"Thank goodness for vibrators! Greg is soooo dumped. I'm not even sure he knows what a G-spot is."

Alice felt her face flush crimson at Tara's loud proclamation. Her sister changed boyfriends like she changed her underwear. Her life seemed to be a constant revolving door of men and parties.

"Gee, Tara, a little louder, I'm sure the other side of town didn't quite hear you," Alice growled in a low voice.

"Oh, lighten up. If anyone needs to get laid it's you." The volume of Tara's voice had not decreased in the slightest. Alice's younger sister enjoyed every sort of attention, good or bad. She was often the cause of much distress for Alice, who did not enjoy being the centre of attention. Tara showed no hint of embarrassment as patrons of the cafe turned their heads, not that they needed to strain to hear her loud voice.

Alice noticed a few smirks and ignored the stares. She glared at her sister's perfect curly honey blond hair and clear blue eyes. Tara never had any trouble attracting the opposite sex. Men were drawn to her like moths to a flame.

Alice, on the other hand, felt herself plainer than the colour beige. Her eyes were more grey than blue and there was a scattering of freckles across her nose. Her long mousy brown hair was pulled back from her face in a braid that reached to her ample size fourteen waist and she stood only five foot four. Short and plump were the kindest words she had ever heard about her height and weight; she tried not to think of all the crueler words she had often heard whispered behind her back. Words that stung and wounded, making her feel less worthy than she really was. But Alice was better at so many other things than her beauty queen sister. Even though Tara had all the beauty in her genetic gene pool, it was more often than not that Alice was grateful she had the brains.

"I'm not going to see you for the next month and all you can do is embarrass me in public?" An exasperated sigh slipped out.

Tara just grinned at her. "Yeah, well, give you some fond memories to keep you going until you get home. When are you leaving again?"

"First thing tomorrow. The company has chartered a private jet for the expedition."

"Cool, private jet, all you need now is the handsome millionaire. Maybe I should become one of those airplane hostesses. I hear they catch all the beefcakes, not to mention joining the Mile High Club."

Alice rolled her eyes. "Is sex all you can think about?"

"Well, it's a hell of a lot more fun than staring at boring old rocks." Tara absently played with the end of a golden curl.

Alice was a geologist with Caxton, a global mining company that traded worldwide. They were always on the lookout for new locations to dig. A recent satellite survey of the remote northwest Australian desert had indicated there might be valuable minerals beneath the surface.

It was Alice's job as company geologist to go in and examine the surrounding terrain and rock from above and below the surface. She had worked for Caxton for five years and had travelled to many remote locations. She had yet to be wrong about whether a location was worth mining or not and had made the company a fortune, although they would refute that little fact if any claim Alice was responsible for their ongoing success ever surfaced.

Alice didn't care, she enjoyed the adventure of getting to travel and explore the world, which left little time for anything else--such as men or romance. She left that to her pretty homecoming queen sister.

It was her sister who had gotten her a date to the Debutante Ball, but it hadn't taken long for the boy to gravitate towards Tara. Alice had gone home alone. It was pretty much the same through university. She spent a lot of time with her head stuck in books. The only time a boy pretended to be interested in Alice was to ask questions about her sister. For Alice rocks were simply more interesting.

Tara loved to share her sexual exploits mostly because she knew it annoyed her. Alice shelled out several notes onto the table as she pushed to her feet. Tara didn't protest that she had paid the bill once again and followed her sister, as they made their way out of the cafe.

"Don't go getting into any trouble while I'm away, I can't rush back from this expedition as I'll be miles from anywhere," Alice warned, trying to be sisterly.

Tara just shrugged, cocking a half smile. "C'mon, since when do I stay out of trouble?"

Alice sucked in a deep breath in an effort to keep herself calm, before giving her sister a warm hug. She may not like a lot of things Tara did, but she loved her only sister.

"Bring me back one of those original boomerangs. I need some new decorations in my apartment."

"Sure." Alice gave her sister a smile.

A few days later Alice and a drill team of four men were camped just outside Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory of Australia. She snapped the laptop shut after finishing off the last of the reports to send to Caxton. She relaxed in her director's chair to gaze up at the glittering stars of the Milky Way. The other expedition members sat around a fire talking and laughing. She loved being out in these places, away from the hustle and bustle of the city. It was a shame she couldn't do this kind of thing more often. She inwardly sighed, her thoughts turning to wishes and dreams of someone to be able to share these stars with. Despite her full life of travelling around from place to place and working, she was lonely; loneliness she had become very adept at hiding.

