“From the look of it, there are two of them, sir,” one of them said to another who had a red cloak inside of the grey ones the others wore. I guessed that this was the leader of the expedition.
“Well they can’t have gone too far. Be careful though. They obviously have been expecting us or else they wouldn’t have laid all of those mines. Humans are so primitive in their weaponry.”
“Yes sir,” they said as they began to fan out from the landing site. I looked for Yahn. I knew that this was the time for us to ambush them, but I told Yahn I would wait for his signal.
“Freeze!” Yahn said, emerging from behind a bush with his laser cannon in his hand. I came out from behind the fern and approached the two that were heading in my direction.
“Put down your weapons!” I said in a commanding voice. The two Sarceastians looked at each other and then back at me as if they were trying to decide if they should obey my command or not.
Suddenly, their captain lifted a hand into the air and both my laser cannon and Yahn’s were lifted out of our hands and into the air. We had forgotten all about the Sarceastians’ telekinetic powers. The captain began to laugh under his cloak as his hateful red eyes glowed with delight.
“Now you will come with us or you will die. The choice is completely up to you!” the captain said as he pulled out his own laser gun. The others pulled out their weapons as well. A second later, the rest of the expedition crew came out of our ship and saw what was happening.
“No need to send out a search party. We have thwarted their feeble plan to ambush us,” the captain said. His voice was deep and eerie, like the voice of an evil wizard.
Yahn had not moved a muscle since his weapon was taken away. He closed his eyes and seemed to act as if he were in another world. I wondered what in the world he was doing.
“Come with us, right away!” the captain said. I put my hands on my head and began to walk with the two guards that were near me.
“I said move!” The captain yelled at Yahn, but Yahn stood his ground. Suddenly, his eyes opened and took on a strange, blue glow. He lifted his hand into the air and the Sarceastian’s weapons flew up out of their hands. One of them landed in Yahn’s hand and the other in my own.
“What?” the captain said as he tried to close his eyes. He was trying to use his telekinetic powers in order to gain back the weapons. Yahn’s eyes grew bigger as if he was drawing more power to himself. The captain could not overcome Yahn’s powers.
“Now you are our prisoners. You will come with us or die!” Yahn said. The Sarceastians reluctantly put their hands up in the air, realizing that Yahn was too powerful.
“Let’s take them to the cave and imprison them there,” Yahn said to me.
“Walk!” Yahn commanded. The Sarceastians began to march towards the cave with their hands on their heads.
“You didn’t tell me you had telekinetic powers,” I said to Yahn as we walked behind our prisoners with our weapons trained on them.
“You didn’t ask,” he said with a smile.
Once we got them inside the cave, we bound them to each other with some rope and secured the ends of the rope to the walls of the cave.
“Now, see those small circular devices on their cloaks?” Yahn asked.
“Yes,” I said, looking at where he was pointing.
“We must remove those. The Sarceastians can only use telekinetic powers because of these devices.” I nodded my head and began to remove them from the four Sarceastians nearest to me. As Yahn took the device from their captain he spoke.
“You will not get away with this. When we do not return, our commanders will send a crew twice as large as our own to see what has become of us,” he said.
“Well aren’t you fortunate to have someone looking out for you,” I said, sarcastically.
“We’ll see about that,” Yahn said.
“What are we going to do with them?” I asked. Yahn sat looking at them and then he spoke to me.
“I have been working on mind control powers. My father was a master at it, but I am only an amateur. I can try and convince them to return to their planet and tell their superiors that they didn’t find anything on the planet. They can say that an animal set off the life detectors.”
“You are just full of surprises,” I said. Yahn smiled at me and then turned his attention to our prisoners. He closed his eyes and opened them- they took on a strange blue color once again.
“Listen prisoners to my command! You will return to your ship and tell our masters that you did not find any life on this planet other than the creatures of the forest. Tell them that you are certain that an animal set off the life detectors.” I looked at the prisoners and one by one, each of their eyes turned from their normal red color to blue.
“Yes sir, we will do as you command!” the captain said as if he was in a trance.
“Now, we will set them free,” Yahn said. I helped him untie the ropes. As soon as they were free, the Sarceastians walked back like zombies towards their ship. We walked behind them with our weapons, just in case. Finally, they got into their ship and left the planet.
Chapter 12
Yahn
Days passed and there was no sign of any Sarceastian expedition ships in the atmosphere. It seemed that my mind control tactics actually worked, much to my satisfaction. Jessie and I celebrated by making love that night. We decided to engage in a new form of sexual expression to spice things up. Jessie showed me a new position called reverse cowgirl that I enjoyed very much. She also showed me something that human beings called ‘role-playing’. She asked me to pretend like I was her enemy and had captured her at gunpoint. Then, she told me to tell her that she would have to perform sexual acts in order for me to keep from turning her into the expedition team that she had betrayed. I felt funny about the whole thing at first, but it made our lovemaking even more erotic than before. I enjoyed it quite a bit, surprising myself.
