Chapter One

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Draeken Phoenix opened his eyes, waking in a rush, the same as he did each and every day. The temporary holding cell on Alpha-Prime had been a paradise compared to XkR-9, the galactic gulag he was to be imprisoned on in the Andromeda galaxy.

The view as he lay on his back was unexpected. Strange noises came next, filtering into his brain confirming the realization that he was not where he thought he should be. Not in a holding cell. Not on Alpha-Prime. Towering trees filled his sight as the strange calls of alien wildlife sifted through his fuzzy awareness and into his mind. There was fading sunshine in the very oddly colored light blue sky, and he remembered where he was. Earth. Alpha-Prime also had blue skies, but the atmosphere had a much darker azure blue display in comparison.

Memories from the trip came next. His brother, Riker, guarded him and another good friend, Holden, piloted the ship through the Milky Way toward his final destination two galaxies away, the dangerous gulag XkR-9.

He didn’t take the time to dwell on the fact he hadn’t committed the crime that sent him to the gulag. Doing so would be useless. Besides, he’d made a tense situation better by making his own deal. He was still confident he’d come out on top.

Draeken put his mind to the issue at hand.

He pondered the loud, ugly-sounding noise that had come from the engine right before Holden lost control of their spacecraft and the sick feeling of falling before his friend did a dangerous reverse thruster maneuver to slow them and keep from crashing into the planet at warp speed. That last-second ploy likely saved them. Well, it had saved him anyway. He hoped his fellow travelers had survived. Regardless of what Riker and Holden were doing on this particular mission, he certainly didn’t wish them harmed.

Draeken lifted his head—the pain of that motion was bearable in the short term—looking for the spacecraft he’d come here in. The tree tops swayed in the wind. This was truly an alien planet. The trees on Alpha-Prime never got this tall. A tall tree on his homeworld was at best ten feet and nothing like the massively high trees of Earth. He’d studied many aspects of this planet over the past year before crashing on it. He wished he was here for a vacation instead of as a halfway point to imprisonment in a gulag.

A future Earth vacation was already on his mental to-do list, so Draeken sat up and took in his surroundings more fully. He pushed the hefty branch of a bush away from his face, inadvertently cracking and snapping smaller limbs in the process with his strength. The forested area was a sight to behold. He stood, using a large tree trunk for support. The landscape was beautiful, alien and quiet with the exception of the hidden wildlife and their strange noises.

Where was the ship? How far had he been thrown from it?

He was fortunate he wasn’t human. Alphas—slang for residents of Alpha-Prime—had superior humanoid bodies able to withstand much more physical stress than that of the average frail earthling. Alphas were taller on average, stronger, smarter and able to withstand heat and cold to a greater degree than Earth’s humanoids.

His first step didn’t cause any pain. Neither did the second. He took a moment to stretch, cataloging an ache in his shoulder and a pinch in his side. He stepped out of the brush at the base of the tree, realizing he’d been well concealed.

No one would have seen him during a cursory glance of the forested area. Then he noticed one of the manacles still attached to his forearm. Space potatoes! The iron circlet plainly marked him as a prisoner. Which he was, technically, but he hated that it was on display for this new world to see. His shirtsleeve didn’t cover the manacle entirely. He tugged on the cuff to no avail.

He took a few more steps forward and spotted the edge of the spacecraft. He moved closer. Holden had done an amazing job of landing the ship. The spacecraft was basically in one piece, although the top of the cabin area had ripped completely off, reminding him of peeling the lid off containers of dehydrated space camp food during summers in his youth.

The compartment that had held the three men for the trip was exposed to the earth and its tall, waving trees. The bulk of the chain used to shackle him hung limply from the rings on the seat he’d used. Interesting that the chain had released in the crash. Perhaps it was designed to do that as a safety precaution. Or perhaps his brother had released him in the last moments of their descent as a gesture of pity or compassion—Draeken could be free for half a second before crashing to his death.

Riker’s seat was a mangled mess. Draeken felt his stomach drop to his feet when he saw how much blood covered most of the seat and one armrest. The absence of his brother’s body gave him some hope. Maybe Riker had been thrown clear, too.

Draeken searched the immediate crash area for his brother and Holden. There was no sign of either man. He thought he could make out what looked like large space boot steps leading south through the woods. There were a few drops of blood on the pilot’s chair, and a slew of footprints that didn’t match the large space boots in the soft soil beside the far side of the ship. Had earthlings already come across the ship and carted off his fellow travelers?

He followed the footprints until they reached a path into the forest. He didn’t see any boot prints, but perhaps his friends had been carried out. Or perhaps the footsteps were there before they crashed. He couldn’t be sure.

