Alien Romance Box Set: Romantic Suspense: Alien Destiny: Scifi Alien Romance Adventure Romantic Suspence Trilogy (Complete Series Box Set Books 1-3)

by Ashley L. Hunt

  So, for the second time, I started the process my dad had taught me in the past -- I aligned the system, charged the cannons, took a deep breath and waited.

  ‘Don’t just trust the system to make the shot for you. Follow your instincts and always shoot a tiny bit to your left.’

  To be honest, I never understood why he said that last part, but I decided to follow my pa’s advice. I followed the target with my eyes, I tried to shut out Silver’s constant status reports, and I took another shot.

  The beam traveled quickly through space again, and while I was sure I had missed again, I heard the sound of a crash.

  “Boom!!!” I shouted.

  I felt Jay’s eyes on me and I tried to cup my mouth with my hands, only to get stopped by the metal helmet. I smiled at my own incompetence.

  “I never knew you had it in you,” I heard Jay say behind me.

  Well, strange alien stud, neither did I.

  But, with renewed confidence, and a new wave of enemies approaching our way, me and Jay quickly managed to scare them off by both destroying a couple more of their forces. By the time we were passing by Hoevis, the last planet of the system, we were way out of the danger zone, and luckily, still in one piece.

  The first thing I noticed was my head feeling heavy. I had never had an adrenaline rush like this before. I wasn’t proud I had killed three entirely strangers today, but the excitement of surviving a battle like that somehow had brought me an unprecedented joy.

  I wanted more.

  The second thing that came to my attention, was that Jay was looking at me the same way I was at him earlier. His eyes nailed in my body, and I felt the blood climbing up to my cheeks.

  “Eladia, Jay, we’re out of danger for now. Estimated time of arrival to Yaerus: two hours. I think it’s time for a brief up. Come to the brief room as soon as you can.”

  Silver’s voice kinda broke the spell between us. We turned our heads away from each other at the same time.

  The Nusae Cube was my priority from now on and meeting the Professor was the only important thing for me now.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jay

  My neck hurt. I had to turn my head so many times during the fight that I almost dislocated my shoulder. Those Pirates would have been nothing if my ship hadn’t crashed, but after having to abandon it back on Primordial Earth, everything seemed to go so slow. The engines of this ship weren’t particularly strong, and having to play by the rules of this era, turned out being quite an ordeal. Arming a gun with that peculiar helmet was another one of those limitations.

  Back in my days, when the Esuh ships traveled through the systems at a speed of light, pirates wouldn’t dare attack us. They would even take a long detour so as not to coincide with our route, making sure we didn’t even spot them at the neighboring systems.

  Nowadays, it seemed that the galaxy had fallen back to chaos. Humans and all the other species were useless. Esuh of the Two Faces, my people, were the ones that had managed to bring justice to the world, and since they had mysteriously vanished, everything returned back to the same chaos.

  Eladia, the female human scientist that woke me up from my eternal cryo-sleep, was now walking next to me. After we had managed to scare away those fighters, she seemed especially radiant, like she had won a war singlehandedly or something.

  Frankly, what she did was indeed unprecedented for a low human. To manage to keep up with me, a military trained Prime while shooting down those fighters, that was a feat all by itself. But it was certainly nothing to celebrate about.

  I walked ahead of her and pushed the button to the elevator. Her black ponytail swung behind her, while her dark eyes sparkled with excitement. Eladia seemed kinda cute, more now than before. Adventure suited her well.

  She was standing behind me now. I could smell her fragrance, an intoxicating aroma of otherworldly flowers and a tint of soaked dirt. A little closer and her breath would have caressed my back. For a moment, that thought seemed more alluring that I would dare admit.

  “Human...you did the right thing today,” I said.

  An Esuh Prime always counted his words, never saying anything more than he had to. However, those five words seemed excess and inappropriate. And yet I felt good for sharing them with her.

  “Thanks,” she interrupted me. “ We did this together, especially you, someone not accustomed to the current technology. But--”

  “But, in a true fight, you would have died today. You were too slow, missed one for your shots, and were too fast to admit defeat. If I hadn’t given you that command back there, we would be in trouble.”

  My words weren’t meant as a scold, but rather as a warning. Eladia had potential, but she was also too young and immature when it came down to warfare.

  Not that I shall be the one to talk.

  Having forgotten almost everything about my people, our customs, the battles we fought and almost anything that mattered to me, I was just as immature as she was.

  And that bugged me.

  When the elevator doors opened, I waited for her to get in first but she did not. I thought that Eladia would stay back, but eventually, she stomped inside. Now, she seemed annoyed and like she had lost her mood for talk. I couldn’t understand why, even though I had just complimented her, but thankfully, I was not in a mood to chat too.

  We rode the slow pod to the upper floor, where the bridge was. I waited for the door to open, but Eladia was faster than me and squeezed herself off the elevator even before the doors had opened all the way.

