Alien Romance: Caged By The Alien: Scifi Alien Abduction Romance (Alien Romance, Alien Invasion Romance, BBW) (Celestial Mates Book 4)

by Marla Therron

  The Hermes will be there when we wake up, Penny thought like a mantra as she closed her eyes, trying to convince herself, It will definitely be there!

  It wasn't. Not the next time either. Rivera still did her best to contact the Hermes every time they woke, but there was never any response. Everyone had no choice but to accept it and move on.

  They had been too far away for mail for a while now. The distance meant it would take decades for a message from Earth to reach Oshun. There were undoubtedly some on the way, but, assuming things went according to plan, they would likely be on their return journey before they received it.

  They continued to dutifully send back their reports as well, signals drifting slowly through the stars, carrying data that would no doubt revolutionize Earth's understanding of space and space travel, but which would be old news by the time it's senders returned to see it.

  Penny still counted down every time they returned to the cryo pods. Only three more cryo sleeps. Only two. Only one.

  The lid of Penny's pod slid away with a pneumatic hiss and Penny opened her eyes, an electric hum coursing through her like Christmas morning. This was it. They had arrived.

  "Can we see anything yet?" she asked, hurrying onto the bridge after the others, still tugging her clean suit on, "How close are we?"

  Rivera was already at her console, turning on the view screen. A solar system sprang to life before them, a huge yellow sun burning furiously in the distance, the planets that orbited it tiny in comparison.

  "We're on the edge of the system," Rivera explained, "We've begun deceleration, but we'll be at the source of the transmissions soon."

  "Christ, guys, look at the airwaves!" Cho said excitedly, leaning over Salome's shoulder.

  "It's packed with transmissions," Salome said with delight, "Just like the ones we saw on earth. It's positively noisy with them!"

  "We did it," Penny was practically bouncing with excitement, hugging Ian's arm as delight overwhelmed her, "We actually found them!"

  "They're originating from the fourth planet," Salome reported, "Which early mapping is saying looks just like we expected. Atmosphere, liquid water, all of it!"

  "Any sign of the Hermes?" Ian asked, solemn.

  Rivera nodded to Salome, who took a moment to scan for their twin ship's frequencies, then shook her head.

  "No sign," she reported, "But it will have taken them time to get back on course. They might be right behind us."

  "Yeah, don't count them out just yet," Penny patted Ian's shoulder reassuringly and Rivera nodded.

  "Captain Gaugin is one of the most capable and accomplished men I know," Rivera assured them, "He'll figure something out, I'm certain of it. And in the meantime, he would want us to go on with the mission regardless. So, Ambassador, are you ready to meet some aliens?"

  Penny's heart leaped, but she nodded, smiling nervously.

  "I really wish we'd been able to learn more of language before we arrived," she said, "But I think I can handle it."

  "Well, you've got another-" Rivera paused to glance at a console, "Six hours, thirty eight minutes to go over what Cho and Abdullah have got so far. Good luck."

  "We only have the slimmest of grasps on their written language," Cho commented as Penny sat down with the other two women to go over what they had, "We have no idea how, or if, they communicate vocally. What will you do if we can't talk to them?"

  "There are other methods of communication," Penny explained calmly, "Like math. Math is, at least as far as we know, a pretty universal concept necessary for the development of a species. So, if we can't communicate, I'll try to start counting for them. If math is as universal as we think it is, that will demonstrate a lot of things about our species, least of all being that we're intelligent and non-aggressive."

  "And if math isn't in fact a universal concept?" Salome asked, "Or if we land in the alien equivalent of Kentucky and none of the aliens finished grade school?"

  "I'll figure something out," Penny told them both, scrolling through the data, "Now show me that thing you were talking about the other day, the concept grid?"

  "Okay, so, each quadrant of the grid has a distinct meaning. And there are further quadrants within each quadrant, going from simple to complex. The closer you are to the edge of the grid, the more 'pure' the concept is. The closer to the center, the more nuanced the meaning becomes..."

