Allies (Kaylid Chronicles Book 4)

by Mel Todd

  Taking a deep breath, then a deeper drink of coffee, she looked across the crowd of people and caught Philip's eye. She gave a sharp nod at him. He looked surprised, but then nodded before he started to speak.

  "If everyone could please move into the auditorium and take a seat, I'll explain why I've called everyone here." There was murmuring but people moved. Most of them were armed; pistols in holsters at their sides, but a few also had rifles slung over their shoulders. She watched them walk in, they all looked hard, strong, capable. None of them were much over fifty, and they all looked like they'd been in the field for a while.

  Once she'd processed this, her dirty exhausted state didn't seem so out of place. She also needed to quit thinking of herself as slightly overweight and frumpy. The last few months between the shifting and her experiences, they all looked like warriors.

  She smiled and looked at her friends. Cass and Toni could both pose as models for any swimsuit calendar. The men were cut and huge. They weren't who they had been just six months ago.

  "Let's do this. We have some alien butts to kick," McKenna said, putting determination in her voice.

  JD arched a brow at her, while Toni and Perc grinned with a fierce expression. Cass smiled at something secret, and from the flicker of emotion across JD's face, she'd said something to him. But all it meant was her friends had her back.

  "Ready, Rarz?"

  "That is why I am here." He responded, his voice calm.

  Most everyone had trickled in, so she followed, walking towards the base of the auditorium where Philip and Burby waited for them. Walking down the aisle, she noted how exhausted the secretary of defense looked. Gunny Roberts looked almost excited and his eyes locked onto them, then drifted over to Rarz, who walked alongside them. In his human form he was notable for his height and size, but with Perc and JD there he didn't look that out of place.

  Philip nodded to one side and they took a stance. This time, rather than feeling intimidated, McKenna took the time to inspect the assorted men in the audience. There were only two women that she could see but given who Philip probably pulled in, that made sense. From the sea of colors, between uniforms, patches, skin, and hair colors, it looked like everyone was represented.

  Good. We’re going to need everything we can get to pull this off.

  "Everyone, settle down." Philip's voice caused the room to quiet as he stood up front, confidence in his every line. "Thank you for coming on such sort notice. I know you’ve all been busy with the efforts to fight against the Elentrin. We have new information about this and an ally has approached us offering to help."

  A rumble of soft comments and grunts rolled through the room, but no one asked anything, they just watched. McKenna noted this would be a hard sell. They were men used to fighting, not diplomacy.

  Which should make our life easier. We need to fight, not talk to the Elentrin.

  "I'd like to ask McKenna Largo to explain who this person is and introduce him."

  Wait, what? Great.

  She shot dagger looks at Philip who walked off to the side. He seemed immune to her glares as she walked up. Having everyone's attention on her caused her spine to straighten even more, and she had to resist the urge to shift into warrior form to make herself appear stronger.

  Where did that thought come from? Interesting. But no time to explore it.

  Clearing her throat, she focused on the links connecting her to everyone, and not the sea of faces staring back at her, waiting.

  "As he said, I'm McKenna Largo. Many of you have probably seen me on TV both through the video and the press conferences." With reporters she would have expected laughter or teasing, but here, these people just watched her, waiting. "While you know about the warrior forms and the Elentrin, what we never made public, because we didn't think it would make a difference, was how we received the information." She cleared her throat trying to find the right words. "An unexpected ally has been feeding us this information via dreams and sleep training. This ally has also enabled an enemy of the Elentrin to present himself to us."

  A rumble of dissent from Rarz vibrated in the mindspace, but she ignored it. Enemy was the best word from her perspective.

  "What hasn't been disseminated to the public is why the Elentrin want the shifters as cannon fodder. Their ultimate goal is to eliminate another species from existence. This species is called the Drakyn and the Elentrin have a pathological need to destroy them. I don't know the history and at this point I don't care. I'll take any help that will get these assholes away from my planet." There was a muffled growl of approval at that comment. "With that I'd like to present," she paused, her mind suddenly blank.

