“Itzela?” Sera echoed.
The captain nodded. “We have an island in the Pacific that’s been camouflaged to stay off of any maps. It’s where our people can be free to walk the streets.”
Theyn told her, “Itzela is a Bruthesan word. It means ‘beautiful.’”
Prentiss nodded. “Yes, it does, and it’s a beautiful place, indeed.” He gestured toward the door. “If you’d like to join me in my office, we’ll have refreshments while we wait for the ship to reach port.”
***
It was like sailing on the strangest cruise ship she’d ever seen. Prentiss and Randall did their best to be charming hosts, but the role didn’t suit them well, and after an hour of small talk, things were becoming deeply awkward.
Asa and Joely told Sera and the Ylians what had happened to them, and Sera filled in her friends on the goings-on since they’d parted ways. She left out a few pertinent details – like the ATM robberies and her pregnancy – but shared the rest. Prentiss and Randall gave vague answers to questions about the Ylian colony on Bruthes, and they said even less about their destination, Itzela.
Finally, the bridge called Prentiss, and he and Randall left them with their apologies so they could see to the work of getting their massive ship into the slip without killing anyone or breaking anything.
Sera rose and paced around the captain’s office.
“Restless?” Joely teased.
“Yes.” She ran a hand through her thick blonde hair, which seemed thicker today, with more curls. She sighed. “I just…I just don’t trust them. They’re hiding something.”
“I thought so, too,” Theyn said, nodding. He and Beno had been speaking aloud and in English out of deference to Joely and Asa. “I don’t know what, but there’s something that they don’t want us to know.”
Beno peeled the bandage off of his head and tossed it into Prentiss’s waste bin. “I’m curious to see this island of theirs,” he said. “I wonder what - ”
He was cut off by an explosion that rocked the entire ship. Sera was tossed into Theyn’s lap, and he caught her, holding her securely even as the massive vessel bucked like an angry beast.
Joely gaped at Asa, who spoke for everyone when he said, “What the hell was that?”
Alarms started going off in the hallways, and Beno went to the door. He tried to turn the handle, but it refused to budge. “Locked,” he said. He pressed his ear to the wall beside the latch. “Electronically.”
Theyn helped set Sera back on her feet and asked, “Your glove?”
“Missing. Probably with our things, wherever they put them.”
A warplane streaked past the porthole, its engines roaring as it strafed the ship. Bullets slammed into the hull and struck the window, creating a spider web of cracks in the reinforced glass. Beno grabbed Sera and Theyn and pulled them both down to the floor, covering them with his own body. Asa and Joely took cover under the captain’s desk.
“What the hell?” Asa shouted. “Who the hell?”
“That was an American plane,” Joely said. “I saw the flag when it went by.”
“Why are the Americans attacking us?”
The question went unanswered when another explosion, much nearer than the first, shook the carrier. An ear-splitting whine filled the air as metal grated against metal, and a second blast followed in short order.
A voice boomed out over a loudspeaker. “This is Major Steven Grace, United States Air Force. Surrender your ship and prepare to be boarded.”
Beno jumped up. “We’re not going to be holed up in here while waiting for them to come and get us. Let’s go.”
Asa shook his head. “I can’t run. I’m still screwed up from Vasquez. You guys do what you have to do.”
Joely looked at the group, then at Asa. She said, “I’m staying. You three get out of here. You’re the ones they’re after, anyway.”
Theyn said to Beno and Sera, We don’t know this ship or where to go to be safe. Let’s just find a closet somewhere and camouflage. They won’t be able to find us, and they’ll have to leave.
Captain Prentiss’s voice responded through a loudspeaker of his own. “Major Grace, you have attacked an unarmed ship without provocation. This is a war crime and will be addressed as such. Anyone attempting to board this ship will be treated as a pirate and we will defend ourselves accordingly.”
Joely groaned. “This is so many shades of bad.”
Beno looked around the room, his green eyes scanning the contents rapidly. He started to ransack the captain’s desk.
“What are you looking for?” Sera asked.
