Snowed in With the Alien Warlord

by Nancey Cummings

  Kol ran to the center of the span and drew his energy rifle. While powerful enough to pierce the natural scale plating of a Suhlik solder, it would not be enough to take down an armored shuttle. He just needed to get their attention.

  He went down on one knee and aimed. A good shot into the manifold intake could stale the shuttle engines, but he would only get one opportunity.

  The shuttle swooped low, spraying fire across the concrete pavement. Kol did not react. He kept his eyes focused on the shuttle, tracking it, waiting for the perfect shot.

  Penny

  The air raid siren pierced the quiet of the building. She didn’t know what good the sirens did. By the time they sounded, the raids were already underway. Either a person lived under the domes and were safe or they didn’t. No siren would get them to safety in time.

  Still, her heart thundered in her chest and she quickly evaluated the structural integrity of the powerhouse. A low, squat building of concrete cinder blocks, it was probably better equipped to handle a raid. She’d find a corner and wait it out.

  The earth shook under her feet and a roar erased all sound. Penny staggered to the wall before thinking better of it, ears ringing. The wall rippled like liquid instead bricks.

  She needed to get out of there. With no time to gather her supplies, she grabbed her pack and abandoned everything else. They’d be there tomorrow, if there was a tomorrow.

  Outside, a shuttle hummed overhead like an angry swarm of bees. Instinctively she threw herself to the ground. She braced herself, waiting for an explosion. If you could hear the alien shuttle, it was too late.

  Nothing happened.

  Not true. Someone fired at something, just not at her. Gunfire was exchanged. Aliens snarled at each other.

  Penny pushed herself off the ground, attempting to flee while they were distracted.

  On the bridge, her big red alien was giving hell to a golden lizard monster, who gave hell right back. They moved like something out of the movies—with too much speed. It was hyper real, verging into the unreal; her very own sci-fi movie. Big Red moved with grace but he couldn’t dodge all the fire coming from both the lizard and the shuttle. Chunks of concrete exploded at his feet as he leapt and rolled.

  Burning plastic tickled her nose, drawing her back. This was no movie. The lizards were blasting the bridge out from underneath his feet.

  Cold dread lurched in her stomach.

  She needed that bridge.

  The big red alien shouted at her, but she remained rooted in place. His words were unintelligible but the meaning was clear: go. Still, she remained.

  That’s when she noticed the Suhlik turn his gun towards her.

  Chapter Three

  Kol

  The pavement rippled and bucked. Kol detected only the smallest give underfoot before the low groan of twisting steel. The bridge had absorbed too much damage and it was collapsing.

  Kol ran towards the north side, toward the Suhlik soldier. His mate was still out there and the Suhlik remained a threat.

  Concrete crumbled faster than he could move. He leapt from falling chunk to falling chunk, rasping at the broken rebar and pulling himself up to a stable surface. The only thing below was the icy water of the river. He might survive a direct blast from the Suhlik, from various wounds, but if he fell in the water his body would shut down. He’d be unable to heal his damage. He might even lose consciousness if he were pulled under the water.

  Kol rolled onto his back and sprang to his feet.

  The Suhlik fired his pistol. It was not the ideal weapon for the situation but he took his time aiming and fired at Kol almost in a lazy fashion, as if bored. Under normal circumstances, Kol would have been able to dodge the incoming fire. The cold reduced his reaction times. He moved too slow, dodging, but not fast enough.

  The blast hit him in the upper arm. He stumbled momentarily but he continued, gaining momentum with each striding bound. Behind him, the bridge continued to sing a terrible song of twisting metal and broken stone. The next blast he deflected with a raised wrist. The flexible armor rippled with the impact. Each successive strike weakened the armored fabric. Before long, his armor would be as useful as ordinary cloth. This needed to be over, and soon.

  Kol reached for the knife strapped to his thigh, never losing his momentum. He raised the knife high and sprang, leaping towards his target. The Suhlik solder focused his attention on the blade, gun raised.

