**
Zac jumped from the high bed of the canvas-topped truck, followed by Willet. One other guy got out with them, part of the human resistance, the latest in a string of people that had helped hand them off between nondescript modes of travel, starting in America and ending here, across the ocean, from car to plane to boat to truck, each mode of transport engaged in some other task, merely taking on this secret cargo and moving it along. The guy shook their hands and pointed them toward a pub across the street. His name was Ben, and as he said goodbye he wished them well, went around and hopped into the cab on the passenger side, the driver waved and the truck was off. Leaving Willet and Zac standing in the street.
Willet eyed the pub. A shingle hung over the door, scripted with the name “The Naked Lady”. A few people were out and about walking the small, cobblestone sidewalks. Everything appeared business as usual for the small town, no sign of the traumatic alien invasion. That was true for most of the areas off the main routes. Zac looked up and down the block.
He and Willet were apparently now in a country called “Scotland”.
Willet started for the pub. After all the travel and changing of hands they both wore the same clothes. Zac was sure both of them were quite ripe by then, but they’d been so long together, cooped up and waiting, it was hard to tell.
Inside the pub had its own musty smell. It was mid-afternoon and the crowd was small; a few people sitting at tables having lunch or drinks, more at the bar. Their contact, Drake, had supposedly been called and would be waiting. This was the guy from the Project, from their planning for the mission in the club, and the last Zac saw him he was outside the castle drawing his own bead on the Bok. Drake and the Project had been after Jessica. Zac was well familiar with the history. Willet, of course, knew Drake too, at least in photographic images and records, from the same planning, and to say they were approaching this meeting with caution would’ve been an understatement.
Though none of that history probably mattered. This was a clear case of “Us” versus “Them” and Drake was, more than anything else, human. Therefore, by default he would be given the benefit of the doubt.
And there he was. Coming from the rear of the pub. “I’m Drake,” he extended a hand, stepping to them from a booth area. He had one other guy with him and Zac recognized them both.
Zac took Drake’s hand, then the other’s.
“Bobby,” Drake introduced him.
“Last time we met you had me by the collar,” Bobby joked. Zac got the humor and, as the genuine feel of Bobby’s smile dawned on him, he eased a little more of his internal caution.
“Zac.” He gave his own name and indicated Willet: “Willet.” Bobby and Drake shook his hand then Drake turned to business.
“This way,” he led off toward the bar, around it and back into the kitchen area. Some of the patrons watched them go; most just kept drinking, or sitting and staring. The pub, at least at that hour, seemed a glum place.
“Sorry for the complicated travel arrangements,” it was a genuine apology. They passed through the kitchen to a set of doors at the back. “We’ve just relocated. The Kel are letting most business go on as usual, but they’ve locked down all forms of major transportation. All flights that aren’t designated cargo with fully disclosed manifests, etc. However, because they’ve decided, for now, to leave the day-to-day lives of all seven billion of us running, certain things can’t be stopped. Food deliveries, existing infrastructure—that’s the only thing making this possible.” He opened one of the doors and went through. “The scale of the Earth is just too big, too complicated to monitor it all. They can’t police even a fraction of it.
“Of course it also means crappy accommodations.”
He led them into a dim, underused passage and down a hall, the old, whitewashed pub far deeper than it appeared from the outside.
“This is our latest safe house,” Drake said from up ahead. They walked single file in the narrow passage. He turned right to another door, keyed in a code and opened it. Willet and Zac followed through into another hallway.
“Built here during World War Two and maintained through the Cold War.”
Zac took those to be significant periods of strife there on Earth.
“Somewhere very unexpected yet usefully located. We’re not far from what was a major air base. RAF Lossiemouth, outside Moray. Other assets are close.”
None of that, of course, made any difference to Zac, but Drake seemed satisfied by what they’d accomplished. In fact, he talked like he was downright eager, and Zac figured he was just glad to get some fresh bodies for the resistance. Especially Zac himself. They certainly knew what he was capable of.
