by Susan Grant
“I am attracted to you.” He slipped her glasses back on.
Heat rolled through her. Before she could stop herself, her eyes lifted to his lovely, space cowboy mouth, and she was hit with a sudden urgency to throw off her glasses, shake out her hair, and tear off Evie’s sweats with seam-popping abandon.
She moved her chair backward with a sharp scrape. Took a breath. “So. What’s your plan to thwart the invasion. Brief me, spaceman.”
Nodding, he settled back in his seat. “Plan A. Here on Earth, at Groom Lake in Nevada, there is an inert Coalition spacecraft in storage. I must gain access to it.”
“You mean the Roswell saucer.”
“Yes. It’s an old scout, an antique, but I’m familiar with the model. I can gain access to the scout’s shipboard AI. I have the codes.” He tapped his head. “Here. Powering up a spacecraft generates a single signal that our fleet’s sensors can detect. But if I take that signal and multiply it by a hundred, I can make it appear as if Earth possesses its own space fleet. The Coalition will postpone their landing.”
She leaned forward. “If we fool them into thinking Earth has a space fleet they’ll go away. They won’t attack us?”
“Correct. The signals won’t look Drakken. And not quite Coalition, either. They’ll turn back. On Sakka—our capital world—Earth’s phantom fleet will sow confusion. Our prime minister doesn’t trust his military advisors, and the queen chooses to isolate herself. It will slow down the response time—long enough for us to launch Plan B.” He exhaled and folded his arms over his chest. “Which is still in development.”
Oh, God.
“That’s where you and the rest of the Terrans will come in, your best and brightest—we will develop a Plan B. But Plan A is simple and it will work. However, I must access the scout ship to do it. There is no other way.”
She absorbed his serious expression then frowned. He wanted her to get him inside the most guarded and secret military base there was so he could hot-wire a spacecraft everyone said wasn’t there. “That’s Area 51. Dreamland. It’s where they test top secret aircraft. You’d need a special clearance to get on base. Top secret, minimum.”
“The ship is there. You must take me to your leader, Jana. I will explain everything. Who I am, what my goal is. How we will accomplish it.”
“They won’t believe you. You look too human.”
“I am human. We’re all humans. Same origin, different planets. A simple DNA test will confirm I was not born on Earth.”
“That’s a problem too.” He’d be outed as an alien and apprehended by the CIA, FBI, DHS, NASA—any of the agencies. The thought fired up every protective instinct she had. He’d be taken away by the government to be experimented on.
She’d never see him again.
And Earth might still be in the path of an alien invasion.
Unless she got ahead of the story.
She rubbed her forehead. “You make it sound so simple— ‘Take me to your leader’—but it’s more complicated than you think. You want to get to Area 51 and hack into a spaceship the government denies is there. You want to use said spaceship to transmit false signals to an invading alien fleet that the government also knows nothing about.” She pressed two fingers to her temple and prayed her headache didn’t turn into a migraine. She’d never had a migraine, but if she were to start, now would be the time. “Convincing people to believe us is our biggest roadblock. No one has ever admitted to the Roswell incident as being anything more than an urban legend. A rumor. It’s never been proven there’s life anywhere else but here. Some people think there is, but many more don’t. The nonbelievers will probably laugh at you—at us—and the believers will probably want to kill you because they think extraterrestrials are coming to take over, which is exactly what you plan to tell them.”
“I’ll allay their fears about me.”
“Not everyone will be scared. Some will be greedy. You’re valuable for your secrets, for the implants you carry in your body. The technology. Whatever country gets you would have a huge strategic advantage over everyone else. Make the wrong people nervous or whet their appetite for knowledge or power, and you could disappear, for good, all for the sake of science and world supremacy.”
He looked grim. “Permanent disappearance. This seems to be the theme of my life lately.”
She’d been through that once already, losing him, and she hadn’t liked it. “I won’t let you disappear.” Big words, but in reality, could she make that promise? Sharing his secret would require finesse and caution.
