“Jess is right,” Pete was saying, not noticing her change. Nobody noticed. “Let’s have some fun.” He jogged a few steps back, cigar clinched in his teeth and hands up. He clapped them and looked to Zac. Zac tossed him the ball.
“I bet you could crack my sternum,” Pete handled the football, found the laces and tossed it to Jess. She wasn’t expecting it, having not been part of the throwing until then, but clamped the cigar quickly between her teeth and got her hands up and caught it cleanly. She turned and threw it to Zac.
“Steve,” Pete kept moving backwards, taking longer steps in reverse. “You ever catch a three-hundred-yard pass?”
Steve looked to Zac. Then the others. “Aren’t we a little out in the open? We probably shouldn’t be this visible.”
Pete dismissed that with a wave. “Fang’s got us covered.” Then he smiled, turned and started running. No further discussion. He looked over his shoulder and shouted to Zac: “Don’t throw till I hold up my hands!”
Zac spun the ball in his grip, checking its heft, and Jess could see he was gauging how to get the aim.
He looked over at Steve.
“You going?”
Steve hesitated.
Then: “Sure.” He started off. “Throw it to him,” he said. “I’ll just be there to pick up the pieces.” He turned fully toward Pete and ran to catch up.
Heath walked a little closer to Zac.
“This should be interesting.”
“You think he’ll get hurt?” Zac watched the two figures dwindle into the distance, readying his throw.
“Probably.” Heath took slow, steady draws on his cigar. Jess imagined Heath was a connoisseur, especially since he was the one who chose these superior stogies. She puffed hers gently.
“How’s your aim?” Heath wanted to know.
“I can hit him,” said Zac. “I’ve got the feel of it.” He hefted the football again. “I should be able to hit him in the chest. It’ll be up to him to catch it.”
“Right on the numbers,” Heath mused, then clarified: “In football players wear jerseys with numbers on them. If you throw a pass and hit the numbers it’s a good throw.”
Zac nodded. “Trick will be getting the right arc. Too high or too flat and it will come in way too hard. It still might.”
The fact that, not only could Zac throw a ball that far, and hit exactly, but that he had many ways to do it—lob it high, throw it on a flat plane—struck Jess as fantastic. It shouldn’t have, but in a way it did. She felt herself getting a little tingly anticipating what was about to happen. It was one thing to watch him perform truly spectacular feats of strength. What would it be like to see him do something simple like hurl a ball? Pete and Steve ran further and further away, showing no sign of stopping, and while she didn’t have a good gauge of how far three-hundred yards looked she knew it was nine-hundred feet and Pete wasn’t going to be exact anyway. He just kept running. And running.
Frickin far to be catching a football.
Or throwing it.
Would Pete get hurt?
Suddenly his endearing antics seemed a bit foolish.
Then the two figures stopped. Way, way out there, features barely visible. One of them put up his hands. Had to be Pete.
Jess held her breath. Zac made one more judge of the distance, twisted at the waist, shoulder and arm back, looking every bit like a professional quarterback, and …
Threw it.
A casual toss, for the effort he seemed to exert; it was nothing, of course. Not to a man who could do what he could do. No grunt. No exhale of breath. Nothing. Just, fwiiiiip! and the ball was gone. Only the speed gave it away. For while the force might come easy, the velocity at which the ball had to travel was beyond anything the human arm could do. And so what drove the insane power of that action home was the unreal, unseeable motion of Zac’s flick. One second cocked, arm back and ready, the next …
Arm at his side and the ball was gone.
And the ball …
Incredible. It looked like some real-life version of one of those doctored YouTube videos, where the guy made an impossible throw. Only this was more ridiculous even than the most CGI’ed video, and this was happening, in person. The ball sailed so high—into an arc way up in the sky, disappearing into the air to become a faint brown dot, making a sound—actually making an indescribable sound in those first instants as it cut the air away from them into the distance …
Then all they could hear was the quiet of the vast fields, watching the far off dot high in the sky, arcing toward the ground.
