Tel's Story Time

Nano 2009: Appendix A: Day 0

2010-01-03T20:06:00.000-08:00

Biaz

Note: This is not yet complete.

Culture

The biaz, like all the other races, look human. They also basically act human. However the are some starteling differences. First, 95% are male. Second, the few women there are rule over all the men. The men don’t exactly lack free will. That is they are capable of independent thought, but their instincts drive them to obey, just as human instincts drive them toward marriage. From a man’s perspective all authority comes from women.

The women are the rulers of the society. They make most of the money and rules. They are the only ones that have any say in the affairs of the state. That doesn’t mean men don’t work or are not bright. Quite the contrary, they do most of the work. They just never hold a position of power. By the vary nature of who they are, men could never hold a position that was above a women’s.

Very few women work or need to work. They are completely supported by their children. However, for the reason’s stated above some women need to hold positions of power in society. In earlier times, this equated to queens, dukes, and other such positions. In modern times, this equates to prime minister, representatives, and other political positions.

Other women can choose to work at what ever field they want. Most of those that don’t go into politics choose not to work or choose to have more of a hobby then an actual career. For example, some take up music, art, or literature (nearly all of the best artist in Biaz society are women. Nobody is exactly sure why this is. Some people attribute it to the fact they have no other obligations. Some think women are just innately more gifted in the area). There are always a few that take up a career in medicine, science, entrepreneurs, and in some very rare cases a military career. All of these careers tend to be dominated by men.

Men make up all professions, with the exception of political positions. This not only includes manual labor, but also more white color work: doctors, lawyers, ambassadors, managers, CEOs, etc.

It is also important to note that society places a much greater value on a women’s life then a mans. In fact the value of a man’s life is less then the value humans place on life, and the value placed on a women’s life is greater then the value of life for humans. This has certain implications on society, notably in medicine, war, and exploration. In medicine it is generally accepted practice to sacrifice the life of a man, if it could possibly save the life of a women, either directly (such as organ transplants) or by medical research. There have been very, very, very few women on the battlefield of a war. When they are, they are ferociously guarded by men, and will not be willingly attacked by the other side.

The life span for women is also far greater then men. Women live up to 150 years (earth years are used for a reference) and have a life expectancy of 125 years. Men live up to 65 and have a life expectancy of 44 years.

The social structure of Biaz society is based on clans (extended families). In earlier times, clans lived together or at least in proximity. In modern times clans tend to be more divided at least geographically, for a variety of reasons. There are some notable examples however. Men stay with their mothers their entire lives (unless directed to do otherwise). If they are cut off from their mother (she dies, is imprisoned, etc), then they pledge loyalty to one of her relatives. Men are most loyal to the women closest to them, their mother first among them.

Biaz women are a good place to start in explaining their society, since they are at the top of society (similar, but not exactly how feudalism, with the royal family at the top). Most women are born into a life of privilege. They are revered at birth and are cared for by a select group of men. It is considered a great honor to care for a young Biaz women, even in modern times. Early childhood is similar (if not identical to) human childhood, with the exception that men tend to obey her commands (except when it is in conflict with an order with an elder women of course, especially her mother). As a result, Biaz women tend to be more then a bit spoiled, especially in their early history.

There is a strong connection between mother and daughter. It’s the same connection between human parents and children. To this end mothers generally (although not always) take a great deal of interest in raising their daughters. Biaz children (female and male) never meet or care about their biological fathers. They tend to think of the men that care for them as their fathers.

Puberty however is very different then puberty for humans. First of all, puberty is a few years later then humans (about ages 13-15). This difference is due to the strangeness in their mating rituals and menstrual cycle. At the start of the cycle a desire to mate begins to grow within the woman. The desire does not end until a sexual encounter, which always results in pregnancy (although in modern life, this can be and generally is avoided).

Her partner is chosen for her. Generally, male partners are exchanged between women in the same clan or extended family. However, on occasion partners are exchanged between clans. This is especially true for women of high rank in society, such as the queen or her direct descendents. Women mate with each partner only once. This is mostly due to the man dieing an honorable (if not horrific) death shortly afterwards. He is not killed. He dies completely of natural causes. Men gladly take this trade; such is the desire for sex in them. Needless to say, there is no concept of marriage in Biaz society.

Biaz women typically have 1 to 5 children at a time, with an average of about 2 1/3 per pregnancy. The gestation period is about 9 months same as in humans. A daughter is born about once every 20 pregnancies. This is an average however. The record for the most daughters born from a single women is 15 and their have been several well documented cases of women not having any daughters, including one that ended one of their great empires a couple of thousand years ago.

A man is chosen to care for the children. Most often he is either an older brother (if there are any that are old enough) or an uncle. A connection between mother and son isn’t nearly as strong as between mother and daughter. Don’t get me wrong, mothers do care whether their sons are cared for or not, but not nearly to the extent they care for their daughters.

Even in the modern age there are many infant deaths due to complications during delivery. Most complications that end in a death, result in the death of a male and not a female (if one is present). It seems even the biology of Biaz women are more prepared to sacrifice a male as opposed to a female.

The woman’s menstrual cycle doesn’t begin again for up to 4 months after delivery of her children. Having 3 or more children gestating in her womb can be quite ruff on her body and it takes time to recover. During this time, she experiences no or very little desire to mate. It is against their religion to have sex (other then with oneself) during this time, but it is far from unheard of. Sex is quite pleasurable for both partners (especially for the men). However, sex still costs the man is life, so it is generally frowned upon even by the non-religious. After the 4 month lull, the menstrual cycle restarts and the desire for sex returns and grows until she gets pregnant once again.

Once her children are old enough to take care of her, the women leave their immediate family to start their own. This is not to say she leaves her clan. Very often she takes herself and her children to a new home in the same city or neighbor hood. Some very well off families own a high rise building, in which case their children will move to a different set of floors instead of to a new building, but it is essentially the same.

As you might have guessed men’s lives are very different. Their mother is not directly involved in thier up bringing. Instead, they are cared for strictly by other men. In some cases, a man may never know his mother. Much more often however, mothers never know their sons. Other then that, a man’s childhood is very much like a humans.

Again much of the differences between human and biaz come at puberty. At about age 14-15 the desire for sex starts to grow slowly. This desire peaks at about age 19-22, then slowly declines until death. Unlike in women, this desire is resistible. Most men never experience any sexual experience. They carry out their lives working in their chosen career until they die.

It is worth noting here, that male sexuality is similar to human male sexuality in that it is external in nature. They are aroused by seeing and touching. Women, on the other hand, have an innate sense of sexuality. It comes from within. They have very little connection with the men they are with. That is why masturbation is accepted, although very much still a private practice for women and is almost unheard of for men.

This leads to the topic of pornography. It is and has always been an illegal activity and is considered detrimental to society. You see any sexual encounter by a man will lead to his death, for reasons which are explained below.

As mentioned before, women choose their mating partners. All those chosen consider it a great honor and privilege. The actual sexual encounter is intensely pleasurable. However, their bodies generate enough sperm for one ejaculation and no more. Afterwards, hormones that regulate and maintain body functions are no longer made. This affects his immune system and the ability for his body to repair and regulate itself. The longest any man has ever lived after having sex was 1 year 2 days and that was only because of a rich woman, who cared for him deeply, paying off doctors to try to keep him alive. I should note that women generally form such loving friendships with other women, but there are always exceptions to these rules.

The last thing to explain about Biaz society is probably the most important thing (as it is in all societies): Religion. There have been many different religions formed by many different societies. However, only one society survived Biaz history, so only one religion remains.

This religion is remarkable similar to the main religions on earth (Islam, Christianity, Judaism). There is heaven, hell and one god that rules all. Most believe god is a woman, but this has never been explicitly spelled out anywhere.

The entire mythology of the religion is too much for this essay, but I should hit the highlights. Lets start at the beginning. In the beginning god created women from himself and said “These are my daughters. Go forth in my name.” He then created Biaz (their home world) and gave it to them. The world was a lush and beautiful place, but survival there was difficult. So god grew men in their wombs and said, “These children are a gift from me to you, but all daughters are my daughters and belong to me.” And so life was born on their planet. (It has long been proven that life evolved on their world, just like it evolved on earth).

There have been many prophets/messiahs of varying importance. The last of which was Siuz some 3000 years ago. Each prophet came to Biaz at a time when society was drifting from gods path. Each had the purpose of teaching the correct path or leading them to it. The first was Saziass. She led a ruthless invasion that wiped out Ariaz clan, on the command of god. The Ariaz followed a different religion, which worshipped multiple gods. I should note 2 things about this story. First, when I say wiped out Ariaz clan, what I mean is she had all the women of the clan killed. With no female leader, the men pledged loyalty to her. This behavior was common through out biaz history. Second, there is no actual historical record of Ariaz following any religion. Most historical scholars believe the invasion was to expand her territory and not a command from god.

There are similar religious stories of prophets, some similar to Saziass, some speak of prophets courageously leading their people from the oppression of others. All seem to have one of 2 things in common. The benevolence of god for those who follow her path, and the vengeance of God for those who do not.

Then came Siuz. She came to a world which did not believe in the one true god. I say came to the world because, as the myth goes, she wasn’t born of a mortal. She descended directly from god. Historical records have proven she did live, but can find no record of her life or her death.

All moral conduct based on religion comes directly from her. No religious figure considers religious laws before her time to be binding laws from god, unless she condones it either explicitly by her words or implicitly by her actions.

She came to the world when she was 22. She taught all that would listen about the path of god. It is said, she fought against and defeated the pagan gods of that time. However, the priests and rulers of that time are a different matter entirely. For many years they resisted turning against their daughters and sisters that choose to follow Siuz’ path. But Siuz began to draw more followers and the followers of the old gods were nearly outnumbered. They were fearful Siuz would strike first, so they finally turned against Siuz. They ambushed the men of Siuz followers and killed nearly all of them. But the women were not there. Siuz called a meeting for all those loyal to her just before the strike. At the meeting, she told them the end was nearly upon them and they shouldn’t be afraid. She said she would deliver them north to a new land (which the later named Siuz), but they must leave now with the belongings and men they brought with them. She also said she must leave them before they arrive at this new land. God does not will her to take them the whole way.

It is important to note her that Siuz did not have any children. This could not be historically verified. This is something of a miracle (if you believe in that sort of thing). Once puberty hits, Biaz women must have sex and get pregnant or they fall ill and die.

Anyways back to the story. Before Siuz and her followers could leave their land, they were attacked by those loyal to the old gods. They were surrounded and severely outnumbered. The army beared down on them. The handful of men Siuz’ followers brought with them stood between the vast army and the women ready to die even though they new it was hopeless. Siuz calmly walked beyond them in front of the army and spoke “Stop!” and they obeyed. She told her followers to continue their journey north. She lead the army off the field of battle. Neither her, nor anyone in the army was ever seen or heard from again.

According to the religion, during the darkest days of God’s children, Siuz will return with that army to smite their enemy and deliver all believers into heaven. Three thousand years later, they are still waiting for her return.

Most of the religious laws should be familiar for all humans. You shouldn’t murder people. You shouldn’t steal, etc. They are the basic rules of society for all 4 races.

Most of the laws that are different, just reinforce their social structure. Men should honor and obey all women, none more so then their mothers and sisters. Women should provide and care for all her children. Men can not have any sexual encounter, except with a consenting women. Women should only have sex with a man if it will (or at least expected to) result in pregnancy. The list goes on, but you pretty much get the idea.

World

First, I failed to mention before, when the Biaz name a thing after a person or persons, they name it with the same name. So the land named after Siuz, is named Siuz. More importantly for this conversation, the Biaz home world is named Biaz.

Biaz is similar to Earth. It has only 3 major differences. It is a little closer to their sun and therefore a little warmer (no more then 5 degrees). It is slightly smaller then Earth. Finally, it has 3 continents, not 7, although they are larger then the ones on Earth.

Two of the continents are some what close to each other. One thousand miles of ocean separates them at their furthest distance and only a couple hundred miles at their closest distance. One continent takes up much of the northern hemisphere and stretches several thousand miles east to west. It dips into the southern hemisphere by about 400 miles at its western end. The other continent is to its south and south east. It takes up the southern hemisphere, dipping north at its eastern end. It is about the same distance lengthwise. Both of these continents are on the eastern hemisphere.

The third continent is on the western hemisphere (the other side of the world). It is rectangle shaped with the long side going north to south. It stretches vertically most of the length of the world, with the southern edge about 800 miles from the south pole and the northern edge about 1200 miles from the north pole.

Biaz is tilted just like Earth and experiences the same 4 seasons. Most life is similar to, but not identical to earth. For example, Biaz has plants, insects, animals (both herbivores and carnivores), etc.

History

I’m breaking the history into the same 3 time periods earth history is broken into: ancient ages, middle ages, late ages. It is important to note that although the names are the same, the actual time is not the same. The middle ages on Biaz started 3000 years ago (when Siuz left), over 1000 years before the middle ages on Earth.

Ancient (3000+ years)

There was very little contact between societies on eastern continent during this time and no contact between the eastern and western hemispheres. It is a complete mystery how life evolved on each continent, especially on the western continent.

Like on Earth, most of Biaz history is lost to time. However, there has been a great deal of archeological discoveries that point to the existence of a few major empires during that time. Mostly there were just relatively small city-states consisting of 10 – 50 women and several thousand men.

All the city-states were based, more or less on a feudal system. Some followed a strict line of succession from mother to the eldest daughter. For others, it was always the eldest living woman that ruled. There is some evidence that suggest a few chose their ruler based on consensus or possibly by voting.

There is ample evidence to suggest war was common, although most of the details of such wars are lost to time. War is believed to be particularly brutal at that time, for the men at least. The armies were made up entirely of men. The women of course ordered their armies into battle and then waited for the results in their homes and castles. The results, however, were often the other army marching into her land, burning her home, and taking her head back to her enemy’s queen. There are some stories of a far worst fate however. The enemy army slaughters all the men and leaves the city in ruins. The women that are left rarely survive.

Most religions at this time consisted of worshiping the gods of earth, sun, visible planets, etc similar to earth’s early religions. There are of course a great many myths, legends, and fictional stories about the gods of this time, but judging from the popularity of Earth’s ancient mythology, I’m sure nobody will mind if I skip them here. If you are really interested, I’ll write an overview at a later time.

Eastern Empires

There were 2 notable empires during this period. The first was Zuiasa. It stood, in one form or another, from 5000 years ago to 4200 years ago. At its height it encompassed the entire northern continent and parts of the southern continent.

The empire started as 5 smaller city-states. Each had a technological advantage. Xias, near the beaches on the southern coast, learned to fashion the sand and soft rocks there into bricks for construction. They were the first to build aqueducts, baths, and other large buildings. It is said they architecture was astonishing during that time. There are even stories of a dome stadium, although no proof was ever found.

The second city-state was Cyliaz . It was located in the west and just a little south. There city was located at the bottom of 2 volcanic mountains, one to their north west and one to their north east. Cyliaz were master farmers. The mountains provided many streams and rivers through their land, but also the volcanic eruptions from years past gave them rich farm land. They used this to their advantage and learned to develop farming equipment and techniques that yielded them many times more crop then any other city at that time. It is even said they practiced crop rotation some 4500 years before it was practiced again.

The third city-state was Soaiz. They are located north of Xias. Their advantage was their ability to domesticate animals. They used many different animals for hunting, farming, and traveling.

The fourth city-state was the Aizuis. They were known for the metalworking and hunting ability. They are located north east of the Xias. Their land is abundant with metals, especially copper, tin, and aluminum. It is also mostly forest, so it is easier to hunt and gather their food rather then clear a place to plant crops. They were the first to use bows, and constantly improved on the design. It is even said that they used metal arrows.

The fifth city-state was the Liaxus. They are located to the north of Xias along the coast and are master sailors and fishers. Liaxus were also natural explorers. They were the first to visit the other cities above. Archeologist have even discovered maps of the entire northern coast of the southern continent from Liaxus, along with maps of most of the northern continent.

I should note that the Biaz tend to name land after their first or greatest leaders. Xias, Cyliaz, Soaiz, Aizuis, and Liaxus were the leaders of each of the cities. It can be quite confusing at times, but you get use to it.

The empire had its beginning when Liaxus’ followers told her of the other cities. Liaxus was so intrigued, she decided to visit the other lands. For the next 10 years of her life she visited Xias, Aizuis, and Soaiz. She even had children from son’s of each of the cities leaders. 2 years after returning, she dispatched messages to each of the leaders asking them to meet to discuss trading technologies.

The first meeting of the 5 cities took place a year later. When the meeting ended, they not only agreed to trade technologies, but also goods and promised to support each other militarily. Each city was under constant attack from smaller cities and tribes to the north and the south. This was more so for the Aizuis and the Cyliaz then the others. Before the leaders returned home, they agreed to meet every 5 years.

This arrangement lasted for 100 years. During this time their technological level advanced to astonishing levels. Some archeologist believe the Biaz would be at least 500 years more advanced if the technology developed by the Zuiasa hadn’t been lost during the fall of the empire.

Eventually disaster struck however. The tribes to the south joined forces and launched an attack on Cyliaz. The inhabitants were forced to retreat from the city. Cialys, daughter and Cyliaz and their queen barely escaped with her life. She only escaped because several hundred of her sons sacrificed them selves while she made for Xias.

The invading army was not satisfied with conquering Cyliaz. They soon launched an attack on Soaiz as well. The Soaiz lines were about to break, but were reinforced by the Aizuis army just in time. Aiusiz, their queen’s younger sister, lead the Aizuis army on the battle field herself.

At the next meeting of the 5 queens, it was decided to form one army from the military of each of the 5 cities. There combined strength along with their technological advantage made this army the largest and best equipped in the world by far. Aiusiz became the first general of the new army, however, the position would be re-examined at each meeting. This is often considered to be the birth of the Zuiasa empire.

Aiusiz became the most famous figure from this time period. She, as the head of the largest army of the world, instilled both fear and respect. She was considered both fair and ruthless (although it often depended on who you asked). In modern times, her name is still virtually synonymous with the Zuiasa empire (think Ceaser and the Roman Empire). Although her position was re-examined every 5 years, she was never removed.

With the new army the Zuiasa empire easily retook Soaiz. They then attacked all the tribes that took part in the invasion. They killed all the women they found and absorbed the men into their army. Asiuza, queen of the Aizuis and Aiusiz’ sister, ordered her to conquer all the near by cities and clam them for Aizuis. Aizuis refused the order. She said the army belongs to all 5 cities and only together could they give her orders.

I’m not sure if you have noticed or not, but I haven’t mentioned Zuiasa, whom the empire is named after. She was the daughter of Xuias, the queen of Liaxus at the time of Cyliaz invasion. She was very young at the invasion. She was 14 during the first meeting of 5 queens after Aiusiz threw out the invaders. (As a side note, her first children (including a daughter) was conceived the second night of the meeting by a son of Aiusiz). She attended the meetings with her mother and sister, even though her sister was older and she was not expected to inherit the thrown. She apparently begged her mother weeks before the meeting, until her mother relented.

During the meeting Asiuza tried to persuade the others the best course of action was to extend their borders by taking their neighboring lands. After all none of their cities would be in any danger if all of their rivals were dead. Aiusiz and Xuias objected strongly. Aiusiz thought a elongated war with the entire world brought far to much peril to all of their cities. If they concentrated their forces in an invasion to the south, they would be vulnerable from the north and vice versa. Xuias thought it would be a distraction from their cultural advancement. After all, isn’t that what gave them the power and influence the world is so jealous of?

For 5 days they debated the issue. They even had to extend the meeting because no agreement could be reached. It was Zuiasa that finally broke the stalemate. She convinced the others not to invade them, instead they would absorb them into a greater empire. After all, they had a lot to offer them. They had the ability to improve their cities. More importantly they had an army that could provide protection.

What this provided the Zuiasa empire is more taxes and men to support their army and cities of course. It also provided a buffer between their cities and any threat from outside and allowed for pre-emptive strikes against enemies before they got too powerful.

Its unfortunate this did not protect the empire from threats from within. You see Asiuza was planning to betray the empire. The army at the time was mostly made of Aiusiz’ sons and sons of women aligned with her and therefore loyal to her and not to her sister Asiuza. So Asiuza decided to kill her sister and inherit the army. With it she would conquer the other cities, then she would set out to conquer the world. Nothing went according to that plan however. She poisoned her sister and framed Xuias, but Aiusiz didn’t die. Instead she fell into a deep sleep for several weeks. The framing part of the plan went fairly well however, and she did take over the army while Aiusiz was a sleep. Her first order was to execute Xuias and her daughters. Before Xuias was caught, she had her 2 daughters smuggled out of the city. Zuiasa’s sister was later found outside the city and was executed, but Zuiasa herself never left the city. Even at a young age she knew what would happen if she left. She knew Asiuza would find a way to kill her sister and then use her army to turn on the others and establish herself as the sole queen of the empire. She kidnapped the sleeping Aiusiz and brought her back to Liaxus.

Asiuza saw opportunity in this turn of events. She blamed Cialys for her sister’s disapperence and used her army to invade Cyliaz. Once Cialys was killed along with most of her family, she “discovered” ample evidence to suggest her sister was moved to Soaiz. Once all of their women were dead, she said her sister was moved again.

She knew Zuiasa had taken her sister. That is why she invaded Liaxus last. As the army decended on the city, they did not face fisherman with ores as they had expected. They faced Aiusiz herself. To this day, there is an expression on Biaz: “The best way to stop and invading army is to be Aiusiz.”

That night a deal was struck. Zuiasa would become queen of Liaxus, Xias, Cyliaz, and Soaiz. The rightful queen for these 4 cities were all killed by Asiuza, along with all their heirs. Aiusiz would become queen of Aizuis, remain general of the empires army and Asiuza would be taken back to Aizuis and not allowed to return. Aiusiz traded her right to be queen of the entire empire for the life of a sister that tried to kill her for the same position.

With Zuiasa as their queen the empire expanded. Their armies stretched forth protecting all those that would submit to the empire and conquering all those that posed a threat (which was most of the rest).

Those that did surrender were given technology and engineers to help build their cities infrastructure, if the cities size warranted it. Roads were built and trade routes established. Nearly every city that surrendered saw a substantial raise in their standard of living. The price of course was the hefty taxes paid to the 5 cities, in part to continually expand and improve those cities, but also to keep all other cities from surpassing them.

They never let the most advanced technology available leave their cities. They wanted the 5 original cities to be the most advanced in the world. This symbolized their power and prestige. It was meant as a reminder of the reason the 5 cities were the rulers of all the others.

By the end of Zuiasa’s reign, she controlled most of the northern continent and the northern part of the southern continent. The empire included roughly 80% of the known world. Her reign is known as a peaceful and prosperous time. There were many rebellions and many did not submit to the will of the empire easily. But most of the lives of the empire’s citizens improved after they joined (or were conquered).

Zuiasa’s reign lasted 85 years and the empire fell within a 50 years of her death. That is a story that I’ll have to come back to. The fall of the Zuiasa empire and the rise of the Saziass empire (named after the prophet) are intertwined. We will need to discuss the rise of the Saziass empire before continueing.

At its beginnings the city of Saziass was a small village, nestled on the southern most peninsula on the western side of the southern continent. They survived mostly on arctic fish. However, their larger neighbor to the north, the Ariaz, controlled most of the good fishing grounds and all of the fertile ground.

The Ariaz also had something else he Saziass didn’t, a large well equipped army. The Saziass barely had enough man power to keep them selves fed. If that wasn’t bad enough, the Ariaz periodically raided the near by villages and took their food. You see, even though the Ariaz lived in more tempered climate to the north, it still wasn’t ideal for farming and their large army consumed a lot of food.

After seeing many of her people starve, Saziass decided to act. She divided all of the men into smaller mini-armies of about 20-30 each lead by one of her daughters and equipped them with what ever weapons she could find. They then started raiding the areas controlled by the Ariaz and taking all the food, weapons, and what ever else they needed. They were always careful to avoid confrontation with the Ariaz army.

For 5 years they survived this way. They raided so often, the Ariaz were starting to die of starvation in larger and larger numbers, while their food stock piles grew. But the Ariaz army was getting smarter. They began to lay traps for them and wipe out entire teams. Saziass’ army were being defeated left and right. Saziass herself barely escaped a trap that wiped out her mini-army. The injuries she sustained during that battle left her with a limp the rest of her life.

Finally Saziass devised a plan, a plan to surrender. She sent word to the Ariaz that she herself would surrender and give back all the food they had taken. In exchange, all she asked for was that her people would go free. The Ariaz accepted her surrender. They had no intension of letting her people go of course, but they would certainly stop pursuing them long enough to see Saziass captured and executed.

The Ariaz army rode out and found Saziass alone along with all the food they had taken. The captian of the Ariaz army was astonished at the shear amount of food they had taken. There were at least 10 large containers. Each container was a few feet larger then a normal sized man and was about 10 feet by 15 feet. The captain took Saziass and the food back to Ariaz city. His queen was so pleased they celebrated through out the night. Siziass was to have a public execution the next afternoon.

What the Ariaz didn’t recognize was that the containers were not completely filled with food. Inside the containers hide what was left of Siziass’ army. When the men of Ariaz awoke the next morning, they found every single women in the entire city dead, except for Siziass. Siziass easily won the fighting that ensued. With their women dead, the men had no will to fight. Some immediately submitted to Siziass, but most just left the city to look for relatives of their mistress to serve.

That is how Siziass took the city of Ariaz. Under her reign the raiding stopped. All cities in the area lived in peace. It wasn’t until she died that the Siziass empire began to expand.

When her daughter Iziass, became queen she reformed the army and began conquering her neighbors to her north. Even though Ariaz’ temprature was tempered by the ocean currents to its west, it was still an arctic region and life was very harsh during this time. Iziass wanted to expand her territory into the more fertile regions to the north. Their was also reports that the Zuiasa empire was expanding onto their continent from the north. Iziass wanted to take as much territory as she could before Zuiasa got to it.

The Siziass army under Iziass was ruthless. They would attack a village, kill all the women and force the men to join them either as soldiers or as laborers. They attacked villages all the way north to the coast. To their surprise, they found the Zuiasa empire had no intention of crossing the ocean to their continent. Even the villages along the coast of the northern continent weren’t well protected. Instead of invading north into the territory of the Zuiasa empire, then decided to turn east instead. They knew they could never defeat the Zuiasa army just yet. They conquered several hundred miles worth of villages to the east before turning their sites once again to the Zuiasa empire.

There was a fundamental problem with the way Iziass was expanding her territory. She was killing too many women. Without them there was no way of replenishing the army once the men started to die off. She sent all the women in her empire north to the lands that were freshly conquered. It was said that during her entire reign there wasn’t any 2 women within a 100 mile radius of each other.

Seeing the impending collapse of her aging army, Iziass decided now was the time to attack the Zuiasa empire. Zuiasa had stopped expanding her territory a while ago. She decided instead to solidify her hold on the lands that she held. She had her army broken up and stationed all across her lands. If she had not, her empire would have broken apart, and eventually slide into civil war. Aiusiz had stayed in the south in hopes her mere presence would keep people calm, while most of her men was sent north to squelch several uprisings.

The Siziass army conquered the entire southern villages without any resistance. It wasn’t until they reached a couple of hundred miles inland did Aiusiz manage to put together an army. It was very small compared to the Siziass army, but they did offer some resistance. They were forced to retreat at every engagement, but it was slowing the Siziass down and gave the needed time to gather a much larger force and set up defenses to their north.

Aiusiz decided to make a stand at Cyliaz. It was a well defended city (all 5 of the cities were at this time). The battle that ensued was by far the largest and bloodiest the world had seen at that time. In the end Aiusiz had defended Cyliaz and the Siziass army began to retreat.

Aiusiz followed the retreating army. She considered it and who ever sent it a threat that needed to be eliminated. She followed all the way to the southern coast were she engaged them again, but the bulk of the army managed to escape across the ocean. Aiusiz followed.

Once she was in Siziass territory she met with stiff resistance from villages. Nothing that really threatened her army, but enough that it slowed them down. The army they were pursuing escaped. She pressed on southward, determined to find the army and more importantly the women that sent them.

After a year of traveling south, she finally reached the city of Ariaz and Iziass. Their armies were about the same size, but Ariaz was a well defended city. Not daunted by the seemingly impossible task at hand, Aiusiz lay siege to the city. It took 6 months, but she finally broke the cities defenses, killed Iziass, and forced its surrender.

Aiusiz and the elder women of Ariaz reached an agreement. Aiusiz would leave with her army and not return to Siziass territory, if the Siziass would never again return to Zuiasa territory. Aiusiz took her army and headed home.

Upon hearing the death of her mother, Iziass’ youngest daughter Ziasu sent word for the scattered remains of the army that defended Ariaz against Aiusiz to meet her to the north. She herself was govener of a village to the north east of Ariaz. She took what ever men she could spare and met up with the Siziass army. They headed to meet Aiusiz’ army on the battlefield. She caught up with them on the northern coast as they were preparing to sail home. She attacked and killed every last man in Aiusiz army. She executed Aiusiz herself.

Her thirst for revenge was not quenched there, but her empire was not in a position to invade Zuiasa yet. Her army was devastated by the battles that had just taken place and her empire didn’t have the women to replenish their ranks. So she turned east ward. Over the next 30 years she brought the entire continent under her control, but unlike her mother, she killed only those women that challenged her. Those that submitted to her rule were allowed to live and given the best and strongest men to breed with. She ruled with an iron fist and a single minded purpose, to destroy the Zuiasa empire.

Zuiasa had died shortly after Aiusiz. Her daughter, the queen of all 5 cities, didn’t have the ability or the desire to rule such a large empire. The queens of the 5 cities began to assert more and more independence, as did the villages in the outer fringes of the empire. Wars began to break out between the villages. None of them large enough to threaten the 5 cities, but it showed the rest of the empire that it was no longer ruled from the center. They now had to fend for themselves. This is the land that Ziasu invaded.

Ziasu marched her army straight to Cyliaz. No one even attempted to stop her. She invaded Cyliaz, and burned the city to the ground with the men locked inside. Those that escaped were slaughtered. She had all the women in the city brought to her (there were over a hundered at this time) so she should execute them herself. She then repeated this with the other 4 cities.

She then returned to her village north east of Ariaz and dismissed her army. She lived the rest of her days as queen of a small village and nothing more. Her empire held together after that thanks only to her sister.

The lose of the 5 cities of the Zuiasa empire was devastating to the Biaz as a people. Most of the knowledge at that time was held by those 5 cities. All that knowledge died with the citizens of the cities. If they had survived historians think the Biaz would be at least 100 years more advanced then what they are now.

Suiz first arrived at villages north of Ariaz. It was the people of Ariaz that killed the men of Suiz followers and forced them to flee north to the lands that once made up the Zuiasa empire. Suiz followers made their way to the remnants of the 5 Zuiasa cities and settled there. The re-establishment of the 5 cities marks the beginning of the middle ages.

Nano 2009: Chaptor 8: Day 28

2010-01-02T19:59:00.000-08:00

Jennifer sat in the conference room listening to the two men bickering. She was sure they would prefer the term argument, but it was already well beyond that point. General Mac was arguing for consolidating military forces inside the US to defend its borders only. General Whitmore argued for a more global defense.

When the argument started each man had his allies around the table. Duke, Michael, and a few others sided with General Mac, although Jennifer suspected Michael only took his side out of loyalty. He argued halfheartedly, which was not like Michael.

On the other side of the argument, there was Myra, Dr. Hadley, General Whitmore, along with a few more. Jennifer suspected John agreed with them, but he remained silent. To her surprise the President remained silent on the issue. Perhaps he was hoping for a fist fight, which seemed inevitable at this point.

The focus was solely on the two men, who had long substituted personal insults for actual arguments. Only Jennifer noticed when Myra left the room. She listened to the two men for another minute, and decided the meeting was officially over with no real agreement on anything.

