Invaders_The Antaran

by Vaughn Heppner

  I used fake IDs for both her and me. Jenna carried one on her person, and I’d long ago manufactured several for me.

  We had to wait to see the doctor. Emergency was filled with people, mainly Mexicans who had migrated to the States in the last twenty years and a few Middle Eastern people who had migrated in the last two years.

  It made me angry that Jenna had to wait as she did. Finally, a nurse showed up and they wheeled Jenna into a room.

  I waited, pacing and thinking as they stitched her worst wounds, checked her condition and gave her a blood transfusion.

  “Rax,” I whispered. “Did you scan any devices in her brain?”

  “I scanned earlier,” Rax said. “But her brain was devoid of any control equipment.”

  “What about the rest of her?” I asked.

  “Do you refer to bombs?”

  “Anything out of the ordinary,” I said.

  “Jenna had a handheld locator device while at CAU, but I did not transfer that with us.”

  “What was the locator thingamajig for?”

  “I believe she was watching our progress with it back in Utah. It was a mini-sensor, but one of alien manufacture.”

  “From Hap’s stolen stash?” I asked.

  “I deem that most likely.”

  “Hap didn’t have any transfer tech, did he?”

  “Not to my knowledge,” Rax said.

  “Sir,” a nurse said.

  I looked up, not having noticed the woman approach.

  “Your friend is asking for you,” the nurse said. “She seems to think it critical and is becoming rather insistent. Perhaps you can help calm her. She refuses any sedatives.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I said.

  “If you’ll come with me,” the nurse said.

  I followed her and soon entered a different room from before. Jenna lay in a bed. She had better color, wore a hospital gown and stared at me intently as I entered.

  I could tell she wanted to say something, but hesitated in the nurse’s presence.

  “You have to take it easy, honey,” I said, hurrying to Jenna’s side. I put a hand on an arm, rubbing it.

  Jenna frowned for just a moment.

  “Can you tell us what happened, sir?” the nurse said. “Jenna claims she can’t remember anything. She seems coherent enough, but…”

  I turned to the nurse. “I, ah, came home—” I began.

  “Home?” the nurse asked, interrupting. “According to what you told the desk clerk—”

  “You know,” I said, approaching the nurse, taking hold of a shoulder. “I really need to see the doctor—immediately,” I added.

  The nurse looked uncomfortable.

  I removed my hand but gave her a knowing look. “It’s vital I speak to the doctor at once.”

  The nurse seemed suspicious of me, finally nodding and going out the door. “I’ll be right back,” she said.

  I whirled around as the door closed. “How do you feel?” I asked Jenna.

  “Groggy,” she said. “The last thing I remember is being in CAU Headquarters. Everything went white and that was it.”

  “That’s fine,” I said. “Are you well enough to move?”

  “Just leave the hospital?” she asked.

  “Right now,” I said.

  “Won’t they ask questions if we do that?”

  “Rax will move us,” I said.

  Jenna looked up at a monitor. “They’ll see us transfer.”

  I took that to mean Jenna was well enough to move, we just had to set up the conditions first. I grabbed a chair, shoved it near the wall camera, stood on it, wrenched the video feed from the wall and dropped the thing on the floor.

  “Ready, Rax?”

  “The ship’s battery power is becoming dangerously low from these repeated transfers,” he said.

  “”Make it a short transfer then,” I said.

  “The distance does not matter.”

  “Fine, fine,” I said. “Take us back to the Guard ship then. Maybe I can do something with the batteries.”

  “I do not advise that,” Rax said. “The air content in the Guard ship will not be good for long.”

  “He should take us to the ancient Polarion structure at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean,” Jenna said.

  “That is beyond my present transfer range,” Rax said. “We should decide now, though. The doctor is returning with the nurse.”

  “Put us in a car lot,” I said.

  “That is imprecise—”

  “Outside the hospital in the parking lot,” I snapped.

