Alien Conquest

by Tracy St. John

  “How many got into the vor­tex?”

  “Six,” Sim­dow said.

  “Se­cu­rity grid is down again,” Li­don re­ported. “Our fleet is re-en­gag­ing Earth de­fend­ers.”

  “More of the in­va­sion force is en­ter­ing the por­tal.”

  Tra­nis took a deep breath, will­ing the ten­sion away. “It’s go­ing to be a long fight.”

  Li­don’s ever-fast fin­gers flew over his con­trols. “As long as they don’t fig­ure out what we’re re­ally do­ing, it will be a worth­while ef­fort.”

  Tra­nis nod­ded. Once the Earth­ers re­al­ized the por­tal was be­ing used, the real fight­ing would be­gin.

  * * * *

  De­gorsk was trained to hyp­no­tize oth­ers. As a doc­tor on a spy­ship, it was part of his job. The trick was qui­et­ing the sub­ject enough to put him or her un­der.

  Cas­sidy didn’t want to quiet. She was re­mem­ber­ing some­thing of such tremen­dous up­heaval that her sobs went on and on, leav­ing her in­ca­pable of co­her­ent speech. Bit­ing her would set­tle her down but leave her want­ing sex, not talk. De­gorsk had seen enough of her pain, and he was de­ter­mined to find its cause and yank it into the light. It was time for Cas­sidy to be­gin heal­ing.

  He held her in his lap, hum­ming a mo­not­o­nous tone and rock­ing her in an ef­fort to com­fort. Her tears wet his chest as she hud­dled against him. De­gorsk took one of her hands in his and held it so her fin­gers splayed wide. With the in­dex fin­ger of his other hand, he stroked each of her fin­gers, one at a time, over and over. He timed it so each stroke lasted as long as the slow rock­ing. He raised his voice just enough so she could hear him over her sobs and said, “Re­lax, re­lax, re­lax, re­lax…” the lulling rhythm match­ing the strokes and rock­ing.

  Lit­tle by lit­tle, her cry­ing ta­pered off. The set of her shoul­ders sagged as ten­sion ebbed away. Af­ter sev­eral min­utes, she lay heavy in his arms, only the oc­ca­sional shud­der­ing sigh in­ter­rupt­ing her breath­ing.

  De­gorsk con­tin­ued to rock and stroke while he said in a sooth­ing voice, “It’s all in the past, Cas­sidy. The pain is be­hind you. It can’t hurt you any­more. You feel only calm now.”

  She sighed again and snug­gled deeper against him.

  “Tell me how you feel.”

  “Calm.”

  “Good, Cas­sidy. There was sad­ness be­fore, but you’re get­ting to a place now where the sad­ness is just a mem­ory too.”

  “Yes. I was sad.”

  “You were sad about what hap­pened to your mother.”

  “Poor Mom. She only wanted to save me.”

  He heard the tears re­turn­ing to her voice. De­gorsk knew his con­trol was ten­u­ous at best. What­ever hor­ror had hap­pened to Cas­sidy and her mother would not be soothed, only muted tem­po­rar­ily by hyp­notic sug­ges­tion. The pain could drag her out of his in­flu­ence at any mo­ment.

  “Your mother can­not be harmed any­more. She’s be­yond all that now.”

  Sor­row tinged Cas­sidy’s an­swer. “Yes. It’s over for her.”

  “She loved you very much, Cas­sidy. She saved you. You’re safe now.”

  “Yes.” She was com­pletely re­laxed against his chest.

  “What was it she saved you from?”

  “The man with the knife.” She shud­dered.

  “It’s in the past now. He can’t touch you. Tell me about the man. What does he look like?”

  “His hair is dark with gray at the tem­ples. He’s not very tall and kind of skinny. He needs to shave. His clothes are wrin­kled and his shoes are scuffed.”

  “Where do you first see this man?”

  “He’s in our apart­ment.” Cas­sidy’s voice rose. “How did he get in here? He’s got a knife!”

  De­gorsk tight­ened his arms around her. “It’s just a mem­ory, Cas­sidy. He can’t hurt you now. He is only a pic­ture in your mind.”

  “Okay.” Her ten­sion ebbed, but De­gorsk could feel the fear wait­ing to jump her again.

  “You’re safe with me. Can you feel me hold­ing you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Any time you be­come afraid, you’ll feel my arms around you, keep­ing you from harm. Can you do that, Cas­sidy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good girl. Now the man is in your home. What do you do when you see him there?”

  * * * *

  Cas­sidy screamed.

  The stranger stand­ing in the liv­ing room rushed at her. He smashed her against the wall and held the knife at her throat. It was a kitchen knife, of all things, with a scarred wooden han­dle. It wasn’t one of theirs. The Hamil­tons’ knives were all metal. The in­truder must have brought the blade from his own home.

