“I’ll give them something the Atlanteans couldn’t possibly know about.”
Cassie felt a sinking sensation in her belly even before she identified it as guilt.
“Uh … What if they got on the net? Wouldn’t the government consider that a possibility?”
Mark, David, and Carl all looked stunned and more than a little horrified.
Cassie decided she was glad she hadn’t told them that she’d mentioned the net to Raen.
“Something personal, then,” Carl said, “that could be looked up or checked out that wouldn’t be accessible to the net.”
“That doesn’t leave much,” Linda pointed out. “Even the information
we
can’t get to would probably be easy for them to access considering the level of their technology.
Our
government goes through everything.”
“We’ll give them something—and then maybe some information about the Atlanteans they’d find helpful.”
“
Spy
, you mean?” Shelly asked, horrified. “I’m not cut out for any cloak and dagger shit! And I’m not about to try!”
Carl gave her a look. “Whether you think you are or not, I can guarantee you the military isn’t going to see it that way. As soon as we hit that side of the water, they’ll detain us and we’ll be debriefed. Before they’re done they’ll know things we didn’t even know we’d noticed.”
“Oh, that’s just comforting as hell!” Linda snapped.
Cassie didn’t say anything. She felt both sick and faint, and she was trying not to look guilty by doing either.
“I think I’d rather just stay here,” Shelly put in, looking like she was about to cry.
“I don’t think we’ll have that option.”
“I say we go back to considering the possibility of sneaking out. We didn’t really consider that option,” Ben said.
“There’ll
be
subs,” Carl pointed out.
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“I think I could sneak past a sub,” Ben retorted. “Make like a dolphin and swim away.”
“Get real! We’re over a hundred miles from the coast!” Mark snapped. “Besides, they’ve probably got frogmen in the water looking for a way in on the underside—or planting explosives.”
“The media is probably just on the other side of the military,” Cassie suggested tentatively. “If we could get to them, they’d smuggle us out just to get the story.”
Everyone turned to stare at her blank faced. After a moment, when Cassie was really starting to get unnerved, they all turned to look at each other.
“Someone would have to volunteer to take the boat out as a decoy,” Carl said slowly, “unless we could somehow rig it. And if we got caught, we’d look guilty as hell.”
“I still like our odds a lot better,” Jimmy said, joining them at last. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I don’t like our proximity to Guantanamo Bay.”
* * * *
Cassie was so scared she spent the next day just trying to get a grip and pretend she had nothing to be afraid of. Fortunately, everyone else was so unnerved they didn’t seem to notice her condition.
By the second day she’d calmed down enough, though, to realize that she was already so deeply in trouble that it wasn’t likely that she could get any worse off—or much worse. It
was
possible, though, that by helping the Atlanteans—if by doing so she helped them to get the military to stand down—it would help her, too.
The problem was, even though she’d decided, she still didn’t want the others to know she’d deliberately helped. Inadvertent was one thing and they might try to help her by keeping their knowledge to themselves when questioned, but she didn’t think she could trust that ex-servicemen would do so if they knew she’d willingly helped the Atlanteans. She wasn’t nervy enough to take the chance, anyway.
She thought it also likely that the situation was going to worsen every day they delayed.
Finally, in desperation, she announced that she was going back to her quarters to bathe because she was tired of waiting her turn at the communal shower. To her relief, no one challenged her. In fact, Carl, David, and Shelly decided to do the same—which wasn’t at all helpful.
Even though it diverted attention from her, since they followed her out, and she didn’t know if any of the others might get the same idea, she abandoned her original plan—which was to go directly to the councilor’s chamber—and returned to her quarters instead. After pacing for a while, chewing her fingernails off while she tried to think of some way to get the attention of whoever was watching without giving herself away to the others, she finally just stopped in the middle of the floor and started waving at the ceiling and mouthing the word ‘Natara’.
She almost had heart failure when she turned at the sound of an approach and Raen stepped into the room. She’d thought she would get Natara to get word to the councilor that she would speak to him, but this, she realized, was far better—except she was almost sorry there wouldn’t be any sort of delay.
