Ehar was operating behind the village’s collective back by sending Velia to the portal in secret. She’d said it was out of concern for Velia’s safety—but Velia had detected no danger at the erawots, where she’d been most exposed.
“Come on!” Farem gestured, glowering with insistence.
Velia sighed. As she’d told Jape over and over, she was an engineer. Even working on a secret military base didn’t qualify her to be cloak-and-dagger. Figuring out ruses was not her forte.
Besides, I need to report to General Thomas. My biggest issue with this is not saying goodbye to Jape.
She followed Farem at a distance through the hive as he’d instructed, rushing forward in spurts from doorway to doorway, keeping close to concealment if it was needed. Their caution proved unwarranted. They made it to the portal chamber without encountering anyone.
Ehar had said the portal wasn’t scheduled to be manned, but the lack of Risnarish in the corridors confused Velia. When they reached the portal chamber without running into a single soul, she said, “It’s not the middle of the night, when Salno and the rest would be sleeping. Shouldn’t someone be here?”
“The scientists are reporting to the Elders Council about their latest findings. Ehar had those she could trust work security during this shift.”
Even so, his eyes were wide, and he stood at the doorway, watching the corridor nervously. Once again, Velia was struck with the feeling that this was all wrong. Was Ehar right? Was she in that much danger from those who suspected Earthlings of dirty dealings?
If Ehar hadn’t been so calm and assured, I’d think she was playing me.
Not my problem. I have to get home. If the Monsuda are planning to colonize Earth, if they’re buying off the American military with shiny gadgets in order to do so, something has to be done.
She went to the computer podium. She pressed the button to open the hatch to the waiting pod. It did so. Trembling in anticipation, Velia headed toward the pod.
Due to the aliens’ blueprints for the massive ship being built at Camp Noname, the engineers and scientists there had deciphered a number of command controls for that vessel. Their study of the portal access had given them concrete hints on how to operate the pod despite the aliens’ reticence in giving them unfettered use. The data Ehar had shared with Velia confirmed the team was on track.
That’s another issue when it comes to the Monsuda, isn’t it? The fact that we have to prove ourselves worthy to make use of the portal on our own. To be granted admission to all of DIE’s secrets. Are the Monsuda ensuring we’ll act responsibly, or trying keep us from being able to use the technology?
She boarded the pod. Now she really had the shakes as she stood at the podium within the craft. Could she fly it?
“Time to find out.” Velia pressed the button labeled Send. The readout asked for her destination. Glad she knew Camp Noname’s latitude and longitude—a must when she was out roaming the desert and could find a GPS hotspot—Velia tapped in the now-familiar Monsudan numbers.
Being an engineer tasked with helping to build DIE, an eagerness to decipher the alien writing that accompanied the English translations, had prepared her for the moment she would fly the pod. A series of hieroglyphics flashed on the readout. Velia fixed them in her mind, hoping for future use. If there was a shortcut to her destination, it would be good to know it.
The hatch behind her closed. An instant later, golden fire seethed outside the windows. A slight motion beneath her feet, and she was on her way. Heading home.
Leaving Risnar. Warm people like Snim and Efno. New friends—oh no, she’d not said goodbye to Retav!
And Jape. She should have insisted on saying goodbye to Jape.
Sorry, Stripes. I hope we meet again. Soon.
The minutes in the collection pod went on forever. The uncertainty of whether she would end up where she wanted to go made Velia uneasy, holding off the exhilaration of being in command of the vessel. What if she showed up in the wrong place on Earth, compromising her country’s secret? Or worse, what if she landed in a hive the Risnarish hadn’t taken from the Monsuda? Velia envisioned herself encased in a stasis pod and shuddered.
Retav had said they conducted horrific experiments on him while he was awake and aware. He confessed he’d begged for death on numerous occasions. Velia couldn’t imagine how he’d stayed sane. She sure as hell wouldn’t be able to.
“More likely, I’ll be stuck in the portal forever, flying and flying and never coming out anywhere,” Velia muttered. Well, there was a cheery thought. It sounded as bad as becoming a lab rat.
She tried to remember how long her trip with Jape had been when he’d taken her to Risnar. Her sense of time had been muddied, just as it had been flying from the hive to Cas. She’d been caught up in the shock of being abducted by an alien.
Jape. Velia wished he was with her now. Or that she was with him, having never left Risnar. What was she doing, attempting to return to Earth like this? Most likely getting herself killed or in serious trouble.
Then, the fire cleared. The portal chamber reappeared, and the pod settled on its cradle once again.
Only, it wasn’t the hive portal. Through the pod’s porthole windows, Velia spotted placards in English. There was the scratched table with familiar desktop computers dotting its worn surface, surrounded by industrial made-in-China chairs. Distant alarms were going off, a match for those that had been screeching when Jape took her.
She’d done it. She’d gotten home to Camp Noname on her own.
The door on the other side of the room opened, and Marines poured into the room, guns pointed at the ready. Velia moved away from the window.
She recognized Hudson’s voice as he shouted, “Occupant of the saucer, this is an unscheduled entry! Identify yourself immediately!”
