Incursion (The Narrows of Time Series Book 2)

by Jay J. Falconer

  Before he could decide what to do next, a blast of hot wind rippled his face and neck. He put his arms up, trying to protect himself from the explosion of air that moved from low to high, as if it were targeting him. Seconds later, a triangle-shaped wedge of grass compressed to the ground only ten yards in front of him. The patch sank into the ground a foot deep and was about eight feet across at its widest point, roughly the size of a 4x8 sheet of plywood.

  “What the hell?” he asked, moving a few steps closer to get a better view of the impression. The grass stalks had been bent flat at their base in an interlocking pattern. It looked like a crop circle, except it was wedge-shaped.

  One of the vultures circling above him shrieked another long, ear-piercing cry as it soared through the sky. It banked right, then came to an abrupt halt in midair and tumbled hard to the ground, landing a few inches from his foot. Its neck had been twisted and bent sideways, and blood was pouring out the middle of its flattened breast. The bird wasn’t moving.

  Lucas knelt down to check the carcass. He grabbed one of the broken, outstretched wings and flipped the lifeless animal over. There weren’t any bullet or shredder holes, so it hadn’t been brought down by a hunter. It must have hit something in mid-flight. He looked up, but only saw the picture-perfect blue sky and the blistering sun warming the air. He must have been hallucinating again.

  Before he could stand up, a speck of bright light appeared above him in midair, about thirty feet beyond the misshapen crop circle in the grass. It started as a single pinpoint of light, then flattened out and widened as it grew taller. It looked like a castle’s drawbridge lowering to the ground, but it moved in silence, while it hovered a few stories off the ground. It was as if the sky had been cracked opened from the other side.

  He could see movement inside the light, but it was difficult to stare into the brilliance, even with the meadow awash in a midday burn. He squinted to allow his eyes time to adjust. The shadowy movement inside was a pair of slender legs, and they were traveling down the ramp. As the seconds passed, he could see more detail—a waist, a stomach, two arms, and a head. It was humanoid—thank God—not Krellian bugs or Taku Beasts.

  Lucas decided it was best to move back until he could assess the threat level. He stood up and walked backward a few yards, keeping a watchful eye on the new arrival. The face of the lanky visitor blurred into view, as if he were looking through a flooded, underwater scuba mask.

  She looked gentle and experienced, like a white-haired grandmother who’d just stopped by for supper. She wore a form-fitting silver pants suit with a symbol emblazoned across her chest. The crest was in the shape of a slanted crucifix, with what looked like a silhouette of a bird’s head at the top, the emblem he’d seen in the cold-storage freezer when he was checking the vegetable boxes—the birdman crucifix—the same object that drew blood from his hand, then turned to ashes when he dropped it.

  “The spiritual salad farmers?” he mumbled, thinking about the old woman who sat down next to him at the service counter in the bakery. The alien visitor reminded him of Carrie Anne’s step-mother, Tehani, except the alien didn’t have a cast on her arm.

  The woman stopped her descent only a foot beyond the bottom of the incline. She looked up the ramp and waved a hand signal before stepping into the grass. She waited as another set of legs strolled down the ramp.

  The second visitor was half the size of the first and wore the same clothing, yet it moved down the ramp half as fast as the first. Then Lucas saw its face—it was little Maggie.

  His heart picked up steam. So did his lingering headache. “Maggie!” he shouted.

  She stared at him with a vacant look on her face, as if she were in an hypnotic trance. Lucas kept an eye on the top of the ramp, hoping that Drew would appear next and roll down in his wheelchair. But he didn’t.

  Maggie stood next to the taller visitor as the crack in the sky began to close behind them. It took half a minute for the light fissure to become a pinprick again before disappearing from view.

  Lucas figured they’d just walked down the exit ramp from a cloaked spaceship. Which would explain the wedge-shaped crop circle in the grass, which was probably one of the ship’s landing struts. He didn’t know if he should be frightened or excited. He wanted to greet the visitors, but his legs thought otherwise. They were still walking in reverse—faster now than before—seemingly with a mind of their own. Something felt wrong. He turned to run.

