Alcandian Soul (2 page)

Moving along the road, she filled her lungs with the autumn air. Her shoulders felt lighter than they had in weeks, and that was worth all the aches in her legs from Master Lee’s training exercises.

* * * * *

Cassandra found her bed appealing, more inviting than it had been since waking up in a cell so many months ago. All her frustration was gone for a change and she slipped into slumber content with things the way they were.

“
Do exactly what I tell you
,
Sergeant
.”

Her dream man’s voice wasn’t hypnotic. It was hard with authority as she felt the grip of his hand tighten around her wrist. She could almost smell his skin and feel his body heat as he tossed her over his shoulder. Memory flashed different images but none of them flowed together. Cassandra jerked her head as a car trunk closed with her inside.

She hissed as her butt landed on the floor next to her bunk. She rubbed her burning eyes and struggled to hold on to the odd dream. Just like every encounter with her dream man, these images had felt so real she could practically touch them. Frustration tried to creep in, dissipating the memory, but she shoved it aside as she folded her legs and began to breathe as Master Lee taught her to.

In…out…pause.

No ripples in the pond. Only the mirror-smooth surface as water flowed through her, cleansing away all struggle, leaving acceptance.

“
God damn you
,
Cole Somerton
!”

She shot up onto her feet because there was no way she could maintain her relaxed meditation position. She paced around her room as her brain offered up every detail of the night Zeva and Cole Somerton made their break for freedom. It was like she’d opened a door that she hadn’t even noticed sitting in her brain. Once the lock was turned, the memory surged out of the box it had been stuffed into. Cassandra snarled as she recalled the way Cole had tied her up and stuffed her into the trunk of his car. She couldn’t really be too mad at Zeva—everyone had a right to return to their home.

Alcandar.

It was a huge idea, and she paced some more as she tried to digest all the information pouring out of the memory. Alcandar was another planet with humanoid lifeforms, and that race had been in direct contact with Earth. Huge men who claimed their gene splicing had resulted in a primarily male race. They had built a wormhole, and offered Earth their knowledge in exchange for female mates.

Until something went wrong. The unit dealing with the Alcandians had destroyed the wormhole in some quest to maintain human dignity. Zeva had been stranded on Earth.

Cassandra cussed low and deep as she recalled the days spent working with the alien woman. Maybe she really was tainted by treason because Cassandra couldn’t see why the two races couldn’t coexist. Wasn’t America supposed to be the melting pot?

She froze as she stared at the telephone sitting on her kitchen counter. Since there was so little in the apartment, the phone stood out, as did the business cards sitting next to it.

Newly promoted Colonel Rinehart had interrogated her endlessly. The man’s face twisted with rage when she passed his lie detector tests, denying any knowledge of “anything recent”. Her frustration boiled hot enough to send steam out of her ears as she recalled the man demanding her to tell him things she had honestly been unaware of.

Cassandra remembered why too.

Dyne.

A huge Alcandian warrior who had clasped her head between his oversized hands just before his mind entered hers. There had been a burning flare of pain before her memory ended, just turned off like the entire abduction had never happened.

Until tonight.

Cassandra moved towards the phone and fingered Rinehart’s card. Oh yes, she remembered every last detail now. But her temper flared up as she looked around the stark quarters. She was being treated like a traitor when her own superiors knew what had happened to her.

Cassandra cussed and didn’t much care what her mother would think. She was so pissed off she felt like screaming with her rage. An entire lifetime of dedication and service to the Army and they treated her like a
traitor
when their program went sour.

And then there was Cole Somerton. Her anger deepened into something thick that seeped into her heart. He’d left her to deal with it. Condemned to this isolation hell.

She should call Rinehart. Negotiate a return to her life in exchange for the memory flowing through her brain. Cassandra indulged the fantasy for a long moment before she turned and stomped back into her living room. Who could she trust? Rinehart might just decide she knew more than she was telling him and hook her back up to his lie detectors. After passing his tests before, the man would never release her, even if she gave him her current information, because he’d be waiting for her to uncover more hidden memories.

