The light went off. He went inside.
He passed through the cool, darkened hallway that connected the garage to the living spaces of the small block apartment, catching the sound of a television in the main room as he got closer, a newscast droning. He walked in and stood. The light from the setting sun cast orange light through drawn drapes. In the room Lorenzo sat on a couch, alone, back to the door, watching a big flatscreen mounted to the far wall. Hansel prepared to get his attention, knowing full well Lorenzo was aware of his presence, choosing his usual tactic when dealing with underlings: remain aloof and feign disinterest. The time had come to deliver the news; the perfectly planned divulgence of information, Hansel debating which piece to disclose first, Lorenzo’s likely response to each, where to lead the conversation and so on. Hansel would first describe the unheard-of power of the superhuman man, which they’d only guessed at but now knew of with some certainty. How the man would not die, how he’d been shot with hundreds of bullets and yet lived—how he decimated the entire strike team, their last transmission a video feed of flaming wreckage, jerking with the helmet cam of the operator, heaving back and forth as he ran.
Lorenzo would be shocked at this news, of course, stunned to learn of the power of this one man. Following that disclosure Lorenzo would no doubt have disbelieving questions, at which point Hansel would move on to the assault on the castle. News of which was abbreviated, though the implications were clear. He would tell Lorenzo that by last report Franco had taken the girl and the ancient device and popped away, leaving the superhuman man loose inside the Bok headquarters. What happened since then was anyone’s guess. There had been no more reports and anything was possible—certainly the worst was likely—but Hansel had been unable to get through on any line to get an update of events. It was as if all the phone circuits of the world had suddenly become jammed. And now, watching the TV, drawn to the reality of the images unfolding there, Hansel saw why.
And realized, with a gripping mix of relief and absolute fear, that his carefully planned disclosure would not be needed. There would be no need to dole out such shocking bad news in carefully orchestrated dialog.
There may be no need to tell Lorenzo at all.
“Do you see it?” asked the young Bok leader.
Hansel did.
“I need to know more of this,” Lorenzo remained facing the wide screen, absorbing the images, the audio, the flood of sparse information switching between newscasters, reporters in the field and repeating feeds from other sources.
Reports of the alien invasion.
“There,” Lorenzo pointed, enthralled. “Look at that.” Hansel followed his outstretched finger to one of the screens-within-screens, a grainy shot from a telescope, listening as the newscaster, broadcasting in English, described the video from an amateur astronomer. Some kind of alien starship.
“You’ve not seen the ancient texts,” said Lorenzo, eyes glued to the screen, jumping ahead to other things, far ahead, Hansel’s mind stuck hard on what he was witnessing. “That could be one of the craft of our ancestors. The ones who we spawned from a thousand years ago.”
Now Hansel stared wide-eyed at him.
Even as Lorenzo grinned to himself.
“The return of the Kel.” And he leaned eagerly, closer toward the screen.
**
“Bunch of irresponsible bastards,” Peterson muttered; a loud mutter, with enough volume to be heard by everyone around him, filled with the annoyed disgust he was feeling right then. “Christ. This could be the end of the world as we know it and they’re still fanning the flames.”
“They’re the media,” one of his aides offered unhelpfully. “It’s knee-jerk. What they do. You didn’t expect them to think this through did you?”
Once the leaks started, once the first few people saw things or heard things and the uncontrolled social media fired up … that’s when the circus began and the shit spread like wildfire. There was no putting the cork back in the bottle after that. On it raged—despite the fact that there wasn’t much else to know. Even the experts knew little at that point. Hell, Peterson himself, top dog of the top military on planet Earth, sitting in the nerve center of the nation that fielded that military, knew precious little.
Goddamn irresponsible.
“President on the line, sir,” another aide pushed up out of the bustle. Peterson had been on his way to the next conversation, aides and officials passing this or that bit of information as he moved, Peterson listening, issuing instructions—all the while glancing continually back and forth between the large monitor screens at the front of the room, trying to keep up.
He took the phone.
“Yes, sir. General Peterson here.”
“This shit is real,” came the President’s voice on the other end. The President of the United States of America and he sounded just as freaked as anyone. Protocols were dropping like flies. Everything was falling by the wayside. They were all just looking for a way to understand. To make sense of the impossible; find a frame of reference, any point from which to begin. Earlier Peterson called one of their top Black Budget specialists in from the field, Drake Hauer, on some clandestine op in Spain. That was one group he suspected knew more than anyone about the fantastic and he intended to find out everything they were privy to, in a hurry.
He shook off the distractions. “Yes, sir, it is.”
“I’ve heard a hundred different opinions in the last hour but what the hell is going on?” The President had been delayed but he would be there soon.
Peterson kept moving, heading across the room to his next destination. “We’re dusting off contingencies, sir.” He nodded “Go” to an aide who showed him something and the aide rushed off to make it happen.
“What do you make of the alien address?” the President asked. “This Voltan. Think we can reason with him?”
“I think we ought to try. From what little we can tell so far there’s no question they’ll wipe the floor with us.”
