by P P Corcoran
Alien Days Anthology
A Science Fiction Short Story Collection
The Days Series, Vol II
Alien Days Copyright © 2019 by Castrum Press
(In Alphabetical Order)
Altered Copyright © 2019 by Alexander Harrington
First Friendship Copyright © 2019 by Andrew Myers
Dead Reckoning Copyright © 2019 by Anthony Regolino
Within the Storm Copyright © 2019 by Beth Frost
Recidivism Copyright © 2019 by Charles E. Gannon
A Series of Anomalous Phenomena Copyright © 2019 by D. B. Crelia
Songs Sweeter Still Copyright © 2019 by David M. Hoenig
Phobosteus Copyright © 2019 by Dennis Mombauer
Am I Alone? Copyright © 2019 by J.R. Handley & Corey Truax
After the crash Copyright © 2019 by Jason J. McCuiston
Another Day Another Dollar Copyright © 2019 by Juleigh Howard-Hobson
The Shanti Heist Copyright © 2019 by Killian Carter
Where All Memories Are One Copyright © 2019 by Leigh Saunders,
And The Light Faded Copyright© 2019 by Lisa Fox
A Mission of Mercy Copyright © 2019 by Mark Lynch
The Law of the Jungle Copyright © 2019 by Mickey Ferron
Antithesis Copyright © 2019 by Mitch Goth
Discovery Copyright © 2019 by PP Corcoran
Ambassador T. Copyright © 2019 by Quincy J. Allen
A Bolt From The Blue Copyright © 2019 by S. K. Gregory
There Goes The Neighbourhood Copyright © 2019 by Vivian Kasley
All Rights Reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Cover design & Interior formatting by The Gilded Quill
www.TheGildedQuill.co.uk
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
www.CastrumPress.com
©2019 Castrum Press
Print Edition:
Printed in the United Kingdom
First Printing: May 2019
ISBN-13 978-1-9123273-6-2
Table of Contents
The Shanti heist About Killian Carter
Antithesis About Mitch Goth
A Series of Anomalous Phenomena About D. B. Crelia
Am I Alone? An Odera Chronicles Short Story About J.R. Handley
About Corey Truax
Dead Reckoning About Anthony Regolino
After the Crash About Jason JASON J. McCuiston
Where All Memories Are One About Leigh Saunders
Ambassador T About Quincy J. Allen
Discovery About PP Corcoran
A Bolt From The Blue About S. K. Gregory
First Friendship About A.N. Myers
Phobosteus About Dennis Mombauer
The Law of the Jungle About Mickey Ferron
And The Light Faded About Lisa Fox
Recidivism About Charles E. Gannon
A Mission of Mercy About Mark Lynch
Another Day, Another Dollar About Juliegh Howard-Hobson
Altered About Alexander Harrington
Within The Storm About Beth Frost
Songs Sweeter Still About David M. Hoenig
There Goes the Neighborhood About Vivian Kasley
Following is an excerpt of "Future Days: A Science Fiction Short Story Anthology." Introduction TO FUTURE DAYS ANTHOLOGY
The Good Citizen
Cell Effect
Books by Castrum Press
Introduction
Alien Days is a multi-author anthology with thrilling tales of aliens, invasions, artificial intelligence, friendship, deceit and extinction. A combination which makes this collection a must-read for science fiction short story fans.
This anthology features Amazon bestsellers and award winners alongside rising stars in the science fiction genre. Let the authors take you on adventures through dystopian worlds and far flung planets that will stretch your imagination. Welcome to Alien Days:
The Shanti Heist By Amazon Bestselling Author Killian Carter
Eline was a born survivor. Tough as they come. She had to be to have survived on Claracia for so long after the death of her sister, Vale. A death which may have been at the hands of the crime lord Malek but one that Eline had always felt responsible for. Throw in humanoid looking robots, the alien Shanti and a sisters thirst for revenge and you are looking at an explosive cocktail ready to rock your world!
Antithesis By Mitch Goth
Imagine discovering that extra-terrestrial life did exist. Then imagine that our very existence was diametrically opposed to everything that life held as truth. What would that information do to the universe?
A Series of Anomalous Phenomena By D. B. Crelia
Humm, the shape shifting first officer to a captain who ignored him and a crew who laughed at him. The mission was simple. Visit Earth, get a DNA sample, leave. What could go wrong?
Am I Alone? An Odera Chronicles Short Story By Amazon Bestselling Authors J. R. Handley & Corey D. Truax
The outside world called it Area 51. To Sergeant Alexis Monroe it was the pit of despair where her once promising military career had came to a dead end. At night she drank while during the day she stood guard outside a warehouse with a sign that read ‘No entry. Authorized personnel only.’ Boredom, curiosity and a hangover got the better of her and Alexis’ life changed forever.
