Star Angel: Dawn of War (Star Angel Book 3)

by David G. McDaniel

  She was hard on it, more determined now than ever to make this connection. The Project or the Spanish Police or someone would have the Kel tablet by now and any hope of secrecy, if any remained, was gone.

  They had to catch Lorenzo. This may be their only chance. He would go far, far underground after this if he got away.

  Up ahead the Lamborghini set a nearly untouchable pace but Jess was hanging with it on the dangerous road, into the groove and gaining.

  “That’s it,” Zac said from behind as she heaved them up and over from a sweeping left to a sweeping right, pegs down and tires shimmying; nerve-wracking little slip-grip moments as they hit loose pieces of gravel on the mountain road.

  There were no more straightaways.

  “I’m going to end this,” Zac gripped her a little tighter and she began to tense for whatever he had in mind. “Get ready.”

  They snapped out onto a section of tight curves, in clear sight of Lorenzo, who surely had to be checking his mirrors at every turn, watching their headlight sweep back and forth behind him. She felt Zac ready himself for whatever he planned …

  “Let go,” he said and she did so without question, knowing they would crash even as …

  He leapt.

  Not from the bike without her but, from the bike with her. In an instant his arms were securely around her and the two of them were flying up and away, high into the air, still moving forward at an insane speed, arcing over the road even as the bike scrunched under the force of Zac’s launch, pitched left and right, back and forth, unable to fall due to the extreme gyroscopic effects of the wheels and it’s momentum but trying to very badly, lost its direction and shot off the road like an arrow, clear out over the gorge below. For a surreal moment Jess watched it from high in the air, arcing to a freefall of her own in Zac’s arms, the headlight and little red taillight angling out over the valley forest; a dark missile, flying until it began to cartwheel right before …

  Booom! it hit the cliff across the way, just beneath the Lamborghini as it hooked hard around the next curve. No explosion to speak of, just a little fireball from what gas remained, but at that speed the impact sent pieces of motorcycle, rock and dust ejecting in every direction.

  Lorenzo had to have seen it.

  Then they were into the treetops and Zac was cradling her tight through the blackout of collision, branches cracking around them. She felt the rapid deceleration, then tumbling as Zac did what he did; shielding her from harm. They rolled through a flurry of dirt and leaves, darkness and a few slivers of moonlight until …

  They were sitting.

  In the forest.

  Without delay Zac uncurled her in his lap. She sat straighter. He checked her over.

  “You okay?”

  She was.

  He leaned back and gave a lopsided grin. “That was fun,” he took a precious moment to reassure her.

  Then he was shifting her gently from his lap to the ground and standing. “Stay here,” he said, looking off in the direction of the fleeing car.

  And he stepped back and …

  Leapt. Straight up, bursting through the canopy overhead, arcing off into the distance like a rocket, leaves and dirt poofing away from the thrust of his feet, the actual ground giving a little pulse as he launched his weight upward with such force. Gone from sight in that first superhuman bound.

  Gone.

  The forest was deathly quiet in the wake of his departure. Gloomy. She looked around. Nothing moved. Nothing made a sound. Her entire body buzzed from the fury of the chase, frozen through and through. She felt like she was still in motion; had to steady herself. She shivered and looked down at her hands. They tingled madly from the incessant vibration of the handlebars. Absently she touched her fingertips together, feeling the strange, soft sensation, studying her perfectly painted blue nails as she did. Sign of another life, it seemed, a ruse meant to make her look normal. After a time, she knew not how long, she looked up through the breaks in the branches, up to the early morning sky high above. It was crystal clear.

  And she was all alone.

  CHAPTER 34: THE SITUATION GETS WORSE

  The more Drake looked at the tablet device the more alien it appeared. In his position he was well aware of the various bizarre and unexplained things his government hid from public awareness, things people could only guess at, and this thing here was definitely an oddity.

  He was pretty sure it did not come from Earth.

  Bobby concurred. “That’s an advanced composite,” he reached and tapped the back of it as Drake continued turning the tablet slowly in his hands. “We’ll have to analyze it. Definitely custom, if not full-on alien.” Bobby knew most everything Drake knew, about the girl, about everything. He knew what happened back in Boise, knew the girl’s connection to the shiny chrome transit devices, which were definitely alien, had been scrambling along with the rest of them to come up with a good explanation for how she suddenly appeared in the midst of their Op tonight and everything else so wrong about her involvement. Bobby, therefore, knew when something wasn’t quite right. And this tablet definitely was not, in any way, right.

  Drake handed it back to him.

  Maybe that guy Jessica was with was alien. All they knew for sure was that, in the confusion, the two of them—Jessica and the tall stranger—took off with the Bok into the night and were gone. Spotting her there tonight Drake’s first thought was that she was connected to or working with the Bok after all. However there were too many signs that she wasn’t. Already the Project was convinced the Bok were after her following the Boise incident. Drake and his team had been watching to see if the Bok would make a move on any of the girl’s family, or try in any other way to make a grab for anything she’d left behind.

