Colliding Skies

by Debbie Zaken

  Taylor sipped his coffee, eyeing me nonchalantly over the plastic lid. A sick ache pressed my stomach while I read the words over and over again.

  A fleet of cloaked ships.

  My head bowed, I squeezed my eyes, trying to block out images from so many books and movies. But it was too late. The words ricocheted in my head.

  An alien invasion.

  Nothing else could explain the reason for that many ships.

  Does Ethan know? Does Dad?

  My chest contracted, squeezing my insides so hard I was afraid my lungs would implode. Underneath the table, I dug my fingernails into my palms, trying to regain self-control. Taylor was not going to see me lose it. I took a deep breath.

  “Okay, so they think there are more ships coming.” My voice was even despite the emotional earthquake crumbling my insides.

  “Sure looks that way, doesn’t it?”

  “But they weren’t able to detect the first spacecraft. How can they be so sure now?”

  He leaned forward, and met my gaze. “I spent the entire day yesterday going over those documents. Their ships work differently from our spacecraft. I think we couldn’t detect them before because we didn’t know what to look for. But now we do.”

  His explanation made perfect sense. Still, I didn’t acknowledge it. “Even if there are other ships coming, it still doesn’t prove anything. There could be a whole bunch of reasons why they haven’t told us yet.” That sounded reasonable, although it was really myself I was trying to convince.

  He clenched his jaw so tight, a muscle popped in his neck. “Jesus, Skye. Have you lost all sense of reason? They’re lying. What do you want them to do? Spray paint the word invasion on their Pillar of Knowledge?”

  “Maybe that’s what they’re afraid of. That we’ll see it as an attack and react rashly, like we did the last time. Think of the people rioting now? Can you imagine what they’d do? I’m sure they’re planning on telling us once things settle down.”

  He slapped his forehead. “Come on! Wake up and smell the goddam alien invasion. How many intergalactic diplomats do you think we need?”

  The thought of Ethan’s betrayal thrashed inside me. I swallowed hard. “They haven’t even determined if it’s a threat at all. At this point, my speculations are just as probable as yours.”

  Taylor scrubbed his face, cursing under his breath, and glared at me. “For such a smart girl, you really aren’t thinking clearly. You know better than the Pentagon? Than NASA? Well hell, let me call them and tell them. Because whatever your alien boyfriend told you must be the truth, because why the hell would he lie?”

  He lied. He used me. Oh God, please let there be another explanation.

  “Don’t yell at me, Taylor.” My voice strained with the effort of trying to keep the lump in my throat from cracking.

  My cell phone buzzed. I glanced at it and my heart jumped. Ethan. Under Taylor’s watchful gaze, I suppressed the urge to grab the phone and bombard Ethan with questions.

  He arched a curious eyebrow. “Aren’t you going to answer your college guy? Why don’t you ask him if he’s expecting company?”

  “Shut up.” An alien invasion should have been enough to terrify me. But what I felt wasn’t fear. It was utter devastation because, if it was all a cover-up, then nothing Ethan had ever said to me was true. I let the call go to voice mail.

  Taylor peered at me. “Maybe I’m getting through to you after all. Best not to clue him in on any of this yet. The less those aliens know the better.”

  “It still doesn’t prove Ethan is lying.” My defense sounded weak, even to me.

  “Maybe. But it raises suspicions, doesn’t it? I can see it in your eyes. You’re not so sure anymore.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Why crush my world again? He had Julia now.

  “Because I…” His forehead wrinkled. “Because I know you…better than you think. This isn’t you—all this lying and deceiving. He’s the one putting you up to it, isn’t he? Why do you think that is?”

  I couldn’t find my voice, the pain and anger chocking me. My phone started buzzing again. Another call from Ethan.

  Taylor glanced at the phone vibrating on the table, his face hardening. “Does he know about me? About us?”

  The buzzing of the phone, the sting of betrayal, and Taylor’s intense gaze became too much. “There is no us.” Partially because of him.