  It was strange what one thought about when life hung in the bal­ance.

  The stranger’s breath reeked of al­co­hol as he whis­pered, “Shut up, girl. Make an­other sound and I’ll cut you.”

  Cas­sidy shut up, feel­ing the cold metal against her skin, ready to slice in. Her eyes were wide as she looked at the man pressed up against her. His hair stood up in crazy spikes, as if he’d for­got­ten to comb it this morn­ing. Dark stub­ble dot­ted his jaw. His blood­shot eyes were rab­bit-scared, in­tense and dart­ing as he looked her face over.

  “You look just like her. Such a pretty girl. So pretty.” The fran­tic ex­pres­sion he wore took on a sad yearn­ing that might have moved Cas­sidy to pity had the threat of the knife not been present.

  Her mother’s care­ful voice came from be­hind the man. “Mr. Walker, let my daugh­ter go.”

  Walker. Cas­sidy knew the name. This was the man who had sent her mother bou­quets of dis­counted, nearly wilted flow­ers and cheap pieces of jew­elry for the last year. He called the apart­ment ev­ery day, some­times half a dozen times. Cas­sidy was no longer al­lowed to an­swer the vid phone if the num­ber was un­known. Stan Walker had been the rea­son her mother had spent the last three months wran­gling a re­strain­ing or­der from the court, an­swer­ing ques­tions why a vir­tu­ous woman would be stalked by a man if she hadn’t tempted him some­how. The re­strain­ing or­der had fi­nally been won a week ago.

  Walker shifted to look at Cas­sidy’s mother. His lips trem­bled and tears leaked from his eyes as he gazed at Jacque­lyn Hamil­ton, who was still wear­ing her navy blue air­line at­ten­dant’s uni­form. She’d got­ten home only min­utes ago. Her hair, the same plat­inum shade as Cas­sidy’s, was a coiled braid at the nape of her neck. Her blue eyes, wide and star­ing, were the only hint of ter­ror in her care­fully con­trolled ex­pres­sion.

  “Jackie.” In Walker’s ut­ter­ance of her name was an ocean of need and pain. “It could have been so beau­ti­ful be­tween us. I loved you, and you’ve thrown that love in my face. How could you do that to me?” He barked a sob. “You need to know how it feels to lose what you care for most.” He turned his at­ten­tion to Cas­sidy again.

  “Stan, look at me. It can still be what you wanted.” The des­per­ate note in Jackie’s voice trem­bled in the air.

  “What we wanted!” The knife pressed harder at Cas­sidy’s throat. The girl tried to cringe back, to make the wall be­hind her bend to help her es­cape the mad­man. “You have to want me too.”

  “I do.” Jackie slowly un­but­toned her jacket and let it slip to the floor. “I want you, Stan, but not if you hurt my daugh­ter. Let her go, and I’ll show you how much I want you.”

  Cas­sidy sobbed as her mother un­dressed in the mid­dle of the room, leav­ing her cloth­ing in un­car­ing piles on the floor. She could see how dif­fi­cult it was for Jackie’s trem­bling hands to un­but­ton and un­zip the out­fit. Walker watched, his mouth hang­ing open, breath heav­ing in and out quickly. But his knife never wa­vered from Cas­sidy’s throat.

  At last Jackie stood naked, pale and shak­ing. She held her hand out to Walker. “Take me, Stan. I’ll giv
e you ev­ery­thing, just as we’ve al­ways wanted.”

  A slow, dazed smile spread over his fea­tures. He looked at Cas­sidy. “You see? She loves me. I knew she did.”

  Jackie’s cheeks streaked with tears, but she gri­maced a pained smile at him. “Yes, I love you. Come to me. Let me show you how you were right all along.”

  Walker’s de­light dropped sud­denly. Cas­sidy stared into the face of an­other Walker, one as vi­cious as a ra­bid dog. He bared his teeth at her. “You stay right here, girl. You move and I’ll kill her. I’ll kill us all.”

  Un­speak­able hor­ror drained ev­ery last mote of strength from Cas­sidy’s body. She slid bone­lessly down the wall, cough­ing harsh sobs as Walker went to her mother. Jackie took his hand, the one not hold­ing the knife now hov­er­ing near her belly. She tugged him to the couch.

  “It’s okay, Cassie-lassie. Close your eyes and stay there.”

  De­gorsk’s warm voice drifted through the room, and Cas­sidy felt his strong arms around her, keep­ing her safe. “Don’t re­mem­ber this part, pre­cious girl. It’s all in the past. Walker can’t hurt you or your mother any­more. It’s only pic­tures in your mind, and you feel se­cure.”

