by Fiona Roarke
Invasion of the Alien Snatchers
A Nocturne Falls Universe Story
Fiona Roarke
Dear Reader,
Nocturne Falls has become a magical place for so many people, myself included. Over and over I’ve heard from you that it’s a town you’d love to visit and even live in! I can tell you that writing the books is just as much fun for me.
With your enthusiasm for the series in mindand your many requests for more booksthe Nocturne Falls Universe was born. It’s a project near and dear to my heart, and one I am very excited about.
I hope these new, guest-authored books will entertain and delight you. And best of all, I hope they allow you to discover some great new authors! (And if you like this book, be sure to check out the rest of the Nocturne Falls Universe offerings.)
For more information about the Nocturne Falls Universe, visit http://kristenpainter.com/sugar-skull-books/
In the meantime, happy reading!
Kristen Painter
Invasion of the Alien Snatchers
A Nocturne Falls Universe Story
Copyright © 2017 by Fiona Roarke
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from the author.
This book is a work of fiction and was made possible by a special agreement with Sugar Skull Books, but hasn’t been reviewed or edited by Kristen Painter. All characters, events, scenes, plots and associated elements appearing in the original Nocturne Falls series remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Kristen Painter, Sugar Skull Books and their affiliates or licensors.
Any similarity to real person, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author or Sugar Skull Books.
Published in the United States of America.
Table of Contents
INVASION OF THE ALIEN SNATCHERS
Welcome from Kristen Painter
Copyright
About the Book
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
About Fiona Roarke
Invasion of the Alien Snatchers
Pilot. Guard. Prisoner.
All three are crashed in the Georgia woods, lost on a world where extraterrestrials are the stuff of science fiction. Blending into the human world is doable, if dangerous. But what if the locals are far from human themselves, with secrets of their own?
Deliver his wayward brother to the galactic gulag two galaxies away. Stop along the way at the hidden colony on Earth. Find the woman who had been electrifying his thoughts for two years. Crashing in rural Georgia near an odd little town and being taken prisoner was not part of Riker Phoenix’s plan.
Warrior woman Elise Midori ran a galaxy away from Alpha-Prime to escape the man she loved, but could never have. Her new life with the Alpha colony hiding in plain sight from the humans in Alienn, Arkansas, is challenging and satisfying. The mission seems simple enough when her retrieval team is called on to rescue the three occupants of a downed prisoner transport near Nocturne Falls.
She didn’t count on the prophecy-obsessed Druids. And she most definitely didn’t count on seeing a certain sexy lawman again.
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To Kristen for the very fun opportunity to crash a UFO in her world. And to my family for all your endless support. I love you all more than mere words can express.
Prologue
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Alienn, Arkansas – Mission Room, below the Big Bang Truck Stop
Elise Midori was anxious to start this new rescue mission. It had been a while since she and her teammates, Victoria Greene and Stella Grey, had gone out together, but this was a very important assignment. A UFO had crashed before making it to their hidden underground way station.
Of course, it wasn’t truly an unidentified flying object, but that term was used in case any earthlings overheard their discussions. It was much easier to cover up what was really going on with whispered UFO stories than admit aliens were hiding in plain sight in Alienn, Arkansas and had been for many decades.
That was pretty much rule number one for Alphas living on Earth.
No earthlings could know about them. Ever.
Elise had volunteered and been assigned to the Earth colony a couple of years ago. What a bitter battle that had been. After completing an Alpha-Prime prep program for law enforcement—partly to avoid an unwanted arranged marriage her parents wanted to initiate—she’d decided not to apply for the prestigious Royal Magistrate Guard. Her parents were unhappy because instead, Elise wanted to be a bodyguard not an RMG law officer.
Later on after confiding her true feelings about a very delicate subject to her older sister, Callie had quickly tattled the private information to their parents. Yet again, they had not been pleased. They secretly initiated a plan to find her a husband. Once revealed, her sister had then also sided with their parents regarding Elise’s arranged marriage, which had been another surprise.
During their supposedly secret conversation, Callie had been much more supportive of Elise’s viewpoint, mainly, that Elise shouldn’t have to face an arranged marriage just because she wanted a different life than her parents commanded. It was especially infuriating that Callie didn’t side with Elise when she didn’t think her sister was particularly happy with her own husband, who’d also been the result of an arranged marriage.
Arturo was rather self-absorbed and pompous in Elise’s opinion. He didn’t abuse Callie, but the two of them bickered like it was their job whenever they were in the same room. Elise hated it, although her parents bragged regularly that their match was a superb accomplishment.
