Invaders: The Chronowarp Page 20

  “You’re going to have to land so we can board—”

  “No,” Hap said. “I no land to get shot down. You must come up to space plane.”

  “How’s that going to work?” I asked.

  “I have idea,” Hap said. “Want to hear?”

  I wasn’t sure I did, but I said, “Yeah.” After hearing Hap’s idea, I hated it even more than I’d thought I would.

  “We agree,” Rax said.

  “What?” I asked. “Are you crazy? I’m not going to do that.”

  “We’re running out of time,” Rax said. “This will save time.”

  “What is payment?” Hap asked. “I need concrete offer.”

  “You’ll have a post in the CAU,” Rax said. “You’ll be their alien advisor. At the same time, you’ll keep the space plane, provided it survives this mission.”

  “I keep Ukrainian Mafia too?”

  “No,” I said. “You’ll have to give that up, including your special clone.”

  “I not sure,” Hap said. “I boss on this end. I like being boss.”

  “The CAU is a safer bet,” Rax said. “Besides, I will guarantee your position. I will do this as the Galactic Guard representative. That could help clear you of your crimes, later, with the Guard.”

  “What crimes?” Hap asked.

  “Your time with the Min Ve, for one,” Rax said.

  “He have letter of marquee,” Hap said.

  “I don’t think the Guard will see it the same way,” Rax told him.

  Hap’s shoulders deflated even more. “I want this in writing.”

  “Of course,” Rax said.

  “Before—”

  “Pushing one’s luck is bad for business,” Rax said.

  Hap chuckled, nodding shortly thereafter. “I wait for your team. This good. Hap agrees. Hap can use pardon. You could have gotten cheaper deal. But now you agree. Hap likes Rax.”

  The connection dropped.

  Rax didn’t say anything right away. I wondered if a Rax Prime crystal could be pissed off at a monkey alien.

  “Have you cleared Hap’s position on the CAU with the Director?” I asked.

  “Not yet,” Rax said, sourly. “But once I tell the Director, he’s bound to agree.”

  “Oh, sure,” I said, while rolling my eyes. “He’s bound to.”

  -52-

  We debated with the Director. He wanted to send a special CAU team along with us.

  “We can hit the aliens on the beach,” the Director said.

  “Have you read through the field reports carefully?” I asked. “The Eshom can control minds. He can have our people killing each other for him.”

  “What do you suggested then?” the Director asked sulkily.

  “The first thing,” I said, “is no nuclear warheads. Having Rax with me, I can withstand the Eshom’s mental domination.”

  “True,” Rax said.

  “And there you have it,” I said. “I’m the commando team—”

  “I’m going along,” Jenna said, interrupting.

  “I cannot protect you as well,” Rax told her.

  “I don’t need your protection,” she said.

  “And when the Eshom takes over your mind…?” I asked.

  “I’ll shoot myself the moment I feel mental pressure,” she said. “I remember what that feels like, as I’ve felt it twice now. I’m never going to let the alien take over my mind again.”

  “Jenna…” I said, horrified at her suggestion.

  “You don’t think I have the nerve?” she asked.

  “That’s the point,” I said. “I know you do. I don’t want to be there when you shoot yourself.”

  She looked away, sighed and regarded me again. “This is the fate of the world, Logan. You might joke about it. I can’t. I took an oath to defend our planet from aliens. I plan to fulfil my oath to the best of my ability. I’ve failed several times already. I have to go.” She turned to the Director. “For the sake of everyone I lost on the chinooks, for the sake of Tony and Mouse, Captain Bright and the others on the Swordfish, you have to let me go. I have to finish this.”

  The Director sat there grinning, proud as could be of his suicidal field agent.

  I think I hated him for that. Why didn’t he volunteer to go? The brass hats sitting home while sending others—they were the worst scum.

  “Field Agent Jenna Jones goes,” the Director said.

  “Yes,” Rax said. “Logan can use one person to help him.”

  I didn’t like Jenna coming, but I could see I wasn’t going to stop it. One of my guiding principles was to only argue about things I could actually influence.

