by Mel Todd
"Oh, she hasn't," McKenna said in fluent Elentrin, stepping forward, her gun raised. "She is doing this because she understands there is no choice for her, or for any of you. Our planet doesn't take lightly to raiders and she is trying very hard to save her people. Too bad all of you seem too stupid to understand."
Lanik glanced at her and then at Thelia. "This? You can't overcome a single Kaylid? Make her bow to you, worship you, slit its own throat."
Thelia smiled, a bare bone of a smile that felt like a knife. "Do you think I would be standing here if it was that easy? They are not like the others we have harvested over the reyan. They are immune and can spread that immunity. What she says is true. Our people will need to change." There was an odd note of prophecy in her voice that sent a shiver through McKenna and the mindspace.
"Let my people go, and we won't destroy you." McKenna didn't take her eyes off the woman, but her hand remained steady, gun pointed at Thelia's temple.
Lanik gave another one of those odd smiles and then the channel was cut.
"What the hell? What happened?" McKenna asked glancing at everyone.
"She cut the channel, but incoming," Ash muttered from the other office, his voice more in her head than in her ears.
McKenna hadn't even lowered the gun, pointing it at Thelia as Captain Clarin of the Silik appeared again.
"I see you are doing all this to save yourself, traitor," his voice a low hiss, the liquid syllables of the Elentrin language sounding like the rasp of a blade in his anger.
"No, she is doing this to save people," McKenna responded, though she didn't say what people. "This is your last chance. Leave and let the harvested be returned." She hated that word, but for these conversations using the familiar terminology was about the only way to get them to take her seriously.
"You have nothing that can attack us. We will finish our harvesting, destroy this planet, then leave. You will get to watch your world reduced to rubble. No one will be left to mourn your pitiful world." His cold face held no emotion as he said the words, but this time he did look at McKenna not Thelia.
So be it.
"Roark, blow it." She said in English and watched Clarin frown in confusion.
"Yes, ma'am."
"I told you, there would be consequences if you didn't leave. Screen please."
The screen split and the small ambassador ship hanging in space appeared.
"What? You are delusional Kaylid if you think the image—" he broke off as the small ship hanging in the darkness of space ripped apart from the inside, super-heated gas flaring bright as the ship became shards of material floating in the void.
"How? What did you do?" Horror and anger flashed across his previously immobile face.
"We can do that to any of your ships. Leave now, before I destroy all of you. Leave and tell your people our world is off limits."
Rage twisted his face, warping that beautiful visage into something that would give her nightmares. "How dare you!" His voice reverberated through the speakers and she could see the shock and anger on the faces of the crew behind him. "I will have you destroyed for this."
"How? You have no weapons. I can destroy any of your ships. Leave before I decide to blow up yours, too." She reached out and clicked the disconnect icon and sagged. The arm holding the gun dropped to her side, aching from being held out for so long.
Thelia looked at her with a hint of surprise on her face. "You were serious. You destroyed the ship and killed the people on it."
McKenna straightened back up and gave her a flat look. "You have killed thousands of my people, kidnapped tens of thousands more, and you are horrified by the death of what, ten? Twenty Elentrin on that ship?"
Purple lashes blinked rapidly for a minute, then Thelia nodded slowly. "Truth, just I don't remember the last time outside a true accident that many Elentrin died. This will send ripples through the Elentrin."
"Good. I want to make it very clear to them Earth is not their garden."
Chapter 36 - Kamikaze
Amateur astronomers on all continents are watching the spaceships since they moved into orbit. News today suggests something is going on. The shuttles have deviated from their normal path of up and down and are instead swarming out towards the space between Mars and Jupiter and then coming back. Does this mean good or bad things? People remember to stay safe; go out only when necessary and be armed at all times. ~ KWAK News
A strange pall settled over the group of them as they stood looking at the blank screen. McKenna took a deep breath, held it, then slowly released it. She did it one more time then turned to Ash.
"How may Elentrin are still active on the ship?"
His tail twitched and he tilted his head to the side "There should be fifteen left. The alarm would have woken those on their sleep cycle."
"We need to get them out of the way, I don't want anyone bursting in here to 'rescue' anyone. How can we do that?"
Another tail twitch. "The orders were to report to their duty stations. Elao, can you lock them all in their stations? Make it so they can not leave?" He said the words out loud and in the mindspace.
[That should be possible. If you access the life support systems, I should be able to pin down their locations and tell you what crew members may still be at large.]
"Excellent. That would be great. Toni, you want to work on him with that? You're the person with the most ship info so I'm trying to make sure you know how to do all of this and stay up to date. You may be the person flying us home."
Toni's ears went flat as did her whiskers. "You trying to make sure we all die?" she asked, sarcasm dripping from her words.
"No, but you have most of this in your head. And with Thelia helping it might be our only choice. Granted, I'd prefer us to float up here for the next two weeks, get all the decant chambers running, and turn this over to the government and go home, but –" she shrugged at this point and the snorts and laughter in her mind made it clear her point was taken.
"I think I'm going to start calling you Murphy, Kenna. ‘Cause really, anything that can go wrong has been going wrong around you."
