Marauder Fenrir: Scifi Alien Invasion Romance (Mating Wars)

by Aya Morningstar

  “You promised,” I say, my lip trembling. Warm tears pool in my eyes, and they float out into the cockpit.

  “Part of me will always live on in you, Fiona,” his voice says, crackling, “I–.”

  “Comm link lost,” a robotic voice says. “Try getting closer–.”

  I rip the earpiece out and throw it across the cockpit.

  25 Fenrir

  “I love you,” I say.

  “Comm link lost, try getting closer.”

  I laugh. If only it were that easy. If I could just reach out and touch her hand, and she could pull me right back to her side.

  Absorbing Kaius’s blast consumed almost all my biofuel, but all that energy still had to go somewhere, and it accelerated me like a bullet. Faster than any human ship can travel.

  I watch as Mars slowly shrinks from my view. The orbitals are just small pinpricks of light, and I know that somewhere among them, Fiona is there.

  I wait for an explosion, for Kaius’s bomb to destroy the elevator. I hold out hope that it somehow won’t detonate, that he was bluffing, or that it’s a dud.

  At least I protected Fiona, and at least I got to say goodbye.

  I know that at least Cygnus will do what he can to watch over her, and to protect humanity.

  “And what about Aegus?” I mutter. “That fucker is so mysterious that he ends up being totally useless. We sure could have used his help somewhere during all of this–.”

  “I was just about to help you,” a voice cuts in. It’s not coming from the earpiece, but from the biosuit itself. “But if I’m useless, maybe–.”

  “Aegus?” I say in disbelief.

  “Lucky for you I was coming from Jupiter. I’m sending you my location.”

  A map overlays onto my vision, and I see my projected trajectory. It looks like I’ll get whipped around Jupiter, and then accelerate even faster out into interstellar space. Aegus is close, but not close enough.

  “I’ve got a small pod stocked with antimatter,” Aegus says. “I’m going to blast it toward you...you’ll have one chance to catch it. Here goes!”

  The map shows the pod, a little green dot, shoot out from Aegus. It will be on me in two minutes.

  “So,” I say, killing time, “why’d you wait so fucking long to come help? Not even your brother knew where you were.”

  “I’m always looking at the bigger picture,” Aegus says. “And I did help.”

  “Could have fooled me,” I say. “Millions are going to die on Mars.”

  “No,” Aegus says. “I had a team on the elevator. They moved the bomb. Look over your shoulder.”

  I look back toward Mars, and I see a pinprick of white form and expand outward.

  “Boom!” Aegus says. “Far enough from everything. No one got hurt. It would have all been perfect if you hadn’t gotten shot and made me waste valuable anti-matter. Do you know how hard it was to get all this skimmed with human technology, it took me–.”

  “Shut up!” I interrupt. “I need to focus!”

  The pod is thirty seconds away, and I realize I’m slightly off-course from intercepting it.

  I burn the rest of my biomass to make a minor adjustment. Warnings start to flash that I’m out of air, and I can feel the deep cold of vacuum begin to warp around me.

  I reserved just enough fuel to form a wide net, and when the pod is just seconds away, I deploy it.

  The teal net shoots out beside me, and only at the last second do I see the pod with my own eyes. It rockets past me like a bullet, and my net stretches tight.

  The net strains as it stretches into a thin filament behind me, barely clutching the pod, and just before it tears, I jam a tendril into the pod to suck the anti-matter up out it.

  I get about half of it in before the pod tears and rips away, but it’s enough.

  The low air warnings shut off, and I feel heat coming back in. I burn the fuel and initiate counter thrust, which begins to slow me down relative to Aegus’s position.

  I watch on the map as Aegus draws closer to me.

  “Nice catch,” he says. “Looks like my useless ass was be able to save you after all.”

  26 Aegus

  When I land on Mars, I’m greeted by new and old friends alike.

  Fiona rushes to Fenrir, and he lifts her into the air and spins around and around. He squeezes her so tight it seems almost as if he’ll never let her go.

