Lucas was bent over, holding his abdomen, when the elevator doors opened and a four-man security team rushed into the room, followed by two medics Lucas recognized from the infirmary. He figured one of the video techs must have called for reinforcements. The security team dashed to surround the quivering alien, leaving behind boot prints in human blood.
One of the medics, a woman, ran up to Lucas, “Are you injured?” Lucas nodded. “Where does it hurt?” she asked.
“Everywhere,” Lucas grunted with diminished breath. He felt like he’d been hit by a cement truck. “I think they just knocked the wind out of me.”
The female medic helped him off the floor and then raised his hands over his head. “Try to relax. Take slow, deep breaths.”
Lucas’ breathing slowly returned to normal. “Better,” he said, nodding. His whole body ached. “I’ll be all right. Go help my friends,” Lucas told her, pointing at Kleezebee and Bruno.
While the medic was tending to his friends, Lucas staggered over to the portal’s last position, pushing his way through the guards surrounding the wounded creature. The alien was convulsing, spurting jets of orange blood from its severed limbs and bullet wounds. Its claw, stinger, and tentacles were not moving, no longer a threat.
“Where’s my brother?” Lucas asked the creature, ignoring its putrid smell. There was no response. He kicked the creature in the head, crushing one of its four eyes. “Answer me!” he screamed at it before one of the guards pulled him away from the marauder.
“I doubt it understands you,” the guard said.
“Those things took my brother!” Lucas said, trying to squirm free from the guard’s arm lock. “I have to get him back!”
“Look at it,” the guard said, turning Lucas’ body toward the creature. The convulsions had stopped, and its eyes had started to dim. “It’s almost dead. It’s never going to tell you anything.”
Reality set in, sending a torrent of emotions washing over Lucas. His mind and body went numb. He dropped to his knees with his mouth open and his eyes full of tears. He sobbed into his hands as his heart screamed in silence for his brother.
* * *
Several minutes later, Lucas felt a sudden calm come over the room. He wiped off his cheeks and nose, and then looked up. The guards were helping the medical team remove the alien’s carcass from the surveillance room. Both Kleezebee and Bruno were alive and receiving treatment from the female medic who’d helped him earlier. Lucas stepped around the pool of orange blood and walked up to Kleezebee. “We have to go after Drew.”
“I wish we could, but there’s no way to find him. Even if we knew where he was, we can’t open the rift from this side.”
“We can’t just sit here. There has to be something we can do.”
“Trust me, he’ll be all right. They won’t hurt him.”
“How the hell could you possibly know that?”
“Because the Krellians didn’t send through a battalion of warriors to kill us all. It was only a small surgical strike. They’re going to want to trade.”
“For what?”
“The BioTex.”
“But why Drew? Why not me or you? We were much closer to it.”
Kleezebee looked at Lucas with an apologetic look on his face. The man’s expression changed and so did his eyes. He looked like he was about to throw up.
Lucas could sense another revelation was about to erupt from his mentor’s lips. “I know that look,” he snapped, feeling a rising swell of trepidation mounting in his chest. “There’s something else you haven’t told me. What is it? Tell me, damn it! What the hell is going on?”
“I know why they took Drew and not the rest of us.”
Lucas flared his eyes at the man, sticking out his chin in anger.
“Because Drew is my son,” Kleezebee said with obvious heartbreak fueling his words.
Lucas’ brain went into a spin. “What?”
Kleezebee ushered Lucas to a chair sitting in front of the video control station. “Have a seat and let me explain.”
Lucas sat down in the chair with his arms folded across his chest. Every cell in his body was filled with anger and disbelief.
Kleezebee took a seat across from him. “Remember when I told you earlier that after we crashed, my crew began to pair off and start new families?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I couldn’t bring myself to choose a new woman. I loved my wife too much, and I still held out hope we’d get home. But eventually, after twenty years of futility, even I began to doubt our chances of getting home. I gave in to the realization we might be marooned on your planet for a long time, quite possibly for generations. I was lonely and decided I needed a son, someone to carry on my legacy and continue the work, but I was too old and too busy to raise a child, and I certainly didn’t want a new wife.”