Right on target.
Jess realized she was holding her breath. As the ball headed for its mark she crossed her fingers, imaging the power behind it, heading down, down, down, perfect aim, on the numbers …
It nailed Pete to the ground.
Whether it was just Pete being his usual overreacting self or whether the ball actually knocked him down, all she could tell from that range was that it hit him and he fell.
The other figure, Steve, was bending at his side.
“Shit,” Heath was running for them. Zac too. Jess followed; all of them running side by side, Heath and Jess with cigars in hand, Zac’s chomped in his teeth.
“Hope I didn’t hurt him,” Zac sounded worried as he ran along beside she and Heath, then, as if remembering all at once who he was, leapt up and away, leaving his human companions in the dust—figuratively and literally—spewing a rain of grass and dirt as he launched. One leap was all it took. He landed right by the distant figures, stood beside Pete and was checking him with Steve.
Jess and Heath kept running. And running. She kept up with the Spec Ops guy, proud of herself for doing so—though she knew she hid tricks of her own—and before they reached them Pete was on his feet and flinging his hands at his side, obviously okay but still feeling the sting. By the time they reached them he was laughing.
“Holy shit!” his hollers came to them, audible now as they drew up and stopped. Pete’s palms were actually red, but he was flexing them and all digits seemed to be working.
Jess could imagine it hurt.
Pete looked to Steve.
“Your turn.”
Steve was shaking his head. “Oh no. I don’t think so.”
“You do a thousand,” Pete persisted. He turned to Zac. “How far you think you can throw it?”
Zac shrugged. “Whatever the ball can take.”
Pete smacked his thighs in amazement—then shook his hands when that obviously stung. “Whatever the ball can take!” He turned to the others. “Whatever the ball can take! You hear that?”
Steve beckoned Heath for the lighter; his cigar had gone down.
“Not that hard to believe,” said Steve, taking the lighter and flipping the cap. “I mean, look what he can do.” He flicked the tri-jet and put the ultra-hot flames to the tip, reigniting the fading embers. He handed it back and Heath lit his too, then offered it to Jess and Zac. Miraculously, or maybe not so miraculously, Zac still had his cigar chomped in his teeth even after the tremendous leap, though the flame was completely out.
“You got another?” asked Pete. His cigar had gone missing.
Heath looked back toward the hangar, now far away. “In my ruck.”
Pete grabbed the football. “Come on,” he said and started back.
“Actually,” of a sudden Jess had it in mind to get a little alone time, “I feel like a walkabout. Anyone mind?”
No one did.
“Zac? Wanna come?”
“Of course.” He blew a big cloud of smoke from his freshly lit cigar. Pete almost took the opportunity to make some snide comment about the two of them going off together, maybe a little payback for her earlier burn, but while Jess could see the urge clearly in his eyes he chose, instead, to do something she imagined was very hard for him.
He restrained himself.
“Keep an eye on the time,” Heath said and started back. “We’ll meet at the hangar.”
Jess ag
reed, they said a few brief see-yas and the three soldiers were off and ambling across the field toward the now-distant hangar, chatting and cutting up, tossing the ball, she and Zac making their way slowly in the other direction.
Soon there was enough distance between them that they could no longer be heard. She reached and took Zac’s hand. With her other she rolled the cigar in her mouth, puffing. It was a gorgeous day, she still couldn’t get over how nice, how perfect, and she did her best to keep her mind on that, to continue to absorb it for all it was worth. Live in the moment. A gentle breeze blew across the flat, open field, no natural obstructions for what seemed like miles, the tall grass swaying where it reached their ankles. It hadn’t been cut in a while. No doubt it would be an even longer time before anyone got out there and mowed.
