Sakar a sci fi holiday t.., p.1
Sakar: A Sci-Fi Holiday Tail, page 1
SAKAR
A SCI-FI HOLIDAY TAIL
STRANDED WITH AN ALIEN SERIES
ELLA BLAKE
SAKAR: A Sci-Fi Holiday Tail
Stranded with an Alien series
Copyright © 2022 Ella Blake
First edition: November 11, 2022
Stock Art: Depositphotos
Cover Design: Natasha Snow Designs
The characters and events portrayed in this book are entirely fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system is forbidden without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher.
The scanning, uploading, transcription, and distribution of any part of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property.
ALSO BY ELLA BLAKE
Stryxian Alien Warriors
BONDED TO THE STRYXIAN
STRANDED WITH THE STRYXIAN (free novella)
SAVED BY THE STRYXIAN
CLAIMED BY THE STRYXIAN
POSSESSED BY THE STRYXIAN
CHAINED TO THE STRYXIAN
SEDUCED BY THE STRYXIAN
Virilian Mail Order Mates
TRAK
DREX
VIRAK
NIIR
TARON
KIM & KLAE (novella)
SERIES BOX SET
SAKAR: A Sci-Fi Holiday Tail
The Baylan Chronicles
DRACE
RAZE
ARTEN
HARC
ZADE
The Lords of Destra
LOST TO THE ALIEN LORD
BOUND TO THE ALIEN LORD
FATED TO THE ALIEN LORD
CRAVED BY THE ALIEN LORD
DESTINED FOR THE ALIEN LORD
ENSNARED BY THE ALIEN LORD
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
A note to the reader.
If you found this book outside of Amazon,
it's likely a stolen/pirated copy.
Authors make nothing when books are pirated.
If authors are not paid for their work,
they can’t afford to keep writing.
This is a standalone story in the Virilian Mail Order Mates world and takes place after the events of the series.
My two girls and I are going to be snowed in for Christmas and that’s fine with us, until an alien spacecraft crashes behind our wooded Maine home. I take the gorgeous Virilian, Prince Sakar, home with me. He’s injured and tracking an endangered alien dog with a taste for my neighbor’s goats. Spending Christmas with an alien prince is the last thing my daughters and I expected, next to my falling in love with him. My heart’s been beaten up plenty, but can I take a chance on this male who adores my young girls and awakens desires I thought long dead?
I usually avoid Earth at all costs, but tracking the daerli led me to crash-landing on Nessa’s property in the middle of a snowstorm. My kind are forbidden on Earth, but I can’t leave without the rare creature I’m tracking, and the female I’m stranded with has enthralled me. I want her with all of my being. When the human authorities arrive to take me away, the deepest hidden side of my Virilian nature comes out to protect her. I must find a way to prove to Nessa that I am her fated mate, or lose her forever.
CHAPTER 1
Sakar
Bring him back alive.
The words from my king slid through my head as I flew my Endross-77 so close to my prey that I could all but smell the burn of their spent fuel cell. It was a chase I hadn’t anticipated. The smugglers were transporting one of the last remaining daerli hounds to an unknown fate.
King Virak, leader of Tagja City on my home planet of Virilia, had a female daerli in his refuge. The one on the vessel I chased was male. My king wanted to keep the species alive by breeding them. So here I was, pushing my ship to its limits to intercept a Shaax vessel, retrieve the daerli, and return it to Virilia. Alive.
It hadn’t seemed so hard when I started off. The Shaax were cowardly. I outgunned them and my ship could keep up with them. But because I was retrieving a living creature, there would be no blasting the ship to pieces and swinging back home.
To make things worse, we were in an off-limits planetary system. I cursed, realizing where the Shaax smugglers were heading—directly toward a planet Virilians were not advised to go near without a pile of clearances and permits: Earth.
Ah, Earth. I had many feelings about this planet. All of them were conflicted. On one hand, the match program was a success so far and many Virilian males had found mates that had produced much-needed offspring. But humans were a difficult and cantankerous species to work with. Not to mention suspicious. They had to know that if we wanted to take over their planet, we could have done so a hundred times over. But no. They still made us fill out a staggering number of forms to even make contact with anyone on their planet.
My com system pinged. The Shaax captain’s gurgling voice came over, translated by the language chip in my head. “Cease your pursuit, Virilian, or we will continue to Earth, where you are not welcome.”
“You are not, either,” I gritted back. “You will be attacked.”
Laughter was the reply. “My ship can withstand anything those small creatures can send out.”
“They are better equipped than you think.”
“You cannot risk angering them,” the captain taunted. “You need their females. We do not.”
We were getting dangerously close to the range of Earth’s satellites. “Agree to hand over the daerli and neither of us needs to risk our lives here.”
