How to Lose an Extraterrestrial in 10 Days, page 2
The man’s footsteps were getting closer. Run!
Eriff’s skin tingled and stung. He managed to get his knees under him, using his bow as a crutch. Hurry. Twigs snapped and crunched behind him much closer now. The captain was almost there.
Fear flared, sharp and hot, driving him to his feet.
Cr-aack! Something slammed into his back with the force of a mighty kick. He was thrown face-first into the dirt.
An explosion of pain stole his ability to move. A second later, it took his consciousness.
ERIFF WOKE TO NAUSEA and the sight of the ground careening back and forth below him. Someone held him by the waist-belt like a sack of grain, swinging him as he walked.
Nausea surged. Sweat needled his body. His stomach balled up, spilling its contents on the forest floor.
He heard groans and laughter through the sounds of his retching. Male voices. “So you steal my food, little rimmer,” one said, “and have the nerve to vomit it up on my boots.”
It was the off-worlder captain. Eriff had shot arrows at him. He’d be furious. He peddled his legs, trying to free himself.
The captain gave him a hard shake. “Be still. You’re in enough trouble as it is. Read the charges against him, Major Atir.”
The bald officer cleared his throat. “Charge number one—following the captain for a goodly amount of time without him detecting your presence.”
“Guilty!” the captain sang out.
“Charge two—stealing the captain’s dinner from literally behind his back.”
“Guilty!”
“And—the most heinous of the lot—stripping the captain of his rightfully earned Coalition rank in a most humiliating fashion.”
“Guilty!”
They were going to punish him. Maybe kill him. Eriff swiped his knuckles across his nose, trying hard not to cry.
“No one’s ever bested the captain like that,” the officer said.
“Need you remind me, Major Atir?”
Eriff sensed the men were smiling at the captain’s dramatic, wounded tone, but he was too sick and scared to be sure.
“You’d better remember how to walk real quick, little rimmer. For a scrap of a thing, you sure are heavy.” He dropped him to his feet. Eriff’s legs wobbled like overcooked kristalks, but the man propelled him along. “When I ordered the force-field around the ship, it was to keep wild things out, not to keep them in. But if not for that perimeter, you’d have escaped me. No one escapes me. Until now, that is. You have a gift, a natural-born talent. I know of a school for special boys like you. In fact, I helped found the school.”
A school? After hearing the charges against him, he was sure they planned to execute him. Now it sounded as if they meant to draft him. Forced conscriptions were legal—it was wartime; it had always been wartime—but in the Rim it was the stuff of fireside stories, not anything that actually happened to anybody. And not to kids.
His boots hit the gangway of the ship. Eriff’s blood chilled. The men were bringing him on board.
“No!” He dug in his heels. “I want to stay here. I don’t need a school.” Especially not an off-worlder school.
He was a Sandreemer. He could never leave the woods and the inland sea, the midnight sun in summer and the smell of his mother’s cooking in the dead of winter when the sun stayed down all day. If these men took him, it would be like tearing out a vital organ. He’d be as good as dead. “Please!”
A hand spun him around. In a second, the captain’s face had filled his vision. “Enough!” The intensity of his piercing green gaze and the deadliness of his tone struck icy fear deep in Eriff’s chest. “I serve the Coalition in many ways, but what I loved most was working as an assassin. Do you know what assassins do?”
Sniffling, Eriff shook his head. “K-kill people?”
“On command. And sometimes when we feel like it.” He gave Eriff another hard shake, choking him by the collar. Eriff’s stomach protested but he was too terrified to throw up.
“Soon men like me will be obsolete. Mere humans will be no match for the assassin of the future. Computers, integrated into the human body on the cellular level. A REEF—Robotically Engineered Enemy Fighter. When I return to base, I will begin gathering candidates for the program. But it looks like my side trip through the Rim rewarded me with an early recruit.”
Only now did the orange-headed captain’s hand loose its hold on Eriff’s collar. He wheezed air into his starved lungs.
