Consortium of Planets: Alien Test Read online

  Alont and Reggiald were so distracted by their thoughts that neither noticed the secretary quietly talking to the three-dimensional holographic computer on her desk.

  “Gentlemen, the commandant will see you now.”

  Startled, Alont jumped up awkwardly and bumped into Reggiald, who fell back onto the stiff couch. The surprised old scientist knew that the young Warrior was very capable. He recalled how smoothly the yeoman handled the terrorists at the space port, but Alont’s inexperience was making him apprehensive now. Reggiald needed him to get it under control before they talked to the commandant. He smiled up at him calmly from the couch.

  “Alont, it’s going to be all right.”

  “Sorry, Doctor – she caught me off guard.”

  “It’s okay. The commandant didn’t see you stumble. Let’s get this over with so you can relax.”

  The dark green door creaked open. The commandant looked out and waved them in. “Come in, gentlemen. We have much work to do to get ready for the Senate. Yeoman, did you bring Captain Adr’yn’s message?”

  Alont looked at the highly decorated senior Warrior. All fear disappeared and his training took over. “Yes, sir!”

  His response was so loud that the secretary looked up from her computer with a smile and blinked. Reggiald nodded and the commandant smiled politely. Alont didn’t feel like a prisoner after all.

  Reggiald watched for any reaction as the commandant watched the late captain’s one-meter-tall hologram talk and wave his hands about for emphasis.

  “…and so, I am ready to take back my ship and use it in your plan to discredit the University. In less than a sub-cycle, it will be mine. I will return and hide with my ship and crew behind the Sun. Contact me there when I am needed.”

  Ban’yr showed no emotion until it was over, and then sprang to life.

  “That’s incredible, gentlemen! I reviewed his record before you got here. He had such a promising career.” The commandant sounded so sincere.

  Reggiald didn’t really care to hear about how incredible someone was when they tried to kill, Wystl, the most precious being in the universe. He ignored Ban’yr’s praise and pressed forward.

  “So, Commandant, do we have enough for the Grand Senate yet?”

  Bany’r looked at Alont. Yes, Doctor, I’ll take the yeoman and the lost colony leader under heavy guard with me before the Senate. I will be the very picture of control, with all the answers.

  “Yes Doctor, I believe we are ready to make our presentation.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Switzerland:

  Svetlana watched Zul’s subordinate dash out the hotel’s double doors and disappear. She had lied to him. She didn’t really know who Zul’s boss was in the United States, but she would find out who did and get the information with her unique brand of “truth serum.”

  The lobby was a mess. Broken furniture, pieces of glass, and lifeless bodies were strewn everywhere. A distant police siren grew louder as the clerk tentatively peeked over the reception desk to see if the carnage was over. Svetlana shot him an angry glare for calling the cops and he dropped back out of sight. She couldn’t really blame him, though; he was only trying to save his hotel. The dart was back in the case, hidden securely on her thigh. She finished straightening her cloths and raked her manicured fingernails through her short black hair. With determination and purpose in her step, she walked out the hotel entrance. Just seconds before the police arrived, she vanished into the morning rush hour.

  Washington D.C.:

  Wystl gazed into the mirror and tilted her beautiful Human face slightly to the right. With a pout and a quizzical look in her eye, she let her lustrous jet-black hair fall across her creamy shoulder. She stepped out of the bathroom and looked at Dean.

  “You haven’t told me what you think of the Human form that I have taken.”

  Dean wasn’t sure if she was trying to look sexy or not. He was starting to regret that he had recommended his favorite supermodel for her Human image. Dean had learned long ago not to answer directly whenever a woman asked how she looked. The correct answer usually depended on the woman’s mood, and that was always in a state of flux. Dean knew that guessing a woman’s mood was a no-win situation, and worse yet, Wystl wasn’t even Human.

  “Well, you certainly have the pout down.” Dean tried to sound positive, but his concern betrayed him. “Your eyes just sparkle. In fact, your look is perfect.”