  With that covered, we talked about ways to kill the Eshom.

  “Energy weapons should be able to disrupt it and therefore dissipate it if fired long enough,” Rax said.

  “Do you know that to be true?” I asked.

  “I am not one hundred percent certain, no,” Rax said. “But it is our best alternative.”

  “Great,” I said. “We’re going to be on a beach, right? If we can submerge the Eshom—”

  “You fail to appreciate the seriousness of the situation,” the Director told me.

  “Forget about your H-bombs,” I said.

  The Director became tight-lipped. I had no doubt he would have bombers as a backup plan. I’d have to get in, get the Eshom and get out before the bombers arrived.

  I wanted the monofilament knife back. The Director agreed. The Americans who had first picked us up had taken it. A tech man entered and gave us a few specialty weapons. After that, we filed out to a waiting helicopter.

  It was time to get into the stratosphere so we could transfer onto Hap’s space plane and get this show on the road.

  -53-

  “Why did we agree to this again?” I asked Rax.

  “It is a simple transfer,” Rax said. “There will be no problems.”

  I stood inside a huge Air Force cargo plane. I wore a pressurized suit as I hung onto mesh netting. The back of the plane was open and special operators extended a boom toward Hap’s space plane.

  It was too taxing to watch the trickiness of the maneuver. My palms were sweaty and my stomach kept curling up inside. I did not want to do this.

  Sometime later, an operator patted me on the shoulder.

  I turned to him, and the sickening feeling increased.

  The boom was gone from the back. Now, a special rope was stretched between our two crafts. The cargo plane was higher than the space plane in order to give us momentum.

  I approached the cord like a man walking to his hanging.

  “All you have to do is slide there,” the operator shouted to me through his mask. “This is just like a zip-line.”

  “Oh, sure,” I said. I’d never gone on a zip-line, hating even the idea of them.

  We were at the upper limit of the cargo plane’s altitude. The world was far, far below. Jenna and I didn’t wear parachutes, although we wore pressurized suits due to the low oxygen levels. The operators assured us we wouldn’t need any parachutes.

  My hands shook too badly for me to attach my hookup to the line. The operator did it for me. He patted me on the back one more time.

  As I stood there at the edge of the opening with the world far below, I wanted to push myself forward. I just couldn’t do it. Finally, the operator shoved me. My feet slipped, I fell forward and I clenched my teeth together as I squeezed my eyes shut. This was too much for me. This was—

  I felt myself moving as wind howled around me. I wanted to open my eyes and see what was happening. I couldn’t do that, either.

  “Logan,” Rax warned through an earbud.

  My eyes snapped open, staring through goggles. I saw a pressure-suited man waiting for us at the open door of the space plane. I was heading for him fast.

  “Grab the line,” Rax said. “Slow your speed.”

  That was one of the hardest things I ever did. I tore my gloved hands from where they gripped the harness, gr
abbed the shivering line above and squeezed for all I was worth.

  I hit the man waiting for me. He catapulted backward onto the floor. I hung there, and I almost went backward between the two planes.

  The man on the floor got up. He rubbed his chest as if it hurt. Then, he lurched toward me, grabbed an arm and pulled me farther inside. Finally, he unhooked me.

  I rushed past him, deeper into the plane.

  I sat down in a seat, panting. My heart raced. I never wanted to transfer like that again.

  Soon, Jenna entered the plane. She unhooked herself and helped the pressure-suited man shut the door.

  Time passed as the interior of the plane pressurized.

  Finally, Jenna took off her mask. The man took off his. It was Sergei Gromyko in the flesh. Again. Somehow, I had known that Hap had another clone of him around.

  Feeling marginally better, and expecting a double-cross soon, I took off my mask.

  “Hello,” Sergei said.

  I nodded, surged to my feet and headed for the piloting compartment.

  “Wait,” Sergei said. “Hap doesn’t want anyone in the compartment with him.”

  “We might as well get this sorted out now,” I said. “Are you going to try to stop me?”

