Marauder Fenrir: Scifi Alien Invasion Romance (Mating Wars) (7 page)

M
en
nearly as tall as me, and women nearly as beautiful as Turret Woman—nearly, but not quite–escort us onto a small vehicle.

The vehicle is attached to some kind of metal rail, and it moves us quite quickly along the center of the habitat’s end-cap.

I’m familiar with habitats as a concept, though I’ve never been in one. My mother’s race was quite advanced, and they’d built a massive series of habitats that had surrounded my birth star. My mother’s race–whose name we must no longer speak–was advanced enough to think they could fight back against the Marauder fleet.

My father’s invasion fleet hurled enough anti-matter into my birth star that it swelled and overloaded. My father’s fleet helped them evacuate the swelling sun, and thus he met my mother.

By the time I was born, the habitats had all been destroyed, and I grew up on one of the ships that now races toward the human’s system.

“Holy fuck!” Turret Woman says, jumping out of her seat and looking through the window. “Fenrir! Look!”

The sides and top of the vehicle are all glass, and the rail that we are travelling along seems to be located dead center in the habitat, thus we are in zero-g and surrounded on all sides by New Copenhagen.

I float up by her side, and as I look out, I feel something stir deep within my chest. The humans are primitive, but...this is more than mere engineering. It’s art. Blasphemous, but moving.

On all sides I see green pastures and houses with bright red roofs. There are even small clouds floating a few kilometers between the central spine and the land, and some of the strips of land have big lakes. The lakes are filled with boats, and the boats have sails colored bright yellow, light blue, and red. And all of the ground and water and space is all curved. I look out across our 180-degree field of view, and see 180-degrees of New Copenhagen. It’s as if the human’s home planet of Earth were hollow, all of the cities were built on the inside of the crust, and I could look up and see all of humanity from the earth’s core.

“No wonder they are so fucking full of themselves,” Turret Woman says. “I had no idea…”

“Welcome to New Copenhagen,” one of the men escorting us says. “We will take one of the spokes down, so you’ll need to strap in. As we descend, you will begin to feel the gravity of the centripetal force.”

Turret Woman lets out a raspy breath of air, which I know by now is a sound indicating annoyance. “Yeah, I may be from Earth, but I know how basic physics works, asshole.”

The man grins and points down at our seats.

She kicks off the window, finds her seat and straps herself in.

“Please, sir,” the man says to me.

“You are indicating niceness,” I say, “but you have not made a request of me.”

“Please sit down and buckle in,” he says.

“What are your ships like?” Turret Woman asks me. “Your big fleet ships?”

I answer her as I buckle in. “Marauders make no concessions toward…” I look up and see the beautiful red of the houses and the emerald green grass and fluffy white clouds. “Aesthetics. Beauty. Frivolous things.”

“So your ships look like shit?” she asks.

“No,” I say. “We have evolved to produce very little waste, and what little we do produce is filtered through highly efficient sewage and waste–.”

“No,” Turret Woman says, “I mean...your ships look
bad
. Ugly.”

“They are neutral!” I say. “As soon as we have interbred with a host race and produced offspring, we must immediately resynthesize reaction mass from the host sun and gas giants. Decades of scraping and refining anti-matter to sustain us and bring us to the next star system.”

“Why not relax?” she asks. “Get a few nice decorations built so the trip isn’t so dreary?”

“If our offspring don’t conquer and interbreed with a new race before they die of old age, our entire race will perish.”

“If you’re so advanced,” she says, “shouldn’t you be able to figure out a way to fix that little glitch in your DNA?”

“It’s what makes us strong,” I say. “The need to conquer, to interbreed, it’s what makes us Marauders.”

“You really think so little of us?” one of the women counters, turning back to face me.

I can feel the gravity increasing as our vehicle nears one of the strips of land. I can even see animals grazing in one of the fields and small vehicles moving across roads on the ground. They are small dots still, but growing larger.

“What?” I snap back at the woman.

“You’re just going to tell us everything? Shouldn’t you withhold information, or do you think we pose no threat?”

“I would please like to cooperate with you,
please
, to see how we can work together. To arrange a bloodless interbreeding.”

