Contact

by Susan Grant

  Ben appeared vaguely unsettled by her monologue. She could see why: she was beginning to sound like a character from an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. Dillon, on the other hand, didn’t seem bothered by her abruptness. In fact, he appeared to approve. “Understood,” he said. “Now, Captain, I’d like to requisition the defibrillator for defensive purposes.”

  “The AED?” Ben frowned. “No dice. We might need it if someone has a heart attack.”

  “We do have two,” Jordan reminded him. “But, Mr. Dillon, the AED delivers a shock only if it detects that one is needed. You can’t use it to shock someone, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  Dillon’s mouth tipped, and he jerked his chin in the direction of her holster. “Whatever I come up with will be better than that toy gun you’re sporting.”

  The man was right. If they were going to fend off an invading horde, they’d need more than a single stun gun. “Do it,” she said.

  Dillon gave her a two-fingered salute and walked back to his huddle of waiting businessmen. Jordan departed in the opposite direction, her hand resting on the stun gun. Back in the cockpit, she settled into the captain’s seat—her seat now—and watched for any changes in the wide-open wall in front of the airplane. The wall was still too bright to look at directly and too intense to see past. So she sat there, waiting for something to happen, which was the worst kind of waiting there was.

  Her watch beeped, telling the hour. It was eight a.m. at Jordan’s parents’ house. By now, Boo would be eating breakfast and watching cartoons. Then she’d go off to school, expecting to find Jordan waiting to pick her up at three when the kids poured onto the playground. Only this time, Mommy wouldn’t be there.

  Jordan tipped her head back and closed her eyes. This wouldn’t be the first time that her airline job had wrenched apart her family. Craig, her deceased husband, had wanted to be a pilot, too. But she had been hired by an airline and he wasn’t. Her home life went to hell after that. Craig stopped working and started drinking. God, sometimes he’d seemed more like a high-maintenance child than a husband. Her father and brother had never acted that way. Big hearts and quiet strength, that’s what they had, the kind of guys who were there when you needed them. Why she’d sought different characteristics in a husband, she’d never know. Youthful inexperience maybe; Craig’s emotional volatility and chattiness had been a novelty after the more reserved men of her household. It wasn’t until later that she realized the magnitude of her mistake.

  She’d tried to help him work through his jealousy, feelings of inadequacy and depression, but it was made painfully clear that she’d failed when his drinking culminated in a fatal head-on with a parked car. Roberta was only nine months old.

  It had taken a long time, but finally, after months of counseling and the unwavering support of her close-knit family, Jordan capitulated, accepting that she wasn’t to blame. Now this: She might die as a result of her job, leaving Roberta with no parents at all. What a nightmarish example of circularity.

  A soft tinkling sound broke into her glowering trance. Music. She lurched forward and squinted outside. The white radiance obliterating the wall had transformed into a sheet of light, undulating in a rainbow of colors. A melody played. Inexplicably beautiful. Eerily foreign. And hypnotic.

  She tensed. Were the music and lights designed to soothe? Were they purposefully mesmerizing to put her off guard? She noticed that when she averted her eyes from the colors, the effect was not as strong. She pushed away from the instrument panel. If the hijackers wanted to drug her, they were going to have to try a lot harder than this.

  Ben and Ann burst into the cockpit. “We’re all ready down below,” the purser announced. His gaze flew to where Jordan still stared. “When the hell did that start?”

  “Just now.” The music faded into a husky female voice enunciating words in a monotonous beat, as if she were counting numbers and not speaking.

  “It sounds like words picked at random.” Jordan cocked her head. “And in several different languages.”

  Ann said, “I speak Korean. She just said ‘best wishes.’ ”

  “I heard ‘olive tree’ in Spanish,” Ben said. “And also ‘blue.’ ”

  On and on the verbal presentation went, with no apparent pattern. “Earth” was repeated many times, but the monologue might as well have been gibberish, so unrelated were the string of words.