  The shot went wide as the Suhlik moved to grapple the blade. Kol let the soldier grab his wrist and rip away the knife. His prize was the gun, hanging forgotten at the male’s side.

  Too late the Suhlik realized what Kol meant to do and he slashed furiously with his claws. Every digit, elbow, and the tips of his tail had a razor-like talon to avoid. Kol avoided the tail—the tips known to carry poison—but moved in such a way to allow the Suhlik to rake his claws across Kol’s abdomen. The armor, already weakened, unraveled.

  Kol twisted and jabbed his elbow sharply to break the grapple. Another swipe of claws and he would be gutted. He broke free and moved back, his foot on the crumbling edge of the bridge.

  The surface shifted and gave way.

  He clung to the edge, fingertips digging into the asphalt. The armor’s gloves offered increased tensile strength, but if he squeezed too intensely the bridge would literally crumble in his hands. Now was not the time to realize he failed to send an alert to his clan. Routine monitors might notice his confrontation, but it was the middle of the raid. Every warrior was in a confrontation.

  The Suhlik loomed overhead. His booted feet pressed down on Kol’s fingers. Pain registered dimly. He was far too cold to wonder at the phenomenon. The Mahdfel healed quickly but they felt pain. Pain kept a warrior alert.

  And didn’t the Suhlik love to inflict pain?

  The golden-skinned lizard stood above, cooing and chirping with joy as he ground his boot into Kol’s fingers and twirled the stolen knife.

  His grip loosened. He didn’t care. As long as the Suhlik’s attention was focused on him, his mate had a chance to escape. She was clever and had avoided detection thus far. He felt confident that she would not let an opportunity slip away.

  The knife slammed into his hand, piercing through the weakened armor. “An animal shouldn’t play with a warrior’s weapon,” the Suhlik said in the Suhl language.

  “A warrior is the weapon,” Kol said. His tail wrapped around the soldier’s arm, the segments squeezing him tight. The soldier’s eyes went wide in alarm. He tried to pull away but Kol’s grip held tightly.

  Kol swung his legs, building momentum, and pulled. The Suhlik stumbled and the last of the concrete crumbled.

  Both males plunged into the water.

  Penny

  He fell. The gold lizard she didn’t care so much about, but the red guy, the guy who distracted the lizard, he had fallen into the icy river. Alien super soldier or not, that couldn’t be good.

  She should run, take this opportunity and hightail it back to home, to safety, but her feet remained in place. The red guy—Mad Fell— saw her. He distracted the Suhlik.

  She waited for him to resurface.

  His back up had to arrive soon. Right? His alien friends would fish him out of the river and patch him up.

  Shit. He was under for too long. Alien super soldier or not, he still needed to breathe. She couldn’t let him drown, not when he had looked right at her before throwing himself at the lizard, pulling the murderous alien’s attention away from her.

  Carefully she picked her away down the bank and towards the river. Her sneakers skidded on the slick rocks. Once her feet completely slipped out from under her and she fell on her butt. The backpack thumped down besides her. There had to be a smarter way to go about this—or better shoes— but the clock was ticking. The red guy now floated in the water, unresponsive. She could just go in and drag him out. That was all she owed him for distracting the lizard. She dropped her backpack and coat on the riverbank. They would only get wet
and weigh her down.

  Wading into the river, the icy water slapped against her entire self. Her teeth chattered immediately and her body wanted to bolt. She sucked in her breath, inching deeper, and all the while chanting a mantra of “This isn’t so bad. This isn’t so bad.”

  Lies. Horrible, frigid lies that convinced no one. Each step took her deeper and she shivered uncontrollably. Her goose bumps had goose bumps.

  Penny took in the massive size of the alien. From a distance, he appeared large, like a linebacker. That wasn’t even close to accurate. Now within arm’s reach, he was massive. Huge. All she could think about was that scene in Star Wars when they realize that moon was the spaceship. Deathstar huge. That was the only way to process him.

  Up to her knees in the freezing water, she needed to act fast. Her teeth chattered and it was only a matter of time before she lost feeling in her toes. She moved a hand towards the alien before flinching back. If she got her gloves wet, frostbite was certain, but she didn’t actually want to touch the alien.

