3
BRANDI
I didn't get shit for sleep.
I mean, I hadn't expected to. Not after what had happened. Instead I spent all night replaying the entire interaction, and then sorting through the new memories that had been copied-and-pasted into my brain like clip-art.
Alien spacecraft. Aliens literally among us. Every fucking conspiracy theory idiot on the planet was right.
Shit, what if people I knew were aliens? These Karak could be anyone, right? Hell, what if my XO was one?
But the memories made that seem impossible: Arix and another scout--Jerix, I think?--were the only ones to visit the planet.
Until today.
I crawled out of bed five minutes before my alarm and got dressed methodically. Blue running shorts with grey stripes on the side, and the Air Force logo on the left leg. A plain grey shirt over top my sports bra. It felt like dressing for a funeral: an event I hadn't emotionally accepted yet.
But somewhere, deep down, a trickle of excitement was beginning to bloom. They needed a military representative. For what?
Regardless, this was a hell of a lot better than paperwork.
Before heading out the door, I grabbed my cell phone and shot my XO a text message: Going for a longer run this morning. Might be late. As the acting Base Commander I could decide when to arrive at the office. I never took such liberties, but today seemed like a good day to start.
The same Airman as yesterday waved from the tower at the south fence. I returned the gesture, feeling wooden and stiff.
"Gunna hit that PR today, sir?" he called.
"Today's a longer run, so nope." Then I added, "Probably gunna take the trail that curves around to the east, so don't raise any alarms if I don't come back through this gate."
The Airman laughed. "After last night, sir, the last thing I wanna do is raise a false alarm!"
False alarm. Sure. I smiled to share in the joke.
"Hey," I hesitated. "You ever heard of Elijah, Wyoming?"
He blinked down at me. "No sir, Can't say I have. Why? You gunna try to run that far?" He chuckled.
"No reason. Have a great day, Airman."
"Always do, sir!"
I started jogging when I reached the trail, which curved down toward the Snake River. Even though nobody could see me out here in the middle of nowhere, I tried to appear casual as I looked around, scanning the sky and the ground along the river. It all felt like a silly dream. I was certain I would jog alone on the trail, and nobody would come, and then I'd return to base feeling confused.
Ten minutes went by, and my mind began to drift. I'd need to do something with the two guards who raised the alarm last night. If they had been drinking then I had a convenient excuse to explain everything, as guilty as that may make me feel. But if they were sober... what then? They would probably need to be recommended for a psych evaluation. That kind of thing would stay on their record the rest of their careers.
And all for doing the right thing.
That made me angry. Good men and women shouldn't be punished for doing what they were supposed to do. But what other choice did I have? If I was soft on them, it would reflect poorly on me.
I was weighing those two options when the spacecraft appeared.
One second there was only blue sky before me, and the next there was a vaguely disc-shaped spacecraft blocking out a small portion of it. It appeared like a billion tiny mirrors were rotating along its surface, and then it flew directly at me without making any noise or leaving a trail of exhaust.
I slowed to a stop and watched it land next to the river.
Come, Arix said into my brain. It was like he was standing next to me, whispering directly into my ear. My feet moved on their own down the hill toward the clearing.
It was about the size of an A-10 Warthog if you accounted for the wingspan, though this thing had no wings. It wasn't precisely shiny, but it wasn't dull, either. A door opened on the back, sliding downward into a ramp.
I hesitated, then strode inside.
I was in an empty room with painfully bright lights. The floor felt like steel, and the rubber of my shoes gripped it nicely. And then the wall across from me opened into a doorway, and Arix stood there waving me in with a human hand.
"You are a pilot?" he asked by way of greeting.
I stopped in the cockpit--because that's clearly what it was, with the glass wall and two chairs and lights flickering like a foreign instrument panel. "How'd you know?"
"Your mind. When I touched you yesterday." He blinked. "And because you were in Mountain Home Air Force Base."
"Oh. Yeah."
He gestured around. "This is a Karak scout craft. As a pilot, I suspect you will enjoy this."
I lowered myself into the seat next to his, which was shockingly human. My body fit into it perfectly. "Enjoy what?"
The craft rose from the ground, a sensation that would have been completely imperceptible if not for the view outside the glass changing. Arix didn't move, but I got the impression he was piloting it with his mind as he twisted the craft around and aimed it toward the mountains.
It accelerated like a magnetic-launch roller coaster, throwing me back into the chair. There was no noise, no hint of any engine. The ground zoomed by incredibly fast, and the craft stayed low as we passed over the river and rose into the Sawtooth foothills. For several moments I was a little girl again, cardboard wings taped to my bike as I zoomed down the hill recklessly.
"The base. They'll see us on radar!" I blurted out.
"No," Arix said simply. "They will not."
The aircraft tilted higher to avoid the mountain peaks, and then we were above and past them and looking down into the valley beyond, green with trees along the tilted terrain.
"What's the source of thrust?" I asked.
"A microwave engine for short-range travel, and a cross-galaxy drive for long distance." He spread his hands in apology. "I'm afraid I don't know much beyond that. I was a scout, not an engineer."
A thousand other questions popped into my head and fought for control, and there were so many of them that nothing came across my lips. I'd always been impressed by the engineers who could build the beautiful aircraft and jets I flew, but this was a different type of wonder altogether.
The craft turned and followed a long gash of valley that had been destroyed by the forest fires last year. The trees that still stood were ghosts of their former selves, ashen and sad, a cemetery of a forest. The aircraft slowed, then lowered itself into a part of the forest where salvage logging had cleared away a wide space. It landed without any hint of touching the ground; only the still trees outside the cockpit told me we were no longer moving.
