Dream Bound (30 page)

He swept the brush across most of the lower level. “Their energy also runs the force field that keeps the Nyrians trapped in their barracks. Over here, in a locked room under guard is where the soulstones are kept. When the shift changes, the energy field guarding the barracks lowers and that group of Nyrians drop off their soulstones and relieve the prior shift, while those who’ve been powering the ship go off duty, retrieve their stones, and return to the barracks to recharge.”

He glanced at Zianne. “Please correct me if I screw up.”

Vehemently, she shook her head. “No. You’re good. Continue.”

“I propose on the next shift change, or as soon as we can get word to your people, all but five from the engine room—the absolute minimum number of Nyrians needed to power the ship—collect their soulstones and come here, to Earth, instead of returning to their barracks. Five with their stones do return to the barracks to recharge. Only five from the charged Nyrians in the barracks go to the engine room. The rest keep their stones and come straight to Earth. That gives us seventeen Nyrians with their soulstones intact, free on Earth following that first shift. Ten-hour shifts, right?”

Zianne nodded. “Yes. Our schedule is set to that of the Gar planetary rotation. The planet is dead, but their time reference hasn’t changed.”

“Okay. Next shift, the five from the barracks leave their stones and relieve the five left in the engine room. If there’s any way to run the ship for a short time with fewer than five Nyrians, then only the minimum report to the engine room. The ones coming off duty retrieve their soulstones, and all of them come to Earth. At the same time, a couple of us will go aboard the ship, and no, it’s not impossible. Nattoch said it can be done. The Gar can’t know they’re losing Nyrians, so once we get to the bare minimum, we have to move quickly to overpower the guards and grab all the soulstones. Nattoch said the stones will know we’re trying to help and won’t harm us. And then,” he said with a bow, “we get the hell out of Dodge.”

Shocked, Mac stared at Cameron, the guy he’d thought of as the flakiest of the bunch, the artistic one. “You’re talking about an armed attack on an alien ship, led by a couple of us?”

“Yep.” Cam grinned. “Nattoch said the Gar aren’t physically large or very strong, but they’ll be well armed. One thing I can tell you, though, is that they’ve probably been to Earth before.”

“How do you know?” Kiera’s coffee sat forgotten. For a woman who hadn’t been at all interested in aliens, she was certainly focused on Cam.

“Ya know the cartoon drawings of aliens and the rumors about Area 51? Well, Nattoch gave me a visual. This is what he showed me.” Cam flipped the canvas around to show them a drawing he’d made on the back. His sketch of the alien had a bald, domed head, large eyes, and slits for nostrils.

Totally recognizable to everyone in the room.”Wow. Now that’s scary.” Kiera shot a glance at Mac, but immediately turned back to the drawing. “Very, very scary.”

“They were probably scouts who crashed years ago, maybe came here checking to see what they could use. But for the ones who go on board, it should help you to know what you’re up against.”

“I see you’re not saying ‘I’ when you talk about boarding the ship.” Morgan laughed at Cam. “Count me in. I definitely want to volunteer for the boarding party—if anyone goes, one of them better be me.”

“Good. You can take my place.” Cam flipped the canvas back to the drawing of the ship. “The thing is, Morgan, I don’t mind the idea of actually being on a ship in outer space; it’s the going and coming back that has me worried. No offense, Zianne, but the idea of having to reduce myself down to the molecular level makes me very uncomfortable.”

“I think Cam’s worried that he’d get put back together wrong,” Lizzie teased. “You know, with his dick between his eyes and balls hanging under his chin?”

“Exactly. It wouldn’t fit my artist image, ya know?”

“Didn’t hurt Salvador Dalí any.” Morgan’s dry comment was lost in laughter as everyone took a minute to blow off steam.

Mac glanced at Zianne.
It’s a good plan. I think we can make this work.

