Alien Shifter Ch. 04

~~~

This story is the finale to this series. Please read the preceding chapters before you start this one.

~~~

Vala looked over the three exiled prisoners that she had been tasked with guarding.

Toidi - in the body of a brown-haired college kid that looked young enough to still have acne problems - cleared his throat.

"If you speak to me," Vala growled, interrupting him. "I will gag you. If you persist in being a royal pain in my ass, I will follow Krina's advice - and remove your tongue. I am told that humans can't speak without them."

Apparently speaking to no one in particular, she raised her head (and her voice) to the sky and said, "I'm really thinking I need some sort of camera system around this cave - so that I can record the moment you fuckers push too far and I need that video-evidence that Krina talked about."

Unseen by the prisoners, Marmon headed to the base to get the fabricator started. In actuality, Siri already had the machine employed - working to build four cameras that she could use to monitor things in and around the cave - which would give them the required footage.

Vala was actually surprised that the two insipid females hadn't said anything yet. Maybe they assumed they would be more useful to Toidi if they remained alive. She had already pretty much decided that they would die as soon as she had a camera available to record the execution.

The three prisoners were shivering. Krina had given them clothing, but it was not sufficient for winter temperatures in Colorado.

"Remain here until I check something," Vala told the three of them.

She headed into the cave and began dragging out anything she thought they could use as a weapon. In the end, she only pulled the clothing replicator and resource pack out and decided she could endure the rest.

"Get inside," she told them. "It's a little cool in there so you'll have to cuddle together and conserve body-heat until I get some blankets made or something."

She followed them inside. There was a pallet bed - like a crude futon - as well as a wooden chair and small table that served as the dining room and work-area. (Or it would have, if Vala had ever actually stayed there.)

Pointing at the Asian looking female, Vala asked, "Explain to me why Nira wasted time and energy to transport your sorry ass to this planet - rather than just watching as a pavement-roller turned you into a bloody smear."

"I promised her that I would do whatever I need to, in order to keep her brother alive to serve his sentence," she replied.

Vala just stared at the girl, trying to work through the multiple logic-problems her statement raised.

"I ..." the other girl began to say.

Vala turned to her, and she stopped speaking.

"Please keep in mind that your mere existence here causes me to do work that I don't enjoy," Vala told her, venomously. "If you speak again, when I have not told you to do so, I will take no small amount of pleasure in recording your long and painful death so that I can share the recording with Krina when she returns. I will retain the audio-track to play as a lullaby to put myself to sleep at night."

The woman nodded.

"Mistress," an odd male voice called from the doorway.

Vala turned to find a hunch-backed caricature of a person standing there. She very nearly laughed out loud. It HAD to be her sister or her mate in an altered form - but they looked like Marty Feldman's character, Igor, from the movie "Young Frankenstein".

"Yes?" she asked, finally, carefully keeping her voice steady to hide how much she wanted to laugh.

"The cameras are in place out here, mistress. I have some food for your guests. Also, you dropped this," he said.

He held out the combat suit.

"Thanks, Igor," Vala told him.

She quickly undressed and changed into the suit. She threw the jacket to Toidi.

While she was changing, the deformed assistant stepped outside and retrieved some boxed meals. He handed those over to the Volkran warden. After that, he disappeared. Vala heard her sister's voice coming through the speaker in the helmet of the combat suit.

"The food is drugged with a sedative," she explained. "If they won't eat it, we'll get you a hypodermic and make an excuse that we're inoculating them against some native parasite. Once they're asleep, we'll send the construction droids into the cave and get a better space built in the back to house them. Just yell for Igor if you need anything. Hopefully, they'll be asleep in a few minutes."

Vala handed the lunches to the prisoners. She opened the last one, showed them how to unwrap the turkey roll-up - as well as how to open the bags of chips. Igor returned with three bottles of water which she passed to the three exiles as well.

She pulled the chair to the doorway and sat down. Igor came back with a boxed-lunch for her and - even though she wasn't really hungry - she opened it and began eating. Soon, the prisoners followed her example.

