Caveman Alien’s Enemy (Caverman Aliens Book 10) Read online

  Caveman Alien’s Enemy

  Calista Skye

  Contents

  The story so far

  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

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Epilogue

  The story so far

  The Abduction

  Eighteen college girls were abducted by a flying saucer and dumped on the alien planet Xren.

  They were abducted by the Plood, a servant race of the evil dragons.

  Xren

  The planet the girls were dumped on is a jurassic planet where huge dinosaurs rule the jungle. There are flying, pterodactyl-like horrors called irox and velociraptors called rekh. But there are also creatures the size of office buildings as well as more mysterious beings.

  They all have one thing in common: they’re deadly.

  The cavemen

  The cavemen live in small tribal communities and are alien humanoids with colorful stripes and unusual features. They have no women of their own. The cavemen are very large and strong, but at the same time quite sophisticated.

  The girls have uncovered that the cavemen are not native to Xren - they were placed on the inhospitable planet to harden them for generations before their ultimate mission: to fight the dragons.

  Bune

  Bune is an ancient spaceship that crashed on Xren about a century ago. It contains many of the clues to the mystery of the cavemen and of Xren itself.

  It also contains a smaller ship that appears intact. The girls hope to make that spaceship fly, so they can go home to Earth. But the alien technology is extremely complicated.

  The dragons

  The dragons are the most fearsome species of aliens in the universe. They hunt other civilizations to extinction, including the species that built the spaceship Bune.

  Several dragons have come to Xren recently, and most them have been killed or neutralized by the Earth girls and the cavemen, working together.

  The girls suspect that the main dragon force has now arrived, coming to invade Xren and kill everyone.

  The girls

  The girls live in a village with their husbands and an increasing number of other cavemen who want to help fight the dragons. They form a tribe that is quickly becoming the most advanced on Xren.

  Sophia, Heidi, Emilia, Aurora, Caroline, Tamara, Ashlynn and Phoebe

  These girls are all married to cavemen and have brought them into the tribe. Five of them have given birth to half-caveman babies.

  Delyah

  The unassuming genius Delyah is the elected leader of the tribe. She is married to Brax’tan, her co-chief. She spends most of her time in Bune, trying to understand it so they can all go home to Earth. She’s now pregnant, with her due date approaching fast.

  Mia

  Mia is the tribe’s housebuilder, along with Phoebe and Ashlynn. She is also the only aerospace engineering student among the girls. She knows it will be her responsibility to make sure that the alien spaceship will actually be able to fly in space and take them all home to Earth. She dreads the responsibility, but someone has to do it.

  This is her story.

  1

  - Mia -

  “Can we win against the dragons?”

  I look around the circle. The dying fire sends a warm, flickering light to the faces of the other girls, making them look more than ever like a Stone Age tribe. They’re all tired, but also extremely worried.

  “That’s the question,” Delyah says and adjusts her seated position to better accommodate her pregnant belly. “Brax’tan won’t give me a straight answer. Too many variables, too much we don’t know. For instance, are they in human form now? If so, what kind of powers do they have?”

  “If they’re in dragon form,” Phoebe points out, “we’re probably screwed. Even Troga was a nightmare, and she was a young one that couldn’t fly.”

  “We haven’t seen anything fly over us since the meteor shower,” Sophia says. “Are we sure that was them arriving?”

  I reflexively look up. We’re used to the sky being a source of danger, what with the not-dactyls and everything. But now the calm night sky seems more sinister than ever. Those fireballs up there last night were pretty, but that made them so much more chilling. We had been expecting them. But maybe not that many.

  “We can’t be sure until we see them here,” Delyah says. “But I suggest we assume that yes, that was the dragons arriving. About a thousand of them. They’re exhausted by their voyage through space, so they can’t maintain their dragon form. They also haven’t built hoards yet, so they can’t shift back into pure dragon. They are at their weakest right now.”

  Aurora throws a piece of wood onto the fire. “We have to make sure if they’re here. If they’re not, we risk wasting time and resources just waiting for an attack that might not come for a long time. If they are here, then we have to attack first if we can.”

  “While keeping guard over Bune,” Heidi adds. “That’s our escape. Will you still go there, Mia?”

  The old spaceship Bune contains a smaller ship that appears to still be in working order. And as the only aerospace engineering student in the group, I have promised to check that ship and see if it’s still safe to use to escape this dinosaur-infested planet. But that was before we saw what we think was the dragons arriving.

  “I’m not exactly itching to go,” I confess. “I think Bune will attract the dragons. That ship is the only thing left of the alien species the dragons came here to kill. There could be a dragon around every corner inside that old wreck.”

  “If you go,” Delyah says mildly, “you will have a whole bunch of cavemen warriors as your escort. As many as you want. Keeping our only escape open is actually our second highest priority right now.”