She got up and followed her daughter out the door. She quietly closed the door behind her and looked down both sides of the hall. Where would Myra go? She asked herself. The roof maybe? She decided to try it. She decided to take the stairs to get some exercise in.

When she finally found the roof access she opened the door and found her daughter by the ledge staring at the sky. She walked over and stood next to her without saying a word. Together, they stared at the sky.

Jennifer wondered where the alien ships where. They were up there somewhere planning. Jennifer was sure they were not bickering like us humans down here. That gave them a significant advantage. We really don't stand a chance, she thought to herself. They were going to come down here and enslave us all. Why? What was there game?

“We will win,” Myra said, almost as if she could read Jennifer's mind. She turned to her mother and smiled.

“How do you know?” Jennifer asked. “I mean do you know something you haven't told us?”

Myra shook her head. “We will win because we must,” she replied.

“We will win because God is on our side,” Michael said from behind them. They both turned to find Michael and John had joined them.

Michael smiled at the girls. John walked up to the edge and stared at the sky. After a few moments of silence he looked down to the ground, and then backed away from the ledge. The others chuckled.

Myra walked up to him and held his arm. “We will win,” she repeated.

“I just don't see how,” John said looking at her. “They can simply destroy us from orbit. Even if we did manage to defeat them, there is still the problem with the shadow people and their allies you spoke about.”

“You have to trust me,” she replied. “I know lots of things you don't now.”

“Myra,” Jennifer said. “You have to prepare for the worst. They aren't up there bickering about whether they should defend everyone, or just themselves. They are united. Even without their technology, they still have that advantage.”

“They have unanimity, not unity,” Myra replied. “There is a difference. They have never learned how to be united in the face of their differences, so they conquer. Everyone who isn’t like them is an enemy. We just have to show them the way.”

“We have far more in common with ourselves then we do with them, and we still can't unite ourselves,” Jennifer responded. “How are we going to teach them anything?”

“We will, when the time comes,” Myra answered. “It is our nature, and our strength.”

Myra looked up to the sky and smiled.

Should be continued?

Nano 2009: Chaptor 8: Day 25

2010-01-02T19:57:00.000-08:00

“How does this look?” Myra asked as she held up a blouse and skirt. The blouse was a solid red, and skirt was black.

“You’re too young for that,” Jennifer replied. “I know what your going for, but that will make you look goofy, not serious.” Myra considered it for a second, and then put the clothes back on the rack.

Jennifer knew the conversation that was in front of her, but hoped Myra would wait until they at least made it back into the car. They were currently in a crowded mall picking out new clothes for Myra.

She had agreed to help the government in anyway she could with the alien threat, and she wanted something more presentable then her current wardrobe. It struck Jennifer kind of weird. It’s the end of the world, so lets go shopping?

She knew that was second on Myra’s agenda though. What she really wanted was to convince Jennifer to join them. Jennifer didn’t want to disappoint her daughter, especially in a crowd, but why would she agree to help save a world that brought her nothing but misery?

Still she was afraid for Myra. She wished she could talk Myra into coming home with her. They would likely survive the invasion out in the countryside. They can then live out their lives in peace. All it would cost them is just a little freedom, and freedom is overrated anyways.

Alas, she could see the determination in Myra’s eyes. She often saw the same determination in her father’s eyes, and that also didn’t end well much of the time. She had no desire to fight these aliens or the government bureaucracy. She kept telling herself that Myra would be fine, but never quite convinced herself.

“Ok,” Myra said. “I’m done with this store. Lets get something to eat.” When they got their food, Myra pulled Jennifer off to the corner where they could talk alone. When they got done eating Myra looked at her mother for a few moments. Jennifer thought about interjecting before she can even begin, but decided against it.

“You know what I’m about to say,” Myra said finally. “You always do.”

“Yes,” Jennifer replied.

“And you know all the reasons why I’m asking this of you?” Myra asked.

“Yes,” Jennifer replied. “And you know all the reasons why I’m going to say no?”

“Yes,” Myra replied. “I guess I’ll have to make a more convincing argument. How about this? I’ll die if you don’t.”

Jennifer looked at her without saying anything, so Myra continued. “You were chosen for a reason. Maybe we can push back the Biaz invasion without you somehow, though I doubt it, but none of the races will ever survive the challenges that lay ahead. You are the only person in all four races that can give us a chance at victory. I believe that with all of my being.”

Myra leaned back a little. “It is your right to refuse, but I can’t. I guess I have too much of my father in me. I will try with every once of my being to succeed, for all of the races sake, and for you.”

Myra smiled in silence for a moment as she stared at her mother. “Will you help me mother? Besides we both know your going to be miserable either way. You might as well save four worlds while your doing it.” Jennifer had to admit to herself, she did have a point there.

Nano 2009: Chaptor 8: Day 24

2010-01-02T19:55:00.000-08:00

“There is also the possibility of negotiating some kind of truce,” the speaker said. “Does anyone know what exactly they want with us?”

“They want to rule us.” Everyone looked at Rogalia expecting her to have that answer, but it wasn't here that spoke. It was Myra. “They have a very hierarchical society. It is in their blood to rule over others, so to speak.” Myra smiled. She was enjoying the look of surprise on everyone's face a bit too much.

Jennifer voiced the question on everyone's mind, “How do you know?”

She considered the question for a moment, as if she didn't know exactly what she was going to say. It was pretense, Jennifer could tell. She has certainly learned the art of public speaking quickly, as in overnight. “There are more forces at work here than just the Biaz,” she said.

She stood up so everyone could see her clearly. “There are two old and powerful races out there. One we would consider good, and the other evil. For convenience lets call them the Ancients and...I don't know...”

“How about the Ori?” John interjected.

“I think we will run into copyright issues with that,” Myra replied.

“Oh right,” John said. “How about the shadows?”

Myra considered it for a second. “Hmmm, well I guess that is generic enough,” she replied. “OK the ancients and shadows it is then.”

She turned her attention back to the larger room, who were already getting annoyed at the interruption. “These two races are stuck in a kind of cold war. Their very nature seems to keep them from interacting directly, or communicating with each other. So they combat each other through us less advanced races, i.e. us. The shadows are the cause of all of this. They are manipulating the Biaz leader into invading all of our worlds.”

“So all we need to do is take out these shadow people?” General Mac asked.

“Let me repeat myself,” Myra said. “Old and powerful. We would have a much greater chance of taking on all the other races combined, and I'm talking just us two.”

“But these ancient guys, they are on our side right? Can they help us?” the president asked.

“They already have,” John said.

Everyone looked at him, but it was Myra that spoke, “Yes, they have. They are the ones that took us and manipulated our DNA. That is why we just appeared on the ship, without the Biaz knowing anything about it. They specifically chose us four, and gave us the tools needed to lead a defense against the invasion.”

“Why us?” Jennifer asked.

“I don't know,” Myra replied. “They saw something that was in each of us that they think is needed for what is to come.”

“How do you know all of this?” the president asked.

“It is what they did to me,” she said. “They implanted the knowledge of the languages and cultures of all four races – Biaz, Velarian, Kult, and Human. Let me tell you, its a little weird being baffled by Spanish all through high school and now being able to speak it fluently.”

“Oh,” she continued. “I almost forgot. They also gave me a warning. The shadows have their own allies. Unlike the shadows, these allies can harm us directly. Regardless if the Biaz invasion succeeds or fails, these allies of theirs will be coming. The ancients feel strongly we have no chance of standing up to them if all of our races don't stand united. They feel each race has something that is needed in the hardships to come.”

“If you ask me, the other races can kiss my ass,” Michael said. “We are better off facing what's to up on our own.”

“Lets leave that conversation for another time,” Jennifer said. “If we survive the invasion, then we can worry about these other shadow allied people things.”

The conversation quickly devolved into a shouting match, that Jennifer was barely able to keep from breaking into a fist fight. They asked a continues stream of questions to Myra, most of which she had no answer for. She answered all the questions as best as she could, even when the question had not so subtle suggestions of her being a spy for either the Biaz or these shadow people. Soon the questions started to repeat.

Jennifer mostly stayed out of the arguments. She had no desire to get involved any further than she had to. She just hoped she could talk Myra out of getting any more involved. She told them what they needed to know. It was now time to stay out of the way and let them handle it.

As the conversation devolved, it was clear General Mac and her husband did not believe Myra. Duke, specifically seemed to refuse to believe the person before him had any part of his daughter in her anymore. He would have imprisoned and tortured her again if he had his way. Michael tended to side with them more often than not, but clearly was not concerned with the threat of the shadows. Jennifer thought he just considered it God's problem.

Finally Jennifer had to end the meeting. Not even the president could stop it from turning into a fighting match if it went on further. She waited for a moment of silence to fall between the shouts from General Mac and the speaker of the house. Jennifer was proud to see a women holding her own against a General in a shouting match, but had no hope for her if Mac decided to start using his superior physical strength.

Finally the two fell silent. They were clearly too angry to speak any longer. “I'm sorry everyone,” Jennifer said as she stood up. “I”m afraid i'll have to be going. The Daily Show will be starting soon.” She smiled. “Myra shall we go?”

Myra smiled and follower her mother out the door. Jennifer was considering the odds of everyone being alive in the morning, but she honestly didn't care that much so she gave up.

Nano 2009: Chaptor 8: Day 23

2010-01-02T19:52:00.000-08:00

Jennifer forced herself to be calm and smile as she waved to the cameras. She looked at Michael who was doing neither. It seemed he was almost as excited as herself. He seemed to not even notice the large sea of reporters, their cameras going off, or their shouts of questions.

Of course the president would want the world to know he had successfully convinced them to join their ranks. Half the world thinks they are heroes and the other half thinks they need an eye kept on them. This way the president can claim he is doing both.

Jennifer of course didn’t care about any of that. She just wanted to see her daughter, who was inside waiting for her. She wished she could just rush inside, hold her daughter in her arms, and ensure she was really all right now. But she knew the importance of this game, so she continued to smile and wave for a few more seconds. At least she didn’t have to talk to the reporters, at least not until after the meeting.

After waving one last time, Jennifer turned and looked for the others. Michael was already inside, and was being forced to wait for everyone else. John was standing next to Rogalia and trying (unsuccessfully) to smile to the crowd.

Jennifer smiled at the site. John was not at all comfortable in this situation, but Rogalia seemed to love the attention. She had a big smile on her face and was waving enthusiastically to the crowd. She was even conversing with random people and giving them hugs, regardless if they really wanted one it seems.

Knowing they would only allow them to go up together, she walked over and forced Rogalia to follow her. It wasn’t until they were inside and away from the crowd that Jennifer realized how many military personnel were around. It was all for show. Their dress uniforms were a dead give away. The real protection came from the secret service agents, who were also numerous, but not nearly as obvious.

Several military officers escorted them down the hall of the pentagon. The building was strangely empty, obviously cleared just for them. The men marched them to a large conference room.

Everyone stood and watched the group walk in. Jennifer scanned the room with her eyes. There were a lot of people, most of whom she knew. The president was the most obvious one. She also recognized her husband, the Dr. Hadley (the national security advisor), the speaker of the house, standing next to a couple of senators from the national security committee, General Mac and several other high ranking generals were on the far end.

Finally Jennifer saw the person she was looking for. Myra smiled at her. Jennifer rushed forward, ignoring the president and senators that had placed their hands out to greet her. She took her daughter into her arms and hugged her tightly.

After a long while, she pulled herself back just far enough to look Myra in the eye. “Are you really ok?” she asked. “I mean are you still seeing…things?”

Myra smiled at her. “I’m fine,” she said. “I promise. Although it did make me sad I wasn’t a twin. I miss having someone I can talk to like that.”

Jennifer was a little hurt by those words, but she smiled to cover it up. It seems it didn’t work. Myra hugged her again saying, “I love you mom.”

“As funny as it would be to see the Generals cry,” the president said. “And I assure you they are nearly in tears after that display, I think we should be getting on with this meeting.”

“Yes, Mr. President. I agree,” Myra said.

“You said you have important information to share with us?” one of the senators asked Myra.

“Yes, I do, senator, but first things first,” Myra said. “I understand there has been a new development with the ships in orbit? Perhaps we should start there.”

The senators and speaker of the house looked at the president, eager to hear the news. “Yes, I think that would be prudent,” the president said. “General O’Neil, can you brief the room?”

“Yes sir,” the general said and went to the head of the room in front of the projector. He indicated to an assistant in the back and the projector changed to display telescope images. In the center of the image was a large white blob. “Here, you can see what appears to be a very large ship entering orbit,” he said.

“What is it?” Dr. Hadley asked.

“We don’t know,” he answered. “It is much larger then the ships we had been previously tracking. Our best guess is that it is some kind of command ship.”

“Does that mean they are ready to invade in earnest?” the president asked.

“We have no way of knowing, sir,” the general replied. “But that is a distinct possibility, one that is made more likely by the next image.”

The image on the projector changed. It displayed another telescope image, this time of several blurry white dots, smaller than the first, but still quite large. “Here we can see several other ships entering orbit,” the general said. “These ships are much larger than the current set of ships, but much smaller than the ship from the previous image.”

“In addition,” the general continued, “they seem to come in two different shapes. One is shaped similar to the other ships, only longer and larger. The other has a small main body and two throngs extending from them. They look like really big tuning forks.”

“How many of them are there?” Michael asked.

The general looked at Michael, as if he wasn’t sure he should answer his question. “Twelve of the normal shaped ones and 7 of the tuning forked shaped ships,” he replied reluctantly.

“What is the purpose of these ships? What exactly are we facing here?” the president asked.

Myra answered before anyone else could, “Rogalia is familiar with these ships,” she said.

Everyone looked at Myra and Myra looked at Rogalia. Soon everyone followed suite. Rogalia hesitated to answer, Jennifer suspected because she was enjoying the attention it brought her.

“Are you familiar with these ships dear?” one of the senators said.

“Yes,” Rogalia replied. “They use the same ships to invade my world, and then the Kult’s world.”

“Perhaps you can help explain exactly what we are dealing with,” the general said. “What are these ships capable of? What weapons do they have?”

“The largest ship has a lot of missiles on board,” Rogalia explained. “They can be fired at ground targets, or at other ships. It also has a lot of shuttles for transporting soldiers to and from the ground. The other ships are similar, only less capable. The tuning fork ships, however, are different…”

“How so?” Michael asked.

“Well they are designed to shoot large rocks to the planet’s surface,” she said.

“So they are going to throw rocks at us?” General Mac said. “That doesn’t sound so bad.” Rogalia looked at him as if he was clearly missing something. Jennifer also noticed John had the same look.

“The effects can be quite devastating,” Rogalia said.

“Did they use this weapon against your home?” the speaker of the house asked.

“No. Not against my home,” Rogalia replied.

“Rogalia’s people are pacifist,” Myra explained. “They would have surrendered, and there fore there was no reason for the Biaz to bombard them. However, the Kult’s are far from being pacifist.” She looked at Rogalia with a slight bit of regret at asking the next question, “I believe you are familiar with the Biaz invasion of the Kult’s home world are you not?”

“Yes,” Rogalia said. She hesitated, but forced herself to continue. “These tuning fork ships…”

“We call them rail guns,” John interrupted. Everyone glanced at him. They then turned their attention back to Rogalia and waited for her to continue.

“These rail guns are capable of destroying an entire city with one impact,” she said. “It devastated the Kult’s world. They destroyed every city great and small on the planet.”

Everyone was shocked into silence. Even those that knew the devastation the rail guns could bring were still horrified at the image of it happening to their own cities. Everyone stayed silent for a long time.

It was the president that finally broke the silence, “How do we stop them?” he asked. The room answered with silence. “There has to be some way,” he said after he was sure he wasn’t going to get an answer.

“We will start working on it immediately sir,” the general said.

“How long do we have until they start bombing us?” Secretary Stone asked.

“Well,” Rogalia started. “Usually they gather the rocks from the local system. It’s easier then bringing them with the ships. That takes some time.”

“How long?” General Mac asked.

“A few weeks usually. It really depends on how easy it is to find the rocks,” Rogalia answered.

“Good, that should be plenty of time to mount some kind of defense,” General Mac said.

Nano 2009: Chaptor 8: Day 22

2010-01-02T19:50:00.000-08:00

Myra sat on a bench at the bus stop for hours. She looked across the street and tried to summon the courage to walk across, and failed again. She new it was the right thing to do. Well the only thing really. She just couldn’t bring herself to face it - to face him. She wished her twin was still here. She would have gladly given up a bit of sanity for someone to talk to.

This is stupid, she thought to herself. She forced her mind to clear, and walked across the street with out thinking about it. She was forced to jump back by a honking car that almost hit her. Ok, maybe I should think about it a little, she thought to herself.

She made it across the street and walked in the building. She looked around and found the receptionist, a man. She walked up to him and said, “I want to see my father, Secretary Stone.”

She waited in the lobby for what seemed like forever. It took a long time for a simple request to see ones father work its way up the chain, and then back down again. Myra suspected there were obstacles and non-believers along the way.

Finally three officers in crisp dress uniforms walked up and told her to follow them. “Are we going to see my father?” Myra asked.

“Just follow us,” the lead officer said.

Myra continued to ask where they were going as they walked down hallway after hallway. The officers usually didn’t say a word. If they did, they would just say, “Please follow us.” Myra thought about refusing to go further. She couldn’t keep the thought of going back to her cell out of her mind. She absolutely refused to chicken out now, so she kept putting one foot in front of the other in the direction of the men.

Finally they reached a door that she recognized as her father’s office. She felt even more fear. Thankfully the officers opened the door for her. She was sure she wouldn’t have the courage.

She forced herself to walk in where she was greeted by her father’s secretary. She was an older women with curly blonde hair. She had a great big smile, which Myra felt guilty for not reciprocating.

“It’s so nice to see you again Myra,” she said. “It has been far to long since you have come to see your father.” Myra remained silent, so she continued, “Well your father is inside and waiting for you.”

The secretary opened the door, where Myra could see her father stand up. He had a shocked look on his face, as if he was surprised to see her. I guess he didn’t believe the others when they told him she was here.

Well can’t turn and run now, she told herself. She forced herself to walk through the door and sit down in front of her father’s desk. She heard the secretary close the door behind her.

“Hello,” her father said after a long moment of silence. He was still standing.

Myra considered how to approach this conversation. “I am still your daughter. I hope you can believe that, even if it takes you time.”

He sat down in his chair. “Why are you here?” he asked.

“I know now what I wrote on the wall,” she said. “It was a warning. I thought it prudent to relay that warning to you. It may very well mean the end of our world if it isn’t heeded.”

“What is the warning?” he asked.

Myra considered the question for a moment. “I’ll tell you all that I know, but first you need to call Mom,” she said. “She will need to hear this as well.”

“If this is all about getting your Mom and I together again,” he began, but his voice trailed off.

Myra smiled. She couldn’t help herself. “Do you think I could ever live with you again?” she asked rhetorically. “Your daughter is still alive. My father is dead.”

Nano 2009: Chaptor 8: Day 60

2010-01-02T19:48:00.000-08:00

The lieutenant greeted them with a terse nod. He pushed a few buttons and a small view screen turned on. A woman appeared. She had dark skin, only a bit lighter than the soldiers. Her dark hair flowed down to her shoulders. She was very beautiful, but her eyes were a dark shade of yellow that Myra found a bit distracting.

“So,” she said. “You are one of the people that infiltrated my ship. I don’t suppose you are in the mood to tell me how you did it.”

Myra smiled. “We have powerful allies,” she said. “You should be more careful of who you invade.”

The woman laughed. “Come on. Can you at least tell me how you learned our language?”

Myra resisted answering in Kultish, just to show off. “Lets just say, I’m a fast learner.”

She seemed less pleased with this answer. “Perhaps we should continue this conversation in person,” she said then turned to the lieutenant. “Bring her to me.”

“It’s a mistake to invade us,” Myra said. “But you know this already. You are one of the best generals in the history of your people. Certainly you have studied your enemy. We can be as conniving as the Velarian’s and as ruthless as the Kults.”

“I’m well aware of the challenges that await me,” she said.

“You also know the consequences of your own people,” Myra continued. “Your namesake once stood up to a tyrannical leader for the betterment of her people. Your greatest civilization was the result.”

“She remained loyal to her people and her queen, as do I,” she said. “You are right of course, but I have my orders, and I will carry them out to the best of my abilities.”

Myra searched her mind for something else to say. It shouldn’t be that long now, “Ziazi isn’t concerned with the welfare of her people,” she said. “It seems to me you can’t serve both her and your people. You have to make a choice.”

“I’m sorry to hear human loyalties can be divided so easily,” she replied, but her thoughts were clearly elsewhere.

“I’m sorry to hear the women of Biaz are so easily lead astray,” Myra replied.

“I’m not sure what your game is, but I think it is time…” she said, but was interrupted by gunfire and bullets dinging the hull.

Myra smiled, “I guess our conversation will have to be postponed,” she said.

The gunfight outside began to become fiercer. Myra was thankful the hull of the ship protected her. Still she hid in the corner just to be safe. Aiusiz waited calmly and silently.

The lieutenant, who was also the pilot began preparing the ship to take off. Fortunately it took a minute or two, and from the sounds of the gunshots and bullets hitting hull, he wouldn’t have the time.

Finally several men shot the last of the soldiers standing guard outside the ship. The men entered with guns blazing. Myra covered her face as shots ricochet around the inside of the ship.

The lieutenant was quick to turn and face his opponents. He managed to kill one, but was far too outnumbered to really stand a chance. Once he fell to the ground with a cry and a splatter of blood, the ship fell silent.

Myra opened her eyes to several men surrounding her with guns pointed in her direction. “Wait,” she yelled. “I’m one of you.” The men lowered their weapons and helped her up.

One of the men had already released the prisoners in back and they were all flooding out of the ship. “Lets get out of here,” one of the soldiers said. Being in the ship clearly made him nervous.

The man in front of Myra motioned for her to go first. “I’ll just be a second,” she said. “You should go on ahead.” Myra went back to the head of the ship, where she knew Aiusiz would still be waiting.

Myra stepped forward so that she could clearly see her. “Ziazi is as much your enemy as she is ours,” she said. “We need to help each other, or both our people will be in grave danger.”

Aiusiz smiled, “As I have said. I have my orders,” she said. She reached down and hit a button out of view. The view screen went blank.

Myra turned and almost ran into a man, one of her rescuers. “Who are you?” he asked.

Myra smiled and said, “Myra Stone. The one and only.” She walked past him and out of the ship.

Nano 2009: Chaptor 8: Day 58

2010-01-02T19:44:00.000-08:00

Myra tripped again when she walked out the door. For a reason she didn’t even understand she found it hilarious. People stared at her as they walked by. Nobody offered to help her stand up, or even ask if she was ok. There was at least one person that stepped over her, as he was talking on his phone.

She got up to her knees, “It’s ok. I’m ok. No need to stop on my account people,” she said. “Just go about your business.” She laughed again as nearly everyone shrugged their shoulders and went about their business.

She rose to her feet, took one step, and tripped again. Again, she laid on the ground and laughed for several minutes. She stopped when she spotted something in the sky. It was a small white light, like a star twinkling through the daylight. She wondered what it was for several minutes before she noticed it was getting bigger.

Fear ran through her body, but she was unable to think clearly still. She stood and watched the light get bigger wondering what she should do. She came to the conclusion that it was just a hallucination, and began to shrug it off.

She took her eyes off of it and started to walk down the street carefully this time. It was a few feet before she realized most of the people around her where in blind panic. Most were running away from the light while some stood and watched.

“Huh,” Myra said. She watched the people around her panic out of shear terror. She found it hilarious, but something in the back of her mind told her it was wrong to feel that way, which kept her from laughing.

Instead she concentrated on thinking clearly. Her proper thoughts began to come back to her slowly. Her adrenaline must be overriding the effects of the drug, or they were wearing off. She didn’t take very much and more time passed than she realized when she was hypnotized. They should it should be wearing off about this time.

She could make out the shape of the shuttle now, but she still couldn’t tell where it was going to land. She considered calling the police, but she was sure they had been notified already. Besides they there was no way for them to get here with enough force to matter before they landed, kidnapped a bunch of people, and took off again.

Myra noticed the shuttle slowing down, which gave her a good indication of where it was going to land. It was about a half a mile in front of her. She started to run in that direction, but tripped again. Annoyed she jumped up and continued down the street.

When she got to the area the ship had already landed, and people where being dragged into it. It touched down in the middle of a park. There was nobody left in the park, but Biaz soldiers were taking people from the near by buildings.

Myra looked around for some kind of weapon. There was construction going on across the street from where she was. She ran there and grabbed a shovel that had been dropped on the ground. The owner was nowhere to be found.

“This will do nicely,” she said as she picked it up. The edges seemed sharper than any shovel she had seen before, and it was well balanced. Myra felt it was meant to be used on people, not dirt.

She considered what she should do now. Should she try attacking the shuttle? There had to be a lot of people in there by now. She wanted desperately to save them, but she just couldn’t see how it was possible.

She noticed a couple of Biaz running towards the building a block over from her. She may not be able to save everyone, but she should certainly stop these two from taking anyone else. She ran towards them.

By the time she reached the building, the Biaz had already entered. It was some kind of office building. She quietly opened the door and went inside. It was a fairly large open spaced lobby. She looked around, but didn’t find anyone.

She heard shouting a bit down the hall. The soldiers were saying to be still. She quickly walked down the hall, with her shovel at the ready. The shouting was coming from the bathroom. There was a man begging for the soldiers to let his family go.

Myra quietly entered the room, hoping the shouts from both the soldier and the man would cover any noise the door would make. When she peaked around, she saw the two soldiers standing over a man, his wife, and young son. The woman had her son in her arms, and the man stood between them and the soldiers.

Myra wondered why the soldiers were hesitating, but thought that maybe they didn’t want to hurt the woman. They were shouting at the woman to stand aside, and they wouldn’t hurt her. Did they not get that none of their victims could understand them?

The man noticed her. Myra panicked. The soldiers would notice his gaze soon. They would all be caught. Myra lifted her shovel, and ran forward.

Without realizing it, she shouted a battle cry. She brought the shovel down, striking the soldiers back just before he could turn. Unfortunately she hit him with a blunt portion of the shovel. It forced him a step forward, but not down to the ground like she had planned.

The other solider grabbed the shovel and forced it out of Myra’s hands. It fell to the ground, and he stood on it as he brought his gun to bear on Myra. The first soldier kept his attention on the man and his family.

After a few seconds to ensure there were no other surprises, the first soldier forced the man down and tied his hands with something. He then forced the boy from his mother’s grasp. The woman cried and pleaded for them to leave her son.

“You might as well kill her,” Myra said in Biaz. “It will be kinder.” Everyone in the room stared at her in shock. “Let them go,” she said to the soldiers.

“How do you know how to speak our language?” the first soldier asked.

Myra smiled. “I picked it up here and there,” she replied. “I can explain further to your queen. I’m sure she would be interested in hearing it. First, let them go.”

“Lieutenant,” the solider said, obviously speaking to someone through a radio. “Have you been monitoring? We have a woman here who can speak our language, and wants to speak with mother.”

The soldier listened to a reply Myra couldn’t hear. “Yes, sir. Ok,” he said turning his attention back to Myra. “Ok, come with us back to the shuttle and these people can go free.”

He turned to the second solider, who put the child down. The child rushed back into his mother’s arms. The first solider stepped towards the man, who backed away from him.

“It’s ok,” Myra said to him. “The soldiers have agreed to let you and your family go. He is going to release your hands.”

The man hesitated, but stood his ground when the soldier approached. Once freed, he rushed back to his family. After giving them a hug, both he and his wife thanked Myra.

“If there is anything we can do for you. Anything at all to repay our debt to you, don’t hesitate,” the man said.

“Remember that promise. I may find a need to take you up on that,” she replied.

The soldier indicated for her to leave. The family suddenly understood the true sacrifice she made for their freedom. They stared at her and she turned and left, but didn’t say a word.

The men escorted her back to the shuttle. The pilot and commander greeted them at the base. “Do you really understand me?” he asked.

“Yes,” Myra replied. The man looked like he was going to ask another question, but thought better of it and escorted her inside the ship. Myra was thankful when he lead her away from the cell in the back, and towards the pilot seat.

Nano 1009: Chaptor 8: Day 21

2010-01-02T19:42:00.000-08:00

Rogalia talked Jennifer into continuing their lesson after they had taken Myra to the hospital. They had sedated her, and she wouldn’t be awake for hours. It took some convincing, but Jennifer finally agreed as long as she would be back before Myra woke up.

They found an empty conference room a couple floors down. The lesson didn’t go very well, but did serve to pass the time. Jennifer, who was normally the best student, was understandably distracted. She barely noticed when John screwed up all the words he was suppose to have learned by now.

When the lesson was over, John and Michael excused themselves. Rogalia accompanied Jennifer back up to see Myra. She wanted to say good-bye. Jennifer thought Rogalia had become unusually attached to Myra, but could find no other reason for her be this close. Finally she decided it was just the Velarian way.

Jennifer entered Myra’s room, but it was empty. She looked around, including in the bathroom, and found nothing. Fear gripped her heart, but she forced herself to stay calm. She went to the nearest nursing station and got the attention of the women there.

“Excuse me,” she said. “My daughter is missing. Can you tell me if she was moved someplace else? Is she getting a test or something?”

“What is her name?” the nurse asked.

“Myra Stone,” Jennifer replied.

The nurse typed something on the computer behind the desk. She stared at the screen for a few seconds. She shook her head, “Nope, she is suppose to be in her room resting. Are you sure she wasn’t in the bathroom? Maybe you got the wrong room?”

Jennifer was stunned by fear. She couldn’t answer. Rogalia spoke up from behind her, “We had the right room, and we checked the bathroom.”

“Well,” the nurse said. “Maybe she just got up to walk around a bit. You should wait a few minutes and see if she doesn’t return.”

“Can you notify security to be on the look out for her anyways?” Jennifer asked.

“Sure,” the nurse replied.

Jennifer turned to Rogalia. “We should split up and look for her,” she said. Rogalia nodded. Jennifer went down the hall, and Rogalia went the opposite direction. Jennifer checked the room one more time to be sure, but still found nothing.

She went inside the bathroom to see if she could find some kind of clue. She opened the door and found an IV stand, with the IV bag still attached. Her eyes followed the hose down to the needle. The liquid inside the IV was dripping out of the needle, mixing with a small amount of blood, and dripping down onto a hospital gown.

Jennifer’s heart sank. She rushed over to where Myra’s clothes were supposed to be, and found nothing. The only reason Myra had for changing back into her clothes was to leave the hospital. Did she go alone, or was she forced to leave?

Jennifer sat down, leaning against the door to the bathroom and began to cry. She hated herself for leaving Myra’s side. It’s just another failure at being a mother.

Myra walked down the street. The painkillers were starting to wear off, and the cuts in her chest and hand started to burn. Worse then that, the stitches were begging to itch underneath her shirt. She cursed at herself for ever loosing control and doing such a stupid thing. I may be insane, but I’m not crazy, she kept telling herself.

She was still very tired from the sedatives she had been given. That was one of many reasons she had left. She needed to figure out what was happening to her before she did go crazy in addition to being insane. Besides, the doctor’s couldn’t help her, nor could her mother or any of the others. Staying would just mean a bigger burden on them, and no help for her.

She concentrated on taking slow steady steps forward, while her twin hopped along beside her and whistling a happy tune. Myra swore her twin was so cheery just to annoy her.

“Have you decided on where you are going yet?” her twin asked. Myra ignored her. “Oh come on, don’t be that way. We can work this out together, you and I.”

Myra considered her words. How can she trust her? She didn’t know who this twin of hers was. Was she something implanted by the aliens inside of her, or was it a piece of herself, or perhaps a combination of both? She decided she had nothing to loose by asking.

