by Hana Starr
Ordar’s Mission
By Hana Starr
Copyright © 2016 by Hana Starr – All rights reserved.
The author holds exclusive rights to this work. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form including photocopying, recording or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior permission of the publisher.
WARNING: This book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language. It may be considered offensive to some readers. This book is intended for adults 18+ ONLY. Please ensure this book is stored somewhere that cannot be accessed by underage readers.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are used in a fictitious manner and not to be construed as real. Similarities to real people, places or events are entirely coincidental.
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Contents
Intro
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
About the Author
Intro
Ever since she was a young girl, Mary had always wondered what would happen if aliens came and invaded Earth. Her imagination was always an active one, and she had visions of grandeur of what would happen if she had ever met an alien. She had often liked to think that they would become friends, or at least, would learn from one another.
The truth, as she found out many years later, was far more frightening.
Earth had been invaded by a strange, unknown race from beyond the stars, and had been caught unprepared for such an invasion. Hailing from a planet that humans had never known existed, a race known as the Almer took the planet in a disturbingly quiet and efficient manner, almost overnight. Mary, being one of the people that had been abducted with the express intent of being sent to work, could only cling to what skills and sharp wit that she had in the face of her captor, a capable warrior named Ordar. But the heart is a complicated, and treacherous thing, and before long, her captor begins to worm his way into her heart. But can the same be said for the staunch and unmoving warrior?
Chapter 1
On a crisp November morning that started out like any other, the sky seemed overcast when she stepped out of her house to go to work that day. In retrospect, turning on the news to listen to while she had her morning coffee probably would have helped, at least somewhat, to avoid finding herself in the position that she was in. It wasn't until she was halfway to the bus stop that she actually looked up at the sky to see if she should pull out her umbrella.
The sky wasn't darkened by overcast clouds. It was darkened by ships.
Her initial shock told her that it was just normal airplanes or blimps or anything that was easily explained by something of this world. But her eyes couldn't hide the truth from her; there was far too many of them, and they were far too still to dismiss as a simple aircraft. She blinked, registering that the ships were shaped oddly, like they were pulled from one of the video games that she loved to waste time on. Her feet came to a stop on their own, her mossy green eyes widening as the weight of the situation hit her. When the shock wore off, and it wore off rather quickly, her initial thought was that she needed to run back home, bunker down, and not leave the house with the news on, to wait it out as best as she could.
That was when the lights started to glow.
Streams of light beamed down from the ships, their blinding white glow grossly incandescent against the autumn sky. The brightness of the lights forced her to look away and cover her eyes, frantically squeezing them shut against the little flickers of stars under her eyelids from its initial blast. While her eyes were closed, she felt the wind kick up around her, whipping her jacket around her wildly. With the wind came the sound of wailing sirens that filled his ears until all she could hear. Its volume even managed to drown out the pounding in her ears from her heart hammering to hard.
And that was before she felt something cold press against her stomach.
Even with the light in her eyes, she turned to see what the source of the contact was. Though the person in front of her was, at first, obscured, haloed by the light, she could still make out the darkened outline towering over her, nearly two feet taller than herself. As the light faded, she blinked her vision into focus. The figure's grayish lilac skin looked almost like it was molded out of clay, a stark contrast against the faintly shimmering metal of the gun pressed against her stomach.
Oh. There's the shock again.
Even the cold of the morning couldn't compare with the way that her heart froze over at the sight of the end of the gun digging into her gut. She blinked again, as if hoping it would make the sight in front of her change into something far less terrifying. When that didn't work, and everything was still the same, the panic started to settle in. She sucked in a shaky breath, her throat burning from the cold air.
“Be silent.” The figure spoke slowly, deliberately, as if the words were punched out of it. The voice was deep, masculine, and startled her with how it reverberated in the figure's chest. She tore her gaze from the unfamiliar looking weapon to look up into its face. Eyes the color of amethysts that glittered with all the stars in a galaxy bore into her, flickering with a strange bio-luminescence that cemented its other worldly presence to her, and she found herself rooted to the spot.
She heard a shriek down the street, and her eyes flickered toward the sound, alarmed that another of the beings was several yards away, the same strange looking rifle pointed at another woman, the source of the scream. There was a flash of light – an orange streak blasting out of the end of the rifle and connecting with the woman in the blink of an eye. Her body crumpled to the ground, her abdomen burned down through to the point that her spine was exposed.
