Her Alias: An Alien Invasion Series - The Second Generation, #4

By Patricia Renard Scholes

Would you abandon your husband and daughter to live with your enemy, if it kept your loved ones safe?

Not that she had much choice, since Jem threatened to kill her if she refused. 

But living in the house of the most powerful alien in the City meant her death too, if he ever discovered her true identity. In spite of the constant edge of her existence, she enjoys tremendous luxury living with High Commissioner A'nden. She is able to keep Jem at bay and her husband and daughter safe.

Until it all goes horribly wrong.

 

 

Award-winning author, Patricia Renard Scholes, provides this raw and stunning novel filled with action from the very beginning. Don't miss out on Her Alias, the next installment in the Alien Invasion Series – The Second Generation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lorekeeper Publishing Services
• Release date: Oct 11, 2017
• ISBN: 9781976059629

Patricia Renard Scholes

Born into an abusive home, Patricia determined to make a better home when she married. She realized as soon as her first child was born that she needed to relearn how to parent. After much reading, trial and error, and advice, she accomplished her goal so well she began to parent other children in her home. That is the background Patricia brings into her stories. Her "children" are heroes, survivors who lived through tough childhoods and went on to become successful adults. Although her work is mainly science fiction, her characters are based on composites of real people who also must live with their decisions. Patricia and her husband, live outside of Durango, Colorado, surrounded by national forest, a great environment for a writer.  

Book preview

Chapter 1

To Karra’s surprise, Jem didn’t kill her as soon as they entered the Area. She fully expected him to take her to an alley where no one would either notice or care that a murder had occurred.

Evening turned into full night. The nice spring day’s melted snow became treacherous ice. Karra struggled to stay upright, but her quilted boot liners provided no purchase, especially after the soggy soles iced up. She wished he had given her time to put on her boots.

And a jacket, she added a moment later as a freezing nighttime gust of wind buffeted her.

Never once had she seen her brother this angry. Jem kept his jaw clamped shut he led her deeper into the Area. Two thugs walked behind her, the two others plodded on each side of her; Jem forged ahead. No one spoke.

She kept silent too. She dared not ask him anything. Yet she burned with questions.

She wanted to ask him how he found her. Was it the time she and her family fought off that cord of Blades, or was it while he caught her watching her daughter win at twine cycling? Mooncycles passed after each one of those public incidents. Most of the time during her three years away, she remained away from public view, sometimes stir-crazy, but certainly out of sight.

The cold wind snapped around them.  Karra fought a second gust of wind, and lost.  As her boot liners slipped on the ice, one of the four burly men accompanying her brother Jem caught her elbow and yanked her upright.  Pain stabbed her shoulder as he wrenched her arm. 

Walking again, she struggled to keep her footing, concentrating on each step, trying to avoid the many patches of ice left by the weak sun that melted the tops of snow mounds. As she stumbled yet again, she fell against one of Jem’s men.  He shoved her back.  He was not her rescuer.  He was her abductor.

With the ground so slippery, and she without boots, she discarded her desire to fight against her brother and his men. She glanced at the one who had jerked her to her feet.  As a Normal, he carried no threat. None of them did.  But her brother was another matter.  He accessed at least as many threads as she did.  Moreover, he loved to use his abilities, while every time she thought of using hers, she always felt an unreasonable fear. 

In addition, Jem held a gun.  Even if she dared to attack the four brutes with him, her feet would slip on the ice under her feet. Before she ever struck the first man, Jem would shoot her.

Jem knew her promise to go with him and cause no trouble was a lie. If she found a way to run, she wouldn’t hesitate. He didn’t know, however, that her surprising willingness to accompany him was to give Berita a chance to disappear with her daughter.

Where are you taking me? she asked, unable to stay silent any longer.

But no one answered, not even Jem to taunt her.

Are we going to the Wall? When people disappeared, stories said the Wall took them, not quite saying aloud that the soldiers patrolling the Wall eliminated those who wandered into the no-man’s land that stretched in front of it. 

Still no answer.

Aren’t you going to kill me?  Isn’t that the penalty for leaving the Homelander Front? When he said she deserved punishment, he surely meant her unexplained absence from the position he had given her as their spy in Commissioner A’nden’s home. Why was she still alive?

One of them shoved her from behind.  She fell, and wondered if she could pretend injury.  But when Jem put his gun against her neck, she stood.  Maybe he didn’t intend to kill her right now, but he might reconsider if she pushed him too hard.

