My Neighbor Is An Alien: A Science Fiction Romance

Chapter 1

Vuldar

The Tritanium door slides up into the ceiling with a sound akin to a hissing serpent, snicking into the micro millimeter aperture with nary a hitch. Of course it did. I built the damn thing.

That’s a bit of a misnomer. I didn’t actually construct this particular door, but I did draw the plans and dispense them to the crew. I insist upon perfection in all things, which is why our Rocky Mountain base hums like a well lubricated hover engine. 

I rush through the opening as soon as it’s clear, barging in on Axul and his woman Linda in a clinch. His mostly nude red scaled body lies atop her, blocking her n aughty bits from my view, which is just as well. How can you even get the warrior to stand at attention when your woman doesn’t have proper scales? I should probably mention that Linda is a human, and not Vakutan like the rest of us.

“Vuldar, what the fuck?” he growls, looking over his shoulder. “I’m in the middle of something here.”

“Looks to me more like you’re in the middle of someone,” I growl. “Get up, get dressed, both of you. The base is under attack.”

“But the klaxon isn’t even—”

I rush back out of the door into the corridor, the door cutting off his speech, and the grotesque vision of his amorous adventures with the young human woman. I didn’t have time to explain, but our resident weapons expert should join the fray shortly. Which is good, because I don’t know how much longer our western gate can survive the full brunt of the portable Ion cannon the Grolgath have brought to bear.

I use my override to open the next door, which belongs to another of my brethren. This time I keep my gaze carefully downward, lest I see something else as hideous and embarrassing as Axul and Linda. I relax when I see that Myrdok and Claire are seated at a table on opposite ends from each other. Surely it can’t be that bad—

“By the ancestors, why don’t you have any clothes on, Myrdok?” I sputter. He looks over at me, Earth playing cards fanned out in his hand. Now I notice that he actually still wears a tiny pair of underpants, and she’s in pants though lacking a shirt. 

“We’re playing Strip Poker,” Myrdok says with a shrug. His face twists into a grimace. “Why are you barging in on us, anyway? The door was locked.”

“The Grolgath are attacking,” I snap. “Get dressed and prepare for battle.”

“The Grolgath aren’t attacking,” Myrdok scoffs. “If they were, the klaxons would be sounding, and the emergency lights would pulse.”

“Our ever cagey foes have seen fit to disable the alarm. Fortunately, it pulsed for just long enough to garner my attention. Hurry, we do not have long.”

Myrdok glances across the table to Claire.

“Sorry, babe,” he says with a shrug. I don’t wait around to hear the rest. I run through the base, notifying everyone I see. Gradually I build up a bevy of my fellow Vakutan warriors rushing behind me, all of us carrying standard issue Blaster Rifles. When I reach Captain Pyke’s quarters, I interrupt him in the middle of slumber.

Pyke stands a good foot taller than I, his golden eyes bleary with sleep.

“What’s going on?” He demands.

“Grolgaths!” shouts one of my fellow warriors.

“Where?” Pyke says, trying to awaken his foggy mind.

“The west gate,” I say.

“Who?” Pyke asks.

“Grolgaths!” shouts the same warrior.

“Where?” 

“The West gate!” I say with growing frustration.

“Who?”

I growl, and turn to sprint toward the west gate. 

“One of you explain it to him.” My feet slam onto the steel plating of our underground base. Rough hewn walls mingle with chrome alloy venting pipes and circuit conduits. Not the most elegant of surroundings, I’ll admit, but imminently secure. At least, I had thought so.

Ever since our captain has become enamored of the pathetic human video game consoles, he has garnered little sleep. I fear he’s reaching the point of addiction. It’s starting to affect his performance as commander.

I reach the western gate, a great slab of Trimantium bolstered by lesser materials of human manufacture. A troubling red disc glows in the center of the mass, slowly expanding outward. The nimbus is not nearly so bright as the center, which is on the verge of liquefaction. I’ve arrived not a moment too soon.

I try to picture the Ion cannon on the other side of the door. Where did they get it? They must have cannibalized their own shuttles to slap it together. Grolgath are the great thieves of the cosmos. THey rarely invent anything on their own, they assimilate it from other cultures instead. All in the name of their Radiant Lady, the Goddess Ataxia.

