The Complete Alien Apocalypse Series
Parts I-IV Plus Bonus Novella
JC Andrijeski
Copyright © 2021 by JC Andrijeski
Published by White Sun Press
Cover Art & Design by White Sun Press (2021)
Ebook Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please visit an official vendor for the work and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
Contents
Synopsis
Acknowledgments
THE CULLING
1. The Culling
2. The Open Hatch
3. The Captain
4. Questions
5. No One Leaves
6. Do You Swim?
7. The Tunnel
8. Tagged & Bagged
9. Artifacts
10. Lunch With The Enemy
11. Demonstration
12. What Is It?
13. Baby Dragon
14. Baby Kings
15. Disorientation
16. Race Traitor
17. Part Of Something
18. One Of Us
THE ROYALS
1. The Prince
2. Searching For Water
3. The Choice
4. Training
5. Dressing The Part
6. Venom
7. Interrupted
8. Dinner
9. Mistake
10. Running out of Time
11. Weird Spatial Thing
12. The Other Rings
13. You’re Like Me
14. Whose Bed Is It Anyway
15. The Day Of
16. The Judges
17. Going Home
18. Orientating
19. Underworld
20. Great White Bear
21. Command Ship
22. Samurai
23. Debriefing
24. A Night Out
25. Not An Earthquake
26. A New Queen
THE NEW ORDER
1. Have A Care
2. Not Amused
3. The Ceremony
4. The Giant Woman
5. Palace Intrigue
6. The Incident
7. Loose Ends
8. Left Alone
9. Distracted
10. Water
11. Family
12. Toy Surprise
13. Two Faces
14. The Truth About Richter
15. A Real Sky
16. Finally Seen
17. Venom Dreams
18. The Dark Side
19. Spectator
20. House Pet
21. Retribution
22. The Shinkara
23. Death Run
24. The Long Run
THE REBELLION
1. Slave Girl
2. Waking Up
3. Owned
4. Museum
5. The Meeting
6. Who Are You?
7. Not As Alone As You Think
8. She’s Your Friend
9. Going To A Party
10. You Don’t Know Much, Do You?
11. Drugged And Confused
12. The Devil
13. The Domino
14. You Must Choose
15. Final Run
16. Moonless
17. The Maze
18. Heading Home
19. End Of The Line
20. Murderer
21. The Prince
22. The Rebellion
23. The Explanation
24. Many Mammals Swim
25. The Dark
26. The Light
27. Mission Parameters
28. The Loran Stone
29. Two Races
30. The Choice
31. Trazen
Epilogue
THE RINGS FIGHTER
1. The Pens
2. A Strange Bed
3. The Ringmaster’s House
4. The Girl Fighter
5. The Favor
6. The Renegotiation
7. The Night
8. The New Day
What to read next: ROOK (Bridge & Sword #1)
What to read next: NEW YORK (A Bridge & Sword Novel)
Reviews are Author Hugs
Join the Light Brigade!
Sample Pages
1
Sample Pages
1
2
List of Book Titles
About the Author
Synopsis
The complete Alien Apocalypse series! An apocalyptic, romantic, science fiction alien adventure with a futuristic coliseum!
Includes all four novels in the ALIEN APOCALYPSE series, a dystopian, post-apocalyptic science fiction romance centered around heroine Jet Tetsuo, a human raised on Earth after being conquered by an alien race known as the Nirreth.
Includes the following:
THE CULLING (Part I): Jet is a 19-year-old skag, one of the humans still living free on Earth following an invasion of creatures called the Nirreth. Her whole life changes when she is “culled” by an alien ship while scavenging in old Vancouver.
THE ROYALS (Part II): A slave of the Nirreth Royals, Jet becomes a Rings fighter, the first female human to ever claim that title. Of course, everyone expects Jet to die in the first match, but the way events are unfolding with the Royals, she’ll be lucky to make it there at all.
THE NEW ORDER (Part III): Jet’s new role as the prince’s consort presents even more dangers than being a Rings fighter. For one thing, a lot more people want to kill her. Worse, Ringmaster Trazen remains as obsessed with Jet as ever.