As the days wore on, we began to exhaust our food supplies in the surrounding forest. Although the area had a bountiful amount of fruit when we first arrived, we were now having trouble finding much of it. The animals in the area had also become scarce, mostly due to the lack of fruit in the area. It was time for us to venture further into the interior to explore our options. It seemed that our ‘Eden’ was not going to be without its challenges.
“I’ve been using my resource scanner to see where the supply of food and game is most plentiful. The mountains to the south seem to be our closest bet,” I said as we shared the dwindling supply of our meat around the campfire.
“How long do you think it will take us to reach them?” Jessie asked as the night winds blew her beautiful hair into her face.
“It should only take about a day’s hike according to my calculations,” I said.
“Once we are there, we should find plenty of food for ourselves. Enough to last as long as we need.”
“That’s good to know. Yahn, I have to tell you- I’m homesick. As much as I love you and as beautiful as this place is, I think about home all the time. I wish there was some way for me to relay a message to my mother and father just to let them know that I’m alive and well.”
“I know what you mean,” I said, clutching her hand. “I feel this homesickness too, but I have also come to terms with the fact that I have no home to go back to. I get the feeling that you may yet have the opportunity to see your homeland again,” I said, optimistically. From time to time, I would get premonitions about the future that would often turn out to be true. I felt strongly about the prediction that I had made, but I also sensed that it would be a challenging situation if we were to find ourselves visiting Earth.
The next day, we turned our attention to packing up camp and heading into the interior. It was a little emotional because we had grown attached to our green pasture in the midst of the forest. The field was beginning to bloom with all sorts of red and purple flowers, some of which towered above our heads. We said goodbye to our temporary home and hea
ded off towards the mountains in the south. The trek was a steep one once we reached the mountains. The vegetation was lush and thick on the mountain slopes and the mist hung in large pockets above the treetops. We reached an overlook and gazed back at the clearing far below.
“What a beautiful view. Look, you can see our clearing from here,” Jessie said, clutching my hand.
“Yes, the view is quite nice,” I said, looking at her. We kissed and then continued until we reached the crest of the mountains. The trees gave way to an alpine meadow where we decided to set up camp. There was plenty of fruit on the journey up to the top, so we gorged on fruit that night, filling our bellies. The night air was chilly on the mountain top, so we huddled in close around the campfire, enjoying the warmth of each other’s bodies.
“So strange that we have this whole planet to ourselves, other than the animals and plants of course,” Jessie said.
“Yes, I do pick up a slight higher reading for life forms, but it is only that. When my parents would take me here, they would tell me about the Padureans that lived on the far side of the planet. They told me there were tribes of beings that lived deep in the forest that had green skin. They apparently could blend in so well with the greenery that they could be standing right next to you, and you wouldn’t even be able to see them. These tribes would war amongst themselves and form allegiances with others. Their lifestyle was very primitive. They would wear very little clothing and live at one with the forest instead of destroying it for their own purposes as they have done on many planets, including your Earth,” I said.
“So what happened to them? Where are they all?” Jessie asked.
“I have no idea. Maybe our journey will reveal some answers. Maybe we will find some ruins or some evidence to fill in the blanks for us,” I said.
“Look!” Jessie said as she pointed to the sky. I was amazed to see three moons visible in the night sky. One of them was full, the other was a crescent and the third, hanging lowest in the sky was a half moon.
“Gorgeous,” I said as I clutched her hand. Soon the fire died and we began to fall asleep. I was awoken by a strange chanting noise coming from behind the tree line to our south.
“Jessie wake up, there’s someone in the forest!” I whispered, shaking her.
We both jumped up and armed ourselves with our laser cannons.
The sound of the chanting was otherworldly and eerie. We attempted to run back towards the north, but soon we could hear the chanting in this direction as well.
“Who are you?” I asked, turning on my language decoder so that I could make out the words they were chanting in the darkness.
“Revenge will be ours!” The words of the chanting creatures became clear and chilled us both to the bone.
Soon the creatures came into view. They were transparent green creatures, somewhat like humans, but taller with long arms and bulbous heads. Their eyes were much larger than a human’s and glowed in the dark. They hovered above the ground and closed in around us.
I tried to use my powers to keep them from moving closer, but I was unable to affect their motion in any way. It was quickly becoming apparent that these Padureans were no longer living. They were phantoms, destined to walk their planet seeking revenge for some fate that had been foisted upon them.
“We mean you no harm!” I said.
“Revenge will be ours!” they continued to chant, only louder this time.
“Quickly, this way!” Jessie shouted as she grabbed my hand and led me off towards the east. There was an opening in that direction, although their ranks were quickly closing in an attempt to surround us.
