She nodded. Not ready but willing.
They both crouched and headed at full speed for the ridge across from the opening to the tunnel. Somewhere nearby, on the other side of that hill, their friends were in trouble, most likely at the mercy of the Corgon soldiers from earlier.
Their assumptions were correct. Lying on their stomachs in a patch of scrub bushes, three Corgons came into view, each holding a heavy blasting rifle. Between the enemy soldiers were Hunner and Daniel, on their knees, arms shackled behind their backs. Jerno and Ashley found Deener a moment later, splayed dead on the ground with half his skull blown away.
Jerno nudged Ashley, drawing her attention away from Deener’s blackened corpse. He pointed.
Visible on the edge of the valley, a few hundred meters away, was the Lomarian ship. Jerno lifted his binoculars to his eyes. Everything looks in working order.
He lowered his binoculars and tightened his grip on his pistol.
Ashley wiped her sweaty palms on her pants, switching the pistol from hand to hand as she did. She’d only been directly involved in a firefight one other occasion. Every other time, Jerno had been able to protect her, keep her out of harm’s way. Not this time. He needs me—they need me. Time to step up.
Jerno pointed to the left. There was a smooth path leading downward through a group of thorny, leafless trees. He pointed to Ashley and then straight down, making the action of firing a pistol.
Got it. You sweep around to the left and surprise them, I hold the high ground.
She nodded her understanding as he blew her a kiss. In a moment of levity, she pretended to catch it. As she looked into his eyes for what may be the last time, Ashley could only hope this would work. Be safe. Come back to me.
A quick nod and Jerno headed off, down the left slope of the ridge. Ashley watched him go. She turned back to the trio of enemy soldiers.
Two were milling about now, discussing plans to interrogate and transport he prisoners back to the District Base Ship. The third was standing guard over their battered prisoners. She aimed her pistol at the third, peering through the sight until the crosshairs were directly on his forehead.
As Jerno had trained her she took a deep breath and expelled it slowly, feeling hot wind whip through her hair. Her grip was sweaty but she remained focused on the task at hand. Jerno was almost in position. She glanced over just in time to see him disappear. She knew to wait for his signal to act. He was the big guns, she was the back up.
She didn’t have to wait long. Another thirty seconds and Jerno made his move. She saw him get to his feet, all seven feet of his broad, strong body coming into view before he carefully stepped around the scrub brushes. He took aim at the two Corgon’s standing to the side.
Then Jerno struck. His first shot was dead on, a blue energy burst hitting one of the Corgons in the side of the neck. Its companion spun toward the sound, surprised to see its comrade’s throat and face suddenly burst into blue ozone and flame.
The second Corgon responded with lightning speed, lifting its laser pistol as it spun around to face Jerno. But before it could get a round off, Jerno fired. The blue laser bolt pierced the Corgon’s chest, right between its armored breasts.
In the same instant, the Corgon fired back, a futile shot as he stumbled backward. Jerno ducked to the side and fired again. This time the Corgon fell, dead before it hit the ground from a laser bolt to the head.
The remaining Corgon quickly adjusted to the shock of the sudden attack. It jumped forward, cowering behind Daniel. As Jerno turned from the dead Corgons, the third had his pistol raised.
Ashley grunted—she didn’t have a clean shot at the Corgon, who quickly next grabbed Hunner and pulled him over as an extra measure of protection. Ashley raised her pistol but the Corgon was already on the attack.
“Look out.” Ashley screamed but it was too late.
Before Jerno could get into position, the Corgon fired. A green bolt sprung from its pistol. Jerno dove to the side on instinct. The laser bolt managed to only hit a glancing blow across his thigh.
Jerno howled in anguish as tendrils of black smoke rose from the wound. The Corgon readied for its next shot, zeroing in on Jerno’s head.
Ashley didn’t know what to do. She had no clean shot. And the Corgon’s gun was pointed at Jerno. My bodyguard, my friend, my lover… Faced with the few seconds separating Jerno from his life, Ashley’s true feelings revealed themselves. My love…
No time. She had no time to think, only to act. She jumped to her feet and screamed, “Hey, you, ugly mother-fucker.”