  She started to smile and then stopped. “You don’t sound very convincing, Colonel.” A frown crinkled her otherwise flawless brow.

  “Wystl, it’s just that…well, they say don’t mess with perfection, but in this case, you need to tone it down a little. You don’t want to look exactly like a famous model and become a distraction.”

  Wystl sounded genuinely hurt. “I’m sorry,” she said breathily. “I didn’t mean to distract you.”

  Dean suddenly felt like he was digging a very deep hole. “Not me! I mean people on the street and people who should take you seriously.”

  She looked at the picture Dean had given her. “But Colonel, I don’t look just like her. I made my chest larger than hers.”

  Talking about Wystl’s chest shouldn’t have made Dean feel uncomfortable but it did. He blew out a breath. “Wystl, trust me,” he said, exasperated. “Turn it down a couple degrees, and you’ll be fine."

  Dean found trying to explain Human response much more difficult than any of his life-and-death missions. He pointed at the bathroom. “Just go back in there and make yourself slightly less attractive.”

  Wystl still didn’t understand why Dean didn’t want her to look perfect, but she trusted his judgment. She began to study her reflection once again in the mirror. A slightly wider nose. The eyes and cheek bones shrank next. Then her chin lost some of its sharp line and the color of her hair became less specific. Clearly, no one will think that I’m perfect now – but I’m keeping the chest the way it is.

  As Wystl finished making changes to her image in the bathroom, she called out, “Colonel, when are we going after Martle’s assassin?”

  Dean looked up from Svetlana’s meager file. “As soon as you’re ready, we leave for Switzerland. We’ll pick up her trail there and catch up with her as soon as we can.”

  North Atlantic Ocean, one thousand miles south of Iceland:

  Sunbathing on the bow of her convertible submarine, Svetlana lay in her favorite red bikini. Her toned athletic body glistened with oil in the warm midday sun. The steady roll of the unusually calm water and steady hum of the sub’s powerful twin inboard engines was all that reminded her that she was skimming oceanic waves rapidly toward her quarry. A sudden spray of cool, salty mist aroused her. She rolled onto her flat belly and began thinking about her mission.

  Master Sung, I’m going to have to do a lot of ass-kicking, going after a general. She reached back and untied the knot that held her top in place. “I hate tan lines.”

  She could feel her sensei’s breath at her ear. Svetlana, you should minimize any innocent deaths. His whispered barely above the ocean’s roar.

  She thought about her master’s words. It would probably make more sense to take him off-base, where there is less security. “Yes, I don’t want to get too busy and let him slip away.” For a moment, she sensed her master’s disapproval of her response and her mission. Then he was gone.

  Svetlana kept her informant alive long enough to get all the intelligence she needed to find and execute General Martle. Once she had the data, she was mercifully quick to put the informant’s broken body out of its misery. He was tough – it took almost thirty minutes to find out who her target was. It might have taken longer, but once she knew who, she knew where. The general was always close to Chancellor Jonathan Visen.

  She smiled at Martel’s audacity. “Well, I guess he’s keeping his enemy close.”

  The corners of her mouth dropped as her mind began racing. Is Visen completely fooled by Martle, or are they in this together? If so, are they
testing me? Maybe Visen does know but is waiting for me to arrive to attack his enemy. It doesn’t matter, I will survive! Pushing the countless possibilities aside, Svetlana continued to plan her mission. Once she reached the mainland, she would track Martle’s movements and lay a trap. The one thing she knew for sure was that she trusted no one.

  The sub’s warning chime came to life, and Svetlana knew that it was time to dive. The American security satellites were beginning to take notice of her unidentified craft’s swift approach. Her tan would have to wait. Even fully enclosed, the sub was fast, but underwater, she would lose some valuable time. The tradeoff was well worth it, though. It was very difficult to track a relatively small boat that could disappear under the water and reappear wherever it wanted. One can’t find a needle at the bottom of the ocean or in the sand on the other side. She would appear again soon enough.

