Excerpt:
Hope hit the button on her bedside clock, and its
mechanical voice stated, “Two-fifty-three.” With a weary sigh, she flopped
back onto her small cot of a bed. The Refarians didn’t trust her yet, at
least not completely, so they’d given her lousy quarters down in the belly
of their main base, right next to some enlisted guy who stayed up half the
night playing what sounded like an alien version of poker.
In fact from what she could tell, the soldiers they’d
bunked her up with were basically no different than the guys she’d known
growing up on half a dozen Army bases scattered around the globe. Well, with
one major exception: They weren’t from this planet. And most of them had
golden-red skin, almost Native American in appearance. A few random soldiers
she’d seen seemed blonde and fair-skinned, but they were the exception, and
her failing eyesight might have misled her about their appearance anyway.
The soldier who had the quarters next to hers was
rowdy as all get out, played his music too loud after hours, and was
generally an inconsiderate slob. Like now. There was a sudden uproar of
laughter, some shouting of male voices, and that did it for her. She reached
around on the dark floor, feeling in the blackness for her shoe, and hurled
it at the wall. “Hey! Shut up!” she yelled.
If you lived with the soldiers you had to act like
one. In response, somebody banged on the wall and shouted at her in Refarian,
then there was some general whooping that she chose to ignore.
She rolled onto her side, held her pillow over both
ears and focused on sleep—something that had evaded her ever since she’d
arrived at this alien compound. Well, correction, sleep didn’t evade her:
Restful sleep was as elusive as her fading eyesight.
She chalked it all up to the dreams. Ever since being
drugged back at Warren, she’d been continuing to dream of Scott Dillon.
Sometimes he was her husband; sometimes she was pregnant; often they were
having dimension-shattering sex. Literally--since apparently what she kept
dreaming about and seeing was from some alternate reality. That’s how the
only other human in the compound, Kelsey Wells, had explained it to her in
the most rational, logical tone. Yeah, it made total sense!
It was as if she’d chosen to step into a living
“Twilight Zone” episode the minute she’d hopped on that transport with
Lieutenant Dillon—a decision that had upended her world completely, and it
definitely didn’t help matters that her eyesight issues were taking a
decided turn for the worse. The altitude up in this corner of Wyoming was
even higher than back in Denver, where her degenerative retinopathy had
already been sliding her into darkness at an accelerated rate.
Maybe this wasn’t the right thing after all,
she thought, loneliness choking at her. Maybe I should have never
stepped into something I knew almost nothing about.
But she’d made a professional career of walking into
the unknown since that was pretty much what working for the FBI translated
to. This situation in the alien compound was no different; it was also the
right choice after witnessing the Refarians defend humanity when Warren Air
Force Base had come under attack. No way was she consigning herself to the
outside of this particular alien conspiracy, not now that she understood the
stakes. It didn’t take a genius to realize that Earth was in serious danger.
More noise erupted next door, and e nough really was
enough already. Leaping out of bed, she tugged on a borrowed pair of jeans,
tossed on a military issue t-shirt and stormed into the narrow hallway to
find utter darkness. She stood there, listening to the hiss of some sort of
equipment. A radiator? A weapon? With her fingertips she felt her way along
the corridor wall, locating the door of her neighbor.
She lifted her fist and banged hard. There was
mumbling from within, then sudden light, blurred and covered with black
spots—the same ones that always marred her fading vision. A tall figure
loomed over her which wasn’t that hard when you were only four foot-eleven.
“Listen, buddy”—she jabbed at the air with her
fingertip—“it’s almost three in the morning.”
A husky laugh was her answer, then a surly, “Look,
human, you’re on our base. This is our home on your
outpost, so deal.”
She tilted her chin upward, summoning a look of
defiance. “Yeah? Well get this—I work for the FBI. Want me to have your
license plate called in some time?”
In half a heartbeat she heard the click of a weapon
engaging. “Wanna say that again, human?” Tough Guy threatened. But from
behind him a softer feminine voice called out, “Taggart, lay off of her. She
just got here. And she’s on our side.”
The smaller figure stepped into the arc of light.
