by Maia Starr
“Open the gate!” she shouted up to the guards on the gates. The gate slowly opened. She looked at me.
“I don't know you, alien. I don't know what you think of honor and truth. But I think highly of both; do I have your word of honor that when you enter, you will remain peaceful,” she asked.
“You have my word of honor. We will remain peaceful to you and to all humans we encounter,” I said looking at her green eyes. She seemed uncomfortable when I made direct eye contact for whatever reason. She nodded her head acknowledging my statement.
Then she walked inside, and we followed. There wasn't much to see right at the entrance. There were large trees covered in snow, and you could not see the community buildings from this point. But my lieutenants and I looked at the gate and the fence. I noticed that it was not as guarded as the one in Haven Brook. I wondered if the defense of this community was more than what I was seeing.
“Casper, go into the village and call for an assembly. Do nothing to create panic. But we must address the fact that we have visitors, sooner than later,” she said to a man.
"Right away, Sergeant,” he said, and then he jogged down the dirt road straight ahead of us. His boots sloshed in the heavy snow.
“We must give them time to assemble,” she said as she turned to look at me.
“I understand. Tell me more of your snow village,” I said.
“Ask me questions?” she said.
I grinned. She was tough. I liked it. My desire for her was growing stronger by the second.
“How many humans are in this village?” I asked.
“Five hundred humans,” she answered.
“This is much smaller than Haven Brook,” I said.
“Is that disappointing to you?” she asked.
“No, it means my army of two hundred will have an easy time guarding the small number of humans here,” I said.
Her eyes grew wide in amazement. “Two hundred? You have two hundred soldiers with you?” she asked.
“Yes, that is correct. I have two hundred soldiers, and they are now yours. They belong to Providence, sworn to protect against the Clenok cyborgs. It is our mission,” I said.
She cleared her throat, and I could tell that she was trying to restrain the fact that she was impressed. But I didn't know why. Too much pride, perhaps.
“Come, let's continue. The assembly should be gathered in the large field. Just follow me and please do not speak until after I have told them about you. We do not want panic on our hands,” she said.
“I understand,” I said.
We continued walking down the road, and the large trees gave way to a clearing. There was a small village with small buildings made of mostly wood. There were several streets going in different directions. It looked exactly like Haven Brook only much smaller. It was well kept, but it looked more abandoned than what we had seen at Haven Brook. There were more buildings than needed for the small community of five hundred humans.
She continued walking, and we soon found ourselves in a large field. It was a simple gathering. We began to hear sounds of shock and commotion as we came into view. Sergeant Sheila put her hand up to try to silence the crowd.
“People of Providence! As you can see, we have visitors. They come in peace; you have my word. They have come from another planet, yes, it is true. They are called the Veruka. But we are not the first human colony that they have visited. They come to us from a human colony called Haven Brook. They have an army based there and have been helping the humans of Haven Brook fight the cyborgs. They have come to help us do the same. They have a part of their army with them today. They have come to help defend providence against the Clenok!”
Suddenly there was cheering and clapping. I was surprised. These people seemed to be happy that we were there to help them fight the cyborgs. I thought they would be much more closed off to us. It was surprising and refreshing. I looked at Sheila, and she seemed to be put off by the reaction. I think she wanted them to be just as suspicious as she was. But they were showing the opposite. I heard murmurs of, “We need an army,” and, “About time someone has come to help us.”
I scanned the crowd and found that there weren't soldiers like there were in Haven Brook. I got a feeling that this community was on its own and only had the standard human type, not the soldier type. I wondered if all soldier defenses were already on the wall.
“I will be working with their leader. He is called General Azlo Bron,” she said, pointing to me. I nodded my head in a respectful bow to the assembly.
“Thank you, humans of Providence. I give you my word that we are here for your protection. We have helped the humans in Haven Brook, and that is where my king and the rest of our army are stationed. We are the Veruka. We have come to Earth in order to help the humans get Earth back from the machines. We hope that you will open your gates to our army so that we may properly defend your colony,” I said. I felt Sheila turn and look at me. She was not happy with my words. Whatever upset her, it was too late; it was done.
“Let them in!” a man in the crowd shouted.
“Let the Veruka protect us!” a woman shouted.
There was agreement and cheer across the crowd. I looked at Sheila; her green eyes narrowed at me. I don't think she wanted it to go this fast, but time was of the essence, and I needed to get my army inside and set up to guard this colony.