She stopped and stared directly at her twin. “Who are you really?” she asked. “Are you something they put inside of me, or are you really some piece of my subconscious?” She was aware of the people staring at her, as if she was insane. She paid them no attention. She was insane after all.

“How would I know?” she replied.

Myra thought for a moment. “Who was the first boy I kissed?”

“Ken Johnson,” she replied. “He was cute and you wanted to know what a kiss felt like. He had a very boring name, but I guess if he was cute, that is ok.”

Myra continued walking down the street. “Well did I get it right?” her twin yelled as she ran to catch up.

“Yes, plus bonus points,” Myra said. “I was just thinking he had a very boring name. I guess we share thoughts. So at least we have that in common. I mean besides looking exactly alike.”

“So do I win anything?” she asked.

“You win the right to help me figure this out,” Myra said stopping again and staring at her twin. “I need to find out who exactly you are. Any ideas?”

Her twin lifted her finger to her chin and stared off into space for several seconds. “Nope,” she said. “I don’t have anything, sorry. I guess we will need to ask someone else.”

“Like who?” Myra asked. “My mother doesn’t know anything, nor do the others. There is Rogalia, but she obviously doesn’t know. So I’ve just exhausted the entire list of people that would have a chance of at least understanding this.”

Myra went through all the people that she knew, looking for someone that could help her. Suddenly an image of a women popped into her mind. She smiled at her twin, and her twin smiled back. “I’ve got it!” they yelled at each other at the same time.

Myra walked into the psychiatrist office. It was her fourth visit over the last two weeks, so she knew exactly were she was going. She was a couple minutes early, so she sat down and picked up a magazine at random. She wasn’t going to read it, but it helped keep her eyes focused on something other than her twin. She had a habit of distracting Myra at the most in opportune moments.

Dr. Kitchner specialized in hypnosis. Unfortunately, it hasn’t helped Myra all that much yet. Part of the problem was getting hypnotized. Her twin was just too distracting. She seemed to have a condition that forced her to speak every thought that popped into her head. It was very annoying.

Even the couple of times she was hypnotized, she couldn’t conjure up the women she wanted. Whenever she tried, she would wind up in some other women’s body from ancient history, and not human history either. Dr. Kitchner seemed to think it was past lives. Obviously that wasn’t true. How could Myra have lived on other planets light-years from Earth? She didn’t say anything to the doctor of course. It was more convenient for her to believe the past life story.

This time would be different however. She managed to score a hallucinogen. It supposedly was made from sodium pentothal. She may have been a goody two shoes during her high school years, but that didn’t mean she didn’t know anybody that wasn’t. She was glad her mother wasn’t hear to see her.

The doctor opened the door and beckend her forward. As soon as she turned around, Myra swallowed the tiny pills. At first she didn’t feel anything. She was just sitting down on the couch when they hit. She lost control of her body and practically fell down on the couch. She burst out laughing at herself, but stopped when she saw the look on the doctor’s face. Concentrate, she told herself.

“Sorry,” she said.

“It’s ok,” the doctor replied. “Are we ready to begin?” Myra nodded and relaxed on the couch.

The doctor took out her crystal that she used to hypnotize people. She began swinging it in front of Myra’s eyes. Myra’s eyes immediately glossed over, even though her twin was continuesly chatting in the background. She found it easy to ignore her twin this time.

“Can you hear me Myra?” the doctor said.

“Yes,” Myra replied.

“You said you wanted to remember a women you know from your past,” the doctor said. “Can you picture this women in your mind?”

Myra conjured up the image of the women from the interrogation room. “There are other people in the room with us,” Myra said. “There bad people. I need to get away.” She began squirming.

“It’s ok Myra,” the doctor said. “Those people aren’t in the room anymore. It’s just you and the women.”

Myra forced the images of the people out of her mind, and concentrated solely on the women. “I can see the women, but she isn’t saying anything,” Myra said.

“Have you seen this women in another place, sometime before now?” the doctor asked.

“Yes,” Myra replied. “At a library I think.”

“Can you go to that place?” the doctor asked. “Can you see her there?”

“Yes,” Myra said.

“Can you describe the room your in?” the doctor asked.

“It’s an office,” Myra said. “There are animals there. They are running around. It is a bright day. The sun is shining through the windows behind the desk. The wall is filled with books. The woman is reading one.”

“Can you tell me what the book is?” the doctor asked.

“It’s me,” Myra replied. “It has my name on it.” The doctor was silent for a long moment, so Myra continued, “She is smiling at me. She has something planned for me, I can tell. I’m frightened.”

“Don’t be Myra,” the doctor and the strange woman in her mind said at the same time. “She won’t hurt you,” the doctor said, while the woman said, “I won’t hurt you.”

Myra found the two conversations dizzying. She concentrated on the woman in her vision.

“What are you doing to my book?” Myra asked the woman.

“I’m helping in the only way I’m allowed,” she said. “I’m sorry for the pain it has caused you, but it was the only way we could think of to stop this nonsense.”

Questions swam in Myra’s mind. She decided on one, the most important one, “Who are you?” she asked.

The woman smiled at her. “We are friends, friends of all 4 races,” she replied. “We have come to stop the fighting before irrevocable damage is done. It is the reason why we have done what we have done.”

“What did you do?” Myra asked.

“We knew Ziazi would not be satisfied until she ruled over all the races,” he woman replied. “So we took the 4 of you. We enhanced your DNA, and put you on the Biaz ship. We hoped it would put you in the position to lead your race against the invasion.”

Myra considered her words for a moment. “You didn’t just change my DNA did you?” she asked. “You put something inside of me. Something that I see as my twin.”

The woman gave Myra a sad look. “Yes,” she said. “For you, we also gave you knowledge of the languages and cultures of the other races. We also implanted this recording, to act as a warning.”

Myra was curious about the warning, but there was something she needed to know first. “Why do I see a twin? Who is she? Did you put her inside of me?”

“No,” the women replied. “It was unexpected development. The knowledge was placed in your subconscious where you could access it when it was needed. Your ordeal caused your subconscious to split. Your twin represents that part of you with the knowledge.”

Myra considered this for a minute. Knowing that would at least make it easier to deal with her twin. She decided to take it up with her twin, when she had more time. “You spoke of a warning,” Myra said. “What warning?”

The woman smiled again. She started flipping through the book, the book that was also Myra. She found the page that she was looking for and put the book in front of Myra’s face. It contained a picture of the words Myra had written on her room wall when she was locked up. The blood that made up the words was smeared, but she could still make out the words as if they appeared in print.

“You didn’t know what these words meant then, but you can read them now,” the woman said.

Myra looked at the words. She did recognize them. They said, “The holy quartet must survive.” Myra looked up at the woman. “What do they mean?” she asked.

“Ziazi does not act alone,” the woman said. “She has been corrupted by another ancient force, who is also our enemy. It is a force you must eventually confront as well. All of your races must stand united if you are to have any chance of winning. If one of you refuses to sand with the others, or falls before the time comes, I fear none of you will survive.”

“I need to know more,” Myra said. “What can you tell me?”

“All that you need to know is in the books behind me,” the woman said. “It is the knowledge we have given you. You can access them anytime you wish. You just need to concentrate.”

Myra looked at the large wall filled with books to the ceiling. Suddenly everything began to shake. Was it an earthquake? It shook again. Myra realized it was her that was shaking, or more precisely someone was shaking her.

She opened her eyes to find the doctor was shaking her and calling her name.

“Myra,” she said. “Are you ok? You kept talking about ancient races and something about the holy quartet.”

Myra smiled. She jumped up from the couch and hugged the doctor. “Thank you so much,” she said. “I couldn’t have found the answer without you.” She jumped up and rushed for the door, but fell flat on her face after one step. Oh right, I’m still drugged, she thought to herself. She got up, and with a bit more concentration managed to make it out of the door.

Nano 2009: Chaptor 8: Day 20

2010-01-02T19:40:00.000-08:00

Michael knocked on the door while John waited behind him beside Rogalia. Michael was livid, and fiercely bounded on the door. John thought that he should be angry as well, but was willing to give Jennifer a chance to explain herself.

A few hours ago Michael got a call from one of his friends in the military. Michael’s friend told him Jennifer turned down an offer for the group to join them against the aliens. This is what Michael had been trying to achieve for the last two months. He couldn’t understand why Jennifer turned it down so easily, especially without consulting them.

John himself was eager to help save the world. He didn’t understand how anybody wouldn’t be. Isn’t it your duty to do all that is asked of you in these situations? John didn’t understand Jennifer’s decision either, but he was more curious than angry.

Rogalia had come along because she wanted to see how Myra was doing. John didn’t mention that it was early in the morning, and she would probably be asleep anyways. Well maybe not after the ruckus Michael was making.

After banging on the door for the third time, Jennifer answered. She was in her bathrobe still, but she clearly had not been asleep. She looked as if she had been up all night.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Michael yelled.

“Keep your voice down please. Myra is sleeping, and she hasn’t been getting a lot of sleep lately,” Jennifer replied. She moved to one side and motioned for them to come in.

“You should have talked to us before you go off making them kind of decisions,” he said, but in a lower tone this time.

“Can I assume you both feel the same way?” she asked John and Rogalia.

“I would still rather stay out of it,” Rogalia said. “I just came to see you and Myra. I haven’t seen either of you for a while.”

“I would be interested in hearing why you turned down the offer,” John said.

Jennifer walked to the living room area and grabbed what looked to be an alcoholic drink. She took a drink and sat down. “It wouldn’t have mattered either way. They were only interested in making it appear like we were involved, and in keeping a closer eye on us of course.”

“What is that suppose to mean?” Michael asked. “No wait. It doesn’t matter. It’s our duty to do whatever we are asked.”

Jennifer considered his response. “I thought you had a higher duty to protect your people,” she said. “You know it isn’t always the same, doing what your told, and protecting the people.”

“I’m well aware of my duty missy,” Michael retorted. “I don’t need a lesson from you.”

“Well in that case,” Jennifer said, “I’ll just say my duty, above and beyond anything else, is to my daughter. That is why I turned down the offer.”

“That don’t make no sense,” Michael said. “If the aliens win, your daughter will be killed or worse. By your own admission you should be helping in anyway you can.”

“I’m not a warrior Michael,” Jennifer said. “I’m only a mother, and not a very good one at that apparently. It is your duty to save the world. I only know how to take care of my daughter.”

“They aren’t going to let us help, unless you’re joining us,” Michael said. “They must see some value in you if that’s the case.”

“No,” Jennifer said. “They’re only interested in using us to boost their approval ratings. Otherwise, they would be glad to accept you too without me wouldn’t they? If you ask me, its them you should be yelling at, not me.”

Michael stared at her. John wanted to jump into the conversation, but could think of nothing to add that would be beneficial.

Before anyone could speak again, a voice from the back room interrupted their thoughts. John listed for a few seconds before he realized it was Myra’s voice coming from the back room. She was clearly distressed, but she was speaking in Biaz. John had learned enough to recognize the language, but didn’t understand any of the words Myra was saying.

Jennifer got up and swallowed the last gulp of her drink and headed for the back room. Michael was in front of her. John looked around for Rogalia, and realized she was no longer in the room. He decided to follow the others into the back room.

They all walked into Myra’s room, where Rogalia was standing over Myra’s bed. Myra was tossing and turning, still speaking in Biaz.

“What is she saying?” Jennifer asked Rogalia. “I don’t understand most of the words.”

“I’m not sure,” Rogalia said. “She is using a dialect not often used, except in old literature. She is speaking about Asuiza, an ancient Biaz queen. She attempted to betray and kill her sister Aiusiz. In the end Aiusiz traded the right to rule over one of the greatest empires in Biaz history for her sister’s life.”

“Well how the hell does Myra know about all of this?” Michael asked. “I mean you didn’t tell her, or teach her Biaz did you?”

“No I didn’t,” Rogalia said. “I don’t know how she knows about all of this. Is it a human thing?”

“A human thing?” Michael asked. “No, not it isn’t a human thing.”

Jennifer pushed her way through the now crowded room and went to her daughter’s side. She gently reached out with her hand to wake Myra. When Myra opened her eyes and saw her mother she screamed and jumped back nearly falling off the bed. When she recognized who she was looking at she calmed down a bit. When she turned around and saw everyone else staring at her, she jumped away from them, but this time was blocked by the head board. She lifted up her covers to her chin, and stared at the people in her room.

“Hello,” she said.

Rogalia leaned towards John and whispered, “Is this a human thing?”

“Not a normal one,” John replied.

“Oh. Just checking. Humans can be weird sometimes you know,” she said.

“Myra, how are you feeling?” Michael asked.

Myra looked at him and then stared at a spot beside him. She then looked back at Michael. “I’m feeling fine,” she said.

“Do you want to have sex?” Rogalia asked. “Maybe that will help.”

“No thank you,” Myra replied in a casual tone, as if it was a question women asked her all the time. “I’m not in the mood. Maybe later.”

She then turned back to the spot next to Michael she had been staring at earlier. “My twin says that you’re from the southern tip of Royua,” she said to Rogalia. “Is that true?”

Rogalia was frozen with surprise. “Humans are definitely not normally this weird,” she said.

“Is she right?” Michael asked.

“Yes,” Rogalia said. The group stared at Myra again.

“Does she have a twin?” Michael asked.

“No,” Jennifer answered. “She is apparently seeing someone that looks exactly like her.”

“And this twin can speak Biaz, and knows about Velarian cultures?” John asked. Nobody answered, but that was what John expected.

“My twin says human culture considers it rude to talk about people while they are still in the room,” Myra said. “You should be talking to me.”

“Myra, how would you like a hot shower?” Jennifer asked. Myra looked at her mother as if she was a stranger in the room.

“Ok,” she said. She got up and walked out the door. Jennifer followed. The others looked at each other for a second, and then rushed out the door to follow her.

When they reached the living room, Jennifer was pouring another drink. John wanted to say something to comfort her, but nothing came to mind. It seems the others were having similar thoughts, as they too remained silent.

It wasn’t until the shower started and Jennifer had finished half her drink that Michael spoke up. “Did you take her to see anybody, a doctor, or psychologist?” he asked.

Jennifer shook her head. “Of course I did, many of them. The best that I could find.” She looked at him in the eye. “Now do you see why I can’t join the government?”

“I’m really sorry,” Michael said. “What did the doctors say?”

“Nobody knows what is wrong with her,” Jennifer said. “How can they? She is speaking Biaz for god’s sake. I’ve also heard her speaking other languages as well.”

“You said the military tortured her?” Michael asked. “So it was them that did this to her?”

“Yes,” Jennifer replied.

“How can that be?” John asked. “The military doesn’t speak Biaz, not to mention the means to implant the knowledge in her mind.”

“How then?” Michael asked.

“Well we were gone for days before we just appeared on that ship right?” John said. “Someone out there did something to us during that time. They must have put the knowledge into her mind at the same time.”

“Some god like alien that gets their jolly from making little girls crazy?” Michael said. “I’m not buying it.”

“That was probably not the intent. Maybe it was just a side effect,” John said. “I bet…” He was interrupted by the sound of glass breaking down the hall. John turned to stare at the hall. Then he looked at Jennifer. She raced towards the hall. Everyone followed her.

She forced the bathroom door open. It wasn’t locked. “Myra!” she yelled, and rushed inside. John rushed to the door, and peered around Michael who had beaten him there.

Myra had broken the mirror above the sink. Glass littered the floor. She sat on the far side of the room against the wall. A blood soaked towel covered her body. She held a large piece of glass in her hand, and was cutting herself as she screamed, “I want to get her out! I don’t want her in me anymore!” Blood dripped down from her hand where it was cut from gripping the glass too hard, and from her chest where she had cut herself.

Jennifer rushed to her side, and forced her to release the piece of glass. Myra began to cry as Jennifer held her in her arms. “Make her go away,” she pleaded in her mother’s arms.

“Shhh,” Jennifer said, also in tears now. “It will all be ok. I promise.” John was sure it was a promise she was not going to keep.

Nano 2009: Chaptor 7: Day 19

2010-01-02T19:38:00.000-08:00

Jennifer stepped out of the car and looked around. There were many men in black suites with dark glasses on (even though it was overcast outside). Well they certainly went out of their way to make it obvious, she thought to herself.

She took a moment to look at the building. It was a tall luxury hotel. Usually there would be a lot of people coming in and out of the entrance, but now there were only the men wearing black suites. They were standing around waiting for her. Not even the street had any cars on it. I guess that is one of the many benefits to being president. You don’t have to deal with ordinary people anymore.

“This way miss,” another black suited man said and pointed her towards the door. “The president is waiting in the lobby.” He escorted her to the door, along with several other men. There were 2 men waiting by the door. One spoke into his sleeve while the other opened the door.

She walked in, and her escort followed. It was a large luxurious room with colorfully decorated walls and furniture. There were hallways to the right, presumably leading to the conference rooms. The left lead to an open dining area.

There were more black suited men, but she expected that. She looked for a large group. That would be were the president was. She found them near the bar next to the dining area. She began walking towards them, with her escort in toll.

When she walked into the vicinity, the president put down his glass of booze and rose to his feet. He smiled and said, “How are you doing this evening, Mrs. Stone.” He reached out his hand to shake hers.

She shook his hand, and said, “Very well Mr. President. Thank you for asking.” She smiled and tried to be as pleasant as possible. “They told you what I wish to speak to you about, did they not?” she asked.

“We would not be here if they didn’t,” he said. “First, let me say I had no idea about your daughter’s situation. I would not have allowed it if I had. Please take a seat. May I offer you a drink?”

Jennifer wanted nothing more than to yell and scream at him, and then destroy his entire life. She could do it. She had the means and ability. Instead, she continued to smile and said, “I’ll have a glass of brandy if one is available.” The president motioned to the waiter, and he rushed off to get the drink. “I’m only interested in seeing her return to me safely,” she said as she sat down. “Can I assume you are able to do so?” she asked. She shouldn’t have said it, but she couldn’t resist.

The president frowned at her words. He apparently got the insult, but didn’t retaliate. “Yes,” he said. “You can rest assured I control the actions of our military.”

“When can I see her?” Jennifer asked, as she took her drink from the waiter. She swallowed a good third before the president had time to answer.

“I can have her brought here after I leave,” he said. “However, I would like to attach a condition, if I may?”

Jennifer took a sip of her drink, more to delay her response than anything else. She considered refusing his request. She wasn’t sure she trusted him. He would still be forced to hand over Myra regardless. In the end, she decided it would be worth the risk to hear him out.

“What is it?” she asked.

The president smiled, leaned a bit closer, and said, “I want you to help us forge a plan against this alien threat.” Jennifer was surprised at the offer, but the more she thought about it the more it made sense. She was a worldwide hero now, what better way to control her, than to invite her to be a member of the team working under him and the military.

Furthermore she had no interest in helping them. She only cared about making sure her daughter was safe, and hanging out with the military would be the least safe thing she could do. They would be the first targets.

“Before you answer, understand by you, I mean all of you,” he said. “That includes Michael, John, this alien person helping you, and your daughter Myra.”

She smiled. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to decline,” she said. “I’m sure Michael and John will be eager to help in any way that they can. Rogalia, our alien helper as you put it, may or may not decide to help.”

The president was surprised at her rejection. There was silence between them for several seconds. Finally he said, “I enjoyed your speech yesterday. You made quite an impression with the public.”

“Thank you, Mr. President,” Jennifer replied.

“It was very smart to give the credit to the Professor that determined the location of the next attack,” he said. “And then to the local militia members, most of whom died did they not?”

“Yes,” she replied. “It was unfortunate. I wish there were another way, but when someone hurts your friends and family, then what else are you going to do? As I said in my speech, they are the real heroes. We only had the good fortune to listen to the professor and give them a fair warning.”

“Yes,” the president replied. “Still it was also fortunate for you. All of you are world heroes now. Have you seen the morning polls? Nearly 75% of Americans believe we have a better chance of defeating these aliens if you join the government. Hell, nearly 20% think you should replace me as president.” The president leaned back in his chair and took a large drink from his glass. “What do you think about that?”

Jennifer considered it for a moment, “I think those aren’t the numbers your really interested in.”

The president smiled. “You’re much smarter than I had give you credit for in the past,” he said. “I take it you know the numbers I am interested in?”

Jennifer considered how to answer the question for a moment. “Just over 30% now think we can win this war,” she said. “which is up by about 30%”

“We need to drive those numbers up,” he said. “Or we won’t stand a chance. You are the key to that. Your country needs you, are you really going to turn us down?”

“That isn’t the reason you asked me,” she said. “If it were, you would take John and Michael and spin the battle as if they were the heroes. You know I wouldn’t stand in your way.” She leaned forward. “You don’t trust us.”

The president considered how to answer. “No,” he said. “I don’t trust any of you, Rogalia included, but that isn’t the only reason. I believe you will betray us, even if you do not. But I also think you will be useful in the mean time. And yes, it is better that we keep you near so we can watch you more closely. You seem to have a knack for sneaking around otherwise.”

The president leaned forward to gage Jennifer’s reaction. Jennifer remained emotionless, giving him nothing. “What I said before still applies however,” he continued, “Your country needs you. Your world needs you. This is the toughest challenge the world has ever faced, and you could be a key player. How can you sit on the sidelines, watch the world destroyed, and do nothing?”

“The truth is, I don’t care about the world, or what it thinks of me. My focus is on Myra,” Jennifer replied.

The president smiled. He stood, and she followed suit. “Well it was nice seeing you again Mrs. Stone,” he said holding out his hand to shake hers. “As promised, your daughter will be brought here after I leave. I just have one more thing to say. Your daughter lives in this world. If it gets destroyed, so does she.”

He walked towards the door. Jennifer stood, all of her thoughts were on Myra. The president stopped and turned to face her again. “Oh, I almost forgot. I was asked to remind you not to interfere with your location device.”

Jennifer smiled. “I’ll take that under advisement,” she said. She watched the president leave the building. The black suited men began to leave the hotel as well. There were so many of them it seemed to take forever. Jennifer decided to sit back down in the chair to wait.

It seemed to take forever for Myra to arrive. Excitement about seeing her daughter again turned to nervousness, and then fear about what condition she was going to be in. Was she injured? It’s unlikely they would hurt her physically, but were there emotional scars? Were they permanent?

Jennifer waited for 15 minutes, and spent most of which in a blind panic about what state here daughter was in. Finally she heard people enter the hotel entrance. She jumped up to see four men in military uniform escorting Myra.

She rushed over to her. She started to give Myra a hug, but Myra jumped back. Myra was terrified of her. “Myra? Are you ok? Don’t you recognize me?” Jennifer said.

“Mom?” Myra replied. She leapt into her mother’s arms, and began crying.

“It’s ok now Myra. I’m here. I’m going to take you home now,” Jennifer said and began to cry herself. How could I let this happen to her, she thought to herself. I’m her mother. I’m supposed to protect her. The two women cried in each other’s arms for a long time.

Nano 2009: Chaptor 7: Day 18

2010-01-02T19:36:00.000-08:00

The ride took about 30 minutes. Jennifer thought it would never end. The truck was so loud, she couldn’t think straight. Stevie insisted on rolling the windows down, despite the cold air. To make matters worse, the truck smelled, even with the windows down.

When the truck stopped, Jennifer got out and was surprised by what she saw. When Stevie mentioned the armory, she pictured some kind of warehouse. Instead what she saw was an old wooden house, with a large flat yard. The drive way was gravel and had a couple of old rusted cars in it. The sidewalk was also gravel and went between what used to be a garden, but now was overrun with weeds.

The house it self was in no better shape. The paint was peeling in some places. Parts of the gutter were missing off one of the walls. The porch was covered in dust. The windows were impossible to see through, the dirt was so thick.

Jennifer looked over to Michael and John. Michael seemed to be comfortable with it. John was oblivious as usual.

Stevie lead them around the house to a rusted beat up trailer in the back yard. When the stepped inside, they were greeted by 7 other men. Everyone was introduced once more. Jennifer made a point to remember their names. She repeated each one as she shook their hand. She also made a point to smile at each person individually.

Michael then asked about the armaments. Stevie took them into the back room. Michael looked around. He was disappointed, but not surprised. He picked up what looked like an AK. It was certainly one of the more impressive weapons. Most of the rest were rifles and hand guns.

“You got ammo for this thing?” he asked. Stevie nodded and handed him a box of bullets. Michael clearly expected more, but nodded to Stevie in thanks all the same.

“Well, I was hoping you all had more in the way of fire arms, but I aim to make do,” he said. “It an’t the weapon that makes the man.” Stevie nodded in agreement. “Do you got explosives hiding around here?” Michael asked.

“No. I’m afraid we couldn’t get a hold of any of that stuff,” Stevie said. “We tried to whip up a batch, but it didn’t turn out so good.”

“John, do you think you could make something?” Michael asked.

“Something that goes boom, I guess?” John asked rhetorically. He thought for a minute. “Well I’ve never tried, but I could probably google the instructions. It is certainly worth a shot.”

“I’ll have Otis help you out. He’s our local science teacher,” Stevie said. John looked skeptical, but agreed nonetheless.

“Hey Otis!” Stevie yelled.

“Yes sir?” Otis yelled back.

“Can you show John how you whipped up that batch of TNT last week,” Stevie yelled. Jennifer almost put her fingers in her ear, but was afraid that would appear rude. “You might have missed an ingredient. Google or something or other.”

“I was wondering what I did wrong,” Otis yelled. “Tell him we’ll have to make a trip to Wal-Mart to pick up some supplies.”

Stevie turned to John again. “Well you had better get going,” he said. “Otis an’t one for waiting around.”

After John left, Michael leaned towards Stevie and said in a low voice, “I need to know how these folk are going to handle themselves with the bullets start flying,” he said. “Do any of them have any military training?”

“I’m afraid not,” Stevie replied. “I’m the only one with training, but they are all good men. They all hunt regularly and know there way around a gun. They’ll do fine. I’d bet my life on it.”

Michael clearly was not convinced, but he had no choice, so he didn’t push the issue.

Michael spent the rest of the night going over every aspect of combat he could fit in with this group. Jennifer sat quietly in the corner listening. She could tell most of what Michael was saying went right over the head of the group. She began doubting if this was the correct course of action. What if the aliens do attack, and everyone here gets killed? That would be a horrible waste of life. But as Michael said, we had to do something. Besides it was more likely that the aliens would attack some place hundreds or thousands of miles away.

Jennifer was woken up at about 5 am by a lot of commotion. When she sleepily asked what was going on, they answered that the aliens were on their way. John expected them to land somewhere in town in about an hour. Jennifer sat back down, her thoughts focused on what was going to happen next. The worst part was that there was nothing she could do but wait until it was over.

Michael’s hands were shaking. Thankfully the suspension on this truck really sucks, so nobody noticed. He felt like he was going to vomit, but held it back somehow. He looked around at all the faces surrounding him. There wasn’t one that wasn’t scared to death. I guess I’m not helping matters, he thought to himself. He tried to show as much confidence as he could.

The truth was he was sure they were all going to die. He wanted to tell Stevie to turn the truck around, but every time he opened his mouth he thought about all the people that would be left defenseless, and closed it again.

They reached the town and stopped somewhere near the middle of it. John still wasn’t sure where they would land, and probably wouldn’t be sure until they did. So they waited.

In the mean time Michael went over the plan again. In the past, the aliens would split into 3 teams of 4 each. One team would guard the ship. The other two would capture whoever was around and throw them into the ship. Usually they attacked a shopping center, such as a department or grocery store.

Michael was counting on that again. He would split his men into 2 groups. The main group would attack the aliens guarding the ship after the other alien teams entered the building. Mean while Wade and Billy would wait for the other 2 groups to emerge from the building. They would then pick them off while the main force held them down.

Michael hoped the plan was simple and straight forward enough. Stevie had insisted they were good men and had lots of experience hunting, but hunting wasn’t the same as combat. It’s one thing to chase an animal with a rifle. It’s quite another when the animal is chasing you with one as well.

Michael looked around again. No, he thought to himself, this really isn’t going to end well. He would have to watch out for them the best he can. With a whole lot of luck, the whole thing will end quickly in our favor. In a protracted battle, the odds were strongly against them.

Finally, John radioed in, telling them the aliens had landed in the Wal-Mart parking lot. It was about a mile away, but the hills and additional detached stores in the area made it ideal for an ambush.

The group rushed over in the truck. When they arrived, they stopped across the street down a few yards from the entrance to the parking lot. Wade and Billy got out, strapped their rifles to their backs, and ran across the street outside the view of the ship.

The others watched the alien ship while waiting for other 2 to get into position.

“That’s the biggest plane I’ve seen in my entire life,” Otis said. “And I’ve been to Mexico!”

The group ignored him. They were far to nervous to pay much attention to their own thoughts, much less others.

“Ok lets go,” Michael said. “Just remember, when the shooting starts, your feet will have a tendency to stop. Don’t let them.”

Stevie got in the drivers seat, and the others piled in back. They kept low so as not to be noticed until it was too late. Stevie eased his way down the street until he got near the entrance to the parking lot. He then gunned it. The truck sped across the median dividing the street from the parking lot. The bump nearly knocked Michael out of the back of the truck.

Stevie sped right up to the two shocked aliens that were standing on their side of the ship. Michael took aim at the farthest one and fired. The bullet ripped through the alien’s heart. Three other shots rang out from beside and behind Michael. Two hit the same man Michael had just shot. The third grazed the other alien, even though the truck was only a few feet away. Michael adjusted his aim and shot the second alien just before he managed to get his own shot off.

Michael then jumped out of the truck and glanced under the ship. He then motioned to his right indicating the other aliens were coming that way.

As he began to take cover behind the truck he noticed Otis was still in the back of the truck. Otis was kneeling down in the truck with his eyes closed. Tears flowed from his cheeks.

“Otis! Otis get down!” Michael yelled. “You’re a sitting duck there.”

Otis opened his eyes and looked at Michael. His eyes went blank as a shot ran through his chest. Blood splattered all over Michael’s face as he watched Otis fall out of site inside the back of the truck. Michael forced himself to concentrate on the men firing at him.

Michael took aim, this time at the closest one. Shots rang out from beside him. The soldier Michael had in his sites went down after someone had shot him in his shoulder. Michael quickly adjusted his aim to the other alien and killed him. He turned his attention back to the other alien, but he had been shot several more times.

Michael led the group around the ship just in time to kill the pilot as he came down the ramp. They then took cover behind the nearest cars in the parking lot. He reminded everyone to be careful of bystanders and hostages.

The first group of aliens emerged from the furthest set of doors. Michael ordered everyone to hold their fire until they were closer, but it was too late. Shots were already ringing out around him. He quickly took aim and took out one of the aliens before they managed to take cover behind the cars.

Michael held his fire, waiting for a good shot. The others were not so picky. They fired repeatedly until they were out of ammo. The smart ones then ducked behind the car to reload.

The aliens moved more like professional soldiers. Two would fire upon the group while the third moved closer, using the cars as cover. It didn’t take long before they were really close.

Michael turned his attention to the other set of doors. He didn’t want the other team of aliens getting the drop on them. They soon emerged from the door and he managed to kill two before they could take cover. Now, however, they were taking fire from two different angles.

The group began to panic and fire even more rapidly in different direction. They had no shot of hitting anyone at this rate. All the aliens really had to do was wait until we ran out of ammo and then walk up and kill us.

Sure enough, it wasn’t long before Clyde yelled, “I’m out of ammo!” He looked around and found one of the alien’s guns next to his body. He tried to make it around the ship and to the body, but was shot as soon as he exposed himself.

This, instead of making everyone realize how important not running out of ammunition was, made the group fire even more rapidly at their enemy. Michael decided to concentrate on the two remaining aliens from the second group. He hoped Wade and Billy would be able to get the drop on the others. They should be in the perfect position to do so.