  The scene faded, leav­ing Cas­sidy in the em­brac­ing dark. She re­laxed, feel­ing her clan­mate’s pro­tec­tion. De­gorsk wouldn’t let any­thing bad hap­pen to her. He’d promised.

  “Now it’s af­ter. You are safe, and it’s like watch­ing what hap­pened to some­one else, so there’s no need to be afraid. What hap­pened af­ter Walker at­tacked you and your mother?”

  The liv­ing room of Jackie and Cas­sidy’s apart­ment swam back into fo­cus. Walker stood over her mother, who hud­dled in a ball on the couch. He still held the knife.

  He ut­tered a low scream, like an an­i­mal caught in a trap. He fell to his knees be­side the sofa. “I’m sorry, Jackie! It wasn’t sup­posed to be like – I love you! I would never hurt—”

  His hoarse cries over­whelmed speech, and he crouched on the floor, his shoul­ders heav­ing with de­spair. He shud­dered as if he’d been the one who had been raped.

  Thuds sounded on the door. “Jackie! Cas­sidy? What’s all that noise in there?”

  It was Mr. Carmichael, their nosy next-door neigh­bor, a se­vere man who al­ways scowled sus­pi­ciously at them. He was in charge of the Neigh­bor­hood Watch for their build­ing.

  Walker jumped to his feet, his eyes wild. Jackie didn’t re­spond, still curled tight into her­self. Fear brought strength to Cas­sidy, and she stood. She knew what would hap­pen to her mother if they were seen. Vic­tims of rape were seen as temptresses, women who had brought the at­tacks on them­selves. They were as guilty as the men who forced them.

  Walker gib­bered fran­ti­cally. “I have to fix this. I have to fix this.” He brought the knife up.

  Cas­sidy was across the room be­fore she knew what she was do­ing. She clutched the heavy an­tique iron lamp from the side ta­ble in her hands. Cas­sidy didn’t re­mem­ber pick­ing it up. It didn’t mat­ter in that mo­ment any­way. Panic gripped her mind, tak­ing all con­cern away ex­cept for that of her mother’s sur­vival.

  She swung the lamp with all her strength. The thud of it smash­ing against Walker’s skull re­ver­ber­ated up her arms.

  The lamp pi­s­toned up and down. Panic gave way to fury at what the bas­tard had done to Cas­sidy’s mother. Rage drove the girl into a mind­less, vi­cious state as she hit Walker again and again. She didn’t see any­thing. She didn’t hear any­thing. All that ex­isted was the anger and grow­ing ache in her arms. It started from her shoul­ders and crept down her bi­ceps, el­bows, and fore­arms. Even as her arms grew heavy, Cas­sidy kept driv­ing the lamp up and down, up and down. He had to pay. He’d hurt her mommy and he had to pay.

  The rest of the world swam back into fo­cus when re­peated crashes boomed in Cas­sidy’s ears. She stopped pound­ing the mo­tion­less lump of meat on the floor as Mr. Carmichael busted the locked door open and stared. His eyes and mouth formed per­fect O’s of shock.

  “Je­sus, Mo­hammed, and Moses! Po­lice! Car­nal re­la­tions! Mur­der!” He ran from the room.

  The lamp fell from Cas­sidy’s numbed fin­gers. She looked at the bloody thing ly­ing on the floor, at her mother slowly sit­ting up. The po­lice were com­ing. There was no es­cape from jus­tice now.

  Cas­sidy picked her mother’s clothes up and helped Jackie put them on. They were silent as they hid her mother’s nu­dity, restor­ing some sem­blance of mod­esty be­fore the po­lice ar­rived.

  Af­ter she was prop­erly clad again, Jackie held her arms out to Cas­sidy. The dam burst, and Cas­sidy clung to her mother for the last time.

  “Mommy!” she wailed as if she had lost ten years and re­gressed from a near-woman of four­teen to a four-year-old child.

  “It’s okay baby.” Jackie cov­ered her daugh­ter’s stream­ing face with kisses. “We both did what we had to. No mat­ter what they say, no mat­ter what ugly names they call you, you did what you had to. I love you, Cas­safrass.”

  Cas­sidy cried harder to hear the nick­name. “I love you too, Mommy.”

  The deep, dark vel­vet of De­gorsk’s voice was like a balm, blan­ket­ing them with com­fort and res­cu­ing them from the in­evitable hell that fol­lowed. “It’s all over, Cas­sidy. No more pain, sweet­ling. It’s time to leave this be­hind.”

  He drew her from the com­ing doom, took her away be­fore the po­lice could ar­rive with their hand­cuffs and shouted ac­cu­sa­tions. Her mother’s des­per­ate clutch dis­solved into his strong, safe grip. Cas­sidy sighed to be cra­dled in her lover’s arms.

