Alien Seed

  Warriors of the Oasis

  Ivy Sparks

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  Ava

  The clear blue sky of planet Xersie promised a tranquil trip to the star port. After a week-long expedition in the Vyrec caves, all I could think of now was the warm familiarity of Earth and seeing my sister again. I’d have to wait, of course. The trip back was a five-day journey that included a warp hole, only recently discovered.

  And by recently, I mean in the past three years. As with all things related to space, time was very relative. For a human like myself, we were lucky to get eighty years of life, and a portion of those years were spent in development, followed by prolonged disintegration. But for most aliens, three years might as well have been a day.

  The human existence… it didn’t leave much time for exploration. Maybe that was why it took benevolent aliens contacting us before we actually expanded beyond that damn planet.

  Xersie was moderately uncharted, the only settled part of it being a large star port that facilitated trade of the rare materials found here. The star port had been here long before we humans discovered the planet for ourselves, but once we did, the Intergalactic Council recognized us as a permitted species on Xersie.

  And thus began our mining of the planet. It troubled me to think of how we came to discover Xersie for ourselves, though. We didn’t happen upon it through space exploration. Instead, space pirates had kidnapped humans and sold them as slaves to the natives here, a little over a year ago. One woman escaped, claiming she and two other women had been taken in by a civilized tribe. The other humans, however, had yet to be found.

  A mostly uncharted planet, inhabited by barbaric tribes… Part of me was excited by that—and part of me was terrified.

  We had discovered the Vyrec crystals not long after we made a route to this planet. With it being located so deep in the galaxy, humans didn’t need the usual permits and years of bureaucracy to be granted the required permission. The Intergalactic Council was only concerned that we didn’t interact with the natives.

  That made this planet one of the few we could exploit. And yes, I knew that was what we were doing: exploiting. It was my job, a dirty, unpleasant occupation that made it difficult to sleep at night, but I had Madison, my little sister, to think about.

  Her disease required expensive specialists and imported medications that no healthcare plan covered. I needed to make money, and lots of it, by any means necessary. Nothing was out of the question if it meant keeping Madison alive.

  So I exploited distant alien planets.

  But dammit, those bills were only mounting.

  “Ava,” Leslie, my assistant, said, returning me back to reality. I looked up, spotting the cute blue eyes and short blonde hair of the only person in this mining crew whose company I enjoyed. She reminded me of a fairy, with her sprightly face and pixie haircut.

  “Sorry, was daydreaming again,” I said, turning my attention back to one of the tiny circular windows of the transport shuttle. The mostly desert landscape whipped by us, too fast to focus on any land features. Not that there were many points of interest on this planet, besides a few oases and the Vyrec caves.

  “Thinking about your sister again, huh?” Leslie asked, taking a seat beside me.

  “Her condition…”

  “Is Madison getting worse?” Leslie asked with a gasp.

  “No! No. She’s actually very stable right now. She’s been walking around just fine, has lots of energy.” I laughed as I thought about my last conversation with Madison. “Lord, too much energy, in fact. She wouldn’t shut up about all the different aliens she’s met at the treatment center. She’s got this grading system for how ‘hot’ the alien men are…”

  “I’ll admit, I’ve got a bit of a system myself. But what has you so preoccupied? Even at the mine, you weren’t altogether there.”

  I cringed as the memory of today played through my mind in high definition and surround sound. I nearly injured three men by not properly coordinating the drill crew, but thankfully we had fail-safes in place.

  She was right, though. There was something distracting me. “The price of the treatments,” I began. “The bill just keeps getting bigger. And I don’t think it’s ever going to level out either. As her body improves, it becomes more resistant to the medication, so a more concentrated dose needs to be administered, and now we need to add on an additional medication just to lessen the side effects of the original meds.” I quickly added, “I’ll work every hour of the day if that means I can pay for it, but I worry that eventually the medications won’t be enough.”

  “Shit,” Leslie said, and now it was my turn to gasp.

  “You never cuss.”

  “Well, I declare this a cussing-appropriate situation.”

  The sky cruiser bucked like a wild horse, seemingly in agreement with her statement. As a precaution, I pulled at the straps around my waist.

  Leslie looked down at her unbuckled straps, considered it for a moment, then shrugged. “Eh, a seatbelt won’t matter much if we go hurtling into the desert sands.”

  “Good Lord, Leslie, that’s not what I want to hear right now.”

  Leslie gave me a playful punch and said, “Maybe we just hit a sand bird.”

  “A sand bird? You think you can just add the word ‘sand’ to any type of animal and it’ll actually exist on this planet?”

  Leslie shrugged and tucked her short hair behind her ears. She wasn’t exactly wrong; I didn’t know much about this planet outside of the star port and the mine, but the few animals I heard of weren’t exactly imaginative: sand elk, sand boar, and sand mosquitoes—as if you couldn’t escape those little bastards even this deep into space.

