sedona files 05 - falling angels

by Christine Pope

  Easy for him to say. I swallowed, trying to figure out the best way to ask the question. Oh, well, I’d just let him be condescending and make me feel like an idiot, and then maybe after he got that out of his system, he could give me an answer I’d understand.

  “About those powers,” I began. “I’m not saying I’m an expert or anything, but everything my parents have taught me so far has been about tapping into the power of the Earth, using the energies in Sedona to either reach out with or to turn inward to protect myself. How is that supposed to help me on another planet like Mars?”

  Raphael didn’t smirk the way I’d been expecting him to. Instead, he steepled his fingers under his chin, then narrowed his eyes as he appeared to consider my question. “All worlds have their particular energies. Those in Sedona are very powerful, which was why the Reptilians sought to exploit them. Even so, you can tap into the energy from any other world, even Mars. All you have to do is learn how to access it. When you work with the power of your home world, what do you do?”

  “I — ” It was hard for me to explain, just as I supposed it would be hard for someone with perfect pitch to explain how they knew to always hit the right note. “I guess I can just feel it. I go still and breathe it in, sort of.”

  I stopped there, expecting him to mock my vague reply. But he didn’t. Raphael nodded and said, “It is no different when you go to another world. You simply need to reach out and let the energy come to you. It is part of the harmony of the universe, and the force that gives us our advantage. You see, the Reptilians are always working against the natural order of things, and that is why they bring discord and destruction wherever they go. We can use their very natures against them.”

  Logan didn’t look too thrilled by that particular revelation. I couldn’t really blame him; it had to be hard to realize such toxic DNA was part of your genetic makeup. Not for the first time, I wondered how the Reptilians had managed to make someone so human-looking when Logan was actually anything but human. But, from what I’d heard, genetic manipulation was one of their strengths…and their obsessions. So was Logan one of their successes, or their failures?

  “And that’s why you want Kirsten and Callista here, isn’t it?” my father asked. “They’re of our race, and so can access those powers, but they’re of Earth as well, and will have an easier time accessing the energies of a world from their own system.”

  “Precisely,” Raphael replied, then directed his next words to my mother and me. “Deep within, you two are made of the same elements that make up your solar system. Martin and I have a great deal of training in these matters, and so of course we will be able to assist you, but our chances of success are much greater with you two on the team.”

  I wanted to be reassured by his confidence in me, especially since it was one of the last things I’d been expecting, but right then all I could do was hope his belief in my so-called powers wasn’t misplaced. After all, it was one thing to go through the exercises with my parents, sitting at one of Sedona’s vortexes and allowing myself to sense the way its energies ebbed and flowed, and how I could lace them through my fingers like ribbons of light if I wanted to. Taking those ribbons of energy and turning them into a weapon was something entirely different. I’d never done anything like that before. If I couldn’t manage the task, I would be risking the lives of everyone on our team.

  “What is the plan, exactly?” my mother asked then. From the way she’d been watching me, I knew she could tell how nervous I was. She’d asked the question because she knew the thing I hated the most was uncertainty. I’d rather hear the worst than have some nebulous fate hanging over me.

  “In a way, the Reptilians have made it easier for us by bringing the entire crew of the Mars mission together in one place,” Raphael said. “We will energy-jump into their base, and then — ”

  “‘Energy-jump’?” I asked.

  “Just the opposite of how we got up into this ship,” my father said gently.

  “Oh, like in Star Trek.” There was the franchise that wouldn’t die. Last I heard, they were in the middle of filming sequel number eighteen or something. But at least it meant I knew what a transporter was, even if Raphael called it something different.

  “It’s actually not like it at all, but we don’t have time to worry about the particulars now.” Raphael didn’t look terribly thrilled by the interruption, but seemed ready to forge ahead once he’d determined that my father and I weren’t going to contribute anything else to the conversation — at least for the moment. “At any rate, we should be able to catch them by surprise. And once we’re inside their base, the four of us will be able to deflect their attacks by using the planet’s energy as a shield. Then we will bring your astronauts back to their ship and get them headed home.”

  Well, that sounded simple enough…except for the fifty or so things I could think of that might go wrong, starting with “energy-jumping” right into the middle of a group of Reptilians and going from there. And what about the astronauts themselves? Did Raphael think they were just going to keep their mouths shut about the little assist they got from a bunch of strangers in gray jumpsuits? They’d certainly have to file a report about what had happened to them, how they’d been rescued.

  I asked as much, and Raphael responded, “They’ll have no recollection at all of seeing any of us.”

  His reply made me want to laugh. “Oh, so you’re going to use that old ‘Men in Black’ memory-wipe trick.”

  “It is not a trick,” he said, dark eyes glinting with disapproval. And yet, they held mine for a second or two longer than they should, and a little shiver went through me. No, I had to be imagining things. There was no way in the world that he could be looking at me like…well, like that.

  Luckily, my mother didn’t seem to have noticed. “Okay, leaving that aside for now, how are they going to explain away what we saw — what the world saw — on that news feed a few hours ago? And what about the little fact that the astronauts weren’t supposed to head back to Earth until six months from now? All of the data that’s been programmed into their guidance systems to get them home is going to be completely incorrect.”

