The Kraken Series Boxset: A Sci-fi Alien Romance Series Books 1-3 with Bonus Exclusive Short Story

by Tiffany Roberts

  “And the code was all you knew?”

  “We learned by the pattern.” He smiled to himself, and moved his finger in the air, pantomiming entry of the code. “Always the same buttons in the same order. Jax and I later realized that we recognized the symbols on the buttons, though they held no meaning to us.”

  “I’m glad she was able to teach you.” She turned her attention back to the screens. “Do you think that’s him?”

  He glanced over his shoulder at the skeleton. “I do not see a particular resemblance, but it’s possible.”

  Aymee stared at him. She waited for the hint of a smile on his lips, for a glint of humor in his eyes, but his expression remained serious.

  Arkon furrowed his brow. “What?”

  Unable to hold it in, she laughed. As horrible as she felt about it — that had been a living human being, however long ago — it was liberating to find some humor in the situation. “I can’t believe you said that.”

  “But...it is true. Isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but of course there’d be no resemblance now.”

  “Hmm.” He glanced at the remains again. “You’re right. Though the bone structure influences a person’s facial features, it is difficult to picture without the overlying musculature and—”

  He paused when he saw the smile on her face.

  “I think I understand,” Arkon said. “You were amused by the absurdity of my initial response?”

  Aymee chuckled and brushed her fingers over his arm. “You’re adorable.”

  His skin took on a faint purple tinge. “I do have a tendency to overthink things.”

  “I don’t mind, Arkon. It’s what makes you you.” She turned back to the console and swiped her finger down, scrolling through the stills. The numbers on each one, she realized, were dates and times. “These are all marked in Standard Galactic Year. That hasn’t been used on Halora for at least three hundred years.”

  Arkon leaned closer to study the numbers on one of the images. “How can you tell?”

  “The colonists keep the year based on when our ancestors first landed, three hundred and sixty-one years ago. I think they switched sometime after we stopped receiving supplies from off-world. The only time I’ve seen dates marked like this have been on old medical records and holos from before the colonization.”

  “What is the purpose of these images? Are they meant as a record of how this man aged during his time here?”

  “No. Some people used holo logs to record information. My father, and many doctors before him, used holos to document new medicines, toxins, and diseases they encountered on Halora. It’s our most reliable means of passing information from one generation to the next, though we’ve had to start writing more and more of it down by hand as the old technology fails.”

  She continued to scroll down, then paused and swiped back up. The dates had been spaced out with weeks between them in the beginning, but the more recent ones were recorded closer together — daily entries, sometimes more than one on a single day, and the man’s appearance grew more haggard with each one.

  Aymee tapped on the first of the daily logs.

  The hologram expanded into a three-dimensional image — it was like looking through a window into the control room, with the man from the image positioned close to the hologram’s edge, his body cut off from the chest down. He was clean-cut, dark brown hair slicked back and his face shaved. He wore a dark blue uniform with silver buttons and trim.

  The clothes on the skeleton might have looked the same once, long ago.

  “This is Captain James Wright of the Interstellar Defense Coalition, officer number one-five-three-bravo-six,” the man said, “in command of Darrow Nautical Outpost. The date is August twenty-third, SGY 2509.

  “Four days ago, we received a series of communications from the offshore underwater facility, Pontus Alpha, indicating a massive security breach. The limited information I have received regarding that incident is detailed in my log dated August nineteenth.

  “We have received no further communications from Pontus Alpha since then. Today, at eleven hundred hours, one of the submersibles, the Nautilus, appeared on the tracker for thirteen minutes and disappeared. We received a distress message from the crew during that window. I…am currently under official orders not to discuss the contents of said message.”

  Wright’s features were strained, and there was a far-off gleam in his eyes — he’d seen something disturbing. Aymee suspected it was humans being killed by kraken. Had he known of their existence before seeing his men slaughtered?

  “Since that message, we have been unable to establish further contact. There are no vessels remaining at this location, and therefore I was unable to dispatch a search party.

  “At twelve hundred hours, we received official orders from Central Command in Fort Culver. We have been instructed to hold the line against anything that might come and defend the colonists to the last man. Due to the simultaneous declarations of war in eight separate star systems earlier this year, the IDC will not send additional troops or equipment to reinforce our positions. The sensitive nature of the situation at Pontus Alpha has left me unable to brief my soldiers on our enemy and their potential capabilities.

  “Central does not want panic to spread through the populace. Our directive is to hold this facility at all costs and maintain a base of operations for any future underwater endeavors. We are not to send any communication to Watchpoint Echo, which is the base closest to Pontus Alpha.”

  “Watchpoint Echo?” Aymee asked quietly, brows drawn. “Does he mean The Watch?”

  “I will record another log as soon as there is more information relevant to the situation. Captain Wright, signing off.”

  The holo flickered out, reverting to the collection of still images.

  Aymee glanced at the skeletal remains on the floor. She crouched and extended a hand, carefully adjusting the worn, dingy material. A name had been embroidered on the coat, hidden beneath a crease — WRIGHT.

  “Computer, what is Watchpoint Echo?” Aymee asked as she stood, wiping her fingers on her skirt.

