They were escorted to the roof of the hotel, where a large helicopter was waiting. Sera and Theyn helped Beno, loggy from his head wound, into the vehicle. Out of all of the members of the tactical group, only Roon joined them.

“Not much room,” he explained, helping them find their straps and belts to secure themselves for the flight. “They’ll make it to base another way.”

Sera dabbed at the cut on Beno’s forehead with a tissue, and he pulled away in irritation. She didn’t catch any thoughts from him, but the feeling of embarrassment was clear.  She let him have his space.

Theyn stared at Roon. “My eight-times great nephew,” he said. “So you are Thera’s descendant.”

“Yes. Empress Kina and her daughter were able to escape from Ylia before the planet was destroyed.  She helped settle the Ylian colony on Bruthes.”

“And you are part Ylian and part human.  Your bloodline – our bloodline – has been on earth for many generations, then.” He nodded, and Sera knew that the information was confirming his earlier conjecture.

“Yes. There are humans with Ylian blood from all three lines here on this planet.”

Sera looked at Theyn. All three lines?

Imperial, Martial and Senser, he told her. The Imperial bloodline shows in blue eyes, the Martial in green, and the Senser in gold.

So his blue eyes, that’s why you knew he was Imperial bloodline, she thought.

Yes.

Roon gave them a moment to finish their conversation, and she wondered if he had been able to hear them. His face was utterly impassive, so it was difficult to tell.

“How many of our people survived the attack?” Beno asked, his voice rough.

“Three hundred, sir.” Roon glanced out the window as the helicopter banked sharply to avoid a billboard.  “Two hundred and fifty stayed on Bruthes. Fifty came here to Earth once they determined that your escape pods were here.”

“How did they determine that?” The brunet Ylian sounded grumpy, but Sera would have been grumpy, too, with a concussion and a split head.

Roon took no offense, as far as she could see. “Computations and bioform trace scans. It was difficult to pinpoint your location, but there were traces of Ylian technology and Ylian DNA in the atmospheric scans.”

Theyn nodded. “And you were born here?”

“Yes, sir.”

Sera asked, “How many hybrids are here?”

He shrugged. “Thousands, I would think. Not all hybrids are as easy to detect as my team and me. We’re half Ylian.  Our people have been here long enough to interbreed and hide our more obvious traits behind the appearance of being human.” He nodded to Theyn. “My mother is a full-blooded Ylian, and she still lives. She is the sixth granddaughter of Princess Thera.”

She leaned forward, fascinated. “For those of you with the Ylian eyes and skin, where do you live? How do you hide?”

Roon smiled. “You’ll see.”

***

The helicopter made one refueling stop, then took them out into the Pacific Ocean.  The sun had set by the time they reached their destination, but by the lights on the welcoming flight deck, they were headed to a refurbished World War Two cargo ship.

A man with glowing gold eyes waved them in with semaphore light sticks, and their pilot settled the helicopter down on the deck with only the slightest bump.  Cessna twin-engine planes and helicopters like the one they were riding – recommissioned Bell Hueys from the Vietnam era – lined the flight deck on both sides.  Roon opened the door of the cabin and held it while Theyn stepped out. A trio of white-coated hybrids, their human-esque eyes glowing green in the dark, collected Beno onto a gurney over his objections, and when they bore him off toward sick bay, they all accompanied him.

Their path was unimpeded, although a number of the hybrid workers stared at Beno and Theyn in curiosity. They reached sick bay and Beno was taken to the first available bed, where a doctor with a faint golden cast to her eyes and skin took control.

While she examined him, Beno said, “I need to speak to whoever is in charge of your military operations.”

“That would be Captain Prentiss,” Roon told him. “He’ll want to speak to you, as well.”

“There were three Taluans in the hotel when you came,” he said, wincing as the doctor began to irrigate his cut. “There was also one in a probe that we encountered.”

“We know,” Roon nodded. “We tracked their trajectory when they entered the Sol system.”