  Then there was the one creature I had heard of but hadn’t seen. One I definitely didn’t want to see. Sand beasts. They were one of the few carnivores on this planet, and from the tales told by the first humans who landed here, I was fortunate to have never encountered one of those monstrosities.

  Yet.

  I thanked whatever the god of this planet was that I’d be out of here soon, if only it was just until the next haul. We worked two months on, one month off, as that was how long our temporary visas lasted.

  It was partially a good thing; the longer I stayed on this planet, the more I longed for Earth, even if my home planet was a bit of a dumpster fire. But at the same time, that mandatory month off cut into just how much money I brought back home.

  I looked ahead in the cabin. The miners all congregated in the front where they drank like sailors and whooped like frat boys. They were hard working, I had to give them that. But once the day was over it was like their brains shorted out and the dumb animal took over. And they could get pretty rowdy around the women in the star port too.

  The only reason they never tried anything with me or Leslie was because Leslie was the mine owner’s daughter, and me? Well, I stabbed the last guy who tried some shit. And I didn’t stab him somewhere nice, either.

  The knife was meant for sand beasts, but I guess sometimes men were the bigger beasts.

  So yeah, nobody screwed with Leslie or me. Not since that day.

  And that was what gave me the courage to get up and approach the nicest of the men, Gregory. “I’ll be back,” I told Leslie as I headed forward.

  Gregory sat just a little ways off from the frat party happening in the front of the transport shuttle. His face was in a book, and he was pretty much the model of friend-zone material. He was nice, he would talk to me in terms that weren’t just sexual, and he was terrified to ask either Leslie or me out.

  I swear, human men only came in two types. They were either men like Gregory, who were nice, smart, but had no backbone. Or they were men like the rest of the miners, brutish and vulgar.

  I sat beside Gregory. “Nice haul today,” I said.

  He was one of the drill operators, so he smiled with pride. “I know a good vein of Vyrec when I see one. But, of course, you’re the one who navigated us there.”

  “Thank you, Gregory. You really are too sweet.”

  He blushed. I had this poor boy wrapped around my fingers. Which was good, because the next thing I was about to ask could get me in some serious trouble. I lowered my voice, leaning in close to him. “I want to ask you something, but it must stay between us.”

  Gregory’s eyes widened, and I thought I heard his heart flutter. “Anything, Ava. How can I help?”

  “I know a few of these guys have double visas so they can work year round.”

  Gregory’s skin went pale, and he nervously folded over a page in his book and closed it. “Uh.”

  “I’m not looking to report anyone. In fact, I want in on it.”

  “Jeez, Ava. That’s really risky.”

  “I

know five of the guys here work at another mine part time on a second visa when they should be off. How do they do it?”

  “It’s sorta this favor Jared offers his best men. He’s not going to hook you up. I’m sorry, but that’s how it is. If you ask him, he’ll probably play dumb and just report you to the star port authorities.”

  I figured as much. I wasn’t exactly prime material for the good ol’ boys’ club.

  I’d have to find another way. “Thanks anyway, Greggy.”

  Gregory smiled and blushed again. He was a nice boy, almost my age, and always looking out for me.

  Too bad he wasn’t a man.

  The plane bucked again, only this time it seemed different. Even the party up front quieted down as some of the miners glanced out the window.

  A third more vicious bucking made Gregory grab my hand out of reflex. “Oh, uh, sorry,” he said, then he motioned at my seatbelt. “Maybe put that on?”

  Leslie’s words echoed in my mind: A seatbelt won’t matter much if we go hurtling into the desert sands. But I strapped in next to him anyway. At this point I wouldn’t have minded him grabbing my hand again, if only so I could feel someone else’s pulse.

  My heart rate was through the roof.

  If I die, so does my sister.

  Ugh! Why did that thought have to cross my mind?

  Suddenly the back portion of the cabin buckled like a crushed soda can. I strained my neck to look back, yelling out, “Leslie!” just as the back half of the cabin split in two.

  The rush of air and screaming of alarms deafened me as I turned my eyes toward Gregory for one last second.

  The look on his face was one of sheer terror. I had a feeling my expression mirrored his.

  Then my chair ripped from its bearings off the floor, and all I saw was a tumbling sky and desert. Shades of blue and brown, spiraling faster and faster until I lost consciousness.

  Chapter Two

  Ava

  A thunderous explosion pulled me out of my deep slumber, making me realize I had been knocked out for a few seconds.

  The G-force must’ve made me pass out, which made my landing a lot safer than it would have been had I tensed up. Soft sands engulfed me and my seat. I looked up as an explosion rocked the hazy pink sky, leaving a mushroom shaped cloud in its wake. If that was the front of the shuttle, then I could be certain everyone in that section was dead.

