The Bearens' Hope: Book Four of the Soul-Linked Saga

by Laura Jo Phillips

  The bearencas reached the spot where the Blind Sight hidden VTOL had hovered, roaring in frustration. They could not hear or see the aircraft, and had no idea which direction it was even headed in.

  Jackson required all of the self-control that he possessed to yank himself back from the blood-rage that was engulfing his mind. Their Arima had just been kidnapped right before their eyes, and she needed them thinking and clear headed. He threw his head back and roared one last time, then forced himself to release his bearenca and return to his human form.

  It took a little longer to get through to Clark and Rob but, once he did, they also released their bearencas. By then they had attracted a large crowd of men, many of whom had also witnessed the abduction of the women into nothingness. There was fury all around them, but Jackson walled himself off from it. They could not afford to waste even a moment.

  Clark tapped his vox and called the Director even as they turned and began racing toward the lab. Jackson hoped with all of his being that the energy field experiment worked. If it did, they would be able to cut through the camouflage, and find Hope and Grace. If not, he had no idea what they were going to do.

  The Director was already snapping orders at the scientists setting up the first test when the Bearens rushed into the lab. He held up one hand as he finished responding to a question, then turned to face Jackson.

  “The first test will go in about two minutes,” he said. “If it works, we should be able to track and locate the aircraft that just left with the women within moments.”

  “If it doesn’t?” Jackson asked.

  The Director frowned at the thought of failure. Not only was it important to retrieve the women for their own sakes, there was also the fact that Hope might very well be the only person alive who could pin-point the Xanti home world. She was certainly the only person he knew of capable of it.

  “Did either of them have a vox?” he asked.

  “Yes, Hope had hers, and Grace called Hope this morning, so she must have one as well,” Clark replied.

  The Director looked around the busy lab, then tapped his vox with a frown. “Where the hell did that damn man go this time?” he muttered as he waited for his assistant to pick up. After a few moments, Mark answered the call.

  “Run a track on these two vox codes,” the Director ordered. Clark gave him the codes and the Director relayed them to Mark. “Omega Red Priority,” he said. “I want this done now.” He tapped his vox to disconnect, then turned back to the scientist at the control panel.

  “You ready?” he asked.

  “Yes, Sir, on your mark,” the man replied.

  “Now,” the Director replied without hesitation.

  A man in a white lab coat pressed a couple of buttons and flipped a switch, then all eyes turned to stare intently at a giant view screen on the wall. The screen flickered, then displayed an image of the ground-car now sitting in the center of the room, a lab-tech kneeling on the floor outside the open passenger side door. At a signal, the lab-tech plugged the Blind Sight power cable in, and the ground-car disappeared from view.

  “Now,” ordered the Director.

  The man at the control panel flipped a switch, and everyone waited breathlessly for the ground-car to appear on the view screen. Several seconds crawled by, but the screen remained blank.”

  “Reset,” the Director ordered. All of the white coated personnel began scrambling to set up the next test.

  “Damn!” Jackson swore.

  The Director’s vox beeped in his ear and he tapped it. He listened for a moment.

  “What about the other one?” he asked. He listened to the answer, then tapped the vox off.

  “Grace’s vox has been located,” the Director told Jackson. “A VTOL is being dispatched to its coordinates right now. I warn you though, it isn’t very far from here.”

  “You think they tossed it,” Jackson said.

  The Director nodded. “Yes, I do,” he admitted. “There’s no signal from Hope’s vox though. Are you sure she had it with her?”

  “Positive,” Clark replied. Jackson glanced at Clark, then turned to the Director.

  “Hope was complaining that the vox was too difficult to get to, so Clark hooked it into her braid this morning,” he said. “If they searched her for a vox, they probably wouldn’t find it.”

  “Then there’s a good chance she still has it,” the Director said hopefully.

  “There’s only one problem,” Clark said. “It was turned on when I gave it to her.”

  Jackson swore again.

  “Would you ask your assistant to send me the tracking feed please?” Clark asked.

  Jackson looked at him in surprise.

  “There’s a chance she still has it,” Clark said. “They didn’t turn Grace’s off before tossing it. Maybe Hope turned hers off, but left it where I put it.”

  The Director tapped his vox again and gave Mark the orders, as well as Clark’s vox code. A moment later, Clark checked his hand terminal and nodded. “Got it,” he said. “Thank you.”

  The Director turned back to the scientists in the room who were still scrambling around. “How long?” he asked.

  “A couple of minutes to change the frequency,” a small man in a white coat replied.

  The Director nodded, trying to think of another way to track the women, but he knew there wasn’t one. This had to work.

  ***

  Hope heard voices. Male voices. Unfamiliar male voices. She opened her eyes a fraction, saw two dark figures approaching her and closed them again. She forced herself to remain limp as she was picked up and slung over someone’s shoulder like a sack. Her only consolation was in knowing that the other figure had picked up Grace and was following. Hopefully, they would remain together.