She collected their trash, put it in the trash-bag that Igor belatedly brought her, sat back down in her chair, and leaned back against the wall.

Soon, the three inmates began nodding off.

Vala waited a few minutes, and then walked over and pried the former prince's eyelid open to check his pupil. He was sound asleep. She opened the door and stepped outside. She left the collar controller on the table inside of the cave. She closed the door and walked towards the landing site.

Igor transformed into Marmon's human form. Silva decloaked next to him. Vala grumbled but shifted to her human form as well.

Looking at her sister's hands and confirming that they were empty, Silva said, "It looks like you came to the same conclusion that Siri did."

"That the collar controller might be a recording device?" Vala asked.

"Yeah."

"What do you think about the bimbos?" she asked her sister.

"You mean whether or not their disposable spies?"

Vala nodded.

"I would guess even odds that at least one of them is. I can't imagine that Krina was delighted, having to drag the three of them all the way here. What other purpose could they serve?"

"Kill them and record it or wait and see?"

"Let's wait," Silva advised.

Vala nodded, frowned, and said, "This is gonna suck."

Silva said, "Siri's finishing up construction on a rudimentary hover-car. Igor will bring it over. He'll help you load the prisoners aboard. Make sure to take the collar controller with you. Drive a couple miles into the mountains. We'll holler when the cave has been modified and we're ready for you to return. The plan is to build a self-contained space for them. Siri is already working to create an android clone of Igor that will be tasked with babysitting them while we're away."

Vala hugged her sister and said, "I shouldn't have doubted you."

"You can thank Google and Siri," Silva told her. "Most of this planning - and all of the preparation - is their work."

"Thanks, guys," Vala said.

In her earpiece, she heard the computers respond.

By the time Vala had stuck her head back into the cave to check on her prisoners, Igor was arriving with the hover-car. It wasn't much more than an insulated box with navigation controls - but it did the job. The two of them carried the three sleeping humans inside and laid them on the floor. Vala retrieved the collar-controller and climbed behind the steering-wheel.

As soon as Vala and her passengers were safely away, a team of construction droids arrived at the cave. Over the next three hours, they dug into the back of the cave, more than doubling its original size. All of the walls and floors of the new space, as well as the original one, were covered with wood - in various patterns and colors - to give the space a more comfortable look and feel.

The main living quarters were a combination sitting/sleep area. It had a three-person dining table sitting to one side. There was also a bathroom - with a shower, toilet, and sink.

The stone that was removed was turned into concrete. The wall between the prisoners' cell and Vala's living space hid the forms that would hold the slowly-curing mass in place until it became a solid wall. The wall was three feet thick. A heavy steel door was slotted into place at the back of the short hallway that was the only opening into the prisoner area.

A useable bathroom (with shower) was added on Vala's side of the wall as well. A small, camouflaged field of high-efficiency solar panels charged a bank of fuel cells that handled the lights and the heaters for both spaces. Vala's exterior wall was upgraded with improved insulation to help keep the heat inside of the cavern.

By the time she and her guests returned, the space had already begun to warm. Igor and Vala carried the prisoners in and dropped them on their day-beds as they began to rouse from their naps.

Vala locked the heavy steel door, checked to make sure the slot (for handing things to the inmates) was working (and latched), and verified that the LCD monitor displayed the cell interior as designed. She walked into the bathroom, placed the collar-controller in the mirrored medicine cabinet above the sink, glanced over at the fabricators and the supply crates in the corner of her office space, and exited the cave.

"That was fast," Vala told her sister.

"We 'took' the crate of ingots as payment for the construction work," she replied. "Nobody needs to know that it was all built in a few hours - rather than over a period of several days."

Vala nodded and asked, "How long before Igor gets here?"

"Siri says it'll take a couple more hours. We can monitor things from the base if you're ready for dinner. Rosie made chili cheese dogs."

"Fuck!" Vala grumbled. "Those always give me gas."

"But they're so good," Silva told her sister.

