Read The Cresperian Alliance Online
Authors: Stephanie Osborn
The Cresperian Alliance
Twilight Times Books
twilighttimesbooks.com
Copyright ©
First published in 2010
A Cresperian novel
This is a work of fiction. All concepts, characters and events portrayed in this book are used fictitiously and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.
Copyright (C) 2010 Stephanie Osborn and Darrell Bain
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except brief extracts for the purpose of review, without the permission of the publisher and copyright owner.
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Cover art by Darrell Osborn
Electronically published in the United States of America
Gracie Learer knew she wasn't going to get out of this one alive. The British patrol had finally run her to ground and was rapidly closing off every exit from the tiny valley she was hiding in. Besides, it wasn't that far from the old farmhouse that concealed a warren of secret tunnels and rooms beneath it where the aliens were being held.
I suppose I could surrender,
she thought, but it was just idle musing while she waited. She knew if they took her alive she would never return home anyway, and almost certainly undergo a professionally thorough wringing-out by their security goons before her body was disposed off. No, surrender really wasn't an option. They weren't going to get anything out of her except a very dead body. She had already made sure of that.
She chuckled to herself. The damned idiots had been so busy trying to capture her after her discovery that they'd failed to blind the area to satellite communications. She glanced at her phone. It was blinking. Good. Everything she had was now encrypted and uploaded to a National Security Agency satellite. She dug a hole in the moist earth and buried the phone, then covered it and spread loose sod and grass over the place until it looked just like the rest of the ground in the area. She moved several body lengths away from the buried phone, crawling on her belly and getting the jacket and trousers of her business suit soaked and scored with grass stains. As if that was going to matter.
With the data uploaded and the phone hidden just to be on the safe side, there was nothing left for her to do except wait. She couldn't keep her mind still, though. Great Britain—specifically Scotland—was one of the sites where the Cresperian lifeboats had landed after their spaceship was destroyed by accident. The lifeboat in question had been found by four locals, and contained three Cresperians. They'd promptly taken them in and cared for them—
There's something to be said for the old tales of faerie,
she thought—and reported the incident to the local authorities.
The local authorities, unfortunately, had passed the information up the chain of command, not knowing what else to do. It hadn't been long before the British version of men in black had descended on the rural area, and the aliens had been “taken into custody for public safety."
Their politicians took over then, and kept those three aliens, Crispies they were called, captive and forced them to use their perceptive senses to enhance their bodies and stop the aging process. What technology they were able to derive from them was apparently only the second priority. Gracie had learned all this by insinuating herself into the bed of Jerome Williams, the Home Secretary. It hadn't been pleasant—he was obese, with crooked teeth, bad breath and a worse complexion, and he was absolutely the worst lover she'd ever had—but it had succeeded: Eventually he trusted her enough to ask if she wanted a little enhancement herself. Not understanding exactly what it might entail made her balk and eventually caused Williams to become suspicious. Events had taken their normal course after that and now here she was, lying on her stomach amidst highland brush and waiting for the security goons to close in, knowing she wasn't going to be walking away from this one.
She checked her Beretta once more, just for something to do to pass what little time remained to her. One full clip and a partial. And she was a damn good shot. Enough to take a few of them with her, she hoped. Ah, well, it had been a good life, mostly. No complaints there, but it would have been nice to see how it all worked out with the aliens on Earth and mankind on its way to the stars. No such luck, though. She'd never know.
Sounds of brush cracking and voices speaking in low guttural tones came closer. She gripped the Beretta and waited.
"Now!” a voice shouted.
Shit!
Wouldn't you know it?
They'd worked in among the boulders above her, too. She rolled over onto her back and fired two shots into the rocks at an exposed figure. The man crumpled, then slid off the ledge and landed nearby with a soft thud. By the time she turned back to face the others they were upon her. She emptied the clip in her gun before she died but never loaded the other one.
"No wonder they've been stalling all this time,” Thomas Waterman remarked from behind his desk in the Oval Office.
"Yes, Mr. President. They've been keeping the aliens captive and making use of the Crispies’ abilities while they talked us to death,” John Salter, five star General of the Army and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said and waited for the inevitable question.
"Your recommendation?"
"I believe, and the rest of the Joint Chiefs agree, that we should make a serious, concerted attempt to rescue them and bring them here."
The president was a small man, no taller than five and a half feet but like many little men, he tended to be more belligerent than patient. Nevertheless, this bore thinking about. Great Britain was supposed to be an ally. He rubbed his chin and glanced down at the summary brief again.
"How did we come by this intelligence?"
"Our agent bought it with her life, sir."
