Starship Invasion
Lost Colony Uprising Book 2
Darcy Troy Paulin
WWW.darcytroypaulin.COM
Starship Invasion - Book Description:
Aboard the ancient space ship, Max and Snow flee the parties hunting for them, and continue their quest to uncover the truth about their people. The chase continues across space and multiple planets.
Starship Invasion is book two of the Lost Colony Uprising Trilogy, a sci-fi space opera adventure with spaceships, alien contact, deep conspiracies, wise-cracking characters, and lots of pew-pew (space battle action).
Content rating: All ages, teen and up. Minimal language.
Cover illustration by Sarah Tyrrell, Briar Fox Design.
Part One
Panapocalyptia
Prologue
Snow's chunky off-white space boots gripped the stone hard ice as she trudged along, bearing Max's limp body across her shoulders. Max was missing half his right arm, but its loss did little to lighten Snow's burden.
She aimed a kicked at one of the frosty black creatures on the ground, intending to shatter the beast’s thin glossy black tentacle. When the alien’s appendage resisted her blow she stumbled awkwardly, nearly dropping Max. It was cold on Mega, but apparently not that cold. She paid it no more mind and carried on through the scattered sea of alien creatures.
The monsters had made a good go of it she thought. But the cold had become too much for them before they could reach the little jumpship, and Max's body. Most of Max's body.
Snow made her way, back to Longissima and past what must have been hundreds of tentacled alien blobs. A space-suited pair followed her from a distance. Though they could have spoken, communicating at will through the radio systems within each of their helmets, they chose to walk in silence.
Snow didn't wonder what they were thinking. She didn't consider if their silence was out of respect for Max or if they were somehow putting the pieces together, beginning to understand what had happened. What they had all done. The question on her mind was, what now?
So far all she could think of, was to bring Max back to the Longissima. And cry it out.
There was no way to warn people on Grailliyn. The Icarus wouldn't be refueled for days. And when eventually they returned? By then anyone left alive would know of the danger. Knowing what she knew wouldn't help them. So, she would stick to the plan. Get Max back to the ship. Cry. And work out a way to fix everything later.
Chapter 1
New York
Grailliyn
Greta Caulasdaughter looked up at the darkening New York skyline to see what the people on the street passing by were pointing at. The sun had just set, and on the horizon where the sun had only just been, the sky was still dark blue. Grailliyn's twin planet Mega rode high above the city, lit on one side.
But Mega was the only thing Greta saw in the sky. She looked back around to the tables of the eatery, at her fellow Yorkies awaiting their meal on the streetside patio. They were still looking and pointing, along with those on the street. She took another look. This time she did see something. Dark shapes crossing the bright surface of the lit half of Mega, floating on the wind. They didn't look like anything she had seen before. Neither local birds nor the Light Fliers that followed Mega and the bright nights it supplied. Could they be their Dark Flier counterparts? Those birds that avoided Mega, preferring to hunt in the pitch dark of true night?
As she watched, she saw them getting bigger, closer. They didn't seem to be flapping or gliding so much as falling slowly. As they got closer and closer, they looked more and more like a flotilla of umbrellas rather than any sort of bird or other flying creature. Whatever they were, there were an awfully large number of them coming down. Greta looked for an airship that could conceivably have lost a cargo of umbrellas. She found no such ship. The umbrellas were large. Very large. She could use an umbrella like that. Of course, they were not likely to be umbrellas at all, but she liked the idea. Perhaps she would find someone to make one for her. It really would be wonderful to stay completely dry on the way to work during the frequent, and heavy evening downpours.
The umbrella-things were nearing the ground now and she could see tassels protruding. She tracked one that was falling towards the patio. It was even bigger than she had estimated. The umbrella thing heading towards the patio would pass right over her. She stood up to see if she could grasp one of its tassels. She sat right back down again, suddenly wary. The thing slid past just above her head. And it was certainly not an umbrella. It floated the rest of the way to land at a table on the other end of the patio. The man at that table had not showed any interest in the falling cargo.
A flicker of surprise was the last thing Greta saw on his face as he was engulfed from head to ankle, chair included, in the creature’s glossy black shroud. Some of the short tentacles, that Greta had taken for tassels, grasped the man’s protruding feet and pushed him the rest of the way into the monster’s shroud. Other tentacles gripped the railing and chairs and pressed against the ground, holding the creature and its meal upright.
Someone screamed. Others joined in and still others added prayers to the mix.
Greta gripped the dull ceramic knife from her table and stood, stepping away from the beast.
The creature convulsed, stretching tall on its tentacles, and forced the man's chair from its shroud, spitting it at Greta's feet. She screamed at the beast and threw the knife.
The knife glanced off the beast’s shroud and clattered harmlessly to the ground. The beast clambered towards her on its middling sized tentacles. Greta stood still, frozen in place. But the beast then shuffled in the other direction. It leapt over the patio railing and drew itself along the cobblestones on its tentacles, away from the patio.
