Invaded

by Melissa Landers

Tori said…

  E has a point. Come back, culo. I miss you.

  Cara tapped the touchpad and closed her Web page before any more discouraging remarks popped up. She’d committed to this life, and she wasn’t turning back.

  A shrill yip! forced her attention to Mom, who held Linus over one shoulder and patted his back, burping him like an infant. It was official—Cara had been replaced by a German-Malty-Doodle-Poo. In two weeks, she’d lose her brother, and once they landed on L’eihr, she wouldn’t have a friend in the world.

  This was the worst Christmas ever.

  “This is the best Christmas present ever!” A L’annabe danced from one foot to the other, nearly slipping on the icy sidewalk while Aelyx autographed her copy of Squee Teen.

  “Not a problem.” After scrawling a quick signature, Aelyx returned the girl’s magazine.

  She stared at his glossy eight-by-ten photograph and sighed dreamily while her friend thrust a copy of Fangasm at him and asked, “Did you and Cara really have a secret wedding? ’Cause that’s sooooo romantic!”

  “Excuse me, miss.” A young national guardsman named Sharpe extended one palm toward the girl. “I need you to step back.”

  She nodded and obediently retreated a pace, joining a dozen other girls, each dressed in mock L’eihr uniforms, their hair fastened into low ponytails. The only threat they posed was admiring Aelyx to death. But while he found his guard detail overzealous at times, he was grateful for their presence. His last visit to Earth had ended in an attempt on his life, and he wished to return to Cara with all his parts intact.

  “No,” he told the girl, forcing a smile. “Humans and L’eihrs can’t legally wed.” He added with a wink, “Yet.”

  “Oh, gods,” groaned Syrine, his former best friend. Emphasis on former. They’d barely exchanged ten words since she’d tried turning Cara against him on the transport. Syrine shoved him aside and jogged up the front steps leading to the penthouse apartment they shared with the L’eihr ambassador. Two armed guards followed her inside.

  “You should probably wrap it up,” Private Sharpe whispered. “You’re exposed out here.”

  A frigid gust of wind stung the back of Aelyx’s neck, sending a shiver across every inch of his flesh. He’d never felt winter’s bite until his travels to Earth, and gods willing, he never would again after this mission ended. A warm fireplace beckoned from upstairs, and Sharpe didn’t need to ask him twice.

  “Just one more,” Aelyx said to the girls, eliciting a chorus of disappointed moans. He was poised to sign his name when a sudden movement in his periphery caught his eye.

  Glancing to the side, Aelyx noticed a uniformed guardsman approaching quickly from an armored Hum-V parked at the curb, his boots loudly crunching over the salt and slush that carpeted the street. A pink scar stood in contrast against the man’s ivory forehead, his brown eyes fixed straight ahead at no one in particular. Aelyx scanned the soldier’s jacket but found no name tag.

  Why didn’t he have a name tag?

  When the soldier broke into a jog, Aelyx’s body tensed, his instincts on high alert. Before a question could form on his lips, the man drew his pistol and aimed it over Aelyx’s heart. In a voice colder than morning frost, the man rasped, “This is from the Patriots,” and pulled the trigger.

  Adrenaline surging, Aelyx reacted, but not quickly enough. As he dodged right, a deafening crack pierced his eardrums and two hundred pounds of force knocked him to the frozen asphalt. A cocktail of screams, shuffling boots, and counterfire flooded his senses.

  It took Aelyx a moment to realize that not only was he alive, but that Sharpe lay atop him. Aelyx freed himself and propped on one elbow in time to see the rogue gunman tear down the street and vanish between two townhomes. Several guardsmen followed in pursuit while the rest of their unit scrambled to secure the area.

  Sharpe rolled onto his back with a deep groan and asked, “You all right?”

  Aelyx patted his chest and moved his arms and legs in a brief inventory. “Yes.” A glance at Sharpe revealed a wet patch of blood slowly spreading across the outside of his shoulder. “But you’re not.”

  Sharpe followed Aelyx’s gaze to the wound before he gave a frustrated grunt and rested his head on the ground. “Just a scratch. But it’s gonna sting when the rush wears off.”

