Yeah, that caught my attention, too.
She went on, “When we were on that planet Azoss we found out all of this. Was there a miscommunication? Did you mean mated like marry or mated like work together?”
“The original plan, according to Second Commander Dace, was to marry you off to a healthy and promising time-pacer. To reproduce.”
The light from the sphere on the wall dimmed a bit. Selina didn’t say anything so I asked, “Didn’t Dace die when the Gleezhians hit his ship with a freezer charge and then—” I didn’t want to repeat what my father had told me was standard protocol: that Dace had to blow his own ship up, and everybody on it.
Marcum nodded. “First Commander Cotay took Dace’s plan and modified it.” He ran a hand through that pitch-black, almost blue hair of his, and dropped his gaze. “He has sold Selina to the Gleezhians in order to enact the fourth treaty and effect peace between our worlds.” He looked back at us. “Well, Klaqin and Gleezhe, that is. Earth is still fair game for the cannibals.”
I really needed a moment of harp chords and flutes.
♫ ♫ ♫
“I’M PICKING UP secure and non-secure transmissions.” Payat reported. “Our unit has been dispatched to follow up behind the Third Commanders’ squadrons in route to six of the seven banishment sites.”
Coreg showed no reaction. Hagab reached for an arc-gun and held it across his lap.
Payat continued, “Something’s off. First Commander Cotay has taken command of the seventh site and is refusing back-up, ordering the Thirds away. Why would he do that?”
Coreg clucked. “What are the seventh site’s coordinates? Is it the site we want?”
“Yes.”
“This stinks like a Gleezhian slave pit. We’ll have to go in fast and blind, and enable the camo before landing. Can you handle that last part, Payat?”
“Yes. Are we going to infiltrate? Like in training?”
“Absolutely, but without the mistakes you two usually make in training. Wait for my commands. Remember, I just returned from Earth where I successfully penetrated an advanced culture system and captured two valuable assets. So whatever I say, treat it like a command. It should be simple enough to retrieve one of them from our own planet.”
♫ ♫ ♫
I HEARD THE footsteps long before Selina or Marcum did. I feared an army was coming for us, but it was that green guy I’d knocked down, followed by a half dozen Klaqins and those same two Gleezhians—impossible to forget their faces, hair, and clothing. Selina tensed up, but didn’t do her time slowing thing. She did, however, quickly whisper a couple of things about this dude, like how he made her shoot missiles and time-bend, and how he stuck a needle into her thumb. I didn’t feel too friendly toward him at all. Or the guys behind him. They were an awfully small and pathetic group to be tasked to sign a treaty and take Selina. I stood up immediately and so did Marcum.
Between two fast spoken languages, maybe three since I couldn’t understand the Gleezhian guys, it got pretty noisy and upsetting.
“You’re not touching her again,” I kept repeating. Selina, feisty little thing that she’d become, moved out from behind me and shook her finger at the green dude she called Dr. Toad. She had some choice words for him that I’d never heard her use before. I looked from her to Marcum to the group of nine. I concentrated on their faces, but out of the corner of my eye I saw Marcum step back and then forward again. I had the impression that in that instant the entire look of him changed and for a nano-second a wax replica of him stood in his spot.
“I have this solved,” Marcum said. He repeated it in Gleezhian and then continued to speak in short measures of English, Klaqin, and Gleezhian until we all heard every instruction at least once. Long story short: Marcum, and only Marcum, would escort me and Selina to the First Commander who, according to Marcum, was on the surface meeting with a Gleezhian leader to finalize the treaty.
“Wait a minute. You can’t sell Selina,” I said. I kept my eye on the two Gleezhians standing behind the Klaqins because their movements seemed furtive, like they were covertly readying their weapons.
“Dude, trust me.” Marcum’s use of old American slang drew my focus away from the cannibals. “I learned your game of chess.”
“Meaning?”
The Klaqin doctor spoke then, demanding that Marcum use their language, and I think he accused him of being a traitor or overstepping his authority as a Fifth Commander, but Marcum explained that Cotay had given him charge of us. I was slightly happy about that fact. Dr. Toad backed down and mumbled at his fellow greenies while Marcum made a big show of pulling Selina’s ring off my hand and ordering her to wear it on her thumb.
