“Are you going to tell me who this is?”
“You really don’t recognize my voice?” she replied. “My Earth name is Kaitlyn O’Connor. Remember now? I was with Colonel Redford and Anna Abbott at Evie headquarters.”
“Calling to gloat about your escape, Kaitlyn? Or do you just want to practice your English with a fellow off-worlder?”
“I want to make a deal, Frey.”
“A deal?” said the Tart suspiciously. “What kind of deal?”
“The kind that’s beneficial to us both. I’m not on the same page as my Vorian brethren. So I want to join forces. You get what you want, and I get what I want.”
“So you’ve gone rogue, is that it?”
“You can call it what you like,” said Kaitlyn. “But can I assume you want to hear what I have in mind?’
“Why not?”
“Our portal just reopened a few days ago, allowing two of us through every forty hours. Our leader, Tom Vega, is pulling out all the stops to get Anna Abbott through it as soon as possible. Which has always been his goal, as I’m sure you know.
“So here’s my offer. I’ll give you the location of our portal, and its precise timing. I’ll even give you detailed plans of how Tom plans to get his clairvoyant detective through it. And it’s a much better plan than you imagine. Even if I told you the location, and you sent all of your people, she’d still get through. But with the information I can give you, you can stop her.”
“And what do you want in return?”
“I want you to leave me and my people alone. You now outnumber us more than ten to one. So I want you to vow not to hunt us down and exterminate us. Do what you want here on Earth. I don’t care about the humans. But leave the Vorians alone.”
“So you’re begging for mercy?”
“I’m negotiating for mercy,” corrected Kaitlyn. “And you’re actually getting the better end of the deal.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Do you really want to find out what Anna Abbott can do with a fleet of starships under her command? You get to stop an age-old Vorian initiative, all in exchange for letting a few harmless Vorians live. And you’ll need me, even after I give you all the intel I have. Because you can’t kill Anna. You have to stop her. Surround our portal in overwhelming numbers, making it clear to her and Tom that trying to make it through is futile. Suicide. So that neither side engages, and Tom and Anna simply back off. In that way, my people are spared, and your people are spared. And you can leave enough of yours behind to prevent her from ever making it through in the future.”
“Remind me again why my overwhelming force and I shouldn’t just send a few hundred bullets through her body.”
“Because if you kill her in the future, she’ll get a vision now, and change that future. She could well see what you intend early enough to figure out a way to kill you. It’s safer to just go back to the status quo. Which, in your case, is ten to one superiority in numbers.”
“Even if you’re right, and I decide not to try to kill her, I still don’t see why I need you after you give me the portal’s location.”
“You really don’t know what you’re up against, Frey. With Anna alive, we’re all exposed. You can never be comfortable. The US military, and soon the world military, will be hunting you down. With your tech, you’ll be able to survive even this, but not if she’s around. Trust me, she’s your worst nightmare, as I know you’ve come to appreciate. The ease of her escape from Evie headquarters had to have convinced you of that.”
“Once again, this is interesting, but doesn’t tell me why I need you.”
“Because we’ll have to work together to devise a plan to eliminate her. I’ve been working on it, but given her clairvoyance, the plan will have to be complex and wildly inventive. Subtle. Gradual. I’ll have to learn a lot more about her capabilities, which is my job anyway. The better I can understand her strengths and weaknesses, the more chance I’ll find what the humans call her Achilles’ heel. And even after we’ve killed her, you’ll still need me. Since you’re leaving us alive, I’ll be tipping you off if the Vorians or the Earth’s military are about to find you. And since my people will continue their search for additional Annas, I’ll make sure they never find one. To be honest, I doubt there’s another as perfect as she is anyway.”
“Why? Why would you do this? Just to spare the lives of the few Vorians on Earth?”
“I have other reasons also, but why does it matter?” said Kaitlyn. “And just to be clear, you’ll be sparing the Vorians here, and any who arrive in the future. You can make sure that Anna never makes it to Vor. But those arriving get free passage.”
She paused. “So do we have a deal, or don’t we?”
“We don’t,” said Frey. “You’ve done a good job presenting this fantasy, but there’s no way I could ever trust you. It smells like a trap. It smells like a way for you to get me to deploy all of my forces into the teeth of an ambush. I think you’re just pretending to be a traitor.”
“Is there anything I can say that will get you to believe me?”
“Nothing. So I’m afraid we’re done here.”
Kaitlyn sighed. She had thought this is where they might end up. Which is why she had gone to the trouble of freeing Stinnett from the Vorian compound. “I can prove that I’m telling the truth,” she said.
“How?
“Stinnett. Your previous puppet. Who is now unconscious and serving as our telephone.”
“Previous puppet?” said Frey. “Does that mean he isn’t anymore?”
“No. I gave him the antidote. He’s alive and well, and no longer under the influence of HCS. But he was in on all of our planning meetings. He can confirm what I’m telling you. Anna recently announced to all that we have a traitor in our midst. Stinnett can confirm this also.”
“And you’re that traitor, is that what you’re telling me?”
“Yes.”
“If Stinnett is no longer under the influence of HCS, why would I trust him any more than I trust you?”