  For about six hours, Penny studied, and then went to rest until they arrived at their destination. She climbed into her bunk and lay staring at the bottom of the bunk above her, trying to calm her frantic heartbeat. She heard the bed creak and realized Ian must be in his own bunk resting as well.

  "Are you excited?" he asked after a moment.

  "Very," she answered, "I've wanted this my whole life. Are you?"

  "Losing the Hermes like that," Ian confessed, "It's kind of spoiled things for me."

  "I know you and Redbird were close."

  "Catharine was a good friend. A great scientist."

  The resignation in his voice caused a pang of sympathy in Penny. She hadn't known Catharine that well, but she'd known the astronavigator was a serious, driven woman, patient as she was tenacious. Nothing got in her way.

  "There's still a chance," Penny tried to encourage Ian, "They might still be on their way here now. You can't give up yet."

  Ian didn't answer, and Penny couldn't guess at his reaction. After a while, Penny let the conversation lapse and closed her eyes, trying to relax. In a very short while, she would be representing all mankind, making First Contact with an alien race...

  Chapter Three

  The crew gathered on the bridge as they approached the planet. Penny trembled with excitement, seeing immediate signs of advanced civilization. There were artificial satellites in orbit and a web of light spread over the planet's many continents. It was almost familiar.

  The sun was older than Sol, a deep red color, and the different wavelengths of light it put out meant the continents they looked down on were a rich blue color, almost teal, rather than predominantly green, because the plant life (real, alien plant life, Penny thought giddily) had adapted to absorb more of the long wave red light.

  "Look, look at that structure!" Salome said excitedly, pointing towards a sprawling hexagonal shape near the coast of one of the largest continents, "That looks man made, right? I mean, not man made but- Do you think it's a monument? Or a city?"

  "If it's visible from space, it must be massive," Cho added, awed.

  "How close do you think we can get before they notice us?" Penny wondered, a moment before the ship shuddered to an abrupt, impossible stop above the planet's atmosphere.

  They were all frozen for a moment, too confused to react, before Rivera darted to the console, pulling up cameras on either side of the ship and throwing their video onto the view screen.

  What they saw baffled them for a moment, because it certainly didn't look like a ship. A weird constellation of hexagonal shapes connected by a lattice work of golden metal, it warped the eye like an Escher drawing- an optical illusion. It didn't look like it should be able to fly. It barely looked like it should be able to exist.

  "I think they've noticed us," Rivera deduced, "Ambassador, are you ready for first contact?"

  "I think so?" Penny swallowed a nervous lump in her throat.

  "You've got the wheel from here on," Rivera squeezed Penny's shoulder encouragingly, "You can do this. We're all behind you."

  Cho, Salome, and Ian all nodded in agreement, sharing reassuring smiles. Penny took a deep breath.

  "Okay," she said, "Assuming this is a craft and not some kind of automated security, let's try and hail them. Try all the frequencies we have until we get a response."

  "Got it," Salome nodded and turned to the communications console, Cho near her with all the documentation they had of the alien language.

  "When we meet them, be as nonthreatening as possible," Penny continued, "Like with a scared animal. No quick movements. Don't show yo
ur teeth or look them directly in the eye. Calm, quiet voices. And let's hope that's as calming to them as it is to all the life on our planet."

  The ship jerked and Penny grabbed the back of a seat to steady herself.

  "We're moving again," Ian sounded worried, watching the view screen as the planet began moving closer to them, "They're pulling us towards the atmosphere."

  "Any luck with those communications?" Rivera asked Salome, who shook her head.

  "I tried the frequency their transmissions are on but I'm not getting a reply."

  "Keep trying," Penny took another deep breath, trying to ignore the worry creeping in at the edges and stay in the moment, "Try other frequencies too. The most important thing right now is to make sure they recognize us as intelligent living beings."