  ~What was your full name again?~ Her voice panicked as she pointed at the opal-like button in her mind.

  ~Rarz Goldwing Liryline,~ he responded and she almost sighed in relief as he answered her instantly.

  "Rarz Goldwing Liryline, a Drakyn." Her words fell into an expectant silence, but as Rarz walked up, you could almost feel the wave of disappointment.

  A few murmurs in the crowd, easily heard when she enhanced her ears, indicated their feelings. She glanced at him and shrugged. With this form he did just look like another guy, albeit huge, but he didn't look like the answer to all their prayers.

  Rarz moved up to the stage, giving the podium a funny look and then out at the people staring back at him, unimpressed.

  ~What am I supposed to do now? Is this a social acceptance ritual?~

  McKenna blinked at him, and then had to fight laughter. ~Explain to them you are here to help and how.~

  ~But I do not know how to help. That is why I am here offering help to you, to see how my skills can be used. What I know is small in compared to your experience. The plan sounds valid, but how will it work?~

  ~I don't know. That’s why they’re here to find a reason to believe you, to help. To give us the support needed to pull this off.~

  The silence held too long as he stood there, the spotlight illuminated on him.

  A man stood up in the audience. "What's the big deal, Gunny?" His voice carried clearly, and everyone shifted to look at him. "So you got another shifter. I'll grant you he's a big dude and could be scary in warrior form. But how does that help with ships beyond the reach of our weapons?"

  Gunny Philip Roberts stepped up facing the assembled service members. "This isn't just a shifter. This is someone we've never seen. And I have reason to believe that his abilities might give us the opportunity we've been looking for to fight the Elentrin." His words met with a murmur of disbelief, but the man talking sat down.

  Philip sighed. "Rarz, I know I asked you to change, but would you mind shifting back?"

  "To which form?"

  Roberts blinked at him. "You have more than these two?"

  "Technically I have four. This form, two legged, what you call warrior, my Kin form, and my wyrm form. The warrior form was what you saw earlier."

  McKenna saw Philip's mouth open, and then he snapped it shut. "Later I'll follow up on that. Right now can you change back into the warrior form with wings?"

  A half nod of his head and Rarz began to change. As before, watching it was fascinating.

  Where is he coming up with the energy? With this many changes in a single day, all of us would be starving for food. Past exhausted.

  The question ate at her, but it wasn't anything to worry about now.

  In a minute he stood there, the wings moving gently as he held his head up, and a soft whistle of approval from the crowd. But then they fell silent waiting.

  Rarz didn't say anything, just stood there, and the crowd started to get restless.

  One of the few women stood up, her hair in a ponytail. She looked exhausted and hard. "So he's got wings. My daughter would think it he's cute. That doesn't help us unless he can fly faster than they can land those damn shuttles and destroy them before they take back off. Something we can't seem to do often enough, at least not without killing our own people in them at the same t
ime."

  "That is a valid point." Rarz voice seemed to roll across the space like a physical force. "I am awkward at this, but this is not perhaps the best place to demonstrate what I offer. My other form has something of a fear factor, especially for the Elentrin. Then there is the way I can allow you to travel. Is there a much larger space we can move to, perhaps with multiple levels?"

  One of the staff for the area stepped up and talked rapidly to Philip.

  "I've been told the blimp hangars are close enough and are empty right now with catwalks. Will that do?"

  Rarz did his head nod. "I am unsure what a blimp or catwalk is, but we can see."

  The gunny sergeant looked at the crowd. "Are you willing to move with us to the hangars?"

  "Gunny, you let me take my coffee with me, and I don't care where you lead." A voice spoke out from the crowd. It was met with laughter and general agreement. With resigned shrugs people filed out, the majority stopping for refills on the coffee as they walked the route to the hangars.

