Surge Together (Book 3 of the Sheffield Chronicles)

by Nate Castle

  Aaron and Clyde glanced at each other as if to say, Is this joker serious right now? We just risked our lives trying to save humankind and his tone is implying that we are the scum of the Earth.

  Clearokyt nodded for one of his acquaintances to bring forward a human.

  “From now on, we do things my way. If you have an issue with that, you will end up like Doug here or worse.”

  He pointed at the human that was being held in the air by the Zyrgian. The Zyrgian let go of Doug and he collapsed to the ground uncontrollably.

  “You see Doug here is paralyzed from the neck down. It will be up to you to decide if he stays this way for the rest of his life or if I fix him. I’ll let your President brief you. I have some things to take care of.”

  He walked away and out came President Taylor.

  He said,“Guys, I’ve been told that the deflection of your missiles wasn’t random. The kratyriac must have recorded our conversations and relayed them back to the Fadothials. So, when you fired the missiles, the Fadothials had some kind of force field shield ready which the missiles rebounded off of.”

  “Holy shit,”Clyde said, “If only we had taken that kratyriac more seriously.”

  “We are left with no choice now, but to stand by the Zyrgians and follow their orders,” said President Taylor, “With the Fadothials close by now, we don’t have substantial time to come up with a sound plan, plus Clearokyt isn’t bluffing when he says he will paralyze anyone who disobeys.”

  22

  Fancy Pants

  The following day was very uneventful. It was a almost as if they were prisoners at their own home. The Zyrgians had nothing planned for them that was mission-related.

  “I sure hope this isn’t the new norm for us, I’m going to get stir crazy!” Sierra said.

  Her and Christina were taking a stroll from one end of the White House property to the other.

  “So how about Noel and General Kaplan?” Christina said.

  “Gross!” Sierra said.

  “That was very unexpected, I would’ve never thought in a million years that she would be into him or older men in general,” Christina said.

  “Important question, who do you have your eye on?”

  “Oh come on, no one!”

  “Answer the question Christina, there has to be one.”

  “Fine! I kinda dig Clyde. He shows off a bit too much, but I think I could get past that,” said Christina.

  General Kaplan relayed a message to the President over the radio,“Yo, they want to meet with us now. Let’s take them to the Emerald Room this time. Less risk of the kratyriac eavesdropping.”

  “Tell me who you have with you?” President Taylor said, “I’ll get whoever is left over.”

  “I only have Hank and Logan with me,” said General Kaplan.

  “Ok. And just to clarify, only your first string team will be at the meeting? Not civilians right?”

  “Roger.”

  “Thank god we’re finally having a meeting, I was starting to go a bit nuts,” Logan said to Kaplan who had just wrapped up his conversation with the President.

  The setup was unfamiliar because typically either General Kaplan or President Taylor would stand near the front of the room with the others sitting down at the long wooden table. On this occasion though, Clearokyt was the boss, so he stood at the front of the room. With no introduction needed, the meeting started.

  “Logan, tell us about your necklace,” said Clearokyt.

  Logan was caught off guard.

  How do they know about my necklace, it’s never visible. I never take it off, but it’s always tucked into my shirt.

  “Why don't you come up here and do some show-n-tell? Is that what you humans call it?” said Clearokyt.

  Logan stood up from his seat and moved to the front of the room, taking off his necklace on his way up there. He held it up so everyone could see. The necklace portion was a basic black string material; it was the pendant that was unique. The pendant was the size of a quarter. The best way to describe it was a backwards #3. The ‘3’ looked like it had originally been a part of a larger piece at one time, but had broken off, giving the ends of each leg on the ‘3’ a rustic look. The fascinating thing about this pendant was its constant changing of hues. When Logan held it up, it was gunmetal grey, but the longer he held it, the lighter the hue got, and soon it looked like chrome. Next, Logan held the string part of the necklace and swung it back and forth like a pendulum. The pendant went from chrome to a dull gold color.

  The question kept bugging him, but Logan eventually convinced himself that the Zyrgians had x-ray vision and spotted his necklace that way.

  “Well I found this pendant when I was fishing with my grandfather. It got caught on my hook, which I found odd because the hook didn’t go through the pendant, the pendant just stuck on the hook like a magnet.”

  “And where were you fishing? Lake, ocean, river?” Clearokyt asked.

  “It was called the Methow River, which is a tributary of the Columbia, in Winthrop, Washington.”

  “Not the Washington that we’re in now right?”

  “No, in Washington State, on the other side of the country.”

  “How old were you at the time?”

  “I was 16. It was the last trip I went on with my grandfather before he passed.”

  “You’re doing well, keep being as specific as possible.”

  The necklace was now on a table and had returned to its original gun metal grey color.

  “So you found this piece by itself or was it already a necklace?”

  “I found just the pendant and made it into a necklace.”

  “Why?”

  “Just from holding the pendant in my hand, I could tell that it was unique. I’d never seen anything change colors the way that it did.”

  “How many times have you taken off the necklace since you made it?”

  “Maybe a dozen.”

