The Queen's Gift (Stories of the Alien Invasion Book 2) Page 7

  “Go on Andrew, flip it over. I bet it’s a six or an eight,” Mikey said. Mikey shook his head and grabbed Jordan and Andrew’s cards. It was his turn to shuffle next.

  Andrew flipped over the card, revealing the ten of diamonds. Connie shrugged. The nine would have won her the game too.

  “Would something like go-fish be more your speed?” Connie teased, rubbing at her back. The baby was getting heavy, and her back had been hurting more and more.

  “No, I’ve got to redeem myself at rummy,” Andrew said.

  A small dampness spread through her panties. It almost felt like she’d peed her pants.

  “What? You don’t want to give us a rematch?” Mikey asked, he must have noticed the surprised look on her face.

  Connie shook her head. Was that her water breaking? With Calvin, she’d been in active labor and a lot of pain before her water broke.

  There it was again, another trickle of water, like those sneeze-pees she’d been getting the last few weeks, but without the sneeze.

  “What’s wrong? Is it the baby?” Jordan asked, popping to his feet.

  “Yeah. I’m pretty sure my water just broke.”

  “I’ll go get help,” Jordan said, turning to leave.

  “No.” Connie shook her head. “I feel fine.”

  “Should we go to the infirmary?” Mikey asked.

  “If it’s anything like Calvin, it’ll be a long time coming.” Connie pushed up from the table and waddled off towards the bathroom. She needed a pad or something if she were going to win the next round of rummy.

  TWENTY-THREE

  RACHEL

  “What do you mean you’ve been invited to choose a second companion?” Nate shouted. He stood by the door, as if ready to flee Rachel’s chambers. “Am I not good enough for you?”

  “Of course, you are. This is an honor. One that I can’t pass up,” Rachel said. “It’s proof that the Queen still favors me, despite all my problems.”

  “Of course, she does. The job she gave you is impossible! Anyone would know that. Hello! Everyone here hates the damned redskulls.”

  Rachel gasped. Tears pricked her eyes. Her emotions had been close to the surface lately.

  “Is that how you really feel?” Rachel asked. “You hate me?”

  “Of course, I don’t hate you, Rachel,” Nate said. Still, she caught the way his eyes glanced to her second set of eyes, and then looked quickly away. “The others, especially your Queen, who commanded this…”

  “Don’t talk about the Queen that way. She’ll know.” The Queen was with her always. Who knew when her attention would fall on Rachel? Then the Queen would have him punished.

  “She ruined Earth. You know, home? How could I not hate her? How could any of the prisoners in those cells that you’ve been sent to sort out not hate the redskulls?”

  “Honored Ones,” Rachel corrected. “We are honored by the Queen.”

  “Whatever. I don’t hate you, Rach. I just don’t understand why you want a second… why I’m not enough for you.”

  “Nate, it’s not about you. It’s about the Queen’s honor. Besides…” Rachel shook her head. She didn’t know how to convince him. While it was totally acceptable and normal for an Honored One to have multiple companions, Nate had no frame of reference for the different social structure. Rachel could protect Nate better with a second companion because it marked her status. How could she convince him this was the right move?

  “Besides what?” Nate asked.

  Rachel shrugged.

  “If we were home, I would have left a long time ago,” Nate said.

  “If we were home…” Rachel sighed. “We’d have both starved to death by now.”

  Nate said nothing.

  “If I hadn’t turned us in, if this hadn’t happened at all, if things went as normal, then I wouldn’t have the Queen’s honor. I wouldn’t have an invitation. I wouldn’t have a beautiful apartment for our family. I wouldn’t be pregnant.”

  The words were out before Rachel could stop herself. The Queen herself had instructed Rachel to not tell Nate of the pregnancy. She didn’t know why. She couldn’t keep it a secret from him for more than a couple months anyway.

  The color drained out of Nate’s face. He stared at her, his eyes rested on her second skull, settled on her second eyes, before drifting down over her face and to her belly. He stared at her belly before meeting her eyes.

  “You’re not on birth control?” he finally asked.

