Highlander's Love: Winter Solestice (Against All Odds Series 3) Read online

  “My dear, fierce little Mary Anne…” he would always resort to flattery when she was like this. It worked every time. “If I had told you that mankind is trying to drive us out, what would you have done?”

  Mary Anne tried to speak, but within seconds of opening her mouth the intrusive tongue of Har’kreen invaded it.

  If anyone ever told me I’d enjoy being made to shut up, I wouldn’t have believed them…

  “You would have tried to do something, of course!” the alien continued, visibly reinvigorated by the taste of Mary Anne. “And what do you think would have happened then, my dearest firebrand?”

  Instead of replying verbally, Mary Anne simply turned her head to her left, giving the mayhem in the Garoh’s room a better scan. It was obvious what would have happened; she knew that now.

  Someone would have come for me.

  “No need to speak, I know that you get it. What I did not dare to assume, however, is that some schlogger would actually try to assassinate me.”

  Not once in all the time she spent here did Mary Anne hear Har’kreen swear. His were the ways of the alien elite, and for them, excellence in all things was the only option. That did not exclude language.

  He is rightfully pissed.

  Like a panther, the alien leapt from his hospital bed, the diodes in his eyes lighting up and turning it back into the shape of a floor. With a fierce gesture, he signaled for his Helerah to follow suit, as the wall in front of them opened.

  “What are you going to do, my Garoh?” she inquired, grabbing his bicep while she stood at his side. “You are not going to kill them, are you?”

  “Of course not, my beloved.” He smiled, knowing full well that she knew just how ticked off he was. “It is forbidden for one of the great race to end the life of another. The punishment for that is a fate worse than death.” He took several steps forward and she followed suit, Kitty running close behind.

  “But you’ll be able to see the full extent of that rule soon enough, I’m afraid.” The door closed behind them, following the dimming of the diodes in his eyes. Mary Anne stared into those eyes for a few seconds, lost in the sight as much as she was in her own thoughts.

  They seemed much darker than she was used to.

  An hour later

  One beside another, the high-ranking officers of the alien expeditionary force stood, all of them lined up against the wall. There were ten of them, each accompanied by a couple of ch’orrds. On the other side of the chamber, Mary Anne stood right next to Har’kreen, both surrounded by their own synthetic protectors—although theirs numbered only a meager ten. Some of the aliens were visibly unnerved by the sudden meeting, a clearer indication of guilt than a confession could ever be.

  “My council of elites.” The Garoh addressed them in their own language, but the translators Mary Anne had acquired in an earlier surgery made her capable of understanding all of it. “I have no doubt that all of you are aware of the attempt made on my life less than one Earth hour ago.” In a peculiar notion, he stood with his back turned to them, a gesture that had no meaning in the aliens’ culture as far as Mary Anne could recall.

  The other extraterrestrials were silent at first, not unlike children caught doing something they were not supposed to. It was only when Har’kreen was about to continue his speech that one of them dared interrupt it.

  “You will bring us all to our deaths, Har’kreen!” Or’azoth, one of the Garoh’s highest ranked subordinates, stepped forward. “You’ve given our technology and knowledge to an outsider, by far exceeding our most sacred of tenets! For sharing our ways with one such as her, there is no punishment other than the loss of rank!” Eyes wide, he practically roared the words out.

  “I have broken nothing at all, Or’azoth! The tenets clearly dictate that those who share union are privy to all the knowledge that any one of them might choose to divulge. You know that, as well as I do,” Har’kreen rebutted, apparently still intent on noting every little detail of the wall he still faced.

  “You speak so, lord,” the way Or’azoth spat the word out indicated nothing short of outright disdain, “all while knowing full well that the laws that bind our society say absolutely nothing about union with the enemy! We are at war with your consort’s race, and that places you in a peculiar position, does it not?”