Turret Woman glares at me.

I was not polite enough, I realize. I remember my studies from back on the fleet, and add another politeness word. “Thank you.”

The woman scoffs. “You think you’re hot shit, huh? You think we’re just going to throw ourselves at you?”

“Why are humans so interested in shit?” I ask. “Is it because you produce so much of it?”

I
snicker
at Fenrir’s accidental insult. It shut the stupid habber up, but I know Fenrir well enough by now to know that it was a coincidental burn. Or is he way smarter than he comes off, and he’s just playing me with his dumb caveman act?

I’m still staring in awe at the habitat. It’s what Earth must have looked like in its prime, at the height of relatively peaceful human civilization. I still hate the habbers for their elitism, but seeing New Copenhagen, I can’t blame them for protecting this. If I had been born here, I’d never want to leave either and die to protect it.

I can see some of the cows as we get closer and closer to the ground. It looks like this spoke we are traveling down will take us directly into a tall building. I want to get outside and feel the grass on my bare feet, but I worry that the building will be our last stop on New Copenhagen. I’m already wearing my prison outfit, and this small glimpse of paradise may be all I ever get. So I open my eyes and drink it all in before it’s gone.

The building finally swallows up our tram, and the view suddenly disappears.

“What is this building?” I ask.

“The Sortitiary,” one of the women says.

“What does this mean?” Fenrir hisses at me.

“It’s where their leaders meet.” I say. “I guess you’re important.”

“Their emperor?” he asks me.

“The habs don’t have emperors,” I say. “They have triumvirates.”

His ears pull back, and his chiseled jaw tightens. He narrows his eyes at me.

“Three people working together to rule,” I say.

“I see,” he says tersely.

We’re at full Earth gravity now–something I haven’t felt in a while–and the tram slows to a crawl in a modern-looking lobby ornamented with smart walls and other extremely fancy decorations.

Fenrir narrows his eyes, and the walls turn purple and teal. He grins.

“Very important,” I say, rolling my eyes.

“You’ll be meeting the triumvirate shortly,” one of the women says. “I must caution you that this particular triumvirate was drafted just yesterday. Your timing is...unfortunate.”

“Sorry,” I say sarcastically. “I should have waited a few more weeks to betray the Empire and become an alleged war criminal on the run with a 7-foot-tall purple alien asshole.”

“I was not judging you,” the woman says. “Just understand that these three are still learning the ropes.”

“If these three were powerful enough to become rulers,” Fenrir says, “I trust they will make the correct decisions. Though however powerful they are, they will find me difficult to negotiate with!”

“That’s for sure,” I mutter. “Or just difficult in general.”

“I’m glad I challenge you, Turret Woman,” he says, leaning back smugly in his seat with a grin.

The doors open, and the habbers escort us through the lobby. None of them are armed, though I’m sure the building itself is. If Fenrir is planning something totally stupid–which I would not put past him–I suspect a swarm of drones or automated turrets would make short work of him before he could take down a single habber.

I should probably have warned him about that ahead of time.

The lobby reminds me somewhat of the official imperial buildings on Earth: big rooms with high ceilings and bustling with people who look important and busy.

But aside from almost every single person stopping to gape at Fenrir and scowl at me, there’s a number of differences. The people are tall. Fenrir is a giant, but he’s only a few inches taller than most of the habbers. The women, without exception, are stunning. And the men? If I hadn’t spent the last twenty-four hours or so with the peak of galactic evolution, I’d find their rugged good looks almost superhuman. They also lack a certain...paranoia...that I was used to seeing on Earth. If you let your guard down in the Empire, chances are you’d get a knife in your back. New Copenhagen gives off the vibe of a big party where everyone is friends.

Some drop-dead gorgeous habber women block our path. They are chattering with Fenrir.

“Which one are you? Cygnus or Aegus?” one asks.

“I offer myself to you,” another flirts. “Welcome to New Copenhagen.” She opens her shirt, and two perfect breasts stand perkily before us.

Fenrir ignores the woman and turns to me. “You see, Turret Woman? I could have any woman I want.”

I cross my arms. “So? What’s your point?”

