Your Planet or Mine? (20 page)

Never be afraid of going for it, even when someone tells you your chances of succeeding are one in a million.

Jana caught her breath. The words echoed inside her mind. Her father had told her that countless times, but she’d never had to test herself until now. “Okay, Dad,” she whispered. “You asked for it. You created a monster and for better or for worse, it’s just been unleashed.”

She opened her cell phone and dialed the governor’s office. The secretary answered. “Governor Schwarzkopf’s office.”

“Hi, Willa. It’s Senator Jana Jasper.” After the usual brief pleasantries were exchanged, Jana got to business. “Would you please see what the governor’s schedule looks like for a private meeting today or tomorrow?”
And I bet it’s one he remembers all year.

“He’s completely booked. It’ll have to wait until after recess. I can fit you in the second week after the holiday.”

Two weeks. Too late. “Tell him I understand it may be difficult to work me in, but that I must see him as soon as possible. It’s urgent,” she said, her heart in her mouth because it wasn’t the vodka and caviar scandal she’d be bringing up, but a subject of far more consequence. “It affects the entire state.”
Actually, it affects the entire world, Willa, but maybe we should feed this to the governor a little at a time.

Jana hung up after the secretary promised to do what she could. The ball was now in motion.

The day hurtled onward with no more catastrophes. It was like being in the eye of a hurricane: a false impression of calm before the storm. Because it
was
the calm before the storm. After today, nothing would be the same.

T
HE ENRAGED
C
HIHUAHUA
lunged at Reef and sank its teeth into his pants leg. He didn’t feel a thing through his armor, only incessant tugging at his ankle as he stalked up to the rear doors of the dwelling. He unlocked the door and stepped inside.

He was struck by the immediate and almost overwhelming sense of calm that stole over him. He could not recall ever experiencing such a sensation simply from entering a dwelling anywhere in the galaxy. He could not recall experiencing such a sensation period, for that matter.

The dwelling was rich in deep hues that reminded him of gourmet delights, the earthy color of ebbe bark, the furry underside of icquit leaves, the latter a surprisingly vivid impression left from what were only snatches of very faint memories of the few years spent as a normal youngster on his home world before he’d been taken away to become a bioengineered combatant. The scents he couldn’t identify, but the spicy sweetness was extraordinarily pleasing. He breathed deep. Then caught himself. It was not his place to feel such things. Not in the middle of a hunt.

“Yarp! Yarp!” The annoying pet danced around his boots, alternately tearing at his pants and nearly tripping him as he paused to study a grouping of two-dimensional images enclosed in wood frames. A woman with a glowing smile and thick, shining dark brown hair stood alone in one, her head tossed to the side, her luxuriant hair spilling over one shoulder. Her body was as lush as her hair. The creamy tops of her breasts were tantalizingly visible above the neckline of her shirt, and she seemed to be laughing, teasing him, luring him into her private world of warmth and happiness. A man could lose himself in a woman like that…

A man. Not a REEF. He shook thoughts of the woman from his mind. Was this the female Far Star had escaped with? If so, Reef could see why the soldier had taken her.

“Yarp, yarp. Yarp!” Irritably, Reef used his foot to shove the irksome beast away. The Chihuahua slid across the wood floor and spun into the wall. In an instant, it was back on its feet, claws scrabbling for purchase as it launched its heaving, scrawny body at him. Reef considered snapping the little creature’s neck, but it would leave a sign Far Star might interpret as him having visited here. Reef’s best chance at killing cleanly and efficiently came from an element of surprise. He’d lost that surprise when he lost his target in the Earth market. Now he had to try to get it back. Once he did, Far Star was his.

Reef heard his pants rip. The Chihuahua tore off a piece of the fabric, shaking it, and returned for another mouthful. “Enough.” He aimed his gauntlet at the pet. In a whirl of blue-white energy, it lifted off the floor. He floated it up toward the ceiling. The little dog pedaled its legs, as determined as ever to attack him. Its mouth dripped with foam. “Stay there.”

A wave of dizziness overtook him once more. This time his vision took longer to recover. After the whine in his ears subsided, a faint whistle remained. He didn’t like this, not in the least. A simple act such as floating the dog had taxed his systems. No matter. He had his weapons. He didn’t need his biotech to operate those.

He turned on his gauntlet and did another search. Nothing. No sign of the man. Unfamiliar frustration sparked inside him. The thrill of a difficult hunt was one thing, but taking this long to locate his prey was entirely another. This, he didn’t like.

