Chapter Twenty-Two
We shoot from the ship like a bullet, the stars spinning way too fast through the window.
“I’m going to be sick!” I shout, trying not to focus on the stars.
Kest grips my hand. “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. Nanites, remember?”
Sure enough, I’m not actually experiencing nausea—just the extreme acceleration, followed by some kind of shock that rocks the pod like it’s been slapped.
“Was that your ship?” I ask.
“Yeah. And I don’t want to alarm you, but there’s no way your space agencies didn’t notice that. So, we’re not out of the fire just yet.”
“Great.”
The spin of the shock wears off, but is replaced by more heavy turbulence as we hit Earth’s atmosphere. Everything shakes, and out the window of the pod I see fire that quickly turns to daylight. Kest lifts me into position against his body, folding his arms around my head, creating a helmet of muscle. I breathe in his scent and sigh in relief.
“Is this going to be a rough landing?”
“Shouldn’t be. Not taking any chances.”
I smile. I’ve never had a guy shield me with his body during a crash landing in an escape pod before. That’s a sentence I never thought I’d say.
The descent takes longer than I expect, though I don’t mind being held. I can feel his hard body through my singlet, and the site of Earth’s blue sky brings tears to my eyes. While I’m happy to be back on my home world, soon to be surrounded by humans, there was much I enjoyed about being out there, in space. It was an incredible adventure, and I’m not sure I want it to be over.
However, like it or not, the ground soon comes into view around us; fields of green and white stretch to the horizon like floor tiles, which I recognize as miles and miles of farmland.
“Where are we?”
“South Dakota.”
I laugh, shaking my head. After living my whole life in Manhattan, I’d probably be more at home on the Dominus than the Midwest.
Although I half expect our pod to slam into the countryside at full speed, some sort of engine activates with a soft trill from the onboard computer. We decelerate immediately, and soon we’re touching down on solid ground. Outside, thousands of cornstalks have been flattened and burned by our ship’s thrusters.
“Holy shit! Kest, did you make the crop circles?”
He laughs hard and winks. “Maybe some of them.”
The hatch to our pod opens, allowing Kest to carry me out, which he says will be easier than just letting me go. “You really have to watch your step getting out of these things,” he adds.
Beneath us, singed cornstalks crackle under our feet, and the smell of roasted corn makes my stomach growl. Kest drags me away from the crash site, hand tight around mine; though all I hear is the distant rumble of combines and the chirping of birdsong, I feel a looming threat. Even Kest isn’t tall enough to see past the cornstalks, but his hearing reaches much farther than mine.
“That’s good enough,” he says at last. “Once they start looking outside the immediate landing zone, they’re going to see us on infrared no matter what. Let’s just make the most of the time we have until then.”
He pulls me in for a kiss, one that seems to go on forever, our lips locking us in bliss. I have a million questions about what’s going to happen to us, but I don’t care. Whatever comes, we’ll get through it, I know. I trust Kest completely, and if right now all he wants is to be with me, then that’s what I want too.
During our kiss, we find our way down to the ground, lying in the dry soil. Cuddled against his body, I feel the calm beat of his heart and sigh, almost feeling as though I could sleep. Escaping his ship caused a rush of adrenaline that’s only now starting to wear off.
“Do you think your people will come for us?” I ask after a while, looking up into the sky.
“Not right away, no. Bakan probably had a plan, something to keep the Council occupied until my ship destroyed Earth,” Kest sighs. “I’m guessing Bakan faked an attack on himself and made it look like we did it. When it failed, we fled the Dominus.”
I nod. “And if we were on the run, Earth would be too obvious, so why would we go there?”
“Exactly. Not a terrible plan.”
“Do you think it will work? Will your people really believe we attacked Bakan? Why would we do that?”
