Slych Read online

  PNR Press Presents

  Slych

  Menin Warriors

  Book 1

  By

  Rayann Marse

  Join the PNR Press Mailing List for Upcoming Releases

  Copyright 2018 Steamy eReads

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter One

  Tina came out of the long, cold sleep exactly as she had been six months ago.

  In her mind, she was still in that dark laboratory back on Earth, going through her rudimentary cosmonaut training. Looking into the grinning face of the middle-aged man, whose name she had forgotten, as he told her things like, "This is just in case of an emergency," and "We have to go over this stuff, but you won't really need it."

  It wasn't a manned mission, after all. Not really. They were just along for the ride, strapped naked into little tubes that fed them air and nutrients and washed them on a semi-regular basis. So Tina was at least clean as she emerged from the sleep, stepping bare and shivering into the warm light of a heat lamp.

  The other women started to wake as well. Tina reflexively reached for a towel to wrap around her nude body. But at the same time, aware that she was being a terrible hypocrite in her modesty, she appraised the others with scrutiny. To her credit, it was more of an effort to regain her memory than anything.

  She had bunked with these girls for weeks during training. She had seen them in various states of dress, most of them minimal. She had watched some of them engaged with random army men, putting their cheap cots to the test. Seeing them naked was nothing to her. But it allowed her to piece together the recent months of her life.

  Her name was Tina Cassidy. Whenever someone asked her what she did, she invariably replied with two words, "I write." If they pressed her for more information, she sometimes said that she had written eight novels and one memoir. When they inevitably expressed surprise that she had done all that by such a young age, she informed them that she was a fast writer and that she had first been published at the age of fifteen. Secretly, though, she never let on to her occasional boyfriends or even her agent that she wasn't at all proud of the things she wrote and didn't believe she was an especially good writer. Either her opinion was an outlier, or else she was just plain wrong; she had, after all, been conscripted for this most important mission.

  The woman walking toward her now was Sybil McCullough. At thirty-nine, the translator was the oldest and probably the most intelligent of the crew. Though she was probably far too busy for such things, Tina thought that Sybil could have lived the cougar lifestyle to perfection. She paid little attention to her appearance — even her hair was generally a frizzy mess — but she kept to a strict regimen of exercise. For the mental boost, she claimed. But it certainly had its positive physical effects as well.

  Next was Estela Florentina. All the world knew her as Stella, the famous singer who had begun by posting an occasional vocal cover online. Most of her adolescent fans didn't realize that the video posting had started as just a fun hobby, whilst Stella was studying to become a TIDE technician. She was young, petite, and dark, but unfairly well-endowed in bosom and buttocks.. If not for the brain-achingly complex jargon that occasionally erupted from her mouth, she was easy to take for a porn star. And Tina thought she'd probably make just as much money, if not more, in that career as she did in her current one.

  The fourth woman came like a shadow, bowing and excusing her way to the front of the room to put on a bathrobe while the others stood around waiting. She was Kozue Esumi, Japanese-American, a charity worker and foreign aid agent. Those were her job titles, anyway. Whoever had invented the phrase ‘big things come in small packages’ must have looked into the future and seen Kozue. Or Kozy as everyone called her. She had a working knowledge of just about everything on this station and constantly surprised people with talents they didn't know she had. Everything from harmonica playing to advanced mathematics. At only twenty years of age, she was arguably one of the most intelligent people on the planet. Or off the planet, at the moment.

  Finally, rising slowly and lazily and getting in plenty of stretches, came the Dutch goddess. Aurora Willekens was the type of person that was somehow blessed in every single category. Though she was not strictly a writer by profession, she was certainly far better at it than Tina, despite only having published two books. She was a history professor and boasted some of the highest attendance rates by students in the history of her old and prodigious college.

  One might assume it was just because she was a good teacher — and she was — but to Tina's mind, it was almost certainly to do with Aurora's appearance. She was five feet and eleven inches of feminine perfection, with long legs, wide hips, large, perky breasts, and an ass someone could easily lose their whole face in. Just looking at the woman made Tina mad, and she had never been jealous before.

  And that, other than good old Tide who had slaved away while the women slept, was the entire crew.

  They gathered in a circle around the heat lamp, shivering at first and then pulling up the sleeves on their robes as sweat beaded on their foreheads.

  "I'm starting to recall," Aurora finally said, making no attempt to hide her pink nipples as she pulled the halves of her robe apart. "The last thing I ate... pork tenderloin, asparagus with hollandaise. I think I can still taste it."

  "Maybe so," said Stella, tapping her plump lips with an index finger. "The sleeping tubes don’t hydrate or nourish orally, and they don't do much to keep your mouth clean. Perhaps you are still tasting the food."

  Aurora made a face. "Gross. I need to find a bathroom and a toothbrush — immediately."

  She turned to leave, but the sinewy, freckled arm of Sybil McCullough reached out to grab her. "Wait," the translator said. "I know it’s fun to play ditzy and shallow, Aurora, but surely you remember something beyond the last thing you swallowed."

