by Susan Grant
“When’s Dad due home?”
“He didn’t say.” Even a careful application of makeup couldn’t hide her mother’s puffy lids.
“Mama, were you crying?”
She waved her hand airily. “For a few indulgent moments, only. I have decided, no more crying. What good does it do? My relatives in Moscow have connections to the Russian Mafia.”
“What?”
“Yes, it is true.”
“It is? We have family in the Russian Mafia?”
Her eyes sparked blue fire. “Nyet, Janushka! It is what they are saying on the news. And that your father’s campaign contributions are from Delta Development,” Mama added, quieter.
Her brother Jared’s business, D-squared, was a real estate development consulting firm specializing in winning public and private funding for projects across the entire central valley of California. It was easy to see the potential ugliness in the charge that Jared’s business was secretly securing the support of a congressman who could influence legislation to benefit D-squared’s clients. A congressman who happened to be his father.
“Come on.” Jana groaned. “They have to know Jared wouldn’t be that stupid.”
“I’m glad someone thinks so.” Looking handsome yet adorably rumpled in an open-collared button-down and loosened necktie, Jared strode through the double doors, shoving them behind him. In one smooth athletic move, he slouched into a leather recliner and steepled his hands in front of his nose—a sure sign of worry.
He was a Jasper—there was no getting around that, but he was so undercover about it that few people realized he was one of the Jaspers. Remaining above suspicion was almost an obsession with him. He’d never wanted favoritism to influence decisions that could affect his business. Jared was also a fighter pilot in the National Guard. Their middle sister Evie ran a small party business. Neither of her siblings had ever come within a whiff of scandal.
Jared’s shoulders looked tight. “They’re saying I contributed under a fictitious name. Donation laundering to hide the source.”
“A bullshit charge!” Grandpa yelled. He’d gone red, white, and blue: face red, hair white, eyes blue. He was truly enraged, which didn’t happen very often.
“Your pressure,” Mama warned him.
He waved her away.
“We can all agree these charges are blatantly false,” Jana reasoned. “We’ve either got an overzealous action group looking for publicity, or it’s a direct attack, someone who wants us to look bad. Dad’s running against Gilbert Proctor. He’s not known for playing fair. We talked about being ready for a dirty campaign.”
“Or someone else wants us to look bad.” Jared glanced at Jana, his frown partially hidden behind his steepled fingers. “Like that asshole, Mr. Billboard. What if it’s him?”
“I don’t think it’s Brace’s doing. He’s cooled off. He actually texted me a quasi-apology a few weeks ago.”
Jared’s brows lifted. There was nothing “quasi” about his distaste of Brace. Jared had been so protective over her during the billboard phase that she had to beg him to not go after Brace and make things worse.
“He was out to bring me down, not the family,” she said.
“We’re a single entity to most people,” Jared argued.
Grandpa growled. “It doesn’t matter who’s behind it. Don’t you see? Even after the kitchen is clean, this stink is going to stick around like rotten eggs.” Gripping the handles of the wheelchair, he hung his head.
Poor Grandpa, all his hopes and dreams pinned on his family’s political future—especially hers. Kneeling, Jana rested her hand on his leg. “It’s a long time between now and November, plenty of time to throw open all the windows and air out this stink. You’ll see.”
He grabbed her upper arm. “Steer clear of your activism in the meantime.”
And just like that they were back to the debate they were having at breakfast before the subject switched to her social life. To him, her passion for improving conservation protections equaled activism. She sighed silently.
“Toe the line,” he continued. “Don’t ruffle feathers, trying to divert budget money into unpopular projects. You hear me, girl?”
“I love you, Grandpa. But sometimes we will disagree.”
“Sometimes we will. But not until this blows over.”
Jana set her jaw. He wanted her to be middle-of-the-road, safe in her policies. Centrist. Her reputation as the “good girl” of politics was well established. As a Jasper, she was conscious of honoring her family legacy, always striving to be the kind of public servant her family hoped she’d be, while remaining true to the one she aspired to be. It was a balancing act. “I’m no radical. I simply speak up for those who can’t.”