Sheila put her hand in the air to silence the crowd. “We will let the army in. Be warned that the village will be busy, and you will see many of these Veruka walking around. Do not be alarmed. They do not wish to harm us: remember that. It is important to know that these Veruka are weredragons. They call themselves shifters. They have wings, as you can see, and they can use them to fly. We will all be learning more about our new friends together. For now, let's make them at home. I will be giving them the abandoned five-story office building in the west of the colony near the grassy fields. They do have ships; they will be landing in the grassy field and setting up camp. I urge you to stay away until they are safely set up; stay a good distance. Thank you and please continue to go about your routine. This colony needs each of your work in order to continue working on a proper infrastructure. We are all needed,” she said. Then she turned and looked at me.
“It seems to be going well,” I whispered to her.
“Yes, but you gave me no choice in whether to invite your army in just yet. That was a clever trick,” she whispered back.
“Not a trick: progress,” I whispered back as I followed her across the grassy field. My lieutenants followed close behind.
“I will show you to the building. You can scout it and the fields around it to see if it is suitable to your needs,” she said with restrained anger.
“Thank you, Sergeant,” I said.
“This is it,” she said pointing to a towering building at five stories. It would be good as a lookout point, and the grassy fields near it had plenty of room to land our ships and create a large camp.
“This is suitable. Thank you. The first thing we would want to do is send out scouts to scout the area to see if there are Clenok cyborg armies in the area. We can do a good one-hundred-mile radius on all sides.”
“Yes, that is achievable when you can fly,” she said crossing her arms. She was still putting up that wall, but was it going to take to impress her?
“And I want to get as many of my soldiers on the gates and on the fence. It seems that it is not electrified like the one in Haven Brook; is that correct?”
“It is not electrified,” she said pursing her lips together.
“And how many soldiers do you have under you? I didn't see any in the assembly and I barely saw maybe twenty to thirty on the gates?”
“There are only fifty trained soldiers that came here with me, and we trained twenty more men and women while we have been here,” she said.
“So you defend this human colony with fifty trained and twenty impromptu soldiers without an electrified fence against an army of machines. H
ow have you survived this long?” I asked.
I could see her face getting red. She was on fire, like the color of her hair.
“I will have you know that it is not easy to defend this colony on my own. I am doing the best that I can. We do not have engineers that can build an electrified fence, so we put up tangled barbwire where we could. I do not have the trained army needed to fight against cyborgs, so our only defense has been complete a blackout at night in order to stay hidden. Staying hidden is our only weapon against the cyborgs. If they don't know that we are here, they can't attack us, and that is as good as it gets, General!” she turned and stomped away. Clearly, I had hit a nerve with her.
“Lieutenant, fly to the ships and tell them that I will be returning in half an hour to lead them into the colony. Let them know we will be staying, but to take no action until I arrive,” I said to one of my lieutenants.
“Yes, General,” he said and then turned and flew into the air.
“Lieutenant Reqan, come with me into this building. Let's have a look shell way,” I said to my trusted lieutenant.
“After you, General. Maybe there will be a cold shower in there for you,” he said teasing me.
“That obvious, is it?” I said laughing and walking into the building.
“I thought a fire was going to eat a wrap to between you and the human female. That was intense, but I think more on your part than hers. I am pretty sure that she hates you,” he laughed.
“Thanks. I will keep that in mind,” I said as I opened the door and walked into the bottom floor of the building. It was completely empty, and that was good. “We will make this floor a communal space for our soldiers. I want the top floor to be the command center. It will have a good view from up there, and it will be easy for soldiers to fly in with information. We might have to blow out the windows,” I said.
“Let's go check it out,” he said.
But as I took a step, everything went dark. I felt the floor underneath my body.
“General? General, are you all right?” Reqan asked.
I sat up and sure what had happened. Did I trip? Did I fall over something? But it didn't explain blacking out. This wasn't good.
“I am fine,” I said.
“No, you are not. Do you think I don't know the first symptoms of the blackness plague when I see it?”
“That is not what that was,” I said getting to my feet.
“Denying it won't make it go away,” he said.
“Promise me that you will tell no one. There is no point in starting to panic among the army. Promise me, Reqan,” I said grabbing his shoulder.
“Fine. I promise. But if you get any more symptoms you must promise me that you'll try to remedy it. The king told us what the cure is. There are plenty of human females around here that can cure you,” he said.
