BONUS: Alien Girlfriend Deleted Scenes - 21: Visitor

Hello! This is a bonus scene I wanted to share with patrons! This is a "deleted scene" chapter that was originally going to be set in between Bill's evening with Rachel and John and the ship getting attacked the next day.

That part of the story was already getting complaints about slowing down and I ditched this and the next chapter in favor of getting things moving again. It has a little bit about the link in it, and I decided I didn't want to info dump so early.

Note that this has some stuff about the link in it, but since it's not part of the published work I can and probably will change some of it when I get around to addressing the link more in the main story.

Hope you like it!

I stared down at my drink for a long and contemplative moment. It was a moment where I thought about everything that had happened to me in the past year. Where I thought about everything that happened with that livisk. Where I thought about how apparently there was a cover-up a bunch of people knew about if you were in the very highest levels of the CCF or down on the very lowest levels.

Something they were apparently hiding in plain sight. Like they had people going through training where they were learning how to resist the livisk, and it was turned into a joke.

Talk about the perfect way to hide a conspiracy right out in plain sight.

"Well, I sure as shit never thought it was something like that until you brought it up," I said, shaking my head and chuckling at the ridiculousness of it all.

An uncomfortable silence settled on the room. I looked over to Rachel and then to John. He cleared his throat and put his own drink down.

"Sorry for putting that on you, Bill," he said.

"No, there's no reason for you to be sorry about anything," I said, shaking my head and chuckling, even though I didn’t feel like it was a situation that called for a chuckle.

There was nothing funny about any of this bullshit, but what else could I do? If I didn't laugh about it, then I might start…

Well, not crying, but thinking it was time for me to submit myself for a psych eval after all. Something that I'd been avoiding even though seeing a sparkling blue woman in my brain for the past year since I got in a fight with her was sure as shit the kind of thing that should have had me going to see one of the head shrinkers and trying to get a medical discharge.

"I think I need to get some sleep if both of you don't mind," I said.

"No, Bill," John said. "Not at all."

"Are you going to be okay, Bill?" Rachel asked, staring at me with obvious worry.

"I'll be fine," I lied.

Both of them looked at me like they didn't think I was going to be fine at all. Like both of them thought I was full of shit, but I waved off their concerns.

"Seriously," I grunted. "You don't need to worry about me. I'll get through this the same as I've gotten through it every day for the past year."

"You say so, Bill," Rachel said, though she couldn't stop the concern that obviously tinged her voice.

"Yeah, you say so," John said, though he didn't sound nearly as convinced as Rachel did that I’d figure out a way to get through this.

Probably because he hadn't served with me for nearly as long as Rachel had, but that was just fine. I didn't expect to have the same kind of loyalty from the crew on the picket ship that I did on my old cruiser.

They shuffled out of my room, though I noted that John turned and hit me with a final long and lingering glance. It was a glance I didn't care for. A glance that said he was wondering if there was actually something wrong with me.

I forced myself to smile. What else could I do under the circumstances? He gave me a nod when he realized I was looking at him, and then he was moving out into the hallway following his life he led as a result of my fuck-up out there in that star system that didn't even have a name.

It probably had gotten a name since I saved the colony. I hadn't checked in on it. It was still a border world in disputed territory between humans and the livisk back when I’d come out of foldspace too close to the livisk station because Jacks was a dumbass.

I sighed and looked around my quarters. I thought about putting on pajamas, and instead I stripped down to my boxers. I tossed my uniform to the other side of the room to the general vicinity of the laundry receptacle.

I moved over to my cot and laid down. I crossed my hands over my stomach as I stared up at the ceiling like I had so many times before. Then I closed my eyes and felt her there.

There was a feel of pure determination from her. I wondered at that pure determination. Was there something going on here?

"You're so close," I said.

"I am," she replied.

I opened my eyes. That was new. Only when I opened my eyes, I realized she was right there in my quarters with me.

I sat bolt upright. I looked around the room for a weapon, and I realized my personal sidearm was on the other side of my quarters.

Why wouldn't it be on the other side of my quarters? I didn't expect anybody to board the ship, and if they did then I figured I’d have time to get to my sidearm on the other side of my room.

People thought I was paranoid about having a personal sidearm in my quarters even though it was technically something everybody was supposed to do. Regulations. The barracks were even located next to the armory in case there was a boarding.

But it never happened, and so people got lax in their discipline. The CCF and people getting lax in their discipline went together like… well, apparently like ground-pounders working for the CCF getting some strange mental affliction from a mind meld the livisk were pulling on them.

She looked across the room and frowned.

"I assume you're looking for a weapon," she said, turning her attention back to me.

"You can't see that weapon?" I asked, pausing for a moment as I stared at her and then looked over to my pulse pistol.

"Why would I be able to see it?"

"Because you're in the room with me."

Though I was starting to think she wasn't actually in the room with me. This had to be a hallucination or something. Or maybe I’d finally lost my mind.