Lucas was starting to suspect Kleezebee had knocked up Drew’s mom. “Jesus Christ, Professor. What did you do?”
“I had our geneticist open a fertility clinic.”
Lucas hesitated for a moment, thinking about the professor’s last statement. “I’m guessing it was the same one that Drew’s bio-mom chose.”
“Yes. We needed a woman with no family, a compatible genetic makeup, and who possessed superior intelligence. Lauren Falconio fit the bill. After she selected her donor sperm, we hijacked her pregnancy and inseminated her with my sperm. I’m not proud of what we did, but if we hadn’t, Drew wouldn’t be here today.”
It took a minute for the words to sink in before Lucas was able to speak again. “How did the aliens know Drew was your son?”
“When they scanned the room, they must’ve checked our genetic markers and determined he was my offspring.”
“What about me?” Lucas asked, wondering what earth-shattering revelation was next. “Am I one of your ‘offspring,’ too?”
Kleezebee shook his head. “No, you’re not. Only Drew.”
“How can I believe anything you say at this point?”
“Well, believe what you want, but it’s true.”
Part of Lucas was disappointed that Kleezebee wasn’t his father, too, but the rest of him felt a deep sense of regret and he wasn’t sure why. Then his mind put a spotlight on his childhood, helping him remember some key moments from his early life. That’s when it hit him. That’s when he realized how he felt about his adoptive father—pride.
He was proud of the unaccomplished man who’d taken him and Drew in, even if he never amounted to much in the grand scheme of things. John was a man of deep conviction and unwavering honesty, something Kleezebee lacked from head to toe. But at the same time, Lucas was angry at the world for not recognizing his father’s genius when he’d released his amazing pest control invention.
Dishonest, manipulative men like Kleezebee got all the breaks, he decided, leaving genuine souls like his father to flounder in obscurity. Just like everything else in life, it wasn’t fair and he’d just about had it with everyone and their secret agendas.
Lucas brought his eyes up. “So my being part of this . . . is what, an accident?”
“Hardly. After we had your intelligence tested, we arranged for the two of you to be roommates in the orphanage. I had hoped you two would bond.”
Lucas figured Drew was going to be pissed when he learned that Kleezebee, his bio-dad, knew his whereabouts the entire time, but chose to leave him in the orphanage to fend for himself. The video screen in the back of his mind suddenly played a movie of Drew crying himself to sleep night after night in the orphanage, which wouldn’t have been necessary if Kleezebee had stepped up and taken responsibility for his progeny.
Maybe Kleezebee wasn’t confident in his skills as a single parent, or perhaps his wife Caroline took care of all the child-rearing, leaving Kleezebee to focus solely on work. Whatever the reason, Lucas had just lost more respect for Kleezebee. Not as an accomplished scientist, but as a man and father.
“Do the right thing” was something his adoptive father alway
s preached to him. And now Lucas understood what John was trying to teach him. “It’s not what you make of yourself in the world that matters, it’s how you carry yourself. Respect is a reputation well earned and it takes a lifetime of dedication to accomplish.”
“What about our adoption?” Lucas asked. “Did you arrange that, too?”
“We may have helped nudge it along a bit.”
“So you’ve orchestrated everything since day one.”
Kleezebee nodded. “We needed to keep close tabs on you. And Drew.”
“And the free rent?”
“I would’ve done that regardless. And you should probably know Trevor isn’t just your lab assistant; he’s also your bodyguard.”
“That makes sense, in retrospect.” Lucas said. “Why didn’t you tell Drew he was your son?”
“Simple, really—he has a family. A good one. Telling him I’m his biological father would only muddy the situation.”
“But he has a right to know.”
“You may be right, but I’d prefer you not tell him, or your mother. It could destroy your family, and I’m sure you don’t want that.”