  Sergei blinked at me. He might have been slender, but he was capable.

  “Are any of your men going to try to stop me?” I asked.

  “It is just me,” Sergei said. “That was the agreement, I believe.”

  I laughed. “Hap doesn’t have any more Ukrainians aboard?”

  Sergei looked down for just a moment.

  “How many extras are there?” I asked.

  Sergei looked as if he wanted to answer, but kept mum.

  “Right,” I said, as I headed for the piloting compartment.

  Sergei didn’t try to stop me. No other Ukrainians showed up. I imagined Hap had them down in the cargo area with his escape pod.

  The first door wasn’t locked. The second might have been. I heard it click just before I reached it. Hap settled back onto the piloting seat as I opened the door.

  The monkey-alien seemed just as treacherous as ever as he tried to look innocent. The tip of his long tail flicked back and forth.

  “Hap happy to see Logan,” he said.

  “That’s great,” I said. Maybe I hadn’t yet readjusted from the harrowing zip-line journey. I didn’t have anything witty to add.

  I advanced and sat on the navigator’s chair. A glance around showed me no port-a-potty. I noticed that Hap did not wear any clothes. I wondered about that. Did other aliens consider that a barbaric practice? I’d have to ask Rax later.

  “Is Advisor Unit here?” Hap asked.

  I took Rax out of a pocket, showing him off.

  Hap seemed to loosen up at that. Had he been worried I’d double-cross him in some way?

  “Let’s get down to it,” I said. “I notice you’re climbing back into space.”

  “I no trust Director this low in atmosphere,” Hap said.

  “Maybe that makes two of us,” I grumbled.

  Hap glanced at me in surprise.

  “I’m the Galactic Guard officer in the situation,” I said hastily. “I don’t think the Director likes me stepping on his jurisdiction.”

  Hap ingested that before nodding. “Same everywhere. Small being with authority always hard to work with.”

  “A universal truth,” I said. “Okay, Hap. Let’s get it on. Despite our agreement, you brought along extra Ukrainians.”

  His eyes goggled. I had the feeling he was going to lie. Then he said, “Need more.”

  “No we don’t. We’re dealing with an Eshom, remember?”

  “After you kill Eshom, need more.”

  “Where are they?”

  Hap hesitated before admitting, “Bottom level cargo bay.”

  “How many?” I asked.

  He hesitated less this time. “Eleven marksmen.”

  I debated my options. “They have to stay on the plane until the Eshom is dead.”

  “Hap agree to that.”

  “Oh, and I’ll need your best beam weapon.”

  “What?” Hap glanced at me in dismay. “That not in deal.”

  “Kazz and Philemon have the Guard ship’s personal weaponry locked up,” I said. “That means I’m without a beam weapon.”

  “Not my problem,” Hap said.

  “You’d better believe it’s your problem. If we can’t kill the Eshom, none of us is leaving that beach alive.”

  “Hap no plan to land on beach. You jump off plane as Hap skim water.”

  “That’s a load of crap,” I said. “You’re landing on the beach. You’re not going to strand us—”

  “Logan,” Rax said, chiming in. “If I may.”

  I waved at Hap. “Go ahead. Talk some sense into the monkey.”

  “Is this good Guard, bad Guard routine?” Hap asked.

  “You know the rules,” Rax told him. “You’re working for a pardon. That means full cooperation with the Guard. That means you supply us with what we need.”

  “Beam weapon on this primitive planet worth weight in platinum,” Hap complained.

  “What’s a pardon worth?” Rax asked.

  “Nothing if Hap dead.”

  “Hap has a greater chance of living if Logan has a powerful beam weapon,” Rax pointed out.

  Hap pouted at the controls.

  We were nearing orbital space by this point. The space plane could move when it had to.

  “One beam weapon,” Hap said glumly. “Want extended pardon now.”

  “No changes to the deal,” Rax said. “Trying to do that in the middle of an operation is considered bad manners.”

  “Good deal worth more than manners,” Hap replied.

