Free Colonization (Alien Invasion Book 3) by Sean Platt, Johnny B. Truant, Realm, Sands Page B

dazzling emerald green.
    “Hey,” said Trevor, watching it, trying to see it as the intelligent being they supposedly were. But he couldn’t get through the single syllable without swallowing, his hand subconsciously raised in surrender.
    Unbidden, he felt a thought forced into his mind. This was the way the Reptars “spoke,” such as they ever did. To Trevor, who’d felt it a few times before, the sensation was intrusive, like having a blade’s tip pressed not just to his neck, but through its meat.
    The thought came as a series of three bursting images, each lasting a fraction of a second but visible in full detail: a dark place with half walls wet with moisture, a man with black pits for eyes and a ring around his head like a halo, a woman (not Piper) draped in shadow who’d been bisected down the middle and yet remained alive. Trevor got a heavy sense of settling to accompany the blast of images, as if something enormous had sighed its weight upon him.
    Then the thing flicked its head away, trailing that guttural, rattling growl they all made while stalking their rounds. The creature was through with him, its cryptic message conveyed.
    The precinct’s courtyard drained, becoming just another building surrounded by milling humans. Christopher turned to Trevor.
    “What did it say?”
    Trevor shook his head, trying to clear it. He closed his eyes, inhaled, then let the breath escape.
    “No clue. I hate when they do that. I think I’d rather it bit me.”
    “Watch what you wish for, bro,” Christopher said.
    “You all,” bellowed Malcolm Jons in front of the doors, waving at the baffled-looking officers. “Get in here. You stay outside wobbling around like you just got your dicks kicked, you make us look like assholes. Except you, Garcia and Niles. You don’t look like you got your dicks kicked, but only because you don’t have ‘em.” His eyes lit on Trevor and Christopher, still near the small group’s back. He nodded to another officer to keep shooing the others inside and walked over.
    “What are you two doing here?” Jons asked Christopher with his fathoms-deep voice. “There wasn’t a general alarm.”
    “We heard it start to happen,” said Trevor. “Ran down to see what we could see.”
    “No offense, son,” Jons said, “but I don’t need any help. We’re still cops.”
    “There was one of those things on viceroy’s property.” Christopher nodded toward the departed Reptars.
    Jons’s large jaw worked, considering. “You’re Apex Guard. I suppose you should have been alerted anyway. They were, after all.” He nodded toward the absent peacekeepers.
    “Alerted to what?”
    “There was some sort of security breach. Looks like it was in the house itself.”
    “What kind of security breach?”
    “No idea. But we’re already on alert, and now there’s this blast of instructions to fan out and await further orders.”
    “Await further orders on what?”
    “Fuck if I know, Christopher! I’m just some gumshoe motherfucker who pretends to be in charge of keeping order around here. I’m sure they know exactly what they’re after, but we’re on a need-to-know basis.” The big cop affected a servile voice. “Yes, sir, tell us what to do, Mr. Alien Overlord!”
    “So what was all this? Why did they come to the precinct?” Christopher gestured at the courtyard. The situation had been quickly devolving before Jons flushed the Reptars — or until they’d been called back.
    “It’s a computer thing. The city backups are here.”
    “Here?” Trevor looked at Christopher. “I thought Raj kept that stuff up on the — ”
    “Our backups,” Jons clarified. “One of the downsides of the Astrals letting us get about our business is that we have our own brains and don’t always play it exactly as they would. But until they want to drop the act and wipe us out, then yes, we still have our own records. Surveillance plus a hard backup of the local network.”
    “They don’t have