Linkage: The Narrows of Time

Chapter 27

Intervention





Lucas and Drew rode thesilo elevator to the 7th floor, where Bruno was waiting for them witha steaming cup of coffee in his right hand. Lucas expected Bruno tobe chowing down a few caramel-covered treats, not drinking a cup ofJoe. If Kleezebee had not told him about Bruno’s death in 2001,Lucas might have thought this man was the real Bruno, not justanother replica. The fresh coffee stain on his shirt would have beena dead giveaway.

“Welcome back,gentlemen,” Bruno said in his usual jovial voice.

“Good to be back.How’s Mom doing?” Lucas asked, worrying that everyone hadforgotten about her. He envisioned her lying on the floor in thebathroom for hours, crying out in pain. He thought it might be a goodidea to get her one of those emergency necklaces advertised onlate-night TV. The kind with the push-button radio transmitter builtin. That’s what a thoughtful son would do. He just didn’t knowwhere to come up with the extra cash to buy it.

“Great. She’supstairs in her quarters. We just had lunch together.”

“We should probablystop in later and spend some time with her,” Lucas said to Drew.

Drew nodded.

Lucas looked down thehallway in both directions. “Where’s the reactor?”

“Just two doors downon the left. Follow me,” Bruno said.

Lucas held the radio hewas carrying up to his mouth, then pressed the switch on the side ofit. “Dr. Kleezebee, can you hear me? This is Lucas.”

The radio squawked.“Read you loud and clear.”

“We’re here in thesilo. Bruno’s taking us to the reactor.”

“Excellent. I’veentered the new equations for NASA’s reactor, and we should beready to begin the power-up sequence within the hour. Call me whenyou’re ready.”

“Ten-four,” Lucassaid.

“You’re supposed tosay over when you finish a sentence,” Drew said.

“I really don’tthink DL cares,” Lucas said, clipping the radio to his belt. Hewanted to say something else, but chose not to with Bruno withinearshot.

Bruno held the door tothe reactor room open; Lucas and Drew went through to the inside.

“Yeah, it’s a nearduplicate all right,” Lucas said, looking at the reactor sitting inthe middle of the room. However, unlike in their lab, it was not inits own sealed chamber with a twin-door air-lock system. But it didappear to have most of the same components—the ring ofelectromagnets, the cold neutron beam, and all the coolant pipes,power cables, and other equipment. To the right was Kleezebee’sversion of the Primary Control station, with its twin consoles, videoscreens, and control instruments in between.

“There’s theE-121,” Drew said, pointing to two familiar looking metalcontainers in the corner. A three-ring binder was sitting on top ofthem.

“I’m assuming thereceptacles are around here somewhere, too?” Lucas asked.

Bruno nodded. “In thebottom container. But DL had us pre-load the reactor with one of theE-121 samples. You should be all set.”

“Awesome,” Drewreplied, rolling over to the containers. He opened the binder sittingon top. “Here’s the procedure manual.”

“Where’s thecomputer equipment? I need to recompile Trevor’s code.”

“Our Linux serversare on the first floor, in the data center. Trevor’s up there now,prepping the servers.”

“How’d he know todo that?” Lucas asked.

“You installed thesignal boosters, didn’t you?”

Lucas thought about itfor a second. “Oh, DL called ahead,” he said, nodding as if heshould have known the answer. Kleezebee must have used a channelother than forty-four since he didn’t remember hearing anything onhis radio.

“All he needs is youruser name and password to download the code from your cloud storagespace.”

“My user name isDRLREMC2 and the password is CATSRULE3X. Do you needthe IP address?”

Bruno wrote on a slip apaper before answering. “Trevor already knows your stuff’s onBitwise Server Group Twelve.”

Trevor must have beenlooking over his shoulder when he accessed his storage space from thelab. It wasn’t a big deal. The source code was his anyway.

“Actually, it’sserver group eleven. They moved me to a different cloud last week.His stuff’s in a folder called Gigantor, with an upper case G.”

“Got it,” Brunosaid, scribbling one more time on the paper before walking to thedoor. “I’ll get this to him right away.”

