Star Angel: Dawn of War (Star Angel Book 3)

by David G. McDaniel

  Doesn’t seem to me like we’ve had a lot of success with big-wigs making decisions, Jess wanted to say.

  “There’s no sign of Kang,” Satori went on. “Maybe the Kel blew him up before we got there. Or maybe he used the Icon and it malfunctioned and he’s gone. Either way, it looks like he never made it here.”

  Nani was back at her screens. “I’ve gone over everything on the laptop,” she left Satori’s statement as a general comment, choosing not to take it up further. “I’ve reviewed all the info on the Bok and what the Project knows of them,” Nani brought their attention to the ancient secret society on Earth, and Jess knew she was talking now mostly for her. “The Bok, as we know, are directly linked to the ancient Kel. If I can find anything on them it might give us some clues. I’ve got feelers running, for anything else I can dig up. Executing routines against Earth databases and so forth. So far the Bok are turning up as un-crackable to me as they have been for the Project.”

  Satori looked like she was going to say something, but held her tongue. The undercurrent of tension in the room was growing.

  Earlier they’d discussed the Bok briefly. Nani was curious to learn what they knew of the Kel. She believed that, if there was a past connection between the Bok and the aliens, any information the modern Bok on Earth might hold could be exploited. Furthering the understanding of the Kel was, as far as Nani was concerned, vital. Mapping the overall approach to their future threat, a critical next step.

  Consideration of those things, however, only seemed to drive Satori’s impatience. As Kang failed to turn up in scan after scan Satori had begun losing faith, convinced the monster didn’t make it and ready to move on. To say she was antsy would’ve been putting it mildly. Jess found it hard to disagree. Kang was likely gone. She’d fully expected to see a swath of destruction, to find news channel after news channel with reporters standing before screaming people and raging fires, talking of the horror that had been wrought.

  So far nothing.

  Hopefully Zac could shed some light. Jess wished he would just wake up. What happened after he used the Icon? Did he know why he was floating alone? Did he know what happened to Kang? Did Kang use the Icon a second time? Did that other ship shoot him? She shuddered. Whatever happened, wherever Kang was, at least it didn’t happen to Zac. Zac wasn’t shot out of space by an alien spaceship. Zac hadn’t used the Icon and disappeared forever into the void. Zac was right here, with her, safe. After everything she found her knees weak with that reality. They were both alive.

  And we’re together.

  She looked around the bridge. Nani hard at work, piecing together the bigger picture. Satori growing more doubtful each minute. Skeptical of why they were still there. What they were doing. Willet, sitting in one of the command chairs, leaning comfortably to the side, gazing at Earth on the forward screen—lost in what thoughts Jess could only imagine. And she herself, alternating between walking around the room and stopping to stare.

  Bianca brought the only human counterpoint to the scene. An Earth-ish reality missing from the rest. Sitting at the next console over, avidly looking things up on the internet as the rest of them talked or pondered. Earlier Nani figured out how to access Earth’s information superhighway in a way that was familiar enough for Bianca to use; a sort of Kel browser she could operate and, of course, she dove right in. Since then she’d been giving the human-interest angle to the story. Though Bianca’s “research” was restricted to the public web, no different than if she were sitting at a computer back home, the internet was nevertheless a wealth of information, and so she’d been contributing to the overall in her own way, adding to the more meaningful information Nani worked to dredge from tighter channels.

  As Jess watched her hunched over her console, Bianca shook her head, scrolling through various pages, checking what she could on their disappearance and, as far as Jess could tell, had at the moment shifted to items of personal interest. Hollywood sites, the latest gossip, etcetera.

  “They really miss us, Jess.”

  At first, when Nani got them connected, Jess and Bianca both rushed to the controls, Bianca ending up in the driver’s seat and Jess leaning impatiently over her friend’s shoulder, all the suppressed fears and concerns for family and friends rushing to the fore. As Nani secured the more important information—tactical threats, information on the Earth and the Kel—the two Earth girls occupied themselves catching up. The chaos in which she and Bianca departed left disaster in their wake, that much was quickly confirmed, but what had been said? During their time on Anitra, unable to do anything, not even able to know what was happening, Jess had managed to shut off the spinning wheels in her head, the worry and morbid speculation concerning Mom, Dad and Amy. But what happened after she left in a blaze of glory?

