The Complete Alien Apocalypse Series (Parts I-IV Plus Bonus Novella): An Apocalyptic, Romantic, Science Fiction, Alien Invasion Adventure

by JC Andrijeski

  Laksri hated the idea of Jet being stung by other Nirreth almost as much as Jet did, and not only because they couldn’t afford to let Trazen, Al-En Mosq, Metzet or any other Nirreth in power get that close to Jet’s real thoughts and feelings.

  It would be a death sentence for all of them if Jet’s real motives and thoughts got exposed, especially to someone like Trazen, who wouldn’t hesitate to send them all to Retribution if he discovered the partnership between Laksri and Richter.

  Thankfully, all arguments around stinging her were now moot.

  Jet had attained the status of royalty, or as close as she could, as a human. That meant, in part, that rich Nirreth couldn’t go around offering money to have sex with her.

  Not only that, Laks could now refuse anyone he wanted.

  He didn’t even need a reason.

  Further, his security trumped even his own preferences.

  The Royal Guard would never have allowed it, even if Laksri had been okay with loaning Jet out to his new elite “friends.” No one could be allowed that kind of access to the First Son’s mate, whatever their race. They wouldn’t allow any Nirreth, no matter how loyal-seeming, access to the Prince’s thoughts, even by proxy, much less the strategic information he held simply due to his position.

  Laksri made it pretty clear he wouldn’t tolerate it from Jet, in any case.

  Well, not in terms of their relationship, that is.

  They hadn’t talked about exclusivity in so many words, but Laksri hadn’t exactly hidden his feelings on the subject, either.

  He still watched her warily whenever Anaze happened to be around, even though nothing had ever happened between Jet and Richter’s son… well, other than that one kiss behind the Trevi fountain the first night Jet spent in the Green Zone, and that had been more than a little one-sided. Laksri had even less tolerance for the Nirreth males who tried to touch Jet and sting her following big Rings matches.

  They greeted her in mobs now outside the changing-room apartments, fighting to get close enough to collect strands of her hair, or keepsakes from her soiled clothes.

  Laksri knocked one of those down personally, hissing at him in an undisguised threat when the “fan” tried to position his tail within stinging range of Jet’s leg.

  That happened before Laksri had been named First Son.

  Since that time, the Royal Guard did most of the actual head-knocking following Jet’s matches. Laksri remained with her, however, usually with his tail poised in a threatening arc and Jet positioned firmly in front of his larger body.

  Although it irritated her at times, Jet didn’t mind Laksri’s possessiveness, per se.

  Getting stung by some other Nirreth wasn’t high on her list of wants, even by someone as relatively benign as a fan. The idea of getting stung by Al-En Mosq, or worse, Trazen, made her feel sick, and not only because of what might happen to all of them if they got found out.

  Besides, as much as she avoided the topic with reporters, along with Richter, Anaze and anyone else who asked, Jet thought of Laks as her boyfriend.

  The thing with Laksri might be less weird if it wasn’t also her first relationship with anyone, including any humans. The skag pits hadn’t exactly been conducive to that kind of thing, so really, it wasn’t that weird, at least not to Jet, but she knew others might not agree.

  The fact that her first sexual relationship happened to be with a middle-aged lizard-skin wasn’t something Jet let herself think about very often, but she didn’t really mind.

  She glanced over the row of benches on the other side of the transparent wall marking the edge of the Rings course. Her eyes found Laksri at once, and remained on him when she saw the brooding expression on his dark face.

  Noticing her stare, he motioned subtly with his head towards the other side of the arena.

  Only then did Jet notice Anaze sitting beside him, an occurrence unusual enough to heighten her attention on its own.

  Anaze focused intently in the same direction Laksri just indicated.

  Hesitating only a breath, Jet followed their eyes.

  Al-En Mosq stood there, his round form hunched against the wall.

  Encased in form-fitting black pants and a tunic of dark brown embroidered with black and yellow threads, he didn’t return Jet’s stare, but instead watched another human, his dark eyes glittering with an emotion that might have been greed, perhaps even lust.