"Why do I feel like I'm being kidnapped?" I said out of nervousness.
Arix smiled at me, then rose and walked away. I followed him into the back room and down the ramp into the forest.
"This is the place," he said, pointing at a specific spot on the ground that looked the same as everything else. "I've sent the two Karak images of human forms to use, which should make your meeting more comfortable than if you were speaking to us in our light forms."
"Light forms?" I asked, but Arix extended his hand. I shook it.
"Good luck." He turned away.
"Wait! You're leaving me here by myself?"
Arix grimaced. "My personal standing among my fellow Karak is... complicated."
Now I really felt like I was being kidnapped, abandoned in the middle of the forest like some sick German folk tale. The panic rose up in my chest like a hot spring. "What if they don't come? What will I do then?"
But Arix was already inside his ship, and the ramp was receding into the exterior. The alien spacecraft rose gracefully, turned above the trees, and then soared out of sight.
The dead woods held an ominous silence as I stood there.
I stared at the sky and waited for the other Karak to immediately appear, but when they didn't I sat down on a nearby stump.
The human brain was really stupid. I'd just flown here in a spacecraft, completely conscious and aware of what was happening the entire time, yet a large part of my brain still refused to accept the whole thing. It kept trying to think of explanations for all of this, a logical framework to wrap around it all to get it to make sense. But this wasn't an elaborate prank by my fellow officers, and I wasn't dreaming, and I wasn't hallucinating. At least, I was fairly certain the latter wasn't true. Crazy people never really knew they were crazy, right?
My cell phone worked, but only had one bar of service. Worst case scenario, I could walk to a road and call someone to pick me up. I had a general idea as to where I was. That would be a weird phone call to the base. "Hey there, it's Base Commander Brandi Forbes. I know I just jogged out the south gate half an hour ago, but I seem to have suddenly teleported twenty miles away and could use a ride, please and thank you."
Yeah, calling an Uber from Boise would be a better idea. If it came to that point.
I would never have noticed the aircraft if I hadn't been looking. It appeared above the trees to the right, sliding into view as silent as a stalking cat. It was larger than Arix's scout aircraft, and different in a way I couldn't explain. It bulged more, maybe. I watched with wide eyes as it drifted toward the clearing, hovered in place for a few perilous seconds, and then landed.
I rose and brushed myself off. I wished was wearing my uniform instead of these running clothes.
Fear crawled up the back of my neck again. All of my training had been around human enemies: dots on the ground that needed to be bombed or strafed with machine gun fire, or buildings to blow up. This scenario was one for which I was completely, and utterly, unprepared.
I waited for a ramp to descend from the back, but that's not how these Karak decided to reveal themselves. The air ten feet in front of me suddenly shimmered like heat coming off a desert road. I held my breath as particles of light appeared from all around, pulled together like magnets, forming two bars of pure light. They pulsed gently, individual of one another, and my mind decided it was like two heartbeats. Heartbeats which were a lot calmer than my own.
HELLO, one of them said into my mind.
I recoiled from it, and took a deep breath, trying to make myself relax. This was just like Arix.
Before I could respond, they began to change again. The individual photons of light fell apart again, twisting and changing into every color imaginable. The light formed back into human bodies, bones and muscles and then skin, tan skin that bulged with muscle underneath. They were completely nude, their penises exposed, and then clothes formed from nothing and covered them as if they had always been there.
The alien on the left looked like a Norse god missing his hammer, with shoulder-length blond hair and eyes as green as emeralds. His jaw was hard, his face emotionless.
The other alien had short black hair and almond eyes, and some scruff on his cheeks like he'd skipped shaving for two days. He blinked rapidly behind his hooked nose.
I couldn't not appreciate how they looked: they were gorgeous. Their faces had sharp features like cologne models, and the brief second I'd seen of their bodies made them look like athletes, all lean muscle and popping veins. But as sexy as the two men were, they were dressed ridiculously: they both wore black slacks and white dress shirts, with a tie and jacket. They looked like fucking Mormons!
The memory of what their nude bodies looked like remained in my eyes, like the flickering afterimage from staring at a bright light. I cleared my throat and tried to appear more formal.
They took a moment to look down at their bodies, to touch themselves with foreign hands. Getting a feel for what human bodies were like, I guess.
"Hello," the dark-haired alien repeated, this time in a deep human voice.
"Hi," I said. "Do you, uhh, come in peace?"
"Of course," the blond said, not getting the joke. "You are the one Arix brought."
It was a statement, not a question, but I nodded all the same.
"I am Tyrix," the blond said, "and my partner is Kerix."
Kerix the Karak. That sounded like a cartoon character, like Marvin the Martian. I tried to take a step forward to shake their hands, but my feet refused to move. "Nice to meet you," I said instead, wishing I had thought of something more profound to say.
"Arix told us of you," Kerix said in a voice like smooth caramel. "Do you know where he went after bringing you here?"
"I haven't a clue. Don't you guys know?"
Neither of them answered, but they shared a look that reminded me of what Arix said: that his standing with them was complicated. I wondered what he'd done.
"You are a military representation of earth?" Kerix asked. Already their words were less slow, more natural than at first. Becoming more natural resemblances of humans.
"I guess I am." I stood up a little straighter. "I am Lieutenant Colonel Brandi Forbes, Support Group Commander of Mountain Home Air Force Base."
Once the words were out of my mouth, the title that filled me with pride felt woefully inadequate. These were aliens! Someone higher up should have been here representing earth. A General, not a fucking Lieutenant Colonel.
But the two Karak nodded with satisfaction. "Lieutenant Colonel Brandi Forbes. We have much to tell you."