Alien Shifter Force: A SciFi Alien Shifter Romance

by Maya Kane

  They nodded gravely.

  “We’ll rest tonight in two shifts. Those of you who wish to change form and explore, do. Just don’t go alone. And stay vigilant—this is a strange planet that’s apparently hostile. Tomorrow, we’ll set out to find whoever did this. Get some sleep, crew. You’ll need it.”

  Chapter 6

  Kate felt an increasing sense of dread as they moved through the building. She hadn’t noticed anything on the way in. Now she paid close attention to every detail. And she didn’t like what she saw.

  The base was usually buzzing, regardless of whether it was operating with a skeleton crew or not. Her ground-based colleagues were the best in their fields and most loved what they did. It wasn’t a job for the uncommitted—their base was in the middle of the desert, miles from any other sign of civilization.

  Now, the hallways were deserted. Those people she did pass wouldn’t meet her eyes. Something had gone seriously wrong. She stared at the commander. He had always had excellent posture, but there was something different about his gait that day. It was like he was too straight; like it was taking considerable effort for him to carry on.

  Finally, he turned into one of the small debriefing rooms that looked out over the desert.

  “Close the door behind you,” he said.

  Kate nodded, even though the policy at the base had always been open-door; tell your co-workers everything. She felt even more confused when he hit a button on the table that activated the privacy blinds in the door and windows. They could still see the desert and the empty office, but no one would be able to see them.

  Kate clenched her fists to keep them from shaking.

  “I’m sorry for keeping the truth from you, Kate,” he said slowly. “There’s no protocol for what we’re experiencing. I was simply trying to…”

  “Follow the rules?” she finished, feeling disheartened. She had idolized this man. Now she was increasingly beginning to see him as a coward.

  He shook his head sadly. “Yes. Well. As much as they exist anymore, I suppose. All I can do is attempt to maintain standards here at the base.”

  Kate froze. “What’s going on, Commander? Seriously, I need to know.”

  Commander Jessop flattened his palms against the table. “Something happened, Kate. It’s all very new. But I’ll explain as best I can.” He shifted in his seat, seemingly trying to make himself comfortable. Kate was filled with dread—usually the commander kept meetings brief and to the point.

  His next words felt like a sucker-punch to her gut. “There was an attack. It happened last week. As far as we can tell, it’s wiped out whole cities. Maybe even countries.”

  Kate’s mouth fell open. She wanted to ask who had attacked, but the only sound that came from her throat was a strangled moan.

  “I know this is hard to believe.”

  She nodded. “It is. I knew there was something wrong, but I never imagined…”

  He smiled sympathetically. “Well I’ve had the best part of a week and I’m still struggling. It’s not a dream, unfortunately. Last month, we picked up strange solar activity. On further investigation, it appeared there was a high-tech ship fast approaching us, disguising itself as solar activity. By then it was too late.”

  “I don’t understand.” Kate frowned. His words made no sense. No one had technology like that; no one.

  He nodded. “I didn’t believe them, of course. But then I saw the monitors with my own eyes. It was happening. The president ordered our rockets to scramble. Obviously, we had no offensive ships here, but we were on standby. Just in case… Luckily, we were never ordered to attack.”

  Kate’s eyes widened. To her, it would have felt like an honor to fight off any invader that threatened earth.

  “Yes,” the commander said. “Only for that, you would have arrived home to a cloud of vapor and little else.”

  “They destroyed other bases?”

  “No. No, somehow the structures remain intact. But the people? Gone. All gone. I don’t know how. They have weapons capable of vaporizing us.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “We’ve been watching on the satellite feeds. It’s clear that they tracked the missiles to the bases they came from, but I suspect they don’t know about us. I don’t know how long that can last, but we need to have a plan in place for when they figure out we’re here.”

  “I don’t understand. What are you saying? That the whole country is wiped out? The world?”

  He pushed off his seat and went to her side. “We don’t know that yet. Our satellite feeds are still running. We can watch for as long as they hold. We haven’t dared to set up new ones in case we signal our presence to the invaders. But from what I’ve seen, their intent is to destroy earth.”

  “Can’t we communicate with the other bases and central control?”

  He shook his head. “And risk drawing their attention to us?”

  Kate shivered and glanced toward the window. The alien ship had crash landed on the other side of the base to where they now sat. She shivered at the thought of the aliens she had seen. She had no idea who or what he was, but there was something about him that… she shook her head. Now was no time for her to act like a hormonal teenager. “Why didn’t you tell me? We should have attacked them when they weren’t expecting it.”

  He shook his head. “No. You see, those aren’t the ones who attacked us.”

  “What?”

  “The ships I saw on the feeds were different. And I glimpsed some of their soldiers. They’re not like the ones outside. They don’t fly or change shape at will.”

  Kate bit her lip. “Why didn’t you tell us this was happening? We could have taken refuge elsewhere. We could have helped.”

  He shook his head sadly. “We couldn’t risk them overhearing our communications. If they did, then we’d all be dead. I’m sorry, Kate. It killed me to think of you on the descent, not knowing what in the hell was going on. I hope you’ll forgive me in time. But you saw what they did. They targeted your ship as soon as you re-entered, just like I suspected they would. I couldn’t risk the base.”