Dead Reckoning By Anthony Regolino
The war against the Progellics was not going well. How do you fight an enemy that uses your own dead against you? Simple, you start using the dead too.
After the Crash By Jason J. McCuiston
Billy Resnick, a private investigator in the 1930s. However, this is the 1930s where an alien ship has crash landed years before and those same aliens now live amongst us. Aliens that just want to live in peace but there are a lot of humans who want their advanced tech and don’t care how they get their hands on it
Where All Memories Are One By Leigh Saunders
We created the Synths. Now hunted and alone their only hope for survival is a benevolent alien race willing to lay down their own lives to preserve another’s
Ambassador T By Amazon Bestselling Author Quincy J Allen
A technologically advanced civilization lays in ruins on a distant world with no clue as to what caused its fall. The scientists find a lone sentient being amongst the ruins. How were they to suspect the devastation they were about to inflict on humanity.
Discovery by Amazon Bestselling Author PP Corcoran
A cover up spanning nearly a century. A stable wormhole leading to another star system. A crew willing to put everything on the line to make First Contact.
A Bolt From The Blue By S. K. Gregory
Iris and her boyfriend Tyler had only gone for a scenic hike along Vista Falls. How could either have predicted what the appearance of a strange dark cloud in an otherwise perfect blue sky could herald the beginning of the end.
First Friendship By A.N. Myers
The Shoma had came to Earth needing our help and we had welcomed them with open arms. After all, they were our friends… weren’t they?
Phobosteus By Dennis Mombauer
In the beginning, no one had believed the stories, dismissed them as the yarn of space sailors desperate for attention. An immense ship that had projected the faces of dead men on its screens.
Then,without any declaration, the attack began!
The Law of the Jungle By Mickey Ferron
November 16th 1974, a signal is transmitted into deep space from the Aricebo Radio Telescope carrying details of how to locate Earth. Today First Contact is made but not in the way you might think
And the Light Faded By Lisa Fox
New Year’s Day 2023 arrived for Rosa Santos not with the sound of champagne corks and confetti but with a firestorm that heralded an invasion. An invasion by aliens intent on wiping out humanity!
Recidivism By Award Winning Author Charles E. Gannon
The creatures were more strange than horrible to Dan's tolerant eyes. They professed good will, which they attributed in large part to their worship of an all-loving deity. But they also expected cooperation, and ultimately, willing cooption into their expanding interstellar sphere of influence. Could the result of their being rebuffed have been predicted?
A Mission of Mercy By Mark Lynch
Second Lieutenant Christopher Taylor had survived the horrors of a POW ran Unit 731 of the Japanese Army now, on July 8th 1947, near the sleepy New Mexico town of Roswell he was forced to confront once more the nightmares of his days as a prisoner and make a fateful choice.
Another Day, Another Dollar By Juleigh Howard-Hobson
I don’t like people, I don’t like aliens, but I do like money. Kill aliens who look like people and get paid for it. Now, that I like.
Altered By Alexander Harrington
The rain is coming and with it a change. A change that will alter you forever.
Within The Storm By Beth Frost
A child’s kindness to a stranger kindles a friendship that spans not only time but crosses races from differing worlds.
Songs Sweeter Still By David M. Hoenig
The Exo-Indigenous had been designed and bred to mine the inhospitable world of Titan. Able to live unaided by technology and live off the natural resources. Slaves to the corporation. However, one EI is becoming aware, Fim. And what Fim is realizing is that it is the humans who are the aliens. The true invaders of his world and he is going to stop them destroying his home.
There Goes the Neighborhood By Vivian Kasley
Alan Konnover had purchased the bunker years before. His family had treated it as a joke, a foible. Today that bunker was the only thing standing between the Konnover family and a world being systematically depopulated by an intransigent alien race. What had Alan known that nobody else had?
The Shanti heist
by Killian Carter
Reflections in The Rain
Worry clawed at Eline’s shoulders as her eyes swept over the empty restaurant. She had known Kibble most of her two decades on Claracia. He was the only person still alive she would trust with her life. The old hustler was too much of a loose cannon for Eline to consider him a father. He was a little too fond of Claracian firebrandy, but he had always acted as a mentor of sorts when she was growing up. The streets of Claracia were rarely kind to a kid, and one had to accept what help one could get.
Despite Kibble’s vices, the old war veteran had always been quite the renaissance man. If one was to believe his often-outrageous stories, he had traveled most of the known galaxy, and he knew something about almost everything. He could strap together a bomb with nothing but a length of string and a handful of nails—the kind of guy accustomed to fixing things with elbow grease and spit.