  She didn’t dare open her eyes again as she was carried out of the aircraft. She felt the sun on her skin and knew that they were outside for a few minutes. Then they were inside again. There were several twists and turns, too many for her to remember, though she tried. Her head hurt from where it had banged against the floor when she’d been tossed into the VTOL, and it was hard to think.

  She heard what sounded like a lot of people running around, and a lot of voices yelling and talking loudly in the distance. The overall atmosphere was thick with tension.

  She heard a door open, then she was lowered to the floor, a bit more gently than before but not by much. A moment later there was a soft grunt nearby, and she hoped it was Grace being put down. She heard footsteps leaving the room, then voices.

  “You two stand guard, and don’t even think about moving. Those two women are going with us, and I don’t want to have to chase them down again. When I call you, bring them out for boarding. Do not move till then, is that understood?”

  “Yes, Sir,” two male voices said at once.

  Hope waited another few moments, then slowly opened her eyes. She was disappointed to see a window in the door directly in front of her, though there wasn’t anyone looking through it at the moment. She turned her head, relieved to see that Grace was conscious too.

  Grace smiled at her, then reached into her pocket. She searched for a moment, then frowned. “My vox is gone,” she whispered softly. “How about yours?”

  Hope’s eyes widened in surprise. She hadn’t even thought of that. She glanced up at the window in the door, then reached into her pocket, feeling around for it. As usual she couldn’t find it. She dug deeper, but no vox. She started to shake her head at Grace when she suddenly remembered Clark putting it in her braid that morning. She’d meant to take it out and put it in her pocket, but she’d forgotten all about it.

  She raised one hand to the back of her head, realizing with dismay that her head had hit in the same place where Clark had hooked the vox beneath her braid. She sincerely hoped that it hadn’t broken. If it had, she didn’t know how they were going to get out of this one.

  She felt around carefully, her fingers finding the vox a bit lower than she’d expected it to be.
She unhooked it and lowered her arm, glancing at the window again.

  She looked at the vox closely, but it seemed fine. She put it to her ear and tapped it, but nothing happened. Her heart skipped a beat in fear, but she refused to let herself panic.

  Maybe the hit turned it off, she thought. She squeezed it gently, relief pouring through her when the vox beeped softly in her ear. She looked at Grace and smiled.

  ***

  Every few seconds Clark glanced down at his hand terminal, not really believing that Hope’s vox signal would suddenly appear, but unable to let himself give up on it. He looked back up at the lead scientist, waiting impatiently for the third test. It was difficult to believe that the only hope they had for finding their Arima was this damn test.

  “On your mark,” the lead scientist said to the Director.

  “Now,” the Director barked.

  Everyone held their breath as the familiar routine of switches and plugs was repeated once more, and the ground-car disappeared. Then all eyes went to the screen and waited as another button was hit. Long seconds went by, and Jackson was getting ready to swear again when the screen flickered, went dark, flickered again, then steadied with the image of the ground-car bright and clear in the center of it.

  “Got it,” the Director barked.

  Clark glanced down at his hand terminal and gasped in surprise. “I got it too,” he said hoarsely. He instantly had the attention of most of the people in the room. He rapped out the coordinates on his screen and waited tensely for someone to translate the numbers into a location.

  The Director thought for a moment, then nodded. “That’s Texas,” he said. “Deep desert.” He looked at Jackson. “Get down to the airfield. By the time you arrive, a VTOL will be ready to lift off. We’ll send the technical data to our orbital surveillance systems and neutralize every damn Blind Sight on this planet.”

  Jackson nodded and left the lab at a run, Clark and Rob at his heels as they raced for the airfield with all of the speed they could muster.

  ***

  “Its working,” Hope mouthed. “Now what?”

  Grace thought a moment.

  “Where are we?” she asked, making her voice sound as weak as possible.

  “Shut up in there!” a male voice yelled. Both women glanced at the door, not surprised to see a man’s face glaring at them through the window.

  “Don’t make another damn sound,” he ordered.

  Hope and Grace just stared back at him until he turned away from the window. Then they looked at each other.

  Hope thought hard. Obviously she wasn’t going to be able to call anyone if the guard’s hearing was that good. There had to be a way to use the vox to get help.

  She looked at Grace, lying on the floor beside her, then beyond her. The room was long and narrow, with several twin sized beds set in two rows along the walls, like a dormitory. Even from her position on the floor, she could see that the beds were not empty.

  Hope stood up, glanced once at the window in the door, then walked slowly toward the first bed, already knowing when she reached out to touch the woman lying motionless on top of it that she would not find any sign of life. She touched the cold flesh lightly, then jerked her hand back. She moved along the narrow path between the beds, looking at each woman. There were eight beds, and six of them were occupied.

  Hope didn’t touch any of the other women. She didn’t have to. As she walked beside each bed it was obvious to her that the women were dead. Until she reached the last bed and realized that the dark red hair spread out on the pillow was familiar.

  “Aisling?” she gasped softly as she hurried around the final bed, her heart in her throat. Unlike the other women, Aisling didn’t appear to be dead, but Hope wasn’t sure. She reached out slowly towards Aisling’s arm and touched her lightly. Tears of relief sprung to her eyes.

