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

by JC Andrijeski

  She knew Nirreth liked using psychological games to test opponents. Some of those games were expressly calculated to paralyze their targets’ minds, to throw them into some kind of confused, emotional tailspin from which they might not recover.

  Jet knew all this.

  They’d just never done anything so weird to her before.

  Usually, their attempts to unsettle her took more heavy-handed forms.

  She’d seen other humans beaten, eaten, molested, chained, tortured, raped.

  Her trainer, Alice, told her the game pullers would keep experimenting until they found something that really pushed her buttons. Laksri warned her of the same.

  Having that much repeat in her mind managed to pull Jet out of her paralysis, if only by reminding her where she was.

  She was on Trazen’s turf. In Trazen’s mind.

  Nothing was real here. Nothing.

  She pushed off the wall of the mud-brick house, sprinting further up the hill and towards the next set of buildings, which appeared to be larger.

  She needed to find the house with the hostage.

  If she could get to them, whoever they were, and haul them back to the river––meaning, if they weren’t completely immobilized, or missing crucial limbs, or excessively drugged, or insane––she could probably get them out.

  She’d already decided on her exit strategy.

  While the falls probably would have killed her, had she allowed herself to be swept down them before reaching the town, they struck her as her best bet, in terms of being the logical end-point to the actual run. The pullers would want a dramatic finish, so going for the safer-seeming out would probably just get her gunned down by the sniper.

  Unlike in real life, Jet learned that playing it safe in the Rings could get her killed. Like Richter always warned her, it paid to take the Rings seriously, but also to remember that, at base, the Rings were theater.

  Anyway, she hadn’t seen any of those teddy bear things swim.

  She would just have to take the chance that they wouldn’t run her down with some kind of boat before she made it past the falls with her prize. Chances were, she and her hostage should be in the clear if they made it that far… assuming they survived the falls.

  Jet sprinted up the hill, wincing from the deafening screech of alarms as they wound higher, vibrating the air. She unsheathed her sword before she left the shelter of the next set of structures. Coming up behind a guard, she managed to get him from behind, hacking at his neck with the blade and dropping him before he turned.

  She wrestled the gun off him as soon as he was down.

  Exhaling in relief as she threw the strap around her shoulder, she gave herself a few seconds to breathe as she wiped and re-sheathed the sword.

  Looking around the collection of mud huts, she changed direction once she felt herself reach the end of the moving platform from the second level of the arena.

  She was back on the first floor.

  She now had a pretty good idea where they would keep their hostage.

  A cluster of gun turrets lived just fifty meters to her left in the physical arena, which coincided with the largest of the mud-brick structures.

  They would have the hostage there.

  Even if they didn’t, Jet could collect points from the turrets. She even had some hope she’d already gotten enough to keep her average from tanking too dangerously; she might even be able to shove it higher.

  Still, she wanted that hostage.

  Running for the big building, she shot two more guards on the way, then a third on her approach to the back entrance. Once she’d cleared her route, she slung the gun around her back and unsheathed Black.

  Time for a bit of drama.

  Jet wanted some bloody kills to make the crowds go wild and win her style points with the Rings Board.

  Nothing accomplished that better than a bit of blood.

  Keeping the weapons turrets on her left, she skirted around their range, looking for guards around the virtual structures. The back end of the building she’d decided held her hostage had no visible windows or doors, so she crept around the outdoor patio in a crouch.

  Theater, she reminded herself, as she snuck around the edge of the mud-brick and wooden house. Now that she was up close, she could see that the roofs were made up of slate-looking tiles, all the same dark red color. The slate reflected sunlight, giving the buildings a faintly Asian vibe, like something from one of Mishio’s books.

  She managed to cut down four more guards before the house alarm went off.

  Once it did, she sheathed Black again, pulling out the alien gun.

  No reason to be quiet now.

  Besides, theater or not, Jet was back in range of the weapons turrets. She valued her skin more than the drama. Even if those weapons probably wouldn’t kill her outright, getting hit by one would still hurt like hell.

  She rounded another corner of the building, arms tense as she did the math, realizing that in ten more steps she’d be in direct line of at least three weapons turrets, each aiming at her from different directions. Reinforcing her grip on the thick, teddy bear gun, she continued to make her way forward, when suddenly, to her right, she saw a window.

  Not only a window. It was actually open.

  Still holding the gun out in front of her, she peered inside, holding her breath.

  She didn’t see anyone, just an empty room.

  Her eyes scanned the walls, trying to verify that she hadn’t missed anything, a trap of some kind, but her initial assessment remained the same.

  The pullers wanted her to go inside. They’d just given her a free pass.

  That meant Trazen wanted her inside.

  She assessed the room a third time.

  The space was furnished, but in a relatively sparse style. Nothing big enough for one of those things to hide behind, or even big enough to conceal a human.

  A giant fireplace took up most of the dividing wall between her room and the next. Pictures hung on the walls, all of them colorful, but too abstract for her to make sense of the images. The ceilings stretched up six meters, with heavy metal lamps hanging down, along with banner-type rugs that appeared hand-woven. Those, too, had been dyed dramatic colors and were covered with dark symbols––lines and lines of them, as if copied from some ancient text.