  Har’kreen paused, staring into Or’azoth’s eyes through the optical lens of a ch’orrd. His eyes were blue, a shade lighter than Har’kreen’s own, a clear indication of him belonging to an elite tribe. “When two opposing tenets collide, Or’azoth, that is a matter of interpretation, not your judgment. And the one in charge of interpretation is the Garoh, namely myself. You and I both know that.”

  As if on command, three more aliens stepped forward from the group. They stood proudly, arms behind their backs, showing no fear of what was about to follow.

  “We stand with Or’azoth, my lord,” one of them intruded. “Sharing information with the enemy, giving her the eyes, and a personal ch’orrd… it all reeks of your own convenience rather than service to the tenets. You have always been an effective commander and it was an honor to serve under you…” He paused for a second, as if to prepare for he was about to say. “But this is where we draw the line.”

  In unison, the eyes of the four highest-ranking officers lit up. Immediately, all eight of their ch’orrds activated. Synthetic muscles flexing, they were just about to pounce toward the other side of the room to bathe it in the blood of the Garoh and his Helerah when the surprise attack from Har’kreen’s own ch’orrd guardians put that plan to a complete halt.

  “You were always fierce, the lot of you.” The Garoh finally turned to face the rest of the room, the miniature yellow orbs in his eyes gleaming. “Unfortunately, you were never as bright as you thought you were.” He paused for a second, allowing everyone in the room to realize that his own guardians had been standing at the ready ever since the meeting had began.

  While he spoke, the synthetic attackers dragged his four enemies across the room, fingers buried in their bleeding eye sockets. Simultaneously, the eight ch’orrds on the other side of the room deactivated, their lenses shutting down along with the rest of their bodies. Rivers of sticky blood flowed across the floor, the remaining six military officers observing stoically, yet with visible discomfort.

  By the time the deed was done, the four traitors were piled up in the center of the room and surrounded by the ten ch’orrds loyal to the Garoh. Hands shivering, the lot of them covered what was left of their destroyed eyes, which wasn’t very much but still bled profusely. It was red, visually identical to human blood.

  “Hear me, traitors!” Har’kreen’s voice echoed throughout the chamber. “For the crimes of conspiring to assassinate your lord, you are hereby stripped of your eyes and exiled to the nearest habitable planet!” He had not even finished speaking when the room shifted, a sizeable part of the floor turning into a medical unit. Swiftly, the arms of the mechanized hydra started working on patching up the soon-to-be exiles’ wounds, the horror of their upcoming fates readily visible on their expressions.

  “May Earth be as merciful to you as I was.” He gestured dramatically as he ended his speech, arms extended at his sides, the sound of the medical machine’s electrical buzzing barely audible in the background.

  Epilogue

  Covered in cold sweat, Mary Anne awoke from her dream unnerved, as she had many times before. Immediately, the room lit itself up somewhat, confirming that she was still on the spacecraft, and not locked up in a mental hospital.

  Is there a real difference? she asked herself, the answer to her question lying right next to her in bed. Har’kreen had become her life, having provided everything she’d ever needed and then some. When Mary Anne felt like she was about to wither away back in Wayward, he had elevated her to rule the expeditionary force with him. When some of his subjects were less than impressed with his decision, he had the lot of them banished to Earth. Granted, he still did not release the hu
man prisoners, insisting that doing so would most certainly lead to a civil war, but there was no way around that. Yet.

  “I am the Garoh of this fleet,” he would say. “But I am not the undisputed leader of everyone. Actions have consequences, as I’m sure you know.”

  Oh, I do, my love. I know it all too well.

  Softly, she ran her fingers through his blond hair, messy due to him being several hours asleep. Life on the capital ship had become a bit more tempestuous than it used to be now that Har’kreen had eliminated his detractors in such a brutal fashion. Granted, they were fitted with new, regular sets of eyes, not unlike those of humans, but for those of the great race it was considered a fate worse than death. Add banishment to that fact, and you’ve got yourself a fertile ground for more and more dissenters.

