Alien Conquest

by Tracy St. John

  “How do you feel?” Tra­nis asked, his hand pos­ses­sively stroking her breast.

  “Won­der­ful.” The eu­pho­ria per­sisted, and Cas­sidy wished she could re­main in­tox­i­cated, far from re­spon­si­bil­ity and guilt. She pushed away nig­gling con­cerns of loy­alty to her race and re­li­gion. Only this warm en­joy­ment mat­tered right now.

  “Have you ever heard of Ar­maged­don?”

  “Of course. It’s not ex­actly a ro­man­tic sub­ject though.” Cas­sidy’s tone was petu­lant. Why did Tra­nis want to talk about such things af­ter what they’d shared? Es­pe­cially things that re­minded her of the sins she com­mit­ted?

  “I’m sorry if it up­sets you. I sim­ply won­dered what it re­ferred to.”

  “The fi­nal bat­tle be­tween good and evil in which the an­tichrist is sent pack­ing once and for all. The evil­do­ers too.” Cas­sidy propped her­self up on one el­bow and looked at the men. “Do you think I’m go­ing to Hell for what we just did? You know, I won­der about this stuff all the time. With all the bad things that hap­pen like mur­ders and abuse, does my hav­ing sex with aliens re­ally mat­ter that much to God? It doesn’t hurt any­one.”

  De­gorsk chuck­led. “God would never send such a sweet, beau­ti­ful an­gel like you to that place.”

  Some­how the Imdiko made the sac­cha­rine words sound sin­cere. Cas­sidy thought per­haps he meant them. The thought made her feel warm in­side. “You’re sup­posed to be mon­sters. That’s what ev­ery­one says.”

  “Do you think we’re mon­sters, pre­cious girl?”

  She thought, re­ally thought about his ques­tion as much as the per­sis­tent ex­haus­tion and in­tox­i­ca­tion al­lowed her to. “I know what my faith be­lieves. The Holy Leader says you are not made in God’s im­age as we are. You’re emis­saries of Sa­tan, sent to foul God’s great­est cre­ation.” Cas­sidy’s brow wrin­kled as she con­sid­ered what she’d been taught com­pared to her own ex­pe­ri­ence. “I know some of it is pro­pa­ganda, but some of it has to be truth as well. You have taken the women of Eu­ropa pris­on­ers. You’re forc­ing us to do things we don’t want to do.”

  “But?” Tra­nis prod­ded when she hes­i­tated. He seemed gen­uinely in­ter­ested in what Cas­sidy’s thoughts were. Be­ing lis­tened to was some­thing she didn’t ex­pe­ri­ence of­ten since her mother’s death.

  “But de­spite some very un­sa­vory ac­tions, you don’t fit what I was told about you at all. You look like us, with only a few dif­fer­ences. So it’s log­i­cal to as­sume you were made in God’s im­age too.”

  “What else?”

  “You two have been very nice to me, even when you make me do things I shouldn’t. Li­don is usu­ally nice too, but he scared me a lit­tle last time.”

  Cas­sidy looked around the room, mak­ing sure the im­pos­ing Nobek hadn’t come in with­out her knowl­edge. Even af­ter as­sur­ing her­self he hadn’t silently slipped into the room, she con­fided to the oth­ers in a whis­per, “He spanked me like a lit­tle girl. He seemed to think I was mis­be­hav­ing.”

  Tra­nis bit his lower lip, as if to keep from laugh­ing. De­gorsk nod­ded with sym­pa­thetic un­der­stand­ing. “I know he did. Your back­side was red from it, and I put a cream on it to make it feel bet­ter. Does it still hurt?”

  “Not any­more. Why would he hit me like that?”

  “Li­don’s a dis­ci­plinar­ian but very fair. You must have been naughty for him to pun­ish you.”

  Cas­sidy tried to think what she’d done to war­rant pun­ish­ment. All she could re­mem­ber was the warmth of his hand on her but­tocks, send­ing painful shocks of plea­sure dart­ing through her womb.

  Tra­nis’ ex­pres­sion was sober again. “If Li­don spanked you, it was only to cor­rect your mis­be­hav­ior. He cares deeply for you, Cas­sidy.”

  “Re­ally?” The thought made her feel bet­ter. “But I’m an adult. I’m too old for spank­ings.”

  That earned a chuckle from De­gorsk. “While Li­don is not old for a Kalquo­rian, in Earth time he’s been around 72 years. You’re still very much a lit­tle girl to him.”

  Cas­sidy’s jaw dropped. Li­don was al­most as old as her fi­ancée, Colonel Tucker. “But that is old! Re­ally old.”

  De­gorsk laughed out loud, and Tra­nis grinned fit to split his face. “I sup­pose for a girl your age, Li­don would be … ma­ture. He’s not even mid­dle aged for a Kalquo­rian though. We live an av­er­age of 250 years.”

