by Elana Brooks
Adrian’s voice was grim. “It won’t take them eight years to get there from here. Or even five.”
“Obviously. I’ll have to run the numbers, but I’m guessing no more than a few months. Depending on how hard they can push, and how many gees they can take.” Steve’s attitude wasn’t far from his normal blunt cheer, but Beverly detected a bleak, bitter undertone she’d never heard there before.
Adrian’s cloud drifted close to Steve’s. “So your visions weren’t real. They must have been fabricated somehow.”
“Obviously,” Steve repeated. He arrowed closer to the ship. Beverly and the others trailed behind. “We have to assume everything I’ve ever seen was faked. While they worked to get here sooner than we expected, they fed us lies that they’d arrive later. Now we’re unprepared, while they’re ready for us.” His voice rose in frustration. “I have to get close enough to pick up some real information.”
“No! Wait!” Keiko cried. She threw herself backward, sending cloudy tendrils to grab the rest and drag them with her. One seized Beverly, another Adrian, another Rabbi Sensei, jerking them away from the ship. Only Steve was too far for her to reach.
Ahead, a patch of sparkles that had blended imperceptibly into the background stars suddenly coalesced, appearing in Beverly’s shocked vision as a big blue Seraph. From the points of a large triangle, three more Seraphim broke their camouflage and converged on Steve, trapping him within the vertices of a tetrahedron. Balls of energy bloomed before them.
Steve snapped back into his human shape. He threw up a spherical shield around himself with one hand and gathered a ball of energy in his other. “Stay back!” he shouted. In Beverly’s mind his voice reverberated. Run! I’ll hold them off.
“Did you think we wouldn’t set a guard?” the blue Seraph sneered, its clicks and whistles translated in Beverly’s mind just as in the Memories. “More are on the way. Your comrades won’t escape.” It shifted to telepathy. Commander Sarthex! We’ve captured one of the aliens and will soon seize four more.
A massively powerful telepathic voice shook Beverly’s whole being. Bring me the weakest for interrogation. Kill the rest.
Rabbi Sensei’s mental voice was the barest murmur in contrast. Now, before reinforcements arrive. An image flashed before Beverly’s mind’s eye.
A corner of Beverly’s soul was gibbering in terror, but the rest of her obeyed reflexively. In accord with the image, she launched herself at the nearest Seraph, hurling a huge ball of energy at it. Simultaneously Adrian, Keiko, and Rabbi Sensei each attacked one of the others.
The Seraphim raised shields and turned to give battle. Steve took advantage of their distraction without even a moment’s hesitation, launching his energy ball at Adrian’s opponent and summoning more.
After that, everything became a blur to Beverly. Her opponent blocked her first attack and launched one at her. She sent it flying back, dodged the return volley, and dove beneath the Seraph. It writhed around, its snaky body attempting to loop hers. She slithered from its grasp and blasted it from behind, taking out a big segment of one fin. It didn’t even flinch. It fired off an attack that Beverly barely deflected from her tether. More balls pelted her, momentarily forcing her to abandon all efforts to attack so she could concentrate on shielding.
She felt Adrian coming before she saw him. Knowing his intention, she deliberately let her shield flicker. The Seraph zeroed in on the weak spot, pouring energy into it. It was so focused it never saw Adrian’s attack coming. One ball of energy obliterated a big section of its tether. Another burst in its face as it dove to reconnect itself, blinding it.
Beverly joined Adrian, and together they blew away great chunks of astral Seraph flesh. She ruthlessly dismissed any trace of pity for its battered, drifting helplessness. Even now, all it need do was contact the loose end of its tether and it would rapidly reform, as dangerous as before. She sent energy to destroy even more of its detached tether for good measure. But she didn’t fully relax until the last trace of its glowing form faded to darkness.
The others had all dispatched their opponents as well. But there was no time to rest. From a dozen points around, more Seraphim were zooming to renew the attack. “Retreat!” Rabbi Sensei cried. Adrian grabbed Beverly’s hand and they fled as fast as terror could push them, following their tethers back toward Earth.
