Chad Descoteaux [Descoteaux - The Inter-Terrestrial Trilogy

THE

INTER-TERRESTRIAL

TRILOGY

by Chad Descoteaux

Copyright 2019

(All characters are either fictional or used fictitiously.)

Special thanks to ANGELA DESCOTEAUX, for coming up with a better title than ALIEN BOY.

Also available on turtlerocketbooks.com

THE EXOSKELETON CHRONICLES

THE TATTLER

WORKING-CLASS SUPERHEROES

(and their sequels)

PROLOGUE

It wasnt until he looked out from a small window on this two-hundred seat space shuttle that thirteen-year-old Bloxnor felt the full impact of leaving his home planet behind. He looked down at the blue orb, the planet Neptune, as he hovered away from its enormous, walled cities and its three trillion inhabitants. He couldnt deny that he had butterflies in his stomach.

He was in a shuttle that was filled with a little over a hundred and fifty Neptunians, members of his own terrestrial race. They were green-skinned, purple bug-eyed beings. Men. Women. Children. Families who seemed very excited by the prospect that lay before them. But Bloxnor was angry. A lot had happened to him in the past year. He barely had time to adjust to his fathers death and a new school before his mother decided to whisk him away from everything he knew with promises of a better life and a personal growth experience.

Not that Bloxnor didnt have his problems on his home planet. He was shy, not that into sports and usually wanted to be left alone to read or play a flight simulator game on whatever digital hologram device he was fascinated by at the moment. His grades were good. His favorite subject was science, which he spent more time on at the expense of his other homework. He had very few problems in his old elementary school. Kids would leave him alone and he managed to make a few friends. But recently having to switch schools after a death in the family (and starting secondary schooling), Bloxnor found himself getting bullied by the larger, tougher members of the schools various athletic programs.

But Bloxnor was the type of kid who would mouth off when he was bulliedor push back if he was pushed. This resulted in him getting beat up, getting detention (depending on what the intervening teacher saw) and getting many notes home from the principals office. Bloxnor noticed all the books that his grandmother started to buy for her daughter, about raising and reaching out to a troubled youth. She thought that Bloxnors behavior was a reaction to anger over his fathers death. It wasnt. Bloxnor was convinced that, if his father was still alive, he would be the one signing the disciplinary notices he got from school. Bloxnor just hated bullies. Having a father wouldnt stop jerks that needed a punch in the face from pushing him aroundor him pushing back.

As the shuttle continued to move through space, Bloxnors mother, Tarooma, placed her hand on Bloxnors knee and spoke to him in a consoling tone that did little to ease the boys frustration.

I know you are going to miss all your friends, Blox, she said, affectionately using her sons nickname as he stared blankly out the shuttle window. But this is going to be a better life for both of us. Were going to be a part of something special.

Yeah, right, Bloxnor thought, coldly turning away from his mother and looking out the window again.

The something special his mother spoke of was a mammoth space station, about twice the size of Neptunes largest city, called Phase Six on which citizens of every planet and inhabited moon in our solar system (save for Earth) would (potentially) prove that they could live together in peace, setting a good example for the rest of the galaxy. At least that was the goal, the reason Phase Six existed. Bloxnor rolled his eyes at his mothers overly enthusiastic faith in what he secretly referred to as an interplanetary hippie commune.

Bloxnor was startled, grabbing the arms of his seat, when the shuttle rattled, picking up speed. It changed course slightly and started flying towards his planets largest moon, one of fourteen. Triton.

Triton was completely covered in desert and looked that way from space. It was inhabited by purple-skinned beings with one eye, most of which found any variation of the word cyclops, any reference to their monocular state, to be a racial slur. The space shuttle slowly descended onto a landing pad where many Tritons waited to board, holding luggage of their own. Some of them looked scared. Others were excitedly optimistic about the space adventures that lay ahead.

As the Tritons started to board the shuttle, Bloxnor noticed that his mother suddenly got uncomfortable. He knew why.

I cant believe they admitted membership on Phase Six to those one-eyed freaks, mumbled Tarooma, loud enough to be embarrassing, but not loud enough for any actual Tritons to hear her racist sentiments.

Blox noticed that the other Neptunians on this shuttle were quite inviting of these one-eyed passengers. Tarooma was not. She was very anxious, nervously tapping her fingers against the arm of her chair and mumbling something else that would have been offensive if she was heard by any Tritons.

The war between Neptune and the desert moon of Triton had been over for five years, but that was not nearly enough time for Tarooma to get over the loss of her husband, Blichnor. This skilled Neptunian soldier was also a devoted husband and loving father. And he had been killed in the conflict, now called the Neptunian Lunar War.

Tarooma had been posthumously awarded her husbands medal of honor, for he was the one who had assassinated Triton dictator Ghus Ral, freeing both the planet and the adjacent moon from his tyranny and ending the war. This was shortly before a powerful bomb detonated that took his life. Tarooma and her then-eight-year-old son had everything they could possibly need, for the Neptunian army paid the deceased soldiers family a large sum of money each calendar month.

But that was not enough for Tarooma. Everything on the planet reminded her of her beloved. Every time she got a check from the Army. Every time one of her husbands fellow soldiers offered their condolences and thanked her for her support. Every time she saw an advertisement where the Army was recruiting, it brought back the crippling pain of the day she found out that her husband was dead. And that pain got worse and became more frequent when Neptunian leaders signed a peace treaty with Triton. Tritons were coming to Neptune as refugees and living among them. She would see them at the marketplace, on the streets and at work. Tritons were integrated into her sons school and other community functions.

Someone might reason that a woman with such obvious prejudice against another sentient race does not belong in a group like Phase Six, whose goal is to promote interplanetary harmony. But, maybe somewhere deep down, Tarooma knows that she needs Phase Six. She knows it will be good for her son, despite what damage her own prejudice does to him in the meantime.

As the Tritons took their seats on the shuttle and the pilot was about to take off again, Tarooma leaned over and whispered into her sons ear.

Those Tritons are monsters. Never trust them, Bloxnor. Theyre the ones who took your daddy away from us.

CHAPTER ONE

ARRIVAL

Bloxnor had nodded off by the time the shuttle got to Phase Six, which was hovering in the midst of an asteroid field directly between the planets of Venus and Earth. This asteroid field, coupled with the cloaking device the space station employed, would successfully keep any astronomers or satellites from the primitive planet of Earth from becoming aware of its existence.

There was commotion on the shuttle when the passengers finally saw their destination off in the distance. The commotion itself did not wake Blox up. He mumbled a bit, wiping drool off his chin before nodding back to sleep.