Alien Salvation

Alien Salvation

By

Tracy St. John

(c) Copyright July 2011, Tracy St.
John

Cover Art (c) 2011 by Eliza
Black

Smashwords Edition

Published by new Concepts
Publishing

New Concepts Publishing

Lake Park, GA 31636

www.newconceptspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. All
characters, events, and places are of the author’s

imagination and not to be confused with
fact. Any resemblance to living persons or

events is merely
coincidence.

Chapter One

Lindsey McInness peered through her
binoculars from the top of the office building, looking at the Fort
Lauderdale beach three blocks away. The silver oblong shape lying
on the beach tilted to one side, one of its landing struts badly
bent. The Kalquorian shuttle had landed hard, skipping across the
blond sand like a stone skipping across the water. Lindsey had
watched it come down half an hour earlier.

Her father Aaron squinted through his
own set of binoculars while her mother Tara crouched between them,
her face eternally peaceful as always. The sharp sea breeze lifted
Tara and Lindsey’s matching chestnut locks and Aaron’s soft gray
strands. The breeze was cooling in the heat of the early spring
sun.

Tara finally asked, “Any signs of
life?”

“Not yet.” Lindsey put the binoculars
down and looked at her mother. Despite Tara’s serene expression,
her appearance made Lindsey wince. She was too thin, her tank top
and shorts accentuating her starved appearance. Her arms and legs
were sticklike. Food had been hard to come by lately, and none of
them had possessed an extra ounce of fat when Armageddon had struck
Earth six months earlier. With Aaron injuring his back falling down
the stairs a few weeks ago, the situation was becoming desperate
for the little family.

Desperate enough that Lindsey had
decided to approach the Kalquorian ship the moment she saw it
careening through the powder blue Florida sky. With no sign of life
coming from the craft, it was time to make her move.

“I’m going down for a closer look,” she
informed her parents.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
Aaron frowned, putting down his binoculars too. The past two years
had been harsh to him. He was in his mid-fifties, but living in
hiding and then seeing most of Earth demolished in cataclysmic
explosions had aged him badly. His eyes were sunken, his face
almost skull-like. It broke Lindsey’s heart to see him look so
old.

“It isn’t, but those Kalquorians
probably have food. If they survived, they might be willing to
share. If they’re dead, they won’t need it anyway.”

Lindsey hurried across the roof to the
door leading into the building, keeping her gaunt frame huddled in
a crouch. Kalquorians, other Earthers, whatever was out there — she
had no intention of advertising the family’s presence to anyone.
Her parents followed, Aaron moving slowly with pain.

At least he could still walk. Maybe
there was a Kalquorian doctor on that shuttle. Maybe the
Kalquorians were friendly, having nothing to do with Armageddon.
And maybe Santa Claus was with them, handing out presents to good
little children. Help was too much to hope for, but Lindsey had
lived on little more than hope for a long time.

They entered the stairwell, finally
able to straighten and walk normally without the fear of hostile
eyes upon them. Tara also existed on hope, which was obvious in her
next statement. “They might know Jessica.”

Aaron’s voice echoed in the stairwell
as they climbed down the six flights. “We don’t know for sure the
Kalquorians weren’t behind the attack on Earth. We were at war with
them, after all.”

Lindsey saved her reply until they
reached the ground floor. She entered the office building’s lobby,
which had been looted. Graffiti was scrawled on all the walls,
charming little notes like ‘God is Dead’, ‘Traitors Die!’ and the
darkly humorous ‘My Parents Visited Earth and All I Got Was This
Lousy Mushroom Cloud’.

Broken furniture lay in huddled piles,
some blackened by fire. Heat blasted like a furnace in the poorly
ventilated area, and Lindsey was grateful for her tank top and
shorts.

The family made their home on the top
floor and roof where looters and refugees were less likely to
discover them. With all government and law enforcement a thing of
the past, it was every man for himself. Survival now depended on
one’s ability to defend herself and her supplies.

Lindsey picked her way over rubble to
get at a small storage closet, though her steel-toed boots were
good protection from the metal and glass pieces scattered about.
She cast careful glances at the entrance doors as she went, now
just glass shards clinging to metal frames. They hadn’t blockaded
the entrance. Nothing attracted looters like the appearance of
defense. Lindsey had saved her booby traps for the top two
floors.

She tried for a comforting smile to
ease her father’s fears. “If the Kalquorians are as desperate for
Earther women to breed with as the underground claimed, it makes no
sense they’d have set off all those bombs. Why would you kill off
the species needed for your own survival?”

His face went even grayer, if that was
possible. “That’s another reason to not rush over to that ship. You
don’t know what they’ll do when they see you. They might rape you.
Abduct you.”

Lindsey reached the supply closet and
opened the door. Pulling out the false floor, she grabbed a
percussion blaster. The larger stockpile of weapons was upstairs,
within easy reach of where they lived. “I’ll be
careful.”

Tara winced, her dislike of violence
finally rippling through her calm acceptance of life’s rough
treatment. “A blaster?”

“You’d prefer me unarmed?” She watched
her mother struggle with her fears for Lindsey’s safety and her
Buddhist beliefs against armed confrontation. Lindsey leaned down
to kiss her mother’s elfin face, unable to watch the moral conflict
duking it out in her eyes. “I won’t shoot them on sight, Mom. I’ll
give them a chance to be nice.”

“Do what you have to,” Aaron said, but
he lowered his eyes when Tara looked at him. His voice low in
apology, he said, “Losing one daughter was more than I wanted to
bear. I can’t face losing both.”