The terrible voice thundered in her head. Run, puny aliens. Flee to your planet and seek to hold it against us. We will destroy you and all your kind. Your home will become ours.
It began to fade with distance, but it was still stronger than Beverly’s most powerful thought would sound to someone right next to her. Look what feeble champions your people choose to send against us:
A brash, overconfident idiot who can’t tell a true vision from a false one.
A feeble elder long past what little strength he once had.
A cowardly warrior crippled by fear.
A weakling impostor dependent on another for his place.
Beverly felt the creature’s malevolent attention focus on her and plumb the depths of her heart. It searched out her most profound insecurities, every hideous, loathsome, vile thing she knew about herself, and wrenched them to the surface. They broke over her in a filthy wave, choking her like vomit. An ugly, ill-trained, self-loathing, selfish weakling.
Oh god, it was true. How did the Seraph know? With blinding clarity she saw herself as the alien did, a miserable worm unworthy of the trivial effort it took to crush her. She cowered, whimpering.
“Don’t listen to it!” Adrian screamed in her ear. He dragged her forward. “It’s attacking us psychically, trying to slow us down so they can catch us. Block it!”
She tried to imagine the blank sphere surrounding her. For a moment the powerful presence in her mind weakened, and she put on a new burst of speed.
The voice laughed, undismayed. Scatter before us, vermin. You know the truth. Bear tidings of our might to the rest of your people so they might beg us for mercy before they perish.
A final vision burst into Beverly’s head. Rain poured down, winds howled, the ocean rose. People screamed and sank and drowned. Earth shone blue, freckled by only a few isolated patches of land. Seraphim glided serene through crystal water over the ruins of human cities.
“No!” she cried. But her protest was hollow, pitiful, useless. Nothing could stop the Seraphim. The Covenant of the Rainbow would fail. The Flood would come again, and this time it would submerge the whole world.
Chapter 23
“Colorado,” Beverly said, pacing back and forth across Adrian’s living room. “There are higher places, but they’re all outside the US and there’s no time to get passports. I figure we fly to Denver, rent a car, and drive into the mountains. Find some little cabin we can buy. It doesn’t matter how much it costs; we’ll only be making payments for a couple of months. The financial system isn’t going to last long once the water starts rising. Stock it with food, clothes, barter items. Seeds, breeding animals. Guns. All the standard preparing-for-the-apocalypse stuff.”
“Beverly!” Adrian finally broke in, waving his hands urgently. Her frantic knocking had roused him from sleep, and she’d burst in and started talking as soon as he opened the door. “Slow down! What the hell are you talking about?”
She rounded on him, fists clenched before her. “I’m talking about how we’re going to survive when the Seraphim get here! Do you honestly still believe there’s any way to stop them? After what we saw?” She wrapped her arms around herself and shuddered.
“Oh, Beverly.” Adrian went to her and took her in his arms. She clung to him, trembling. He stroked her back and murmured, “Shh. It’s all right. There’s nothing—” He gulped. There was plenty to be afraid of. Lies wouldn’t comfort her. “We’re going to be okay.”
She pushed back and gazed up into his face, her expression so open and vulnerable his heart clenched in response. “You’ll come with me, won’t you? We’ll have a much better chance as a team.
And—and—I want us to be together—”
“Of course we’ll be together.” Adrian tried to collect his thoughts. He had to get Beverly to calm down and listen to reason. He didn’t blame her—their first real-life encounter with the Seraphim had freaked him out, too. But there was so much to do and so little time to do it, she couldn’t afford to let her emotions run out of control for long. “Have you had breakfast yet? Sit down and let me get you something. I’ve got bagels, bacon and eggs, cereal—”
“A bagel would be good.” She sank into a chair at the table and watched as he sliced a bagel and started the halves toasting. “Actually, I’m starving. I couldn’t eat last night.”