Isn’t he going to destroy us all? Or does he just want to be a huge fucking asshole before he does?

“Move your breasts aside, female!” Fenrir commands. “I have business with the triumvirate!”

Another woman grabs hold of the first, and a third takes hold of her as well. “We have formed a triumvirate!” the second woman squeals. “And we offer ourselves–.”

“Fucking move!” I growl. “Or I’ll get my surface scum germs all over you!”

They look down at me and scrunch up their noses. The middle woman closes her shirt and scoffs. They start giggling with each other and walk away.

“When Marauders are jealous,” Fenrir says, “we get angry. It’s the same for humans?”

I’m already mad, but my face flushes crimson at his implication. “I’m not fucking jealous! I just can’t stand these smug habbers sneering at me.”

“They are quite taller than you,” Fenrir agrees.

I ball up my fists and clench my teeth. I start to count backward from ten. If I say anything more to this frustrating alien, I’ll completely lose my cool.

And I need to keep cool for the meeting with the triumvirate. The habbers implied that this triumvirate was somehow difficult. The habbers’ crazy system works like a lottery: everyone of legal age on New Copenhagen is eligible to be drafted into the triumvirate, which has near absolute power–provided the three can reach a consensus. I roll my eyes just thinking about how cocky of a system it is. It makes the assumption that every single person on the habitat is competent enough to rule, or at least that one in three will be competent enough to overpower two bad apples.

“This way,” our escort gestures. “You’ll meet with the triumvirate in the great hall–.”

“No,” I say, cutting him off. “We’ll meet them outside.”

Our escort’s perfect face scrunches up into an odd expression. “That’s quite irregular…it’s much easier if–.”

Fenrir’s clothes suddenly shift to a blood red color, and he leans in close to the escort. He reaches up toward her neck, and suddenly turrets pop out of the walls from all directions.

“Stand down!” a voice shouts over the loudspeaker.

The habbers all turn toward Fenrir and gawk. Every last one stops walking to watch the spectacle materializing before them.

Our escort presses her lips together, and though I can see her trembling, she does her best to remain outwardly calm. “Fenrir,” she says. “If you touch me, the turrets will kill you. We don’t want that to happen, so please, stand down.”

“Please can be used in a threat?” he says. “Then
please
listen to the Turret Woman and set up our meeting outside.”

I’m close enough to reach out to him and place a calming hand onto him, but I’m afraid I might set him off even more. I settle for a gentle whisper. “Fenrir, it’s okay.”

“No!” he yells. “Turret woman wants to see your habitat! Outside, now!”

“Step away,” the escort says, “and I’ll convince the triumvirate.”

Fenrir grins wide, then takes a big step backward.

The turrets sink back into the walls and the crowd begins to murmur. Some continue on their way, but most stare at Fenrir.

M
y expert negotiation succeeds
, and we’re brought down to the ground floor and finally outside. The footpaths and plazas outside the big building are all made of white marble, and I see huge white columns as tall as human transport ships towering up along the pathways.

Far in the distance, I can see green fields, lakes, and animals roaming behind fenced-off pastures.

I sniff the air, and it’s crisp. By the time I was born, all the planets in my mother system had been ravaged, and never have I felt such a clean and refreshing scent as this.

“I could sniff this air all day,” I say absently.

“And I could stand and watch this for the rest of my life,” Fiona says. “It’s magnificent.”

“Your home planet is not like this?” I ask.

“No,.” she says wistfully, adding no details.

“You really want to destroy this?” she asks me. “All of it?”

I look away from her, not answering. I don’t know what I want. What I want is irrelevant. I am enslaved by my shame debt.

From the building, a number of important looking men and women wearing fancy clothes begin walking down the marble steps. Behind all the suits, I see three robed figures. Two men and a woman.

“A woman leader?” I ask.

Fiona just scoffs at me.

I wonder if it’s a ploy. They pretend a woman is leading, only to throw me off guard. I’ll not take their bait.

Almost a hundred humans had already stopped to stare at me, but when the human leaders are spotted heading toward me, a massive crowd gathers.

As the crowd grows, the marble pathway begins to expand outward tile by tile. It is some kind of smart surface, adapting its width to the volume of traffic.

