They slept in a contented heap for what felt like hours. Finally, the sound of Asa and Joely returning with groceries roused them, and after a shower and hunting down a change of clothes, they joined their companions in the kitchen.

The setting sun was an orange blaze through the kitchen window when Sera led the three-person procession into the room. Joely smiled brightly. “Taking a nap?”

She ran a hand through her damp hair. “Yeah.”

The table was covered with bags of food items, some fresh, some frozen, a few in cans. Asa leaned on one of the chairs, his big hands dwarfing the back support he was gripping. “We didn’t know what to get, so we sort of…got one of everything.”

“We used your credit card,” Joely told Sera. “You’re the one with tenure.”

Sera frowned. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“Why? You can afford it better than we can,” her assistant said breezily, turning to load cans of condensed soup into the pantry.

“If they’re looking for me, that’s exactly the sort of thing that will tip them off. They always look for credit card activity. Don’t you ever watch Dateline?” She pressed her hands to her forehead. “And I also gave our address to Rodriguez. Jesus H. Christ… I’m just as stupid as you are.”

Asa frowned. “First of all, thanks for calling us stupid. Second, she was joking. I paid for all of this. Third, what the hell, Sera?”

“I don’t even… I don’t think he’s working against us. He helped me get in to see Theyn, right? He’s on our side.”  She grimaced. “Please tell me he’s on our side.”

Beno’s jaw twitched and he left the room, trotting up the stairs. Joely watched him go. “What’s with him?”

Theyn shrugged.

Sera followed her brunet lover up the stairs and into their room. He was standing beside the bed with his stunner in his hand when she came in.  “What are you doing with that?” she asked.

“I may need to use it.”

His tone was hard, and his expression was even harder. She could feel his anger as if it were her own.

She crossed her arms. “He has information that could help us.”

“Help us?” he repeated, frowning. “Or help himself? Or maybe help his army? We are not in a position to extend trust to people, Sera.”

“Why not? You trusted me.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

He put the stunner into his jeans pocket. “Because I know your mind. We’ve connected. I know I can trust you.”

“And what makes you think I can trust you?” He looked startled the question, and she was just as startled that she’d said it. She couldn’t stop. “You shot me with that thing, did God knows what to my hormones, and kidnapped me. What in all of that says that I can trust you?”

Beno started to say something, but he thought better of it and closed his mouth before any of the words came out.  He looked hurt as he asked, “So you don’t trust me? After everything we’ve been to each other?”

“We’ve been fuck buddies,” she said sharply. “That’s all.”

She knew it was more than that and she had no idea why she’d just said those words. The stung look on his face told her that he felt it was more, too. She wished she could take it back, but the words were out now, and there was no erasing them.

She sighed and continued. “It’s been wonderful, but I don’t know you. I don’t know what you’re capable of. How am I supposed to know that you haven’t done something to my mind to force me to be compliant? Maybe you used some sort of alien superpower to make me trust you and go with you when you mean harm to me and my planet.”

He glared. “Don’t be stupid.”

“How am I supposed to know?” she pressed.

“And how am I supposed to know that you aren’t just waiting to sell us to the highest bidder so you can reap the reward?” he countered. “I’m sure there’s a lot of money in it for you, if you sell the first living aliens on Earth.”

Theyn came into the room, a frown on his face. “Both of you, stop it. This isn’t helping. Beno, she would never sell us. Sera, we would never force you to do anything you didn’t want to do, and we mean no harm to you or to your world. We are refugees. We’re not advance scouts. We’re not an invasion force. We never even intended to be here.” He reached into Beno’s pocket and took the stunner out. With a quick motion of his fingers on the side of the metal box, he deactivated the weapon. Sera could hear it whining as it powered down. “There will be no more stunning of anyone until we’re more certain what this does to human biology. Understand?”

Beno ground his teeth but answered formally, “Yes, Your Highness.”

Theyn blinked, and it was his turn to look stung. He tossed the stunner onto the bed and walked away. Sera spared one last withering look at Beno before she, too, left the room.