  The next thought, then, was that Jessica, too, had come for the Bok. Which was equally absurd. Yet, one of those scenarios had to be true. Coincidence was right out. Whichever the case, Jessica was the one the tablet belonged to and, if it did prove to be alien, she was therefore in this far beyond anything Drake would’ve guessed possible. Just a few short weeks ago they figured her to be little more than an accidental participant in what was turning into a web of impossibilities, one that was shaping up to be so broad in scope Drake had begun to wonder what they would find next. Ready to believe anything. Now they’d found Bok throwing, apparently, telekinetic energy from their hands. Could it be? Mere weeks before that, alien powered armor leaping off into the void using alien quantum devices. He was no longer ruling anything out.

  Now Jessica shows up, here, of all places, after disappearing in Boise, and goes running off with or after the Bok, the Project’s arch nemesis. Following them or chasing them.

  Probably chasing.

  His gut told him, as it had been all along, that his original assessment of Jessica was correct. That she was just an unwilling player in something far beyond anything for which she had a real understanding. A completely normal girl.

  Somehow, some way, though, her reactions were all wrong.

  Rather than cringing from the strange things happening all around her, rather than running from danger, she was attacking. Once Drake could talk to her he would find out. If he could get her out safe he would. Right then, though, she was part of the game and her fate would fall as it might.

  Across the club more of the Spanish Guardia Civil were entering, moving about, checking this or that but mostly just standing around hitching their belts and looking equal parts silly and deadly serious in their funny black hats.

  They had no ideas.

  Drake could tell that look when he saw it. All they knew were the facts, sketchy as they were. Likely their report at the moment was something along the lines of, a fight broke out in the club, people panicked, the panic spread, a small group involved in the fight ran out, got into exotic sports cars and raced off in all directions, killing or injuring innocent bystanders as they did, adding to the panic and turning the whole early-morning club event into a chaotic crime scene wi
th no clear motive. Just a random sequence of events that led to a few deaths and took a simple fight to a new level.

  Drake studied the Spanish police discretely.

  So much more than that.

  “We should get going,” he said to his small group. “Send the signal to extract. Let's get that analyzed.” He pointed to the tablet in Bobby's hands.

  Bobby nodded, mind on entirely different things. More impossible things.

  “Looks like it’s true,” he mused.

  Drake knew exactly what he was talking about. The telekinesis, of course. How had Lorenzo knocked him flying, the girl and her helper as well, with nothing but a dramatic gesture? The Project had previously suspected the Bok of such knowledge, but until then had no real proof of any actual ability. Now, Drake had to admit, they quite likely did.

  He shook his head. “Sure looks like it.”

  * *

  It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.

  Jess shifted to the side against the tree where she sat cross-legged at its base, leaning into the trunk. A bird chirped loudly, up above in the branches, then stopped just as abruptly.

  The forest was awake. The sun had begun moving ever so slowly into the sky, still below the lowest ridge but casting its light beautifully into the clear blue morning, details of the forest visible in steadily brightening hues. Birds were singing, animals scurried here and there, though not too many, most staying well clear of the alien intruder. She barely moved but her presence was noted by all. There was a chill in the air, the morning seeming to get colder not warmer in those first few hours as the day began. A wide gap in the canopy overhead showed a clear patch of sky; deep, serene, cloudless. A pale, white, three-quarter moon stood in sharp relief against it, reflecting the rising sun. Bianca and Nani were up there. Somewhere. Jess wondered if they could see her. Wondered if they’d managed to follow her stupid, impulsive little sprint clear out into the remote countryside. Wondered what they were thinking.

  As she sat there waiting all the physical aches from the race to that spot, all the little things lost utterly in the adrenaline of earlier, began to throb. Those pains were minor, however, compared to the fear of the moment; the sheer helplessness of having no way to know. Over the last however how long she’d been sitting there that loneliness had only grown, developing a sharp pain of its own. She was used to taking action but right then could take none, nor did she have any information whatsoever on which to act. There was nothing at all to do but wait. Zac was gone. She had no tablet with which to communicate—no anything with which to communicate. She was completely, completely alone. In the middle of nowhere. Everything depended on Zac’s return, and she was about to go crazy waiting for that moment.

  In that vacuum of inaction, especially so hot on the heels of the furious pursuit of Lorenzo, her mind had begun flitting anxiously from subject to subject. No matter how she tried she couldn’t steer her thoughts toward any calm center. Could find no point of Zen from which to gather herself and wait patiently. Foremost among the thoughts assaulting her, frustratingly, were thoughts of Christmas. Christmas Eve. Recollections of this exact same feeling of impatience, just like the one she had now; when she was much younger, the same feeling, such vastly different circumstances; nervous anticipation, staring out the window down the street on that magical night, waiting for Nana's car to turn the corner at the end, signaling the imminent arrival of the opening of presents. Until that moment every minute was agonizing, every car that turned the corner a terrible tease that left her aching. Now and again she’d hear a noise off in the forest and think it was Zac, only to realize it wasn’t, further inflaming that same sensation; the agonizing wait on Christmas orbiting tightly about her psyche.