“Me neither.” It had been after midnight when they’d gotten back to their bodies. Adrian had insisted on escorting Beverly to her apartment before coming home and crashing. A turbulent mind combined with a body that had been somnolent for hours didn’t make for peaceful sleep, but eventually he’d dropped off. He hoped she’d managed to do the same. “I’ll go ahead and fix some eggs, too.”
“And bacon.” She smiled wanly. “Please?”
“Sure.” He rummaged in the cabinet for a frying pan.
When the bacon was sizzling and filling the kitchen with its mouth-watering smell, he sat down across from her. She passed him the cream cheese, and he spread it on a bagel half. He took a bite and chewed, watching her surreptitiously. She’d relaxed good deal. Maybe she was ready to listen.
“It sounds like you’ve given your plan a lot of thought,” he said cautiously.
She twisted her mouth into a wry expression and shrugged one shoulder. “I was up most of the night researching stuff on the internet. Do you know how many survivalist sites there are?”
“I can imagine.”
She looked away. “I used to think those guys were crazy, but now—not so much.”
Adrian chose his words carefully. “It’s a good plan. If the Seraphim were to start xenoforming again, heading for the mountains would be our only choice.”
She nodded earnestly. “Why the hell did the Covenant put its headquarters right at sea level, anyway?”
“I guess so we’d have a personal stake in making sure they never get the chance. We’re not going to let them, you know.”
She clenched her jaw. “How can you say that?”
“Because I believe it’s true. Yes, it’s going to be harder than we thought. But not impossible. Look how we were able to fight off the guards and escape.”
“Four of them! You saw how many there are.”
“But most of them will be civilians, not trained to fight. What we learned is that our training methods really have prepared us to battle their best warriors on an even footing. More than even—we killed all of them without even one tether break.”
“Because we outnumbered them.” She was still tense, but he thought she was coming around a little. Her voice wasn’t quite as strident.
“So we’ll make sure we always do. I know Rabbi Sensei is planning for the Eight to start making guerrilla strikes against them. Go in, draw out a few fighters, knock them out, retreat. The closer they come, the more of our people will have the range to go to them. And they’ll be slowing down the whole way, so by the time they get really near we’ll have plenty of time to hit them.”
Her shoulders softened, her head tilted. “Huh. That actually sounds like it could work.”
“Yeah.” Encouraged by her response, Adrian went on. “He’s got lots of other plans as well. I don’t know them all, but he’s told me about some. When I was recruiting, I was supposed to look for people with potential ranges down to even just a few miles. That’s enough to go up into low Earth orbit and divert any comets that get close. People like that are pretty common. A good network of them, and the Seraphim could throw comets at us for years without causing a drizzle.”
“Still.” But her resistance was visibly weakening. “There’s just so many of them.”
“There are more humans. Even if you only count psychically gifted ones. Not in the Covenant yet, but altogether. In a few days, as soon as the colony ship is so obviously of alien origin it can’t be explained away as anything else, we’re going public. Then we’ll be able to recruit openly instead of surreptitiously. We’ll get thousands of recruits within a couple of weeks.”
And many thousands more clamoring to be tested, or insisting they really did have powers even when it was clear they didn’t, or denying the powers they did have. Adrian wasn’t looking forward to the chaos. As an experienced recruiter, Rabbi Sensei would probably have him working night and day to winnow the applicants. But no need to bring that up now.
Beverly blinked. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“So you see, there’s lots of hope. There’s no guarantee we’ll win, of course. But I believe we’ve got pretty good odds. And as long as the Covenant continues to oppose the Seraphim, I’m committed to fight with them. I made vows.”
“I guess you did.” Beverly looked away, her voice dropping. “But, god, that one Seraph. What did the guard call him? Commander Sarthex? Don’t you think he’s got an answer to anything we can throw at him?”
Adrian’s stomach went hollow, remembering the power of the voice echoing in his head. Remembering the way he’d felt when the alien turned its psychological attack against him. So small, so ashamed, so fake. Like a toddler dressed up in a play army costume waving a plastic gun.
