United

by Melissa Landers

  Alona remained silent for a while, both hands folded on her lap. “An interesting theory, though they didn’t ask for the surrender of our weaponry systems.”

  Devinder pointed out, “And we exaggerated our defenses to the mechanical probes by showing them multiple images of iphal cannons. The Aribol believe we’re heavily armed.”

  “My gut’s telling me something’s not right,” Cara insisted. “What do we know about the Aribol? Can we track Zane’s transmission to see where it came from?”

  “I already did.” Alona brought up a digital screen and swiped at the data with an index finger. “His signal originated from a galaxy our Voyagers discovered last year. We’ve yet to explore it.”

  Last year? Cara frowned. Wasn’t that when the probes had begun falling?

  “As for what we know,” interjected a male Elder seated to Alona’s right, “the Aribol are a mystery. One of our scholars, Larish, compiled ages of research and rumor to form his own theories about their kind, but they’re just that—theories.”

  Cara knew Larish. He was a middle-aged academic who specialized in humanities. She’d visited him months ago, when she’d first suspected that Jaxen and Aisly were part Aribol. According to Larish, the race predated every known life form in the universe, they possessed extreme psychic abilities, and they wielded technology advanced enough to blow her “Noven” mind. She’d always assumed the Aribol were a bunch of bored ancients who amused themselves by playing god.

  Looked like she was right.

  “We need more information,” she said.

  “Agreed.” Alona peered at her fellow Elders. “In addition to the transport, we have one Voyager ship the Aribol missed. It’s away on a mission. I’ll call it home and send it to investigate Zane’s location. To be safe, all humans will return to Earth at once.”

  Panic squeezed Cara’s windpipe. “All humans? Can’t some of us stay behind to help the Voyager crew?”

  Alona frowned. “Perhaps, but you won’t be among them. I need you on Earth to act on behalf of The Way.” As if reading Cara’s thoughts, she added, “You may bring Aelyx with you. If we’re forced to meet the Aribols’ demands, he can return to L’eihr before the deadline.”

  “Do you mind if I assemble a team to come with me?” Cara asked. “Including Larish? He can inspect the probes that were sent to Earth.”

  “You may,” Alona agreed. “If I require his input, I’ll confer with him remotely.”

  The meeting adjourned, and as soon as Cara’s com-sphere shut down, Aelyx rushed in from the bedroom and swept her into a hug that lifted her toes off the floor.

  “I won’t leave you,” he murmured in her ear. “No matter what happens.”

  She hugged him close and nodded into his shoulder, but deep down, she knew neither of them would risk the lives of billions in order to stay together.

  She didn’t want to think about that right now.

  “Let’s call an emergency meeting in the dining hall,” she said. One month was barely enough time for a L’eihr transport to make it to Earth and back. Every minute counted. “We need to be out of here before dawn.”

  Devinder relayed the news in his native language to the colonists, and those who didn’t speak L’eihr used translator earpieces to listen. When he was done, Cara stood up and added a few words of her own.

  “I know life here has been an adjustment, and we don’t always see eye-to-eye. But no matter how you feel about the colony, ending the alliance is bad for all of us. If you agree, I hope you’ll volunteer to join the Voyager ship when it returns. They need all the help they can get; they lost a lot of explorers today.” She glanced around the room. “Are any humans willing to stay behind?”

  To her immense surprise, Jake Winters was the first to raise his hand. “I will.”

  His response inspired a few of his friends, who lifted their arms and echoed his words. Their willingness prompted even more to do the same, and before long, half the human colonists had volunteered for duty.

  “Thank you,” Cara told them. “Everyone else, you have five minutes to pack a bag, then report to shuttle number three. Our transport is fueled and waiting.”

  The room cleared, and Aelyx jogged in from the lobby to meet her. “I just spoke to Elle on the continent. She’s going to join Larish and meet us on the ship.”

  “Good.” Cara was grateful to have Aelyx’s sister on the team. Elle worked mostly as a medic, but she had other skills, too. She was the one who’d taught Cara how to block her thoughts, which had saved her from Jaxen’s multiple attempts at brainwashing. There was only one problem. “Did you tell Syrine?”