  He winced. For the first time that day, pain marred his face. An ache tugged at my already wounded heart.

  I let out a breath. “He knows everything that happened between us.” Taylor had no idea just how true that sentence was.

  “So he knew we were together when you met. Clearly a man of honor.”

  “I’m more to blame than he is.” I’m the one who pulled Ethan into my dreams. The one who drove Taylor away. “Maybe we didn’t mean to, but you and I both messed things up.”

  A small humorless smile crossed his lips. “True. If I could take some things back, I would. But would that really have changed anything, Skye?” His gaze fastened on mine.

  The pain in his eyes coiled knots in my chest. Tears blurred my vision. I shook my head. If Taylor hadn’t broken up with me, I would have still gone with Ethan “I’m sorry, Taylor.” I grabbed my backpack and got up. “Do me a favor and burn those papers when you get home. And stop snooping around your dad’s files. Federal prison could really hinder your chances of getting into Law School.”

  ***

  WAITING FOR THE moment to confront Ethan without falling to pieces in front of my parents was a test of resilience. The suspicions thrashed around my head all throughout dinner. Fortunately, my parents seemed to be too deep in thought to notice my inner turmoil. When I got up to go to my room, they looked too relieved to end the awkward silence that accompanied us during dinner to question why I was going to bed so early. But I still had to wait until way past midnight, when everyone was asleep, for Ethan to appear at my window.

  Now, sitting on the top step of the deck in the backyard with his arms around me, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to confront him. If Ethan’s betrayal was real, it would kill me before the looming alien invasion would. I pressed closer to him. Despite the magnetizing currents warming my skin, I felt cold.

  “You are trembling,” he murmured. “I flew you too fast. I am sorry. I guess twenty hours without seeing you is simply too long.”

  Unlike the night before, when I had floated to Ethan like a bubble, this time I rocketed up and over the yard with such speed, the wind whipped my hair in my face. I only wished that had caused my tremors. I said nothing and rested my cheek on his shoulder, the kink in my chest tightening like a chain.

  “I promise to be more careful.” He smiled and nuzzled my hair with his lips.

  The questions lingered on the tip of my tongue. I swallowed them, wanting to hold on to the soft pulses of his touch just a little bit longer. I forced a smiled. “You’re forgiven.”

  “Good. Because I have to leave soon, and I would hate to spend that precious time with you angry at me.”

  “But you just got here.” Accusation echoed in my voice. But he took a hold of my hand, as if he hadn’t noticed.

  “Skye, you got about three hours of sleep last night. I came because I had to see you, but there are only so many sleep-deprived nights you can take.”

  Sleep deprivation is rather a small concern compared to falling for an alien using me to plot an invasion.

  I slid my hand away from his and hugged my stomach. “I’m not a kid, Ethan. I’ll be fine.”

  He cocked his head and gave me a strange smile. “All right. But if you keep falling asleep on me every time we are on a date, I am going to start taking it personally.” His fingers entwined with mine again, and a forlorn look crossed his face. “All this sneaking around…It is a problem we have to wait for your parents to fall asleep.”

  “I don’t know. I like our little midnight rendezvous. It’s romantic.” In the moonlight, with Ethan’s eyes glo
wing like sapphires, the dark backyard had taken on an almost fairy-tale like appearance. Crickets chirped, owls hooted and a familiar smell of peppermint lingered in the air. It would have been perfect, if not for the fear gnawing my stomach.

  “Romantic it is, conventional it is not. But then nothing about us is.” Concern pinched his features. “Skye, I need you to do something unconventional tomorrow. I need you to come to the ship with me.”

  My eyes widened, my insides twisting into a knot. “To the ship? Why?” Eight hours ago, my inner geek would have done somersaults at the thought of visiting a real alien ship. But Taylor’s stolen documents had left the cold shadow of suspicion inside me.

  His brows furrowed. “I want Naomi and Abigail to meet you. I imagined you being much more excited about it than you appear to be.”

  “I mean, it’s just…” I rasped, my throat dry and gritty. “We’ve already met.”

