Delight: Nians on Earth, #3

By Cassandra Logan

It’s been a year since the Nians evacuated Earth, but they didn’t leave it entirely.

Floating above the blue planet, Calik can’t figure out exactly why he volunteered to stay behind. When an intriguing reporter breaks her way through the Delight’s shields, he thinks he might have found a reason.

Angela is after the story of a lifetime. A story that will finally prove she’s more than just a geek, that she’s an intrepid, investigative reporter.

Together they could change the course of two worlds if everything goes according to plan.

Disclaimer- This story has several graphic sex scenes and some mild language.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cassandra Logan
• Release date: Jun 2, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386712022

Book preview

Chapter One

One year after the disastrous—No wait. One year after Earth’s disastrous reaction to a human Nian marriage and the evacuation of all Nians on Earth we have had no communication from extraterrestrials of any kind. Their resorts abandoned, locked behind impenetrable force fields, this is the first anyone has seen their interior in all this time.

She panned the camera around the dusty room, trying to capture as much of the disrepair as possible with her amateur gear. After gathering the shots she wanted, Angela turned the camera off and took a swig of her limited water.

Thinking about all that she had left to do Angela spoke to the empty room. That needs some work, but I can dub over the footage. I just need to get enough shots of the empty palace and then I should have no problems making my rendezvous point with Makhi.

Picking up her pack, filled with all the supplies she’d brought, Angela hefted it on her shoulder and moved from the tiny closet she’d climbed into. Her goal was to find the lobby and go from there, but she had to record where she entered so people could see just how difficult it had been.

Angela had spent her entire adult career being assigned shit jobs, but due to a couple lucky breaks here and there she’d at least gotten to do those jobs on better and better networks. Three months before the Nian-Earth shit storm she’d landed her first job on a top channel in front of the camera. She was still doing shit work, but more people were watching her.

She was at the Delight to finally be taken seriously. She’d gotten her degree in journalism but because she happened to be a cute and slightly geeky looking she’d always had to do the fluff pieces. When the news broke about General Zalier marrying a human she’d been the one asking the people on the street what they’d thought.

Things were about to change, though, and the fact that her looks appealed to a certain group of people had paid out in a big way.

Two weeks ago a small group of nomads in the desert found a small opening in the force field surrounding the Delight. It had apparently been caused by some kind of freak shift in the sand. Since Angela happened to play an online game with a friend of a friend of a friend, she found out about it ahead of everyone.

Angela took a leave of absence, hopped on a plane, train, car, and camel and met Makhi. He was very wary of outsiders and their tribe had loved the Nians so it had taken some convincing to get him to take her to his find. Luckily she could be very persuasive.

Flipping her camera open Angela started recording as she made her way through the hallways. She was in the employee part of the resort, which apparently was vast with a large portion underground. She had been expecting it to be dark and in disrepair but was surprised to see that emergency lighting was glowing at the top of the walls.

It took half an hour walking through the unmarked hallways before she found a door that led to the guest side of the resort. Now that the signs on the walls weren’t in some kind of numeric code Angela quickly found her way to the massive lobby of the Delight.

Pausing as she rounded the corner, Angela gasped when she saw the room in front of her. The large glass domed ceiling was grimy, but trickles of light still made their way through. One of the front doors had been blown open and there were little sand dunes all over the lobby. Plants that had once been lush and beautiful were dead husks. Light fixtures were broken and it was clear that the staff had left in a hurry. None of the electronics had been covered and little bits of office paraphernalia had been blown all around the room.

The disrepair was a shock and Angela felt a knot in the pit of her stomach. She had no family and had spent most of her vacations at the Delight, it was like a second home. Seeing it like this was—depressing.

She loved the Delight. She’d tried the Destiny and had been planning on staying at the Desire, but Delight was by far her favorite and it had absolutely nothing to do with the gloriously divine Calik that ran the resort.

At least, that’s the lie she told herself.

Never mind the fact that navy was now her favorite color because it reminded her of the one time she’d seen him walking around the resort. He’d literally taken her breath away. He wasn’t as muscular and broad as General Zalier, he had the trim figure of a professional swimmer. His green eyes had swept across the room and she’d felt a desperate wish for him to notice her. The extreme disappointment she’d felt when he left without saying anything had caused her to seriously question her sanity.

Shoving those thoughts aside, Angela returned her focus back to the lobby around her. It looked so different from the gorgeous, relaxing environment that she was used to and she tried to figure out a way to capture the change.

Biting her lip she pulled out the camera and studied the lighting and the layout of the room. Deciding to go for the most dramatic she made her way to the open door. Stepping outside, she planned to record as she entered and have the beginning of her story start with the promotional video the resorts had released, that way the difference was made abundantly clear.