Selina must have noticed the same crafty something-up-the-sleeve movement of the Gleezhians because I literally felt molecules of time slow down around us. We had no defense other than pacing and bending and whatever Marcum’s power might be. I didn’t know if he had an arc-gun or not. He said to trust him but that was stretching things. He was going to have to trust me. Selina’s hold on time allowed me to think of several possible tactics. When I determined precisely how to take out the cannibals, get past the others, and move us out of this area I squeezed her hand. She got the message, stopped bending time, and I took over by pacing my heart out. I used a couple martial arts moves I’d been practicing since I was twelve and leveled both cannibals while the Klaqins looked on in extraterrestrial awe, then I pulled Selina out the doorway and gestured for Marcum to follow. We raced down the cold stone hallway to the place where the elevator had come down from above. I realized something awesome then. I had made time work for only the three of us. Somehow, I have no idea how, but somehow I did it and I knew it was something I’d done as a child, before I knew I had this ability.
We escaped because those aliens were living out the Klaqin time units at normal speed while I had captured our immediate space into a well-paced nano-unit. It must have seemed like we disappeared before their eyes.
Marcum hadn’t said a word yet. He did something with his thumb ring and the elevator descended bringing with it a flurry of frigid air and swirling snow. We hopped on and ascended, our clothing puffing up as we went up.
“Now what?” I didn’t see any sign of Cotay or a Gleezhian peace negotiator. Good. But the ancient Fighter Five that Selina’s father had used to take my dad and Marcum back to Earth hovered right behind us, a mammoth black ghost to contrast against the silvery backdrop of the frozen Edge.
Another twist of Marcum’s ring and an opening appeared. Selina didn’t hesitate to board and I followed close behind. The doorway closed behind Marcum, our clothes reshaped themselves, and we stood six feet from First Commander Cotay who clucked a greeting. A very hump-backed Gleezhian who made me want to start singing Radiohead’s Creep lyrics stood next to him. The dude was the embodiment of a creep, a weirdo, but I didn’t need to ask what the H he was doing here like in the song. I knew. Crap, we’d walked right into it. This was who had bought Selina.
The First Commander directed Marcum to fly the Fighter Five to a position behind the second of Klaqin’s two moons. Marcum’s facial expression morphed through several expressions, but settled on a respectable facsimile of Niket’s chess face, the one he used on me when he was a three moves away from check-mate.
Selina and I strapped in together at the back of the ship and we didn’t take our eyes off the Gleezhian who took a pull down seat next to Cotay’s control seat. Marcum stood in the pilot’s spot and made a smooth take-off into the darkened sky.
Selina whispered without turning her head, her hair lifting in the weightlessness. “I swear I can smell my dad’s cologne in here. I think I’m homesick.”
I took her hand and looked down at her. “We can’t let them separate us.”
It took mere minutes to fly the craft to the hidden position Cotay had directed. Barely two minutes if the retrofitted digital clock under the screen was accurate. I assumed it was standard procedure to use a planet or moon for sp
ace cover, but if it was privacy they wanted they picked the wrong moon. Another ship was suspended in a gravity vector miles above the moon’s surface.
“First Commander,” Marcum said, “I recognize the craft on the screen. It’s an Intimidator, specifically the ship last flown by Fifth Commander Coreg. Should we latch on?”
Cotay gave a short gutteral sound punctuated with a hand signal. Marcum obeyed by turning on the artificial gravity and slowing down the craft. Cotay leaned toward the Gleezhian and spoke in low tones I couldn’t catch, then he reached for the helmet that hung beside him. He contacted the Intimidator and spoke in obvious commands. My eyes rested on the clock which spun through the numbers, each chasing the next in dizzying speed.
♫ ♫ ♫
COREG’S FACIAL EXPRESSION betrayed false bravado as he responded to First Commander Cotay. Hagab and Payat had begun to curse and groan as soon as they spotted the Fighter Five, a ship the two of them at first feared was Gleezhian, but their responses quickly changed to chagrin and dread when they heard the unmistakable voice of the First Commander on the comm.