  But their attempts at communication went on being unheard or ignored as the ship was pulled with careful and deliberate slowness down into the planet's atmosphere.

  As they grew closer to the surface, pulling generally towards the largest continent, Penny saw cities coming into view, taking shape spread out below them.

  They didn't sprawl the way human cities did, but fell in precise, clearly very carefully planned lines, always favoring hexagonal shapes. The biggest cities, larger than any on earth, were visible hexagonal grids even from this far away, almost like cells in honey comb.

  "They're bringing us in for a landing," Rivera observed as they dropped towards a complex outside of one of the largest cities.

  "Do you think we're the first aliens they've met?" Ian asked, frowning, "I really don't fancy getting the ET treatment."

  Penny wasn't listening, focused on a large, cathedral like building at the center of the city they were dropping towards. It was massive, bigger than any building Penny could think of on earth, not just tall but wide, taking up many of the hexagonal squares that Penny had been mentally regarding as city blocks.

  She would have bet money it took up exactly six of them, and began to wonder if that number had religious importance here. The cathedral's gleaming bastion walls were paper white, rising into spires as delicate as spun sugar and capped in gold. There was a ragged hole in one side, collapsed inwards, bigger around than a house. The crater glistened wetly like a wound, oozing golden fluid.

  They were lowered towards an open roofed building. The weird craft that was carrying them rearranged itself with ease to drop the Oshun through the opening, its plates shifting across the webbed grid of its structure.

  Penny reached for Rivera's hand as the ship touched ground with a thump that rattled all of them. Rivera squeezed it, and reached for Salome, who took Cho's hand as well, standing to join the other women.

  Cho grabbed Ian, who was still staring out the view screen, looking shaken. He jumped at the touch, and then accepted it. They presented a united front as they stood in front of the shuttle doors, waiting to see what would become of them.

  A moment later, the ship's view screens caught movement and they looked up, holding each other tightly for reassurance, as the first aliens came into view.

  There were seven of them, a six unit squadron and their leader. They moved together perfectly. It was nothing so forced as a march, but was nonetheless formation, as natural as birds or fish.

  Watching for even a moment, you could tell how the entire group reacted to even the slightest twitch from one of their number. They might have been six bodies with a single mind.

  For all Penny knew, that's exactly what they were. All seven of them were nearly indistinguishable from one another. Penny couldn't tell if the shiny black chitin plates that covered their mostly humanoid forms were exoskeleton or armor.

  Whatever it was split like cracked obsidian at the joints and seams, which were filled in with gold like living kintsugi art pieces. Iridescent green chelicerae glittered like the shards of strange jewels from what were either helmets or unmoving, inscrutable insectoid faces. Penny trembled.

  "They're bugs," Salome groaned, "Why did it have to be bugs?"

  "Well, statistically speaking, it was always the most likely result," Cho replied, looking unnerved, "There's more than nine hundred thousand species of insects on Earth that we know of. That's more than four times all the other species combined, including mammals, of which there's about five thousand species. I did prepare a pamphlet on this."

  "None of us read it." Ian reported with no humor in his strained voice.

  "I know none of you read it," Cho replied, "We were all really hoping they'd be mammalian."

  "This is going to make things more difficult," Penny tried to keep her voice even, but it shook, and Rivera's hand was clammy in her own, "But we can still do this. Just everyone stay calm."

  "Helmets on," Cho suggested, "We don't want a small pox blankets situation here."

  "We haven't had a chance to test the outside air quality yet either," Rivera agreed, "Everybody seal up."

  They let go of each other’s hands briefly to punch the buttons below their jaws, the transparent polyurethane unfolding to encapsulate their heads.

  There was a bang on the hatch, a moment of strange scrabbling, and then it opened outward with a hiss as the cabin depressurized. Penny squeezed Rivera's hand anxiously.

  For a few tense seconds, nothing happened. Then the squad leader stepped through the door. He was holding no visible weapon, but the beetle like spikes on that shiny black carapace made Penny certain he was armed somehow.

