Closing her eyes, Lewis takes in a deep calming breath, probably counting to ten before releasing it. When she speaks again, the saccharin cordiality is so fake it makes my teeth ache. “Ms. Young, despite what popular culture has made you believe, we are not a bunch of mad scientists here. Do you really think we’d squander potential relations with intelligent and technologically advanced alien races by strapping the first alien we find to a table and cutting him to pieces? To repeat your alien boyfriend’s words, we are not the enemy.”
I’m opening my mouth to object to her calling Omni my boyfriend, but ultimately snap it shut. Now is probably not the best time to argue over trivialities.
“If you had come to us straight away,” Lewis continues, “all of this could have been avoided. Instead, your naive little mind turned us into horror movie villains. Did you really think we would buy your silly decoy trick?”
“Hey!” Caleb protests, looking affronted. “I was a great decoy.”
Lewis’ smile is as dry as the Sahara desert. “I’m sure you were,” she says in a tone that says, “shut up and let the grown-ups talk,” as clearly as if she’d said it out loud. “Now, if we couldpleaseget back to the matter at hand? One hundred and eighty-seven people were taken last night and, if we’re to believe the winged Casanova here, they will soon be taken off planet and sold as slaves. We’re not letting that happen.”
My breath catches as I turn to Omni with nothing but horror in my eyes. One hundred and eighty-seven people? Oh my god. His solemn nod punctuates the severity of the situation. “Imani—”
“I’m not buying it,” Imani interrupts, still scowling at Lewis. “You’re interested in rescuing a measly one hundred and eightyseven people and not in that shiny spaceship or in the chance to study a real fucking alien? What’s the real deal here?”
Sighing, Lewis sinks into a chair. “Weareinterested in protecting people, Doctor, believe it or not,” she says, her words lacking the previous bite. “However, it’s true that there are special circumstances in this case that allow us to allocate more resources and slightly…shift our priorities. One of the people taken last night is the daughter of someone very important and we’ve been instructed to pull out all the stops to assure her safe return. That doesn’t mean we wouldn’t be searching for these people and doing everything in our power to rescue them if this woman wasn’t among the kidnapped. It just means our budget is bigger and we can use all of the resources at the government’s disposal.”
“Like satellites,” Imani concludes.
“Like satellites. Fighter jets, submarines, aircraft carriers…” Lewis smirks. “I could probably get a nuke here in under twenty minutes.”
“Um,” Caleb clears his throat. “I don’t think that would be beneficial?”
Lewis rolls her eyes. “Yes, Mr. Fisher, I’m well aware of that. Thank you for your brilliant observation. Dr. Rhodes?”
Imani glances over at Omni and only when he nods, she agrees, “Fine. But my program is on my laptop. I…”
“We brought your devices here with us.”
“Of course you did. I hope you fed my cat, too.”
Lewis’ face brightens with the first genuine smile I’ve seen on her. “It is being cared for. By the way, once this is over, you will be offered a job here.”
Crossing her arms in front of her chest, Imani challenges Lewis with a once over and a smirk, “And if I refuse?”
Lewis’ smile only grows wider. “You won’t. Follow me, please.”
As they leave the room, Caleb sighs. “I must be losing my charm. Why is the hot military chick flirting with Imani and not me?”
“What?” I gasp, nearly choking on my own tongue. “Lewis was not flirting with Imani!”
“Finnie, darling, she totally was flirting, and our girl was dishing it out as good as she was getting! Hate sex is a given in this situation.”
Omni, the traitor, chuckles. “I agree. They have connection.” At my look of disgruntlement, Omni shrugs as if to say, it’s true. The momentary argument over who is going to fuck who fades as I remember the gravity of our current situation. Dropping the attitude, I stare dejectedly at Omni and Caleb. Omni’s mirthful expression fades and for once, Caleb keeps his inappropriate comments to himself.
“Hopefully, we are not late to save kidnapped humans,” Omni finally says, breaking the silence.
“Yeah,” I agree, guilt gnawing at me as I recall what Lewis’ had said. If we’d gone to the authorities straight away, Garresh’s ship would have been found long ago and none of those one hundred and eighty-seven people would be in danger right now. It’s all my fault. I was the one who kept feeding Omni’s fear of capture with my own until we’d convinced ourselves that contacting anyone would be a death sentence for Omni. In my stupid quest to protect one alien, I’d put one hundred and eighty seven human lives in danger and now I have to do everything in my power to fix it. Which unfortunately, is not a lot.
Chapter 26
Omni
PullingFinintoaside hug, I study the screens in the command room. While Colonel Lewis refused to let me participate in their assault on Garresh’s ship, she did at least agree to let us watch the live feed. Listening to the radio communications while watching the human strike teams move into position, I’m hit by an overwhelming sense of longing that catches me unprepared. They might be a different species using different language and technology, but the basics are the same.
I find myself fiercely missing my crew. Between the six of us, we would have had no issue storming the Eclipse Raider,capturing Garresh and his men, then rescuing the captives, but these humans don’t know what they’re getting into. I tried to give them as much information as I can, keenly aware of how much I was violating the Non-Interference Directive, but they’re still unlikely to succeed in their mission without heavy losses. Losses that will be on me because, as Colonel Lewis rightly pointed out, all of this could have been avoided if I had just come to them sooner. Instead, I had hesitated, being irrationally terrified of getting cut into pieces as a glorified lab specimen.
Turns out, watching too much television really does cause brain rot.
“Delta 1 in position,” a voice announces over the comms, followed immediately by the status reports of six other teams. On the feed from the helmet-mounted cameras, I can see the Eclipse Raider, neatly tucked between a sharp cliff and a dense forest. It’s no wonder visual surveillance was unable to pick it up before Imani reconfigured the satellites, especially since the ship landed much further away than we thought. Instead of landing in the desert where I ended up, it managed to reach the mountains covering the northern part of the state.