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Rushing to him, she placed her hands on his chest and rose up on her tiptoes to lean close to his ear. “I need you to take me to talk to the councilor. And I need for it to look as if you came to get me—not as if I asked you to come.”
When she leaned away, she studied his face to see if he’d understood.
To her relief, he did.
Setting her slightly away from him, he caught her arm and led her outside. “The High Councilor has sent for you. He will appreciate your cooperation,” he said as he led her out.
Linda peered from the door of her quarters just as Cassie looked back. “It’s ok,”
she said. “The councilor wanted to talk to me again. I’ll be back in just a little while.”
She glanced up at Raen as she faced forward again. His expression was grim, but he didn’t look at her. He surprised her when they turned off the corridor and into the waiting area off of the councilor’s private audience chamber. Halting abruptly, he swung her around to face him. “What is this about?” he asked, his voice harsh.
Both his expression and his voice unnerved her. “I decided to talk to the councilor and see if I could help,” she said a little breathlessly.
His lips tightened. “But you are afraid for the others to know.”
“I don’t really have time to explain,” she said anxiously.
“Make time,” he said grimly. “You are afraid. I want to know why.”
“It’s so complicated.”
His face hardened. “I have a good understanding.”
Abruptly, Cassie found herself fighting tears. “The things I told you before ….”
He studied her face for a moment and finally pulled her against his chest, wrapping his arms around her. “You are afraid they will tell and your people will consider it treachery.”
Dropping her head against his chest, she nodded, sniffing back the urge to cry. “I know they will. They’ll question us when we leave and whether the others really mean to tell or not, eventually they will.”
He said nothing for a time, merely held her, stroking her hair. “You should not speak to the councilor again. I told him you had refused.”
Cassie pulled away slightly, tipping her head back to look up at him in surprise.
“You did? Why?”
His gaze flickered over her face. “Because you said it would cause you trouble with your people.” He settled his palms on either side of her face. “Go back to your friends, now, and tell them you refused to talk the councilor. You have not said anything they can use against you.”
Cassie stared at him, feeling the fear she’d thought would swallow her easing. “I want to help. I’ve thought about it.”
“I want you to be safe. We do not need you to do this, Cassie.”
She felt vaguely offended. “You don’t think I can help.”
He let out an irritated sigh. “I believe you could, but we will manage regardless.
If you had not stumbled into the pull of the tractor beam, we would not have had your help in this, and we would still have managed. I am pleased that you want to help, but Councilor det Ophelia should not have asked it of you.”
“But … this could turn into a war,” she said in dismay.
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Raen shook his head slowly. “We will not make war on a people who can not defend themselves against us.”
“They may not give you a choice!” Cassie exclaimed in dismay, more afraid at his certainty that they couldn’t defend themselves against the Atlanteans than she had been before.
125
“There are always choices. It is only a matter of making the right one,” Raen said.
Cassie studied him with a mixture of confusion, hurt, and anger. She hadn’t realized until he’d refused her help how much she’d been counting on it solving
their
dilemma. Maybe he was right and the Atlanteans could avert disaster and, when they were released, it wouldn’t be as bad as they’d feared.
And maybe it would be worse.
It was certain to be worse if the U.S. attacked them and discovered all of their military might had no effect at all. That would only make them
more
determined.
It
was
their
problem, though, not the Atlanteans.
“Will you be safe with them?”
She nodded, tried for a smile of assurance, and failed. She cleared her throat.
“I’m not afraid of them.”
He frowned. “There is something more. What is it?”
Cassie shook head, managing a faint smile. “Nothing.”
“It is not ‘nothing’ if you are afraid. You said that it was complicated. You have not told me everything,” he said grimly, then frowned and looked around. “They will come to look for you if you do not go back. Go. Tonight when they are sleeping, come to me. I will wait for you here.”
It was tempting. As accustomed as she was to carrying her own load and solving her own problems, she wasn’t prepared for anything like this. Raen was. If anyone could help her, she knew it would be him. “I don’t think I could manage it,” she said finally.