It had the desired effect. The Corgon was startled into realizing Jerno wasn’t alone. It whirled and started to take aim at the insulting enemy. Seeing only a human woman standing defiantly above him on the ridge, it squeezed off a quick shot.
The laser bolt struck the dirt beside her feet. Ashley didn’t need to be encouraged any more than that. She fired once. Twice. Three times.
Two of her shots found their mark.
The Corgon slumped to the ground, smoke rising from the pair of holes in its chest.
Ashley raced down the slope. “Jerno.” Tears welled in her eyes as she skidded to a halt beside him.
He lay on the ground, holding his injured leg tightly. Blood pulsed out from between his fingers but he did his best to remain calm.
“I’m okay.”
Falling to her knees and taking his arm in her hands, Ashley tried to get control of herself. “Can you walk do you think?”
Burning pain washed over Jerno as he moved his leg a little. “I can move it.” He wanted to sound reassuring. “I… I can walk.”
“For now, untie the others. I’ll watch your back.”
Ashley nodded. Her voice was soft and a smile began to shine on her lips. “I was worried. You know you can’t go dying on me, right? I need you safe.”
“I need you, too.” As the words left his mouth, Jerno realized what that sounded like and backpedaled. “I mean,” he muttered, “safe. I need you safe.”
She nodded, not believing his cover up for a minute. “Thank you.” He was surprised to hear a serious tone creep into her voice as she continued, “You saved my life. You saved all our lives.”
Jerno’s own bloodied lips twisted into a gentle smile as he touched her cheek. “What good is my life without you alive in it?”
Ashley kissed him sweetly on the forehead. “Nor mine without you.”
THE END
Astral Ascension
Chapter 1
Beth punched the radar console for a second time in as many minutes. “What the hell, Nathan, you told me this was fixed.”
“It was,” Nathan said in his annoyingly calm electronic voice. “I have fine-tuned the readout matrix. Everything is working to specifications, Beth.”
Beth looked away from the screen, to the inky world outside the bridge. “It can’t be.”
She turned back to the radar, following the tiny red blip streaking toward her current location. She shook her head. “It has to still be broken.”
The computer reiterated its assessment. “No,” he told her with slow, steady emphasis, “it is working fine.” Man computers can sound pretentious, Beth thought.
“But that means…” she couldn’t finish her statement.
More accurately, she refused to finish her statement. If she refused to say it out loud, then it wasn’t real. She wasn’t ready to make it real. She might never be ready for that.
Beth stood upright and walked hesitantly to the portside window. Looking out into the pure blackness of deep space, she saw a glint shimmer in the distance. It’s…
She turned from the window, a nervous grin ripe with disbelief stumbling across her lips. “Send data probe C-2,” she ordered, toying anxiously with the zipper of her flight suit. “Set internal and external security recordings, and…” her voice caught in her throat. She felt foolish saying it, like the victim of some prank or mirage… here goes… “And prepare the ship for alien contact.
”
Beth Harper was nine years old when the first Humans officially entered a new solar system. She was 19 when they reached the borders of the Milky Way. When she was handpicked out of the Star Academy to join the three-man crew aboard the deep space ship Orleans, Beth was 24.
Now, staring out that portside window and watching an actual alien ship approaching, Beth was technically 117 years old. However, rotation in and out of cryogenic sleep shifts over the years had preserved her, in physical appearance and ability, in her early 30s. In her prime.
She was Head Officer on the Orleans and each piece of data, every use of a finite resource, every course adjustment or protocol change was her responsibility. That is part of why Beth had taken it so hard when their three-man crew was reduced to just her 10 years ago. That was when Edward and Rosco died. She knew logically it wasn’t her fault, there was nothing she could have done. Edward was messing with things he should not have been messing with and Rosco’s embolism came on fast, killing him within hours. Still, both their deaths hit her hard. She took them almost personally—she was the Head Officer; she should have saved them.