  Switzerland:

  The crime scene was approximately twenty-four hours old. Rats and bugs had just begun to take their toll on the body. Fortunately, the smell of death was minimized by the large, airy warehouse location. Dean and Wystl stood with Interpol Inspector Pardion and studied a male body that had been obviously tortured. It lay crumpled with small pools of blood flowing from numerous mutilation sites. The body’s hair looked sweaty from the stress it received during the ordeal. Three or four fingers were bent in the wrong direction; one of the digits had been completely ripped from the right hand, leaving a jagged stump. The right shoulder was severely dislocated. The face was contorted into an agonized death mask.

  Even though the victim was twisted in pain, Dean could tell who it was: the same man Svetlana had released at the hotel to warn Martle. Apparently, she had changed her mind about letting him go. It was possible that someone else had gotten to him, but Dean knew he was looking at the assassin’s work.

  “Agent Wystl, I believe he put up quite a fight. Don’t you?” Pardion’s French accent sounded syrupy sweet as his hard brown eyes danced all over Wystl’s body. His eyes finally stopped and he gazed at her with anticipation, not really caring what she had to say.

  This had been going on for a while, and Dean was beginning to lose patience with the inspector. Pardion kept twisting his black handlebar mustache, smiling, and stealing glances at Wystl. The dead body was only an afterthought to him. She still needs to be less attractive, Dean sighed inside. But that will have to wait until we get back to the hotel.

  Reaching his limits, Dean gave up any pretense of decorum and raised his voice. “Inspector, I’m trying to talk to you! Do you have any video of who took him?”

  Pardion took the intrusion in stride. “What? Oh, as a matter of fact, she took him right out of his apartment and brought him to this abandoned warehouse.”

  “Inspector, look at me. What about the video?”

  “Right, we have it back at the office.”

  Dean raised his eyebrows and gave Wystl a knowing glance. Now she understood why Dean didn’t want her to look perfect and smiled back weakly. He looked back at the inspector. “We’ll meet you there. We have to know if it is the same woman that killed those men at the hotel I told you about.”

  The inspector stood in his office behind Dean and Wystl and switched on the video. The black-and-white scene was from a traffic camera. It showed a few late-model cars rolling down a tree-lined street. An elderly couple walked arm-in-arm slowly on the sidewalk. As the couple turned at the end of the block and walked around the corner of a house, a woman got out of a parked black sedan. The woman paused and looked up and down the street. Satisfied that it was clear, she glided across the street and up the concrete steps of a four-story brick apartment building. She bent down, did something to the lock, and disappeared inside.

  Dean checked his watch. “Once she opened her car door, it took her about fifteen seconds to get inside that building. That includes picking the lock and pausing to check the street. She’s pretty damn fast.”

  Wystl was afraid to draw attention, but the inspector seemed to be more focused now. “Is that the woman we’re after?”

  Dean took a deep breath and nodded. He finished watching her push the victim out of the building and down the steps. Twenty seconds later, she pulled away from the curb with her quarry. “That’s her. She got what she wanted from the victim. Now she’s on her way to cause more trouble. We need to get out of here right now.”

  “You’re leaving? You only know who it is. Don’t you wish to catch her?” The inspector couldn’t believe that they would simply leave. “Besides, my American friend, we have the other half of the video to watch. There may be additional clues for you and your associate.”

  Once again he smiled at Wystl.

  I hate it when people I don’t know call me friend and ogle my woman, especially Frenchmen. Dean stopped himself. Ogle my woman? Where did that come from?

  Dean couldn’t be sure if the inspector just wanted to keep Wystl around or if he really wanted to crack the case. Not that it mattered either way; they were leaving and he didn’t have time to play twenty questions with Pardion.

  “Inspector, we know who she is, who she’s after, and where she’s going – and it’s not in Europe. We need to get to the airport now!” What Dean thought and what he said were two different things. We’re Network agents and have to save its leader. We don’t really work for the Corps. “Inspector, that assassin could bring down the world order.” And that was the truth.