“I know you do, and you do it well. But tone it down for now.” Grandpa wagged a finger at her. “Don’t get people riled up. Keep a low profile until this blows over.”
She squelched her itch to argue. Now wasn’t the time to debate with her political mentor, to rock the boat, to be yet another source of stress for the family. The problem child. “All right. You have my word. The middle road will be my middle name, Grandpa. I’ll be perfect.”
“Perfect?” Jared let out a disbelieving laugh. “Don’t set these kinds of examples of extreme behavior, or our parents are going to expect me to be the same.”
“We’d never expect that from you, Jared,” Mama said dryly.
As Jared stared at his mother, who despite her angst had cracked a grin, Jana assured her grandfather, “I’ll stay out of the headlines.”
And off any billboards. With her political image still recovering from that debacle, maybe staying under the radar was a good idea. The last thing she needed was more publicity, especially the wrong kind, if she was going to keep opinion on the Jasper side.
After dinner with her family, Jana departed for her apartment downtown. She always had her bedroom at the ranch, but her inbox was overflowing with unanswered messages and voicemails. She had a pile of paperwork to get through before the next day too—not to mention preparing for her breakfast with the first lady and a 4H troop where she’d judge their Protect California’s Wildlife poster contest.
Jana looked forward to the busy night. It would keep her mind from chewing on things she couldn’t help or change.
Fog was starting to form as she motored past Evie’s neighborhood to the highway. Roseville: a paragon of suburbia. The thought of taking refuge for the night in her sister’s noisy, loving home almost made Jana swoon, but Evie wasn’t home. She was in Disneyland on vacation with her kids, Jana’s niece and nephew. They were missing all this, but Evie always did have a killer sense of timing.
Jana rolled into the parking lot of the supermarket near Evie’s. Ice cream—must have ice cream. Must have Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food ice cream, to be exact. It was like a drug: chocolate ice cream with gooey marshmallow, a thick caramel swirl, and fudge fish. Not only would it give her a necessary chocolate fix, but she’d also be able to wreak symbolic vengeance on the sturgeon, one little candy fish at a time.
Jana killed the truck’s engine. She opened the door and let the night air rush in. The fog would thicken before long, but for now, the moon was visible. Big, creamy, and yellow-white, it peeked over the roof of the supermarket. How long had it been since she’d stopped to gaze at the moon? Too long. It brought back memories of another time, another Jana.
A Jana that no longer existed.
She’d grown up, and she’d learned how to fit in and not cause concern. How to be normal. But what had she given up in return? What had she lost?
Magic.
Yanking her suit jacket around her, she took off across the parking lot. It was a night to be wearing jeans and a sweater, not the wrinkled, water-stained butter-yellow suit that had seemed so appropriate for a ribbon cutting on a sunny morning.
High heels clicking on the linoleum tiles, she aimed for the frozen food aisle for the ice cream. She should probably pick up some almond
milk while she was here. At home, she was all out. She snagged a couple of ripe bananas. Okay, tortilla chips too. Now she’d have to backtrack for salsa. Her arms were filling up with impulse purchases. Time to check out before she needed a cart.
Back outside, bags hanging from one hand, she paused to admire the rising moon. Muted, golden light bathed the asphalt and cars.
There’s definitely magic in the air tonight.
“Stop it, Jana,” she muttered. The last thing she needed was to trigger another hallucination. She set out across the parking lot.
The armored man from the fish farm stood under the light pole next to her truck. He spotted her and waved.
She skidded to a stop, her heart nearly launching out of her chest. Cavin.
How did he know where to find her? For all she knew, the little boy from the stars she’d likened to Pater Pan had grown up to be someone dangerous—or something dangerous. He could have grown up into anything. Like a body snatcher—or just a stalker. “You followed me.”
“My hope was to speak with you at your ranch. But you departed too quickly.”
