Conquered by the Alien: A Scifi Alien Romance (Fated Mates of the Titan Empire Book 4)

by Tammy Walsh

  In the escape pod room, I heard the passengers groaning with terror.

  A voice, carried by a megaphone or similar device, exploded over them.

  “Quiet!” the voice bellowed. “You are now under our control. We are the Changelings and so long as you cause us no trouble, we will not harm you.”

  Changelings.

  Where had I heard that before?

  “You will return to your pods and go back to sleep,” the voice yelled. “Do not fear. So long as your loved ones pay your ransom, you’ll be home before you know it.”

  As the heavy footsteps thudded back up the gangway again, I knew I had run out of time.

  I slipped out of the pod and took off in the opposite direction. I couldn’t be there when they discovered my pod was empty.

  I needed to escape this place.

  I needed to find a way back to Dyrel’s planet.

  I needed a miracle.

  It took four hours for the other passengers to be loaded back in their pods. Those who put up a fight were quickly put down with a smack across the face from a blaster pistol butt. Everyone else followed suit after seeing that.

  With a limited amount of time to hide, I darted inside the flight attendants’ quarters. Their pods were larger than ours with wardrobes and cabinets along one wall. I hid inside one and huddled in the corner. I covered myself with one of the dresses.

  I held my breath when the quarters’ door opened, admitting the flight attendants who were forced into their own pods at gunpoint. I didn’t move a muscle until they had been put to sleep and the hideous Changelings marched out.

  I waited another ten minutes to ensure the coast was clear before I climbed out of the wardrobe.

  The flight attendants looked calm and peaceful inside their pods.

  Should I wake them?

  They would know the best way to escape and get out of here.

  But the controls looked complicated. If I pressed the wrong button, I could end up locking them away forever.

  And what about the passengers locked up in their pods?

  This wasn’t my world. This was not my technology. This was not my war.

  I had no idea what I was doing or what I was facing.

  I decided against it. The more of us there were, the easier it would be to catch us.

  I’d seen how the Changelings treated those who defied them.

  I needed to focus on getting myself out of there. Then I could report to the Titans back on the surface about what I’d seen. Surely that would be more useful than getting smashed in the face?

  The only solution I could think of was to head to the pods, try to activate one, and use it to return to the planet.

  I peered around the doorway and down the gangway.

  I listened but heard no thumping footsteps. Every now and then, I heard a screech that made me shudder, and that disgusting chitter noise these creatures made.

  I crept down the gangway one careful step at a time, keeping a close eye on my rear, and the thousands of pods I passed on my way back to the escape pod room.

  There were so many of them. So many I was leaving behind…

  But I kept going.

  There was nothing I could do for them.

  My own pod was empty, the lid still up. They would be out there now, looking for me, scouring the ship for the missing passenger.

  Maybe I wasn’t the only one that’d escaped. Maybe there were others.

  But as I moved down the gangway, I noticed no other empty pods.

  I reached the evacuation room. It seemed a whole lot larger without thousands of passengers crammed inside it.

  I checked along either wall, the other doorways, stairs, and gangways, but I couldn’t get a good view of the landing above me. Someone could be watching up there and I wouldn’t even know it.

  I would have to risk it.

  I peered across the open space between me and the escape pods on the other side.

  The doors were still open.

  I was relieved. I thought the Changelings might have locked them down.

  I took a deep breath, pushed off the wall, and bolted across the open space.

  I fought the urge to check over my shoulders and dived inside the first pod I came to. I stood to one side of the door and waited to hear for any sign or signal that one of the Changelings had spotted me.

  I heard nothing.

  But that didn’t mean they hadn’t seen me. They could be out there now, creeping up on my current location.

  “Move!” I told myself.

  Ten empty seats. Did it matter which one I took?

  I opted for the one closest to the door. It was harder for any passing Changelings to see me from there.

  I strapped myself in.

  “Computer,” I said self-consciously. “How do I launch this escape pod?”

  “The escape pods have been deactivated,” Computer said.

  My heart sank.

  Of course it had. That was the reason they had left the doors open.

  “Is there a way to re-activate them?” I said.

  “Negative. The captain has issued the command. Only someone of a superior rank can override his order,” Computer said.

  Shit.

  There go my hopes of an escape.

  “Computer,” I said. “I want to send a message to someone on the nearby planet. Can I do that?”

  “Negative. All communications have been blocked at the captain’s orders. If you wish to overturn his orders you must have a rank higher than—”

  “Yeah,” I said, dejected. “I get it.”

  I released the restraints and ran my fingers through my hair.

  There had to be another way out of there. There just had to be!

  I just wasn’t seeing it.

  But maybe I didn’t need to see it…

  “Computer,” I said. “This ship has been hijacked by Changeling soldiers. How do I escape without them noticing?”