  “Logan,” Jenna warned.

  We transferred as the door began to open.

  I staggered outside in the Emmanuel parking lot near the emergency entrance. Jenna lay on the blacktop in her hospital gown.

  I glanced around and chose a blue Silverado pickup, a four-door.

  “Rax,” I said, while holding him.

  The locks clicked open. I yanked open a rear door and helped Jenna inside. Slamming her door, I opened the driver’s side and hopped in.

  The half-ton roared into life as Rax did his thing with the ignition. I didn’t like stealing a man’s truck, but this was an emergency. I would try to leave the truck in as fine a shape as I’d found it. Hopefully, the man would get it back in a day or so.

  I drove out of the parking lot and headed north.

  “Now what?” asked Jenna.

  “Now,” I said, “we find a clothing store and get you something to wear. I have a few hundreds in my wallet.”

  “That won’t buy me much,” Jenna said.

  I glanced back as she lay across the rear seat. “This isn’t a shopping spree,” I said. “I just want to get you something other than that hospital gown.”

  “Fine,” she said. “I’ll need shoes, too, not these paper slippers.”

  I muttered something under my breath, looking around, trying to get my bearings. It had been more than a few years since I’d been in Turlock.

  Things looked bleak for us as far as I could tell. I had a Jenna, hopefully, the real one. My Guard ship was wrecked off the coast, the battery power was dying, CAU Headquarters was in shambles, an alien had abducted my woman and Kazz seemed to be one of my many enemies. For all I knew, the hospital was giving my picture to local police and maybe the FBI. If that were true, it probably wouldn’t take long for them to figure out who I was, as CAU would have a feed into the Feds.

  Just what was this all about anyway, and how could I get Debby back?

  -15-

  Jenna and I ate at Panera’s near Freeway 99. She was wearing new clothes and shoes that we’d bought at T.J. Maxx in the shopping center across the street.

  Jenna slurped clam chowder out of a big bread bowl, having already devoured a turkey sandwich with apple slices in it.

  I drank coffee after downing a ham sandwich. The bacon burger before had been enough, but the smell of food had made me hungry again.

  Jenna had stiches along her left side and in her left thigh. They were bandaged, but she was moving gingerly and had gotten pale while trying on the clothes and shoes. The food had brought back her color.

  “You holding up okay?” I asked.

  “I’m fine,” she said, tersely.

  “You know I have a horde of questions, right?”

  “So do I,” she said.

  I nodded, sipping more coffee, deciding on the best approach and if I could trust her or not.

  “Any comments, Rax?” I asked.

  The metal casing was near my left hand on the table.

  “I am going to assume your question means if this is the original Jenna or not,” the crystal said quietly. “I believe she is.”

  Jenna’s head snapped up. I could see she had a question, but thought better of it and went back to eating her clam chowder.

  “You know the Director made clones, right?” I asked her.

  Jenna nodded.

  “Did you know he’d made a clone of you?” I asked.
r />   Jenna shook her head.

  “Did you suspect it?” I asked.

  “I suppose…” she said quietly. “I didn’t want to believe it, but the Director kept getting more paranoid. It got really bad after we detected the signals from Saturn.”

  “That happened two months ago?” I asked.

  “You know about the Saturn-based signals?”

  It was my turn to nod.

  “What do you know?” Jenna asked.

  I took another sip of coffee and noticed the cup was empty. I got up, pumped myself more, added cream and came back.

  Jenna had finished the chowder and had begun tearing apart her bread bowl, eating it. The girl had an appetite. That was a good sign.

  As I sipped my coffee, I told her everything that had happened since the Tosks showed up in Friday’s Station. I told her what her clone had said and what Kazz had related.

  “Where do you think this Lord Beran took Debby?” I asked finally.

  “Behind the moon, for starters,” Jenna said.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “The moon always faces the Earth with the same side,” Jenna said. “That’s where the term, ‘the dark side of the moon,’ comes from. If one side always faces Earth, the other side always faces out.”