  I didn’t know what was wrong with her, and at that moment, I wasn’t sure I even wanted to know. Six months had already passed since we first met. Six months with no new memory of my people, not a new lead of what had happened to them, nothing that could actually help me learn who I was and what my purpose was. The only thing that seemed to recognize me was that tiny cube, that little, red thing that was always kinda warm.

  The silver android, Silver, had run some tests on it throughout our trip to the planet Yaerus, but she could find nothing, or at least anything indicating why it had connected with me in that way. That was the reason why Eladia decided it would be better to spend six months traveling from planet to planet, from town to town, visiting libraries that supposedly were humanity’s storage of amassed knowledge.

  And yet, failure after failure, nothing.

  I arrived at the bridge, my head hurting from the deep dive in my thoughts. I spotted Eladia looking at the monitors above the main console, coming up with some sort of schedule.

  “Yaerus is the last place we can check about the cube. The Professor should be able to point us to the right direction,” she said, half mumbling to herself, half consulting Silver.

  She pulled her hair into a tighter tie, and she frowned while watching the monitors, even though I was certain that that frown was intended for me.

  “Eladia, are you sure you want to visit the Professor again?” Silver asked.

  Again? Why does the robot sound so uncertain?

  That was my cue to bud in the conversation.

  “Isn’t this Professor of yours your only chance to analyze the Nusae thing?”

  I put my hand in my pocket and revealed the tiny cube. Both Silver and Eladia looked surprised at seeing it. Every time was like the first time for them. It wasn’t like I could leave it behind in my room. The one time I did, it almost went through the wall to return to me. It was weird.

  After they went through the first shock, they started explaining things to me. Eladia was always the first one to talk.

  “The Professor is the only one with the level of knowledge we need right now, about the Great Mystery of the Nusae. Of all the Chroniclers that research it--”

  “There are not all that many left,” Silver added to the conversation. This sounded a bit cynical.

  She earned a side glance from Eladia, but the human didn’t get discouraged. “--the Professor is one of the greatest. After all this time to still find reports
to the Archives about the Mystery is a big feat, and a significant part of the research the Professor conducted, helped me find this relic. There’s no one better to consult if we need more information and a good lead.”

  “So, why didn’t we go straight to this man from the start? Why we had to visit all those libraries throughout the last six months?”

  Eladia wanted to say something, only for Silver to stop her this time.

  “Man? What man? The Professor is just a crazy person. An eccentric lunatic that most of the time jokes about everything. Certainly not a person of trust.”

  Eladia sighed but didn’t reply.

  She looked at me for a moment, but she quickly averted her glance behind me, seemingly thinking about something else. This was happening for two months now, and I had no idea what was going on with her. At first, I figured she was sick, her face being red all the time, and her eyes glistening. But she had no other symptoms, so I decided to turn down that possibility.

  Nevertheless, in the end, the only chance I had to find out more about this artifact and my people was a crazy, old man. That was just my luck. But, an Esuh Prime Officer never relied on luck. That much I remembered.

  Yaerus sounded like a big planet. There must had been someone that could help me there. Looking at the one human I had met since I woke up, and her peculiar robot, I didn’t think I could be surprised anymore.

  Wait. There is also another human here, the hairy, young one. Where did Zan go?

  Chapter Sixteen

  Eladia

  Some people were so insensitive and unthoughtful of other people’s feelings that they dropped a bomb and then acted like they didn’t know what was wrong. Jay was one of them. Back downstairs, at the armory, outside the Cannon rooms, I thought he actually praised me for a moment and that he passed from referring to me as just human to calling me by my first name.

  Well, he did it now and then, but there were times I couldn’t stand him at all. If it wasn’t for the Nusae Artifact, I would have left him back on Earth. Or one of the other inhabited planets. He would certainly not be on my spaceship.

  Now he acted like something was missing, looking around him, probably searching for another reason to criticize me. Well, I couldn’t stay put. I had important work to take care of, and I didn’t want him to realize that I was actually upset about what he had said back there.

  So, I moved to the front part of the bridge, returning just before the analysis of the recent battle, trying to finish my report for the Human Chroniclers’ Order, when I heard the rattling of teeth behind me. I turned and saw Zan, our teenage passenger from Primordial Earth, stranding on the co-pilot’s seat.

  “Oh my God! Zan, are you okay? Silver, something is wrong with him,” I said, reaching for his skin to sense his temperature.

  Suddenly, Jay stopped me from touching him by grabbing my hand with his huge fist. His grip was strong and ached me somehow, but his skin was warm and comforting. Still, I didn’t understand what had gotten into him all of the sudden.

  Silver moved forward on her thruster form, a mid-sized box with thrusters on the back, and ran a quick scan.

  “His cortisol and adrenaline levels are elevated. His brain activity is also increased, especially his hypothalamus. If I could take a guess, then I think Zan is frightened.”