  “Slowly wak­ing up. You are re­laxed, feel­ing safe. Wak­ing up a lit­tle more…”

  Cas­sidy fol­lowed the sooth­ing, deep voice to rise from the hor­ror of that night, the hor­ror that con­tin­ued for months af­ter­ward un­til her mother was locked away to die in a cold cell and Cas­sidy sent to live in the mind-numb­ing prison of Eu­ropa’s con­vent.

  * * * *

  Li­don cursed. “The Earth­ers just took out an­other de­stroyer. That’s three, plus the eleven sin­gle-man fight­ers.”

  Sim­dow looked ill. “There are one to two hun­dred men on each de­stroyer.”

  Li­don cocked an eye­brow at him. “Mostly Nobeks. Dy­ing in glo­ri­ous bat­tle is the end we hope for, so save your sym­pa­thy.”

  Tra­nis in­ter­rupted the con­ver­sa­tion be­fore Li­don could be­come of­fended. “How many ships have en­tered the por­tal?”

  Sim­dow an­swered, “One hun­dred twenty of our de­stroy­ers are away. The first should reach Earth in twenty-three min­utes.”

  Li­don grunted ap­proval. “There’s still no sign the en­emy sus­pects any­thing. Our forces are keep­ing them well oc­cu­pied.”

  “Es­ti­mated time it will take to get all five hun­dred of the in­va­sion force into the por­tal?”

  Sim­dow looked at Li­don and schooled his ex­pres­sion to be bland. “Forty-five more min­utes, Cap­tain.”

  Tra­nis kept his tone just as emo­tion­less. “The Earth­ers will fig­ure out what’s go­ing on be­fore then.”

  Li­don nod­ded. “There will be much glory for our war­riors to­day.”

  Chap­ter 18

  Cas­sidy moaned. Her mem­o­ries of the past were far from her mind, chased away by the know­ing mouth, tongue, and fin­gers of De­gorsk.

  He sucked gen­tly on her throb­bing pink pearl, his tongue swirling around it. Two of his fin­gers stroked in and out of her pussy, mak­ing sure to rub against the most sen­si­tive spot in her sleeve. The Imdiko’s touch was gen­tle but firm, the per­fect mix of care and mas­tery.

  Cas­sidy’s world shrunk to where De­gorsk’s face and hands worked dili­gently. All she knew was the grow­ing warmth of plea­sure, punc­tu­ated by stabs of ex­cru­ci­at­ing ec­stasy. She jerked in re­ac­tion when
his tongue hit just the right spot. The swelling bliss of his feed­ing drove away all the pain, all the con­cerns, all the dis­ap­point­ments. For these few pre­cious min­utes, her clan­mate kept her sus­pended where noth­ing of cold, cruel re­al­ity ex­isted.

  Cas­sidy didn’t chase cul­mi­na­tion. She let it slip next to her and slowly en­close her in its em­brace. Rap­ture set­tled in the deep­est re­cesses of her body and grad­u­ally crept out to suf­fuse her whole be­ing with gen­tle pulses of tick­lish warmth. Her sighs spoke of ex­quis­ite cap­ture and ac­qui­es­cence to its power.

  De­gorsk pulled his fin­gers free. He lapped at her juices, his rough tongue care­fully ex­tract­ing ev­ery drop. Then he licked his lips, look­ing for all the world like a pur­ple-eyed cat af­ter a meal.

  “Thank you,” Cas­sidy whis­pered.

  De­gorsk crawled up to lay be­side her. He gath­ered her up in his arms. “I’m glad you en­joyed it.”

  She snug­gled against him, bask­ing in the heat of his body. “Not just the love­mak­ing. You gave my mother back to me.”

  De­gorsk said noth­ing, let­ting his kiss re­spond for him. Cas­sidy set­tled, the first quiet tugs of sleep creep­ing over her.

  A steady, in­sis­tent beep­ing roused them both from the brink of slum­ber. De­gorsk huffed and got out of bed to re­trieve his com from the nearby desk. When he an­swered it, a gut­tural stream of Kalquo­rian speech is­sued from it in rapid-fire bursts.

  De­gorsk spoke back into the small metal­lic rec­tan­gle and hur­riedly dressed in the form­suit he’d left piled on the floor. “I need to see about a sick Matara. She’s in great pain here.” He pointed to the right side of his ab­domen be­low the ribs.

  Cas­sidy sat up. “That sounds like ap­pen­dici­tis. It’s life threat­en­ing if the ap­pen­dix bursts.”

  De­gorsk’s mouth tight­ened in worry. He sat on the bed’s edge and tugged on a boot. “Get dressed, sweet­ling. I need to hurry.” The other boot went on in a flash.