  “The ship has not been hijacked,” Computer said. “The captain has not issued a distress signal. If you would like to lodge a complaint against the captain or our service, please send your correspondence to—”

  “Never mind,” I said.

  Either the captain was in on it or the Changelings had hacked into the system.

  Either way, there was precisely zero I could do about it.

  I wasn’t exactly a computer whizz back home so there was little chance I could do anything useful with this futuristic technology.

  There had to be another way out of there.

  But how?

  The ship was overrun. They would take the ship elsewhere as soon as they could. It was too close to the Titan planet and they might launch an effective counter-terrorist operation.

  The hyperspace gateway was still ahead of us. They could pass through it and take the ship to any part of the galaxy.

  I would be left to survive and scrounge on the ship.

  Alone.

  I was a prisoner once again, taken hostage by another set of aliens.

  Only these aliens had no intention of treating me civilly.

  Even Shrisa was better than these guys.

  Maybe I should give up and climb back in my pod.

  Sleeping had to be better than whatever they had planned for me.

  I shook my head. That sounded too much like giving up.

  First, I would head back to the flight attendants’ quarters. It was the safest place I’d yet discovered. From there, I could think about what I would do next.

  What a mess.

  I stepped from the pod and listened for footsteps.

  I stepped into the huge hallway and prepared to bolt across the open expanse when—

  “Hey! Hey you!”

  It was one of them.

  One of those Changeling things.

  I turned to glance at him and found there wasn’t just one of them.

  There were two.

  And they were barreling directly toward me.

  I r
an down the gangway, my boots clumping loudly on the harsh metal. I wanted to escape down the same gangway I’d come from but the Changeling soldiers were coming at an angle. I had to diverge down another gangway.

  The Changelings barked into their communicators, informing their comrades of my location.

  They were going to work together to pin me in.

  And they were going to catch me.

  Then I would be locked away in my pod again.

  If I was lucky.

  They said something about the aliens’ families paying a ransom before they were freed.

  My family had no money. And they didn’t believe in aliens.

  Maybe I would never wake from my pod.

  I turned down another gangway and another, each lined with infinite rows of pods.

  I couldn’t keep running, especially not around this area. The gangways were too long and it would be too easy for the Changelings to see me. They could block off one exit after another, locking me in like a rat trap.

  I took the stairs and headed down.

  If this ship was built like a regular airplane back home, the cargo hold would be in the belly of the ship.

  There would be cargo in there.

  Food. Drink.

  Supplies could keep me alive.

  Maybe even weapons.

  Maybe even a device that would help me escape.

  Maybe an experimental teleporter that could beam me across the universe to any location I chose.

  Okay, so that was a bit of a leap, but a girl could hope, couldn’t she?

  “Stop! Or I will shoot!”

  Shoot away, asshole. I’m not stopping.

  I hurried down another set of stairs and was relieved to find it wasn’t another endless series of pods.

  Oh no.

  I came to a stop.

  I was perched on the edge of what appeared to be the engine room. A tall egg-shaped machine hummed and pulsed like a heartbeat. It was ten stories high and was filled with some kind of bright liquid. There were half a dozen of the things in this room alone.

  Linking them was a series of girders in a cross pattern. Each was no more than a foot wide. In the center was each engine’s tip. It glowed brighter than the rest of the liquid, with white ripples that danced on its surface.

  The ground stretched away from me.

  Terrifying. Endless.

  I clutched the railing, my vertigo striking hard with a vengeance.

  “Not now!” I told myself. “Of all times, why now?”

  The Changeling soldiers’ boots echoed off the gangway walls behind me, the ripples vibrating up the soles of my feet and into my legs.

  There were going to find me.

  Standing there, cornered, I would be all too easy to catch.

  I jogged along the gangway, my hand sliding over the railing’s smooth surface in case I needed to grab it suddenly.

  I headed for another doorway. Maybe if I reached it, I could escape to another part of the ship…

  “She’s in the engine bay!”

  The voices echoed up from the doorway I was heading toward.

  I paused, at the corner now. Two Changeling soldiers entered. One from the doorway behind me, the other ahead of me.

  “Take it easy now,” one of the Changelings said. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  Like get myself trapped?

  The fall was a long one and there was no way I could survive it.

  I only had one other choice.

  The girder ran from the corner to the first engine. I could escape from there, but I would have to be quick.

  It was the only way I had left of escaping these creatures.

  And all I had to do was creep along that narrow girder.

  A piece of cake…

  If you didn’t suffer from vertigo.

  Or have an acute fear of death.

  I thought once more about being locked inside a pod. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all. I mean, who didn’t like sleep?

  Who looked forward to the endless sleep?

  Nobody.

  More than that, I couldn’t let myself be a hapless victim.

  Not again.

  I held onto the railing and threw my legs over it. I stood on the girder with my hands clenching the railing tight behind me.

  The girder seemed to narrow to the width of a toothpick and the ground might as well have been on the nearby planet.

