Chapter 1
Good mooooooooooorning San Francisco… it’s ten-oh-nine on August twenty-third, and we’ve got another hot one for you today!
The city’s still under a heat advisory, and temperatures are threatening to hit near ninety-five today.
Folks always complain about the dang fog, but I bet everyone’s wishing it would roll back in and save us this scorching!
I know I do. Fall can’t get here fast enough, folks.
If you have air conditioning, stay inside where it’s comfortable.
If you have to go outside, make sure you stay hydrated and keep to the shade as much as possible.
San Franciscans aren’t built for this kind of heat, so buckle down, take care, and think cold.
To get you in an icy mood, here’s a song that might help…
Qylar snickered when “Cold as Ice” by Foreigner started playing.
He turned up the volume on the VHF Marine radio in their forty-five-foot Hatteras Convertible and pushed farther out to sea.
As soon as he arrived at the right coordinates, he tossed out the specialized anchor to prevent the boat from drifting too much.
He was twenty-five miles off the coast of San Francisco.
Too far for a regular anchor or mooring, but it was the perfect distance to hide their star cruiser forty feet deep.
He never stopped the boat directly on top of the ship, but various spots miles away—for a couple of reasons.
First, it gave him an excuse to get some extra swim time in and stretch his tentacles.
The other reason was curious onlookers. Not that there were many out that far, but an empty boat adrift in deep water sometimes attracted the attention of passing ships.
Fortunately, there had only been two cases so far, but another could easily happen.
The first time, someone had simply taken it.
He’d popped out of the water, and the boat was gone.
After hours of swimming, assuming it had drifted off, he’d given up.
Later, he’d tracked it down and the guy had refused to return it, claiming the boat was adrift in international waters and he could legally salvage it—which was a myth too many boaters believed.
As an alien hiding on Earth, it wasn’t like Qylar could call the police or sue the guy, though.
He and Cryss were forced to steal it in the dead of night.
Which, if he was being honest, was some of the most fun he’d had on Earth.
The Coast Guard had found it the second time and assumed someone had possibly drowned.
He’d narrowly missed being caught by divers searching around it on the return trip.
He’d stopped far enough they couldn’t see him and watched as they tugged it into harbor.
He’d had to make a bogus claim that it had been stolen from the marina and swore he had no idea why they’d found it floating out to sea when he’d come to claim it.
If it was called into the Coast Guard a few more times, some hawk-eyed human might notice that a boat kept being found abandoned in that general area and he wasn’t bringing authorities right to the spot where they’d hidden the ship.
As a general rule, he never stopped in the same spot more than once a year and wherever he did was always a good mile or two from the star cruiser’s location.
For added measure, they also traded boats in regularly, swapping them for different models, using one of the various fake identities they had.
After peeling his clothes off, Qylar dove in headfirst, breaking the surface with little splash.
An inward sigh of relief washed over him as he unfurled his tentacles, stretching them as far as he could.
The cold of the ocean didn’t hurt either.
It had been a decade since they’d crash landed and after all that time as a San Franciscan, he was no longer built for heat.
Luckily, it grew colder and colder the deeper he went.
He used his senses to check for larger prey animals. While sharks were no match for him and his powerful appendages, he tried to avoid them whenever possible. They attacked on instinct alone, only hoping for a meal, and he had no desire to harm the creatures if he didn’t have to.
Whales were another matter. They were his favorite among Earth’s seas, and he’d go a bit out of his way to swim near one when he could. The gentle giants reminded him of a similar, much larger creature found in Nefyrian oceans. Their beautiful songs helped him feel a little less homesick.
He didn’t miss home, exactly, but he sure as fuck missed swimming the seas there.
Where Earth’s oceans were filled with trash, microplastics, and pollution, the waters of Nefyria were pristine.
There was little he appreciated about his people, but the fact they were good stewards of both land and sea had been impressed upon him over the years living amongst humans.
Familiar whale song sounded in the distance, and he adjusted course. After a friendly hello for a mother blue whale who was often in the area—and her newborn calf he was pleased to finally meet—he pushed on towards the ship.
The very one he and Cryss had crash landed after escaping a doomed wedding ceremony.
