by Valerie Parv
Garrett felt a smile ghost across his face at the sight of the reporter. Amelia Takei must have been roped in while other staff were cut off from the studio. She looked cool and composed as she introduced a report from the governor’s office. Garrett tapped the volume up.
Shana sat at a desk in an office he didn’t recognize – some kind of stately home, he thought. With her hands linked in front of her, she was the image of calm reassurance, no doubt by design. However, Garrett didn’t miss the slight tremor in her voice as she assured the people that everything possible was being done to deal with the crisis.
The words – bland, predictable, but needed – were hardly out of her mouth when the picture began to break up. Not his device, something at the studio. His blood chilled.
The screen filled with an image of a woman in uniform against a backdrop of military hardware. To a former serviceman like himself, there was no mistaking her air of command. She looked human, only not quite. Olive skin, dark hair pulled back, narrow eyes with huge, obsidian pupils challenging him through whatever device was broadcasting her image.
He wouldn’t like to cross this one, Garrett thought in the moment before she started speaking. In the field he’d met generals with her kind of look. Given their order to jump, the only possible answer was how high.
“I am Akia Zael, captain of the Kelek ship, Storm,” she stated. “You have just experienced a taste of what I can do to the weather on your world. I have acquired several secondary targets in case further demonstrations are required.”
The screen shifted to views of New York, London and Sydney from space. Garrett’s mouth dried. Sterilizing the planet wasn’t what he’d had in mind as a solution to humanity’s poor track record.
The captain came back on screen. “Among you are a group of aliens known as beacons. We have identified them and their location. If they are not surrendered to us by sunset as measured in the kingdom of Carramer, I will unleash more powerful geoengineering weapons on the first of the targets.
“The beacons are to assemble at the central point where the tsunami touched down. We will retrieve them. There is no need for panic. No harm will come to anyone as long as you cooperate.”
The screen blanked and a visibly rattled Amelia reappeared. “We apologize for the interruption to the governor’s broadcast. We’re still trying to identify the source of this hoax.”
She added more reassurances before cutting to outside broadcasts of the quake and tsunami damage, much of it seen from the air. They didn’t go back to Shana, Garrett noted, imagining the scramble going on at her temporary headquarters.
“Hoax, my ass,” he growled. He felt cold all over. He’d expected the Kelek to make demands, but not to set the survival of some of Earth’s biggest cities as the beacons’ price.
Chapter 8
“I can see them.” Elaine’s voice broke through to his alien hearing. “They must have turned off the dampening field to make the broadcast.”
He nodded. “I heard them, too. As we suspected, they’re in orbit on the moon’s far side. For all the good the knowledge does us now.”
Elaine sounded shaken. “Their captain sounds like she means business.”
“I’ve served with people like her,” Garrett agreed. “She isn’t the type to make empty threats.”
“Garrett, we can’t take the risk she’ll unleash more weather havoc.”
“Neither can we just give in to her.” That would give the Kelek another kind of power, perhaps worse than the gun she was holding to Earth’s head.
He heard Elaine answer a question from a voice he recognized as Timo Rooke’s. Under that, Garrett picked up the steady pulse of engines. “Where are you?”
“On our way to Atai.”
“I thought the airports were closed.”
“Not to Timo. We’re coming in the Global. He’s packed it full of supplies he thought might be useful.”
She’d chosen her partner well. Thinking of her condition, he asked, “Are you sure it’s a good idea to put yourself in harm’s way?”
“You’re already there,” she said as if that explained everything. “And the Kelek can find us wherever we are.”
Feeling his brows tighten, Garrett concentrated on their link. “We only have the captain’s word for that.”
“Do you doubt she’s telling the truth?”
“No,” he admitted. Akia Zael had spoken with the confidence of one who dealt in facts. “She must have an adept aboard who can lead her to us.” He snapped his fingers. “I knew the name was familiar. Ryn Zael was the soldier who threatened to blow up the energy project on Mount Ekin.”
“You think they’re related?”
Garrett glanced toward Guy. “Guy’s been picking up stray sensations. He mentioned a hunger for revenge.”
“From what I saw of her, Akia Zael could be his mother. Making this personal.”
“Did you see her, Elaine?” Guy asked.
“Unfortunately, yes. After she delivered her demands, I watched her aboard her ship throwing orders around like a machine. The blocking field went up again, but before that, I got the feeling something was driving her beyond wanting to get her hands on us.”
When she did, it wouldn’t be good for the beacons, Garrett knew. He shoved aside the mounting fear. They had more pressing worries. “Did you see any sign of Adam?”
“First thing I looked for when the field went down. Unless she has another way of keeping him from us, there’s no sign he’s aboard her ship.”
Garrett nodded, having run his own aural scan. “I got the same. We can be grateful for small mercies.” No need to spell out to Elaine that without Adam, Zael couldn’t coerce them into helping her. Not that it wouldn’t keep her from trying.