A hissing sound grated over the com. “This beast is destined for the plate of High Warlord Woork for his nuptials to Princess Rankita. It was purchased fairly, at auction.”
The daerli was meant to be eaten? The thought made my blood boil. “There is nothing fair about those auctions,” I spat. “They’re cruel and illegal and you know it. I will take that daerli, then gut you for my trouble.”
That reply had been unwise. I realized it the moment the words left my mouth. I heard a growl over the com. “Have it your way, Virilian.”
The Shaax headed straight for Earth. I cursed again, annoyed with myself, but knowing that all the diplomacy in the world wouldn’t have changed the Shaax’s course.
I reached for a metal case from one of the compartments in my control console. Muttering curses, I found what I was looking for. It was a tiny chip among a few dozen others. I felt through the hair at the base of my skull, took out the Shaax chip and inserted the English one into the slot there. I felt a wave of light-headedness as my brain accepted the new language. I would need to listen in on Earth’s military’s attempts to communicate. Language chips made it so much easier to deal with other species, even though the process of getting the neural port inserted in my head had been unpleasant.
The white clouds and blue seas of planet Earth were getting clearer. I could pull off, swing around and try to catch the Shaax when they were away from the planet, but their ship was as fast as mine and one incorrect move would put them out of my reach for good. Instead, I engaged my distortion field, which rendered my ship temporarily invisible to Earth’s satellites.
I could see my coms lighting up in a brilliant display. The humans had picked up the Shaax ship speeding toward them and wanted an explanation. I already knew how this would go.
I opened the com link and prepared myself for the onslaught. At least four different humans started speaking at once—state your purpose…choose a different course heading…reroute your path immediately…you’ll be fired upon. The Shaax ship was undoubtedly getting peppered with these communications too, but they had no knowledge of the humans’ language and didn’t care.
They would care when they were fired on, and they underestimated the strength of Earth’s weaponry. I could say for a fact it was not as puny as the Shaax believed.
The flurry of incoming transmissions became almost incomprehensible as other languages joined in, turning it into a drone of noise. I turned off the coms and concentrated on the Shaax ship that was heading recklessly for the planet. I couldn’t imagine what they were thinking. Were they that arrogant?
The shields hid my ship, which was a newer model with a very high cloak rating. I braced for some of the shots to hit me, just because of proximity. I worried about the daerli trapped in the Shaax ship. If the humans managed to destroy it, there would be one less specimen to restore the species to Virilia.
My onboard surveillance system tracked incoming missiles and they were headed in the Shaax’s direction. I maneuvered to dodge them. After several hits, smoke streamed from the Shaax’s hull. They were going down. I would follow them, retrieve the daerli and leave before the humans even knew I was there.
I set my s
Just as I thought I was in the clear, the Shaax ship released a barrage of pulse waves designed to disable the controls of a ship in close pursuit. I didn’t expect this. Stuck on the trajectory I was on, I couldn’t navigate. I still had my distortion field—barely—so I was still evading the humans’ scanners, but we were going down—both of us. The Shaax ship and mine.
My hands flew over the controls, desperate to stabilize my ship and keep it from crashing. I could still land it, awkwardly, if I could find a safe place to bring it down. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be in a city or densely occupied area. And preferably not in a body of water. My ship wasn’t designed for that.
I kept my lock on the Shaax ship and let out a breath of relief as I watched a thickly forested area rush up toward us. With luck, there would be no people nearby. More than likely the daerli was kept in a containment unit on board the Shaax ship. I’d get down there, bring the daerli onto my ship, run the self-repair program and get out as quickly as possible.
The humans wouldn’t even know I was here. Then, they could pick apart the Shaax ship and be pleased that they successfully stopped an alien from landing on their planet. Everyone would win. The daerli would be spared the fate of a warlord’s nuptial dinner, and instead meet a lovely female of his own species.
And I would never have to come near this planet again. Humans were just too unpredictable and warlike for my taste.
CHAPTER 2
Nessa
“Mom, what was that crash?”
“What crash?” I pulled the headset off my ears and peered at the eight- and eleven-year-old girls standing there, gazing at me.
Violet, my older daughter, blinked and pointed at the window. “It sounded like something exploded in the woods.”
“Exploded?” This was either a really bad thing or a gross exaggeration. Either was possible with these two. I got up and peered outside. In the distance, but not enough of a distance for my comfort, a trail of smoke curled up through the thick trees. My family had owned the two hundred acres I’d grown up on for four generations. As far as I knew, nothing had blown up on them, aside from my father’s Buick that one time.
The first flakes of what the weather forecasters predicted would be an epic storm, were falling. I let out a string of curse words—only in my head, unfortunately—and went to grab my coat and boots.