“A reward indeed. Your talents are undeniable, little rimmer. With bioengineered enhancements, you’ll be unstoppable.”
An officer called down from inside the ship. “We’re ready to launch, Captain.”
“No! You can’t take me! My parents will never let you!”
“Hell, boy, they’ll thank me. I just gave you a future beyond their wildest dreams.”
His father’s words came back to haunt him: “I wish for you the chance to leave this world and find your fortune, but alas, the chances of that are next to none.”
Eriff grabbed hold of the hatchway as the captain tried to push him through it. He held on to the rim of the hatch for all he was worth.
Anger tightened the man’s voice. “You might be the ideal age, size and temperament for the REEF program, little rimmer, but as for intelligence? The way you’re hanging on to that hatch I’m having my doubts. Let go of the gods-be-damned door!”
Eriff hung on with all his might. “Papa!” he yelled. “Mama!”
Other crew members gathered around, drawn by the commotion. Finally, Major Atir crouched to peel his fingers off the hatchway frame, one at a time.
“No!” Eriff scrabbled for a handhold as he was dragged away. Once more he swung from the captain’s hand, which was looped through his waist-belt. “Mama! Papa!” His fingernails scraped over the deck of the starship.
The hatch slammed shut. Eriff stopped screaming for his parents and simply screamed, until his throat was in danger of shredding raw. Someone would hear him before his voice gave out. Someone would come.
“Quiet!” A stinging slap across his face brought his attention back to the captain. Eriff shook, gasping and sobbing. “That is enough, little rimmer,” he warned in a low growl. “With luck, you’ll be a REEF. Start acting like one.” He threw Eriff into a small room and locked the door.
Sunshine poured through a single porthole on the far wall. Eriff crawled to it, clinging to the rim throughout the launch of the mighty starship.
The effects of the pistol’s paralyzing blast lingered. His stomach rolled; his arms and legs trembled. Humiliated and afraid, he dashed away a stray tear.
I am weak.
His weakness had kept him from preventing what had happened to him. But what if his body was made so strong by machines that he never again had to worry about it failing him? What if no matter what kind of trouble he got into, he’d be strong enough to get out of it? What would it be like, he thought, to be unstoppable?
The huge ship trembled and shook, but Eriff’s shivers slowly stopped, as if he’d grown too cold for even that. The farther he was taken from home, the colder he got, until he felt nothing at all. He stayed at the porthole long after Sandreem shrank to a blue-green star and disappeared, staring outside until his tears had dried to tracks of salt on his cheeks and his heart was as hollow as the void of space outside.
The door slid open. The captain sauntered in and leaned a shoulder against the wall. With those miss-nothing eyes, he studied Eriff. “I was right about you,” he said finally.
Eriff recoiled. This off-worlder knew nothing about him. Nothing. Hatred welled up in his throat, almost choking him. He gathered every last bit of it and concentrated it in a glare he wished could be as deadly as he felt.
A slow, satisfied smile curved the captain’s lips. “Yes, indeed. Once we get those emotions under control, you’re going to be one cold son of a bitch.”
CHAPTER TWO
Present day
EARTH CELEBRATES TRIUMPH OVER ALIEN ARMY
Sacramento Capitol Security Guard Relates
Personal Terror in
Encounter with Extraterrestrial Killer
SACRAMENTO, California—With the entire world at the edge of their seats, U.S. President Laurel Ramos announced that the alien invasion force threatening Earth had been turned away. The leader was visibly emotional as she made her televised address. “Today we have two new heroes—California State Senator Jana Jasper and her extraordinary extraterrestrial friend, Cavin of Far Star. I hereby rescind the state of emergency and declare this day a national holiday. Senator Jasper, Major Far Star, today we celebrate your courage and vision as one world newly united by a common cause. A very grateful world, indeed.”
Over the weekend, Jasper, 32, and Far Star, 34(est.), were taken by officials to an undisclosed location in the western United States where the pair were successful in deterring the invasion.
