Lovers of the Galaxy
Book One, Invasion of Her Heart© 2014 by Trinity Blacio and Ana Lee Kennedy
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Riverdale Avenue Books
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Design by www.formatting4U.com
Cover by Insatiable Fantasy Designs Inc.
Digital ISBN 978-1-62601-113-7
First Edition September 2014
Previously published 2011 by Decadent Press as Sky Streamers: Conquering Venus
~DEDICATION~
This series is dedicated to readers who thrive on science-fiction romance.
Prologue: Project Melting Pot
Planet Azutu
Near the center of the universe, on the planet Azutu, over two hundred lifeforms, each a ruler from the body of planets or one of the heads of various planetary sectors and offices, filled the large meeting arena around the last two survivors of the Rolarai Family: Jaxxon Rolarai and his elder brother, Volund. Everyone was speaking at once. The sound of the various voices echoed through the chamber.
Jaxxon hated being the center of attention, and right now he and his brother were under intense scrutiny.
One of the rulers, who spoke only through telepathy, blasted the collective consciousness of the attendees, demanding silence. Jaxxon grimaced at the loud mental voice in his head. A glance over at Volund’s scowling face confirmed his brother didn’t like the telepathic intrusion either.
Quiet settled over the arena.
Tapio, from the administrative planet Mubehu, hovered next to Jaxxon and Volund, his skin a fluorescent yellow, eyes neon pink. His kind, similar to the male who had earlier ordered silence in the great hall, had no mouth, and also used mental communication.
I shall speak to all here as a group. Agreed? Tapio stared first into Jaxxon’s eyes and then looked over at Volund.
Jaxxon nodded. Next to him, Volund did the same.
You two were chosen to start a project called Melting Pot. We chose this name in memory of Earth’s Pre-Apocalyptic World. Their historians used this term to explain the blending of cultures, its various nationalities.
As you know, we are under attack. Many planets are on the verge of failing, and with their worlds dying, so will their species die. Everything we have done has not stopped the advance of this Evil that is destroying us. We are here to attempt to give all endangered species another shot at survival of having a successful culture and world.
He paused to allow his audience a moment to contemplate his opening statement.
Rolarai Brothers, have each of you heard of planet Earth?
Jaxxon nodded. “Yes,” said Volund.
Tapio dipped his head once in satisfaction, and continued.
It has been long known that most humanoid species can mate with the humans there.
Now, however, their race is disappearing. They have poisoned their planet and the survivors believe their planet is near dead, but in truth, it can be fixed. Our science can repair the damage. It will take time, but we believe by joining the different races, either by mating or co-habiting, we can save many lives and cultures. We’ve picked a town called Elyria. It’s located in the northern hemisphere of the planet, so it is uninhabited. It will be the home base of the Sky Streamers.
Tapio paused as if to allow Jaxxon and his brother absorb his words. Satisfied, he continued.
You and Volund will be traveling there shortly. Volund, your background in medicine and science is the reason you’ve been chosen to go to Earth. Jaxxon is your only surviving relative and he’s well-steeped in combat and stealth, so he shall join you and be the head of security. We’ve fitted a timeship, one of the Sky Streamers, with everything you will need to for your mission. Soon, we will send the next groups to help with the process of establishing settlements. However, for now, you two are the best of our warriors, scientists, and doctors. This is the last chance for the ones who will follow you to Earth. There are no other worlds for these races to go where they can survive, not even here on Azutu. We are sending you, and others to this world to survive. Fix earth. Rebuild. Re populate that world. You are our hope to combat the Evil that is consuming us now. That is your future, and the future of your children.
Jaxxon glanced at his brother, and Volund nodded. The expression of loss and loneliness on Volund’s face mirrored what Jaxxon felt. Maybe a new home and a new beginning was what the Rolarai family needed. He bent his head back and cracked his neck, glancing up at Tapio. “I do have one request that I’m sure my brother will agree with. Could we have our personal belongings, including our pets with us, since this new planet will become our home?”
“And I have a couple questions,” Volund stated. “How long will the travel time be, and do we have access to the humans’ history and languages?”
Your personal belongings, as well as your pets, have all been placed on the ship. The ship’s neurobrain has been modified so you have access to Earth’s history, culture, and languages while you travel there. The trip will take four Mubehu lunar cycles, which is six years Earth time. With your immortality, you two will be able to oversee the project for however long it takes.
Tapio watched them as they took their leave.
Chapter One
Another day had dawned, and the bright sun was already beating down over Venus Dalshvire’s hometown of Elyria, heating everything to almost impossible levels as she made her way through the deserted neighborhood. It was the middle of January and instead of snow-covered streets, steam now rose from the old blacktopped asphalt roads. With each step she took, her rubber-soled boots stuck to the ground, which made traveling slower. Venus kicked at an empty Pepsi can in front of her as she continued her journey down Broad Street. She smiled, remembering the neighborhood in happier times. Cars had filled the roads, couples held hands as they walked down the sidewalks, children had played tag and kickball in the park, and hundreds of birds had chirped and sung in the trees.