“Yes, sir,” Coreg answered, “I was last assigned to this Intimidator. I have on board Fifth Commanders Payat and Hagab.” He was tempted to add the names of their fathers for added prestige, but First Commander Cotay cut him off.
“What are you doing here? Who knows your position?”
“No one, sir. We were taking the initiative in finding the time-bender I personally brought to Klaqin.”
“So First Commander Gzeter did not approve your mission?”
Coreg hesitated, not because a lie wouldn’t slide off his lips with no trouble, but because a tiny doubt about Gzeter’s quick dismissal of Alex’s conclusion now seemed artificial to him. He spoke the truth, “No, sir. He does not know we left Klaqin.”
“Good. Link up with us. I have a special mission for you three. Your loyalty and silence will be rewarded.”
CHAPTER 12
♫ … dun dun dada, dun dun dada … ♫
I WAS MORE than a little confused. Selina and I had come here voluntarily to help end the Gleezhian Wars by using our special time-manipulating powers on the side of the Klaqins. Now we’d have to conspire with the Gleezhians and betray our ancestors’ planet. If I had it to do all over again I would have insisted that we both, or at least Selina, go back with our dads to Earth. I wish we hadn’t left Azoss so impulsively. Suddenly I could think of a thousand reasons to stay out of these alien wars.
This wasn’t our responsibility. Selina had plans. I had plans. I always wanted to be in a rock band. I knew the lyrics to every song I’d ever heard, but music was not going to be a priority in deep space. The priority here was to stay alive. The thrill of the first battle had faded to less than a memory. I was beginning to think we were in a sci-fi episode of Mission Impossible. Dun-dun-dada, dun-dun-dada. The theme song’s opening notes pounded against my temples then faded. My vision narrowed until all I saw were the toes of my Klaqin boots.
“What’s that noise?” Selina rubbed her shoulder firmly against mine.
Her voice and her touch brought me back. But now my attention was split between the strange rumbling growing louder and the exotic feel of her willingly pressing against me. I couldn’t help it, I gave a lot more of my attention to the sense of touch. “I don’t know.”
“Maybe they can’t latch on to us.” She held my eyes and it was all I could do not to snap into time-pacing mode. Holy crap. I guess I’d been doing that around her dozens of times just like she’d been slowing things up at the most inopportune times. I flashed through a list of incidents, some as long ago as my twelfth birthday, one a few days ago on the school bus. I didn’t answer her.
“Alex. Hellooo. What’s wrong?”
“Other than multiple alien abductions?” I snorted a pathetic laugh. I was having some kind of post-traumatic meltdown because I couldn’t even swallow. A shaking hijacked my arms and rolled down my body. I’ve had embarrassing things happen before, but I felt like I was completely out of control and the fear of crying or wetting my pants on board this craft—and in front of Selina—overwhelmed me.
She took my hand and lifted it to her cheek.
Time stretched.
The rumbling noise deepened. The ship shuddered and Selina brought our hands down. Too quickly the moment was over. Marcum proclaimed success in latching onto Coreg’s vessel. The thought of seeing that goon again made my blood run both hot and cold. I didn’t like him. I didn’t trust him. But at the same time he was one of only a few beings on this side of the universe that I could communicate with and that fact counted for something.
We watched as the great and honorable First Commander stood aside and obviously gave Marcum instructions to aim an arc-gun at our guests. That must have been awkward for him as Coreg and two other Fifth Commanders came through from the Intimidator. I recognized them both. Hagab smiled at me like he did when I first met him. Payat, that dull green squinty-eyed guy who Coreg had warned me was untrustworthy, followed. He ignored me and glanced sideways at Selina.
Commander Cotay gestured to Marcum to keep his weapon trained on the three as Cotay introduced the Gleezhian dude. I understood most of what was conveyed by the short conversation. Obviously Cotay was a cautious leader, but with three promises made by Coreg and his cohorts, oaths that carried an extreme penalty if my translation was correct, he motioned Marcum to put away the arc-gun.