  “Fear not, Lucas two-twelve,” the full-sized visitor said in docile, elderly voice.

  The fear inside Lucas eased a bit. He stopped running and turned to face her.

  “We are of friendship,” she said. Her thin, gray lips barely moved when she spoke. Her monotone voice sounded artificial or possibly controlled in some way.

  “Who are you?” Lucas shouted.

  The visitor pointed to her flat chest. “I am Flexus Remu.” She touched her palm to the back of the smaller companion. “This is Alista Fria. We are the Baaku.”

  Fria? Such an odd last name. But yet, it sounded familiar; like he’d heard it before. He searched his memories, but couldn’t place it, so he let the thought go.

  His legs took him straight for the visitors, though at a slower than normal pace. Along the way, he studied Alista, trying to glean some sense of familiarity, but couldn’t. She looked like Maggie, but there wasn’t any sign of life in her eyes. She was cold, distant, and detached from the moment. He’d certainly be frightened of the icy girl if he hadn’t just held her slender body in his arms.

  “Where is he?” Lucas asked Flexus.

  Flexus and Alista’s eyes met for a moment, then Flexus looked at Lucas. “We do not comprehend.”

  “I heard my brother’s voice earlier, when I was on the ledge. What have you done with Drew?”

  “The voice you heard was mine,” Alista said, after a two-beat hesitation. “It was I who was in your thoughts.”

  “Bullshit,” he snorted. “The voice was Drew’s. Not yours.”

  “Alista renders the truth,” Flexus said.

  “You must trust us, Lucas of Earth,” Alista said, with the numb look still blanketing her face.

  Lucas stopped walking toward them. He was a good thirty feet from their location. “I know my brother’s voice and it sure as hell wasn’t you.”

  “When I entered your mind, my consciousness carried no visual reference. Your human brain had difficulty interpreting my thoughts and must have attached whatever reference was fresh in your mind at that moment,” Alista said. “Were you thinking of your brother at the time?”

  Lucas nodded.

  “That is why I sounded like your brother.”

  Lucas didn’t believe her. Or maybe it was that he didn’t want to believe her. “Why were you in my thoughts?”

  Another hesitation from Alista, then she answered, “I needed to stop you from injuring yourself.”

  Lucas offered up a phony laugh. “Hurt myself? You mean jump off the ledge?”

  Alista nodded.

  “I wasn’t really going to do it.”

  Alista tilted her head slightly, as if she were judging his truthfulness.

  “Trust me. I’d never kill myself. Not for Drew. Not for you. Not for anyone. I was just taking a break. Daydreaming.” Lucas stepped back and held out his palms in a defensive position. “Look, you had no right to invade my private thoughts like that. What the hell do you want?”

  “We are of friendship,” Flexus said, putting her fingertips together, as if she were praying. Then she bowed. “We are the Baaku.”

  “Yeah, you keep saying that. But that doesn’t explain what’s going on here.”

  “We are here for you. You have that which we need,” Alista said.

  “Me? Why?”

  “Your invention of quiet sound,” Alista said.

  “We are at war,” Flexus said.

  “Quiet sound?” Lucas asked, thinking about the alien’s choice of words. Then it hit him. “Oh, you mean my dad�
�s sonic pest control device.”

  “Yes, the sonic device,” Flexus said.

  Lucas smiled. He looked up and thought about the invisible ship and its technology. The thin red hairs on his arms stood on end. “So, you’re at war with the Krellian Empire and you need little ol’ Lucas’ help to defeat them, right?”

  Flexus nodded.

  “Welcome to the club, ladies. You may not know this, but we defeated them in an alternate dimension. In my universe, time travels at a different speed, which is why my version of Earth is four hundred years in the past. And I didn’t do it alone. The circumstances aren’t exactly the same. It’s also possible that the bugs may return with a working defense to our sonic technology. So, in the end, it may not help you.”

  “We are fully aware.”

  “You are our only hope, Lucas two-twelve,” Alista said. “We have been searching for you.”