Over twenty years ago, Venus had walked down this same street with her father, Kenneth, on his way home from the labs two blocks from her school. He’d always joked with her about her independence and her stubbornness. “Venus, how are you ever going to find a husband if you continue your wild ways?” He would then swat her on her ass and push her toward the school.
“Oh, Papa,” Venus whispered, remembering. “To find a man like you is an impossible dream now. Even if I were to change my ways....” The hot, arid air snatched her words away.
Sure, she could move on to another city, try to find other people, but for some reason Venus felt the need to stay where she was. There was a sense of urgency to this feeling, as if she’d be missing something if she settled elsewhere. She reached up and tied her waist-long silver hair in a knot while she walked a different path home. Venus squinted behind her sunglasses and searched the debris for anything she could use in her quarters at the abandoned bank building, or in her garden, where she planned to work the remainder of the day. The beans, cucumbers, and radishes all needed harvesting. Tomorrow, she would hunt what game was left in the area.
Tonto, her German Shepherd barked, growled, and whined, which drew her attention to a large black container.
Nervous, Venus glanced around the landscape. “Well, this certainly wasn’t here earlier.” She knelt and patted the dog’s head. She studied the container, which was taller than she was.
She jumped as the crate mov
ed and whatever was inside scraped at one of the walls. Venus reached for her rifle and moved around the box. A high-pitched whine issued from inside. Tonto ran to the box and dug at its edges, where they met the dirt.
“Well, Tonto, it must not be dangerous if you want it out, but stand back just in case.” Venus rubbed her hand over a strange, glowing plate with symbols on it.
The box creaked and disintegrated in front of her.
“Shit.” Shock passed through Venus, and she raised her M-16, aiming it at the creatures in front of her. Once again, she was thankful she’d had a brief stint in the local militia, just before it disbanded. Her training had aided her in protecting herself, as well as hunting.
They stood larger than her dog, each one built like the big jungle cats that once roamed the tropics. However, these creatures favored a wolf’s appearance throughout their heads and shoulders. Fangs protruded from their mouths. The creatures sniffed the air, their oversized red eyes watching every move Venus made.
Although bizarre in appearance, the animals didn’t seem to be a threat. They whined, ducked their heads and whipped their long tails back and forth.
“So you don’t want to eat me or Tonto?” She held out her left hand, keeping a finger of her right poised inside the rifle’s trigger-guard just in case. “Tonto, stay,” she snapped when her dog slowly moved forward, but he didn’t listen. Instead, he lowered to the ground and crawled over to the creatures, woofing softly.
One animal, whom she noticed was obviously the male, lowered its head and pushed at Tonto’s side.
“Either that’s a good sign or he’s getting ready to eat your stupid ass.” The male turned and stepped toward her as Venus knelt in front of it. “Please be friendly.”
The creature nudged her hand with its head. Its black, gray, and silver fur felt like silk. Its long, wide tongue licked her hand, and she giggled.
“Okay, I guess you’re docile. Well, what do you think, Tonto? Do we take them home so the Bone Eaters don’t get them?” Venus studied the creatures sniffing the ground around her. “I just hope we don’t wake up as snacks for these animals.” She glanced at Tonto. “Head them home, pal. We need to be getting back.”
Venus slowly moved down the street with the two creatures following. “What should I call you guys? What do you think about the Lone Ranger, big guy?” She ran her hand over the male’s body. The smaller one which probably was female loped along on Venus’s other side, and Tonto walked in front of them. “We can call you Bella.”
The female snorted, and Venus smiled.
Venus’s sixth sense had been on overdrive for the past three weeks. “I get the feeling we’re going to have visitors soon, Tonto. The only thing is I don’t know if they’re going to be good or bad. Maybe if these two,” she patted both animals, “have anything to do with them, then they’ll be friendly, too.” Regardless, anxiety ate at Venus’s gut. How that crate had been delivered without her noticing bothered her. Her intuition was telling her that this wasn’t all she should expect and it had been a long time since she’d encountered anyone, either animal or human. Maybe the arrival of the strange beasts was a good sign. Tonto had missed four legged company.
“I just hope tonight is quiet, Tonto. I don’t want to have to kill any more Bone Eaters. If the stupid government would have left them alone, instead of using them as lab rats, they could’ve died in peace like most everyone else did. But no, the damn government had to experiment, and now those people walk around eating anything that moves.”
Venus glanced up at the town clock she’d repaired and converted to solar power. She had three more hours before the sun started to set, and she’d have to lock down in her home. A shiver ran up her spine at the thought of being tracked by the Bone Eaters.
Venus knew the human lab rats—or Bone Eaters as they’d been named by her parents’ science department—were getting smarter, but the one good thing was they only liked to move at night. The sun wouldn’t kill them; it just made them extremely lethargic. She hoped it would stay that way. It was too bad they couldn’t be used as game, but their toxic blood and venom aside, the thought of eating what was once human.... She shuddered.