  My brother Cygnus, his wife Aura, and my niece Sara greet me next.

  “Uncle Aegus!” she shouts, leaping into me.

  I catch her and hug her back. “You’re so big now,” I say to myself in disbelief.

  “See! I told you Uncle Fenrir, I’m not little anymore!”

  “Fenrir’s not really your uncle,” Cygnus says, smiling.

  “He will be,” Sara says, jumping out of my arms. “After he marries Aunt Fiona!”

  Fenrir looks at me with wide eyes, but I nod to him.

  “Fiona,” Fenrir says, voice confident. “I will ask you something now. Understand the way I am going to do this is not how a human man would do so…but it’s the only way I know how.”

  Fiona looks at me, and then at Cygnus, confusion overtaking her face.

  I smile at her, hoping it will reassure her.

  Suddenly Fenrir grabs her and lifts her up above his head, holding her to the sky.

  “I raise this female above myself!” Fenrir shouts to the gathering crowd.

  Sara starts to laugh, and Aura gives Cygnus a knowing look.

  “I acknowledge her strength and power, and her ability to protect and nurture our future offspring!”

  Aura laughs now too, but there’s tears in her eyes.

  I feel a tightness in my own chest, and a burning emptiness in my gut. This is not something I can have, at least not while the Marauder fleet still threatens humanity.

  “And now, for the—” Fenrir cuts off, looking confused.

  “Improvise it!” Cygnus shouts.

  Fenrir furrows his brows, and his ears pull back. He’s still holding Fiona above his head, and she’s beaming with a wide smile, but I can tell she’s slightly nervous that Fenrir will totally botch this.

  “Normally,” Fenrir says, “I would now speak this female’s Mother Name for this first time! As a promise for future children and her future role as a mother. But this female already has a name. Fiona. I’ve called her many things, but mother or not, she has earned this name already! I proudly call her Fiona.”

  Fenrir puts Fiona down on her feet and draws a blade, pointing it into his own chest, just above his heart.

  I see her eyes widen and she takes a step forward, but Fenrir holds her back. “This too is Marauder tradition. I ask this female—Fiona—to marry me and have children with me. If she should reject me, my shame debt will be so great that I will fall on my own blade, and this female should live on without me--free of all shame debt—to find her true life mate. Do you—“

  “Jesus, Fenrir,” Fiona says, laughing, “Put down the blade, of course I want to marry you, you idiot—“

  He throws the blade down and grabs her, and they hug and kiss each other to thunderous applause.

  After the wedding, and before Fenrir and Fiona’s honeymoon on New Copenhagen, I finally let Cygnus—and now Fenrir—into my full plans.

  “It sounds to me like we already won! This plan is brilliant, except for the part about you leaving for Venus, Aegus, I disagree with this.”

  Fenrir shakes his head. “I agree with the Great Brother. We owe shame debt to humanity for this invasion, and it sounds like your plan has fully absolved us of this debt. The civil war is not our fault.”

  I sigh. “I’m making this sacrifice willingly. My plan is not foolproof—“

  “Then don’t leave us two fools to stay back here and see it through!” Fenrir says. “Help us carry it out, and settle down…”

  “I can’t,” Aegus says. “You both know I’m right. Even if everything goes perfectly, two or three ships from the e
nemy faction could still make it into the solar system. And assuming the friendly ships can arrive early as planned, what happens when they arrive and see civil war? How many Marauders will still believe that humanity is the end of our journey when they arrive and see them killing each other?”

  Fenrir and Cygnus look at each other with lowered ears.

  “You’ll do your part,” I say, “By loving your wives and children. Show humanity that we can help to heal them, that we bring hope with us, and not war.”

  “And what about your mate?” Fenrir says. “You think you don’t deserve one, after all this?”

  “Maybe I’ll find her on Venus,” I say.

  Preview of Book 3 - Marauder Aegus

  1 Anya

  The rockets cut off, and I feel zero-g for the first time in my life. Free from the gravity of Venus, I pull off my safety harness and leap out of the seat.