Tara nodded her understanding, hugging
him close with skeletal arms. Unable to witness their pain, Lindsey
turned away and crept to the double doors, alert for any sign of
others in the area. “Get back upstairs,” she ordered. “Stay out of
sight. The crash might attract some desperate characters to the
area, and I don’t want to lose what little we have.”

Nothing outside stirred except the palm
tree fronds holding up the blameless blue sky overhead. Lindsey
stepped through the doors, angling her body to avoid the dagger
shards of glass that reached to spill her blood. She darted to the
dubious cover of a burned-out hover shuttle on the street in front
of the building, watching carefully for any enemy, be it Earther or
Kalquorian.

* * * *

Bacoj was out of the ship and down the
ramp the instant the main hatch opened. Japohn’s growl followed
him, and the brawny Nobek was on his heels in an
instant.

“Bacoj, you wait until I’ve determined
we’re clear!”

The young Kalquorian turned to face his
clanmate. “You’ve been scanning for hostiles for the last thirty
minutes. How much more clear can we be?”

The massive Japohn stood over him, his
blue-purple eyes scanning the windswept beach on one side and the
tall buildings on the other. Long, loose black curls spiraled to
his muscular shoulders, left bare by his red-trimmed black
formsuit. Japohn was a behemoth by even Kalquorian standards. He
looked big and clumsy with 300 pounds of bulky muscle, but Bacoj
knew his Nobek’s agility was not to be underestimated. The man was
quick and vicious in a fight. If Bacoj hadn’t been so angry right
now, Japohn’s scowl, nearly hidden behind his mustache and goatee,
might have given him pause.

Bacoj turned to look their surroundings
over. On the street bordering the beach, abandoned hover craft
transports and archaic automobiles on round black wheels dotted the
surface on which they had once traveled. Almost all of them were
blackened, burnt hulks of metal and molded plastic. None of the
nuclear explosions that had wiped out most of Earth’s inhabitants
had happened here. The surviving Earthers had obviously turned on
each other in an orgy of destruction.

Japohn’s sharp eyes looked over
everything, suspecting every piece of the landscape of harboring
enemies. “We may be under observation from a distance. Let me do my
job of protecting you.”

Nobeks were the clan defenders, and
Japohn was taking his position very seriously. Too seriously, in
Bacoj’s opinion. He twitched, shaking off Japohn’s heavy hand on
his shoulder. “I’m already outside. I need to check the engine to
see how much damage was done.”

He strode over the rippled skin of
sand, hearing the soft grind of his knee-high boots against the
grainy surface. He restrained a groan at the damage to the
underside of their shuttle. It looked like Japohn had used it for a
punching bag. He opened the engine

compartment, wincing in expectation.
“We took a direct hit from that magnetic surge. It can’t be good
news.”

Japohn ran his hand over the hull. “The
whole skin is crumpled. It’s my fault. We should have taken the
long way and avoided the portal like you wanted.”

Yes we should have, Japohn. But we
always have to do things your way, don’t we? Bacoj bit back the
angry words. His clanmate sounded sincerely upset with himself,
especially since their other clanmate Vax had been hurt in the
crash. And who was really at fault? He knew who his superiors would
blame.

Bacoj took a deep breath. “I was the
one piloting. And I am clan leader. The blame for this is mine.” He
raised his voice to a yell. “Vax, hit the ignition.”

The shuttle powered up with a thick
grinding sound that masked its usual efficient hum. Purplish-black
smoke roiled from the compartment, and Bacoj coughed as the fumes
hit him. Still, there was a sense of relief.

“All right, shut it down!”

The ship fell silent again. Light
thumps on the ramp claimed Bacoj’s attention, and he turned to see
Vax leave the ship to stand at Japohn’s side. The smallest member
of their clan, Vax looked somehow childlike and defenseless next to
the Nobek. His well-formed face, usually gentle with a smile, was
drawn. His brows pinched close to each other. Bacoj’s Imdiko, the
clan’s nurturer, was in obvious pain, his broken arm encased in a
hard shell and supported in a sling.

“What’s the verdict?” he asked
them.

Bacoj smiled encouragingly.
“Fortunately, I don’t see major damage to the engine. It’s the
power recharger that’s the real problem, along with the loss of all
but one thruster. I can repair it well enough for a few short
hops.”

Vax, ever the optimist, smiled back.
“It beats walking.”

Bacoj looked towards the southwest,
seeing nothing but dark, hulking buildings, the glass broken out of
windows and doors and strange hieroglyphics painted on their
exteriors. He’d learned a little of the Earther language English
since that was the dialect of the area he was assigned to. But he
couldn’t read any of the writings posted on the seemingly abandoned
buildings. Bacoj was low in rank, a mere shuttle pilot, and he
hadn’t counted on much interaction with Earth’s native
population.

“I’ll also have to repair the
stabilizers. Once that’s done, we might be able to reach the search
teams southwest of here within three days.”

Vax’s blue-purple eyes widened. “Three
days? There’s no hope of restoring communications with the
fleet?”

He must be in a lot of pain to be so
worried. We’ll have to make him take pain inhibitors. Bacoj
swallowed. Vax was an easygoing man, never making waves and content
with whatever life threw in his direction. The complete opposite of
Japohn, in fact.

“The com panel is fried, along with
environmental controls. We’ll have to open the atmospheric vents
and hope this mild weather holds.” The gravity of their situation
hit Bacoj with renewed strength. “My commander is going to have my
head for this.”