Alien Stolen Read online

  ALIEN

  STOLEN

  Rena Marks

  ALIEN STOLEN

  Rena Marks

  Our world is different from anything we’ve ever known. Years ago, aliens came to live among us. They claim to be the good guys, and yet every day, humans go missing—never to be heard from again.

  Sian and her family resist the leadership of the new regime, along with dozens of other factions across the world. However, without electricity, they’re at a loss as to how to communicate with each other to band together for strength in numbers. For that reason, they fight alone. When her father and best friend are captured by the military, she pretends to be a pleasure worker to infiltrate the base. Unbeknownst to her, a pleasure worker has been summoned to service a new breed of alien—one with a known weakness. Sex drains his strength.

  None of the militia realizes that when a Nisibian comes across his mate, he doesn’t lose his power…but instead transfers it to her.

  Drunk on the power of being a female Rambo, Sian decides to steal the massive alien for herself. This much power at her fingertips could tip the scales in the resistance fight for humans.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Space Babies

  Chasing Violet

  Abducted

  Stranded

  Stargazer Series

  The Hunter

  About the Author

  Also by Rena Marks

  Chapter One

  I was sixteen when the world changed forever.

  The first of the fighter planes flew overhead eight years ago. I remember tilting my head back to stare at them as they moved over us in a V formation. They looked like angry insects, frantically buzzing at top speeds across the incongruously blue skies.

  That was what struck me as odd. Why should the skies be such a happy blue with something so strange going on?

  Excitement buzzed through me, but I felt no actual fear. How could I? I knew nothing about what was going down. If I had known, I might have panicked incessantly. But I was too young, too naïve. At sixteen, my only goal in life was boys, nothing of politics or war. Of course, even the most seasoned person on the planet couldn’t predict when aliens would arrive to live among us.

  When the planes vanished from view, I turned my attention back to the friend I sat outside with. We were on break between classes. Ria stared at the sky for a minute more before turning back to me. She bent to pick up the book she’d dropped on the ground as four more planes flew over us in another tight formation. They left white streaks in the sky as their engines roared over us.

  “That’s kinda weird,” she commented. “One rush was bad enough, but two?” Before she could continue on, the sirens sounded.

  The book Ria had picked up slid from her fingers again and clattered onto the asphalt at the shriek that assailed our ears. Together, we watched as the second wave of them disappeared from view. I don’t know why the initial wave hadn’t bothered me, but the ferociousness of the second wave caused a cold sweat to trickle down my neck. Perhaps it was the addition of the siren. Something big was happening, something the likes of which no one understood. I didn’t know it with my brain, but I felt it with my gut.

  Following the noise of the sirens, the world around us took on an unusual hush for a Friday afternoon in May. Normally, there were shouts from kids hanging outside, traffic milling about, even the mailman making deliveries.

  The double doors to the school swung open. “Get inside,” the teacher screamed, frantic. “School’s on lockdown.”

  Ria wiped the sweat from her brow and brushed aside the strands of brown hair sticking to her face. It shouldn’t be this hot yet. Waves of heat wafted from the cooking asphalt, but I barely felt it, more aware of the oddity that it was so unusually warm, like we were suddenly thrust into the middle of a hot, dry summer in the desert.

  Six more planes swept overhead, leaving a loud, reverberating boom in their wake as they sped by. That made a third set. Car alarms up and down the street blared loudly. Horns honked, radios blasted, and the headlights flashing had all the dogs in the neighborhood barking. The relatively peaceful day had become chaotic in the blink of an eye.

  Along the road, doors opened and beeps sounded as people turned off their alarms. Shouts for the dogs to be quiet could be heard over the din. Some people ran out of their homes and toward the squealing cars to try and turn off the alarms that wouldn’t be silenced from key fobs. It seemed as though everything electrical was going wonky.

  “What’s going on?” I murmured.

  “I don’t know,” Ria said. “It seems to be uncontrollable.”

  “Get indoors,” the teacher screamed again, and like the rest of the students who had been enjoying the freedom outside, we followed the others running toward the school.

  “Get to the basement.”

  The basement was for emergency use, tornadoes and the likes. Today wasn’t the day to argue that it definitely wasn’t a tornado coming our way.

  Down there, we were locked up for hours. There was a low buzz of confused excitement in the air as students gathered to discuss what they thought might be going on. A war. An earthquake. The entire state of California dropping into the ocean. The ideas were tossed round and round. Finally, the school principal himself came down to tell us what he knew. We would be released, despite the school lockdown. It seemed there weren’t any rules to follow anymore.

  What did that even mean? The principal cryptically said we’d know what was going on soon enough.

  When we marched back up into the light of the school, it was nearly dark outside. Parents were everywhere, inside the building, outside the building. It was a chaotic mess of crying, screaming, and grabbing the kids who belonged to them. Still, no one was saying what was actually going on.