The senior Midoris had almost given up on setting an arranged marriage for Elise when she declared at age twelve she would never participate in the barbaric tradition and would rather be sent to a gulag to rot.
The last straw in Elise’s mind had been when Hilde, her childhood best friend, was matched in a grandiose celebration. Hilde’s future spouse, while from a wealthy family in good standing, was mean and rude to her friend the moment the long-ago ceremony concluded and they were officially matched. Throughout the following party he continued his callous attitude.
Hilde made the best of a bad situation. Elise wouldn’t have put up with it. She would have popped the guy in the nose to wake him up and change his outlook. It was possibly why her parents hadn’t gone out of their way to arrange anyone for her at a young age.
Hilde and her ill-mannered future groom hadn’t settled on a date for their marriage, but it was an eventuality. A prospect Elise chose to pass on, vehemently.
Enduring a grouchy, overbearing husband for life? No, thank you very much.
Maybe it was a well-regarded custom on Alpha-Prime, but luckily it wasn’t required. Elise wasn’t going to spend the bulk of her life bowing and scraping to someone unpleasant and r
ude. She wanted to work. She wanted a job in law enforcement.
When she informed her parents of her fondest desire, they’d taken it better than expected, but they also wanted her to apply for admission to the Royal Magistrate Guard, the top military and policing agency on Alpha-Prime.
Elise respected and appreciated the RMG, but she hadn’t been certain that was her dream either. As a compromise, she attended an RMG prep academy meant to introduce potential recruits to what was expected and likely weed out unacceptable applicants. While Elise completed the standard prep academy course and graduated with the highest marks, she learned enough to know serving with the Guards definitely was not her dream. She did, however, learn two other important things.
First, she learned what she loved to do. Protect. Elise adored protecting people and she was good at it. She narrowed her desired career goals to a single one. Bodyguard. After the prep academy concluded, she offered her services to a few wealthy patrons on Alpha-Prime, and made a good enough living at it to make herself happy and satisfied.
The second thing she learned she loved at RMG prep academy was very personal. She met the only man she’d ever consider as a husband. Unfortunately, soon after that fateful meeting—during a mad search to discover every detail about him—Elise found out from several reliable sources that he also had an arranged marriage hanging over his head.
He likely didn’t view it that way, as his prospective bride was very pretty, rich and extremely popular. Elise understood his lack of availability, of course, but it didn’t solve her angst over the problem. She didn’t want anyone but him. Regardless of their personal feelings, his arranged marriage meant they’d never be able to consider a relationship. And truthfully, he didn’t even know she existed. Maybe it was better that way.
Her parents, meanwhile, began a campaign to guilt her into joining the RMG as an officer candidate directly after she finished the prep academy. If she wasn’t going to marry well, they wanted her to do better than just good enough as a happy bodyguard. Making a living as what they called a lowly security and protection person was unacceptable to their way of thinking. They wanted her to have a more prestigious life than what a bodyguard typically garnered and they especially wanted her to make more money. Her happiness never once entered into the equation as a valid reason to keep her career. Unbeknownst to her, they also quietly started a search for a prospective groom, just in case she balked at joining the RMG.
One fateful night at a supposed family-only dinner with her parents, a man named Mahler Grant showed up and was introduced as her father’s friend. Mahler reminded Elise of the self-absorbed and cruel man that her childhood friend Hilde was meant to marry. Her suspicions were confirmed when a private conversation with Mahler told her he was exactly as she thought he was and of no further interest in her mind.
When she overheard her mother and sister discussing Mahler Grant the chosen candidate for her arranged marriage, she changed tactics. The same day as the surprise dinner with Mahler Grant, Elise also heard discouraging public news regarding someone she did care about, but would never be hers.
Elise volunteered for permanent duty on a faraway colony planet called Earth the very next day. She left Alpha-Prime soon after to escape her family’s seemingly endless designs on her future.
Elise knew they meant well and she loved them, but she needed her own space. The distance of a galaxy offered her the chance to live her life on her own terms. And she had. Alienn, Arkansas was absolutely perfect and she loved it. Yes, she missed Alpha-Prime sometimes, but not enough to go back.
Plus, her parents hadn’t been accepting of her move off planet. Annoyed was likely a weak description for what they felt with regard to her current lifestyle choice. They wanted to live her life for her, so she had headed elsewhere to keep them out of her business, and to help forget about someone completely unavailable, someone she loved.
