by L Bowers
The Sergeant stared with his mouth wide open for a moment before speaking. “That is so freaking amazing. Yeah,” his eyes left the wings and met mine. “I want to learn everything you can teach me.”
“Sorry, Sergeant,” Jones said from behind me. “Corporal Goshawk has plans and won’t be able to help you right now. Once we’re done, he’s all yours.”
The Sergeant looked from Jones to me and back before his eyes went wide. The expression lasted for a second before his face shifted to a slight smile of amusement. “I see. I won’t keep you then, Corporal. Come find me when you have time.” He walked away before I could respond.
“Sorry, Ray,” Jones said as she stepped close. “But it’s past time we had that date. No telling when new intel about a possible Marine location will come through. I’m taking advantage of this time we have now.”
“Sounds good to me.” I wore a wide grin. “I’ve looked forward to this since you said you would go out with me.” I looked around, knowing there wouldn’t be a restaurant or movie theatre around. “What did you have in mind?”
“I wasn’t sure what we could do, at first. Then it hit me. What’s the one thing I’m awesome at, that you could use some improvement in?”
“Um…” I was about to say I didn’t know when it hit me. “Kicking ass and taking names?”
“Yup. And all while chewing bubble gum. So I figured, we could spar, and I could show you some moves.” Her face took on a light shade of red, and she looked down. “Is that okay with you?”
“Sounds great.” My smile was still plastered on my mug.
Jones looked back up with a grin on her lovely face. “Come on, I know the perfect place.” She took my hand and practically dragged me to the back of the room and into a hallway. A minute later, we were in a smaller room—and by smaller, I meant compared to the large main chamber—and she dropped my hand. I looked around the twenty-by-twenty-foot room as I moved deeper into it. “What do you think?”
“It’s perfect,” I said. “Too bad there are no pads on the floor, though.”
“Good thing for us that we’re both tougher than normal. You ready?”
For half an hour, Jones beat me, threw me, and put me into more painful holds than I knew existed. It was no secret that she was stronger than most, but I had no clue how powerful she truly was until now. She shut down all my efforts to beat her with little to no effort.
After a particularly painful slam to the floor which put me on my back and Jones on top of me, she let go before I could give in. “I think it's time for a break.”
“You tired already?” I asked.
“No, but it’s pretty clear that you need a lot of instruction.” Jones rolled off me. She stopped on her back next to me and looked up.
“Or you’re too strong.” I tried to save face. “Not too many people could out-muscle you. Probably no one, now that I think about it.”
“That may be true,” Jones replied without looking my way. “But a skilled fighter wouldn’t try to out-muscle me. They would use my strength against me. Once I teach you some moves, you’ll be able to do the same.”
“Yeah, that makes sense.” I rolled to my side and propped myself up on my elbow as I looked at her. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
Her head turned so she could look me in the eyes. “Let me guess, you and Kopf have a secret love affair and you’re breaking off with me to be with your man?”
“Ha, funny. Seriously, something weird happened to me.” Jones listened as I told her about my trip to the past.
“Why didn’t you tell us this before?” She looked concerned. “Shit, Ray, that’s some serious shit. Are you sure it was the past and not another memory walk like before?”
“I’m positive it wasn’t a memory walk. I don’t know for sure if it was in the past or not. It was real, or felt real.”
“What do you think it means?” Jones asked.
“Does it have to mean anything?” I asked. “Maybe it's some weird wormhole on the side of the building because of the power source the dragon ships used? Could be a fluke, or maybe I was hallucinating.”
“You weren’t hallucinating,” Aspen said to me. “Touch her so I may join the conversation, please.” I placed my hand on Jones’s. “Hello, dear.”
“Hi, Aspen. This guy treating you well?”
“I am satisfied with my place. But that is a matter for another time. What we experienced was not a hallucination. Nor was it a memory walk. I don’t know what it was, but I truly believe we witnessed the past, and possibly interacted with two people. It has us both worried.”
Jones frowned for a moment while her eyes moved left and right. “What could the implications of this be?”
“We don’t know.”
A rumble came from her middle, which caused Jones to blush. “Sparring makes me hungry.” She shrugged.
“Hang on.” I jumped to my feet, ran out of the room, and to the stack of supplies piled up in one corner of the barracks area. Using power borrowed from Aspen had me back in the room in under a minute. “Gotcha covered.” I held up a couple of MRE packets.
“And here I hoped for Italian on our first date,” Jones said as she sat up. “This will have to do, I suppose.”
“We do what we can.” I lowered myself to a sitting position next to her. “Oh hey, got ravioli here. It’s something like Italian.”
“Eh.” She gave me a disinterested look. “What else do you have?”
I gave her a sheepish look while telling her the main course of the second bag. “Beef franks.”
“Why do you look so dejected? You like the franks that much?” Her face scrunched up in disgust.
“Well no, but the pound cake is phenomenal. It's my favorite part of any MRE. You can have it if you want, though.”
