Dante’s Command: Scifi Alien Abduction Romance (Science Fiction Alien Romance) (Survival Wars Book 1) Read online

  Dante’s Command

  By Hana Starr

  Copyright © 2016 by Hana Starr – All rights reserved.

  The author holds exclusive rights to this work. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form including photocopying, recording or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  WARNING: This book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language. It may be considered offensive to some readers. This book is intended for adults 18+ ONLY. Please ensure this book is stored somewhere that cannot be accessed by underage readers.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are used in a fictitious manner and not to be construed as real. Similarities to real people, places or events are entirely coincidental.

  Message from the Author:

  Thank you so much for downloading my book! I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did writing it. After reading, please give the book your honest feedback by submitting an Amazon review. It would take just a few moments and will mean the world to me to hear my reader’s feedback. I hope to deliver many more books and truly thankful I’m able to write for my audience. Please visit my website and subscribe to my newsletter where I announce new books coming out and give out free promotions/books (I do not spam and have total respect to my subscribers). Read more about me at the end of the book.

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  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Thanks to Mariella Robertson’s invention, the whole of planet Earth is about to change. The nuclear scientist has revolutionized solar power, and shares her invention freely with the whole world. However, Earth isn’t the only place she can help change.

  In the middle of the night, an alien who calls himself Dante abducts Mariella in the hopes of getting her invention back to his home. His people are suffering, running out of time and resources because of a parasitic race laying siege on them. Uncertain at first, Mariella quickly finds herself drawn in by Dante and his predicament.

  She agrees to help, knowing all the risks of this journey. However, will she even be able to assist them? And will all her efforts be wasted when the enemy attacks?

  Chapter One

  If a year ago someone told Mariella she would be standing up on stage in front of the largest Progressive Science Seminar in the history of the world, she would have called them crazy and suggested they get themselves tested. However, now that it was a reality she felt like the crazy one. All these people, a sea of heads stretching further back than she could see, their attention narrowed down to two things: her, and the currently-blank screen behind her. The lights were dim and growing dimmer all the time, mere seconds until the Seminar began.

  She was used to speaking in front of a crowd ever since her first Speech class in 6th grade, and her experience in the past twelve months had seen leaps and bounds in the audience attendance records, shattering one after another, but this? It was unprecedented. It was almost horrific in the sheer scale of brilliant minds, all of them probably dozens of times her intelligence-level.

  Yet, they were here for her and it was mind-boggling.

  The nuclear scientist took a deep breath as the enormous auditorium went fully dark. Closing her eyes, she touched the notecards tucked away in the breast pocket of her lady’s tuxedo –cards she had never needed through all her years, but which she believed firmly in preparing anyway- and steeled herself.

  I deserve this. I can do this. With this lecture today, I change the world.

  No, she never wanted to be a hero but this breakthrough was already changing the world. These minds here today would ensure her prototype continued to grow and shape the future.

  As she opened her eyes again, the spotlight over her on the stage came to life. The screen behind her whirred with inaudible static, and then blazed to life with an image of herself that she knew very well. Seeing as how it was the image most often associated with her, placed beside articles and news clips about her despite its age, she couldn’t escape knowing all about it: five years old at least, the image showed her in her crowded university lab, smiling as she looked up at the photographer. Though it was hard to tell, she leaned over a modified solar panel, currently dismantled and fitted with extra odds-and-ends. It was her pet project, an area of research she funded all on her own when her requests failed to be approved.

  And now, it was the image of the century, a turning point in world history.

  A man sitting down in the front row gave her a thumbs-up. She was ready. The microphone clipped to her collar went life.

  “Thank you all so much for coming out here tonight,” she said, speaking calmly and evenly. She fell into the rhythm she practiced for over two decades, all her nervousness fading away into the moment. “It means a lot to me, and to the world, that so many of you, of all ages, can be here for this Fourteenth Annual Progressive Sciences Seminar. The fact that I’m here now, as the one and only speaker, is something I never imagined would happen.”

  Mariella gestured to the picture behind her, large enough for the vast ocean of eyes to all glimpse. “But, as much of an honor as this is, I know it’s not for me.” She chuckled a little, spurring light amusement from some of the older attendants. “But, neither are we here just so I can tell you about my project. We’re here because knowledge is valuable. Knowledge is the real fuel of the universe. And if we can sit here tonight with electrical lights and picture-screens, I can’t wait to see where our future takes us –a future we can only obtain by working together and sharing our knowledge.

