal?”

“Normally yes.” The saleswoman agreed, even as she began to ring up their purchase. “But these humans were confiscated from some smugglers. I’ve been given special dispensation from the Military to sell these humans. It’s all perfectly legal.”

Rady’s mouth twisted into a frown, but he decided he was willing to accept that. The store wasn’t exactly being discreet about the sale, and the woman would be stupid to try and sell them right under the military’s nose in so brazen a fashion, otherwise.

It wasn’t long after that the two of them were back wandering among the store fronts, although Tsisa was far more interested in examining her new pet.

“I think you should probably keep her in stasis until we get home.” Rady said, looking over Tsisa’s shoulder at the human in her hands. “That way she won’t get stressed out from the trip. I’m sure coming out of suspended animation like that will be disorienting for her. Especially if she’s from Earth.”

“In a way she’s lucky.” Tsisa sighed happily. “I can’t imagine she’d have had much of a life on Earth. Scrabbling about in the wild trying to fend for herself.” The young woman slipped the cryogenic device into her bag with the rest of her purchases. “This way, she’ll be able to live a long and happy life being cared for by us.”

“Very true.” Rady agreed. “Now come on, it’s time to catch our shuttle.”

*.*.*.*

Northwestern Starport

Aementos, Aement.

Archavia

Tsisa was already sick of space travel, and they still had one more leg on their journey. She and Rady were at the baggage check, waiting for their luggage to be unloaded from the shuttle they had just disembarked from that had brought them from Titan Station.

“I hate dealing with luggage handling.” Rady muttered.

“Well, they would have loaded our bags on the next shuttle right away if you hadn’t decided to switch spaceline companies for the last part of our trip. Tsisa responded, her voice just a little snippy.

Rady grumbled, but didn’t reply. Finally, after what felt like an interminable wait, a perky desk clerk reappeared wheeling a cart with their luggage.

“There you are sir!” The woman said pleasantly. “We hope you enjoyed your flight!”

Again, Rady grumbled something that was something close to a reply, before stepping behind the cart and pushing it through the spaceport towards their designated terminal.

“We better hurry.” Tsisa sighed, “Or we’ll miss our shuttle.”

Rady didn’t respond, but he did start walking a little faster. Mentally, he counted off the terminals as they passed them, until finally he found the one they needed.

“Just in time.” Rady sighed. “Let me go get these bags checked into the cargo hold and we’ll wait for boarding.

“Oh just let me grab a couple things I need.” Tsisa said as she dug through their luggage Eventually, she selected a handful of her bags and lifted them off the cart.

“Need all that, do you?” Rady asked icredulously.

“Yes.” Tsis sniped, before going to find a seat in the terminal.

“Four bags.” Rady muttered to himself as he walked towards the cargo desk. “She needs four bags.”

Tsisa, meanwhile, found herself a seat in the terminal. She set her bags down at her feet and proceeded to read a book off her pad to pass the time.

A short time later, Rady reappeared and collapsed into the chair next to her with a sigh. He couldn’t wait for this trip to be over. Thankfully, they only had one flight left.

The two of them sat in the terminal for several minutes, before another cheerful desk clerk announced that they would begin boarding shortly.

With a groan, Rady pulled himself out of his chair and grabbed his bag, before turning to helped Tsisa out of her seat.

“Time to go!” He said with mock cheerfulness.

Tsisa grumbled but stowed her pad in her pocket and bent down to pick up her bags.

“Got everything?” Rady asked her as they climbed the gangplank into the space cruiser.

“Yes I do.” Tsisa replied irritably. She, too, was ready for this trip to be over.

But she didn’t have everything. A single bag was left behind, pushed underneath her chair by her impatient feet. It laid there as the cruiser the couple had boarded finished loading and took off for the stars. It laid there through the next boarding procedure. It laid there until the terminal closed down for the night. It laid there until a cleaning crew found it the next morning.

“Found a lost bag!” One of the cleaners called to her coworker as she lifted the bag out from underneath the seat.

“Any identification on it?” The other cleaner called back, turning off his floor sweeper.

The woman rooted around in the bag. “No. Looks like a bunch of tourist junk from Titan Station.”

“Figures.” The man muttered. “Take it down to lost items, I guess.”

The woman shrugged and set it on her cart. It went with her as she finished her rounds of the spaceport. Eventually, after she finished her shift, the worker grabbed the bag and brought it to the lost items department. There, she handed the bag off to a board looking clerk.

“No identification?” The young man asked.

“Nope.”

“Okay.” The clerk printed out a filing tag and slapped it onto the bag, before carrying it into the back warehouse and dumping it on a shelf. After making sure it wouldn’t fall to the floor, the clerk shrugged his shoulder and returned to the front desk.

Had he been a little less apathetic, he might have noticed the cryogenic device with the human in suspended animation inside.

He didn’t.

And because of that, the human- whose name was Elena Machado, was in for a long wait.