As the beast passed below the large gas-lamp on the street corner, Greta saw movement on the surface of the creature’s shroud body. Something was writhing within. For a moment, the shape of the man's hand pressed out against the shroud. Then the beast was away. Greta broke free of the paralysis she was under. She reached into her bag, found her wallet, and left some money on the table for the food that had not yet arrived. Then she walked from the street-level patio and headed for home. She felt drained as the adrenaline left her system, and her mind was in a foggy haze.
She'd traveled half a block before she remembered the beast had not arrived alone. The sky had been just filled with them. As if to accentuate the point, sirens began to wail from the watch towers on the sea wall. Adrenaline flowed back into her and she looked around more clearly. The street block was empty but ahead she could see flowing tentacled movement passing through the intersection. The beasts stuck to shadows where they were difficult to see. But they were forced at the intersection to pass through rays of light from Mega above, it was then that for an instant they could be seen.
She stepped cautiously towards one of the row homes, seeking to take cover behind the stone stair of one of the homes that filled the street level of this block. She sat down with her back to the stair and took a deep breath, centering herself. She exhaled slowly. She felt no better. She tried again, cycling air into and then slowly out of her lungs. She still felt no better, but she continued to cycle air through her lungs until her heart slowed some. She had to get home. She would be safe at home. She peeked out from the stair, down the street to the busy monster intersection. It was clear. She took a step out and froze as more shapes moved through the intersection. She slipped back into cover and watched.
The movement through the intersection was irregular but steady and she found she could hear their tentacles slapping their way alon
g the street. The squid like creatures, plump from their meals, moved south. But as she watched she saw the occasional squid that was not plump, and was not traveling south. So far, those squids looking for a meal, had traveled north or occasionally west. But it was only a matter of time before one headed her way.
Her home was three blocks past that intersection. On the twelfth floor, the top floor of her building which was just like those lining the block where she stood. Made of sturdy stone bricks. She would be safe if she could just make it there, but she didn't see how that would be possible. She looked down the street behind her but the slight curve in the road kept her from seeing very far.
“You there,” said a voice. It came from above her.
Four floors above ground level, on a narrow balcony that was like her own but smaller, stood an old man glaring down at her. Greta put a finger to her lips, the universal sign to shut up.
“What mischief are you at?” the man said, ignoring her demand for silence.
“Shhhhh!” she hissed at him. She moved the finger from her lips to point down the street at the monster parade. As luck would have it the monsters were absent at that moment, a mixed blessing.
“Don't shush me,” he said. “If you can't hold it till you get home, that's your own problem. No reason to make the rest of us endure your odor—”
“I'm not peeing. I'm hiding … there are beasts afoot,” she said in a hushed voice, but still somehow yelling. There was a flash of movement in the intersection, but when she looked the intersection was empty.
“I don't see any monster feet…” he said
She didn't see any feet, or tentacles either. But just then, she thought she heard one. Not the steady slap, slap, slap of the southbound squids, filled with a heavy meal. But a single slap. Then, a moment later, another. She wanted to run. But she was again frozen in place, her eyes stretched wide, searching the street for the squid that she knew was there. She heard a clunk between her and the intersection, and she winced. A window opened, two floors above street level, and light poured onto the street. A writhing glossy black mass loped across the cobbled street. It froze for an instant, then leapt up the stair and onto the side of the building bathed in Mega-light. It pulled itself up the stone bricks, its tentacles wriggling into cracks and grabbing balconies. It moved as quickly up the vertical stone wall as it had across the horizontal stone street.
The old man shrieked in surprise. “Close your window! Quickly! Quickly!”
“What?” came a voice from the window. A woman's head poked out. It held a stern but uncertain expression. “Are you talking to me—” The woman slipped back into her apartment with a short yelp, and closed the vertical shutter with a slam.
The squid tested the window for a moment, but then moved towards the easier prey of the old man on the balcony. He shrieked again retreating back into his apartment, slamming his own door shutter.
The squid was now directly above Greta. Moving only her eyes, she searched for somewhere to go, somewhere to hide. But there was nowhere. If she could get behind another stair, she might evade its own search, but she had a feeling that the moment she moved it would be on her, swallowing her whole and heading south.
Without haste, the squid climbed down the side of the building towards her. It stopped. And though she could see it neither move its body nor make out any obvious eyes, she knew it was searching. She stayed motionless, still, frozen in place. It moved closer again, closing another ten feet, before stopping once more. Greta tried desperately to control her breath, to keep it slow and quiet. But her racing heart was demanding more and more oxygen. Her lungs insisted on breathing faster, louder. She was about to give in when the squid beast began moving again, continuing its slow trek towards her. She began to feel faint, but she kept control of her breath. She heard another noise. The low sound of feet on stairs, getting closer. They stopped. A moment later the main door of the building one further from the intersection burst wide open. A teenager rushed out of the doors with two large plastic bags, one in each hand.
Greta's paralysis broke and she dove into action racing towards the young man. He yelped in surprise when, as if out of nowhere, she passed in front of, then beyond him.
