Page 1 of Alien Storm

CHAPTER ONE

Stephanie

The ship’s screensswirled in front of me, bands of colour lighting up the dark landscapes. Neither this ship nor Valeria’s was connected to the orbiting research vessel’s scanners and systems anymore, but Zoey and Tilly had re-jigged some of the drones for me. Those drones had scattered across the Sea Sands and fed me meteorological data that I analyzed here.

There wasn’t much to look at today. The weather out here had been pretty calm, other than the one sandstorm at the settlement that had happened months ago. The real data that needed analyzing was further out, past the Death Plains, where storms raged often. But I didn’t trust that a drone would make it that far on its own without getting chomped by some alien monster first.

We’d all hoped that the group who’d journeyed out past the Death Plains would return soon with new allies and new info, and that maybe on another trip they could take a drone or other weather monitoring equipment.

But we all fucking knew how that had ended. Gahn Razek and Jocelyn had been the only ones to return two days ago. Varrow’d almost gotten himself killed and was recovering in the Death Plains with Camille and Kohka. Meanwhile, nobody knew what had happened to Priya. Valeria’s shuttle had departed almost immediately afterwards to track down Priya and the four men who’d gone after her. My stomach twisted at the possibilities of what they might find.

Please, please let her be OK.

Praying had never done much for me back on Earth. But it was a habit I couldn’t seem to break.

I sighed harshly, pushing back against the desk in front of me. My wheelie office chair rolled backwards over the shining metal floor. I almost wanted to laugh at the mundaneness of that fact. The boring Earth reality of a boring chair in a boring office.

Except we weren’t on Earth. We were on an alien planet. And this wasn’t a normal office, but one of many, many rooms in the spaceship that had brought us here.

“Is all well?”

I jumped out of my chair, heart hammering at the sudden deep voice that boomed in the metal room. One of the alien warriors who’d escorted me out here, a man named Malachor, leaned into the room from the spot where he’d stationed himself in the hallway.

“Is all well?” he repeated.

No.

“Yes.”

“Alright. I heard a strange sound.”

I turned to the chair and kicked it as hard as I could, working out some of the frustration mounting in my body. Annoyingly, it didn’t fall over like I’d expected it to, instead careening noisily on its wheels until it hit the desk.

“That sound?” I asked, turning back to him.

“Yes,” he confirmed, his copper-coloured sight stars pulsing in large, dark eyes. Suddenly, his thick brows lowered, his high, dark ears twitching from where they poked out from between locks of long black hair. I’d heard some of the other girls say the Sea Sand men’s ears reminded them of cropped Doberman ears. I could see that. But they also reminded me of a horse’s ears.

He tightened his grip on his spear, turning to face whatever sound he’d heard in the hallway outside. I hurried up to the doorway, trying to see around his bulk.

Zoey was jogging down the hallway, huffing and puffing. Her giant blue lizardman mate, Kor, easily kept pace at her side, towering over her. Malachor lowered his spear at the sight of them.

“Let me carry you, mate,” Kor growled, his brilliant blue sight stars focused entirely on Zoey as he walked.

“No!” Zoey panted. “I need to exercise. My mom had gestational diabetes and I-” She stopped speaking to breathe heavily, her pace slowing somewhat. “I –putain– I need to keep in shape.”

Kor, bless the giant lizard monster, looked utterly bewildered at the tiny, beloved woman beside him.

Might as well shorten the distance a little.

Their conversation had carried easily through the long, tube-like tunnel of the hallway. But they were still a good ways away. She was probably hauling her newly pregnant self down the hallway to talk to me about something, so I started walking briskly to meet her.

“Steph!” she called, or rather wheezed, picking up speed when she saw me approaching.

“Do not push yourself,” Kor murmured with concern, his huge scaly hand coming down to rest on Zoey’s lower back as she finally stopped.

She bent over, placing her hands on her knees to catch her breath for a moment. I watched Kor’s hand stroke gently up and down her back, being careful that his claws didn’t come anywhere close to snagging the fabric of her grey tank top.

“Is everything OK?” I asked, feeling worry knit my brows together.

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