Lucas wasn’t sure if he agreed with Kleezebee’s reasoning but nodded anyway. Regardless of what Kleezebee thought or expected of him, Drew was his primary responsibility. If he later decided to tell Drew the truth, he would. Kleezebee would just have to deal with it. Fuck him, he decided.
Lucas started thinking about his biological parents and the humiliating stories he was told about their criminal pasts. He’d always secretly hoped their backgrounds were a fabrication of lies, but never expected it to be a possibility—until now. “Was my bio-mom really a drug addict?”
“Yes, and your biological father died in prison. That all happened before we placed you with Drew.”
So much for ridding himself of some emotional baggage. He’d never be that lucky. “What about Drew’s bio-mom? Is she really dead?”
Kleezebee nodded in a strange manner, acting as if he wasn’t telling the whole truth.
“Oh my God, you didn’t run her car off the road, did you?”
“No, it was a tragic accident. We had nothing to do with it.”
“Well, what is it, then?”
“The photograph Drew carries around his neck isn’t hers. It’s a picture of one of my crew, someone who died a long time ago.”
“What? Why would you give him a fake photo?”
“We didn’t have a good photo of Lauren to use.”
“Then why’d you even bother?”
“We needed something he’d carry with him at all times. There’s a tracking device and audio transmitter hidden inside the photo’s backing paper.”
Lucas’ head spun when those words landed on his ears. Did he just hear the professor correctly? Had Kleezebee been eavesdropping on them all their lives? Lucas was certain somewhere along the way, a few embarrassing or slanderous conversations must’ve taken place between him and Drew that Kleezebee never should’ve heard. “Was the audio on all the time?”
“No. Not all the time.”
Lucas wasn’t sure he believed him. “But you always seemed to know when we needed help.”
Kleezebee nodded. “I kept tabs.”
Lucas was still pissed, but now wasn’t the time to dwell on the transmitter and the privacy issues. He decided to save that debate for later, and focus for now on saving his brother. That was when an idea popped into his head. “Can we use the tracking device in the pouch to find Drew?”
“If we could get close enough, yes. But it won’t work across dimensions. For now, we have wait for the Krellians to contact us and arrange an exchange.”
Not much of a plan, Lucas thought. He expected something more out of Kleezebee—the man who was a former starship captain and supposed to be the master planner. He’d hoped for a more direct response to the Krellian threat. “Can’t we just overpower them the next time the portal opens?”
“And do what? Send in a handful of men? If they’re opening the portal from one of their hive ships, we’d be outnumbered a hundred thousand to one. It’ll just get everyone killed, Drew included. No, we’re going to wait to see what they want, and then formulate a rescue plan. Right now, the best course of action is to step back and think rationally. They may look like simple overgrown bugs, but they’re very cunning and formidable.”
Bruno tapped Kleezebee on the shoulder. “Boss, we really need to start preparing for the exchange.”
Kleezebee acknowledged Bruno’s request, then turned to Lucas. “Are we good?”
They were far from good, Lucas thought, but he wasn’t going to push too hard against Kleezebee, at least not while Drew was being held captive by the Krellians. His main responsibility was to save Drew and protect his mom. And to do that, he needed Kleezebee. For the time being.
“Well?” Kleezebee asked.
“Yeah.” Lucas nodded, though he didn’t want to. “We’re good.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
An hour later, Lucas was standing next to Trevor and Bruno in the video room, listening to Kleezebee give instructions to a gathering of armed guards. Three of the ten men were Bruno copies. “When the rift opens again, I want you to spread out and flank the opening just in case they decide to attack. It’ll be harder for them to select their targets if we’re not all grouped together. Did you bring the stunners?”
“Yes, sir,” one of the men replied, opening a black duffle bag. He pulled out weapons and distributed them to his squad. He also gave a stunner to Trevor.
“Can I get one of those?” Lucas asked, hoping to join the fight. Even though he didn’t have any formal training, he figured he could aim and shoot an energy-based weapon much easier than a regular handgun. How hard could it be?