Mary nearly screamed herself at the sight, but knew that she would only suffer the same fate as that poor stranger. So, she swallowed it, and let it burn in her throat. She could feel her legs tremble beneath her but it was all she could do to keep herself steady on her feet, her mind reeling; it was literally a mere hour ago that her life was normal, that it was boring, and she liked it that way. Now, she was staring down the barrel of a gun like nothing she had ever seen before, and watched a total stranger get half vaporized before her very eyes.
“You see what happens to those that disobey.” She looked back up at the first being that she noticed, the one that held her up gunpoint. “It is good that you listen. That is an admirable trait that will be useful to the Empire.” The being pulled the gun away from her stomach, and Mary didn't realize that she didn't let herself breathe until it was not longe
r pressed against her.
She wanted to ask so many questions, not the least of which what was going to happen to her and why this was happening in the first place, but she let those questions die on her tongue; this being ordered her to silence, so she would keep her mouth shut if it meant that she was going to have a chance to live. So instead, she silently stared up at the alien holding her hostage and waited to be told what to do next.
“We are returning to the ship. We will determine your worth and your place in the Empire. You will comply.” Automatically, her mouth opened to ask what it was talking about but forced it shut with an audible click of her teeth. The creature's mouth slanted into a smirk. “You are inquisitive by nature. That is the way of humans. We have watched, and we know. Your questions will be answered.” The light came again, but even with the sensation of her retinas burning in spite of her eyes closing, she did not move so much as a muscle.
The sensation of weightlessness consumed her being, and suddenly her feet didn't feel as though they were on solid ground. Though it only lasted for a few moments, it felt like she was floating for an eternity. But it ended so abruptly that she was sent reeling, collapsing onto her hands and knees. Even as she tried to force her eyes open and blink away the stars in her vision. She could see that there was a metal floor beneath her now, and feel its cool surface against her palms. Logically, she knew that that meant that she was no longer in the same place that she was in before – even the air was different, more stagnant, but no less cold.
“Rise onto your feet. You will comply.” Came the same voice from above her. Though her whole body was still quaking in fear of what was going to happen to her, she forced herself to stand. The being was there again, with more of their kind, and it was enough to make her stomach churn. She saw around her that there were other humans, all escorted by another being and all held at gunpoint.
On a raised platform in front of the group of them, she saw another of the beings, its armor more ornate than the others surrounding it, looking down at the group of them with critical, glowing eyes. After a few moments of scrutiny where she was made to feel smaller than she ever had before, it held out a hand.
“You will all be judged.” Its voice, deeper than the creature that took her in the first place. “We will find a place for you in the Empire. If you do not have a place, you do not need to breathe our air.” Mary swallowed her gasp, still actively fighting to stay silent in spite of her automatic reaction of wanting to scream at the horrors she was seeing. “You were taken from Earth because the Empire requires laborers.”
“So is Earth being conquered?” Came a man's scared, timid voice amongst the crowd. The being, presumably the leader of, at the very least, this ship, looked in the direction of the voice's source. There came a cry of pain following a dull thwack sound. Mary flinched as though it were her that had been struck, imagining that had happened to the poor fool.
“Bring him forward.” There was a shuffle amidst the crowd as a middle aged man was brought to the front of the crowd to face the main alien. “You ask if this is an invasion?” It snorted. “You are either brave or foolish to ask such a question out of turn. But I will indulge you.” It lifted its head from staring at the individual man to address the group. “We are not conquering Earth. There would be no point, and wasting the resources that it would require to do it would put us at a loss. There would be no profit to it. We are low on workers for menial labor throughout the colonies and our home planet. Humans have an atmosphere nearly identical to ours, so you are ideal candidates.” It waved a hand. “We are the Almer, and we are now your keepers.”
Chapter 2
What foolish souls had dared to begin a quiet murmur of discontent were quickly silenced by their handlers, with varying degrees of violence used to do so. Mary pressed her lips together tightly, knowing that if she dared to make a sound that she would be next. The humans were corralled into a line swiftly by the Almer guards that had taken them, and she was no exception; her captor pressed the butt of its rifle between her shoulder blades once, nothing more than a soft tap to remind her of the powers that held her where she was and what would happen if she didn't follow orders.
