Exiles

by Kaitlyn O'Connor

  Or at least partnership.

  Since there was no hope for it—they had to land to affect repairs—they offered to act as spokespersons for the group.

  The majority expressed the opinion that Galen should speak for everyone—not Dante—since Dante was emotionally invested in the forming of the alliance and could not be trusted to behave otherwise.

  It annoyed the hell out of Dante, but he was more anxious to see to it that the humans agreed than he was to convince his brethren that they had misjudged him.

  They landed five ships on the lawn of the White House. The other twenty hovered just above the ground so that the shields over-locked.

  And then they materialized.

  To say that the humans were not happy with their ploy would have been an understatement.

  They waited patiently until the militia surrounding the White House ‘paused for breath’ in effect by ceasing to fire upon them and then lowered the gang plank and Nick and Galen then disembarked to request an audience with the Earth leaders with an eye to forming an alliance.

  * * * *

  Claire wasn’t happy to discover she had to deal with the same bastard the second time she was summoned for questioning as she’d dealt with the first time. To her mind the man was an idiot and she wasn’t likely to get through to him, but she knew she needed to try.

  It wasn’t just a matter of getting released. Mankind, she was convinced, was in serious trouble and nobody actually knew it but her.

  They eyed one another distrustfully after Claire had settled.

  The agent leaned back in his chair. “Let’s just say, hypothetically, that you were dealing with aliens rather than terrorists …. What can we make of that? Are we about to be invaded by aliens?”

  Claire was tempted to throw a sarcastic quip at him but she restrained the impulse. “I don’t really feel like playing games with you, Agent Whatthefuck. What I will do is tell you what happened and you can sit around discussing it till doomsday, but it’s the truth and no amount of questioning is going to get more of the truth.

  “I found an ancient city when the sinkhole opened up on the outskirts of Tampa. And not just an ancient city. Dante was there. He was awakened by the gods, the overlords, because there was something there that we humans weren’t supposed to know—knowledge they considered theirs.”

  The agent gave her a look that made her long to slap him. “I thought we were talking aliens? Now we’re talking gods and …what? Demons?”

  Claire gave him a drop dead look. The urge to refuse to talk anymore settled in her stomach in a churning motion. It seemed unlikely that they would take her seriously or that any conversation she had would go far enough to do anyone any good but, like it or not—and she didn’t—this had landed in her lap. She had to do her best to work with it and try to make people understand that might be able to avert disaster. “Words are just sounds we gave meaning to,” she said tightly. “This varies from one language to the next, but every language—on Earth—has words to identify the things around us and our concepts. I think we can safely assume that, communication being a necessity for any beings of intelligence, this would also be the case on any alien world. They would have names to identify things, ideas and so forth.

  “What Dante—the alien I’ve gotten to know—explained to me makes complete sense to me. Of course, I’m intelligent and I can reason. Stupid people are prone to cling to the little they’ve managed to grasp and understand because, otherwise, they’d be left empty handed.

  “So … try to bend your mind around that and consider that we—humans that is—may not have actually come up with the word god or gods or angels or even demons. The words may have been given to us by beings who called themselves these words—much like we refer to ourselves as humans—or Americans or white, black, or Hispanic. And because we didn’t really understand—because these aliens were so much more advanced than us that the things they could do seemed like magic to our primitive minds—they became our concept of supreme beings—capable of staggering feats of magic.”

  Anger glittered in the agent’s eyes when she spoke condescendingly and suggestively about his lack of intelligence. “I think I can wrap my mind around that,” he responded tightly. “So these beings who call themselves gods are plotting to invade the Earth?”

  Claire frowned, shaking her head. “I don’t know what the plan is, honestly. I do know that Dante told me that the gods would not allow us to have certain knowledge and that they would kill to protect it. I don’t think they need another agenda—but this isn’t an invasion from what I can tell. They seem to have been here a very long time.”

  The agent was silent for a time. “And you believe this Dante? Trust him?”

  Claire considered that. “I do,” she said finally. “He warned me that the gods would kill to protect the knowledge and I believe they caused that second collapse. There was a team of geologists and archeologists who’d gone down to study the ruins ….”

  The agent drummed his fingers on the desk. “You’ve seen these beings this angel refers to as gods?”

  Claire felt her face heating. “No.”

  “So how do you know it isn’t these angels doing everything?”

  Dismay flickered through Claire, but it wasn’t as if she hadn’t asked herself the same question. “Honestly, I don’t know that. But I was around him a good bit and I saw nothing to suggest he was insane. There would be no reason for him to make it up. They are clearly hundreds if not thousands of years ahead of us technologically. Why concern himself with convincing me to blame someone else for the … attacks?”

  “Attacks? I’m going to guess you’re referring to certain … events that we put down to natural disasters. You consider those to be attacks? You don’t think the collapse in Florida was a natural occurrence?” He examined a file he’d brought with him. “You’re a geologist, right? And you were in Florida to begin with as part of a group who’d been brought together to study the sinkhole problem in Florida. Why would you consider that to be an attack when there had already been a cave in?”