  Tina chuckled, but quickly stopped as the Dutchwoman's eyes tried to burn a hole through her.

  "I do remember," said Aurora.

  She crossed her arms and inadvertently pushed one of her breasts up and out of her robe. It fell heavily, bouncing as only a natural breast can. That dispelled one of the myths Tina often heard about the woman. They were natural, after all.

  "We are waking now," Aurora added, "because we have reached our destination and require briefing. Because the long sleep sometimes has an effect on memory, and it is important that we know what we're out here to do."

  "We'll be reminded of everything that pertains to the mission," said Sybil, nodding in approval. "And perhaps we'll find ways to apply our unique talents and skills."

  "The reasons we were chosen," Kozue said, her voice something between the beautiful song of a bird and the squeak of a mouse.

  Tina swallowed, trying to shrink away. She willed them all to ignore her, lest they discover the impostor in their midst.

  "So, what do we do now?" Aurora asked.

  "We go to the bridge," said Stella. "There, Tide will remind us all of the mission parameters. But first, I recommend food. Nothing too heavy; your digestive systems need time to readjust."

  Chapter Two

  They separated for a time, going into their assigned bedchambers.

  The chambers were about the size of two airplane bathrooms put together end to end. As Tina changed her clothes and brushed her hair in the mirror, her calves scraped against the edge of the bed.

  Perhaps, she thought as she looked at her reflection, her beauty was the reason she'd been chosen. She was outmatched by her crewmates in every other way.

  There was a knock on
the door. Tina took a single step to the side and opened it.

  "Time's wasting," Sybil said. She held out a food bar in a biodegradable wrapper. "Eat this. We'll have a more substantial meal after the briefing."

  Tina followed, unwrapping the food bar and taking a bite. It had the texture of underdone bread, the flavor of a piece of tree bark, and all the vitamins her body needed along with three hundred fifty calories and fifteen grams of protein. Tina did the minimum for chewing and let the doughy mass slide down her throat, not particularly enjoying her first solid meal.

  She joined the small crowd of her crewmates, now dressed and gussied up for their date with the AI, and moved with them down the corridor. The lighting here was dim and yellow. The distant hum and rattle of life support gave the feeling of being in the basement of an old school or apartment building. Tina looked around, expecting to see cobwebs and perhaps a curmudgeonly old caretaker rushing at her out of the shadows, broom in hand. But of course there was nothing living on the ship other than the five women, and everything was squeaky clean.

  The doors to the bridge stood open to them. Bright light spilled out, casting aside the dimness of the corridor. The women walked inside, two abreast with Sybil in lead. Ahead of Tina, Kozue and Stella got into a mock nudging contest, giggling amongst themselves.

  The bridge was a circular room. Other than the short stretch of bulkhead between it and the corridor, the wall of the bridge was one big window, offering three hundred or so degrees of visibility. At the moment, there was nothing to see but empty space and distant stars. But the view still took Tina's breath away with its clarity.

  Even in the remotest areas of Earth, there was still an atmosphere to filter out some of the raw beauty of the universe. Here there was nothing but four inches of window-glass protected by an undetectable force-field. What seemed at first glance to be empty space was in fact the opposite of empty. In between every pair of bright stars were an uncountable number of dimmer ones. And in between the dimmer stars were further ranks of even dimmer ones. It was infinite, a recursive kaleidoscope of fading light.

  It had been easy, while walking down the corridor, for Tina to believe she was just on a movie set or in a mockup ship sitting in some silent hangar. Gravity was normal, and there was no sensation of motion. But the illusion was now shattered. She became dizzy, nearly stumbling into the tall Dutchwoman beside her. It was vertigo. Even with artificial gravity holding her to the floor, the concepts of up and down became nebulous.

  Sybil strode ahead, apparently unaffected, while her crewmates lingered behind like lost children.

  The translator approached a hexagonal pit in the center of the room. In the middle of the pit, a small pedestal of honeycombed graphene and silicon suddenly erupted with what looked like sparks or fireflies. The dancing lights joined together, forming the human avatar of the TIDE unit that controlled the ship.

  "Greetings!" Tide said. "Did you sleep well, Sybil?"

  "I did," she said. "Thank you. We're ready to begin the briefing process."

  Tide nodded. "As planned. You may want to bring some chairs over. Your bodies will be weakened by your extended rest."

  Sybil looked over a shoulder and made a gesture with one hand. Kozue and Stella went to pull folding chairs from a closet, still giggling about something.

  "Girls," said Sybil, spitting the word out like a rancid peanut. "Tina, would you go help them, please? I fear they may get lost on the way back."

  Tina went to assist the giggling duo, and a minute later, they were seated in a semicircle around Tide's holographic avatar. He turned slowly, nodding and greeting each of them in turn.

  "I see that we're all here," he said. "First, I'd like to update you on what you've missed. The voyage was a huge success; the solar-ion fusion drive worked better than expected, and we've reached our destination coordinates three hours ahead of time."

