by Elin Wyn
Jalok
Conquered World: Book Fourteen
Elin Wyn
Contents
Dottie
Jalok
Dottie
Jalok
Dottie
Jalok
Dottie
Jalok
Dottie
Jalok
Dottie
Jalok
Dottie
Jalok
Dottie
Jalok
Dottie
Jalok
Dottie
Jalok
Dottie
Jalok
Dottie
Jalok
Dottie
Jalok
Dottie
Jalok
Dottie
Jalok
Epilogue: Dottie
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Letter from Elin
Tyehn: Sneak Peek
Don’t Miss the Star Breed!
About the Author
Dottie
I woke up with the rising sun as I had the day before. I’d spent the majority of the last two weeks in a windowless lab inputting data that, ultimately, made no sense to our computers.
It didn’t make me any happier about being cooped up, but it was nice to be home for a bit. I worked out of Kaster, my family’s home city.
When I first took this contract with General Rouhr and his scientists, they wanted me to move to Nyhiem to work.
I declined without thinking twice.
When bad things happened, they happened in Nyhiem first. The anti-alien radicals had a huge foothold in that city. Not long ago, there’d been a shooting that nearly killed the mayor of Nyhiem and her personal bodyguard or something like that.
No way was I about to relocate to such a dangerous place.
Besides, I loved Kaster. My family had lived there since the city was first founded. The Xathi did a number on it which was all the more reason or me not to leave.
We needed everyone to pitch in for the rebuilding efforts.
The sunlit stretch of the tent above me did nothing to stop the brightness of the morning sun from creeping in. That’s how I liked it. I was a sunlight creature.
Cloudy days put me in a bad mood. Back home, the running joke was that I was secretly part plant and that’s why I became an environmental scientist.
I stepped out of my tent to bask in the morning rays. I arrived here yesterday, too late in the evening to warrant setting up my equipment, and now I’d need to make up some time.
This was my first time back since the Puppet Master was attacked by a group of anti-alien radicals. While I was glad I wasn’t here during the attack, I felt terrible for not being there to defend the Puppet Master.
Not that I’d really have been much help, but I should have been able to do something, anything, right?
His exposed vines had been singed and slashed. Today, I planned to take samples from the wounds to see what the radicals used.
A hole had been blown in the northeast side of the crater making a tunnel. I walked across the expanse of the crater and through the mouth of the tunnel.
This was obviously one of the main routes to the Puppet Master’s home, as thick emerald vines lined the walls. The deeper into the earth I went, the fewer injuries I saw on the Puppet Master’s vines.
When I found a location free of injuries, I placed my hand against a cool, firm vine.
“Welcome, Dottie,” came the layered voice of the Puppet Master in my head. “I predicted you’d arrive here soon.”
“How are you?” I asked. “Are you in any pain?”
“Some, but I will soon heal.”
“How do you heal?” I took out my recorder. Since the Puppet Master’s voice was purely telepathic, I couldn’t record him directly. I planned on repeating everything he said to me out loud. It was clumsy, but it worked.
“I generate my own healing enzymes that can repair wounds,” he explained. “Don’t be too impressed. You do the same thing when you’re injured.”
I laughed as I repeated his answer.
“At the core of all things, I am a lifeform just as you are, despite the fact that I am what you would call ancient,” he continued. “Pay close enough attention and you will find we have more similarities than we do differences.”
That’s why I loved talking to the Puppet Master. He had the ability to make me feel so small yet so significant at the same time.
“We refer to you as male,” I prompted. “Does that mean there are females too?”
“Male and female refers to reproductive capabilities. My species does not reproduce. We are eternal.”
“Then where did you come from?”
“That even I can’t tell you,” he said. “One instant I was not. The next instant I was. In the history of this universe, I am but a youngling in the footsteps of those that came before me. While I may have knowledge over my eons of existence, I have but scratched the surface of our reality.”
“You’re a mystery.” I affectionately patted the vines. “I like solving mysteries.”
“I will tell you what I know, although I can’t promise your limited brain will be able to comprehend it,” he said.
“Hey!”
“That was not meant to be insulting. It is simply true.”
“I know,” I sighed.
“You’re very intelligent for a human.” A thin tendril reached out to wrap around my wrist. It was the Puppet Master’s equivalent of a pat on the shoulder.
“You’re lucky I like you so much,” I teased. “Let’s move back to your healing abilities. Do they extend to only your own body or the rest of the planet?”
“The rest of the planet is my body. I am simply the heart and the mind.”
“I know but I need a way to measure that,” I chuckled.
“Some things are incapable of being measured in a lab.”
“Don’t start getting philosophical on me.”
“All life is philosophical when it contemplates its existence, child.”