  Ugh. How gross would that be? He was probably slimy or something.

  No, she scolded herself. What he was was drowning. He didn’t have the time for her to flounder about with her prejudice and squeamishness. He helped her. The least she could do was not let him drown or freeze.

  She stripped off the gloves and flung them towards her coat waiting at the riverbank. Wading in deeper, she hooked her arms under Big Red’s and pulled him towards the bank. Buoyant; it wasn’t too hard to move the mountain of muscle. Once out of the water, she could only drag him a few steps.

  She crouched down near his face. His red complexion was very red, but not slimy or scaly. Not like the lizard’s. It looked like regular skin. Her fingers twitched again with a compulsion to touch him, to verify that his skin felt like regular skin. Penny clenched her hand.

  At his lips, he went grey, due to cold or lack of oxygen. Aliens breathed oxygen, right? They had to. They walked around the Earth without helmets or gas masks, so the logic followed. The tusks at his mouth were even more impressive up close. They weren’t huge and they definitely weren’t fangs. They went from his bottom jaw upwards, like a wild boar or an ogre from a fantasy movie. His surprisingly full lips went around the tusks, lending him a smirking expression. Christ, he was ugly.

  Penny could hear Aunt Jasmine clear as day in her head, chastising her for judging another based on the color of their skin. She should know better. She should do better.

  She could only judge him based on the content of his character and his actions. She didn’t know much about him, but he had helped her, so that made him a good guy.

  For now.

  He was so ugly.

  Penny leaned down, ear over his mouth, listening. Soft puffs of warm breath brushed against her. Still alive.

  She turned her face towards him, her lips inches from his. If you could look past the teeth and the skin being the wrong color, he had a nice face with a jaw strong enough to smash concrete. He wasn’t handsome, not by any human standards, but he was appealing enough, certainly not repulsive. Those tusks, though—

  How could his people kiss? Did aliens kiss or was smashing mouths together a human thing?

  Before her common sense could stop her, she brushed a finger along the closest tusk. It was damp from the river, obviously, but not coated in venom or slime and felt rather like a tooth. A large tooth. A tooth made for stabbing and gutting.

  What was even the evolutionary point of those things? Ramming your face into the belly of an opponent and gutting them seemed… stupid and gross. Inefficient. All that blood and gore would go right in your mouth and if you were close enough to blow a raspberry on an enemy’s stomach, you were close enough to use a knife.

  She felt a sudden need to know what those lips tasted like and how those tusks would feel scraping along her face and chin, lingering at her neck and then down to her breasts. Those lips would wrap around her nipples and pull ever so slightly, and the points of the tusks would dig into her soft flesh, and the idea of all that wasn’t as repulsive as she expected.

  He was still ugly, though.

  In the cold she couldn’t smell much of anything with her numb nose, but being this close, she caught his scent. He smelled mellow, woodsy and just a little bit sweet…

  She took another sniff. Yup, sweet. His scent reminded her of unlit cigars and tobacco, the blend Grandpa Novak carried in his jacket pocket.

  Her eyes went back to his lips, grey with cold. She could warm them with hers—

  Penny rocked back on her heels. She had not just thought about kissing the man who smelled like her grandfather. That was gross. And weird.

  And he was an alien. Not a man. An alien. The universe just kept layering on the weird.

  Penny rested her ungloved hand on his chest. Water beaded on the surface of the stiff and cold armor. It must have been water repellent, but the jagged tears would have allowed plenty of water inside the armor. Not good. Big Red needed to get dry to avoid hypothermia.

  His chest rose and fell in shallow breaths. She searched his face, looking for some clue to his character. He had to be compassionate— he’d saved her from the Suhlik. That alien had pinned her in place with his cold, empty black eyes. Penny couldn’t run. She wanted to, every ounce of her being tried to get her feet to move but she remained rooted in place. That lizard had her dead to rights. She could feel it. The fear pooled in her stomach and she knew, just knew that this was her death.

  Then Big Red fired his gun and saved her.