We ran as fast as we could through the forest, as the chanting grew fainter. However, they were following us, shortening the distance between us. We came to a cleft in the mountain and Jessie’s flashlight soon revealed a wooden door in the side of the mountain.
“Look there, a door! I say we knock on it. The ghosts are getting closer!” Jessie said.
“Ok, it’s worth a try, I hope the person living inside is friendly,” I said.
Jessie knocked on the door as we looked behind us and saw the phantoms growing closer and closer.
“Hello? Please let us in!” Jessie said. The door abruptly opened and a bearded human looked out at us.
“Quickly, come inside!” he said in a deep, gravelly voice.
We went into his house and he quickly shut the door. He was wearing a grey cloak and sandals. He turned to us and gave us a greeting.
“Welcome, my name is David Hopkins. You will be safe here until morning, but then you will be on your way.”
I looked inside and saw a fire with a cauldron on it. The smell of a fragrant stew reached my nostrils and reminded me that I was still hungry.
“Have a seat and tell me who you are and what your business in Padure is,” he said as he went over to the cauldron and scooped out its contents into two wooden bowls. We sat down on stone chairs and I began to tell him our entire story.
“That is quite a tale. I must admit the last thing I expected to find at my door this evening was a human girl and a male Karkastian,” he said with a laugh.
“We are only too grateful for your hospitality. Will we be safe from the phantoms here?” Jessie asked him.
“Oh yes, as long as you don’t venture out there before dawn, you will be alright. The ghosts that you see are all that remains of the Padurean tribes that used to exist all throughout these vast forests. The Sarceastians killed them all some time ago. Now these restless spirits walk during the night, seeking revenge for the deeds committed against them.”
“I should have known. The Sarceastians will never rest until they’ve destroyed the universe,” I said.
“Their reckless slaughter will one day be their undoing,” David said.
“So how did you come to be here?” Jessie asked.
“I was once a member of an Earth expedition crew just as you were,” he said to Jessie.
“I was asked to kill a Karkastian and I refused. They told me that I would be exiled for my disobedience, so I took an escape pod and came here. I have been living on my own ever since that time. You don’t know how pleased I am to have company,” he said with a smile.
“It is so sad that there continues to be such conflict between our people,” I said as I looked at David.
“Yes, it is a shame. I knew that Karkastians were not evil creatures. The deeds of a few cannot be used to judge the many,” David said. “How do you like your stew?”
“It is the most tasty thing we’ve had in a while,” Jessie said. “We were beginning to run low on our food supplies. That’s why we ventured over the mountains and into this area.”
“There is enough food and game in these mountains to last you a lifetime,” he said. “But the spirits of the Padureans will always pose a threat until they can have their revenge. When a Sarceastian sacrifice is made to them, the curse will be lifted and they will finally be at peace. Until such a time, they will walk the planet with an insatiable bloodlust.”
“If I had my way, I would provide them with a whole army of Sarceastians. I too crave revenge. They killed my entire family and most of the inhabitants of my planet,” I said.
“That is very sad to hear, but as I said before, it will be their eventual undoing,” David said. “I have a sixth sense about such things.”
Chapter 13
Yahn
We chose to stay with David for a while and thought about setting up our own place nearby. There was plenty of food and game in the area to the west, and everything seemed safe enough as long as we stayed away from the haunted valley to the east where the cursed Padureans haunted the forest. I woke up early in the morning as Jessie slept, and decided to go on a hunt to the west. David was already up drinking coffee when I began to set out.
“Good luck on the hunt. There are golden stags in this forest and their meat is a delicacy if you are quick enough to catch one. They are speedy devils,” David said.
“Yes
, thank you. I will keep an eye out for them,” I said.
I began to walk through the sun-dappled forest, listening to the sounds of the numerous bird species in the trees above my head. The color of the trees was beginning to change, indicating the oncoming fall. The forest was ablaze with dazzling reds, oranges, yellows, and even blue colors. I heard the sound of hoofs in front of me, so I broke into a run to try and catch up with them. As I climbed a ridge, I saw a herd of golden stags retreating. I tried to get a shot off at one of them, but I missed. The herd disappeared from view. I climbed to the top of the ridge where there was a small rocky clearing. I looked around the surrounding ridges to try and spot some more game. What I saw instead, made me feel slightly alarmed. There was a Sarceastian ship landing in a nearby clearing. I saw several of them coming out of the ship and walking in the direction of David’s house. I gave up the hunt at that point and began to run back towards the cabin. I had to warn them so that we could figure out what to do about our new visitors.
Alien Romance Box Set: Romantic Suspense: Alien Destiny: Scifi Alien Romance Adventure Romantic Suspence Trilogy (Complete Series Box Set Books 1-3) Page 8