Silence loomed around them as real as the nighttime shadows.  Occasional lights from the businesses they passed shone on the path ahead. Making her way past the icy patches hidden in the dark took most of her concentration.  She kept hoping to find a way to turn the situation to her advantage. 

She thought with longing about her coat and stocking cap back home. Gloves would be nice too.  Jem and his men wore heavy jackets. She wore thickweave trousers and a flannel shirt. Her feet felt like blocks of wood, her hands like ice.

Shadows roamed in the dark, people who hid from those like her brother’s men. Maybe if she managed to get inside an establishment of some sort and cause a disturbance, she might lose them. That tavern in front of them held possibilities. She needed to make someone care. Any drunk would do.

Jem, please.  I need to find a facility.  Soon.  My bladder’s about to burst.  Not a lie.  She needed to go badly, and had for some time.

Jem glanced at the bar, and with a small malicious smile, he signaled, a slight move of one finger, but his men knew exactly what he wanted. 

So did Karra.  No...  Don’t...

Two of them grabbed her, one on each side, and held her in an iron grip.

Without emotion, Jem slammed his fist into her stomach.  Roaring pain flared. She would have doubled over had she been able.  Her bladder released its hold.  Vomit burned her throat as it spewed pass her lips to splatter on the ground.  She sagged against the men.  Through the haze of pain, she saw Jem draw back to hit her again. When she tried to protest, only gagging sounds came from her mouth.

A couple, embracing in an alley, lost interest in each other and disappeared further back into the shadows. Few in the Area helped those in need. No one came to the rescue of a person being assaulted by five muscular men.

In rapid succession, Jem delivered several more blows to her chest and abdomen.  Her world became a sea of sick pain. 

When they released her, she fell to the freezing ground, struggling to rise.  Out of the corner of one eye she saw Jem grin at her.  He flicked his hand, and the men pulled her to her feet. She wanted to protest, to protect herself from being hit again, but nothing seemed to work quite right.  She voiced no more than a gurgle. 

One of them slung her over his shoulder.  She groaned when his shoulder prodded her tender abdomen.  She could feel Jem’s satisfaction that his sister would cause no more trouble.

Large, bulky buildings provided little room for moonlight.  Darkness reigned.  No businesses, not even bars, lit the streets. 

Still, it should have been darker.  Something besides the occasional glowlamp or the moon colored the sides of the buildings a ghostly gray. 

When she turned her head, she noticed the Wall visible through her tangle of hair.  Well-lit checkpoints dotted its top rim.  There were no gates in the Wall.  All traffic, both transports and aircars, flew over it, stopping at checkpoints on top of the Wall before they continued to their destinations.  Soldiers patrolled the top from gatehouse to checkpoint and back, making the entire city of Sector Five a prison, a much larger version of the camp where her father had been killed years ago.  She shivered at the memory.

All around them squatted warehouses, the dark streets lined by gray and black buildings.  Occasionally a glowlamp shone over a warehouse door, probably to discourage thieves.  But most of the buildings used metal bars that fastened across their massive doors with magnetic locks to hold them in place, making unauthorized entry difficult for even the most determined thief.  Not surprisingly, some of the warehouses were heated, a way of keeping contents from freezing in this northland’s bitter winters.  Spirals of steam curled from flues atop their roofs. 

She realized she had never been to this warehouse district before.

She heard plastisteel grate against plastisteel, such as the sliding of a bar across a door.  She knew she should turn toward the sound, if only to prepare herself. 

Without a word of warning, they threw her into a warehouse.  She skidded across the floor on her shoulder and cheek.  Before she could recover, she heard heavy doors swing shut and a plastisteel bar being rammed into place, sealing her inside. All light vanished. Absolute darkness covered her.

Jem! she croaked as she scrambled for where she thought the door might be.  But a solid metal wall stepped in front of her and bumped her away.  Don't lock me in!

More pleas followed, but they bounced back at her as she screamed for her brother to let her out. 

The darkness enveloped her, a physical thing that pressed its face against her, sucking out all the air.  The walls closed in, crushing her.  She gasped in panic as a warm breath stroked her cheeks, like a dragon taking a taste before devouring its prey.  She sucked in short gulps of air, surprised to find that she could still breathe, then shrieked. 