  “That’s why I have refused to patent the Zenith Grid. This knowledge is for the world, and we’re going to make it that way.”

  The picture behind her changed to what seemed to be a field covered in solar panels, but these were different, somehow. They were sleek and transparent, interlocked like fish scales or rose petals. Each panel was angled to catch as much sun as consistently throughout the day was possible.

  She gestured to it. “After 5 years of hard work and dedication, this is the stage of the Zenith Grid which I will be sharing with all of you tonight. I will show you how I built it, with what materials, and what we can hope to accomplish with it. And furthermore, we will think about where this takes our future.”

  And just like that, it began. The technical process of how she took a single panel and modified it so intensely that the panel powered its own power magnification, until the electrical output of that one panel equaled that of five, was a crude and blundering thing she outlined with great pleasure. Things grew more complicated from there. Cameras were clicking. Video footage was running. Thousands of people were recording her, furiously scribbling everything she said, or pouring over copies of the reports she made while she spoke now of the exact material covered within.

  Soon, the power of a single panel was ac
tually too great. It shattered itself. From there, she went through hundreds of designs and redesigns to figure out that if she interlocked the panels so they shared energy, the current result was a diffuse which drastically cut down on breakage. Each solar panel could now produce nearly 100 times its original output, and she saw the numbers only growing higher from there while hopefully her normal, bulker design would be adjusted and compacted.

  There were no end to the implications.

  Eventually, he finished covering the process of building the parts of the Zenith Grid –as of yet, the “Grid” part was still a concept at best. She hoped within 20 years, a network of solar energy would replace the current electrical grid. She had designs drawn up, though they weren’t perfect, and she just knew that if all these people put their minds together…it would be magical.

  And where did one go from here?

  The slideshow behind her, which had been playing through images of her designs and the steps involved to build them, suddenly slid over to an image of a newspaper headline.

  “Zenith Goes Live Today!”

  Her first real-world experiment, a months-long trip with only herself, a reporter, and her supplies, as they set out to a broken and poverty-ravaged African village. Setting up the Zenith changed their lives. Homes could suddenly be warmed. Fuel to cook and boil safer water became reachable at a moment’s notice. Indeed, the power from Zenith was enough to actually build and sustain a network of water pipes.

  In fact, it was too powerful to supply just the one village. It had to be dispersed, involving the nearest three other villages.

  By the end of that experiment, an entire 100 square miles of previously desolate desert land could almost be said to thrive. At the very least, the children were no longer sick or thirsty.

  And that was only the first.

  There had been dozens more of experiments, slowly weaning her own self away from electric companies and then supplying the neighborhood around her. As word grew, she gladly spread her ideas with other groups, who then took the Zenith’s blueprints home with them. All across the global, there were beautiful, magical changes as the cost of living suddenly plummeted in certain key areas. And as the cost went down, the quality of life went up.

  Gradually, the media took notice.

  And there was no turning back from there.

  Mariella led her audience through the entire journey. She missed nothing, left out no detail to describe how one woman’s stubbornness was connecting and bettering life across the planet. Solar power was affordable, simple, always available. And she asked of them, what would this mean for war? For weaponry? For farming, for transportation?

  It was a new age. An Age of Sunlight. And they could help bring it.

  And yes, she did not hesitate to lay out her main flaw: that as of yet, the Zenith was so terribly efficient at drawing and harnessing solar power that she couldn’t figure out a way to store any of that energy without triggering a breakage of some kind. And she did not hide this truth, because she knew they would find a solution.

  As she wound down towards the end of her speech, the screen once again displaying that iconic image of herself, she noticed her cheeks were wet. Her voice shook. Shame crept up her spine.

  I’m supposed to be a woman of mind, not emotion.

  Yet, when she looked out across the audience, she saw hardly a dry face and felt immensely better for it. These were her people. They understood.

  And just like that, she knew things would turn around for Earth.

  Swallowing hard, she thanked them again for their time, though she was quieter and more hoarse than before after hours of speaking.

  A member of the Science Board came up to thank her and relieve her, and she took her seat for the remaining hour. The men on either side of her congratulated her softly but then left her alone.

  And she was glad for it, because now that she was in the dark and away from illumination, she let five years’ worth of tears come running down her face. Stress, pride, failure and success all mingled hotly on her cheeks, flowing freely.