And there wasn’t a lot of time.
Jana’s mind churned as she drove Cavin drive back to the ranch, past the gated driveway, turning onto a seldom used gravel access road which snaked through oak-studded grazing land before entering the woods.
“Stop here,” he said.
Somewhere, hidden in the trees was an invisible spaceship. A fucking spaceship. As the engine idled, she gripped the wheel as if it were the only anchor to the real world, where normalcy reigned. Or at least where it had reigned before yesterday.
Cavin reached for his holstered space-gun. “Take my firearm with you.”
“I can’t bring that to work!”
“Who will protect you today?”
“Me, myself, and I, thank you very much.”
His chin went down so he could look in her eyes. “I would rather it was me.”
“I’ll be careful, I promise,” she said, gentler. “I can be fairly intimidating when threatened. Believe it or not.”
“I believe it.” He peered over his shoulder, as if fully expecting to see monsters lurking in the shadows. Or a REEF.
But in that moment her fellow planet-mates worried her more. “Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t summon cars. Stay in, stay low. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Had he any idea how hard it was to leave him? She’d buy him new clothes later, and a burner phone so they could communicate when they were apart.
“I assure you, I will work on repairs all day. I’m not taking any chances, not with my life or yours. I have one goal while here, to save your world. My death would complicate things tremendously.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “How can you make a joke about dying?”
“It helps keep me sane, Jana.”
“Sanity has suddenly become quite the commodity around here.”
“In more ways than you know.” His fingertip traced her hairline from her cheekbone down to her jaw. His tender touch sent tingles spinning down her spine.
Then he let himself out of the truck.
As she rolled forward, she checked the rearview mirror. Cavin stood in the road, watching her go. An achy, full feeling swelled inside her chest. She was no stranger to the sensation. It hit her when she saw Evie holding her first baby, and sometimes when she’d find Grandpa gently tending to his vegetables and he didn’t know she was watching; she felt it when Mama would purposely say something to fluster Dad, and he’d push his glasses up his nose and give her that goofy, lovesick smile. But she’d never felt anything like it with someone outside the family. Definitely never with a guy, a romantic interest.
Until now.
“You won’t feel this way once you fall in love for real,” Evie had informed her.
Her sister was wrong.
It is real, Evie.
It always had been. Cavin had changed her forever, and she’d changed him. Now they were back together. Joining forces to save Planet Earth.
Jana accelerated onto the highway. But as fast as she drove, she couldn’t shake the now-familiar sensation of being sucked out to sea as it gathered its force and strength. A tsunami was coming and the best she could hope for was that she’d have time to make it to higher ground before it hit.
Wearing sky-high heels—thanks to Cavin’s miracle cure—and a powder-blue suit, Jana sneaked into the capitol via a side entrance. Steve’s warning about a throng of reporters at the main doors had helped save her morning. They were
hungry for scandal.
Oh, there would soon be plenty of juicy news—if Cavin’s warning bore fruit. Just not what they’d envisioned.
Nona and Steve greeted her in the office. It was her routine to receive a quick briefing from Nona, her chief of staff, while Steve sat in.
Jana hung up her suit jacket in the coat closet, trying to pretend her life wasn’t unfolding in bizarre ways.
“You look like you got about as much sleep as I did,” Steve said.
“It was barely a nap.” She marched into her office, fell into her desk chair, and logged into her computer. She had to verify Cavin’s claims somehow, and plot a course forward.
Where to begin? UFOs, she typed.
UNUSUAL LIGHTS REPORTED OFF CALIFORNIA COAST
In the pre-dawn hours yesterday, numerous fishing boats and commercial aircraft reported seeing bright lights streaking across the sky hundreds of miles from the northern California coastline. “Falling space debris burning up in the atmosphere was the likely cause,” government spokesman said. “Space junk is a routine occurrence and presents no danger to the public.”