“What do you think it is?” Violet asked anxiously. She tended to be my worrier. “Maybe it’s a meteor.”
“Maybe it was a bomb,” said Mia, who usually went for the most apocalyptic scenario.
“Maybe somebody crashed their drone,” I said.
“It was too loud to be a drone crashing,” Violet said immediately. “You didn’t hear it?”
“No. I was working with my headphones on.” I had about a half dozen ways I made ends meet, living in a rural area of Maine. Medical transcription was one of them, along with selling apples from our orchard in the fall and maple syrup in the early spring. The transcription gave me a fairly flexible schedule, though, so I could deal with things that came up, like shit exploding in my woods.
“What if it was an airplane?” said Violet.
I paused with my hands halfway in my gloves. Now that was an actual possibility. “I certainly hope not,” I said, suddenly more than a little terrified about what I might find out there.
I pulled on my fur-lined bomber hat and tucked my cell phone in the pocket of my down coat. “You two stay in the house. I’ll be back shortly.”
I trudged out into the snow. It was December twenty-third. The kids were on Christmas vacation. We were going to be snowed in for the holidays, and that was all right with the three of us. We’d stocked up on wood for the stove, books, and lots of food. But someone could be hurt out there—or worse.
I didn’t know who or what I’d encounter out there, so I put my shotgun on the floor of the UTV, which was indispensable during apple and syrup seasons. It had four seats, a cranky starter, and guzzled gas like water. We all lovingly called it “Belcher.” It handled the snowy terrain quite well.
Belcher started up when I turned the key. The two cows that lived in the barn, mooed reproachfully at the sound and puff of exhaust. The horse, Prince Charming, who did not live up to his name, barely glanced up from his feed. The chickens were all outside, enjoying this little bit of time in the fresh air before the storm came.
I eased Belcher out of the barn and toward the wide trail that led into the wooded acres of my property. It was my property; I was still trying to remember that. My parents passed two years ago, the same year as my divorce.
Belcher made short work of the trails. Under different circumstances, it was fun to race this thing through the woods. It was bouncy and loud, but the girls squealed with delight whenever we did this.
Off the main trail, it was even more bouncy as I maneuvered over rocks and roots, around trees and up and down over the uneven ground. Belcher didn’t have a windshield, but did have a robust metal frame around the seating area, which kept the big branches from whacking me in the face. I followed the smell of smoke and the thickening air as I got closer to the impact site.
My belly clenched at the thought of what I might find there. Would it be a small airplane with bodies strewn about? Would someone need help? I was no paramedic, but I would do what I could and call for help. Or would I find a bunch of assholes setting off explosives for fun in the woods? That was the reason I’d brought the shotgun. It wouldn’t be the first time I found drunk guys being stupid on my property. There was an old hunting cabin somewhere out here that I cleaned beer cans out of a few times a year.
I knew I was close when the air turned acutely acrid and dense with smoke. I slowed down. It was hard to see here, between the smoke and the snow. But I knew these woods like the beating of my own heart.
I spotted a clearing that hadn’t been here before. Something large had gone down. Sweat chilled on my spine. I eased Belcher around uprooted trees and flattened ground. I stopped the vehicle and turned it off. There was silence, except for the licking crackle of flames.
I couldn’t breathe, and it wasn’t because of the air quality. This wasn’t the work of local kids up to nonsense in the woods. But it also wasn’t an airplane. No, this wasn’t anything that belonged in this world.
There were two spacecrafts crashed in my forest. One looked intact, but had landed awkwardly. It was roughly the size of a school bus, was sleek metal and teardrop shaped, blackened in areas and sporting a few nice dents where it’d crash-landed. The other ship was obliterated. I was no expert in alien space wrecks, but the second ship appeared to have been blasted apart, rather than crashed. There was no way of even telling what it looked like before, when it was intact.
Together, the ships had flattened about a half-acre strip of land. A quick glance at the fires reassured me that the woods would not be catching. They were small and already ebbing, as the ships cooled in the snowy, cold Maine winter.
My attention slid from the ships to a movement on the ground. An alien lay there. I’d never seen aliens like this before. It was a short, stocky being, with thick, trunk-like legs. It appeared to have a hunched back and claws on the end of three-fingered hands. It stretched out an arm, let out a croaking sound, then lay still. Large, sightless eyes and gray skin cooled in the freezing air.
I let out a whimper as I took in the whole scene. Maybe my mind had blocked it out at first, but now I saw, to my horror, that I’d stepped into a full, horrific crash site. There were more dead aliens on the ground—five, that I could see. The twisted metal of the wreck could hold more bodies.