“Nah, I’ll take my Italian.”
“You sure? I’ll give up pound cake for you.” I held the franks up to her.
“That’s sweet, but no. The beef franks are worse than the ravioli. I don’t think that shit is beef, to be honest. My guess is they killed a cow-shaped animal and called it beef.”
We fell into silence as we ate. Most of my meal was hard to stomach, but I was too hungry to stop. The pound cake was last. Jones scarfed her food down to get through the horror that was an MRE swiftly.
Then I took my first bite of the pound cake, and let the spongy texture and lemony-vanilla flavor coat my tongue.
“This is the first time I’ve heard someone like something so much from an MRE that they moan and hum. Is it really that good?”
“Mm, hmm.” I nodded.
“Wow.” She shook her head as she smiled. “I need to stretch and loosen up a little.”
Jones rose while putting her trash back into the MRE bag. She stretched, putting her arms over her head and leaning left then right. From my vantage I witnessed all the interesting things happening to her body as she did so. Suddenly, the pound cake didn’t seem so important. I stowed my trash in the bag and rose.
Jones lowered her hands then stepped in close. “This is not the date I envisioned when I agreed to go out with you, but it’s better than nothing. We have to find more time alone together.”
“I agree,” I said while feeling giddy from the feel of her warm breath against my lips and the close proximity of her body to mine. “I really enjoy spending time with you.”
“Same,” she replied. Then she closed the short distance between us, pressing her lips to mine.
Our kiss wasn’t wild or passionate, but it took my breath away. After a couple of short seconds of her lips pressed to mine, Jones pulled away and smiled.
“I normally don’t kiss on a first date. You must be special.”
“I was thinking the same thing about you,” I replied.
We shared a laugh before I took her hand in mine. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to hold hands in front of everyone else, but I would like to hold your hand while we walk until we leave the room.”
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��I’d like that.” Her cheeks turned pink.
As one, we turned and took a step.
The room became open space. Stale air became a warm, fresh breeze. The ceiling became wide-open sky. I turned and looked at Jones to make sure she saw what I did.
“What the hell happened?” Jones asked.
“We are in the past once more,” Aspen replied.
6
Goshawk
Jones’s hand tightened on mine with near bone-crushing force. “This can’t be, Ray. Tell me we didn’t go to that past place you talked about. Please say I’m wrong about this.”
“If you’re wrong, then that makes two of us.”
She moved close enough that I felt her muscles trembling. I wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close to me. “It’ll be okay. We’ll find a way back and figure out why this is happening.”
“What do we do now?”
“I think we have to look around and see if we can find another portal, or determine if anyone else can see us.” I looked around for someone who might have noticed us in the thick crowd. “We should figure out why there are so many people here.”
Jones joined me in surveying the crowd. We stood in a large open area surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands, of the alien people. Buildings of various sizes and shapes ringed the area. A golden pyramid that matched all the other buildings in color and adornment dominated one end. Unlike the rest of the structures, the shape was similar to the pyramids of ancient Earth.
“This way.” I headed for the triangular building. I knew one of two things would happen. We would walk through the people unnoticed, or we would bump into someone. If the latter happened, I would try my hand at investigating the reason for that person being able to interact with us.
Jones hissed as she passed through the first person. I chuckled, but didn’t comment as I remembered how disorienting it had been for me. We reached the base of the pyramid without having bumped into a single solid person. I was equally disappointed and relieved. My relief stemmed from being able to inspect the pyramid up close.
“What now?” Jones asked.
“I think we'll go up there,” I pointed to an opening at the top of a wide set of stairs in the center of the pyramid. The walkway ended at a large opening that would allow us to go inside. “If anything, it will give us a better view of the area.”
“Lead the way.” Jones gestured toward the stairs with her free hand.
As we ascended, I spotted a familiar figure among a group of five at the top of the stairs. The man from before with the live vamp-bunny was speaking with two men and two women. As we neared, his little pet poked its head up over his shoulder and looked down at us.
Jones stopped, which caused me to jerk to a halt a second later. “What is it?” I asked as I turned to look down at her from two steps up.
“That creature feels like… It can’t be.” Her eyes remained glued to the vamp-bunny as she mumbled under her breath.
My head slowly turned back with my eyes leaving her only when it was too difficult to keep staring. The bunny was motionless with its eyes locked on Jones. It could have been that the thing recognized the Lenashal in her as one of its own, but something about that theory didn’t sit right with me.
“We should keep going,” I said.
“Oh, oh okay,” Jones replied.
We climbed two more steps before I suddenly stopped in turn. “Shit, I’m not thinking. We have to wait and see if that group moves away.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s the guy who could see me. Notice how everyone else is down below? I don’t think this area is for the general public. Last thing I want is for that guy to start a stink about us being here and have everyone else think he’s crazy.”
“We could go back down.”
“We might, but first, let’s see what they do.”