“Really? Then we have something else in common.”
I liked explaining new things to the Puppet Master. It made me feel less useless, like I had my own information to share with this all-knowing, seemingly omnipotent entity.
“Long ago back on Earth a bunch of guys sat around and asked questions that appeared to have simple answers but were really far more complicated than originally anticipated. Even with all of our advancements, we still can’t answer most of them.”
“Such as?”
“My favorite has always been ‘what is the true reality?’ If a group of people simultaneously witness the same event, each has a slightly different perception. Which one is the true one?”
“Excellent,” the Puppet Master hummed.
“What is?”
“The answer you seek is found in the question itself.”
And that’s how I learned the Puppet Master enjoyed philosophy.
Jalok
Toe to heel, Cazak and I crept up on our unwary prey. Looming, half rebuilt buildings hemmed us in on either side, making our task all the more dangerous.
The two of us were supposed to be on patrol, checking for any glaring structural issues and making sure the anti-alienists weren’t lurking about Nyheim proper.
Ever since the unrest during the election and the attack on the Puppet Master, command was extra paranoid about even the slightest problem.
All three Strike teams found themselves utilized for even routine patrols such as this one.
“Do you see it?” Cazak spoke in a low tone, because a whisper can carry much further in the dark than one would suspect.
I squinted, peering in the gloom, until I saw a flash of light behind a rubbish bin. A spindly leg
splayed out as a deer-like creature rooted about for scraps.
“Yeah. It’s a tiny one.”
“Even small ones can be a threat, especially to a civilian.”
Grunting, I drew my side arm. The sleek pistol had been painted unreflective black, making it perfect for urban stealth ops. It seems like overkill for such a tiny, delicate seeming creature.
Luurizi, however, could be known as vicious creatures that could easily kill a human. Or even a Valorni. The little shits would charge at damn near anything, and their feet were so sharp they could pierce all but the highest grade armor plating.
Even my innate sheath of scales wouldn’t prove sufficient against its attack. I deployed them anyway, because sometimes the hollow rail gun rounds could ricochet after impact.
Cazak grinned, flexing his own scales into view but he still ducked behind the corner of a building for cover.
“Coward,” I spoke in a low voice as I creep up for a better shot.
“Don’t talk to me that way. Who was it who recommended your transfer from the Ground Team to Strike Team Three? Show some gratitude.”
“Yeah, thanks for getting me this sweet gig where I kill fairytale creatures in the most gruesome manner possible. In the dark. In the middle of the night—“
“Are you going to talk it to death?”
“You’ve been trying to do that to me for years.”
The Luurizi’s head popped up, focusing its gaze in our direction. Our voices had grown louder during the exchange, it seemed.
With a shrill cry akin to broken glass, it galloped across the pavement.
Srell.
“Now look at what you’ve done.”
I didn’t have time for a retort. The Luurizi loped ever faster, then drove its forelegs into the ground. Its back legs gathered together with the front, and then it bunched up its body and sprang, all in the matter of a split second.
My gaze tracked its flight, and I aimed my pistol for its midsection. One squeeze of the trigger, and the creature exploded in midair, showering me with bits of bone and gooey tissue.
“Double Srell.” Wiping myself clean, I staggered back onto the main thoroughfare while Cazak laughed hysterically.
“Come on, hero. Patrol’s over. Let’s go grab some beverages.”
Grumbling, I fell into step beside him. We headed toward the towering buildings of the city proper, where the damage had already been largely repaired.
“Things sure have been crazy lately.”
I glanced over at Cazak, and noted his worried frown.
“Yes, it’s been hectic for a while, and I don’t see it calming down anytime soon.”
“This is a strange place to be a Skotan. Cooperating with other races instead of dominating them.”
The words bubbled out of my mouth before I could really consider them. “Do you ever think we’ll find a way to get back home?”
“We’re going to stop at the pub first, I told you—“
“No, I mean, the homeworld.”
Cazak’s jaw worked silently, and I could feel the longing from him as well. “I don’t know. Maybe they can figure out a way to open a rift to get us home, someday.”
“If we’re allowed to use rifts again.”
“True.”
We walked in silence, our destination locked in for the recreational district. There we would find a pub friendly to us off-worlders, where you can be around other people who got it, even if they weren’t Skotan.
Cazak and I ordered some drinks and sat down at a booth. I barely tasted my drink, and I doubt he enjoyed his own much more.
“I’d like to go home, someday.”
Cazak looked over at me and shrugged as if it doesn’t matter, though I knew it did. “What’s the matter, don’t like this place?”
“Well, it’s not that. I’m certainly not a xenophobe like the anti-alienists. It’s just that—on the homeworld, we belonged. Here, we’ll never really fit in. Or at least, that’s what it feels like.”