That was more comforting than the idea that she’d somehow figured out a way to get into the middle of my quarters in the middle of my goddamn ship without anyone realizing it and sounding the alarm.

I was right down from the CIC. Maybe the livisk had figured out transporter technology at long last.

It wouldn't be the first time something dreamed up by science fiction authors on Earth became something that was science reality because aliens looked at the idea and assumed it was something that could actually happen because of a lost in translation moment.

There'd been a few times when humanity had been able to do things other alien societies thought was impossible because we saw them doing it in their entertainment they'd beamed into our space and assumed it was possible, and we'd just been making the wrong assumptions about how physics worked.

Funny how that kind of cross-cultural exchange could happen.

"What are you doing here?" I finally asked when it became apparent she wasn't going to make any moves.

"Why wouldn’t I be in here?" she asked, hitting me with a smile.

"Why here? Why now, after all this time?" I asked.

She frowned. It looked like a frown of confusion, but I didn't know enough about how livisk body language worked to really understand if she understood the misunderstanding.

“Why are you here?” I said instead, figuring that maybe rephrasing would help.

"The question is, why haven't you come for me?" she asked.

I blinked.

"I'm sorry. Is that something I was supposed to be doing?"

"Why don't you feel the burn of the link? It was an accident. It always is, or at least we say it is, but whenever I see you behind my eyes…”

She trailed off. She stared off into the middle distance. Her mouth fell open, which was an interesting look. It was a look I'd never seen from her before in all the times I'd seen her seemingly watching my mind from inside my head.

Which was a fucked-up thing to admit was happening to me, but here we were.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said.

Though all that stuff about an accidental connection sort of jived with everything I'd heard from people who talked about having a mind meld with the livisk. There wasn't even a need for them to put their hands on your forehead and say “my mind to your mind."

Though even in the original Star Trek they seemed to get a little confused about that stuff. Like it was something that didn't require touch until it did require touch.

I was getting distracted because there was an alien living in my head who was visiting in my quarters. My thoughts were going to random places as I looked for something that was understandable. Even if that something was the science fiction that was the underlying foundation of the pidgin that had grown up around starfarers over the years.

"You don't feel the burn inside you?"

"I'm afraid I don't," I said, worried I was somehow going to insult her by saying that.

"I feel it in me," she said, "When you didn't come… Well, they never do. I suppose I shouldn't have expected you to any more than any of the others."

"If you're talking about humans who have that weird connection with the livisk then the general consensus is they either keep their fucking mouths shut about it, or they go to the CCF loony bin to make some nice macaroni pictures with scissors that have been dulled a whole hell of a lot so they don't hurt themselves."

"Whatever," she said, glaring at me. She looked me up and down, and it was an inspection that had certain parts of my anatomy standing up and taking notice.

Hey, I'd like to see anybody have a beautiful woman staring at them like that and not think about some of the more interesting things a man can do with a beautiful woman.

"Do that again and I'm going to have to risk upsetting the ship's sensors by having a smoke," I said.

Which was impossible. There were no tobacco products allowed on the ship, even though lung cancer was a fairly trivial thing to heal these days. The smell still pissed people off.

Which was fine with me, but after that look she gave me I felt like I could use a cigarette. It was one of those phrases that was deeply ingrained in human culture for some reason.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said.

"Burning plants and inhaling it after mating," I said.

"Why would you burn plants and then inhale it after mating?" she said, cocking her head to the side and looking thoroughly confused.

Which was something I could get behind. I was feeling pretty thoroughly confused right about now.

"Never mind," I said.

She stared at me for a long moment. I stared right back at her, not really sure what to make of this other than to think maybe John had been right. Maybe I truly was losing my mind. Damn it.

I'd really been hoping it was all stuff I was making up in my head. That it wasn't me losing my marbles. Yet there was the proof right in front of me that I was.

"You're an odd one, human," she said. “But you have spirit. You destroyed that station without a thought.”

"Um, I guess I did, and I'm sorry about that."

"Why would you be sorry?"

"Well, wasn't your brother on there? The one who was banging the empress."

Her fists clenched and unclenched at her sides.

"You dare."

"Okay, sorry, for bringing up your brother, and for killing him for that matter."

"He was an impetuous fool," she finally said. "The only reason he got as far as he did was because of my help, and the only reason I helped him was because it would bring esteem to our family after long years in imperial disfavor."

“I see,” I said, looking at the fists clenching and unclenching at her side and wondering if that meant she was about to attack me.

I tried not to be too distracted by what she wore. Like if we were going back to the days of the original Star Trek then she was wearing a number that would be right at home. It was sparkly and a sort of pink color that really showed off her blue sparkling skin. The dress ran down her front with a slash down the leg that gave me a view that almost went all the way up.

It was an interesting view, to say the least.

She took a deep breath, squeezing her eyes shut, and when she opened them there was pure fury there. I backed up against the wall to try and get away from her, because I was sure I was about to die.