The triumvirate and their escorts finally reach us, and I wonder if they expect me to bow down to them.

“I will not bow to you,” I say preemptively. “A Marauder bows to no human.”

Fiona elbows me. “Can you
please
try to keep your mouth shut?”

The man in front is tall and spindly, and he looks more like an insect than a man. He has darker hair than most of the habbers, and his grin is lopsided. He smiles at me. “This isn’t the Empire, Fenrir. You need not bow. The triumvirate is nothing more than three common men and women selected randomly to rule for a time. No one bows to them.”

“Weak leaders,” I say. “You’ll–.”

Fiona elbows me again, this time harder than before. “Come on!” she says to me in an urgent tone.

“I’m Lindgren,, Minister of Science, and this is Allara, Minister of Peace,” the lanky man says.

“You think Science and Peace can defeat us?”

Fiona tugs my arm, and I allow her to pull my ear down to her. She doesn’t realize I could hear even her faintest whisper from across the room.

“Fenrir,” she says, “this science guy wants to cut you open. Watch out for him. And Minister of Peace means Minister of War. They don’t like to admit they have weapons or soldiers, but they do.”

I nod. Another ploy? If she were the Minister of Peace, I could understand it being a woman. Women of most species want to avoid violence, though a female Minister of War? I can’t believe it.

The triumvirate moves forward, and I notice the woman scowling at one of the men. These two are young. I can’t tell human ages as well as I should be able to, but I would be surprised if they were over 20 years old. The third member of the triumvirate is an old man with grey hair.

“I’m Joachim,” the old man says, “and the happy couple behind me is Miriam and Thorsten.”

Miriam snarls at Joachim, and Thorsten looks down at the ground.

I can’t make sense of it. These two are a couple? The female seems to hate the male, and the male seems weak and inept, not even brave enough to face her.

“Let’s have a seat,” Joachim says.

The tiles open up, and enough stools to seat everyone present raise from the ground.

I notice the stools for Fiona and me are side-by-side, while the stools for the Ministers and triumvirate are arranged in a semi-circle facing us. It’s as if we are on trial.

“I will stand,” I say.

Fiona grabs my arm and tugs at it, trying to force me to sit on the stool.

I break away from her grasp and look down at her. “I will stand, woman!”

She shakes her head and crosses her arms. Does she really want to give up the high ground? And even worse, does she want these leaders of New Copenhangen to think she can force me to sit with just a weak tug on my arm?

I notice that the female leader is seated next to Thorsten, and she has slid as far off her stool as possible so she doesn’t have to be near him.

“So,” Turret Woman says, breaking the silence. “You seriously drafted in two teenagers who have just broken up with each other to rule with absolute power?”

The woman general looks stone-faced and Lindgren flashes his teeth at Turret Woman.

“I dumped his ass!” the female leader gloats. “Breaking up implies it was mutual.”

Thorsten crosses his arms.

Fiona laughs. “You habbers are something else.”

“They will learn to work together,” Joachim says, sitting straight in his seat. He bites his lip, then adds, “At least I really, really hope so.”

I notice Lindgren and the woman general are...embarrassed? It’s similar to the look on Turret Woman’s face when she looked at my erect cock, though less sexual, of course. These Ministers’ faces show raw embarrassment and shame.

I stand tall and pull my shoulders back, towering over these weak leaders. “My demands are as follows. I demand you allow us access to the elevator. We will travel down to the Martian surface and you will give us enough local currency to make a trip to polar settlements. I will carry out my mission–the details of which do not concern you–and you will never see me again. In return, when my race obliterates humanity, I will make sure your habitat is destroyed swiftly and painlessly.”

The woman general narrows her eyes at me, while Thorsten’s eyes widen.

Thorsten blurts out, “You’re going to kill us? Why?”

“They’re alien invaders, you
idiot,
” Miriam says. “What did you think they were going to do?”

“Cygnus and Aegus have expressed a desire to co-exist with us,” the woman general says. “Are they lying?”

“They are a weak splinter faction,” I say. It’s a lie, as each faction is roughly the same size, splitting the Marauders in half.