McKenna stuck her tongue out at JD. He, Perc, and Toni started to laugh while the three aliens just looked confused. Ash shook his head and drifted over to one of the consoles and started typing. The stiffening of his tail caught her attention first.
"Something wrong?" She turned and headed over towards him.
"I don't know. The shuttles that were returning to the bays of the ships have stopped and are now coming towards us." He sounded absent and distracted as his hands flew over the console. "By Alara's Stars," he whispered. The way he said the words drew the attention of everyone and sent shivers down McKenna’s spine.
"What?"
"They are heading straight for us. They are on collision courses. Well, not all of them. Some have started throwing asteroids towards your planet."
"Don't we have shields?" Perc asked moving up. "They always have shields in the movies. Is there a way we can prevent those asteroids from hitting?"
"No," Ash's voice held grief, and no hope. "The one for space debris is shut off. We have static shields for space debris, dust, and micro asteroids. The jump drive doesn't require them, though we need them for in-system travel, but all the shuttles have beacons that let the shields ignore them, so no, there are no shields."
"They’re going to kill the people on those shuttles to ram into us? And kill so many people on Earth." Toni's voice held incredulity and pain that reverberated through the mindspace.
"Kamikaze runs," JD’s voice was dark as on the view screen dots appeared and a large object that obviously represented the ship and the incoming shuttles. As she watched, one of the dots disappeared into the bulk of the ship.
McKenna waited. "Nothing happened?" The deck trembled under her feet and alarms started to wail. "Dammit, spoke too soon. What happened?"
Ash didn't look up, but focused on the information before him. Only the tip of his tail moved, the rest
of it rigid.
She refocused on the next dot coming in, and watched it disappear. She held her breath and counted.
One
Two
Thr-
The ship rocked and more alarms went off. McKenna felt her claws extend without her consciously choosing to let them slide out.
We're all going to die out here in space and they’ll come for us.
The terror and fear in that thought sent an adrenaline surge through her and she pushed back the terror.
So be it, but I'll take them with us.
"Thelia," her voice cracked like a whip. "Head us towards the Silik. Aim for the middle of the ship."
Everyone looked at her, but Thelia just let her lips curve in that odd smile and stepped forward and clicked some buttons. Ash's eyes were wide as he looked at her, but he didn't say anything to counteract her order.
"We're going to ram them?" Toni's voice didn't squeak, but it had a tightness to it that wrapped around McKenna.
"If we don't have shields that can stop the shuttles, they don't have shields that can stop this ship. If we sit here, we die. Cass is going as fast as they can, and I can't let him keep attacking us."
A beep interrupted her and she glanced around as the familiar sound of an incoming hail filled the bridge.
"Got it," JD said pressing keys on console. The screen filled with the face of Clarin the Silik captain.
"You think you can resist us, there is no resistance. We are the Elentrin and we will destroy your planet."
The odd echo of something from a sci-fi TV series had a burst of laughter coming out of McKenna's mouth. The shock on his face made it all worth it and she grabbed the opportunity and ran with it.
"Did you think we didn't plan for something like this? Our world is willing to pay any price to be free. We will be the masters of our own destiny. You don't have a chance. Have you paid any attention to the ship I’m in?" The words left her mouth as another shudder shook the ship and she knew another shuttle had impacted. "You may kill the few of us on this ship, but we are billions and we will destroy you. But first, I'll kill you and your ship."
He frowned and glanced down, his face paled as he looked back up to her. "You are insane. You would ram me with that ship, destroying all of us?"
The grin, so odd in this form, pulled tight across her muzzle and bared all her teeth, and she kept it tight and vicious. "Yes. To kill you may just become the primary drive of my people. I'll take you with me."
He turned, presenting a profile that seemed picture perfect. "We are leaving. Send the information to other ships. I will present this to the House Leaders and they can decide what to do with this world." Turning, he all but spat at her. "Fine. We will leave, but we will take what we have collected. If you want them back, you'll have to find us. Since your world doesn't even have space flight yet, you will not find us by the time we come back to destroy you."
~Rarz, come here.~ Her thoughts quick and frantic. ~Time it right, you'll know when.~
"Ah, but we learn fast when motivated. And best of all, we have a new ally, one that is very motivated to see you destroyed." At those words Rarz stepped into view and he pulled his lips back mimicking her actions, displaying an array of very sharp teeth. "And I think they will be more than happy for a race of warriors to help hunt you down."
If she had thought Clarin was pale before, now he paled even more and went a shade of green under his skin.
"You are working with the abominations." The words came out hushed and horrified. His face looked like he wanted to gag, or maybe scream.
"Yes, you don't like the Drakyn, do you? Well, we like them very much and are more than willing to ally ourselves with them to help stop you." She poured as much glee into the words as she could and he all but recoiled back from her.
"You will regret your association with the abominations, be sure about that," he acted like he was about to go all monologue and McKenna shut him off.
"Oh, I'm sure you will regret it by the time we’re done with you. But us? No, they are going to be the best things that ever happened. We can find you anywhere, and get on your ships with ease. You will never know we're coming, but you will feel us breathing behind you, our breath on your neck, and you will never sleep at night again." McKenna channeled every horror movie, suspense novel, ghost story she'd ever read or watched. "Tell your children to fear us, for you have awakened a monster that will never rest until your people bow before us."