  Mary Anne sighed, remembering that war still raged on her home planet’s surface, but somehow that fact bothered her far less than it should have. The human prisoners appeared to have been in great health, and the aliens’ expeditionary force seemed to attack to capture rather than kill, an approach that humans did not share. Still, this was understandable given how mankind fought with lives of their own soldiers on the line, while all the great race ever sent to the battlefield were ch’orrds.

  What have we all gotten ourselves into? Mary Anne asked herself, thinking of the potential future for both races. The solution was understandably nowhere in sight, so she let it go.

  Whatever happens, happens. Lovingly, she observed her alien abductor’s chiseled features, admiring how perfectly they all worked with each other, and musing on they made her feel. Someday, a usurper might succeed in his plot and grant Har’kreen the same fate he had given the previous batch of traitors. Mankind might somehow turn the conflict around, taking advantage of the alien’s kid-gloved approach to strike with nukes at a crucial moment and obliterate everything.

  There are so many ways for everything to go to hell, she concluded. Then again, isn’t it always like that?

  “My love?” Har’kreen’s voice fondled her on the cheek with no lesser intensity than her hand fondled his. He always knew when she needed him, and tonight was no exception.

  How foolish of me to doubt in my Garoh, she realized. If there was anyone who could make the impossible possible, it was him. He was still in charge of the expeditionary force, and he knew the system better than any other. She was safer here in his arms than anyone else in the fleet, that much was certain.

  Seductively, she lowered her head down in front his, their glowing pairs of eyes meeting in an intimate fashion. For a few moments they stared into each other like that, until Mary Anne chose to break the silence.

  “I’ve had a nightmare, honey.” She chuckled as the words left her mouth. “I think I might need some help forgetting about it.”

  THE END

  My Alien Invader

  The wasteland

  The crimson rays of the setting sun on her back, a lone girl rode her motorcycle across a blasted landscape.

  This place used to be beautiful.

  She maintained top speed, not an easy task with all the rubble lying about. Still, junior courier Cynthia Greene had a lot of experience with missions like these. Some would say way too much for someone of her age.

  Was the shopping mall located to my left… or to my right? She couldn’t tell, even though the city had been annihilated less than half a year ago. The area had changed so much since then, and she along with it.

  Everything and everyone is completely different now.

  She tried to remember the way things were before the war, but it was all blurry. It was more like telling a story than recalling actual images, sounds and sensations. It bothered her to no end.

  Against her inclination she slowed down a bit, having hit more dangerous territory. The debris was particularly plentiful here, and one misstep could result in injury, or loss of bike or her life.

  Goddamned aliens.

  Cynthia tried to pin the bulk of her rage on the arrival of the alien invaders, but deep down she knew full well who was at fault for this particular calamity; it was the military.

  When an organ is cancerous it has to be cut out, and that’s exactly what happened here.

  The concentration of cats (the aliens’ robotic soldiers) in the city had grown beyond containable levels, and the local population kept decreasing at a rapid pace. The United States was losing both soldiers and civilians. And so, the decision was made. The place was bombed until nothing was left.

  One worthless wasteland, coming right up.

  Nothing lived here now, every single survivor having been rounded up by either the military or the invaders.

  Although there is that one rumor.

  She recalled a tale, probably not much more than hearsay, about a mysterious figure that supposedly called the waste his home. This hermit was known as the Hood, first of the many new urban legends sprouting among the war-torn land. Cynthia couldn’t help but laugh at the thought. She had traversed this ruined place more than a dozen times, and she had never caught even a glimpse of the Hood.

  Incidentally, Cynthia also used to be one of the few surviving natives of this place, having been evacuated a good while before the bombing. One would think that coming back here would have caused her pain, but nothing could be further from the truth. The place she grew up in and this pile of dirt were so different that mental disassociation came effortlessly.

