Sex, Love, and Aliens, Volume 1

by Imogene Nix

  “I thought that I’d be alone the rest of my life,” she said, breaking the silence. “I didn’t think I’d find anyone I wanted to be with, but you followed me without hesitation. An invader. Sometimes I can’t quite wrap my brain around that, but…I’m learning. I’m learning that it’s okay to…love you. I hope you don’t leave me, Niah. I hope Niah will stay.”

  He cocked his head as he looked at her.

  “Niah stay,” he said.

  She smiled. “Niah. Bree. Stay.”

  She put her hands together.

  Then suddenly the moment was shattered as they heard crashing coming from the bank of trees off to the right. They both surged to their feet, and Niah grabbed her hand and ran to the other side of the glade where the underbrush thickened and trees bathed the area in shadows.

  “Bree stay,” Niah said, and pulled his laser gun from his backpack.

  Before she could say anything he was gone, traversing the area through the cover of the tree line. She pulled her knife out of its sheath and quickly followed him. No way was she going to leave him by himself to face whatever danger was out there. When she lost sight of him she decided to follow where she’d first heard the noise and soon she pushed through to find a whole company of invaders.

  Niah stood in the middle of them.

  She waited in the shallow grove of trees, watching Niah laughing and talking to his fellow aliens. Something inside her shifted and broke, and she knew she had only herself to blame. She had to be colossally stupid for falling for him. A tear spilled down her cheek and she wiped it away impatiently. What did she think could possibly happen? She was human, he was alien. They weren’t ever going to fit into each other’s world, and her meeting his friends would be nothing short of a disaster.

  It was time to say goodbye. She’d found what she needed to find. This mountain didn’t have the winter shelter she’d been looking for, but it did hold a piece of her father’s spirit that she had needed to let go. And now Niah was part of this place, a memory to let go of as well. It was time to harden her silly heart. She should’ve walked away all those days ago, just left him alone and not bothered to splint his broken leg. Maybe one day she’d be able to think of him with fondness, but today wasn’t that day. Today her heart hurt.

  “Bree,” Niah called out in his usual deep, commanding tone. “Bree!”

  He was calling for her. Did he want to turn her over to them? Had that been his plan all along, knowing she was heading in this direction? Had he stayed just to lure her into a trap?

  It shattered everything inside her, and she couldn’t contain her sob. She turned, knowing that her movement had to have been spotted, and ran. Niah yelled in his native language, and she heard some type of response, something that sounded like an affirmation, but she didn’t stick around to see what was happening. She was fast and small, and she knew how to hide.

  Had…had he just given the orders to kill her? But why? Why now? He could’ve killed her a hundred times over the past few days. Was this all for show in front of his buddies? With her heart pounding in her ears, she ran as hard and fast as she could through the dense thicket.

  “Bree!”

  She heard him calling out to her, but fuck that. She pushed on and ignored the ache centering in her heart, focusing instead on getting as far away from the invaders as possible.

  Niah was her enemy again.

  It was just how things were.

  Chapter 9

  “Stop! Bree, stop, please! You don’t understand.”

  The words came to her and at first she ignored them, until she realized he was speaking her language. Bree halted and turned to face him, her eyes wide in disbelief.

  “You speak my language now?”

  He sighed. “I’ve always spoken your language.”

  She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She’d told him things, things about her life. Private, personal things that she never would’ve told another soul…and he understood every word? Betrayal burned through her stomach, and she felt like throwing up.

  “What do you mean you speak my language? You liar!”

  “There are things about me, Bree, things you don’t know.”

  “And so you were going to give me to your friends? Turn me in?” She hit his chest, although it was like hitting a stone, he was so immovable. “I saved your life!”

  “It’s not like that,” he argued.

  “Then tell me what it is like,” she demanded, trying very hard to keep her tears at bay. She didn’t want to cry in front of him and show her weakness of loving him.

  “Bree…I was human once.”

  That scattered all her thoughts. “What?”

  “Those men back there, they’re just like me. I was the first.”

  “The first what?”

  He ran a hand through his hair, clearly agitated. “The first successful human hybrid experiment. I was number seventy-four, which means there were seventy-three failures.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said. “That stuff doesn’t happen. They didn’t grow you in a lab!”

  “No, not like you’re thinking.” He took a deep, steady breath. “Remember the beasts when we first met? They were the prototypes. The aliens have the technology to graft their DNA onto a human, to fuse us together. They thought I’d be a better warrior, that I would understand humans better. That I’d fight them better. They failed to understand that human emotions are still inside me, that they can’t wipe them away. I can’t fight against humans because I’m still part human.”

  “But those settlers—”

  “I didn’t kill the settlers,” he interrupted. “They were our first patrol mission, our first test. The true blood aliens came with us to make sure we got the job done. But we fought against them. We fought for the humans, we made sure to fire wide, giving them enough time to escape. The aliens figured out what we were doing and tried to annihilate us. The other men like me scattered, running to our prearranged meeting location, but my leg broke. The rest you know.”

