by Fiona Roarke
“It’s just a theory. That’s what speculation means, a big fat guess. Gage also mentioned that the physiology of the different aliens might also have an impact on the data.”
“So you don’t really know?”
“Sure. Fine. We don’t really know. The ‘theory’ is that the faint wisp is hopefully with the invisible one.”
“That’s a big if,” Cam remarked. “The invisible wisp could be literally anywhere on this map or already out of Arkansas.”
“True, but doubtful. Besides, we can only operate and move forward with what we do know.” Diesel clicked the remote and a more magnified map appeared, the circles larger. “What we do know is that four out of five escaped gulag-bound criminals are lit up on this map. We are going after them and we’re leaving in five minutes. We have two large capacity vans ready to depart. We will take as many roads as possible to get nearer to the marked areas, but the last two to five miles will be on foot depending which group you’re with. Does everyone know which group they’re with?”
Wyatt assessed the assembled group and realized for the first time that Valene was the only female in the room. She raised her hand. “I don’t know which group I’m with.”
Diesel nodded once at her. He then stood and walked over to Wyatt and Valene as they got up.
“Valene, I’d like you to stay behind in Alienn with Gage to help him in his lab. He’s got a few more ideas of how to track the escapees once our time limit runs out.”
“Why does it have to be me?” She glanced at Wyatt, her expression pained as if, like him, she wanted to spend every spare minute together.
“We have two panel vans with seating for fifteen each. With the two new additions to our team, there isn’t room. That’s why Gage is staying behind.”
Valene looked at Wyatt again then at the others as if doing a quick count. “There are only twenty-five—”
“Yes, and five prisoners to bring back. What if all five are found by one team? We can’t just strap them to the luggage rack and cover them with a tarp once we’ve shackled them.”
“But—”
“No buts. It’s not like we’re sending you off to sit by the phone and wait for us. Go help Gage. Besides, we’ll be in continual communication.”
“Fine.” She didn’t sound like she meant that, but her brother nodded.
Diesel left them when someone asked a question about the terrain.
Once he was out of hearing, Wyatt reached into his pocket and pulled the ring out. “Here.” He slid it onto her finger. “For today, while we’re parted, we can still be engaged, right?”
Valene looked up at him, eyes watering up. He thought he’d made a mistake until she threw her arms around him and kissed him hard on the mouth in front of the remaining folks in the room. “You are so right. I love you,” she whispered. Emotion warmed the center of his chest as she pulled away slowly. How could he ever let her go? How could he not follow her two galaxies away for a life together?
“Love you, too, Valene. I always will. No matter what.” He didn’t whisper. He said it loud enough for Diesel and several others who lingered in the meeting room to hear—although the kiss and the engagement ring might already have clued them in. Even so, no one made any disparaging remarks as they loaded into the vans for the trip north.
Valene sent Wyatt a woeful little finger wave as they pulled away from the Big Bang Truck Stop.
Wyatt quelled the urge to leap from the van, wiggling through the tiny window if necessary, so he could grab Valene up in a tight, bear hug and never let her go. Instead, he smiled, looking away from the most ardent temptation he’d ever known.
Flashes of memory from the night before with Valene tortured his mind for a few miles, but he quelled those thoughts and forced sports statistics into his head. Cam rode shotgun two rows ahead of his seat in the van.
Wyatt didn’t see any need to invite a butt-kicking from a justifiably angry older brother who might be privy to what had gone on between Wyatt and his little sister last night. He’d already been kicking himself since dawn’s early light for not being strong enough to resist her.
Then again, he didn’t have any true regrets where Valene was concerned and what few he did harbor didn’t last long. He’d come to a decision regarding their future.
Once they captured all of the escaped criminals, Wyatt would tell them all that he wanted to marry Valene even if they had to move two galaxies away to be together.
<^> <^> <^>
Valene watched the van with Wyatt pull away and thought about how unfair her life was in general. Then again, she would have been useless as a searcher of anything but her own feelings regarding a certain sheriff who made her heart go pitter-patter whenever he was nearby, especially when he was in scent range. He always smelled so amazingly good. Like starch, from his pressed uniform, mixed with the crisp scent of his soap and shampoo all comingled with his unique manly scent. Thinking about it made her cheeks heat up.
She shook off the memory and put her focus back on the task at hand. It was important to find the prisoners to maintain their secret here on Earth. Worse in her mind than even her horrid choice regarding a relationship with Wyatt was having the whole operation discovered, being unable to fix it easily and then being forced to move everyone back to Alpha-Prime overnight as a Defender bomb was lobbed toward three counties to erase as much of their alien existence from the minds of any humans left behind as possible. The doomsday scenario Alpha-Prime had recently introduced as a just in case setup was never far from her mind.
Gage tapped her on the shoulder, gave her an understanding smile and together they went back to his lab. He was working on another way to track the escaped aliens, using some sort of trajectory theory based on the other escapees and where they’d been found to possibly predict where the others might have gone.
