When Freda woke the next morning to make her coffee, she turned on the television and listened to the emergency broadcasts. There had been lights in the sky the night before making sleep hard to come by. To her utter shock, the TV announcer informed the public that another species of aliens had countered the cyborgs and driven them from the solar system.

“This new species of aliens are called Draxos. They say that they come in peace and only wish to protect us from the cyborgs. All indications point to their honesty, but we at the White House are taking every precaution in this matter. It seems that the cyborg threat has been neutralized. We will keep you up-to-date on the diplomatic talks with the Draxos. We urge you all to go back to your normal lives and routines. As much as we can, as we mourn the many who were lost.”

“What happened?” Lottie said, walking out of her bedroom with a blanket around her shoulders.

“Another species of alien has driven the cyborgs from our solar system.” Freda informed her.

“That's good news, right?”

“I don't know. It could be a trick. Maybe they're working together,” Freda mused.

“Maybe they really are here to save us,” Lottie said, flopping down on the couch.

That would be better, Freda thought. She went to the kitchen and poured herself a cup of black coffee and took a long sip, savoring the rush of caffeine to her brain. It would help her think in this chaotic situation. Alien saviors or not, she still had to keep her sister safe. The White House was urging everyone to return to their normal routines, but Freda intended to stay at the cabin until she had a better sense of what these Draxos aliens wanted from humanity.

She brought Lottie a cup of coffee and they watched the news for most of the morning. Several hours later, Freda called the park again and was able to make reservations in the cabin where they were staying. At least things had settled down a little bit and she could pay for the time they stayed there. As much as she wanted to get back to her dissertation, protecting Lottie was her first priority.

After watching newsfeeds of talking heads discussing the implications of extraterrestrial life in the galaxy, Freda decided to drive into town to the grocery store. Having fresh food would go a long way toward making their stay at the cabin more comfortable. She left Lottie with strict instructions to stay inside and started down the road to town. When she got to the store, she found it was free of looters and still running like a normal business. She bought her supplies quickly and headed back home. With a fully stocked kitchen and pantry and a weeklong reservation at the cabin, Freda was feel slightly less agitated when she carried the bags into the cabin. Before she could set the bags down in the kitchen, Lottie greeted her at the door.

“What is it?” Freda asked, seeing the excitement in Lottie’s face.

“The dragons say that the Draxos found recessive dragon genes in our gene pool,” Lottie said.

“Dragon genes?” Freda said, passing her and moving into the kitchen.

“There was a big update on the identity of the Draxos while you were gone.” Lottie said. “Apparently, they are dragon shifters who are seven feet tall, extremely good looking from the pictures that I saw, and are in a desperate need of females.”

“Uh hu,” Freda said, unpacking the bags into the refrigerator. “Why do they need females?”

“The cyborgs unleashed a virus on the Draxos that wiped out fifty percent of their females five hundred years ago and caused them to have less and less female births each year. Now fewer than five percent of their population is female.”

“That's sad,” Freda said sarcastically. “They’ll probably go extinct soon.”

“They're protecting our planet from the cyborgs,” Lottie spat out.

“You believe that?” Freda asked.

“Everyone believes it,” Lottie said. “Even the president. He gave an address, not fifteen minutes ago, informing us about the dragons.”

“So, what do the dragons intend to do now?” Freda asked, folding up the paper bags and storing them in a drawer.

“The Draxos think humans might somehow be compatible with them,” Lottie said.

“Compatible? That's ridiculous,” Freda said before thinking.

It was possible that they could somehow be genetically compatible and produce viable young. But she couldn't imagine how. The scientific history of the human race was fairly well understood and there was no evidence of any genetic link to an alien dragon species anywhere that she had ever heard of.

“Wouldn't it be weird if we could have dragon babies?” Lottie said.

“I guess weird is the best way to describe that idea,” Freda said.

At least Lottie was feeling better and that did Freda's heart good. It was hard for her to see her sister so distressed. These new dragon shifters were a good distraction. After the destruction of the most populated cities on the planet, she knew eventually she would have to remind Lottie that their parents were probably gone.

She couldn't bring herself to do it yet though. She knew her sister was sensitive and it would crush her. Freda suspected Lottie must know at the back of her mind, but Lottie hadn't said or asked anything about it. So, Freda hadn't brought it up. It was like a pact of silence between them. Neither one of them wanted to say the words first, but eventually it would have to come out and the floodgates of sorrow and other bitter emotions would be opened.

Freda made fried chicken for dinner with baked potatoes and they had a feast on the patio overlooking the lake. For the next week, Freda and Lottie spent most of their time cooking and eating, watching emergency broadcasts of commentary on the Draxos, or fishing in the cool waters of the lake.

The latest announcement from the alien diplomacy committee was that the Draxos were interested in implementing a genetic breeding program with the females of Earth who had the rare recessive dragonoid gene. It all sounded a little sketchy and weird to Freda. She had no interest in adding her genetic material to the database of candidates for their breeding program. Even if the Draxos were offering compensation in the form of technology, worth hundreds of billions of dollars to the human race. The governments of the world had already offered to establish a bride fund to give one million dollars to any girl who was found to be a match to the Draxos.

What she’d come to understand was that the Draxos had one fated mate, and it could only be determined if the male was in battle and went into a hyper aggressive form they called a thrall. When Freda heard about that, she just shook her head and frowned. This whole alien invasion was taking her precious time away from her dissertation. All she wanted was to get back home.