  “Watchpoint Echo is a military outpost established as a drop-point for supplies delivered from space and a shipping hub for seaborne materials on this side of the Halorian mainland. Civilian settlement was permitted three years after Watchpoint Echo’s establishment.”

  A three-dimensional map appeared in the air. Though she’d never seen it from that angle, the land it depicted was familiar to Aymee. All the old buildings were there — the most prominent being the lighthouse on the cape. It was The Watch as it had looked hundreds of years ago.

  “That’s your home,” Arkon said. He pointed to a spot to the west of the settlement. “This is the beach we met on for the exchanges, isn’t it?”

  “It is.”

  “The technology your people once commanded is fascinating.”

  “So much of it has broken down or stopped working over the years that we’ve learned to do without. I can’t say things wouldn’t be easier if we had access to some of it again, though.” Aymee tilted her head, staring at the map. “Computer, why did the deliveries to Watchpoint Echo stop?”

  “Halora was declared too remote and unstable for continued support from the Interstellar Defense Coalition after war began in 2509 SGY. The final shipment was dropped in April of the same year.”

  Aymee looked at Arkon. “They abandoned everyone.”

  She shouldn’t have felt any emotional attachment to the event; it was a wrong done by people she’d never heard of to people she’d never known hundreds of years before her birth. Anger flashed through her, nonetheless. The people who were supposed to protect the colonists had turned their backs and left the settlers to their fates with little care for their chances of survival.

  However, had reinforcements been dispatched, Arkon and the kraken would likely have been wiped out.

  It was a sobering thought.

  The people of Halora — human and kraken alike
— had persevered through abandonment, and Aymee had met Arkon because of it.

  “It is talking about...about things beyond this world?” Arkon asked.

  “You mean space?”

  “Space. That is the darkness between the stars, is it not? Where your people originally came from?”

  “Yes. Humans originally came from a planet called Earth, though we visited many other planets and solar systems before we came to Halora. We had huge ships that flew through space, from world to world.”

  He turned his attention back to the map, which slowly rotated to display the topography of The Watch from different angles. “Even with all I’ve learned, with all I know to be true, that seems so unlikely. So impossible.”

  “Creating a being from two different species seems impossible, too,” she said gently.

  Arkon smiled and spread his arms slightly, glancing down at himself. “Not so to me, when I have the proof right here all the time.”

  Aymee’s eyes trailed from his broad shoulders down to his narrow waist and beyond, drinking in every detail of his form. Beneath these lights, his skin was more cerulean than blue-gray, the color of the sea on a sunny day.

  “It is jarring when I recall that our people are so closely related, given the violence and hostility between them in the past,” he said, calling her gaze back to his.

  “If only they’d seen what Macy and I do when we look at you. Physical differences aside, we really are the same.” Aymee sighed and faced the console. She swiped the map away. Captain James Wright filled the screen. “Looking at the past and a lot of the present, it’s hard to envision a peaceful future between our people.”

  “It can be achieved. Even if it’s only one...or two...people at a time.”

  She smiled at him and took his hand again before tapping the next image.

  They viewed the logs in silence, one after another, and found each more harrowing than the last despite the lack of new information presented. After the first few had played, Arkon curled a tentacle around Aymee’s waist and drew her close. She slipped her arms around him. His presence and quiet strength provided her only comfort.

  Though many of the logs were mundane and uneventful, some lasting less than a minute, Captain Wright grew increasingly distressed with each passing day. His frustration became evident as his repeated declarations of having received no new orders or information from Central Command were delivered with progressively less emotion, while the unhealthy gleam in his eyes conversely intensified.

  He detailed many of their normal operations, mentioning the base only had nineteen personnel apart from himself, as it had never entered full operation. His early note that they were well provisioned eventually turned into detailed weekly inventories of their stores. After the first few weeks, the Captain stopped shaving.

  The formality of his introductions lapsed as the entries continued, but he maintained a calm demeanor through most of it, never seeming to communicate the scathing opinions belied by his expression.

  Until the log he made on the one hundred and fourteenth day.

  “Our provisions are lower than projected. Six soldiers violated standing orders, raided the stores and armory, and exited the facility during the night. Privates Thompson, Harris, Brown, and Everett—” Aymee started at the name, thinking of James and Maris, “—along with Corporal Jennings and Sergeant Brick.” His face contorted with rage, and he growled through his teeth. “These men swore an oath, and they have broken that oath by deserting their posts and stealing IDC property. I have sent word to the other bases that they are to be shot on sight, but I haven’t received any responses.”

  Captain Wright dipped his head and dragged a hand over his haggard face. “We may be all that is left.”

  Aymee and Arkon continued watching. Two weeks after the first desertion, Wright reported another — seven more men, gone during the night. Wright’s anger was far more pronounced, now, and he seemed to have aged years since the first log Aymee had selected. His cheeks were gaunt beneath his scraggly beard, his skin sickly-pale.

  “I had sealed the armory and the storeroom,” he said in the log five days later, head bowed, and face lost in shadow, “to keep the men from helping themselves. Without order...none of this works. So, my second-in-command, the man I should have been able to trust until the end, led a group of them into both rooms, using the clearance granted by his rank, stocked them with food and weapons, and deserted.”