There was a pause on the other end as the President received some other bit of information, relayed to him by a female voice in the background. As the President was talking on the other end Peterson held the phone away from his mouth and sent another aide off to relay an instruction.
Wishing someone had a good idea.
He had precious few.
One of his senior officers had been standing by as he spoke with the President. As Peterson waited the officer asked: “What’s the plan?” No doubt thinking maybe the President had said something key. Something useful.
“Plan?” Peterson chuckled; the first laugh he’d had since he got there. Just a chuckle, but it felt good for an instant to put some distance on such a serious situation.
“No plan,” he said, sobering. “Not yet.”
He took a clipboard that was handed to him and turned his attention to it.
“But we’re not surrendering, that’s for sure.”
CHAPTER 9: CODE RED
Cee examined the traitors hanging before her, stomach sour with more than just the marks of their torture. They were members of the movement, seeking the promises of the Prophecy, heretics under law, and it disgusted her to be in their presence. Enraged her. Yet she’d requested it. This small group had been rooted out right there in the capital, and she caught wind of their capture before their summary execution.
She held her eyes on the dangling forms; three Kel males, stripped and swinging from chains by their ankles. Interrogators stood close to hand, held in check from their latest round of “coercion” by a command from Cee.
She locked eyes with the traitor on the left, upside-down, face hanging just below her knees. Blood ran freely down his torso, dripping onto his chin and running along his face, down to his long white hair; streaking it red where it brushed the floor, puddling there in tiny drops. He was in agony, no doubt, but his yellow eyes were sharp.
“What do you even know of the Witch?” Cee challenged. So far whatever absurd devotion these
three possessed was giving them a haughty impulse to answer questions freely. As if they didn’t care what she did. As if they truly thought their futures were assured. She could see they would never be turned.
But that was not her purpose.
“You call her a witch,” the man’s voice was steady, if strained. “She was a priestess. What she promises will save us all.”
Cee laughed, though there was no humor in it.
“We are dead,” the man agreed, “but the cycle will continue. It is why we martyr ourselves. With the promise of the priestess the future will be one of untold freedoms. Though we die today we die for that future. We will have it. All will have it. Our deaths mean nothing. We die so that we might win.” His delivery was strained, agonized but, damningly, clear, and Cee hated the way his words held her in thrall. “The alternative is to live in shackles,” he croaked. “Again and again. And again. The time has come. The Prophecy is now.”
Cee fought the abrupt urge to simply grab one of the pikes from her guards and run him through. Run them all through, so furious was she that they were even there saying these things.
But she maintained calm. This session had been her wish. She mustered the impulse that arranged it. The same desire to get answers, that made her think to question these three, to try and understand—perhaps through them—where her policy had failed, to make sure it never did again.
She turned, working to adopt a conversational tone—inasmuch as one could converse pleasantly with a man whom you were going to kill. A man who was hanging upside down naked, bleeding and ruined before you. “The Prophecy is a thousand years old,” she pointed out mildly. “Heresy. False hope. The only way to eternity is through the One True God. The Prophecy is long dead. It holds no promise. Surely you know this?”
“The priestess discovered the path to freedom. She has shown us eternity. That is well known.”
“It is not well known!” Cee leaned toward him; feeling she’d lost ground. The wry little smile that came over the man in that same instant assured her that she had. It looked like a frown on his inverted face, but there was no doubt now that he knew just how hard she worked to conceal her frustration.
She straightened. Looked around the large, windowless room. A dungeon of sorts, a black-stone holding cell carved into the obscure depths of the citadel. She’d had the men brought here. Half-a-dozen elite guards and four interrogators shared the space, but she was the one onstage; the regal queen, pacing before the three pale-white prisoners, bloodied and dangling at the center.
“The Witch nearly destroyed the Kel,” she said. “That you most assuredly know. She filled the heads of idiots such as yourselves with foolish ideas that set our glorious republic at odds. It has taken this long to rise from the ashes of that war. You and others like you would see us broken again by these same, worthless, empty, blasphemous lies.
“I decreed this the Forever Dynasty,” she told them all. “Under my rule we will be relentless in the safeguarding of our freedom.” Now she bored into the one. “Yes,” she assured him, “for we are a free Kel, and will soon have Empire once more. Why you and your kind, even now, when that Dynasty—your dynasty—is on the cusp of such greatness, in the midst of such prosperity, seek to raise the cries of chaos, to attempt to plummet us back to the blackness of civil war, I cannot comprehend. I can only conclude that you and your kind are evil. That you seek the ruin of the Kel.”
“I seek our salvation,” the man declared. “And I’m sure you realize, somewhere in that cold heart of yours, that it is you who is evil, not I.” He coughed, spitting a small spray of blood.
“No,” said Cee. “It is you who are dead.”