  Up close, Aelyx realized for the first time how young the man was, likely no more than twenty. They might even be the same age, which surprised him. Sharpe’s bravery and quick reflexes rivaled that of a seasoned warrior. “You took a bullet intended for me.”

  Sharpe shrugged his good shoulder. “Part of my job.”

  Aelyx couldn’t help smiling at the boy’s stoicism. They could use more like him on L’eihr. “Well, thanks for doing it so thoroughly, Private Sharpe.”

  Sharpe chuckled, then grimaced in pain and extended his opposite hand. “Call me David.”

  Chapter Two

  Cara fastened her five-point harness, wincing when the seat-belt strap brushed the sensitive inoculation scar on the inside of her wrist. Judging by the quarter-size lump beneath her skin, she wouldn’t catch a single sniffle on L’eihr, which suited her just fine. The last thing she needed was an alien stomach flu. L’eihrs were smarter, faster, and stronger than humans, so their viruses could probably melt steel. After buckling her clasp, she nestled back against her seat beside Troy, who hadn’t said a word since they’d boarded the shuttle five minutes ago.

  When Elle padded through the doorway and settled in the row of seats facing them, Troy’s posture stiffened and he tucked his black curls behind both ears—not much of a reaction, but enough to make Cara suspect he was crushing on Aelyx’s sister. This didn’t come as any great shock. With her mile-long lashes and delicate features, Elle was a natural beauty. Plus, she had a nurturing spirit, which probably accounted for her position as medic aboard the ship. But Troy’s timing was terrible. Elle’s l’ihan had been murdered in China a few weeks ago, and she mourned him in her own quiet way.

  Troy drummed his fingertips against his thigh. “Can’t wait to feel the ground beneath my feet again,” he said, mostly talking to Elle. He released a shaky laugh and bounced one booted heel against the floor. Poor guy, he had it bad—totally alien-whipped.

  “Mmm,” was her only reply. She secured her seat belt and turned her silvery gaze to Cara. As soon as their eyes met, Cara felt the girl’s voice inside her head asking, Can you really hear me?

  Cara froze in panic. No one was supposed to know she could communicate this way.

  Aelyx told me, Elle went on. But I didn’t believe it.

  “Yeah,” Cara said, sending an unspoken message in the tone of her voice. “I’m ready to get off this ship, too. Space travel makes me nauseated.”

  “I hope you don’t mind,” Elle told Cara, “but I asked the Elders to assign us to the same room.” Then she added privately, Aelyx told me to watch over you until he returns.

  “That depends.” Cara winked. “Do you snore?”

  “Sometimes,” Elle confessed, not understanding the joke. “But Eron used to say it was endearing.” She bit her lip and studied her folded hands, her expression heavy with grief.

  Everyone fell silent after that, electing to stare out the side windows into the blackness.

  Moments later, two final passengers joined them and the door hissed shut. Cara flicked a quick glance at the clones, then did a double take.

  “Hello, Cah-ra.”

  The young leader, Jaxen, took the seat directly across from her, extending his long legs until the tips of his boots touched hers. He peered at her intently and smiled while his sister, Aisly, lowered beside him and greeted Cara with a nod.

  Cara pulled back her feet and offered a hasty grin. His presence caught her off guard. Jaxen and Aisly were members of The Way, L’eihr’s governing body, so why hadn’t they shuttled down with the Elders?

  Jaxen continued to study her while fastening his straps. “Aisly and I volunteered to escort you to the ca
pital.” It was like he’d read her mind, though Cara was pretty sure L’eihrs couldn’t do that.

  Aisly tipped her head and scanned Cara’s face—not in a disdainful way, more like how a visitor at the zoo would observe an exotic animal behind the glass. Cara figured she should get used to the scrutiny. Individual races had ceased to exist on this planet, and with her pale complexion, blue eyes, and copper hair, she would stand out like a joke at a funeral.

  “On Earth,” Aisly said, “a year equals one planetary rotation around your sun, correct?”

  Cara nodded, feeling the rumbling engines vibrate the bottom of her seat. The shuttle separated from the boarding corridor with a slight lurch, and a thrill of exhilaration shot through her. They were finally leaving the transport.

  “Then that would mean I’m seventeen years old, like you,” Aisly told her, then nodded at her brother. “And Jaxen’s twenty-one.”