Valene monitored the communications with the vans as Gage tapped away at his computer, occasionally mumbling to himself as he worked. Of all her brothers, Gage was definitely the science nerd of the bunch. He’d attended the prestigious XYZ Academy of Science and Medicine on Alpha-Prime for two years. The day he turned sixteen he’d been eligible to apply. He had his paperwork filled out a year before. It was a great honor to be chosen and Gage was the first colony student ever granted the opportunity to attend.
Of course, the family had to explain his absence to their human neighbors while he was gone. Their parents told anyone who asked, being as vague as possible, that he’d gone to help some elderly relatives far, far away. Then he’d come back two years later, having graduated and received a diploma from far, far away high school.
No one batted an eye, never guessing he’d been two galaxies away immersed and learning all manner of Alpha-alien science and medical things with a special emphasis on all things known and presumed regarding planet Earth and the earthlings residing there.
Their efforts to hide in plain sight in Arkansas had always been well-managed by each Fearless Leader in charge of the colony as well as the elder council, but trips back to Alpha-Prime, even for a lengthier time frame, seemed in Valene’s opinion easy to accomplish.
Diesel, as the current Fearless Leader, mentioned on occasion that it was not easy, but rather a big pain in the patootie, quoting a favorite saying of their wily aunt Dixie.
The radio crackled and Diesel’s voice came through. “Base Station, this is the NW group. We’ve gone as far as we can in the van. We’re about to head out on foot. Do you copy?”
“Roger that. We copy,” Valene said. She wanted Diesel to put Wyatt on the radio so she could hear his voice, but forced herself not to say those words.
“We’ll check in on the hour. Has the NE team checked in yet?”
“Negative. The NE group has not checked in, but they had further to drive.”
“Roger that. NW group out.”
“Copy. Base Station out.”
Valene pushed out a long sigh and put the radio transmitter with the gray push to talk button in the
center back in its holder.
“What are you going to do about Wyatt?” Gage asked from right behind her, startling her out of her melancholy and into an immediate poor attitude.
“What do you mean?” Her tone bordered on irritable.
“It is obvious you love each other, given the kiss I saw earlier in the conference room, the ring gracing your third finger right now and the fact he told everyone in hearing range that he loved you, too.”
She wiggled her finger and glanced down at the sparkly center diamond. “So?” She’d made it all the way up to a belligerent tenor.
Gage was unfazed by her insolence. “Are you going to marry him and leave Earth?”
Valene scowled. “I don’t know yet. Why do you ask?”
Gage shrugged. “I would miss you if you left.”
Deflated, Valene softened her tone. “I would miss you, too. But the deal breaker from my point of view is Wyatt leaving Arkansas forever and being unable to tell his big, wonderful family about where he’s going and that he’ll never return. He’d forever be a missing person.”
Gage nodded in understanding. “Right. That would be difficult.”
“I’ve never wanted him to make that choice. So instead of running away, eloping and spending our lives on the run looking over our shoulders every moment for a Royal Magistrate Guard to show up and shackle us, I expect after this prison escape fiasco, he’ll have a massive memory wipe. It will not only cover the prisoner escapee search, but also the entire year of our secret relationship. He won’t remember me, I’ll spend my life utterly alone and die a miserable old crone.”
Clearly ignoring the dramatic vision she expressed, Gage simply said, “Looked to me like he’d consider the alternative.”
“Doesn’t matter. How long before he’d miss his family and resent me for making him leave them? And worse, making them suffer the loss of never knowing what happened to him.”
“Maybe never. Maybe he’d just love you forever and never look back.”
Valene shook her head. “Still doesn’t matter. I don’t want to take that chance. I find it more and more difficult to ask him to give up everything when I don’t want to give up my family. At least I would still get to see you on occasion. And most of all, my family would know I was safe. Wyatt’s family would be in the dark forever. I believe that even I would resent me, given enough time.”
“You should still at least consider the glass half-full scenario, Valene.”
A loud beep interrupted the difficult conversation. Gage raced to his computer. He typed madly and made an inarticulate noise, like he’d discovered something interesting.
“What is it?” Valene asked, looking over his shoulder at the screen, which displayed charts and diagrams that made no sense to her.
“I ran a system check of the cryo-pods’ reboot history. Looks like one prisoner’s cryo-pod was opened much earlier than the others during the solar flares.”
“I’ll bet I can guess which one.”
Gage looked over his shoulder, a slight frown in place.
“Indigo Smith, right?”
He nodded. Turning to his keyboard, he tapped several keys, changing the screens into more graphs and pictures she didn’t understand.
“Then there was another cryo-tube accessed a few minutes later.”
“Someone else left early with him?”
“Not sure. It opened and closed. Then seventeen minutes after that a rear service hatch on the gulag ship was accessed, opened briefly and then closed.”
“I can’t believe no one knew about it until now.”
Gage typed and more screens appeared. “No one would have had reason to check these files if not for the solar flares opening up the cryo-pods and letting everyone escape. But you’re right, someone should have noted the hatch opening and closing. Unless—”
“Unless, what?”
“One of the guards was in on it.”
“Better prove that before you make any accusations.”
“Oh, I will. Don’t worry.”