Call it impulse. Or stupidity. But I got an idea I had to act on. I looked at Selina, rubbed my nose, and whispered to her to climb through to the Intimidator while I drew the others’ attention away. I figured I could time-pace after a few minutes and pull Marcum with me into the Intimidator before anyone could react. I’d separate the ships and then race away. I was certain I could plot a course back to Earth with Marcum’s help. I had to hope he’d help.
♫ ♫ ♫
SELINA OBEYED ALEX’S brusque command without question. She pulled herself the last few inches out of the tunnel and scanned the Intimidator for the spot where Coreg had stashed her little brother when he had kidnapped them both. She pulled on the small hatch door, low to the floor, and wrenched it open just as Marcum appeared at her side.
“Oh—” She straightened and faced him.
Marcum put his hands on both her shoulders and Selina gasped at the sudden wave of dizzying nausea and heat that encompassed her. She had no strength to remove herself from his hold. “Okay, you’ve caught me. Sound the sirens.” Her voice echoed in her ears, distant and muffled.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Alex told me to hide in the Intimidator. I don’t know what he has planned, but I trust him.” She scanned his face then his arms and swiveled her head back and forth to look from one of his hands to the other. He still tightly clutched her. “What’s happening? I’m not doing any time-bending.” Her voice trailed off as if she could watch her words swirl past Marcum’s serious scowl.
“We’ve stepped outside of certain, uh, time constraints, or rather restraints.” Marcum kept his hands firmly on her shoulders. “I can keep us here for as long as we need to figure this out.”
Selina’s left eyebrow hunched down. “Wha-at?” Her head dropped and she stared at the floor where the bio-metals were spearing up into thorny spikes.
♫ ♫ ♫
“FIRST COMMANDER,” I began, “please—” I moved toward the front of the ship and waved my hand across the viewing screen. As I hoped, all eyes followed me. I turned toward the screen and didn’t watch to see if Selina had slipped away. I sputtered and stuttered the Klaqin words for “fight” and “war” and “win” and threw in English words that were musical terms. I hoped it sounded formidable to say things like “treble clef,” “staccato,” and “arpeggio.”
When I looked back at them I could see that Coreg was baffled, thinking he had a lock on the English language. Marcum, however, had folded his arms in a classic American stance. He knew what I was up to, but he blurred
right before my eyes and I blinked hard to focus on him.
♫ ♫ ♫
SELINA STOOD IN the center of the second spacecraft, shivering. Marcum’s words rang in her ears. Her arms burned from his touch as he faced her, his hands gently on her elbows. He took too long explaining to her his unbelievable ability. Yes, she already knew she could bend time. Right, and Coreg and Alex and Alex’s dad all could do that time-pacing trick. Those were facts. Facts she accepted though she didn’t understand how they did it. But what Marcum revealed, whoa, that put her into a hashtag mind-blown state.
Marcum could stop time. He called himself a time-stopper. He claimed their absence from the others would be imperceptible. He had employed his talent to give him an opportunity to steal her away.
That was the word he used. Steal. She shivered again.
He spent a good deal of time—no, it couldn’t be time if he’d stopped time—she decided to think of it as time 2. He spent a good deal of time 2 answering all of her questions, telling her about his months on Earth, explaining how he had stepped out of time 1 when he arrived here to snoop around.
Yes, time 2 was definitely at a standstill or stupid Coreg would have come through the passageway with Alex on his heels. She glanced at the control screen to see the images displayed begin to quiver, but not advance. She sensed it would be disastrous if she did some time-bending while they were standing here outside of time 1.
Marcum was speaking, “… discovered that the Commander had sold you to the Gleezhians.”
That fact startled her as much as the first time she heard it. So what if the Commander did it in order to enact the fourth treaty and effect peace between the worlds? She shook her head at Marcum in time with the waves of shivering. He lifted his hands from her arms.
“I can unlatch the ships, steal away, hide you, return, relatch, and step back into time. No one will know where you are. You’ll be safe while we fight.”
The Time Pacer: An Alien Teen Fantasy Adventure (The Time Bender Book 2) Page 11