  I used to live in one place, but it stopped existing, she would tell herself. Now something else is in its place, and I just happen to do business there.

  Business. The word she chose surprised her. She was military, yet there was no place for patriotism inside Cynthia’s heart. Being a courier was a way for her to pay for food and shelter for herself and her family. As far as she was concerned, the army was just as much at fault here as the invaders were.

  Still, one must live off something. Even back in the camp, nothing but the basest of needs came freely. The rest had to be earned.

  There isn’t really that much choice in the matter.

  Now out of the debris-filled zone, Cynthia gladly picked up speed again. The sooner she got out of this place, the sooner she could deliver her package. The sooner the package was delivered, the sooner she could go back home.

  Home? So that’s what we call a military base these days.

  Still, the camp was much more than a military base. It was a refuge for civilians as much as it was a fortress and training ground for new recruits. Scouts like Cynthia were tasked with delivering messages and packages through the most dangerous of places. Radio, phones and the internet had been rendered useless, the invaders privy to every single piece of information on them. All messages were now delivered personally, and it was up to the couriers to make sure that the system worked. Some packages were valuable, pieces of some important plan of action or message. Others were red herrings, merely there to confuse the enemy. A courier might be granted any one of those, and would always be expected to guarantee its delivery with their life.

  And all of that for what? Preparation for an action against some enemy we know practically nothing about? The futility of her plight sometimes weighed on her like that, oftentimes passing as quickly as it came along. But it would always return.

  There were only two things she (and most likely every other human) knew about the invaders. First off, they took people. In the beginning, they only took women. When humanity struck back, the enemy started taking whoever they could get their mechanical limbs on. Speaking of mechanical limbs, the other thing that was known about the invaders was that they never fought personally, always sending their pet robots to do the fighting. Nicknamed cats because of their similarity to a cross between a humanoid and a large feline, those things could take a beating that would kill a trained soldier—and come back for more.

  And that was it. There were no ships in orbit, at least not detectable ones. Transports carrying shipments of cats seemingly sprang out of nowhere, probably due t
o some impossibly advanced stealth technology. Whatever type of communication was used to transmit orders was beyond anyone on Earth’s ability to figure out. In other words, the invaders had a huge advantage.

  If someone ever found a way for us to win this war, that’d be the punch line of the century.

  Suddenly, some hundred feet in the distance, an unusually large lump of dirt started moving around. Shocked, Cynthia gasped, her articulated thoughts shattering into a million pieces. She knew this area as well as she knew her back pocket. That bump way ahead in the road was not supposed to be there. It was even less supposed to rise into an upfront position and stare at her with a glowing white eye.

  Speak of the dev-

  Some sort of crash was imminent. Going at top speed, as she was, all that Cynthia could possibly do was to try to slow down as gently as she could and avoid a frontal collision. Teeth gritted, she slowly decelerated while executing a miniscule change of direction.

  The thing in her way did not seem to care, standing its ground as if there was no problem at all. This inaction persisted until the bike was but a few feet from it, just barely out of the collision radius. Then, it extended one of its legs toward the bike’s front tire.

  The result was as unpleasant as it was expected. Upon contact, the motorcycle passed over the cat’s mechanical limb, flying through the air past it like a newly taken-off airplane.

  Mustn’t let go! Cynthia gripped the control handles as hard as she could, ignoring the sharp pain that bloomed in both of her shoulders. With a dull thud, the vehicle hit the ground the proper way—wheels first, the suspension bursting immediately. A split second later the pain in her right shoulder tripled in intensity, practically screaming at her to let go. But she refused, remaining with her wounded beast of a vehicle up until it stopped moving completely.

  You’ve done well, old friend.

  All sensation gone from her fingers, Cynthia finally loosened her grip, allowing the bike to fall to its side accompanied by the sound of crumbling alloys. Full of adrenaline, she swiftly turned around—ready to face another hulking pile of metal.