A little shiver moved over her arms and she rubbed the skin as despair took the place of her temper. She was so helpless against it all. There wasn’t much she feared, but the thought of being stuck in her current limbo for the rest of her life terrified her. Was every goal she had just going to be vaporized? She was twenty-six years old. There were so many things to do and no way for her to get her life back on course.

Her head throbbed as she tried to untangle the mess. What she needed was someone to trust, but at the moment there wasn’t a single name on that list.

Self-pity wasn’t something she usually wallowed in, but tonight it felt like she was being swamped by a wave of it.

* * * * *

Alcandar

“We have a common mission.”

Cole Somerton turned to stare at Dyne. The Alcandian warrior was often silent. He dedicated his life to service among the law-keeping warriors called Judgment Officials. Along with the maroon coat he wore with its black edging came a no-joking attitude towards words like “mission”.

The warrior was dead serious and Cole felt himself leaping towards the chance to prove himself. His own “uniform” calf-length coat was a lighter shade of maroon, denoting his training status among the Judgment Officials. They were the law-keeping body that maintained order on a planet full of warriors.

“It would be an honor to serve with you.” Dyne nodded approval of the polite response. Cole watched his eyes move over him in a light inspection before Dyne handed over an inter-dimensional beacon.

“It seems that many humans truly are emerging past their current levels of perception.” Dyne watched Cole attach the beacon above his communication wristband. The two devices worked together when using the newly created wormhole to reach Earth. Alcandar had no intentions of being denied access to Earth. They had rebuilt after the first wormhole was destroyed. The Alcandians held the advantage of technology. They might have invaded Earth but they chose a slow, undetected form of infiltration. Warriors who were willing to risk being caught on Earth could apply for travel privilege in order to search for a mate. The rules were strict concerning removal of any human but the list of waiting warriors was long. Harsh penalties for misconduct didn’t stop Alcandian warriors from braving anything in order to connect with a female their minds could brush.

Dyne’s voice grew somber.

“Cassandra has broken through the block I placed in her memory. We must detain her. You have been charged with the duty. I will observe and stand as your partner during the mission.”

A chill went down Cole’s spine but it shot back up his body in a rush of heat. He frowned as her face flashed immediately into his mind. Kidnapping her again wasn’t something he wanted. In fact it made him angry that anyone was thinking about it, much less ordering it done. Dyne stiffened as he caught the anger through their mind link.

Among Alcandians, privacy was a bit of an outdated idea. Honor and honesty went hand in hand here. That meant your fellow Judgment Official often just scanned your thoughts while you stood talking. Once he joined the ranks completely, he would have to link with a partner. It was the tightest bond, something that would allow them to be an even more effective team. It would take him through life, even into any union he might share with a female.

Alcandian bonding unions were not monogamous. With so many males, it only made sense that at least two warriors shared a female. But even that still left many warriors braving death on an alien planet in order to find a mate.

“It must be done.” Dyne expected a fight from him and Cole halfway wanted to give in to the urge to let his right fist speak for him. But his faith in Alcandian honor held his hand. Alcandian warriors treated females with the greatest respect. A mate was claimed from another world only when a mind bridge had been discovered. Warriors had to wait until they faced a female they could link with telepathically before they had the right to bring her back to Alcandar.

“She knows the location of the wormhole. Moving it requires too many resources and that cannot be done quickly. We would risk discovery or stranding the warriors who are currently hunting on Earth. The council has decided to remove the female before your former superiors discover her newly remembered information.” Dyne offered him a sympathetic look. “It is expected that you should have this duty since you have already touched her.”

And that was a high compliment from the Alcandian Council. They were publicly acknowledging his position as a warrior among them. Honor was sacred to them. When a male touched a female, no other warrior interfered unless the warrior was unable to touch her mind. He was grateful for the respect, but Cassandra was going to spit in his eye.