  He sat in silence, his head shifting from side to side as though searching for something on the floor.

  “The one man I thought I could trust. The one man I thought valued his honor and duty above everything else, the way a soldier should. Just another fucking rat.” He slammed his hand down; Aymee jumped at the loud bang. “If he shows his face here again, I will shoot him. I will unload every round from my service pistol into his fake smile, and then I will walk to the armory, reload my firearm, and empty it into him again.

  “Only Lindholm and Warren are left. They’re the only two who are man enough to stick to their duty. Maybe the only two decent soldiers on this entire God-forsaken planet. And I can’t trust them. I don’t know why they haven’t left yet, but I know they’re just waiting for an opportunity.

  “I left the armory and storeroom unlocked after the most recent desertion. I think...I need to watch the cameras. Hold this facility at all costs. We need to hold it. I need to hold it.”

  Aymee’s finger hovered over the final log. She turned her head and stared at the remains on the floor. All he’d gone through had chipped away at his mind, leaving only blind rage and paranoia by the end. She knew what the last file would contain.

  She opened it.

  Captain Wright leaned on the console, one hand in his short-cropped hair and the other holding a familiar pistol. He was silent for a long while — the timer ticked away three minutes and twenty-two seconds before he spoke.

  “Sergeant Lindholm and...and Private Warren. They have been executed under provision one-nineteen-charlie of the Interstellar Defense Coalition Judicial Code for attempted desertion of post. Provisions have run out. There are no supplies coming. No word. No word from anyone, anywhere.”

  He shook his head, the gesture taking on an almost violent energy. “They were in the armory. Taking weapons against my orders. Arming themselves, maybe to...maybe to kill me? I detonated an incendiary device within the armory to prevent the stored weaponry from falling into enemy hands...tentacles…

  “What the fuck are those things? They were on the Nautilus, and they…”

  Suddenly, he stood up. He was wearing the dark blue and silver uniform; it looked surprisingly clean and crisp, and he’d shaved for the first time in months.

  “Captain James Wright, officer number one-five-three-bravo-six. This is my final report. I have held my post for as long as is possible. I have engaged all the security doors and will be shifting the facility into emergency power to keep it as intact as possible when IDC forces reclaim it.”

  He shifted his pistol to his left hand and saluted with his right.

  Lowering his hand, he stepped forward, back straight, and reached for something on the console.

  The hologram flickered, and static distortions ran through it. The bright light shifted to the same dim red glow that had illuminated the place when Aymee and Arkon first arrived.

  “Manual emergency standby power switch engaged,” the computer said. “Shifting to standby power in five seconds. Five...four...three…”

  “Captain Wright, signing off.” Though his figure was shadowed, Aymee saw him lift the gun to his mouth.

  “Two...one…”

  There was a boom and a flash of light, burning the image of Captain Wright with his head snapping backward into Aymee’s mind, and then the hologram dissipated.

  Chapter 14

  Golden shafts of morning sunlight streamed through the water as Arkon swam away from the Broken Cavern, creating contrasting patches of light and shadow on the seafloor. His ga
ze drifted over rocks encrusted with sedentary creatures of a hundred different colors and beds of seagrass swaying hypnotically in the current. He tracked the movement of long, sleek, shimmering fish and scuttling, hard-shelled creatures. The sparkling surface overhead gave way to the endless, varied blue of the distant ocean on the fringes of his vision.

  It was beauty he longed to share with Aymee.

  After watching the logs, they’d explored the Darrow Nautical Outpost, and discovered a few useful chambers — foremost being a kitchen like the one in the Facility and a room filled with thirty-two narrow beds. They’d pushed three of the beds together to create a space large enough to lie in side by side. Aymee had slept in Arkon’s embrace and hadn’t moved away from him once during the night.

  He’d slept little; he knew she’d been more troubled by Wright’s final log than she admitted.

  Aymee was still sleeping when he’d awoken, though she stirred when he slipped out of bed. She’d muttered a question — more a sound than a word — and grunted her understanding when he explained he was going hunting. Sound sleep had claimed her again within seconds.

  She could have come — they had the diving suit he’d brought and had located several more in one of the chambers — but Arkon wanted her to rest. The last few days had been harrowing for Aymee, and even if she hadn’t physically exerted herself, the toll on her emotions was immense. She needed time to adjust, to recover, to find her joy again.

  He’d delayed only long enough to gather Captain Wright’s remains as he left, so he could bring them out to sea.

  While he took in the beauty of his surroundings — he was certain Aymee could perfectly capture the unique essence of morning light in the ocean through her painting — he kept watch for both predators and prey.

  Though Aymee could survive on plants alone if necessary, they both needed meat to remain strong and healthy. As Aymee’s provider and protector, he refused to allow any of her needs to go unmet.

  He drifted farther than he’d originally intended, into unfamiliar waters, and felt a small thrill at the prospect. This had been Jax’s experience for years — always pushing beyond the boundaries a little at a time, always seeking the unknown to discover it, break it, master it.