  “Twenty-one?” Cara wrinkled her forehead in confusion, trying to remember what Aelyx had told her about the old L’eihr breeding program. Geneticists had played God for too long and bred the life out of themselves, so they backtracked, cloning citizens from the archives. But that policy had gone into effect twenty years ago, and it took nine months to grow a baby inside the artificial wombs. “I thought the oldest clones were nineteen.”

  Jaxen’s smile never faltered, but his words turned frosty. “I suppose Aelyx told you that.” He didn’t give her a chance to reply. “Our population is small, Miss Sweeney, but I can guarantee that your l’ihan hasn’t met every clone on the planet.”

  Whoa. Clearly she’d touched a nerve. She tried to make light of the misunderstanding. “I’m sure it’s an innocent mistake. Despite what Aelyx thinks, he doesn’t know everything.”

  Nobody laughed. Tough crowd, these L’eihrs.

  Jaxen and Aisly locked eyes in a private conversation, so Cara quietly cleared her throat and faced the window to her right.

  The shuttle came about and gained speed, and within minutes, empty space gave way to distant pinpricks of light. The air was colder near the window, but Cara leaned in and searched for the swirling blue nebula Aelyx had described to her a couple of weeks ago. Every time you see it, I want you to think of me, he’d said. I’m going to mend that alliance in record time, and soon we’ll stand together and watch the L’eihr sky from our colony.

  She couldn’t find the nebula, but she noticed twin moons and then the muted blue planet that would become her new home.

  A wide expanse of ocean wrapped around the globe, interrupted by a single tan continent and a sprinkling of tiny islands. Thick clouds obscured her view as the shuttle jettisoned into the atmosphere. Once their craft broke through the haze, rows of beige-capped mountain peaks greeted her, jutting proudly against a sky the exact shade of slate. At their base, a placid sea stretched to the horizon and kissed the rising sun.

  Cara faced the opposite window to take in forests of majestic redwood-size trees, their silver leaves sparkling like quartz in response to the morning rays. Her eyes widened to absorb it all. She tried to find some hideous flaw in the landscape to prove that Aelyx had exaggerated the magnificence of his world, but every atom in her body sang with its beauty.

  As the shuttle descended, she could make out a settlement in the distance. She quickly identified the capitol building based on its position at the heart of the city. Offices, apartments, shops, and dormitories splayed out from the humble three-story structure like satellites in orbit, each as neutral as the next. It seemed that architecture, like every other aspect of life on L’eihr, focused on practicality over aesthetics. The small city reminded Cara of how the ancient, sandy-colored ruins in the Middle East might have looked in their prime.

  When she turned toward the other window, she caught Jaxen observing her reaction. He held her gaze for a few beats and leaned forward as far as his restraints would allow. “What do you think?”

  As soon as Cara found her voice, she told him, “It’s spectacular.”

  “I think so, too,” he said. “This is the smallest of the five precincts, but it’s my favorite.”

  “For good reason,” Aisly added. “Everything important is here: the academic and scientific archives, the genetics labs, the cultural galleries.”

  “Not to mention your government,” Cara said. The tiny capital reminded her of Washington, DC. “Do all ten members of The Way live here?”

  “Yes and no.” Jaxen gestured out his window toward the city. “We rotate living in different precincts and shuttle to the capital when we need to convene. It allows us to oversee the local governments while ensuring each region’s needs are fairly represented.”

  “Except Alona,” Aisly said. “The head Elder always resides at the capital.”

  “Kind of like our president in Ameri—” A sudden dropping sensation made Cara gasp, and she glanced outside to see the shuttle touch down in the shorn beige grass outside the capitol building.

  Once her heart quit thumping, she scanned the open courtyard, noting a cluster of silver-leafed willow trees and shrubs near a side entry. At this early hour, there was only one L’eihr in sight: a middle-age guard standing at attention near the front entrance. Cara’s eyes darted to the iphal holstered to the man’s side. It was a handgun of sorts, but with the power to stop a victim’s heart with a concentrated pulse of energy.

  Welcome to L’eihr. Start anything and we’ll end you. Have a nice day!