"Yeah, they are," she agreed. "Okay. Let's go."

~~~

Two weeks passed before Siri reported that a Volkran ship was arriving. The three of them quickly returned to Colorado to find out what was going on this time.

Vala didn't recognize the female that arrived at the cave. She had paperwork that seemed to authorize her to speak to the prisoners. Vala warned her that the conversation would be recorded. Once she acknowledged that she understood that, Vala led her through the outer space - which they had taken to calling "the warden's office" (or, more simply, "the office") - and brought the woman to the door.

"Let me in," she told Vala.

"Why?" Vala asked her. "You can talk through the door."

"I've been authorized to speak to them in person."

"You understand that I'm recording everything, right?" she asked her.

"Yes, whatever good that does. It's obvious that they're not going anywhere," she replied.

Vala cursed, checked to make sure the prisoners were away from the door, and opened it. The woman slipped inside. She sat with Toidi and talked quietly.

Siri amplified the conversation so that Vala could make out what she was saying. She was asking about how they were being treated.

When the woman slipped something into the exiled prince's hand, Siri chimed an alarm and highlighted the exchange on the monitor.

At the sound of the alarm the woman jumped up and asked, "What was that?"

"The security system recorded you handing something to Toidi," Vala told her. "What did you give him?"

"Nothing!"

"I have a recording that says you're lying. Looks like you're going to be here for a while. Make yourself at home. If any of you make any attempt to escape, you forfeit your lives."

The Asian-looking girl grabbed something from Toidi's hand and brought it to the door.

"I have it here," she said.

"What are you doing?!" the visitor gasped.

"Limiting this to one death," she told her.

Vala unlatched and opened the slot, taking the thing from the prisoner's hand. She closed the opening, once more, and locked it into place.

She examined what the girl had given her. It was some kind of audio recording.

"What is this?" Vala asked the visitor.

"A recording. Listen to it and then return it to me and then let me out."

"Not happening," Vala told her.

"What?!"

"You specifically asked to talk to the prisoners. You said nothing about handing them anything. You're being deceptive. I don't know why and I don't care. My continued freedom depends on me doing what I've promised the Pack-Mother that I'd do. You will remain here until someone arrives to explain and justify your actions."

"You will regret this," the woman told her.

"Trust me, bitch," she replied. "At this point, I regret every second of my existence."

Back at the base, the three of them ate and discussed Vala's options. Everyone assumed that somebody - or some group - would be arriving soon to deal with the situation.

At best, somebody else would come to "talk to" the prisoners. Siri sent construction droids to upgrade the locks on the cave to include bio-scans. A second heavy steel door was added to Vala's side of the short hallway, allowing her to bring one person in and out of the containment area at a time.

The next consideration was whether or not some assault-team would arrive to force Vala to turn the woman over. Vala had no way to communicate with Krina - to confirm whether or not the woman's credentials were fake. The woman might actually be following the Pack-Mother's orders.

They all thought that it was more likely that it was the beginning of a plan to free the exiles. At this point, however, all they could do was plan and prepare.

Marmon asked about the possibility of taking the visitor's ship back to Volkra and talking to Krina. Vala reminded him that she was, still, an exile. That left Silva - who had remained unaccounted-for for more than a dozen years. She wasn't sure she wanted anybody to remember that she was on Earth. They pushed the idea of going to visit Krina off for future discussion.

Silva also made it known that she had no desire to travel to Volkra with Marmon's DNA in her system. Siri took a DNA sampler and began work on coming up with a way to remove - temporarily, if possible - a DNA model from their body.

Tired of talking about the prisoners, Vala asked if anything had turned up with the executives who had been part of the attempt to steal the automat technology. Siri reported that things seemed to have calmed down but that she was working on improving the defense-system within the machines.

Google and Siri ran projections, using the value of the marketable resources that Krina had left - and running with the theory that Vala had traded those assets for the cave overhaul and security system - to come up with a true value of the resources she had remaining. The real question was whether or not they could justify security measures at the cave as having been purchased and installed with those funds - or whether they needed to abandon that idea and just deal with the fallout whenever people or troops arrived, and they discovered everything that Siri was proposing would be needed.

Siri set up accounts at a local investment broker and began leveraging an amount of money that was roughly equivalent to the market value of the metals. The account began with a significant amount and - based on the computers' numerous months of forecasting the trends of various stocks, bonds, and mutual funds - she quickly began turning that into a sum that would cover whatever Vala needed.

Vala went to the visitor's ship and was able to gain access to the ship's computer. This enabled Siri to build a computer system for the warden's office that included both human and Volkran technologies. Integrating that with the fabricators, she was also able to gain access to weapon blueprints.

The challenge wasn't really whether or not Google and Siri could get Vala what she needed - it was whether or not - when somebody started snooping through everything that the Volkran had attained, could they justify that those things were possible with the resources and technology that she had available.

The construction droids began work on various hidden turrets and other defenses. The entry to the cave also gained an outer hardened shell that would give Vala the ability to protect herself and manage visitors who really did need access.

They all believed, however, that the next person or team to arrive would choose actions over questions - and Vala needed to be in a position to hold them off until she could get them to talk - rather than shoot.