  “What’s our first priority?” Ashlynn asks.

  “The same it’s always been,” Heidi says quietly. “Staying alive.”

  I shudder. Staying alive here on planet Xren was hard enough before the dragons came. The dinosaurs and the huge insects and all the other predators make everything we do here a potentially deadly adventure. Going to the bathroom at night is like playing with a loaded gun. But now, it’s even worse. We have met a handful of early arrived dragons. They have all tried to kill us. And they’re evil.

  Eleanor stands up. “I say we forget about this planet. We all go to Bune. We all get into the escape ship. We all try our luck with that thing. If it doesn’t work, then we all die. Seriously, guys. A thousand dragons?! We’re eighteen chicks with maybe a couple hundred sword-waving freaking cavemen! It’s not like we have a chance in hell here. This is a fucking emergency. We can�
�t wait any longer! We have to get off the planet now!”

  The circle is quiet as we all struggle with our difficult thoughts.

  Caroline pipes up. “You have a good point, Eleanor. All of us who met Troga know how terrible they are when they’re strong. A thousand of them doesn’t bear thinking about. Still, with all the warriors in the tribes that know about our cause and are willing to fight, the cavemen are probably around eight hundred, Xark’on says. They’re specially bred to be dragon slayers. A couple of them have killed dragons already.”

  Tamara takes a sip of not-coffee. “Our scorecard is pretty good. No casualties in our tribe. Six dead dragons. If anything, they should be afraid of us.”

  “They should,” Emilia agrees. “We know more about them than they do about us. The newly arrived ones may be many, but they’re weak and know nothing about this planet. Or about us. I think we should stay here, together, until Delyah has given birth and is strong enough to get to Bune. Then we’ll go there, live inside Bune until we have checked the escape ship and consider it safe. And then we’ll escape. Together.”

  Eleanor snorts and shakes her head. “Yes, of course the lab coat girls all agree. I didn’t expect anything else. But this is not a fucking laboratory. This is real life! And we are about to be burned to death by fucking dragons! Caroline, you know I love you for saving us from Troga. But the rest of you… damn it, can’t you just for once get off your fucking eternally pregnant asses and do something?!”

  We’re shocked to silence. This is the first outburst we’ve had in the tribe since we came here.

  I quietly reach out to grab Phoebe’s hand. She’s newly pregnant, and so is Ashlynn.

  “I would go to Bune now,” Delyah finally says. “I could probably handle it. But Brax’tan won’t allow it. I’ve tried to talk to him. Nope.”

  “I agree with him,” Sophia says calmly. “You could pop at any time, and I can’t imagine trying to give birth to a half alien in a bush in the woods, surrounded by dactyls and raptors and I don’t know what else. We all stay together. Here.”

  A mutter of agreement goes through the tribe.

  Delyah lifts her hand. “No, no. I will not make that decision. We’ll vote on it. We either go to Bune right now, all of us, with all the cavemen we have here now for protection. There’s about ninety of them. Or we wait until we know more about what is happening with Bune and the dragons, and until we can mobilize all the warriors who have gone back to their own tribes. We’ll have eight hundred warriors for protection then.”

  “Eight hundred dragon slayers,” Phoebe says to nobody in particular.

  Ashlynn frowns. “Delyah, what will you do if we all leave?”

  Delyah smiles weakly, and her teeth shine white in her caramel face. “Brax’tan won’t let me go. But maybe he’ll design a sedan chair for me. I’ll be carried to Bune by four strong warriors. Like a medieval noblewoman. Eating grapes straight from the bunch, I’m sure. A dream come true.”

  “Let’s get this over with,” Eleanor snaps. “Those who want to go to Bune now and get off this deathtrap of a planet, show of hands.” Her hand reaches skywards.

  Dolly, Beatrice, and Jennifer slowly follow suit.

  Eleanor groans. “Only four? Damn it. You all really want to die?”

  “No, let’s do this properly,” Delyah says. “I’d have preferred secret ballots, but that’s too late now. Those in favor of staying here until we can get more help, show of hands.”

  Twelve hands go up. But not Delyah’s.

  And not mine.

  “Four in favor of leaving now, twelve in favor of staying. Two abstentions,” Delyah sums up. “We stay.”

  An inaudible sigh of relief goes through the circle. I guess that’s what just about everyone was hoping for.

  “I don’t.”

  They all look at me.

  “Mia, I think you can stay, after all,” Aurora says mildly. “We’ll send a whole bunch of cavemen to secure Bune for us first. They’ll keep the dragons out of the spaceship until we are all ready to go.”

  I shake my head. “That’s no good. If it’s going to make any sense at all to check if that spaceship is airworthy, it has to be done right. It has to be done thoroughly. Every weld must be checked. If it even has welds. Every window. Every part. With X-ray equipment, ideally. But since we don’t have that, visual inspection will have to do. What I’m saying is, it will take time.”