  Slowly, looking at every bit of information they could think of, she and Bianca managed to verify all members of their families were safe and at home. Nani had even been able to look at their houses from afar. They saw Amy arrive home at one point, distant images, but it was her. They saw Bianca’s mom go into the back yard. Both were poignant moments, but no tears were shed.

  Jess could only imagine the grief their families were feeling.

  Frankly she was blown away by the extent of the cover-up. It seemed near impossible that so much could remain unchanged. Yet it had. The significance of what happened the day of their violent departure was so far beyond anything that had ever happened on Earth, she was convinced she would return to find her family gone, locked up, taken away, her house cordoned off and all else. News stories, the Earth in a state of shock …

  In fact the opposite was true. Somehow, some impossible way, the Project had covered it up. Mostly. It could never be swept totally under the rug, of course. Too many people saw. However, after reading all they could find on the matter Jess found herself stunned with the degree to which the Project had made those events disappear. There were comments, posts, but none of it had become a global sensation. Military-grade helicopters unleashed missiles in the city. Missiles! In downtown Boise. A building had been brought down. Both helicopters were shot out of the sky—by a suit of alien powered armor wielding a plasma cannon. Alien powered armor! With a plasma cannon. A neighborhood was lit on fire. That same suit of armor ran through town, leaping pedestrians and crashing through buildings. A hundred smart phones must’ve witnessed these things. All followed by a blowout gunfight in the warehouse district. Two girls went missing in the wake of all that. Other people were no doubt dead.

  Most of it squashed.

  Impossible.

  But true. The events were, expectedly, blamed on something difficult to disprove: a top-secret military experiment, a rogue operator that was taken in and being held or something like that. Not terribly original but what else was there? As far as Jess could tell in her searches answers were still being demanded, but not nearly as loudly or as widely as should’ve been the case. Had people really become that dulled? Had the attention spans of the world truly become that short? It was probably a combination of all those things; short attention spans, the conditioning to move quickly to the next sensational headline, along with clever, plausible explanations and an amazing spin that had been put on the whole thing.

  She wondered what the Project told their families. If they told them anything. Part of her wanted to go back. Home was right there. Right there! She could swoop in, get out and go inside. But of course that could never be. Not yet. Maybe not ever. She’d thought of at least making a call, but even that would be too weird. Too painful. There was no guarantee she was coming home. For now she comforted herself in the fact that her family was safe. She had no doubt they were being watched but, for the moment at least, they were being left alone.

  Then there was the secret society. She couldn’t stop thinking of that as she scanned the planet below. Nani was looking for them even now. The Bok—the Esehta Bok—described on the government laptop, arch-nemesis of the Project, and now they had Nani’s scrutinizi
ng eye. So far nothing. A secret society with an agenda to rule the world. Esehta Bok. She rolled the name in her mind. And the very real probability they were hiding yet another Icon. Perhaps more than one. Other things. Knowledge of the Kel.

  She wondered if Nani could crack them.

  That the Project was a US government agency only partially made her want to see their side of things. What they’d done, the way they’d come after her … Truthfully she wasn’t sure how to feel about them. Both the Project and the Bok were secretive organizations, out to control exclusively something that was potentially world-changing.

  She stood straighter and sighed.

  The Kel. The Bok. The Project. And before her the breadth of the globe, spanning the viewscreen, side to side and huge; blue oceans, brown and green lands, white clouds swirling and streaking and clumping from daylight to night. A freeze-frame of motion. Massive. Host to seven billion people. Peaceful from this vantage. Calm.

  So much more going on down there than most of those seven billion had a clue.

  And so the burning question became:

  What now?