  “Hey! Sit back down,” Rikon, the smuggler captain, barks at me.

  They’re used to this: being able to fly. But I won’t stay strapped down for this once in a life-time chance.

  One of the smugglers starts unbuckling his harness, but Rikon grunts and waves him off.

  “Let her do whatever, the spoiled brat,” Rikon grunts.

  Kicking off the seat floats me through the tiny shuttle’s cabin, but I misjudged the trajectory and am heading straight toward a seat. With nothing to stop me, all I can do is hold my arms out and brace for impact. I dampen the force with my arms, but I bounce off the seat and hit the ceiling.

  Rikon huffs and crosses his arms.

  “I’m not spoiled,” I say.

  “There’s an old saying...” Rikon starts saying.

  I push off the ceiling and fly through the air again, I feel my stomach churn from the weightlessness and the excitement of finally being free.

  “The grass is always greener,” Rikon says.

  “What does that mean?” I ask, “The grass on Sankt Petersburg is plenty green.”

  “Right,” Rikon shouts, “And Mars doesn’t even have any grass. You’re Spoiled, and you’ll regret this.”

  “You sound like my father,” I mumble to myself.

  I catch hold of a handrail at the back of the shuttle and look out the side window. The thick clouds of venus block out the surface, and as bright as Sankt Petersburg and the other floating cities are, they can’t cut through the thick atmosphere. I start to wonder if I’ll ever see them again, but I stop myself. I’ve made a decision to leave everything behind. For Mars.

  If my father hadn’t decided to marry me off to that pig, maybe I’d have stayed. But giving up my life and happiness to strengthen my family’s position with the Empire is not what I was destined to do.

  “Alright,” Rikon says, “You really need to strap back in now, we’re going to start maneuvering burns to dock into port.”

  I hear a low rumble, and I go from floating gracefully through the cabin to ramming headfirst into the wall.

  “Oops,” Rikon says, “Guess I didn’t warn you in time.”

  He laughs as I crawl into a seat and struggle with the restraints.

  2 Aegus

  I enter the Venusian spaceport in disguise. My bio suit has covered my purple skin with human tan, and I wear a pilot’s helmet to cover my pointy ears. I’m still too tall to pass for Venusian, Earthling, or Martian--but I’m not too tall to pass for a habber. What would someone from the habitats be doing in a pilot’s helmet--alone--on a Venusian spaceport? I hope that no one will ask questions like this, or if they do, I hope that I’ll have stolen a shuttle and be on my way to Sankt Petersburg by then.

  I’ve been in the human system long enough that my biosuit is adapted to their primitive computer systems, and I approach a terminal and put my hand right onto it.

  I’m not supposed to be doing this, but I act like I own the place, and dozens of people walk past and ignore me as I hack into the flight logs.

  There’s a shuttle about to dock, and based on the fudged credentials it looks like smugglers. Stealing from smugglers is ideal, because they won’t report it.

  The terminal tells me they are docking in Terminal 12, so I walk toward it with purpose. As long as I move with purpose, I minimize the risk someone will ask my what the hell I’m doing on the spaceport.

  General Bahamut--from the Empire--is still on Sankt Petersburg, and security on the spaceport is higher than normal. Anyone with ties to Mars is especially suspect...and my travel pass shows that I just arrived on a long-haul rig from the red planet.

  I suddenly notice a wide, stocky man planted right in my path. I move aside and don’t slow down, but he shuffles himself right in front of me. I stop in front of him.

  My first instinct as a Marauder is to punch his nose so hard it jams into his brain, but I have to remember I’m supposed to be a habber.

  “Excuse me,” I say, acting impatient.

  “Yeah?” the man grunts, moving back into my path as I try to pass around him.

  From his muscle mass, he must be from Earth or Venus. I’m guessing Earth. No one is more disdainful of habbers than Earthlings, and the hate goes both ways.

  “Fuck this,” I grunt, shoving him and passing by.

  I give him a light shove--a mere fraction of my full power--but it sends him hard enough back that he loses balances and falls flat on his back.