“Someone always stays awake to watch.”
He smiled grimly. “Not always—in fact rarely. Your watchers are not accustomed to being sentinels. Wait until they are asleep and come to me,” he repeated.
Cassie gave him a doubtful look. “I’ll try,” she said finally.
He held her when she would’ve pulled away, drawing her closer instead. She sucked in a sharp breath when his lips brushed hers but lifted to meet his kiss. Warmth flooded her as his lips melded with hers, pleasure on so many levels it was hard to grasp which was strongest—yearning, comfort, security—affection. She felt all of them, though, and she opened her mouth to him in welcome, eager to feel more. He stroked his tongue lightly over her parted lips, sank more fully against her as he delved inside. The pleasure intensified as his taste and scent burst upon her with the first stroke of his tongue along hers. She closed her mouth around his offering, sucking his tongue to pull more of his essence inside of her.
She was disappointed when he withdrew, releasing her lips and lifting his head to stare into her eyes. “Try very hard,” he said huskily, a faint smile playing across his lips.
She swallowed her disappointment and found herself smiling back at him.
Nodding, she stepped away and hurried back to Linda’s quarters, hoping when she got there that no one would notice that she felt far less frightened and hopeless than she had.
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* * * *
Cassie’s heart was beating about a hundred miles an hour as she hurried down the hall. She had no idea what time it was—feared that Raen wouldn’t be there to meet her.
It seemed she’d lain awake for hours, waiting, trying to pretend to be asleep and then ….
She’d fallen asleep herself. When she’d awakened with a jolt sometime later, she discovered Mark, who was supposed to be watching, had fallen asleep.
Rolling off of the mattress, she’d stuffed her pillow beneath the cover in the hope that if anyone woke and glanced that way they’d think she was still there. Her heart was already in her throat as she tiptoed out and crept down the corridor until she thought she was far enough away she wouldn’t be heard. Then she’d run on tiptoe the rest of the way to keep her bare feet from smacking against the hard surface of the flooring.
Raen caught her as she rounded the doorway, and she sucked in a sharp breath, tensing all over as her mind went wild with possibilities of threat. Releasing her when he saw she’d recognized him, he placed a finger lightly across her lips and then grasped her hand and led her through a maze of rooms and corridors until she was completely lost.
She realized, though, even as they stepped through the door he’d led her to that he’d taken her to his quarters as he had before.
She looked up at him anxiously when he finally released his hold on her hand.
“I startled you. I am sorry,” he murmured after he’d scanned her pale face.
She dragged in a shaky breath, still too shaken to feel more than a flicker of resentment at being scared shitless. “You almost gave me heart failure!”
He studied her for a moment and finally moved to the far wall. Curious, she watched as he touched a spot on the wall. A panel slid back, revealing a built in locker.
Pulling two tumblers from one of the shelves, he picked up a decanter and poured a measure of liquid in each. Cassie saw when he turned toward her with the drinks that it was the same beverage that had been served at the celebration and wondered if it was their drink of choice or if it was just all that had survived the years.
She wasn’t certain it was wine, but if it was, she thought wryly, it was so aged it would probably have brought a couple of million per bottle on the market.
On the other hand, she didn’t know it
was
wine or even that it was that old. The only thing she did know about it was that it tasted better than anything of an alcoholic nature that she’d ever drank—and it had a more powerful kick. She took a cautious sip when he handed her one of the tumblers.
There was no place to sit besides a straight chair before a desk in one corner and the bed. Cassie debated briefly and sat on the edge of the bed. Her knees still felt horribly weak.
She thought she was probably even less suited to subterfuge than Shelly had claimed. She couldn’t be cool about sneaking around in the dead of night, and it was for certain she didn’t find anything thrilling about it. Worry teased at the back of her mind that somebody would wake up before she could get back and she’d look even more guilty than she would’ve earlier if she’d just stayed long enough to explain.
As guilty, anyway.
“I don’t know how much you’ve discovered about us, but I expect this will sound more like paranoia than sound reasoning,” she began when he’d pulled the straight chair up to face her and settled on it.