Kest plants his fingers into the soil and draws circles in the dirt. “When he and his associates left the Council meeting, they acted disrespectfully. If I wasn’t busy falling in love with you, I might have cared. Still, I was within my rights to demand a formal apology. Maybe people will think Bakan and I came to blows over that.”
“I hope not,” I mumble, feeling my strength ebbing. I’m on the verge of losing consciousness, so comfortable I am in his arms, but then I hear a noise that makes my eyes shoot back open. It’s soft, but I can make it out, the distinct hum of a helicopter in the distance.
“They’re coming,” I whisper, though by now Kest surely hears it too.
“Yes. Don’t worry, pet. We’ll be fine. Just tell them the truth. Try not to be insulted if they don’t believe your story, even though you’re not lying. They’re going to want to believe you’re crazy, rather than the alternative…”
“Okay,” I say, fear growing in my gut despite his reassurance. “What about you? Will you tell them the truth?”
He chuckles. “Oh, yes. In fact, I’m looking forward to it. It’s so rare I get to tell members of a lesser species who I really am. The people who think they’re in charge always take it the worst.”
I laugh too, imagining their incredulity. They have no idea what they’re in for.
We’re kissing, embraced in each other’s arms, when the helicopter gets close enough to drop a dozen armed soldiers down into the cornfield, the stalks whipping back and forth in the chopper’s wake. They scream at us to stop what we’re doing and to put our hands on our heads for what seems like an eternity. We keep kissing, refusing to part until we’re ready.
“Okay, pet. Do as they say,” Kest finally orders, lifting his hands into the air and getting on his knees. I smile at him with a hint of sadness, and then obey. I laugh as the soldiers use zip ties to bind our arms, knowing Kest could certainly escape from a few pieces of plastic, if he wanted.
The soldiers escort us both out to the edge of the field, where dozens of military vehicles are waiting for us: trucks full of soldiers, unmarked SUVs and even a pair of tanks. Drones circle overhead like hornets, ready to strike. I don’t complain when they load Kest and me into separate vans; it was to be expected.
After more than an hour of driving, the opaque walls of the van keeping me from having any idea where we are, I fall asleep.
* * *
I wake up with my hands cuffed behind my back, the restraints threaded through the bars forming the back of a chair. I’m seated, with my ankles also cuffed, before a black table. When I look around, all I see are gray cement walls, a metal door with an electronic lock, and a long mirror.
An interrogation room.
Well, that fits.
I try to doze again, but soon a man enters. Middle-aged and moderately handsome, he wears a black suit and a guarded expression. He says nothing. He sets a tablet down on the table as he pulls out a chair to sit across from me.
After months of being in the presence of Dominars, it’s an odd experience to meet another human. Normally a man like him—a government agent, no doubt—might seem intimidating. I refuse to say I feel like Bakan, looking down at an inferior, but I definitely no longer see a person like him as someone to be feared. After all, I’m the one who’s traveled across the galaxy and he’s the one who knows nothing.
“Haley Feyn, I’m Agent Kent Simmons. You’ve been missing for several weeks now, and you’re wanted for questioning in relation to a pair of homicides that occurred in New York. Care to explain where you’ve been?”
Okay, so he knows a few things.
“Think you can get me some coffee?” I ask, almost wishing I was a smoker so I could demand a pack. “And maybe some eggs and bacon? I’m starving.”
Simmons grins and nods at the mirror. “How about you start talking, and maybe we’ll see about your requests.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll tell you everything,” I reply. Leaning forward in my seat, I add, “But I’ll be a lot nicer about it with a full stomach.”
Simmons rolls his eyes, but gives whoever’s watching behind the mirror a look. “Fine. While we’re at it, is there anything else?”
I think a second, then shake at my cuffs. “Yeah, take these things off. Are you really afraid of a tiny woman like me?”
“Should I be? How do I know you’re really Haley Feyn, and not some alien impersonator?”