Michael took aim and waited. Sure enough one of the aliens exposed him self. Michael fired, but missed. He cursed at himself, but patiently waited for the next opportunity. Before it came a couple more people yelling that they were out of ammo distracted him. He could feel the tide of the battle turning against them. He had to do something soon.

He turned his attention back to the other group of aliens. He saw Wade and Billy sneak up behind them. Michael gasped. They had exposed themselves, and didn’t have a clear shot of all three.

Michael dropped his rifle and took off directly towards the 3 aliens. He stayed low, cautious of the other 2 from the second group behind them. The three in front of him took careful aim. Michael exposed himself to their fire as he ran directly towards them. He hoped Wade and Billy would be smart enough to open fire before they did.

He was right. Both men opened fire, but on the same target. There shot was true however, and he fell. Both men took aim at the second alien. Both managed to get a shot off before he did, and he too fell and didn’t get up. The third alien, however, had a clean shot at Billy. Blood shot out of his chest as the bullet knocked him back against a car. He fell over dead.

Wade took aim and fired, but he had a very bad shot and missed. Wade, however, was out in the open. The alien took aim and easily shot him through the chest.

He then turned his attention back to Michael, but it was too late. Michael was already feet from him, pistol in hand. He easily took aim and shot the alien through his skull.

Michael put his pistol back into its holder and picked up the alien’s rifle. He turned his attention back to the other group to see two more men had been shot. Only Stevie remained. The two remaining aliens were about to overrun his position.

Michael quickly took aim and fired, more to slow them down then kill them. It worked. The aliens stopped the advancement until they could ascertain the threat Michael posed. Michael rushed around them, so that he and Stevie would be firing from opposite sides.

One of the aliens took aim at Michael, but Stevie’s shot hit the car he was leaning against just below where he was. He had to duck for cover. Michael continued to run, firing as he did. Stevie fired at them anytime either of them pointed a gun in Michael’s direction.

Good, Michael thought, at least he isn’t an idiot. He then cursed himself for having such terrible thoughts about his fallen comrades. He put himself in the perfect position. The aliens would either have to expose themselves to either him or Stevie.

They decided to split, with one taking a position to target Michael and the other in a position to target Stevie. Michael ducked behind the care and considered his options. He could hear Stevie’s shots, followed by one of the aliens.

Michael waited. When he heard Stevie’s shots again he jumped out from behind the car and fired on his counterpart. He ducked behind the car. Michael then took aim at the alien firing on Stevie and fired. It wasn’t his best shot of the night, but it managed to hit him. The alien screamed and dropped his gun.

Michael then ducked behind the car, just in time to avoid the hail of gunfire from the last remaining alien. Michael waited for a few seconds then popped his head out and fired, more as a distraction then an actual attempt at a kill.

It worked. Stevie managed to get the last kill. Michael took a deep breath. It was over. He then stood up, just in time for Stevie to jump at him from behind the car and give him a hug. If Stevie had be just a bit slower, he would have shot him out of pure instinct.

“Umm,” Michael said after Stevie didn’t let go. “We should probably make sure the aliens are dead and call an ambulance now.”

“Oh right,” Stevie said and made an obvious effort to compose himself.

Nano 2009: Chaptor 7: Day 17

2010-01-02T19:35:00.000-08:00

Jennifer stepped off the plane. Her stomach was still queasy from the ride. It was a small plane and didn't handle the turbulence very well.

“Are you doing ok?” Michael asked.

“I'm fine,” she replied. She forced herself to stand up straight. It was important she project strength. She knew Michael would respect that, and his respect might be useful in the future.

Two men were walking towards them. They both wore old worn out blue jeans and old baseball caps. The one on the right wore a white t-shirt with something written on it that Jennifer couldn't read from the distance. Jennifer expected him to be shivering, but as he got closer he seemed relax despite the cold breeze. A small amount of light brown hair shown just below his hat.

The other man had a red and black flannel button up shirt on, but was left unbutton. A dark t-shirt shown through the opening. He had a large amount of dark brown hair protruding from his hat. The hair on the back of his head almost reached his shoulders.

“Good evening,” Jennifer said, shaking each man's hand. “You must be Mr. Stevie,” she said when she shook the man on the right.

“Yes,” he replied. “How did you know?”

Jennifer smiled at him. “You look like a Stevie,” she replied. The man shook his head, but didn't reply otherwise. John and Michael introduced themselves. The group then headed towards the door.

“Do you know where these bastards are going to attack?” Stevie asked, as they walked across the runway.

“No, not really. Were thinking somewhere in this area, but to be honest we could be miles off,” Michael said.

“How are we going to fight back if we don't know for sure?” he asked. He opened the door to the airport for the rest of the group.

“John says he can track them. It should give us a bit of a head start. As far as advantages go, it an't much, but it an't nothing,” Michael said. “Besides, if we were sure that would get the military involve, and leave us out in the cold.”

“That is going to make it tough to plan,” Stevie said. “How much of a head start are we going to have?”

“A couple of hours. We do are planning right that should be plenty, God willing,” Michael said.

“God willing,” Stevie repeated as they walked out the airport. Stevie showed them the way to his truck.

“Can I assume your team is waiting for us?” Michael asked. “The quicker we get prepared, the better.”

“Their at the armory,” Stevie replied.

“Good,” Michael said. “We are light in the way of arms, for various reasons.” Good, Jennifer thought, he took my advice about not telling them why we were coming empty handed. She had assumed Stevie might check on them anyways, but there was no point in pushing the subject.

They all piled into the truck. It was an old beat up ford truck. Michael, John, and Stevie's companion had to ride in the back. Jennifer sat in the passenger seat, while Stevie drove. Everyone was completely silent. The truck was loud enough that nobody could carry a conversation.

Nano 2009: Chaptor 7: Day 63

2010-01-02T19:32:00.000-08:00

Rogalia ran into the bar, well ahead of John. It’s like watching a kid on Christmas, John thought to himself. He couldn’t help but smile. She was kind enough to wait for him a few feet inside the door.

The bar was filled with people. The bar was to the left, along with tables, and TVs hanging off the walls. To the right was a set of pool tables and darts, all of which were taken and had others waiting in line.

“Wow, it really is a lot like back home,” she said. “Except for the clothes of course.”

“I wonder what the odds are of our two races being so similar,” John said. “Do you think all races out there are pretty much the same?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I want to try that sex on the beach drink you were talking about.”

She ran to the bar and excitedly yelled at the bar tender loud enough that he couldn’t ignore her. She ordered her drink. The bar tender went off to make and while she waited patiently for him to return. John joined her and waited to order his drink.

John gave a beautiful woman sitting alone at the bar next to him a smile. She gave him a slight smile back, but quickly looked away. John looked back at Rogalia who as watching all the people in the bar.

“Hey how are you doing?” a man said to the beautiful woman next to John. “You really look good in that blouse, but you’ll look even better once it’s on my bedroom floor.”

It took a few seconds for John to register what he just said. People actually say those things, he thought to himself. I thought the movies just made that stuff up.

The women grabbed her drink in disgust. “Stay away from me!” she said as she left the bar.

“That was kind of rude of her,” Rogalia said. “He was just giving her a compliment.”

“You think she was being rude?” John asked.

“You don’t?” Rogalia asked.

“Human women typically only have sex with people the know well and are comfortable with,” he replied. “To ask or imply that someone have sex with you after just meeting is very, very rude.”

“Oh ok. I had forgotten how weird humans can be,” she said. “Still I fell bad for the guy.”

Rogalia noticed the bar tender with her drink. He had a very weird look on his face as he handed her drink over. John tried to order a drink, but the bar tender walked off without hearing him.

“What is that?” Rogalia said.

“Pool,” John said. “It’s a game where the object is to hit the white ball with a stick and knock the other balls into the holes around the table.”

“Lets play!” she replied.

“It’s crowded. We will probably be waiting for a while,” replied John. “Unless you offer them sex or something.” John immediately regretted making that joke. He looked at Rogalia and knew it was a mistake from the look on her face.

“Do you think that will work?” she asked.

“It was a joke. You can’t do that,” he replied. He wasn’t sure if she understood him or not. She took off towards the table. John followed her apprehensively.

“Hi,” she said when she reached the table. There were two men and two women standing around the table. One of the men was about to hit the ball.

“How you doing?” said the man standing closest to her.

“Do you mind if we have a shot at this game?” she asked.

“I’m sorry. I think they have this table next,” he said indicating towards a group of people at the table a few feet away.

“How about we play you two. If you win I’ll have sex with you,” Rogalia said. The man hitting the ball missed completely. Both men and the two women (who were clearly their dates), along with a few other people in earshot looked at her dumbfounded.

“Are you serious?” the man asked. Rogalia nodded. The two men looked at each other, then at their respective dates.

“This really, really isn’t a good idea,” John said to Rogalia. She ignored him.

One of the women approached the man that was hitting the ball, and said something to him. “I can’t be a participant, but if we both can be a spectator, I’ll play,” he said.

Rogalia looked at John confused. “They want to watch,” he said.

“That is fine with me,” she said.

The other man stared at his date. She was giving him a stern look and shaking her head as he decided what to do. After about a minute he said, “Rack them up.” His date picked up her drink and threw it in his face. She slammed the glass down and the table and stormed off in the direction of the door.

The man wiped off his face and said, “I’m Richard by the way, and this is Jack and Jill.” He waited for the customary joke about Jack and Jill. John was to preoccupied about how he felt about this game (or at least the stakes of the game), and Rogalia didn’t get the reference. “What was your names again?” he said after a moment.

“Amanda,” Rogalia said. John was thankful she was smart enough not to give her real name at least. A girl having sex over a game of pool was just as big of a red flag as a name like Rogalia, and that news would probably spread a lot more quickly. It wasn’t why John wished he had the courage to leave, but it was a good enough reason to do so.

“John,” John said with a nod of his head.

“Ok then, lets get this game started,” Jack said as he began to rack the balls.

“We are playing the best 2 out of 3,” John said. Might as well give themselves the best chances of winning.

The group decided Jack would break. John thought it best if Rogalia went last, so she had time to learn the game.

“Hi there beautiful,” a man said coming up behind Rogalia. He was an older man, probably in his late 50s or early sixties. He was fairly tall with white hair.

“Hi there yourself handsome,” Rogalia replied.

“What is your name?” he asked after the sound from Jack breaking died down.

“Amanda,” she replied.

“Well Amanda. Would you mind if I bought you a drink?” he asked.

She smiled, “I would love another drink.”

“What should I get you?” he asked.

“Oh, surprise me. I like surprises,” she replied and smiled at him. He smiled back and left to get the drink. John tried his best to explain the game of pool to Rogalia. Unfortunately he didn’t play very often and didn’t know much about it himself.

The old man returned few minutes later, drink in hand. “Here you go dear,” he said. “Can I talk you into joining me at my table while you enjoy this?

“I’m sorry, but I’m playing pool right now,” she replied. “And it’s my shot. You welcome to watch us if you like.”

Rogalia had a hard time getting use to pool. John tried to help her line up her first shot without resorting to putting his arms around her. In the end he had to. She wasn’t aiming properly, and he still was hoping to win. It felt nice with his arms around her. There was something about the way she smelled, the touch of her skin, and the warmth of her body that soothed John. He almost felt comfortable.

She missed, which was very disappointing to John. They already had half their balls in, and he had missed his shot as well. Jack was next and he got another ball in. John made two, but so did Richard. Rogalia missed, and Jack made their teams final ball and the eight ball for the win.

The second game went much better for them. John, through sheer luck, had a four ball streak. Rogalia too improved a great deal, hitting in a couple of balls including the eight ball. This surprised John, as she spent most of the time talking to Donald, the older gentleman hitting on her. John was sure she only did it for the drinks he kept buying her.

The third game was close. It ended up being Jack shooting for the eight ball, which was the only one still on the table. The shot was straight into the corner pocket, but crossed half the table. John said a little prayer as he waiting in anticipation. Jack took so long to shoot, John was sure he was doing it on purpose.

Finally he hit the queue ball and it rolled into the eight. The eight skewed a little to the left and wound up right in front of the hole. John sighed in relief, but kept himself from cheering out loud.

Of course, now it was his shot. No pressure there.

He laid his sweaty palm on the table, hoping the moisture wouldn’t skew his shot. He lined up the ball and tried to clear his mind. He gently hit the queue ball. It slowly rolled down the table and hit the eight. The eight ball rolled into the pocket.

“Yes!” John said. All three, Richard, Jack, and Jill showed their disappointment enthusiastically.

Rogalia ran up to John and gave him a hug. “We won!” she said.

“I must say, I thought for sure we would win after that first game,” Richard said. “It’s a shame too. You are the most attractive woman I’ve met in my life. Maybe we can do a rematch sometime? With the same bet?”

“Why what for a bet?” Rogalia said. “Why not just have sex now and get it over with?”

“What?” John said, utterly surprised.

“I haven’t had sex in a few days, and I really didn’t think we would win,” she replied.

“What?” John said again.

“Um. Ok I guess. Do you live near by?” Richard asked.

“Not that far, but I really would rather not go there,” she said. “Can’t we do it here somewhere? I guess they would frown on us doing it here. How about the bathroom?”

“What?” John said one more time.

“I’m with him on this one,” Jill said.

“Um. The bathroom is probably not a good idea, but I have a fairly back seat in my car. I guess I could park it in the ally or something,” Richard said.

“That’s good enough for me,” Rogalia said. She and Richard began walking towards the door. After a few steps she turned back. “You guys said you wanted to watch right?” she said to Jack and Jill. They looked at each other and rushed to catch up with them.

“Are you coming too?” Rogalia asked John.

“No,” John said without really thinking about it. “I think I’ll stay here.”

“Are you sure? It would be more fun if you were there,” she replied.

“No. I don’t want to go. I’m sorry,” he said. She smiled and left with the others.

John found a table and sat down. Why do I feel this way about her? he thought to himself. It will obviously not work out. She is from another planet for god’s sake. Why can’t real life aliens by like the ones in the movies: humans with blue skin?

It was over and hour and a half before Rogalia returned. John and finished off quite a few more drinks by that time. Rogalia came in and sat down next to him.

“How was it?” he asked before thinking about the question. He really wished he had thought that one through.

“It wasn’t bad,” she said. “I wished it had lasted longer though. It would have been better if I could have talked Jack and Jill into joining us, but they refused.”

“Two hours wasn’t long enough for you?” he asked.

“Oh, I met Donald, the gentleman that was buying drinks for me, in the parking lot on the way back in. He was a lot better. I mean for a human. Still not as good as Michael though.”

“Woah. I really don’t want to hear this,” he said. “In fact. I think its time we got you home.”

“Already? I wanted to play more pool. I thought it was fun,” she said.

“Maybe next time,” John said. Rogalia was disappointed, but didn’t put up any further argument.

The two sat in silence most of the way back to Rogalia’s apartment. It was strange being next to Rogalia and not hearing her talking. John couldn’t remember that ever happening.

“Is something wrong?” Rogalia asked when they were almost to her home.

“No, not really,” John said.

“Ok,” Rogalia said. “You have to remember I don’t know you human’s that well yet. Does that mean nothing is wrong, or is something bothering you?”

John signed. Thankfully driving meant he didn’t have to look her in the eye. “It’s just you having sex with strangers bothers me a little.”

“Really?” Rogalia said. “Well I can’t not have sex. What do you want me to do?” she asked.

“Nothing,” John said. “It’s unfair for me to even mention it. I know your race is different than ours. I guess I’ll have to just get used to it if we are going to spend time together.”

John had pulled into a parking spot at her apartment. He looked at her in the eye. “I hope we can still spend time together, but I think it’s a very bad idea for us to sleep together.” Seeing the confused look on her face he added, “It’s a weird human thing.”

“Oh ok,” she said. “I’m always forgetting how weird you people can be. How about if I do my best to keep my sexual affairs secret from you.”

“So your solution to my problem is to lie to me?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied.

“That could work,” he said. With that she got out and left. John then drove himself home alone.

Nano 2009: Chaptor 7: Day 16

2010-01-02T19:30:00.000-08:00

Michael listened to John try to pronounce a Biaz word Rogalia had put on the white board. Rogalia had been teaching them Biaz in this motel for weeks, or at least she had been trying to. Michael mostly stayed to the back and let the others fumble with the words. He knew the importance of learning the language, but couldn’t bring himself to interact with Rogalia unless it was absolutely important. He found her a very bad influence, especially on John.

He tried to warn both John and Jennifer, but both just nodded their heads and ignored him. They pretended of course, but Michael knew better. He tried to tell them that she got too close to everyone she meets and it wasn’t a very good idea to get too close to some alien girl. I mean what if she had diseases, or worse, what if she got pregnant? Michael shuddered at the thought.

Another reason that kept him from paying too much attention at these lessons was that he felt so helpless. The aliens continued to invade Earth on a regular basis. He wanted to fight back, but there was no way of knowing where they would attack next. It was impossible to defend against them. They would swoop down and grab a bunch of people from a public place then leave again.

The air force tries to intercept the shuttles as the came down and left, but they had no luck. It was obvious to Michael that the aliens were tracking the aircraft, and avoided it. It wasn’t too hard considering the shuttles went about 500 times faster then the fastest fighter jet.

Michael tried to come up with a pattern of their attacks, but came up empty. He tried to contact people at the pentagon to see if they had made any progress, but everyone still refused to talk to him. It infuriated him, but he understood why.

He looked up to see Rogalia explain the various sounds of z in the Biaz language for the hundredth time. Why couldn’t John get this? he thought. He didn’t know if it was the sound of John’s voice screwing up another Biaz word, even he knew even though he had never said it out loud, or the thought of his family being taken by the aliens while he was helpless in this room, which suddenly popped into his mind again.

“We need to be doing something!” he yelled. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at him. “We can’t just sit here while they continue to take our people, our friends and family. We have to draw the line somewhere. I’m drawing the line here and now. Nobody else gets taken, not while I draw breath.”

“Well you can always take me,” Rogalia said with a seductive smile.

This infuriated Michael, but Jennifer spoke before Michael could react, “Rogalia,” she said, “be quite please.” Rogalia gave her an angry look, but remained silent.

Michael watched Jennifer as she contemplated what Michael was saying. He was sure she would turn his desire for action into her own ends. She was smart in that way. He didn’t trust her, nor did he particularly like her.

“What do you suggest?” John asked. Michael turned his attention to John. He liked John more, but he was an idiot. He knew he was sleeping with Rogalia. How much more evidence of stupidity did one need?

“I’ve been trying to come up with a pattern of their attacks,” he said. “I think I can come up with a few guesses as to where they might attack next.”

“That is a long shot at best,” John said.

“Beats sitting around here doing nothing, doesn’t it?” Michael retorted. John remained silent.

“I agree,” Jennifer said. Everyone looked at her in surprise. “I can’t concentrate here today anyways. Why don’t we take a break from the Biaz lesson and try to figure out a way of stopping these incursions of theirs.”

Michael looked at Jennifer. She was up to something. Nothing in her demeanor indicated it, but she was always up to something.

“Why don’t we all look at what Michael has done,” Jennifer continued.

“Even if we can find a pattern,” John said, “how are we going to stop them? It’s just 4 of us, and we aren’t allowed guns.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Michael said. “Militias have formed all over the country. If we can find where the next attack will be, then we just need to find the nearest one. They will be glad to arm us.” Michael smiled at the thought of holding a gun and aiming it at the aliens.

“Ok then, where do you want to start?” John asked.

Michael drew a rough map of the US on the white board and marked each alien attack that he could remember with an x. Both Jennifer and John pointed at further attacks, and corrected the locations of some. Michael was impressed how closely they were keeping track of the happenings in the world.

When he was done he looked at John and waited for him to speak. “Well,” John began, “I think your right about the times. It does seem related to the number of people they grab, which seems to make sense based on our experiences on board the spacecraft.”

Michael waited for the but he new was coming. “But,” John continued, “I’m not as sure about where they will attack. You are making a lot of assumptions. It’s unlikely your right about all of them.”

“Do you got something better?” Michael asked.

John hesitated. “No,” he said. “Not yet anyways.”

“Well then why not go with my plan until then,” Michael said. “It beats sitting around here waiting for an idea it fall from the sky.”

“We have a couple of days,” Jennifer said. “Why don’t we break for today and let John and Rogalia think about it for a while. We can meet back here the day after tomorrow, and discuss our final plans.”

Jennifer then got up to leave. John walked over to Rogalia and started talking. Michael rushed after Jennifer. “Wait,” he called after her after they were out of ear shot from the others.

Jennifer turned to face Michael. “I’m sorry I’m late to a meeting. I have to go,” she said.

“Why is it that you want to help?” Michael asked. “And don’t go saying it’s to help the helpless. You don’t strike me as that kind of woman.”

A look of hurt or guilt (Michael wasn’t sure) crossed her face, but she recovered quickly. “I care about those people as much as you do,” she said. Michael waited for the real answer he hoped was coming. “But, yes, I have another agenda too. If we can find a way to fight back against the aliens in any capacity, it would make us heroes in the eyes of the world. I can use that leverage to force the president to release Myra.”

Michael had not expected this answer. Oh, he knew she had an agenda, but how can he complain about a mother wanted to help her child. It was still wrong to subvert the government to any degree during such a circumstance, but he couldn’t condemn her either. She turned to leave before he could find a rebuke to her argument.

The next couple of days felt like the couple of days before a mission. He was eager to finally be doing something real. He was also a little bit excited at the prospect of combat, but mostly he was terrified. He was terrified of getting killed, but also of letting down his comrades. Worst of all, he was afraid of making a mistake that got everyone killed. He usually cleaned his guns, just for something to do, but they all had been taken away.

The day they were supposed to meet, he was the first one there. Followed by Jennifer. “How did your meeting go the other day?” Michael asked just to pass the time.

Jennifer looked at him for a moment before answering. “Well I guess you should probably know. I managed to get a hold of an order authorizing Myra’s torture,” she said.

“What?!” Michael yelled. “Who the hell gave that order?”

“The order was signed by my husband,” she said. “But I’m pretty sure General Mac is the one that pushed for it.”

“That’s not true,” Michael said. “I’ve known General Mac my entire life. He’s like a father to me. There is no way he would issue such an order.”

Jennifer looked at him. Michael thought she was going to argue further, but she just remained silent. She turned her attention back to the door.

“General Mac is a good man,” Michael said. “You should trust him more. He is doing the best that he can.” Jennifer remained silent.

Michael was going to continue, but the others arrived. Michael wasn’t pleased to see John and Rogalia arrive together, especially considering this was were Rogalia was staying.

“What did you come up with, if anything?” Michael asked John.

“They should attack just outside of Portland, Oregon,” he said.

It took Michael a couple of seconds to recover from his surprise. “How did you come up with that?” he asked.

“Um. Well. I didn’t really,” John said. “I googled it. It seems several professors were working on the same problem. This one seemed the most likely candidate.”

“Oh,” was all Michael could respond with. He considered asking for more details, but decided he didn’t really care. They had their destination, which is all that mattered. Besides he would have to admit not having confidence in his guess, which he wasn’t eager to do. “When do we leave?”

“Well, there in lies the problem,” Jennifer said. “I’m not sure how we can get on a plane with the tracking devices on our ankles. Taking a day trip to New York was one thing. Flying across the country is another. And we don’t have time for trains or automobiles.”

“I know a pilot,” Michael said. “It might take some convincing, and a few dollars, but he will take us.”

“Good,” Jennifer said. “Now we just need to make contact with the local militia to tell them we are coming and prepare for the attack.”

“I can find that information too,” Michael said. “I an’t going to need any special clearance to find the hillbilly that runs the glorified neighborhood watch in Portland.”

“Try to arrange for a flight tonight, if it’s possible,” Jennifer said. “The sooner we make it out there, the better.” She then turned to John. “So what is your confidence this is the right place?”

“50/50 I’d guess,” he said.

Nano 2009: Chaptor 7: Day 15

2010-01-02T19:28:00.000-08:00

“Wakie wakie,” Myra heard as she started to regain consciousness. She thought it was a dream. She opened her eyes and saw herself kneeling over her. She still thought it was a dream that would go away in a few seconds. So she waited.

Her twin didn’t go away. She just smiled at her. Myra wanted to be frightened, but she just didn’t have the strength. So she just sat up ignoring herself, so to speak.

“So you’re not even going to talk to me,” her twin said. “That is so unlike you. They must have done something to your mind.” Her twin offered her hand to help her up. Myra considered for a second, but took it.

Myra looked around. She was back in her cell with the same loud music and bright light. She started to feel the chill of the air conditioner, so she sat back down against the wall and held her knees to her chest to try and stay warm.

She looked back at her twin, who was still smiling at her. Myra still thought it was a sinister smile that was trying to be warm. She was biased though. The clothes that she wore looked really warm. In made Myra jealous.

“How are you feeling sweetie?” her twin asked. “They didn’t hurt you too badly did they?” Myra continued to ignore her, hoping that she would just go away. “Still not talking to me are you? That’s very rude. You’ll never survive Velaria with that attitude. You know most Velarian’s would kill to meet themselves while there naked. Well not kill, but they would have bad thoughts about someone, which is still saying a lot.”

Myra thought this was an odd thing to say. Now she was curious if this person really did know something about the Velarians that she didn’t. Which, of course, is impossible if this person was just a figment of her imagination. It must just come from her imagination. Yea, that was it.

“You will eventually break down and talk to me sooner or later,” her twin said. “Don’t make me sit here spouting off nonsense until then.” Myra opened her mouth to speak, but resisted. “Ok then how about this tidbit. None of the other races would ever do this to you. Only humans are capable of this level of cruelty.”

Myra found it easy to remain silent. She had nothing to add to that statement.

“Well at the very least talking will help keep you warm,” she said. “The vibrations in the larynx help warm you up.”

Myra considered it for a second and decided she was right. She would eventually talk to her, so might as well be sooner then later. “Is that true,” Myra said.

Her twin smiled at her, “It could be,” she said.

“Who are you?” Myra asked.

“Well that’s the pickle isn’t it? I don’t really know,” she replied. Myra fell into a deep thought considering who or what this person might be.

“Are you the person that altered us? If so why?” Myra asked.

“Don’t be silly,” her twin said and tried to wave the conversation off with her hand. “You already met her. She was a different dream.”

Myra thought that remaining silent would have been less confusing, but now that she had broken her silence there was no going back. “How do you know about Velarian’s then?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I just do,” she replied. “Why don’t you? That is the question I’d like to ask.”

“Well I’ve only met one, haven’t I?” Myra replied. “Can’t really know hole species based on one person can you? What if they had met my father before they met me? What would they think?” The thought of her father made her heart sink, but she forced herself not to cry. The cold would pierce through her cheeks if tears fell on them.

“Well then how do I?” her twin replied.

Myra thought about this for a second. “None of this makes any sense. I must have gone to insaneville,” she replied.

“Well there is no arguing with that,” her twin said. “You are talking to yourself after all, and not in the sane way either.” She knelt down so she could look at Myra directly in the face. “Honestly, you might as well be praying,” she said with a smile.

The continued to talk, but the conversation went nowhere. It did help keep Myra’s mind off the cold. It was such a comfort having someone to talk too, Myra didn’t even mind that she had gone insane.

The strange part is that her twin kept making remarks about the other races. Things that Myra herself could never had known. Like if she were on Biaz, all the men in the building would be put to death for what they were doing to her. And how Kult women would consider such things foreplay, if they had foreplay.

Again she had no other human contact except for herself, so to speak. She stayed in her cell for what had to have been days. Her twin was explaining about the Velarian holiday national nude day, when two men came in and grabbed Myra.

They took her to the same room as before. This time Myra had enough wits to look around the room for another tub of cold water. There wasn’t any, but there was a small tub of water with wires coming from it.

The men forced her to sit in the chair in front of the tub. They then tied her feet so that they were in the tub. A table was sat down in front of her. The men forced her hands into another tub of water and tied them down there as well.

The same bright light as before prevented Myra from seeing anything on the other side of the room. A figure appeared from beyond the light and sat down opposite of Myra. It was the same man as before.

“You know what we want to know,” he said. “Tell us and this doesn’t have to go any further.”

Myra bowed her head. If she could have thought of anything to tell him, whether it be a lie or the truth, she would have done so already. She looked up again and saw her twin behind the man. Even through the light she appeared clearly.

“You are a woman,” her twin said. “The only one here. You are a queen amongst peasants. Act like it.”

Myra thought about it for a moment. She was right. I can’t make them stop, but I can keep them from destroying all of me. They have already taken too much.

Myra lifted her head to face the man. “I’ve told you all that I know, and I will continue to do so,” she said. “Torturing me will only hurt us both, and pull us both further away from our goal.”

The man considered her words for a minute. “What exactly is your goal?” he asked.

“It is our goal,” she said, “to stop the Biaz from taking over our world. To protect our people.”

The man looked at her for several seconds. He then turned a knob. Myra’s muscles tensed, and pain shot through her body. She expected it, yet that still didn’t prepare her for it. It seemed to last forever, but the man eventually turned the knob again and the pain stopped.

“I hate this,” the main said. “We are not naturally a violent people. We don’t enjoy causing pain to anyone. I want it to end as much as you do, but first we need to know what you are planning.” Myra remained silent. There was nothing else that could be said. She would just have to endure.

The interrogation lasted for hours, or maybe it just seemed that way. When it seemed like Myra could take no more, her twin decided to try and distract her with a Velarian children’s song. It only half worked. It had a nice melody, but Myra was in too much pain to understand the words. It was something about not forgetting your clothes and it being cold outside.

About the third chorus, the man stopped talking and stared at her for a long while. Myra was only half conscious and didn’t even notice she neither heard him speaking, nor felt any pain. She was far too tired to care very much, except out of idle curiosity.

They soon took her back to her cell. Even with the cold and the lights Myra managed to sleep some.

This routine continued for what seemed like months. They would come to take her to the dark room nearly everyday. Sometime they would just ask her questions and threaten pain if she didn’t answer. Sometimes they would carry out that threat. Her twin was always by her side, usually cracking jokes. The only good change was that they allowed her to sleep every few days, but only for a few hours at a time.

Myra could not get anything else out of her twin. Although occasionally, Myra would notice that she would be speaking in another language. The language itself would switch. What frightened Myra about this is that she could understand her, although she often didn’t know which language it was. She was frightened of this, not because it meant that the men torturing her might be right, but because she feared what they would do to her if they found out.

One day the two men came to her cell, grabbed her, and took her to the interrogation room. The room was empty, except of the table, chair, and lamp. It looks like its just a question day, Myra thought to herself, thankful there would be no pain.

A few seconds after she sat down, a women in scrubs came from behind the light. She reached for Myra’s arm. Seeing no point, Myra didn’t resist. The women put a needle in her arm and pushed some kind of drug into her veins.

Myra immediately felt dizzy and light headed. Her first thought was, this must be what ecstasy feels like. Did they really just give me ecstasy? The man, the one that always interrogated her, waited for the drugs to take effect.

After a few moments, the man motioned to someone behind him. Another person rolled a TV into Myra’s view. The interrogator took out a remote and pushed play. The video showed Myra writing something on the wall. She had seen the video before, right after the escaped from the alien ship.

“Do you recognize this video?” the man said.

“Yea,” Myra replied before she could stop herself. “I wrote bad words on the wall, and you punished me for it.”

“Can you tell me what it says?” the man asked. He leaned forward anticipating the answer.

Myra looked at the TV. She squinted her eyes, but couldn’t make out the words. “No, I can’t read it. Whoever that person is, she had bad handwriting. Tell her to print the words instead of writing them in cursive.”

The man motioned to someone behind him again. Another person handed him a stack of pictures. The man handed the pictures to Myra one by one.

“Here can you see the words now? What do they mean?” he asked again.