  Fortunately, by the time the lights came on again, her cheeks were mostly dry.

  With everyone else in the auditorium, she stood and filed out. The press of bodies and mingling bodily odors of sweat and perfume, along with clashing voices in every language, pressed at her. It wasn’t quite claustrophobia, but she was incredibly glad when they all reached the grand party room. Heading away from the thickness, she mingled in with the thinner waters and headed over to a catering table to grab a glass of punch.

  It wasn’t quite a party so much as a reception, a celebration, but she could already see some of her peers getting drunk. Realizing the punch was spiked, she sipped lighter at it. Even if she wouldn’t begrudge others their vices, it was no reason to indulge in them herself.

  For yet another hour, she was perfect. Silently thanking her religious schoolteachers for all those boring classes on manners and etiquette, Mariella made sure she was gracious and humble, perfectly polite. These were the moments she would be remembered for, and she knew better than to temper her advances with small failures. So, when hands were offered, she shook them.

  Flirts were accepted daintily, not returned.

  The six hugs forced upon her, she accepted them all.

  Presents, she refused. Signatures, she refused.

  Stay humble.

  At long last, the Head of the Board finally found her. He was a grizzled German man, with a thick accent and bushy eyebrows.

  He offered her a glass of wine, which she accepted and used to toast him. Letting the liquid touch her lips but not enter, as she’d already had one full glass of that punch, she smiled as he spoke.

  “You were very charming up there, Dr. Robertson.”

  “I’ve had a lot of practice, sir,” she replied. Her smile widened a bit. “I’m glad it’s over, though.”

  To her delight, he cracked a slight wobbling at the corner of his lips. “Yes, as am I. You are very not boring and pretty to look at, but my old bones do not like to sit for so long.”

  Mariella accepted the flirt without comment, though she raised an eyebrow to let him know she caught it. “Really, I’m exhausted.”

  “Yes,” he nodded agreeably. “I would say your day has been quite full enough. If I do not see you again before you leave, I wish you all the best.”

  “And you, sir.”

  Though not spoken exactly outright, the Head of the Board had given her permission to leave whenever she wanted. As exhausted as she said she was, she took the chance and slunk out the side doors of the enormous building as soon as she had a chance.

  The parking lot was overflowing, every inch of the way a tight squeeze, but she was one of the only people of thousands leaving so early. While slow, the drive in her rented little Jeep was uneventful.

  Germany was quite a nice little place at night. Berlin itself wasn’t so little, but at such a late hour she came across what was probably considered only light traffic on her way back to the hotel.

  At least they drive on the right side of the road, she thought. That was something she fretted over for ages, and was delighted to find out her fears were unfounded.

  Heading back up to her hotel room, she quickly got ready for bed. Tomorrow in the evening there was another gathering for the sciences, one which was more of a social fair than a lecture, and she hadn’t quite decided whether she would go or not. It depended on how she felt in the morning, and how quickly she could sleep off this nagging tiredness which came only when she’d used up all her brain power.

  Within five minutes of shutting the door behind her, she collapsed into the bed and pulled the covers up over her pajamaed body.

  Sleep was quick to come, but it wasn’t as deep as she wanted. It was fitful and half-awake, filtered through a skein of stars. Voices spoke, and she smelled something like burning before it faded away and left her with the scent of clean linen. And in the midst of this tossing and turning, she thought she dre
amed of a dusky-skinned man with a handsome, impassive face. And he was speaking, though she couldn’t hear him.

  There was an impression of metal, an abrupt sensation like that sleep-jerk reaction she sometimes experienced, but that was all.

  Too tired to check the clock to figure out when this fitfulness ended, Mariella was just glad it eventually did.

  Chapter Two

  Something wasn’t quite the way it should be.

  Mariella opened her eyes and just lay in the darkness, trying to figure out exactly what was wrong. It was something, though she couldn’t quite put words to it. Maybe it was a change in the lighting, a sudden absence of green alarm-clock glow, or maybe it was the difference in smell. But perhaps the biggest difference, the thing which didn’t match the most, was how hard it was to breathe. Her lungs ached halfway, as though there wasn’t quite enough air.

  Am I having a heart attack? she thought calmly, searching for pain in herself and finding none. All the same, something was wrong. Don’t panic. Just reach over and grab the phone. It’s that simple. Nothing to it.