"Mmm.” Waterman didn't want to ask for details on how the agent died but he could tell that Salter knew there were still unanswered questions on his mind. “And you're sure the intelligence is accurate?"
"Yes, sir. It's been independently verified by indirect methods."
"Good.” He looked expectantly toward the other man in the room, Jess Ravenshoe, head of CIA. “Jess, how about the others?"
Ravenshoe didn't have to ask what others the president meant. “We don't know what the Islamic Confederation has in mind but we have found out where they're keeping their other alien, finally. It's being pretty well guarded but it wouldn't be an impossible mission. Same for the Chinese. Chances of success would run about 50-50 for both. The problem is predicting what their reactions will be if we go in and get the Crispies."
"No idea?"
Ravenshoe shook his head in resignation. “We're not mind readers, sir. For what it's worth, most of my people feel it is a justified risk."
"Most?"
"Over eighty percent, sir."
"John?"
"I think we should try it sir, but do all three at once.” Salter shrugged and let a very small smile touch his lips. It looked incongruous among the lines and seams decorating the rest of his face. “No point in alerting the others to guard their aliens closer, or to move them.” The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs knew when to go with the flow but President Waterman thought he would have recommended it anyway.
God knows we owe them a lot of payback for all the industrial sabotage they've carried out over the years,
he thought.
"All right, go ahead and get the planning underway. All three. Notify me beforehand, though. It's possible I could learn something in the meantime that would contra-indicate the action. Now, is there anything else?"
"How about India, sir?” Salter asked. The puzzlement over why Ravenshoe hadn't mentioned that nation was plainly evident in his expression.
"Don't worry about that alien pretending to be a god. I've talked to him, you know. He's crazy as a loon."
"Still..."
"I don't think he'll bother us,” Waterman declared flatly, indicating the subject was closed. Some knowledge was better left compartmented. Besides, while assassination was against the law, there wasn't anything illegal about financing a dissident group with the same idea. To Waterman's relief, Jess Ravenshoe merely sat next to Salter, his face closed, betraying nothing.
Both men rose to leave. The president watched them go with no little satisfaction. He thought his predecessors had been far too timid, going way back to Harry Truman. He doubted historians would ever say that about him.
Salter was already running details of the operation through his mind as the door to the Oval Office closed behind him. He'd seen the contingency planning but it had included India. He'd have to remove them from the board. Obviously the President knew something he didn't. Equally obviously, that something was known by Ravenshoe, which meant the Central Intelligence Agency was involved.
And frankly,
he told himself,
I don't WANT to know why he's telling us not to worry.
"Call General Washington, Gerald,” Salter told his aide, Lt. Bannerman, as soon as he was back in his own office. “Tell him I'll be flying in tomorrow at noon and to have the necessary people involved in Operations: White, Black, and Red Horse present. We'll meet at one and I want coffee and heavy snacks waiting when I get to the conference room, in case someone misses lunch—like us. Then notify my pilot and let him know we'll be leaving tomorrow. Clean up my schedule and make my apologies where necessary."
"No Pale Horse, sir?"
"No. Pale Horse is on indefinite—possibly permanent—hold."
"Yes, sir, got it,” Bannerman said.
Salter was confident that he did. It was rare for him to have to repeat himself to the young man.
"Hey, Bang! Cap'n White wants to see you, right now."
Sergeant Edward Bangler hoped it was his orders. The tall, powerfully built brunet had requested a change of duty station a couple of months ago when the outfit was broken up. He still had no idea why that had happened. Certainly the three missions he'd been on with them had gone well. And the unit got good marks on all of the training exercises.
Still, there it was. The lieutenant and three of the enlisted men had gotten orders they refused to talk about and hurriedly departed for parts unknown. Then the next month two of the sergeants had received training assignments. That was, essentially, that. End of outfit. And here he was, still stuck in the same place. He wondered if he'd screwed up somehow.
He had been restlessly going through the motions of acting as if he were still a part of a Special Forces team just like the others, but it was all acting. Not even training orders came down the pipe. Sgt. Manlin just made them up and ran the remaining men through them. They did a lot of physical training and study of past missions, too. A LOT. It wasn't exactly boring—but it wasn't what he'd been trained for, either.
He headed for the orderly room, bracing his face against the everlasting wind-blown sand of West Texas where the small army post was located. It seemed to be mostly a reassignment center, but no one admitted to it.
Headquarters was an old two story building built of solid masonry; half the offices were empty. He threaded his way past several of the occupants going out for lunch and a couple more returning. He nodded to all of them and spoke to the one corporal he knew. The door to the orderly room was open. He walked inside and over to where a Private First Class was manning the clerk's desk.