He knew Beverly had much deeper issues than he did. The Commander’s attack must have struck her even harder. That’s probably why she’d gotten so upset. “I admit, he’s going to be tough. He’s undoubtedly got a lot more surprises to spring on us. But I’m putting my money on Rabbi Sensei. You haven’t seen what a ruthless bastard he can be when it’s called for.”
“I can guess.” The corners of her mouth turned up a little, and she focused on taking a few more bites of her bagel.
Adrian figured that was a good place to leave it for a minute. He got up, flipped the bacon, and started frying a couple of eggs. He stayed quiet so Beverly could think until he brought two loaded plates to the table, set one in front of her, and sat down with the other.
She took a bite and chewed. A blissful smile spread over her face. “Ahh. Bacon makes everything better.”
“Amen.” Adrian took a big bite, savoring the salty, meaty, fatty goodness. “So. Ready to rethink your plan to head for the hills? The Covenant needs you.”
She stilled. “There’s no way you’ll agree to come with me, is there? I thought maybe you cared about me enough to, but I guess…”
He swallowed. “I can’t,” he whispered. “I do care about you, Beverly. I—I love you.” He sought her eyes, willing her to believed him. She didn’t look away, but he read only hurt skepticism in her gaze. “I do. I want us to be together. But don’t you see, the Covenant needs me. It needs both of us. Stay with me, fight with me. Our bond is so strong already. It will be even stronger, after… We can defeat the Seraphim, I swear. We don’t have to abandon the Covenant to survive.”
She looked away. “Even if the Covenant does win in the long run, the Seraphim might kill one of us. Or both of us.”
His mouth went dry. God, when she put it that way, he wanted to put her on a plane to Colorado himself. How could he be arguing with her, trying to convince her to stay and battle the Seraphim, when doing so would put her in such grave danger?
He licked his lips. “You’re right. It’s a war. But we’ll both have a better chance together than apart.”
She gave a deep sigh. “Yeah.” She shrugged. “I guess.”
He took a careful breath. “Does that mean you’re staying?”
“I’ll think about it.” She turned to him with a smile that sent his heart soaring. “I won’t run off today, anyway. I seem to remember we have a date this afternoon.”
“We do.” Desire coursed through him. More than ever he longed to hold her, pour out his love over her, bind her to him, body as well as soul.
She
wanted it, too. It was clear in the rueful twist of her lips, the softness in her eyes, the wash of heat she sent into his mind. He reflected it back, adding his own measure of fire.
Her breath quickened along with his as their mutual desire resonated through the soul bond, mounting higher with every cycle. Dampening the reverberations was almost physically painful. But he forced himself to. He’d planned their afternoon together too carefully to rush things.
He broke eye contact and breathed deeply until his heart slowed and he could trust his voice not to quaver. “Let’s get finished here and report to Headquarters. If Rabbi Sensei doesn’t have any special assignments for us, we can stick with our normal routine. God knows we need every bit of training we can cram in.”
“I need it, you mean.”
“Well, yes, but I do, too.” He pointed his fork at her. “I’ve got so much more power now, I might take somebody’s head off by mistake if I don’t get a feel for it quick.”
She smiled, as he’d intended, but remained a little melancholy. “I’m glad the soul bond is giving you that. You deserve it.”
“It’s going to be useful, that’s for sure. And so will the extra power it gives you.” He still wished he was strong enough to give her more, but that was irrelevant now.
She shrugged. “The eggs are great. I’d better finish mine before they get cold.” She focused on her plate, forking up bites with great concentration.
He respected her desire to quit talking and worked on his own meal. After they were done and he’d stuck the plates in the dishwasher, they left for Headquarters.
Chapter 24
Adrian sat down on the cot. Before he swung his legs up, he glanced across at Beverly. She was looking out past the curtain of vines that screened the alcove, into the soft green light of the meditation garden. “You okay?”