Oh, Mac. I hope so. Not just for me, but for my people. And for you. You’ve invested so much of your life in me, in this. I want you to win. I’ve been blessed by Nyria to have my time with you, to see a world outside our prison. My people have been imprisoned since our first foolish steps aboard the Gar ship. They’ve not had a chance at freedom for millennia. I believe this is their chance.

The laughter ended and Cam picked up where he’d left off. “So, if all goes according to plan, we should end up with up to six or seven Nyrians and two humans on board. Can we evacuate that many at once? If we have all the dishes aimed at the ship and everyone plugged in at the dream shack, could we generate enough power to get them all off the ship and back here at the same time?”

Mac nodded. “It might shut down all of Modoc County, but yeah. I think we can do that.”

Finn had been unusually quiet during the discussion, but now he focused on Zianne. “It’s going to take a lot of planning to get it right. Zianne, what do you think? We’re sitting here making decisions for an entire race of people—and you’re their de facto rep. Do you think we can do this?”

“I don’t know. It will be difficult convincing some of my people to leave without the others, but Nattoch should be able to handle that. We all trust his judgment and follow his leadership. And yes, we do have the ability to get a couple of you on board the ship. It would require a complete subjugation of self, and I know humans have issues with personal space—the ones who go would have to allow Nyrians to enter them and then turn their bodies into energy particles able to cross the vast distance between Earth and the ship. You’ll have to practice doing it here first, but even with practice, a lot will depend on luck, on overpowering the Gar, on retrieving the rest of the stones, and getting off the ship before it implodes.”

Frowning, Finn said, “We’re going to blow it up?”

“No,” Zianne said. “You won’t have to. When the final group of power slaves leaves, the ship will fail. We’ve always been instructed to make the switch between shifts quickly. Without us, there’s nothing to power life support or maintain atmosphere. The emergency battery system only lasts a few minutes. The ship and its demands have grown as our numbers have decreased. It will begin to lose pressure immediately after power is cut, quickly become unstable, and eventually implode without explosives.”

“Clarify ‘immediately’ and ‘eventually,’ if you can.” Finn glanced from one to another. “How long after power is cut before the ship goes ka-boom?”

Zianne shook her head. “The star cruiser is massive, many times larger than your largest structures. I tried to describe it one day to Mac—we figured out that ten of your football fields would fit on one level. It has twelve levels with the engine room, slave barracks, and our soulstones on the lowest. The ship houses all of the Gar still in existence.”

Rodie glanced at the others and asked, “What happened to their world?”

“They destroyed it. As slaves, we were never told the details. We have learned that their home world was rendered uninhabitable and their atmosphere poisoned by pollution. Weakened by their own excesses, the Gar suffered a series of plagues that wiped out most of them. A select few built their ship, abandoning their planet and the remaining citizens to their fate. They returned many, many years later in the hope of once again living on their world, but they found a dead planet without life of any kind. Not even an atmosphere.”

“Holy shit.” Morgan wrapped his hand around Rodie’s, but Mac knew what they were thinking—that Earth and this civilization were on much the same course.

Finn watched Zianne. “You didn’t answer me. How long from the time power is cut until the ship implodes?”

She glanced at Mac, took a deep breath, and faced Finn. “My people and any of you who are there to aid them would have, at most, thirty minutes to evacuate before implosion.”

Finn nodded. Glanced at the schematic and then faced Mac. “I’m in. I want to volunteer to board the ship.” He glanced at Morgan and grinned. “Hell, I’ve done every other kind of job. Raiding a Gar star cruiser would definitely be unique.”

Mac listened to the chatter around the table as the team discussed boarding the ship, rescuing Zianne’s people, and yes, acknowledging the fact that all the Gar on board would die—and questioning the morality of dooming one race to save another.

Mac wondered about his own sense of morality. Could he justify the death of an entire race to save the few remaining Nyrians? Zianne was a good and loving woman. Her people were peaceful. They weren’t the ones traveling through space, raping planets, wiping out entire races and worlds.