Reef turned in a circle. Where had Far Star disappeared to? Energy traces confirmed he’d been inside the dwelling. As recently as last night. But Reef was too late in coming here. Once again, his prey had slipped out of his hands.

This mission must not fail. For one, failure was personally abhorrent. It would be even more so to those who’d hired him. And with Reef’s ship too damaged to fly, at the completion of his mission he’d have called for a covert pickup. But who would come retrieve an assassin who could not kill? Without confidence in his abilities to carry out a termination assignment, there would be no more reason for anyone to employ his services. If he failed here, he failed utterly: his trip to Earth became one-way, and his life became meaningless.

Failure, it appeared, was no more an option than it ever was, but Reef felt a sweat break over him realizing how much more hung in the balance than the mere completion of a kill.

He must find Far Star.

He reviewed his options.
The code
. Yes, there was that, but he hadn’t considered it because it was personally repulsive to him. Those who’d paid for this mission had supplied the code to him, but he had dismissed its use, because of pride, but perhaps its use could stand as a last resort, should Reef get to that point.

All Coalition military personnel had access codes built in to their bioimplants, though few, if any, knew it was the case. Reef certainly had not been aware until he’d been told. The code allowed a foreign computer to deliver a signal to the internal bioimplants found in all Coalition soldiers. It was how the Coalition kept ultimate control of their resources, Reef surmised; without a doubt there was a code for him as well. If used maliciously, the technique ultimately degraded the host body by destroying the bioimplants. As far as Reef knew, no other assassin had ever been given such a code. Probably because no other REEF had been hired by such a highly positioned government official.

If used maliciously…

Reef had no qualms about malicious behavior. If he hacked into Far Star’s body, he’d be able to wreak all sorts of havoc. He found it distastefully unprofessional to play overly much with his prey before killing it. But in light of the circumstances, perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to slow Far Star down enough to allow Reef to catch up to him. Then the fight would be on. He’d even let Far Star run and get a head start.

Reef loaded the code into his computer and transmitted.

Nothing happened.

Now that was decidedly unsatisfying, he thought. He neither saw nor felt what the access had done to Far Star, if anything at all.

He would try again later.

Reef cast a sharp gaze around the room. A stack of rolled packets of grayish-white papers littered the dining table. Earth news, he realized. In printed form. He’d had luck gleaning the information he needed from visual news; perhaps news in print would yield similar results. His visual scanner-translator for Earth text was slow, but he had a few moments to spare. He sat in one of the chairs. The wood table gleamed. He saw in its polished, fragranced surface a hard face. A cold face. It told him that he didn’t belong in this inviting, comfortable dwelling. As it should be. The REEF-O1A was not designed for domestic use.

He opened all the newspapers and ordered them by date. He chose the most recent, from that very morning, and tried to make sense of the odd, blocky letters. The front page contained only several gray-toned images of a pretty, slender, crisply dressed woman. He saw no text about the EM pulse, no hints regarding his target. As he lifted the corner of the page to turn to the next, the sight of the woman’s shoes stopped him. They were familiar. But why?

“Yarp, yarp!”
The dog protested its flight. But Reef’s attention remained on the shoes on the woman’s feet. She stood there, tipping a drink into her mouth. He zoomed in on the shoes and recorded the image. Then he accessed his archives, looking for a match. In point-eight seconds, he had it.

The shoe was identical in every way to the one found abandoned in the street the night Reef had pursued and had failed to catch his target. All the television news shows had carried the image, because they, like Reef, believed Far Star had taken a hostage that night. Now Reef knew who she was.

Senator Jana Jasper.

Finally, a break. Where the woman was, Far Star was. This, Reef knew in his gut, that human part of him that often gave information with as much accuracy if not more than his bio-computers.

He returned the paper to its precise, original condition and turned to leave.

“Yarp, yarp. Yarp!” The creature’s barking changed in tone. From where it floated, the snarling snapping humanoid pet tried like mad to reach the front entrance. Reef saw why. Two heat signatures appeared at the door:
Humanoid, male. Quantity: 1. Weight: 202. Humanoid, female. Quantity 1. Weight: 146.

They carried weapons. Their uniforms indicated they were paramilitary personnel, perhaps law enforcement wardens.

Reef drew his weapon and stood. As the door flew open, he invoked invisibility. To his relief, his balky systems cooperated. The wardens had not seen him. Reef wasn’t certain how long he’d remain invisible, or how long he could stave off the inevitable dizziness, and he moved away quickly.

He ducked out the rear exit, but not before he glimpsed the amusing sight of the Chihuahua dropping from the ceiling, foaming and furious, onto a startled warden’s head. They would, he suspected, be talking about this incident for a long time to come.

