Anaz-Voohri (19 page)

Knowing Zack, he wouldn’t attempt the climb after a long motorcycle ride on the uneven desert floor. Not everyone had Tia’s exceptional constitution. She’d found that out during special missions that tested their endurance, but she had no explanation for it. She concluded she was a freak of nature, although she’d never admit it to anyone, not even Zack.

She climbed ahead of the team, surveying the landscape through her night goggles. Small desert creatures scurried away at their approach. The chilly night at this altitude fogged her breath. She led the unit, glad for the rigorous training that resulted in such sure-footed troops.

Setting a slow, regular pace, she let her body do the work and allowed her mind to wander. Images surged at the edge of her consciousness. Anaz-voohri designs. Pictures Zack had shown her? No. She remembered being a child, her mother sobbing at her father’s desk, doodling on the pad... Anaz-voohri doodles... Her mother’s claim of abduction by aliens had haunted Tia’s dreams more and more lately. What if the claim were true? What would it say about Tia? Was it why she felt so different? She refused to consider the possibilities. She didn’t want to answer that question.

Tia came back to reality as they reached the top of the mountain.
A four-hour climb.
The sun would rise soon. She directed the team to set up and conceal the batteries of bazookas and handheld missile launchers. Then they took cover and camouflaged themselves, so they wouldn’t be detected from the air or by anyone climbing the south slope or exploring the immediate vicinity of the summit.

Let the scum come, human or otherwise. With Tia’s team in control of the perimeter, Zack stood a better chance at survival.

*****

The sun rose pink, and Zack shook the night chill from his stiff muscles by jumping up and down, flailing his arms and slapping his sides. With the sky of such an angelic lavender hue, one could almost believe this world to be a safe, happy place. After a few calisthenics, feeling and warmth returned to his body. He ate an energy bar, drank some water, then picked up his backpack full of equipment and started up the slope.

Zack wanted to get there early to set a few booby-traps. Although his solo expedition might seem reckless, his military training gave him an edge. He wasn’t the scared teenager of his first encounter with the Anaz-voohri, not anymore. Besides, this was supposed to be a meeting, not a battle, and Zack hoped it would prove fruitful.

The mere fact that the enemy wanted to talk indicated some kind of weakness. Why did they care? Was it personal for them, too? If it was, then they acted more human than previously thought, and Zack found the idea somewhat reassuring.

Whatever he was, Captain K would no doubt come from the sky. Zack saw no other way up the mountain without making a perfect target. He buried explosive devices in various parts of the eroded summit, an almost flat area roughly fifty by ten meters. If a ship landed there, it wouldn’t be a huge one and that would destroy it.

Zack checked the remote controls in each pocket of his desert fatigues, memorizing which one controlled which explosive charge.

When finished, he checked his epad for messages.
None from Tia.
A coded line from Michalski just said
Standing by
with a number to give the signal to launch the Top Guns. Good old Michalski fully understood Zack. He might be the only one besides Tia. Zack chuckled. The whole military space arsenal must be on the lookout for an incoming UFO.

As Zack waited for sunset in the shade of a boulder, his thoughts returned to Tia.
Why hadn’t she emailed? It wasn’t like her. She always sent him a few coded words when they were apart. Short messages that told him she thought about him.

As the day wore off and the sun finally dipped on the western horizon, a strange vibration shook the ground, almost like an earthquake, or the deep rumble of thunder. But Zack could see nothing in the sky or anywhere near. The sound intensified, and Zack covered his ears. He started to fear he’d made a terrible mistake. Was he the target of some faraway weapon he couldn’t even detect? He smelled burned rubber, like the night of his sister’s abduction.

The vibration diminished and a wide pillar of light opened in front of him. Looking up, Zack saw only clear sky. No ship. Where did the beam come from? When a young girl glided slowly inside the beam toward the ground, he held his breath. Dear God, could it be?

Ashley! She had grown so much in over four years. She looked stronger and healthier than he remembered. Her blond hair had darkened slightly. Her skin had lost its California tan. The clear blue eyes that stared at him as she descended to his level seemed strangely detached. Her face remained grave, and Zack realized she held a weapon loosely aimed at him.

“Ashley! It’s me, Zack. Don’t you remember me?" Of course, he had become a man. Maybe she didn’t recognize him in uniform.

“I am Ashley." The voice, too, sounded detached. Behind her, the beam of light vanished.

“I’m so glad to see you. I’ve been looking for you all these years. Come with me. I’ll take you home.”

“What home?" She gazed upon the golden desert bathed in sunset. “This planet is the home of our ancestors." Her coldness came as a shock.

“Yes it is. Are you okay?" He stepped forward but she stepped back.

She raised the small weapon and pointed it at his heart. “Captain Kavak has a message for Zack.”

“Captain Kavak?" So that was the infamous Captain K. “I am Zack. Don’t you remember me?”

“You should stop looking for me. I’m different now.”

Different indeed, all grown
up,
and strangely disconnected from any emotion.

“If you keep looking for me, I will die, and you will die as well. You must stop plotting against us.”

Us?
“But you are not one of them, Ashley. You are my little sister, you are human.”

She wrinkled her nose, an affectation he remembered from her childhood. ”I certainly hope not. Humans are substandard. They must be eliminated.”

*****

Tia couldn’t hear what they said but the girl looked human enough, although she held what looked like an alien weapon. Was that his sister Ashley? She looked the right age, about eleven. Zack didn’t seem threatened, but Tia wouldn’t take any chances.