  “What did you see, precisely?” Raphael returned calmly. “A dark blur rushing at the camera. A screen that went black. These phenomena are easy enough to explain away. Equipment malfunctions, the same reason why they aborted the mission and returned to Earth. As for plotting their return trip, any mission such as this has backup plans. Contingencies. They came home early because a malfunction bled away most of their oxygen supplies. Problem solved.”

  There had to be about a million ways to poke holes in his plan, but as I was not a mission specialist at NASA, I didn’t really know what any of those ways might be. Besides, the important thing was to get the astronauts out of there, wasn’t it? We could worry about explanations later. It would be pretty hard to point a finger at any of us, since the astronauts wouldn’t be able to remember who their rescuers were…or even what they were being rescued from. I had to assume they’d be given false memories to cover up the ones Raphael erased.

  All of us — Logan and my parents and I — shared troubled glances, but it didn’t seem as if anyone was inclined to argue with Raphael. Not even my mother. She was quiet, turning the platinum wedding band on her ring finger around and around, a nervous gesture she seemed to resort to whenever she wasn’t quite sure what to say.

  “Very well,” Raphael said then, once he seemed to realize no one was going to contradict him. “We’re now less than fifteen minutes out from Mars. Let us return to the viewing station.”

  We all followed him, obedient little ducklings trailing their momma, back to the room where we’d first appeared on the ship. Now the disk that filled the forward-facing window — view-screen, whatever — was sandy orange, not blue green, although it also had white caps at its poles.

  I stared at it, pulse beginning to speed up. Despite my mostly alien blood, I’d never thought I would ever set foot on an
other world. And, unlike some of the UFO hunters my family hung out with — or real astronomers like Paul Oliver and his son Michael — I was okay with that. I’d never been the type to wish for an existence other than my own.

  Well, now it looked as if I was going to get it, whether or not I wanted anything other than my humble terrestrial life. My mother’s eyes were wide with awe as Mars grew closer, my father almost eager, as if he’d just begun to realize he was coming back to the life that had been denied him a quarter-century earlier. Something about him appeared even taller and straighter, and I wondered if his powers had been restored during the time we were all in those outfitting bays. Raphael hadn’t mentioned anything, but….

  As for Logan — well, he was just the opposite. His jaw was set, mouth pressed into a line. Yes, he’d volunteered for this mission, but it looked like he wasn’t overly thrilled about confronting the beings who’d once been his masters, now that the time had come.

  Just when it appeared as if our ship was about to start falling right into the planet’s surface, we began to slip sideways, orbiting the ruddy-hued world. I couldn’t relax, though. Sure, Raphael had said the Reptilians wouldn’t be able to detect our presence. But if we were in orbit, that meant the time of reckoning was just about here. Once again I swallowed, forcing back my fear. I needed to take a cue from my father and Logan and stay cool.

  “I will bring us in as close to the base where the astronauts are being held as possible,” Raphael informed us. For the first time, I noticed that the opalescent jewel he’d worn beneath his robes now hung from the belt at his waist. His fingers hovered an inch or so away from it, but he wasn’t yet touching its surface.

  “What about the guards?” Logan asked.

  “We must be prepared to meet them,” Raphael replied. “I could bring us in farther away, but that would only provide more opportunities for the Reptilians to attack. This way, we will surprise them, and have more chance of performing a fast, surgical strike.”

  A pause, and then Logan nodded. His mouth was still set, but his eyes looked far away. Was he thinking of Grace in that moment?

  In direct contrast, my father appeared more focused than I’d ever seen him. Yes, he glanced from me to my mother, but I think that was more to confirm to himself exactly what was at stake here. He would do whatever he needed to in order to keep us safe.

  I could only hope I didn’t look as nervous as my mother. Not that I could blame her. However, I really wanted Raphael to think that I was on top of things and ready to go, and that a little interplanetary raid was all in a day’s work for me.

  Yeah, right. About the biggest challenge I’d faced so far in my life was choosing which dress to wear to prom. Or coming home after I’d gotten my degree instead of staying in Flagstaff and getting an apartment the way my cousin Grace had. Maybe that had been a stupid decision on my part. Maybe I would be feeling a lot more confident and secure in my abilities right now if I’d spent the last year living on my own, rather than in the guesthouse at my parents’ place. It was a little better than staying in the room that had been mine ever since I could remember, but in terms of striking out as an independent young adult…not so much.

  “Can you feel it?” Raphael asked then, his gaze shifting toward the reddish disk in the view-screen, then back to me.

  I didn’t have to ask what he meant. For a few seconds, I said nothing, only reached out with the part of my mind that I used to sense the energies back home, where I could feel them like warm currents through the still waters of a pond.

  And I did feel it. Different from the energy flows back in Sedona — dull copper rather than bright gold — but in that moment the power pulsing within the red planet was a tangible thing, one I could use to wrap around myself, or push outward if necessary. Sedona’s powers always made me feel strong, rejuvenated. Would I experience the same thing here, or would tapping into the energy of an alien world drain me, make it harder for me to fight?