Myra studied the pictures. The words looked familiar, but she couldn’t think straight because of the drugs. She thought she recognized a couple of the words though. “Four survivors, or something,” she said. “Can I be one of the survivors? That would be neat.”

“Is this in the alien language? How do you know how to read it?” the man asked.

“It’s Kultish,” she said. “All Kults can read Kultish, so why can’t you read it? Oh wait, that’s right your not Kultish are you? Hey I’m not Kultish either. How can I read this?” She stared at the man with a blank look on her face waiting for an answer. Then something dawned on her. “Wait a second, what race am I? Are we the same race?”

The man looked at her for a second. “I don’t think so,” he said.

“Well what race are you then?” Myra asked.

“I’m human,” he said.

“Wait a second. I’m human too. You lied to me. I don’t like liars,” she said and gave him a scolding look.

“Myra,” the man said. “Who are the Kults?” Myra folded her arms clearly refusing to talk to her. The man repeated his question, and still Myra refused to acknowledge his presence. Finally the man said, “Ok, I lied. I’m sorry. I won’t lie anymore. Can you answer my question now?”

Myra considered it for a second, but couldn’t stay quite any longer. “They are one of the quartet,” she said. Her head suddenly started hurting.

“What quartet?” the man asked.

“The holy quartet.” Myra answered.

“What is the holy quartet?” the man asked.

“The holy quartet.” Myra answered as if the man was stupid.

“And the Kults are a member of the quartet?” the man asked. Myra shook her head. “Is it the quartet that are trying to invade Earth? Who are the other members?” the man asked.

“The Kults are one, the Velarian are two, the Biaz and three, and the humans are four,” Myra answered. Her head was pounding with every thought. She held it in her hands to try and make it stop. “All four must survive and unite or all will fall.”

The man considered Myra’s words for a minute. “So if some other force is threatening the Biaz if they don’t invade us? What does that mean?” the man asked.

“I don’t know,” Myra said. “Swimming in my head, over and over again. All must survive or none will. Over and over and over…”

“Myra!” the man yelled. “Tell me what it means.”

“I don’t know. Hey maybe she knows,” Myra pointed to a women standing behind the lights, next to her twin. Myra recognized her, but it took a moment to remember where. She was in a dream, before being take aboard the ship. Thinking about it made her head hurt even worse.

The man looked around, but saw nothing. “Who are you talking too?” the man asked, but Myra was no longer paying attention.

The women came closer to Myra. “Myra,” she said. “You must stop. You’re going to hurt yourself if you keep accessing the knowledge we gave you this quickly, especially in the state that your in. Sleep now. All the answers will come in time, when you are rested and more prepared.”

She embraced Myra. Myra hated herself for hugging her back and for being comforted by it. This is the person that stuck these things in my mind. She is the reason why I’m here.

“You only have to endure a little longer. They are coming for you,” the women said. By the time she finished her sentence, Myra had fallen a sleep.

Nano 2009: Chaptor 7: Day 14

2010-01-02T19:26:00.000-08:00

Jennifer walked into the coffee house and looked around. Michael arranged a meeting between General Mac and herself. They were easy to find. The coffee house was completely empty. She walked up to them and sat down. Nobody said a word for a long moment. She just smiled at Mac as she tried to size him up.

Michael was the first to break the silence, as Jennifer knew he would be. “Well you two wanted to meet, so here we are,” he said. “We all are wanting the same thing.” Both General Mac and Jennifer continued to stare at each other. “I mean we are all on the same side here aren't we?” Neither answered, “Aren't we?” he said more forcefully.

“Well that depends on the side she's on, now doesn't it,” General Mac said. “I plan on defending our nation. Whoever doesn't help is our enemy and will be treated as such.” Jennifer continued to stare at him for a few moments.

“Well then we are on the same side, yet you still treat us like enemies,” Jennifer said. She continued to smile at him. She wished she had tea to sip. It would give the impression she wasn't impressed with him at all.

“You are not on our side,” he said. “Your actions have proven that. Now I want to know where Rogalia is and how you have been subverting the GPS tracking system on your ankle.” He stared her down, trying to intimidate her. He wasn't bad. On most people it would have worked, but she was more prepared. She continued to stare at him with a small smile.

“I don't know where Rogalia is at the moment. It seems she is afraid of you, not that I can blame her,” Jennifer said.

“Tell me how you are getting around your tracking devices,” Mac said. Jennifer studied him for a moment before answering. He was afraid. He doesn't know how to stop the real alien threat, so he is concentrating on us. He was a fool. He should be preparing for the invasion.

“That was John's magic. I really have no idea how he does it,” she said. She forced herself to relax.

“Just tell him how he does it,” Michael said. “As you said we are all on the same side. We should be acting like it. They'll be coming for us. We need to stand united.”

Both Mac and Jennifer ignored him. Neither even looked in his direction. “He is already convinced we are the enemy,” Jennifer said. “You should not trust him either Michael.”

“Are you the enemy?” Mac asked.

“Honestly, I don't know,” she said. “What I do know is that i'm not willing to give up. At least not to you.” That wasn't entirely true. She would perfectly willing to surrender to anyone if it meant Myra would be safe.

“So you admit you are alien spy,” Mac said. Jennifer wasn't paying attention. With the thought of Myra in her mind, she was solely concentrating on finding a way to get Mac to tell her what was happening to her daughter.

“I am not an alien spy,” Michael exclaimed. “If i'm not then neither is she. General, you have to stop this. We need to be working together.”

“Listen Michael,” Mac said turning towards Michael for the first time. “I trust you, but you have to admit, she has been acting suspicious. As long as she is subverting the people trying to defend this nation, we will continue to treat her as an enemy. You know we need Rogalia, yet she is keeping her from us.”

Jennifer thought it was a nice speech, but a complete lie. He saw all aliens as a threat, Rogalia included. He just wanted to control her, just like he wants to control all of us. Anything that is beyond his understanding, he just wants to control or destroy. It’s a shame Michael didn’t see through his charade.

Still she had to concentrate on Myra. That is why she came here. “Was Myra acting suspicious, is that why your keeping her locked up?” Jennifer asked.

Mac turned back to her. “She is beyond suspicion. You know that,” he said. “What ever they did to all of you must have caused her to go haywire.”

Something about the way he said haywire caused Jennifer’s senses to heighten. She considered the best way to glean more information. “I know she had a bit of an episode when we were being held,” Jennifer said, “but certainly she has recovered by now.” Lets see if he can resist taking that bait, she thought.

“She’s crazier than Jon Stewart,” he said, almost under his breath.

Fear gripped Jennifer at those words. Myra was worse? Why? “What are you doing to her?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said a bit too quickly. “We are merely observing her.”

Jennifer’s heart sunk. They were hurting her. She was sure of it. She looked at the man sitting across from her and wished he would drop dead then and there. She forced herself to smile, hoping her emotions didn’t betray her.

She kept silent for a while trying to get a hold of herself. “I’m sure you are taking excellent care of her,” she said. It was a mistake, but she couldn’t help herself.

“What is that suppose to mean?” Mac said. “We are taking as good of care of her as possible, and don’t you go thinking otherwise.”

“I’m sure you are doing an excellent job, just like you did with that Chinese incident,” Jennifer said. She really shouldn’t have goaded him like that, but the words came out of her mouth before she could stop herself.

“Listen you bitch,” he yelled. “I don’t know what you have been told, but I was doing my duty. I’ve been defending my country for all of my adult life, and I’ll defend it against all of you as well!”

“That thing with the Chinese has been blown out of proportion. If it wasn’t for General Mac, hundreds of soldiers could have died, and it could have started a war with China. General Mac did what he thought was best,” Michael said. Neither person at the table was paying any attention to him though.

“That sounds just like you,” she said. “Concentrate on torturing harmless children while ignoring the real threat while it destroys your beloved country.”

General Mac rose to his feet. For a second Jennifer thought he was going to attack her. Michael also rose to his feet and blocked him from her. Mac seemed to get just enough of his composure back to stop himself from resorting to physical violence.

“They will not destroy my country, and neither will you,” he proclaimed. “I will find a way to stop you. I will kill all of you if it is the last thing that I do.”

“Did I miss anything?” John asked. Nobody had seen him come in. “Sorry I’m late. It took forever to find the place. I couldn’t remember the name of it.”

Jennifer rose to her feet. “I think I’m done,” she said turning to John. She then walked out of the coffee shop and back to her car. When she got in she put her keys into her ignition, but then stopped. The thought of Myra being beaten by General Mac personally entered her mind.

She instantly went through a range of emotions all at once. She was angry with Mac and the government of course. She hated them for it. She hated the aliens as well. If she had the power to wipe them all from existence, they would already be no more. She also hated herself, for failing her daughter. If only she could have gotten them out sooner, or stayed with them. She was a terrible mother, there was no denying that now.

She was also ashamed for being so vengeful when it wouldn’t help Myra at all. The emotion that overshadowed all the other things she felt was fear. She didn’t know if her daughter would survive, or the toll her ordeal will take. She couldn’t think of any way of helping her. She began to cry. Her hands shook so badly that she gripped her steering wheel as tight as she could to try to make them stop. Tears rolled down her face and on to her lap.

Someone knocked on her window. She tried to compose herself before she even looked up to see who it was. She wiped the tears from her eyes and look up. It was John. She rolled down her window.

“Are you ok?” he asked.

Jennifer considered how to respond. She decided she could trust him. “There torturing Myra,” she said.

He gave her a shocked look. “How do you know?” he asked. “Did General Mac tell you that?”

“Yes,” she said. John was taken back. It took him a moment to recover. Jennifer swallowed her emotions, forcing herself to stay composed.

“Well can’t you go to the press?” he asked. “I mean that is how you got us out originally? Maybe if the world knew what they were doing to her, they would be forced to let her out.”

“No. That won’t work this time,” she said. “The only people that would print it with no evidence is the National Enquirer, and even they might have to much journalistic integrity.”

John thought for a second. “Wouldn’t the military be a little bit cautious about torturing her?” he asked, but continued before she could answer. “I mean half the country thinks we are heroes. Wouldn’t they have a signed order from one of the higher ups? Maybe I can get into the military network and find it. That would be good enough to take to the press right?”

Jennifer just stared at him in amazement. He is absolutely right. It shouldn’t be that hard to find. She had lots of contacts at the pentagon. One of them would surely have access to it and could be convinced to let her have a copy.

She was so happy she almost smiled. “That’s a really good idea,” she said. “I guess it’s time to call in a few favors.” She started her car, but before putting it in drive and taking off she turned again to John. “John, thank you. You really are getting into the habit of saving our behinds when we need it most. I really do appreciate it.” John smiled at her and watched her drive off.

Nano 2009: Chaptor 7: Day 13

2010-01-02T19:23:00.000-08:00

Myra sat against the wall with her forehead resting on her knees. The room itself was very small. It was originally a cleaning closet, but had been hastily modified. Giant foam pads were placed along all the walls, ceiling, and floor to absorb the sound, which made the room even smaller. There was a small hole placed at the bottom of the door for food, and a larger hole placed in one of the walls for an air conditioner.

She wanted so desperately to sleep, but couldn’t. There were 3 primary reasons for this. First there were bright lights mounted on the ceiling. They were so bright it hurt her eyes to look up, even if she didn’t look directly at them.

Second, there was loud music playing non-stop. It was something with a heavy base line. The vibrations not only shook the entire room, but also seemed to penetrate to Myra’s bones. She hadn’t paid attention to it for days. It might as well have been machinery or a jackhammer.

The final reason was that it was very cold. There was an air conditioner installed in this tine broom closet of a room and was running non-stop since they put her in there. To make matters worse, they also took all of her clothes.

When they first put her in this room, she use to try and hide her body from the video camera, and wonder who was watching her and what they were doing. That seemed like weeks ago. It had been a long time since she cared.

Now she would gladly let whoever it was watch her in person just to have some human interaction. She had no interaction from anyone since they put her in this room. Food arrived from a small slot under the door, just bread and water. The music kept her from hearing anything outside of this room. She had convinced herself that the aliens had attacked and killed everyone already, and that they decided to leave her in this room forever. She prayed for them to find her and kill her. The room was completely empty or she would have done it herself.

The door suddenly opened. Myra’s heart leapt to her throat. She was so glad they didn’t just leave her in the room forever; she wanted to jump up and hug the two men that entered the room. They both wore masks so she couldn’t see their faces.

Neither man spoke as they grabbed her and half pulled, half dragged her out of the room and down the hall. They took her to another room that was much bigger and much darker than her cell. The men sat her in a chair at a table near one end of the room. The men then disappeared behind a bright light that was shining directly in her face.

She could see movement behind the light, but couldn’t tell who or how many people were there. She couldn’t help but smile. She was just grateful to be around people, anyone, again.

She wrapped her hands around herself, not to hide her nude body, but to try and warm up. The room was much warmer than her cell, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself from shaking.

A man sat down across the table from her. He was white and wore a suite. He seemed to be quite tall, perhaps 6 and a half feet, but she couldn’t make out his face. He didn’t say anything for a full minute.

“Usually guys buy me drinks before I allow them to see me naked,” Myra said between chattering teeth. The man didn’t react at all to her. “I can’t even get a pity laugh?” she said. Still the man ignored her. “Well at least this is going better than most of my dates,” she said. “Oh come on, that one was pretty good!”

The man handed over a plain vanilla folder. Myra just stared at it. Truthfully she really didn’t care what was inside. The man reached over, opened it, and put it right under Myra’s face. She glanced at the first page. Her father’s signature caught her eye.

She read the document from the beginning. It was a document ordering her torture, and was signed by her father. She closed her eyes and began to cry. She wanted to be angry, but she just didn’t have the energy. Tears fell freely down her cheek and dripped onto the papers.

“Nobody believes your Myra,” the man said. “Not even her own father.” Myra was barely registering his voice. She felt as if she just learned her father was dead. No, it was worse than that. It was like she had been tricked into believing she had a father, but it turned out to be a lie.

“Tell us who you really are, and why you are here,” the man said in a forceful tone. “Tell us what you are planning.” Myra ignored him. Her tears continued to pour onto the table.

“Answer me and we will let you talk a warm shower, and let you sleep in a bed,” the man said in a gentle tone. “Just admit who you really are, and we will let you sleep tonight.”

“I’m a Biaz soldier,” she said. She would have said anything to make it all stop. She knew they might kill her if they believed her, but she didn’t care.

“If your telling the truth, then tell me your real name,” the man said.

Myra tried to think of a way to convince him, but she was too tired. Instead she just remained silent.

“Tell us the truth,” he said. He reached across the table and put his hand on her shoulder. “I can make this all go away, if you just tell me the truth.” He had a soothing voice. Myra enjoyed listening to him speak.

“I’ll tell you what ever truth you want, just let me go,” she said. He withdrew his hand. Myra still couldn’t make out his face, but she could tell he was disappointed.

He turned and motioned to someone behind him. The two men in masks came from beyond the lights and grabbed Myra again. They took her to a small metal tub in the corner of the room, and threw her in.

Ice-cold water pierced her skin. It felt like she was punctured by thousands of needles. The shock forced her to take a heavy breath. Before she could breath out the men forced her under the water. She struggled against their grasps, but lacked the strength to overcome them. They held her there for what seemed like forever.

Finally they allowed her to raise her head just above the water. She continued to struggle, but they held her in place. The man that was questioning her came forward so she could see his face. He was an older gentleman, mid to late 40s. He was bolding, with hair along the sides of his head, but none on top. He wore glasses with thin brown frames.

“Just tell us why you are here,” he said in a soothing voice. “Just do this for us, and we will give you clothes, and a warm bed. We will even give you hot chocolate if you want some.”

“Please make them stop,” she pleaded. “I’ll do whatever you say. I promise. Just make it stop.” The men held her under the water again for several minutes.

“You’re the only one that can make it stop,” he said sympathetically.

She wished she were an alien come to destroy the world. She tried to think of something to tell them that would make them stop. She could think of nothing, so she just continued pleading with the man through her tears.

Another woman appeared behind the man. Myra couldn’t quite make out what she looked like. It was too dark near where she was standing. “Please,” Myra pleaded to her “Make them stop. Please. I’ll do anything.”

The woman walked towards Myra. As she stepped into the light shock forced Myra to stop her pleading. The woman looked exactly like Myra. Every detail of her, from they way she looked, to the way she moved, to her choice of makeup and hairstyle. She even had on Myra’s favorite clothes.

The woman knelt next to the tub and put her hand on Myra’s face. It felt warm and comforting. A strange contrast to the ice water she was in, which was still causing sharp pain across her entire body. She gave Myra a warming smile, but Myra saw something sinister in her eyes. It frightened her. “Who are you?” Myra asked.

“Now is not the time to worry about who I am,” the man said, thinking she was talking to him.

The strange woman broadened her smile, but didn’t answer. “Can you make them stop? Please, I’ll do what ever you want,” Myra asked.

“I’m afraid I can’t sweetie,” she said. “I wish I could. What I can do is make you stop.”

Myra wasn’t sure if she meant by that, but she didn’t much care either. The woman reached out with her other hand to Myra’s face. The moment she touched Myra, Myra lost consciousness.

Nano 2009: Chaptor 6: Day 12

2010-01-02T19:21:00.000-08:00

John walked into the restaurant and looked around. To his surprise he saw Jennifer through the glass to the play area. He thought he would have gotten there first. He began to walk towards her. The entire way he was thinking McDonalds really is the perfect place for such a clandestine meeting. There were only a few people this time of day, and nobody was in the play area.

He walked through the door and was surprised how different she looked. She wore a nice blouse and pants. Her face looked much better. All and all she looked a lot better than the last time John had seen her only a couple of days ago. She even had ordered a sundae it seems.

“Nice to see you again John. Please have a seat,” she said after swallowing a spoonful of ice cream. She motioned for the chair opposite her.

“Thank you,” he said and sat down.

“Well I didn’t find much,” she said. “There were scattered reports of people seeing a woman leaving the crash, everyone seems to think she had just been in the area when the ship crashed.” She took a byte of her sundae.

John considered this news for a second, but was interrupted when Michael sat down with a cup of coffee. “What did I miss?” he asked.

“No. We know nothing basically,” Jennifer said.

“What are you doing here?” John asked surprised.

“Jennifer said you guys were looking for Rogalia. I thought I would tag along,” he said.

John thought about asking why, but decided he cared more about the subject they came here to discuss. “Does the military know anything?” he asked.

Jennifer considered his question while she swallowed her latest bite. “Well, I don’t know exactly. I don’t have many contacts at the military as I used to.” She paused for a moment and bowed her head. She looked back up at John and continued. “I don’t think so. I could be wrong though. Michael have you been in contact with any of your friends from the military?“ she said.

“Nobodies telling me anything,” he said. “They were pleasant and all, but when it comes down to it, nobody says anything useful. I take it they’ve been ordered not to.”

“Do you think they have her or know where she is?” Jennifer asked.

“Don’t know. Maybe, maybe not,” Michael said. “It’s really a mess down there it seems. I doubt they know what they know, if you know what I mean. These aliens have them all running around like headless chickens.”

“It’s a good bet they don’t know where she is yet, but we should hurry,” John said. “It’s a not likely to stay that way forever.”

“You know something don’t you,” she said.

John was taken back for a second. Her gift for reading people was almost freighting. “Yes actually. I think I may have found her,” he said. “If I’m right, she is living in New Jersey near New York. She is working as a model for an adult site there.”

Jennifer was taken back, and Michael gave him a scolding look “An adult internet site?” he asked.

“Yes,” John said simply ignoring the looks he was getting from the others.

Jennifer considered this news for a moment. “How did you find this out?” she asked. “I mean did you just happen to be watching porn last night and come across her?”

“You need to be staying away from those sites son,” Michael said. “They’re no good for you. I wish they would ban them all, and get rid of the lot once and for all.”

John ignored the additional commentary. “I remembered that her race has to have sex often, and I figured that would mean she might get involved in the sex industry somehow. So I downloaded an open source web crawler and face recognition software. Then I pointed it to google search results for adult sites, escorts, you know things like that. I got a ton of false positives, but eventually I found her.”

John looked at the others. They looked puzzled. He guessed he didn’t explain it very well, but certainly they get the gist of it right?

“So she is in New Jersey?” Michael asked. John nodded affirmative. “Well that’s good enough for me I guess.”

Michael waited outside of Rogalia’s apartment. He tried to look as inconspicuous as possible. He wore dark clothes, and tried to stay in the shadows. He didn’t want to scare the neighbors and have them call the cops.

The street was filled with small multistory homes crunched closely together down one side of the street, and larger brick apartment buildings down the other. Michael was waiting around the corner from the entrance.

Jennifer and John were waiting a few blocks away in a small dinner. They thought it best only one of them wait for her. It would be impossible for all three to remain inconspicuous, and that would lead to unwanted attention.

He had been waiting for a couple of hours. It seems John was wrong again, not that it surprised Michael. He saw someone walk into the apartment, but it was a man. Where was she? John had told him she would be leaving work an hour and a half ago. He may be good with the technical stuff, Michael thought to himself, but when it comes to everyday life stuff the man is an idiot.

Finally he saw her walking down the street with her arm around another woman. They were talking and laughing together, but Michael couldn’t make out what they were saying. They did seem a bit too friendly though.

Michael began to get angry with her. This is a bad idea, he said to himself. The last thing we need is to get involved with someone like her. We are better of facing what is to come alone and leave her be. He thought about just leaving, but decided he had better at least talk with her. The others would try and track her down anyways, so he thought it best he stay involved.

He walked up to her. The two girls were involved with each other so much they didn’t see him until he was standing right in front of them. “Good evening,” he said and smiled.

Rogalia’s friend was frightened and acted as if she wanted to run. She looked to Rogalia, waiting to see what she would do. Rogalia gave Michael a big smile and rushed forward to hug him. Michael stepped back and indicated she shouldn’t. She recoiled, and her smile turned into a frown.

After a moment and shook it off and gave him a half smile. “Did you come for a quickie?” she asked.

He started at her in disgust. “I came her to talk. That’s all that’s going to happen,” he said. He looked at her friend. His eyes were drawn towards the needle marks along her arm.

“Some of our mutual friends would like to have a word with you, if you don’t mind. They are waiting for us,” he said.

“Oh. Wait which mutual friends? Do you mean Jennifer and John?” she asked.

“Just come with me please,” Michael said. He indicated she should follow.

She began to follow him, but was stopped by her friend. “Maybe I should come with you,” she said.

Rogalia looked surprised. “Why?” she asked.

“Well…” her friend began. “He is a strange man that comes and takes you away in the middle of the night. I mean is that the safest thing for you to do?” She drew Rogalia closer and whispered, “What if he hurts you?”

Rogalia gave her a big smile and a hug. “Don’t worry,” she told her friend. “I know them. They won’t hurt me, even if I ask, I suspect.” She walked towards Michael. Her friend watched for a few minutes, then shrugged her shoulders and went inside the apartment building.

It was a fairly nice night, so they decided to walk. It would be faster then getting a cab. Michael rushed down the street, forcing Rogalia to almost jog along side him. Michael remained silent the entire time, but Rogalia wouldn’t shut up. Michael stopped listening to what she was saying the third time she insinuated she wanted to sleep with him, which was about 30 seconds after they left. Michael began to speed up, and was almost at a jog when they reached the dinner.

Michael went in the door, found the people he was looking for, and rushed over to their table. Rogalia followed, now breathing heavily. When she caught her breath, she gave them both a smile and a hug. They politely stood and accepted them. “I’m so glad to see you guys. I’ve missed you,” she said. “How did you find me? Michael wouldn’t say. Is it a secret?”

“John found you,” Michael said as the group took their seats. “Some kind of internet search thing.”

“I found a picture of you on the internet site for your job,” John explained. He gave her a smile.

“I guess job would be one way of describing it,” Michael said sarcastically. Everyone ignored him.

“Did either of you see any of the videos?” Rogalia said excitedly. “Do you like them?”

“Well, no. We didn’t get the chance,” John said after recovering from the initial shock of the question.

“Nobody is interested in your videos,” Michael said.

Rogalia got a hurt look on her face. “That is a mean thing to say,” she said. “I mean I’m an amateur and all. I’m well aware of this, but you humans suck at sex videos. Back on Velaria, we have high school plays that are better. Anyways, if you want to see them, I think I can get copies for you. What do you say?” she had an excited look on her face.

“Can we please stay focused on why we are here?” Michael said, clearly annoyed.

“We wanted to ask if you would help us defend us from the Biaz,” Jennifer said. “It seems you’re the only person on Earth that really know anything about them. Your knowledge could be invaluable.” Jennifer took Rogalia’s hand. “Please our world needs you,” she pleaded.

“No, I don’t think I want to do that,” she said. She had a concerned look, almost as if she was frightened by the notion of helping us humans. “I think it best if I stay out of the way. Both of you can be far too violent. I don’t want to be a part of that.”

“Your either with us or against us,” Michael said.

“What is that suppose to mean?” Rogalia said.

“It means that by with holding help from us,” Jennifer answered, “you are in effect helping the Biaz kill and enslave us, just like they did to your world and to the Kults. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to see humans dying by the millions when there is a chance you could have helped, or prevented it altogether.” Jennifer tightened her grip on Rogalia’s hand slightly.

Rogalia considered Jennifer’s words. “What do you want me to do?” she asked. “I don’t think I could fight. I don’t want to even try.”

“We are capable of defending ourselves. We don’t need you to help in that regard,” Michael said. Rogalia gave him a look of horror.

Jennifer smiled. “We wouldn’t expect you to fight for us,” she said. “We only need you to share what you know, that is all.”

“What do you want exactly,” Rogalia said and withdrew her hand from Jennifer’s.

”You could start by teaching me their language and culture,” she said. She withdrew her hand to her side, but continued to smile at Rogalia.

“Ok, I can do that, but do we have to start tonight?” she said. “Who do you want me to teach? Your president, and his helper people?”

“That wouldn’t be a good idea,” Jennifer said. Michael looked at her. So General Mac was right, she does intend to work against the military. Jennifer looked back at Michael. He quickly looked back at Rogalia, who was staring at Jennifer.

“Why?” Rogalia asked after nobody else spoke up.

“Well they are frightened,” Jennifer said, “and some of the elements in the government may want to keep you locked up, or make you do things you wouldn’t feel comfortable doing.” Jennifer tried to keep a pleasant tone. She gave Rogalia a smile when she was finished.

“She is just being paranoid,” Michael said. “I’m sure the government wouldn’t hurt you without any reason. We are not cavemen you know,” he directed the last comment towards Jennifer. Jennifer just smiled back at him. He then turned back to Rogalia. “Besides, even if it were true, the world is about to be overrun by them bastards. We can’t let the inconvenience of one person, or of everyone get in the way of defending our world.”

“No,” Rogalia said. “I think I wouldn’t like that. How about I teach Jennifer and she can teach the rest of you?”

“And me,” John chimed in.

Everyone stared at Michael, obviously expecting him to agree as well. He considered it for a few moments. He hated the prospect of spending time with Rogalia, but he had to admit, speaking Biaz might just come in handy. “Ok, I’ll do it as well.”

He really thought she should agree to help his government directly. That would make up for some of her mistakes in the past, but Jennifer would never allow him to force her, and he doubted he could convince her to volunteer. He decided to report Jennifer’s plan to General Mac and see what he thought they should do.

“When do you want to start?” she said.

“I think it best you come back with us. You can stay with me in my apartment,” Jennifer said. “We can start after you get settled in.”

“Your going to have her stay with you?” Michael asked. “Do you think its wise?”

“Well where else is she going to stay?” Jennifer replied. Michael just shrugged. They all got up to leave. They decided to stay the night there and leave in the morning. There wouldn’t be any trains leaving this late anyways.

At the hotel, Michael snuck out of the room under the pretense of calling his wife. He called General Mac from his cell phone. General Mac agreed that Rogalia should be taken into custody. It was too dangerous having an alien walking around, both for her and for the general populace. She would be safer in military custody for a while.

It would also be better for her to teach military and CIA operatives the Biaz language. They would put in to much better use than Jennifer and John. She could also prove useful in advising the military as they devised a strategy to defend earth.

The train trip back to Baltimore was eventful for Michael. He caught Rogalia having sex in one of the back rooms with a man she had met on the train earlier. He tried to explain how inappropriate it was for her to have sex with men she just met, not to mention in a public place, but it was to no avail. No matter how he tried to explain it to her, she would always give the same answer: “Humans are so strange.”

When they reached Baltimore, he excused himself to call his wife. Again he found a quite corner of the train station and called General Mac. The plan was for the military to pick Rogalia up at Jennifer’s apartment. General Mac thought it best to ambush them at a more private place rather than someplace like a train station. Michael disagreed, but he trusted General Mac’s judgment.

He was just telling General Mac that Rogalia was on her way, when he turned around to face Jennifer. Michael waited for her to say something, but she just stared at him with a slight smile.

“She’s more useful with us. It’s what is best for everyone,” he said.

“You are one of us. Not one of them,” she said.

Michael brushed off her comment. “How long have you known?” he asked.

“Since you came to see me last week,” she said.

Michael was a bit shocked. “Really?” He didn’t believe her. How could she have known since the beginning? “Why did you invite me to find Rogalia then?” he asked.

“Like I said your one of us,” she said. “They or whoever did something to us: John, Myra, Me, and you. There is no denying that. I think it best we all stick together until we find out our grand purpose in all of this.”

She turned to leave. “Oh,” she called back. “Don’t bother trying to find Rogalia at my apartment. She isn’t heading there.”

Michael was impressed, both with her ability and her demeanor. “They will just take her the next time any of us meet up with her,” he called after her. She turned and smiled at him, but kept walking without a word.

Nano 2009: Chaptor 6: Day 11

2010-01-02T19:18:00.000-08:00

Michael waited in the café sipping his coffee. He dismissed the waitress with a smile when she asked if he needed anything else. He then went back to staring at the door. A few minutes later General Mac entered the room. He wasn’t wearing his uniform, but his round and pudgy body made him easy to spot.

Michael got up and gave him a half hug, like he always does when they get together. “It’s been far to long,” he said as he went in for a hug. “We will have to get together more often, now that I’ll be working in Washington.”

Mac gave him a smile. “Yes, it has been far too long,” he said. As they sat down, he added, “I thought they still had you on leave.”

“Yea, something like that,” Michael replied. “I guess they don’t trust me. Is there anyway you can put in a good word for me? I would really like to kick some alien but if you know what I mean.” He took a sip of his coffee.

Mac gave him a serious look. “Now, I think, isn’t the right time for that,” he said. He studied Michael, obviously trying to read his reaction.

“When is this perfect time then? You know me, I can’t just sit around and do nothing while my counter, and my family is in danger. I need to do something,” he yelled. Other’s in the café looked at him. He forced himself to calm down.

“Soon Michael. I promise, but there is something you can do for me,” Mac said. “There are some of us that think Jennifer and John need an eye kept on them. We of course have people looking out for them, but it would help if I had an inside man, so to speak.” He waited to see Michael’s reaction.

Michael thought about this for a second. Obviously he didn’t trust Jennifer and John. Would that mean they also don’t trust me? Probably not, but it doesn’t matter. If this is what they need me to do to help them save the world, then how can I refuse?

Still he decided not to give in so easily. “You don’t trust them? Does this distrust extend to me?” he asked.

Mac considered the question for a minute. “Yes,” he said. “We don’t trust them, and there are others that also don’t trust you. I told them that was hogwash. We have known each other for a long time. I would know if something was wrong with you. Of course, they don’t want to take any risks right now, and I can’t blame them.”

Mac stared Michael down. “But Jennifer and John,” he continued. “I’m not so sure about them. If they are not on our side, you could be the only person that can stop them before its too late.”

Michael considered his proposal for a minute. He then asked, “What about Myra?”

Mac looked surprised at the question. He obviously didn’t expect it. “Don’t worry about her,” he said. “We are looking after her.”