  “The engines?”

  He nodded.

  “And the replacement crew? You said they didn’t depart for the station.”

  “No,” he said. “No, they were due to depart the next day. And then the attacks happened.”

  “They’re here?”

  He nodded. “Everyone is at the base. It felt safer that way. I wanted to speak to you before you had a chance to hear it from somebody else.”

  “And the others? Danni and Athena?”

  “They’re still in the quarantine unit.”

  Kate rolled her eyes. “With respect, Commander Jessop. You’re telling me aliens have attacked and you’re keeping us all contained until the scans are back? On the off-chance that we’ve contracted something isn’t this a far greater danger?”

  “No, Kate. You know the risks—it would be very unlucky for the entire base to come down with space virus while we tried to defend the planet.”

  Kate’s blood ran cold. “But you let me out. If there was a virus, it’s free now. We need them. Athena’s a strategic genius. Who else have we got? Who else is defending the planet?”

  He shrugged. “That’s impossible to tell right now. My main focus is survival, and that means not radioing other bases to see if there are survivors. But like I said, it doesn’t look good.”

  The full weight of the truth began to hit Kate for the first time. Aliens. Had. Invaded. She didn’t have any close friends outside the force, but still her heart broke for the planet.

  “What are we going to do, Commander? We can’t just stand by…”

  “We won’t, Kate,” he said, getting up and going back to his side of the table. “We won’t. But we need a plan. The entire base is working around the clock to find as much intelligence as possible on our invaders.”

  Kate bit her lip. “So have they been in contact with anyone? Have they given us an ulti
matum?”

  He shook his head. “No. That’s the thing. All of our training scenarios were based around hostile aliens taking over the planet and wanting something from us. If that’s the case, they have yet to convey their wishes. But my theory is they’re not after us. There’s something else they want and they don’t need humans in order to get it.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Well, why else would they destroy us?

  Kate winced. “Destroy?” she said in a small voice.

  Commander Jessop hung his head. “You should see the images for yourself.”

  “Images,” Kate repeated. “Is the footage still recorded?”

  He nodded.

  ***

  Kate raced through the corridors, afraid to stop in case her mind lingered on what she had just seen. She’d felt like she had no choice—she needed to see what had happened in order to be able to contribute to the solution.

  Still, it hadn’t made for easy viewing. The satellite images had been sharp enough to show pedestrians going about their daily business and traffic jams on the highways. One moment they were there; the next they were gone. Vaporized. That was the closest term Kate could think of to describe it. There was no rubble or ruins; no blood. No scorched earth. She had no idea what kind of weapons were capable of making millions of people vanish, but she had seen it with her own eyes.

  She thought about running back to the commander; of looking him in the eyes and demanding that he own up to pulling an elaborate prank. But Commander Jessop wasn’t the kind to joke around. He was light-hearted, but he was the most patriotic person Kate had ever met. He would never claim that his people had been killed unless it was the absolute truth.

  Kate’s heart skipped a beat and she struggled to breathe. Where else had they struck? As she had watched those feeds, she grew more and more suspicious that it was a concerted attack, designed to neutralize earth defenses. She stopped and leaned against the wall, knees suddenly shaky.

  “Then again, it could just be a blanket of destruction. After all, every city or base in our feeds has been vaporized. Who’s to say the world hasn’t just disappeared?” she muttered, leaning her head against the cool concrete and closing her eyes.

  “I take it you’ve seen the footage, then,” said a cool voice behind her.

  Kate spun around and came face to face with Athena, her crewmate from the mission. She reached for Athena and pulled her into a tight hug as if the other woman was the only lifeline she had left.

  “You’re alive. Have you seen it?”

  “No. I just got released from quarantine. I’m surprised the commander changed his mind like that. I take it it’s a code red?”

  Kate nodded. “It’s just about the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

  They sat on the floor and stared at each other in utter confusion and devastation. “How was your landing?”

  Athena smiled. “Rough. And yours?”

  Kate shrugged. “Fine. No broken bones. But the tingling sensation is strange.”

  “What tingling?”

  “You don’t feel it? I thought it might have been a side effect of ejecting so quickly. It’s a tingling, warm feeling in the pit of my stomach.”

  Athena raised her eyebrows. “I don’t know, but it sounds sort of pleasant.”

  Kate blushed without knowing why. She’d spent two years on the space base with Athena. There weren’t a lot of secrets between them—there couldn’t be when you shared a confined space with someone for that length of time.

  “What do we do, Athena?” Kate asked, eager to change the subject even if it meant facing down the terrifying unknown.

  Athena shook her head. “It doesn’t seem like there’s a lot we can do. What use are our weapons when the enemy has technology we’ve never even dreamed of, let alone invented?”

  Kate shrugged. She had no idea what the answer was. But whenever she tried to tease out the problem, the image of those strange dragon-like creatures floated into her mind. It was like they had a part to play in this somehow. She shook her head. No. That’s crazy, Kate. They’re aliens. They can’t be trusted.