  I hugged Ria goodbye, but her mom wanted to take me home with them. I could call my parents to get out of the zoo that was the school to pick me up from their house instead. For once, Ria’s dad agreed with her mom, and with one last look around for my own parents, I agreed.

  I didn’t realize how long it would take to get to Ria’s house. It was only two miles away. Traffic everywhere was insane, especially considering it was nine o’clock at night. I called my dad from their cell phone while in the car. I barely had time to tell him we were going to Ria’s when the sound went straight to a busy signal. I handed it to Ria’s mom, confused.

  “Signal went dead,” I said.

  She gave an odd look to her husband.

  When we finally pulled up at their house, they went straight to the TV, and like the teenagers we were, we scrambled to the kitchen. After making sandwiches, we peeked into the next room.

  Ria’s father stood before the TV, the remote dangling from his fingertips as he gaped at the screen.

  My eyes were drawn to the TV. My brow wrinkled in horror at the mushroom cloud I saw rising from the earth. A black cloud of rolling fire and smoke covered the entire horizon on the screen.

  Beneath the cloud, words ran across the bottom of the screen. The U.S. is under attack. Nuclear bomb dropped on Kansas. Possible terrorist attack. Possible attack from China or Russia. Numerous areas of reported violence erupting.

  “It’s a world war,” Ria’s father said, as the remote fell from his hand, and her mother sobbed harder.


  Ria, ever the practical, smart-kid, said, “It doesn’t look like they actually know what’s wrong. It’s a terrorist attack. It’s from China. It’s from Russia. There are too many answers, and they’re too vague.”

  My heart raced in my chest, and my throat went dry as I struggled to grasp what was going on. I knew something awful had happened, but I still couldn’t understand what. How could I? I agreed with my friend. There was too much going on, all at once. Too many different stories on all the channels. Why was the media so scrambled? My own parents burst in the front door, not even bothering to knock. They locked the doors, hugging me tightly to make sure I was all right, and all adults gave the secret look.

  Sometimes, I hated being an only child, and I’m sure Ria did, too. But I wouldn’t let this go.

  “Do you know what’s going on?” I asked my dad. He worked for the state government in the IT department.

  “Aliens.”

  Ria gasped.

  From his tone, I would infer not friendly. Not with the bomb they dropped to get our attention. Standing there with Ria, I may not have completely understood what was happening, but I knew nothing would ever be the same again. The only world I’d ever known was now entirely different.

  Welcome to the Change. Life as we knew it, was completely, unequivocally, changed.

  The cries and shouts in the neighborhood increased in intensity when planes continued to fly overhead with a loud whoosh that rattled the glass in the windows before us and set off some of the alarms all over again. Turning, I went to the window with my dad and peered through the blinds. On the streets, people were running back and forth, hugging each other before running toward another house. Some got in their cars and drove away with a squeal of tires. Much like a chicken with its head cut off, they were unsure of where to go or what to do.

  What could anyone possibly do? Were we next for the bombs? The spaceships? The hair on my nape rose.

  I turned back to the TV and watched as the cloud continued to rise. More words flashed by on the bottom of the screen, but I barely saw them. I became so focused by the image on the TV.

  Then, what we all seemed to be waiting for happened. American programming was interrupted with an alien transmission. The voice was robotic.

  “People of Earth, you will surrender to our rule. You have no choice. We have strategically bombed cities all around your planet to show you the power we contain. It is your choice whether you live among us or whether you die this day like your bombed brethren. Be glad for the choice, for they did not have any option.”

  The strange, computer-generated voice had no tone or inflection to his words at all, yet he sounded like he tried to cheer us that we were the lucky survivors. I stared at the five white faces around me. This whole situation was surreal. I wanted to wake up and find this was all a bad dream in the worst way.

  But the situation only deepened. The governments of each country that wouldn’t surrender were overthrown. Watching this, the major players—Japan, China, the U.S., Canada, France, England, and Russia, gave in to the aliens’ demands. Not the people, but the government hierarchy. The higher-ups all became the bottom rungs of the alien sovereign rule, apparently deciding if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. The rest of the planet went into hiding. Underground caves became our homes. Mountains, creeks. In our case, a deserted mine shaft. Some people became nomads, living in the abandoned houses left behind. They were the most foolish, because you’d never know when a shuttle craft would descend on a particular city, taking everyone who lived there captive.

  Our two families stuck together to survive. Thankfully, we had Ria, the brains of our operation. We’d broken into the school library and had stolen books on survival, of all things. Ria knew the internet would never be the same again, and that was all people knew of how to research. If you wanted to know something, you Googled it. You asked Siri. But Google and Siri were gone, replaced by the faction known as Praydians. But books? Old-fashioned books—about to be extinct previously—were gold. Knowledge of fishing, hunting, storing meat without electricity, all at our fingertips. Most were kept in a metal box that we buried, placing a giant rock to disguise the opening to keep them safe. There was even a book on the Alaskan Bush people, whom I’m sure were still surviving on their own, just like we were.

