Alien Alliance Box Set

by Chris Turner

  Several masses of clouds, vapours and strange colours fled by the glass port. The craft lurched. Through the flickering scattersplay came glimpses of a vast swampy forest and weirdly domed trees, then a flicker of red light, as the fires of some primitive community flared.

  The craft hurtled on and Audra and Miko examined each other under the deep violet of VR for perhaps the last time with a strange understanding. They merged their essences for a last time, basking in the secret, forbidden deep union between alien and human that only could be achieved through the sinister technology of the NAVO.

  Miko’s last glimpses before impact was of a dim amber world, tinged with green and gold. The lights of a colony shone below, odd coruscations glinting off shiny constructions: of palisades, low tree towers, crude dwellings...

  The wings sheared off Sitty, biting against scores of peculiar tree-like forms. The air chutes were pulled away with fury and tore against jagged branches, then shredded to nothing.

  A groan, a tearing shriek, then shearing metal came to the passengers’ ears. The ship was caught by massive trunks. A dark body of water appeared below and the ship plunged through the strange treetops and sank into oblivion.

  Sitty lay on its side, half submerged in inky water. The ship, teetering precariously, was supported on a massive log or something solid.

  Every bone in Miko’s body ached. Blood streamed from his forehead; his ears rang with a continuous, insect-like whine.

  By some miracle, the spongy trees had absorbed the shock; the descent had not killed them. Likewise, Sitty’s protective VR socket had cushioned them. The concussion, however, had knocked them both senseless and for several instants they lay dazed.

  Miko’s vision cleared. Under the flickering lights of the console, he could hear sharp electrical tinges. The crackle of short-circuiting. He glimpsed Audra moving, trying to get the console back in operation. Her elastic, springy body was resilient to shock, almost indestructible, and wont to mould to whatever was around her. Miko knew it well. He heard the dripping of water, and became aware of a faint reek, similar to the sulphurous hot springs on his home planet—no doubt of some breach in the hull. He shook his head in shock and tried to chase the daze from his skull. Greenish brown water was now seeping through the starboard glass. There was some stir beyond the glass.

  He flexed his tentacle-like arms and felt not for the first time pangs of alarm. No broken bones. Only some scratches and abrasions. They left his alien skin blood-streaked. How his head throbbed! The console was smashed beyond repair. Little to his surprise the pieces of metal and puretholene littering the cramped compartment kept him from easily lifting himself out of his socket.

  He blinked. What creatures were these that he saw swimming beyond the glass port? Faces with three eyes. Fishes? Amphibians? He could not guess. They were enough to freeze the blood. A long eel-like shape snapped its powerful tail against the glass. Then, lightning fast, it followed with its beak, cracking the glass like a hammer.

  The flush of sour vapours poured forth. Caustic liquids intruded on the fragile sanctity of the VR compartment.

  Miko recoiled, trying to crab his way backwards. He could not help but gag and suck in a lungful of the loathsome air, hardly daring to imagine what it would do to him.

  What’s this? The air was just barely breathable.

  The eel thing drove through the glass. Scythe-like teeth ripped flesh from Audra’s middle. Razor fins raked across the metal. The thing was huge, many times the size of both of them and looked ready to ingest her whole, or at least tentacle by tentacle.

  Audra thrashed about, whining and chittering while the thing with its beak-like snout dragged her back toward the glass. Miko cried out. The putrid obscenity would drag them both away. He was still joined to Audra’s gruesome body! Flabs of white skin at shin and waist still bound them. He scrabbled for some weapon to strike out with while she was being hauled through the dark water.

  Bleeding at the hip, he tore at a piece of twisted wreckage from the console as his fingers raked along the panel and he used the serrated edge to saw fiendishly at the flaps where they were attached.

  Audra let out another pained squeal; in a torrent of chittering howls, she wrapped her slimy body around the thing’s neck where its teeth still clutched her. Separation from Miko was her greatest fear, he perceived, not the bite of the eel thing.

