Chapter 5: Flight 19

“I might have thought of a problem,” Darrell said sheepishly, calling Zeta and Haro aside. Their passengers would be among the last to embark since they’d be traveling by plane.

“What is it?” Haro asked, concerned.

“Well, this is a jumbo jet. It takes about three miles of runway to land it. The runway in Longview is about half a mile. Not only that, it isn’t paved. It’s just a dirt strip,” Darrell explained. They might all have to land by saucer instead of using the planes.

Haro breathed an alien sigh of relief.

“Is that all? We knew that. Neither DCA1427 nor Air Force One will be flying under their own power. The tractor beam will catch us and set us down with only enough noise and taxiing to call attention to our arrival. We’ve even arranged to have steps delivered to the little strip or no one would be able to get out of the plane.”

“Thank goodness. You guys think of everything.”

“Well, you and Janelle and Zeta and I have been on the overall strategy for taking things over. We’ve had several teams dealing with the tactics. We had you working on costumes and the landing site cover because you know the area and the fashions. We have an entire team who are in charge of neutralizing the armed forces. It wouldn’t do to have a B-52 Stratofortress dropping bombs on us.”

“We have B-52s in the US?” Darrell asked.

“Don’t worry. We’ll have an aide stationed beside you to whisper appropriate responses to you whenever you might need to speak in your new role.”

“Not to seem too ignorant, but what is my new role?” Darrell asked.

“Oh! We didn’t consider it too important for now, but you’ll be the president’s new Secretary of State. Remember, we’ve been studying your people for a long time,” Haro said.

“What’s my role?” Janelle asked.

“We’ll re-establish the Department of Education,” Zeta said. “You are to be the new Secretary of Sex Education. That’s the only part of education we consider to be all that important. We’ll be replacing what’s left of the top-level scientists with our own people. It really won’t be important to have people educated in the kind of primitive sciences your people have been studying so slowly for so many years. Can you believe they’re passing around notions that autism is caused by vaccines and mass shooting is caused by anti-depressants? It’s better to just start over. Things like math can be taught in sex education far more effectively than in an arithmetic class.”

“I’ve always thought that!” Janelle exclaimed. “I can’t wait to demonstrate the techniques and pleasures of alien sex.”

“I hope you’ll save a little of that for me,” Darrell said, patting Janelle’s bare bottom.

“Have you been lacking anything since we got here?” she giggled.

“Not at all.”

“I can’t wait to educate your wife and secretary on the ways three women can please a man,” Janelle said. “And an alien or two,” she added, giving Zeta a heartfelt kiss.

It was less than two hours from Wichita Falls to Oklahoma City. Considerably less, the way Cece drove. They pulled into a Love’s Travel Stop just before I-44 and I-35 split headed north. Cece put almost fifteen gallons into the little Mustang. She apologized for not having had her car gassed up and ready to roll before they left her house.

“There will be a day soon when you won’t need gas for your car,” Ohna said brightly. “Over the past few decades, we engineered a system that uses water for power. Tried to get it introduced here, but people have been stubborn. Especially down South here. Good ol’ boys like their oil.”

“Speaking of a good ol’ boy, take a look yonder at that fine specimen of manhood,” Cece drawled.

She directed Ohna’s gaze to a young guy standing near the store entrance. He was fit and wearing a jeans jacket over a muscle shirt that was tight enough to show his abs. He wore tight jeans and cowboy boots.

“Wow!” Ohna said. She’d spent enough time studying earth to appreciate the human male form.

“He’s not one of yours, is he?” Cece asked.

“No. The guys on the ship would be fighting over a body like that,” Ohna said.

“Then let’s make him ours,” Cece suggested.

Ohna copied Cece’s hip swing as they headed to the door of the store. On her way past, Cece paused long enough to lightly stroke the boy’s cheek with her finger and wink at him. Ohna followed suit. She knew there were a lot of mating rituals humans went through and Cece seemed to have them all perfected. The boy pushed away from the wall and followed them inside, carrying his small backpack.

After the girls emerged from the restroom, they found the boy loitering near the snack food.

“You hungry, cowboy?” Cece asked. She and Ohna had unbuttoned a couple of buttons of their shirts and tied the tails beneath their boobs. The boy looked at her longingly.

“Starving,” he said.

“Let’s see if we can get you filled up. Maybe later you can fill us up. Headed north?”