His indignant response was swallowed along with his garbage and the rest of him. Greta heard the steady slap, slap, of the beast’s tentacles and she turned to look back. The squid was leaving.
But the noise had drawn attention. More squid rounded the corner. And there was nowhere left to run.
A door opened. “Come. Quickly, before more of the beast feet arrive.” The old man waved her towards him.
She ran. Sprinting as fast as she had ever done. The squids, three of them, saw the movement and scrambled towards her. They pulled on each other, trying to be first to reach the prey, and buying her more time to escape. Her left shoe slipped from her foot and she stumbled, scraping her knee painfully on the cobbled road. The slap, slap of many tentacles drove her back to her feet and again she was running. She reached the door as the quickest of the squid clambered over the stair behind which she had taken shelter. A tentacle reached out for her. She ducked and the tentacle only grazed her shoulder. But somehow it held her fast. She felt the tug and slipped out of her jacket which it had latched onto. The beast rolled away excitedly with its jacket prey. But another squid arrived quickly in its place. Greta stumbled the few feet forward to the door. The old man pushed her into the building. He followed quickly on her heels, pulling the door closed behind them.
But the door never closed. The squid ripped it from the old man’s hands and swung it wide open, quickly and forcefully enough to shatter its window. Together, Greta and the old man slammed the shutter. It stopped short, the tip of a wriggling tentacle blocking it from full closure. Greta stomped on the tentacle with all of her weight, while the old man put all of his on the guillotine shutter. On the second jump the tentacle retracted, and the shutter closed completely.
The old man slid the braces into place. And the pair stepped away from the doorway. Greta breathed with reckless abandon.
Chapter 2
Na Char
Region: The North
Grailliyn
Quin Yarasson had observed the invasion from the relative safety of his clifftop family home. People were saying the creatures had come from the sky. Quin hadn't seen any of that. But he did wonder if the beasts had come from the clifftops, perhaps even his clifftop, to rain death and sorrow upon the lowlanders.
NaChar had cliff dwellers and lowlanders. Quin had always wanted to live in the city proper, down in the valley of the lowlanders. He loved his home and he loved watching the city below with his tripod-mounted binoculars, but he quickly forgot that love of the clifftops each day on his way home up the street-stair from the city after school or work. He couldn't even enjoy the easy trip down as each step reminded him of the return trip he would have to make later.
But now he could truly appreciate the value of clifftop living. He had mostly heard the invasion. Or the shouts and screams of the invaders’ victims in any case. But he had seen the shapes of the beasts moving beneath the streetlights below. Squid beasts people were calling them. He had shouted himself when he witnessed a lowlander disappear into one of the squid beasts … mouths? If you called that a mouth, then the squid beasts were all mouth. But it had all happened so far away that Quin didn't know at first if he was seeing things correctly. The woman and the beast just sort of merged, and then the beast slipped away. Larger. And with no other trace of the woman than that new largeness.
Cailin hadn't shouted until Quin did, and then it was only in surprise at Quin's outburst. So, Quin still wasn't sure if Cailin, his younger brother, had really understood what had happened. Cailin had just smacked him and said, “Don't do that!” in that hard-done-by kid brother way.
Then, as now, they viewed the scene below together, each using one eye of their mounted pair of binoculars. As usual, Cailin sat piggybacked on Quin. That way they could turn as a uni
t, and not have the eye piece wrenched from one eye socket or the other when one of them got bored and swiveled the binos. As a bonus to Quin, it kept Cailin's fart cannon pointed away from Quin's face at all times, giving him a few precious moments to escape the inevitable gas attack launched from said cannon.
“Switch sides, Quin,” Cailin said. His voice was a little bit whiny and a little bit demanding. “I'm going to get a twisted neck.”
Quin relented as he always did, and switched sides.
“I don't see any monsters, Quin.”
“Me either.” Quin adjusted the binos, aiming them at the large green flag flying above the domed roof of the city council building far in the distance. “That's the all-clear signal, so I guess it makes sense if we don't see any.”
Quin had never seen the all-clear signal before. He knew what it meant of course, but monster attacks just didn't happen here in NaChar. In the Plains and especially seaside cities like SoChar, Caara-Ko, or New York, the signal was common. In those places, wildlife from the sea or plains often visited, causing a stir if not actually wreaking havoc. But in NaChar, humans reigned supreme. The many nearby mountain lakes, both small and large, had long ago been cleared of the most dangerous beasts.
“I guess it's back to school tonight,” Quin said.
“Mmmm. I think the monsters will be back Quin.”
“Ya? what makes you think that?”
“It's just a feeling.”
Cailin's tone left Quin unconvinced. “Well, if you say so. I guess we should call the guard and let them know.”
Cailin rolled his eyes. “You'll see. The monsters will be back. And we won't have to go to school.” Cailin sniffed the air. “Gas, gas, gas!” he said, and leapt from Quin's shoulders.
Then they both fled down the stairs that led from the indoor observation deck.
Starship Invasion (Lost Colony Uprising Book 2) Page 1