Well, we Vakutan don’t have gods. But I’d never be so impolite as to delay a Grolgath from meeting his own.

“Look sharp, men,” I snap. “Get yourselves against the walls, and prepare to repel invaders.”

“How come the alarm isn’t going off?” demands a young impetuous warrior.

“Because they disabled it,” I growl.

“Why didn’t you make it better, then?” he says in a tone dripping with acid. I turn my gaze on him, and he wilts like a flower in the sun. “With all respect, Master Engineer Vuldar.”

“With all respect, you focus on your duties and I’ll focus upon my own,” I growl. “You try putting anything together in these primitive circumstances on this technologically barren planet, and then we’ll talk.”

“Engineer,” blurts another soldier. I follow his pointing clawed finger and see that the center of the door runs like undercooked eggs, a rivulet slopping down to the deck plating and solidifying as it cools.

“Guard your vision, soldiers,” I bark, throwing my forearm over my eyes and squeezing them tightly shut. “When that beam makes it through—”

A sound akin to thunder ripples across us, thudding in my ears and rattling  my insides like a percussion instrument. The Ion beam lances down the hallway, so bright I can see my bones in relief through my scaled flesh.

When it stops, I lower my arm and blink the spots out of my eyes. Unfortunately, my fellow soldiers haven’t been as circumspect. They cry out, rubbing their eyes and fumbling about blindly.

“I fucking warned you idiots,” I growl. “Never mind, as usual I’ll handle things myself.”

A blast of cryo spray cools the new hole in our gate enough that the Grolgath may spill through. The first plants a foot on the bottom center of the circle and fires a short burst of blaster fire at my fellows. One Vakutan goes down, hissing as he clutches the blackened, smoking crater on his chest. He’ll probably live, but with a scar that will hopefully remind him of how foolish he was not to listen to his Engineer.

I take careful aim and blast the Grolgath in the face, sending him flying back the way he came. But another takes his place, and even as I gun him down the next attempts to wedge his way in.

I slowly back away as their bodies pile up. Soon I’ll have to reload, and in that moment who knows how many will make it inside of our base? 

I should run, but if I do that then my fellow soldiers, still blinded, are as good as dead. No, there must be another way…

Then I get an idea. Still firing with one hand, I open up with a long burst to keep the Grolgath scrambling for cover. With my other hand, I send a pulse of electricity through our metal floor. Not enough to do more than tingle, so it’s not going to hurt the Grolgath.

But the chrome alloy plating has mild magnetic properties. With a current running through it, these properties are exacerbated a hundred fold. A resounding chorus of rifles slamming to the floor echoes through the hallway. My own rifle tears from my grasp and adheres to the floor, but I have no need of it.

I am Vakutan. 

I dive through the aperture and find myself in the midst of confused foes trying without success to pry their weaponry off the magnetized floor. The first one to notice me looks up just in time to catch my fist in his mouth. Sharp grolgath teeth scatter across the floor. As he falls to his knees, holding his bleeding mouth, I kick him in the chin with enough impetus to snap his neck.

I’m an engineer, and I use my mind as my greatest weapon. But now, all I need are my fists and feet. Grolgath are many times stronger than humans—then again, what sapient species other that Fratvoyans aren’t?—but they are physically inferior to Vakutan. Of course we are. They engineered us to be that way.

Now their own creation turns upon them, with a vengeance. When the battle is ended, only I remain. A claw mark on my cheeks seeps blood freely, but my natural healing ability will shortly alleviate it. No need to pause. 

I head down the tunnel looking for survivors. There is only one, a warrior whose hand was trapped beneath his weapon when the floor magnetized. I come over to him and growl.

“You’re coming with me.”

“But, but my hand—”

I grab the top of his head with both hands and drag him down the corridor. His fingers snap and twist, jerking a scream from his scaled mouth. I knock him against the wall a couple times until the scream dies down to a whimper, then continue on my way.

By the time I reach the sundered gate, my fellows have recovered their vision and their senses. They aid our injured brethren and gape at the sight of the prisoner.

“Don’t stand there gawking, fools,” I growl. “Go check the rest of the base and make sure this is the only incursion. And collect the Ion cannon. It will be a fine addition to our arsenal.”