  Satori was chewing hard on that very thing. No doubt brewing answers of her own. Jess hazarded a glance across the bridge at the red-headed commander. Satori wasn’t looking in her direction but her arms were crossed tightly in unspoken disagreement; glaring as she watched over Nani’s shoulder, reviewing the same screens of information, posture speaking volumes of how she felt. As if saying, We rescued Zac. There’s no sign of Kang.

  Time to go.

  Jess looked away.

  She didn’t want to go.

  Suddenly Bianca giggled. Out of place with the current mood on the bridge. Jess could see she was caught up in some image or comment on the screen in front of her, tittering under her breath. The soft glow of the screen accented the curves of her cheekbones, flickering on her exotic complexion, highlighting her dark, raven hair, making it shine blue-black. She really is beautiful.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing. Toby. He put up a rant on cosplay.”

  Jess felt her skin prickle. “Where’d you see that?”

  “On his page.”

  Her worry spiked. She should’ve known to set some guidelines for this …

  “On his page?” Then, spine tingling: “Did you log in? Tell me you didn’t log in.”

  Bianca turned from the screen, a look of concern crawling across her face. “Was that not a good idea?”

  Jess took a step toward her. Abruptly, in frustration, before she knew what she was doing.

  Bianca began to look mortified. Jess didn’t believe for an instant there was anything about them that wasn’t being watched, including their personal accounts.

  This could be bad.

  Then Bianca admitted, having a hard time even saying the words: “I also clicked Like.”

  “You what?!” The others stared between the two girls, not understanding the specifics of what was going on but getting the magnitude of the breach.

  “Bianca we’re gone! Remember?!”

  “I’m sorry!”

  “That’s even worse! Now everyone will see that!”

  “I’m sorry!” her friend tried weakly to defend herself. “I got caught up. I spaced. I forgot we’re fugitives, okay?”

  “Forgot we’re fugitives?!” Jess was incredulous. She pointed emphatically to the front of the bridge, where the Earth covered half the video dome. “We’re in frickin orbit!”

  “I said I’m sorry!” Bianca turned and tapped the screen on the console. “There. I signed out.”

  Jess didn’t want to be mad at her friend. Not after everything. Especially not now, when they needed unity more than ever. But how could she lapse? Everyone Bianca was friends with—which was many—would see she was online and had posted. Even the simple click of a Like button. Bianca was popular. It would probably come up on hundreds of people’s pages.

  It would probably even make the news.

  Jess exhaled and turned.

  “I’m going to check on Zac.”

  CHAPTER 13: MOTIVATION

  Zac lay absolutely still. His chest rose steadily. Up, down, barely perceptible, but otherwise he did not move. No shifting, no twitching of limbs. Not even a finger. No flutter of eyelashes. Jess watched those most, studying his eyes, hoping for any movement—maybe even a quick dart beneath his lids, any sign of life—willing him to stir awake. So far he was as motionless as if he were a mannequin. A warm, soft, oh-so-life-like mannequin, breathing just enough so you could tell he wasn’t dead.

  She’d been watching him for what felt like hours. No one else joined her. Maybe they wanted to leave her alone. Maybe they’d found something interesting. Whatever the cause she was glad for the solitude. She had no way to tell the time, or even whether it was night or day on Earth below. There were no viewscreens in here. When she left the bridge the sun was setting across the mid-west. Was it dark in Boise yet?

  It was disorienting there in the small, alien room.

  Up on the bridge Nani was no doubt continuing the search for signs of Kang, the Bok, mapping the infrastructure of Earth, fulfilling her scientific curiosity and otherwise learning things. Jess was becoming more and more convinced something went wrong with the Icon, some sort of failure and Kang was gone. Like Satori wanted to believe. Despite that, Jess nevertheless had the terrible sense Kang could pop out at any moment.

  She reached and stroked Zac’s cheek. There was a slight, darker shade along his jaw, hints of a beard growing. It gave his smooth skin just a touch of roughness.

  She sat back.