He tilted his head, waiting.
127
“Most of the guys served, so they have a better idea of how the military works than I do—
our
military, but I have some idea myself so I don’t have to rely completely on them to know how they think. We’ve been watching what we could see of the activity beyond the field and even though we can’t see much, we
can
see that there’s a huge build up of forces beyond it. There wouldn’t
be
anything like that if the situation wasn’t already deadly serious.”
He frowned, but he didn’t deny it.
Cassie took another small sip of her drink and struggled to collect her thoughts.
“If the U.S. claims this territory—I didn’t actually realize they did because I don’t keep up with this sort of thing—but the councilor said—Anyway, the fact that the Andromeda encroached without first asking permission would be construed as a sign of aggression.
Nobody’s allowed to enter our air space without permission and clearance. They would’ve hailed the ship immediately, advised them to leave, and if they didn’t respond immediately that would’ve been considered a sign of intent. They would’ve tried to shoot it down.”
“They fired on the Andromeda Prime,” he conceded, “according to Admiral Valora.”
Cassie’s stomach felt like it suddenly dropped. She felt a little ill, not just because she was afraid of what the response had been, but because it had happened—at all—and
they
hadn’t even been aware of it. She might have doubted his word except she knew, positively, that the fighter jets
would
have fired on the Andromeda given the situation. A cloying stickiness arose in her throat. She swallowed several times and finally cleared her throat. “Did she … retaliate?”
Raen seemed to consider before he responded. “She said she did not,” he said finally.
It unnerved Cassie that he avoided her gaze. “And you’re certain she didn’t because they’re still there.”
He studied the remains of his drink frowningly, but she didn’t think it was because he was trying to decide if he wanted a refill or not. “She did not retaliate. They should have taken that as a sign that her mission was a peaceful one—even though it was some time afterward before they had accumulated enough data to make the necessary response. The language was not familiar even to us. It did not exist in our time before.
It is not reasonable to expect others to simply
know
it.”
She could see his point. “Everybody on this planet knows they better damned well know English if they enter our air space and be ready and able to respond—We don’t speak anything else. It’s the legal language of our country, established at the time the country was formed. I know it doesn’t sound reasonable to you, but that’s the way it is. And there’s just as much chance they would’ve taken a lack of response as arrogance as there is that they would’ve considered it a demonstration of peaceful intentions—In fact, it’s
more
than likely they would’ve.
“I don’t know how everybody else feels, but our government assures us we’re the most powerful nation on Earth. That’s the way they think. They wouldn’t take a challenge well at all, and they would probably see it that way—as a challenge of superiority.”
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Raen’s face was hard when he looked at her again. “Regardless, we will not yield to their demands. They will have to accept that. We have accessed their data and examined their weaponry. They have nothing that can be used against us—nothing.”
Cassie felt the blood drain from her face as it settled in her that the situation was far worse than she’d thought. Right up until he’d said that, she’d been more than half convinced that she was scaring herself for nothing, imagining nightmarish scenarios that weren’t at all likely. “You broke into the military computers?” she asked in horror.
He nodded. “When we accessed the internet and downloaded the available data, we accessed that, as well.” He shrugged. “It is unstable. Twice the data feed simply stopped, but in the end we got everything.”
A knot of fear and misery welled in Cassie’s chest, but she was beyond tears of any kind—of fear, or hysteria, or grief. “And I told you about it,” she murmured, trying to grasp the full ramifications of what she’d done.
“We would have found it if you had said nothing at all,” he said angrily. “Do not claim guilt that is not yours to claim!”
She looked at him. “Would you? How would you’ve known to look?” She looked around for a place to set her glass and finally simply covered her face with her free hand. “I should’ve just helped to begin with. There might’ve been a way to prevent all of this if you’d understood us better. I felt that I could trust you, that you weren’t a threat to us. I should have trusted my instincts.”
Rising from his chair, he crouched in front of her, took the glass from her hand, and set it aside. “You are frightening yourself for nothing. We would not harm you or your people. I told you we would not consider it. You say you trust that. You should not be afraid.”