I run into Captain Pyke leading reinforcements, including Axul and Myrdok. Claire is there as well, wielding a rifle.

“Are we arming our pet humans now?” I ask with exasperation.

Myrdok frowns at me, but Pyke is more interested in my new companion, the whimpering Grolgath.

“Bring him to our interrogation room, Vuldar,” Pyke says. “You have done well.”

“Thank you, sir,” I say.

The grolgath hisses up from the floor. “I’ll never tell you a damn thing. The flame of Ataxia consumes all, and she awaits me in paradise.”

“You’ll talk,” I say with a growl. “We have our methods.”

“I am trained to resist torture,” he says hotly. “No amount of pain will loosen my tongue.”

“There are many realms of pain beyond the physical,” I say as Pyke and I drag him along by his arms.

We enter the interrogation chamber, which consists of a metal chair with numerous restraints and a large two dimensional monitor. Did I mention the pathetic humans haven’t even achieved holo tech yet? Because they haven’t.

As we strap him in, he spouts off constantly about how resilient Grolgath are, how his Goddess is with him, and so on. I put on the eyelid clamps and the moisturizing drip, so he won’t be able to look away from the monitor.

“Last chance. Are you going to cooperate?”

In response he spits in my face. I wipe it away and growl. Pyke grins.

“You will soon change your mind,” he says. Then he and I prepare to don sound cancelling headphones as the monitor flicks on, displaying a grinning purple monstrosity with soulless black eyes.

“Hiya kids,” Barney the Dinosaur croons. “Are you ready to sing our song? I love you, you love me, we’re a happy fam—”

I can’t get my headphones on quickly enough. Pyke and I wait while the torture works its magic. The Grolgath is strong willed. He makes it almost to the end of the sixty minute VHS before breaking down into a blubbering mess.

In the end, he tells us everything. He’d do anything to avoid more such torture. The Grolgath’s latest scheme involves triggering Seismic activity in the ring of fire, starting with the San Andreas fault.

Sadly, he doesn’t know much in the way of details, but he has been spying on a human scientist, and he even knows her name. Blair McGuire.

Pyke and I confer in his ready room while we leave the Grolgath to weep at his torment. Pyke is not as cruel as I; he shuts down the program before we head out into the corridor.

“How do you want to handle this?” I ask. “We should abduct this Blair McGuire and subject her to our treatment.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Vuldar,” Pyke says with a sigh. “We can’t do that to the humans. They’re our allies, or they will be in the future. For all we know this scientist is completely ignorant of the Grolgath anyway.”

“Then what are we to do?” I ask.

“We need to get eyes on her. I’m thinking a single Vakutan, implanted into her daily life somehow…we’ll need to work those details out…someone with the right skillset to converse with her on her own level.”

“Who did you have in mind?” I asked.

“You,” Pyke replied.

My jaw gaped open. “You…you want me to get in close proximity to a human? Walk right into a nest of them? I refuse.”

“You can’t refuse a direct order from your Captain,” Pyke says with a snarl. “Besides, you’re uniquely qualified.”

“Any of our soldiers could comprehend primitive Earth tech,” I blurt.

“Yes, but this scientist is female,” he says, arching his brow ridges. “And the last thing I want is another of my men dragging a stray human into their bed. You have been quite the vocal critic of this practice, have you not?”

“I prefer a woman with scales,” I say firmly. “I wouldn’t go any further down the line than an Alzhon.”

“Excellent. Then I don’t have anything to worry about, do I?”

“No, sir,” I say with a sigh. “When do I leave on this assignment?”

“It will take a few days to set things up. I’ll confer with our outpost in the Valley. I suggest you study up on Earth culture, Engineer. You’re going undercover.”

“Yes sir,” I say, snapping off the Alliance salute—holding my hand in a crumpled fist over my heart and thumping twice hard. “You can count on me.”

Oh no. My worst nightmare is coming true. Bad enough I have humans running around my base, touching all my equipment. Now I have to be in close proximity to one.

But Pyke is right. I’m not going to be a fool like Myrdok or Axul. I won’t fall for this human woman’s scaleless charms. 

Never.