Cryss’s, not his. Cryss’s fiancé had announced a long-term affair with his bodyguard and his pregnancy by the same man the night before the wedding.
Cryss’s power-hungry parents had tried to convince him to marry the prince anyway.
Luckily, that hadn’t happened, but they hadn’t made it as far as planned.
They’d spent years trying to fix the ship to continue their escape, but life had thrown all sorts of curveballs.
Cryss met his mate, Alex, whom they’d thought was human but later learned was a half-Nefyrian prince himself.
Not before Cryss’s brother had shown up with a newer, faster ship for them and a command to return home to marry another of the king’s princes. One not pregnant by the bodyguard.
Luckily, Alex’s father had been that very king, and the pair had been allowed their happily ever after. Two children and homes on both worlds later, and they were living the dream.
The ship Qylar and Cryss had feverishly attempted to fix was no longer a priority.
At least for Cryss. Qylar spent what little free time he had continuing the repair work.
It was slow going, especially alone, but it was an escape he sometimes needed.
Being alone, out in the quiet depths, gave him time to think.
He swam a few circles around the craft to ensure all was well before slipping through the secure water wall underneath the belly of the ship.
As soon as he climbed onboard, he returned to his human form.
He reached for one of the towels he kept near the water wall and dried off.
After tugging on one of the pairs of the overalls he stored there, he went to work on the routing array on the pilot’s deck—one of the last of the repairs left before the ship was fully operational again.
A solid hour passed before the proximity alarm went off.
He dropped his Flux Oscillopliers and checked the Earthen radar system he’d added since their systems were built for space, not sea.
He scanned around the ship. A few seconds later, whale song reached his ears again.
He grinned. The mother and calf finally appeared as blips on the radar seconds after that.
They were saying their goodbyes as they passed for deeper waters.
“Safe travels, my friends,” Qylar murmured.
He returned to his work—until a light, dull clank behind him sent him spinning. Qylar unfurled his tentacle and reached for a blaster he stored in the old tool chest.
Before he could aim it, Cryss appeared in the doorway, dripping wet and a towel draped around his waist.
Qylar caught himself and lowered the weapon. He sighed, shaking his head at Cryss.
“You should’ve told me you were coming out. You could’ve lost your head.”
Cryss grinned. “I trusted your reflexes to keep it where it is.”
Qylar placed the blaster back into the toolbox and coiled his arm back into its humanesque form. “What’re you doing here?”
“Just checking on you—and your progress.” Cryss slowly walked around the main deck.
“How’d you get here? I took the boat.”
“I swam.”
Qylar cringed. “The water near the coast is so polluted. I’d much rather take the boat out.”
“Which is why I jumped in a shower before walking up here,” Cryss said. He scanned the pilot’s deck. “From what I saw outside—and in here—it looks like you might be nearly done.”
“I am.”
“I don’t know why you’re still working on this old bucket. We have the new ship now.”
Cryss had a new ship, not Qylar. He’d take the old bucket Cryss no longer wanted.
“We spent five years trying to fix her,” Qylar said. “Why stop when we were so close?” He picked up his tool again. “Not like we can just junk her out here, either. We’ll eventually need to hide the ship somewhere else, and it would be easier to do that under her own steam.”
“True,” Cryss said. “It’s amazing no one’s stumbled over her already, even as far out as she is.”
“Don’t worry. I have her protected. I reprogrammed the stealth mode system to hide her from modern Earth tech, and I have the proximity alarms on their most sensitive settings. I’ve even rigged them to go to my cell phone,” Qylar said.
“Smart,” Cryss said, eyeing Qylar’s work. “Do you have plans for this heap once she’s fixed?”
Qylar shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“You’re not planning to leave us, are you?”
“San Francisco is my home now.” Qylar eyed his best friend. “But having a backup escape option isn’t a bad thing.”
“I suppose,” Cryss said, toying with one of the controls. “You’ve been coming out here more and more, so it felt as if you had a plan in motion.”
“No plan,” Qylar replied. “Just another means of fleeing if shit ever hits the fan.”
“Alex thinks you come out here to avoid us.”
“Sometimes I do,” Qylar murmured.