“How is she?” Michael asked.

“Well, I don’t know what those bastards did to you all, but they knocked a screw loose in her, that is for sure,” he said. “They doctors are doing there best though. If she is who she says she is still, I’m sure the doctors will find something to help her eventually.”

Mac got up. “You’ve got my number right?” he asked. “Just keep an eye on those two and let me know if they are planning something.”

Michael got up as well. “I won’t let you down,” he said. He stared at Mac and tried to convince him he was trustworthy with his eyes.

Mac smiled at him, and said, “I’m sure you won’t” as he turned to leave.

Michael sat back down and continued to sip his coffee as he thought about what was to come. Where Jennifer and John now really the enemy? Were they not who they said they were? Well its better safe than sorry I guess. I’d better track them down tomorrow morning. He wished he could spend his time off with his kid, but that doesn’t seem to be God’s will.

John walked up to the door of Jennifer’s apartment building. He lifted his hand to ring the bell, but hesitated. What was he going to say to her? He went through all the arguments in his head one more time. He then took a deep breath and pushed the button.

A few seconds later Jennifer’s voice came over the speaker, “Yes? Who is it?” She sounded sleepy. I hope I didn’t wake her, John thought to himself.

“It’s John. Can I speak to you for a minute?” he said. He waited patiently for a minute, but no answer came. John thought she was ignoring him and was about to turn and leave, but the door started to buzz telling him he should enter.

He went up to Jennifer’s floor. He thought the music in the elevator was peasant. He almost stayed on to hear more of it, but decided that would be childish. He got out and walked to her door.

When he got to the door he realized it had been left open. Unsure if it had been left that way for him or if it was an accident, he knocked on the door. He peaked his head around the corner and said “Hello.” Nobody replied. He repeated his hello a bit lauder.

“Come in, and make yourself comfortable. I’ll be out in a second,” came Jennifer’s voice from another room. John walked in. His first impression was that it was a great apartment. It had a classic décor, but with a bit of new age feel to it.

A balcony with large sliding glass doors was on the right. The left held a fireplace. Further on lay a hall way was Jennifer’s voice had come from, along with a dinning room with a glass chandelier hanging from the ceiling.

The carpet, walls, and furniture were shades of white. Many of the decorations had bright colors too them, and the entire room was well lit with many lights. All and all the room seemed to be bright and cheerful.

On closer inspection, the room didn’t look very well kept. There were crumbs on the floor, and on the couch. There were dishes on the coffee table in front of the TV. The place looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in a while, and the person that lived here didn’t move from the TV for a long while.

Jennifer finally emerged from the back room. She was wearing slacks and a blouse that had obviously been on the floor for at least a night. She had no makeup on, and she looked tired. Her eyes were a bit pinkish and her cheeks were a bit puffy.

She tried her best to smile, but it was half hearted. “How have you been?” she asked.

“Not bad,” John said. He fell silent, not knowing what to say next.

“You must excuse my appearance. I haven’t had time to fix myself up today,” she said. John stared at her, slightly surprised. It was the middle of the afternoon after all. “Can I offer you something? To drink perhaps?” she asked.

“No thank you,” John said.

After a moment of silence Jennifer spoke again, “Well what brings you here?” she asked.

“Rogalia. I think its important to try and find her,” he said. He waited for her to respond.

“Why?” she asked. She sat down on a chair, and motioned for John to sit down on the couch next to her. John didn’t notice the signal though. He remained standing.

“Well because she is the only one of us that knows how to speak Biaz,” he said. “That might come in useful don’t you think?”

“No,” she replied. “I mean why should we go look for her? I’m sure they have people doing that already. What good can we do?” She leaned back in her chair and waited for him to answer.

“What?” John said, a little taken back. “Well, I think we should do something. Would you have us just sit around and wait for the end of the world?” He didn’t expect this reaction. What would he do if he can’t convince her to help him? Can he really do this on his own?

“Why other choice do we have? Besides we may very well make things worse. They might actually be right. What happened to us might be a trick by the aliens. We have been altered somehow. There is no denying that.”

John considered her argument for a moment. They had already been over this. It doesn’t make any sense. “You know that is not true,” he said. He considered what to say next. “Yes, we have been altered, but not by the aliens. It’s true we might not know for what purpose, but it seems to be in our favor so far doesn’t it?”

“We don’t know that for sure,” she retorted.

“I do,” he said. “Nothing else seems to make sense. Besides how else are we going to learn why this had been done to us? You do want to find out don’t you?”

“I honestly don’t care. There are people working on it. They might still find an answer,” she said.

“I doubt that,” he said. “They might find the what, but not the why. Without that we know nothing really.”

“That may be true, but like I said, I don’t really care anymore,” she said.

He considered what to say next. He had no idea how to handle the “I don’t care that the world is going to end and its possible we are the only ones that can stop it” argument. “What about Myra? They will never let her go unless we can find the answer,” he said.

She stared at him with a look that was a mixture of horror, anger, and disgust. After several moments she rose to her feet. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll call around, and see if anyone kept track of the survivors. Come back tomorrow. I will hopefully have something by then.”

She walked to the door and held it open for John to leave. Smiling to himself he walked out the door. As soon as she closed the door, he thought to himself, well what am I suppose to do until then? He thought about knocking on the door and asking, but decided against it. Instead he pondered the question as he got a cab ride back to his hotel.

General Mac walked into Secretary Stone’s office. He knew he had a tuff job in front of him. After all he had to convince a father that his daughter was dead and we needed to know what the thing that replaced her knew.

It would still be easier than convincing that weak minded, soft, idiot of a president, as he had found out earlier that morning. I swear that president will be the death of us all before its through, he thought to himself as he waited patiently for the Secretary to acknowledge his presence. Duke was a different kind of man. He would understand, or Mac would have to find a way to make him understand.

The secretary was watching a video. Mac couldn’t see the screen, but he could tell from the sound what it was. It was the video of Myra the first night she went crazy. He could here her voice as she was speaking in that alien language. Just the sound of it was enough to give General Mac the willies. He tried to not let it show.

“What is it?” Duke said after a minute or two. He didn’t lift his eyes from the view screen.

“It’s disturbing isn’t it?” Mac said. “You have heard it has been getting worse? Every night she speaks in that alien language while she sleeps.”

“She said she doesn’t remember,” Duke said. He still didn’t move his eyes from the screen. Mac could hear other voices coming from the TV now.

“What gets me is how did she learn that language?” General Mac asked. He knew the answer, but thought it best if Duke drew his on conclusions. “It’s impossible right? For your daughter to learn a new language that nobody on earth can speak in only a couple of days right?”

This tore his eyes away from the screen. He looked directly in General Mac’s eyes. “If you want to tell me something General, then you should just go a head and say it,” he said.

“You know my opinion sir, and deep down you know I’m right,” he said.

Duke looked away from him and shook his head. “No,” he said. “It isn’t true. It can’t be true.”

“You can’t deny it any further,” General Mac said. “Your position doesn’t allow it. You have the responsibility to look after all those other daughters.” General Mac leaned forward. “I’m only asking that you do your duty. Nothing more.”

Duke looked at him again. “The president said to give it more time for the doctor’s to learn more,” he said.

”Don’t give me that crap,” Mac said. “You know that’s what presidents say. It’s your job to make the hard position when their position doesn’t allow them to, especially this president.” He looked Duke directly in the eye.

Duke flinched first. “I can’t,” he said.

“You must,” Mac retorted. He stood up straight once more. “She isn’t your daughter anymore. She is one of the people that killed her. We must find out why, and of course punish the people that did this to her.” He waited for his answer. In all honesty he was going to give the order anyways, but it would be better for him if such an order game from someone else.

”What,” Duke started, but hesitated. He took a breath and continued, “What do you want to do?”

“All we really need at this point is to be a bit more aggressive when we question her,” he said. He tried to keep a smile from appearing on his face and the thrill of victory from his voice. “I’ve taken the liberty of drawing up the orders already. I just need your signature.”

He handed over a small stack of papers in a folder. Duke took the folder from him and opened it. Mac held his breath. If he actually read it, there would be no way he would sign it. Duke put his head down. He grabbed a pen and signed it, then handed it back quickly.

“Thank you sir,” he said. “Your country is in your debt today.”

Nano 2009: Chaptor 5: Day 10

2010-01-02T19:16:00.000-08:00

A few days later Jennifer stood with John and Michael in a conference room at the military base. They were watching the president’s speech on a TV that had been wheeled in. The speech was taking place at an undisclosed location. The backdrop of the white house was digitally added during the broadcast.

The military people didn’t tell any of them why they were there of course, but Jennifer figured it out as soon as she was brought into the room on a wheel chair. Not wanting to spoil the surprise she kept quite when Michael asked why they were all there, and then started to speculate when nobody answered.

Jennifer was more interested in the president’s speech. She watched the television as the president walked to the podium. Lots of flashes from cameras went off, as he waited patiently for the room to settle down.

“Good evening,” he began. “First off I want to assure everyone that I, my staff, and your military will not rest until everyone is safe from these beings that threaten us from above. It is our highest priority, and indeed, our only priority. Despite what my critiques would lead you to believe, we are considering all possible avenues to achieve this goal.

“These aliens pose a significant threat. There is no denying that. It is perhaps the greatest threat we as a nation have ever faced. But we are a strong nation and are equal to this challenge. We will show these people from beyond our world, that we are not to be trifled with.

“To this end, I have decided on four courses of action.

“First, I have ordered all of our military personnel on the highest alert. All armed forces have been told to be ready for action at a moments notice. All reserves have been activated, and all state militias have been federalized. I have appointed my chief of staff, General Mac, to head this effort.

“Second, I am coordinating with the UN and all nations. It wasn’t long ago that some of these nations were considered enemies. Let me assure you the entire world is now united. Past bickering have been set aside. Everyone around the world is ready to face this threat together, and together we will be victorious.

“To this end, I have instructed the ambassador to the UN to coordinate with all the nations to unify our military forces under one command structure. I have instructed her to do this as quickly as possible. The entire world is threatened. We must present our enemy a united front. United we stand; divided we fall has always been the motto of the United States. It is true now, like it has always been.

“Third, I have ordered the head of NASA to head a board of the most intelligent, talented, and experienced scientist and engineers around the globe. These men and woman will combine their minds and come up with means of both defending and attacking our enemies wherever they are.

“It is no secret that we are not yet capable of attacking their ships while they are in orbit. That has to change. NASA has been ordered to put all of its resources into finding a way of attacking their ships while they are in orbit. To this end, I have submitted a request to congress for an unlimited amount of funds. A blank check if you will. NASA will use these funds to design and build whatever they need to meet their goal. When they are done, there will be no place these monsters can hide from us.

“I know none of these things help the people that have already been taken. I also all of you worry about who might be next. I assure you the military is doing all it can to protect everyone.

“It is also the duty of the government to protect the rights of its citizens. A few days ago these aliens captured several people. These people were taken aboard one of their spacecrafts in orbit. These brave Americans refused to be helpless victims. They rebelled against their captors, captured the ship, and managed to bring it back to earth.

“Many did not survive, and we honor their sacrifice. Most of the survivors were treated for their injuries and were released. We did keep four of these people in a military medical facility for observation. All four showed anomalies in their medical tests, and one was seriously injured in the crash.

“We don’t yet know what effect these anomalies will have on this group of people. Three of them do not show any outward appearance that anything is wrong. We will continue to observe and treat these citizens, but I no longer see a need to keep them at the hospital. Their doctors assured me they will be no harm in them going home, to either themselves or the people they come in contact with.

“I know many people think this is a mistake. They say these people are no longer who they claim to be. These allegations are false. We have found absolutely no evidence of these accusations.

“However, we will keep a close eye on them just in case. I have ordered a gps locator to be placed on each person. This device has been used many times to track criminals that have been put on probation. It has been proven a reliable way to track someone. I’m confident releasing them is a safe option, made safer by this device. Furthermore it is simply the right thing to do.

“Having said that, I’m ordering only three of the four to be released. Myra, Secretary of Defense Stone’s daughter, is still very ill. For reasons we don’t understand the ordeal has effected her more than the others. Her doctors feel it best that she be kept under observation for the time being, and I agree.”

Jennifer listened to him say these things in horror. What are they planning to do with her? How can I leave without her? Duke, I know you no longer love or trust me, but she is your daughter. How can you allow this to happen to her? Her thoughts screamed in her head drowning out the rest of the president’s speech.

Another person walked it. It was a young man in a nice suite, obviously an aid to the administration of some sort. He said they would all taken out to the front of the building soon, where the press would be waiting.

He then began telling the group what to say and what not to say to the group. Nobody was really paying attention, least of all Jennifer. “Excuse me,” she told him. “I need to use the little girls room.” She left without waiting for the reply.

She found the restroom down the hall. It was empty thankfully. She locked herself in the nearest stall and began to cry. I’m sorry Myra, she thought to herself. I failed you. I wish you could have had a better mother. Maybe this wouldn’t have happened. Things would have been better if I had killed myself, but I can’t even do that right it seems. Tears ran down her face as those thoughts and similar things ran through her head.

It seemed like an eternity of agony, but eventually the aid came and got her for the press conference. She did her best to force herself to stop crying and clean herself up a bit. She walked with him towards the exit, trying to think of something good to tell the world.

John didn’t want to take another step towards the door. He was terrified of speaking in public. He had been apart of only two press conferences before, and they were disasters (as far as his performance at least). They didn’t let him take part of any more press conferences after that, which suited him just fine. Now he was forced to go out and speak when the entire world was watching?

He looked at Jennifer who had just joined them. There was something different about her face. It didn’t look like that when she left for the bathroom did she? She had a sad look as she passed him down the hall to the exit. Michael followed. The aid motioned for John to join them then brought up the rear.

John walked outside. The sunlight blinded him. It had been days since he had been outside. He waited for his eyes to adjust then followed Jennifer and Michael up to the makeshift podium with a table. The table had several chairs and microphones.

John took his chair next to Michael. He looked out at the sea of people, most of whom were snapping pictures. They had all been trying to ask questions at the same time while the group took their seats. It took the aid a few minutes to calm everyone down.

John spent most of the press conference hoping nobody would call on him. Most didn’t direct the questions to anyone specific. Michael seemed to enjoy thrilling the people with his tail of how they escaped. He embellished it a bit though. John almost corrected him on several occasions. He wanted too, but couldn’t make himself speak in front of so many people.

When he was asked a direct question, his answers were terse and to the point. They lacked so must detail, most of the time the reporter had to ask several follow up questions. Most of them gave up after the first follow up and just asked another question.

Halfway through the conference one of the reporters asked, “You have seem them up close and even fought them. Do you think we have a chance to beat them?”

Jennifer answered immediately, cutting off Michael. This surprised John. Jennifer had been almost as quite as he was. She seemed much more comfortable in front of the press, but tend to only speak when she needed to.

“Yes we can beat them,” she said. “We were unarmed and imprisoned and we won a small victory. From what I’ve seen their technology is about the same as ours, except for the space ship itself of course. I’m not saying it will be easy, but I have the utmost confidence in our military.”

John considered holding his tongue, but decided this time he had to speak. He couldn’t allow her to fill the world with false hope. It could prove dangerous. “Yes, what we have seen of their weapons isn’t that much more advanced, that is true,” he said. “However, just by the nature of possessing spacecraft that can so easily enter and leave Earth’s surface gives them a significant advantage. I’m not sure we can overcome it in the time we have. In fact, I’m pretty sure we can’t.”

Jennifer gave him a horrified look, as a warning to shut up. The reporter asked, “Are you saying we don’t stand a chance?”

John didn’t know how to answer the questions. “Um..Well,” he began to say.

Michael interrupted, “It doesn’t matter what advantage they might have. After having seen these aliens and fought against them, I can assure you they are not a godly people. God is on our side. He will not abandon us in our time of need.”

“I’m sure it gives them some advantage,” Jennifer said. “There technology, but we are also innovative and resourceful, especially when we need to be. I’m sure we will even the odds soon.”

A few more reporters asked John more follow up questions, but John fell back to being terse with his answers. Soon they stopped asking him questions again. There were a few more times in which John thought he should speak up. Michael tended to exaggerate a bit too much, and Jennifer, at times lied outright. But in the end, John decided to keep his mouth shut. He didn’t want to cause trouble.

Nano 2009: Chaptor 5: Day 9

2010-01-02T19:14:00.000-08:00

“How are you feeling today?” Betty asked. Betty has been Jennifer’s nurse since she arrived. She was an older woman, in her mid forties. She was tall and skinny, although her belly was starting to become rounder. She had short curly brown hair with only a couple of gray strands.

She was cheery today, just like every day. Jennifer almost hated her for it, or more precisely forcing her to act cheery all the time too, so she could bond more effectively with her. It had worked though. Even after only a few days they were like best friends.

Jennifer also worked hard to develop a report with Malcolm, the guard that was stationed in her room. Malcolm didn’t talk very much, Jennifer suspected he was under orders not to. She had talked for days before he would say anything other than one word answers to direct questions. Finally she found an in, his daughter. He would talk for hours about his daughter.

“Better than yesterday,” she said, answering with a big smile. “How are you today? Is your daughter still causing you trouble?”

“You know how pregnant woman are. I’m going to be a grandma I still can’t believe it,” she said. “How about you? Are their interviews still wearing you out?” She was taking Jennifer’s blood pressure.

“It’s getting easier,” she replied. “They haven’t come up with any new questions the last couple times. They just ask the same old questions in different ways. You know how it is.” Jennifer lifted her arm so Betty could take her pulse. There was silence as Betty was counting heartbeats.

“Your blood pressure is getting much better. Does it still hurt?” she said. She went over to the cabinet and grabbed a syringe.

“It’s getting better. Slowing but surely,” Jennifer said. “I’m sure I’ll be able to make your daughters baby shower if that is what you’re worried about.” Betty looked taken back, but Jennifer gave her a big smile. She thought it was a little underhanded, reminding her that she was a prisoner here through no fault of her own. But Jennifer had to convince her to risk her job, and possibly her freedom to help her and Myra to escape.

“Well we don’t want to take it too fast,” she said. “You just take your time healing. I’ll bring you pictures of the baby if you’re not out and about by then.” Jennifer could sense her uneasiness under her smile, but she gave her a big smile back.

Betty had just finished injecting Jennifer’s IV with medication. She had opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by Secretary Stone barging in the room. He gave Jennifer an angry look as he walked up to her bed. He then looked at Betty and forced a smile, “Can you give us a minute, Ms. Cunningham?” he said.

She considered it for a moment. Jennifer could tell she wanted to tell him no, but couldn’t figure out a good excuse for doing so. Finally she relented. “Of course,” she said with a pleasant smile.

She headed towards the door. Duke then turned to Malcolm who was standing at attention with his rifle at his side. “Ensign, I’m going to need you to wait outside as well,” Duke said.

“Yes sir,” Malcolm said immediately. He then saluted and followed Betty out the door.

Once the others left, he turned back to Jennifer. She suspected what was going to come next, but didn’t say a word. “I need you to tell me who you really are,” he said.

Jennifer considered how to answer the question. She wasn’t concerned with herself, but her answer could have significant consequences for Myra. “I’m the same person you fell in love with and the same person you married,” she began. “Just because you don’t love me anymore, doesn’t mean I’m a different person.” She had known Duke hadn’t loved her for a long time now, but admitting it allowed caused a little piece of her to die.

“I’ve seen the test results!” he yelled. “I know you’re not the same person. You’re a clone of some sort. Admit it. I need to know!”

Jennifer had never seen this reaction from him before. She thought he was going to beat her until she did admit it. He had never hit her before, although it would have been far less painful than everything else he had done to her.

“I’m me, regardless of what your tests say. I’m sure there is some other explanation for your tests,” she said.

“What explanation could there be?” he yelled again.

“I don’t know, but I am me. You have to believe me,” she yelled back.

“I’m sorry, but too many lives hang in the balance. How am I supposed to take that chance?” he asked rhetorically.

Jennifer looked at the door. She was sure Betty was listening. Betty was rather nosey. “Regardless of what you think of me, you have to believe Myra is really Myra. She needs our help. She needs her father to protect her,” Jennifer said.

“I don’t know what to believe anymore,” he said and shook his head. “She is speaking and writing in a language nobody on Earth knows. How is that possible, unless she is really one of them?”

“Please. I’m worried about what the others will do to her. She just isn’t well. She needs our help,” Jennifer said. She knew it wouldn’t persuade him, but right now, he wasn’t he audience. She was pretty sure she had lost the battle with him already.

“There isn’t anything I can do,” he said. She remained silent.

Betty burst in. “I’m sorry, but I need to draw some blood and get it to the lab before they leave for the day,” she said. “I’m afraid your time is up.” He didn’t argue. He just turned and left.

Jennifer wanted to crawl up in her bed and cry herself to sleep. She wished she had died on that ship. She had always known her marriage was dead, but she had deluded herself into thinking it wasn’t, that Duke still loved her deep down. Now, even the delusion was gone. She convinced herself that nobody had ever loved her, not even him. To make matters worse, a man that might actually harm her daughter replaced the only man she ever loved, and there was nothing she could do about it.

She could feel her tears collecting in her eye, but she forced it away, and put on a big smile for Betty. She would get Betty’s sympathy if she cried, but would loose her respect. She needed her respect right now more than anything.

“So what did you over hear?” Jennifer asked Betty. “It’s ok, you can tell me. I won’t tell anyone you were ease dropping.” Malcolm also entered the room. Jennifer looked at him, and tried to think of a way to get him to leave. She gave up and added, “And I’m sure Malcolm won’t tell anyone either. Will you Malcolm?”

“To tell you the truth, I was eavesdropping right along side of her,” he said with a big smile. “Although I’ll have to admit, there was no really need. That man has some powerful lungs when he gets upset like that.”

“So do you think he will really harm Myra?” she asked.

“No,” Malcolm said. “There’s no way any father would allow their daughter to be hurt like that. I know I never would.”

“Your probably right,” Jennifer said. “I just hope they don’t go around him. Nobody believes we are who we say we are anymore. I guess I don’t blame them.” She turned to Betty. “Betty, have you seen the tests he was talking about? Do you know what’s on them?”

Betty gave her a look of concern. Jennifer could tell she was trying to decide how much, if anything, she should be telling her. “Well, I haven’t seen them. I just heard your DNA wasn’t normal anymore,” she said. “Like it had been changed or something. What did they do to you anyways?”

Jennifer considered how to answer the question. “I don’t know to tell you the truth. I don’t remember. I suppose they could have run experiments on us while we slept. Don’t you think that is possible?”

“Yes,” Malcolm interrupted. “Yea, that must have been what happened. But if you are really you, then how did they change your DNA. I mean your DNA is what makes you, you right?”

“I don’t know,” Jennifer said. “Betty, you’re the medical professional here. Do you think it’s possible? I mean could it be just a side effect of an experiment, or maybe a false positive?”

Betty considered the question. “Yes I suppose. I mean cancer is a mutation of your DNA isn’t it? I suppose their experiments could have given you a weird form of cancer.”

“Yea, that would explain what happened to Myra,” Jennifer said. She had Betty. She could see it in her face. She just needed one last push. “I can understand why they are holding us prisoner. They can’t know for sure either way. But Myra is sick. That should be obvious to anybody. She needs their help, and they are doing nothing about it.”

The next day when Betty was taking Jennifer’s blood pressure, she leaned in and whispered, “I checked on Myra.” She looked at the camera in the corner of the room. “She is doing ok, but you’re right. They aren’t doing a thing to help her.”

“Please, can you continue to look after her whenever you can. I’m worried what they might do to her,” Jennifer whispered back. Malcolm looked like he over heard, but didn’t say anything. Jennifer was sure, while he might not approve, he wasn’t going to turn either of them in.

For the next couple of days, Betty gave Jennifer regular updates on Myra. It seems there was nothing-extraordinary going on. They would question her daily, just like everyone else. She seemed to be more or less back to her old self.

The third day, Betty gave different news. At first she denied it, but Jennifer could tell she was lying and prodded her to tell the truth. “Well, I saw that they have a brain biopsy scheduled. I’m sure they just found something that concerned them, and they just want to check it out.”

“You know that isn’t true,” Jennifer whispered back. “They are looking for confirmation that she is an alien spy or whatever. They’ll find it too. You watch. I don’t trust the lot of them anymore. They are too desperate to appear to be doing something, anything to calm the public down.”

Betty seemed taken back. So Jennifer was right. The people were desperate for their governments to act against the alien threat, even though there was nothing their governments could do. Jennifer pushed just a little harder.

“Don’t trust what they say. It might be partially true, but they will make Myra the scapegoat. They will harm her, and possibly torture her for no reason if that makes it appear they are doing something. Never trust politicians.”

Betty considered it for a moment. “Yes, you might be right. I’m sorry. I wish there was something I could do, but they won’t even let me see her, or any of the others for that matter.”

Jennifer held back a smile. “Well, I have a friend in the press. If you could deliver a note anonymously to her, maybe we could shed some light on the situation. The people have a right to know what they are doing here.”

“I’ll find a pen and paper for you to write on. I’ll bring it the next time I check your vitals later on today,” Betty said. She was nervous. Jennifer wished there was someway of getting her to bring the pen and paper now before she changed her mind, but pushing her to hard might cause her to change her mind. Besides it would look suspicious, and that is the last thing she wanted.

A few hours later Betty brought the pen and paper. She snuck it to her out of view of the camera. Malcolm saw what they were doing, but he over heard them talk about it. Jennifer was sure if he were going to stop them, they wouldn’t have gotten this far.

“Thank you,” Jennifer mouthed to Betty. She nodded back to Jennifer. Jennifer thought about what to write, and who to write it too. She decided on Anglia Lopez. She was the kind of reporter who would sell her children for a story. She was perfect.

“Anglia Lopez of the New York Times,” Jennifer wrote. “I’m hoping you can help me. I was one of a group of people that was taken aboard the alien spacecraft. We managed to escape by causing the ship to crash. We are now being held against our will in a military base. The military are performing dangerous medical procedures on my daughter. I was hoping you could tell our side of the story. If you do, we would all be happy to sit down and talk with you about our experiences as soon as we are able.”

Jennifer had only met Anglia a few times, but she was still pretty sure she would understand the last sentence as meaning, “Get me out of here and I’ll give you an exclusive.”

Jennifer handed the paper back to Betty. Betty slide it into the pocket of her coat. She glanced over at Malcolm. He was busy pretending to look some place else. So she gave Jennifer a smile and finished her work. A few minutes later Jennifer watched as she walked out the door, and hoped her plan would work, for Myra sake.

Nano 2009: Chaptor 4: Day 0

2010-01-02T19:10:00.000-08:00

Jennifer lay quietly in bed unconscious. The only sound in the room was the dripping from the iv line running into her veins. Her breathing was too shallow to hear. The room was empty, with the door locked. There was a guard outside of course. He had no idea who was in the room, or why she needed to be guarded.

There was, however, another person in the next room that watched Jennifer through the two way mirror with a perplexed look on his face. The doctor held is white coat to one side so he could put his hands in his pocket. It was habit he did when he was deep in thought.

The sound of the door opening behind him startled him. It was Major Cork. He was assigned as a liaison officer between the medical staff on base and the Pentagon. There was a time when a visit from a Major was a big deal, but there has been a study stream of generals and high ranking civilians from the pentagon in and out of this place every since the “subjects of interest” (as the Pentagon folks called them) were brought in.

Still, he was thankful. The last few days have been very interesting from a medical perspective. The politics and “national security” was someone else’s concern.

“I understand you finally got the results back from your medical tests. Have you learned anything?” asked the Major.

“Why don’t you just ask me if they are still human?” The doctor replied.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve heard the rumors. You want to know if they are who they say they are, and not spies or something.” The doctor said.

“Well?”

“Well…Yes and No. Their DNA has been altered yes, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call them completely different people. The change has some surprising results though.” The doctor said.

“What kind of results? Have they developed any…well abilities of any kind?” The Major asked.

“What kind of abilities did you have in mind?”

“I don’t know. Anything out of the ordinary: super strength, mind reading ability, anything,” the Major said.

The doctor looked at him in puzzlement. “This is…what? This is real life, not a science fiction movie.”

“How was I suppose to know that?”

“By possessing a high school understanding of basic physics?” came the doctor’s sarcastic reply.

“What exactly are the effects of the changes,” the Major said in a stern voice.

“It is impossible to know the full extent of the effects without more observation. So far it looks like they have all had an increased metabolism, which has increased their strength slightly and upped their bodies ability to heal itself somewhat. It has also made them generally healthier. We have also seen an increase in brain activity, which seems to indicate an increase in intelligence. We want to give them all IQ tests tomorrow.”

“I should be clear these are only slight increases, not beyond other people out there. They are not super men. However, the changes appear to be deliberate. It is like someone molded their physical body to match their natural abilities. For example, the increase in strength is most apparent in Michael, who, as a soldier, would benefit him the most.”

“What about the others. What area have the others benefited the most from?”

“John seems to have a larger increase in brain activity. We can’t tell the effect of the changes in Jennifer, “ replied the doctor.

“What about Secretary Stone’s daughter? What abilities did she gain?”

“She is still puzzling me. She definitely has the largest increase in brain activity, but not in the same areas as the others. Her brain scans show an increase in activity in the areas responsible for memory and emotions. Whoever did this might have botched the procedure with her. If not that, then I don’t know what effect they were going for.”

“Thank you Doctor. I should report this to my superiors immediately,” The major said and turned to leave.

“About that. I’m sure it can wait until the morning. I was just about to leave. I’ll be here first thing in the morning to answer any more questions your superiors might have. I’m sure they would rather not be disturbed this late at night anyways, “ replied the doctor.

“Sorry Doctor. I’m afraid we will need you to work some overtime tonight, “ the Major said as he walked out the door.

“But its nearly 1 am. I didn’t take a government job for the pay you know, “ mumbled the doctor to the closed door.

It would be a late night for the major as well. Although he, wouldn’t take part in tomorrows activities directly, the military was bringing in the best (or at least the highest paid) “interviewers” available to them. He, of course, had to make sure everything was set up, including the boring details like hotel rooms and catering. I hope they like pizza!

Early the next morning, after only a couple of hours of sleep, the major was back at work in his dress uniform awaiting the military convoy. There were several high ranking officers, and the secretary of defense to greet. “I’m sure they had a good nights sleep on their plane,” he thought to himself.

The brass wasn’t in the mood for pleasantries (thank god!). The introductions went quickly, with very little small talk. Everyone was far to tense and fearful which kept them focused on the tasks at hand.

Secretary stone was particularly interested in seeing his wife and daughter, of course. He hadn’t even so much as hinted at letting them go. Everyone else was sure he would at least issue an order to release his daughter. The generals had assumed the president had ordered him not to, or he realized no one would obey that order, at least not until it becomes clearer what is going on. Not only are the aliens holding all the cards, they are the only ones that know which game is being played. They needed answers and the escaped prisoners are the only hope of getting them.

Secretary Stone of course was still holding out hope they didn’t know anything, even after hearing the reports. He wouldn’t be convinced until he heard from them directly. He only wished he could talk to them directly, but of course, that wouldn’t be allowed.

The contractors that would be doing the interviewing were arriving in the early afternoon. The generals spent the morning sitting in on interviews with the other prisoners that has survived. None of them showed the same DNA changes as Jennifer, Myra, John, and Michael, so they were considered less important. They all, had been interviewed before of course, but that was before they discovered someone up there had been making those 4 into super humans for apparently no reason.

It was an intriguing story and confusing story. After watching the tapes of the interviews for the 10^th time, Stone watched the snow on the TV lost in his thoughts.

All of the survivors had mentioned Regolia. The mysterious alien who was instrumental in their escape. Myra, John, and Michael had tried desperately to convince them she was a slave, and a valuable ally. She knew more about the enemy then anyone else, and could even speak their language. The aliens had invaded her world as well, and had enslaved her people. If they were telling the truth, then she could be a valuable ally. But what would she expect in return?

