Chapter 21
CHAPTER 21
Deacon
“ I t’s so blue,” I mumbled, not prepared for the contrast in colors I was seeing on Earth.
Treg nodded and said, “Yeah. Their water doesn’t reflect as silvery as ours does.”
Breaking the atmosphere, I hoped Allegiant ’s cloaking system would function as Treg had promised. He had worked on the alterations during the journey, so I was hopeful our approach would not be detected. "If your tweaks work, we will know soon."
He chuckled, his gelatinous belly shimmering in the low lights of the café, while my pilot, Drift, cruised the ship at a slow speed. “Aye. There are a lot of people down there. I thought the targets lived on the outskirts of a town.”
“They do, but I wanted to test the cloaking, in case this all goes wrong.”
We watched the people on the street below, eating, drinking, laughing. Walking from place to place. They were oblivious to Allegiant , even though we were a mere three meters above the tallest buildings. Treg had sworn that at night, the ship would only look like a whisp of a cloud that fogged over the sky. No one paid us any attention, and even when people looked up, there was no screaming or pointing. They only saw a cloud.
I patted my engineer on the back. “You do excellent work, Treg.”
“I’m just glad you thought to bring me along. Without my modifications you would have been visible.” He shook his head, his brows furrowed. “Whoever sold you that cloaker needs to have their heads examined.”
“I will keep that in mind.” I called on the comms to Drift. “We are ready.”
“On the way, boss.”
The ship careened north toward our destination. Treg kept staring out the window, his expression now pensive.
“What is it?” I asked.
“All the times I’ve been to Earth, I never got off the ship,” he admitted. “I’ve never been seen by a human as one of their first visitors before. I’ll be honest—I’m a little self-conscious.”
“Why is that?”
He merely gestured at his green jelly body.
“Are you showing off the goods to our boss?” Ode flirted with her boyfriend as she walked in.
Treg laughed. “Hi, sweetheart.”
She kissed his cheek, before Tiger and Drift joined us in the café. Then, Ode took the floor to prepare us for the next phase of my plan.
“Alright, a couple of things you all need to know about humans, in case you don’t already know,” she said, glancing at each of us. “For one, they don’t acknowledge that there are people from other planets—not en masse , as it were—so learning this can be a kind of trauma and you will need to be understanding if things go awry. Sometimes there’s screaming or fainting or vomiting…humans tend toward the dramatic. So, after you mog, make sure you have one of us look you over to ensure you look completely human. And two, these people speak English.”
We all groaned in unison, and Ode put up a hand to quiet us. “I know, it’s an ugly language and it feels weird coming out of our throats, but that’s what they do, so I have jet injectors for everyone to be able to speak their language fluently. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt.”
Over the next few minutes, she inoculated us all with that dreadful language, and we started mogging into our human form.
Ode looked each one of us over thoroughly, and took special care to ensure the mogging had worked for Treg. It was strange to look human, and to see my friends with those characteristics, as well. I had done it as a teenager, of course—one of those rebellious phases all classed Ladrians go through—but to conduct business of any variety as a human felt peculiar.
I looked in the mirror at what they would see. Gray hair, trimmed short. Hazel eyes. Strong jaw, pronounced chin. At least I was able to keep those aspects of myself. But I was so much shorter and smaller. Proportional , I supposed. I guessed to be only six and a half feet tall, and my musculature was that of human athletes.
“I feel like a child,” I complained.
Ode laughed, her newly yellow hair tossed over her shoulder. “The height difference?”
I nodded. “It’s so strange. I had forgotten how short I am as a human.”
“You’re still taller than most of the humans,” Tiger said, glancing my way. “So be careful. They are easily intimidated by height.”
“Sarah never was,” I said, feeling even more uncomfortable seeing that my tail was now gone.
He laughed incredulously. “Are you kidding? When we stole her from this weird planet, she was intimidated by everything. Remember, Ode? All the screaming?”
“It was a lot,” Ode agreed. “So let’s keep that in mind for when we talk to these people, okay?”
I swallowed hard. “Will do.”
Once we were all human looking and spoke English with relative ease, Drift parked us between some trees near our destination in a way that hid the ship. I had always wanted to come to Earth, but I had never thought I would do it without Jac. When I thought of him, every part of me ached for him. Then I thought of Sarah and the predicament she was in, and I could have wept. But I forced all those emotions down and focused on the mission at hand.
“Are we ready?” I asked my crew.
They all nodded and Ode said, “Everyone is human, everyone is speaking English. I think we are ready to do this.”
“Do we all remember our cover stories?” I asked them.
Again, more nods. But each of them wore the same anxious look that tightened across my chest. I forced my human face to become lineless, to show no worry. To ignore my thundering, apprehensive heart.
“Follow me,” I said, and led the way to the exit.
A keening noise poured in, as the Earth’s warm humid air flowed up the lowering onramp.
Startled, I asked, “What is that sound?”
“Crickets,” Tiger explained.
“Are they aggressive?” I asked him, my body tensing as the high pitched sound in my ears. “Are they in pain?”
“No, they’re some kind of bug,” Tiger said, sounding unconcerned. “They make that sound all night. I think it’s a mating thing. We’re probably hearing thousands of them right now.”
I fought the urge to cringe at the bugs and walked onto the ground, followed by the crew. Earth gravity was close to Orhon and Halla, but the atmosphere smelled flowered. Near the house, there were bushes covered in white flowers, so I assumed they were the source.
“Anyone know what flowers those are?” I asked, wrinkling my nose at the scent.