Zac, too, had to admit he was a little intrigued. Here was a group that was figuring out ways to move among the Kel, during the lockdown, to get things done and organize a way to fight back.
Up ahead Drake stopped at the next door and waited. As Willet and Zac gathered around in the small, crooked corridor he said: “Thanks for agreeing to come. Both of you.” He took a moment to look at each of them. Drake was a young man, quite young to be in charge of such a thing, and so Zac assumed he was not only intelligent but capable. “We’re one of the key cells in the field. I don’t know much about you two or, frankly, where you’re from. There are still many mysteries—for all of us. But things are moving fast. You could be Kel spies for all I know, but I’m obviously confident enough that’s not the case. I asked you here to help.” He glanced to Bobby then back at them. “We’re doing things here. Great things. But we don’t have an infinity of time. The window during which we might hope to have any impact is closing. This time, right now, after the hammer has fallen and before the Kel can pick up the pieces and aim the next blow, is critical.” He gave that a moment to sink in. Then:
“Let’s go meet the team.”
Beyond the door was a large room, people and equipment everywhere, obviously thrown together from odds and ends, screens of all kinds flickering on tables and countertops. Zac sensed they’d gone down a bit of a slope as they wound through the corridors and were now a few feet underground. All but a handful of the people in the room stopped what they were doing and came over to greet them.
“This is Colonel Cooper, British SAS,” Drake introduced a tall, thin, white-haired man with pale skin and sharp features. He wore a uniform that looked like he’d been trying desperately to maintain, even through the chaos of war and displacement. He shook their hands crisply. Next Drake introduced a few other guys, also with the SAS, members of Cooper’s team. Their uniforms, on the other hand, were frumpy and unkempt, making it look as if, unlike their boss, their chief concern was function.
More people crowded up to meet the much-anticipated visitors, notable among them four differently-uniformed soldiers who had about them the same presence of cool efficiency as the SAS guys.
“This is Heath,” Drake made introductions and Willet and Zac continued to absorb the new faces.
“Ho-ly shit,” one of them marveled, eyeing Zac and extending a hand cautiously. “Pete, sir,” the man introduced himself. Zac took his hand and shook it and the guy winced in anticipation. “Whew!” he checked his hand as he took it away. “Not broken.” He flexed it and looked to his companions. “It’s super guy!”
They met Steve and that team’s Major. Americans. Those guys and the SAS were operators, specialist like Willet, members of this little resistance group that had been key in salvaging Kel technology from the field.
Amid the Hellos and Nice to meet yous Pete said something that sounded like he was choking, spitting out what Zac took to be, upon replaying the words in his mind, something like: “Welcome to Scotland!”
Zac looked to Heath, then Drake, perplexed.
“Forgive him,” Heath explained. “He’s trying to be funny. That’s his version of a Scottish accent.”
Pete laughed at his own perceived cleverness, not seeming to care what the others thought. Zac nodded.
Heath shook his head, embarrasse
d by his teammate.
After that Drake walked them around and introduced them to the group they called their “hackers”. Sitting at the workstations around tables they remained focused as the rest said Hello, and as they talked a little more Zac noticed the SAS guys had distinct accents, different from the others, perfectly clear English yet definitely of their own origin. In fact Pete himself had his own, unique accent. Unlike any of the others.
“That guy right there,” Pete said as they made the rounds, pointing out one of the hackers for Zac, “is smart as shit.” It was the guy Drake had introduced as Fang, and though Zac was sure Fang heard Pete he completely ignored the comment.
Drake took them over to another set of tables and some maps and small items, little figures or odds and ends being used to represent forces or positions or targets of opportunity for planning purposes.
As they walked around the side of the largest table Pete got an idea, went eagerly over and grabbed something, came back and handed it to Zac.
“Bend that!” he enthused.
One of the other guys—Steve, Zac recalled—looked at Pete, then at what he was handing Zac. Zac looked down at Pete’s hand.
It was a wrench.
