The Galaxiville: Taken by the Unknown BEST COVER

Chapter 1: Some Date Night, January 1, 2095

He stood next to his wife aboard the Discovery VII Orbiter and felt her hand gently squeezing his. Neither of them could quite believe what they were seeing. Ryan Freeman had seen plenty of footages of Mars during his training with NASA, but unmanned probes had shot that, and those grainy images hadn’t done the planet justice at all. This was the first successful manned flight to Mars, and they were here together. It was almost perfect. Ryan just wished that his son, Aidan, had been cleared to come with them too, even if he did understand why the request had been denied. Their 18 year old son hadn’t yet graduated from NASA’s academy.

They had slid this section of the shuttle’s metal roof back and were now able to look through the transparent fused silica shell that covered the living quarters of the Discovery VII Orbiter and have an unobstructed view of the planet Mars. Red soil covered the surface of Mars. From this distance, they could make out deep craters and large rocky mountains.

‘Look at that!’ Ryan exclaimed, pointing at a gigantic dust cloud that was being blown across the surface of the planet.

‘It must be, what, thirty kilometres tall?’ Sarah estimated.

Ryan loved her accent. Although Sarah was now an American citizen, she had originally been born in Melbourne. Whilst time away from Australia had taken the edge off her Aussie accent, what remained of it sounded lovely. Smiling, Ryan nodded. ‘At least’, he replied.

Sarah squeezed his hand a little tighter. ‘It’s beautiful,’ Sarah said wistfully.

‘You’re beautiful,’ Ryan replied. He meant it too. With her naturally curvaceous figure, red hair, and porcelain pale complexion, Sarah looked even more stunning to him now than she had when they had first met each other over fourteen years ago.

‘Corny much?’ Sarah replied, grinning at him. She was pleased, though, and he knew it.

‘What day is it?’ Ryan asked her.

‘New Year’s Day’, Sarah replied. They were seeing in the New Year looking at Mars. What a start to 2095!

‘Sure, but what day of the week?’ Ryan asked.

Sarah thought about it for a second. It was much harder to keep track of Earth day and night cycles when in outer space. ‘Erm . . . Friday, I think,’ she said uncertainly.

He smiled and nodded. ‘That’s what I thought, date night. So shall we?’ he said, pointing the bed in the corner of the living quarters with his head.

‘Och, what are you like? Here we are, in orbit over Mars, and you’re thinking of sex at a time like this?’ she gently chided him.

Ryan ran his right hand through his wavy blond hair, feeling a little sheepish. ‘Yeah, you’re right, it was a dumb idea. Still, this is some date night, huh? I’ve got a feeling that an extra-large pizza and a bottle of Bud just aren’t going to cut it from now on.’

Sarah stood up on her tiptoes and kissed Ryan’s cheek affectionately. ‘I was just messing with you. I’m game if you are.’

Ryan’s eyes widened with excitement. He turned to face his wonderful wife and passionately kissed her full lips. He felt Sarah wrap her arms around his body as they kissed and found himself wishing that this moment would never end. Alas, it did. Sarah broke the kiss first.

Opening her eyes, she looked over his shoulder at the view of Mars. Something wasn’t quite right. ‘What’s that?’ she asked, pointing in the direction of Mars.

Ryan turned to look out of the window. ‘That’s Mars,’ he replied, ‘you know, the red planet?’

Sarah hit him lightly on his chest. ‘No, not that. There’s . . . a blue tint covering part of the planet, you see?’ She pointed to the section that she meant.

Now that he looked at it closer, Ryan could see that Sarah was right. And it wasn’t just affecting Mars but the area of space nearby their shuttle too. It appeared to be wider the closer it was to the shuttle as if they were caught in some kind of beam of light. ‘No . . . it can’t be,’ Ryan said nervously.

‘What?’ Sarah asked him, concern evident in her voice.

Ryan hurriedly walked away from her and pressed a button on one of the walls to open the reinforced door that led to the cockpit. Sarah trailed close behind him. He looked at the readout on the flight tracker, nodded, and pointed it out to Sarah. ‘Something is pulling us off course. It’s subtle, but we’re slowly being inched away from Mars and towards . . . well, towards I don’t know what.’

Sarah double-checked the readout. It seemed so crazy, but there was no doubt about it. Something was slowly dragging their shuttle. She had a bad feeling about this. ‘We gotta get out of here,’ she said, sitting in the pilot’s seat and strapping herself in. Ryan took his place in the co-pilot’s seat next to her.