THE REBELLION (Part IV): In the fourth and final chapter, Jet finds herself a slave in the home of her mortal enemy, Trazen, and desperate to escape. But events swiftly unfold that show her nothing is what it seems, not even Trazen himself.
Praise for THE ALIEN APOCALYPSE SERIES:
"SO looking forward to the rest of the series, you have me totally hooked and craving more..." ~ Shannon Mayer, USA Today bestselling author
“A must-read for sci-fi enthusiasts!” ~ The Masquerade Crew
“Protagonists and antagonists are never simplistic - they have personal agendas and, as a reader, I can never quite predict what will happen…” ~ SM Johnson, author of the DeVante series
"[A] detailed world with plenty of action, mystery, and a strong yet believable young female protagonist..." ~ Tamela Viglione, award-winning author of Buck
Acknowledgments
A huge thanks to all of my writing buddies beta readers and editors, including and especially S.M. Johnson, Michael Bellomo, Tamela Viglione, Thomas Carpenter and Amelia Craigen. Additional thanks to my family for being so supportive of my writing, including my parents Vincent and Carol Andrijeski, my sister and her husband, Kathy and Junji (Dr. Jay) Uemura, my brother and his wife, Stephen and Donna Andrijeski, and my awesome nieces and nephews, Maya, Derek and Naomi Uemura and Samantha and Alexander Andrijeski.
Love you all a ton!
Copyright © 2014 by JC Andrijeski
Published by White Su
n Press
Cover Art & Design by Damonza (2014)
www.damonza.com
Ebook Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please visit an official vendor for the work and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
1
The Culling
Jet slammed her back against the wall of the ruined warehouse, panting.
Crouched down by the moldy cement bricks, she fought to make her breathing silent. Her sword dug into her spine in the middle of her back, but she barely felt it.
Panic filled her, making her sweat in the chill, early morning air.
She was too late. Surely, they’d seen her.
They always said it happened this way.
The older adults warned her for years about this kind of thing; they warned everyone, all the time. It never happened when you were looking for trouble. It happened when you were going about your regular business of living.
Just a few seconds of letting your guard down, a few seconds of inattention.
That was all it took.
Being in the wrong place at the wrong time, letting your mind wander, daydreaming, getting too focused on the immediate, and losing sight of the periphery.
Those were the real recipes for death.
That was how you got disappeared, taken without warning.
Jet hadn’t even heard the cullers when their engines glided overhead.
She didn’t notice a damned thing––not until they’d already gotten a lock on her bio-reading and slid lower in the sky for a closer look.
She’d been lost in her thoughts, thinking about what she had that she might be able to barter with Everest to get some fresh eggs. She’d brought a few shirts her mother made, nearly brand new, and she had some fish, some apples from the orchard, even some plums that weren’t too moldy from the never-ending rains.
Everest wasn’t often tempted by fish, but the fruit might work, she’d been thinking.
Yes, if he was in the mood, the fruit might work.
Like as not, he’d want something from her she wasn’t willing to give.
One of her knives, maybe. Sword-fighting lessons.
Or he might try for something more personal, since she’d come alone.
It had been stupid to come alone, but that was one of those thoughts it was easy to torture herself with in retrospect, too.
Jet had been thinking about her little brother, Biggs, in between her more practical thoughts about trading and bringing back real protein for a change. She’d noticed Biggs hanging around the docks a lot lately. It might be innocent enough, but the fumes down there, especially this time of year, were bad enough that she couldn’t help but be suspicious.
She’d heard talk about meetings happening at the docks lately. Secret meetings, as well as the more open, recruiting kind. She hoped like hell that Biggs wasn’t dumb enough to get sucked into the rhetoric of the rebels, but she feared the worst.
She’d seen that look in his eyes before.
It had gotten more intense lately.
Anyway, Jet knew how obsessive he could be, how single-minded.
She’d noticed him reading more, and a lot of the book covers were new, and didn’t come from the library they shared with their longhouse families.
