Her Alien Bodyguard: The Guards of Attala: Book One Read online

  HER ALIEN BODYGUARD

  THE GUARDS OF ATTALA SERIES, BOOK ONE

  MIRA MAXWELL

  Copyright © 2017 by Mira Maxwell.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodies in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Cover Designer: Natasha Snow Designs

  CONTENTS

  Her Alien Bodyguard Blurb

  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

  Her Alien Protector Preview

  About the Author & Newsletter

  Diana Bennet is Earth’s last hope. The brilliant scientist and explorer leads her research team across the galaxy to the snow planet Attala in search of a mysterious compound that can jump start our dying sun.

  Attala leaders are honored to host the humans and pledge to give Diana everything she needs. And one thing she doesn’t: the Attalan Guard, an elite group of mate-less warriors tasked with keeping Diana and her team safe in the remote ice mountains.

  Diana’s brooding bodyguard, Mallyk, shadows her every move. He’s strong and capable and makes her feel things in places she’s forgotten about, but there’s no time to worry about her D.O.A. love life when the fate of a planet hangs in the balance. Her orders are clear: complete the mission and return to Earth.

  Mallyk has other plans. And they all involve getting the feisty adventuress in his giant fur-lined bed. His insatiable lust for the Earth woman has him questioning his role with the Guard and cursing the day he took their oath of celibacy. Will his loyalty to the Guard stop him from claiming his long-awaited mate?

  ONE

  DIANA

  “I WANT ASSES IN SEATS, ladies. This is going to be a bumpy landing.”

  I fumble my way to my command chair in the front of the ship, sink into the cold metal chair and fasten the restraint system. My pilot is doing the best she can, but I’ve learned to expect the unexpected. We all have; intergalactic space travel teaches you that lesson early on. Coming out of hyper drive is rough enough when we’re travelling an established route. God knows what it will be like this time; we’re the first travelers from Earth to ever reach the Attalan system.

  My neck is stiff and my hands are curled into white-knuckled fists. For one brief moment, the stress of everything threatens to overwhelm me. Everything about this mission has been so rushed, by necessity, and it freaks me out. It’s been months, but somehow, we still haven’t had enough time to prepare. I’m not ready. None of us are.

  It helped when we could communicate with our team back on Earth, but we lost the signal two months ago. Fully expected but still unsettling. Now, we need to make a few dozen miracles happen and the clock is ticking. Visit a new planet. Meet a new species. Establish diplomatic relations. Convince them to let us mine for Eclaydian, the only element in the galaxy strong enough to jump start our dying sun. Return home and save Earth.

  My chest tightens when I think of everything we have to accomplish. It creeps into near panic when I realize we only have a few months finish the mission. Any longer and Earth, and everyone on it, will be dead.

  I take a deep breath, count to five, and release it slowly. I’m the leader of this expedition. I need to set an example. To show everyone I’m in control and I’m not afraid. I consciously force my body to relax, muscle by muscle, a diversion tactic my mother taught me when I was a schoolgirl weighed down with worry.

  I raise my chin and look ahead with clear eyes, determined to project my regained confidence. Our pilot, Margo, reaches for the switch to disengage warp drive. It’ll drop us in the new planet’s atmosphere. Her fingertip flips the toggle, and I hold my breath. This is always my least favorite part of any journey.

  Bumpy landing ends up being the understatement of the century. Our ship breaks through the atmosphere of Attala and all hell breaks loose. Suddenly, we’re pulling 6 Gs and I struggle to keep the contents of my stomach down.

  “Shit.” I feel like I’m back at the state fair riding the Tilt-A-Whirl, in a car that just won’t stop spinning. I want to turn my head and look at Margo to get a better read on the situation, but I’m plastered against my seat and can’t move an inch. I have to settle for her voice instead. Luckily, she’s a former marine officer and has no trouble projecting.

  “We just lost the left horizontal stabilizer,” she shouts. And again, a moment later. “And the vertical stabilizer.”

  The cabin dims and I smell smoke. I scan the cabin and see it wafting from the control panel. Not a comforting sight.

  “Electrical systems are down. Life support running on backup.” How is Margo so composed when everything is spinning out of control?

  The bottom gives out and we sink like an anchor.

  “Engines are stalled.” It’s her final update.

  Margo’s voice fades as I struggle against the black patches in the periphery of my vision. I fight to stay conscious. But it’s a battle I can’t win, and everything goes dark.

  I’M ONLY OUT for a few minutes. At least, that’s my best guess. I take a deep breath and press my hand against the sharp pain radiating from my side, trying to push it away so I can take stock of our situation.

  I’m still breathing, so the backup life support systems must have kicked in. And I’m still warm – no small feat considering the blistering cold our Attalan hosts warned us of – so the hull must be intact. My first priority is to check on my crew mates, but it’s taking me more than a moment to get my bearings. At first I think I’m trapped under wreckage, but then I realize I’m still strapped into my seat. The problem is our ship, which has crash landed at a ninety-degree angle.