He strode out of the backyard and to the vehicle that had carried him here. As he did, he brought up the profile on Jana Jasper stored on his computer. As was the case with all Earth leaders, every fact was in the databank, at his fingertips. Fingertips itching to pull the trigger that would terminate Prime-major Far Star and free the both of them, albeit in different ways, from this gods-forsaken world.
Jana Tatiana Jasper, I very much look forward to meeting you
.

C
LUTCHING HIS LEFT ARM
to his stomach, Cavin kept moving, walking endless circuits around the park. The sharp pain he’d felt some time ago in the area of his left forearm had subsided to a dull throbbing ache. Disturbingly, it came from the area of the bioimplant that interfaced with his gauntlet computer. Was it another injury he’d suffered in the crash? If so, why hadn’t it bothered him until now? It would have to heal slowly, like his abdominal wound had done, now nearly healed. The level of nano-meds in his body was low, but given time, they would heal him internally. It just might take days, maybe even weeks, instead of hours.

Cavin continued his patrol. He felt useless, uneasy. Jana’s long absence bothered him due to his inability to protect her should something go wrong. His only consolation was that the building maintained a reasonable level of security, for Earth.

After another trip around the park, keeping watch on the building within which Jana labored, a male voice called out to him. “You gotta put it down, man.”

Cavin turned toward the man sitting on a bench. Despite the pleasant temperature, he was swaddled in a thick green jacket. A ragged, soiled jacket. His belongings sat in bags on the grass. He sported a baseball cap like Jana had worn, but his read: Proud Vietnam Vet.

The man patted the bench. “You gotta put it down. They’re watching you.”

Cavin’s pulse kicked into a higher speed as he scanned the park, looking for threats. “Who is?”

“The capitol cops. There, on the steps.”

Cavin peered at two men in civilian clothes that looked to be loitering on the steps of Jana’s building.

“Plainclothes security,” the older man explained. “Anti-terrorist. They’ve made at least two phone calls about you. Next time past, they might stop you, ask you questions. Maybe pull you in if they don’t like your answers.”

Cavin sat on the opposite side of the bench. He could ill afford being “taken in” anywhere, by anyone. Not at the risk of delaying or even ending his mission. “They won’t like my answers,” he muttered.

The man coughed out a wheezy laugh. He squeezed the stub of a cigarette pinched between two fingers. A slight palsy made his hand quiver. “Don’t matter how many times you walk the park, you ain’t gonna look like you’re from around here.”

Cavin glanced at him, startled. “I’m a tourist.”

The man seemed smug as he threw the cigarette stub to the ground and crushed it with battered boots. He coughed, one that came from deep within his lungs. “I guess you can say I’m a tourist, too. I never hang around for long. I’m a rolling stone.” He chuckled then coughed some more. It made his eyes water. “Been that way since the war, you know.” He pointed to his dirty cap. “’Nam.”

“This ’Nam, it was a war?”

“You got it right, man. They never admitted it, did they? I fought, I saw buddies killed over there. But, no, they said, it wasn’t a war.” He convulsed in another spasm of coughing and spat on the grass. “You look like a military man yourself.”

Cavin grunted. Said nothing.

“If you tell me, you have to kill me, right?” The older man nodded with respect. “I don’t need no help doing that. You ever in combat?”

“Many times.”

“Enlisted man or officer?”

“Started off as a grunt. Ended up as an officer.”

“Then you’re still okay. Still okay.” He gave another wheezy laugh.

This tattered man was a stranger, and yet he was familiar. Cavin had known many men like this one, soldiers who’d experienced things in combat that made it nearly impossible to blend back in with society. Without the anchor of family, and often even with that anchor, they were buffeted by nightmares and ultimately lost at sea. In particular, Cavin had seen what happened to soldiers after the Drakken got hold of them, and it was ugly. The Coalition may not be perfect, and he might disagree with them on many things, but they were all that stood between the galaxy and the Drakken horde.

“You got a smoke?”

“A smoke? Ah, no. Sorry.”

The man dug in his coat pocket for a pack of “smokes.” He lit one and sucked on it, long and hard. Then, in between bouts of coughing, he told Cavin about the war and his role in it.

For a long time afterward, they watched the sun reach its zenith and then track down the other side. Sunshine spilled over the grass. They sat in silence, enjoying the odd camaraderie veterans had. It transcended culture, race and apparently planets, as well.

After a while, Cavin went in search of food and brought back dogs and cans of drink for them to consume.