  Ethan’s jaw flexed. “You are afraid.”

  Afraid? More like petrified. First, the secret intelligence documents and now a spontaneous invitation inside the Mother Ship? The same ship only people like the President and my dad had been inside of? Whose location was classified to the rest of us? My very own apocalyptic alien invasion movie played in my head. “No, it’s just…There are so many things I don’t know. So many things I don’t understand.”

  He nodded, the same shadow that had cut through me creeping over his face. “Skye, we Celeians may not be innately good with emotions, but you are practically shaking. Please, tell me what is bothering you.”

  I froze. A cold tremor pricked my spine. I had no choice but to confront him. “Ethan, have you ever lied to me?”

  He held my gaze, every muscle in his face tensing. “You are not the only one who is afraid. Sometimes, I am too. Afraid of the risk you take merely by being with me. Afraid that certain things about my kind will be too different, too alien for you.”

  I blinked hard, swallowing the tears chocking me. “You didn’t answer my question. Have you ever lied to me?” The words and the unshed tears left an acrid taste on my tongue.

  He let out a breath. “I want to protect you. Yes, there have been times when I have not told you certain things. But I have not lied. My feelings for you are very real.”

  I dropped my throbbing head and pressed my fingers to my temples. “That’s not how things work here on Earth. You can’t be with me and not be honest.”

  He lifted my chin, his knuckles grazing my cheek. “I do not want to hide things from you. I do not want to hide us. But I need a plan, which is why we have to be very careful.”

  I tilted my head away from his touch, but held his gaze. My breath heavy. “Why do you want me to go to the ship?”

  “I told Abigail about us today. That did not go so well. I need her to meet you.”

  My back tensed, leaning farther away from Ethan. “And why does she want to meet me in the ship?” There were plenty of other places we could meet.

  “She does not want to meet you. She is furious. That is why I need you to come with me.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t understand. She’s your sister. Why is she so angry?” I didn’t know if Celeian siblings were the same kind of kinship as Earthling siblings. But I’d found Abigail intimidating enough at the State Dinner. Ethan’s sister or not, the thought of meeting a very angry Abigail in a secretly located alien ship made my already tense stomach spasm.

  “She is my twin sister to be exact. Nonetheless, she is vehemently opposed to our relationship. She believes it will cause an uproar among Earthlings and jeopardize our mission.” A frown wrinkled the corner of his mouth. “If I am to convince the Magistrate that this kind of interspecies relationship is possible, I need Abigail’s support. She is probably the only one who can prevent them from transferring me.”

  At that, my eyebrow jerked up. “Transferring you?”

  “The Magistrate has complete civil, military, and tribunal power over every member of the crew on this mission. And though I have not necessarily broken any laws, they could claim that I have broken the mission’s code of conduct.”

  “Because of me.”

  “Because of us,” he corrected. “I told you, nothing like this has ever happened before. The Magistrate will have to intervene, whether I want them to or not, whether Abigail accepts us or not. I cannot risk them finding out about us by chance, so I am going to them before they come to me. But I need to gather supporters who can testify on my behalf and show them that no laws have been broken, no harm has been done, and that it may even create trust between our species.”

  “Whoa. You weren’t kidding when you said things between us were complicated.” I bit the inside of my cheek, realizing for the first time just how much my relationship with Ethan could affect the political climate surrounding the Celeians, for the good or the bad. “But I thought Naomi supported us. She helped convince my dad.”

  “Naomi was sympathetic to my plea, but that does not mean she agrees with any of this. She is concerned with your well-being—and rightly so. But if we convince her, some of the others will follow. The key, though, is Abigail. She holds great influence within the Magistrate.”

  “What happens if you can’t convince the Magistrate?”

  He pressed his lips into a thin line. “Then they will transfer me to another mission, in another universe. Or extradite me.”

  “Wait.” I grabbed his arm, seizing onto what he’d said. “Another mission? You mean another ship. So there are other Celeian ships traveling around.”