“Are they coming?” Theyn asked, anxious.

“I don’t know, sir. I do know that the mass of the Taluan force are in the Jexis System, many, many light years from here, all the way on the other side of the galaxy. This was likely just a scouting mission who noted the Ylian signatures that we did.”

Sera looked at Theyn, then at Beno. “Can you communicate with the Ylian colony?”

Roon smiled. “Of course. It just takes a little time for the communications to go through subspace.”

“You’ll tell them that you found us,” Theyn said.

“Yes, Your Highness. The colony will want to know.”

Beno made an angry face while the doctor sealed his wound with surgical glue. “What is the relationship between the colony and Bruthes as a whole?”

Roon looked surprised. “From what I understand, it’s a cooperative relationship. The Bruthesans have been good hosts, and the colony is autonomous.”

Sera remembered the conjecturing that Theyn and Beno had already done about the colony on Bruthes and their hosts. She hoped that they’d been wrong, and that the colony wasn’t really just a farm for Taluans.

Do you think that maybe you were wrong about the Bruthesans? she asked her lovers.

Theyn said, Bruthes was our closest trade partner, but they were never what you would call brave. I doubt that they would have been willing to risk bringing the wrath of Talua down upon their heads by helping us.

Maybe they saw what happened to your world and decided to take a stand, Sera suggested.

Theyn and Beno’s eyes met, and she felt something shift, a silent communication that was just between the two men. Theyn sighed. Perhaps.

The door to sick bay opened, and Asa and Joely came in. Joely ran to Sera and embraced her, but Sera only returned the hug briefly when she saw Asa’s injuries.

“What happened to you?” she cried.

He shrugged. “Colonel Vasquez isn’t very nice.”

Sera went to him and put her arms around him carefully, trying not to bump any of his injuries. “You poor thing! I’m so sorry!”

“Hey, it’s all good. These guys have some mad medical skills. I shouldn’t be able to walk right now, but they set me straight.” He gestured toward his ankles, which were puffy but otherwise intact. “Those were both broken this morning. Now I can walk.”

“That’s amazing!” Sera shook her head. “How?”

Theyn answered helpfully.  “Bone knitters. Laser technology combined with energy manipulation.”

She was amazed. “Incredible.”

Joely said, “I guess you guys got away, huh? You all right?” She spontaneously punched Sera in the arm. “You could have told us where you were going!”

Beno growled, the sound rumbling from deep within his chest. “Do not strike her again!”

She looked startled, then turned wide eyes onto Sera’s face, clearly asking her to get her out of trouble. Sera complied. “She was just playing. It’s all right.”

“I’m s-sorry,” Joely stammered. “I didn’t mean any harm.”

Theyn turned to face two Ylian hybrids who had come into the room, both of them in uniforms that betrayed the signs of rank. They both knelt to him as soon as they came in, and they were waiting for him to acknowledge them. He didn’t make them wait for long.
“Please, rise,” he said, his voice full of quiet authority. “Your names?”

“I am Captain David Prentiss, and this is my first mate, Tyler Randall. You’re on board our ship, the Cyclops. We are one-quarter Ylian, and we are overjoyed to meet a male of the royal line.”

Theyn nodded. “My partner, Beno, and our mate, Sera Cooper.”  They bowed to each of them in turn.

Joely looked at Sera. “Mate? You’re married?”

“Shush.”

Prentiss said, “It is an honor, Commander Beno and Dr. Cooper.”

“Thank you,” she said. Beno acknowledged the captain with a nod of his head.

“I take it that no other males of the royal line survived the fall of Ylia?” Theyn asked.

Randall shook his head. “No, Your Highness. Only the Empress, Princess Thera and her daughter, Princess Aneka, lived to reach the colony. The other bearers of the Imperial bloodline are all from lesser houses.”

The doctor stepped back from the table, having done all of the repairs to Beno’s scalp that she could.  The wound had been closed and a bandage covered his scalp, shocking white against the blackness of his hair. “You should rest for a day or so, Commander.”