“Are you serious?” Steve asked Pete.
Pete just ignored him and looked expectantly at Zac. Excited to see him do it. Like a kid wanting to see a party trick.
Before anyone else could complain Zac took the wrench and bent it around with both hands, then held it in one and finished closing it flat. It groaned at the last stage of the bend, the metal throbbing loudly within his palm. A titanic little rumble that was uniquely loud in the crowded room. He opened his hand and gave the creased wrench to Pete.
Pete took it in absolute awe.
“Whoa!” he popped it between hands, the metal hot from the incredible stress. “Hot damn!” He held it up for the others to see. “You see that?”
Steve stared at him in disbelief.
“Really?” he wanted to know. “A wrench? He carves up alien tanks, hundred-ton alien machines of war, shreds them on the field of battle—which you’ve seen with your own eyes, I might add—and you want to see him bend a wrench?”
“What?” Pete was truly perplexed. “Can’t no one here do that!”
Steve shook his head. “You really are a piece of work.”
Nervous chuckles filled the room.
And Zac decided, for himself and all at once, that these were most definitely the good guys. They deserved to be helped.
And maybe they, in turn, could help him.
CHAPTER 13: NO REST FOR THE WEARY
Hansel stood off to the side in the living room downstairs, trying to escape the attention of the others. It was a family dwelling, the girl Jessica’s house, and he’d chosen to play some classical music quietly on the home stereo while he waited. Despite the damage to the place the home entertainment system was intact. He looked around the rest of the dust-covered room. It was a wreck.
Upstairs the Kel queen and her group searched through the rooms of the two-story house, talking and even yelling at times, the sound and tone of their frustrated alien voices indicating they were clearly failing to find anything of value. Through giant gaps in the front wall of the house Hansel could see out to the front yard, clear to the quaint little cul-de-sac beyond. It was all very American.
As he was looking that way Kang strode into view, down by the sidewalk, waiting impatiently, as was Hansel. One thing for sure, Hansel observed, with Kang out there prowling around and the queen’s massive personal craft landed out back, there were no gawkers. Not a single person had popped around to see what was going on. Activity on the street was nil.
Back at the Bok archives Cee left her bishop to work with the team of Kel scientists, while Cee gathered up Lorenzo and Hansel and her small crew and came straight here, to the house belonging to the supposed herald. The girl from the Prophecy that had created such a sensation and now here they were, looking and, so far, finding nothing. Just a regular house in a regular neighborhood, half destroyed and thoroughly violated and Hansel wondered what came next.
He had to admit this front row seat to the Kel elite was yielding certain insights. It had become clear the queen was, indeed, being careful about what she was doing, even around Lorenzo and Kang, but not so careful that her intent was fully disguised. Hansel saw it. He knew she was keeping her activities as concealed from her senior commanders as she could—most specifically Voltan, who came up a lot in her rants—and that the small crew of Kel scientists and guards she’d brought with her on this expedition were fiercely loyal. It was an interesting commentary on what was going on at the upper levels among their alien overlords, and from that it was obvious things were not pretty. Cee was bitter; frustrated with the way her supreme commander had managed to impose the careful methodology of his architecture on her conquest. And she did view this as her conquest. From what Hansel could tell she considered this her fleet, her army, her Kel. It was a certain arrogance that, if Hansel hadn’t been a mere spectator to it all, with vested interests against them, he would’ve found disgusting. So similar to Lorenzo and the Young Bok.
Instead he found small hope in it. Perhaps the Kel would simply implode.
Just as he hoped the Bok would do.
A crunch brought his attention back to the living room and the ragged front wall, where Kang was stepping through from outside. As Kang entered Hansel realized he was alone with the monster, the others upstairs or outside, and he felt the weight of the beast’s presence as it stared back at him with jaundiced eyes. The music played on quietly in the background, that point in the selection serving, ironically, as a perfect piece for the entrance of the yellow demon. A dramatic overture as he stepped in and stood, rays of sunshine streaming in from outside and framing him, a freak of nature with a backdrop of broken, idyllic Americana and clear blue sky.