  His brows twisted in bewilderment. “Of course. Earth is not the only planet we explore.”

  “How many spaceships are out there?”

  “This mission is the largest, but at any given time, we could have a number of vessels traveling the galaxy and tens of nanosatellites making their way through the universe.”

  I dug my fingers in my forehead. “And they all utilize the same space bending technology, right? So they could pop up in one corner of the galaxy and disappear within seconds.”

  That would cause the sporadic gravitational perturbations described in the document.

  Confusion pinched his features. “Yes.”

  “Why do you have all those ships floating around?” The flood of questions I’d been holding back gushed out of my mouth.

  “Why do you have astronauts? Satellites in space? Why did you build the International Space Station or land on the moon? For the same reasons we do: exploration, research, knowledge.”

  Each breath burned as I prepared myself for the one question that had been searing my insides all day. “Ethan, are there other Celeian ships coming to Earth?”

  His gaze sharpened, while his fingers stroked the indentation on his chin. “That is what is bothering you. It is a consideration that depends on the success of our diplomatic mission. Earth is a big planet and your country is a world power, but only one in many. If we really want to help your civilization, we need a larger mission.”

  His eyes locked on mine. “I apologize for keeping things from you. But my only ulterior motives were wanting to be with you and keeping you safe. I trust you, Skye, and I want you to trust me. From now on, full disclosure on both sides. That includes any questions or doubts you may have.”

  I stared at the sparks resonating in Ethan’s eyes, while doubt waded through my head. Taylor’s documents, my parents’ concerns, my own fears… So much pressure, so many obstacles in this relationship. I had to decide. Did I want this? Did I trust Ethan enough to take a risk? On his face, I saw the answer reverberating in his eyes, mirrored in the curve of his smile. Yes, to all. The blaze of uncertainty consumed itself, welding a bond and a chain of trust between us. I shook my head. “You can’t get reassigned. I’ll speak to Abigail. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

  He cupped my face in his gentle hand and brought it close to his. “I have traveled eons through space and time to find you. I am not about to leave you now.” A smile crossed his lips. “Remember I told you the
re would be obstacles in our way? This is just another one of them. A bump in the road—a big bump, but one we can overcome.”

  I pressed my lips to his. “Good. Because I’m not giving you up.”

  I’D NEVER SEEN Mom this nervous about a dinner guest. But of course, this wasn’t ordinary company. Ethan was coming over for the first time. I’d convinced him the night before that if he didn’t start coming over during my parent’s scheduled visiting hours, it wouldn’t be long before they realized I was sneaking out.

  Ethan had warned me it might be too soon for this. The tension at home was still oppressive. But my seventy two hours of solitary confinement were up and my parents had grudgingly agreed. As I watched Mom bounce around the kitchen peeling, chopping and mixing, I was beginning to think he was right. She was in the midst of a cooking frenzy since I got home, whipping up nothing short of a feast for an average Thursday night. Only the somber look on her face made it clear that this occasion was anything but festive.

  “Mom, you know this is kind of pointless, right?” I finally said. “Ethan’s not going to eat any of this.”

  “Yes, Dad told me they’re all super organic vegans. But everything here is agriculturally sustainable, cruelty free, no harmful toxins, no artificial ingredients and no genetically modified organisms. Anymore organic and I’d grown it myself.”

  Dad’s comparison was probably not the most accurate, since the Celeians didn’t actually consume food. Still, by the very non-vegan products on the counter, it appeared Mom was a little confused about some of the key aspects of veganism.

  “Yeah. Okay, Mom. But see, chicken doesn’t really fit into the vegan diet very well. Neither does most of this stuff. Vegans don’t eat dairy or eggs, or any animal derived product for that matter.”

  Mom stopped chopping carrots. Tiny daggers shot from her eyes, almost as sharp as the kitchen knife still in her hand.

  I took a step back.

  “The chicken is for us. And so is dessert. Last time I checked, we’re not vegans.”

  The carrot sliced in two as she whacked her knife into it.