Remembering ESIN’s attempts to break him, Garrett felt an echo of the pain of being electrocuted in their cage. His burns had healed, but the shame of being helpless lingered, although he’d told them nothing. He didn’t know where – or even if – he’d find the courage to surrender to the Kelek if it came down to the wire. But they sure as hell weren’t getting Elaine as long as Garrett had breath to fight them. They weren’t at that point yet.
“I’m going to call Shana,” he told her. “Contact me when you touch down in Atai.” Even if she didn’t, their link would alert him. The adept on board the Kelek ship would be alerted as well, but that couldn’t be helped.
The governor came on the line almost immediately, although she had her hands full with the Kelek threat and the tsunami effects. In the background Garrett heard her staff triaging damage in a dozen locations, organizing rescues, dispatching repair teams.
He came straight to the point. “You know that broadcast was no hoax.”
“I know. You should also know I’m not giving in to these people’s demands.”
“You may have no choice.” His voice dropped. “There’s someone on board the Kelek ship who can track us no matter where we are.”
“Doesn’t change my decision. Terrorists are terrorists no matter how far they’ve traveled or what they threaten. And you’re still Carramer citizens, entitled to the same protection under our laws as any other human being.”
He refrained from pointing out that the beacons weren’t human, at least not fully. Shana’s readiness to protect them anyway made Garrett see how she’d earned Adam’s esteem. Her mother might be biased toward Carramer’s Indigenous people, but Shana saw her own cause as far more inclusive.
All the same, he couldn’t let her risk so much. “You’ve got to agree to Captain Zael’s demands.” He forced the words out.
She gave a humorless chuckle. “I’m the boss. I don’t have to do anything.”
“Shana—”
“Even if I hand you over, they could launch their weather weapons anyway. Captain Zael doesn’t strike me as the forgiving type.”
Garrett couldn’t argue. “There’s something else you need to know.” As he explained his belief that Akia Zael was the mother of the soldie
r he’d killed, his voice roughened with pain and guilt.
Shana was having none of it. “You did what you had to do at the time, and you saved a lot of lives. If she’s out for revenge, it’s useful to know, but all it does is convince me I’m right not to hand you over. If she has personal reasons for keeping her finger on the trigger, we’d likely lose you and Elaine for no gain.”
Garrett couldn’t see much gain in keeping them on Earth and exposing millions of people to so much danger. “If not for us, you wouldn’t be in this position.”
“Save the pity party for those with time to attend,” she snapped, the authority of office charging her voice. “I have other priorities.”
And he was in her way. He didn’t know if she’d intended to make him angry, but she’d succeeded. “One of them better be a plan for giving the Kelek what they want before they take this planet apart.”
“Not an option,” she dismissed, the subject clearly closed. “So you may as well convince Elaine she’s safer in Hawai’i.”
“I gather you know she’s already on her way here.”
Shana’s frustrated sigh blew down the phone. “I tried to talk Timo into staying put, but they’re both stubborn people.”
“We need to buy some time.”
He heard Shana break off and direct an order to one of her staff. When she came back, her voice sounded ragged. “Any suggestions?”
“I have an idea that might help.”
“You’re not thinking of doing anything heroic?” Suspicion sharpened her tone.
The thought had crossed his mind. Given the stakes, if Shana wouldn’t throw him to the wolves, he and Elaine might have to meet the pack head on, although the idea froze his blood. “There’s something I want to try first,” he said, “I need to get to my place in Reve but the cliff road’s impassable.”
“It has a lot of company. The seas are too high to reach you by boat.”
He’d thought of that, too. “Can you get a helicopter up here?”
As governor in a crisis, she had a lot of leeway and he could almost hear her thoughts churning in the silence between them. “Everything we have is tied up in rescue and relief operations,” she said at last. “But there may be one possibility.”
She didn’t enlighten him and he signed off, letting her get on with her job. Only a few hours of daylight remained before the Kelek deadline; whatever Shana had in mind, he hoped she’d act fast.
With nothing more he could do until he heard from Shana, Garrett focused his hearing on Adam. A man just didn’t vanish into thin air. There had to be some trace. Even before they’d known each other, Garrett had been able to home in on Adam’s … what? “Carrier wave” was as good a description as any. The other man had projected some signal amounting to I am here.
The signal had brought Garrett and Elaine to Carramer, and had kept them linked long enough to break through Adam’s initial refusal to believe their story. As a scientist, Adam hadn’t been any keener on discovering his alien blood than Garrett on hearing his first sounds from outer space. They’d convinced Adam in time to act against the first Kelek ship.
Now there was nothing.
An hour later, Garrett was still no closer to a solution when he heard a deep, throbbing resonance his trained flier’s mind instantly recognized.
A helicopter. The sound of hope.
*
“What will you do if the humans refuse to hand the beacons over to you?”
Secure in her position at the heart of her ship, Akia raked Kam with a savage glare. “What do you think?”
“Destroying them would cut us off from the homeworld for good.”
She flicked through screens on her command console, noting the readings with satisfaction. The power drain her first attack had caused was almost repaired. She’d have to be more cautious in her next foray, but saw no need to share this with Kam.
“The homeworld may be closed to us anyway. You said you can only read two beacons. We need all three to give us access to the flux and to Prana. Could the third beacon be dead?”