  “There’s a name for that phenomenon,” I said.

  “Of course there is. Tidal lock, for one.” She gave me her duh look. “The point, we believe, is that the moon base is on the dark side. The face directed toward Earth is just a staging area.”

  “And…?” I asked.

  “We’ve detected a strong signal going from the back of the moon to Deimos.”

  “Where in the heck is that?” I asked.

  “Deimos is one of the two small moons of Mars.”

  “Mars again,” I said.

  “We’ve detected a signal leaving Deimos and heading for Ceres,” Jenna said.

  “Ceres down the road?” I asked, perplexed.

  From Turlock, going north it went Keyes, Ceres and then Modesto.

  “Not that Ceres,” Jenna said, “but the asteroid or dwarf planet of Ceres. Astronomers are always changing the names and designations of various small stellar bodies,” Jenna said primly. “Ceres used to just be the largest asteroid in the Asteroid Belt. A few years ago, astronomers said that Ceres and Pluto were dwarf planets. Nothing changes, but those size designations of stellar bodies do.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “CAU has also detected signals going from Ceres to Saturn.”

  Jenna shook her head. “From Ceres to one of Jupiter’s moons,” she said. “From there, the signal goes to Saturn.”

  “What does CAU believe those signals mean?”

  “Transfer or teleportation signals,” Jenna said.

  “That is well reasoned,” Rax said, keeping his voice low. “Transfer signals from Saturn to Jupiter are just barely within the accepted limits of high-powered transfer rays.”

  “Are you saying Debby could be in the Saturn System?” I asked. “That she hopped from the moon, to Mars, to Ceres, to Jupiter and finally to Saturn?”

  “Maybe,” Jenna said.

  I sat back in disbelief. This was worse than I’d imagined. “How do I get Debby back?” I asked.

  “That’s only one of the problems,” Jenna said.

  I scowled thunderously.

  “Although, clearly, that is an important problem,” Jenna added hastily.

  I finished my coffee, debated drinking more and finally decided against it. Another cup would have me trembling. I didn’t feel like having a caffeine high just now.

  “Should I tell her what you think is going on?” I asked Rax.

  “Perhaps we should hear Jenna’s side of the story first,” the crystal said.

  I put a hand on the table, focusing on Jenna. “What is going on?” I asked. “Why did the Director start making clones? Why did he have you, correction, have your clone follow Kazz? How did Kazz gain transfer technology? And if you know, what is Dominie Beran after here on Earth?”

  Jenna looked away as she crumpled the remaining bread piece in her hands. Soon, she began to nod. She looked at me with a tired smile.

  “Well,” she said, “it started like this…”

  -16-

  “Soon after the Bermuda Triangle chronowarp incident, the CAU sent a team back to the Polarion structure at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean,” Jenna said. “The first party—oh, that was eleven months ago now—died, or we believed they died. No one returned after entering the underwater structure. The Director ruled against making another attempt right away. The scientists studied the structure from submarines, but gained no further clues as to the structure’s true nature.

  “Finally, though…” Jenna became thoughtful as she stared at me in a distracted manner. “Eight months ago, one of the underwater science vessels mysteriously exploded. The other fled, but not before launching several probes toward the structure. All but one of the probes also self-destructed. The last one…”

  Jenna refocused on me.

  “The last one recorded a black torpedo slashing toward the Polarion base. The torpedo did not detonate against the ancient structure, but slowed and finally maneuvered underneath it for the bottom water entrance. Just like we did over a year ago, the torpedo used the sea entrance and went up into the structure.”

  “It wasn’t a torpedo, then, but a sub of some kind?” I said.

  “That was the scientists’ conclusion as well,” Jenna said.

  “Did—?”

  “Please, Logan, quit interrupting me. Let me tell the story all in one piece so I can remember everything.”

  I nodded, indicating that she should continue.