  Claire expelled a gusty sigh. “Because I went down to investigate and I discovered that the first collapse had revealed an ancient city and that is where and when I met Dante. And that is when he warned me that the gods wouldn’t allow it and then it collapsed. Sure it could have been coincidental and he wouldn’t admit they’d caused it, but it just seemed too damned convenient after the warning. And the geologists had been down there studying the problem. I don’t think they would have been there or have allowed those archeologists in if they hadn’t believed the cave to be relatively stable!”

  The agent looked thoughtful and puzzled. “What explanation did he—uh—this alien you call Dante—give for their presence here? On Earth, I mean? Is it possible that maybe a handful of them are here to … spy on us for an invading force?”

  That question blew her mind! Claire thought that over carefully before responding although her gut reaction was to immediately dismiss the possibility. “I guess I’ve been making assumptions based on historical evidence—but we have statues of angels and ancient drawings of angels that go way, way back—not just centuries but thousands of years. Ditto stories about gods. They have been here, or they’ve been coming here, for a very, very long time. If they were going to invade and take over, the time to have done that would have been when they discovered Earth and all that was here were ape-like beings.

  “Dante never actually explained why they were here that I recall. He just said that there were certain things we weren’t allowed to know and that the gods would ‘cleanse’ the Earth if we discovered them.” She shook her head. “I know the government is thrilled that they managed to get their hands on all of that alien technology, but the gods are going to wipe us out before we ever get the chance to use it if they discover we have it. You’ve got to tell someone that. Or better yet, let me talk to somebody that might be able to save us, because I’m pretty sure we don’t have anything to fight
these aliens with that would even begin to compare with what they’re capable of!”

  * * * *

  “You didn’t honestly think the President was going to come out and talk to you, did you?” Nick asked irritably when they had been waiting aboard the ship for hours for a response to their request to speak to the President. Actually, they’d waited on the lawn inside the ship for everyone to settle down and stop shooting before they’d even gone out to make the request and the damned secret service had tried to shoot them when they had—so hours and hours and nothing to show for it but the fact that the ship repairs were progressing. “I doubt he’s within a hundred miles of here by now.”

  Dante and Galen exchanged a look. “Why did you suggest this if you knew he would not talk?”

  Nick rolled his eyes. “They don’t have sarcasm where you’re from?”

  They simply stared at him without responding.

  “I suppose we could try the U.N. It isn’t like the people are actually leaders, but they do have access to their leaders.”

  “They would speak?”

  Nick shrugged. “I don’t know how many would stand their ground and discuss a treaty—probably not many—but we could try it.”

  Again Dante and Galen exchanged a long look and it dawned on Nick they weren’t simply ‘communicating’ via facial expressions as humans did. They were telepathic if he was to believe what Dante had said, and he wasn’t nearly as skeptical of that possibility as he would have been before he met aliens.

  “We will wait here,” Galen said decisively. “We have given them the message we needed to and we will wait for a response.”

  Nick wasn’t keen on waiting, but he honestly couldn’t think of another move. If it was possible for the military to damage the alien crafts—and they’d already proven they could—then they couldn’t freely search for Claire.

  Well, unless they used the cloaking thing and from what he understood of that, it was like the protective shielding in that, while it protected, it also prevented them from piercing it. As long as they had the shielding up, they couldn’t beam out or in.

  If they knew where she was, he was sure they could formulate a workable plan to get her out, but until they had some idea there was no making plans of any kind.

  He didn’t especially want to dwell on what sort of relationship Claire might have with the damned birdman, but since he had nothing active he could do to rest his mind that unwelcome speculation was part of the cycle of thoughts that kept revolving through his head.

  Fortunately, they were summoned outside before he lost his mind and tried to choke the life out of the fucking birdman.

  “Your people have attacked ours. We can’t discuss peace when these attacks are ongoing.”

  Galen’s lips tightened. “We are in the process of capturing the rogues—as I already told you.”

  “We only have your word for it that they are rogues.”

  Galen stared at the man for a long moment and then abruptly turned and headed back into the ship. Disgusted, Nick followed him.

  His first inkling that the talks were over was when Galen and Dante moved toward the controls of the ship and ordered him to get into his ‘couch’. Having already experienced the G’s the ship was capable of pulling, Nick dove into the couch and grabbed his safety harnesses.

  He discovered, to his chagrin, that he hadn’t needed to fasten himself in quiet so frantically. Galen and Dante turned from the control console after a few moments and crossed the deck to settle in their own seats.

  Even so, he didn’t have time to brace himself. Galen and Dante had no sooner finished fastening their safety harnesses than the ship shot straight up, executed a loop de loop that nearly made him puke and then shot downward.

  When he’d managed to calm his stomach a little, he found his voice. “I guess that was evasive maneuvers?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can we stop now?—Before I puke, I mean.”

  His own men would have laughed uproariously at the comment. Neither Galen nor Dante so much as cracked a smile.