‘Firing main thrusters’, Ryan said, flicking a switch. The thrusters roared into life. To begin with, those brightly burning flames did propel them away from where they were dragged. Their relief was short-lived. The blue beam found them again and intensified. There was no subtlety to it now; it was a clearly visible beam of light that was managing to pull them with such power that, despite the full force of their shuttle’s thrusters, they were quickly dragged towards whatever was emitting the beam.

‘This can’t be happening!’ Sarah cried out. He shared her sentiments, but despite the odds, it was happening.

In a state of panic, Sarah fired up the manoeuvring thrusters too, desperate to do something, anything, to escape. It did no good. ‘Shit!’ she swore, feeling powerless. She beat one of her fists against the panel.

As they neared the origin point of the tractor beam, the space surrounding the beam seemed to flicker. Then the veil was lifted; the flickering patch of space disappeared to reveal a huge silver-coloured spacecraft. It must be at least a mile wide. A gaping hole was open in the bottom of the spacecraft. It was as if a hungry metallic monster had opened its mouth wide and were now eagerly anticipating devouring them. ‘Close the shields!’ Ryan snapped.

Sarah nodded and pressed a round red button on the panel in front of her. The metal roofing slowly closed above them. Ryan pressed another button, which caused a metal visor to drop down over the window screen in front of them. Then he removed his seat belt and stood up. ‘Where are you going?’ Sarah wailed.

‘I’m going . . . to try and repel the boarders,’ he finished, hardly believing that he’d even said it when the words left his lips.

‘What should I do?’ Sarah asked, desperate to not feel so hopeless but knowing that she faced a power that she could not even begin to fully comprehend.

‘Try to transmit a message to Earth. Tell them . . . tell them that we’ve been abducted by aliens,’ he said before leaving the cockpit and returning to the living quarters. He closed the door and heard it being tightly locked behind him.

Aliens! Ryan had never believed in aliens. Sure, he’d read some news stories about UFOs being sighted, but they were only reported in the less reputable tabloids; and like most people, Ryan had dismissed them without hesitation. He’d even laughed with Sarah about how gullible people would have to be to believe that any of those blurry images were really UFOs. They were a trick of the light or doctored photos or advanced military aircrafts. Pretty much anything seemed a more rational explanation to him than aliens. Yet here he was, rummaging through a large heavy-duty toolkit, looking for something that he could use as a weapon. They had not brought any guns with them. It wasn’t as if they had expected to meet anybody else all the way out here.

Finally, Ryan selected two tools: a short-range laser-cutting tool (that had replaced the now-redundant EVA pistol grip tool) and a high-powered nail gun. Ryan could tell that the shuttle had ceased moving. This meant that it was likely that they were now trapped inside the alien craft. He wouldn’t have long to wait to see if he had selected the right tools for the job.

A small section of the roof above his head began to vibrate rapidly. He quickly moved to a less exposed area, took cover behind a partition wall, and kept his aim focused on the vibrating section of the roof. As if they had been made of no more than paper, both the protective metal and the fused silica shell were torn apart.

He could see a metal face peering down at him through the gap. Ryan didn’t stop to think whether it was a machine or some kind of armoured suit. He just fired. The bolt swiftly shot through the air, embedding itself in the creature’s forehead. It didn’t even have time to scream.

The tear in the roof was quickly ripped wider still, until there was no more roof above the living quarters at all. More of the same creature jumped down into the shuttle’s living quarters. He was surrounded. In a panic, Ryan took aim at another of those creatures and fired. He missed.

He felt something strike him in the back. It launched him across the room. His head hit hard against the door separating the living quarters and the cockpit, rendering Ryan unconscious.

In the cockpit, Sarah yelped as she heard something pound against the cockpit’s door. She had been midway through transmitting a message to Earth at the time. She steeled herself and continued to speak. ‘I repeat . . . we have been abducted by aliens! It’s no joke! Please . . . send help! Aidan . . . I love you!’ Her voice was shaking as she spoke. Her beautiful pale blue eyes were filled with tears. It seemed like there was no end to them.

Behind her, the reinforced door was suddenly ripped apart. A beam of light struck Sarah in the back of the head. She slumped forwards, sprawling on top of the shuttle’s control panel, and saw no more.

*

The alien threat seemed to be endless, but Aidan Freeman was a match for them. How long had he been fighting? A thin line of sweat poured down his forehead as he took aim and fired the light gun repeatedly. Another hideous monster fell before him. As he rounded a corner, he saw her—the mother of all aliens. He gasped.

Aidan felt something vibrate in his pocket. He ignored it, keeping his eyes peeled. Another alien soldier leapt out from around the corner, brandishing an energy rifle. Aidan shot it in the forehead before it even had time to take aim at him.

