Asteroid Crisis: Star Challengers Book 3 Read Online Free Page B

very intense as he leaned forward, turning his haunted gray eyes on them. “It’s time I told you more about how I came to be here. I have given you only sketchy details before.
    “I thought my life was comfortable, and everything was normal. We didn’t have big dreams or ambitions, but not many worries, either. I was a university professor of engineering. I never gave a second thought to how small my classes were—that was just the way it had been for years. To be honest, I didn’t think about the space program often. I knew we had Moonbase Magellan, which was mostly empty. I knew we had the ISSC, but the news networks rarely featured any stories about it. None of my students dreamed of careers as astronauts or making a mark in the aerospace industry. We hadn’t sent space probes to the planets in a generation or two. Nobody really cared.”
    Zota blinked, and though he was looking at JJ and her friends, his gaze seemed far away. “The Kylarn sent secret scout ships to Earth over the years, but since we didn’t have anyone watching, our first visitors went unnoticed. They built their whole base on the far side of the Moon, and we never suspected a thing. Then, when the aliens finally attacked and destroyed Moonbase Magellan, the human race was so stunned we didn’t know what to do.”
    “But it’s different now—we changed it!” JJ said passionately. “We exposed the Kylarn base before it could be completed. We forced the squidbutts to move sooner than they expected.”
    “And the people on the moonbase got away,” Song-Ye added. “In your timeline, everyone was lost.”
    “Yes, you changed that part, but it was probably too little, too late. In my time, the Kylarn took over the space station, killed everyone aboard, then brought in their whole attack fleet. In my time, Kylarn drones—the tentacled fighters you met aboard the space station-swarmed over the cities and continents of Earth. They cut thousands of people to pieces with their laser shredders trying to shock us into surrender.
    “They had already diverted two small asteroids, which came in on a collision course with Earth, and because nobody was doing any sky surveys, we weren’t keeping an eye out for approaching asteroids. Those giant chunks of rock were upon us before we could do anything. One struck the Gulf of Mexico, and tidal waves swamped the coastal cities. The second asteroid hit China—I never heard an estimate of how many millions of people were killed there.
    “When the Kylarn swept in, all the nations of the world tried to fight back, but we were caught by surprise. Somehow, the Kylarn learned to communicate with humans—if only to provide instructions to slaves. The Kylarn queen commanded that we surrender, but we kept fighting. There were pockets of resistance everywhere.
    “Even so, what could we do? With laser shredders, the aliens mowed down all resistance. They rounded us up, put us in camps. My whole family was killed.” He paused, took a breath and fell silent. JJ could see a sheen of tears in his eyes. “My father, my wife, my two daughters—all dead. The Kylarn didn’t care. I stayed alive somehow in one of their prison camps. The aliens set cities on fire, drove people out who were starving. They had no medicine, no food, no shelter. More people died from the side effects than from the attacks themselves—diseases, untended injuries, exposure.
    “But I was saved because they considered me useful. I was assigned to maintain Kylarn machinery in various buildings. One building was off limits, though. They often took human prisoners there for experiments. According to the few survivors I met, the building held giant hospital wards and research chambers, where the Kylarn did horrible things—poisoning, dissecting, exposing captives to viruses. I learned everything I could about the Kylarn in hopes of helping those tortured humans, but it seemed impossible to escape from that nightmare!”
    “So that’s how you