  She just stared at him, trying to digest his fantastical story. Was it true? Was he really part human?

  “Please, believe me,” he whispered.

  “I…I’m having a hard time with all of this! Why didn’t you tell me from the beginning?”

  “You wouldn’t have believed me in the beginning. All you saw was an alien. You would’ve killed me, or let those beasts have me.”

  “Say I do believe you. What do we do now, Niah?”

  “We fight back.”

  She blinked, feeling so off-kilter she didn’t know where to step. “What?”

  “Those men I was with…they feel the same as me. I’m their leader. And we’re going to take back this planet.”

  Chapter 10

  Niah held out his hand, but Bree ignored it. He sighed and dropped it. “Will you at least come back and meet the others?”

  “Meet your alien brethren?”

  “Hybrids, Bree. Half human, half TEV.”

  “Half what?”

  “The aliens,” he said, and gestured to his face. “They’re called the TEV. Technologic Enhancement Vessels. They go into a world and conquer it, stealing whatever technology they don’t have. Over time they’ve developed bodies that heal quickly, weapons beyond your scope of destruction, hover discs to travel far distances. None of that was theirs. They took it. Earth didn’t present much of a problem at first, but humans fought back. Resisted. They’re still resisting.”

  “But…compared to all that we’re not technologically advanced. I mean, why not just leave us alone?”

  He shook his head. “That’s not their way. They take what they want, and then they destroy.”

  “So they killed humans even though we didn’t have anything they wanted?”

  “Earth did have one thing they wanted. Slaves. And there are minerals on this planet they don’t have. So they use humans to mine for them. I was one of those miners until I was turned over to scientists for the TEV hyb
rid experiments. This mountain is where I was born, where I was raised. I didn’t know humans lived outside the mountain gates, not until I became one of them.”

  Did she believe him? She looked deep into his unblinking green eyes, but this time she began to look for the human side he claimed was buried inside. He was many things and she began to see them all as she remembered the first time she had laid eyes on him. Fierce warrior and tender alien, the man who saved her life and picked her a bouquet of flowers. She raised her hand to the bandage still on her forehead and remembered when he had cared for her. At the time he didn’t seem like the enemy, and now she saw the tenderness in his gaze. He had gone from her foe to her lover in a matter of days. She saw doubt, and worry, and hope. All the things she, herself, felt.

  Her entire world had changed, and this was the biggest thing she’d ever done in her life, taking that step off a precipice and into the unknown. Could she be that brave? Then again, how could she not? She’d always wondered why she pushed on, and now she realized living was a whole lot different from surviving. When she was with Niah she felt the world exploding with life and happiness, and perhaps that was all she needed to know. She’d found a reason to live, a person to be with, did she need anything else? Perhaps it was crazy to think about taking back this planet, but what if they could? When she looked into Niah’s eyes she felt invincible.

  “Okay,” she whispered. “I’ll meet the others.”

  It was a leap of faith, and this time, when he held out his hand, she took it. He threaded their fingers together, kissed her knuckles, and led her back to where his group of fellow hybrids waited.

  There were probably fifty of them, all males, who stared at her with big, unblinking eyes. Now she saw that each man looked different even though they had the same alien characteristics—prominent cheekbones, wide oval eyes, high foreheads. Some were redheads, some blond, and some were a huge mixture of brown and black hair. Some were taller than others, some with more muscles. But the one thing they all did unilaterally was look at Niah like he was their messiah.

  “This is Bree,” he said, introducing her to them. “She helped me survive back at the settlement. She’s very brave, because she thought I was pure TEV, and still, her compassion drove her to help me heal.”

  There were big, welcoming smiles on their faces, and she almost felt their reverence extend toward her. One male stepped forward. He was as tall as Niah, although his physique was a little more streamlined.

  “Thank you, Bree,” he murmured. “Niah isn’t someone we could ever replace.”

  “This is Nix,” Niah told Bree. “He’s my second-in-command. He was the next one to survive. His designation was number eighty.”

  Her mouth fell open for a second. Hearing his number designation made it a little more real, and it made her feel sorry for all these males in front of her. “It’s nice to meet you, Nix.”

  He nodded and turned to Niah. “We’ve secured all the explosives, and Kory has managed to get back inside to alert our spy. He’ll make sure the section directors alert as many people as possible. Our mission is on target.”

  “Explosives? Spy?” Bree asked, glancing up at Niah. “This operation sounds dangerous.”

  “The mines are mainly controlled through force fields and holographic soldiers that manage to shoot real bullets. The one good thing going for us is that the main TEV forces have already moved on to the next planet, and all they’ve left behind is a small battalion of troops on an orbiting base.”

  “You said holographic soldiers?”

  “The holographic technology was acquired two planets ago and is a great way to control the masses. But if we shut down the generators, then the miners can escape and we can score a major coup. One man who used to live in the mines agreed to help us by going back in and being our eyes and ears.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Okay. Well, I’m willing to do whatever needs to be done.”

  He rubbed her cheek with a finger. “I want you to stay safe. This is not your war.”