Jones moved another step up and joined me. She stood close enough that her side was against mine. It took all of my concentration not to let her become a distraction. But her warmth, and her scent tickling my nose threatened to become one. I was grateful when the group of aliens stopped talking and walked into the pyramid. A sigh of relief escaped me before I took my next step.
Jones followed without comment. In a few short minutes, we crested the top and saw the darkness of the twenty-foot-tall opening. For a moment, I wished Kopf had been there to remark on how ominous the doorway looked. Since he wasn’t, I kept moving, and traded the warmth of the sunlight for the cool shadows within.
Voices echoed through the passage from ahead of us. Neither of us spoke as we continued forward. The darkness faded as my eyes adjusted, and I saw the same gold-colored rock used to craft the outside was also inside the structure. A hundred yards in, we came to a wall-mounted sconce that bathed the area in a red flickering light. The hallway opened into a small antechamber.
This room was lit by two large braziers, one at each end of the area. In the center of the rectangular room sat a long table surrounded by large, high-backed chairs. The group we followed in were taking seats as we entered. The man with the vamp-bunny sat in a chair with his back to us. Jones pulled me to the side but kept us out of his line of sight. His furry little friend watched our every move without blinking.
The group spoke in hushed tones for a long while. Their language was as alien as their appearance, so we had no clue what they discussed. As they continued talking, their conversation rose in volume, and several of them became agitated. One woman rose and slammed a hand on the table. The rest fell silent as she looked at each of them in turn. Her next words came in a calm tone that sent a shiver down my spine. I would hate to be the person who pissed her off.
“What happens when they finish and the guy with the bunny turns around to leave?” Jones whispered in my ear.
“Crap. We need to leave.”
No sooner had the words left my mouth when the group pushed their chairs away from the table. I stepped back as they all rose. Before I could turn to run, the man with the bunny spotted us from the corner of his large eyes. His head swiveled to look at us. My heart thudded against my ribcage faster with each passing second.
Another of the group said something to the man as she glanced in our direction. Before responding, he looked back at us briefly with a puzzled expression on his face. Then he replied while meeting her gaze. The group walked past us in pairs, speaking to each other as they left. Vamp-bunny man spared us a glance from the corner of his eye as he went by but didn’t do anything else to acknowledge our presence. Once they were all in the hall, Jones and I followed. The group went back to the landing outside the hallway and stopped. They spread out facing the gathered crowd. I expected one of them to address the people, but none did.
“What do you think this is?” Jones asked after a few minutes.
“I don’t…” A bright flash overhead cut off my words. I looked up to see a meteor streak across the sky. The crowd cheered and clapped as a second came into view. “This must be the reason for all this.” I waved at the gathered people.
“Ray.” Jones tugged on my arm. “We may have a problem.”
I looked down at her, then followed her gaze. The alien man and his bunny were looking right at me. “Damn. Has he done anything?”
“All I’ve seen him do is stare at us.”
“Hopefully, he’s too worried about what everyone else will think to say anything. But we don’t know this culture or the effects it will have on his career to say he sees dead people. I think we need to go to him and try communicating.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Concern was plastered on her face.
“No, I’m not sure, but I think he has something to do with us being here. He can see and touch us, or me, and I’m two for two on crossing his path when time traveling.” I shook my head. “It feels weird to say we time traveled.”
Jones snorted. “That’s an understatement. Let me know what our next move is when you figure it out. I have your back, Ray.”<
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“Let’s enjoy the show while I give it some thought.”
Another meteor streaked across the sky and left a dark scar of smoke in its wake. As if the floodgates opened, the sky grew thick with the burning rocks trailing smoke as they crossed the heavens. Silence overcame the crowd, and the world stilled in awe of the spectacle. I stepped closer to Jones and took her hand in mine without looking away.
The trailing smoke bruised the sky only to have the darkness lit up by more meteors following. The smoke became so thick that it took on the shape of angry storm clouds. Meteors punched through the clouds and lit up the area in an orange and red halo before a tail of new meteors filled the hole. That marked the end of the show as the streaking rocks slowed to a couple, then down to none.
The thick knot of smoke quickly broke apart and gave way to beams of brilliant sunlight. Everyone remained silent as the sun’s rays seemed to devour the faux storm clouds. After they were gone, a long moment of still calm passed. Someone below obliterated the silence with a slow clap. Others joined until it was a thunderous cacophony that blanketed the square.
A woman walked to the edge of the landing and raised her arms. The crowd settled into silence. She spoke in a loud voice using a language I couldn’t understand. While she addressed the audience, the man capable of seeing us came to where Jones and I stood.
He spoke while looking out over the crowd. The words were as alien as before, but it was clear he was talking to us. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t understand you.”
He sighed, making it clear he felt as frustrated as us by our inability to communicate. It was time to go caveman. I stepped forward and patted my chest. “Ray.” Then I pointed at Jones. “Angela.” I repeated it twice more.
The man nodded, then said my name in an accent that was thick like a German speaking English. He patted his chest with a hollow thump and said a word.