  He didn’t have to. He could have let the Suhlik capture her and do what the golden lizard aliens did to humans dumb enough or slow enough to get caught.

  But he did, just like the Mad Fell didn’t have to save Earth from the Suhlik. They could have easily let the lizards kill every last human, but they were here. Fighting. Saving. Falling into freezing rivers and turning into an ice cube.

  More like a cherry popsicle.

  Her mouth quirked up into a smile and her underused muscles protested. Her normal blank expression returned. The Mad Fell helped for a “price” and until she knew what that price was, she couldn’t afford to get attached to Big Red, no matter what he did.

  Penny poked at the torn armor covering his stomach. Nothing gave, not an ounce of fat or a little cushion. It was like poking a stone statue.

  Her finger came back bloody.

  Lips curled back in disgust, she wiped her hand on her pant legs. So aliens bleed red.

  The first flakes of the impending blizzard fell, landing on Big Red’s brow and eyelashes but not melting. That couldn’t be good.

  Penny glanced back to the ruins of the bridge, then across the river to the unreachable safety of the protected zone, and finally to the sky. No shuttles. No planes. Just heavy grey clouds. The cavalry was not coming.

  She needed to get to shelter before the blizzard arrived. Her knees ached as she stood, bones creaking in a way that no twenty-two-year-old college student should experience.

  She nudged Big Red with a foot. “Hey. Hey, Mister Alien. Wake up.” No response. Another nudge, this time less timid. “Wake up! We have to get inside and I can’t carry you.”

  No response.

  Fantastic.

  Penny retrieved her coat and gloves. Frustration pricked at the back of her throat. She couldn’t leave Big Red out here alone in the storm, he’d freeze, but she didn’t have the physical strength to carry him. Far from petite, Penny wasn’t built to work the farm, either. If Big Red were human sized, she’d attempt a fireman’s carry, and end up breaking her back. She needed to work smarter, not harder.

  She scanned the area, taking an inventory and searching for an idea. She had a tarp in her backpack. If she rolled Big Red on it, she could… What? Drag him a mile back home? If she had another person, they could make a litter and carry Big Red.

  She eyed the nearby trees. She had a hazy memory of making a sled in scouts. A travois. That could work.

  Working a
s fast as her numb fingers would allow, Penny broke off branches until she got a suitable length. She stripped off the leaves. The poles didn’t have to be pretty, they just had to hold.

  She spread the blue tarp on the ground next to Big Red. Crossing an arm over his chest and one leg over the other, she rolled him onto the tarp. “You could help me a little, Sleeping Beauty.” Once in position, she checked on his breathing. His breaths weren’t robust but he was breathing.

  Penny laid the pole on either side of the tarp and carefully rolled the stiff fabric. The extra length extended over the edge. With a rope to secure him in place, she counted on his body weight to keep the poles in position.

  Satisfied at her makeshift travois, Penny picked up the poles and tried to go forward.

  Her back and thighs strained. Big Red was heavy.

  “What do they feed you?” She took a step and the sled inched forward. The travois she had made as a scout worked much better. “I’m not leaving you behind and I’m not getting caught out in the snow.” Another step, another inch. Her arms burned. Two steps. She crossed the poles in front of her, forming an X, and leaned in. “So your heavy butt better help me.”

  She crested the riverbank. Once she and Big Red made it to level ground, moving became much easier. Heating up quickly, she opened her coat before eventually draping it over her alien.

  Home was only four blocks away.

  Chapter Four

  Penny

  In the last month, Penny had developed endurance for dragging heavy items through the streets. Mostly it had been salvage and she had a beat up shopping cart to help, so the experience of dragging an unconscious body was new.

  Her aunt’s house was a mile from the river. Flurries of snowflakes obscured her vision but the snow didn’t stick to the ground. Yet. Cutting through abandoned backyards saved some steps, but Penny sacrificed stealth for speed. Big Red needed to be inside, quick, and she needed out of the her wet shoes before she lost a toe to frostbite. Finally, just as she lost feeling in her feet and every step was numb to pain, she made it to the back fence.