Chapter 232

Characters that appear in this chapter, or appear frequently in the story.

Fred – Alpha

Brenda – Fred's wife who died in Georgia, but came back in another body.

Angel – Fred and Brenda's daughter and soon to be wife

Carla – Fred's wife and farm owner

Jessica – Carla's daughter and Fred's wife

Audrey – Fred's wife who was an RV park owner in Georgia when they met

Adam Taylor – Pastor of the small church near Carla's farm

Edna – Taylor's wife

Jeff – The Prime.

Diana – Wife and Clan Queen

Arlene – Queen, wife. Diana and Jeff's daughter

Susan – Wife and Diana's mother, who is also a Queen

Jennie – Young wife

Melissa – Young wife

Laura – Wife and computer guru

Ann – Laura's daughter and Jeff's young wife, also a computer guru

Helen – Genius wife and teacher

Nat, Nicki, and Whitney – Young wives who were rescued by Jeff and his team

Joyce – Wife and deputy

Caitlin – Wife and nurse

Kayla – Wife who first worked for the FBI, but then went to work for the General, and now she is Jeff's last line of defense.

Hope – Jennie's sister who was abused by her father and other men

Dave – Alpha – Contractor and Project Manager for Jeff

Evie – Dave's wife and assistant Project Manager

Linda – Dave's young wife and Bill, the pilot's, daughter

Kim – Dave's young wife

Little One – Alien Healer who frequently hitches a ride spread out on Jeff's back

General Whitworth – The General in charge of the hidden base and the portal

Matt – Alpha – new FBI SAC who has just reported to the Denver office

Courtney – Matt's wife who believes that Jeff and his family might be aliens

Pastor Adam Taylor's Church, Not Far from Carla's farm

After the service, the preacher of the little country church, Adam Taylor, along with his wife, Edna, stood by the door on the church porch and shook hands or hugged each person as he or she left. Fred and his women had hung back, with Fred following the last of them out. As he and the pastor shook hands, Fred asked Taylor to step aside with him for a moment.

Pastor Taylor, thinking that Fred had a problem that he wished to share or ask advice about, said, "Certainly, Fred." When the two men were back inside the church a few steps, "What can I do for you?"

"Well, Pastor, I have something for you," Fred said, handing the check to the preacher while wishing Carla hadn't decided that this was his job. "Carla wanted me to give you this. I tried to get her to do it, since it's her money, well, hers and Jessica's, but she was adamant that I do it."

Taylor chuckled. "Sometimes our women..." he began with a grin, but didn't finish the sentence as his eyes focused on the amount. "Oh, my, " he quietly whispered.

"We didn't put it in the collection plate so no one would know. Carla would like for this to remain anonymous. It's her tithe from a court settlement over her first husband's death."

Taylor stared at the check, looked up at Fred, then back down at the check. Clearing his throat, he motioned to his wife who had been chatting with a woman just outside the open door. Mrs. Taylor bid goodbye to the woman and walked back into the church.

"You need me, Honey?" she asked as she came to stand by his side.

With a slightly trembling hand, the pastor handed the check to his wife. Mrs. Taylor was also the treasurer of the little church. "It's Carla's tithe. She received a court settlement from Sam's death."

Mrs. Taylor took the check, glanced at it, then did a double take. "Oh, my," she said, echoing her husband's comment. "Everyone will..." she started, but Fred was shaking his head.

"No, Carla is adamant that no one should know."

"But that's not right. Every member should be told so we can thank her properly." Then locking eyes with her husband, she continued, "This is twice in a month."

At Fred's inquisitive look, she continued. "Just after Halloween, someone deposited a large sum of money into the church's account. We, at first, thought it was some kind of bank error, so we had a talk with the bank's representative. He assured us it wasn't a mistake. Then this."

Mrs. Taylor cleared her throat, and elaborated. "It was an electronic transfer of funds, but the bank refused to give us the depositor's name. The bank person insists that the transaction had been verified and there was no mistake. However ... since the donation came shortly after Halloween and the Matthews had been here that night, and also because of the amount, we were suspicious that they had sent the money. I called them, but Diana refused to even discuss the donation with me. When I told her about the manager's refusal to name the depositor, she just laughed. I think there's little doubt where the money came from. Now this." Turning, she looked out the door toward the parking lot. "Where's Carla? Did she go on to your truck? I need to speak to her."

"Uh, I think she did," Fred got out just as Mrs. Taylor grabbed him in a hug, then kissed him on his cheek. A moment later, she hurried out the door in search of Carla and Jessica.

The Retreat

With Sunday lunch over, Jeff decided to stretch out on one of the recliners in the living room and maybe take a nap. But the nap was not to be. No sooner had he gotten settled, put his hands behind his head and puffed out a breath of contentment when General Whitworth walked in. "Colonel, we need to talk."

"Here?" Jeff asked as he brought the recliner to an upright position.

"No. Let's go back to my office. I have several things I need to discuss with you."

A few minutes later, with the two men seated in the General's office next to his suite, both of them with a cup of coffee in their hands, Whitworth began. "As you are aware, I kept a copy of young Hope's sketches and forwarded the originals on to the FBI. It took only a few minutes for the base software to identify the men in each of her sketches. Since then, my people have kept them under surveillance. The diplomat and his chauffeur/bodyguard frequently rent high-class call girls, or escorts, if you prefer. The diplomat is wealthy and certainly doesn't have to work, but I suspect he does because his position provides – opportunities."

