Marauder Fenrir: Scifi Alien Invasion Romance (Mating Wars)

by Aya Morningstar

  “Fucking move!” I growl. “Or I’ll get my surface scum germs all over you!”

  They look down at me and scrunch up their noses. The middle woman closes her shirt and scoffs. They start giggling with each other and walk away.

  “When Marauders are jealous,” Fenrir says, “we get angry. It’s the same for humans?”

  I’m already mad, but my face flushes crimson at his implication. “I’m not fucking jealous! I just can’t stand these smug habbers sneering at me.”

  “They are quite taller than you,” Fenrir agrees.

  I ball up my fists and clench my teeth. I start to count backward from ten. If I say anything more to this frustrating alien, I’ll completely lose my cool.

  And I need to keep cool for the meeting with the triumvirate. The habbers implied that this triumvirate was somehow difficult. The habbers’ crazy system works like a lottery: everyone of legal age on New Copenhagen is eligible to be drafted into the triumvirate, which has near absolute power–provided the three can reach a consensus. I roll my eyes just thinking about how cocky of a system it is. It makes the assumption that every single person on the habitat is competent enough to rule, or at least that one in three will be competent enough to overpower two bad apples.

  “This way,” our escort gestures. “You’ll meet with the triumvirate in the great hall–.”

  “No,” I say, cutting him off. “We’ll meet them outside.”

  Our escort’s perfect face scrunches up into an odd expression. “That’s quite irregular…it’s much easier if–.”

  Fenrir’s clothes suddenly shift to a blood red color, and he leans in close to the escort. He reaches up toward her neck, and suddenly turrets pop out of the walls from all directions.

  “Stand down!” a voice shouts over the loudspeaker.

  The habbers all turn toward Fenrir and gawk. Every last one stops walking to watch the spectacle materializing before them.

  Our escort presses her lips together, and though I can see her trembling, she does her best to remain outwardly calm. “Fenrir,” she says. “If you touch me, the turrets will kill you. We don’t want that to happen, so please, stand down.”

  “Please can be used in a threat?” he says. “Then please listen to the Turret Woman and set up our meeting outside.”

  I’m close enough to reach out to him and place a calming hand onto him, but I’m afraid I might set him off even more. I settle for a gentle whisper. “Fenrir, it’s okay.”

  “No!” he yells. “Turret woman wants to see your habitat! Outside, now!”

  “Step away,” the escort says, “and I’ll convince the triumvirate.”

  Fenrir grins wide, then takes a big step backward.

  The turrets sink back into the walls and the crowd begins to murmur. Some continue on their way, but most stare at Fenrir.

  14 Fenrir

  My expert negotiation succeeds, and we’re brought down to the ground floor and finally outside. The footpaths and plazas outside the big building are all made of white marble, and I see huge white columns as tall as human transport ships towering up along the pathways.

  Far in the distance, I can see green fields, lakes, and animals roaming behind fenced-off pastures.

  I sniff the air, and it’s crisp. By the time I was born, all the planets in my mother system had been ravaged, and never have I felt such a clean and refreshing scent as this.

  “I could sniff this air all day,” I say absently.

  “And I could stand and watch this for the rest of my life,” Fiona says. “It’s magnificent.”

  “Your home planet is not like this?” I ask.

  “No,.” she says wistfully, adding no details.

  “You really want to destroy this?” she asks me. “All of it?”

  I look away from her, not answering. I don’t know what I want. What I want is irrelevant. I am enslaved by my shame debt.

  From the building, a number of important looking men and women wearing fancy clothes begin walking down the marble steps. Behind all the suits, I see three robed figures. Two men and a woman.

  “A woman leader?” I ask.

  Fiona just scoffs at me.

  I wonder if it’s a ploy. They pretend a woman is leading, only to throw me off guard. I’ll not take their bait.

  Almost a hundred humans had already stopped to stare at me, but when the human leaders are spotted heading toward me, a massive crowd gathers.

  As the crowd grows, the marble pathway begins to expand outward tile by tile. It is some kind of smart surface, adapting its width to the volume of traffic.

