Page 1 of Fractured Souls

One

Two years earlier

The guide-light in Detective Alexis Carter’s hand wavered as she stared at the ship, not quite believing what she was seeing.

Is this for real?

The ship mirrored the forest. If she hadn’t known what she was looking for, she would have walked right past it. Its surface wasn’t uniform dark metal as one might have expected. Instead, it was covered in a shifting, shimmering pattern of leaves and trunks and shadows.

Cloaking.

The technology was very, very good, much better than anything humans were capable of. To an unsuspecting passerby, it would have been invisible.

She ran her hand over the sleek surface, surprised that the metal was slightly warm to the touch. But then again, that’s what had given it away.

Bzzzt. A tracking drone hovered above her, its green indicator lights flashing silently in the shadows. The sun had only just dipped beyond the horizon, casting an eerie twilight across the forest. Really, they should have been out of here thirty minutes ago, but then the drone had picked up an irregularity in the surrounding heat patterns.

So this is a Kordolian ship.

Only the most subtle of variations had given it away.

A chill ran through her. She’d been trying to track them down for months. This little afternoon expedition into the woods had been more of a formality; a routine search for clues.

Another irritating check-the-box directive from her superiors.

She hadn’t really expected to find anything.

But this almost-invisible craft, this mirage, this menacing piece of alien technology…

It was a precursor to something huge and dark and terrifying.

Suddenly, the silence became oppressive, the shadows cloying. The darkness grew thicker by the second, concealing imaginary monsters.

Get out of here, now!

She’d heard the stories about Kordolians. They all had. Ever since the dark ships had appeared in Earth’s orbit, the human race had been thrown into a silent panic.

Any day now, they were going to be invaded.

Any day now…

“You all right, Detective?” Beside her, Officer Del shifted uneasily, one hand on his gun, his blue eyes narrowed in concentration. “What the hell is tha—”

“Don’t move, Del. I want you to turn and go back the way we came.”

“Now why do you look so spooked all of a sudden, Carter? You’re starting to give me the creeps.” On her left was Officer Thomas, already wearing his night-vis glasses. He frowned, his mouth a dark slash amidst his tight black beard. “It ain’t like you to get spooked so easily.”

“Take off the glasses, Thomas, and tell me what you see.”

Thomas’s frown deepened as he lifted his night-vis glasses and stared at the cloaked ship. “I don’t get it. What did you want me to—”

Alexis shone her light over the strange contours of the ship. The lines of the illusion wavered, and for a split-second, they caught a glimpse of seamless dark metal.

Then it was gone.

“What the hell?”

“That’s definitely not one of ours,” Del hissed. “I think we just found ourselves a big-ass lead.”

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