  “Not since… not since we were starving on Earth. I ran out. And here…” Rachel shrugged. “Here they want a bigger population. That’s why they took us.”

  “But Rachel…” He shook his head. “How can we take care of a baby?”

  “Don’t you get it? That’s why we need the second companion,” Rachel said. “We’ll need someone to help with the baby. The Queen will make sure we have a home, food, healthcare. All that will be taken care of. But raising the baby, that’s up to us. And being offered a second companion is like… It raises my status. It means we’ll be safer. Our family will be safer.”

  “But… another man?”

  “It doesn’t have to be a man,” Rachel said. Immediately she regretted it. She wanted another man. She didn’t know why she’d said that except that she thought it would end the fight today.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  !ESTRAITH

  !Estraith settled onto her cushion in the back of the room. Her family sat around her, save her father who was presiding over his granddaughter and adopted grandson’s ceremony. Calvin followed Nith into the room and twenty or so children followed them in. Nith stopped at *Malon’s feet. Her husband squeezed her hand and smiled, the pride evident on his face. !Estraith nodded to him, trying to fake a proud smile as well.

  “These children have made the choice to dedicate themselves to the Queen,” *Malon said. “It is an admirable choice made for admirable reasons. Your family and friends are all honored to serve the Queen in our own ways. We applaud their choice.”

  *Malon led the audience in clapping. !Estraith clapped, but she felt like *Malon’s eyes saw straight into her soul. !Estraith might have chosen to be dedicated at two, but now, as a mother, she knew two and a half years old was much too young to make a decision about what to eat, let alone whether or not to let the Queen into your head. True, this was only the first dedication that all children underwent, but the end result would be the loss of themselves at puberty when the Queen would choose to take them over or not.

  *Malon knelt beside Nith in her shiny silver jumpsuit. !Estraith’s throat went dry. She didn’t want to lose her daughter the way she had lost her brother. Her husband’s second red face looked out over Nith towards the audience. The Queen couldn’t look into her brain. She couldn’t.

  “Why do you want to serve our Queen, granddaughter Nith?”

  “I help Queen. I good girl. I be like Grandpa and Daddy and Uncle,” Nith answered. “Queen makes them happy.”

  !Estraith’s heart sank as her father held out his hand. Nith put her chubby hand into his. In his other hand, he held the piercing hoop. Beside Nith, Calvin squirmed.

  “Nith, all commitments must be honored. We must mark your dedication with a permanent sign of your commitment. Turn your head,” * Malon said. He raised the piercer to Nith’s ear. “Nith, do you dedicate your life in service to the Queen?”

  “Yes!”

  *Malon squeezed the piercer. Then lowered his hand. A tiny bronze hoop hung from Nith’s ear.

  “I pronounce you !Nith. A child dedicated to the Queen. This—” *Malon tugged gently on the small bronze hoop “—hoop is a sign of that dedication. Tonight, when your jumpsuit arrives, it, too, will be bronze to mark you as dedicated to the Queen.”

  !Estraith’s eyes were wet. So were some of the other parents. Were they happy for their children or afraid of losing them in thirteen years to the Queen? Another Honored One led !Nith to the end of the line.

  “Calvin, why do you want to serve the
Queen?”

  “Queen nice. Queen is family.” The toddler stumbled over his words, but not much more than the other children. !Estraith leaned back into her husband, hoping maybe she could find some solace in his touch, but she felt like the Queen was watching her through his eyes as well as her father’s.

  “That is a great reason.” He held out his hand for the earthen boy to hold. “Calvin, are you ready to renounce your ties to your earthen family and to dedicate yourself to the Queen?”

  “Yes. I ded’cate to Queen.”

  As the boy said it, *Malon squeezed the piercer. When he removed his hand, Calvin too had a bronze hoop hanging from his ear.

  “I pronounce you !Trino. A child dedicated to the Queen.”

  !Estraith couldn’t believe her ears. She’d never heard a dedication in which a child was expected to renounce his family. She swallowed. She had to change this. She didn’t want to lose her daughter or this sweet boy she’d been entrusted.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  JORDAN

  “Got a new toy for you boys,” the quartermaster said.