  The way he stood there, his overweight body hunched over itself, peering out of the darkness of his fleshy face, reminded Jet of a mole, or a sewer rat. Even though she knew it had been forty or fifty years ago now, and most of his muscle would have turned to fat, Jet still couldn’t imagine him running in the Rings, much less being an undefeated champion.

  Her eyes shifted to the object of the ex-Ringmaster’s stare.

  Immediately, she understood Laksri’s frown.

  The largest human woman Jet had ever seen in her life stood there.

  The woman’s face sat on almost no neck, blocky and white above a sense-suit collar.

  She wore the same type of form-fitting black outfit Jet wore, but unlike Jet, her muscles strained every seam of the dense fabric, bulging like they’d been drawn for a comic book.

  One of her arms probably matched the width of one of Jet’s legs.

  The woman’s legs each looked to be thicker than the width of Jet’s hips.

  Even beyond her wrestler-sized body, the woman stood taller than Anaze, who had to be over 1.86 meters on his own.

  She was a monster.

  Jet heard rumors about other female human candidates, of course. She even heard rumors about “super-sized” humans who’d been created in the Nirreth genetic labs. Still, until today, she hadn’t actually seen one with her own eyes.

  How had Al-En Mosq gotten permission to buy and train his own candidate, without anyone calling foul on him from the Rings Board or the Rings Judges?

  Jet watched the woman do curl-ups on one of the gymnasium’s high bars, wondering if she was even a full-blooded human. She looked like some kind of half-Nirreth, half-human hybrid, or maybe a radiation-dosed mutant human.

  She certainly looked nothing like the underfed, wiry girls Jet remembered from the skag pits. Even the toughest and largest of those only weighed about a third of this woman.

  Supposedly, the Boards banned genetically-manipulated creatures of any race from the Rings. Even so, Jet found herself frowning, watching the woman’s muscles ripple and tense as she did another curl-up, touching her chin to the metal bar with casual precision.

  She did another while Jet watched, and another… and another.

  She did them without pause, seemingly without exertion. Smoothly, easily, uniformly.

  Like a machine.

  Her face had all the expressiveness of a machine, too.

  The woman must have close to half a meter in height on Jet, and maybe forty to fifty kilos in weight. She made her previous rival, Tyra, look positively kitten-like.

  Watching this new woman continue to do pull-ups like an automaton, Jet felt tension spreading over all of her muscles.

  She jerked her eyes off the woman when she caught Al-En Mosq smiling visibly in her direction. Even so, she caught the sensual movements of his tail as he watched her stare, well enough to know he was getting off on her nervousness.

  He’d seen her looking at his candidate, and clearly, he liked watching her sweat.

  Jet turned back towards Laksri.

  Seeing his eyes on her, she smiled, giving him a grim nod.

  Laksri smiled faintly in return, but that other look didn’t leave his eyes. From the sting he’d delivered about an hour earlier, Jet found herself thinking Laks had also noticed Al-En Mosq’s reaction to her stare.

  “Are you quite finished flirting with your lizard, Jet?” a clipped voice asked from her left. The woman’s heavily-accented cadence didn’t disguise the genuine annoyance underneath. “…Should I give you a moment alone with him? Or can you both wait until we
finish? It is only your life, after all. What is it to me?”

  Jet met the gaze of her human trainer, Alice Rajpoor.

  Seeing the woman’s exasperated look, she grinned a little, in spite of herself.

  Alongside the real irritation in the woman’s voice, she saw the warning in her eyes, too, and found herself thinking it wasn’t all about Laksri.

  So Al-En Mosq wasn’t the only one who’d seen where Jet’s eyes rested in those few seconds.

  “Who’s that?” Jet said. “Do you know anything about her?”

  Alice frowned, her hands on her hips.

  Despite her small size, Jet always got the feeling Alice had been some kind of professional fighter, as well. A real one maybe, one who didn’t fight to entertain. Whatever her background, Alice got fighting in a way most people didn’t; Jet strongly got the impression the smaller woman was used to playing for keeps.