As a jack of all trades, Kibble was many things, but despite his ever-inebriated state, he was never late. He’s probably caught in traffic, she told herself, noting the clogged road outside the broad restaurant window. The storm had picked up, causing people to favor their ground vehicles. A Shanti male and Terran female holding hands hurried past the window, the rain soaking their expensive clothes in defiance of the large umbrella they shared.
Eline checked the serial interface gate strapped to her left arm for the time. She swiped the SIG’s interface and scrolled through her messages until she found the one Kibble had sent earlier that evening.
Meet me at Olley’s restaurant right away.
It wasn’t like Kibble to be so short with his instructions either. He usually rambled and provided a list of unnecessary details, but Eline figured he was in a hurry. Kibble always seemed to have more plates spinning than any normal person could manage.
“Can I get you something else to drink while you wait for your friend, ma’am?” The new waiter appeared at Eline’s side without so much as a sound, startling her. She stopped her hand halfway to the blaster on her hip, and shifted in her chair, pretending she was merely getting comfortable.
The half-melted ice cubes sloshed and clinked as he removed her otherwise empty glass from the table.
Eline hadn’t realized she’d finished the beverage. It seemed she was becoming more like old Kibble than she cared to admit.
“Have you got anything sweeter?” She figured something a little more exciting would lighten her mood.
“The young ladies usually go for a sex on fire,” he pointed to the drink on the cocktail menu.
“Is that an offer?” she joked.
“I didn’t mean...I...ah,” the waiter said, stumbling over his words. “I’ll return with your drink in just a moment.”
He scuttled away, his furry, black tail coiled nervously behind his back and his fluffy, pointed ears twitching.
The new guy was cute. He dressed well and had a nice ass, but he was too slight and skittish for Eline’s tastes. Then again, it’s been a while. She purred at the thought and considered asking him for his SIG number, but she quickly decided against it. Her way of life didn’t leave much room for messing around.
Lightening flashed outside, drawing her attention back to the window, the rain pelting the pane like pebbles.
She regarded her semi-reflection in the glass, and a sharp pain stabbed at her heart as thunder rolled overhead. That was the problem with being an identical twin: When your counterpart died, you still saw her everywhere you looked.
Vale’s face was a little narrower and she didn’t have a scar under her fringe. As children, they had played tricks on their street-kin, one pretending to be the other, but as they grew into adolescence, their appearances deviated. Eline ended up a little heavier set, which was just as well since she ended up becoming something of a fighter. Vale, on the other hand, never needed to fight. She had a way with words—a way of wrapping everyone around her fingers. Well...almost everyone. Vale’s wily words hadn’t worked on Malek.
The heist had been going smoothly...too smooth in hindsight. It turned out to be a set up, and on the night they were to finish the job, Eline had watched in horror from a distance as Malek’s golden-cloaked figure sliced Vale’s legs off using some kinds of shimmering plasma blade. Kibble had to drag Eline away when she tried to get to her sister. That had happened over two years ago, and Vale’s screams still haunted Eline most nights.
The knife in her heart twisted in response to the memory, and another fork of lightening momentarily lit the sky.
Eline had vowed to hunt Malek down, but the crime boss was well beyond her reach, at least for the time being.
Eline watched the seething, black clouds above the city. She and Vale had always dreamed of leaving Claracia, but the planet had crushed those hopes and then some.
She sighed and some of the pain evacuated with her breath, but a dull ache remained. It always did. She had just learned to mask the worst of it, at least until she caught a glimpse of herself—or Vale rather—in a mirror or window.
The new guy needs to hurry it up with that fucking drink.
Blue lights flashed in her reflection’s eye, plucking her from her reverie. Her focus shifted to a scene across the street outside. A medicar had mounted the curb and a medic in a high-visibility raincoat started erecting a barrier.
She stood up too fast and the room spun. She grabbed the edge of the table and steadied herself, cursing her foolishness.
I shouldn’t have drunk so muc
h so quickly on an empty stomach.
Someone in Eline’s position had to stay sharp. There was no telling when one needed to think fast or act faster.
She shook her head, bringing her mind back to the present and stumbled toward the restaurant entrance.
The door slammed behind her, the waiter’s objections inaudible in the howling wind.
She kept low as relentless gusts whipped her hair and cloak about her face.
She shouldered her way through the raging maelstrom, dodging puddles as she skipped between traffic.
By the time she reached the other side of the road, a flickering holocast wall had been erected next to the medicar. The shimmering holocast blocked the view of whatever lay beyond, its blue strobe lights cutting a warning about an accident into the air. Ignoring the message, Eline stepped through the light-barrier, emerging on the other side to find two yellow-clad medics going about their jobs amidst a grizzly scene.