She scooted her chair closer and pushed on her glasses. Space junk, or confirmation of part of Cavin’s story: evidence of an alien dogfight taking place miles above Earth’s surface?
Her gut told her the answer.
She buried her head in her hands.
Nona and Steve peeked in. “You need coffee,” said Steve.
A carafe of coffee waited in the office along with the usual box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, Steve’s addiction. Nona poured three coffees, each precisely to the same level, adding cream to Jana’s and cream and sugar to Steve’s.
Nona took hers black, which fit her personality to a tee. She was short, trim, with a no-nonsense silver bob. She wore absolutely no makeup; she bit her nails to the quick and had the most stunning turquoise jewelry Jana had ever seen. Everyone knew Nona was the best chief of staff out there, and she’d still be someone else’s if she hadn’t made the blunder of having an affair with her previous boss’s sister, which didn’t fit with his “family values”.
When the news had come through the grapevine she’d quit, Jana hired her on the spot.
Jana sipped coffee as Steve briefed. “We’ve got seven requests for interviews. I expect more as the day goes on. All with regards to the campaign-funds scandal.”
“The campaign-funds lies,” Jana muttered, ignoring the muffled buzzing of her cell from where she’d left it buried in her purse.
“Divert them all, or do you want to take any?”
“What do you say, Nona?”
“Divert them all for now. A low profile is your best defense right now.”
A low profile, eh? Jana thought of Cavin and chose a frosted doughnut. “Steve, write up a benign, general statement and send it out. We’ll keep it low-key, act like we’ve got nothing to hide, especially with our social media presence, and maybe everyone else will take the hint and do the same.” She bit into the doughnut. Sweetness exploded in her mouth. “Oh, my God, so good.”
Nona sat down with her coffee. “Since when do you eat doughnuts?”
Jana stopped to think. “I guess since now. I don’t think I’ve had a doughnut since . . . I was nine.” Since Cavin had crashed back into her life. She tore off another sugary piece and popped it in her mouth. Her eyes slid half-closed with pleasure.
Nona was scrolling through her tablet. “You heard what happened at Safeway?” She slid her tablet in front of Jana.
Car Sliced in Half. Local Police Asking for Help in Hunting Down Suspects in Bizarre Crime.
Jana crammed the last of the donut in her mouth. It went down like a rock.
“They think there may have been an electromagnetic pulse. All the car batteries are dead. I wonder if it had something to do with those lights in the sky. Like some sort of astral burst.”
Jana choked down a coffee chaser.
“You sure you’re okay?” Steve asked. “You’re not coming down with something are you? I’ve got some Vitamin C in my desk.”
What she needed was a pint of Phish Food ice cream, a bottle of vodka, and a nice long coma. “Nah. I’m fine. I was just thinking of that car. Thank goodness no one was badly hurt.”
With every ounce of professionalism that she’d either developed along the way or had bred into her, she glued her focus on Nona and Steve as they worked on crisis management. Just yesterday, her father’s troubles had seemed like the end of the world. Now, Cavin’s news that an invasion was in the works confirmed it.
A few minutes before ten, Jana waited for an elevator to take her down to the Eureka Room, a dining area under the historic side of the capitol where she and the first lady were hosting the breakfast reception for the 4H troop. Jana squeezed into the elevator. It was crammed full of a desk chair and nine other people, assorted staff, lobbyists and legislators, all suit-to-suit and stepping on each other’s shiny shoes while Lucky, a plump woman in her sixties, sat in an inconveniently placed, padded chair knitting a sweater.
She greeted Jana with a big smile. “Floor number one, sweet pea?”
“No, it’s the basement today, Lucky. Thank you.” Jana got the usual amused glances and a couple of raised eyebrows from the others. It was rare Lucky called anyone anything at all, let alone “sweet pea.” But since the day Jana had showed up as the youngest senator, Lucky had treated her like a daughter.
As the elevator descended, Jana asked, “How’s the family?”
She lifted the partially knitted little sweater. “I got a new great-grandkid on the way.”