  Jet located two doors, one on either side of the stone fireplace. Based on her knowledge of the arena layout, she guessed the one she wanted was on the right.

  Something was wrong.

  She could feel it, but her overall direction remained clear.

  They wanted her inside.

  She made up her mind, exhaling the breath she’d been holding.

  Throwing a leg over the slate window sill, she slid her body throug, gripping the teddy bear gun in both hands. She aimed the gun in front of her once her feet landed silently on the wooden floor.

  She didn’t wait.

  Crossing the length of the wide space, she flickered her gaze to the corners, keeping the gun up as she checked every angle of the space she hadn’t been able to see from the window.

  By then, she more than half-expected a trap.

  Nothing met her in the high-ceilinged room, though.

  All that happened was that Jet grew aware of how muddy and wet she was. She couldn’t help but wince at the tell-tale tracks she left on the blonde wood of the floor, like painting an arrow to where she’d gone. But there was nothing she could do about that now.

  It just gave her another reason to hurry.

  Jet sped her feet, walking as quietly as she could but still limping from her hurt leg as she closed the gap to the right-side doorway. Opening the door and peering past it, she checked both corners, fighting to see into the darker space.

  Once her eyes adjusted, she found exactly what she’d expected to find, based on her knowledge of the physical arena. A steep, wooden staircase ascended up in the darkness, leading to a door on the second floor.

  Jet began ascending care
fully.

  The stairs creaked and sighed, but she kept her pace steady.

  Holding the gun out in front of her, she made it all the way to the top without hearing so much as a peep from up ahead. Even so, she waited a full beat before reaching for the handle to the one and only door on the upper floor landing.

  This had been way too easy. It had to be a trap.

  It had to be.

  Panting from adrenaline, she half-expected someone to jerk the door from her fingers, to blow her away where she stood.

  No one did.

  She fought to control her breathing as she grasped the door’s handle. Unlike the ones she’d seen in this virtual world up until now, it looked like something she would see at the skag pits. Round, with a crude lock in the center, it looked human.

  Jet stared at it for a few seconds longer, then began to turn it with her hurt hand, still holding the alien gun in her good one.

  Turning the knob as quietly as she could, she pushed the door open.

  A man sat there, in the middle of the room, bound to a chair with rope.

  Human, he was on the small-side.

  Dirty uniform pants clung to his legs, like the kind they used to wear back at the pits. His boots had holes that looked familiar, and the coarse shirt he wore had turned gray from countless washings, although it must have been a different color once. His back was to her, his nearly-black hair cinched by what looked like a cloth gag.

  He was muscular. Wiry. Malnourished.

  His skin looked grayish, like the shirt he wore and the powder on his leather boots.

  That was familiar, too.

  Jet had that same gray cast to her own skin before she moved to the Green Zone and started eating the greenhouse-grown food of the Nirreth. The man in front of her could have been any one of the boys she grew up with, from his clothing and build. They all took on the same feral look after a while, eating the poisoned food of the pits and living underground.

  Jet swallowed.

  She stared at his back for a split second more before her eyes darted around the rest of the room, taking in its plain lines. Made entirely of wood, the room had none of the elegance of the hall downstairs. Crude, shack-like, it had a single, four-paned window with a wooden sash, no furniture apart from the human-like chair to which the man had been tied.

  It looked like a room in Mishio’s old cabin.

  In fact, it looked exactly like it.

  Enough to briefly stop Jet’s breath once she realized how well she knew it.

  Forcing herself to move, to remember the muddy footprints she’d tracked through the hall downstairs, she approached the man on the chair. As she did, something in those hunched shoulders nagged at her. Something about his build, the way he sat there, even the cowlick on the back of his head, sending his hair in a weird spiral.

  It occurred to her that he was younger than she’d first thought, more of a boy than a man, despite his height.

  Edging around where he’d been bound, Jet gripped the gun tighter, still holding it out in front of her.

  Her eyes continued to dart around the room, taking in the unadorned walls.

  She saw no one. She saw no evidence that anyone else had been in here recently, despite the fact that he was obviously a prisoner.

  He had to be the objective. He had to be her capture-the-flag.

  He had to be.

  Jet fought puzzlement, and a growing unease.

  Shifting her weight sideways, she bit her lip, moving further to the right and forward, so she could see the face of the man bound there.

  Once his features came into view, Jet froze, staring, the gun still held out in front of her.

  Her breath stopped.

  Her eyes locked on his, unable to look away.

  It was Biggs.

  It was her brother, Biggs.

  13

  Two Faces

  Slamming the door to the locker room, Jet shoved off the two attendants who immediately approached to help her take off the sense-suit.

  She barely slowed her pace as she began walking up the ramp, feeling her teeth clench hard enough to hurt when she saw Richter’s broad smile, his arms held out in mocking triumph.

  “You pulled it off, pet!” he grinned. “I must say, I’m impressed!”

  “Get the hell out of my way, Richter.”

  She spat the words as she stalked up the ramp.

  She didn’t slow her pace as she moved to walk around him on the incline. Richter, seeming to see something in her face, took a step to his left to block her, but Jet barely hesitated, shoving him aside with her hurt hand without meeting his gaze.