The tale of terror and daring had a romantic beginning. Jasper, the youngest child of U.S. congressman John Jasper and former Soviet Ballet dancer Larisa Porizkova met Far Star in the late 1980s when both were children. Far Star’s father, a scientist, traveled to Earth to determine its suitability for alien habitation, a fact not known by Far Star at the time. Sources close to the couple say that after landing in the invisible spacecraft on the Jasper family ranch, young Far Star sneaked away to explore on his own and encountered the girl. “It was love at first sight,” enthused Evie Holloway, 35, Jasper’s sister, a homemaker.
Despite the brevity of their initial meeting and the passage of over two decades, the pair never forgot each other. According to the sources close to the couple, Far Star abandoned his post as a high-ranking military Coalition officer to warn Senator Jasper that plans were underway for an invasion of Earth. Despite several attempts on his life by an interstellar assassin, Far Star triumphed, Jasper at his side.
The Jasper family is a political dynasty with roots dating back to California’s earliest days. The clan laid claim to a permanent place in world history with their highly visible role in the invasion crisis—a role they are likely to continue. The family remains in seclusion following the death of legendary patriarch and former California governor Jake Jasper from complications of a stroke.
Recovering in the same hospital, California Highway Patrolman Greg Rowe, 46, spoke for the first time on battling the enemy in our own backyard. After being treated for second-degree burns to his right hand, the veteran of the force offered a gripping account of his encounter with Far Star’s would-be assassin: “He melted my weapon—turned it to molten metal so I’d drop it. Then he floated me to the ceiling and stuck me there. I thought it was over. I thought I was going to die. I’ll tell you what, twenty-seven years on the force and I never saw anyone like him. He was one cold son of a [expletive deleted].”
Tonight, the killer remains at large.
EVIE JASPER HOLLOWAY peered past the open front door to her house, searching for signs of an alien invasion. A very personal invasion. The REEF was dead, but the fact that an extraterrestrial killer had paid her home a visit at all continued to unsettle her. He’d broken into her home, rifled through her things and traumatized her dog!
“Yarp! Yarp!” Sadie gazed at her with luminous dark brown eyes, her wet nose twitching. The chi-huahua’s heart beat furiously as shivers wracked her little body.
“Such a powerful heart.” Evie kissed a silken ear. “That’s the heart of a lion, not a little dog. Yes, it is. You’re my brave girl, fighting off that monster.”
A piece of fabric torn off the alien’s pant leg was the only evidence of the confrontation a week ago when she’d left Sadie in care of a pet-sitter at home while she took the kids to Disneyland for Easter break. No one was sure of the details, but when the police arrived at the house, Sadie dropped from the ceiling onto their heads. The dog hadn’t been the same since.
Then again, neither had the rest of the world. Jana and Cavin had spent the weekend holed up in a secret bunker in the desert hacking into the long-ago crashed Roswell saucer. They’d used its aged software to trick the aliens into believing Earth owned a powerful space fleet. It was the ultimate scam, the kind of crazy scheme that shouldn’t have worked but somehow did. On the downside, if the aliens ever found out they’d been duped by a bunch of low-tech Earthlings, they’d turn around and come right back. No one but President Ramos, a few select officials and the Jasper family knew about the trick—and only because they’d been part of the masquerade.
“Aren’t you coming in, Mom?” Evie’s two teens strode past without a care, running upstairs to pack suitcases to bring to the family ranch, where the entire Jasper family would gather to mourn the loss of their patriarch, “Grandpa Jake.”
From the top of the stairs, her son John shook his head at her. Her unease baffled him. “An assassin from outer space was in our house, Mom. Our house. Think of it, a real Terminator. So cool.”
Cool? The kid was insane. This house was her safe haven, a small slice of sanctuary in a world where privacy was a commodity. She’d grown up on the campaign trail; she knew how to handle herself in public before she learned to walk. But unlike the rest of the Jaspers, she hadn’t a single ounce of desire to be around government in any shape or form, nor did she want the responsibility of public service. Except when one of the family members hit a milestone like an election victory, placing her in the reflected glare of their spotlights, she’d gotten her wish. Now her perfect suburban anonymity had gone poof.