“Sorry about that,” the woman said, and slipping an arm about her shoulder,
led Hope back toward her own room. “I’m Anna, and he’s a nutcase. I’ll see
if they won’t move you tomorrow so you can get some sleep.”
“Not my fault humans need to rest all the time!”
Taggart complained, then slammed his door behind him.
Hope could have cried from gratitude. “I shouldn’t
have baited him.”
“Actually, you should have.” Anna laughed as they
reached Hope’s room again. “He deserves every bit of it.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Listen, are you all right? Is there anything you
need?” Anna asked, following Hope into her darkened quarters.
Hope dropped heavily onto the side of her cot. “Just
to see someone—anyone—who can help me figure out what I’m going to do around
here. I’ve been to visit Lieutenant Dillon a few times, but….”
“He’s not doing very well,” Anna finished, her voice
clipped and formal. It seemed to be the way this alien spoke once away from
her soldier comrades next door.
“I’m worried about him,” Hope admitted. “Have you
heard anything more about his prognosis? The medics won’t tell me a thing.”
“He’s going to recover, but physical therapy will be
required. And time. Lots of time.”
“Scott’s my only friend in this place, Anna. He’s the
reason I came at all because I knew he was on the right side of things.”
And because I felt drawn to him for reasons I
couldn’t begin to understand, she wanted to add, but swallowed the
words.
“Well Lieutenant Dillon is nothing if not the right
side of things,” Anna said with a quiet laugh.
“What’s that mean?”
“I’m crazy about the lieutenant, even though he rides
us hard. He’s a good leader to all of us.”
Crazy about him? Crazy how? Hope wondered,
slightly panicked, but shoved the emotion aside. “Is he a high ranking
officer?” she asked coolly. “I mean, he’s only a lieutenant, right? I’m not
sure what his position is.”
“So, they really haven’t told you anything, have
they?”
“Only about the mitres. Kelsey said that some sort of
alternate dimension was created by the same device that wiped out all the
Antousians back on Warren. That there were… side effects. But nothing about
the lieutenant.”
“Well we don’t have the same rankings you’re
accustomed to. Anyone in higher authority is called ‘lieutenant.’ Actual
hierarchy isn’t so much a part of our system, so that’s the rough English
translation. The equivalent, if you will.”
“Then is he high up the chain?” Hope’s heart suddenly
sped to a rapid tempo. At last! Some answers about the literal man of her
dreams.
“He’s second in command below Commander Bennett over
the entire Refarian military.”
“Wow, didn’t see that coming.” Hope shook her head.
She’d known he must be important by the deference the night nurse showed
him—either that, or the woman had a major case of the hots for the man. One
of the two. But one of their military chiefs? That she hadn’t guessed at
all.
“Do you have any idea what he looks like even?” Anna
asked her seriously. “I mean, can you see much? You wear those thick
glasses.”
Here we go again—someone thinking I’m helpless,
she thought. “He has black hair and dark eyes and fair skin,” she answered
evenly, happy to show Anna just how capable she was despite her vision
problems. “He’s about six feet tall, and I gather that he’s pretty darn good
looking.”
“How do you know all that?”
“I still see some, it’s just blurry.”
Anna shifted beside her. “No, about the good looking
part—how can you tell that much?”
Yeah, like I want to tell you that I keep dreaming
he’s making love to me in about five hundred different physical positions,
making me scream his name at the top of my lungs and giving me such
world-shattering orgasms that I can hardly recover once I wake up.
Hope snorted. “Don’t ask.”
She was thinking of the dream where Scott took her
home from some bar to a motel room and had her up against a wall. That one
seemed to recur most often, and always left her panties wet when she woke.
“Well, for the record, Scott Dillon is extremely
handsome. Every single woman in this camp has a thing for him.”
An ugly shot of jealousy rang out in Hope’s mind. “Oh…
well, so then he must have plenty of women.” Her voice sounded falsely
peppy, too breathless.
Anna patted her shoulder, and walked toward the open
door. “Oh, he has plenty of women, but not around here.”
“Why not?” Hope asked in surprise.
“Because there’s only one kind of woman our good
lieutenant likes, and that’s your kind. Blonde, petite, buxom, and”—Anna
paused at the door—“human, Ms. Harper. Very, very human.”
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