  The eel creature or whatever it was, used powerful thrusts of its snake-like tail to propel it through the roiling water. Yet it was the single black eye that cast the greatest terror in Miko, as if it were right out of a demon’s aquarium. The eye pulsed; it looked right through him and with the coldest of gazes. He cut the last of the flesh binding him to Audra and the fish jerked its tail and hauled her out and through the port glass and she disappeared in a frothing whirl of bubbles and brackish foam.

  Miko sagged, clutching his gore-splattered pipe. He felt as if the blood had been drained from his soul. Purple ichor streaked the water from where Audra has last been. His chest rose and fell in pained gasps, his brain stunned into some kind of reverie. He crawled his way through the sludgy water over to the starboard bay. Nausea had his blood pulsing; shock sapped his resolve. Now as water poured in through the broken pane, he was thinking how glad he was to have escaped such a grisly end.

  Audra—she was gone forever!

  But there was something else—an inexplicable loss and desolation stirred in his chest. What was this? Pure madness?

  He squelched the feeling. The water was rising fast. He dogpaddled the rest of the way over to the broken glass and clawed his way up out of the cockpit onto clumps of bracken that fanned the sides of the craft’s smoking fuselage. The water still hissed from the metal’s heat. Miko was still fearful that the eel would return, and not without frenzy, he leaped from the bramble onto the giant, ashen-coloured log that held up the ship. Other fish-like creatures had sensed his presence and thrust out of the inky water, snapping at him. Miko jerked back in confusion, for now free of the broken spacecraft, he saw that he was in a world of stumps and decayed logs and tussocks and shadows. A mire of unimaginable extent stretched as far as he could see, bounded by thickly-woven forest on either side. The pool was dotted with dank yellow-brown moss-covered shrubs housing nests of some kind.

  He shuddered. What might dwell in those nests—more eel spawn? Before he could react, something small and fast slithered out of the water and clamped onto his leg where the blood ran in rivulets. Voicing a cry, he shimmied back in fear, stamping at the attacker, uttering another howl when the eel-snake tried to leech back onto him. He stamped it with his webbed foot, cursing himself for his inattentiveness. His lengthy dependency on the ship was responsible for his misfortune. The faint sulphurous reek clung in his nostrils, doubtless from the fumes of the murky water. Humid and sticky air filled his lungs, just remotely breathable. He panted with shock and the effort of scrambling and hopping about in this alien environment. The sky was rife with clouds of thick yellow vapours. He still clutched his weapon and used it to quell the hungers of other aquatic predators that came seeking his hide.

  Miko pulled himself up a thick vine that hung low from a tall, malformed tree. There he hung in dazed limbo from a branch. Slowly he began inching a path across the branch that traversed the treacherous mire to the pool’s edge.

  It was a long way away.

  He was amazed that he could manage the use of his limbs after so long cooped in Sitty. It was adrenaline, he figured, and the fact that the VR designers had installed mechanisms of fluid injection to keep his muscles elastic and from atrophying over the long voyages. The flesh throbbed where he had cut himself free from Audra, but he welcomed that pain over the obscene alternative.

  A tiny flapping of wings caught his ears. He looked over his shoulder—There, a glimpse of a small flying squirrel creature with pterodactyl wings flapping its way across the misty water. One of the eel fish jumped six feet out of the water and hooked it, dragging it under in a flurr
y of bubbles.

  The blood in Miko’s ears pounded.

  He proceeded with infinite caution, crawling his way upside down and on all fours.

  A sudden glooping ripple in the nearby water had him freezing in mid-crawl. His breath caught in his throat.

  Peering down across the pool, he saw a mottled, greyish figure emerge sixty paces away along the pool’s shore.

  Could it be . . ? Miko squinted with disbelief.

  No! It was impossible!

  The thing was real; it held up two pieces of mangled eel in its cilia-wisped tentacles. Purple ichor dripped from its jowl. Swaying in casual fashion, it chittered in its familiar way, a satisfied gurgle, as it dragged its grey bulk and the rest of the eel toward the shore.

  Audra? Miko swallowed the clot of bile rising in his throat. Insane horror almost had him losing his grip on the moss-covered branch and plummeting into the water. How could she have survived? The eel thing was three times her size!