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Prophetically, not too long ago over a couple of margaritas, her brother, Jared, compared their desire to live a private life to selling one’s soul to the devil: sooner or later your debt would come due.
He was right. Their family’s role in saving the planet had dragged all of them back into the public eye—and an interstellar killer to her door.
Warily, Evie inspected her dining room table and the newspapers the assassin had left scattered. The only things that mattered to her were home and family—her children. Cavin’s assassin would have stolen it all without a blink of an ice-blue robotic eye.
You were disposable to him, a means to an end.
That was the root of what upset her, she realized. Not mattering. It was a sore point, and getting more so as time passed. She was the black sheep of the family, the perennial underachiever. Yet, she was happy. Deep down, she knew she’d eventually find her calling, her true purpose in life. But she wasn’t disposable; she knew that. To her ex-husband, maybe, and to the press. Even her own family—her sister, her parents—made decisions involving her without always taking her opinions into account. And now a hitman from across the galaxy thought he could treat her that way, too? Screw that.
Evie almost tripped over a pair of cleats and a baseball cap left in the middle of the landing. “Can you put this stuff away, please?”
She slowed as she passed the dining table, swiping at dust that had accumulated on the dark, glossy wood during their absence. The assassin had sat in that exact spot, coldly hunting through her things, snooping through her mail and old newspapers, and—her gaze shifted to a grouping of family photos—looking at her.
She’d come home to find one of the photos moved out of position, as if it had been lifted and put down a few feet away: hers.
Her mouth twisted. You can’t catch the eye of the average Joe in the produce aisle of the supermarket, but alien villains? Oh, yeah. A man who was more computer than human…whose perfect body could commit perfect crimes; a man who was focused, relentless, emotionless; whose every move was weighed in advance. And yet who took a moment to look at you anyway.
A shiver ran through her that wasn’t entirely unpleasant.
“Oh, Mom. Don’t be scared.” Ellen returned to throw her arms around her. “It’s okay.”
Evie let her daughter think she was comforting her. Thank God the kid misread her tremble. It was sick, sick, sick! She’d had enough experience with cold, uncaring bastards from Earth—starting and ending with her ex-husband—that she didn’t need to import any from other worlds.
Evie handed Sadie to her daughter and escaped to the kitchen. Immediately, the room soothed her frayed nerves. From the counters of speckled brown granite to the tiles painted to look like cocoa beans that lined the backsplash to the groups of scented candles in white chocolate, raspberry truffle and chocolate chip, chocolate was the theme in the kitchen and throughout the home Reese Pierce Holloway III had abandoned when he left her for his business partner.
Two years and the pain of Pierce’s infidelity still stung. It wasn’t as if she loved him anymore, but home and family were the essence of her existence. Living through the breakup had been devastating. But she’d recently turned the corner. The fifteen pounds she’d added to her life-long full-figured body had come off with Pilates and long walks. She was almost back to her usual curvy size twelve, feeling better about life, better about herself.
She threw open the refrigerator door to the seriously disappointing sight of every spare inch of shelf space crammed solid with boxes of strawberries. Spoiling strawberries.
“Oh, Mom,” Ellen said from behind her. The sinking tone in her daughter’s voice matched her suddenly deflated mood. “Weren’t those for the swim fund-raiser?”
“Uh-huh…” She sighed, wanting to wallow in self-pity, but shrugged it off and assumed her usual cheery can-do attitude. “Spilled milk now. Let’s see what we can salvage and bring to the ranch. The rest will have to be thrown away.”
She’d turned her hobby of making chocolate-covered strawberries into donations for various functions and charities. People loved the berries. No one else did them like she could. Several businesses actually wanted to pay her to make them so they could sell them retail. The thought of being compensated to do what she loved was exciting—and frightening. Her brother, Jared, convinced her that the idea had real potential. Then Ellen jumped in, surprising her by designing a Web site for a ninth-grade class project, titling it: “Evie’s Eden: a Garden of Berries.”