He looked thoughtful. “It’s possible. It’s also possible they have found a way to shield their presence from me.”
She felt her eyebrows lift. “From you? The most powerful adept Kelek has produced?”
“I’m not infallible,” he reminded her.
“And you’re also not fully in agreement with my plans.” She’d dropped her voice to keep the comment between them.
Kam nodded and answered in the same tone. “I’ve never pretended otherwise, but disagreement isn’t the same as disloyalty.”
“True,” she mused. “And I like that you speak your mind.” She knew – or thought she knew – that he would never betray her. Besides, what did he have to gain from giving her false information?
He’d made no secret of the fact that he didn’t believe the received wisdom of the Kelek being deliberately sent to a hostile world to die out. On Kelek, ancient history taught that a crisis on the homeworld had led the Prana to send colony ships to other worlds, in hopes some of their people would survive. The details of the crisis were lost in time, along with their ancestors’ reasons for choosing who was sent where.
“You don’t really believe our forefathers were meant to die out,” he murmured.
She glanced at the people around her, studiously working and trying not to look at their captain. Paying too much attention to what wasn’t their business could get you extra duty, as she’d demonstrated often enough. “Many of our people believe it, including most of this crew.”
She wasn’t afraid they might turn against her if she aired her own doubts. But there was no denying that the desire for revenge had fueled many technical advances on Kelek. Over far fewer generations than might have been expected, the hellish environment had been tamed, natural energy sources harnessed, and bigger and better ships built. Capping it all, the most formidable fighting force in the galaxy had been launched in a series of years-long expeditions to find the way back to the homeworld.
All motivated by the passion to settle a score with their ancestral parents.
Did Prana even exist anymore? The presence of the beacons suggested it did, but whether it was the same world her ancestors had left behind was uncertain.
Akia’s world was this ship and her crew. If she never again lived on a planet, she’d manage. The man at her side had a lot to do with her contentment but she wasn’t about to let him know; he had enough power over her already without giving him more. She wondered if he suspected. With his adept skills, she wouldn’t be surprised.
Closing the screens, she stood and stretched. “Nothing’s going to happen until their sunset. Even a captain has to eat.”
Falling into step behind her, he said, “Why did you give the humans so much time?”
She didn’t glance back, instead stiffening her posture to telegraph her annoyance. “This must be the day for questioning my orders.”
“Not questioning, trying to understand, captain.”
She resented the distance his use of her rank put between them. Maybe the distance was always there and she chose to ignore it. “Very well. Understand this: I don’t expect the humans to hand over the beacons.”
“Then why make the demand?”
Reaching a junction between two walkways, she turned left. At her approach, the door to the officers’ dining area opened. She headed to a selection of food steaming under thermal sensors. Nothing appealed but she chose a meat dish to keep her energy levels up.
As she sat down, Kam brought her a mug of jarma and one for himself, taking a seat opposite.
“Not eating?” she asked.
“I will, later.”
“You want to know why I demanded something I don’t expect the humans to deliver?”
He cupped his hands around the mug, as if drawing warmth from it. “If you choose to tell me.”
He was the only one she could tell and he knew it. She toyed with the meat, recycled from Nior knew what.
Normally such things didn’t bother her. Why now?
“I do want to find the beacons,” she rasped. “All three of them.”
“And you think the only way is to cause so much weather havoc, the humans will do anything to give you what you want.”
“Suffering is a great motivator,” she pointed out. “They will hand over the beacons. Eventually.”
“And you don’t really care how long it takes because you’re enjoying bringing them to heel.”
Ignoring the implied criticism, she let a smile slip out. “It’s a chance to experiment with a few new processes I’ve developed.”
He lowered the mug to the table. “You’ve been different since you had the implant.”
Kam had served with her while she was still with Gath, although the adept hadn’t revealed his feelings until she was free. “More like a man, you mean?”
“Perhaps.”
“I thought you liked what the implant does.”
He couldn’t deny it, she saw when he flushed.
“The surgeons warned me there could be … side effects,” she added.
He shot her a look of concern. “Nothing harmful to you?”
She swallowed another forkful of meat. “Would you care? Don’t answer that, it’s unfair. I know you care about me, Kam. You’ve shown your loyalty in too many ways.”
He inclined his head a fraction. “As an adept, it’s in my nature to care.”
About her specifically, she wanted to ask, barely remembering her resolve not to give too much of her power away. When would she be able to relax and accept what he offered? She wasn’t sure it was possible in her position. Maybe when they got to Prana, if they lived, and were able to find the homeworld. A lot of ifs.
“The implant can do more than provide pleasure,” she said. Gath had been right in one way, she could project her emotional state to others, not only to a partner. She’d only tried it once when a male had annoyed her at a party, refusing to accept that she had no interest in him. He’d been a minor member of Gath’s crew, and she’d considered reporting him to Gath, but decided to experiment instead. Within minutes of directing her anger toward him, the crewman had been writhing on the floor in agony. No-one had suspected her of using her implant to flood his brain with pleasure so intense, he’d died from the effects.