Puppet: Defender

By What Ever

In the second installment of the Puppeteer series, the aliens plan to bombard Earth with asteroids! Mike and Alice hotwire a flying saucer and try and stop the aliens, but the Puppeteers are already far along in their fiendish plan to unleash an apocalypse the like of which has not been seen in 100 million years.

Can Alice and Mike stop them? Will their Puppeteer allies balk at fighting their own kind? What is the terrible secret at the Puppeteer base? Find out in Puppet: Defender!

• Language: English
• Publisher: What Ever
• Release date: Dec 5, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301160099

What Ever

I'm an amateur author who enjoys writing for the fun of it. If you enjoyed one of my stories please let me know by leaving a comment on my blog or emailing at what0607 at gmail dot com.

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Puppet: Defender

By

Whatever

Copyright 2012 by Whatever

[e-mail]

Smashwords Edition

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Cover photo Mercury Drop by Noah Katz. His site is

http://www.maugiart.com/

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/maugiart/6890505416/in/set-72157626893961049

The image is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribute-Non Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 license.

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.

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, including but not limited to Robert A. Heinlein. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

Previously:

Earth is invaded by a race of creatures that have the ability to control a human being like a puppet on a string; hence they are called Puppeteers or Puppet Masters. Physically, the aliens resemble puddles of mercury, hence the other name for them: The Blobs. The aliens are capable of reproducing by dividing in two, though this puts a strain on their host. Because of this, and because a person hosting a Puppeteer is very difficult to distinguish from a normal person, the invasion spreads at an exponential rate.

Mike, a 24 year old man who suffers from depression, is converted while having lunch at a Burger King. Unlike most hosts, he finds possession to be a positive experience largely because the presence of the alien seems to cure his depression. Alice, a woman with bipolar disorder (manic/depressive), has a similar experience.

Scientists in the US government discover that the aliens are very sensitive to encephalitis, a disease that infects the central nervous system. The condition is spread from the host to the Puppeteer, where it proves to be almost 100% fatal. The US unleashes a virus that effectively wipes out the alien presence, though it also results in about 50 million human deaths worldwide.

Mike finds that, without the presence of the Puppeteer, he sinks back into depression. As a result, he volunteers with the Planetary Defense agency to be a host to an alien, so that humanity can gather additional information about the Puppeteers. PD is an organization that the world’s governments have formed to combat the alien menace in the wake of the invasion.

Once again, the alien’s presence causes Mike’s depression to go into remission. The Puppeteer also informs Mike that the remaining aliens are likely to try bombarding the Earth with asteroids before invading again. Mike’s efforts to alert PD of the threat are met with scorn however, causing Mike to try to persuade an officer named Tom to help him. Tom believes Mike and the two of them escape from PD custody in an effort to try and save Human civilization.

Mike recruits other people with conditions similar to his own and meets Alice again. The Guided, as they like to call themselves, resolve to hijack an alien spacecraft and then to use it to stop the aliens from bombarding the Earth. The first part of the plan is successful; the team manages to capture a scout craft that was attempting to reconnoiter the situation on Earth. It is at this point that we pick up the story.

* * *

Mike, Alice and the Captain hurried aboard the ship. The captain led