  I shut my eyes.

  I couldn’t do this. I just couldn’t—

  “Yes, you can.”

  I opened my eyes, surprised to hear the voice.

  Dyrel.

  He wasn’t there, and neither was I.

  We were back on a branch, twisted and bent with age, and eclipsed by thick boughs overhead. It was far harder to negotiate than a single straight girder.

  Dyrel extended his hand.

  I took it willingly.

  He led our dance across the branch, my feet magically finding each step.

  I felt his strong muscular body against mine, his reassuring grip holding me tight.

  And suddenly, the girder didn’t seem so narrow, and the fall didn’t seem so scary.

  I released the railing and moved across the girder one step at a time. My fears melted away. I kept my eyes on the prize—that nodule engine tip just ahead. Get to that, and I was halfway across already.

  “Hold it right there!”

  He shook me from my pleasant daydream. I turned back and lost my balance. I crouched and clung to the girder.

  “Come back here! Or I’ll open fire!” one of the Changeling soldiers said.

  His blaster was aimed directly at me.

  I peered between him and the engine’s tip just a few short strides away.

  “If you want me, you’re going to have to come get me,” I said.

  I straightened my back to full height and marched toward the engine.

  “I said stop!” the Changeling soldier said.

  But I kept moving. Now I was only a dozen yards from the engine.

  “I’m warning you!” the Changeling soldier said.

  Just three yards to go.

  I’m going to make it!

  A bolt of plasma screeched, no more than an inch above my shoulder.

  The shock made me jolt.

  On a narrow ledge, that was exactly what I didn’t want.

  The Changeling that’d threatened me had been the one to open fire. His buddy had knocked the rifle off target at the last moment.

  “You fool!” he said. “If you hit the engine, we’re all dead!”

  The entire scene happened in a fraction of a second.

  And just like that, I lost my balance and sailed over the edge.

  Toward the floor far below.

  Toward my death.

  The fall was a long one.

  I sailed down…

  Down…

  Down…

  The closer you got to death the slower time went.

  I recalled when our minivan sailed over the cliff edge and into the ravine below, bound for the jagged and weighty rocks.

  We were doomed for sure.

  Time slowed to a crawl then too. I had never been more aware of my surroundings than I had been during what I thought would be the final few seconds of my life.

  My meditation teacher would have been proud.

  I heard the piercing screech of my scream and those of my friends around me.

  I felt weightless as gravity shifted aside to give Death some elbow room. Only the press of my seatbelt kept me in place.

  I thought about the future and would now not happen. I thought about the present, and the impending doom fast approaching. And I thought about the past and all the things I wished I’d done, all my regrets coming to the fore in a single explosive round.

  It was happening again now, in the same order, in the same predictable sequence, as I sailed toward the hard metal floor, my body turning away from the impact as if it didn’t want to witness its own demise.


  At least the death would be a quick one.

  Then I felt the impact. In the slow speed at which I traveled, it came in one location after another.

  In the crook of my legs, where my knee met my thigh, across my shoulder blades, and the back of my neck. Any moment now, it would be my head and then it would be lights out for good.

  My biggest regret was how things ended between me and Dyrel. I wished I could have seen him one last time.

  My memories flickered into life and there he was, right there, lying beside me after making love, a smile on his lips and sweat dimpling his brow.

  Not a bad image to die with, I thought.

  Okay. I’m ready. Take me, Death.

  I only hoped he knew where I came from. I didn’t want to be a ghost surrounded by alien creatures.

  My head finally struck something solid and I knew it was over.

  Then I blinked.

  My eyes were open.

  I was still alive.

  But maybe that was how it felt when you passed into the next world. It didn’t have to be a hard and violent transition.

  I wiggled my arms and legs and found the thing I’d struck wasn’t the ground at all.

  It was something solid and strong but much softer and more forgiving than metal.

  I began to rise, not far—just a few inches—and not fast.

  I felt the warmth and strength of the powerful arms wrapped underneath me.

  I peered over at Dyrel, who clutched me close.

  He’d caught me from that great distance I’d fallen.

  Or was I really dead and this was what heaven looked like?

  I smiled up at him and ran my fingers through his hair.

  He wore a big beaming grin on his face.

  “I told you I would catch you if you fell,” he said.

  “Am I dead?” I said.

  “You’re about a yard from it.”

  His expression morphed into a grimace. It was full of pain.

  “Are you okay?” I said.

  “Fine. The impact was a little… heavier than I expected.”

  I flinched.

  As the shock of death wore off, I became aware of the sharp stabbing pain in my thigh.

  I hissed through my teeth and raised my legs slightly, turning so he didn’t touch it.

  “What’s wrong?” he said. “Did they hurt you?”

  “It’s the fall,” I said. “I think… I think I might have broken my leg.”

  A thud brought our attention to the angry Changeling soldiers gathered around the railing above us.