  Eleanor stares at me with suspicion in her eyes. “How much time?”

  I scratch my chin. “So, this ship is about the size of four large airliners, if I understand it correctly. It’s been here for ninety years, just sitting there. We don’t understand all of the tech. Some of it we have to take on faith and just trust our luck. But the rest, whatever we can understand? I want to make sure that when we get into that ship, it won’t disintegrate or explode immediately. Making even reasonably sure of that will take weeks. A month if we’re lucky and the thing is simple enough for me to understand. And even then, I can only spot really major issues that make the ship useless forever.”

  “A month is an insane amount of time to waste!” Eleanor seethes. “The dragons are here! Now! We all know that however well Mia can check that ship, we are going to use it anyway. It is our only escape. Do you all understand what that word means? We are going to try that fucking escape ship, whether we think it will work or not. Seriously, if Mia can’t check every little part of it, every bit of alien technology that we don’t stand a chance in hell of understanding, then she might as well not check any of it. We’ll be taking a huge risk, anyway. If a single piece of exotic alien equipment fails, we’re dead. Mia, can you guarantee that nothing will fail?”

  “Of course I can’t,” I admit. “But at least I can see if there’s something that’ll obviously kill us. And that might be something we can repair.”

  “If,” Eleanor says. “Might. There will always be ifs and maybes about that ship. Mia, you just said we have to trust our luck. Exactly! Save that month! Get into it and blast off now! We could be home on Earth tomorrow! At least that’s doing something!” She takes a deep, trembling breath. “I know you married girls are so fucking settled here with your hunky aliens that you don’t even want to go home to Earth anymore. But some of us have lives back there! Real lives! People that love us!”

  Her final words turn into a sore sob, and she hides her face in her hands.

  Ashlynn gets up and hugs her. Eleanor can be intense, but we can all sympathize with her.

  “We’re actually not that desperate,” Caroline says calmly. “If the ship isn’t safe to use, we won’t use it. We’ll stay on Xren and figure things out. I can’t imagine anything more certain to kill you than a faulty spaceship.”

  “Xren is dangerous,” Phoebe says. “But we’ve all survived here for many months. Space? You can’t even say it’s dangerous. It just kills you. In less than a minute, without exception. I’m not taking my eternally pregnant ass into a spaceship I don’t trust reasonably well.”

  I close my eyes for a second. I’m not happy about this at all. But someone has to do it. And this feels like it’s being laid at my feet. “I’ll go with the cavemen tomorrow morning. Enough of them to guard Bune, but not so many that the tribe is weakened. Ten of them, Delyah?”

  Delyah thinks. “Twenty. At least. I’ll tell Brax’tan.”

  Ashlynn throws the last dregs of her juice onto the fire, making it hiss. “Eleanor, you’re right. Bune is absolutely vital to us. We must make sure it’s guarded. It is our only way home. And if the dragons are setting up shop here, they’re making a really good case for us to just get the hell out. Regardless of how we will be received on Earth. At least the government won’t burn us to a crisp.”

  “Damn right they won’t,” Eleanor sniffles. “The government will receive us perfectly well. It is our home. Well, it’s home to some of us.”

  The circle is quiet while we all procrastinate on going to bed. There won’t be much sleep to be had
, anyway. The jungle all around us was dangerous before. Deadly and imposing. But it never felt downright evil. It does now.

  Phoebe mutters something.

  I lean closer. “What?”

  “They’re as much stranded here as we are,” Phoebe repeats, louder. “The dragons. They will be desperate to get off this planet. But if they can’t find hoards that will give them the strength to change to dragon form, they can’t fly. They’re stuck here, too. They will gain very little from killing us. Some pots and rusty spears. Everything else is hidden or buried. Not much of a hoard.”

  Aurora changes the grip on the crossbow that never leaves her hands. “I think we should be very careful about assuming we know anything about how the dragons think. Killing one of us might give a bored dragon a moment of perverse joy. That alone might make it worth its while.”

  The fire is reduced to embers, and nobody is putting more wood on it. It feels to me like the night is unusually dark, and when I look up I can’t see anything but an oppressive blackness. No stars are visible. I’m hot and clammy in a way I’m not used to. Nights on Xren are usually balmy, not humid like this.

  Tamara hides a yawn behind one hand. “Sorry. I’m not bored. Just sleepy. So, just saying. They’re not actually dragons. As in, supernatural creatures. They’re aliens that have a dragon form and a human form. And if the Panspermia theory is right, then all sentient life was seeded on many planets with the same genetic structure. All with a human basis. Why don’t these things have a dragon form and a shrimp form? Or a zebra form? Instead of a human form? Are we maybe distantly related to them? Like we are to, say, orangutans? I wonder if we might have more in common with them than we think.”