Up ahead was a section of taxiway. Other flightline buildings sat at the other side. Such a huge amount of space in all directions. Around one of the buildings in the distance a car appeared, tiny that far away, glinting in the sun. For a while it drove toward them, though Jess was sure they weren’t its objective. Being out there on the base was kind of like being in a zombie world, after Day-Z or something, everything dead. The rest of the world went on, out of sight, she knew that it did, but here ... here it was deathly still. Truly the way a place should look after the Apocalypse. They were totally alone, the lone, moving car the only other sign of life. Suddenly she was sharing Steve’s concerns, wondering how wise it was to be moving about so openly.
But they were small and, for all intents, looked like a bunch of civilians. Again she worked to relax, focusing on Zac’s hand in hers, the car moving toward them far away. Slowly it got closer, then turned, heading toward its destination. It was a coppery/orange and she recognized it as the car she’d seen Cooper driving earlier, a little MINI Cooper that was too small for him. As it turned it was just close enough to see his gray hair and long, thin upper body stuffed inside, big head near the ceiling.
“Hey look,” she realized the juxtaposition of words. “It’s Cooper in a copper Cooper.” Then, to clarify for Zac: “The car brand is MINI Cooper. So it’s Cooper in a copper Cooper.”
Jess couldn’t tell if Cooper saw them or not but likely he did, two lone figures out in the field. Either way he wasn’t looking at them as he drove on.
“He always looks so serious,” she tried to read his expression in profile, difficult at that distance. “Wonder where he’s headed?”
She felt Zac shrug.
“From the look on his face, I’d say to the pooper.”
She nodded; Zac could see better than her, for sure, and he’d be able to tell.
Wait.
She stopped walking and looked up at him.
“Did you just say ‘to the pooper’?”
Zac held, a mock look of deep contemplation in his gaze. “This time it is serious.” He watched the car in the distance.
She chuckled. Zac mused:
“He’d better hurry.”
She felt a grin spreading across her face, looking up at Zac from the side as he kept his attention across the field on the slowly receding car, concerned.
“He’s trying to hold it.” He pretended to study what he was witnessing, coming to a dire conclusion. “He really needs to drop that dooper.”
Her grin spread wider.
With a deep sigh Zac shook his head. “God speed, Cooper.”
Now she laughed. “Think he’ll make it?”
Zac was grave, uncertain. “Hard to say. But he’s being a real trooper.”
She laughed harder. By now the car was too far away to see any more details, at least for her, curving toward some other building in the distance.
Zac observed the totality of it: “Cooper in a copper Cooper, being a trooper till he can make it to the pooper and drop that dooper.” He shook his head, hoping for the best for poor Cooper on his crucial mission.
Jess laughed even harder, tears in her eyes as Zac deadpanned, continuing his sage observation: “Power on Cooper. Soon you’ll feel super.”
It was a total release. Dumb or not—and it was pretty dumb—Jess found it hilarious. Zac turned to her, dropping the act and letting the amusement wash over him too.
“I love that laugh,” he said, bemused, happy to be there with her. “So much. That laugh cures everything. The world is just fine when you’re laughing.”
She threw down the cigar, stomped it under her boot and put her arms around his waist.
She sighed up at him.
“Why couldn’t we have met, not this way?” She shook her head slowly, the bill of her cap like a pointer. “Why did you have to fall out of the sky? Why did you have to be from another world? Why all this epic past behind us? I mean, Kel priestess? Why? Why couldn’t I just be Jess and you be Zac and we have met maybe at the mall or somewhere, gotten to know each other and had a fantastic life together?”
“You don’t call this fantastic?” He dropped his own cigar, pressed it out with his toe like her and returned her embrace.
“Not always. For every fantastically happy moment there’s a fantastically scary one, a fantastically painful one, a fantastically sad one. That’s not the sort of fantastic I want.”
“Is regular life fantastic? Happy all the time?” He shrugged. “I’m not being smart. I just don’t know. I’ve never had anything like that. My whole life has been in the pursuit of war. My whole life has been nothing like yours probably was.”
Truth was, regular life wasn’t fantastic. Not really. Regular life wasn’t happy all the time. Far from it. In fact, if anything regular life was fantastically boring. Especially in comparison. She’d had a chance to experience that contrast in those short months when she returned from Anitra.