“Because you can put him back under the influence,” said Kaitlyn. “Do you have more doses?
“Just one more, recently completed.”
“Good. Then that’s enough. You can have him confirm the location of our portal, and anything else you want. I’ll bring him wherever you want. I’ll put myself at your mercy. You can check to be sure I’m not being followed, nullify my comm. Whatever you want to do to convince yourself I’m not part of a trap. Then shoot Stinnett up with HCS, and he’ll confirm everything I’m telling you.”
There was no response.
“Or let me paint an alternate picture,” said Kaitlyn. “You reject my offer. Which means that Anna is guaranteed to get through to Vor. Where her clairvoyance will get stronger, day after day, month after month. And where she’ll be dominating battles against the Tartarian Alliance as effortlessly as she’s escaped from so many of your foolproof traps.”
There was another long pause. “All right,” said Frey. “You’ve made your point. We have a deal. If everything you say checks out, I won’t hurt you or any other Vorian. But if it doesn’t check out, or if you fail to hold up one nanometer of your end of the bargain, all bets are off.”
“Agreed,” said Kaitlyn. “And just as a show of good faith, since it will take a while for this to play out, have your people begin preparing for a trip to Albania. That’s where our portal is. That way, when you’ve convinced yourself that I’m on the level, they can travel there without delay.”
“Where in Albania?”
“I’ll give you the precise GPS coordinates when we’re face to face,” said Kaitlyn. “So tell me where you want me to go, and let’s get this started.”
55
Shanifrey Doe ended the connection with Eldamir Kor and returned to his office inside the temporary Tartarian stronghold. His second-in-command would be arriving shortly with the Vorian turncoat and Wilson Stinnett.
Finally.
The s
tronghold, just outside of Bakersfield, California, was inside a newly renovated factory and was ideal for their needs. It was a perfect, windowless rectangle, one story tall, that housed a hundred thousand square feet of space inside.
Surrounded on all sides by a large concrete parking area and an expansive lawn of grass, forty yards wide, the factory was impossible to sneak up on. Hostiles might hide within a small woods that faced the facility, but given the lawn and parking area, they would have to cover at least sixty yards to reach any door. And Shanifrey had seen to it that they would never make it that far.
A large sign in front indicated that the expansive building was a factory for “Aunt Sophie’s Baked Treats, Incorporated,” and Shanifrey had even ordered one of his underlings to create a false website for the fictitious company, borrowing content liberally from the web pages of Little Debbie and Hostess Cakes.
The factory had been slated to serve as an impregnable bunker and Foria production facility, both. But Shanifrey had discontinued work on drug production recently after this initiative had been blown. The US government now knew all about Foria and its deadly purpose. Besides, the Tartarians didn’t need it anymore. The technologies the large, newly arrived group of Tartarians now planned to unleash on the world would suit their needs far better.
Fully seventeen hours had passed since Kaitlyn O’Connor had contacted him and proposed her deal. And much had happened during this period.
Shanifrey had sent Eldamir Kor and three other Tartarians to meet with Kaitlyn at a site he had selected in Colorado. There, they had confirmed that Stinnett was alive and well, had nullified the Vorian’s comm so she couldn’t be tracked, and had carefully scanned for anything giving off an EM signal. And these were just the first of the heroic measures they had taken to be certain Kaitlyn couldn’t be followed back to the Tartarians’ temporary stronghold.
They also allowed the Vorian to make a call to her home base—a heavily supervised call—three hours in, to report that Stinnett was unconscious in a room in Drake Hospital in Salt Lake City. She let it be known that he was expected to make a full recovery, but might remain unconscious for several days, and that she would stay with him until he was fully out of the woods.
Eldamir and his three comrades had then played a lengthy and painstaking shell game, traveling into tunnels and then out again with different vehicles, swapping various helicopters and planes, and taking such a wild, convoluted route to the stronghold that a trip that should have taken three or four hours was stretched into four times this length. But at the end of it all, Shanifrey was satisfied that even if someone had had their eye on the pea to begin with, by the time their shell game was finished, the pea was safely hidden once again.
Not that it would matter if the stronghold were discovered. Already, it was all but impregnable, and its armaments had been dramatically upgraded during the past few days. When Shanifrey discovered that Nessie had locked him out of the system, he knew that the US military was now surely activated against his people, so he had accelerated his plans for the site. He had seen to it that lasers and tractor beams were installed to make the factory all but impregnable, even from the US Air Force and any missiles they might choose to deploy.
And just in case the stronghold was breached, thick steel barriers could be quickly lowered to enclose Shanifrey’s office and a thirty-foot perimeter around it. This would give the Tartarian leader plenty of time to uncover a hidden panel in his office and enter a reinforced tunnel that had recently been completed, allowing him and his top lieutenants to escape to a small warehouse a half mile away that contained three large helicopters.
And this was only the beginning. Soon, they would begin construction of a permanent stronghold in Colorado, built into the side of a mountain. And this stronghold would deploy new and improved technologies, installed as quickly as their hugely expanded team of scientists could jerry-rig human technology to produce what they needed.