“Anything I can use as a weapon.”
Theyn tried the door on an out-of-place armoire, but it was locked. He glanced back at Beno, who nodded to him. Theyn gripped the handle of the door again, and with only a slight shift in his stance, he ripped the door off of its hinges with one hand.
“Holy God!” Joely cried out, deeply impressed.
The armoire wasn’t an armoire at all. It was a wooden gun cabinet.
Asa grinned. “This I know.” He hurried over as quickly as his battered body would allow and began pulling out rifles and ammunition.
Joely took one of the rifles. Theyn looked at her in surprise. “You know how to use that?”
She nodded. “I grew up in the country. We used to go hunting, my grandpa and me. I’m a fair shot.” She loaded the magazine and took up a position by the desk, facing the door. “I’ve never shot a person before, but I’ll be damned if I let them take us.”
Soon all five of them were armed and facing the door, ready to take down the first enemy who dared to invade their space. The sound of battle raged on all sides, with the roar of plane engines and the rattle of machine gun fire. Shouts of anger and pain filled the corridor, and bullets ripped into the closed door, tearing it off of its hinges.
A man in green fatigues stood there, his AK-47 in his hands, a wide grin on his pale face. He spoke into a microphone attached to his helmet.
“I found them.”
Beno leveled his rifle at the man and fired. He spun, his shoulder stained in a torrent of red, and before he could right himself, Beno shot again. This time, the bullet hit him in the chest. He was saved by his bulletproof vest, but he was down for a moment.
The brunet Ylian began to step forward when a ‘whoomp!’ like a sonic boom deafened them all. Everything mechanical whined and stopped functioning, and the ship’s engines went silent. Outside, warplanes and helicopters started dropping out of the air, going nose-first into the roiling ocean.
An amplified voice called out in the Ylian tongue. “Prince Theyn! You are secured!”
The man on the hallway floor coughed and rolled up onto his knees. Beno kicked him down again.
Captain Prentiss hastened into view, his hand pressing against a bullet wound in his other arm. “I called our forces to protect us,” he told them. “Come on… time is wasting. The Americans will be coming soon in more strength.”
They wasted no time in following him.
They were escorted up to the flight deck, where a trio of sleek silver machines waited for them. They were smooth and almost featureless except for concentric circles of lights on the bottom of the crafts, lights that contained rings of propulsors. The vessels were shaped almost like eggs that had been flattened on the bottom, and at the thinnest end, there were rows of black dots. There was a soft pop-hiss sound, and then hatches opened up on each of the ships, revealing jump suited women with glowing Ylian eyes.
Beno pulled Sera close by his side and followed Theyn as his partner stepped forward. “Which of you is in command?” the blond Ylian asked.
The woman in the middle craft stepped forward, her golden eyes crinkling at the edges as she smiled. “I am Commander Elina.” She took a knee in front of him. “And it is the greatest honor of my existence to meet you, Your Highness.”
The other pilots joined her, also kneeling to the empress’s son. He nodded to them. “Please rise.
”
Elina did as she was told, still beaming. Her eyes glanced at Beno, then back at Theyn. “I must confess, I hadn’t thought I would ever see a full-blooded Ylian male in my lifetime, let alone two. This is a rare privilege.”
Sera remembered Beno and Theyn telling her how the males outnumbered the females on their world. Apparently on the colony, things had changed.
“You have interstellar capability?” Theyn asked.
“Yes, Your Highness. We travel between Earth and Bruthes on a regular basis and have done since we started looking for you.” She nodded respectfully to Beno. “Your hibernation units began issuing distress calls, and we knew that you had been found. It was our greatest fear that the interruption of your dormancy cycle would render you incapacitated.”
Captain Prentiss came forward. “My thanks for your intercession, Commander. We were making for Itzela when the Americans attacked.”
She nodded. “I will take our guests there now. My wingmates will stay here to defend the Cyclops in case of further attack.”
“Thank you.” Prentiss turned to the group. “Your Highness, Commander… ladies and gentlemen… it’s been an honor.”