‘Woohoo! You can do it!’ he heard somebody yell encouragingly from behind him.

The alien queen sprayed a jet of acid towards him. He dived out of the way at the last second, raised his gun, and fired repeatedly. The queen roared with pain and slumped to the ground. ‘Yes!’ Aidan yelled in triumph. His elation was premature.

Once more, Aidan felt something vibrating in his back pocket and instinctively looked towards it. Whilst his attention was elsewhere, the alien queen whipped him with a large spiked tail. It found its mark, killing him instantly.

The ominous words ‘Game over. Insert coin to continue’ flashed in front of Aidan’s eyes. ‘Oh, shit, I felt sure you’d get her this time,’ a high-pitched voice from behind him said. Aidan removed the VR helmet and hung it back on the display stand.

‘What, you not going to carry on playing, Aidan?’ his friend Zack asked him.

Aidan shook his head. ‘Nah, I’m all out.’

‘Mind if I do?’ Zack asked Aidan eagerly.

Aidan smiled. ‘Go for it. Avenge me, my brother.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ Zack replied. He dashed towards the VR arcade unit, inserted a dollar, and donned the VR helmet. Aidan shook his head. He’d been so close this time.

Aidan’s mobile phone vibrated in his pocket again. It had gone off repeatedly while he was playing, but he’d opted to ignore it. He pulled it out of his pocket now and checked his messages.

‘Aidan, it is your uncle Sam. Call me.’

‘I need to speak to you. Maybe it would be best to talk in person. Sam.’

‘Aidan! Why aren’t you answering your damned phone? I need to talk to you!’

‘It’s about your parents.’

All four messages had been from his uncle Sam. It was the last text message that shook him up the most. What had happened to them? ‘Oh, shit’, Aidan said.

He dialled his uncle’s number. A few seconds later, his uncle answered the phone. ‘Hello?’

‘It’s Aidan. What’s happened to my parents? Are they dead?’ he asked. He was practically yelling.

‘No, I don’t think they’re dead. At least, I hope they’re not. It’s . . . complicated,’ his uncle explained.

Aidan felt even more confused after the explanation than he had done beforehand. ‘Then what?’ Aidan asked him impatiently.

‘Look . . . I’m sorry. I can’t explain it to you over the phone, all right? It sounds crazy. It is crazy. Yet . . . it’s really happening. You need to see it for yourself. Drop by my place as soon as you can. I’ll be waiting.’

‘See you soon,’ Aidan said. His uncle had already hung up the phone.

Aidan left the arcade as fast as he could and returned to his Yamaha EX9000 scooter. He mounted it and rode it through the traffic as fast as he could. The engine hummed as he rode. Like most of the vehicles that he passed, the Yamaha EX9000 had an electric engine. The United States had gone green in a big way over ten years ago.

He had been in such a hurry that he hadn’t even bothered to don his bike helmet, and his wavy blond hair was blown about wildly by the wind. Aidan swerved through the traffic, cutting between lanes with careless abandon as he frantically tried to reach his uncle’s home as fast as he could. He lost track of the number of times that he was nearly hit by cars and trucks on the way there. One truck driver slammed the breaks on when Aidan pulled out in front of him without warning. Aidan had already sped on by the time the truck driver had honked his horn and started to swear up a storm.

By some miracle, Aidan survived the journey to his uncle Sam’s place. After parking his bike, he walked up to the bungalow’s imitation oak front door and hammered on it loudly. Finally, his uncle opened it. ‘I’m here,’ Aidan said, stating the obvious. ‘So tell me. What has happened to my parents?’

Unlike his younger brother, Ryan, who was in peak physical condition, Aidan’s uncle Sam was overweight and balding, and today he seemed to have even more wrinkles on his forehead than usual. ‘Come on in. You better sit down for this,’ his uncle said grimly. He pointed to a worn-out brown leather sofa in his living room. Aidan sat down, feeling utterly deflated.

‘Can I get you a drink?’ Uncle Sam asked him. ‘Coffee? Hot chocolate? Beer?’

Aidan nodded. ‘Beer.’ As he was still technically classed as a minor in the United States, it was rare for him to be offered alcohol by his uncle. Something told Aidan that, on this occasion, he would need it.

Uncle Sam nodded. ‘Good choice’, he said. It was a small bungalow with an open-plan kitchen right next to the lounge, so it only took Sam a minute to go to the kitchen, pull two bottles of Budweiser out of the fridge, and return to Aidan. As his uncle turned the TV to the right channel, Aidan twisted the cap off his beer and took a large swig of it.