  Jordan sagged back in her seat. “How could they not know what language we speak? United Airlines is a flag carrier. The stars and stripes are painted on the fuselage. You can’t miss it.”

  The voice went silent. The music ended, too. Then two people walked onto a platform that she hadn’t noticed before in the shadows off the nose of the 747.

  So . . . these were the people who had taken them.

  The man and woman were fit and athletic. The man was tall, and he had medium brown hair, while the woman’s was so blond that it was almost pure white. Her skin was unusually fair, almost pink. Was she an albino? The woman stood too far away to reveal whether her eyes were red.

  “Behind them,” Jordan murmured. “There are more.”

  At least four burly men loomed in the shadows behind the couple. Bodyguards? Soldiers? They wore similar clothing to the first pair, which struck Jordan as uniforms. Crisp, blue-gray jumpsuits with thick black belts, from which hung various pieces of hardware, some with illuminated faces and other things with blinking lights. Communications equipment? Hi-tech computers?

  She could hear Ben’s breathing accelerate. “They’re armed,” he said. “All of them.”

  Jordan nodded grimly. “I don’t recognize all of what they’ve got on their belts, but it’s hard to disguise a gun in a holster.”

  “Six people, six guns,” Ann muttered. “At least. There have to be others. Whatever this thing we’re in is huge. Who are they? Or what are they? Russians? Scandinavians? A white-collar terrorist group that doesn’t give a rat’s ass about international borders?”

  Jordan shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “This is bad,” Ben whispered shakily. “Real bad.”

  Jordan glanced over her shoulder. Don’t fall apart on me, Ben. I need you. “Stay positive, you guys. They’re acting calm. We have to, also.” Bringing a damp hand to her neck, she rested her fingers over her throbbing pulse, willing it to slow, willing herself to calm down, to think clearly. To do the right thing. “The presence of those weapons means that they’re damned serious about what they intend to do with our plane—and us. And it also says that it’s no accident that we ended up here.”

  “Wherever here is,” Ann muttered.

  Hijacked, Jordan speculated, in a plot that defied anything she understood about modern-day technology.

  The white-haired woman outside raised her hands in an obvious greeting—not quite warm, but still welcoming. Jordan didn’t see malevolence in the man’s face, either. But still, the four stony-faced guards stood behind them.

  “She looks like she’s trying to be friendly,” Ann said.

  Jordan huffed. “Forget it. We’re not taking the bait. Unless they use explosives, they’re not getting onboard this plane.”

  The albino woman brought what looked like a handheld computer close to her mouth. It must have been wired to the speaker system, because simultaneously a familiar husky voice boomed, the same one that had accompanied the music. In a strong accent, the woman repeated Jordan’s exact words: “We’re not taking the bait,” she crooned. “Unless they use explosives, they’re not getting onboard this plane.”

  “Oh, crap,” Ben blurted.

  Jordan fell back against her seat. “ ‘Oh, crap’ is right. They just heard everything we said.”

  Chapter Four

  “That didn’t go over very well, Ensign,” Kào stated as he watched the refugees flee the cockpit of their vessel from where he stood in the cargo bay with the four security guards and Trist Pren. “What did you say to them?”

  “I’m not sure. I merely rep
eated some of their conversation.” Trist’s colorless, almost nonexistent brows drew together. “I assumed they’d find it more comforting than words issued randomly.”

  “Well, it didn’t. It frightened them. Look at their craft,” he said. “It reminds me of the type of craft the Alliance flew eons ago, in the early years of atmospheric travel. If their civilization has begun manned space travel, they haven’t gotten very far. They might not recognize that they’ve been taken onto a spacecraft. We’ll have to try another way to coax them out.”

  “How about turning their ship upside down and shaking them loose?” Trist typed data into her handheld. “Or we can cut off all power in the cargo bay, leaving them to cower in the dark until they grow hungry and filthy enough to be lured out with promises of food and showers.” She pursed lips that were dyed permanently lavender. “More realistically, let’s inundate the ship with sedative gas and render the ungrateful boors unconscious.”