  “Aisling, wake up,” she whispered, shaking her shoulder.

  “She must be drugged,” Grace said from the other side of the bed. As soon as Grace finished speaking, they heard voices from outside of the room. They stared at each other fearfully, then turned and hurried back toward the door.

  “Darck wants these women out to the transfer zone, right now,” a deep voice said.

  “Yes, Sir,” said the voice of the guard that had hollered at them a few minutes earlier. There was a long silence, and Hope decided she had to risk the call. She tapped the vox.

  “Hope?” Clark asked, tense with shock.

  “Clark, I don’t know where we are, but we need help,” Hope said speaking softly.

  “We’re on our way, aspara,” Clark said. “We’ll be there in just a few minutes.”

  “Okay,” Hope replied. “Just hurry, please. Something big is happening here, and they’re planning to take us somewhere.”

  “Where?” Clark asked.

  “I don’t know,” Hope replied, struggling to hold panic at bay. “They’re outside the door right now, talking about taking us to a transfer zone.”

  “Hope, no matter what happens, we will find you, I promise,” Clark said. “Don’t give up.”

  “Never,” Hope agreed.

  Clark turned to Jackson and repeated what Hope had told him. Jackson moved into the cockpit of the VTOL. “Can we go any faster?” he asked.

  The pilot glanced up at him for a brief second, then immediately put his attention back on the controls. “I’m sorry, Sir, I’m redlining the engines already,” he said.

  “How long before we get there?”

  “Just under three minutes,” the pilot replied.

  Jackson went back to share that information with his brothers, feeling more helpless than he ever had in his life.

  ***

  Jarlek stood on the outside edge of the transport circle, glancing nervously at the two strange looking males who had transported down from the Xanti ship.

  “I am Magoa,” said the larger of the two. “This is my son, Slater.”

  “I am Jarlek,” Jarlek replied stiffly. There was something about the appearance of these two males that set off alarm bells in his head. But it was too late to change his mind now. If Za-Marliq’s latest message was correct, the Directorate was on their way at that very moment to destroy them.

  “I apologize if we seem abrupt,” Magoa said, “but the Xanti ship we arrived on is being fired upon as we speak by an Earth orbital defense station.”

  “Don’t they have Blind Sight?” Jarlek demanded fearfully.

  “Yes, of course,” Magoa replied with a little smile. “Apparently Earth has discovered a way to get around it.”

  “That means this compound is no longer hidden,” Jarlek said.

  “That is correct,” Magoa said. “I would advise beginning transportations at this time.”

  “Yes, of course,” Jarlek replied. “Darck, get your ass over here, now!”

  ***

  “Darck wants those women right now!” a third voice yelled. “Which one of you morons has the key to this room?”

  “I think Darck took it,” the second guard said.

  “No, I have it,” said the first voice.

  Hope and Grace looked frantically around the room, searching for a weapon, a place to hide, anything. Aside from the beds and two metal chairs against one wall, the room was bare.

  Hope thought about using one of the metal chairs as a weapon, but discarded the idea. It was an old fashioned folding chair, too unwieldy to use as a weapon.

  “Hurry the hell up!” the third voice snapped angrily. “I can hear Jarlek screaming from here and the Xanti have already begun transportation.”

  “I got it,” said the first voice.

  Hope’s eyes went back to the chair and she got an idea. She hurried to it, picked it up and carried it to the door, then hesitated, trying to figure out how to make this work. Grace appeared beside her and guided Hope’s hands on the chair. Together, they set it in front of the door and tilted it backward, lodging the top of the chair’s back beneath the doorknob. As soo
n as they stepped away from the door the lock clicked and the doorknob turned.

  Hope gasped as the feet of the chair began to slide across the tile floor as the door was pushed against. She went down on her knees and grabbed the front of the chair, pushing back against the door. A moment later Grace joined her. Hope scooted over and they both pushed against the chair in an effort to keep it from sliding across the floor.

  “Move out of the way!”

  Hope looked up and saw a furious reptilian face glaring at her through the window. She dropped her gaze to the doorknob, determined not to let the chair slip in the slightest degree. There was more yelling, and a lot of banging on the door, but Hope blocked out their words. She focused completely on holding the chair, refusing to allow it to move.

  Suddenly a new voice began shouting, then she heard the sound of breaking glass followed by the low buzz of an energy weapon. A moment after that she heard the sound of pounding footsteps retreating in the distance. Then silence.

  Hope risked a glance up at the broken window, relieved that the guards had apparently left. She turned toward Grace with a smile, her breath catching in her throat as she watched her friend slump to the floor, drenched in blood.

  ***

  Jackson ordered the pilot to set down in an area that looked no different than any other portion of the terrain. Sand, rocks, brush, no sign of life whatsoever. The pilot was under orders to obey whatever Jackson said, so he obediently prepared to set the VTOL down. Twenty feet from the ground he was astonished to see a huge, walled in compound containing forty to fifty buildings suddenly appear from nowhere. He immediately sent their exact location to the half dozen VTOLs coming up behind them as he selected a landing site in the middle of what appeared to be a street, and set down.