  A weird buzzing hum filled the shuttle, emanating from the armored man. He didn't move, but his chelicerae worked, his weird, wet black glossy eyes watched them unblinkingly. After a moment, Penny realized the buzz might be some form of vocal communication.

  "Hello, I'm-"

  She started to speak and the squad leader recoiled instantly, buzzing loudly, angrily at the sound of her voice.

  "Is something wrong?" Rivera asked, seeing the way it flinched away from them.

  "I don't think it likes our voices," Cho suggested.

  "Hush!" Penny said quickly, but the armored alien was already scrambling back out of the ship, buzzing loudly.

  A moment later the other units burst in, waving sharp, dangerous looking stingers, filling the air with angry buzzing.

  "Don't resist!" Penny called to the others, "Just stay calm!"

  This only agitated the aliens further, but as they pinned Penny's team to the floor of the shuttle they only circled the Ambassador warily, as though unsure what to do. They looked back at their leader, who stared at Penny with inscrutable eyes.

  "We're not here to hurt anyone," Penny said as calmly as she could, staring back at the insectoid alien, "We only want to learn and understand. We intend nothing but friendship. Do you understand me? Can you learn to understand me?"

  She moved forward cautiously, offering a hand to the lead insect. In response, he grabbed her by wrist, his grip painfully tight, and forced her to her knees, buzzing a message to the others. Their hands were bound and, Penny ahead of her team, they were forced out of the ship and away.

  Penny and the rest put up no resistance as they were led through a strange building, its walls webbed cells of white stone. She found it curious that there didn't seem to be a single rounded shape in all their designs. Everything was straight lines and sharp angles.

  Penny didn't dig in her heels until she saw the aliens behind her beginning to shuffle off Cho down a different corridor.

  "Hey!" she shouted without thinking, "No!"

  The aliens jumped away from her at once, the antennae of their suits quivering with shock. Even the leader released her arm, body language surprised. Penny didn't waste the opportunity, hurrying over to Cho and, as the xenobiologist's guards dodged back to avoid her, Penny herded Cho back in line with the rest of the group.

  "We stay together," Penny told the alien's leader firmly, planting herself as stubbornly as she could in front of the others to try and make what she was saying obvious, "We stay together."

  The emphasis she put on her words sent a vi
sible shudder through all the aliens and a thrill of worry through Penny. What kind of power did her voice have over them, and was it wise to be using it this way?

  She had to look after the safety of her team before anything else, but she couldn't help fear that whatever she was doing would only endanger them more in the long run.

  Regardless, no more attempts were made to split them up. They were herded into a hexagonal room, bare and windowless. And then they were left alone. The leader of the alien squadron stared at Penny as the door closed between them, and Penny wished she knew how to read their emotions.

  "Should we try to get loose?" Rivera asked, her mouth set in a thin line.

  "No," Penny shook her head, staring at the door, "We need to show we're cooperative. This might be their first contact with another species as well. Hostility or perceived hostility was always a possibility."

  She spoke with confidence, but her hands were trembling, her emotions a wild clash of excitement and fear. This was as fascinating as it was terrifying. She was on an alien planet, in an alien city. It was enough to make her head spin. And this species!

  They seemed to be bipedal, basically humanoid in shape, but if that armor was an exoskeleton who knew what their biology might be like. She was already getting a sense of their culture, which she had a feeling would turn out to be quite rigid and communal, judging by the uniformity of all their structures, the stark color palate of white, black, and gold which she'd seen deviated from nowhere so far.

  Even just looking at the flawless synchronicity of the squad that had brought them here, it was clear this was a society, which valued cohesion in all things.

  She was scared too of course, terrified. But even if they died here, what a way to go! She knew she wasn't the only one excited. She could see Cho practically vibrating with intensity, examining everything in awe.

  "Alright everyone," Rivera ordered, "It looks like we might be in here a while. Let's huddle up. Figure out what we know and what our plan is."