The Men of Anderas I: Jardan, the King

by C. J. Johnson

  “They are wanderers,” Joar put in.

  “We have always thought so, but we cannot be sure.”

  Joar lifted his brows in surprise at that. “They have sprinkled small outposts throughout four different galaxies, but they seem to be nothing more than outposts and they are mostly aboard their ships.”

  Dagon thought about that. “Granted, we have never attacked that I have not been in the fighting rage, but I believe that I would have noticed if there had been young among them. Have either of you ever seen their young?”

  Gilen and Joar blinked and exchanged a blank look. Then Gilen frowned. “They are not a large species to begin with. We might have and not known it. I have never seen a female for that matter.”

  “Exactly!” Dagon said quickly. “The females and the young must be kept in a nest far, far away from the fighting to protect them. Mayhap we have the chance, now, to find this nest and eradicate the infestation of Basinini forever!”

  Gilen was not particularly comfortable with that and he could see that Joar was not either.

  If they had found the nest of younglings and females in those early years, he would not have thought twice about wiping them out as he had the Basinini who’d taken part in the destruction of Ator. An eye for an eye! And the Basinini had killed every man, woman, and child on Ator. They had not only destroyed their world and their people, they had destroyed the future of the Furians for there were no mates for the warriors who’d survived!

  They deserved a retaliation equal to their transgression! Or worse.

  Truthfully, he was fairly convinced that there was no male and female of the Basinini species. They were either all female or all both sexes.

  “You are saying that we should stay far enough away to keep from being detected and wait to see what they are up to here?”

  “Yes. I am saying just that.”

  * * * *

  Cara thought it was a dream. More specifically, it seemed like a nightmare, filling her with horror she couldn’t shake or awaken from. Her mind seesawed back and forth from the certainty that what she was experiencing was all being played out in her mind—not reality—and the certainty that she was lying to herself and it was all too real.

  The house shook, almost seemed to be breathing in and out, so that the walls, doors, and windows bulged inward and then outward. Blinding light flooded through every crevice, penetrating the minute cracks around molding and every joint of door and window and wall. She felt a presence, knew she wasn’t alone, but she couldn’t move.

  She screamed within her mind, over and over, trying to force herself to move, focusing on arms and legs, hands and feet, even toes and fingers. She felt the strain throughout her entire being and yet she couldn’t so much as twitch any part of her body.

  And then they were there, surrounding her on her bed, strange, frightening, alien creatures.

  They didn’t seem to be very tall and yet that didn’t really calm her, make her feel less frightened or less threatened. There was something about them that gave her the creeps that went beyond finding a group of strangers in her bedroom.

  As she studied them, it dawned on her what it was that seemed so creepy.

  They reminded her of spiders. They had abnormally huge heads and eyes, freaky long arms and fingers and legs. They weren’t built like spiders per se. They were more humanoid than that, and yet the suggestion of spiders was undeniable and, she was certain, what she found most repellent about them—what made her want to run screaming from the room.

  She hated spiders!

  But she couldn’t run. Couldn’t move at all. She was frozen.

  Completely immobile.

  She couldn’t even blink. How had they simply appeared? Surrounding her?

  Did that mean it wasn’t real and she was merely imagining all of it? That it really was the dream/nightmare she’d thought to begin with?

  A sense of déjà vu abruptly swept over her.

  This had happened before or she’d dreamed it before.

  She was still struggling with that when she realized she wasn’t in her room anymore. The light had grown brighter and brighter and when it dimmed to a bearable level again, she saw that she was in a room that was more like an operating room than anything else. That realization set her heart to hammering even harder than before. She couldn’t catch her breath. She thought she might pass out. She hoped for it, longed for oblivion.

  Something touched her mind—not her head, her mind.

  Fear not. You will not be harmed.

  Liar! You’re a liar, she screamed back! It always hurts!

  Nothing can be done about the pain. We are not familiar enough with your physiology to prevent the pain, but it will not last and no permanent harm will be done. Your life is not in jeopardy.

  Liar! You fucking liar, Cara screamed in her mind. And she knew that that was the truth. They were advanced alien beings! How could they not know how to perform surgery without pain if humans knew how? And she wasn’t buying that bullshit about not being familiar with human physiology! If they didn’t know enough to perform surgery they sure as hell couldn’t assure her that they wouldn’t kill her! And if they did know enough to perform surgery then they would have to know enough to prevent pain.

  She thought the sick bastards liked inflicting it!

  Or they just considered humans so inferior that they didn’t consider it mattered what horrible things they did!

  They gave her a great deal of pain. Inwardly, she screamed and screamed and screamed. She couldn’t vocalize. Everything was paralyzed except for her ability to feel pain.

  She wanted to pass out and move beyond feeling.

  She prayed for death to take the pain away.

  They laid her open, took some sort of instrument and drew it down her abdomen and folded the skin back and removed something from her abdomen. She stared at the ‘thing’, trying to figure out what it was, trying to ignore the first thought that came to mind—that they were going to systematically dissect her while she was awake and aware of everything they were doing. She realized the thing they were holding was moving, though.

  She stared harder and realized it made her think of a live thing stuffed inside a bag.

  They removed the moving thing from the ‘bag’ and she saw that it was a fetus. For a split second her heart leapt.

  Then it hit her that she hadn’t had sexual relations with a man in nearly two years.

  That couldn’t possibly be her baby!

  Unless ….

  They took ‘it’ apart while she watched in silent horror, left her lying on the table with her body opened up.

  And in spite of the fact that she knew the fetus was one of them, or maybe a hybrid using her ovum, she was torn between pity for it and anger and horror.

  She was aware of time passing only because she knew that the alien monsters must have taken a good bit of time dissecting the thing they’d undoubtedly placed in her abdomen and then removed. Her mind seemed to waver in and out of awareness. She couldn’t attain complete unconsciousness or total awareness.

  When they’d finished examining their experiment, they returned to her and tortured her with their probing until she was exhausted from the pain and screaming in her mind and finally achieved the oblivion she’d been praying for.