  “It is my war. This is my planet…our planet.”

  “Then stay by my side. When we go in tomorrow to neutralize the TEV technology, stick with me so I can watch over you.”

  “All right,” she said. “But we’ll watch over each other. I can fight, Niah.”

  “I know. I’m not saying this is going to fix everything,” he warned. “This is just the beginning. The whole world needs to be free, but those that we liberate tomorrow will aid us in the next strike.”

  She finally got the bigger picture. This was the beginning of a revolution. A battle for planet Earth.

  “Do the humans in there know about you?” she asked. “You look alien, so do they know you’re the good guys?”

  “The word has spread, courtesy of our spy,” Nix told her. “We’ve been planning this since…well, it seems like since we woke up changed.”

  A chorus of agreements echoed from all the men. It seemed crazy, beginning a war with so little warriors, but perhaps the passion for their world would outweigh the apathy of a more advanced race.

  “Don’t worry,” Niah said. His thumb soothed the furrow between her eyes. “We all know the TEV. We speak their language, we can read their words. We think just like them, and we plan on extorting their one greatest failure.”

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “Their inability to understand our willingness to die for our cause. We will fight for our home, and we will tolerate nothing less than victory.”

  His men let out a roar, pumping their fists in the air and pounding each other on their backs.

  She gripped Niah’s hand. “Don’t you die on me.”

  He shook his head. “Never, my love. Niah stays with Bree.”

  Chapter 11

  That night they lay on their sides facing each other, the low lying fire keeping them warm. Tomorrow everything would change, but for right now they were simply Bree and Niah.

  “Why did you survive when seventy-three others didn’t?” she asked quietly. Some of the other men had already begun to snore and she didn’t want to wake them up.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I never found out what the breakthrough was, but after I successfully changed, the mortality rate dropped significantly. The TEV used me to greet and coach those that survived the change. Most wanted to commit suicide the first day, and it was my job to talk them down, make them see that this new life they found themselves in had a purpose.”

  “That purpose was this revolution?”

  “Eventually, yes. We went through months of them trying to brainwash us. Learning their language, learning their culture, learning their initiatives. And when I thought about using all of that against them, Nix was with me. We began to plan, and tomorrow is the fruition of years of hard work.”

  She took his hand in hers. Once she wouldn’t have been able to do this but now, touching him was as essential as breathing. As she drifted off to sleep, she wondered when he had become so important in her life. Then again, did the answer really matter?

  She woke when Niah gently shook her shoulder. It wasn’t quite dawn, but the plan had them moving at the first streaks of sun lightening the sky. Their two inside men would begin the detonations of the mainframe computers, which were located in the center part of the mining facility, while Niah and his men worked on opening the large gate that sealed the humans inside.

  Bree rose and got ready, accepting a laser gun from one of the men. According to Niah, there weren’t that many TEV guarding these mining colonies. It was mainly the holographic soldiers, fear and intimidation, as well as the few human scientists who worked with the TEV.

  Bree couldn’t imagine turning traitor against her race. The idea that one human could hurt another was absolutely abhorrent, but she knew that the past was filled with war and violence. Her father had told horror stories of such things, and she could only hope that as the human race continued they could work on a better utopia. Of course, the human race would have to chan
ge. Adapt. And if there were any who could teach that, it was Niah and his men.

  They approached the huge mining gate, which was constructed entirely of steel and stood well over ten feet tall. It looked like it had been fused with the mountain. Niah had said this was the lower level entrance, that the mine traversed through the whole interior, but she just couldn’t imagine that. She couldn’t imagine living her life underground.

  The gate opened slowly. Bree waited behind Niah, and she felt her nerves running wild. Her heart pounded with excitement and fear as she realized the significance at being on the cusp of the revolution.

  Sounds came to her, muffled blasts as the explosives detonated deep in the ground. She watched as Nix and Niah took one last look over the gate, and then they all ducked safely out of sight as Niah detonated their explosives. Even though she’d protected her ears, there was still a ringing that reverberated through her head. But when she saw the steel door gaping open, the metal looking like some sort of odd, melted flower petal, she felt endorphins flood her body.

  The men didn’t charge in recklessly. Instead, they did these stealth maneuvers, sweeping inside with their guns ready, making sure the area was clear before waving the next group forward. Niah was part of the last group to enter, and Bree stayed right behind him, watching his back. The deeper into the mountain they moved the more visceral it all became. Some type of full spectrum lights ran through the rock tunnels, illuminating their way as the hum of electricity echoed dully. Déjà vu hit her square between the eyes as she traveled further.

  “I’ve been here before,” she whispered.

  Niah looked back at her. “What?”

  “I’ve been here before. The sounds, the smells, the coolness…I recognize it all.”

  He narrowed his eyes and then halted, grabbing her arm. “Wait. How long has your father been gone?”

  “Two years.”

  “His name?”

  “Adam.”

  Niah’s mouth fell open, and he glanced heavenward, as if seeking some type of divine answers. Bree stared at him, confused.