Shanifrey prided himself on always erring on the side of caution, and his recent moves were no different. The improvements to his temporary bunker. His plans for an even better permanent one. And the care he had insisted they take while bringing Kaitlyn O’Connor to their stronghold, all were manifestations of this prudence.
But despite his cautious nature, he had chosen to deploy his forces to Albania immediately after speaking with the Vorian turncoat. He had told her that he would ready these forces for such a trip, but wouldn’t send them until she and her intel had been fully vetted. But this had been a lie.
In fact, he was sending six hundred eighteen members of his team to this European country, and most had already arrived, or would do so in the next eight hours. Twenty-eight more were now tucked safely away, with him, at the Bakersfield factory, and thirty-three others were spread throughout the world, ensuring that sixty-one Tartarians would remain, even if they lost everyone in Albania.
He felt certain Kaitlyn was exactly who and what she claimed to be. A weak, sniveling Vorian traitor desperate to save the lives of herself and her tiny group on Earth. He had told her otherwise, pretended to disbelieve her and walk away, but this had only been intended to improve his negotiating position and to see how she would react. In truth, he had believed her almost from the start.
She had led off by telling him that the Vorian portal had recently reappeared. This was a vital piece of intelligence she would never have shared if she were simply playing him. And she had no idea that he already knew this was the case. No idea that he had used Nessie to listen in on their conversation while they were traveling to Evie headquarters, and had heard this news for himself.
Besides, there was no reason for her to attempt a charade. He didn’t know the location of the Vorian portal, so there was no way he could prevent Vega from taking his clairvoyant prize through to his home planet, uncontested, and completing his mission. Which would be a massive win for the Vorians.
Finally, it would serve no purpose for her to lead him on a wild goose chase to Albania while she was putting her life in his hands. If she had lied, he would soon know it, and she would gain nothing, other than a Tartarian-assisted visit to the afterlife.
He also wasn’t surprised she’d become a turncoat, given what he knew about the Vorians. Many were brave and would die for their cause. But others, especially the scientist class like Kaitlyn, were pacifists and cowards.
So he hadn’t waited to send his team to Albania. He had sent them immediately, to give them the maximum time to prepare for the decisive battle to come. And while he had agreed to scare the Vorians into beating a hasty retreat, he had no intention of letting Anna and her Vorian allies leave in one piece.
This was his best chance to end this, once and for all. The human detective had proven herself a legitimate threat, probably the only one on the planet, and he wasn’t about to pass up a golden opportunity to remove her from the board before she grew any stronger.
56
Kaitlyn O’Connor and the secretary of defense—who was now conscious—were led at gunpoint by four Tartarians into one entrance of a massive factory, so bright inside that it was all but blinding to a human. Both were bound, and both of their mouths were covered with duct tape.
Before they entered, Eldamir Kor removed a pair of ultra-dark sunglasses and slipped them onto Stinnett’s face, protecting eyes that were now slammed shut.
They were led across a polished concrete floor bigger than a football field, bereft of most machinery now that the Foria production plans had been halted, and into one corner of the facility and the office that Shanifrey Doe had taken for his own. Kaitlyn wasn’t surprised to find that the Tartarians were not using the red, light-amplifying technology implanted in their eyes, as the facility was bright enough to obviate the need.
The alien commander motioned them into his office. “Kaitlyn O’Connor,” he said in English, reaching out to rip the duct tape from her mouth. “Thanks for dropping by.”
“Hello, Frey,” she replied, also in English. “Ni
ce lighting. The first time in years I don’t feel slightly anxious.”
“At least there’s something we can agree on,” said the alien leader.
“How about untying us?” she said. “I saw a dozen or two of your soldiers milling about this building. And the people you sent to Colorado all but climbed into my orifices with an electron microscope to look for weapons.”
Frey nodded at two of the guards accompanying Eldamir, and they made quick work of the prisoners’ bonds, but left the duct tape across Stinnett’s mouth. A third guard shoved a needle into the secretary’s neck and depressed the plunger, which Kaitlyn saw from the corner of her eye.
“HCS?” she said.
Frey nodded.
“How long before it takes hold?”
“Almost immediately,” he replied.
They waited in silence for five minutes.
“Wilson Stinnett,” said Frey when he was certain the drug had taken effect. “You will follow my every order, and you will only respond to my voice. Nod if you understand.”
Stinnett nodded.
“You will not speak unless spoken to,” he said, motioning for one of his men to tear the tape from Stinnett’s mouth.
“Ask him,” said Kaitlyn. “He’ll confirm everything I told you.”
“Not so fast,” said Frey. “I have to be sure he’s truly under my control.”
“Do your historical records indicate the drug has ever failed?” asked Kaitlyn.
“No. But then again, you might have come up with an antidote that acts like a vaccine, protecting humans from future doses.”
“Even though our ancestors never managed this after five hundred years?”
“You can never be too careful,” said Frey. He had two of his men separate the prisoners, and they held Kaitlyn tight while he handed Stinnett a gun. Eldamir drew a gun of his own and held it on the secretary of defense from behind, carefully watching his every move now that he was armed.
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