  “And did you notice anything odd happen to you while it was off?”

  “Now that I think about it, yes. I seemed to get a migraine headache whenever I took it off.”

  “Ok thanks for showing that to us Logan, you can take your seat again.”

  Clearokyt picked up the necklace from the table and gave it a quick examination before handing it back to Logan.

  “Many of you must be wondering what this necklace has to do with anything,” said Clearokyt, “Don’t worry I’m getting there.”

  He spoke slowly, making sure his audience absorbed every word.

  “We have reason to believe that Logan’s necklace is an ancient Fadothial artifact. A Fadothial craft crashed on Earth nearly 3000 years ago. What happened to that craft and the Fadothials inside isn’t proven fact, but evidence strongly suggests that the craft was somehow repaired and they were able to successfully fly home, leaving behind only this small piece of metal.”

  “How could you come to a conclusion like that if it happened 3000 years ago?” President Taylor jumped in.

  “It doesn’t matter how we came to that conclusion; I could explain it to you, but we’d be here all day,” said Clearokyt. “What does matter is what we do with this artifact. Let’s say that the pendant has more than just its color changing ability—it could be used to explain a lot of recent events where Logan was involved.”

  To back up his claims Clearoykyt pressed a series of buttons on his forearm LED screen and a hologram appeared. The image projected above the table and showed a video feed, a highlight reel of sorts. Every scene from the video depicted Logan escaping from a near death experience, from the first encounter he had with the Zyrgians at the racetrack to the most recent one at the White House where he lost and arm and a leg in the process.

  “It’s no coincidence that Logan survived these events. You have brought light to the theory that the computer chip in Logan’s knee was related to his survival, but that’s not the case. Yes, it could have played a small factor, but the main link is the necklace.”


  Clearokyt paused to let everyone digest what had just been said. Logan closed his eyes in deep thought.

  I know the chip in my leg had damaging effects on the Zyrgians, but could it really be true that the necklace was the real reason myself and many others are alive today?

  He took off his ballcap and brushed his fingers through his hair. The silence soon turned awkward and finally Hank intervened.

  “What do you think about all this Logan?” he said.

  “I’m having trouble wrapping my head around all of it,” Logan said, “Not to come off as rude, but I need more background information from you Clearokyt. Why did the Zyrgians come to Earth in the first place?”

  “Ahh I knew that question would pop up sooner or later,” said Clearokyt. “Some time ago, I don’t know how long in human years it was, our planet faced a crisis. Our three suns started the long process of burning out. Our suns aren’t like your sun in that we can prevent them from burning out by refueling them…

  “So we began a search for an element, compound, or substance that we could use to refuel our suns and avoid having to either vacate our planet or stay there and perish. The one criteria was that this mystery substance could not be native to our planet or else it wouldn’t work. When we observed the devastation that the cell phone attack caused your people, we saw that as an opportunity to come in, find a suitable substance and then leave without incident. Unfortunately because of your perseverance, it wasn’t that simple. You accredited us for causing the attack which prevented us doing what we sought out to do.”

  “You had ample opportunities to leave Earth after we started to fight you, so why didn’t you?” General Kaplan chimed in.

  “We got word from our fellow Zyrgians back home that another tribe had realized we were spread thin and weak because a lot of our members were on Earth dealing with the sun problem. That tribe invaded our planet and wiped out many of our members. The ones that escaped sent a message that it was time to find a new planet. Since we were already on Earth, it made sense to stay here. We thought that by investigating the situation and presenting evidence to you that the Fadothials were responsible for all of the attacks, that then we could work out a peaceful agreement with you. This agreement would allow the Zyrgians to live on Earth alongside the humans... And this leads us to where we are today.”

  ———-

  “Ho-ly sh-ee-it” General Kaplan said, dragging out the words.

  “I think I believe Clearokyt after that long-winded explanation, even though it’s startling news,” said Logan.

  “I can't believe this, a planet where humans and aliens live together in peace, how is that going to work?” Hank said.

  “Guys, lets’s not get caught up looking too far into the future right now,” said Sierra, “The most critical thing is what do we do next to ensure that we even have a future?”

  “Obviously Clearokyt’s going to have the best answer to that question too,” Clyde said, not at all trying to hide his sarcasm.

  Clearokyt either didn’t detect the sarcasm or simply didn’t care and continued on with his thoughts.

  “What has to happen is Logan has to put the necklace back into the river where he found it. This will create a pulsation so great that it will disintegrate all Fadothials, even the ones on their home planet. It’s not going to be easy, but with a few targeted distractions, I am confident that we can pull it off.”

  “And it has to be Logan that puts the necklace in the water?” said President Taylor, “Why can’t it be you or one of your people?”

  “That’s just the way the universe works, the finder of the pendant has to also be the destroyer of it,” said Clearokyt.

  “Oh for heaven’s sake, he's going all ‘Lord of the Rings’ on us,” said Aaron.

  “What?” asked Clearokyt.

  “It used to be a popular book and movie series here on Earth,” Aaron said.

  “I’m not familiar with it. In this series, what was the end result?” Clearokyt said.