No!  No!  Let me out!  Let me out!  JEM!

She felt Jem’s presence, just beyond the warehouse door as if he breathed in the fragrance of her panic. He stayed for a while, seeming to relish her anguish, but he did not respond aloud.

After some time, she felt him leave.

Left alone with the black, oily-skinned dragon, she flailed her hands against it. The dark monster wanted to smother her. When her hands came into contact with the its slick surface, she battered her hands on it, unaware of the damage she caused them. 

Hammering and screaming, she thrust it back again and again, but it remained, a solid presence. It teased her with its warm breath that caused more screams to tear from her throat. She screamed long after her voice left. Eventually her beating against the dragon’s hide stopped too. Her strength gone, she collapsed on the floor.

Door, she reminded herself. Not dragon.

She crouched by the door, shivering.  One finger felt broken.  Her legs and feet were wet and cold, stinking of urine.

No sooner had she convinced herself that the door was her reality and not a dragon, a gust of dragon’s breath teased her hair. She whimpered, terrified.

Jem, she whispered in the dark.

A long time ago, Jem had been her best friend. Her only friend because she pushed away all others. He taught her burglary basics. He provided lessons in self-defense, but more, his instructions included how to attack, where to hurt, how to maim, eventually, how to kill. When she grew older, he included topics in how to use her body to distract an opponent, how to present an effective lie, how to use her body language as a second form of communication while her words said something else.

He taught her Nevian court graces, Third Level customs and decorum, everything except the Nevian language itself. By the time he finished with her, she could enter any level in the City and look at home there, from the Area streets to the homes of the elite.

He never needed to teach her sleight-of-hand or how to pick locks. She learned those from others. If it was illegal, she learned it. She knew how to attract attention, which is what she wanted more than anything else right now.

But no Jem, or anyone else, opened the door of her prison.  Blackness held her.  Inky fingers caressed her skin.  The walls continued to move inward to crush her slowly, min by min. 

Suddenly the darkness blossomed with ragged teeth in a huge mouth that creaked and gibbered.

She began a bout of soundless screaming.

Chapter 2

As Security led Berita away on false charges, Tadessa’s cries of protest broke her heart. I should have left with the child the second after that foul brother of hers snatched her away. I should have realized that was why she went so willingly with him.

Instead, she waited for Snake, even though he had already been gone for nearly a mooncycle. But Berita thought he might arrive, or might come home to an empty apartment and try to move the planet to find his wife and daughter.

Go to the Village, she sent to the girl in mind speech. My mother will keep you safe.

Did she go? Her next thread met nothing at all, leaving the large Krindarwee woman to assume that her niece had disappeared into Null. Go to the Village, she repeated, but to herself, knowing the words would never reach the child as long as she kept a Null field around her.

I should not have waited for Snake, she repeated, angry with herself. He hadn’t shown up in more that two tendays. Why had she waited? Why had she put the Daughter at risk like that? Now there was no one to care for her. Not with her father absent, her mother abducted by her brother, and Berita arrested on ridiculous charges.

What worried her the most was the thought that Jem had set up Tadessa’s father’s disappearance as well.

The air transport took her to a barred Security facility, not the prison, but something else. They placed her in a cell with other women, all wearing the thickweave and flannel of the Area resident. Two of the women wore thickweave dresses, three others thickweave trousers and flannel shirts. Those seated on the floor, their backs to the wall, dozed. Some carried on a conversation in hushed tones. One, sprawled out on a bench, eyed her, but gave her no room to sit. Berita sat on the floor, her back to a wall, glared back at them.

No one spoke to her, so Berita crossed her huge arms over her chest and pretended to sleep, peering from narrow slits in her eyes at the others. Although she had lived most of her life in the Area, she never expected to experience sitting in a jail cell.

Time passed, and two other women were brought inside. Wanting to know more, Berita listened to their surface thoughts. Most, she discovered, although curious about her, kept their attention on their own problems. Most wanted to know when the court would open for them to present their cases.  Each woman planned a speech to declare her innocence.

Good question, Berita thought.

A couple of the more experienced women doubted they would get a chance to present anything, expecting to be told the charges against them, then sent to something called Processing.

She wondered if trumped-up charges held as much weight as legitimate ones.

She half expected them to go as a group to court, but not so. As the morning progressed, she found that her cellmates left in the order they arrived.

Berita diZilla, a guard shouted when it became her