  The triumvirate and their escorts finally reach us, and I wonder if they expect me to bow down to them.

  “I will not bow to you,” I say preemptively. “A Marauder bows to no human.”

  Fiona elbows me. “Can you please try to keep your mouth shut?”

  The man in front is tall and spindly, and he looks more like an insect than a man. He has darker hair than most of the habbers, and his grin is lopsided. He smiles at me. “This isn’t the Empire, Fenrir. You need not bow. The triumvirate is nothing more than three common men and women selected randomly to rule for a time. No one bows to them.”

  “Weak leaders,” I say. “You’ll–.”

  Fiona elbows me again, this time harder than before. “Come on!” she says to me in an urgent tone.

  “I’m Lindgren,, Minister of Science, and this is Allara, Minister of Peace,” the lanky man says.

  “You think Science and Peace can defeat us?”

  Fiona tugs my arm, and I allow her to pull my ear down to her. She doesn’t realize I could hear even her faintest whisper from across the room.

  “Fenrir,” she says, “this science guy wants to cut you open. Watch out for him. And Minister of Peace means Minister of War. They don’t like to admit they have weapons or soldiers, but they do.”

  I nod. Another ploy? If she were the Minister of Peace, I could understand it being a woman. Women of most species want to avoid violence, though a female Minister of War? I can’t believe it.

  The triumvirate moves forward, and I notice the woman scowling at one of the men. These two are young. I can’t tell human ages as well as I should be able to, but I would be surprised if they were over 20 years old. The third member of the triumvirate is an old man with grey hair.

  “I’m Joachim,” the old man says, “and the happy couple behind me is Miriam and Thorsten.”

  Miriam snarls at Joachim, and Thorsten looks down at the ground.

  I can’t make sense of it. These two are a couple? The female seems to hate the male, and the male seems weak and inept, not even brave enough to face her.

  “Let’s have a seat,” Joachim says.

  The tiles open up, and enough stools to seat everyone present raise from the ground.

  I notice the stools for Fiona and me are side-by-side, while the stools for the Ministers and triumvirate are arranged in a semi-circle facing us. It’s as if we are on trial.

  “I will stand,” I say.

  Fiona grabs my arm and tugs at it, trying to force me to sit on the stool.

  I break away from her grasp and look down at her. “I will stand, woman!”

  She shakes her head and crosses her arms. Does she really want to give up the high ground? And even worse, does she want these leaders of New Copenhangen to think she can force me to sit with just a weak tug on my arm?

  I notice that the female leader is seated next to Thorsten, and she has slid as far off her stool as possible so she doesn’t have to be near him.

  “So,” Turret Woman says, breaking the silence. “You seriously drafted in two teenagers who have just broken up with each other to rule with absolute power?”

  The woman general looks stone-faced and Lindgren flashes his teeth at Turret Woman.

  “I dumped his ass!” the female leader gloats. “Breaking up implies it was mutual.”

  Thorsten crosses his arms.

  Fiona laughs. “You habbers
are something else.”

  “They will learn to work together,” Joachim says, sitting straight in his seat. He bites his lip, then adds, “At least I really, really hope so.”

  I notice Lindgren and the woman general are...embarrassed? It’s similar to the look on Turret Woman’s face when she looked at my erect cock, though less sexual, of course. These Ministers’ faces show raw embarrassment and shame.

  I stand tall and pull my shoulders back, towering over these weak leaders. “My demands are as follows. I demand you allow us access to the elevator. We will travel down to the Martian surface and you will give us enough local currency to make a trip to polar settlements. I will carry out my mission–the details of which do not concern you–and you will never see me again. In return, when my race obliterates humanity, I will make sure your habitat is destroyed swiftly and painlessly.”

  The woman general narrows her eyes at me, while Thorsten’s eyes widen.

  Thorsten blurts out, “You’re going to kill us? Why?”

  “They’re alien invaders, you idiot,” Miriam says. “What did you think they were going to do?”

  “Cygnus and Aegus have expressed a desire to co-exist with us,” the woman general says. “Are they lying?”