But regular life was safe.
Regular life had hope.
“No,” she admitted. “But you and I could make it that way. We wouldn’t be like everyone else. We’d live life to the fullest, do everything fun there was to do and still be normal. No threats, no running into the face of death because we have no choice to survive. Just normal stuff. Have a house, two cars, jobs. Go surfing, skydiving, take vacations in Rome. You know. The best of both. Safety and fun.”
Zac gave a sly smile. “Raise a family.” A warm smile, and as he did he reached a hand to her belly. She looked down, almost cried on the heels of her hopeless plea, caught that inappropriate reaction and put her hand on top of his.
“How’s he doing?” he wanted to know. Mind onto that. Zac remained beyond thrilled at the prospect of their child.
Prospect. So much remained uncertain. About them. About their future. About their child.
Again she nearly cried.
She took a deep breath. “Good,” she said. “He’s so … nothing right now. It’s too early. But he’s in there. And he’s doing good.” She looked up, found Zac’s eyes and added with a weak smile: “I feel like he’s excited.”
“Yeah?”
She nodded. Zac smiled with her, grinning with that overabundance of happiness he had when he imagined their unborn son. He put his attention back on her belly, rubbing it gently, as if exploring something tangible.
“Have you decided what to name him?”
Name him? She hadn’t thought that far. They’d name him together, of course, but the idea of names at this stage …
She shook her head.
“On Anitra it’s the mother that chooses the name,” he explained. “I’m just curious what you’ll choose.”
That was interesting. “Really? The father has no input?”
He shrugged. “Not traditionally.”
Huh. Such a small but important cultural difference. She found it suddenly fascinating.
But Zac was rolling right along, in awe as he continued to rub her tummy. “I can feel him in there.” His hand was so warm through her shirt. She loved the feel of him touching her. She had no idea what, if anything, could be felt, other than circulation or something, but she had no doubt of Zac’s perception, of
his very real, very heightened senses, and in the same way he believed her when she said she knew it was a boy, she believed him when he said he felt their son.
“Did you have parents?” she asked. It seemed a silly question, but it really wasn’t. In all this, after everything, she had no idea. There was still so much about Zac she didn’t know, and the fact that she could know him so thoroughly, so much better than anyone knew their most cherished lover and yet, in certain ways, still not know him at all …
“Yes,” and he smiled at the next question he saw coming. “Kazerai are born naturally. We’re not bred to be Astake. At a young age those with aptitude are identified. If they go into the program they’re trained.
“Once they’ve proven themselves, the most elite Astake, the best of the best, are selected to become Kazerai. Only five at a time.”
Jess remembered those bits of the system.
“Did you stay in touch?” she asked. “With your parents?” Not the best thing to be asking when Zac was about to be a father that might not even live to see his son. And there she was nearly crying again, though there was no certainty on any of it, either way—it was just as Zac said, things might work out fine and he could live a long and normal life … why did she keep imagining the worst?
Why is this so emotional?
But he shook his head. “Me they took young. Younger than most. I recall my parents, what they looked like, but I never saw them after that. We were never reunited.”
Jess thought of the Spartans, of other warrior cultures that trained their men for combat from the time they were boys.
“But they were proud,” Zac took his hand from her tummy and put it back around her waist. “I remember that much. So proud.” He drifted. “My mom got to name me Horus. Certain names on Anitra held significance, and mine was an honor. I never told you. Horus was a reserved name, believe it or not.”
She listened intently.
“It was a great warrior name,” he said. “I don’t recall much about my parents, a little of what they were like, but that thing in particular stands out. How totally proud they were, of that right, of what promise I held with that name.”
She felt a pang of regret at having taken it away, giving him the name Zac instead. At the time it made perfect sense. He’d needed a name. In the end he’d made it his own and, in fact, had come to love it. He was Zac, now, and she knew he would not want to be anyone else.
Star Angel: Prophecy Page 31