He raised his right hand to his left shoulder, palm flat and facing down. Beno and Theyn returned the salute.
Commander Elina stepped to the side and gestured toward her waiting craft. “Highness?”
Theyn took Sera’s hand in his, and Beno took her by the other. They walked on board together.
Once they were settled and securely in their seats, the vessel lifted into the air with barely so much as a vibration. Turning smoothly and gaining speed at an incredible rate, the craft took them out over the waves, leaving the Cyclops and her downed enemies behind. The interior of the vessel was as smooth as the exterior, and it was clear that this was nothing that human hands had built. Sera looked around herself in wonder and curiosity, trying to take it all in.
Commander Elina sat in the forward section, surrounded by a curving bank of instrumentation. Behind her, there were eight seats that molded themselves to the bodies of their occupants. As soon as Sera sat down, the seat conformed to her, holding her securely without straps but not constricting her in the least. She felt like the ship was hugging her.
The walls were the same featureless, silvery metal on the inside as they had been on the outside. They shimmered, though, just slightly, enough to make her wonder whether there was a force field of some kind.
Elina turned and looked back at her passengers, then smiled. She flicked her elegant fingers over the controls, and the walls became transparent. Sera gasped in delight. She could see through the walls as they flew as if they weren’t there at all, and the sensation was exhilarating. She felt like an eagle, flying with purpose over the sea.
“Having fun?” Asa asked her drily.
“Yeah, totally. I’ve never flown in a UFO before.”
Beno was sitting with his eyes closed, but he still responded, saying, “Hardly unidentified at this point, I think.”
“Well, no,” she allowed. She squeezed his hand. “How’s your head?”
“Pounding.”
“Is that why you’re talking out loud and not with your mind?”
Theyn smiled. “Telepathy has a way of making headaches worse.”
“I can believe that.”
Joely leaned forward in her seat, staring through the wall at the ocean scape below them. “This is incredible. I want to tell everybody I know about this, but nobody would ever believe me.”
“You can’t tell anyone,” Theyn said. “Please, for all our sakes.”
She pouted. “I wouldn’t. I just want to.”
They were approaching a wall of clouds, a towering mountain of grey mist. Elina touched another set of controls on the instrumentation panel and said, “Itzela base, this is Phoenix One. Package retrieved. Request permission to land.”
Another woman responded through the communication link. “Phoenix One, you are cleared to approach.”
The wall of clouds parted, and a tunnel through the mist opened up in front of them. The little vessel streaked into the gap, and suddenly the clouds were gone. A gleaming white city on a tropical island appeared, emerging from behind the curtain of the fog.
The lush greenery of the island was incorporated into the city, tall trees intertwining with shining white spires of elegant buildings. A white sand beach led to thick jungle, which in turn gave way to a city that rested on the side of a mountain. The lowest level of the city had neat little houses laid out in symmetrical residential neighborhoods, interspersed with colorful gardens and robust trees. The upper most reach of the city held a stunning white palace with flying buttresses and elevated walkways connecting its tall towers. It was the most beautiful place Sera had ever seen.
“Wow,” Joely said softly. “Holy Rivendell, Batman.”
The ship banked around the city toward a landing strip on the far side of the island. There were several ships just like the one they were occupying, silently waiting in their docks. Elina touched down gently, and a quartet of women in grey jumpsuits swept forward to lock down the vessel.
“Your Highness,” the pilot said. “Commander. Friends. Welcome to Itzela.”
Chapter Seventeen
The hatch to their vessel opened when Elina pushed a button, and a carpeted walkway appeared, extending from the hatchway to the white-paved ground. A cadre of women in white uniforms with dove-grey accents approached, walking in formation. They had the human-like eyes of mixed-race Ylians, most with yellow irises. One woman’s eyes were glowing teal, signaling some sort of mixture of the three Ylian bloodlines. They stopped before the hatchway and formed two lines, facing each other as another woman approached, walking on a hastily-unfurled silver carpet.