  “Well now there’s a strong indication I’m with aliens—if I needed one,” he muttered.

  “You had forgotten?” Dante asked in a strange voice.

  “Not really,” Nick said dryly. “It’s just … I keep expecting the two of you to act more human.”

  They both glared at him.

  “Why would we act like humans when we are not?” Galen asked blankly.

  “Good point.”

  Dante studied Nick for a long moment, realizing his comments must be an attempt at humor—to lighten his mood, perhaps, or as an attempt to dispel his anxieties regarding Claire.

  It was at that moment that a fundamental truth hit him, enlightenment of a sort he had not experienced before.

  Nick could not ‘steal’ Claire’s affections from him. No one could do that. Claire could not decide who to give her affections to. She felt—or she did not feel. The rivalry between them was in their minds. It was the way they felt and the only effect that was likely to have upon Claire was the possibility that she would come to lose her affection for them and dislike both of them for their behavior.

  He could not ‘eliminate’ Nick and hope that by doing so he was removing the man from her affections anymore than Nick could hope that taking Claire away would have the desired effect of fixing her affections firmly upon him. It did not work that way.

  If he had understood that in his youth, Juna would not have died and he would not have become one of the fallen, exiled from his home forever.

  “I had hoped that we could negotiate for Claire’s release without adding to an already volatile situation or increasing the lack of trust between our peoples. But it is abundantly clear your leaders are not ready, now, to discuss any sort of alliance and I am not willing to allow Claire to remain in their hands under the circumstances until everyone becomes more reasonable.

  “We will see if we can locate her and we will take her back.

  “Come and study this map and tell us where you think it most likely that they are holding Claire and her sister.”

  Nick studied the map carefully and pointed out what he knew. “There are secrets bases here, here, and here,” he said, indicating the places with his finger, and then added with a sweep of his hand that encompassed most of the American southwest, “and the possibility—high probability—of more in this area.”

  Fortunately, they had not been tracking slowly back and forth across the American southwest long before Dante was able to perceive a faint stirring in his mind that he knew was Claire. It was so distant, however, that he did not think he would have been able to determine even that much except for two circumstances.

  He had settled in his couch and closed his mind to all else, focusing completely on reaching that tenuous bond he believed they had formed when they had been together.

  And his son, growing in her womb, recognized his brainwave pattern and responded.

  Or simply reacted to a telepathic prompt because he was half angel and able to detect telepathic communications and reply telepathically.

  Wildly erratic emotions instantly flooded Dante, sweeping away his ability to focus on locating Claire.

  Rage dominated for many moments—fury against the people who had taken her and perhaps threatened the life of his unborn son. A lesser anger, more bafflement and hurt, intruded after a few moments.

  Why had she not told him?

  Did that mean she had decided to reject him as a mate?

  Or did she not know it herself?

  Another attempt to reach her produced the certainty that she did know, but he could not be sure that she had known long, perhaps not when she might have told him?

  And then a less pleasant thought occurred to him.

  Maybe she had not told him because she was not certain it was his?

  It took a great deal of discipline to calm his emotions and direct his mind to formulating a plan to rescue Claire from the clutches of the
bastards who had taken her prisoner.

  In a general way, he was fond of mankind, but there were times when he had great difficulty in empathizing with humans and this was one of them.

  * * * *

  When Nick and Dante reached the transporter room, Dante held out a palm sized device of some kind. Curious, Nick took it and turned it over, studying it.

  “I will beam you to a point as close to Claire as I can. When you find her, you must activate this device to alert me that you have found her and her sister and then I will activate the tractor beam and … retrieve the three of you. It is important that the three of you are close together! I will not be able to determine more than your proximity to life forms—not them specifically.”

  Nick frowned. “They’re bound to be in a cell. Unless I can find a key, I won’t be able to get very close to either of them. And they may be in different cells and those cells could be a long way from each other.”

  Dante shook his head. “This is all that I can do. I have given it a great deal of thought and I see no other possibility. I cannot communicate with Claire’s sister—only Claire—and this means that I can pinpoint a fairly precise location for her and transport you there. If her sister is close by then I can bring all three. If not, then I cannot.”

  Nick nodded. “Ok. Just press this?”

  “Yes.”

  Frowning, he moved to the area where Dante had indicated he should stand, struggling with his uneasiness about being transported at all, refusing to think about the possibility that he might materialize inside rock or something equally horrible.

  He supposed if he hadn’t been more focused on his fear than anything else, he would’ve questioned the plan before Dante activated the beam. But it wasn’t until he felt something slam into the ship and the shudder that went through the deck beneath his feet that he remembered they couldn’t use the beam without dropping their shields. He looked at Dante sharply then.

  “We will provide a distraction while you extricate Claire.”

  “Fu---“

  “ck!” Blackout could have lasted seconds or minutes. But it seemed he merely blinked and felt the stinking sensation of a zillion ants crawling over him and then he found himself staring at Claire and Madelyn, who were sitting together on a jail cell bunk, gaping at him.