  “Wow.” Enough of the in­tox­i­ca­tion had lifted for Cas­sidy to make the cal­cu­la­tions. Li­don’s life was still in the early stages at the same age most Earth­ers were plan­ning their fu­ner­als.

  “Cas­sidy, do you know any­thing about Earth’s de­fense grid?”

  She won­dered how old Tra­nis and De­gorsk were. They looked young too, cer­tainly no older than their mid-twen­ties to early thir­ties. Now she re­al­ized she couldn’t trust their ap­pear­ances.

  Lost in con­sid­er­ing the as­tound­ing slow­ness of the aliens’ ag­ing, Cas­sidy an­swered Tra­nis’ ques­tion ab­sent­mind­edly. “I don’t know any­thing about the grid ex­cept it’s two days’ travel from here, and you have to know the code to get past it. That’s the only way to reach the worm­hole.”

  De­gorsk’s brows drew to­gether in con­fu­sion while Tra­nis’ eyes went wide. “Worm­hole?” the medic asked.

  Tra­nis an­swered him. “It’s their word for a vor­tex gate­way. It’s an in­ter­di­men­sional por­tal, like the one near Sir­ius. Where is the worm­hole that leads to Earth, Cas­sidy?”

  She was still try­ing to fig­ure out how old Tra­nis and De­gorsk might be. She thought the Kalquo­rian cap­tain must be the youngest of his clan, though his beard lent some ma­tu­rity to his looks. “There are two, but the one just on the other side of the se­cu­rity grid comes out be­tween Flor­ida and the Ba­hamas. The por­tal is called the Bermuda Tri­an­gle. It’s an un­sta­ble worm­hole and ter­ri­ble to nav­i­gate. Even with au­to­matic grav­ity buf­fers, we have to strap down be­cause it’s such a bumpy ride. I hated go­ing through it to get to Eu­ropa.”

  Some­thing about the look the two men ex­changed both­ered Cas­sidy, but she couldn’t quite put her fin­ger on why her be­numbed brain was clam­or­ing warn­ings. She needed to think…

  “What about the other worm­hole? Tell me about that.”

  “Its ac­cess is in the An­dromeda Gal­axy and it comes out in the Dragon’s Tri­an­gle, near Japan and the Asian Bloc. There’s an­other de­fense grid around its ac­cess to pro­tect it from in­va­sion. Oh!”

  That’s what Cas­sidy’s sense of un­ease had been try­ing to cau­tion her about. She was di­vulging in­for­ma­tion to the en­emy!

  Tra­nis tried to keep his voice calm, but she heard the ex­cite­ment un­der­ly­ing his com­po­sure. His sharp gaze be­trayed him. “Where ex­actly is the en­trance to the Bermuda Tri­an­gle por­tal?”

  “I shouldn’t have told you about that.” Panic rose to beat back the ef­fects of De­gorsk’s bite. “What have I done? Get away from me! Get away, demons!”

  Cas­sidy flailed wildly, try­ing to es­cape the men who’d se­duced and duped her into re­veal­ing the worm­hole’s ex­is­tence. Stupid! Evil! her mind screamed. And she was. Oh God help her, she was a wicked, hor­ri­ble crea­ture de­ter­mined to bring about hu­man­ity’s fall just as surely as Eve of­fer­ing the ser­pent’s fruit to Adam.

  Even the two Kalquo­ri­ans’ for­mi­da­ble strength couldn’t bring her mad­dened thrash­ing un­der con­trol. She clawed and hit her­self as bru­tally as she did them, scream­ing her hor­ror for what she’d done.

  Fi­nally De­gorsk shouted, “I have to se­date her again!”

  “Do it!” Tra­nis roared.

  The Dramok pinned her with his body, tak­ing the brunt of her abuse as De­gorsk sprang f
rom the bed. Cas­sidy man­aged to sink her teeth into Tra­nis’ shoul­der in her strug­gle against him. His blood, strangely sweet on her tongue, flooded her mouth. Tra­nis hissed in pain, but kept hold of her un­til De­gorsk re­turned, press­ing a hypo against her throat.

  Cas­sidy’s mus­cles went lax. She re­leased the vi­cious bite, leav­ing a per­fect oval on the Dramok’s dark skin.

  God help and for­give me, she thought as black­ness washed over her.

  Chap­ter 9

  Li­don stared at Gen­eral Hamil­ton in the con­tain­ment cell. The Earther was sus­pended in anti-grav shack­les, much like Cas­sidy had been ear­lier. The sight wasn’t nearly as pleas­ing to the Nobek. Pain in­flic­tors were now imbed­ded in the most sen­si­tive ar­eas of Hamil­ton’s skin. The small, flat white ovals looked harm­less enough, but they were any­thing but blame­less. Li­don knew from per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence that while pain in­flic­tors caused no phys­i­cal dam­age, the agony they dis­charged was ter­ri­ble. Li­don won­dered if the gen­eral had been trained to with­stand such pain as the Nobek had, or if it was sheer stub­born will that kept the Earther from spilling the se­crets he knew.