“I will be fine; I promise you that. Now let's continue with the work. Let's go to the top floor to check this out. There is a lot of work to do,” I said turning away from him. I wasn't ready to promise him that I would take a human female and mate with her, not yet. I knew that it was the blackness, there was no doubt about it. But taking a human female was for life: for her life anyway. We Veruka lived for hundreds of years. I was already one hundred years old. For the human female, it meant that they would bond to us. It was eternal for them. I already knew which human female I wanted, but as Reqan said, she hated me. This was going to be more complicated than I thought. I had simply wanted her out of desire, but now with these new symptoms, my life depended on it.
Chapter 4
Sergeant Sheila Adams
I was pissed off that this alien weredragon had taken over the assembly with his own information. Who did he think he was? I had told him that I was in charge and yet he was taking over, and the crowd seemed to love it. It annoyed me. It annoyed me to watch him lead people that I had been trying to lead for a long time. They were a hard bunch to take care of, and this charismatic weredragon just strolled in and had their trust. I still didn't trust him, but what choice did I have? If I didn't work with him, he would just take over the whole thing. He would defy my authority, and I wasn't ready to give into him. His dominating ways were frustrating, and yet attractive. What the hell was wrong with me? Why did I find this alien attractive? He wasn't even human.
Just two hours after I had given him a building and fields for base camp, the entire Veruka army was in action. I saw Azlo, and he was out of dragon form. He no longer had the wings or the hard scales on his body; he looked more human in this fashion, but not quite. He was still very much alien. I watched as Azlo ordered the setup of the base camp. I was impressed, but I would never tell him that. The way he shouted orders and the way his soldiers obeyed him was very attractive to watch. He was in his element. He was in charge and knew exactly what he was doing. I could tell they had done this many times before. It was executed perfectly. As I watched, my suspicion of him and his purpose began to wane a bit. They really did seem like they were setting up a base camp in order to help defend the colony.
“Like what you see?” a deep voice said from behind me. I turned around to see Azlo standing behind me.
“It's been a long time since I've watched an army in action,” I said.
“Is that all you were looking at?” he crossed his arms across his chest.
“Yes. I was merely watching your tactics,” I said.
“I have more tactics where that came from, if you're interested,” he said. His voice was thick and husky with desire. It was working on me, but I was going to pretend to be disgusted.
“You don't need to play your games with me, General. It's not going to work,” I said turning away from him and back toward the action of watching the soldiers set up camp.
“Aren't you the least bit curious about us? I know that I am curious about you humans,” he said.
“I am curious about your shifting abilities. I don't understand how it works. It seems impossible to me,” I said.
“I can show you. Maybe it will make more sense to you if you see it,” I said.
I turned my head even more away from him. “No thanks; maybe another time,” I said.
In a flash, he was standing in front of me. I didn't even see him move. It was like a blur. My mouth fell wide open. “How did you do that? I didn't even see you move.”
“The same way that you do. Just a certain amount of movements, but we move too fast for your human eyes to see,” he said.
“Another one of your spectacular abilities?” I said.
“Yes, an ability that will help to defeat the cyborgs, should they come,” he said.
“Let's hope that they do not,” I said.
“I agree with that statement. I have something for you, for all of your colony, but I assume that you are the one to give it to you since you seem to be in charge here,” he said.
“Seem to be? I am in charge here: make no mistake about that,” I said feeling my anger build up again. How was he able to do that? He was able to get me riled up with just words.
“Good, then I will give you the virus from Haven Brook,” he said.
I lit up. “Virus from Haven Brook? What do you mean?” I asked.
“I told you that I brought a message from Haven Brook when I met you at the gate. I told you that we had found a possible way to defeat the keddle. Remember?”
I didn't remember until that moment. I had forgotten in the craziness. But now I remembered. “Yes, of course, I remember. But you didn't say that it was a virus. You mean that it is a computer virus that can infect the cyborgs?”
“Oh, now I have your full attention. I tell you what: you watch me shift, and I will tell you more about this virus and hand it over to you,” he said.
I narrowed my eyes at him. What was this weredragon playing at? Why did he want me to watch him shift so badly?
“Fine, get it over with,” I said.
“Not here. I will give you the copies of the virus after I shift. Therefore we should be close to
where you are going to keep the virus. I would not want you walking through the colony with it and losing it. It must be stored in a safe and secure a place, and only you and one that you trust shall know where it is and how to use it,” he said.
"You think I can't walk through this colony for less than a mile and not lose something? You have very little faith in me, General,” I said putting my hands on my hips.
“I am just following protocol. Now do you have a secure place or not?” he asked.
“Yes, I do. Come with me,” I said turning around away from the base camp and walking toward Main Street. We walked in silence all the way across to the other side of the colony. I was walking to the old abandoned bank. I unlocked the door and walked in.