  She reminded Jet of Mishio, back at the skag pits.

  “How would I know who that is, mammal?” Alice said. “I am your crystal ball? Your all-seeing gypsy? Is it because of my coloring, you think this? I am your exotic?”

  Jet sighed, hands on her hips.

  “Do you know, or not?” When Alice’s frown only deepened, Jet exhaled louder. “How about just telling me something, for a change? Richter can’t possibly have you on that tight of a leash.”

  Alice’s eyes swiveled to Jet’s, widening.

  For an instant, Jet saw real anger in them.

  Then the look faded, leaving a dismissive look in its stead.

  “What makes you think I would do anything that buffoon told me to do?” Alice said.

  “Don’t we all?” Jet said, smiling wryly. “Dance Richter’s little dances? Clap our little cymbals when he demands it?”

  “Speak for yourself, mammal.” Alice sniffed. “I am not on anyone’s leash. That is only for lizard-skin whores, like you.”

  Jet might have been offended by that, a few months ago.

  She’d started to figure Alice out a little, though, including her diversionary tactics.

  From the beginning, Alice had been unnervingly good at getting Jet’s mind off a particular line of questioning she didn’t want Jet following.

  Usually Alice did that for her own reasons, including jabbing at Jet when she was getting too personal, or too distracted away from her work in the Rings. Jet knew Alice took her job seriously as her trainer, whatever her pretend indifference.

  Jet also suspected Alice cared a lot about whether Jet won.

  It could have been professional pride or it could have been something else entirely, but Jet didn’t think she imagined it.

  Studying Alice’s face, she found herself thinking she’d hit a nerve that time.

  So Richter was a sore spot with Alice, too.

  Right before she looked away, Jet was surprised to see a smile grow on Alice’s dark face. The same look reflected in a shrewdness around her dark brown eyes.

  “I think you do all right, Jet,” she said, her voice uncharacteristically soft. “Just keep your eyes open, eh? And stop letting them see you are afraid.”

  Before Jet could come up with a response, the trainer smacked her sharply on the back with the flat of her hand, her lips curling into a frown.

  “Now move your ass!” she said, returning to her normal voice. “Two more days until the next match! I don’t want to spend my afternoon that day, scraping bits of you off the equipment. I’d rather find my own Nirreth boyfriend. Eat food, watch a movie, then have sex with him before I sleep…”

  Giving Jet another, harder look, she motioned towards the nearest set of gun turrets.

  “We start the next simulation. Fifteen seconds. You not ready, I go home. Take a bath and drink vodka, complain to my gypsy gods about my useless mammal athlete.”

  Jet snorted a laugh, in spite of herself.

  She didn’t argue, though.

  Instead, she fell into a combat crouch, facing their section of the arena.

  She waited for Alice’s cue.

  Even so, her eyes drifted to the other side of the arena, where she found Al-En Mosq watching her. Next to him, the massive female human stood staring at her as well, her thick arms folded in front of that inhumanly large torso, her face as expressionless as a doll’s.

  Maybe not a doll.

  Maybe more like a wolf… or a shark.

  Looking away, Jet shook her head, irritated with herself for reacting.

  Alice was right.

  Big or not, Al-En Mosq’s new woman she was just a woman, like her. Her size might even slow her down, which could potentially give Jet the advantage. Her uncle always said the faster opponent usually won in hand-to-hand… at least if the fight stayed off the ground.

  Once the fight went to ground, the advantage went to the best grappler.

  The Rings were like any fight.

  You could freak yourself out and lose if you got lost in your own head. Some fighters liked to play head games for that very reason, to get under their opponent’s skin, psyche them out, rattle them, or just piss them off enough to lose their cool.

  Still, something about that dead-eyed stare bothered Jet.

  Truthfully, it bothered her a lot.

  5

  Palace Intrigue

  “Yep,” Richter said. He plopped his weight on the grass in front of the domestic animal pens, leaning on the wooden wall. “It’s like we thought…”

  He stretched out his legs, favoring the one on the left, Jet noticed.

  She watched him warily, even as she sat on one of the folding chairs placed on the grass by a member of Laksri’s security team.