Theyn’s angry passage took him all the way down the stairs and through the kitchen, out the back door and into the night. Sera stopped in the kitchen, where she took comfort in being around other humans.

“That didn’t sound very good,” Joely said softly. “You okay?”

 

“Fine.” She sounded anything but fine, she knew, but hoped her friend would let it slide. To her credit, Joely kept any potential commentary to herself.

“Lovers’ spat?” Asa asked. “I don’t know what language you were speaking, but it sounded pretty weird and intense from where I was standing.”

Sera was startled, and she rubbed at the translator in her ear. Apparently, it worked even when she wasn’t aware of it. “I ... I guess we were speaking their native tongue.”

“Sounded interesting,” the Texan said. “Sort of full of vowels and tones. I think inflection probably carries as much meaning as the words.”

His undergraduate minor had been in linguistics, so that was his area of specialty, not hers. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

Beno stormed through the kitchen, heading outside, as well. The three archaeologists watched him pass and let him go, unimpeded.  As soon as his footsteps left the porch, Joely leaned forward.

“So, are they… you know… him and Theyn…”

“They aren’t lovers. I already asked them.”

“They sure seem pretty cozy…”
She was irritated by the line of questioning. “They’ve been best friends since childhood, apparently. That makes people cozy, doesn’t it? You know, people can be friends without sleeping together.”

Joely blinked. “Geez, settle down. You’re in a mood.” She smiled disarmingly. “I was just trying to get some fantasy fuel, that’s all.”

A month ago, Sera would have laughed at her friend’s outrageous statements. Today she was not in the mood. She glowered at her and went back upstairs for some peace and quiet.

She went back into the bedroom she shared with Theyn and Beno and stretched out on the bed, her arm flung over her face. The scent of their lovemaking still lingered in the air, and it made her horny and angry at the same time. She hated her reactions, because she didn’t understand them.

She was certain Rodriguez wouldn’t hurt them. She was sure that she’d been right to trust him. She grabbed her cell phone and called up her call history, ready to return dial him, when her thumb hesitated over the buttons. The FBI used cell phone pings as well as credit card activity to find missing persons. She’d watched enough crime shows on TV to know that. If they were looking for her, they’d just need to follow hits on GPS, wi-fi zones and cell towers.

She pulled the back off of her phone and pried out the battery and the sim card. Once the phone was properly disassembled, she put it on the bedside table and stared at it. A realization filled her with fear and fatigue. She was a fugitive.

Outside the house, there was a low rumbling sound in the sky. It might have been a local crop duster, or it might have been a low-flying jet. Whatever it was, it made her two lovers outside spike with agitation and anxiety, emotions that bled through to her in their link. She rose and went to the window, looking out.

A bright light was hovering over the horizon, too far south to be the moon, too stationary to be a plane. It shimmied up and down, then darted to the side, where it repeated its vertical dance. It emitted another low rumble, followed by a mind-rattling hum that seemed to vibrate through her bones and set her teeth on edge.

Beno and Theyn returned the house at a run, taking the steps two at a time until they reached the room where Sera was standing.  Beno grabbed the stunner and started punching buttons on the side of the unit. Theyn grasped Sera’s biceps, pulling her away from the window.

“Get down,” he urged, pulling her to the floor with him.

“What is it?” she asked. “Is that a UFO?”

He looked momentarily confused, then said, “It’s a Taluan probe.”

“Taluan!” She grabbed his arms. “Did they find you? Follow you?”

“I don’t know.”

Beno looked grim as he said, “The hibernation units give off a distress beacon if they’re disturbed too soon. They probably heard it and are looking to see where it’s coming from. Hopefully your scientists,” he said the word with a sneer, “have done enough damage that the signal is no longer being transmitted.”

Asa came up the stairs, a rifle in his hands. “Is that thing one of yours?”

Beno shook his head. “Absolutely not. It’s an enemy craft.”

“Enemy?” He set his jaw. “Well, Jesus. Texas ain’t bein’ invaded on my watch.”

The two armed men, one human, on Ylian, went back out into the yard, their weapons at the ready.