“When I am certain that there is no threat to Prince Theyn or to our mate, then I will rest.”

Prentiss smiled. “There is no threat here. And as for rest, we’ll be reaching Itzela within the hour.”

“Itzela?” Sera echoed.

The captain nodded. “We have an island in the Pacific that’s been camouflaged to stay off of any maps. It’s where our people can be free to walk the streets.”

Theyn told her, “Itzela is a Bruthesan word. It means ‘beautiful.’”

Prentiss nodded. “Yes, it does, and it’s a beautiful place, indeed.” He gestured toward the door. “If you’d like to join me in my office, we’ll have refreshments while we wait for the ship to reach port.”

***

It was like sailing on the strangest cruise ship she’d ever seen. Prentiss and Randall did their best to be charming hosts, but the role didn’t suit them well, and after an hour of small talk, things were becoming deeply awkward.

Asa and Joely told Sera and the Ylians what had happened to them, and Sera filled in her friends on the goings-on since they’d parted ways. She left out a few pertinent details – like the ATM robberies and her pregnancy – but shared the rest. Prentiss and Randall gave vague answers to questions about the Ylian colony on Bruthes, and they said even less about their destination, Itzela.

Finally, the bridge called Prentiss, and he and Randall left them with their apologies so they could see to the work of getting their massive ship into the slip without killing anyone or breaking anything.

Sera rose and paced around the captain’s office.

“Restless?” Joely teased.

“Yes.” She ran a hand through her thick blonde hair, which seemed thicker today, with more curls. She sighed. “I just…I just don’t trust them. They’re hiding something.”

“I thought so, too,” Theyn said, nodding. He and Beno had been speaking aloud and in English out of deference to Joely and Asa. “I don’t know what, but there’s something that they don’t want us to know.”

Beno peeled the bandage off of his head and tossed it into Prentiss’s waste bin. “I’m curious to see this island of theirs,” he said. “I wonder what - ”

He was cut off by an explosion that rocked the entire ship. Sera was tossed into Theyn’s lap, and he caught her, holding her securely even as the massive vessel bucked like an angry beast.

Joely gaped at Asa, who spoke for everyone when he said, “What the hell was that?”

Alarms started going off in the hallways, and Beno went to the door. He tried to turn the handle, but it refused to budge.  “Locked,” he said. He pressed his ear to the wall beside the latch. “Electronically.”

Theyn helped set Sera back on her feet and asked, “Your glove?”

“Missing. Probably with our things, wherever they put them.” 

A warplane streaked past the porthole, its engines roaring as it strafed the ship. Bullets slammed into the hull and struck the window, creating a spider web of cracks in the reinforced glass. Beno grabbed Sera and Theyn and pulled them both down to the floor, covering them with his own body. Asa and Joely took cover under the captain’s desk.

“What the hell?” Asa shouted. “Who the hell?”

“That was an American plane,” Joely said. “I saw the flag when it went by.”

“Why are the Americans attacking us?”

The question went unanswered when another explosion, much nearer than the first, shook the carrier.  An ear-splitting whine filled the air as metal grated against metal, and a second blast followed in short order.

A voice boomed out over a loudspeaker.  “This is Major Steven Grace, United States Air Force. Surrender your ship and prepare to be boarded.”

Beno jumped up. “We’re not going to be holed up in here while waiting for them to come and get us. Let’s go.”

Asa shook his head. “I can’t run. I’m still screwed up from Vasquez. You guys do what you have to do.”

Joely looked at the group, then at Asa. She said, “I’m staying. You three get out of here.  You’re the ones they’re after, anyway.”

Theyn said to Beno and Sera, We don’t know this ship or where to go to be safe. Let’s just find a closet somewhere and camouflage.  They won’t be able to find us, and they’ll have to leave.