“Ten hot dogs?” the man asked in obvious surprise.

“I’m hungry.” Cavin was starving, actually.

“I am, too, but…ten?”

Cavin shrugged. Jana never seemed to require much food, but that was not the case with him. “What we don’t eat, you can keep.” He bit into one of the bread-wrapped dogs. “Tasty,” Cavin murmured in appreciation. “Better than lattes.”

“Where’s home?” the man asked.

The answer, for Cavin, was an easy one. “I don’t have a home. I never did, not really.”

“You got a woman?

Jana’s scent, her face, the sweet feel of her, it filled his mind, and a familiar ache of missing her followed. “Yes, I do.”

“Home is where your woman is, man. Ain’t no home without her. I don’t have mine no more, so, I ain’t got no home.

Home is where your woman is
. Cavin nodded. He knew without a doubt that it was true. With one simple sentence, the old soldier had summed up the entire reason he was here.

The soldier lifted his cigarette, pointed. “That’s her.”

Sure enough, Jana had arrived under the tree that was their meeting place. Cavin rose and lifted a hand to catch her attention. Jana grinned at him but held her wave to a discreet flutter of her hand. “Yes, it is her,” he said. “You could tell?”

“It’s all over your face, man. And I see why. She ain’t bad to look at. Ain’t bad at all.”

“I must go. But, first…” To Cavin’s surprise and the soldier’s, he grasped the man’s wrist and pressed his gauntlet to the man’s thin arm in a modified Coalition handshake, and handshake of soldiers, but this one would be so much more.

The man’s eyes rounded. “You got a weapon under there. I can feel it.”

“Not a weapon. A…computer.” The man tried to wriggle from his grip. Cavin held on. For a split second, he turned on the gauntlet. A split second more, and he’d deposited a stream of nano-meds into the man’s bloodstream.

The man jerked away. “What you do?”

“Thanked you for your help.” Cavin secured the gauntlet. The risk of the REEF detecting what he’d done was small. Especially now that Jana had arrived, they wouldn’t be sticking around for the assassin to find them.

“What help? I didn’t do nothing.” The man rubbed his arm.

“You kept me from arrest. And then you shared your afternoon with me. Consider our handshake my thanks to you.” Cavin backed up and gave the soldier what he knew from his studies of Earth culture was a salute. Then he strode to Jana’s side.

Her face lit up. Seeing the look in her eyes, a look reserved only for him, made his heart leap. Nothing had changed in twenty-three years. She still made him come alive inside. She made him feel as if anything were possible. “Squee,” he greeted her in a quiet voice.

“Boy, am I glad to see you,” she said back.

It was a struggle for both of them not to fall into an embrace. The struggle worsened when he breathed in the scent of her skin. But he fisted his hands, clenched his abs, anything to keep from pulling her close and crushing her to him. The intimacy they’d shared the night before hadn’t come close to taking the edge off his desire to have her, to make her his, fully. He’d managed to stay alive through years of combat, but now that he’d arrived on Earth, he lived in doubt of surviving another moment without making love to Jana.

“Why were you shaking that man’s hand?”

It occurred to him that she’d asked a question. Maybe twice. “Ah, yes, the man. Like a fool, I was patrolling the grounds, waiting for you, and he alerted me to the fact that I’d gained the suspicions of the local police force.”

“He deserves more than thanks. He deserves a medal.”

“I gave him something better than a medal. I put nano-meds in his bloodstream—microscopic computers programmed for medical purposes. A short burst, a few million or so. I couldn’t risk keeping my gauntlet turned on for longer. But over time, perhaps in weeks and months, the meds will erase the cancer from his lungs.” He rubbed his forearm, near where he wore his gauntlet. “My own supply is low, but I have enough for my basic health needs.”

She gazed up at him, her eyes luminous, almost glowing. “You give so much, Cavin. To me, to others. To this entire planet. What’s in it for you? What do you get in return?”

“I get you. Or, I hope I do.”

“You hope?” Laughing softly, she shook her head. “Baby, you had me from greetings, Earthling.”

He pulled her close. Lights flashed. At first he thought the gods in the heavens were cheering their love for one another. Then Jana jerked away. “Tabloid photographers. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

“No privacy on this planet,” he growled.

“See why I’m so protective of you? Now bored people on supermarket checkout lines everywhere will be able to see us together. Only they won’t know who you are, or what our relationship is, and I intend to keep it that way. Oh, but they’ll speculate.” She made a face and rolled her eyes. “But I’m bringing you home tonight. That’ll end any speculation on my grandfather’s part, at least.”