Cassie’s chin wobbled and the tears she’d thought wouldn’t come did, filling her eyes until she couldn’t see him. “You don’t understand
us
—not at all. Y’all crashed the internet—I’ve got no idea how much of a pull it would take to crash the entire net—but you can be sure
they
know what kind of power that would take!
And
breached military security when no
one
in this world could do that. They will be–insane—with the need to destroy you, looking for any weakness at all, watching for any opportunity to strike! And they won’t give up until they’ve thrown everything they have at you—and then they’ll
still
attack if they have to throw rocks!
“The
very
moment
we leave here, they’ll shoot us out of the water! And try to rush in and destroy the Atlantis and the Andromeda. They’ll be poised for the opportunity!
“I guess we don’t really have to worry about being dragged off and tortured for information,” she wailed a little hysterically. “Or stuck in a prison for the rest of our lives!”
Settling on his knees, he pulled her into his arms. She resisted, briefly, but she needed comforting, and he was very good at it. The temptation to simply yield completely to the hysteria clawing at her was almost irresistible, but she refused it, struggling instead to find calm. It might have made her feel better, but she felt a much stronger need to search her mind for a solution.
He pushed her away after a moment and rose. Cassie tried not to take it too badly that he’d tired of offering comfort so quickly, but then she would’ve clung to him anyway, she suspected, until he peeled her loose. She discovered, though, that he was 129
only seeking more comfort for himself from the awkward position on the floor. He settled on the bed beside her, pulled her to him again, and lay back.
The urge to cry, thankfully, had eased. The sense of doom didn’t, although she discovered she’d moved past fear and into the realm of disbelief because the enormity of the situation was just too much to assimilate. She didn’t think she’d blown it all out of proportion. If anything, she thought she was having trouble grasping the full range of possibilities.
She couldn’t imagine, for one moment, that the U.S. would back down just because they’d discovered their ‘foe’ was stronger than them. That they wouldn’t see them as anything else seemed an absolute. It was human nature to fear anything unknown and see it as a threat.
If she’d been on the outside looking in—hadn’t met the Atlanteans—she would be terrified right now, and she knew the citizens would be. All they would be able to see was the two staggeringly enormous alien crafts hovering threateningly in the distance, surrounded by the might of the U.S., and their ineffectual efforts at chasing them off.
The whole world might be in an uproar for all she knew—probably was. Allies of the U.S.—even enemies of the U.S.—gathering to try to expel a threat greater than anything the world had ever known.
Even if the aliens did nothing at all the world powers could decimate the world trying to protect themselves from the threat. Atomic weapons might be the last resort, but they’d try that if everything else failed, considering it a do or die situation.
And when the dust settled, no one was going to be able to live on Earth any more, not even the Atlanteans—unless they had a higher tolerance for radiation than humans.
“We will not let it come to that,” Raen said gruffly. “I give you my word we will not.”
Cassie was too apathetic even to feel a great deal of surprise or resentment that he’d read her thoughts, although she’d all but forgotten that he had before.
“I can not read your thoughts,” he said gently. “Not ordinarily. You do not have the projection of anyone accustomed to speaking with their mind. I can only ‘hear’
because you are so close now. It is like—whispers. If I hold you close and listen very carefully, then I can hear.”
She considered that, and then considered putting some distance between them, and then realized it didn’t particularly bother her that he could ‘hear’ her thoughts. It felt too good to lay against him and feel his warmth and his strength surrounding her. She could almost believe he was strong enough to protect her from anything—
could
believe it as long as she didn’t allow herself to think about the ‘anything’ she might need protecting against.
“I should get back before they discover I left,” she murmured after a while, but she didn’t pull away. She didn’t particularly want to go, and she no longer felt that there was much point it in. The chances seemed pretty remote that they were going to make it to the ‘debriefing’ Carl had spoken of. Some frustrated, trigger happy, jet jockey or ship gunner was going to blow them out the water the moment they were spotted. She was pretty sure they’d already passed well beyond the ‘shoot first and ask questions later’