  Chapter 12 - From here to there

  The blocks on China's internet have fallen and for the first time in almost a decade there are no restrictions for information coming in and out, and the reality is horrifying. There are people lying dead in the street, and comments say they killed themselves when the Elentrin left. Snapped images of people in lines to get onto the shuttles have appeared, as well as the instant death by anyone trying to stop them. One of the most memorable pics is of a young man being torn to pieces by others when he trying to grab a young woman from the queue of people leading to the shuttle. Even if we stop these invaders, China may never recover. ~TNN Invasion News

  It wasn't a short walk, but the weather didn't make it awful, though the normal laughing and teasing that would have been present was absent. People walked quietly, looking at the skies, their surroundings, and even while carrying coffee in their hands, all of them made sure they could grab their weapons with a second's notice.

  No one walked near Rarz, McKenna noted, but they were all very aware of him. His wings sparkled in the lights from the lamps. They'd started their day at seven a.m., found Rarz about two, gotten shipped to DC by seven p.m. and now it was pushing ten p.m. The lights created beacons in the dark, and if the clock wasn't counting down, McKenna would have lobbied to let everyone sleep, shower, and feel capable of thinking. But that wasn't possible. Not when she kept glancing at the sky and wondering when the first asteroids would start raining down.

  ~I've always loved disaster movies,~ Cass said, her tone somber in their minds. ~But right now all of them involving asteroids, meteors, and comets is playing through my head and most everyone dies except the hero. And I don't think we're the heroes in this story.~

  Her words set the mood for the group and ramped up their stress. McKenna saw Rarz glance back at them, his ridges furrowed, but he didn't say anything. He simply kept walking and looking around at the patches of light amid the darkness.

  Walking into the huge hangar was both a relief and ramped-up stress again. Here was where their plans and choices would all come into play. Either something would come of it, or all of them would face the fact that the human race just might be doomed.

  The echoing cavern of the hangar was lit with huge lights hanging at the top, so much light that the shadows seemed pale and nebulous. Rarz looked at it and his lips twitched, an odd look on his Drakyn form.

  "This will do well." He turned to look at the group of service personnel gathered at one side, no one wanted their backs to the huge doors, even as they were being slid closed as he spoke.

  "My people have been hunted by the Elentrin for many of your millennia. We are not a race that has many willing to fight. Almost to a one, we are pacifists, but there are some of us that can and will fight. One of the tools we have against the Elentrin is a form called the Wyrm. But we also possess the ability to relocate ourselves from one place to another. After talking to your leaders here, they agreed it might be useful." Rarz nodded at Roberts and Burby before he continued. "You must understand we have had the ability to change shape for as long as our stories have existed." He looked at all of them, his stance wide and easy, his tail motionless, which McKenna's cat side found odd. Tails were only still if you were about to spring.

  "We found the two-legged form, the one you saw me wear at first, a long time ago. Then the warrior form, which proved a more elegant way to work with the world around us, allowed us to keep claws and wings." As he spoke, he paced out into the warehouse. Yet they could still hear his voice clearly. He kept walking as he talked; yet they didn't follow him. There was something about how he moved that let them know to not follow.

  "But when the Elentrin kept following us, killing us, we were forced to adapt. To change how we had lived. Some of us, the ones that had kept to the ancient ways of hunting, found it easier than most. Over time, many of your centuries, we found a form that strikes terror in the Elentrin and is resistant to most of their weapons. But those of us that can change are few and it takes time to get where they are attacking. But this form is good for surprise and destruction of large buildings or other objects, such as their shuttles or ships the few times they land." By this time he was a good fifty feet away from them.

  His path had not seemed so direct, but McKenna frowned when she realized that he was that far away. She resisted the urge to walk towards him. He'd interacted with them enough to know when and how to indicate someone should follow.

  Rarz turned and looked at everyone. "While I do not know if this will be helpful with the plans mentioned, you should at least know what a wyrm is."