“Aw. That’s wonderful!” Jana smiled. “Congratulations.” Her phone vibrated in her hand, dragging her eyes to the screen.
It was Evie.
The elevator stopped on floor two. People shuffled on and off.
Jana took the call. The doors closed and the elevator started down to the first floor. “Evie, give me a minute, I’m in the elevator—”
“My pet sitter called. She says she found a shoe in the kitchen. Four-inch heel. I know it’s not mine.”
The shoe. Jana had been so dazed last night that she’d carried it inside without realizing it. Who knew what had happened to the other one? It was lying in a parking lot next to two halves of an SUV.
Thank God nothing else had been left behind at Evie’s place. Like an extraterrestrial.
Jana leaned on the elevator wall for support. “The heel broke, and I forgot to take home with me. It was too foggy to drive all the way downtown last night, so I hung out for a while. Sadie appreciated the company.”
“I can’t believe what happened at Safeway—the explosions. Everyone’s car batteries are dead, the whole parking lot. They’ve been towing cars all day.”
“Yeah. I heard. They think it was an EMP.”
“Yes. Ellen says the lightning bolts in the War of the Worlds movie were really an electromagnetic pulses. It knocked out car starters, computers, interrupted everything.” Evie laughed. “But we don’t have aliens in Roseville.”
Normal face.
“The pet sitter says the internet is out. I tried my porch pirate camera, but I can’t see anything. There’s some weird busy signal. The neighbors lost power, but only my next-door neighbors.”
A wisp of unease coiled through Jana. Jaspers Bring Alien Menace To The Suburbs.
“Not only that, all the street lights are out. The whole block. You were at the house. Did everything seem okay?”
“Fine. Everything was normal.” Jana tried to recall if she’d noticed the street lights. “We didn’t use the WiFi but the TV worked.”
A beat of silence. “We?”
“I had a friend with me.”
“Are you seeing someone? Give it up. The goods. Who is he?”
The elevator finally reached the basement level. With a finger stuck in one ear and the phone pressed to her other, Jana hurried down the hallway toward the Eureka Room. “If I told you, you’d never believe me.”
; “Try me.”
Jana stopped outside the Eureka Room’s closed doors and a sign that said Reserved: Private Function. “Remember my imaginary friend from when we were kids?”
“Peter Pan! The one you said you were going to marry. Omigod, how adorable was that? You were the cutest little kid.”
“Well, it’s him.”
At first there was silence on the other end. “He’s not real, Jana.”
“That’s what I used to think too.”
There was some rustling on the line then Evie’s muffled voice telling one of her kids, “In a minute. Aunt Jana’s not feeling well.” Then the rustling stopped. “Sweetie, are you okay? Jana? Do we need to talk?”
“I’m joking. I’ve known him for a long time. He’s just a friend.” That wasn’t a complete lie, was it? “He’s so nice maybe he just seems imaginary sometimes.”
Giggles erupted behind her. Jana turned around slowly. The doors to the Eureka Room were wide-open. At least a dozen little girls with gap-toothed grins were staring up at her as their troop leaders observed her with tentative smiles.
“I’ll call you later,” Jana whispered and hung up. Then turned around and flashed a blinding, politician’s smile. “Why, hello, girls! Welcome to our State Capitol. I’m Senator Jana Jasper, and I’m honored to meet you.” She thrust out her arm and made sure she shook everyone’s hand. “We’re going to have fun this morning, right?”
“Right,” they chorused.
“I can’t wait to see the projects you made to call attention to the important issue of protecting our California wildlife. But first, how many of you have or have had imaginary friends?”
A few shy hands rose up.
“Is that all?”
A few more hands went up.
The first lady, her security detail, and her personal assistant, Keri, walked up to the group. Mary Ann glanced curiously from the girls and their raised hands to Jana. “We’re talking about imaginary friends, Mrs. Goodman. I had one. Did you?”
“No, but my daughter did for years.” The woman appeared amused by the question.