He did his best to hide it from her, but she’d also seen him practicing more with the bow, and even once with one of her old, wooden, practice swords. He was only thirteen, but she knew they recruited a lot younger than that. The rebels had been coming by the camps more often lately, trying to recruit younger and younger, likely because they’d run out of full-blown adults willing to become their cannon fodder, fighting the Nirreth.
Jet even understood.
It was the same reason she practiced with her sword, day in and day out, even when she had no reason to use it. Nothing was worse than sitting around, waiting to be picked off like sheep.
The rebels talked a good talk, about honor and sacrifice and standing up for the race.
They seemed like an alternative at times, even to her.
But she’d buried too many in their settlement to be all that convinced.
Anyway, the more cynical side of her pointed out that a lot of those rebels were smugglers. She’d heard tell that even Richter had been seen trading with the Nirreth, and supposedly he had more rancor for the invaders than most.
All smugglers and bandits were known to cut corners, especially when it came to dealing with the Nirreth and their “watch” squads.
Who knew if those same rebellion leaders were selling some of the local kids to the cullers, to get the authorities to look the other way?
All of that had been going through Jet’s mind as she walked.
She’d thought about how she might talk to Biggs about it, or at least get him to visit the crumbling lighthouse near the sound, where old Chiyeko lived. Chiyeko might get him to see reason. Biggs always got along well with the old woman, better than Jet did, truthfully. He might even listen, if Chiyeko told him to leave the rebels alone.
Jet lost herself in half-baked thoughts around her brother, Biggs, the rebels.
She’d even had a long, detailed, and totally made-up argument with Biggs about the rebels in her head.
That’s when she felt the wind of the culler’s hovercraft.
A warm, hot wind. It had a distinctive smell, like the smell that followed lightning after it struck the earth. Jet felt that whisper of wind and it crawled down her spine like a living thing. Adrenaline flooded her bloodstream, bringing bile to her throat.
After a split-second of paralysis…
She ran.
She sprinted for the nearest cover, a narrow alley off the main street where she’d been walking. She’d been keeping off the main road, the center road, but that alone wasn’t enough. Like always, Jet walked under the eaves of the buildings and out of the sunlight, but that wasn’t enough, either.
It was never enough to stay roughly out of sight, not when one traveled on a road wide enough for the culler hovercrafts to patrol.
Her mother drilled that into Jet since she first learned to walk.
She’d been watching her feet, instead of the skies, like she should have.
She’d been listening to her thoughts, not to the birds, or the wind, or the rustle of paper and dirt, or any change in direction in the shifting air of the street.
Otherwise, she would have seen, a hair’s breadth sooner, that the paper had begun to swirl and dance lightly from the hovercraft’s exhaust. She would have noticed the birds had grown silent. Jet did notice these things, but that tiny gap in her awareness was enough to make the difference between “just soon enough” and “too late.”
It was enough for her to feel the wind of the hovercraft on the back of her neck.
Jet sprinted to cover, deep in the shadows of the alley.
Once fully in the dark, she waited.
She crouched there, unwilling to risk moving until she could see the ship.
Fighting to keep even her breath silent, she stayed where she was, peering up at the sky to try and determine if the glider’s pilots had, indeed, spotted her. Movement without cause was risky. She’d learned that young, too. Most people who got caught did so because they panicked and couldn’t stop running.
Running from the Nirreth was like waving a red flag in front of a bull.
If they hadn’t seen her, they might just pass by.
If they hadn’t seen her, running would only be more likely to get her noticed.
If they had seen her, running wouldn’t save her. Once she started to run, they would give chase no matter whether they were trawling for skags or not. It was hardwired into t
he Nirreth’s instincts to chase anything that ran.
Humans who ran got culled.
These rules had been hammered into Jet’s brain so frequently and so vehemently that to hear them, to think them, was like breathing. The words whispered through her mind like a mantra, more of a prayer than even a reminder, a reassurance that if she followed the rules, she just might get out of this alive.
The Complete Alien Apocalypse Series (Parts I-IV Plus Bonus Novella): An Apocalyptic, Romantic, Science Fiction, Alien Invasion Adventure Page 1