  Pushing back my anxiety, I nodded. “Yes. It’s definitely there.”

  He glanced over at my mother. “You?”

  “Yes,” she replied at once. No hesitation at all. I’d never been able to tell for sure whether our powers were on a par, or whether mine were slightly stronger because I had more alien blood than she did. Right then, though, it seemed as if she was able to access those energies just as easily as I could.

  “Weapons?” Logan asked then. “I don’t have the same abilities as the rest of you.”

  There wasn’t a trace of accusation in his tone. He was just being factual. I didn’t know if I would have been as unruffled in the same situation.

  “Of course,” Raphael said, fingers moving over the surface of the jewel he wore. In that same instant, a belt with two silvery pistols appeared on Logan’s waist. At least, they looked like pistols to me, although so sleek and smooth and featureless I wasn’t sure I could have figured out where to load them or even how to pull the trigger.

  Logan didn’t seem to have that same problem, though. He unhooked one of the pistols from the strap that held it in place, then lifted it toward him, turning it over so he could inspect it closely. Apparently satisfied by what he’d seen, he gave the smallest incline of his head.

  “They’ll do.”

  “I should hope so.” The note of irritation had returned to Raphael’s voice, but he seemed to leave it aside as he transferred his attention from Logan to the rest of us. Once again it seemed as if his gaze lingered on me for a second longer than it needed to, but then he went on, tone brisk, “Time is wasting. We must go now.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  At once white light washed over me, and the room where we’d all been standing disappeared. This time I’d known more or less what to expect, but even some foreknowledge didn’t make the experience any less disconcerting. Or maybe I was on edge because I knew something of what waited for us at the end of this particular “energy jump.”

  We materialized in a dark corridor. Since we were going straight into the base, and it seemed that the Reptilians breathed more or less the same atmosphere we humans did, no one had mentioned needing any kind of breathing apparatus. Even so, I blinked, trying to get my eyes to adjust to the dimness, then took a single cautious breath. Everything felt more or less normal, although the air had an acrid tinge to it that burned the back of my throat. The gravity seemed to be Earth-normal, too, which made me think the aliens must have some kind of artificial gravity generator.

  Lights had been placed at regular intervals along the hallway, but the illumination they gave off was reddish and dull, and just barely enough to keep yourself from tripping over any obstacles. I guessed the Reptilians must have very different eyesight from us humans — or human-like aliens, in the case of Raphael and my father — and so the muddy lighting was perfectly adequate for their needs.

  Logan had one of the pistols Raphael had given him gripped in his right hand, and I pulled at the energy of the planet where I now stood, raising it around me like a shield. Although I wasn’t directly in contact with any of them, I could still sense my mother and my father and Raphael doing much the same thing, although my father’s manner seemed hesitant. No big surprise, really; Raphael might have returned his powers to him, but my father still hadn’t been able to use them for longer than I’d been alive. He was bound to be a little rusty.

  Despite my misgivings, it appeared we were the only living beings in the corridor. True, Raphael had assured us that the Reptilians couldn’t detect his ship, or the way we’d energy-jumped in here. In the back of my mind, though, I’d half expected to get dog-piled the second we showed up. But that didn’t seem to be the case…at least, not at the moment.

  “Here,” he said, moving a few paces down the hall to a door with some kind of lighted panel next to it. Presumably, the panel was the Reptilians’ version of a locking mechanism, and I wondered how in the world Raphael intended to get past it. Yes, the technology he appeared to command was so far advanced it might as well b
e magic, but —

  He unclipped the opalescent device from his belt and passed it over the lighted panel. At once, the door retracted into the lintel with a hissing noise that made me want to wince. No sleek liquid metal here, it seemed; the Reptilians might be technologically superior to mere Earthlings, but they clearly weren’t as advanced as Raphael’s — and my father’s — people.

  As soon as the door was out of the way, Raphael went into the room beyond, Logan right behind, while my mother and I were sort of in the middle of our group and my father brought up the rear. We’d only gotten a foot or so inside the chamber before a shaky voice said, “What the hell?”

  I peered past Logan’s shoulder to see a man in his late forties with short-cropped dark hair staring at us in shock. He wore a pale blue jumpsuit with a patch depicting a yellow and red flag on one arm, and in the spot right above his heart was another patch that read “Cruz.” So this must be Gonzalo Cruz, the Mars mission commander.

  Standing next to him was another man, younger and Asian, whose name was Leung, according to the patch on his jumpsuit. Right behind them were two more men, both Caucasian, although I couldn’t see the names on their jumpsuits. If I’d been more interested in the Mars mission, I probably would have known their names without having to look for them, but I wasn’t rabidly into space and space exploration the way Paul and Michael Oliver were — or the way my cousin Kelsey was, mostly because she had such a massive crush on Michael that she sort of automatically adopted his enthusiasms, whatever they might be.

  But even though I hadn’t really studied the Mars mission, I did know enough to recall that there were also supposed to be two women on the expedition. Alexis Cheng, who’d been driving the rover the Reptilians had captured, and another one whose name I couldn’t remember. I did think she was the expedition’s geologist, or something like that.