She trained her weapon on Ashley. Pressure in Tia’s chest restrained her breathing. She found herself unwilling to pull the trigger or give the order to attack. Attack what? The beam of light had come from nothing she could see. Was the ship somewhere in orbit? Was it just above them, cloaked by some advanced technology?

Calculating the height from which the beam had come, Tia whispered in her com system, “There must be an object at the top of that light beam, although we cannot see it, it should be about twenty feet up.
Fire at will!”

A barrage of projectiles rained on the target and exploded on something that shimmered like a magnetic shield. Intermittently, for a fraction of a second, the craft became visible, like inside a surreal bubble.

“Keep firing,” Tia ordered,
then
she aimed at Ashley. It didn’t matter that she was his sister, her threatening attitude endangered Zack.

*****

The artillery fire jolted Zack from the living nightmare. He pressed a remote to send the signal for the air attack, wondering at the land forces surrounding him. Where had they come from?
And how?

The young
girl
who had once been Ashley, looked upon him with cold rage. If this was the Anaz-voohri’s revenge against him, they’d succeeded. They’d turned his own sister into his enemy.

Anger took hold of Zack, and since he couldn’t harm his innocent sister, he turned his weapon toward the sky and fired. Mad at God, he wanted to strike whatever force had taken a young girl and turned her against her own kind.

“You betrayed us
,“
Ashley said, her blue eyes turning to steel. ”You do not deserve to live.”

Zack didn’t have the heart to shoot her. He gasped when a sharp shot exploded, and Ashley collapsed at his feet.

When Zack reached for his sister, she stood up and leapt away from him, as if the shot had not really harmed her.

“Your weapons are useless against us." The light beam reactivated, and Ashley ascended out of his reach. Shots exploded all around, but none seemed to reach her.

The sky blazed with fighter jets, and Zack caught a glimpse of the hidden vessel hovering behind some sort of cloak. Tears blurring his vision, he emptied his cartridge on the craft above. Then the vessel took off at incredible speed, the Air Force fighters hot on its trail. The artillery ceased, leaving the area eerily silent.

Then Zack had the most welcome sight, Tia, with his whole unit, come to cheer him up.

“I thought I told you to remain with the troops." No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t sound stern.

Tia saluted with a smile. “I never left their side, Captain.”

“Who shot Ashley?" Zack asked as Tia relaxed her stance.

“Not the faintest idea." Her face remained unreadable, but Zack didn’t want to pry. He hated the thought of the two most precious girls in his life killing each other, but even if Tia had fired that shot, she’d done the right thing. Still, Zack loved his little sister, no matter what she had become.

Chapter Thirteen

Two years later, 2009

Fidgeting on his seat at the long table in a conference room of the Pentagon, Zack recognized a few of the government officials attending the briefing. He sat next to Michalski, the ex FBI agent, whom he now considered as a friend and a strong ally. CIA agents and even representatives from the oval office attended. Someone stifled a cough at the back of the room.

“Something crucial must have happened to get the President’s goons here,” Zack whispered to Michalski.

Michalski nodded. “Where did they pull you out of this time?”

“Pakistan." Zack was glad to have someone to talk to. “I rushed to board the military plane from Islamabad to Washington as soon as I got the call.”

“It’s been years since we recorded any alien activity." New lines of worry had appeared on Michalski’s face. He looked older. “I hope it’s not the beginning of an escalade. I started to think the Anaz-voohri might have moved to better pastures.”

Zack shook his head. “We should be so lucky."

As more attendees took their seats at the conference table, Zack couldn’t help thinking about Tia. He’d left her in charge as usual. Their relationship had blossomed and strengthened over the past years, but Zack didn’t like being separated from her, even for a short time. She’d become more of a daredevil with each successful mission, as if she believed herself invincible, a dangerous attitude for a professional soldier. She’d been lucky so far, but Zack feared for her life.

The room grew quiet when the General in charge of evaluating, among other things, the Anaz-voohri threat, entered. The man looked worried as he stepped up to the head of the table, shuffling his papers and finally setting them down.

“You have been called to this secret meeting because the alien threat we thought had passed just became manifest.”

Zack held his breath. Here it came...

“We have reasons to suspect recent activity in this location." The General turned to the map displayed on the wall screen. It represented the Sahara desert in Northern Africa. With a laser pointer, he circled a mountainous area in southern Algeria near the Nigerian and Libyan borders. “These mountains constitute the Hoggar.”

On the wall screen appeared pictures of strange rocks, like prehistoric towers emerging from the sand, crowding the bottom of deep, sandy canyons.

“These unique formations represent the lava cores of ancient volcanoes. The surrounding volcanic cones have long since eroded, leaving these strange columns. As you’d expect, these canyons are riddled with caves."

Zack couldn’t help but think of an alien landscape. All bare rock and no sign of life. One of the columns, shaped like a mushroom with a semi-spherical hat, seemed to bear archaic markings, but Zack couldn’t make them out.

“Our satellites have measured unusual radiation emanating from one of these canyons. The same energy signature we once studied coming from an alien weapon found years ago at an Anaz-voohri crash site.”

“You think there are alien weapons stored in these canyons?" Zack realized he’d spoken out of turn.

The General didn’t seem to mind. “We have to assume that’s what it is, and for their energy source to show on the satellite
scanners,
there must be a great number of them. Usually the natural rock can mask these energy traces, but this must be a huge hoard.”

“Why would the Anaz-voohri store weapons on Earth?" Michalski asked.

“Good question." The General cleared his throat, as if to give himself time to think. “But just as important, who are they destined for?”

Zack stepped in. “I assume you have a theory?”