“You were at the ranch?”
“My ship is there—my spacecraft. It is hidden at the far edge of your property.”
A spaceship. She felt woozy. In her mind, the headlines roared: Jaspers Summon Aliens For Secret Meetings. Public Trust Erodes Further.
“Jana, please do not be alarmed. I mean you no harm.”
“Maybe not me personally, but what about Earth? You said we’re in danger.” Her voice trailed off as a couple walked past and gave her a strange look. Her! Shouldn’t they have stared at him? Or hadn’t they seen him?
His voice dropped lower. “A fleet will soon be on the way here. We must talk and decide on a plan. I can help you keep your world. I know how.”
Keep their world? Holy fuck.
The air exploded into blinding white light. He swung her off her feet as something whizzed by her jaw. One bag of groceries went flying. He dragged her backward, shielding her body with his own.
Silver dots littered the ground. Mercury? No, the drops were cooling off too fast, solidifying into molten metal. The trail led to a black Suburban. Though the front of the SUV and rear looked normal, a glowing, smoking line ran down its center. With a horrible creak, the two halves of the car collapsed outward and smashed to the pavement.
What kind of weapon cut through a car like a hot knife through butter?
A shadow glided between the rows of parked cars, the silhouette of a person, moving as swiftly and gracefully as a moray eel. She tried to struggle free. “Keep your head down,” Cavin hissed.
“What’s going on?”
“A REEF has found me. It all makes sense now. I thought I destroyed his ship, but he survived the battle somehow.”
“What the hell is a REEF?”
“They’re bioengineered super soldiers programmed to kill.” He pulled a gun from his belt. “Unfortunately, this one is programmed to kill me.”
Chapter Four
Another burst of light ripped apart the pavement, only inches from where they crouched. Clods of now-gooey asphalt flew into the air. The bitter smell burned Jana’s nose and eyes. Cavin twisted around and returned fire. People screamed from farther away.
He hauled her to her feet, and then they were running.
The heel of her left pump broke off. “Piece of shit.” She hopped along and pulled off both shoes, dropping one. Pebbles stung her feet. Most of her hair had spilled out of the chignon; her two cloisonné picks were nowhere to be seen.
They made it to her truck. Another ball of lightning ripped past them. She let out a startled yelp. The air smelled as if it was on fire. She aimed her key fob at the door. Nothing happened. Was the car battery dead? Really? Icy panic plunged into her stomach, her palms slick.
Before she could try the manual key, the locks popped open on their own. Cavin threw open Beast’s passenger door and shoved her inside. “I will drive,” he said. “I can best outmaneuver the REEF.”
The interior was completely dark. The battery was dead! He slid behind the wheel and thrust his left arm at the ignition. Around his wrist was a very expensive-looking piece of tech. A jacked-up version of the cuff he’d worn as a boy, it wrapped around his lower forearm. To her amazement, the truck lights came on and the engine started.
She was pretty sure that ruled out Cavin being a foreign agent—or even a domestic one. No country had that kind of tech. Alien for the win. “I hope you aren’t planning to abduct me. I have to work in the morning.” She couldn’t believe she was joking about this.
“Never would I force you from your home and family. I have come to Earth to do the opposite.”
That works. She’d rather take her chances with Cavin anyway, than in the parking lot with the REEF on the loose.
He pulled his gold sunglasses over his face. “Hang on,” he said, and they shot out of the parking space, weaving through cars as if they were standing still.
The cars were standing still. Theirs was the only vehicle moving.
Another burst of light arced terrifyingly close. Cavin jammed his boot on the accelerator. With a squeal of tires, they roared out of the parking lot.
She shook from fear—of getting hurt or killed. Fleetingly, she wondered how quickly this would reach social media. Jasper Involved In Firefight With Aliens—Was It Staged To Deflect Scrutiny From Corruption Investigation?
She buckled her seatbelt then laughed, a little maniacally, that she’d even bothered. She was fleeing a cyborg assassin with an alien commando at the wheel.