  Aelyx cringed. Elle and Syrine were former best friends who’d turned into enemies years ago, when they’d allowed a boy to come between them. “I was going to let her find out for herself.”

  Cara shook her head at him. Leave it to a guy to underestimate frenemies.

  The sound of footsteps drew her attention to a young L’eihr girl, who was hurrying toward them with worry etched on her face. As soon as the girl reached Cara, she skidded to a halt and locked their gazes to use Silent Speech.

  There’s a problem, she said in a rush. I was going to tell you in the morning, but now there’s no time.

  What’s wrong? Cara asked.

  I work in the medical center. After supper, I received an alert that the cryogenic chamber had been opened. When I went to the lab to see what was wrong, I discovered the human body had been moved to the crematorium.

  It took a second for Cara to figure out who the girl was talking about. David’s body? The soldier we brought here from Earth?

  The girl nodded. I contacted the crematorium, but it was too late. The remains have been incinerated.

  Cara massaged her forehead. This was why she’d wanted to bury David sooner rather than later. Burial was a foreign concept to the L’eihrs. An error like this was bound to happen.

  At that precise moment, Syrine appeared by Cara’s side with a duffel bag slung over one shoulder. “I’m ready.” She glanced around at the group. “Is something wrong?”

  “No,” Cara lied, because now wasn’t the time to explain something so delicate. She would tell Syrine on the transport, when they were alone. She locked eyes with the medic and pushed a hurried thought into her mind. Keep this quiet until we leave. Then she took Aelyx’s hand and led him toward the lobby. “We have to pack. Meet you at the shuttle.”

  Inside her apartment, Cara stuffed a week’s worth of uniforms into her bag while doing her best not to look around—at the joined cots where she and Aelyx had slept in each other’s arms; at the futon where she’d rested her head on his lap and read Jane Eyre to him; at the data table where they’d played virtual chess; at the collection of seashells sitting in a bucket by the door.

  At the home they’d made together.

  “Ready?” Aelyx asked, his own duffel bag in hand.

  Cara nodded, because her throat was too thick to let words pass. She resisted the urge to grab a handful of shells as a memento, telling herself this wasn’t really goodbye. The colony was her home, and one day soon she would return to it.

  When she strode out the door, she didn’t look back.

  Chapter Five

  By the time they reached Earth’s atmosphere, their one month deadline had shrunk to a mere sixteen days. Aelyx had never felt more helpless in his life. He couldn’t wait to disembark for the shuttle to Manhattan so he could actually do something for a change.

  “Perhaps they don’t possess physical bodies …”

  Something besides theorizing with Larish.

  “Of course they do,” Aelyx replied. He had nothing against the scholar, but ideas would only take them so far. They needed facts about the Aribol, and as of yet, the Voyagers hadn’t uncovered any. “How else would they build the technology to destroy our spaceport?”

  “Their minds are powerful. Maybe they enslaved another race to do it.”

  Aelyx pinched the bridge of his nose. He couldn’
t take any more. He left Larish and crossed to the other side of the transmissions room, where Cara was engaged in a terse conversation with Jake Winters’s hologram.

  “The L’eihrs won’t listen to me,” Jake hissed, his blond brows forming slashes over narrowed eyes. It was almost magical how his bitterness transcended the distance of multiple galaxies. “I have an idea for probes that would measure brainwave activity instead of energy output, but my software codes aren’t compatible with their system. I need a L’eihr to work with me.”

  Syrine strode to Aelyx’s side with labored steps that told him she hadn’t recovered from the news of David’s cremation. He couldn’t blame her. In a way, it was as if she’d lost him a second time. And because Aelyx knew her so well, he also knew she didn’t want to talk about it. So he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and they resumed listening to the conversation. Their images must not have appeared within Jake’s line of vision, because he didn’t seem to notice them.

  “Did you ask nicely?” Cara said.