There was no doubt in his mind. He could authorize a move like this without guilt, the sooner the better—before he had time to rationalize the morality of sending Morgan and Finn into such terrible danger. He glanced up and caught Lizzie watching him and realized time was growing short. “Lizzie, do you mind going back and taking your shift? If you connect with anyone, and I know it’s not as easy during daylight, let them know that all the Nyrians have to make the jump here long enough to focus on a physical body, and it has to happen sooner rather than later. They’ll all need someone to link to who can give them corporeal form if we’re going to have any chance at all of rescuing everyone.”

He glanced at Zianne. “And if any of them have energy to share, Zianne needs as much as they can give.”

Zianne kissed him quickly and disappeared in a crackle of energy. The squirrel stirred, then lay down again with her tail over her nose. Mac fought the need to curse long and loud.

Each time she disappeared, he wondered if he’d ever hold her again, if he’d ever have his Zianne back. Right now, he had to rely on faith that they would succeed. He couldn’t allow himself to think of any other outcome.

Lizzie filled her coffee cup as if it was no big deal that a woman was now a squirrel. She grabbed a cinnamon roll and looked up at him. “I’ll do my best, Mac. Fill me in on anything I miss.”

“I’ll come with you,” Rodie said. “Mac? I’ll make sure Zianne’s settled. Then I’ll be right back.”

“Thank you. And Liz? You have my promise. I’ll catch you up on everything.” He watched as they left, already missing Zianne, but feeling proud of how well all of them functioned as a team. They were going to need that to pull off this rescue, and even then, they were all taking a huge risk. And doing it willingly.

Focusing on the rescue once again, he turned his attention to the four remaining at the table, but he was painfully aware Zianne no longer stood beside him.

Rodie walked across the open area to the dream shack beside Lizzie, carrying the tote bag with Zianne. The squirrel was sound asleep, and it was obvious Zianne’s strength was failing, that her time was growing short.

Rodie settled the tote on the floor in the corner while Lizzie got herself hooked to the array, then she turned to Rodie with a speculative glance. “So, you and Morgan, eh?”

Rodie’s head snapped up. “Uh, is it that obvious?” She wondered if that was a problem, the fact that the two of them had spent the night together. “Does that bother you?”

“Oh, lordy, no. Not at all. He’s just so scary.” Lizzie smiled. “Well, not really scary, but he’s kind of intimidating. I guess I go for guys who are a little easier to control.”

Rodie relaxed. “I haven’t tried to control him, that’s for sure. And to be honest, I don’t know why he’s attracted to me. I mean, I’m just me.” She shrugged. “I’m not generally the one the guys are all over. It’s usually the girls like you they go for.”

Lizzie just laughed at that. “Nah. That’s your inner wimp talking. I’m nothing special, and you never know what’s going to light some guy’s fire, but when I was watching Morgan watch you ...” Her smile turned tender, as if she was looking at something far away. “It’s almost the same way Mac looks at Zianne. That’s really special, Rodie. I’m envious.”

“Really? He looks at me like that? Wow ... thank you. That’s really nice of you to tell me.” She laughed. “I never would have noticed anything like that. Is there anyone in your life?”

Liz glanced away, but she had a huge smile on her face. “There wasn’t, but I’m getting to know quite a few really hot Nyrian hunks.”

She’d not said a word about her visitors at all, as far as Rodie knew. “What are they like?”

“Special.” Lizzie focused on the dials on the console. “They came to me as fantasy here, but they showed up in my cabin last night, before that mess with the guys trying to break in. They took off, then, and I spent the night at Kiera’s.”

Rodie looked closer at Lizzie. “Are you blushing?”

“Yep.” She giggled. “Because it didn’t really end at her place. Kiera had more guys show up. One she knew but the other ones were new to her. And me. We, uh ... had a really great night.”

“Amazing, isn’t it? They use the array to travel back and forth, but once they’re here ...” Rodie laughed. “If Mac had tried to tell me what I was in for, I would have thought he was nuts.”