  Since leaving Earth the first time, back when she and Zac popped out of the playhouse and appeared over Osaka, a city at war, she’d been fairly clear each step of the way what needed to come next. Everything had been driven by obvious necessity. The need to handle threats. There was a bit of a lull after she returned home, where she mistakenly thought she could slide back into a normal life—only to discover just how wrong she was. More threats, more calls to action, and she’d been forced to continue her painful journey.

  Now …

  She’d always yearned for something more. Greater purpose. Until that first trip to Anitra she hadn’t even really known why. The shock of that transfer triggered many fears. Then, once on Anitra, her burning drive was to get back home. “Normal” never looked so good. And though most of her life had been dedicated to getting away from the usual, once on Anitra that first time the quest to get back to “normal” drove her to amazing feats. Impossible, improbable feats—for an individual of any caliber, let alone a high-school girl. Yet, even as she accomplished those goals and made it home … doubts remained. In a weird way, once home she felt less alive; certainly less than she had during her time in mortal danger. Some deep-seated part of her had been awakened, spurred by the life-in-the-balance terror, as if brought into being, and she began to think Earth might not be where she belonged. Weird, very weird, no doubt, but it nagged. A feeling that at length began to burn intensely within her. And so it festered. And though she took no action toward it, when the crux of the moment came, where she was forced to make the decision to run, to return to Anitra, to once more leave home … that same part of her felt relief.

  Perhaps even a thrill.

  And on Anitra the chase began again. Immediately, with baggage this time in the form of Bianca, and she had, once again, felt the impulse to go home. It was frustrating to be torn between those two desires. Yet, this last time the feeling to run home brought with it more clarity. And she recognized the urge, not primarily as the wish to return to something normal but, rather, the desire to run from the challenges before her. She saw it for what it was. A weakness; a wish, to escape what, quite oddly, she felt she was supposed to be doing. To flee her destiny, and that impulse came from fear, not longing. A subtle but significant difference.

  Now she was home. Again. Made it. Rescued Zac.

  And here she was again, torn.

  The
door to the room slid open. Satori stepped in and it slid closed behind her. There she paused. Jess just wanted to be left alone—I wish everyone would leave me alone—but they had been leaving her alone. A long time had already passed and no one bothered her. Satori looked her usual, mildly annoyed self, which meant things on the bridge were probably pretty much the way Jess left them. Impulsively she sat straighter. Waited.

  At length Satori broke the standoff.

  “He looks healthier,” she commented, then came over and stood near. Satori’s bright red hair and black military uniform made her look like she’d just stepped out of some sort of future-perfect anime. Or was about to step into one. Gorgeous, a real-life fusion of the Asian/Anglo features, so popular in a million mangas. Against the setting of the stark alien room, with its gloss black walls and precise lighting, she was a veritable snapshot of that style. Of all of them she fit within the Kel surroundings the most.

  Jess pulled her gaze from her and looked back to Zac. Most of his cuts were indeed healed or fading, bruising all but gone. It truly looked like he could rise from the bed that instant, say Hello and get right to it.

  “Can’t say I’ve ever seen one hurt like this.” Satori was standing right beside him, right by Jessica. “Kang was some kind of monster.”

  Impulsively Jess reached a hand to Zac’s shoulder. Thinking of all the coma stories she’d heard, of people being asleep for years, wishing she could just shake him awake. Part of her wanted to try.

  For a long moment both of them stared at his motionless form.

  Then Satori said: “I got Nani to risk some directional scans. Active scans. Right at the area where Kang would’ve fallen.” She paused. “Nothing. There’s nothing there matching any of his signatures. No sign that any object fell.

  “I think we can be pretty sure he did not make it through.” At that she turned to face Jessica, unspoken questions in her eyes.

  Jess had no answers.

  After what became an uncomfortable silence Jess drifted back to Zac, where her attention had been for so long. It was easy to fall into him, to lose herself in his presence. Handsome, perfect Zac. Healing before her eyes. The stubble on his chin was darker at that angle, and if she looked just so she could imagine him with a full beard. Against the youthfulness of the rest of his face it ended up looking, rather than tough, or even manly, kind of cute.