He slowed his steps. She tugged on his arm. “Hurry. I have to get out of this place. I had the day from hell. And I just got done with the press conference from hell.”

“Press conference?” His translator offered no solution.

“A press conference is where journalists ask you questions and no matter what answer you give, they don’t like it. Then they print their own version in the newspaper. Or at least that’s how it went today. On the plus side, they’re finally talking about more than my social life.” She paused, winced, casting a pained backward glare at the photographers they’d encountered. “Maybe not.”

She pulled him across the street to where they would obtain a vehicle for hire. “Rewind, Jana. The part about bringing me home. Do you mean your family home?”

“Yes. The ranch. It’s time to tell my grandfather what you’ve told me. He knows a man who might be able to facilitate getting you to Area 51. My father won’t be home, but everyone else will be.”

Gods. He was going to meet her kin. He didn’t know what worried him more, convincing Earth that they were in danger, or convincing Jana’s family he was good for her.

S
PEEDING ALONG
the highway in a rented white Ford Expedition, Jana gnawed on her knuckle until it stung.

“It will bleed, Squee.” Cavin lifted her sore knuckle to his lips and kissed it. Then he kept her hand pressed to his hard thigh, protectively. Possessively. She liked that he took pains to take care of her. Since childhood, she’d sought independence with fervor. After being so doted upon, so worried about, she never wanted to be anyone’s problem again. But Cavin’s care was different. It was equal parts affection and respect. Nonetheless, it was there, his wanting to keep her safe, and their argument over it had been going on nonstop for a half hour while they waited for Brace Bowie’s appearance on
The Tom Kennedy Show
to begin.

She turned off the radio.

“Jana…”

“No. I don’t want to listen to it. My nerves are shot. It’s just going to make me upset.”

“He may reveal information you don’t have.” Cavin turned the radio on. “Moreover, how can you be so certain the man is going to say negative words about you?”

She looked down her nose at him. “Is the grass green? The sky blue?”

“Not on all worlds, no.”

“You are so literal sometimes.” Jana smacked the heels of her palms to her forehead.

“Keep your hands on the wheel. Your vehicles are not designed for hands-free use.”

“You drive then.”

“I can’t. It’s not the driving itself that holds me back—I have an aptitude for vehicles of all kinds. But I can’t read your numbers.” He pointed to the dashboard. “Not the primitive dials that you use to crosscheck your speed, nor road signs. They’re gibberish to me.”

“I didn’t see a single road sign the other night driving in the fog, but somehow I still drove. ‘Go right, go left. Slow down, speed up…’” Revenge will be sweet, she thought. Then she remembered the terrifying sight of the assassin bearing down on them as she raced through the streets. “How does the REEF do it if he can’t read?”

“He’s equipped with visual scanners that allow him to translate written language. My equipment is inferior to his.”

“Trust me, baby. There’s nothing wrong with your equipment.”

They exchanged a heated glance. “You’re distracting me, Jana,” he warned.

“That’s because I don’t want to listen to this creep call me a dishonest, self-serving nepotistic bribe-taker.” She shut off the radio.

Cavin turned it back on. “To be able to fight your enemy, you must understand him.”

“I do understand him. He’s a mean, vindictive whiner. I’d say asshole, too, but I think you’ve learned enough bad Earthling language for the time being.”

“I have every swearword in every major language loaded in my translator. As well as most jokes, insults and colloquial phrases.”

“You’re thoroughly corrupted is what you’re saying.”

A flash of sexy mischief glinted in his eyes. It told her he had in mind a very different kind of corruption when it came to her. Little good her nun’s toes did her.

“The mere fact that you once agreed to marry this man proves he cannot be as horrible as you claim.”

She snorted and turned off the radio. “I can’t believe you’re defending him.”

“I’m not defending him so much as I’m complimenting your judgment. I agree that your former fiancé was wrong to say the things he did. He should have gotten more facts before blaming you for his arrest on poaching charges.”

“Instead of accusing me of strong-arm techniques to uphold my so-called Fish and Game empire. My cousin told me the Russian community thinks I run a gang of thugs. Thugs! Well, those so-called thugs are about to crack a major poaching ring. The investigation’s been going on for the better part of two years. Any day now and they’ll move in and make their busts. Everything up until now has been small stuff. This one’s going to be big.” And it would be a major victory for her, for the state. It would punctuate her resolve to defend the environment with more than rhetoric. No way would she let anyone intimidate her into backing down. And especially not Brace Bowie. She swerved off the highway to cut across town.