  Cara unbuckled her harness and waited for the dozen passengers ahead of her to de-board. Then she followed her brother down the shuttle steps and paused to draw her first breath on an alien world.

  The air was warm and humid—slightly heavier than she’d expected, smelling faintly of bitter citrus. It was an oddly pleasant scent, especially compared to the exhaust fumes she’d grown accustomed to on Earth. The gentle morning sun warmed her shoulders, a sensation she hadn’t felt in weeks. Until this moment, she hadn’t realized how much she’d missed the feel of sunlight on her skin. The main transport had provided ultraviolet lamps to encourage vitamin D production, but they couldn’t replicate the breeze that stirred loose wisps of hair against the back of her neck. She’d missed that, too.

  Right away, she noticed Earth’s vibrant color spectrum didn’t exist here. Aelyx had once compared L’eihr to Midtown in winter, when the few remaining leaves had shriveled and turned brown. It was a fair comparison, but much less dreary. These tan leaves glistened with an opalescent sparkle that made Cara want to string them together and wear them around her neck.

  She observed a great stone wall in the distance, hugging the rolling hills until it disappeared behind a multistory apartment complex. She wondered what was on the other side and why they bothered with walls when shuttles could easily fly over them.

  “A credit for your thoughts,” said Jaxen, studying her again with a smile.

  “A credit.” Cara laughed at his spin on the American expression. “Guess my pennies are worthless here.”

  Jaxen held up his wrist. “Your nano-chip will track your credits, among other things.” He strode to the doorway and gestured for her to follow. “Come here and I’ll show you.”

  Cara glanced at her inoculation scar. She’d forgotten that in addition to a thousand vaccines, the medic had implanted a data chip beneath her skin.

  Jaxen pointed to a light switch–size box affixed to the outside wall. “There are stations like this everywhere—even inside your quarters. Hold your wrist under here, like this.” When he demonstrated, a beam of light danced over his flesh. “The system will scan you for personalized notifications.”

  Cara extended her arm, palm up. Seconds later, a woman’s soft voice ordered, “Cah-ra Sweeney, please report to the first Aegis at your leisure.”

  Impressive. They’d even programmed the system to speak English for her.

  “The first Aegis is ours,” Troy said, pointing to the complex by the city wall. “It’s the closest school to the capital. Students from the other four campu
ses have to take the air train to get here.”

  “What train?” Cara asked.

  He pointed to a set of metallic pillars she hadn’t noticed before. Her gaze followed them upward to a monorail track.

  “And at your leisure really means now,” Elle advised her.

  “I’m staying at the Aegis?” Cara asked, a little disappointed. “Not the colony?”

  Jaxen drew back in surprise. “No. The colony is on the other side of the world and still under construction.”

  “The other side of the world?” But the entire population of L’eihr lived here, divided into five small precincts on a continent half the size of Canada. There was nowhere else to go except…“On an island?” She didn’t say marooned, but that was what came to mind.

  Again, Jaxen seemed to have tasted her thoughts. “Yes, but don’t worry. The intent is to allow colonists the liberty to form a unique society, free from our influence…to some extent.”

  Cara supposed that made sense, though she wondered to what “extent” The Way would interfere.

  Jaxen turned to Troy and Elle. “I have sensitive matters to discuss with Miss Sweeney. I’ll deliver her to the Aegis shortly. You’re free to go.”

  Troy hesitated, but Jaxen’s word was law, and the tone of his dismissal left no room for negotiation. Once Troy and Elle had strode out of sight, Jaxen led the way down the same path, motioning for Cara and Aisly to follow.

  “Is everything okay?” Cara asked while glancing at the pavement beneath her boots. It had a slight bounce to it, like shock-absorbent indoor track. She hopped on the balls of her feet and grinned, realizing she’d always have a spring in her step.

  Aisly shot her a curious glance and they began at an easy stroll. “Yes. We only wanted to give you a proper welcome.”

  A soft whoosh sounded from above, and an air train jettisoned into the city at lightning speed. Somehow, it managed the job with barely a breath of wind. Cara craned her neck, marveling like a child as another train passed above her. Even higher, sky lanes directed a few shuttles to and from the city, though she had no clue how their pilots avoided midair collisions without visible boundaries.