  Chapter 7

  Redon had slept fitfully; his sleep interrupted by weird dreams of half-dressed females with strange, smooth skin he’d never witnessed before. He felt more exhausted than he had when he’d barricaded himself in his cabin. The ridges at his temples had been throbbing ever since they landed, even though Timon had checked his head and found no injury.

  He rose and stomped to Aron’s cabin. Under the circumstances, they had thought it best to sleep at opposite ends of the ship and take different watches—that way if anything happened to either of them, there was somebody to lead the unit. Somebody who knew of the prophecies.

  Redon shook his head as he rapped on Aron’s door. It won’t come to that.

  The door swung open. Aron looked as fresh as he had the day before, despite his lack of sleep.

  “Has Zalon found something?”

  Aron shook his head. “No. The weapon—whatever it was—has destroyed the sensors. We might never know what was responsible.”

  Redon cursed. His ridges were still tingling and he was in the foulest mood he had ever experienced. “Rest,” he said. “We’ll regroup then.”

  Aron shook his head. “I don’t need to. We can do it now if you’d like?”

  Redon stared at him, wondering how he could be so alert when Redon himself was fitter and still utterly exhausted. But he knew the answer.

  Dreon matured when they were twenty years old. What they did next depended on when their mating call happened. It was a strange condition, unique to Dreon. Redon had never given it much thought before because it had never happened to him. And as a Dreon soldier, he hoped for his own safety that it never would.

  When a male Dreon encountered a female who was his mirror, his body reacted to her. Violently reacted. It was the same for the female. Neither one would be able to rest until they had mated. Scientists theorized that this was to ensure that Dreon didn’t get distracted by war or other problems: it guaranteed the survival of the species—thus putting the mating couple in grave danger if they happened to be at the front line of a conflict when the madness took them.

  He had rolled his eyes when friends told him of the maddening symptoms; of the sleepless nights and exhausted days for those foolish enough to resist. Now he didn’t find it so funny. They were all there—all of the classic symptoms. Worst of all, he knew, he wouldn’t be able to reliably shift form until he had shaken off the symptoms.

  That’s what he saw this as—a false reaction. Because what else could it be? They were in the middle of what appeared to be a wasteland on earth, with not a female Dreon in sight. There was no way he could be experiencing the call.

  Even if his heart and cock told a different story. Plus false reactions were unheard of.

  “Sir?” Aron said nervously.

  Redon jerked his head, shaking himself out of his daze. “If you’re sure? There won’t be a lot of opportunity for rest once we move.”

  Aron shrugged cheerfully. “I’m fine.”

  “In that case, let’s brief the troops. Let’s eliminate this threat, fix the ship, and get home to Dreon.”

  ***

  “I hope you’ve all rested?”

  There was a low murmur in response.

  “Good. Because you’ll need all of your energy reserves. Zalon reports that our instruments have been damaged and the communications team has been unable to get their equipment to work.”

  The group gasped. Everyone was clustered around the strategy room table except for those who were too injured to leave the makeshift medical center in the exercise bay.

  Redon clapped his hands together, bringing the group to order. “That’s why we’re going to approach the humans. Build a temporary union of sorts.”

  Just as he expected, the room erupted into groans of dissent. “Eren?” he said coolly, pointing at the young soldier who was usually the ringl
eader in any disruption.

  “Sir, I think I misheard. You want us—the great Dreon—to unite with the humans? The primitive creatures who inhabit the planet without resources?”

  Redon nodded. “That’s exactly what I said. Well done, Eren.”

  He looked away, careful to avoid Aron’s eyes. He hadn’t discussed his plan with his deputy. It was the first time in years that he’d kept something from him, but he knew he needed to tread carefully. Aron knew him too well; knew what Redon dared not admit, even to himself.

  “But Sir, how do we know we can trust them?”

  “Sir? Humans?”

  “I don’t know about this.”

  Redon held his hands up. “Silence,” he commanded. “Please. Put your dislike of the primitive humans out of your minds. This is survival. This is their planet. They know the land. Think. If they had formed an alliance with the Collective, we would have heard. They don’t have the bargaining power to buy weapons. That leaves one explanation. Earth has been invaded.”

  There was another howl of protest from the back of the room. To Redon’s surprise, he saw that it had come from Zalon. He raised an eyebrow.

  “It can’t be true,” Zalon said in a loud, clear voice. “Why would the Collective, the most powerful alliance in the universe, want to invade earth? There is nothing of value here.”

  Redon shot a quick glance at Aron, who stared back at him impassively. Redon jerked his head slightly before turning back to the group, trying to control his wariness.

  “That may be so, but we must look at the facts. They’re here. They must have invaded.”

  “But wouldn’t we have heard?”

  Redon shook his head. “Not necessarily. You saw what they did to our communications system. If they did the same thing to the humans’, then they probably won’t have had a chance to get word to their allies.”

  Aron snorted. “Allies. They have no allies.”

  Redon swallowed. This next statement was a difficult one for him to make, but it needed to be done. He’d spent much of the night awake thinking about it and he could see no other way.