“Gardenias, I believe,” Ode said as we walked toward the house. “They’re strong, but they are beautiful. I always pictured having one in my hair when I got united.”
I smiled down at her. “I hope you get that, Ode.”
In front of the house sat two cars, both oversized for humans to drive.
“Why would they want such large vehicles?” Drift asked. “I was given to understand they are small and have no children, per the intel we have on them.”
“It’s a thing American humans do,” Tiger said, a source of Earthly information.
Finally, we walked up the porch and reached the front door. There were two for some reason—one made of a metal mesh and the one behind it appeared wooden. I stared at them, knowing what I had to do and yet, resisting the assignment. My body felt loose and wrong and my heart was racing out of control.
Ode said from beside me, “Knocking or ringing the doorbell, that’s what we’re supposed to do next.”
“I am aware, thank you. It is just that…if we do this, there is no going back. These people…they are important.” I stalled, turning to Ode and smoothing a hand down my blue shirt. “I still look human?”
“Yes, and you’re still speaking English.”
Before I could stop her, she leaned around me and rang the doorbell. I scowled at her, but she countered with an impatient, “We would have been here all night, otherwise.”
She wasn’t wrong. My anxiety was at an all time high.
A woman opened the inner wooden door. Brown hair, brown eyes. Just like Sarah, but taller, thinner. She wore tight black pants and a large tunic that had an elaborated picture of a cina on it. A mouse , Jac had told me that was what they called cina on Earth.
A cautious smile curved her lips as she looked at our group. “Can I help you?”
“Good evening,” I said, in a surprisingly even and calm voice. “I am sorry to bother you at such an hour.”
“No trouble, we were just sitting down to eat.”
Someone called from behind the door, “Who is it?”
The first woman did not take her eyes off of me. “I’m not sure yet.”
The second woman joined her. She had heavy streaks of blue in her dark blonde hair, and sparkling brown eyes. She was shorter than Sarah, but the resemblance was still there.
“Hi.” Her smile was far more amiable than the first woman’s. “You folks selling something?”
I shook my head and smiled politely. “We are friends of Sarah Hollinger’s—"
The tall one gasped. “What did you say?”
The short one with blue streaks in her hair blurted, “Do you know where she is?”
I nodded and kept my smile in place. “Yes, she—"
“Is she alive?” The tall one cut me off again.
“She is.”
The two women shared a look of relief and the short one began to wipe her tear-filled eyes.
“Where is she?” the tall one demanded to know.
“Safe,” I assured her. “You are her sisters, yes?”
The short one nodded immediately and opened her mouth to speak, but the tall one stood up straighter and quickly cut her off. “Don’t tell them anything, Jenny.” Her eyes narrowed on me warily. “Who are you?”
“I am Deacon Ladrang,” I said, introducing myself before doing the same with my crew. “This is Tiger Orne, Ode Hrimp, Drift Skir, and Treg.”
Suspicion flickered in her eyes. “Are you with some sort of cult or something?”
“No, not at all.”
“Why are you here?”
Needing to get past her skeptical nature, I got to the heart of the matter. “Because Sarah misses her sisters and would like to see you both.”
“I’ll get my purse,” Jenny said before she vanished behind the door.
“Leave your purse right where it is, Jen.” The tall one was quite cross when she barked at her sister, then returned her attention to us. “I don’t know who you are, or what kind of scam you’re running, but we are not interested in following our sister to the grave or having some assholes take advantage of us.”
“This is no scam,” Ode said, trying to help smooth things over. “We are not here to hurt either of you, in any way at all. We merely wish to reunite sisters.”
Muscles feathered in the tall one’s jaw. “Prove it.”
Jenny returned with a bag in her hand. She started to walk around her sister, prepared to leave with us, but the tall one blocked her with her arm. “Just wait, Jen.”
I looked to my crew, but none of them spoke. “My word is not enough proof?” I asked her.
She laughed, though there was no humor in the sound. “Are you sure you’re not some crazy person in a cult?”
“No. I have already stated this...” But then I remembered how Sarah was when we first met. She often required me to repeat things more than once before she believed them. Doubt runs in the family .
I smiled again. “My only wish is to take you to your sister. No harm will come to either of you.”
Unconvinced, she folded her arms across her chest. “If you know my sister, then you should know how long she has been missing, right?”
I quickly calculated the time frame in my mind. “As I understand your concept of time, she has been gone for close to a year.”
Jenny’s eyes widened as she looked at her sister. “See, Elizabeth? He knows .”
“Just hang on, Jen,” Elizabeth insisted, seemingly not convinced. “Deacon, if you know so much about Sarah, how did my sister leave us last year?”
“She had a ring. She turned the stone on it and vanished.”
“She did ,” Elizabeth whispered, that initial distrust fading away. “And we have no idea where she disappeared to, but…we miss her every single day. This is all so…strange and I don’t understand what is going on.”
The confusion in her voice also held a bit of hope, and I used that to my advantage. I pressed a button on the gauntlet driver on my wrist to decloak the ship behind us near their vehicles.
Elizabeth’s jaw dropped and her lips parted as she stared at my ship.
“Holy shit,” Jenny exclaimed, her voice infused with awe and excitement. “Is that a… spaceship ?”
“It is,” I said, liking this woman’s lively energy and easy acceptance, which was the complete opposite of her sister’s uptight personality. “There are many strange things you will learn, if you come with us. But the most important thing you should know is that Sarah needs you both, very much.”
Elizabeth swallowed hard and nodded. “I’ll…I’ll get my coat.”