Cavin jerked the wheel to the right, speeding down a side street lined with neat rows of upscale homes.
A man walking his dog barely cleared the street as they flew by. “Slow down!” She braced her hands on the dash. “It’s a neighborhood. We’ll hit someone.”
He tapped his glasses. “I can see data that you cannot. You will be safe. So will they.”
She kept her eyes on him. It was somewhat less frightening than looking outside. “At least tell me who you are—who you really are.”
“Cavin Caydinn. Prime-Major, Coalition Space Force. I am what you would know as a Marine. We defend a federation of thousands of planets, dancing on the razor’s edge of losing a war to the Drakken Empire.” His fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “If the Empire were to learn of Earth, it would bring mass destruction, millions of casualties. Any Terran fourteen of your solar cycles or higher would be conscripted into the Empire’s military.”
She thought of her niece and nephew, Ellen and John, forced to serve in an alien army, and felt sick.
“But fortunately my government found Earth first. In your year 1947, a scout ship crashed near Roswell, New Mexico.”
“Whoa. That was real?”
Cavin steered hard to the left, tires skidding on the damp roadway. It threw her sideways. “Yes. We are continually expanding our territory. We need the resources, the people.” His jaw flexed, and he threw her a sideways glance. “It has been determined that we need Earth.”
She bristled. “Earth is not yours to take.”
“That is why I am here, Jana. I made a vow to protect you and your world. I will do everything in my power to see it through. But I will need your help.”
She wasn’t sure she could help anyone, let alone her entire planet, seeing that surviving the next half mile was very much in question.
The truck roared out of the subdivision, leaving a trail of bedroom and porch lights coming on behind them. As they merged onto the freeway, the visibility became so poor that she could see no more than a couple cars ahead. They were driving fast—too fast. Fleeing what they could see, and what they couldn’t. Was the assassin still on their tail? “The REEF is a super soldier, you said. Like a cyborg?”
“In a way. As children, they train as REEF-cadets until progressive bioengineered alterations transform their minds, their bodies. REEFs are efficient, obedient, clever. Ruthless, reliable. Very near
ly a perfect weapon.”
“But they’re people.”
“Born as people, yes. It is a voluntary program. It’s great honor to be chosen, a true sacrifice for the survival of our people.”
The idea didn’t still well. There was something terribly sad about turning a person with a heart and a soul into an emotionless weapon. She peered over her shoulder. “This one’s not so perfect. I think we lost him.” She wasn’t sure why she thought of the REEF as a him. The brief glimpse in the parking lot of the shadowlike form had left her with that impression.
“We did not.” Cavin thrust the wrist cuff at her. A tiny map showed a red X. It slid with menace toward a white square.
“Tell me we’re not the square,” she said.
“I wish I could, but I cannot lie to you.” Shadows fell across his face, illuminating the urgency there. Other cars traveled slowly, cautiously, but Cavin accelerated past sixty on the way to seventy. Then eighty. Beast’s engine roared, the cabin shaking. She lifted her bare foot off a phantom gas pedal. “You can see right? We really are going too fast for the conditions.” Congressman’s Daughter Causes Fifty Car Pileup In Attempt To Deflect News Cycle.
He tapped on his glasses. “Fog, darkness, no problem.”
No problem? His speech sounded less stiff and more colloquial as time passed. Now he’d started incorporating slang. It was as if he were adapting somehow. “How did you get so fluent in English?”
“I studied your language until I achieved near fluency. I have a knack for codes, for dialects, but I also have several bioengineered features throughout my body. All Marines do. One is a brain implant that enhances memory.”
“Say something in your language.”
He spoke a few words that reminded her of her mother’s Russian. “My language is called the Queen’s Tongue.”
It seemed very Star Wars to actually have a queen of the galaxy. “What’s she like, your queen?”
“I have never met her in person.” Her politician’s ear caught his hesitation. He’d paused to craft his response. “Most would consider Her Majesty quite beautiful.”