Uncle Sam sat down on the sofa next to him, opened his own beer, and then pressed Play on the remote control. At first, Aidan wasn’t sure what he was watching. The image was a little blurry. What was clear was that the woman on the screen was terrified. A moment later, the image came into focus, the distortion ceased, and Aidan could clearly hear the woman speaking. It was his mother, Sarah. Although the words coming out of her mouth sounded crazy, the fear that he saw on her face made him believe them. ‘I repeat . . . we have been abducted by aliens! It’s no joke! Please . . . send help! Aidan . . . I love you!’

Aidan watched in horror as a large hole was blown through the door behind his mother’s head. He jumped when he saw some kind of energy blast being fired through it and feared the worst when he saw his mother slump down onto the panel. ‘Is she . . . is she dead?’ he quietly said.

Uncle Sam shook his head. ‘No. At least I don’t think so. Keep watching. Look at your mother’s hand.’

Aidan did as his uncle had instructed him. Then he noticed it. Every so often, her fingers twitched. It seemed that the energy beam had only paralysed her, and his mother was doing his best to fight against it. Sarah had always been a fighter. ‘She’s alive!’ Aidan exclaimed. It was such a relief that he almost wept tears of joy.

Uncle Sam nodded. ‘Well, yeah. At least she was when this video was taken.’

Then another thought came to Aidan. He turned to his uncle. ‘Wait . . . what about my dad? Is he okay?’

Uncle Sam sighed sadly and shook his head. ‘I . . . I’m sorry. I just don’t know. My brother . . . he doesn’t appear in the video at all, which could be very good or very bad.’

In truth, it told Aidan nothing at all. As he carried on watching, he saw a figure looking through the hole in the door. It was dark where the figure was standing, though, so Aidan couldn’t make it out clearly. He couldn’t even make out whether it was male or female. Wait, was it wearing a helmet?

Almost as if the mysterious attacker knew that Aidan was watching it, the being looked up at the camera and fired some kind of beam towards it. The video cut out. There was now only static on the TV screen. ‘When did you receive this message?’ Aidan asked his uncle Sam.

Sam sighed. He had not been looking forward to being asked this question. ‘We . . . we received it about a week ago,’ he reluctantly confessed.

Aidan angrily slammed his bottle of beer down on the coffee table, spilling a little bit of it in the process. ‘A week ago! You received this message seven days ago, and you’re only just telling me about it now!’ Aidan yelled.

Uncle Sam knew better than to take it personally. In truth, he knew that Aidan was angrier about the situation than he was with Sam. It was just that Sam was right there, and the alien bastards who had abducted Aidan’s parents were not. Still, he couldn’t help but feel a little guilty, and he lowered his head in shame. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. He meant it in more ways than one.

‘What have you been doing since you received it?’ Aidan asked him.

‘I followed protocol, all right? I ran it up the chain of command.’ Uncle Sam had raised his voice a little, feeling irritated.

‘And how’d that go? What are they going to do to save my parents?’ Aidan asked him desperately.

Uncle Sam sadly shook his head and sighed. He took another large swig of beer before he answered the question. ‘They’re not going to do a damned thing. Officially, this never happened. The story that they’ll soon give to the press is that the Discovery VII Orbiter crashed into Mars. Nobody survived, and nobody was to blame. It was just . . . a tragic accident.’

Aidan shook his head. ‘No . . . no! Why? They can’t do that! They’ve been taken—’

‘By Martians? Little green men? What? Is that what you think we should tell people? How many people do you think will believe that story?’

Aidan clenched his fist so hard that he could feel his fingernails digging into his skin. ‘We could release the footage! Send it to the press! They’d have to believe it then!’ he said unconvincingly.

Uncle Sam shook his head. ‘No, they wouldn’t. You know they wouldn’t. Think about it. How many grainy videos and photos have you seen of alleged aliens and UFOs over the years? And how many of those did you believe to be true?’ his uncle said.

‘I didn’t believe any of them,’ he confessed weakly.

His uncle nodded. ‘Sure. Me neither. Even if by some miracle we did convince the majority of people that it was real, what then? People would panic. There would be anarchy.’

Aidan hated to admit it, but he feared that his uncle was right. ‘So what do we do? Nothing? I can’t accept that,’ he said desperately.

His uncle took another large swig of his beer, which was followed immediately by yet another. Finally, when he was feeling tipsy enough to speak his mad plan aloud, Uncle Sam answered the question. ‘No, we’re not going to just do nothing. Now you’re going to help me steal a space shuttle