he flower, if indeed it could be called a flower, looked like nothing on Earth.
Iris squinted at the purplish inkblot staining the vast green landscape of her garden shrubbery. It seemed to have bloomed overnight in the middle of an otherwise unremarkable hedgerow.
Without her glasses to aid her, Iris struggled
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Commander Tri’eek’s ship was self-destructing.
Bianca muttered Earth English curses under her breath as she ran through the Argo’s gigantic ventilation shafts, holding a gargantuan stolen ring of shiny, black electrical tape around her waist like a life ring. She had spent three precious hours tracing the problem to the engine maintenance room.
What Susan noticed first was the purse.
Susan always noticed them. She prided herself on having the most unique purse at any event. She had learned early that if she didn’t want to be known as Susan The Deaf Girl, she had to be memorable in some other way.
Kay studied her notes while the sounds of the alien planet filled her spaceship. Wind whistled through the sugar reeds, sand blew across the dunes, and water lapped along the shore. Birds called out as they took flight, and a chorus of insects chirped in the background.
“The ambience of Ailuros is beautiful,
The Skyfolk held no ill will toward penguins. Why would they fear such harmless creatures? In Antarctica and elsewhere, penguins could approach the alien settlers without so much as a second glance.
Thus, the U.N. Military devised a cunning plan.
A human—myself, it turned out—would be mind-linked to an Emperor penguin via psionics.
Trey stared blankly at the flat screen. Another night of insomnia. Over the last few months, he’d tried everything: a new bed, diet, exercise, soothing music, noise cancelling headphones, sleeping in different positions. He’d even tried sleep therapy. Nothing worked. He dragged himself through the day like one of the walking dead,
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Bea fought the urge to twitch as the sticky, worm-shaped alien readjusted itself around her ear. She failed.
“You better stop that if you want me to stay attached during the final round,” the alien, a glottaalan, snapped. It settled into place with one last splitch.
The dungeon reeked. Two large, scaly Inlans held my arms in painful grips as they escorted me to my brother’s cell. When I tripped, the shapeshifting aliens urged me to move faster. The cell door stood open, and Harren Den, the Inlan king, entered first. The other Inlans dragged me in next.
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The flower opened silently. Unremarkably. Alone in the forest’s center, right where I’d planted it. Beautiful. Unnoticed. Deadly.
Smiling, I crouched beside it. They’d never suspect this. Those humans were too busy worrying about World War III, global warming, and zombies to stop and smell the flowers.
Their loss.
It’s not the end of the world.
That’s what her brother would have said if he were here.
But he wasn’t.
Corbin had been called in to work a late shift at the warehouse thirteen miles away. Nora knew because the GPS locator on her phone told her.
If only her phone could pinpoint the monsters, too.
The stout at the Crown is frothy and just a bit sweet. Not sure how many I’ve drunk, but tonight isn’t the night for counting. If I was sure there’d be beer in heaven, I might be elsewhere.
Aliens. The outer-space sort. Came down from beyond months ago and decided last week they’d play
A small bell rang, and Joe looked up from his cup of coffee to the front door of Bob’s Stellar Diner. Darcy and Ben Jackson had stopped at the hostess’s desk, and Lucy smiled before leading them to the same booth they occupied at 7 a.m. every Saturday. As the elderly couple moved past,
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