And she whirled, fur wrap flipping across her shoulders as she strode from the room. She gave no command but the interrogators knew she was done with these three. As she heard them move in to finish the job one of the captives called out:
“The demon is among us!” he shouted, voice cracking. “The time of the Prophecy has come!” Cee tried to tune him out but could not. Could not reach the door fast enough, it seemed; not without running and completely forfeiting all poise. And so she heard him as she continued with deliberate strides:
“Aesha foresaw it! You may deny it with your words but in your mind you know! Freedom is at hand!” He shouted this last, so loud it was as if he’d regained his strength. And Cee shuddered, for it was true. The presence of Kang was such a staggering coincidence, right in line with what the Prophecy predicted, so precisely in line with the lore, so exact by every description …
She cursed that infernal traitor hanging back there, wishing she felt more satisfaction as he was run through, a gurgling crunch marking his end; wanting to savor his death but unable to the degree she craved. To the degree she needed at that moment. One of the others shouted: “The angel is next! She will come in the wake of the demon! Our salvation is at hand!” And he too was silenced. Then the other was run through, nearly in the same moment.
Cee scowled as she left the room.
Shaken.
**
Heath Williams had an easy Southern drawl, though he didn’t speak slow. Not anymore. Six years in the Service had sped him up, though the twang remained. Combined with the natural richness of his voice it made it so he enjoyed hearing himself talk. He knew that was an unflattering vanity in most, however unlike those who had a compulsion to always be saying something, Heath saved his words and liked to think, as a result, when he did speak people paid attention. The fact that he was an officer had a little to do with it, he knew. Sometimes people had to listen. But even then he felt like they wanted to.
Right now he had three of his men hanging on his words. Members of his team, his juniors. As Operators they’d been through so much together that his rank meant little under most circumstances, and at the moment they listened to him based solely on the merits of his opinion.
The topic was barbeque.
“Mustard is what makes it,” he explained. They’d fallen into a bit of mindless chatter as they tried to settle flared nerves following the sudden call-up. His team, based out of Rota Naval Station in Spain, had just been put on alert—as had the entire US Military, near as the handful of rumors flying around could confirm—and everyone was on edge. The base’s media outlets were on lockdown but personal connections were screaming with reports of something that could hardly be believed.
Apparently the Earth was being invaded.
By aliens.
“It’s good, don’t get me wrong,” his electronics whiz, Steve, held up his hands, going along. “I mean, I’ve had yellow barbeque sauce and it’s good. But classic red is always going to be the best. Too many options. Sorry.”
Heath made a “pshaw” noise and waved a hand in dismissal. Steve and the other two stood with Heath in a small action room, away from the main body of troops, waiting for their Major to return.
“Options don’t matter.”
Heath had no idea what they were supposed to do against actual aliens, if that did in fact turn out to be the threat. At the end of it all he hoped it was just a drill, and part of him worked hard to believe that it was—to suppress the more dangerous prospect of it being real. The others were on just as much of an edge. Fact was, though, a drill involving aliens just seemed too ridiculous to be real. Which left only the alternative. That it really was real.
“Options do matter,” insisted Steve.
“Maybe it’s because I grew up on it,” Heath kept his mind as relaxed as he could. Nothing happening yet. “But done right? Mustard base is the best. Hands down.”
One of his other juniors, Pete—best shot in the entire unit, probably even the military—though certainly not the sharpest tool in the shed—seemed to become aware of the conversation all at once. He’d been following along, or appearing to, but with Pete you could never be sure. Now he looked confused.
“Yellow barbeque sauce?” he wrinkled his nose as he imagined it. As if the concept was only really just dawning.
/>
“Yep.”
“That’s weird.”
“You never had it?”
Pete shook his head.
Then the door opened and the Major entered; not in a full-on rush but definitely not taking his time.
He looked scared. Something the Major had never been.
Heath swallowed.
“All right, gentlemen,” their commanding officer walked up. “Let’s round everybody up.”
“So it’s real?” Heath asked at once; the very thing everyone wanted to know.
For a moment the Major seemed speechless. “It’s real.” His confirmation was followed by a little hesitation in the room, a quiet moment where they all kind of looked at each other, processing the incredible.
“Real aliens?” Pete broke the spell.
“Real aliens.”
“Like in the movies?”
The Major nodded.
Another long pause among them. Then:
“Shit.”
Heath looked back and forth between everyone.
“What are we supposed to do?”
“Fight them if need be.” The Major was as lost as Heath had ever seen him. “All I know is that the whole world is prepping for war.” He grabbed one of the gear bags from a table.
Each man in the room seemed to have stopped breathing, eyes wide and locked to each other.
Struggling to believe what they’d been anticipating, and yet was entirely, one hundred percent impossible.
**
The alien address was everywhere. Hansel knew the leaders of the world must be scrambling not only to contend, but to manage the chaos gripping the populace of every land. The direct address by the alien leader, the one called “Voltan”, had been broadcast wide, in such a way that many outlets received it. While the normally busy networks of the world were choked with activity, some traffic was still making it through. Lorenzo, via the Bok’s spidery tendrils into the world’s deepest channels of information, was skimming as many details as he could, growing more impassioned by the moment.
Star Angel: Rising (Star Angel Book 4) Page 8