  Jordan stopped with a spoonful of oatmeal halfway to his mouth. Others turned and stared at the quartermaster. He hadn’t deigned to talk to the lowly recruits, and now he had a toy for them? Even Mason’s head swiveled away from whatever conversation she was in with the newb… who wasn’t even a newb anymore. Two months of training and they were getting ready to graduate into active duty. That is, they’d be authorized to leave the base soon.

  “The guns you have, they’re old school, no use against alien tech,” the quartermaster said. “We’ve got some new tech, and I’ll be training you on the new guns and how to use them without blowing yourselves to smithereens before you go out into the field.”

  Jordan set down the spoon. New guns that would make a difference against Al? They were just trainees, but even that son of a bitch, Poole, had said their weapons did shit against the alien ships.

  “These weapons are too powerful to train within our range here,” the quartermaster continued.

  Jordan’s mouth was suddenly dry, and it had nothing to do with the puck-like oatmeal that he’d been eating. He glanced around the table, and he noticed the other pale looks around him.

  “Excuse me, sir,” Mason said, raising her hand. “Just where will we be training then?”

  “I’ll be taking you outside in pairs for safety. So far as we can tell, Al doesn’t take notice of groups of three.”

  Bile burned Jordan’s throat. He wanted to take down Al, but if their weapons before didn’t do anything, then he could only hope that Al wouldn’t notice that they were training with new tech.

  “Now then, I’ll be collecting you throughout the day. Mason and Davies you’re the best shots out of this unit. You’re first.”

  Mason’s nose wrinkled when the quartermaster said Jordan would be going with her, but she nodded to the quartermaster and joined him at the front of the table. Jordan’s stomach sank even more. For all that he’d wanted to kick Al’s ass, now that he was going outside where Al might find him, Jordan just wanted to burrow deeper into the earth.

  As they walked through the compound, the quartermaster explained the gun’s use. It charged and could overheat if they weren’t careful. Scientists had been working on dissecting the weapons since the Battle of L.A. when they felled one of their scouts. After what felt like miles and a million flights of stairs, they arrived at an entrance to the compound that Jordan had never seen before. Jordan swallowed as they climbed out of a tiny hole in the ground.

  This entrance was even smaller than the mine Mikey had spotted the soldier peeking out of. The quartermaster and Mason quickly hurried out of the compound. The quartermaster pulled a sheet off of an enormous tripod, and Mason grinned at it. Then, they realized Jordan wasn’t with them.

  “Get over here!” Mason hissed. “What are you doing hiding?”

  Jordan scrambled over, his cheeks burned red. Was he that much of a coward? The quartermaster didn’t bitch at him for his cowardice, he just nodded to Jordan.

  “Now, our scientists are hoping they can make handheld versions soon, but for now, if you’re operating these, you’ll be mounted either in a tank or on the back of an up-armored, understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” Jordan and Mason snapped.

  “Good.” Then the quartermaster showed them the meter that protected them from an overheating weapon. If it got too hot, they’d take out their whole vehicle and then some and leave radiation sitting around. Jordan swallowed. Was that why they were so far away from the rest of the base?

  “Does using these expose us to radiation?” Jordan asked.

  “Right now, the radioactive elements are encased in lead and won’t leak through.”

  “But when it fires?” Jordan asked. “I’m not shooting bullets, right?”

  “You worry too much.” Mason shoved him away from the controls, grabbed on, and grinned. “Where should I aim?”

  “You each get to take out three rocks.” The quartermaster pointed at a line of boulders almost a football field away. All of the rocks had little green men painted on them.

  “Hell yeah!” Mason sighted, and then, once she had her shot lined up, a ball of lightning crackled out of the gun. It almost looked like a small round version of the mothership Jordan had seen on YouTube. The air filled with the smell of burnt ozone. Ten feet shy of one of the boulders, the ground exploded. Dirt showered up in a thirty-foot circle.

  “Do it again!” the quartermaster said.