  Poor Gregory. He didn’t deserve that. The other miners didn’t either, as rowdy as they all were. They still looked out for me in the mine, and had trusted me, to some extent, to look after them.

  But I was powerless to help any of the crew now. The horrific explosion confirmed as much.

  That could have been me. I could have died, and in turn, without the medication she needed, my sister would have died too—just a much longer, more painful death.

  I should have felt like this was all unfair, the worst thing that could have happened to me, but only one thing mattered: I was alive, and as long as I was alive, I could keep fighting.

  Whether it was luck, divine intervention, or fate, something plucked me away from certain death and deposited me on this soft sand dune in one piece.

  Now it was up to me to make it the rest of the way back to the star port. I didn’t have time to be dazed and scared.

  I unbuckled and stood in the sand, feeling oddly calm. My world had just exploded around me, yet it didn’t matter because I was alive.

  But something made my heart skip, and not in a good way. Leslie. She was in the back half of the shuttle and was the first to go hurtling into this vast desert. Did she make it? Was her landing as lucky as mine?

  I squeezed my fists as a cloud of dust whipped around me. I knew the men were dead. That explosion was like half a nuke. But anything less than that, I had to assume Leslie was still kicking.

  I turned and surveyed the landscape. Somewhere back there, the back half of the shuttle had crashed. There was no telltale explosion to light the way, so I’d have to take my best guess for the landing trajectory and get moving. Planet Xersie’s two suns, which I barely minded just moments ago on the shuttle, were now my only point of reference. I racked my brain, remembering vaguely that the larger sun had been to my left on the shuttle, with the smaller sun more to the middle and behind me.

  I turned until the suns were back into that position, then I looked behind me. Somewhere back there had to be Leslie’s side of the shuttle. Somewhere back there, Leslie had to be alive.

  I wasn’t sure how I was going to cross this giant desert without her. She knew the planet better than me, being the miner’s daughter and a permanent resident here. Not that I’d leave her behind, even if she were as clueless as me. Working in an alien mine instills a certain dedication to one’s crew.

  “I’m coming for you, Leslie,” I said, as if she were in front of me.

  That was the one thing I knew. The only thing I knew. I didn’t know how I was going to trek all these miles, I didn’t know how I was going to gather water or food, I didn’t know how I was going to start a fire or make a camp. And I really didn’t know how I was going to survive a sand beast encounter, if I should be so lucky as to run into one of those bastards. But I found solace in knowing one thing: I would find Leslie. Then we’d get back to the star port.

  Dying wasn’t an option.

  Having made my decision, the next step was salvaging anything I could from my tiny crash site. I assessed my own person first; my clothes were still in good shape—well, good shape for someone who worked in the mines. My overalls were stained blackish purple from the soot that hung in the air of the mine, but otherwise, they were in good shape. I checked my hip pocket, finding my small knife. In my other pocket was my phone, which only had a signal in the star port. Still, maybe I could make use of it…

  “Dammit,” I mumbled, seeing the screen was broken. It must’ve hit the side of the chair on impact. So now it was just a glorified flashlight, and with a low battery life to boot.

  I tucked it back into my pocket, then checked the chair itself. The little in-flight catalog was in pristine condition, not a single page creased in the crash. “Well, ain’t it my lucky fucking day?” I said, thumbing through the catalog. It could work as tinder, so I folded it like a burrito and tucked it down my back pocket.

  The chair itself didn’t offer much. I ripped the bottom cushion off, seeing it had a little strap on the back of it. “Great, a flotation device,” I said. “How could I survive on a desert planet without one?”

  No use tossing it away, though. I needed every piece of material I could get my hands on, because a quick gander around this desert told me that anything that wasn’t sand was in short supply around here.

  I strapped the cushion to the top of my head to give me a little shade from the suns. Maybe it’d have a better use later.

  With a final survey, I concluded I had gathered all I could besides the metal of the chair, making it time to get moving.

  I wasn’t sure if it was just my imagination, but I kept feeling like something was watching me, and my imagination could only supply one possibility: sand beasts.

  The descriptions of the infernal creatures seemed to have been plucked out of my nightmares. Legend had it that they had spidery tarantula-like legs, scythe arms much like a mantis, and mandibles that looked like they were copy-pasted off a deep sea creature. That was all pretty bad in itself, but then there came the size of these things. They were taller than the native men of this planet, which put them well above nine feet in height.

  One centimeter in height was where I usually drew the line for insect-like creatures, so I really, really didn’t want to think about it.

  And as far as I knew, there weren’t any tall handsome alien men in these parts who I could ask to pretty please squash the gross bug for me.

  A girl could dream, but all I had was this pocket knife.

 

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