  “They are a weak splinter faction,” I say. It’s a lie, as each faction is roughly the same size, splitting the Marauders in half.

  “Or maybe you’re the weak splinter faction,” the woman general says.

  I stare at her, not letting my face reveal anything.

  “I heard you have taken Fiona as a mate?” Lindgren says. “You’ll destroy her, too?”

  Now my face betrays me, my ears, specifically. They pull back defensively, and I hope these habbers do not know how to read that reaction. No, I realize, I would die under a black hole’s mass of shame debt before I would lay a hand on Turret Woman.

  “It doesn’t concern you,” I say. “I’ve made my demands clear.”

  “Here’s what I demand,” Lindgren says, standing up, “And I hope the triumvirate will hear the sense in my argument. I think you’re too dangerous to let loose, and I think what we could learn from you is far too valuable to pass up. If you truly want to destroy us, we need every edge we can get to fight your faction when they arrive.”

  Lindgren turns toward the triumvirate as he speaks, and the angry female seems even angrier when she looks at Lindgren.

  Lindgren continues. “Our initial scans of the alien show that he is wearing a biosuit. It can use regular food for fuel, but ideally it runs on anti-matter. We may be able to reverse-engineer this suit, and it might give us a chance to fight against the Marauders when they arrive–and need I remind you they will be here in just two years? We’re running out of time.”

  “I don’t know,” the angry female says, looking me up and down. “He might have taken this dumpy surface bitch as his mate, but are these guys really monogamous? I wouldn’t mind keeping him here to play with.”

  She looks at Thorsten as she says this. I suspect she’s saying this just to hurt his weak feelings rather than out of true desire for me. Though I’m sure she’d take me if I were willing, what human female wouldn’t?

  Thorsten’s face turns red. “Alarra,” he says. “What was your plan again?”

  “I want you to convince Cygnus to come meet with us,” the female general says. “He’s ignored us thus far...I don’t think he trusts us. The Great Mother is from the surface, and she surely doesn’t trust us either. I fear that distrust has spread to Cygnus. The two of you are well-suited to convince him. Fiona, you can convince the Great Mother that we just want to protect the solar system, and Fenrir can convince Cygnus that we won’t capture him.”

  She glares at Lindgren.

  “So I send Cygnus up here...to...negotiate” I say. “This is just something you say to sound polite? In reality, Lindgren will cut him open and experiment on him? I can agree to this, as he is my enemy.”

  “No,” Thorsten says. “Lindgren won’t touch either of you unless the triumvirate agrees on it. If we say you’re off limits, then he can’t as much as look at you.”

  “Ooh,” the female leader says. “Look at you, Thorsten, such a badass leader suddenly. I’m just sooo impressed with your fearless authority.”

  Thorsten tries to ignore her, but he’s weak, and I can see the desperation in his eyes. Though the female was clearly speaking sarcastically, Thorsten is holding out hope that she meant at least part of what she said.

  “Well,” Thorsten says, “I agree with Alarra’s plan. Joachim?”

  Joachim hunches over and mumbles, “I don’t know...I mean...this Fenrir guy seems dangerous. Can we really let him loose? We’ve got him here, right now. His faction wants to kill us, so how can we let him loose on Mars? We might never get him back.”

  “Yeah,” the female leader agrees. “I’m with Joachim.”

  I feel the tide changing. Lindgren sits up straight.

  I need to give up something to get what I want, I realize. “Two more assassins are coming–or they may already be here. We left the main fleet all at the same time. I’m the least of your worries.”

  They all look at me wide-eyed. I grin.

  “He’s full of shit,” Lindgren says.

  “What if he’s not?” the female general asks.

  “He’s telling the truth,” Turret Woman says. “I can read him. Fenrir talks a tough game, but he won’t hurt me, and when it comes time to pick a side, I think he’ll stick with us. These other two though? They’re way more dangerous.”

  I scowl at her. “You can’t speak for me, woman–.”

  “Enough,” Thorsten says, standing now. “We have to go with Allara’s plan, it’s obvious.”