  Hamil­ton’s spare frame had none of Cas­sidy’s soft­ness, none of her charm. Li­don was glad there was lit­tle re­sem­blance be­tween Hamil­ton and his grand­daugh­ter. It made it eas­ier to tor­ment the Earther gen­eral.

  The Nobek’s feel­ings were mixed where Hamil­ton was con­cerned. Know­ing the same blood flowed in his Matara’s veins, that she was a de­scen­dent of this man, gave the bat­tle-hard­ened war­rior pause. Still, Gen­eral Hamil­ton was part of the gov­ern­ment that ter­ror­ized Cas­sidy and other women like her. He was part of her pain. For that, Li­don wanted to beat the man bloody.

  He con­tented him­self with star­ing at the Earther, let­ting his si­lence eat at Hamil­ton’s will. Li­don hadn’t said a word since en­ter­ing the cell. He’d eas­ily sub­dued the flail­ing man, shack­ling and dan­gling him help­lessly in the air. Then the Kalquo­rian stood back, folded his arms over his chest and glared. Hamil­ton was be­gin­ning to re­spond to the op­pres­sive si­lence.

  “Stop star­ing at me, Kalquo­rian de­mon!” he ranted. “Let me loose. I’ll claw your eyes out and crush them be­neath my feet! As God is my wit­ness, I’ll make you pay for your sins!”

  Li­don stood ab­so­lutely still, not a twitch be­tray­ing his amuse­ment at the empty threats. Hamil­ton’s tongue was loos­en­ing quite well now. It was a wel­come change from the stub­born si­lence he usu­ally re­treated be­hind.

  From the cor­ner of his eye, Li­don saw Tra­nis ap­pear on the other side of the trans­par­ent field that made up one of the cell walls. Some­thing in his young Dramok’s car­riage sug­gested he wasn’t very happy. There was a deep fur­row be­tween Tra­nis’ brows. Li­don hoped it had noth­ing to do with Cas­sidy, but he wel­comed the frus­tra­tion in the cap­tain’s at­ti­tude. That kind of anger, used in a con­trolled man­ner, could yield re­sults with their pris­oner.

  The con­tain­ment field be­came vis­i­ble for a mo­ment when Tra­nis ac­ti­vated an open­ing through which he could en­ter. It shim­mered like a trans­par­ent golden cur­tain. Once the cap­tain was in­side the cell, the field dis­ap­peared once more. A brief buzz sounded, let­ting them know it was whole again.

  Hamil­ton howled in mixed ter­ror and fury, his ver­bal at­tacks turn­ing to the cap­tain. “The sodom­izer! The man-lover! Rapist!”

  Li­don fi­nally looked away from Hamil­ton to cock an eye­brow at Tra­nis. “Did you?” he asked in their lan­guage.

  Tra­nis’ glare skew­ered him with sel­dom-seen anger. “Give me credit for hav­ing some taste. How could you know me and ask such a thing?”

  Over his in­fu­ri­ated hiss, Hamil­ton con­tin­ued to scream. “Have you re­turned to tor­ture me more? Do you think your devil flesh tempts me?”

  Li­don ig­nored him. “I read De­gorsk’s re­port. I didn’t know if you’d cap­i­tal­ized on what he found dur­ing his ex­am­i­na­tion.” He twitched an apolo­getic smile. “You’ve made ex­treme sac­ri­fices be­fore to carry out mis­sions.”

  Some of the ten­sion went out of Tra­nis’ body. “The gen­eral seemed to be­lieve the colonic probe was a sex­ual en­counter. Though it was De­gorsk who ‘vi­o­lated’ him, Hamil­ton blamed us equally.”

  “Do your worst, you alien dev­ils! I won’t be per­suaded!”

  “You should have told him De­gorsk is much more en­joy­able than that.” Li­don switched sub­jects. He needed to know where Tra­nis’ thoughts were. “You look up­set.”

  “Our Matara gave up in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing ac­cess to Earth, and she re­gret­ted it. She be­came very dis­tressed. De­gorsk had to se­date her again.”

  Li­don frowned. It both­ered him that his lit­tle Matara con­tin­ued to deal with emo­tional trauma. The poor girl was strong, but she was no war­rior. She shouldn’t have to cope with so much pain.

  The part of Li­don con­cerned with pro­tect­ing the Kalquo­rian Em­pire added a flash of tem­per to his mood. He hadn’t con­sid­ered Cas­sidy might have in­for­ma­tion that could help their mis­sion. The flicker of self-dis­gust made the Nobek tense. He’d un­der­es­ti­mated her, like an Earther man would have. He vowed to him­self that it wouldn’t hap­pen again.