  Audra gave another exultant chitter. Her pale grey eyes blinked back at him, from a muddy face as it trained itself up—on him.

  Miko shrank back in dismay. The guilty traitor in him flared.

  In a flurry of panic, he wormed his way across the branch and down the rough-barked trunk. Bloody fingernails scratched at the pulpy wood, but he took no heed. His last act of reason, severing her flesh and cutting ties with her glutinous body was an act of war and Miko was in no condition to discover what reward was coming his way.

  He leaped the last fifteen feet onto the spongy turf and nearly tumbled back into the water. Half clambering, half hobbling away from the shore, he pushed his legs to the limit of exertion.

  They were like rubber, these alien limbs of his, yet he drove on.

  Somewhere across that pool, a strange mournful hooting came wafting across the sylvan gloom. Sinister sounds disturbed the very sanctitude of this perilous world, drifting to Miko’s ears like the cries of chained devils.

  If not for his gruelling military training on Mission Base I, he would not have been able to keep out of Audra’s grip. The splicing with the alien had given his limbs uncanny strength, while the gravity of Rogos was one third less than what he was accustomed to, which made his panicked haste and hops and springy stumbles serve to advance him all the farther.

  Peering back through the trees, he saw Audra brushing herself off, swaying in characteristic, confident rhythm, pitching pieces of chopped eel into the water as she fed and then came lumbering after him.

  Miko blundered off as best he could, staving off his living nightmare to be fused again with creature.

  Audra thought differently. That he would be an easy catch. When she caught up with him...Her expression was one of outrage at his last exploit of treachery and abandonment.

  Even as he hobbled, Miko could feel that the effects of the retrociniation were lessening. He attributed it to his time out of the VR and away from Audra. There may still exist hope.

  He reached out a webbed hand and stroked his fishy gills, dubious of the usefulness of his webbed feet and fin-like arms. There were traces of cilia that exuded from the pores of his skin. He shuddered at the thought of what his insides must look like, and of what his face resembled. It felt all too furry.

  He couldn’t worry about that. There were other more pressing things to consider. Like hostile predators—and Audra. He must not fall prey to her lusts...

  The forest wheeled by in a ghastly daze. Who knew what manner of beasts lay out there? He remembered seeing lights from a settlement outside the port glass. If he could reach those precincts, there may be sanctuary...intelligent beings or infrastructure that could shield him from the harsh reality of this lunatic world.

  Miko scrambled on, squeezing through the gummy gaps between the massive trunks and slashing at creeper vine with his pipe as he passed more of those frightful pools...

  III

  Audra roamed the Rogosian wilderness, searching every crevice for Miko. She had a vague sense that, barring the crash, something wasn’t quite right, that the two were no longer in the same time dimension. The signals were clear. The absence of the Zikri base, the tilt of the stars, the primitive life forms of this planet, it was all wrong. An interesting metaphysical conundrum—which the scientists on her home world would ponder for an age. She was not exactly sure how it had happened, though she guessed it had everything to do with the unstable propulsion system of the NAVO craft. There were ways of using the broken ship’s advanced hardware to recalibrate the time shift, and get them back to their own dimension. But it would take time—perhaps years. The planet supported the necessary raw materials to effect the repairs and ship’s required modifications.

  What else was there to do? It seemed time was at her disposal. She almost laughed at her own joke.

  As for the myriad denizens that wandered these feral lands, she felt neither fear nor remorse. The eel had been an idle amusement, although it had proved a disappointing adversary in the end. How silly of the thing to try and bite her! The creature’s brain capacity was small compared to hers. It had succeeded only in gobbling her down whole. But the electricity and poison she had injected into it from her cilia had caused the thing much anguish, melting right through its stomach lining. Quite an experience to witness the bottom feeder thrash and spin. The creature had suffered an unpleasant doom...

  As for traitorous Miko, she would get her revenge. She was quite disappointed in his behaviour, which was both juvenile and timorous. His reaction had been downright crass. Did he not know that he had shamed her? Stupid of him to think that she would not take care of the snake thing!