  “Yes!” Jake flung a hand in the air. “They ignored all my…” He trailed off and feigned a casual smile at the exact moment a young L’eihr female walked behind him. The flash in his eyes made it clear he liked the girl. As soon as she passed out of view, Jake’s lips curved downward again. “They think humans are idiots. I can tell.”

  Well … Aelyx thought, tipping his head, a few of them are.

  Syrine crouched by Cara’s side and entered the conversation. “Stop that girl,” she said, pointing. “The one who just passed you. Her name is Ayah.”

  Jake hesitated, then turned and called out to the girl. He waved her over, and soon her hologram appeared alongside his, though at a distance that indicated how uncomfortable she was in his presence. She glanced at Cara and Syrine.

  “Yes?” she asked in L’eihr.

  Syrine spoke in their native language. “This human wants to make a prototype that could find the Aribols’ home planet. He needs help understanding our systems. Will you work with him?”

  Ayah winced. “I don’t like him. He’s loud, and he stands too close when he talks.”

  “I’ll tell him to give you space,” Syrine said. When that didn’t yield results, she added, “I would consider this a favor. Remember when I helped you during your breakup with—”

  “I remember,” Ayah blurted, her cheeks darkening. “I’ll do it.”

  Syrine grinned and addressed Jake in English. “Ayah is happy to assist you with the project.” She held up an index finger. “But remember, our ears are more sensitive than yours. Use a soft voice when you speak to her, and keep an arm’s length of distance between you.”

  Jake’s skin turned the shade of ripe berries, but he thanked Syrine and delivered a wobbly smile. When the transmission ended, Aelyx tried to catch Syrine’s eye so he could ask why she’d gone out of her way to help Jake with the target of his affections, but she wouldn’t hold his gaze long enough for Silent Speech. He couldn’t blame her for that either. If their situations were reversed, he would want to keep his grief private, too.

  Cara pocketed her com-sphere and looped an arm through his. “Hey, I forgot. Did you get through to the ambassador?”

  Aelyx nodded. “He’s expecting us, but I’m not sure about the sleeping arrangements.” There were three guest bedrooms in the Manhattan penthouse, and eight bodies in need of beds: Aelyx, Cara, Elle, Syrine, Larish, and Cara’s family, who’d flown in to meet her.

  “It’s no biggie. Most of us have been roommates at some point.” Cara gestured at Elle, who had just entered from the hallway. “She bunked with me and my brother in the Aegis.”

  Elle turned her eyes toward them, and her gaze brightened. Her abnormally long eyelashes gave her a deceptively meek appearance as she smiled at them, but upon noticing Syrine, she scowled and returned to the corridor.

  Syrine sniffed dryly. “Tell Elyx’a”—Elle’s given name—“that she and I won’t be sharing quarters.”

  “Tell her yourself,” Aelyx said. “I’m tired of being your go-between.”

  Syrine spun around, flicking him in the face with her ponytail before charging away.

  “Must be tough,” Cara observed while resting her head on his shoulder. “Caught in the middle of all that drama between your best friend and your sister.”

  “Not really. You keep forgetting—”

  “That Elle is more like a friend than a sister, and nuclear families don’t exist at the Aegis,” Cara finished. “Blah, blah, blah. Just admit it’s annoying.”

  “It is,” he conceded. “We should lock them in a room until they forgive each other.”

  “Oh, sweetie,” Cara said, patting his arm. “You don’t know much about girls, do you?”

  Aelyx smiled as an echo of grief tugged at his stomach. “That’s what David used to say.” He missed his friend. David had made mistakes, but only because he was under duress. In the end, he’d done the right thing, and that was all that mattered. “If I can forgive David for trying to kill me, why can’t Syrine and Elle move past a love triangle?”

  “It’s basic Girl Code. If you and your bestie share a crush, neither of you can have him. Exes are off-limits, too, though my former BFF didn’t get the memo on that.”