  He undid the tie of his robes and they fell to the ground. Then he reached for the fastening of the belt around his slacks.

  ~Oh, please tell me he isn't going to strip in front of everyone. I am so glad Jessi isn't here. I swear she'd take this as permission to streak everywhere. 'Well, if the dragon did it, Mom, so can I.'~ Toni muttered in the mindspace.

  McKenna had to fight back a wholly inappropriate laugh, but she could see Jessi doing just that. Even in warrior form they still had genitalia. Though the men were more obvious than the females.

  The distance, even with the bright light, meant she couldn't see every detail of his body as he did strip. As he let the last bit of cloth fall to the ground, he looked mostly normal. It was the mostly which caused her to frown and try to figure out what seemed off, but the distance blurred details. There was a muffled groan from the people watching and she could sense more than hear their agitation at watching someone strip, but it was overtaken by his next words.

  "Wyrm is something else that comes from a time when our ancestors roamed our planet, fierce and terrible. Behold the Wyrm." Even as the words fell from his lips, they changed becoming deeper, and more rumbley. The word wyrm was almost a roar that McKenna could feel in her bones, though it was no louder than anything else he had said.

  The shift in air pulled at her hair even as her mind and eyes were locked on what couldn't be happening in the middle of the large hangar. Rarz stood there, mostly human or at least humanoid. The had one head, two arms, two legs, the wings just added flavor. But now his shape shifted and flowed into something else. The flesh and shape bended and flexed, body twisting and flowing, and most terrifying—growing.

  By this point McKenna had watched multiple changes, and even the other changes Rarz had done always seemed a shifting of mass or of the body. Making the body restructure itself into a different pattern. What she saw now caused her hindbrain to gibber in panic. She wanted to run, to cower, to freeze in place hoping it wouldn't see her.

  The mass of twisting flesh that solidified and took up most of the space was something out of story books. A winged dragon, with scales, large teeth, and claws stood there, colored in red and gold, looking at all of them. From head to tail he had to measure over forty feet long.

  He's as big as a whale. That isn't possible.

  Her mind protested even as guns snapped up and the military people
surrounding her team and Rarz reacted to the threat.

  ~I really would prefer to not be shot. Though I am not sure your weapons would penetrate my scales, it would still be unpleasant.~ His voice a soft whisper that only she seemed to hear.

  Rarz comment kicked her mind back into gear and McKenna cleared her throat.

  "Not shooting our alien visitor would probably be a good start to creating cordial relations."

  A solid five heartbeats passed as people looked down their weapons at the dragon, then someone sighed. "Point. Besides I have the very bad feeling shooting him would be like shooting a tank. It might ricochet and hit someone I don't really want to shoot."

  That got people to lower their weapons and they all just looked at Rarz. His scales gleamed like metal while his eyes swirled with colors.

  ~I wonder how his pupils and irises work. Not like any animals from this planet, that’s for sure.~ Cass's voice had an abstracted quality as they stood and admired him.

  He embodied power, beauty, and something lethal. Be it the teeth that were as long as her hand or the claws that made even their warrior forms look tiny, he looked like something to fear. A twitch of motion pulled her eyes to his long, jagged tail that had spikes going all the way down.

  I sure as hell never want that coming after me.

  She swallowed hard and almost jumped when Toni spoke.

  "You do realize you look almost stereotypically like a western dragon from our mythology," Toni said, her voice a hair away from accusation.

  ~I did mention luminaries from my people visited your planet at some time in the distant past, multiple times to be accurate. That my appearance exists in your mythology does not surprise me to any extent.~

  "Holy shit, it can talk in my head," came out of half the people surrounding them; the other half had snapped up weapons and had them pointed back at Rarz.

  ~It would be rather useless if I could not communicate in this form. But all I can do is project loud enough you hear my thoughts. Unlike other Kaylid, who can speak back to me in a similar manner, I am unable to hear your responses, so you will need to speak out loud.~