“That stunner isn’t going to do much,” Sera fussed. “And can a rifle damage a space craft?”

Theyn pulled her close, interposing himself between her and the window. Joely scrambled into the room and joined them on the floor, and Theyn protected her, as well.

“The stunner has a more lethal setting,” he advised. “Beno recalibrated it while he was standing here.”

Joely asked, “Do I want to know what’s happening?”

“Probably not,” Sera answered.

Outside, they could hear the rumbling hum coming closer. Asa’s rifle barked, and the hum changed pitch. The light through the window got brighter. As the probe drew closer, the rattling vibration became painful, making their ears ache and their bones vibrate. Sera’s stomach felt like she’d been on one too many roller coasters, and she broke free and raced to the bathroom to be sick.

Joely groaned. “If they don’t stop that thing, I’m right behind you!”

Theyn put his hand on Joely’s arm, and it glowed softly. Sera came back out of the bathroom and said, “Don’t fight him. He’s helping you.”

Her friend’s eyes were wide as she watched the illumination shining from Theyn’s hand, and she said in wonder, “I don’t feel sick anymore.”

The Ylian smiled. “Good.” He held out his hand to Sera. “Come here.”

She returned to her place on the floor. The probe was right over them now, making the plate glass in the windows shake in their frames and jangling their nerves. Sera could tell that Theyn was not immune to the pain, and he closed his eyes, pulling her and Joely tight against his chest. A variation of his camouflage wrapped around them all, this time forming an almost opaque shell of energy that helped to protect them from the worst of the vibration from the probe.

Asa’s rifle fired again, then again. Sera didn’t know anything about guns, so she didn’t know how many bullets he might have. She could feel Beno holding his fire, waiting for the perfect moment to shoot. She could almost feel him holding his breath.

He has fought them before, Theyn told her. He knows what he’s doing. I have trusted him with my life for years.

The window panes shattered, spraying glass shards through the bedroom. The pieces bounced harmlessly off the shield that Theyn had erected around them. Joely screamed and buried her face in his chest, and Sera turned her face away. The wind, propelled by the probe, tore in through the broken window, whistling and screaming through the room like a cyclone. Sera gripped Theyn’s shirt in terror.

A low whining sound filled the air, and then Beno fired. A high-pitched screech pierced the basso rumble of the probe, and then all the noise suddenly stopped. Asa’s rifle fired again. A mechanical squeaking sound followed, and then the world shook.

Sera broke free of Theyn’s protection and ran to the window to look out. A long metallic object, shaped like a blunt-ended torpedo without the fins, was lying on the ground across the driveway. Its impact had been so immense that it had carved a two-foot deep furrow into the land, spitting dirt and gravel in all directions as it crashed. Beno was approaching the downed craft, his weapon ahead of him, while Asa brought up the rear.

As she watched, she saw a seam appear in the otherwise preternaturally smooth side of the probe. A hatch opened, and a single reptilian creature tumbled out, its face coated with dark green blood. It hissed at Beno and Asa, then snarled something that her translator failed to understand.

Beno stood over it and shot it in the face. The Taluan scout shuddered and died, its blood pooling in an antifreeze-green puddle around its head.

Theyn straightened and withdrew his shield. He rose and helped Joely to her feet.

“Good God,” she said, shaking. “It’s a regular war of the worlds.”

Sera trotted out of the bedroom and down the stairs, hoping to get a look at the creature and its probe. Her terror had turned to excitement, and Theyn and Joely couldn’t keep up with her as she raced out into the yard.

When she got there, Asa was poking at the dead Taluan with his rifle as if he was daring it to move. The alien stayed dead, much to his disappointment.

Theyn and Beno looked at each other when the blond Ylian made it to the scene. They didn’t say a word, but they probably didn’t have to. They were all thinking the same thing. Where there was a probe, there was a mother ship. If the probe went missing, then the rest of the Taluans would want to know where it went.  They were coming, and what had happened to Ylia now stood to happen to Earth.

Sera hugged herself. “My God,” she said. “We’re dead.”