Captain Prentiss’s voice responded through a loudspeaker of his own. “Major Grace, you have attacked an unarmed ship without provocation. This is a war crime and will be addressed as such. Anyone attempting to board this ship will be treated as a pirate and we will defend ourselves accordingly.”

Joely groaned. “This is so many shades of bad.”

Beno looked around the room, his green eyes scanning the contents rapidly.  He started to ransack the captain’s desk.

“What are you looking for?” Sera asked.

“Anything I can use as a weapon.”

Theyn tried the door on an out-of-place armoire, but it was locked. He glanced back at Beno, who nodded to him. Theyn gripped the handle of the door again, and with only a slight shift in his stance, he ripped the door off of its hinges with one hand.

“Holy God!” Joely cried out, deeply impressed.

The armoire wasn’t an armoire at all. It was a wooden gun cabinet.

Asa grinned. “This I know.”  He hurried over as quickly as his battered body would allow and began pulling out rifles and ammunition.

Joely took one of the rifles.  Theyn looked at her in surprise. “You know how to use that?”

She nodded. “I grew up in the country. We used to go hunting, my grandpa and me. I’m a fair shot.”  She loaded the magazine and took up a position by the desk, facing the door. “I’ve never shot a person before, but I’ll be damned if I let them take us.”

Soon all five of them were armed and facing the door, ready to take down the first enemy who dared to invade their space. The sound of battle raged on all sides, with the roar of plane engines and the rattle of machine gun fire. Shouts of anger and pain filled the corridor, and bullets ripped into the closed door, tearing it off of its hinges.

A man in green fatigues stood there, his AK-47 in his hands, a wide grin on his pale face. He spoke into a microphone attached to his helmet.

“I found them.”

Beno leveled his rifle at the man and fired. He spun, his shoulder stained in a torrent of red, and before he could right himself, Beno shot again. This time, the bullet hit him in the chest. He was saved by his bulletproof vest, but he was down for a moment.

The brunet Ylian began to step forward when a ‘whoomp!’ like a sonic boom deafened them all. Everything mechanical whined and stopped functioning, and the ship’s engines went silent. Outside, warplanes and helicopters started dropping out of the air, going nose-first into the roiling ocean.

An amplified voice called out in the Ylian tongue. “Prince Theyn! You are secured!”

The man on the hallway floor coughed and rolled up onto his knees. Beno kicked him down again.

Captain Prentiss hastened into view, his hand pressing against a bullet wound in his other arm. “I called our forces to protect us,” he told them. “Come on… time is wasting. The Americans will be coming soon in more strength.”

They wasted no time in following him.

They were escorted up to the flight deck, where a trio of sleek silver machines waited for them. They were smooth and almost featureless except for concentric circles of lights on the bottom of the crafts, lights that contained rings of propulsors. The vessels were shaped almost like eggs that had been flattened on the bottom, and at the thinnest end, there were rows of black dots. There was a soft pop-hiss sound, and then hatches opened up on each of the ships, revealing jump suited women with glowing Ylian eyes.

Beno pulled Sera close by his side and followed Theyn as his partner stepped forward. “Which of you is in command?” the blond Ylian asked.

The woman in the middle craft stepped forward, her golden eyes crinkling at the edges as she smiled.  “I am Commander Elina.” She took a knee in front of him. “And it is the greatest honor of my existence to meet you, Your Highness.”

The other pilots joined her, also kneeling to the empress’s son. He nodded to them. “Please rise.”

Elina did as she was told, still beaming. Her eyes glanced at Beno, then back at Theyn. “I must confess, I hadn’t thought I would ever see a full-blooded Ylian male in my lifetime, let alone two. This is a rare privilege.”

Sera remembered Beno and Theyn telling her how the males outnumbered the females on their world.  Apparently on the colony, things had changed.

“You have interstellar capability?” Theyn asked.

“Yes, Your Highness. We travel between Earth and Bruthes on a regular basis and have done since we started looking for you.” She nodded respectfully to Beno. “Your hibernation units began issuing distress calls, and we knew that you had been found. It was our greatest fear that the interruption of your dormancy cycle would render you incapacitated.”