She walked toward them calmly, serenely navigating the passage formed by the honor guard. She looked like someone’s vision of an ancient goddess, clad in a peplos made of white and rose-pink ombré silk, with golden sandals on her feet. Her honey-blonde curls were held back in golden ribbons, and she wore gold armlets and golden pendant earrings. Her eyes glowed perfect blue, no irises or sclera to be seen, just like Theyn.
Theyn stepped forward, the first one down the ramp. Beno and Sera stayed back just behind him, and Asa and Joely watched from inside the shuttle. They had fallen naturally into position like a diplomatic envoy, and the whole situation was so plastic and unreal that Sera felt unnerved.
The woman stopped in front of Theyn and dropped a shallow curtsy, her head bowing only slightly. She looked into his eyes the whole time, something the other Ylians had not done.
“Prince Theyn,” she greeted, her voice melodious through the translator in Sera’s ear. “It is an honor to welcome you to Itzela, Ylia’s colony on Earth. I am Queen Apfira, daughter of Queen Aloa, daughter of Queen Mianre, daughter of Queen Isola, daughter of Queen Thera, who was your sister. I am your grandniece.”
He extended his hand to her, and she took it in both of hers, pressing her lips to the knuckles. He smiled placidly, but Sera and Beno could both feel the swarm of emotions in his heart. Grief and sorrow and anxiety and happiness combined into a confusing soup. “I am pleased and gratified to meet you, Queen Apfira,” he said, his voice level and warm. “May the Burning One bring holy fire to your heart.”
Apfira smiled and pulled away. “We were told to expect you, so appropriate rooms for you and your partner are being prepared.”
“Partners,” Theyn corrected. “Sera is my bond mate as well.”
“A human woman.” A flicker of displeasure rumpled the perfect marble mask that was Apfira’s face, but it vanished as quickly as it came. “We will see that you are all housed comfortably.” She gestured. “Shall we?”
“Of course.”
Theyn waited for Sera and Beno to join him before he followed his grandniece down the silver carpet. At the far end, another vehicle waited for them. It resembled a luxury sleigh, but without runners and without horses to draw it. A
soft glow and quiet hum emanated from the bottom of the thing, and it hovered in place, minutely lifting and dropping as they approached. Two bench seats, richly upholstered and deeply cushioned, faced one another, and Apfira stepped into the vehicle to sit in the middle of the forward-facing bench. There was room for a person on either side of her, and Theyn gently directed Sera to sit on the backward-facing bench directly in front of the queen. He sat on the queen’s right and Beno, after a moment’s hesitation, sat at the queen’s left. Asa and Joely joined Sera on her bench, flanking her silently. Joely grabbed Sera’s hand and squeezed it. She squeezed back.
There was no lurch, and no obvious shift in speed, but the vehicle rose higher once they were all seated. It hummed somewhat louder than before, and then it began to speed along a wide, white-paved avenue. Women in garb that wouldn’t have seemed out of place on the starship Enterprise lined the street, watching them pass with open curiosity. They stood on pin-neat sidewalks dotted with planters that overflowed with colorful flowers, filling the air with their scent. The watching citizens all had glowing Ylian eyes, almost all of them yellow.
The entire city seemed to be made out of gleaming marble, but shining with its own light, as well. Sera wondered what the material actually was, and how the city had been built. She could see no seams or joinery on any of the buildings that they passed, nor any nails, screws, bolts or rivets on the transport that they occupied.
“You’ve brought a great deal of Ylian technology here,” she said, amazed that her own voice sounded so unflappable. She certainly didn’t feel that calm.
Apfira looked surprised that Sera spoke their language, but then she saw the translator and smiled. “Yes, Selected. We wanted to give our people the comforts of home despite being on this lonely outpost.”
Selected is your title, Theyn thought to her. It means that you have been selected by me to be my mate.
And what about Beno? Is he also your Selected? She asked.
No. He was matched to me, not selected. His title is Companion, but they will refer to him with his military rank out of respect for what he’s earned for himself.
In Love with the Enemy (A Rizer Wolfpack Series Book 4) Page 24