  The destination coordinates, Tina recalled, put them far beyond Pluto. Into the outer reaches of the solar system. Little stood between them and interstellar space. It was the perfect area for a quiet rendezvous, one which would either save or doom the human race. Coincidentally, they had also gone further from Earth than any other human beings. All without being trained in anything other than basic space survival. The power of TIDE was huge.

  "I know what you may be thinking," Tide continued. "This rendezvous point... why, it's in the middle of nowhere. Literally. It's a backwater. There aren't even any mineable asteroids that orbit along this path. It's a dead end. However, the utter desolation of the place is not our primary concern. Our concern, ladies, is that we are still within the bounds of our home system. And that system may be in danger.

  "Around sixteen months ago, the Earth received a message. Loud and clear. One of our old space probes abruptly vanished. It ceased its ceaseless transmissions. This was not surprising in itself. But a few days later, a message arrived in slightly broken English, accompanied by a still image. So far, it is the only communication we have received from the enemy."

  Tide vanished momentarily. The alien message appeared in his place.

  Human race in danger, it began. Us not convinced of human worth. Send five of most viable female members to following coordinate. Future of relation between us and you in the balance.

  Below the words, a set of numbers and symbols followed. Though Tina did not recognize the sequence as something a human mind could comprehend, there were apparently scientists on Earth who could decipher it. The coordinates had led them here.

  The voice of Tide read the message aloud. The message was then replaced by the still image the enemy had sent. It showed a single member of their species, standing in a dark, shadowy place that might have been the bridge of their own spacecraft.

  The creature was obviously male and something close to human. Questions had arisen about whether the two species shared an ancestry, whether this proved old theories that human life had not begun on Earth or that ancient civilizations had indeed achieved space travel. To Tina, these questions were the domain of hack sci-fi writers. Not her. She was, in actuality, a hack thriller writer who had somehow duped various institutes into lavishing her with prizes.

  All she felt when she looked at the alien creature was fear.

  If she took the offspring of a top level male football player and an elite female power lifter — and then fed it extra growth hormones and testosterone during its entire development, she might end up with something like this.

  The thing's height could not be accurately measured from a single image with no reference point, but its structure gave the sense of impressive stature. Its skin was dark, sort of purple in color, and it was so well-muscled that its muscles seemed to have extra muscles set on top and in between them. And the creature was almost entirely naked. It wore a sort of heavy undergarment around its nether regions, more like a loose sack than anything, which failed to hide the gargantuan endowment beneath.

  It was Earth's first glimpse of alien life. A surreal and terrifying mix of the familiar and the utterly foreign. This must be what native populations across Earth felt when their lands were first beset by invading nations. A feeling of being outmatched by a cold and greedy opponent, a terrible dread that they would come out on bottom of whatever followed.

  Tina looked around to see if any of the other women showed the fear she felt.

  Kozue was staring, openmouthed and erect in posture as ever. Unperturbed but curious.

  Stella had her hands over her mouth and her arms pressed tight to her chest.

  Aurora stood with her feet planted wide and her hands on her hips. The look on her face said she was impressed, that she was ready to throw herself into whatever fight might ensue.

  Only Sybil, the translator, seemed unmoved in any way.

  "Remember," she said, turning to regard her crewmates. "The power of fear is most likely well known across the entire universe. The male creature you see before you was most probably cherry picked from an entire populace. It cannot
be considered an accurate representation of what we are facing."

  She turned back, studying the creature with a finger to her lips.

  "He looks almost primitive," she said.

  Tide came back, dissolving the image of the alien.

  "The running theory is that this is a war-based society," he said. "Or at least that a warrior class has risen to a position of power. Whatever they might say, it's safe to assume they want one of two things; either the termination or the subjugation of humankind."

  "You can't tell much from that message," said Aurora. "We'll have to wait for real communication to be established."

  "That step will follow soon," Tide announced. "We have Sybil for that. She will lead in all encounters with the enemy."

  Kozue stepped forward, shaking her head. "You can't call them an enemy. Not yet. Have you never heard the phrase 'peace through superior firepower'? Whatever business they have in this area of space, war is obviously not the main goal. Otherwise, they would have attacked straightaway."

  "She has a point," said Stella. "We've made huge strides in recent decades. Especially since we've started using TIDE units. But we're far from the point of being able to defend our solar system. Especially not from what is obviously a type two civilization. At least."

  Tina nodded, trying not to show her ignorance. Aurora, bless her heart, had no such inhibition.

  "Type two?" she asked. "What does that mean?"

  "An interstellar civilization," said Stella. "They could be type three, spread across the entire galaxy. But if that was true, I think we would have had a run-in with them already."

  "Maybe we have," said Sybil. "Anyway, there's no use having a discussion based on knowledge we don't even have. Tide, what's the next step?"

  "There isn't one," answered the AI. "We have reached the coordinates indicated in the message. There is no further instruction than that. I imagine we'll just have to wait until we are contacted."