Kleezebee nodded, taking a stunner from the guard handing them out and giving it to Lucas. He put the tip of his finger on the switch sitting on top of the gun. “Set your weapons to stun level two, which is right here. I doubt level one will be sufficient to incapacitate their sentinels.”
When Kleezebee clicked the switch, Lucas could see the gun’s green power meter increasing from halfway to full. As it did, the indicator showed the weapon’s energy bank increasing to maximum, giving off a short-lived hum that increased in pitch. Everyone else standing nearby followed suit, filling the room with a symphony of harmonic sounds.
Kleezebee told his techs. “I want all our sensors and recording equipment trained on the portal to see if we can trace it back to their location. We may not get another chance, so let’s get it right the first time.”
* * *
Another hour crawled by before the Krellians finally made their appearance. Their arrival started with the portal opening with a flicker of light, in the same manner and location as before, sending the security team into action. The guards fanned out and took position ten feet in front of the expanding rift with their backs only a few feet from the elevator doors.
Kleezebee hobbled around on crutches behind the gauntlet of men. Lucas joined him. It was the most defensible position in case they needed to make a quick retreat into the elevator. Trevor and the original Bruno copy were standing to the left, just in front of the hidden entrance to the Med-Lab. Both of them were armed with stunner weapons.
A single Krellian warrior stepped through the rift carrying a naked human female out in front like a protective shield. The redheaded young woman’s eyes were closed and her limp body was covered in blood and bruises. The lower section of her right leg was shredded as if it had been torn off at the shin, then cauterized by an intense heat source.
The creature swung her from side to side as it stepped forward, furnishing Lucas with a clear view of her back. He almost puked. The alien had impaled the center of her spine with one of its tentacles; wearing her like a ten-cent hand puppet. Blood was dripping from around the insertion point.
Her eyes opened halfway and focused on Lucas while she reached out slowly with one trembling hand.
“Kill me, p
lease,” she said in a weak, thready voice.
Her face was creased in pain, sending a stab of anguish into Lucas’ heart. He wanted to help her by putting her out of her misery, but he couldn’t. Drew’s life was at stake, and he knew taking action would probably kill him. He needed to make a choice—a tough choice—one that would surely haunt him forever. He broke eye contact with her and looked away.
When he brought his eyes back, her wilted body quivered, then fully energized as she began to speak in a low-pitched, monotone voice. It sounded as though two bellowing male voices were speaking in unison.
“WE HAVE CRIPPLE. GIVE US SUBSTANCE OR CRIPPLE DIES. UGLY SPECIES DIES. BLUE PLANET DIES. WE RETURN IN ONE REVOLUTION. GIVE US SUBSTANCE AND WE GIVE CRIPPLE.”
After the short speech, the creature stepped backward into the rift, managing to get one of its legs across the event horizon before Bruno did what Lucas couldn’t bring himself to do—take action. The security chief fired his stunner, blasting the alien on the right side, which sent an energy discharge traveling across its body and down its tentacles. The female interpreter fell from the tentacle’s grip just as the alien disappeared through the rift. The portal closed an instant later, leaving her lying on the floor in the silo, crying.
Everyone except Lucas rushed forward to help, kneeling down next to her. He stood alone, embarrassed by his earlier cowardice. How could he face her now? What would he say?
She started crying in a feeble voice from the center of the crowd of Good Samaritans surrounding her, blocking Lucas’ view of her eyes.
“Let’s get her to the infirmary,” Kleezebee commanded with his back to Lucas.
Trevor stood up. So did Bruno with the woman draped across his arms. The giant Swede removed his white tunic and lay it over her naked body, restoring some of her humanity. Lucas stood aside as Bruno rushed her to the elevator. Her head and lone remaining foot were hanging below his arms, flaccid and calm.
Lucas could now see her face, but mercifully, her eyes were closed. He prayed she couldn’t feel the pain from the injuries across her frail-looking body. Bruno stepped into the elevator and was quickly followed in by Trevor. The doors closed in a swoosh a few moments later.
Linkage (The Narrows of Time Series Book 1) Page 37