  Reminding her of a life that was forever lost.

  There were other things. Awful doubts. All the way back. A mental exercise that was dangerous, she knew, and yet in that terrible, beautiful place, high up on the side of a mountain in the middle of nowhere in Spain, nothing at all to do and her entire life hanging at the edge of a cliff—both literally and figuratively—she could not arrest her rambling mind. All those little branching decision points where she could’ve chosen differently, perhaps should’ve chosen differently, all the way back to before Zac’s arrival and especially after, so many mistakes, so many places she could’ve done better, had better, been better, happier; all the times she failed to act, even as a child, the ways she forfeited happiness as a result of timidity or fear; how now, in the midst of the truly fantastic, she’d over-compensated, pushed through and so far past fear and timidity she now wondered if her actions had circled back around to some form of foolishness. As if listening to the fear would’ve actually, at some point, made sense.

  Regret is a dull and rusted blade. The lyrics of the song echoed in her head. Another: I say goodbye to my weakness, so long to the regret, and now I see the world through diamond eyes …

  One thing was certain: She needed to focus on something else.

  It was cold. Maybe she could throw her attention into that. She hugged her arms tighter around herself; stretched and pulled at the tatters of the stupid little black dress, trying to cover as much skin as possible. Looked herself over. Somewhere in the chase, or the insane leap from the motorcycle, she’d lost one of the bracelets she’d been wearing. The thicker one. The thinner bracelets on the other wrist, and the necklace, had managed to hang on. The anklet was still there. She fingered it idly, then returned her arms to their tight grip across her chest.

  Vigorously she scissored her legs back and forth against the ground, spontaneously, determined all at once not to be the effect of her situation, to keep taking action, digging through the layers of fallen leaves and underbrush, down into the dirt then, once she’d sunk her legs in an inch or so, piled the leaves back over until no skin was exposed. Maybe that would act as some sort of blanket. She sat that way for a long time, feeling at last a small bit of heat being captured beneath the leafy mound, warming her legs and feet ever so slightly. She shivered.

  It was still cold.

  * *

  Bianca stared at the screen like a zombie. They hadn’t yet spotted Jess or Zac in any recorded images from the club exterior, which at once made her feel better—knowing she hadn’t been a total loser and just missed them watching it live earlier—and totally crushed that they were nowhere to be found.

  They were officially lost.

  She sniffed and rubbed raw eyes with the heels of her palms, stretching the skin around them and trying to focus.

  She and Nani were pouring over images and video captured during those frantic moments after whatever happened in the club. From police band traffic and that of the Project they’d begun to learn more of what went down. There was a scuffle inside that started everything rolling. Project radio traffic was not too specific, but from what they could tell the Project now knew the Bok used a weird power of some kind to knock Drake out. “The girl”, Jessica, was definitely gone. Bianca wondered if the Bok had done something similar to her and Zac.

  She’d argued with Nani, loudly—wishing she hadn’t been so angry—to just fly down and find them, but Nani, ever the voice of reason, made her understand they could see no better down there than they could from orbit, and the panic it would cause would only make things worse, not better. Satori, too, called, wanting the same thing; to fly there, scour the area, use the Kel technology in full view and to full effect, find Jess and worry about the rest later. After all her resistance leading up to this Bianca was amazed by the passion Satori obviously felt for the welfare of her friends. Though the red-headed commander never really wanted to do any of this in the first place, now that the chips were down she seemed all about doing whatever was needed to save them.

  But Nani talked everyone out of it. Kept making them understand that would create more problems than it solved, that if Zac was still on the mission the fighter was exactly where he would go and so Satori leaving that spot was not a good idea and other sound
reasoning and, ultimately, though part of Bianca resented it, she knew Nani was right. They all did.

  And so the last however long had been a lot of Nani arguing with everyone, while at the same time pouring over this or that bit of information, trying new scans or trying to capture this or that feed or signal, giving Bianca things to review, like cyber detectives using all the Kel technology at their command.

  So far nothing.

  Bianca had been applying Nani’s enhancements to run through video after video, image after image, adding her own scrutiny to what the computers could find. Amazed, with all this, how difficult the exercise was. Shouldn’t they just be able to find them? Every Earth movie always had the CIA or the FBI or whoever using satellites and gadgets to zero in on people in impossible ways, finding them no matter how well they hid. The Kel technology was way beyond any of that. But movies were proving, apparently, to be movies, and the magic button was so far nowhere to be found. Human error was to blame for this fiasco, and Bianca blamed herself—blamed all of them, really—for not insisting they prepare in advance for more things that could’ve gone wrong.

  And again she asked herself, as they all had: What happened to Zac?

  On the images, cycling through, cars and scooters and motorcycles and people leaving, police cars arriving and other cars and vehicles that weren’t police cars, at least one of them was a news van that was recent. Bianca was convinced if Jess and Zac left it was shortly after the incident inside the club.