  Withal, he did not realize how much he needed her. A feisty lifeform, to say the least, this Miko, thought Audra. Nevertheless, he would not last long alone in the wilds. This body of his was not as resilient as hers. She knew this from intimate experience, that he needed her as much as she needed him. Not to mention, he was comfortably warm to nestle against. Naughty of the human to flee so hastily! She still could not get over his whimsical bravado. She must find him! And when she did...well, he would not be so bold to escape again.

  Her flexible body made effortless progress through the forest: through the twilight-lit glades, across the stagnant, weed-riddled pools. She waded or glided, over the soft gummy logs and the loams and moulds and streams of the varied surface, and sometimes over the intertwined branches of the giant trees. Many things she saw, marvels never before witnessed, creatures that glided above on three wings, others that sung whistling songs, inscrutable things that dug trenches and burrowed deep, and violent predators like the eel, which did their best to harm her, but all ineffectually.

  In this wise, Audra would not have wont for food. The sulphurous air was an irreparable inconvenience whose tart ambience did not sit well with her. But, she was happy for her Zikri constitution, which was strong, and the bizarre evolution which had created the Zikri race over the aeons. How the humans were so handicapped in their movements! She could move two miles for their one without hindrance or tiring jerks. Proudly, she pulled on her convection sac grown from her underbody…the one that pushed heat currents under her body similar to how a convection oven moves heat. It nullified her weight and allowed her to glide over the turf, and negated the need for accessory limbs.

  Even with all her powers Audra was still wary. Not inconceivable there might exist some indigenous life form out there that could bring about her demise. The nameless creature, for instance, that roved the shadows, lurking, and had made the strange horn sound from time to time was an entity that brought chills to her body. For this, she stayed on the watch...

  Audra marvelled anew at the NAVO invention: a curious technology that had given her an opportunity for advancement. Her awareness had been enhanced, to levels unimaginable. She saw almost everything around her in an exalted four dimensions. All the beings were like light sources: the trees, the water, the marsh fiends. Even the smallest insect was not just a 3D cutout any more, but a living entity of
dancing colour, pulsing with a life she had never known, lit with various energetic spectrums and unique vibratory signatures.

  The splicing had magnified Audra’s hungry desire multifold: to be more than just one, more than a single entity, more than just her. For the thousandth time, she craved the human Miko. To be complete, she must have him!

  Her mind drifted to her ambition for rulership over the dominant races. It pulsed under her skin with all the force of an obsession. The scheme was on hold. Not that her ambition was realizable at any time soon, but the potential existed. The NAVO bullies and the Zikri war-pirates were weak, disorganized, a band of renegades—and here, Audra assimilated the term from her symbiosis with Miko—renegades who roamed the stars, gifted only with a pack of expensive hardware and the work of millions of years of technological advancement. Perhaps her superior intelligence would figure a way out of this dilemma. A challenge indeed, and something to occupy her energies. Much work was to be done; this tiresome planet was only a gnat in her side...

  * * *

  Hour by hour Miko pushed on, as if dusk were eternal—if it were even dusk at all on this strange world. All the time he could feel the press of Audra’s fantastic thoughts somewhere behind him, weighing in on him like black magic. It was as if she lived still in his skin.

  He shivered at the loathsome memory of her.

  He passed a smoking patch of shattered trees and charred shrubs where the NAVO sentinel had fallen. Letting up his forced pace, he halted to rest, panting from exhaustion. The ship was a tortured mass of metal wedged between two goliath trees. They looked like ancient arbutus of primitive earth with trunks five stories high and soaring hundreds of feet in the air. The surrounding forest was top heavy, a towering maze of serpentish branches. Miko climbed midway up the hanging craft only to discover that the two pilots were dead, half eaten by predators.

  Masking his revulsion, Miko clambered to the top of the hull and concluded that the ship was beyond repair. Sadly he entered through the broken glass of the cockpit to gaze grimly at the console link and reaching for it, found the communication system dead. Deader than Phalos’s moon.