  North Atlantic Ocean:

  Raging in the dark, Svetlana braced herself on the rolling deck against the Atlantic’s gale-force wind. Cold and salty, it had turned her almond cheeks scarlet. Through the squall, Shelburne’s lights bobbed in the distance. Their faint glow confirmed that she was less than a kilometer north of Cape Sable, just off Nova Scotia’s rocky southwestern coast. She didn’t risk getting any closer and becoming another shipwreck in the storm. It was time to turn south-by-southwest and mingle with water traffic on the United States’ eastern seaboard. With the sub’s top down, she would appear to be just another party boat coming home after a long weekend.

  Within a few hours, the storm had passed and the Sun began to rise. It was a beautiful day on the water. Svetlana carefully guided her “party boat” to the pier nearest to the center of the boat arena and tied it up. Gentle waves lapped methodically against weathered docks that formed the long wooden pier. Skyscrapers, only a block away, loomed over rows of water vessels that included everything from decrepit sailboats to sleek multimillion-dollar yachts. Seagulls casually dipped and rose again on the warm updrafts in the empty blue sky. Occasionally, one would drift in front of the Sun. They crowed to no one in particular and gazed vigilantly at the water for their next salty meal.

  Svetlana glanced in the mirror to make sure that her new disguise still looked appropriate. Long, luscious red hair fell across her tan shoulders and the bright green contact lenses forced attention to her eyes. Perfect. Her white cover-up hung open down the middle and put her red bikini on display. Irresistible. Hidden under the cover-up, the rope dart hung on her back, ready when she needed it. Someone was coming.

  “Hi, I’m Joe. I manage the arena.”

  “Well, ‘hi’ yourself, Joe,” Svetlana purred sweetly with an Irish brogue and a bright smile. “I’m Katy Mclure. It’s really a pleasure to meet you.”

  Joe blinked as the sunlight literally flashed off Svetlana’s white teeth, but pressed on with his duties. “I’m sorry, but you can’t dock here. Someone has already rented this space.”

  Svetlana feigned worry and pleaded, “Joe, I need your help, but only for a few hours. I just need to get to the bank and get some money to pay for a space. You see, my purse fell overboard.” She stopped briefly to adjust her cover-up and watched Joe’s eyes take in her body. Pretending not to notice, she continued. “Just two hours at the most is all I need, maybe less. I promise I’ll be back to pay for a vacant space. Once I’m in a new location, maybe you can show me a place to eat? I’m starting to get hungry.” She paused and waited
for Joe to open his mouth. She jumped in before he could say something. “Oh, please, Joe!”

  Joe watched Svetlana’s firm body move with urgency as the cover-up swung back and forth with each of her frantic arm movements. He fell into her emerald green eyes and began to get very hungry, too. “Two hours?” he sighed tentatively, not wanting to wait that long.

  Svetlana heard his uncertainty and added anxious excitement to her voice. “Two hours, tops. Maybe less!”

  Something told Joe he was making a mistake. He was already on thin ice with his boss, but his boss seemed far away at the moment, and Katy was so close. “You know what, Katy? There’s a great place to eat two blocks over.”

  Svetlana smiled again. Sometimes force isn’t necessary. “Perfect, Joe, and I’ll buy. Trust me. I’ll be right back.”

  Joe laughed.

  “What’s so funny, Joe?”

  “They say when someone says ‘trust me,’ that’s the last thing you should do, but this is real life. What’s the worst that could happen?”

  Svetlana playfully wrinkled her nose and echoed his words. “Exactly, what’s the worst that could happen?” Then she added seductively, “I think I know what will happen.” She gave him a peck on the check. As she walked away, she spoke over her shoulder. “You’re about to have the time of your life.” Yeah, the last time of your life.

  Joe watched Svetlana’s hips swing as she moved away effortlessly down the pier. He looked up at the seagulls and whistled in anticipation. How did I get so lucky? He looked back at the pier and Svetlana was gone. How did she disappear so fast?