The moment passed and someone was coming down the stairs. Kang turned his horned head to look up. It was Cee, followed by Lorenzo and her retinue of Kel.
“You waste your time,” Kang called to her. “The girl is connected to Horus. Get me to Horus and I will make him tell you where she is. He will know. Only through him will you find your precious herald.”
“Horus is dead,” Cee dismissed that notion out of hand. “And it is not only the girl,” she reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped a moment to stand before the mighty beast. “It is everything. All of this is important. She will not even know the significance of her part.”
“She does not,” Lorenzo assured her, directly behind the regal queen. “She is just a pawn.”
“We are wasting time!” Kang snapped.
Hansel cringed at the force of his delivery—a restrained outburst, he knew, for they’d all seen what the brute could do. It was, nevertheless, disturbing. Cee held her ground.
“You forget yourself.”
Kang was silent, but undeterred. He lowered his voice; a steady, threatening tone that was more chilling than mere volume: “Horus running free is something I will not suffer. When he appears again, and he will, I will go to him. No matter your wishes.”
Everyone waited as the two powerful figures, one the head of the entire Kel empire, the other a concentration of unimaginable power in a single physical form, faced each other, neither flinching. Cee’s control of the monster was impressive, Hansel had to admit. And Kang ... the thing was completely mad, of this he was sure. He had a one-track mind, determined to have his revenge on this Horus, no matter what it took, no matter what else must be forfeit. Hansel thought to discretely turn off the dramatic music, still playing quietly in the background, but that would’ve drawn too much attention and, frankly, it lent an air to the confrontation he found both fitting and … privately amusing. At any rate no one mentioned it.
After a few seconds Cee turned from Kang, ending the standoff. She walked into the living room, past Hansel, continuing as if there had been no interruption. Lorenzo followed.
; “If your Bok are truly leftovers from the witch’s failed campaign,” she said to him, “then surely you must possess more.” She looked around the pitiful little house. “You know things. I want access to all of it. Do you understand? Everything you have, no matter how useless you think it.”
Lorenzo bowed his head. “As you wish, my queen.”
**
Egg brought a tray with more drinks. “Incredible,” she said, “We thought the treaty with the Venatres was the dawn of the Golden Age, and maybe it is, but it turns out there are more worlds—and an even bigger threat. And now you’re talking about yet another world.”
Jess reached and took a glass. “Sadly, yes.” Egg continued handing out the drinks and Jess took a sip. The Anitran fruit juice was tasty. Of course, other than the few hours with Zac where she had the PB & J and milk, she’d been living on the road eating and drinking nothing but bland, basic food since landing on that strange world with Galfar. The diet hadn’t been horrible, and she’d gotten used to living medieval, but there was something soothing about being in a quiet, safe house, with electricity, four walls, cold drinks and your friends.
“It’s like things just keep getting bigger,” said Nani, taking a sip. Egg finished passing out the glasses, put the tray on a table and plopped down near her dad.
They’d been sitting in Egg’s living room, Jess, Egg, Darvon, Bianca, and Nani, who’d shown up shortly after B, and, of course, little Ereena. Earlier Mom came home, carrying Ereena in her arms, and as soon as they were through the door and baby Ereena saw Jess she fussed to go straight to her. Mom made her own enthusiastic, tearful greeting of the revived Jessica, then left to go about her business, leaving Ereena to hang and be part of the conversation. Ereena dissolved instantly to pure bliss, her silent regard of Jessica punctuated now and again with squeals of glee. Jess looked down and bounced her on her knee, kissed her lightly on the forehead and turned back to the others.
Nani looked tired, but at the same time had a certain … presence about her, a new vibe that Jess could sense. It was clear Nani had risen past her former, debilitating shyness, exerting her full, incredible, natural intelligence. There was a confidence to her now, one that hadn’t been there before.
Star Angel: Prophecy Page 15
