Page 45 of Claimed by the Alien Warrior Triad

One crackling bolt of energyskewersthe arm of guard in the corner – holding him aloft as his body twitches, and flails, and then seems toburnfrom the inside out.

Burnt, smoldering anddead, the guard’s smoking body falls to the floor.

More tendrils shoot out in all directions.

It’s like that scene at the end ofRaiders of the Lost Ark, when the Nazis open the Ark of the Covenant. Tendrils of crackling, devastating, intelligent energy ripple outwards, targeting and exploding the cameras that have studied this Orb for years.

The Orb pulsates, and the heavy glass panels covering it pull away, falling aside as if they’re made of paper.

The tendrils crackle all around me, and I know any one of them could pierce me with that same otherworldly energy; rending me to dust and atoms.

But I stand firm, as if the death and destruction crackling all around me is harmless.

I stand firm, and I address the Orb – my voice bold and fearless.

“I’ve lost it all,” I bellow. “All for just a chance. Please,pleaseaccept my sacrifice.”

And I have sacrificedeverything. I just violated a top-secret government project, stole a keycard from the top researcher, and let an innocent guard die as a result.

I’ll be arrested for this; if the government’s black-suited operatives don’t just make me disappear. It doesn’t matter if I’m the Secretary of Defense – notnow.

But I don’t care.

“Please,” I beg again, and for a second the Orb seems tojudgeme.

And then grants me what I demand.

It’s almost as if its laughing, as the Orb opens the portal I’ve been dreaming of for thirty years; one with the verdant scent of an alien jungle wafting through it.

So familiar, despite the thirty years since I last filled my nostrils with that air.

I gulp, hardly believing this is happening. Taking a deep breath, I snatch the gun from the guard’s smoldering body, as well as a spare ammo clip, and step through the rippling portal.

OceanofPDF.com

16

OceanofPDF.com

Aubrey

The portal closes instantly behind me, snapping shut like a guillotine. The Orb clearly didn’t want me changing my mind – not again.

I don’t care, though. I break down, falling to my knees as I stare out at the dangerous paradise around me.

I’m back, and now it’s all real. The same teeming jungle. The same lighter gravity. The same warm, lush scent to the air.

The only thing that’s different is me – and I’m not referring to the fact that I’m wearing sensible boots beneath my pantsuit this time, unlike the heels I’d been snatched in thirty years ago.

I clamber to my feet and take a deep, deep breath.

I’m feel like a conquering explorer – one who fearlessly lands on virgin ground, and burns his ships behind him. There is now no way back to my old life. And if there was? All that would await me is a court martial and endless science experiments when I continued not to grow old – no matter how many decades they kept me locked in some government prison.

No turning back. Nogoingback. Not again.

Andgood.

At least this time, I know that when a fire breathing monster flies down and roasts me to a crisp, I’m not going to wake up panting in a mental hospital.

---