  “Not if you don’t get a pardon,” Rax said. “Besides, you want to show the Earthmen that they can trust you. That way they’ll want you on the CAU.”

  Hap glanced at me, saying, “Hap very trustworthy.”

  “So I’ve noticed,” I said.

  Hap blinked several times. Maybe he was unsure what I meant by that. Maybe he was sure and was trying to figure out how to change my thinking.

  “I’m locking the cargo hatch,” I said. “Have Sergei get me the beam weapon, and let’s get to the Bermuda Triangle as fast as we can.”

  Hap said nothing, although the space plane began to bank as we headed for the other side of the world.

  -54-

  Rax explained to me a better way to seal the floor hatch to the cargo bay. I used the beam weapon Sergei had brought me. It was an old Ungul device.

  Using the lowest setting, I beamed around the hatch, fusing the metal together.

  “Hap’s upset,” Sergei said, watching us from the hatch between the first and second compartments. This space plane had the same specs as the first one.

  “Can Hap see through your eyes?” I asked.

  Sergei hesitated before shaking his head.

  “So you told him,” I said, crouched beside the cargo hatch with the beam weapon in my hand.

  It was an old-fashioned-looking beam weapon. One changed the setting by twisting the thick tubular part in front. It was heavier than a regular revolver of the same size.

  “I suspect this is the crudest beam weapon Hap possesses,” Rax had told me earlier.

  “I realize you disapprove of my action,” Sergei told me. “It is…part of my condition for existing.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I get that. It’s just—”

  Rax made a sound I didn’t understand. A moment’s reflection caused me to believe the sound was probably like a human clearing his throat. I got the crystal’s meaning then. This wasn’t the moment to try to change the conditions of Sergei’s servitude. We could worry about that later…provided we had a later to worry about.

  “Jenna,” I called.

  She squeezed past Sergei in order to enter the second compartment.

  “I want the two of you to stay together,” I said
.

  Jenna and Sergei traded glances.

  “Trust is good,” I said. “Verification is better.”

  Jenna nodded. She hadn’t cracked a smile since coming onto the space plane. She didn’t crack one now at my President Reagan quote. I couldn’t say I blamed her. She was psyching herself up to shoot herself if she had to. It was a crazy plan.

  Right, I told myself. Here was a six-month revelation about the woman. She had suicidal tendencies when trying to protect the human race. That seemed a bit too dedicated to me, a trifle too serious. She might expect too much from her man.

  I left them and returned to the piloting compartment. “Any sign of the Guard ship?” I asked.

  Hap shook his head. The monkey-alien was pouting again. I liked him better like this. If Hap was too happy, it meant he was in the middle of pulling a fast one or thinking about it.

  The space plane was making good progress up here, having passed the continent of Africa some time ago.

  “All right, Rax,” I said. “It’s time to help Hap.”

  I pulled Rax out of a coat pocket and set him on the navigator console. The sheathing had a number of lights. They blinked in colorful sequences. The space plane’s nav board lit up after that.

  “This Hap’s plane,” the monkey complained. “What you do? You need my permission first.”

  “Think Galactic Guard pardon,” I said. “Keep thinking pardon and you’ll have the right attitude.”

  That brought on more pouting.

  I have to admit, that brought a wide smile to my face. I was still keyed up from the zip-line ride in the stratosphere. I didn’t like the idea of eleven Ukrainian thugs waiting in the cargo hold. Least of all, I dreaded meeting the Eshom on the strange beach. If we failed to stop the Eshom—

  I made a fist. Maybe I should have been thinking about meeting Kazz and Philemon. I wanted to belt Kazz to kingdom come, and yet, how wise was that? He’d beaten me in a slugfest last time. Could I take the Neanderthal one on one?

  “You bet I can,” I muttered.

  “Hap not hear you.”

  “We’re going to kick some butt,” I told the monkey.

  “Butt kicking fine,” Hap said. “Winning better.”

  “Yeah…” I said. “Tell me about it.”

  ***