Since then, it had been only Beth and Nathan, the AI, flying into the isolation. A hundred more years. That’s all that was left on her mission. One hundred more years and she could head for home.
For some reason, she found herself drifting back to one of the last conversations she’d had with Edward before he died. He had been in one of his darker moods that morning, going on about how much they were missing back home. “You know this is the time, don’t you? These are the days?” She could still see him dragging his fork through some thick salty goo, the dregs of his breakfast. “Eighty years out, everyone back home, everyone we knew, schoolmates, friends, family, starting to die off. Another fifty years it will be my children, your nephews and nieces. It’s all…” he looked up from his plate and caught himself as he saw the sorrow barely contained behind Beth’s dark green eyes.
He set his fork down, finishing neither his sentence nor his breakfast.
Until that early morning melancholy-fueled rant, Beth had been doing a fine job shutting out the reality of time’s passage on Earth. She hadn’t thought about anyone or anything other than who and what was on this ship in years.
For some reason, Edward’s sad soliloquy haunted her every once in awhile. It brought faces into focus in her mind’s eye, stirred memories of places and voices, of things said and left unsaid. She did her best to bury those names again, those faces and events, but her mind wouldn’t let her. They were there now and they were not going away. Still, she refused to make them real by speaking of them out loud. It was a tactic of denial her mother had taught her. If you don’t say it’s real, it isn’t real. Not the healthiest coping mechanism, Beth knew, but an effective one.
Unfortunately, just as with the alien ship currently pulling up alongside the Orleans, growing closer with every beat of her timorous heart, the moment came when circumstance would not allow denial to remain possible. Watching the alien ship sweep to the left and come to a stop beside her ship, Beth’s mind stumbled over a million obstacles, tangible and existential.
She shouted at Nathan to “Prepare burn sequence, activate the kill switch and send it to my data-pad.”
“Of course Beth,” the AI said. Was that a tremor in his voice? Beth caught herself—I have been alone too long. “What do you think they want Beth?”
“How the hell do I know,” Beth snapped, regretting it even thought he was just an AI. “Sorry,” she said, turning back to the window. “I don’t know what they want and that’s why I want the kill switch ready.”
While Nathan downloaded the digital self-destruct control to her data-pad, Beth kept her eyes locked on the alien ship. The sleek silver vessel was twice the size of the Orleans. It had drifted near enough to make out details now. Ventilation ducts, control panels, lights, hatches, modules, and units. Writing on the side. A name, she guessed, in some strange alien alphabet.
Beth returned her gaze to the control panel, making sure everything was still being recorded. I can’t believe this is happening. I am the first, the first in the history of humanity, to make contact with a species from another planet. “Nathan, I need you to patch the recording feed to my data-pad too,” she told him. “There’s no way we can let a second of this go unsaved.”
“It’s all set up,” he said. “Everything is patched through to you and the footage is streaming to the Mars relay station.”
Beth shook her head. “I cannot believe how big that ship is” she said aloud. “But I have to.” Concentrating all of her attention on the scene outside, she continued, “All of this time, we Humans have wondered what else was out here…” Her gaze moved between the massive silver ship and the endless black void. “And now we know we’re not alone but somehow that makes it—”
A piercing screech suddenly blared from the Orleans’ coms, startling Beth out of her reverie. Wincing, she covered their ears. The squelch rose in volume and intensity, driving Beth to her knees.
It was like cold sonic daggers were stabbing her very eardrums. She screamed in agony. Then disorientation hit, nausea twisting her gut. She had never felt such pain. Please stop, just stop… She began to cry, unable to escape the sound, finding no way to stop it tearing her apart, sundering her brain and skull. Stop, please…
The squeal suddenly disappeared, replaced by a gravelly, electronic voice booming over the speakers: “Ship Orleans. Prepare for tractor beam and transport. You will submit to interrogation by the Command of the Royal Versallian Military.”
Still stunned from the aural assault, Beth grappled to take in what had been ordered. Royal Military? What the—?