Draeken turned back and followed the boot prints south, figuring they must belong to either Riker or Holden. He wouldn’t leave until he discovered his brother’s location.

The boot prints stopped when he came to a paved road winding through the trees. A sign several yards ahead said in one of the planet’s common scripts, Nocturne Falls—Where every day is Halloween, 2 miles. Great, a town. Hopefully he’d be able to find his fellow crash victims there. He tugged on his too-short sleeve again; it hid part of his prison manacle, but made his shirt fit uncomfortably.

Draeken walked along the side of the road, taking in the wonder of this land’s beautiful landscape. Alpha-Prime was rather desolate in comparison, even though it was considered the garden spot of their galaxy. It did have vegetation and short trees, but nothing as lush as what this planet had to offer.

He was halfway to Nocturne Falls before another thought occurred. Perhaps the telltale manacle wouldn’t mark him as a prisoner on this planet. Perhaps he could go into this Nocturne Falls place and blend in as a human. He’d say he was on vacation and hide out on this world for a while. What if no one ever found him? He’d want to ensure Riker knew he was okay. Draeken hadn’t committed the crime he was accused of. It was possible more time away from confinement would give others the ability to discover the true perpetrator.

As he walked closer to his first earthling community, Draeken talked himself out of hiding anywhere on Earth, no matter how much fun that would be. He’d struck a deal and planned to see it through to the end.

He had a plan, one that would ensure his future.

His first order of business was to locate his fellow passengers on the ill-fated trip to the gulag, especially his brother. He’d identify himself to Riker and Holden if necessary, but planned to do his best to ensure their safety from a distance and continue with his ultimate plan.

Influencing his decision was the fact he wouldn’t mind exploring Earth, and this might be his singular opportunity to do so for an undefined amount of time. All he needed to do was find a way to conceal his general prisoner-like appearance.

Once he got to the town, he’d assess if there was some way for him to hide out or change his appearance. He hoped Nocturne Falls wasn’t some sleepy town without any nightlife whatsoever. If it was, he was sure to be noticed.

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Stella, Elise and Victoria reached the crash site exactly ten hours after the craft had gone down. While they could have flown a craft here faster, it wasn’t human-like and therefore too risky for a situation like this. They never fought harder to be human than when they were on the brink of possible discovery. So they’d come by way of a silver, mid-sized SUV they’d hidden in the woods half a mile away under a camouflage tarp.

It was very early in the morning, well before dawn. Using flashlights and alien scanning technology, they discovered fairly quickly what had happened in the hour directly after the crash. No humans were milling around the immediate area. That was good. However, the craft’s three occupants were missing. While not bad, exactly, that was very troublesome.

There were established protocols for spacecraft flying into Earth’s atmosphere, but this was the first run of a new contract.

Their Fearless Leader had been clear. Recover the survivors. Hide any shred of alien evidence from the humans until the vessel retrieval team arrived. And, if possible, survey and investigate the general area and town for future reference.

It appeared the sound dampeners hadn’t been disabled as the craft came down hard in the forest. They were all in agreement of that since there weren’t any earthlings in the vicinity. If anyone in town had seen or heard the crash, they would have already investigated by now.

Stella noticed two sets of space boot-type footprints leading from the craft toward the south, the same direction as Nocturne Falls, where they celebrated Halloween all the time.

There were also several sets of non-space boot-type prints near the craft that were definitely not left there by the pilot, the guard or the prisoner. Stella’s heart raced searching the area, waiting to be startled by an earthling cleverly hiding behind something ready to jump out and scare her into an early grave. There was no one she could see. Just her two teammates. Inhaling a silent breath, she forced herself to calm down and do what she’d been sent here for.

The non-space boot prints led north along a narrow path in the woods into a deeper part of the forest and away from town. Had one of the survivors been captured and hauled away or, equally disturbing, had any parts from the craft been removed? Stella scanned the ship with her flashlight once more searching for anything obvious torn away or scavenged. Nothing looked like it had been ripped away or gouged out.

Stella was coming around to the idea that the footprints in question had already been on the ground before the space craft had crashed. She looked carefully one more time, but didn’t see anything obvious missing besides the three passengers, so perhaps they were in luck.

The communications equipment and armaments were damaged, but all accounted for. Stella breathed a silent sigh of relief, feeling more and more like they were the first to this site. Elise volunteered to follow the human tracks north and discover if one of the crash victims had been carted off. Just in case.

“I’ll also check for any souvenir parts snatched from the craft and confiscate them,” she added. “But maybe we got lucky and I won’t find a thing.”