Captain Prentiss came forward. “My thanks for your intercession, Commander. We were making for Itzela when the Americans attacked.”

She nodded. “I will take our guests there now. My wingmates will stay here to defend the Cyclops in case of further attack.”

“Thank you.” Prentiss turned to the group. “Your Highness, Commander… ladies and gentlemen… it’s been an honor.”

He raised his right hand to his left shoulder, palm flat and facing down. Beno and Theyn returned the salute.

Commander Elina stepped to the side and gestured toward her waiting craft. “Highness?”

Theyn took Sera’s hand in his, and Beno took her by the other. They walked on board together.

Once they were settled and securely in their seats, the vessel lifted into the air with barely so much as a vibration. Turning smoothly and gaining speed at an incredible rate, the craft took them out over the waves, leaving the Cyclops and her downed enemies behind. The interior of the vessel was as smooth as the exterior, and it was clear that this was nothing that human hands had built. Sera looked around herself in wonder and curiosity, trying to take it all in.

Commander Elina sat in the forward section, surrounded by a curving bank of instrumentation. Behind her, there were eight seats that molded themselves to the bodies of their occupants. As soon as Sera sat down, the seat conformed to her, holding her securely without straps but not constricting her in the least. She felt like the ship was hugging her.

The walls were the same featureless, silvery metal on the inside as they had been on the outside. They shimmered, though, just slightly, enough to make her wonder whether there was a force field of some kind.

Elina turned and looked back at her passengers, then smiled. She flicked her elegant fingers over the controls, and the walls became transparent. Sera gasped in delight. She could see through the walls as they flew as if they weren’t there at all, and the sensation was exhilarating. She felt like an eagle, flying with purpose over the sea.

“Having fun?” Asa asked her drily.

“Yeah, totally. I’ve never flown in a UFO before.”

Beno was sitting with his eyes closed, but he still responded, saying, “Hardly unidentified at this point, I think.”

“Well, no,” she allowed. She squeezed his hand. “How’s your head?”

“Pounding.”

“Is that why you’re talking out loud and not with your mind?”

Theyn smiled. “Telepathy has a way of making headaches worse.”

“I can believe that.”

Joely leaned forward in her seat, staring through the wall at the ocean scape below them. “This is incredible. I want to tell everybody I know about this, but nobody would ever believe me.”

“You can’t tell anyone,” Theyn said. “Please, for all our sakes.”

She pouted. “I wouldn’t. I just want to.”

They were approaching a wall of clouds, a towering mountain of grey mist. Elina touched another set of controls on the instrumentation panel and said, “Itzela base, this is Phoenix One. Package retrieved. Request permission to land.”

Another woman responded through the communication link. “Phoenix One, you are cleared to approach.”

The wall of clouds parted, and a tunnel through the mist opened up in front of them. The little vessel streaked into the gap, and suddenly the clouds were gone. A gleaming white city on a tropical island appeared, emerging from behind the curtain of the fog.

The lush greenery of the island was incorporated into the city, tall trees intertwining with shining white spires of elegant buildings.  A white sand beach led to thick jungle, which in turn gave way to a city that rested on the side of a mountain. The lowest level of the city had neat little houses laid out in symmetrical residential neighborhoods, interspersed with colorful gardens and robust trees. The upper most reach of the city held a stunning white palace with flying buttresses and elevated walkways connecting its tall towers.  It was the most beautiful place Sera had ever seen.

“Wow,” Joely said softly. “Holy Rivendell, Batman.”

The ship banked around the city toward a landing strip on the far side of the island. There were several ships just like the one they were occupying, silently waiting in their docks. Elina touched down gently, and a quartet of women in grey jumpsuits swept forward to lock down the vessel.

“Your Highness,” the pilot said. “Commander. Friends. Welcome to Itzela.”