  “Where was I?” Jenna asked. “Oh, yes. The Director demanded we learn who had crewed the ‘black torpedo.’ Some of the scientists suggested it could be Polarions themselves. They proposed the idea that the Polarions secretly moved among us. Others pointed out that the torpedo’s hull had been constructed of the same material as Hap’s destroyed space plane.”

  “Ah…” I said.

  “The Director decided that meant Kazz must have been in the torpedo.”

  “Was he?” I asked.

  “We still don’t know,” Jenna said. “But if Kazz had gone inside the structure, it might explain how he’s come upon transfer technology.”

  “You think Kazz stole it from the Polarions?” I asked.

  Jenna nodded.

  “Then…?” I said.

  Jenna gave me a cross look before shrugging. “I’ll make this brief, as I’m starting to feel sleepy. Your constant interrupting isn’t helping.”

  I had to admit, at least to myself, that I was feeling the effects of a full day and could use some shut-eye myself. The coffee’s caffeine didn’t seem to have much kick.

  “Seven days after the torpedo entered the ancient structure, it departed. The Director was ready for that. Two U.S. attack subs moved in to intercept. The torpedo fired tiny projectiles. Those projectiles destroyed the two subs.”

  “And…?”

  “And that’s all I know concerning the black torpedo-shaped craft. It got away. It might have been Kazz, but I don’t know for sure.”

  “Sketchy,” I said.

  “I’m telling you what I know,” Jenna said, her voice rising.

  Several people from other tables glanced at us.

  “Hey, I’m right here,” I told Jenna.

  “Quit making me mad,” she said more quietly.

  “Sure,” I said. “No problem. Is the fact of the torpedo destroying U.S. subs what drove the Director over the edge?”

  “That’s an interesting question,” Jenna said after a thoughtful moment. “I kind of doubt it, but it did cause him to do something uncharacteristic. He went on a field mission. The Director ordered another attempt to breach the Arctic Ocean structure. I didn’t know about his involvement until later, but he came aboard at the last minute, and the Director went over with the first and only team of
operatives that went up into the structure in a bathyscaphe like we did over a year ago.”

  I nodded. This was getting interesting.

  “The team never came out,” Jenna said. “The CAU submarine captain wanted to send a second bathyscaphe. Orders soon arrived from headquarters to return immediately to base. Along the way, the submarine had a mysterious accident. There were no survivors.”

  “But—”

  “Let me finish,” Jenna said sternly. “There were no survivors, no black box, no explanation for the accident. What’s even stranger was that the Director had instructed his second in command to give the orders. The Director did this from CAU Headquarters.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “You told me he went on the mission and entered the Polarion structure, the one that no one exited.”

  “I fudged just a bit,” Jenna said. “I found a backup missive in the archives that said he went. The official records don’t say anything about him leaving headquarters.”

  “That one is going over my head,” I said.

  “CAU has a special backup system for record keeping,” Jenna said. “Every once in a while, a copy of the logs goes to the archives. It’s a special failsafe that—”

  “You’re saying the official records say the Director never went to the Polarion base and yet the archives said he did.”

  “Right,” Jenna said.

  “Then, why did you say he went with the first team into the structure if he didn’t go?”

  “I think the archives are telling the truth. I think the Director altered the regular logs but forgot about the archives. It was a chance thing that I looked at the archives. But once I saw that…other things began to come together. I suspect the last submarine was destroyed in order to cover his tracks. The captain—likely most of the crew—would have known the Director went into the Polarion structure. The Director couldn’t afford anyone to know that, obviously. That was when his strange behavior started.”

  I thought about that.

  “If the last submarine was deliberately destroyed,” I said, “do you think the black torpedo returned and picked up the Director?”

  “No, because other underwater sensor buoys kept watch around the ancient structure. No other vessel left or entered the place.”

  “Then how did the Director get back to CAU Headquarters—given he went into the underwater Arctic structure.”