  While life was hard, it was also rewarding. There’s nothing like being thrown into the deep end of the pool to learn to appreciate life. Gone were the spoiled millennials who whined if they didn’t have the latest iPhone release. Sadly, a lot of those younger people decided to take the lead of the government leaders and contact the Praydians to pledge service.

  They were never heard from again.

  Ria and I were among the few of our generation—because lots turned on each other—who chose to stay with our elders, helping to care for them, and forage for food. Oddly enough, without man corrupting the planet’s resources, livestock now roamed free much the way it had in the beginning. Of course, we also ate much differently now. Squirrels were no longer considered ick. It was a main staple for many. Obesity, and lots of the diseases connected to it, was definitely a thing of the past. I no longer knew a single person with diabetes.

  We dressed simpler—not only was clothing scarce, but the temperature of the planet had increased since the Change. The alien ships had something to do with it. It was worse than global warming because it was instantaneous and there was no relief.

  After eight years, we’d come to accept this was our new life.

  Ria and I slowly packed up, just like we did every day. We’d foraged for wild vegetables to trade, and packed up the chest after heading to the lake. Our dads were fishing, and we collected the extra fish to take in to trade with neighboring peoples. The first one we came to was Mrs. Blay. Her husband had been the mayor back before. She’d lost him eight years ago when the aliens landed, and he foolishly decided to pledge his support. When he disappeared, she took her chickens and hid in an abandoned shack. The town was raided not long after. We’d long since been buried deep in the mine shaft.

  Mrs. Blay’s shack looked abandoned until I called out her name, and then she appeared. I guessed she had an underground dugout somewhere. She would have had access to blueprints of the city. I didn’t ask too many questions. Humans were still wary of each other, and Mrs. Blay had been the mayor’s wife. We trusted each other now because it was us versus the aliens. But lack of communication, not to mention the technology we’d had before aliens landed, had made us an unsociable lot.

  “Chicken eggs for fish?” I called out.

  She nodded, but I expected nothing else. We had to depend on each other to survive. She didn’t want to live primarily on chicken and eggs, not any more than we wanted constant fish. Sometimes she needed the variety of fish and wild vegetables that we brought. We received the rare chicken every now and then, when it was too old to lay eggs.

  Further down the road, Mr. Reddix would have a bottle of milk to trade for the asparagus stalks we’d gathered, and jerky we’d made. Trading of food was done in the early mornings, since it was nearly impossible to store any food for long. Nothing was wasted in this new world we’d been thrust into.

  “Any sightings?” I asked her automatically.

  She shook her head. We were safe from the aliens who collected the resistance humans, and had been for years, but it never hurt to be too careful. I knew of people who’d grown complacent over the years, refused to move at the first sign of trouble, and had been collected for their stupidity.

  It’s how we gained many of the supplies we had. The cast iron cookware—everyone needed iron in their diet, after all—the dried beans, soap, and most valuable of all? Flint. I carried a piece around my neck. All had been left behind by the previous cave dwellers.

  “I have something for you,” Mrs. B said. She glanced around like we were drug dealers, and then lifted her arms above the door. The skin underneath her arms bagged, Mrs. Blay had been extremely overweight before the Chan
ge, and now all that was left was her stretched skin.

  She pulled out a fishing net.

  “Where did you get it?” My fingers reached out to touch the majestic thing. It was old and dirty, but whole. No rips, no tears.

  She shrugged. “Someone lost it in the water, and it washed up on the shore. I brought it home and knew you could use it most.”

  Mostly, our trade was fish. My dad went out with Ria’s every morning to catch the day’s supply. Even if we never needed to trade, I knew they would always have extra to add to our trading stock for the townspeople. We had a makeshift net that we used for fishing, but this? This was the real deal.

  “What do you want for it?” I asked.

  Mrs. Blay leaned in. “Keep it. I don’t know how to fish, and quite frankly, that netting makes me a target for thieves. I accepted it because I wanted to get it to you.”

  “We’ll fish for you,” I said.

  She nodded. “Also, check with Reddix. We’re getting a team together. A shipment of nitrate is arriving at the army base tomorrow.”

  The army base wasn’t far from where we hid, and ammonium nitrate was liquid gold. Because of the hotter temperatures and lack of electricity, we used it to make ice. Of course, it could also be used to make bombs. It was a dangerous expedition. Everyone involved could blow up. Because of that, my dad and Ria’s would draw straws to see which one would serve. Neither one would want to leave our extended family without at least one male to protect them.

  I met up with Ria at the edge of the river, under the cover of the shrubs. Between us, we always met up and carried the crate of goods we’d traded between us. But it saved time, and was quieter, if we split up when we headed to “town.”

  “Did you hear about the mission to intercept the truck of nitrate?”

  She nodded. “They’re meeting tomorrow at Reddix’s hideout. Who do you think will go, my dad or yours?”

  I shrugged. “I wish they’d both go. It sucks that we’ll only get half as much product with just one of them splitting the proceeds.”