Or was she even an ally? A plant would be a clever way of setting up an ambush. Maybe they are not as advanced as we think. Maybe we do have a possibility of winning, however slight, and they don’t want to take the chance.

Their escape had been engineered and executed (for the most part) by the aforementioned super men. It will make one hell of a TV movie, if anyone survives the inevitable invasion of course. He didn’t know Michael or John, but there is no way Jennifer or Myra could have pulled off something like this. There must have been a mistake. Maybe the aliens let them go? Maybe they are not going to invade? No, that seems likely. Then why let them go? Are they plants as well? Is the entire thing a ruse? There is only one way to find out: ask.

They had been questioning Michael for several hours. It was decided his military background would mean he would be more cooperative. It turns out he either doesn’t know anything or isn’t being as cooperative as hoped.

“Jimminy crickets, I told you before and the time before that, and before that, I didn’t go through any medical procedure. I’m not under their control. I don’t know how I was changed, or even if I was. I’m the same person I was last week,” Michael said.

“But your not. We have the test to prove it. Someone up there changed you. That is for certain,” Dr. Marks said. Marks was brought in for this interview. He is an academic, but was a former CIA analyst and has done some contracting work for them before. So far Marks was the only person talking. The other woman hasn’t said a word. She just sat there, sipping her coffee and listening intently. “How can you not remember it? You can’t expect us to believe you. Why even try to lie?” Marks continued.

“I’m not lying!” Michael yelled. He took a sigh. “I’m sorry. I can’t help you. I don’t remember anything that happened before I appeared on the ship. None of us do. All I can say is that I am myself. What ever happened didn’t affect who I am, or my loyalties.”

“We know you are a spy, whether your aware of it or not. There is no point in pretending otherwise.”

“I am not a spy!” Michael yelled. “I will kill them all, or die trying! You must believe me!”

“Why would I believe you? All the evidence says you are not who you say, at least not anymore. There is no evidence otherwise.”

Michael lowered his head, clearly exhausted. “Well gosh, I’m afraid I can’t help you if that is the way your going to be.”

“Lets go over this one more time. Where were you just before you appeared on the ship? What precisely were you doing?” Dr Marks asked. Michael leaned back in his chair and refused to speak further. “Your silence only proves your hiding something. Answer us or we will declare you an enemy combatant and put you in the brig for the rest of your life. Think of your wife and child.” Michael glanced up, considering his next move. There is nothing he can help them with by speaking. At least silence will show them he wasn’t being intimidated before. He told them everything he knew and did it freely, not out of fear of being locked up.

“Look, we both want the truth. We both want to find out what happened to you. Lets work together and try to figure out what they are plotting,” said the Women, speaking for the first time. Michael still refused to speak.

Secretary Stone considered remaining silent behind the one way mirror. The quicker these 2 interviews were over with the quicker he could see his daughter. His duty gnawed on his conscious until he was spurred into action. He walked out the door, around, and into the interview room.

Michael immediately stood at attention. He was clearly eager to show his loyalty. A little too eager perhaps? “Have you told us all that you remember, every single detail, and any other pertinent facts?” Stone asked.

“Yes, sir and if I remember anything further I will make sure it is reported up my chain of command immediately,” Michael replied.

“Good. Then lets talk about your childhood, if that is ok with you,” Stone replied.

“Childhood? Why? I mean yes sir. I would be glad to answer any new questions you have for me.”

They questioned his childhood extensively, and then asked the same questions over again. They verified all the facts they could. Of course much of it could not be verified easily, and the things that could is freely available for anyone that knows how to work google, which according to Michael, would probably include the aliens.

They would have to get the answers they seek from John then…

“I answered that question 3 times already. Why don’t you just play back the tape if you want to hear it again,” John yelled.

“Answer the question doctor,” Marks said firmly.

“Look I understand why you asked the same questions twice. I’ll even give you asking them a third time to be sure. But do you really think if I didn’t screw up my answers before now, I would on the fourth time? I’ve told you everything that I know, “ John said in a calmer voice.

“Why don’t you tell us what you think then,” the women said, speaking for the first time. “Why do you think the aliens messed with your DNA?”

“They didn’t. I’m sure of that,” John said. “Someone else must have. It has to be some other player in this game, and much more powerful, or God if you want to believe Michael.”

“What? Why didn’t you mention this before, and why didn’t Michael?” Dr. Marks asked. Secretary Stone stood from his chair and took a step towards the glass as he watched intently at the conversation taking place behind it in the next room.

“Well did you ask us what we thought before now?”

“That is the kind of information you volunteer, not keep it to yourself!” Marks said.

“I tried, but nobody was interested in theories until now,” Michael said.

“You could have found a way! If you’re telling the truth, then this may change everything!” Marks said.

“Doctor Cox, why do you say there are other aliens? What evidence do you have?” The women said, interrupting both men. She had remained calm the entire time.

“The escape was too easy,” John said.

“Easy? Nearly all of you died attempting it. How can you call that easy?” Marks said.

“We nearly all died. Like I said far too easy. There is no way that plan should have worked without a lot of help,” Michael replied.

“Like the surveillance equipment, and where you all appeared on the ship?” The women asked.

“And Rogalia, and the others on the ship with us, and the incompetence of the crew. Plus the timing was all perfect. There were far too many coincidences, to many random events that all broke in our favor. There isn’t anyway any of us should be alive.”

“And the changes in your DNA,” the women finished his thoughts.

“So the question is who?” Marks asked.

“And a bonus question of why?” John added. “I haven’t got a clue, but they must be really advanced.”

“No, you’re lying. It makes much more sense that the aliens manipulated your minds like they did your bodies, or replaced you outright,” Marks said. “These things that you remember are fake. They didn’t happen, or your lying. We are on to you. What ever you are planning won’t work!”

John thought for a minute. “I suppose it’s possible, but highly unlikely. If they were skilled enough to manipulate our memories so precisely, and get every other detail right, then they would have found a way to hide the DNA changes. No it’s some third player in this mess. I’m sure of it.”

“We want to talk to you about your childhood,” the women said.

John considered the proposal for a moment. “Ok, but I’m only answering the questions twice this time.”

Stone’s attention to the various details of John’s past began to wane quickly. He tried to consider the possibility of yet more aliens out there somewhere. Where they trying to help us, hurt them, or is it some other plan? The truth is his thoughts were on his daughter, and the possibility that she might be dead, and replaced with some alien thing.

It was nearly midnight. Myra’s interview would have to be done tomorrow. He wouldn’t be allowed to talk to her, but surly nobody would try to stop him from seeing her. And he can step in and see his wife, as well. When he decided to do that first when the interviewers stepped into the room.

Normally they would build up to the really interesting parts of the interview, but everyone was exhausted at this point, so Stone cut to the chase. “Do you think he is telling the truth? That there is some other alien race out there that is on our side?”

“That would not be a good assumption to make. If there is something or someone out there, it will be a third front in this war, not an alliance. The best we can hope for is that it is a third front for both them and us.”

“What do you think, Mr. Secretary?” The women asked.

Stone looked like he was considering the question. Really he was trying to remember her name. “I have no thoughts. I only have hopes.”

“Your wrong. There were no human survivors of that crash. Our races survival will depend on you coming to terms with that,” she said.

“He is right about the DNA being an obvious flaw in their plan. It doesn’t seem like they would get so much detail correct and miss that.” Marks said.

“Maybe it was put there for a reason. Consider the possibility that it is a trap that we don’t yet see,” she said.

“No. I can’t give up on my child and my wife so easily. Maybe John is wrong about they’re being some other player. Maybe Michael is right about God intervening on our behalf,” the defense secretary said.

“Mr. Secretary. You can not allow your judgment to be compromised. My husband, and my children’s lives depend on it. You can not hold on to hope at the cost of everyone and everything else!” she said.

“Let us call it a night. I think we all need to sleep on this information. We can meet tomorrow morning and talk about it then,” Marks said trying to head off what would clearly be an unhelpful fight.

The secretary tried to look busy wrapping things up until the others left. They couldn’t stop him of course. He out ranked them, but he thought it best to any appearance of looking soft or too attached to his daughter.

No one would be allowed inside the room unless there was a true emergency. Besides he didn’t want to wake his daughter. He decided to the surveillance room. There he could check up on both his wife and daughter. He can talk to his daughter tomorrow. He could see is wife in person. There was no danger of waking her, only a faint hope.

The guards let him in the room without any hassle. The men inside even stood at attention when he entered. There were few people inside this late at night. He didn’t see how many. His eyes were fixed on the screen as soon as he opened the door. He scanned the bank of the video screens until he saw the face of his daughter. She looked calm and peaceful as she slept, just like when she was a child and he would look in on her after getting home too late. “She is still my daughter,” he thought to himself.

“She looks peaceful doesn’t she? Not like someone should after going through what she went through,” the women interviewer said. Secretary Stone considered how to respond, but it was the women who spoke first. “You shouldn’t be here. This is already too hard for you, and you have many other decisions that will be even harder. You’re only making it worse.”

“Don’t presume to know how or what I will decide now or in the future. Remember the chain of command around here. Remember who is in charge,” he said.

“I only recognize two superiors: God and my country. The rest I’ll listen too only if I think they are right,” she responded.

“That is the most egotistical, self centered, and dangerous thing I’ve ever heard from someone of your reputation. You might just get us all killed yet,” said the secretary of defense.

“It is you who is being selfish. You should step down now that your wife and daughter are involved. A fact that I made clear to our superiors,” she said.

“Superiors? I only have one superior and he doesn’t agree with you. Does that mean you have no intention of listening to him as well?” He asked.

“Sir, Madam. You should look at this!” the officer monitoring the surveillance cameras yelled. They both turned around too look at the monitors. Myra was up and walking around in her room. She was hurt. Her arm was bleeding and she was getting it all over the wall. It was then that they noticed the blood wasn’t just smeared. It was writing. She was using her own blood to write something on the wall, something in a foreign language.

Stone rushed out the door before anyone could stop him and ran towards his daughter’s room. When he reached the entrance he yelled for the guards to open the door.

“Sorry sir, we can’t. Our orders were not to allow anyone to enter unless it was absolutely necessary,” one of the guards said.

“It is necessary. There is something wrong with her. I just came from the surveillance room,” Stone yelled. The two guards looked at each other wondering what to do next. Fortunately the rest of the people from the surveillance room rushed up behind him.

“You need to let us in. There is something wrong with the prisoner. She is bleeding. Perhaps even dying,” the interrogator women said. The guards caved once they saw everyone was against them. The immediately opened the door and secretary stone rushed in.

“Honey…Are you ok? Can you look at me?” he said tentatively. She ignored him and continued writing on the wall.

“Who are you? Is Myra dead?” the women asked.

“Myra honey. Can you answer us? Just tell me if you are all right,” her father pleaded, but there was still no answer.

The women walked up to her, grabbed her, and forced her to look at her. “Answer us! Tell us what you want and who you are!” she yelled.

“Ki ta pauk tiku,” she said in a trance like tone. Everyone stared at her speechless. She stared back with blank eyes.

Her father pulled her away from the women’s grip and forced her to face him. “Myra wake up!” he yelled. She closed her eyes. “Myra!” he yelled even lauder. She slowly opened her eyes.

“Dad? What are you doing here? Are you here to take me home?” she asked. She looked around. “What is wrong? Was I sleeping? What is wrong with my arm?” Her arm was starting to really hurt now, and she was getting blood all over her clothes. She gripped it tightly.

“Lets go take care of that arm,” her father said.

“First turn around,” the women interrogator said. “Do you know what that means?” Myra stood in silence staring at the writing on the wall. It was her handwriting, and her blood. “Myra?” the women said. “Tell us what it means. Why did you write it?” There was no answer. “Myra!”

“I didn’t write this. I have no idea what it means. I didn’t write it!” Myra yelled, trying desperately not to cry.

“We saw you write it. We need to know what it means!” the women said.

“I didn’t write it a swear. Daddy, I didn’t write it. You believe me don’t you?” she said, now unable to hold back her tears.

“Yes of course I do. Lets take care of that arm. We can talk about this tomorrow,” he said.

“We need to know what this means!” the women said to Secretary Stone.

“It can wait until tomorrow,” he replied. He then took her to the medical center, and called the doctor’s cell phone. Fortunately he was only a 5 min drive away. He stitched up the arm and gave her a couple of medications, one to help the pain and the other to help her sleep. Her father put her to bed in a different room. There were many examiners called in to go over every inch of the room.

He then decided he would sleep on a couch in someone’s office. He needed as much sleep as possible. It is going to be another long day tomorrow. As he was trying to find the office the administrator said he could use he ran into the women again. He tried to avoid her, but she stood in his way.

“We need to call Dr. Marks and start Myra’s interview immediately,” she said.

“It’s too late. The doctor gave her a sedative,” he replied.

“What? Why did you let him do that?” she asked.

“She was hysterical. You saw her. There was no way she was going to answer any questions,” he said.

“She isn’t your daughter! Certainly even you must see that now,” she said. He didn’t say anymore. He didn’t want to say anymore. He simply forced his way past her.

That night he had nightmares about his daughter turning into horrible creatures and trying to kill him. When he woke, he could no longer sleep. He just lay on the couch thinking. Could that woman really be right? Could that girl in his arms yesterday be some kind of alien waiting for the opportunity to kill him and every other human on the planet? How could he take that chance, even for his daughter?

The next morning, Dr Marks suggested they postpone the interview with Myra until the after noon, and just let her be alone with her own thoughts for a while. Maybe she could remember what happened the night before, or at least what the words that she wrote meant. She was given a TV and DVD player with only one DVD, the recording of herself writing on the wall. Marks, of course, didn’t tell Secretary Stone he had given this to her.

Another startling discovery awaited Secretary Stone when he woke up. His wife was also awake and alert. Dr. Marks agreed that he should talk to her, under close supervision of course. He thought after being ill for so long she might open up more to someone she knew, especially if she thought they were alone.

“Myra is fine. She is resting in the other room. The others are fine as well. How are you feeling?” he said to her while taking her hand.

“Hungary,” she said.

“Well you haven’t eaten in a couple of days,” he replied. He held something back. It must be the others. Something has changed with their eating habits?

“What is happening? What are the Biaz doing? Have they invaded yet? Is there any change what so ever?” she inquired.

“No. They even stopped abducting people. We have no idea why,” he responded.

“Good. That means they are waiting for their general. We have some time at least,” she said, partially to herself.

“The others told us. Do you remember anything else that might be important? Anything about what they want or why they are here?” it was his turn to ask questions.

“No. I have no idea. My best guess is that they have a very hierarchical class structure and their ruling class is compelled to bring everything under their control,” she said. “But that is just a guess.”

“Do you remember what happened while you were up there? Do you remember getting captured or what they did to you before you appeared in that alien women’s room?”

She considered the question. So the others must have told them everything by now. There really isn’t much she could add, so why should she just reiterate the facts? What good is that? “No. It wasn’t the Biaz that brought us aboard the ship. I’m sure of that. They were more surprised to see us there then we were. Someone out there is trying to help us. They set it up so that we could get aboard their ship, learn about them, and then escape,” she said. She decided it best not to mention Rogalia. He knew about her of course, the others would have told him, but there is no sense in associating her with some strange unknown alien force that may be helping us, or just playing with us.

“That isn’t very likely. The Biaz or what ever you called them must be responsible,” he said.

Jennifer again considered his words. His tone seemed abnormal. They would be watching and recording this conversation of course, but he is used to being on camera and in front of audiences. Something happened. Not to John, Michael, or one of the others. That wouldn’t affect him at all. That would only leave…”What happened to Myra?”

“Nothing. She is perfectly fine. Why would you think that?” he asked.

She thought over what he said, or more accurately the way he said it. “I have a right to know what happened.”

“Nothing happened.”

“You’re lying! Tell me what happened or I won’t tell you anything about what happened up there. Any chance you have to find some clue that can help you fend off these aliens will be gone.” It was an empty threat. She had no information that the others wouldn’t give them, and almost certainly already have.

“She is perfectly fine. She is resting in the other room, but there was a small incident last night. She hurt her arm. That is all,” he said.

“What else happened? You know I’ll find out anyways,” she said.

“Well she seems to have been sleep walking last night. She wrote something on the wall that nobody is able to read. It is in a language nobody else can interpret,” he said.

“I need to see her. Can you please let me see her?” Jennifer said.

“That isn’t possible. They won’t even let me see her right now. I’ll try to arrange it in the next couple of days. In the mean time you need to rest,” he said. Jennifer reluctantly accepted this for now. She knew he wouldn’t be able to arrange anything, but she was hardly going to force them to let her go. She had no leverage.

“Eat and rest. I’ll check in on you later this afternoon,” he said and began to leave. She didn’t respond. She was already too lost in her thoughts.

Myra sat across from the two interviewers. She wished her mother was with her, or at least her father. She had heard her mother was awake, which she was very thankful for, but her happiness was buried under her feelings about being “interviewed” by these 2 people.

It started off quite pleasant. They both smiled and greeted her. They then told her not to be nervous, that they just wanted to know more about what happened up there. She of course knew this was all pretense, but it made her feel more relaxed anyways. They then brought out pictures of the words she had written on the wall.

She had been watching her self write these words all morning. She had no recollection of doing so, or of what she spoke afterwards. It was like watching someone that looks exactly like her and even moved like her, but wasn’t her. She racked her brain for hours to remember something. What the words mean, what she said, or even what language it was. But she couldn’t remember anything.

However, for some reason, when she looked at the words in the still photograph they looked familiar. She had no idea what they meant though.

“Can you tell us what this writing says?” Dr. Marks asked.

“No. I can’t remember. Do you know? It might help me remember something,” she replied.

“No. It isn’t any language on earth. Is it Biaz?” he was still being polite at least.

“No. We say a lot of Biaz writing while we were on the ship. This is different. I don’t think it is Velarian either. Velarian seems more soft spoken then this, at least the little I heard of it does,” she replied.

“How do you know it is harsher then Velarian? Do you know how to pronounce these words?” Dr. Marks asked.

“I have no idea how to pronounce the words. I was just assuming it was harsh. I guess because the words I had spoken were,” she said.

“I see. You said it isn’t Biaz or Velarian. Is it the language of the people who changed you and the others?” Marks said.

“I don’t know. What do you think?” she said, eagerly waiting the answer.

“I’m more interested in what you think right now,” he replied.

“Oh,” she said a little disappointed, “I was hoping you could help me figure out what is going on, but I suppose I understand. I don’t know what that language is, or who it belongs to. I don’t think it is the same people that altered us 4, but that is a guess really. As I said before, I don’t know anything.”

“Can you tell me what happened on the ship?” Dr. Marks asked.

“I couldn’t possible add anything to what the others can tell you. Have you asked them already?” she asked.

“Yes, but I’m interested in what you have to say. Can you walk us through everything you remember?” he asked.

“What do you think happened?” she asked, again eagerly anticipating an answer, and again she was disappointed.

“Why don’t you tell me what you remember, and maybe afterwards I’ll tell you more about what we think so far. Does that sound fair?” he said.

She went on to tell him everything she knew, and answered all of his questions to the best of her recollection. As she did so, she realized how different her mother seemed. She was smarter, stronger, and more fearless. That made her realize she had been less afraid then she should have, which is funny to think about considering she broke down in tears several times.

She debated on weather to tell these two people, and whoever else might be listening this, but decided it best to tell her mother and let her figure out when and how to tell everyone else.

They then made her repeat her story twice more, then asked her more questions about the writing on the wall and the words she had spoken, and finally grilled her multiple times about her childhood. When they were finished, she again asked them what they think the words on the wall meant.

“I’m not sure,” Dr. Marks said dismissively.

“Look, the more you can help me figure this out the more I can help you,” she said. “Please.”

“We think what happened to you and the genetic changes are unintended side effects,” the women said, surprising everyone in the room and out side it.

“What do you mean side effects? What was their goal then?”

“To plant you 4 in our mix, in order to subvert our efforts to defend ourselves,” she said.

“That doesn’t make any sense. They didn’t change us in a way that effected our minds,” the moment she said that she knew the answer that would come.

“You are writing and speaking in a completely unknown language. How is that in anyway not messing with your mind?”

“Why would they change us in a way that allowed us to crash their ship?”

“You all said they didn’t value life. There were no escape pods for example. The crash was faked. It was done to deliver you to us,” the women said.

Myra began to say something, but could think of nothing else that could rebuke this. She sat quiet for a moment. “I guess I have to concede you have a point. I assume they sent you 2 here because you are the best at what you do. Remember that we are dealing with something entirely new. Your past experiences may betray you. If you can find your way to trusting us we can conquer this challenge together,” Myra said.

The women leaned closer, covered up the microphone, and spoke softly so her voice could not be recorded, “You are the enemy.” She then walked out of the room without another word. Dr. Marks followed shortly after that without saying another word.

Myra was then taken back to her room, or cell as she was now thinking of it. The TV was gone. It was now had just a bed and TV cameras in it just like before.

Secretary Stone sat behind the mirror as they led Myra out of the room. He was debating what to tell the others. Myra didn’t get every detail of her childhood correct. In fact there were some glaring omissions. That would be normal though right? Some of these things were from when she was much younger, 5 or 6 years old. She wouldn’t have remembered every little detail, and the parts that she got wrong could be explained by her age. She would have remembered things differently then an adult would right?

In the end, he had to tell them. It was his duty, and now more then ever he had to fulfill it. Of course that evil women, who was already convinced they were all alien spies, took such an admission as absolute proof, but Dr. Marks seemed to be more reasonable.

“I think its possible they are telling the truth. It doesn’t make any sense for this to be a plot of the aliens,” he said.

“It is impossible to know how good their plan is until we know what their plan is,” the women said. “It’s better that we never find out. It is a sacrifice they will have to make. It’s a sacrifice we all must make.”

“I’m not convinced,” the secretary said. “We should hold them here for now and observe them. Lets see if my wife can shed some light on this. The doctors tell me she will be well enough to question tomorrow, although we will have to keep the questions to a minimum.”

The doctors wanted the questioning limited to an hour or two, but it had already lasted several hours. Jennifer was exhausted, and still not able to think clearly. The medications she was on made her a bit loopy and a persistent headache kept her from concentrating.

Still she was no match for these two. She explained exactly what happened to them twice now. That part was easy. She just told the truth…twice. Deciphering what they were going to do to her, and more importantly Myra, would be much harder.

They had showed her the words Myra had written on the wall with her own blood. They didn’t tell her it was Myra. Instead, they told her it was John.

She was shocked how easy it was to pick up on the lie, or more accurately shocked she couldn’t do it before. Dr. Marks was particularly terrible. He couldn’t keep eye contact and suddenly got very shifty. The woman was much better. She looked her right in the eye, but couldn’t keep her eyes from dilating, or keeping her breath from getting shallow. It was slight change, but enough.

This of course meant they wouldn’t be releasing any of them soon, and probably wouldn’t release Myra ever again. Worse yet, they wouldn’t give Myra the attention, medical and emotional, she needed right now. She needed to find another way of getting them all out of here. The world needed saving after all.

She pondered this question for a while. Then decided she had no clue how to do it. She needed the others. Now she just needed to convince them to leave them all in the same room.

“Do you know what the words mean?” Dr. Marks was asking.

“No,” Jennifer replied.

“What do you think? You must have some theory,” the women said.

Jennifer considered it for a second, “I think you don’t care what I think. What is it that you really want to know?”

The women was taken back by this for a moment, but quickly recovered. “I think you are not who you say you are,” she said.

“So you think we are alien spies? That we were either brainwashed or replaced completely? You have no real evidence of it. I mean you didn’t find any record, or tape of them talking about this evil plan right? Besides in order to conspire we would need to talk to each other, and you have kept us all apart,” she said. Hopefully mentioning recording and keeping us apart will put the idea into one of their minds.

It wasn’t long after that point that she started making glaringly obvious mistakes. She was eager to get the interview over with, so she stopped fighting the fatigue and effects of the medication (which she had just taken a handful of). It wasn’t until she started confusing her college years with her preschool years that they finally got the point and let her leave. She climbed into bed and went to sleep. Tomorrow their escape would hopefully begin.

Nano 2009: Chaptor 3: Day 8

2010-01-02T19:08:00.000-08:00

Myra watched the small group of people try and figure out the controls. Rogalia spoke excellent Biaz and English, but she was unfamiliar with the techno babble from either language. She was having a terrible time translating some of the words on the view screen for the others. It had become that game where people shout words at each other. Rogalia would say an English word; many seemed random and unconnected with what they were looking at. The others would then try to guess which word she really meant. If their lives didn’t depend on this group of people and their outcome it would have been very entertaining to watch.

Myra’s mother kept looking between them, their prisoner tied up with wire, and Jack and Joe guarding the door. Myra was worried about her. She wasn’t the last couple of days. Even with all of this crazyness, Myra could tell something was wrong, something else that is. She wished she had taken a bottle of her mother’s medicine. Myra might have found a way to convince her to take them, although that was really unlikely. I need to be clear headed, she could hear her mother saying.

Myra stood next to her, and held her arms around her. She wondered if her mother knew she was pretending to be more scared than she was so she would have an excuse to stay close to her, although it was hard to imagine being more scared than she was now. She didn’t know how the others, especially Michael and her mother dealt with it all.

John was yelling at Rogalia for what he considered a bad translation. Myra began to watch their prisoner, the pilot. He could get us home, but he refused of course. Myra began thinking of a way to convince him to cooperate. She thought about telling him that John was going to crash the ship and kill us all, but she knew that wouldn’t help. No Biaz would betray their queen just to save their lives.

Wait, how did she know that? It was really weird. She was sure she understood them, who they are as a people. She pulled her mother closer. It is just my imagination, she thought to herself. Rogalia or Mom must have told me about their queens.

She looked back to see the view screen change. “I think that has got it,” Ken said.

John stared at the view screen. “What is this thing here that keeps changing,” he asked.

Rogalia looked over his shoulder for a second. “Um. It’s a distance of some kind. 500,000 zeet,” she said.

“How long is a zeet?” Charles asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s really long.”

“So 500,000 zeet could be the distance we are from the planet?” John asked.

“Yea. Yes, that would be about correct,” Rogalia answered, and gave him an approving nod.

“So how far are we from Earth then? The number seems to be counting down pretty fast,” Ken said.

“Rogalia, can you tell me how many meters 500,000 zeet are?” John asked, almost off handedly as he stared at the view screen once more.

“No. I don’t know exactly how long a meter is. Besides I’m not that good at math,” she said, this time in a noticeably annoyed tone.

“Well, a meter is about yay long,” John said and spread his hands apart to approximate a meter.

“Oh,” Rogalia said. “Well in the case, I still have no clue. How am I supposed to do that math in my head!”

Myra couldn’t help buy smile. They should really take this show on the road. If we survive that is. Oh god, how are we supposed to survive this? Well there is nothing we can do but wait now, she thought to herself, and leaned her head against her mother.

John and the others continued to poke and prod at the console. The view screen continued to show the earth getting bigger as they descended. The number they were arguing about continued to get smaller as well.

Every minute seemed like hours, until Myra lost all track of time. The only thing going through her mind was what happened when they hit Earth. She didn’t see how they could survive.

Two soldiers rushed through the door. Both Jack and Joe had been distracted by the continuing conversation between John and Rogalia. Thankfully the soldiers were not paying attention to them either. Instead they ran right past them, lifted their rifles, and trained them on the group at the console.

The one in front began to speak, but Joe had recovered from his initial shock and had cut him off with a bullet hole through the chest. Before the other could react, Jack did the same to him.

A third shot rang out. It hit close to Myra and her mother. She thought Joe was shooting at her for a moment, but it wasn’t his gun that fired. She looked at him and saw blood pouring out of his chest. He collapsed on the ground revealing the captain peering around the corner and training his pistol on Jack.

Jack tried to react, but was a fraction of a second too late. He fell to the ground, his rifle landing after him a couple of feet away. He held his side and gasped for air as blood poured out from underneath his hand.

The captain stepped forward keeping his eye on everyone in the room. He said something to the pilot. The pilot responded. Rogalia looked concerned at the conversation. He then turned to her and said something to her. Rogalia hesitated, but the captain insisted by aiming the gun at her head. She moved towards the pilot.

Myra put herself between the captain and Rogalia, or more importantly the gun and Rogalia. “No!” Jennifer said and jumped in front of Myra.

Myra peered around her mother. “I know you can’t understand me, but I’m thinking that doesn’t matter. You’re not going to bring yourself to shoot either of us. You have too much admiration for women, especially strong women.” She sounded confident, but her grip on her mother’s arm betrayed her. “You can’t fight your instincts. You don’t have the practice.”

Jennifer waited for the captain to shoot her. Myra knew he wouldn’t, but still held her breath. The captain considered his situation for a moment. He then stepped forward. Just then a shot rang out, echoing through the room, followed by the rattle of a gun hitting the floor.

Shocked the captain stood perfectly still for several seconds. He then turned around to see Jack standing a few feet behind him gasping for air. Jack’s rifle was at his feet. Blood was still pouring out of his wound. “I can’t believe I missed,” he said and collapsed to the ground and didn’t move.

The captain stared at him in amazement for several seconds. He began to turn around a second too late it seems. Ken had rushed past Myra and Jennifer and jumped on him. Ken was not nearly big enough to bring down a man the size of the captain, but he also wasn’t big enough for the captain to throw him off when he spun back and forth.

Ken held on tight with one arm and held onto the captain’s gun arm with the other. The captain finally got a good hold on him, when Charles jumped on him as well. The captain was able to continue to stand, but had both arms now immobilized by both men. The captain began to thrash back and forth, trying to throw one or both men off himself.

Myra turned around to watch John stare at the fight in fascination. This guy is going to be a lot of work, she thought to herself. “Hey, aren’t you going to help them?” she asked.

John, surprised to hear someone talk over the ruckus they fight was making, took a moment to register her words. “Oh right,” he said. He ran forward yelling a war cry, but stopped a couple of feet away. He considered his next move for a moment. Then just jumped on top of the group.

Three men were too much for the captain it seems. He fell to the floor. Ken managed to get the pistol away from the captain when he hit the floor. It flew a few feet away.

Jennifer looked at Myra, with a mixture of amusement and disappointment on her face. She walked past the group now fighting on the ground. The captain was doing better. Now with both arms free, he was able to use his overwhelming strength to his advantage. He threw Ken several feet away. The other two struggled with keeping the captain’s arms locked down.

Jennifer calmly picked up the rifle near Jack’s body. She turned around, holding the barrel instead of the handle, and waited. A minute later, the captain had managed to get to his knees and throw Charles and Ken away from his body. He then grabbed John by the neck and began to squeeze.

Jennifer calmly lifted her rifle and swung it at the captain, as if it were a softball bat and the captain’s head was the ball. The force of the blow knocked the captain’s head into John’s and they both collapsed onto the ground.

“Owe!” John yelled and looked up at Jennifer with an angry look, as if to say, What the hell did you do that for?

Jennifer looked at him, and simply said. “You guys are idiots.” She closed the door to the bridge, so as not to be disturbed again. She righted the rifle in her hands, but looked very uncomfortable caring it. “How much longer?” she asked.

The group just stared at her. All three were still on the ground. After a moment, John answered, “Not much longer I think. We still have no idea how to land this thing. We at least need to find a way of slowing this thing down more.”

“Then top taking a nap and get back to work,” Myra said, but gave them a smile. The men got up and went back to the console. Myra turned around to watch the men get back to work, wishing she could be more useful. She looked at Rogalia who was staring at Jennifer with a look of horror, as if Jennifer had transformed into a monster.

“Rogalia!” John yelled. She turned to look at him. “I need you to translate this. Is it anything to do with speed or trajectory, or anything else that might help us?” She looked at the console and shook her head. They continued to play with the console.

