ALIEN ALLIANCE
Chris Turner
Fantastic Realms
Copyright 2019 Chris Turner
Cover design: Shutterstock
Published by Innersky Books
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in these stories are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.
CONTENTS
THE FRONTIER
THE DIM ZONE
AUDRA
THE TIMELOST
XARES: FINAL COUNTDOWN
THE FRONTIER
BOOK I
Chapter 1
Trudging down the single-lane dirt track, Yul stopped, gazed upon his father’s salvage shop out in the middle of a field. He’d been having second thoughts about this long-in-coming visit. High time to drop in, see the old man. How long’d it been?
Not much in these rural parts. Some large tracts of farmland with a few lazy grazing animals, acres of pepper and potato plants fringed by woodland.
He shrugged, lips pinched in a wintery smile.
Small engines ranged the front yard of the salvage enterprise, announced by a big white sign in bold black letters, Rande’s Salvage, suspended over a rectangular auto-shop-like garage in the back. Some were classics, a point of pride among his father’s collection of electric and diesel engines, dinosaurs that he’d collected since forever, all brands imaginable and vintage from day one. The repair depot he kept, looked something like a scrap yard, but Rande had always made a good name for himself, offering some of the best service in Kingsguard. Nothing seemed to change much around here. Not like the high-end, state-of-the-art space cruisers and war machines he was used to. Valgon planet was technically a backward world steeped in used old tech. Yul was glad that there were still frontier worlds like this one left. The earth-like worlds that had been spared the terraforming machinery of the corporate giants were all too few…the ones where pioneers had landed with no tech beyond the ships that had transported them there. One day he feared every planet’d be heavily industrialized.
The sky carried a neutral tint in the long 33 hour day that drove life on Valgon. Bands of cirrus clouds ran the gamut, hazel in color. A brisk wind pushed up from the sea in the east, bordering the forest. At least he’d picked a pleasant day.
Arriving late in the day after hours ensured he’d avoid facing his father’s customers and clients. The fewer people who recognized him the better.
A middle-aged man turned at his approach from the small outboard boat engine jacked up on a sawhorse. Shocks of grey-brown, curly hair fluffed to either side of his head, a small spot in the center balding. His eyes drew close together, an indication of curiosity, neither friendly nor unfriendly.
“Well…if isn’t my prodigal son. Looks as if you just got off the boat. You’re looking the worse for wear in that spacer uniform. Like something the cat dragged in.”
Yul drew a deep breath. He felt his chest muscles tighten under the scrutiny. A hand went up to his shock of dirty blond hair, a reflex, he realized, from childhood. He clutched his father’s hand in his own mechanized one, courtesy of a blaster accident, a somewhat tentative grip that increased in intensity.
“That’s a strong grip you have, son.”
Yul inclined his head. “Been working out, Dad. How are things? I see you’ve got some grey now. Otherwise looking the same as ever. Or should I call you Rande?”
Rande shrugged. “Call me whatever you like.” He gave a weary sigh. “Could be better, could be worse. Had a dream this week you’d show up. Marthe always said I had a knack for premonition.”
Yul felt a distant emotion brewing in his chest as if he were caught in a time capsule. He’d heard that one before, about the sixth sense, maybe too many times.
“Your mother would have wanted me to look out for you. But I’m afraid you’re well beyond my reach. She died last year, you know?”
Yul nodded. “I know.”
“Always worried about what had become of her son. What could I tell her? You disappeared off the face of the planet just like a ghost. Swallowed up by a black hole. Killed under suspicious circumstances? Wanted by the law? I kept checking the holo channels for news of an unidentified body. Heard nothing. Not even a peep.”
“I couldn’t contact you—without repercussions.”
“Seven years…I reckon that just about makes a death in my books.”
Yul looked away with a hollow pang. “I couldn’t return here without risking some bad people on my ass. Didn’t want them to hurt you, or mom, on account of the business I’m in, the people I run with.”
His father clicked his tongue. “What hijinks you got yourself into, Yul?”
“Plenty. You’d rather not know.” He shifted his loose-limbed frame, grown stocky now from punishing exercise and rigorous self-training, turning to better assess Rande’s appreciable pantheon of engines. He looked like a sleepy tiger, some self-contained quiet type who blended into the background. But all that was illusory. He was fast as a snake; could take down men twice his size and weight. All skills Yul had taught himself while on the job, learned from the school of hard knocks…as the scars and bruises and odd broken bone had proven. Wish he’d have been able to clean up better. Hell, he hadn’t even been able to get out of this silver spacer uniform before the next hyperjump-transpo to Valgon. Not many came to this out-of-the-way place.
Rande saw where he was gazing and shook his head. “I’m getting too old to run this business. Young Millman Joe’s going to take care of it. So I can settle down and do my fishing by the lake.”
“I know him,” said Yul. “That peddler’s had his hand in many pots. Think he’s any good for the salvage trade? Or small engine repair?”
Rande shrugged and sighed. “Maybe. Maybe not. But as ready as he’ll ever be, I suppose. I’d give it