  I keep walking toward Terminal 12, not bothering to look back as I walk.

  If I hadn’t shoved him, I risked that he’d ask for my credentials, and then I’d be one weak lie away from being caught as a Marauder, and the Empire has a huge bounty on my head. Dead or alive.

  With his ass on the ground, I hope that he’s humiliated enough to just walk away before he makes things worse for himself.

  When I near Terminal 12, I see through the window that the shuttle has already docked.

  I find a place to sit tucked away in the corner of Terminal 13. When the smugglers enter the spaceport, they won’t even see me unless they look back. And even if they do, they’ll think I’m just waiting for another shuttle.

  They start to enter the spaceport from the loading tunnel, and one look at them is all I need to confirm they are indeed smugglers--or at least men who operate outside of the law. They have scraggly beards, tattoos all up their necks, and they move like men who know how to fight.

  Not one of them spares a look back at me, but then I see a woman.

  She’s dressed like the rest of them, in a greasy jumpsuit, but she looks out of her element. The jumpsuit looks wrong on her, and she tugs at it as if she’s never worn something so dirty and utilitarian in her life. And she does turn around, looking right at me.

  My visor is up, and I’m sitting with my shoulders back, but the piercing blue of her eyes, and her striking features make me sit bolt upright.

  She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and to accomplish my mission, I need to ignore her. To let her go.

  I hit the switch on my helmet, and the visor falls down, covering my face from her view. But I can still see her, and though I know I should close my eyes or look away, I can’t make myself do it.

  She stares a moment longer, but turns around when a bigger smuggler tugs on her arm. She starts to walk away, and I start to breathe again.

  “Not yet...not yet…” I mutter to myself. I have to finish my mission--my duty--before I can allow myself a mate.

  But what if she was the only one for me? And what if I never see her again?

  As if in answer, the whole group of smugglers stops dead in their tracks, and I see them waving their hands up and down.

  Soon they start to look backward, and finally I see someone pointing. Right at me.

  It’s the guy I shoved over.

  I stand up and raise my visor to get a clear look.

  The woman has turned back around too, and she frowns as she watches the smugglers start to step toward me.

  I do stand up now, realizing what has likely happened.

  The smugglers f
an out, with their leader in the middle. The leader is a big man with a big gut, but he has a cunning look in his eyes, and he still looks strong despite his heft.

  As difficult as it is, I let the woman fall to my peripheral vision, and I assess the threat before me.

  Five men--six if you count the guy I knocked over earlier--all moving toward me. From the way they reach behind their backs, I assume they’re armed. Security here is tight, so at best they are packing shivs.

  I grin. They may as well fight me with toothpicks.

  There’s plenty of room behind me to run, but the shuttle I need is right here, and I’ll have to steal it immediately after I kill these men--before they can lock down the port.

  Terminal 12 and 13 are less populated than most of the port, and after taking one look at the smugglers’ scowls, all onlookers start to scurry away from us. They know what’s going to happen here.

  3 Anya

  The beautiful man lowers his visor.

  Shit. Was I staring at him? Yes, of course I was staring at him. I’d seen habbers before, but they must have stepped up their genetic engineering, because this one looked absolutely stunning.

  Even from so far away, I could see his high cheekbones and the perfect symmetry of his face. His visor has been down for many heartbeats now, but still I can imagine every line of that beautiful face through the thick tinted glass. I may never forget that face. His nose was strong, and his beautiful green eyes peered deep into my soul despite the distance.

  But I have a ship to catch—I need to leave everything here behind, including insanely hot guys who literally stop me dead in my tracks with one look.

  Rikon elbows me. “Come on!”

  I nod and follow Rikon and his crew through the terminals. The ship we are taking to Mars is waiting for us, but it won’t wait forever.

  I can feel the man’s gaze on me as I walk, and with each step away from him, the urge to turn back and see him again grows. What if I just imagined him? If I turn around, I may see nothing but empty seats, and it will make it so much easier to leave.