  To Tra­nis he said, “It is hard to be dis­loyal to your own kind, even when you’ve been ill-used by them. I can well un­der­stand her anx­i­ety.”

  “I’m talk­ing to you!” Hamil­ton screamed. “Don’t think ig­nor­ing me will keep me silent!”

  Tra­nis glanced at the Earther. “At least you’ve got him speak­ing again. Has he told you any­thing of in­ter­est?”

  “I haven’t be­gun the in­ter­ro­ga­tion. I’ve just stood here star­ing at him. It seems to be hav­ing an ef­fect.”

  Hamil­ton grinned as they turned their at­ten­tion to him. Li­don didn’t find it to be a pleas­ant sight.

  “Are you afraid to talk?” the Earther asked them, his voice hoarse from shout­ing. “You should be. Your tongues will be cut out by the swords of God’s right­eous armies.”

  “Charm­ing,” Tra­nis mut­tered. “He seems to be in the mood to share a few thoughts. Let’s see what we can get from him this time.”

  The Kalquo­ri­ans walked up to the sus­pended Earther. Li­don grasped Hamil­ton’s shoul­der. He pulled him down, ad­just­ing the pris­oner so he hung slightly lower than eye level. It kept Hamil­ton in a hum­bled po­si­tion. The gen­eral shud­dered at his touch, and Li­don felt a twinge of mean tri­umph. The Earther wouldn’t cave in from fear, but fear was good just the same. It meant the Nobek had the up­per hand.

  “So you’ve come back to hu­mil­i­ate me? To de­file me with your de­mon lusts?” the Earther spat.

  Tra­nis had swept all emo­tion from his face. His voice flat, he said, “Ar­maged­don. What is it?”

  Hamil­ton’s grin re­turned, a hec­tic light in his eyes. “The end of the world. The right­eous will be up­lifted and the damned an­ni­hi­lated in a wave of fire.”

  Li­don re­strained the urge to quote one of his fa­vorite pas­sages from the Book of Life: Be­lief is the heart’s staunch pro­tec­tor, zealotry the world’s deadly as­sailant.

  In­stead he asked, “Why is that word en­coded in your ship’s data­base?”

  Hamil­ton’s re­ply made no sense. “‘But the beast was cap­tured, and with him the false prophet. They had de­luded those who had re­ceived the mark of the beast and wor­shiped his im­age. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burn­ing sul­fur.’”

  Li­don thought he re­mem­bered such a pas­sage in the Earther bible. It sounded fa­mil­iar. Per­haps Hamil­ton was quot­ing as a de­fense against an­swer­ing their ques­tions.

  Tra­nis tried a dif­fer­ent tact. “What kind of de
­fenses will we en­counter at the Bermuda Tri­an­gle when we emerge from the worm­hole?”

  Li­don was hard pressed to con­tain his ex­cite­ment at his Dramok’s words. There was a por­tal? One that led di­rectly to Earth, cut­ting days of travel to mere min­utes? Cas­sidy had in­deed let slip im­por­tant in­for­ma­tion.

  Hamil­ton’s eyes widened an in­stant be­fore his face took on that closed ex­pres­sion that let them know he would soon go silent again. “‘Out of this mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the na­tions.’” A tear rolled from one eye to slip down the gen­eral’s cheek. “Our de­fense is the em­brace of God. We will not be taken.”

  They were los­ing their op­por­tu­nity to get him to talk. It was des­per­a­tion that prod­ded Li­don to his next ac­tion.

  He stepped be­hind Hamil­ton and ran his hand over the Earther’s hairy in­ner thigh. “You can do bet­ter than that, Gen­eral.”

  Hamil­ton jerked at Li­don’s touch. His voice pitched high in panic. “Dear Fa­ther in Heaven, grant me the strength to over­come these agents of Hell.”

  Li­don’s hand stroked up­ward to clutch a skinny but­tock. He pulled a gri­mace be­hind Hamil­ton’s back and saw his young Dramok bite his lips to­gether in the ef­fort to hold back laugh­ter. Well, at least some­one was en­joy­ing this. It sure as hell wasn’t fun for him.

  Tra­nis re­gained con­trol over him­self. “I think Li­don likes you,” he whis­pered to the trem­bling Earther. “Tell me about Ar­maged­don, Gen­eral. I want a clear an­swer this time.”

  De­spite his sobs, Hamil­ton’s voice filled with venom. “You will not have my world. I guar­an­tee you that.”

  Be­hind him, Li­don shook his head at Tra­nis. In Kalquo­rian he said, “I can’t go any fur­ther with this. The thought sours my stom­ach.”