~~~

By the time the next ship had been spotted approaching the planet, Vala's base was ready to receive her newest visitors.

Marmon and Silva were suited-up and cloaked. Vala was suited-up, waiting in the warden's office, watching the camera-feeds from the landing-site, the perimeter watch-posts, and the new reception area. The ship that was landing was twice the size of the previous one.

Three Volkrans in combat suits walked towards the cave. At the locked entrance, they read the sign, and pressed the buzzer to talk to Vala.

The sign - written in several languages - beginning with English and ending with Volkran - informed visitors that their actions and words were being recorded, that they were not allowed on the premises without permission, and that force would be used if unauthorized access was attempted.

"What?" Vala asked. She left the video blocked but they could hear her. She watched their faces.

"We're here to talk to Toidi," one of them said.

She let them stew for a minute. In her HUD, Siri marked where Marmon and Silva were waiting.

Vala switched the display to only show the front gate. She went to the cell and called Toidi forward. He passed through the first door, and she told him to close it. When he did, she locked it, and then opened the second door. She walked him over to the monitor and switched on the audio and video so that the visitors could see the prince.

The Volkran female who had first spoken looked at Vala and said, "This is highly irregular."

"So is me babysitting this dipshit," Vala told her. "Speaking of irregular, you've neither offered nor shown me any authorization from the Pack-Mother that tells me that you should even be here. I'm hoping you do something stupid so I can record your death and I can claim your ship."

The woman held up some sort of official-looking document and a scan-chip.

"Plug the chip into the reader," Vala told her, hitting a button to reveal the interface panel near the button for the intercom.

Vala looked over the credentials - which said that the three had authorization from the Pack-Mother - and said, "Go ahead then."

The female looked at Vala, as if dismissing her. Vala didn't move - or address the implied suggestion.

The woman harrumphed and then looked at Toidi's image on the display and said, "Did Moira come see you?"

"Yes," he replied.

"What happened to her?"

"She was recorded giving me something and has joined us as prisoner," he told the woman.

The woman on the speaker's right moved her lower-right hand towards her side-arm.

"Stop," Vala growled at her in a low voice. "If you touch that weapon, you die. If you manage to unholster it, I will remove all three of you and send the recording back to Volkra with your ship."

"Shit!" Silva said in Vala's ear, "I hadn't thought of that!"

Siri commented that she'd considered the idea but had thought it better to retain the visitor's ship here - although - now that they had a second one - it was an easy option. Vala tapped a button on her wrist-controller to tell the others that she agreed.

Meanwhile, the Volkran who had spoken to Toidi glanced to her right to see what her cohort was doing.

"Stop, you idiot!"

Vala told the leader, "Regardless of what your authorization says, you're acting like you're not here at the behest of the Pack-Mother. You are, hereby, ordered to withdraw. Any other action will be viewed as an act of aggression and will be dealt with accordingly. Tell whoever sent you that they need to knock this shit off or I will inform the Pack-Mother that the prince's terms of incarceration were violated and transmit a recording of his painfully prolonged execution with the message."