A few minutes later, Myra heard Rogalia say, “Yes, I think this is it. This word here can be interpreted as thrusters.” There was a few more exchanges between the two about what kind and direction of the thrusters, along with how to turn them on.

John pushed a few more buttons on the console. He then walked up to Jennifer. “I think we found it,” he said. “I put the thrusters on full. It should slow both our decent and our forward momentum. Hopefully we are too late, we are dangerously close to Earth. There is good news though.”

Jennifer stared at him in amazement. Myra also perked her ears up. Good news was hard to come by these days. “It looks like we are going to crash in the great plains somewhere,” he said. “I was afraid we were going to crash in the middle of the ocean or on a mountain range or someplace.”

“Well that is good news,” Jennifer said, but she clearly wasn’t enthusiastic about it. John didn’t notice it though.

“There is nothing to do now but wait. It will only be a few minutes now,” he said. Myra looked at the view screen. He was right. The ground now covered the entire thing. They had to be really close. It looked like they were going to land in a forest. Myra was thankful it wasn’t anywhere populated. The trees were moving really fast across the screen. Myra didn’t see how they could possibly survive a crash going that fast.

Myra and her mother sat down next to the wall with their heads between their legs. Most everyone else did the same. John continued to fiddle with the controls. Myra watched the few screens. The ground looked really close now, but it was going by so fast she couldn’t really tell how close. Every few minutes she would think any second now and brace herself. Then nothing would happen.

When she was just about ready to give up, the ship hit the ground hard. The impact threw her halfway across the room into the side of a chair. She hit her head hard. The ship continued its forward momentum skidding across the ground. It seemed it was going even faster. The ship shook with enough force to rattle Myra’s teeth.

Myra held her hand to her injured head and felt a hot liquid. She brought her hand back to her face to confirm it was indeed blood. The glass behind the view screen broke revealing the open sky beyond it. Light shown throughout the room. It was the first sunlight Myra had seen in days. She thought it looked beautiful.

She looked around for everyone else. Charles was unconscious across the room. He too must have hit his head. There was a small pool of blood near his head. Ken was holding his arm, which had a bone protruding from it, but he was still conscious at least. The falling glass had cut John, but he also seemed conscious and alert.

Myra then found the person she was really looking for. She found her mother just in time to see her attempt to stand and then collapse. Blood was pouring out of her abdomen. It pool just below her body and was oozing across the room.

“Mom!” she yelled, but the roaring from the continuing crash covered her scream up. Myra tried to stand, but between the incredibly violent shaking of the ship and disorientation from her own injury, she immediately fell back down. Instead she decided to crawl.

Half way to her mother, the ship came to a sudden stop and threw Myra a few feet forward. She quickly recovered and rushed to her mother’s side. “Mom! You have to stay with me,” she screamed.

“Myra I love you,” Jennifer said.

“I love you too,” Myra said. She held her mother’s hand. Her tears fell on Jennifer’s chest. “Don’t go. I need you. You have to stay with me.”

“You have to be brave. Don’t worry about me. I’m happy now. I’m free,” Jennifer said and lost consciousness.

“No! Please mom don’t go,” Myra said, and gave her mother a hug.

“My god,” someone said above her. She looked up to find a man in overalls and a plaid shirt looking over the room through the broken window that used to be the view screen. He had a look of utter horror on his face. A boy stood just behind him, looking up at what Myra assumed was his father, waiting for instructions.

“Call an ambulance,” Myra screamed. “My mother’s been hurt.” The man took out his cell phone and began to dial. Myra looked back at her mother. “Hold on mom. It won’t be long now. You’re going to be all right.” She gave her mother another hug, as tears dripped from her cheek to Jennifer’s.

Nano 2009: Chaptor 3: Day 7

2010-01-02T19:06:00.000-08:00

As soon as the door closed in Rogalia’s room, even before turning around to face her, Michael said, “Can you tell me the fastest way to the bridge?” Rogalia didn’t answer.

Michael turned around. Rogalia was giving him a seductive smile. While he admired her beauty, they really didn’t have time for this game. “Did John tell you why they let you guys join me here?” she asked.

“No, and I’m not really interested, in any of it. You need to concentrate,” he said. He gave her a stern look to try and calm her down. She seemed to relish the challenge. She brought her finger to her mouth, and widened her seductive smile.

“We have time. The guards won’t be back for hours,” she said. “There is no reason to sit around and do nothing for most of it.” She took a few steps closer to him. He felt the warmth of her body close to him and couldn’t bring himself to stop her. This wasn’t like him.

She brought her lips close to his. Just before they kissed the image of his wife popped into his mind. He held her at her shoulders to keep her from getting closer. “Stop it. Please,” he said. He looked her in the eyes, pleading for her to step away from him.

She paid no attention to him. She placed her hands on his and stretched her neck out so their lips would touch. As soon as contact was made, Michael forced her back a step.

“This’ got to end now,” he said. “I’m married. Even then it’s not the time or place for such shenanigans.” Besides you’re an alien, he thought, but decided it best not to say it out loud.

He released her. She stared at him without saying a word. She then loosened her top so that it fell to the floor. Michael stared at her now topless form, trying to will himself to look away. She was very beautiful, he had to admit. She was just starting to sweat and her skin glistened in the pale light of the room.

She certainly looked human. She smelled human as well. Even after being imprisoned here for god knows how long she smelled incredibly good. She smiled. She had him, and she knew it.

He forced himself to close his eyes. Only a moment later, he felt her lips on his. He again tried to resist, but had no more will power…

An hour later, he lay there completely disgusted with himself. Shame filled his heart, only overcome by his fear. What do I do if my wife finds out? The thought kept going through his mind. He imagined his wife taking his kid and leaving him.

“You can’t be telling anyone about this,” he said to Rogalia.

“Why?” Rogalia said. “You were really good, much better than John. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

He looked at her. “Please. If my wife finds out she will kill me dead,” he said. She still looked beautiful, but now he saw her in her true form. She was Satan here to tempt him. All of these aliens are. God sent them here to tempt us and then punish us for our sins, and I failed his challenge. God please forgive me. I’ll make up for it. I’ll get all of your children on this ship home safely. I promise.

“I need to get some information before that guard comes back,” he said as he got up and started to get dressed. “Please get dressed.”

She looked at him confused, but didn’t question his request. “Humans are so weird,” she said under her breath. She began putting her clothes back on.

“Now about that bridge,” Michael said. He asked her all about the ship, where everything was, the number of soldiers and whether they were fighters, pilots, or officers. He asked the direct routes to the main places he knew about: the cell, the shuttle bay, the bridge, the bunks, and the armory. He then asked where all the soldiers were stationed, during the day and at night. He then asked all the questions again to make sure he had everything down.

“One more thing. I need something to wedge a door shut. Something solid, like a long beam of wood or metal. Do you know of such a thing?” he asked. He looked at her briefly, but then looked away.

An hour ago, those kinds of looks annoyed her, but she was used to them now. “Hmmm. There is probably something in the cargo room, but that is on the other side of the ship.” She considered the question for a minute. “Oh, the bed frame. It is always falling in pieces,” she said at last.

Michael looked down. He thought the bed frame was solid metal, just 4 beams of metal welded together to keep the mattress an inch or two off the floor. He lifted the mattress to reveal beams running vertically. The beams were welded to the frame, but very poorly. Some were already falling off.

He grabbed one and twisted it until it broke completely free. “I’m thinking this will do nicely. They will have a hard time getting out with this in their way,” he said. A knock on the door interrupted his train of thought.

“What was that?” he asked.

“The guard. He will be coming for you in a couple of minutes,” she replied. Michael grabbed his gun. “Your not going to hurt him are you?” Rogalia asked.

“Well I’m not going to be taking him out for bears, am I?” he replied. He then saw the look of horror on her face. “I’m not going to kill him if that is what you mean.”

They waited for what seemed like forever. Excitement and fear filled Michael, just like normal combat. It was strange, usually he was more afraid than excited, yet today, in this strange battle, he was able to control his fear better and thought more clearly.

Finally the door opened. Michael hid the gun behind his back. He didn’t want to use it unless he had too. He had no idea how laud it was, and the last thing he needed was the entire ship hunting him.

He allowed the soldier to lead him out. When he was a step away from the door he stopped. The soldier reached out to push him forward. As soon as he touched Michael, Michael turned and hit him hard with the gun in his hands.

The soldier fell hitting his head again against the wall. He tried to stand, but was severely disoriented. He made it a couple of inches off the ground, but immediately fell back to his knees. Michael hit him again with the gun as hard as he could.

Michael looked at the solider. He was sure the soldier was dead, but just in case he grabbed him and started to move him into Rogalia’s room. Rogalia stared at him in horror. When he got close to her, she backed away as if he were a monster.

When he placed the soldier on her bed, and grabbed his gun. He then rushed out the door. Rogalia didn’t move. She just continued to stare at him in horror.

“Come on. We’ve got to be going now!” he said. She continued to stare without moving an inch. He walked over to her, she moved away from him, but was blocked by the wall. He grabbed her arm and pulled her forward.

They ran down the corridor. First things first, Michael thought. They headed towards the bunks. There were no soldiers that direction. The night centuries were only posted in key areas of the ship. Everyone else was asleep in the singe room bunk area. Which made a convenient trap for escapees.

They made their way to the bunks. As quietly as possible he wedged the beam into the door, and made sure it was tight. That done he turned around and tried to open the door to the armory across the hall. No luck, it was locked. He turned to Rogalia, but she shrugged indicating she didn’t know how to open it.

He quietly tip toed back down the corridor and made his way towards the stairs to the lower level. There were stairs along a long corridor that ran horizontal to the ship. The door to the bridge was in the middle of it and their were guards at the door. To make maters worse, there were also a pair of guards just below them at the bottom of the stairs.

Michael considered shooting them with his gun, but that would alert the people inside the bridge, not to mention all the soldiers sleeping on the other side of the wall.

No, he needed to lure them closer and then hope he could take them both out before the two soldiers below could make it up the stairs. Now how to lure them here? He turned to Rogalia.

Rogalia walked around the corner. The guards saw her and yelled in her direction. She told them something and they began to walk towards her. Michael hid in the captain’s office. He looked around and picked up a metal object that looked kind of like a letter opener. He already had a use for it, so he gave the objects original purpose no thought at all.

Rogalia led the two soldiers right by him as they went to towards her room. Michael half expected the guards to come up from below, but they didn’t. He took a chance and stepped out from the room, so that he was behind the soldiers. Rogalia was telling them something right outside her door.

He snuck up behind the soldiers and stabbed closest one through the base of the skull with the metal object. The other turned and tried to train his weapon on Michael, but he was too late. Michael stabbed him as well in the throat, and he collapsed to the ground gasping for air. Rogalia was horrified, but Michael paid little attention to her.

Michael turned around, expecting again the soldiers on the lower level to appear on the latter, but the didn’t. He collected the two rifles. He handed one to Rogalia, who refused to take it at first. Michael had to force it into her hands. He left the two pistols they had.

He tiptoed towards the stairs, noting there wasn’t any peep out of the sleeping soldiers in the bunk as he passed. When he reached the latter he peaked through the opening. Both soldiers below were sound asleep.

Surprised he looked at Rogalia, “Yay for Biaz work ethic,” he said. She looked at him weird, but didn’t respond. He went to the latter on the other side of the corridor, and peaked through. These two soldiers were awake, but were sitting down playing some kind of game Michael didn’t recognize. Their rifles were a couple of feet away leaning against the wall.

Michael jumped down and landed between the soldiers. Surprised they reached for there weapons, but they were too far away. Michael stabbed one in the throat, and the other in the chest as he held his mouth. He quickly reached for the closest rifle. He was sure the noise would wake up the other soldiers on the other end of the corridor. They were fast asleep still, however.

He slowly walked towards them training his rifle on them the entire time. He passed the cell door. “What are you doing?” Rogalia asked. Michael didn’t answer. He reached the soldiers and hesitated for several minutes. He just didn’t know what to do with them. Once people started coming through this passage way they would surly wake up. If they did, they would likely get off a shot alerting the rest of the ship. Could he tie them and gag them? No, he didn’t have anything with him. Besides they could still cause trouble.

Seeing no alternative, put down his rifle and got out his knife like object. He took a moment and prayed for their souls and his. He then killed them, stabbing the first in the throat, and the second in the heart as he held his mouth shut with his hand. He again asked God for forgiveness.

He stood up and turned around. Rogalia was again horrified, as blood dripped from his hands and knife. “Humans are worse than Biaz. I should have guessed from what i've learned from your culture, but Jennifer, Myra, and John were so nice. I thought the information exaggerated, but they didn't at all. How did your race even survive?”

“We are generally a peaceful people, but we are willing to defend ourselves when necessary,” he said. He walked towards the cell door.

“When is it not necessary then?” she asked.

He ignored her and opened the cell door. Everyone stared at him as it dawned on them who it was. Everyone began to rush towards the door. Michael held out his arms to get them to stop. “Please, you've to calm down and be quite,” he said. “Now those of you who are joining me come up front. Joe, Jack, there are weapons at either end of the corridor. Please collect them and hand them out. Keep one for yourselves.”

Joe and Jack obeyed. Michael had chosen them explicitly. Joe was a athletic and had handled guns before. Jack was one of the few people here with military experience, although no actual combat experience. Of all the people here, he trusted them the most to get his back, although he would also be paying close attention. Just because they were the best didn't mean they were good.

When they returned, he motioned the direction he wanted the group to go in. “Please be quite. If the soldiers wake, we are toast and they are directly on the other side of this wall,” he said. “The bridge is directly above us. Just go up the latter and a bit down the hall.” He jumped past a few people that were ahead of him. He went up the latter and made is way towards the bridge. Below people were taking their time stepping over the alien bodies. Many of them were whispering about how human they looked. Even their blood was red, just like ours.

“Now everyone remember the plan?” Michael asked. “We take over the bridge, then everyone except for Jennifer, Myra, John, Rogalia, Ken, Charles, Joe, Jack, and Richard are going to come with me. We will try to keep the soldier's busy while they try to land the ship.”

Michael prepared to open the door. He said a prayer, asking god to protect him and the others, and to forgive him once more. He opened the door took aim at the first person he saw and fired. The sound of the shot rang throughout the ship. The metal in the ship kept the strength of the sound from diminishing as it echoed down the hall and back again. The man Michael shot looked him directly in the eye in utter shock before he fell over dead.

It only took the others on the bridge to recover from the surprise, but they were still slower than Michael and his group. Michael rushed in through the door and to one side to make room for the others behind him. Joe and Jack rushed in and fired their rifles. One missed his target completely, but the other hit one in the shoulder. Michael took aim at the next target and hit him square in the chest just before he got off a shot. The soldier that was hit in the shoulder managed to get off a shot that barely missed Joe, but struck someone coming in the room behind him. Michael watched as the man fell over dead. A twinge of guilt crossed his heart as he realized he didn't remember the mans name.

He took it out on the man who shot him. He took aim and fired his gun. The bullet went straight through the soldier's head. Michael turned his attention to the last armed soldier, but Jack took aim and shot him before Michael could lift his rifle. The only remaining enemy was the pilot, who was unarmed. He stood terrified before the men who had just killed all of his companions, but didn't make a move. Michael took aim, but was stopped by Myra's voice.

“Wait. He obviously isn't going to hurt us. I'm sure we can find something to tie him up with,” she said. She stepped forward to place herself between Michael and the soldier.

“It isn't a good idea. It is far to risky,” Michael said. The others were already joining Myra in the calls to tie him up. Richard was already looking for something to bind him. Michael relented and allowed Richard to tie him up when he returned with some kind of wire.

John entered the room and wen straight to the console the pilot was sitting at. “Good, he may prove useful,” he said. “Rogalia, can you ask him how to de-orbit and land this thing?”

Rogalia came into the room behind Ken and Charles. All three rushed to John's side. “So this is how you fly this thing? Can you make out any of the words?” ken asked as he stared at the strange markings on the console.

“No, but Rogalia should,” John said. Rogalia was asking the pilot something in his own language. The pilot kept quite.

Joe came over and pointed his gun directly at his head. “Tell him to answer,” he said to Rogalia. Rogalia shook her head but didn't speak. “Tell him!” he yelled.

“Why so you can kill him if he still doesn't answer?” she yelled back.

“What is wrong with you? I thought you were a prisoner here too,” Joe said. He glanced in her direction, but kept his eyes and his rifle pointed on the soldier.

“I am,” she said, but she still refused to ask him.

“Tell him!” Joe yelled.

“No!” Rogalia yelled back.

“Tell him or i'll just shoot him anyways,” Joe said. Rogalia gave him a look of disgust.

“Let him be Joe,” Myra said. “If Rogalia refuses to tell him, then that is her choice. If the others run into trouble, we still may need him. Besides you should be guarding the door.”

“She is right Joe,” Michael said. “You need to be concentrating on your job. Keeping all the bad guys out of this room.” Joe relented. He put his rifle to his side and moved towords the door on the opposite side of the room.

Michael showed both Joe and Jack how best to ambush people as they come in the room, while Rogalia began translating the symbols on the console and its view screen.

“How long is this going to take?” Michael asked.

John, pulled his thoughts away from the console just enough to answer. “I don't know. A while to figure out how to fly and about an hour to get the ship back to earth,” he answerd.

“John!” Michael yelled. John looked up to him. “I need to know how long you need me to keep everyone running around the ship and out of your hair,” he said. John looked at him and considered the question.

“Well it will be about an hour and a half,” he said. “Although, that is a guess and not a very educated one. I'm hoping it will be shorter, but it could be much longer too.”

“I hate scientist,” Michael said.

“I'm an engineer,” John said as he turned back to his console. “Scientist act sure, but always end up being wrong.”

Michael didn't have time to argue. The soldiers would be breaking through his meager lock on the bunk door any moment. He could already hear the commotion down the hall. If they could get to them before they reach the armory, they might stand a chance. He quickly made sure all the guns were distributed, and led the group towards the bunk. He was mostly down the corridor, well a head of all the others when soldiers began pouring into the passageway with them.

Instincts took over and Michael jumped to the ground and to one side. The others, with no military training, just lifted their guns and began shooting. They hit a couple of the lead soldiers, but the others started firing either laying on the ground, or from cover behind the corner. Michael could sense many of the people behind him fall, as blood began to spill past his feet.

Michael got a few shots off, killing a few more of the soldiers, but it was a loosing battle. “Get down the latter,” he yelled. The ones that were left obeyed. Unfortunately they just turned and ran the other way. Fortunately, Dale kept his wits about him and kept firing as he backed down the hall. This gave Michael enough cover to do the same.

By the time they reached the latter, most of the others were either down below or dead. Michael indicated for Dale to go first. He lowered his arms so he could fit in the hole. The moment he did a bullet ripped through his head. Blood sprayed over Michael's clothes. Michael quickly jumped down the hole and landed at the same time Dale's body made a thud on the floor.

“Quickly down the hall to the shuttle room,” he said. “There should be plenty of cover for us there.” He rushed ahead of them at full speed. When he reached the door he tried to open it, but it didn't budge. He hit the pad by the door, but still nothing. Finally he shot the pad and the lock on the door loosened. He threw the door opened and rushed inside with his gun raised. According to Rogalia there shouldn't be any guards here this late at night, but he wasn't going to be taking chances.

Sure enough the room seemed to be empty, except for the big shuttle in the middle of it. He motioned for everyone to take cover behind it. They just had to hold out here, for a while. He wasn't sure how many soldier's they had killed, but there shouldn't be that many left. It would be tough for them to take this room if they bunker down, and didn't waste their ammo. He made sure everyone was in a secure position and ordered them to shoot anyone who stepped through the door without waiting to see who it was.

It didn't take long before the soldiers showed up. Michael shot at one that poked his head around the corner, but missed. One of the soldiers shouted at him, but there was no way of telling what he said. The soldier shouted again, obviously expecting an answer, but none came. He peaked around the corner and several shots rang out. None hit him. There was nothing the soldier could do but wait, no is there anything Michael and the others could do. So he waited and hoped the others didn't shoot indiscriminately and run out of bullets. If John came through, it is all they had to do to win.

Nano 2009: Chaptor 3: Day 6

2010-01-02T19:04:00.000-08:00

Michael had just woken up. He was kneeling with Gerald saying his morning prayer. This morning he didn’t have a lot to give thanks for, but he did have a lot to ask for. He was thankful a pastor was with him in this ordeal. It strengthened his faith, which gave him comfort.

“Amen,” Gerald said ending his prayer.

“Amen,” Michael repeated and lifted his head. “Thank you brother Gerald.”

The door opened. Michael turned to the door to see a soldier enter, while the other stood guard. The soldier grabbed someone and forced him towards the door. Michael desperately wanted to stop him, to kill him, but the other soldier was staring right at him and already had a hand on his side arm. There was nothing he could do.

He looked around at the people around him. All these people are depending on me to get them out of here safely. I can’t let them down. With God’s help I won’t. He thought. He searched the room for one person in particular. Once he found her walked towards her.

It seems most people listened to Jennifer, although Michael didn’t know why. She was soft. She would make a very good politician, but this is no time for their BS. She must start listening to him.

“I want my gun back,” he said to her when he got close enough. She was talking with the Chinese man and the older gentleman he was always hanging around with.

She turned to him. “Michael good. I wanted to talk to you,” she said. She gave him a pleasant smile, as if she could manipulate him like she did the others.

“No, the time for talking is done,” he said. “That was the 5^th person they took. There won’t be anyone left ta rescue if we just talk about escaping more. We need to get out of here now.”

“You know that won’t work. At best you will ruin any chance of us getting us back home, at worst you will get us all killed,” she said with a determined look on her face.

“That hardly matters now does it?” he said. “Our situation an’t getting better. If we attack, at least we got a fighting chance.”

She considered him for a moment. She sighed and pulled out the side arm he had gotten when he first appeared on board this ship. “Before I give this to you can you at least tell me where you got it?”

“When I first got here I appeared in their armory,” he said. “I grabbed it and hid it just before they discovered me and threw me in here. Now hand it over.”

She hesitated, but finally handed it back to him. He started to leave, but she spoke up before he could even turn around. “Before you start shooting your way out of this room, would you mind listening to an alternate plan?” she said.

Michael considered it for a moment. It would border on suicide to try and fight out of this position. All of their defenses have to be setup to contain this area of the ship. It would be worth hearing her plan out, although he doubted it would be very good.

“We think we can manage to get them to take you to another room,” she said. “We can get them to do this at a time when most of the guards will be asleep in their bunks.”

Michael considered the plan. It would make things a bit easier. He would have to fight his way back to this room to let everyone else out, but getting behind their defenses would give him the element of surprise.

Plus the door to the bunks isn’t an electronic door. If he can find something sturdy enough to wedge in the door, he could trap most of the soldiers inside, at least temporarily.

“Ok, suppose I could get back here and let you all out. What next?” he asked. “Head to the shuttles? I thought all of you were convinced nobody could fly it. Certain death is the word you all used.”

“John thinks he can land this ship,” she replied. “That is if you can find a way to take over the bridge, and keep it for a while. Let’s say an hour or so.”

“Hmm,” Michael said. “Well we an’t going to be holding any areas of the ship for very long, that’s for sure. I think I can come up with something though. Ok I’m on board. We have to do this quickly though, before another one of us is taken.”

“That is the bad part of the plan,” she said. “It will take a couple of days before we can get you out of here and into the other room.”

“No, that is too long,” he said. What was she thinking? “They are taking one of us every few hours now for god knows what purpose. We have to act now. What if they take John or me? What happens to your plan then? Have you thought about that?”

“They won’t take either of you,” she said. “They won’t do anything to us until they know how we got on board. You know that.”

“No!” he said. “You have to arrange for me to get to this room your talking about sooner. If you can do it at all, certainly you can do it sooner than a couple of days.” He was determined to get this plan in motion sooner. No one else had to die!

She reached out and put her hands on his shoulders. “We will have to be patient. If we act too soon, we will only get everyone killed,” she said. He hated it, but she was right. Attacking them now would be suicide.

He left with a disgusting look on his face. He knew she had manipulated him, and he hated her for it. He went back to where Gerald was standing. He was offering a sermon to a group of people who had gathered near him. He sat down and listened.

The next couple of days passed without much incident. Word had spread that they were planning an escape attempt. Everyone split into 2 groups. One group worked with John, the Chinese kid Ken, and Charles to work on figuring out how to fly the ship. The other group was lead by Michael. They worked on figuring out how to take over the bridge, and then keep the soldiers away from it while John landed the ship.

As time went on Michael grew more and more frustrated with the others. None of them had any tactical experience. They just didn’t posses the knowledge, experience, or intelligence to plan an assault like this. There were a couple of older gentlemen that served in the military, but neither had any combat experience. He hoped they were all better at fighting, or this escape would end in disaster.

They did end up taking four more people in the two days they did nothing but planning. All four times, the soldiers kept a close eye on Michael, preventing him from interfering in any way. It is good that Jennifer arranged to get Michael out of the room. There was no way he could stage an ambush with the soldiers watching him so closely.

He wondered how Jennifer arranged to get him out of this room, but he certainly wasn’t going to ask her. He figured the strange alien women came to get John. He almost regretted agreeing to this plan. She made him feel uncomfortable.

On the second night the door opened. There was a collective sigh when everyone saw it was the strange alien woman that came through the door. She looked around until she found Michael. She pointed towards him. Michael got up, but hesitated. Might as well get this over with. He said to himself. He ensured the gun was safely hidden under his shirt, and started towards the door. The soldier led him down the corridor, up the stairs, and then down a few other corridors. Michael made a note of the path he took, along with all the other corridors he saw.

Nano 2009: Chaptor 2: Day 6

2010-01-02T18:59:00.000-08:00

John watched the guard close the door wondering what he was doing here. Well first things first, he thought. Might as well get started on finding a way out of here. He turned around. Rogalia’s mouth met his in a soft sensual kiss, as she embraced him tenderly.

John allowed himself to enjoy the kiss. It had been a while since he had been this close to another person, physically or emotionally. A moment later reality set in. He tried to back away, but the wall was in the way. There was just enough room to put a couple of inches between their lips, but not enough to fully break her embrace.

“What are you doing?” he asked. He could still feel her warm body against his. He wanted desperately to ignore his mind and just go with it, but they had more important things to do.

“You humans are so strange, even though you look exactly like us. Why do you both love and hate sex at the same time? Sex is a major part of every aspect of your society, yet prostitution is illegal. I don’t get it,” she said. “Lets have some fun.”

She kissed him again, but this time he was more prepared for it. Frustrated she took a step back. “You are one of the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever known, and I would love to…get closer to you,” John said “But we need to concentrate on finding a way out of here. People are counting on us.”

“That will need to wait. I need to have sex,” she said. She stepped forward to kiss him again.

“Wait. I would love to have sex with you, but we really should work on getting out of here. How about we make a date for when we get back to earth,” he said.

Rogalia sighed. “Let me try this again. All Velarians need to have sex every few days. Otherwise we get sick. We seem to be very different than humans in this regard. Now, will you please have sex with me,” she said as she posed for him with her hands behind her back. She gave him a smile. It was the sexiest look anyone had ever given to John.

“Ok, but shouldn’t we work first? I we only have a limited amount of time right?” he said, although his will power was getting weaker. She did have some good arguments!

“I’ll be able to think better afterwards,” she said. I have to admit, John thought, that does make sense. She stepped forward and kissed him again. This time he didn’t resist….

Five minutes later she rolled over with a slight disappointment in her face that John was oblivious to. “Wow, even for a human that was, um…good. I mean…nevermind,” she said.

Embarrassed John said, “We should start working now. There is a lot I need you to tell me.”

“Not just yet. I’m not done,” she said and kissed him softly on the shoulder…

Ten minutes after that. “Ok, I give up!” Rogalia said. “I guess that will be good enough for tonight. By the way, how good is that Myra girl in bed. She seemed like she might be pretty good. I mean for a human of course,” she sighed. “I miss Velaria.”

Annoyed John decided to just start with working out the escape plan, “You can read their language can’t you?”

“Yes. Why?” she responded.

“When I first arrived, I saw them some symbols on the bridge consoles. I need you to tell me what they mean,” he said. It was as good of a place to start as any.

They worked together to try and figure out what each symbol meant. She did her best to interpret them, but it was difficult going. She didn’t recognize many of the symbols until John drew them with his finger against the wall several times.

Even then, the concept they were supposed to convey didn’t always match the word Rogalia used to describe them. For example, she interpreted “inclination” as “movement” at first. It took a while and a few more tries for John to figure out what she meant.

Plus there was the fact that Rogalia didn’t put her clothes back on. It was very distracting to John, partially because he felt uncomfortably overdressed, but mostly because her breasts were really nice.

When they were done, John laid back down and closed his eyes. He shut out the entire world and fell deep into thought.

“Are you going to sleep,” Rogalia interrupted him. “Cause I would rather have sex again.”

“I’m trying to think,” he said.

“Oh,” she responded and fell silent. It didn’t last long. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather talk it through…or have sex?”

“Can you be quite for a few minutes and give me time to think?” he said.

“I tried that once. It didn’t work out,” she said with a smile. John was pretty sure she was kidding, but then again she is a strange alien, so who knows?

They were interrupted by a knock on the door. “Oh. That means they are going to take you back soon.”

“You should get dressed then,” he said.

“They hate it when I go around nude. They aren’t allowed to have sex with me,” she said. “It can be dangerous for them. I mean sex in general, not just with me.”

“Really? Why is that?” John asked.

“Well apparently when Biaz men have sex, it makes them very sick and is almost always fatal,” she said. “It’s really sad. I would definitely rather die then not have sex. Then again when their women have sex, it always results in pregnancy with multiple children. So that’s even worse.”

John wanted to ask more questions, but the door opened. The soldier stepped in and saw Rogalia’s naked body. She gave him a seductive smile. The soldier was not pleased, but took it out on John instead. He got thrown out of the room and shoved down the corridor.

When they reached the door to the cell, the solider opened it and threw John in with such force it knocked him to the ground. John looked up. Everyone was staring at him. He looked through the faces until he found the one he was looking for.

He walked up to Jennifer, but before he could speak she interrupted him. “Don’t tell Michael about Rogalia’s, um, needs,” she said.

“Why?” he replied.

“Because he might refuse to go to her, and we need him to go to her. He is our ticket out of this room,” she said. She looked him directly in the eye as she spoke.

“Ok. Well I might have figured out a way to get back to Earth, although your not going to like it,” he said.

“Well we can go with your plan,” she said, “or we can go with Joe’s plan of attacking heavily armed professional soldiers with out bare hands, or we can go with Michael’s plan of waiting for divine intervention to get us out of this room to the shuttle bay and to fly a space craft whose manual is in another language, or, my personal favorite, Charles’ plan of waiting for the UN to negotiate our release.” She put her hands on her hips. “I think I’m going to love your plan.”

“We crash the ship,” he said.

“Nevermind, I love Joe’s plan,” she said. “What do you mean crash the ship?”

“Well,” he began, “it appears many of the maneuvers this ship can do are automated, at least the maneuver I saw them do was. It makes sense that de-orbiting the spacecraft would be in there somewhere.”

“Well wouldn’t that land the craft, and not crash it?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “Landing is different the just a de-orbit. De-orbiting is pretty straightforward, although can have some tricky math to it. Landing has more variables that are harder for a computer to calculate, like where you want to land? What kind of terrain is it? And all that kind of stuff. I’ll do my best to land as safely as I can, but realistically, there is no way.”

“Ok. How dangerous will it be?” she asked.

“I honestly don’t know. It depends on how good their inertial dampeners are,” he said. He thought about mentioning the possibility of the ship not having dampeners, which would mean certain death. He decided not to scare her anymore. She looked as though she might die of a heart attack at any moment already.