I laugh, shaking my head. “If I were an impersonator, would I have landed in an escape pod after our ship blew up? Come on, don’t be silly. You know I’m unarmed, and I’m sure you’re monitoring my heart rate, eye movements, and body language for signs of deception. So, what’s that telling you?”
Before long, I’m freed of the cuffs, and a hot breakfast is delivered. As happy as I am to be eating familiar human food, it’s not as good as anything I ate on Ohalessa. The coffee, especially, is disgusting—but I guess this is probably some secret military base, and they don’t exactly have a Starbucks.
“Tell us about the man you were with,” Simmons asks after I’ve polished off my meal.
“Oh, Kest? Yeah, he’s an alien. Tens of thousands of years old, at least. Lived here on Earth for nearly a century. You guys didn’t know about him?”
The rest of the interrogation continues like this. I don’t mean to sound overconfident, but it’s how I feel. I start from the very beginning, with Chadwick Thorpe and his goons, and end with them finding us in a field in South Dakota. I leave out some of the intimate details about my time on Ohalessa with Kest, but they get the gist. Though the session begins with just Simmons in the room, by the time I finish a dozen different agents and scientists have joined us, presumably because there’s just not enough space in the observation area outside.
When I finish, I expect them to ask me questions, but they don’t.
“You do believe me, right? I don’t really have a reason to make any of this up.”
Simmons nods, rising from his seat. “Thank you for being so forthcoming, Miss Feyn,” he says, and then everyone in the room files out. As soon as they’re gone, a pair of soldiers enter. They cuff and blindfold me, and then we’re walking. We pause in several places, always waiting for a buzzer to go off and a click, which I figure are security doors. Finally there’s a stop where I hear the buzz, but instead of moving forward they remove my cuffs. Once I’m free, they push me forward and shut the door behind me.
I rip off the blindfold to see I’m in a prison cell.
“Oh, come on!” I shout.
There’s a cot, a sink, and a toilet; at the top of the room, a small square window pointed up at the sky.
Great.
* * *
Days go by without any word about Kest. The only interaction I get comes from the guards who deliver my meals. I try to stay cool, knowing Kest will be okay, but I miss him.
The nanites in my brain dig deep into my memories so I can listen to my favorite music. I sing along extra loud, not caring who is listening. I belt out ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ three times in a row, just because. I think about getting my nanites to hack the door locks, or the wireless communications, but I don’t want to risk my captors finding out I’m doing it. I did tell them about the nanites, but apparently they couldn’t find any trace of them in my blood sample, or on any brain scan.
“Tell us why that is,” says Simmons after my fifth day of imprisonment.
I shrug. “I don’t know—maybe the nanites are too small to see. Maybe Kest programmed them to avoid detection. Why not ask him?”
Simmons glares at me, and I’m getting fed up with being grilled and receiving nothing in return.
“I want to see him,” I say.
“I think you know that’s impossible,” he replies.
“Why? What are you doing to him?”
The agent leans against the door to my cell, arms folded across his chest. “We’re trying to find out how we can defend ourselves against this invasion, which may or may not happen at any moment.”
“There’s nothing you can do. If they come, there won’t be any stopping them,” I try to explain, not for the first time.
“That’s unacceptable.”
“And if they do come,” I continue, “it will be because the Council believed Kest, and they’re here to help save this world, not destroy it. You should be asking me how to best welcome them.”
Simmons sighs. “How do you know Bakan won’t try to finish what he started?”
That’s not a bad question, but he should understand by now. “Bakan thinks we’re doomed. If the Council doesn’t intervene, then his work is done. But if they do show up, there won’t be anything Bakan can do.”
“So, we just have to hope for the best?”
I nod. “Yes, although I don’t think the Council will be pleased if they show up and find Kest being mistreated.” Tears collect at the corners of my eyes; I can’t bear to think of what’s been done to him. I blink them away, my anger rising. “For your sake, he better be alive and well.”
Simmons says nothing as he keys open the door to my cell and leaves.