“I could not touch her mind.”

“That is not a factor in this mission. She could lead your Earth forces directly to the new portal. We have over a thousand warriors on Earth. The female will have to be removed. She is only one.” Dyne’s face hinted at his own dislike of the assignment but he tightened his emotions and accepted the logic of the decision. “It is possible you may still link now that she has grown beyond her own mental borders. Her mind might have been too immature for you when you last saw her. It is also possible she will link with another warrior. We will strive to make her stay as pleasant as possible.”

Dyne turned and began walking towards the gate. Cole kept pace with his partner as he tightened his control for the task ahead of him. Distaste filled his mouth but he moved forward because if anyone was going to smash into Cassandra’s life again, it was going to be him. His memory of the sergeant said she was going to consider her relocation to Alcandar as anything but pleasant. However, there was a tiny part of him that was looking forward to locking horns with her feisty determination once again.

“Your human judgment force has not been kind to her since her association with you.”

“What do you mean?”

Dyne lifted an eyebrow as he shot Cole a sideways look. “She has been held under deep suspicion since you returned her. I find the mission acceptable due to their treatment of her. A female should not be treated so harshly.”

His fellow humans had offended Dyne. The emotion drifted into his head from the other warrior as they crossed a courtyard and entered the portal gate building.

Electric blue light bathed them as they moved forward, and the warriors posted offered them nods of approval. The hairs on his neck stood up as static electricity bathed him. The gate popped and hissed as it surged to life. The open end flickered with different colors of blue and white as the controller set the coordinates with a critical eye. He motioned them forward and the gate pulled them in as they stepped into the flickering light.

For a moment time froze. The electric current surged through his nervous system, triggering sensation in every nerve ending. Cole tightened his control and held his arms against his chest to keep them from twitching. His lungs were suspended mid-breath as even his heart paused.

The gate dumped them on the dirt floor of a cave deep in the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Cole controlled his landing, widening his stance to keep his balance as his ears tried to confuse him by twitching with the residue of wormhole travel. The vertigo dissipated and he straightened up. They moved forward and stopped when they reached sunlight. A small station had been built over the opening of the cave. A hologram projection covered the opening in the granite rock, making it an effective duck blind from the hikers who sometimes made it into the remote area.

Cole began to unhook his Alcandian coat as he and Dyne prepared for their journey into the human world. Hiking clothing was handed to them by the warriors who staffed the station. Everything Alcandian was taken from them except their wristbands. Judgment Officials never took them off. Even in death. Cole looked at the crimson band with its controls. The thing was even able to test his blood to ensure it was on his wrist and not anyone else’s. As far as IDs went, it was foolproof.

But here on Earth it posed a possibly deadly problem. Earth had strung Alcandar along for years, assuring them that they were content with the bargain. That meant Rinehart had a lot of intel on just what Alcandians and their technologies looked like. Keeping his wrist covered was key to his success. Cole shrugged into a long-sleeved hiking shirt. He buttoned the cuff as Dyne watched him for the proper procedure needed to dress in the unfamiliar Earth garments.

The shirt felt odd on his back. Cole let that fact soak into his brain. Earth wasn’t home for him any longer. The final embrace of that idea really didn’t shake him. His sister was bound to a pair of Alcandians, and his parents had passed away. Serving as a Special Operations Ranger for the military had only landed him on the wrong side of an officer’s word.

That made building a life on Alcandar much simpler thing to accept. But nothing was perfect. Picking up a backpack, he stepped through the hologram and onto a hiking trail. He shouldered the pack and snapped the hip belt into place. He loved the outdoors, but today his lips were tightened into a hard line as he began a mission against his own race.

The Council was right, he needed to do it. He’d taken Cassandra with Zeva to the new wormhole. It had been his call that sentenced Cassandra to the fate of knowing too much.