  Kào battled exasperation. It was hard to forget what those of this woman’s ancestors’ world had done to his home and family. The albino race had been the scourge of the galaxy for many years. They had imprisoned him. Now he was forced to cooperate with one of them to achieve his goal of helping his father. And although he was hardly a diplomat, her aggressive solution rubbed even his military-trained senses the wrong way. “No, Trist. That’s not the way we’re going to do it.” Aside from its cold almost Talagarian expediency, her plan did not account for human fear, which would certainly soar higher with such induced helplessness.

  A series of slams came from the Earth craft. The sound was muffled, almost below his hearing. “They’re closing the porthole coverings.”

  Trist made a sound of annoyance. “Now we can’t see inside the craft.”

  “No matter. We can still talk”—he started walking toward the Earth craft—“in person.”

  “How?”

  “By knocking on their front door. A smile and a gentle tone will work wonders, you’ll see.”

  “Oh, my God! They’re coming!”

  Ann’s shout drove a spear of pure terror into Jordan’s soul. She kept control somehow, saying calmly, “Which door?”

  “One-left.”

  Jordan cut short the security inspection she’d been performing and headed to the door, where the Marines stood guard. Dillon-the-Irishman still hadn’t turned the AED into a weapon, but he promised her he was getting close. Either way, it was too late. The aircraft was as impenetrable as they could make it with limited materials and time.

  Her stomach felt wobbly and her head hurt. She tried to work moisture into her mouth as she gripped the Taser in her sweaty hand. Outside the small, scratched window in the door, she saw the tall man pushing a portable stand toward the plane. Behind him walked the albino woman and the four guards.

  With a clang, the stand settled against the side of the fuselage. Down below, the woman made hand signals. She wanted the door opened. Jordan frowned. “In your dreams, lady,” she muttered.

  Clearly thwarted, the woman exchanged glances with the man. He tapped what looked like a touch screen on the ladder—pretty hi-tech for a loading platform—and the stand ascended. The guards remained on the ground level, watching the plane.

  Jordan turned to Ann. “Throw the switch.”

  Ann smiled. “With pleasure, Captain.”

  With a grunt, Ann yanked on the door handle, cracking the door ajar. The movement deployed the emergency escape slide, as advertised. An explosive screeching hiss pinched Jordan’s eardrums as the life raft inflated instantly and formed a slide. Rock hard, it plowed into the ladder-platform, throwing it across the floor and scattering their would-be boarders like toy action figures.

  “Woo hoo!” Ann yelled.

  “You got that right.” Quickly, Jordan helped the flight attendant detach the slide-raft from the door. The discarded slide fell heavily to the floor as they pulled the door closed.

  Ben shouted over the megaphone: “Flight Fifty-eight—one. Hijackers—zero!” The passengers cheered, and the flight attendants gave each other high fives.

  Ann was breathless, her eyes bright with triumph and adrenaline. Jordan suspected she herself looked the same way. “We can move slides from the other doors if we need to, Captain. I don’t think they’re going to try this one for a while.”

  Jordan peeked outside. “I agree. They don’t look very good.” Three guards were kneeling over a fourth lying motionless on the floor as the tall, brown-haired man and the albino woman wobbled to their feet. Blood flowed from the pale-haired woman’s nose. She tried to stanch it with her bare hands. Her partner showed no outward signs of injury, but judging by his contorted mouth and surly expression, he was furious. And he turned his attention to Jordan.

  Hard and obsidian-black, his eyes remained focused on her for longer than was comfortable, a formidable, discerning stare. But Jordan scowled back at him. He was the evil-doer. He was the one who stood between her and getting home. No way would she feel sorry for the guy.

  The man turned to assist his wounded partner, and the guards lifted their comrade to his feet. As a group, they limped out of sight. “Good. They’re leaving,” Jordan said.

  Natalie and Ben had joined her. “I doubt they’ll try the door again,” Ben said.