"Hey there."

Her head snapped forward to look up at Steve, one of the drill team members, who held out a steaming cup of tea. She straightened, putting aside her laptop to take the hot beverage.

"Thanks." She smiled. She had worked with Steve for a few years. She liked the mild-mannered drill mechanic; he had always been nice to her. However, being very self-conscious about her weight, she had never had the nerve to ask him out even for coffee. Sadly, she had waited too long. Another woman had come along and snapped him up.

"There is no place like this on Earth," he said.

Alice glanced at Steve, who had followed her gaze towards the night sky.

"Got that right." She let her eyes drift upwards again. "I would love to see some of those gems up close," she said with a wistful sigh. She had seen a few meteor samples during her geology training. They had always fascinated her. "Maybe I'll get lucky and find a few meteors." She kept her gaze on the glittering stars.

He gave a deep chuckle. "Or a spaceship and a few aliens."

She laughed. "Yeah, NASA would love that."

As if on cue, a large bright shooting star suddenly pierced the atmosphere right above their heads.

"Wow, see that!" She shot to her feet as they both followed the bright blazing streak's path.

"Holy shit, it's heading this way," he gasped.

He was right. The shooting star didn't disintegrate in the atmosphere like other shooting stars, but pounded into the Earth several hundred meters from the campsite. The impact shook the ground.

Excitement bubbled up inside her. This was unreal! She couldn't believe her luck, a real meteor, something she could add to her collection of gems.

"I gotta see this!" She jumped up, snatching a camp torch before running towards the impact site. Breathless with excitement, and because she didn't run very often, it didn't take her long to reach the deep groove the meteor had carved into the earth on impact. She missed the edge, toppling into a seven-foot-wide hole, knocking the breath from her lungs.

"Alice!" She could hear Steve's voice. A bright light shone down on her. "You okay?"

She twisted to sit up. "Yeah," she gasped out. "I'm okay." She was more concerned about finding her new space treasure.

Recovering her torch, which had tumbled a few feet away, she spun around on her hands and knees in the dirt and searched the hole. The object was not hard to miss. It was the size and shape of a football and was glowing red, like the dying embers of a fire. Cautiously, she placed her open palm near the dirt feeling for any heat before setting it down and inching forward on her hands and knees. Alice leaned over the object. It certainly did not look like any meteor she had ever seen before; it was too smooth, too well shaped, it looked almost manmade. She frowned, realizing it could possibly just be space junk.

"Wow, a real meteor," someone said. Alice glanced up; the rest of the drill team had come to see what was going on obviously.

"I don't think it's a meteor," she informed the team with a frown.

"There could be atmospheric radiation or something," Steve warned.

But in that moment she didn't really care as her fingers slipped around the smooth oval object, lifting it to cradle it in her palms. She rocked back on her heels and carefully rose to her feet. It was cool and heavy like black marble.

She gasped--and so did some of the men--as the object suddenly began to glow a deep blue. She felt a soft vibration shudder through from the object into her hands and up her arms. From the corner of her eye, she saw the drill team take a step back from the crater. Okay, so it wasn't space junk, nor was it a meteor.

"What the hell is that thing?" Adam, the drill machine mechanic, voiced the question she was sure they were all silently asking.

A tingling sensation started to work its way up from her hands. Gasping, she tried to drop the object. Her hands were frozen in place. "Ahh, guys, I can't let go of it." Panic quickly replaced curiosity and excitement.

Steve, the oldest among the group, jumped down into the crater with Alice. He reached out to take the thing from her hands. A bolt of lightning shot out at Steve's hands, making him jump back. Steve cursed. "Adam, call for help, now!"

Alice groaned as the tingling went through into her chest and all over her body, right down into her stomach and shockingly into her pussy, curling her toes. Her breathing quickened, her heart thudding in her chest.

"Oh, my God," Alice groaned. She couldn't help her eyes from closing at the sensation vibrating through her.

"Alice!" She heard Steve's frantic voice, his hands shaking her.

The sensation was growing stronger all over her body until she felt encapsulated in it. She tried to scream but the sound lodged in her throat. The world spun at an incredible rate.

"Do something!" The shout faded as everything tilted to the black of nothingness.