Their Fearless Leader, Diesel Grey, entered the conference room, drawing the three teammates’ immediate attention and taking Elise out of introspection mode. He began to explain what the coming mission out of town would entail.
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“There has been a UFO crash just outside of a place called Nocturne Falls, Georgia. It’s about an eight-hour drive from here. There are three souls aboard the ship. You’ll be responsible for recovering all of them, hopefully alive.” Diesel consulted a sheet of gray paper, the color of the paper meant the message was of the highest priority. “There is a pilot, a guard and a prisoner.”
“Are their names available?” Stella asked.
“No. This was the first run of a new endeavor for our business. Since it was last minute, we only got bare information.”
“What new endeavor?” Elise asked.
Diesel lowered the paper to explain. “We’ve secured a contract to serve as a way station for the gulag transport system shuttling prisoners from Alpha-Prime to Galactic Gulag XkR-9. Normally this would be a monthly run, but there is a lucrative addendum on our contract for small runs between the scheduled ones.
“This flight happened to be an out-of-routine run to the gulag with a single prisoner. It’s due to that, unfortunately, we don’t have any detailed information.”
Elise supposed Axel Grey, one of Diesel’s younger brothers, had secured the contract. He was responsible for communications to and from Alpha-Prime. Diesel was one of seven kids, six brothers and only one sister. All were very involved in the truck stop as well as the secret basement facility below. Sometimes she envied the Greys’ large, close-knit family. Other times she was grateful to have been born into a small one.
Elise had only the one sibling. She and Callie were eight years apart in age. In Elise’s opinion, that seemingly vast gap had contributed much to the way she and Callie were forever at odds. It was almost like having two only children in the same household, technically raised together but a generation apart in general attitude.
She realized she’d drifted from the conversation. Focus on this meeting! “What do we know about the place we’re headed?” she asked.
“Not much. The crash site is a couple of miles from town in a wooded area, which is good for us.”
“Nocturne Falls. Farming community? One-industry town?” Stella asked, pen poised to note the details in her mission log.
“It seems to be a themed town.”
“A themed town? What’s that?” Elise asked.
Diesel read from his reference document. “Nocturne Falls is billed as the town that celebrates Halloween three hundred and sixty-five days a year.”
Elise and her teammates exchanged looks that said, “What?”
“Interesting.” Elise crossed her arms to ponder this new information. Stella glanced in her direction. She told her once that she considered Elise a warrior at heart, a loyal fighter and a great teammate. Stella was much the same. So was Victoria, who had long, dark hair, a quiet, serious intelligence and had fooled many into thinking she was harmless as an opponent. She wasn’t. None of them were. The three of them made an excellent team.
Diesel shrugged. “I figure it’s a little bit like our aboveground operation here. We run a truck stop with a spacey, galactic theme. They run their whole town with a Halloween theme.”
“What else do we know?” Stella asked.
“There has been no communication with the ship since we lost it over Georgia. A final garbled message came after they dropped off our sensor screens, reporting some sort of problem upon entering Earth’s atmosphere, and we briefly had a weak beacon signal once they were on the ground. That has since stopped transmitting, but at least we have the approximate location.”
“Is it a hot scene?” Elise asked, using the term that meant humans were either already involved in the crash site or at least knew about it.
“We don’t think so. It seems the camouflage held until they went down, but since the beacon has stopped, we don’t know exactly what you’re going to find. Best-case scenario, you get to the crash site before any
humans do.”
Stella asked, “Has there been any communication with the downed ship since they crashed?”
“No,” Diesel said. “But as the beacon worked for a short time afterward, it’s possible the ship is at least partially intact. With luck, you’re only providing transport back to Alienn for the trio.
“If the ship is in one piece, hide it or camouflage it. The vessel retrieval team will leave tomorrow morning and work independently to recover the wreckage and any equipment. Cam will provide camouflage tarps for you to use if the spacecraft can be seen by any humans before the other retrieval team gets there.”
Cam Grey, another of Diesel’s brothers, was primarily in charge of security at the Big Bang Truck Stop and the large alien facility below ground.
As he answered the team’s questions, Diesel was noticeably calm, collected and even patient. Their Fearless Leader had recently mated with an earthling. While many secretly wondered about the match, Elise had met Juliana and knew why Diesel had done it. The human made their Fearless Leader very happy. There was certainly nothing wrong with that in Elise’s book.
Rumors also abounded that Juliana was descended from a lost Alpha-Prime colony that had slipped into legend, but that was only wild speculation at this point. Gossip was a staple at the Big Bang Truck Stop and the surrounding area of Alienn, Arkansas.