The General looked over at Jeff and grinned, obviously proud of himself and his people. "The diplomat and his flunky have taken pains to make certain they aren't followed anywhere they go for, uh, fun, and the bodyguard has the latest in detection devices. Fortunately for us and the girls these two intend to kidnap, we have off-world technology that their equipment is unable to detect. Other than a disgusting lifestyle, neither has violated the law in the last few weeks, with the exception of hiring prostitutes, which we couldn't care less about."

Whitworth waited for a moment to build Jeff's curiosity. "And..." the Prime prompted.

"And... the diplomat just screwed up. He's ordered his flunky to find a couple of kids to fuck."

"What about the FBI?"

"As we talked about before, the FBI can only arrest them. Diplomatic immunity will kick in for these two, and the worst that can happen to them in this country is that they'll be sent home. As we already knew, the diplomat is involved with some part of the organization that kidnaps women and girls to be sold to other countries. We have now confirmed this from conversations between the diplomat and his friend. But these two are also users, I suppose you could call them. They aren't in it just for the money, but to fulfill their warped sexual desires. I will not sit by and let these diseased rejects from humanity go unpunished for their past crimes, let alone put up with them raping and killing more kids. But ... their demise must look like an accident – ironclad, so that no one will ever suspect that the deaths have been sanctioned."

"Like we did with Ingles? Give the order and my team and I will take care of it."

The General let out a chuckle. "Consider it given." He opened his laptop and motioned for Jeff to pull a chair near. "All right. This is what we know so far..."

Deep Space

The Miadax race had been in space more than four hundred Earth years. They resembled humans in that they were bipedal and had two arms and a head in generally the same place as humans, but their hands bore four fingers with two opposing thumbs. The second thumb was positioned to the outside and slightly back of where a human's little finger resides. Their brow ridges protruded a little more than human's and their eyes did not have lashes. Their noses were little more than an air hole just above an almost lipless mouth. They were intelligent, albeit more aggressive than humans. Although the race had their own scientists, their explorers had no qualms about taking by force anything they wanted or needed, particularly of a scientific nature.

Their first excursion into space was to a sister-planet in their own system. The race there wasn't as advanced in space travel as the Miadax, having succeeded only in putting a few satellites into orbit. It wasn't long before the Miadax were raiding the planet. Twenty years later, the second race was totally subjugated.

With the advent of the discovery of a crude star drive, the Miadax expanded their exploration efforts. They "taxed" the second race by forcing them to produce free supplies and technology which better enabled the Miadax's expansion into other systems. They eventually discovered other planets bearing life – some of it intelligent life. The explorers had by now become totally ruthless. It was simpler to take rather than produce. They didn't parley anymore, but bombed and strafed a new non-space faring planet a hello.

By that time, they had captured technology that allowed their computers to quickly assimilate a new language. Worn behind the ear, the compact computer translated to the Miadax, and reversed the process when the Miadax spoke. It certainly wasn't a universal translator, but it got the job done. Time necessary for the computer to learn a new language varied, but with access to the new planet's databases and enough input, the translation would be adequate in hours, almost perfect in a day.

After two hundred years of exploring and conquering, the Miadax had refined the process. They now used ships they called raiders. Although not identical, they generally were quite similar, depending on the stage of technology during the building process of that particular ship. Generally, Raiders had a crew complement of approximately two hundred and twenty. The raiders were heavily armed and armored, had much improved star drives, and carried ten attack craft, each requiring a crew of five.

The Miadax began their attack by destroying any orbiting craft, then bombed the spaceports, if the race was spacefaring. After that, the smaller attack craft destroyed any military bases they could find. Once that was successful, usually destroying a major city or two would bring about the beginning of subjugation of the new race. The more races the Miadax conquered, the more raiders they could build, and the more races they could master. The only real problem they had faced so far was that space was... big. Even using all their captured technology, sometimes it took years just to find one planet with intelligent life that had evolved far enough to be of use to the Miadax.

Travel, even at warp speeds, took months to navigate the vast distances, most of the time to only find a sterile planet; rarely to find one with life; even more rarely to find one sufficiently into industrialization to be of use to the Miadax. But even one such planet could make the captain and his officers rich beyond imagining, and the rest of the crew would receive bonuses that would continue throughout their lifetimes.

Raiders' missions usually lasted for two years. With sufficient resources – assuming they could find them during the mission – the converters would produce food and basic needs for that period of time, but the warp coils would need rebuilding and retuning by then that only a dock facility could properly perform. Push the warp coils too far and the raider might not come back.

The Miadax raider fell out of warp within a light day of Barnard's Star. The operative word being "fell." Sirens howled out their warning. The engineering console also screamed the alert with flashes of intense orange light. The sub-engineer manning the console tried to report to the captain who had launched to his feet as soon as the sirens went off, but the din overpowered the sub-engineer's voice.

"Shut that racket off," the Captain bellowed, "I can't hear a ... thing," he finished into a silence that seemed almost as intense as the noise had been.

Silence. The ship should not have been silent. The accompanying, deep thrum of the drive constantly pervaded everything. The sound, almost infrasonic, surrounded them – became part of their world. The crew lived, worked, ate and slept with the deep thrum until it became almost part of them. The silence, with the ship in deep space, was terrifying. Even if the ship was not in warp, the engines provided energies that the raider needed. Only when it was in maintenance dock were the engines totally shut down.

The sub-engineer on the bridge could tell the Captain only what everyone on the ship already knew – the engines were down, the ship having somehow been wrenched from warp. Even as the Captain spun toward the exit, the computer reverted to a power saving routine, dropping off non-essential systems one after the other – emergency lighting coming on in place of the well-lit alleyways.

Elevators no longer worked. The Captain, realizing this, headed for the nearest stairwell. Crashing down the three decks in a matter of seconds, he ran full-tilt down the last alleyway toward engineering, crew members scrambling to get out of his way.