  She still hadn’t gotten the hang of talking openly in front of other people.

  By “other people” she meant anyone who wasn’t Laksri, Richter or Anaze.

  Feeling the stares of the four Nirreth security guards behind her, knowing they were listening to everything she said, tails lashing behind their backs, made Jet nervous.

  She knew they were Richter’s, that appearances had to be maintained, that she and Laks were royalty now, and couldn’t just disappear into one of the basement gardens with Richter for one of their chats like they had before the coronation.

  None of it reassured her.

  “…He’s requested a challenge match,” Richter added, giving Jet a direct stare. “The Boards said no until his mutant qualifies… which both Al-En Mosq and Trazen must have known they’d say. They want you to know they’re gunning for you. Trazen especially, I’d wager. It’s the same reason he’s got Al-En Mosq training her out in the open, even though most pre-trials contestants are stuck in the pre-arena until they qualify.”

  Richter gave Jet a more serious look.

  “The Boards won’t deny them for long, kitten,” he added. “Trazen’s already arranged everything legally for when she fights. He’s gotten special permission to use a replacement judge for Al-En Mosq on the matches she runs, and recused him from official duties for any fights against her direct opponents.

  “That includes you, Jet,” he added sourly. “Trazen’s got Al-En Mosq sitting with the judges on lizard-skin matches only… and those with male human prisoners, who haven’t yet been cleared to fight the females, even human ones. Al-En Mosq said he’ll do this until he’s satisfied she can run with a new trainer, without him. Trazen got the Board to okay it.”

  “What’s her name?” Jet said, folding her arms.

  Richter gave her a disbelieving look.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes,” she said. “It does. Especially since you want me to try and kill her.”

  Richter’s eyes narrowed, their coffee color a near-amber under the artificial sunlight.

  “Bukka,” he said, blunt. “It’s… African or something. Dutch? Shit, I don’t know. Bukka Rudhi, or something like that.” He looked up at Laksri, grunting. “She’s serious?”

  Laksri didn’t answer.

  Richter gave Jet a flat look.

  “
Blame me all you want, sweetheart, but you’d better get your head in the game. You’re going to have to face her soon. If you hesitate… or start having fluffy feelings about her as a fellow human… you might just find yourself bleeding from a gut wound on the arena floor.”

  Jet grunted, running a hand through her hair to get it out of her eyes.

  She ignored Laksri’s appraising look as her long, black hair settled back on her shoulders. She still hadn’t gotten the hang of wearing it down, where it felt constantly in the way, and where it seemed in constant danger of blinding her whenever a gust of wind caught a handful of strands. But that was part of her image now, too.

  Pulling her mind back to the conversation, she exhaled in annoyance.

  She got Richter’s point.

  She even agreed with him, although she wasn’t about to admit that to him. She couldn’t afford to start thinking of this woman as anything other than a possible death sentence.

  “So… be ready?” she said, giving Richter a look. “You mind defining that for me a little better, Richter? Or should I just start doing push-ups right now, while you all carry on the meeting?”

  Laksri gave a low snort of humor.

  When she glanced at him, he gave her a thin smile, lashing his tail in a more friendly wave than the one he’d aimed at Richter.

  Still, Jet saw the worried look in his dark eyes.

  Those same eyes shifted down the length of her body in the next pause. She could almost feel him thinking how small she was, even for a human. Shifting self-consciously in her chair as Laksri’s appraisal continued, she tried not to remember the smug look she’d seen on Al-En Mosq’s face that morning, or the dead-eyed stare of his pet Neanderthal.

  When Jet looked over next, she saw Anaze staring at her, too.

  The look in his eyes differed from Laksri’s, though.

  If anything, he looked at her with anger, his mouth pursed in a frown that held a thread of puzzlement. She raised an eyebrow at him, tempted to ask, but Anaze’s glance shifted away before she could. She saw that same look pause on Laksri, just long enough for the anger in Anaze’s eyes to intensify.

  Seeing that, Jet folded her arms tighter, biting her tongue.