  “Is there radiation?” Jordan asked again.

  “According to our scientists, no. No radiation is supposed to escape.”

  Mason aimed slightly higher, waited until the heat meter went back to zero and fired again. This time, the first rock in the line detonated. It burst from the inside, raining down chunks of rock and charred glass.

  “Davies, you’re up.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  KAILEY

  Kailey paced the room. She and a handful of the other girls wore sheer, red, wrap dresses, and another two dozen or so wore dark green. Part of her thought they looked like a slutty Christmas party gone wrong. Their lips and nipples had been painted with something that made them tingle and swell slightly. Anna said she used cinnamon lip-gloss back home when she stripped for the same effect. They all wore thick makeup to accentuate their features.

  Mbnath stalked through them, giving them reminders and pointers. She’d lived in the same large dorm room with the girls, not one of them older than twenty-three for the last six weeks. She’d thwacked them all with the stick whenever they spoke English, whenever their accent was not acceptable, whenever she thought their posture lacking, or whatever other problems they might have had. Now, she looked just as nervous as Kailey felt. Mbnath fingered her stick, and her eyes didn’t focus on the nervous mass of anxious girls in front of her.

  Kailey reached to tug her dress down, but caught sight of Mbnath again. Whatever happened tonight, Mbnath had done her best to prepare them.

  “Smile, Mkailey,” Mbnath said. “You will do well tonight.”

  Kailey shook her head. Mbnath wasn’t the one who had taken her stats, but she knew the girl was a virgin.

  “Do not be afraid. You will receive much honor. If you lucky enough to be chosen, remember to relax.”

  “I’ve never…” Kailey whispered.

  “I know, fool girl,” Mbnath smiled. “You wear the red, do you not?”

  “I… The red means I’m a virgin? They’ll all know?” Kailey asked. She glanced around and realized that the other girls wearing red had been in Mbnath’s special sex ed class with her. They’d focused on giving and receiving pleasure, in abstract as well as touching a dummy. How could she have been so stupid to not realize what the red meant before?

  “You most likely will rise to the green tonight. You are my best pupil.”

  Kailey felt tears threatening. She didn’t want one of the ugly blue dwarves to take her virginity.
>
  “I was afraid, too, when I was presented as a new courtesan. I wore the red just like you. Do not worry. Tonight will go well.”

  Kailey shook her head. Anna would try to sabotage her, and a redskull—an Honored One—would probably take her virginity.

  “Smile. Pretend to enjoy yourself. Focus only on the dance. Only on the next step of the night. If you are chosen, relax and remember our classes. You may bring yourself pleasure as well.”

  Another blue woman in a green dress entered the room and dragged Mbnath away. Kailey swallowed. The blue woman meant well. Kailey shook her head and a curl fell loose into her face. Mbnath would kill her if she weren’t perfectly coiffed. There were no mirrors and none of the others would help her. Mbnath had singled her out again and again after that first day a week ago.

  She had turned the others against Kailey, but Kailey had worked harder and harder, practiced more and more to become a better dancer, to speak the blue tongue better than the others. Tonight, they would dance as a group and break out individually to be presented to the redskulls. Then, they would be treated as simple serving girls, unless they caught the eyes of one of the redskulls.

  They were to engage in conversation if asked. They were to tell about their lives on Earth and what they had been if prompted. They were to be engaging and funny. Kailey swallowed down the thick taste of bile in her throat. She didn’t know if she could do this.

  “Ready, ladies?” Mbnath called out over their nervous chattering.

  No one answered, but they moved into their lines, ready to dance before the redskulls.

  “Good!” Mbnath led them out into the large room.

  This was the one room that had actual lights in it, not the strange moss that made that soft glow. The light was more powerful, but still not as bright as sunlight. Kailey swallowed back her fear and focused on the faint music and Mbnath’s voice. Mbnath introduced them as the earthen recruits. Kailey was startled to see that the redskulls sat on pillows arranged around the floor. Some lounged, others sat more upright, but they all watched the earthen courtesans filing into the room.