Stella nodded. “Check in regularly if possible. If you can’t, we’ll meet by the road sign near the SUV at the scheduled time. Okay?”

They all had communicators to send messages, much like texting on human phones. There were only landline telephones available in Alienn, but Stella could message their compound directly using the communication device.

Cell phones were prohibited in Alienn, and it was a service dead zone anyway. It was all part of the security protocol designed to hide their vast underground complex and any spacecraft that might be landing and taking off.

She and Victoria explored the crash site a bit more and then pulled the camouflage tarp over most of the wreckage.

“Go ahead into town,” Stella told Victoria. “I’ll finish up here and then we can arrive in town at different times, so as not to rouse suspicions about why we’re truly here.”

“Will do,” Victoria said and headed out of the crash site area, her small backpack, with the gear Cam had insisted they take, slung over one shoulder.

Stella opened her gear bag, grabbed her Defender in hand and did one more perimeter check of the crash site for any small, overlooked pieces of wreckage. She moved deeper into the forest, making a larger circular route around the site, searching for anything out of the ordinary, but saw nothing.

Halfway into her wider search, she thought she heard a laugh echoing through the trees, but after remaining as still as a statue for five long minutes, listening for anything more, she decided it must have been the wind and her vivid imagination playing tricks. Satisfied the area in and around the crash was clean, she strolled back to where the broken ship waited for the vessel retrieval team.

The sun was up by now and shafts of morning light filtered down through the trees at an angle, making the area beautiful until she noticed part of the camouflage had torn away. Was someone here? Stella carefully searched the area, circling the ship once, but no one was around. She shook off her nervousness and chalked it up to the recent memories of a frightening incident in Alienn where a malevolent creature had gotten loose in the streets of Alienn and had caused fear and panic for an evening.

Granted, occurrences like that were very rare and she should stop freaking out about it. Stella came through a dense section of forest and saw that the nose of the ship had become visible. The tarp had come loose and was now flapping back and forth in the light breeze. Space potatoes. She needed to secure it better this time. She hooked her blue and white Defender—which looked a lot like a mini megaphone—to her belt and reached for the corner of the camouflage tarp.

Stella grabbed one edge of the loose fabric and resumed pulling the cover over the nose of the spacecraft securing it better this time. She was almost done when she heard a twig snap behind her. Her heart leapt to her throat, but she rolled her eyes at herself. She had just vowed not to be frightened by every little noise. Sheesh.

Even so, she stilled, counting to five, hoping it was an animal or some non-human entity. At the end of her count, she turned slowly, her hopes plummeting as she saw her audience. Three humans stared back at her as if in shock. Two young men flanked a taller, more muscular man.

“What are you covering up there?” asked the taller man. His vivid blue gaze pierced her deeply.

“Nothing.” Stella finished smoothing one palm over the nose cone as her fingers wrapped around the grip of her Defender in her other hand, silently pulling it from her belt.

One of the younger men said, “See? What did I tell you? Isn’t it rad, Sheriff?”

Before the older man could answer, Stella drew her Defender and fired.

As expected, the humans froze for a second as the invisible blast hit them. The two younger humans went blank faced and collapsed, leaving the tall “sheriff” standing alone. His stature reminded her of her own people. Maybe with his bigger size he’d need a second blast.

Stella lifted the Defender again. The sheriff watched her with growing hostility.

“What did you just do?” he asked, the ferocity in his tone clear.

“Nothing.” She pointed the weapon directly at him and pulled the trigger again. He didn’t fall down. He frowned and leapt forward with what seemed like superhuman speed, landing a foot from her. He grabbed her arm and wrenched the Defender from her hand. “Did you just shoot me again?”

“I don’t understand,” Stella said, not comprehending why the Defender—the Big D, as they’d nicknamed it—didn’t work on him. Was he alien? He couldn’t be. No other aliens were allowed on Earth. Alpha-Prime had jurisdiction of this planet.

“You aren’t from Alpha-Prime, are you?” she whispered more to herself than him. She could have bit her tongue. She shouldn’t have admitted out loud or even thought about her home planet in front of an earthling.

“What is Alpha-Prime?” The sheriff locked his free hand around her forearm. His grip felt unbreakable.

She gave an experimental tug against his hold. Nothing happened. She flattened her lips, realizing her superior strength was not fazing this man. “Who are you, then?”

“I’m Hank Merrow, the sheriff of Nocturne Falls. And you’re under arrest.”

“Arrest?” Stella almost let out a laugh. “For what?”

He looked at the two young men crumpled on the forest floor. “Murder and attempted murder.”