  “Hey!” he called after her. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

  Jet didn’t answer.

  Richter jogged to catch up with her. When he got alongside her once more, he reached for her arm, but she jerked it violently away.

  “Calm down, kitten…” he said, his voice huffing as he ran up to her. “Jesus. Think about what you’re doing for a minute…”

  He tried to grab her again.

  That time, Jet reached back behind her, gripping the hilt of Black and giving Richter a hard, meaningful stare without slowing her steps.

  After the barest hesitation, he lowered his arm, frowning while continuing to pace her.

  “You can’t go in there, pet. You can’t. He’s the lead Rings Operator, for Christ’s sake…”

  Jet barely heard him.

  Making her way up the last segment of ramp, she shoved open the double doors without slowing, barely feeling the pain in either her hand or her leg as she entered the brightly-lit corridor. She aimed her feet for the slope leading to the control room, ignoring the gasp from a well-dressed Nirreth who flattened her back to the corridor wall as Jet stalked by.

  “She’s quite savage, isn’t she?” her male companion murmured appreciatively in Nargili, swishing his tail as he watched her pass.

  The female let out a trilling laugh.

  Jet was already rounding the next corner. She barely looked at the Nirreth sitting on a chair outside the control room door. Walking directly to the panel, she hit in the sequence to open it, even as he leapt to his feet.

  “Hey!” he said in the Nirreth tongue. “What are you doing?”

  Jet ignored him, walking through the opening before the doors managed to disappear into the walls.

  She ignored the blank-eyed stares of the Nirreth sitting at terminals around the room, oblivious to how she must look, covered in blood and wearing a ripped-up, wet, filthy sense-suit, her hair a tangled mass around her head. Her entire focus centered on the large male Nirreth bent over a glowing, round table in the middle of the otherwise white-washed space.

  He was speaking quietly to one of the lead pullers.

  “Just what the hell do you think you’re playing at, Trazen?” she snarled.

  The room fell utterly silent.

  Trazen looked up.

  Jet saw his dark eyes widen, taking in her appearance in stunned disbelief.

  Angry to the point of unreason at the bewilderment she saw in his stare, she reached behind her head, unsheathing her sword in one, fluid motion.

  That got their attention.

  The Nirreth at the terminals, the majority being more techie-types than fighters, rose and backed away from the shining blade, almost to a one. They let out dismayed hisses and clicks as they gave both her and Black as much space as the room allowed.

  Only Trazen didn’t move.

  His tail flicked in a hard arc, but otherwise, he didn’t seem to react.

  He stared her down, a subtle but growing sharpness in his eyes.

  Behind her, Jet heard a stampede of Nirreth feet. She half-braced herself to be shot, but even as the thought crossed her mind, Trazen raised a four-fingered hand, motioning sharply at whoever stood there.

  “No!” he said in Nargili. “No… do not harm her!”

  “Sir! We apologize, we have no idea how she got past––”

/>   “Silence!” Trazen said.

  He flicked his tail hard sideways, then in another aggressive arc. He looked around the room, his dark eyes opaque, impossible to read.

  After a bare pause, he seemed to make up his mind.

  Gesturing sharply towards the crew of pullers, he raised his voice.

  “Out!” he said. “All of you, out!”

  Jet stood there, biting her lip to remain silent, still so filled with rage she could barely see straight, her limbs trembling with adrenaline and emotion.

  She stood there, fighting to control herself as the Nirreth began to comply with Trazen’s command. She barely spared them a glance as they filed out of the room around her, muttering amongst themselves and staying as far away from her sword as they could.

  “Sir,” a guard said behind her. “Are you sure you should be alone with––”

  “Shut the door,” Trazen said.

  “Sir, I do not think––”

  “Your job isn’t to think. It is to obey,” Trazen said coldly. “Shut the door. Now.”

  Jet felt her jaw harden more.

  She didn’t move. She was too angry to be afraid of him this time.

  She felt the guard behind her hesitate.

  Laksri’s banning of Trazen from contact with Jet hadn’t exactly been a private affair. They all knew what happened. They all knew Trazen wasn’t supposed to be alone with her. Maybe Trazen was betting his own guard would be more loyal to him than the First Son.

  As it turned out, he was right.

  “Understood, sir,” the guard said. “We will be outside, if you need us.”

  “I won’t,” Trazen said, giving Jet a laden stare.

  Jet heard the door close.

  Before she could open her mouth, Trazen leapt over the glowing table, darting across the room to close the space between them. He moved swiftly, silently, coming within a few yards of her in seconds. Jet raised Black instinctively, sure he was about to attack. She was ready to swing the blade when he stopped dead, holding up a hand while maintaining a healthy distance from the sword.

  Jet stared in disbelief as he put a finger to his lips, pointing around at the space, indicating surveillance.

  Still holding up the sword, Jet watched in bewilderment as he raised a long finger again, that time indicating for her to wait, to give him a minute. She stared as he unwrapped the portable monitor from where it cinched his wrist, unfolding it in seconds and frantically marking something on its surface with his fingers.