In the side of the silver ship she could see a massive hatch slide open. It looked like a cargo bay. The voice came back on, menace in its words: “Cooperation is mandatory.”
Chapter 2
Once the Orleans was secured inside the cargo bay of the Versallian ship, five alien soldiers carrying long staffs with dangerous looking electric blue blades on the end boarded. There was nothing Beth could do but follow the series of commands barked at her. Nathan was powerless to help as they had somehow disabled him. “Remain silent. Put out your hands. Follow us.”
Hands now bound, Beth marched obediently toward an unknown fate. Well-trained and resilient though she was, she found it difficult keep her wits about her, to recall her training. She realized she never really thought she would have to use it in an alien situation.
She was led up a flight of metallic stairs, through a series of low-ceilinged hallways, then up more stairs. The ship was a massive maze, sterile and dark. As they walked, Beth found a kind of calm settled on her, making it easier to take note of details: it was clean but not new, places of wear and tear visible throughout. Periodic scratches in the silver steel walls. A light bulb flickered in one of the metal staircases. This isn’t living up to my fantasies of alien tech, Beth wryly observed.
Beth may not find the ship as unique or interesting as she had dreamed an alien vessel might be, but she thought her captors were fascinating.
The Versallians would be considered humanoid she surmised—very tall, very well-muscled humanoids. Except for their coloring: their skin was a rich deep green. A lion’s mane of mahogany hair covered the soldiers’ heads, each of them wearing it in a thick braid hanging down to his waist.
Beth found herself distracted by the “uniforms” they wore. They were not what she would have called “standard issue”, at least not any she had ever worn or seen. They were dressed in exceptionally tight black pants, their equivalent of leather she guessed, with no covering on top save jeweled leather bands tied around each of their biceps. All seemed to be designed to make the most of the muscular, taut, chiseled bodies. Oh my god, they’re beautiful… For a moment, she forgot she was not a guest but a captive. I have been alone way too long.
Wrapped snuggly around each of the soldiers’ throats was a leather strap with a chunky,
metal crab-like mechanism embedded over the larynx. “This way,” one soldier ordered, pushing her from behind. The voice was deep, with a slight tinny quality, a hint of the electronic manipulation beneath the words.
Beth understood. The throat bands, the crabby things. They are translation devices. Her assessment was confirmed when she noted there was a slight delay between the movement of the Versallian soldier’s lips and the sound of his voice. Somehow, the device gathered the alien vocal tones, muted them and simultaneously translated and projected that translation of the original words. Finally, some impressive tech, she thought.
The Versallian guards led Beth down still another hallway, this one ending at a massive set of doors. The male she thought was probably the Captain opened the doors and nudged her through with his elbow.
The room was massive, cavernous. The ceilings and walls were rounded, the décor lush and designed for comfort. Flowing tapestries draped the walls and ceiling. Plush pillows, low sofas and woven carpets filled the floor space. All of it in deep, heavy hues and exotic-looking materials. The lighting itself was soft, with no overhead illumination, adding to the drama.
Dozens of what Beth assumed were pieces of art were scattered around the room, but only one was of particular interest to her. It was the largest statue in the room, at least three feet in height, and was carved from some type of grey-green stone. It sat atop an elaborate pedestal, bringing it to a height of about six feet, she surmised. At first glance, Beth thought it might be two flower petals holding a female, who was dancing nude, but that wasn’t quite it. Then it dawned on her—those weren’t flower petals. They were Human vulvae surrounding the dancing form. What the… She looked to the floor to hide her reaction from the Guards.
Before she could get her bearings, she was unceremoniously forced to her knees directly in front of the statue. Beth could now see the entire room was designed around it. All seats faced it in a semi-circle. In the recesses of her mind, she remembered a philosophy course and learning about ancient Human religions that worshipped the Goddess. Perhaps this was the Versallian’s version of that.
Romance: Alien Romance: Simply Aliens: A Ten Book Alien Romance Collection (Paranormal Scifi Interracial Romance) (Fantasy New Adult Alpha Short Stories) Page 6