Her father had tried to work on a cure for them before one of them ended up taking her parent’s lives. Never would Venus forget how she’d waited in their secured home for her mom and dad, but they had never come. Only her father’s assistant, Randle had arrived with the news of their death. She shuddered, remembering him.
“One day, Randle, I’ll find you and make you pay for what you did to me.” Venus patted the M-16 rifle bumping against her hip. Two years later, Randle had shown his true colors and attacked Venus, trying to rape her, but he’d failed. She smiled in satisfaction. She’d made sure of that with her trusty knife. Too bad Randle had gotten away that day.
She stepped up to the electrically wired door, punched in the code and unlocked it. Venus opened the steel door to the old bank that was now her home. Tonto ran inside, with her new family members following. She secured the entrance and turned on the extra generator to power the interior lights. No one was going to surprise her ever again.
“I hope these things are trained not to shit all over the place.” Venus paused. “What the hell do I feed them?” She secured the doors behind her and turned to go upstairs. “I’ll worry about that later.”
The bank had six floors and was massive, but it also had a flat roof where she could keep watch and raise a garden. The building’s copper pipes ran deeper into the ground than any other building in the city. This had been one of the main reasons she’d set up her base in the bank. It had taken her a good six months to get fresh, uncontaminated water from the old underground well she’d found using the ultra ray scanner. She’d nearly exhausted her resources for bottled water before she’d accomplished her task. She was thankful that this part of the city was old enough to have had wells at one time. The one under the bank was very deep. It was a blessing her father and mother had taught her how to test the water. It seemed only the surface water had been affected. The soil’s deeper levels were free from toxins.
Once she’d moved a few things from her parents’ lab to the bank, she had a few ‘toys’ she used for various purposes, such as a force field machine. Although it wasn’t strong enough to protect the entire building, it did prevent anything from accessing the top floor and the roof, which came in handy when the Bone Eaters decided to hunt.
Her parents had tried to warn the local government that the water had been contaminated, but no one would listen to them since they’d been labeled troublemakers. The sickness or, The Killing Fever, as it was called by many, spread like wildfire around their city, killing half the population of Elyria.
Scientists converged upon the city, along with the C.D.C. The U.S. military, and the National Guard were employed to keep the peace. A blockade was set up around the whole county to stop further contamination. Still, no one could find the cause.
All over the U.S. and other countries, cities began dying, and no one knew how to stop it. People panicked, governments allowed inhuman experiments to be conducted on the sick, and an elite group of survivors started hoarding all the food sources, killing anyone in their way.
Some said that Mother Earth had taken its revenge on the human race for all its atrocities against her. The government started experimenting and sharing its information with other countries, but they lost control. The number of Bone Eaters got out of hand. Only one-quarter of the human population lived without effect, while the rest had turned into voracious creatures that ate other humans, right down to the bones of their victims. Their skin toughened to leather, hideous sores appeared on their heads, which eventually turned into hard calcium spikes. Teeth were replaced by fangs, and they walked hunched over. At first, the Bone Eaters were slow and stupid, but soon they learned how to band together and hunt in packs.
Over the past six years, Venus had studied the Bone Eaters. Their numbers increased when they started to mate.
Even their children were deadly. It also seemed as though Mother Nature had given them a natural weapon—venom in their fangs that paralyzed their victims so they could eat them.
Venus turned and walked through the lobby, checking the bars on the first floor windows. After surviving for so many years, she refused to become a victim. Satisfied everything was as it should be, Venus turned her attention to the interior lights and a CD player as she stepped into the storage area where she kept supplies. Drained by the day’s heat, she slowly dug items they’d found that afternoon out of her backpack. Where money had once stood stacked against the steel walls, her supplies now filled the room. Lone Ranger came into the vault and sniffed around. He stopped in front of the canned meat she’d found and sank his fang into one of the cans. Finally, he dropped it to the floor, unable to get it open.
She laughed and slowly approached him. “I can open that if you’re hungry.” He raised his head and stepped back from the can. Venus frowned. “I swear it’s like you understand me.” She reached out, grasped the pull-tab, and opened the can.
Long Ranger used his long, thick tongue to scoop out the meat.
“Maybe I should give one to your friend, too.” Venus turned to find the other animal behind her, waiting patiently. “Damn, you guys are smart.” She laughed, opening the other container, and set it in front of her. “I know it’s not much, but it’s all we have right now. We’ll go hunting tomorrow, so maybe I’ll get lucky and bag some fresh meat.”
After she put her new supplies away, Venus grabbed a bottle of water and made her way up the staircase to the roof, all three animals close on her heels. Her baskets were already up there. All she needed to do was fill them with the vegetables. Tonight she would can everything she picked. Soon the summer heat would be upon the city, and then nothing planted or growing outside would survive the heat and scorching sunlight. During that time, Venus hibernated in the coolness of her home. Over the next four months, only an emergency or the need for fresh meat would force her to venture outside.
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