  “If they wanted to, they could try the other doors, one at a time,” Jordan pointed out. “And if they force us to blow all the slides, we’ll have none.”

  Natalie shrugged. “We’ll have to stay one step ahead. That’s all there is to it.”

  “Exactly.” Jordan managed a smile. They were beginning to sound like a team. A good team. For the first time since plunging into this catastrophe, she felt that they might really have a chance at getting home safely.

  At a cargo handler’s station behind a bank of computers hidden from the refugees’ ship, Kào took a careful breath to see how his ribs stood the expansion of an inhalation. They burned, but the act of breathing didn’t bring shooting pain, the sign of broken bones. Unfortunately, he was quite familiar with broken ribs and the healing process that followed. It was nice to think that, this time at least, his ribs had remained intact.

  He reached for his comm and called medical. “Heest is down. Yes—from the security detail. He’s unconscious, bleeding from a gash on his scalp.”

  With medical personnel on the way, Kào peered at Trist’s face. “When they get here, you go with them, too.”

  She shook her head and mumbled something moist and unintelligible from behind a blood-smeared cloth.

  “No arguments. Your nose is probably broken.”

  She moved the sodden cloth aside. Blood gushed from her nostrils. “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine.”

  “Is that so?” Trist replaced the cloth. Her red eyes narrowed to slits. “What about you?”

  Yes, what about me? He almost laughed. He hardly felt anything anymore—a blessed condition of the spirit. However, he kept that fact to himself.

  Trist didn’t press him for an answer. He imagined she considered him an enigma, and he was more than happy to maintain that belief.

  Heavily she sat on a chair and made a sound of reluctant assent. “They could have tried to talk to us before they attacked. Why didn’t they? What is their problem?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not from their world.” Or yours, he thought.

  “They won’t be able to stay on their craft much longer. Their water tanks are halfway to empty, and once the water is gone . . . well, the hygiene problems will be obvious. We photo-sterilized them after the rescue. What microorganisms we didn’t kill I assume we can treat. But what if I’m wrong? We could lose them all to sickness. Such fools they are!” She pressed the cloth to her nose. “Use the sedative gas, Kào. It will simplify the evacuation.”

  “Trist, in order to assure them that we won’t harm them, they should leave their ship of their own volition. Their trust will make the coming weeks inordinately more enjoyable. For me . . . and for you.
” This duty would be a nuisance as it was, working with unruly refugees and a sullen Talagar. Kào didn’t need more trouble.

  Her reddish irises flicked to his. She didn’t look convinced. But then her area of expertise was code breaking and languages; she worked with consonants and vowels, not people. In that respect, she was as out of her league as he was—a weapons officer handed the most peculiar of tasks.

  Several crew members from medical arrived with a buoyant stretcher for the injured security guard. Heest, the guard, moaned as they fitted a brace around his neck and lifted him off the floor. His pink-white, almost transparent skin was chalky.

  “Look at him. I’d reconsider the sedative gas if I were you,” Trist said over her shoulder before she walked somewhat unsteadily through the hatchway.

  Exhaling, Kào ran his fingers through his close-cropped hair. People were so complicated and exasperating. He was at his best when dealing with machines: computers that oversaw shipboard weapons systems and targeted objectives with cold, emotionless precision. If only it were possible to deal with life in the same way.

  Ah, but he was trying. It was those around him who refused to behave rationally.

  He dug his remote viewer from his belt and called up the live image of the exterior of the refugees’ vessel. All seemed peaceful, but he had a feeling this was only the beginning of the trouble they’d cause him. And then there were the weeks, perhaps months, to look forward to before the refugees were brought to the starport from where they would be relocated.

  But if he was to bolster his father’s good reputation, he needed the refugee situation to conclude peaceably, successfully—and soon.

  Trist had gathered data during the brief time they had orbited Earth. Using that database, and what she’d collected from eavesdropping on conversations within the vessel, she said she’d be able to create a program to teach the refugees Key, the everyday language of the Alliance learned by all in addition to their own local planetary dialects.