His eyes grew wider and he looked at her, then the screen went black, and she felt like a rubber band snapped. She sagged for a minute, then pulled herself back up looking at the screen. "Are the shuttles still headed towards us?"
No one responded and she turned to look behind her and froze at everyone staring at her, even in their Kaylid forms the shock and surprise clear on their faces.
"What?" McKenna asked looking back at the screen, but only saw the ship hanging there, the remains of the small ship still floating between them. She turned to look at them, confused.
"I will say, this exposes a new aspect of you Earthlings that I did not expect." Thelia's oddly respectful comment seemed to release the stasis in the rest of the room.
"What the hell was that, Kenna?" JD demanded as he moved forward, his claws fully extended. Roark and Coran looked oddly smug, while she couldn't read Perc, and even in the mindspace he was a blank.
"What? I channeled all the movies I could think of to make him think we were the baddest thing on the planet. Besides, knowing humans, do you think anything I said won't become true?"
Perc barked out a laugh looking at her. His voice filled her mind, the communication tight and private. ~That was probably the sexiest thing I've ever seen. I'd follow you anywhere.~
She jerked to look at him and he just smiled, his teeth showing, and McKenna didn't know if she should be aroused or afraid. Either way, that was something to deal with later, if they lived that long.
McKenna swallowed and looked at the screen. "But I think I lost us all the captured people on the other ships. They're running away, and we can't get to them in time."
As if in response to her words the icons representing the other ships started to move away from them, gathering speed.
"The shuttles have all gone motionless. and the commands to them have stopped." Ash's comment didn't make her hopeful, but she moved on anyhow.
"Can you recall them all to this ship? And can you tell how many things were launched at the Earth?"
And how many people I just killed?
The unspoken concern hung in the air as the humans turned to look at Ash, waiting for the answer to this question.
Chapter 37 - Impact
A spate of attacks in Denver brought the focus of the National Guard out, and they managed to get captured shifters out of the shuttle before it took off. The bodies of the invaders they killed all had markings similar to our big cats, but one had four arms, the other had two sets of eyes. The pictures have gone viral with people asking if these are mutations, that maybe these were once human? What if this strange virus will eventually change everyone into monsters? ~TNN Invasion News
They all waited with varying levels of patience while Ash worked on one of the consoles. McKenna tried to see on the view screen where the asteroids might have hit. How many hit? But the serenely rotating globe gave her no clues. Of the presences in her mind, only Cass and Rarz weren't ruffled. Cass because they hadn't told her yet, at least she hadn't, and Rarz? Well, it wasn't his world was it? It took a few minutes but then Ash nodded at her.
"The shuttles are returning to their bays. Though some are returning to the other ships. It is the best I can do."
McKenna pushed that thought away and turned to stare at Ash instead of the planet that revealed none of its strife from here. Not that it would make his final answer any better, but it gave her something that could be considered constructive to do. Maybe. "What about the asteroids?"
He typed for another minute then looked at her
, his tail still. "From the records twenty-five objects were flung at your planet. Of those three vaporized as they entered your atmosphere, crumbling into dust."
All of them flinched at the thought of twenty-five objects striking the earth. An odd sigh escaped them as Ash kept talking, removing three from that number.
Okay that leaves twenty-two, that’s better than twenty-five.
Her thoughts didn't make her feel any better, so she listened and waited for the rest of the information.
"Five struck your oceans. This is because we are instructed to try and hit landmasses, but aiming the kinetic weapons is not an exact science. Of those, two do not seem to have had any effect besides high tides, but the after-effects may take a while to be seen. Three have caused tidal waves that have impacted land masses or will shortly."
All the earthlings cringed, and McKenna couldn't help but be very aware of Rarz and Thelia watching them. While their expressions were blank, the sense of judging was inescapable. It raised her annoyance level, but she didn't say anything, just waited for the rest of Ash's report.
"The remaining fourteen hit land masses, but I do not know the size or constitution of what was sent to your planet. I can show you where it hit, but at this time there is not much other information." He watched McKenna the entire time and every word seemed to strike her like the blow of that damn whip. Right now, she'd have preferred to be naked again with the whip striking her back as opposed to being here, hearing this.
"Please," she asked. Her mouth so dry it hurt.
Ash turned and a flattened view of the Earth appeared. It took her a minute to place the continents, but the familiar shapes snapped into place for her after she focused. On it, bright spots blossomed. Unable to resist she walked over and touched each spot as she said the rough area out loud.
"This has to be near Hong Kong, while this one over here looks like the edge of India." Her fingers trailed over the screen going from place to place. Her knowledge of Asian geography wasn't the best, but generally she could guess where it was. "This has to be in Mongolia? Maybe Russia. Then this is probably France. These are in Africa," she said tracing two bright marks, but she had no ideas what countries. One of them up a little bit higher had to be in Saudi Arabia somewhere. Another near the Black Sea. "Down here another two will hit Australia, but I can't even begin to tell you what cities are where."