  There was that two-twelve reference again. Lucas assumed it meant that these aliens were searching alternate versions of Earth across the multi-verse, and that Kleezebee’s universe was number two-twelve on their to-do list. “So, I take it you’re the reason I’m here and not with my friends?”

  Flexus bowed slightly. “Your transport was intercepted.”

  “Okay . . . but, if all you wanted to do was talk to me, what was all that earlier with the Taku Beast and Maggie . . . or Alista, or whatever her name is?”

  “It was a test,” Flexus said.

  “For what?”

  “We must be sure.”

  Lucas didn’t understand Flexus. She talked in rhythmic, four-word circles, or maybe she didn’t have a good handle on English. Either way, it was frustrating and more than a little annoying. Lucas looked at Alista and shrugged.

  “We have been observing you,” Alista said. “You have shown a high propensity toward violence in recent cycles.”

  His mind flashed an image of the bloody meat cleaver. He cleared the cobwebs from his throat. “That’s not who I am, really. I’m a scientist. I only did those things to find my brother.”

  “Yes, that much is clear,” Alista said. “However, you did prove yourself.”

  “So, that Taku Beast attack wasn’t real?”

  Flexus shook her head. “It was a test.”

  “—of your character,” Alista added.

  “Wow. That was some acting job,” he said to Alista. “But how did you control the beast?”

  Flexus touched her hands to her chest and instantly transformed herself into the Taku Beast. “Reality can be adjusted,” she said, using the drooling mouth of the glistening beast.

  Penn and Teller, Lucas thought—a wicked, alien version of them anyway. “Yeah, I get it. You could have just popped in and asked me to help. You didn’t have the scare the shit out of me like that.”

  “A test was needed,” Flexus said again.

  Lucas nodded. He might have done the same thing, given the circumstances. “Hey, wait a minute. If you’ve been running around in my head, why didn’t you know my motives already?”

  “Our laws are clear. We may communicate with others, but accessing memories without permission is forbidden.”

  “So, I passed?” Lucas asked.

  Flexus and Alista nodded. The ship’s access ramp began to open again in the sky. Alista wrapped her tiny fingers around Lucas’ hand and pulled him toward her.

  A sharp twinge struck Lucas’ temples. The headache was getting worse. He wriggled his hand free from Alista. “Look, I’d like to help. God knows I hate those fucking bugs and want to see them all dead, but I have to get back to my friends. I just don’t have the time for this right now.”

  “Outside time is still,” Flexus said.

  Yeah, they were outside. Lucas got that. But what the hell was she talking about? Time is still? He looked at his watch—the digital seconds were still increasing. He held up his wrist and pointed to the timepiece. “Sorry, Flexus. That’s not true. Tick. Tick. Tick. That’s the sound of my life running out. I need you to send me back, now!”

  “Outside time is still,” Flexus said.

  Jesus, the old bag sure likes to repeat herself. He looked at Alista, hoping for an explanation. He got one.

  “Time is only advancing here, in this valley. Outside time is frozen.”

  Lucas finally understood. He was in some type of localized containment field, where time was passing normally on the inside, but for everyone else outside, time was at a standstill. “Do you mean we’re inside a time dilation field?”

  “Yes, a time dilation field,” Alista said. “Your friends are just where and when they were. Nothing has changed since your arrival.”

  Lucas thought about the birds, the clouds, and the wind. “How big is this field?”

  “All that you see,” Flexus said.

  Lucas was impressed. These aliens could not only cloak their ship and transform themselves into flesh-eating monsters at will, but they could control time and space—and do so on a large scale. He wondered how much energy it took to pull off this feat. It had to be immense. “That’s pretty damn impressive. Kleezebee would love this. How big is your ship?”

  Flexus walked to the crop circle depression in the grass and put out her hand. Moments later, a black, cube-shaped craft became visible in front of Lucas. It looked to be about three stories tall and about forty feet in diameter. Three jet-black landing struts were supporting the underbelly of the ship, each with wedge-shaped feet that sank into the grass-covered soil of the meadow. Flexus was touching one of the struts.

