The Secret Base

Contents TITLE PAGE Copyright © Join Nathan's Newsletter Dedication PROLOGUE PART ONE: THE COMMUNITY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 INTERLUDE INTERLUDE INTERLUDE PART TWO: THE PLAN 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 INTERLUDE INTERLUDE INTERLUDE PART THREE: THE INVASION 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 EPILOGUE DARK INVASION - BRAND NEW FROM NATHAN HYSTAD Guide Contents Start of Content Copyright © 2023 Nathan Hystad 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 embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Cover art: J Caleb Design Edited by: Christen Hystad Edited by: Scarlett R Algee Proofed and Formatted by: BZ Hercules Keep up to date with his new releases by signing up for his Newsletter at www.nathanhystad.com And get Lights Over Cloud Lake for FREE! Nathan’s books are also available on Audible! For my readers… PROLOGUE July 5th, 1986, 12:27 P.M. Rural Montana Horace sat on the grass, the dampness of the field muddying his jeans. The fireworks had finished an hour earlier, and the cows were finally beginning to calm. Even after the break, Horace’s heart still pounded in his chest. He couldn’t take his eyes off the barn, but holding the shotgun next to him helped his nerves. So did the beer. Horace lifted the can, guzzling the warm lager. That monster had been eating his cattle. What kind of creature comes from a danged UFO to snatch his livelihood from under him? That made him think of the crashed vessel, and he gazed in that direction. It sat lifeless in the field, a soft wisp of smoke drifting from the surface. Horace rolled onto his good knee and climbed to his feet, using the gun like a crutch. It would be better tomorrow, he told himself, but even Horace didn’t believe his own lies. The ship was embedded in the dirt, the ground torn up for twenty yards behind. It smelled like burnt wires, and he touched it again, finding its hull cooler than before. He couldn’t see a door on it, and if it wasn’t for the thing trapped within his barn, Horace might have thought it was a meteor. He stepped closer and touched his ear to it. Nothing reverberated from within. A hatch slid open, and Horace tripped on his own weapon, falling flat on his seat. He froze when a figure emerged. He was a tall fellow with thin, long arms, wearing all black. A blue light shone where an eye should have been, but the face was obscured by fabric. Horace made the sign of the cross, despite not having visited a church in twenty years. He came out, stepping over Horace. “What are you?” Horace asked, and he looked away, surveying the farmland. Horace made his move. He rolled to the side, grabbing for his gun, and pulled the trigger. The being paused, glancing at the tear in his outfit. He fell to the ground harder than a sack of potatoes. Horace heard banging from the barn and scrambled away from the downed invader. What was he supposed to do? His chest rose and fell, indicating he was alive. “I’ll be damned. A blast from point range, and he lives,” Horace muttered. Should he call the police? The Billings hospital? He scratched his balding head and cursed himself for ever getting off the porch. Horace rushed to gather supplies. He rode the four-wheeler back with a trailer hitched to it, filled with rope. Horace tied the figure up, securing his arms behind him. The being grunted as Horace hefted him into the trailer, unceremoniously dumping him into the cart. There was only one place to put him until Horace was able to rid himself of the monster in the barn. He drove to the house. Horace squinted at the sky, to the bright stars and an almost full moon. Where had this stranger come from? It took all his remaining strength to bring the guy into his home, and he dragged the dead weight down the hall, plopping it on the guest bed. The room was already packed with junk: things he couldn’t bear to part with, for no reason other than a scarcity mindset inherited from his own pappy. “Let’s see what we’re dealing with,” Horace said, and grabbed a pair of scissors from the kitchen. He found a hole on the uniform’s chest and cut. The skin was pale, almost ghostly so, but Horace’s own pallor wasn’t much different. When he reached the mask, he paused. The pellets hadn’t struck the being in the face, so he focused on the damaged area. He wished he’d kept his rifle, rather than the shotgun. Horace had done this before in Korea. With a pair of tweezers, he dug the metal out, one piece at a time. The guy, because he was sure this was a male, started coming to, and Horace struggled with the last few pieces as he fought his bindings. “Let me finish,” Horace said. “I’m trying to help.” He assumed his words were lost in translation, but he spoke in a calm fashion, as he would to a heifer in distress. “We’ll patch you up, and maybe you can answer a few questions,” Horace whispered, dropping the last of the lead into a bowl on the bedside table. “I’m going to use alcohol, and it’ll hurt like a mother, but it’s for your own good. Then I’ll bandage you.” Talking it through eased some of Horace’s own anxiety. The figure stopped resisting, his breath shallow beneath the mask. What the