  I battle the metal clip on the restraint release system, but it’s hard to get my fingers to obey the orders from my brain. I wonder if I have a concussion. But I don’t give up. I push against that damn metal clip until I hear the glorious telltale pop and crash to the ground with the grace of a sack of rock samples.

  “Is everybody alright?” My voice comes out shakier than I would like. I crouch there for a moment, on unsteady legs, trying to see my friends through the dust, debris, and smoke. Hoping for the best and fearing the worst.

  “I’m ok,” Margo croaks as she conquers her own seatbelt and is deposited on the floor next to me. I offer a hand and help her up, and she takes it, even though she doesn’t need it; the battle-hardened pilot can more than handle her own. The scientists are the ones I’m most worried about.

  “Doc?” I yell.

  A charming southern accent reaches me from the back of the ship. “Natalie has a leg injury. I can’t tell how bad is it yet. Mina has a few bumps and scratches.” I can finally make out her form through the haze. She’s kneeling on the floor next to Natalie. “I’ll look after them,” she says. “Don’t worry about us. You t
ake care of the ship and get us situated.” Savannah Cooper, the ship’s doctor, is every bit as southern as her namesake city, and every time she talks I can’t help thinking of sipping sweet tea while lounging on a porch during a sunny day. My blood pressure drops at least twenty points.

  “Thanks, Doc. I’m going to try to figure out where we are.” I stumble gingerly over the contents of the upended ship as I make my way to the window. It must be cold as Siberia out there. I reach out and wipe the condensation from the window with the sleeve of my jacket. I peer into the emptiness, hoping for any sort of landmarks we could use to triangulate our position.

  There’s nothing.

  It’s white as far as I can see. More of it is falling, in big fluffy flakes that remind me of my childhood winters in the American Midwest. “It looks like we landed in a snow globe,” I murmur to myself. It sounds beautiful, but it’s disquieting more than anything else. I like to know what I’m up against and I can’t tell a damn thing from where I’m standing.

  Margo joins me at the ship’s window. “I’m pretty sure we missed the landing coordinates by a click or two,” she admits. The false bravado and matter-of-factness in her voice bring a hint of a smile to my face for the first time today.

  “Yeah, well that tends to happen when you crash.” I mean it as a light joke, but it comes out sounding harsher than intended. Her face falls and I immediately regret my ill-timed remarks. I lean over and bump my elbow against hers. “Hey, what is it old pilots say? Any landing you walk away from is a good landing. We’re all in one piece.” We share a rueful smile and I know all is forgiven.

  Margo crosses her arms over her chest. Admitting fault or shortcomings isn’t her style. I understand. Just like she understands that sometimes my verbal barbs are sharper than intended. We surrendered any secrets we had in our long journey across the galaxy in the Sparrow. We established mutual acceptance of all character flaws many months back.

  “We may all be in one piece,” Natalie says as the doc inflates a temporary cast around her leg, “but my ship sure isn’t.” She gestures around the cabin with a horrified expression.

  “Hey, I think I did pretty well considering the catastrophic failure of pretty much every computer and guidance system on this hunk of junk.” Margo places her hands on her hips and walks back to the scientists.

  “Hunk of junk?” Natalie tries to push herself into a seated position. Her face, which was white as porcelain from the pain moments before, is now flushed with anger. “I know you aren’t talking about my ship like that.” I can’t tell what our onboard engineer is more upset about: the current condition of her beloved spacecraft or the insult to her ship’s prior condition. Natalie, our engineer, has been part of the expedition since day one. She led the team that designed the ship and she supervised its construction. “I know you wouldn’t talk about the ship we built in six months that carried us across the galaxy into unchartered territory without a single hiccup-“

  “-until we encountered off-the chart electromagnetic interference upon entry into the atmosphere.” Margo wasn’t about to back down; she never did. “I’m just saying, this is what happens when you shorten the build time from 5 years to six months. Shit goes wrong.”

  “Guys, can we not have this discussion right now?” Mina, the pixie-like prodigy with degrees in chemistry, biology, and geology, tosses her hands up in frustration. “I mean, as much as I’d like to rehash a discussion we’ve had at least weekly, we are in the middle of a crisis right now. We need to keep our shit tight and work together to get out of this.” It quiets us all, at least for the moment.

  “Margo,” I say. “I want you to get the coms system up and running and see if you can reach the Attalans. They might not even know we’re out here. See if they can offer any assistance.”

  “I’m the engineer, I should be working on the repairs.” Natalie grabs hold of a sturdy bolted-down cabinet and tries to stand. I hurt just watching her.

  “Natalie, lay back down. Margo can handle the repairs.” She shifts some weight to her injured leg and gasps. “That’s an order!” She sinks to the floor and shoots me a dirty look.

  I swipe my hand across a metal cabinet door and it slides open. I remove the biometric harness that links with my survival suit. “Margo, I want you to do what you can for the ship. Make sure life support functions are up and running and stay that way. See what other systems you can get up and running.”

