War Games (Alien Instincts)

Alien instincts:

WAR GAMES

With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher and author, Cynthia Lore.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales
is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

Copyright © 2013 Cynthia Lore

[email protected]

First Contact

Rae picked up the pace as she moved through the narrow passageways in the underground government facility. The human species’ first contact with intelligent extraterrestrial life! It was truly awe-inspiring! She couldn’t help but feel the adrenaline racing through her veins, as excitement became her prevalent emotion. Rae was aware of her reaction to the debriefing only minutes earlier, and took steps to control her mental state. She took pride in being able to look at any situation logically, an asset that had helped her countless times when moving up the ranks in the army.

Once Rae looked at the situation from a cooler perspective, she couldn’t help but feel unnerved at the way her superiors were handling it. Of course the country would want every advantage when dealing with an alien species, but only one woman for this meeting? She was well versed in her directives, but wouldn’t a larger group be more intimidating? What did the government hope to gain from this situation? Rae was confident in the art of self-defense and could handle a gun like no other, but to only have ballistic glass separating the alien from her was an alarming idea.

Stopping at her destination, an inconspicuous door within the long hallway, Rae took a deep breath. She was prepared to do her job, like she had done countless times before, but this was an unprecedented situation. She was going to be a part of history in the making.

The room she entered was dim with nothing but a single chair and desk in the center. Beyond that, was a reinforced titanium wall. In the center of that wall was a window big enough to fit a small car through, but thankfully five layers of high-grade ballistic glass thick. Rae couldn’t help but feel it wasn’t enough. As she sat down uncertainly into the only chair within the room, the rest of the fluorescent lights in the room flickered to life. Leaning forward on the table, Rae prepared herself for what was to come.

Rae tapped her pen anxiously against the table. She had been sitting in the small room for a while now, and nothing seemed to be happening. She looked a little uneasily at the large, dark window in front of her, and then glanced towards one of the cameras in the room. If she was expected to just sit here for another half an hour, there was going to be an issue.

Rae had been under the impression that the alien was open to human interaction, and was well versed in the art of conversation, and that the interview was to be started immediately. Beyond the reinforced window was only darkness, where she expected the being to be. Rae glanced uneasily toward the camera again, hoping for some direction from her superiors. Was she misinformed about something?

Not one for inaction, she hesitantly got up and explored the barren room. She was supposed to be interviewing the alien and helping to determining it’s impact on the human civilization, but the situation was beginning to seem a bit odd. Perhaps she had gotten the time wrong.

Slowly moving around the room, Rae made her way to the large window, through which she was supposed to be conversing with a sentient being. Only, there didn’t seem to be anything on the other end, only a vast black void.

Peering into the depths of that black nothingness, Rae nearly had a heart attack when something hit the window, cracking five panes of the strongest glass known to man. Rae cursed as she stumbled back from the shock, effectively falling on her ass. The large glass window began to bow towards her, slowly bubbling out into the room.

“Holy shit!” Rae whispered. This interview was not going how she planned.

Alarms started blaring, and still the window seemed to be extending outward. Its progress halted for a second, but then over the blaring sirens Rae could hear the impact of something hitting the window and cracking it further. Scrambling to the opposite end of the room, Rae stayed low to ground, frozen in shock.

Finally forcing herself to move, she had the fortitude to slowly remove her handgun from her holster. With shaking hands, she aimed the gun towards the void beyond the window and waited for what was to come.

Rae screamed and covered her face to protect it from flying shards as the window suddenly blasted outward. In the flashing lights the alarm produced, Rae could barely make out the hulking figure of a large humanoid shape emerge from the room beyond.

Once again lifting her gun and aiming at the alien life form, her shaking hands pulled the trigger, and did not stop until the entire barrel was empty. Still, the form kept progressing towards her, completely unfazed.

For the Sake of Research

Markar knew the human men were toying with his people. They were trying to keep the upper hand. See who was the predator and who was the prey. Markar didn’t particularly care. Let the humans play their childish games. All of the Morians knew who was superior, not only technologically, but physically and apparently mentally, for a true predator would never let the prey become aware of its’ presence. But Markar was on a diplomatic mission, so he knew he had to be patient with these savages’ games. Apparently the humans only wanted the Morian’s technology, but not their friendship. Greedy little children!

The room appointed for the “meeting” was small and dim. One more sign of how limited the humans’ research into the Morians was, for Markar could see quite easily in the dark. Therefore, the moment the new human walked into the room he was able to take in every detail. What Markar saw stunned him, although he was not able to discern exactly why at first. The human was smaller than any he had seen so far… and more delicate. The contours of its face seemed more rounded and less harsh than what he was used to. Its eyes were large like a child’s, and it’s hands seemed too small to hold the small folders it was carrying. Everything Markar saw seemed fundamentally wrong with the creature, made it appear weak and frail, yet as it walked towards the center of the room his eyes were riveted to the fluid sway of the strange human’s hips. Its body almost seemed to glide forward its movements were so subtle and soft.

The grating sound of the chair scraping across the floor made Markar jump. He had not been startled like that in decades. What was coming over him? The movements of this creature had so mesmerized him that he had stopped paying attention to it’s actions, a potentially fatal mistake he had not made since he was a youth. Markar’s uneasiness rose as the human sat down, wondering what other things he might have missed because of his distraction. And it was clear the humans had sent this creature to distract him- to test his reaction. They expected him to be unsettled by it’s presence. The
truly
unsettling thing was that it was working.