“If you were back home, you would probably be on a ship fighting the Xathi.”
“That’s where I want to be.” I took a long pull from the bottle, and set the half empty vessel down. “I belong in battle, fighting an enemy I can see, not having to worry about pissing off a giant space lettuce or having some invisible, non-corporeal being root around in my brain and make me a meat suit.”
We headed out into the night. I’d thought Cazak was done with the conversation, but he surprised me. “The Xathi are terrifying, Jalok. Worse than any of that, if you ask me.”
“Well, I didn’t ask you, did I? Fighting is what I do. Soldiering is what I was made for. Cooling my heels on this planet while our brothers and sisters die fighting those damn bugs is torture.”
“Look at it this way.” Cazak spread his hands out, as if encompassing the galaxy between them. “They’re at home, fighting for the good of Skotans everywhere, and we’re here, fighting for the good of Skotans—and humans and K’ver and all the rest. You can’t be everywhere at once. But you can make a difference right here.”
“Yeah, but we’re not supposed to be here. That’s all I’m saying. Everything is wrong about this planet. The others might love it, but Skotan are supposed to spend most of our time in high gravity.”
“Yes, but that makes us stronger here, and gives us greater mass.”
“That’s true, but our hearts evolved to beat against a much stronger G-force. I was reading a briefing from the science office about concerns that our hearts might beat too quickly and lead to a risk of cardiovascular disease.”
Cazak snorted, and flashed an uncaring glare my way. “You think too much. Look at you, you’re a freaking walking tank and you want to read science reports? You should be balancing a sweet scaly thing on each one of those massive guns when you hit the sack tonight. Instead you want to act like a galaxy class nebbish.”
“I find science interesting,” I scowled. “What else am I supposed to do to pass the time during my days off?”
“Drinking and screwing, you ignoramus. You’re with Strike Team Three now. We’re the best of the best of the best!” He slapped me hard on my shoulder, and I let the matter drop.
We trudged on for a time without speaking. At length Cazak glanced over and punched me on the arm.
“Hey, if you want to feel less homesick, we could practice the traditional songs.”
“Have you heard yourself? Besides, Skotan ballads were meant to be sung on the Skotan homeworld. They just don’t sound the same any place else.”
That ended the debate, for now.
All I knew at the time was, while many of our new allies were good people, I just wanted to go back where I belonged.
Dottie
“We have a big day ahead of us today,” I announced as I settled into a comfortable sitting position inside the tunnel.
“You say that every time,” the Puppet Master replied telepathically.
“Because it’s true every time,” I countered. “Almost every experiment we run is groundbreaking, simply because my people have never even imagined something like you.”
And that excitement was part of what pulled me out of camp every morning, hurrying down into the tunnels.
Who could resist being a part of making scientific history?
Sitting on the dirt with my back against one of the Puppet Master’s vines, I started setting up my equipment. I carefully attached tiny neuro-monitors to the flesh of the vine.
“Did that hurt?”
“Did what hurt?” The Puppet Master replied.
“Never mind.”
My equipment was acceptable, but it wasn’t top of the line. I only got the top of the line stuff if I checked it out from the Nyhiem lab.
I knew that some of the aliens traveled through what seemed like essentially portals, but that method of travel wasn’t available to the average scientist yet.
If I wanted to go to Nyhiem, I’d have to go the old-fashioned way and wait for a ride on
a shuttle.
That wasn’t something I really wanted to do. It’d cut into my time with the Puppet Master.
So I just hadn’t bothered to go.
“A wise choice,” the Puppet Master whispered to my consciousness.
“You can read my thoughts even if I’m not attempting to directly commune with you?”
“You’ve made physical contact.” A tendril tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the vine I leaned up against. “Once direct contact is made, a link between our minds is forged forever. As long as you are in my vicinity, I’m listening and can reply.”
“Is that how you commune with the living trees?” I asked.
“No,” he sighed. “They don’t possess enough sentience to forge a stable connection.”
“Then how did you direct them before?” No one had ever come up with a viable theory for that, and we still speculated wildly back at the lab.
What can I say? Scientists are as easily amused as anyone else.
“I,” the Puppet Master started to explain, then halted. “I do not know how to answer that. It is similar to if I asked you how you breathe or how you think. I perform the action without conscious effort.”
“Interesting.” I tapped my chin with a stylus. “I have an idea.”
“What’s that?”
“We’re going to do a different kind of experiment.”
I pushed myself up from the ground and brushed the dirt off the seat of my pants.
Motioning for the Puppet Master to follow me, in whatever way he was capable of doing so, I walked out of the tunnel. The earth around my feet shifted as I walked as the Puppet Master’s vines extended out.