Velia keyed the button that read Communication. “Velia Farrah, engineer. I’m alone, Corporal Hudson.”
She moved so he could watch her through a porthole. He and other familiar faces exchanged startled looks before Hudson shouted, “Open the hatch and come on out, Farrah. Keep your hands where we can see them. If you do anything else, we will open fire.”
He wouldn’t do any such thing. The pod was a goldmine of technology. The portal ring itself, hallowed scientific ground. Weeks ago, there had been rumors that several trigger-happy Marines had shot at an infiltrator in the chamber, and they’d been removed from duty immediately. Faces familiar to Velia had disappeared, as if they’d never existed. The rest of the guards had been grim for ages after that. Velia gathered the penalty for threatening the portal access had been severe.
Nevertheless, Velia pushed the button to open the hatch and stepped out from behind the podium. She put her hands up and slowly walked to the exit. She continued down the ramp and stopped.
The corners of Hudson’s mouth twitched, but he continued barking orders, “Step to the side so we can enter the ship, Farrah. Conner, check her. Kwan, Goldstein, check the pod.”
Velia stayed still as the female Marine patted her down. Kwan and Goldstein boarded the pod, their weapons held so that the barrels faced up rather than ready to fire on anything. That was a relief. Velia was afraid they’d damage vital components in the pod, which the engineers had not been able to study yet.
Conner dropped back. “She’s clean, Captain.”
Kwan and Goldstein came out a second later. “All clear on the saucer.”
“At ease, guys.” Hudson let the waiting smile appear. “Welcome home, Farrah. We’d almost given you up for gone.”
She answered his grin with one of her own. “Not quite, though it’s been an adventure. I need to talk to the general.”
“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. Should we expect anything else?”
“I don’t think so, but if someone does show up and they’ve got stripes, don’t shoot. We’ve got friends we we
ren’t aware of.”
“Can’t promise anything like that. The creature that grabbed you had stripes.”
“He grabbed me because he thought you were going to kill him.” Velia shrugged. “I’ve been treated well by his people. They aren’t our enemies.”
Hudson jerked his head toward the door. “That’s for the CO to figure out. Conner, Kwan, take her to report. I’ll let General Thomas know you’re on the way.” As Velia passed him, he added, “Glad to see you in one piece, Farrah.”
“Glad to be seen in one piece.” She kept her tone easy, not letting on to her fears.
But what should she be scared of? Jape wouldn’t follow her to Earth, especially once Ehar explained to him what was going on. He couldn’t, in any case, because she had the pod.
He was safe on Risnar, with no ability to show up on Earth. She had nothing to worry about.
Chapter Sixteen
“Velia! Thank God! But how did you get here?”
General Andrew Thomas met her and her escorts in the hall outside his office. He grabbed her in a hug, not worried over decorum in the presence of the soldiers. He waved them off as they saluted. Conner and Kwan left as Thomas’s secretary beamed at her over their boss’s shoulder. “Welcome home,” Corporal Smith whispered, then resumed typing on his computer.
Meanwhile, the general bustled Velia into his office. “Come in, sit down. Do you need Medical to check you over right away? They should in any case, otherwise some tyrant in a white coat will be yelling at me about alien microbes or some such shit. Are you okay, Velia?”
“I’m fine. Plenty of food and sleep and all that kind of thing.” She had an instant of worry that they’d take blood and find out she’d partied hard with her hosts, but it was too late to do anything about that. “I’d kill for a cup of coffee, but I have a lot to report to you, sir.”
He led her to a chair. As she sat, he settled himself on the polished wood surface of his desk. He looked down at her, as warm as ever—though his eyes were as sharp as a hawk’s sighting prey.
General Thomas stared at her for so long that she began to feel uncomfortable. Holy crap, she’d not just gone on a drinking binge with the aliens, she’d had sex with Jape. Definitely not something to report. Stick to the stuff important to national security. Concentrate on the danger we share with the Risnarish, or he’ll never let you return.
Immaculate as always in his uniform, General Thomas was imposing even when he played the part of supportive uncle. As the commanding officer of Camp Noname, he was due all the respect his rank entailed. Velia sat still under his stare, as she’d learned to do with her perfectionist father. No fidgeting. Meet his eyes. Sit up straight.
He whooshed out a breath, relaxing as if he’d found nothing amiss. “I’ve lost sleep over you being snatched by that alien creature. Our contacts who gave us the portal access have mentioned their enemies’ primitive natures. I couldn’t face myself these last few days, truth be told, feeling as if I’d failed you and your father. I’ve been shaving without benefit of a mirror.” He laughed, the sound forced.
If that was true, General Thomas was talented with his razor. He was as neat as ever, no stubble, groomed to perfection, his close-cropped, gray-dusted brown hair perfectly in place.
Affection filled her. “Thank you for worrying. Fortunately, there was nothing to worry about as far as my captor and his people were concerned. He only grabbed me out of panicked self-preservation.”
“Then why did it take so long for you to be released?” Thomas frowned.