Nothing the humans had tried so far had affected him, as was to be expected. In their countless interviews, that were more of interrogations, could the humans have actually found something they could use against him? It was an unprecedented thought. He had been trained since birth in the arts of war and diplomacy, and never had another creature breached his defenses as the one sitting across from him in the dark room.

The lights slowly flickered on and the human’s features were illuminated. The harsh light reflected off of it’s hair almost blinded him, but that was nothing compared to the full effect of the creature. Markar’s heart seemed to stutter and then begin pumping twice as hard. His breath caught in his lungs and he had to force himself to take another. This was truly, and utterly, an unprecedented situation.

The creature began to move around the room restlessly, and Markar began to feel fear that it would leave him. Stepping towards the glass, he rested both hands on the material. Markar found himself making up reasons why he would need to keep this small human with him. He knew he was acting irrationally, but the strangeness of his reaction to the creature alone was enough to warrant further study. Perhaps he could take the human with him. Somewhere where he could evaluate his reaction to it.

When the creature moved mere inches away from the glass Markar held his breath, as if it would frighten the human off. His body seemed to quicken, as if it was preparing for battle. If there was a battle to have, Markar had never before retreated, and he would not retreat now. Tentatively hitting the layers of glass, he determined that he could break through it. The noise of his testing frightened the human, and he took a moment to regret that he could not calm the creature. But his path was set, so Markar began trying to break through the glass. The material was not what he expected, and bowed outwards instead of shattering. Giving it one final kick, the whole pane fell outward.

Taking a moment to make sure the strange human was not injured, he noticed that it was aiming one of their weapons of war at him. Sneering in disgust, he set up a quick shield just in time to prevent the small missiles from hitting him. The human was terrified. He couldn’t quite figure out why that bothered him, but he solved the problem by putting the creature to sleep. He lifted its slight weight over his shoulder, and slowly made his way back towards his portal.

Markar could hear more humans racing towards him and his prize. Probably hoping to separate him from the very creature they had sent to him. Markar had come to the humans on a diplomatic mission in order to gain new allies, but that effort could wait a while. He needed to evaluate the only threat the humans seemed to have to offer towards his people.

Reaching the small area he had marked off as a portal, he signaled to his ship for a transport, and waited for the particle beam. Markar held his creature more tightly to him, afraid that he might drop it as he began to feel the familiar tingle that preceded the disorientation that the transport beam caused. As the sensation overcame him he swayed, lurching forward into his own ship. Markar steadied himself, and hefted the human over his shoulder to a more balanced position. He then began to walk towards the med bay.

Laying the tiny creature on the small bed, Markar positioned its splayed limbs more closely to its body. He paused as he lifted one small hand, almost impossibly thin. His hands dwarfed it. Frowning, he reluctantly released it and began preparing the scanner. He needed to find out why exactly this human was having such a profound effect on him. Markar was one of the first of his people to contact the Earthlings, and as such, he had a duty to research all possible threats the humans may present to the Morian race. The blue light of the scanner passed over the creature twice, before Markar could finally see the results. The information seemed to come slowly to the machine, as if it too was confused. The basics of the creature seemed to be the same as all the other humans Markar had encountered, except for a few key anomalies. Taking the data with him, he decided to retire to his room to study the findings. As he was leaving he looked back at the tiny entity in the med bay of his ship. Markar found he disliked leaving his human.

Back to the Interview

Rae groaned and stretched her stiff muscles. Opening her groggy eyes, she peered around a stark white room that was utterly unfamiliar. Jack-knifing upwards, she suddenly remembered everything that happened to her. The alien! Whipping her head around the room, she saw a man watching her intently. Screaming, Rae proceeded to fall off the bed she had been laying on onto a hard floor. “For fucks sake!” she grumbled as she pushed herself up. Staying on her knees, Rae glared over the bed at the man. “You scared me half-to-fucking-death!” she growled as she rubbed spots on her body that were sure to have bruises.

The man only raised his eyebrows at her, and that was when Rae began to think something was not right with him. He was too tall, too broad. He did not look like someone who would be either in the military, or a scientist. His hair was too long for those professions. He looked viscous, like a dog that had been in one too many fights. But for all that, he was attractive. Uncomfortably attractive, Rae thought. “Where am I?” she said suspiciously.

“You are with me.” He said rationally. Rae just stared at him. He seemed to know she was waiting for more. “…in my ship.” He finally finished.

“What ship?” Rae demanded, still cowering behind the bed.

Markar frowned. “We are orbiting Earth.”

Rae’s eyes widened as the implications of that set in. Markar saw her head slowly lower behind the bed as Rae sat down on the floor in shock. Rae was caught completely off guard. She was a soldier who was used to combat, but she seemed to be in no danger at the moment. Further more, she was completely out of her element, mainly: Earth. With no knowledge of how to get back to her home planet, Rae was at a loss.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” The alien said as he slowly walked around towards Rae, as if she was an animal that might try to bolt. “I would just like for you to answer some questions for me.” She looked up at him at that.

“Why couldn’t you have just asked me back on Earth? I thought that’s what the whole situation was for!” Rae said indignantly. She saw something flicker in his eyes that looked an awful lot like guilt. She decided to test him further by asking “Are you going to let me go back once our interview is over?”

The deer-in-the-headlights look came back over him and he swallowed nervously. “Perhaps?” he finally managed to say, not knowing the answer himself.

“
Perhaps?
Perhaps!” In her anger Rae stood up to give the alien the full brunt of her rage. “You take me from Earth to ask me questions, that you could have easily asked me in the damn interview that had already been set up, and now you tell me that returning me to Earth is only a possibility?”