“Or maybe you’re the weak splinter faction,” the woman general says.

I stare at her, not letting my face reveal anything.

“I heard you have taken Fiona as a mate?” Lindgren says. “You’ll destroy her, too?”

Now my face betrays me, my ears, specifically. They pull back defensively, and I hope these habbers do not know how to read that reaction. No, I realize, I would die under a black hole’s mass of shame debt before I would lay a hand on Turret Woman.

“It doesn’t concern you,” I say. “I’ve made my demands clear.”

“Here’s what I demand,” Lindgren says, standing up, “And I hope the triumvirate will hear the sense in my argument. I think you’re too dangerous to let loose, and I think what we could learn from you is far too valuable to pass up. If you truly want to destroy us, we need every edge we can get to fight your faction when they arrive.”

Lindgren turns toward the triumvirate as he speaks, and the angry female seems even angrier when she looks at Lindgren.

Lindgren continues. “Our initial scans of the alien show that he is wearing a biosuit. It can use regular food for fuel, but ideally it runs on anti-matter. We may be able to reverse-engineer this suit, and it might give us a chance to fight against the Marauders when they arrive–and need I remind you they will be here in just two years? We’re running out of time.”

“I don’t know,” the angry female says, looking me up and down. “He might have taken this dumpy surface bitch as his mate, but are these guys really monogamous? I wouldn’t mind keeping him here to play with.”

She looks at Thorsten as she says this. I suspect she’s saying this just to hurt his weak feelings rather than out of true desire for me. Though I’m sure she’d take me if I were willing, what human female wouldn’t?

Thorsten’s face turns red. “Alarra,” he says. “What was your plan again?”

“I want you to convince Cygnus to come meet with us,” the female general says. “He’s ignored us thus far...I don’t think he trusts us. The Great Mother is from the surface, and she surely doesn’t trust us either. I fear that distrust has spread to Cygnus. The two of you are well-suited to convince him. Fiona, you can convince the Great Mother that we just want to protect the solar system, and Fenrir can convince Cygnus that we won’t capture him.”

She glares at Lindgren.

“So I send Cygnus up here...to...negotiate” I say. “This is just something you say to sound polite? In reality, Lindgren will cut him open and experiment on him? I can agree to this, as he is my enemy.”

“No,” Thorsten says. “Lindgren won’t touch either of you unless the triumvirate agrees on it. If we say you’re off limits, then he can’t as much as look at you.”

“Ooh,” the female leader says. “Look at you, Thorsten, such a badass leader suddenly. I’m just
sooo
impressed with your fearless authority.”

Thorsten tries to ignore her, but he’s weak, and I can see the desperation in his eyes. Though the female was clearly speaking sarcastically, Thorsten is holding out hope that she meant at least part of what she said.

“Well,” Thorsten says, “I agree with Alarra’s plan. Joachim?”

Joachim hunches over and mumbles, “I don’t know...I mean...this Fenrir guy seems dangerous. Can we really let him loose? We’ve got him here, right now. His faction wants to kill us, so how can we let him loose on Mars? We might never get him back.”

“Yeah,” the female leader agrees. “I’m with Joachim.”

I feel the tide changing. Lindgren sits up straight.

I need to give up something to get what I want, I realize. “Two more assassins are coming–or they may already be here. We left the main fleet all at the same time. I’m the least of your worries.”

They all look at me wide-eyed. I grin.

“He’s full of shit,” Lindgren says.

“What if he’s not?” the female general asks.

“He’s telling the truth,” Turret Woman says. “I can read him. Fenrir talks a tough game, but he won’t hurt me, and when it comes time to pick a side, I think he’ll stick with us. These other two though? They’re way more dangerous.”

I scowl at her. “You can’t speak for me, woman–.”

“Enough,” Thorsten says, standing now. “We have to go with Allara’s plan, it’s obvious.”

Joachim runs his hand through his silver hair, then says, “Yeah, I think I agree.”

“Well,” the female leader says, “if Thorsten sides with Allara, then I side with Lindgren. Let’s cut this bastard open.”

Allara stands and looks toward us, “You two can go sightseeing. We will call you back when we’ve reached a decision.”