Velia eagerly delivered her information. “The Risnarish are fighting for their survival. They’re a spiritual race living in an almost communal society. The evidence I’ve been shown suggests it’s the Monsuda who are the real threat, both to the Risnarish and to Earth.”
Velia launched into what she’d learned of the Risnarish, their allegations about the Monsuda plans to invade and colonize Earth, and viewing footage of the recovery of victims. At the end, she added, “I believe you should come to Risnar and visit the room where the Monsuda test subjects are kept in these coffinlike storage capsules. It’s hideous.”
The general stared off into the distance, his expression grave. “It’s hard to believe. The technology our contacts have offered—and they said they would give us more. Defensive tools that will keep us safe from enemy countries. You worked on the flying chevron yourself, what you engineers dubbed the DIE. You realize what that alone means to our strength.”
“But why would they offer it? And where are those components they haven’t explained to us? Why are the specs for components missing, especially the power initializers that the DIE can’t run without?” Her uneasiness tumbled out in a single breath. She heaved in another and kept hammering the fears that had welled up over the last two days. “That’s just to start with. Why have they hidden how to use the portal, as if we were children too irresponsible to do so? What do they want in exchange?”
General Thomas looked away, toward the wall full of commendations and framed photos of him shaking hands with heads of various government entities, including six presidents and dozens of foreign prime ministers, premiers, and chancellors. From there, his gaze went to the table behind his desk, where portraits of his daughter’s family and his grade-school-age granddaughter beamed at him. “Is that what the Risnarish wish to learn?”
“I haven’t spoken to them about the DIE. They gave me the instructions to fly the pod, because they didn’t realize we had figured that part of the portal out. My questions come from my concerns.”
He relaxed and returned his attention to her. “If the military had a reciprocal agreement with the aliens you refer to as the Monsuda, it would be classified. I couldn’t divulge it to you.”
“I understand that. I’m not even military.” She worried he wasn’t taking the allegations of the Risnarish seriously. Not with such technological wonders at his fingertips, almost within his grasp.
After all, what could the Risnarish offer? Their village containment barriers wouldn’t work for an entire country. Their dartwings were phenomenal, but they weren’t the DIE, a fleet of which would keep America’s enemies at bay.
I don’t know about their weapons, whether the Risnarish have anything we’d want. Jape talks about how his men died, but they’ve won some battles. Maybe they do have superior technology where arms are concerned. But I can’t confirm that.
With no shiny objects with which to lure the general, Velia settled for another alarm that Jape and others had shared. “Some of the Risnarish assert that there may be portal accesses on other parts of Earth. In countries hostile to us. If the Monsuda are planning to colonize our planet, it makes sense they’d offer us and our potential enemies the same thing in order to gain access everywhere.”
“Did you find proof of that yourself?”
“No. I thought you would want to investigate the matter personally. As Jape likes to tell me, I’m no military expert.”
“Jape. This was the man in charge of enforcement? Who grabbed you?”
“Right. You’d like him. He’s a soldier through and through.” Warmth crept into her voice. She hastily diverted the conversation. “I was hoping you’d agree to meet with him or the head elder, Ehar. They can tell you more than I can.”
“Did it occur to you that perhaps bringing in the commander for our side would be a trap the Risnarish are laying?” His soft, fatherly tone blunted any accusation he might have been making.
“Not at all. Not after having met them.” Velia was firm in her conviction. “Allow me to go back on my own if you’re nervous. I’ll bring one of them here if you won’t go to Risnar. You can talk to them. Get to understand the Risnarish. I’m positive you’ll agree they are no threat to us.”
He stood and paced the floor, thinking the matter over. The minutes ticked by as he did so. Velia sat quietly. Any further arguments at
that point would do more harm than good. General Thomas was warmer than her father had been, but he was cut from the same cloth. To rush him would try his patience, make him inclined to resist, if only to assert he was in control of the situation.
In her brain, a chant had erupted. Let me go back. Let me go back. Let me go back. If success could have been determined by willpower alone, Velia would have conjured Ehar and the general shaking hands like the dearest of friends at that moment.
That wasn’t the image in her mind’s eye. The face smiling at her there was Jape’s. Damn it, she wanted to see him again, more than securing friendly relations between the United States and Risnar. Maybe duty belonged before the heart, but emotions yelled louder.
Stripes, you’re killing me. A wild romp and those few smiles, and you’re in my head.
“One.”
Velia jumped at Thomas’s voice. She came out of her reverie. “Sir?”
“Bring one representative of the Risnarish here to discuss the matter with me. No more than that.”
Her heart leapt. She’d opened the door for contact. She’d be able to show Jape how reasonable her people could be after all. It was hard to control the excitement trying to bubble up in her voice. “Thank you, sir. Thank you so much.”
Maybe her excitement shone through after all, because a slight smile touched Thomas’s lips. “I should send a trained negotiator there instead of you. Heaven help me, it would make me feel a lot easier than putting my old friend’s daughter in danger.”
“I’m not in danger, General. Not from the Risnarish.” Not from Jape, as grumpy as he can be.
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