  A simultaneous chime sounded from their com-spheres, informing them that the shuttle was ready for boarding. Aelyx had requested a specific craft, one he could pilot himself. It was a small ten-seater, equipped with cloaking technology that would allow him to hide it in plain sight. That way they’d have access to rapid transportation if they needed to fly across the globe to meet with world leaders.

  Everyone returned to their respective rooms to pack their duffels, and then the team met in the hangar. Aelyx made Syrine and Elle wait until last to board, so they’d have no choice but to share a seat. They turned their glares on him instead of each other, which he supposed was progress. He offered the copilot’s seat to Cara and took his place behind the wheel, and then they were off, speeding away from the transport into the clouds.

  He used his com-sphere to inform the head of his security detail, Colonel Rutter, that he was en route, and once the colonel cleared Aelyx to enter military airspace, he began his descent and landed the shuttle on one of the base’s vacant helipads.

  Cara’s parents were already visible though the front shield, both of them bouncing and waving from the mouth of an adjacent hangar, where they stood with a dozen or so uniformed soldiers. No sooner had Aelyx cut the engine than Cara threw open the passenger door and bounded across the tarmac toward her family, her scarlet braid trailing in the breeze. Bill Sweeney caught his daughter in his bearlike arms and twirled her in a dozen circles before he set her down and she stumbled dizzily to embrace Eileen.

  Aelyx stepped outside and cringed at the change in temperature since his last visit. New York in spring had been tolerable, but now the air was stifling hot and so humid he could almost drown from breathing it. By the time he caught up with Cara, the front of his tunic was damp with sweat.

  Eileen didn’t seem to mind. She launched herself at him in a crushing hug and then planted sticky kisses on his cheeks. “We missed you so much,” she said, pulling back to brush the lint off his tunic and smooth the strands of hair that had escaped his ponytail.

  Aelyx let her fuss over him, glad for the attention. As a clone, this was the closest he would ever come to having a mother. “I missed you, too.”

  A soldier snuck up behind Cara and captured her in a headlock. Aelyx stiffened until he recognized the boy as Troy Sweeney, her older brother. Troy had the same electric blue eyes as Cara, but he’d inherited their mother’s black hair instead of their father’s red. He scrubbed his knuckles over Cara’s scalp until she squealed and thrust an elbow in his belly. Then he ruffled her already mussed hair and called her dorkus.

  Aelyx shared a glance with Elle and tried to imagine having that kind of sibling bond with her. Clearly she was thinking the same thing, because she told him privately, If you ev
er do that to me, I’ll smother you in your sleep.

  “Elle,” Troy breathed, yanking off his camouflage hat and flinching to attention. His pupils widened and his teeth flashed in a lopsided smile. His reaction was nearly identical to that of Jake Winters, and Aelyx had to clamp his lips together to trap a laugh. He’d forgotten about Troy’s unrequited crush on Elle.

  Aelyx nudged Elle and asked, Have you picked out names for your offspring yet? She burned a glare into his head, and he responded by making kissing noises, which earned him a punch on the arm.

  “Uh-huh,” Cara muttered. “You’re nothing like human siblings at all.”

  “I didn’t know you were coming,” Troy said to Elle while sliding an annoyed look at his sister. “Someone forgot to mention it.”

  Cara rolled her eyes. “Excuse me for being preoccupied with saving the world from alien domination.”

  “Speaking of which,” interrupted Colonel Rutter, who’d been silently observing them from the fringes. “Not a word about these Ari-bol”—mispronouncing it Airy-Ball—“to anyone outside the group. HALO will lose their damn minds, start rioting in the streets again.” Aelyx grimaced as he recalled last year’s run-ins with the fanatical group Humans Against L’eihr Occupation. Colonel Rutter motioned toward three black SUVs parked nearby. “We should probably get a move on before rush hour hits; otherwise it’ll be gridlock on the bridge.”

  “I’d like to fly the shuttle to the penthouse,” Aelyx said. “Cloaked, of course, so I can keep it docked there.”

  “Me, too,” Cara added.

  “All right.” Rutter jutted his chin at Troy. “Sergeant Sweeney, go with them.”

  “Yes, sir.”