Valene pondered a moment. “You’re saying that Indigo Smith already had an escape plan in place that no one would have known about until they got to the gulag, if the solar flares hadn’t released everyone.”
“Yes. That’s my theory.”
“How long was he gone before the other cryo-pods opened because of the solar flares?”
“Twenty-eight hours.”
Valene thought about what she’d been doing twenty-eight hours ago when Indigo Smith had made his secret getaway. She’d been crying her eyes out alone in her room because Wyatt asked her to marry him two weeks before and she’d had to say no, again. The event crushed her spirit completely even two weeks later. She was darn near inconsolable.
“I hate to think about how long he’s really been on the run and how far he’s been able to travel without anyone knowing he was gone.”
He likely wasn’t anywhere near the other four prisoners they’d located. They would be unable to track him using the special signature Gage had discovered. Too much time had gone by. Indigo Smith could be anywhere. Maybe even out of the country. That was a horrible thought.
“That’s bad.” Valene didn’t mean to say the words out loud, but they were the truth.
Gage nodded. “That’s an understatement. A twenty-eight-hour head start is really bad, bordering on catastrophic. Alpha-Prime is going to go into full battle mode.”
“What does that mean? Alpha-Prime hasn’t been at war in centuries.”
“They’ll dust off the antique battalion war craft and send every spaceship and every single Royal Magistrate Guardsman past and present to Earth through the wormhole, sparing no excessive cost in order to get here as fast as possible to hunt him down in every corner of Earth.”
“We definitely shouldn’t mention it to them just yet.”
“Good plan. Besides, Diesel is Fearless Leader. We’ll tell him first and not over an open channel to everyone. He can decide what to do when he gets back. He can make the call to Alpha-Prime if it’s warranted.” Gage thought for a moment. “But maybe you should call him and get him on a private line, give him some advance warning.”
Valene shook her head. “You call him.” She hated to give anyone bad news. And this was, as Gage had said, catastrophic.
Before they could battle it out over whether she would have to make that call or he would, Nova ran into Gage’s lab. “Gage. Valene.” She put a hand to her chest, trying to catch her breath.
“What’s wrong?”
“Two things. One good and one bad, as always.”
“What’s the good thing?” Gage asked. Valene agreed; she wanted to hear some good news.
“The other van just pulled into the parking lot out back. Bubba and Luther have three prisoners with them, so only two remain out there.”
“Great news.”
“Okay, what’s the bad news?” Valene asked.
“There is someone here to see Diesel.”
“Who is it?” Valene asked, not wanting to hear the answer if Nova thought it was bad.
“Daphne Charlene Dumont.”
Valene rolled her eyes. Now what?
Gage said, “Tell her he’s not here, return time unknown.”
Nova looked unsure. Gage insisted, “It’s the truth. We don’t know when Diesel and his group are coming back.”
“Tell her to get lost,” Valene said at the same time, her belligerent tone safely in place.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Nova’s uncertainty had morphed to alarm.
“Why? What does she want?”
Nova took a deep breath. “She wouldn’t say even when I purposely asked her a second time.” But Nova had a look in her eye that said something was definitely amiss.
“And?”
Nova put the hand from her chest onto one hip. “Well, I may have accidentally read her mind just a little bit and realized what she’s here to tell Diesel. Or at least one thing. There may be more. I don’
t know. I can tell you she is big trouble.”
Space potatoes, that woman. “And what did you see that was on her mind?”
“Well, it involves Sheriff Wyatt Campbell and something he apparently told her.” Her eyes were wide with unease. She looked at Gage, who was already totally distressed about Indigo Smith being out in the human world for more than a day longer than they’d realized.
Valene wondered when Daphne Charlene had the time to tell Wyatt anything. They’d been together all last night, since they’d picked Wyatt up at his house during their first foray into the woods, not that she planned to announce that to anyone else. They had also been together until he left to go look for the prisoners today.
“What is it?”
“I don’t even want to say it out loud.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” Gage said.
Nova already knew about Valene’s relationship with Wyatt. After all, she’d helped Valene send some paperwork to HETA requesting special dispensation to marry Wyatt and move to Nocturne Falls, Georgia. Nova gave her a heated look that possibly meant she didn’t want to say anything in front of Gage.
Valene turned to Gage, but he already had a plan. “Let’s do this. You go upstairs and deal with Daphne Charlene for the time being, do your best to get rid of her and I’ll call Diesel.”
“What are you going to tell him? You don’t know what Daphne Charlene is here to say.”
“I’m going to tell him the good news about the other three prisoners being captured and the bad news about the star package being out for a much longer delivery than we had originally anticipated—”
“Oh, yeah. That,” Valene said under her breath as Gage spoke. A single mention of her nemesis and her brain emptied of everything else.
“—and mention he has a visitor. That’s all.”
“Good plan.”
Valene and Nova headed back upstairs. Before they reached the top step, Valene asked, “What did Wyatt tell Daphne Charlene that I don’t want anyone to hear?”
“I don’t know if I should tell you. Maybe I should just wait for Diesel to come back and talk to her.”