  “The good group defeated who they were fighting by destroying a ring,” said Aaron.

  “Good that’s all I wanted to know. So you see that this plan has potential to work. Fictional or not I don’t care. History has a way of of repeating itself in odd ways. I don’t see us having much choice, but does anyone oppose my idea?” Clearokyt said.

  “You went from being the dictator to now giving us a say in the matter, that’s the only thing I’m concerned about,” Clyde said.

  “Imagine yourself in my shoes. I give you the tools for success, but if you aren’t with me 100% then the plan won’t work. So I’m asking you all up front, are you with me?”

  Logan gave Clyde a friendly punch in the shoulder, Logan liked to call it an ‘ego-buster’. When someone needed to stop having a big head and get back to reality, this punch was effective.

  “Yes, we’re all with you, “Logan said, “Let us know what we need to do next.”

  23

  Half Potential

  In total, eleven crafts lined the White House lawn, the six Zyrgian crafts plus the five human crafts. Many civilians volunteered to ride in crafts mainly to be able to get away from the White House. With, all of the key players and leaders participating in this mission, the White House felt very vulnerable. The volunteers wouldn’t be able to provide much help to the overall success of the mission, but Clearokyt decided to allow them to attend. Before leaving the Emerald Room, Clearokyt had briefed the group on what needed to happen next, and then spent a few minutes alone with the President.

  The humans that were in the Emerald Room met at a spot about 100 feet from the kratyriac and began having a conversation. The gist of the conversation was that they would fly all available crafts to different locations and shoot a new set of missiles at the Fadothial crafts. They were confident that these ‘new missiles’ wouldn’t be deflected like in the last attempt because they contained a secret ingredient that could penetrate the force field.

  They had to do a good job acting, and really ‘sell’ what they were saying, even though every word they spoke was a complete lie.

  The success of the mission was reliant on the belief that the kratyriac would record every word they spoke and relay the message back to the Fadothials. If this didn’t happen, then everything from that point on would be a crapshoot.

  President Taylor wrapped up the conversation before they headed to the crafts, “I wish everyone the best of luck out there. Let’s take down these aliens!”

  The first of the eleven crafts lifted off the ground.

  We’re putting all of our eggs in one basket.

  Logan turned and smiled at Shelby who was on this craft along with President Taylor, Sierra, and Hank. Clearokyt was the pilot and three other Zyrgians were scattered about the cabin. They hovered in place for a minute until the ten other crafts were also airborne, and flew out of sight. President Taylor made a case that even though the key players all wanted to be on the same craft, they should spread out. If something were to happen to one of the crafts while it was flying and it perished, having key players in other crafts would at least give the human race a fighting chance of survival.

  “Did you influence this idea?” Logan asked, “To have the crafts fly in different directions to confuse the Fadothials?”

  “Yes I told Clearokyt that’s the protocol we used when I used to travel in a car,” said President Taylor, “ We would have six or seven identical black SUVs in the motorcade and we would alternate the location of the car I was in, to make it harder for potential assassination attempts. Sometimes my car would be second in the line, other times it would be fifth, it varied.”

  “Good call on convincing Clearokyt, he seems like a stubborn bastard,” Hank said.

  “The way I see it, one of two things can happen here,” said President Taylor, “The desired outcome is that the Fadothial crafts remain on the ground in Youngstown, Ohio. Clearokyt claims that they can only create their shield force field when they are not in motion
. So, if they take the risk of following us, they won’t be able to deflect our missiles…

  “The second scenario is they do follow our crafts because they either think we are bluffing or they want to attack before we can fire our missiles, given that we have reportedly have new innovations that will render their shields useless. If they go with scenario two, they have to decide which crafts to follow, because each of our crafts is headed to a different location. All of the crafts besides ours will act as decoys.”

  Clearokyt couldn’t locate an open area close enough to the Methow river that was also large enough to land the craft. The best landing option was a few miles east, which would force Logan and company to walk through dense brush to reach the river.

  “I’m going to let you guys out through the net. I’ll be hovering above providing air support,” said Clearokyt, “ We’re counting on you Logan, get it done.”

  Hank led the way into the chamber that would deploy the net. Logan hung back to say his final remarks to Clearokyt, “Before I go, I have one last question for ya. Why aren’t the Zyrgians capable of defeating the Fadothials?”

  “Son, like I said before. Zyrgians aren’t violent beings. We’re not able to attack another tribe unless provoked. For better or for worse, it’s not in our DNA.”

  Logan had gotten over the fact long ago that Clearokyt spoke English, but being called ‘Son’ by an alien definitely gave him the creeps.

  “Fair enough, I’ll see you on the flip side,” Logan said.

  Logan joined the others in the chamber and moments later they were deployed on the ground, pulling away the netting to find an opening to climb through.

  General Kaplan, flying in the ‘spotter’ craft immediately got on the radio to alert all of the other crafts.

  “Guys a bit of a situation here. I’m positioned over Youngstown. The Fadothial crafts have been stationary on the ground here, but just now three crafts took off and are heading west.”