One by one, each of the humans were measured for their worth. If their skills were useful to the Empire, they were pushed along down a hallway and out of sight. If they were judged to be useless, they were forced through a... a beam of light, for lack of a better way for her to describe it.
“Those who have no worth are sent to the primary ship,” the soldier at her back explained to her. She turned to look at him – she had dubbed the Almer a, “him,” based on his deep voice, but vaguely wondered if his race even cared about that sort of thing. “They will become slaves for trade. Sent to do what they are tasked, away from the eyes of the Empire. They will work where no one needs to look at them.”
“And if they fail that?” The question tumbled from her lips before she had time to think about keeping her mouth shut. She flinched, waiting for the punishment that came with asking unnecessary questions. She couldn't help but feel confused when it never came.
“Then they die.” He said simply. He nudged her again with his gun, but it was still merely a gentle tap, nothing that would even leave a mark on her. She wondered why he was being so gentle with her. Well, she supposed that the term, 'gentle,' was being generous; she simply wondered why he wasn't being rough with her. What had stood out in her that made him treat her differently?
That thought trailed into another though: what made her stand out at all? The closer she came to the front of the line, where she would have to plead her case for how useful she could be, she found that there were achingly few skills that she could actually lay claim to. Sure, she was a secretary and phenomenal with book keeping and organization, but if that had no place in the Empire, then what did she have to fall back on?
Cooking was almost immediately out – she sincerely doubted that there would be any useful application for that that she could use, given that they likely didn't eat even remotely similar foods as humans. She couldn't care for animals, for largely the same reason, so that wasn't an option either. And while she might have a decent amount of experience with martial arts in her spare time, that didn't make her competent enough to be a soldier in an alien army by any stretch of the imagination.
Even as she was brought before the head Almer, she found that she didn't have any answers. The leader stared down at her, nearly two full heads taller than her and just about twice as broad he towered over her diminutive form. All she wanted to do was crawl into a hole under the scrutiny.
“What was your occupation before your capture?” The leader asked plainly.
“I was a secretary.” The leader frowned.
“This word... 'se – cre – ta – ry' is unfamiliar to us.” The imposing alien said, enunciating each syllable of the word. Its face scrunched up in confusion. “We have no similar word in our tongue. Explain.”
“I take down and organize information, set up meetings, and serve my superiors as best I can.” She said, hoping that the explanation served to make her look a little more viable to be kept out of the slave market. She couldn't imagine that being run by terribly kind people.
“Ah, an Oracle of Chronicles.” The warlord hummed, nodding his head as if he understood her occupation perfectly. “That is useful. You will be kept.” She let out a small, shaky sigh of relief. “Just as soon as you can prove that you can serve your betters in every capacity.”
“E – every...?” She wasn't sure what that meant, but knew better than to ask the leader, who was already signaling her handler to usher her down the hall. Knowing that she would have to find out eventually and that she should just be glad that she was alive for the time being, she allowed herself to be led down the same hallway that she had seen so many other humans disappear through before her.
All the while, her escort was silent, the only noise betraying his presence behind her the heavy clunking of his armored boots conn
ecting with the tile in time with his steps. Mary had to fight the urge to wrap her arms around herself, fearful that the movement might make it look like she was drawing a weapon or something and give him a reason to kill her. The only desire that she felt in her bones at that very moment was the need to survive.
“Halt.” Her guardian spoke up suddenly. She stopped rigidly, turning to face him. “This will be your temporary quarters while you are evaluated.” He gestured with his rifle to the door on the wall beside them. “Enter to begin your evaluation. You will comply.” He opened the door, and she walked through, actively trying to make herself as small as possible as she passed him.
“What does...” She swallowed her question just in time to stop it from being fully asked. Her guardian regarded her for a long moment.
“You have questions about your evaluation. That is to be expected. I would hear them.” He finally said, his tone passive and far less hostile than she was expecting. She cleared her throat and tried to force her voice to work.
“What does the evaluation entail?” She asked quietly. “I would like to know what an Oracle of Chronicles does.”
“Ah,” he said with a thoughtful nod. “I imagine that it is different than your old occupation in many ways.” He shouldered his rifle by its magnetic clip that held it in place on his broad back. “An Oracle plays many roles. You archive all of the knowledge of your unit – ship movements, travel patterns, logs from the crew, medical situations that are reported, among other things. Anything worth noting, you record.” He rolled his shoulder. “That is your primary role. I will test your skill in this field first.”