However, as soon as she saw the transformation of the grounds surrounding the resort she knew exactly where she had to start. Since guests arrived by porters the lobby was unique. The doors didn’t lead to a parking lot or a place for a valet, the doors opened on a lush garden. There were multiple pools and fountains sprinkled around with various themes for each.

Now, after one year of no care and all alien technology turned off, the desert had reclaimed the space.

Glancing down at her watch Angela did some quick calculations as she turned the camera on. She had two hours before Makhi left, surely that was enough time to get some exterior shots as well as the interior ones.

Chapter Two

Frowning at the screen Calik cursed under his breath. That reporter, the one that did all those silly people on the street interviews, the one that had always been at his resort, had found a way into the Delight. How was that even possible?

Pushing his seat away from the security screens on the Nian space station orbiting Earth, he rolled across the small room to start a series of scans of Delight to figure out where the breach was. It didn’t take long to identify the small hole she must have had to climb through.

His fingers flew across the keys at a speed his twin brother would have been proud of as he made corrections and patched the hole. A satellite scan of the area showed a small group of camels and a couple of people beside the now sealed area. They’d realize the breach was sealed soon enough.

His fingers poised over the porting controls that would send the nosy reporter back to civilization, he glanced over his shoulder to the security screens. She’d just entered the Delight’s lobby and her face showed all pain and sadness he felt whenever he looked at the disrepair. He’d spent years of his life working to make the Delight exactly as he’d envisioned, only having to abandon it with hardly a moment’s notice.

Swiveling away from porting controls he moved back to the security screens and watched as she moved out to the gardens. His precious gardens, now in ruins, they had been incredible, but they were no match for the power of the desert.

Calik watched Angela as she moved through the resort. He waited for her to do something that disrespected the wonderful creation he’d ruled over, but she didn’t. She showed the utmost respect to everything and he grudgingly started to stop hating her.

When she started to head back through the hallways where he’d first been notified of the intrusion he knew it was time to make a decision. Standing up, he looked down at his unkempt appearance and decided she would just have to wait until he was finished making himself presentable.

Chapter Three

Looking on in horror Angela couldn’t believe that the force field was closed. Pressing her hand against the field, she felt a warm jolt of power pulse through her body causing it to tingle uncomfortably. She could just make out Makhi through the tight hole she’d crawled, looking at her in concern.

Shaking, she slowly backed out of the tunnel until she was sitting on the floor in the closet she’d entered through. Wrapping her arms around herself, she tried to think of some way to escape but she started to panic. Then she started to get angry. Taking deep breaths, she pushed aside everything she was feeling and focused on what she was going to need to survive.

First, she was already out of water so that was her main concern. She was in the middle of the largest desert in the world and the AC wasn’t working. The sun would be setting in a couple of hours and she was underground, but it was very hot and she was thirsty.

Standing up, she picked up her equipment and exited the closet. If she survived this whole ordeal she didn’t want to find out her film was ruined because she left her bags by a leaking bottle of cleaning solution. As she moved through the hallway she opened every door she came to, deciding that at the very least there had to be little bottles of water in the hotel rooms.

Two hallways later she struck gold and came across an employee lounge. The once ripe fruit was liquid in bowls, but there was a whole fridge filled with bottles of water. There were also a couple vending machines. It wasn’t the healthiest of options, but it was better than nothing.

Finding a clean table in the center of the room she put her bags down and went for some water. She stood by the fridge, drinking the lukewarm liquid and tried to think of her next logical step. She had water and food taken care of, what else was there?

Tilting the bottle up, she swallowed the remaining drops and then tossed the bottle in the recycle bin. Angela leaned against the table, her head dropped, and she tried to think positive.

Think positive. Think positive. Well, I’m stuck in a massive resort and no one on the planet can get to me.

Shaking her head she pinched herself to keep the feeling of helplessness back.

"That’s not positive Angela. Let’s see, positive. Well, now you get to explore more. You can get even more footage. You could also start a video diary, this is no longer just a short segment, you can do a whole documentary.

See that wasn’t so hard. Now keep thinking positive. The Nians are bound to check in at some point and there’s got to be a ton of non-perishable food in this place, so everything is going to be alright.

Nodding her head she bounced on the balls of her feet before leaning forward and snatching up her camera. She grabbed a bottle of water and slid it into her pack before leaving the safety of the lounge.

She’d already explored the outside of the resort, gotten a few pictures of an abandoned hotel room, and the lobby. As she looked for supplies she could get a more detailed view of the decay and