  The side of the ship looked perfectly smooth, with no distinguishing marks, lights, or contours—much like the silky skin of a stealth bomber—only this tech was able to cloak the spacecraft’s visible light signature instead of just scattering its radar signature. Lucas figured the ship must be a transport pod, given its relatively small size. He suspected a much larger vessel was parked in orbit.

  Alista grabbed his hand, again, and led him up the access ramp. Flexus followed behind.

  Lucas realized he hadn’t heard from the traveler living in his head. Surely, it must have something to say. He waited for it, but the traveler’s silent diatribe never came.

  Alista entered the ship first, then Lucas.

  He expected to see the small transport ship crammed full of equipment with one central command station and a video screen, but he was way off. His jaw dropped open.

  SIXTEEN

  Freakshow shoved Sergeant C. Wyatt Rutherford aside, smashing his right elbow into the doorjamb, as the assault team flew through the entrance door of the Dunn-Rite Café. The restaurant buzzed with chatter, everyone engaged in lively conversation and enjoying their free meal, compliments of the Supreme Commander. The distinct aroma of sizzling bacon and fresh coffee dominated the air, reminding Wyatt that he should’ve had seconds at morning chow.

  “Round ‘em up, Sergeant,” Freakshow told Wyatt, his expression stiff. “Nobody in or out.”

  “Yes, sir,” Wyatt answered, flipping his helmet’s Plexiglas face shield open. He motioned to the other members of the ten-man unit to fan out and proceed as the commander ordered. The squad jogged into position along the walls and in front of each door, weapons held high on their chest in a firing position, sending red tracer beams skipping across the walls of the diner.

  Wyatt aimed his shredder rifle at the ceiling and fired two short bursts. Women and children screamed, while the men huddled their arms around those sitting nearby.

  “Silence!” Wyatt screamed, firing one more round into the all-white ceiling.

  Chunks of plaster bounced off his arms, splintering into a dozen fragments when they smashed into the floor. Heads turned and shoulders slumped, as the crowd of consumers fell silent.

  Wyatt cocked his head and with only a look instructed two of his men to begin Stage Two. The duo slung their rifles over their shoulder and walked to the center of the eating area. They pulled two families from their booths, shoving them into the aisle and to the ground. They dragged
the upholstered booth seats and stainless-steel tables away to create a ten-by-ten foot clearing in the center of the diner.

  “Everyone stand up and move to the middle. Slowly,” Wyatt said.

  The patrons and restaurant staff walked in semi-organized lines toward the center with heads hung low and backs slumped. Then one of the male customers, a forty-ish, dark-skinned hulk of a man broke formation and grabbed a soldier’s weapon, pulling at the rifle’s stock. The soldier tugged back as the two wrestled for control of the weapon. The soldier let go of the rifle, sending the black man rolling sideways across a tabletop. He fell headfirst onto the black-and-white-checkered floor.

  The black man jumped to his feet, turned and aimed the stolen weapon at Wyatt. But before he fired, his chest blew apart from the center, splattering blood and tissue across the nearby hostages. A collective gasp erupted from the patrons around him, as if their reaction had been rehearsed. When the man’s body tumbled over, Wyatt saw Freakshow standing behind him with a pair of pearl-handled pistols, each with a fluttering trail of smoke rising from the end of the barrel.

  “Anyone else?” Freakshow asked, aiming his guns at several of the civilians. There was no response, just faint cries from a few of the children. The crowd quickened their pace and piled into the middle of the restaurant to sit on the floor, elbow-to-elbow with the person next to them. Quiet sobs dotted the crowd.

  “Check the back. Find our men,” Wyatt told the troops closest to the kitchen door. A four-man detail bolted through the door and disappeared into the back. Seconds later, a high-pitched female scream echoed from the kitchen followed by three long bursts of weapons’ fire, followed by a distinct chorus of pots and pans clanging and clanking. A handful of minutes later, the troops returned, each escorting a person wearing traditional cooking garb. They were all men.

  “Anyone else, Stevenson?” Wyatt asked, wondering what happened to the woman who screamed.

  “No, sir,” one of the four-man team answered. “Kitchen secure. Threat neutralized.”

  “Put them with the others and return to your position.”