  Joachim runs his hand through his silver hair, then says, “Yeah, I think I agree.”

  “Well,” the female leader says, “if Thorsten sides with Allara, then I side with Lindgren. Let’s cut this bastard open.”

  Allara stands and looks toward us, “You two can go sightseeing. We will call you back when we’ve reached a decision.”

  15 Fiona

  I make Fenrir go with me to see the cows. We walk in silence toward the fenced-off pastures. Every five or six steps I look up to see the settlements above me. I’d seen old Earth’s blue sky in old movies, but seeing lakes and grass and towns miles above my head is almost as good.

  We reach the fence, and the cows slowly move toward us.

  “What do they want?” Fenrir asks.

  “Food,” I say. “I think so, at least.”

  “It’s inefficient,” Fenrir says. “You have to feed the cow many more calories than you get in return.”

  “Did you like the chocolate?” I ask.

  “Cows produce chocolate?” Fenrir asks, studying the cow.

  “No,” I say, “but chocolate is even more inefficient. Cows produce all kinds of delicious stuff: cheese, milk, yogurt…”

  “You spoke for me,” Fenrir says. “It made me look weak.”

  “When negotiating,” I say, “sometimes you have to bend a little bit so that you don’t break. Do you understand?”

  “No,” Fenrir says.

  “You didn’t tell me there were more assassins. Was that true?”

  “I don’t have to tell you anything,” Fenrir says.

  “Giving up that information to them,” Fiona says, “that was bending. If you had stonewalled them, Lindgren was going to win, and you’d be on an operating table right now.”

  I watch Fenrir’s eyes. They are locked on the cow, and his ears are standing rigid. He’s deep in thought. He reaches through the fence and puts a hand on the cow, right between its eyes. He runs his hand up and down along its face, petting it.

  The cow lets out a low hum, and its tail whips back and forth.

  “When Aegus and Cygnus fled the fleet,” Fenrir says, “my best friend, Zarek, had been suspicious of Aegus ever since we all awoke from hibernation. He told me that we should keep an eye on him, but I found it s
hameful to be suspicious of such a strong warrior…”

  Fenrir keeps petting the cow as he speaks, refusing to look at me as he tells his story. I can tell he doesn’t really want to tell me this, but feels he has to. I’m not sure why.

  “To suspect a fellow Marauder of treason...it’s unheard of. I was furious with Zarek for forcing me to choose between my best friend and a warrior as respected as Aegus. It put me in a difficult situation: I couldn’t just keep silent, I had to fully back either Zarek or Aegus.”

  “Aegus didn’t know that Zarek suspected him, and I went to Aegus. I told him Zarek was mistaken and suspected him of treason. I urged Aegus to try to forgive Zarek and somehow convince Zarek that there was nothing to fear.”

  Fenrir stops petting the cow and turns to face me. I know that Aegus fled the main fleet, meaning Fenrir was wrong. Not only was he wrong, but he warned Aegus.

  “So you owe all this shame debt,” I say, “because you warned Aegus and helped him commit treason?”

  “Yes,” Fenrir says, “and because when Zarek went to go stop Aegus, I was not there. Cygnus killed Zarek to protect his brother, and then he fled as well.”

  I feel my stomach churn. “So that’s why you have to kill Cygnus?”

  “Yes,” Fenrir says.

  We’re brought to the Sortitiary for the triumvirate’s final decision. The huge room is full of habbers, all curious to see what kind of decision their new leaders have made.

  We are brought to sit in seats in the front row, and we sit–well, I sit, while Fenrir stubbornly insists on standing–across from the triumvirate and ministers.

  “The triumvirate,” Joachim says, standing up with shaking hands, “has decided...after considerable discussion,” he looks back at Miriam and Thorsten with a scowl, “that we will back the Minister of Peace’s plan. Fenrir and Fiona will be sent to the Martian surface, and they will be tasked with convincing Cygnus to meet with us on New Copenhagen.”

  Fenrir looks down at me with a smug grin. Will he really kill Cygnus? And should I do anything to stop him? Or will he come to his senses and stop himself in time?