  After hearing Silver say the word afraid, he quickly turned his head to look at her and nodded.

  “Yes, yes. Afraid,” he responded quickly.

  His voice was somehow childish while cracking at times. He was still too young.

  “The kid’s just upset about the attack. It’s perfectly reasonable for someone who has spent his whole life on the ground of a prehistoric planet to be afraid traveling with a spaceship,” Jay said out loud, his hand still holding mine.

  Not that I did mind, but I was still upset with him. For someone picking up on that, he acted like a thick rock when my feelings were in the way. It was like I didn’t matter to him...at all.

  “Eladia, I think that Jasih is right. It took some time to Zan to get used to flying in space during our six-month trip, but he was never in the middle of a pirate assault before,” Silver said, adding to Jay’s hypothesis.

  And what’s with everyone being able to pronounce his name except me? Jay sounds better and fits his rough, inaccessible personality.

  “Nevertheless, Silver escort Zan back to his room and make sure he’s okay. We have to land on Mosa in an hour, and I would feel better if he was okay before riding the shuttle. I don’t feel comfortable leaving him behind in space station Alpha.”

  Silver turned back to her android form, the one with the holographic face and limbs, and slowly calmed Zan down. Then, the young man followed her to the elevator. They vanished from our sight.

  Right about then, Jay moved to the observatory in the back. He didn’t even take a glance at me.

  Damn him, I want to punch him so bad.

  But still, I looked at my arm and saw the marks left from his strong grip. The faded pink color of his fingers still felt warm.

  I stroked the splashes of pink on my skin twice and followed him. I had no idea what was in his mind, only that he didn’t want to be in the same room with me. But I was not willing to let him have his way.

  “Human, you have to stop following me everywhere,” he said as soon as I walked inside.

  He had taken his seating at the head of the long, conference table. It was the best place in the whole spaceship if you wanted to gaze out in the space unbothered. The bridge was usually too crowded and way too frantic a place to stargaze, certainly not fit for sightseeing.

  Jay spent countless hours watching the stars, the passing asteroids, and planets, everything he thought he hadn’t seen before, looking for something that could make him remember, something that he could grasp from.

  Missing one hundred years surely seemed hard, but still, it was not a good reason to justify his bad behavior.

  “I don’t follow you around!” I sounded a bit guilty. I actually didn’t follow him around the ship. It was just that we ended up at the same places. “I just want to ask you a question.”

  “And what if I don’t want to answer?” he said.

  His back was still turned to me. His hands were stretched above and behind his head, and he had dropped the chair’s back all the way down. He could easily take a nap if he wanted to, or cuddle with someone.

  More illicit thoughts followed, but I stopped myself before blushing once again.

  “Why did you stop me back there? I just wanted to check if he was okay.”

  I asked away, without hesitation. Jay could be a real prick if he wanted, but after six months on the same, limited space with us, he had become more open and accessible.

  “You shouldn’t let your ego get the best of you. Let me enlighten you since you don’t seem able to crack this yourself. What if Zan was indeed sick? What if his common cold or a certain bacterium fatal to you was transmitted by touch? What would you do then?”

  I felt the shackles of regret strain me. I didn’t want to admit it, but he was right. After so much time inside the spaceship with Zan and Jay, it didn’t even go through my head that Zan could actually hurt me by just being here.

  I lowered my head and mumbled. “I...I...I’m sorry. You’re right,” I finally said to him, but instead of seeing him gloat at his success, he didn’t even turn to face me.

  I wanted to tell him that Silver would have traced if something like that existed, but I was kinda at a loss for words for him. Jay was as cryptic as always, but he was certainly better from his dark self, the overly violent, parasitic half of him, Dark Jay.

  Something was on his mind. To be honest, I would have had many things in my mind if a bunch of strangers told me that my last chance of finding more information about my identity lied in the hands of a Mad Professor.

  The ringing of the communication link coming from Yaerus Alpha Station, one of the six huge constructs around Yaerus, interrupted this awkward sit
uation. Alpha was the one closer to Mosa right now. Being built next to the moon Badra, it was one of the first stations of the Station Program. I had to take that call, but I had to confess that I felt quite a bit relieved getting out of that room.

  I ran to the control console and pushed the flashing button. A rather polite lady gave me the password to insert to the autopilot system. Everything on Yaerus were automated to a significant degree. Yaerus, the Earth-like planet and humanity’s new home, was one of the most populated places of the whole known galaxy.

  To say the least, one-tenth of the combined human population resided on Yaerus, which amounted to quite a lot. And that was without counting the many guests that visited the planet on a daily basis. The Institute was only one of the main attractions of planet Yaerus, and with the great use of the K.G.As — Known Galaxy Archives — from Chroniclers and researchers alike, Yaerus had to find a new solution to keep all the spaceships out of the planet.