Miss Universe Is Here!

By Pier Maria Colombo

Beauty Pageants are meant to be fun events, sprinkled with a bit of stress. For Zyrenis, everything goes wrong as soon as she shows up for her first.

Meet Zyrenis Zakaris, 25, from the planet Venus 2. Like most other princesses, her life has consisted of training to rule and be of useful to her kingdom. She never thought participating in a beauty pageant would be necessary but she will do whatever she can for her people. Come with her on this journey to truth and freedom .

• Language: English
• Publisher: Seagull Editions
• Release date: May 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223568117

Book preview

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For Zyrenis, the princess of Venus 2, the day had gone from bad to worse. When she had been summoned to her father’s office this morning, the last thing she was thinking was pageants, but less than an hour later, she’d been bundled on a spaceship to the mangy, decrepit planet called Earth with instructions to make sure she dazzled and won the Pageant. She wasn’t worried about that, everyone knew she was the most beautiful female on Venus 2, her shiny brown skin and delicate antennae drew males and female alike to her all the time. She was the fastest runner, and had been trained in different skills from childhood. Those puny humans would never beat her. However, since she’d gotten there a scant 2 hours ago, everything just kept getting worse. Humans were supposed to adore and be amazed by her, they hated her. She’d heard some group of ladies call her creature, thing and other names that showed they saw her as less than they were. She had somehow earned the hatred of most of the audience. She saw how they looked at her. It wasn’t her fault these Humans didn’t look better than her, she thought, she was just built better.  As confident and unaffected she seemed outwardly, a little part of her wondered if they weren’t right. She was so different from them, and with every little thing that happened her bravado crumbled a little bit. She maintained a straight, serene, slightly haughty face though. A face befitting a royal. Her father had taught her that when he began teaching her statecraft.

She stood in a room with 15 other contestants, waiting to be signed in. She was Zyrenis for goodness’ sake. She was princess and heir to the throne of Venus 2. She had never been kept waiting for any reason in her life. People waited for her, not the other way round.

And they didn’t even give her a warm room to wait in. This room was freezing. Zyrenis was fuming, but this was not Venus 2, so she would not let them have a piece of her mind. Not yet at least. As she stood waiting, her advanced hearing picked up a sound she was not supposed to hear for some hours, at least not until the pageant was over. For a split second, she wondered if her father had come to show his support for her but immediately squashed the bubble of joy that tried to pop up. The king was a lot of things but emotional was not one of them. If He actually showed up here, it would be for some business meeting or something else to promote his reign.

A human male came into the room, smiling.   You all have passed the screening, he said.

You are now contestants on Miss Universe. Congratulations! Please step through that door, thank you. He motioned to a door on the other side of the room.

As they all filed out, the man said, Princess. Thank you for honoring us with your presence. Zyrenis appreciated the sentiment, but was too annoyed to reply, so she just sashayed past.

The door led to a large hall, and Zyrenis could hear the sound of a cheering audience. But just as she stepped into the magnificent hall, everywhere suddenly went dark. Everyone seemed stunned into silence but soon, their outrage at the power failure was expressed loudly. How could there be a power outage at the first actually Universal Miss Universe? What sort of terrible job of planning had taken place? When the lights finally came on, a collective whimper of fear came from the crowd and to the Zyrenis’ nose the stench of fear was almost overpowering. Everywhere she looked, there were armed people from her planet. However she found she didn’t recognize any of them, which made her conclude they were terrorists. She blanched as she realized they had to be here for her. Her mind raced as she tried to catalog just how much trouble this would cause.

The relationship between Venus 2 and Earth was already a bit weird. Her father was a bit salty that humans decided to call their planet Venus 2, especially as there was already a Venus that existed. Did they think his planet was that insignificant? Why couldn’t call their planet by their magnificent name Megadrothl. Why Venus 2? The most irritating thing was that the name had stuck, and now everybody called the planet Venus 2, even its own citizens. This new kidnapping business would be another thing for her father to fume over, and the relationship between the two planets would get more strained.

Zyrenis watched as the person she presumed was the leader walked towards her, a wary smile on his face. He bowed when he finally got to where she was, pinned by the snouts of 4 guns pointed in her direction.

Princess! He said, somehow managing to make the word sound mocking, It’s great to finally meet you, I’m sorry we had to meet under such circumstances though.

She watched as 3 terrorists ran to meet  him, Keep an eye on her, don’t do anything to her, he said, walking towards the front of a podium where a microphone had been set up.

His face soon lit up every screen connected to the event, in LA, other places on earth and even other planets watched the spectacle with bated breath. What was this monstrous terrorist, who had in essence kidnapped hundreds of humans in the hall, an Alien princess and other people in the security and planning team in the Burdock tower, going to say?

Ahem! Hemmm! came loudly from the microphone. The look of distaste at such equipment was clear on the terrorists face. He adjusted a device strapped to his ears and started to speak.

"People of Planet Earth! Be not afraid. We didn’t come here for you. We came for our dearest Princess. We shall