  “Diana, I hope you aren’t seriously contemplating going out there,” she says.

  My raised hand quiets any objections. “I’m the captain. I’ll be back inside in a few minutes. I can’t see shit through the windows and I need to get a better view of our surroundings. We need to know if there are any landmarks out there, or anything else we can use to let the Attalans know where we are. Or for shelter or survival in a worst case scenario.”

  I’m not the only one on the ship who’s a bit of a hothead; Margo isn’t about to be quieted. “Hold onto your hats,” she says. “I’ve got a great idea: let’s stay in the goddamned ship. We haven’t even had a chance to do a formal atmosphere analysis. You don’t know what you’re walking into out there.”

  I let out a long sigh. “You know as well as I do, the documentation and samples the scientists from Attala sent us prior to the expedition indicated we would have no problem breathing their air. And their gravity is the same. That’s why we were so excited to find this planet. There’s nothing to worry about. I’ll stay within steps of the ship. I promise.”

  I’m not about to give in. I’d trained for this mission my entire life. As a child, I braved Minnesota winters that put Siberia to shame, spending hours in the snow while other kids huddled indoors and played checkers around the fireplace. Not me. I’d rather be sledding, or skiing, or building a snow cave. I pretended I was a famous mountain climber when I scaled the giant piles of snow deposited by the city plow on our dead-end street.

  I took my first climbing class in junior high, the only girl in a group of rowdy boys at a local indoor rock climbing gym. When I insisted I wanted more, my parents indulged their only daughter with the promise of a proper alpine mountaineering class, as long as kept up my straight 4.0 average through the end of the junior high school year.

  I kept up my end of the bargain, and so did they. My first three-day class was a life-changing experience. I enjoyed learning more about rock climbing and rappelling and knots and topography. But what I truly loved was learning more about snow. I was in my element, learning all the basics of snow travel and snow camping. Minimizing the risk of exposure to the elements, learning how to construct a snow anchor, and how to travel in rope teams on a glacier.

  There was no stopping me after that.

  I kept the promise to my parents, and to myself, really, not to forget about my education along the way. I studied hard every year all through high school and college. And then I rewarded myself with a summertime return to my first love: the mountains.

  The first one I conquered was Mount Whitney. The moment is forever frozen in my mind. The triumph I felt when I stood at the top. Others had doubted I would make it, but I always knew I had it in me. Denali was next. I finished it after I graduated summa cum laude and before I started my graduate degree program.

  The Matterhorn, Everest, K2, Annapurna, Makalu, Jannu. They fell like dominos as I finished my Ph.D. When I got the call for this mission, I was working on research at the Harrison station in the Arctic, drilling deep ice cores for analysis and itching for an adventure. It was the right call at the right time and I was honored to accept.

  There’s no way I’m going to fail. Nothing is going to stop me from saving my home.

  “I’m not reckless,” I say, more to myself than anyone else. But I am determined. I head to the storage area next to the emergency airlock, where our exploration suits are stowed away, and dress as quickly as possible – not an easy feat considering how skin tight the suit is. Still, they are a welcomed relief from the bulky suits space tra
velers used to wear. I can do all sorts of things in my suit they couldn’t do in theirs, and the increased mobility is a Godsend.

  My hands are shaking as I plug my biometric harness into the suit, but I know it’s caused by adrenaline, not from fear, and the thought soothes me. I place the domed helmet over my head and click it into place, and I’m ready to go.

  My crew mates crowd behind me nervously as I test the key pad on the airlock. It’s down, of course, like most of our systems. Luckily, there’s a manual override lever that allows for airlock activation, allowing me to exit the craft while still maintaining the structural integrity for those left inside. I pull the manual override lever, and the door opens with a hiss. It’s just as noisy when it closes behind me, but I can barely hear it over the thundering of my heart.

  “Breathe, Diana, just breathe.” I’ve trained for this mission. Still, it’s not every day you’re sent out to meet with an alien race on behalf of Earth. Especially when the survival of your planet is at stake.

  The lever on the second airlock door, the one at the exterior hull of the ship, is harder to open, but I muscle my way through it and jump out into the expanse, hoping I’m not misjudging the distance to the ground.

  A drift of snow at least four feet high softens my landing. It’s so pure, so untouched, that I have to fight the urge to make fresh snow angels. The adult in me wins out, and I struggle to my feet and look around.

  There is nothing but white.

  A swipe of my gloved hand activates the magnified view in my glass visor. I slowly spin in a circle, but I don’t see a thing. And yet. . .

  I feel something. It sounds so crazy, it’s hard for me to admit, but I learned long ago to trust my instincts if I want to survive. I feel something else nearby. I feel an urgency. There’s something out there. My heart turns cold at the thought, but I know it’s true.

  “Increase magnification.”

  I scan the horizon again. Still, nothing. I almost turn around and head back into the ship. But I don’t. I know they’re there. I can feel it in my bones. Maybe they’re using advanced cloaking technology. Or maybe they’re just hidden by the snow. But they’re there.