Lucas waited for Brunoto leave the room. “How do you think Kleezebee’sinter-dimensional beacon works?”

“They’re probablygoing to open a micro-rift to their home universe, and then send acompressed data stream through it.”

“ET phone home,”Lucas wisecracked.

Drew laughed. “I’dbet it’s an S-O-S that’s encoded with our coordinates within themultiverse.”

“I wonder how long itwill take ‘em to respond?”

“The real question iswhere? I don’t think they’ll send a communiqué back. They’remost likely going to open a portal from their side.”

“Probably down herewhere it’s secure and out of sight.”

Both of them looked ateach other, before staring at the open section of the floor rightbehind the Primary Control Station.

“You don’t think?”Lucas asked.

Drew smiled. “We’llknow soon enough.”

Five minutes later,Bruno returned. ‘Trevor says he’ll be ready in three minutes.”

“A three-minuterecompile? Damn, those must be some lightning-fast servers,” Lucassaid, wondering if Bruno had heard Trevor correctly.

“You ready to getstarted?” Drew asked, flipping through the procedure manual.

“Let’s light thefires and kick the tires, Big Daddy.”

* * *

Forty-fiveminutes later, they had completed the startup procedures and thereactor was humming along.

“Man, I love thatsound,” Lucas said. “So what’s next?”

“There’s a new pageof instructions added onto the back,” Drew replied, handing thebinder to Lucas.

Lucas looked them over.“Seems simple enough. Let’s get ‘er done.”

Drew entered the newcommand sequences into his console, while Lucas followed up byadjusting a few of the riser panel’s instruments. It only tookanother minute to complete.

“That should do it.All we need to do now is wait for DL to call,” Lucas said.

“Let’s hope he gotthat reactor working,” Bruno said.

“Yeah, otherwise,we’re all f*cked,” Lucas said, leaning back in his chair.

“What’s the latestword on Larson?” Drew asked Bruno.

“Last I heard, he wasin surgery, but he’s expected to pull through.”

“That’s a damnshame,” Lucas replied. “You do realize that the first thing he isgoing to do is call the general and tell him we’re alive.”

Bruno nodded. “That’sassuming his memory’s intact and he’s able to speak. You crackedhis skull hard. There could be permanent damage.”

“Imagine that, aself-serving attorney who can’t speak.”

“Just goes to showyou, there is a God in Heaven,” Drew added.

Bruno walked out of theroom without saying anything.

“I hope we didn’toffend him,” Drew said.

“I don’t see how,”Lucas replied. “Maybe he had one too many spicy burritos today? Youmay have to loan him your can of air freshener.”

Drew laughed for a goodtwenty seconds.

“So what’s yourtake on this whole Kleezebee-from-outer-space thing?” Lucas asked,trying to stop his own laughter.

“It’s pretty wildstuff. But when you look at everything we know about him, it allfits.”

“It certainlyexplains all his toys . . . and his cash.”

“He does seem toalways be two steps ahead of everyone else.”

“Well, I’d be, too,if I knew the future.”

“There’s noguarantee his past and our future are always going to be the same.Not when we’re from two different universes.”

“That’s true. Iguess it’s not always a slam-dunk.”

“It’s probably agood thing he’s smarter than everyone else.”

“Everyone, exceptmaybe you,” Lucas replied.

Drew looked a littleembarrassed when he smiled.

The radio activatedwith Kleezebee’s voice. “Are you guys ready?”

Lucas depressed thetransmit button on the radio. “Yes, sir. We’re powered up andready to proceed.”

“On my mark, waitprecisely ten seconds, and then engage your neutron beam.”

“Roger that,” Lucasreplied in his most military-like voice.

Once Kleezebee gave hismark, Lucas and Drew waited exactly ten seconds, then proceeded withtheir experiment, firing the neutron beam right on cue. Both Lucasand Drew reviewed the chamber’s video feed to verify that the E-121canister had vanished.

“Looks like itworked,” Lucas told Kleezebee over the radio. “E-121 is on itsway.”

Their radio squelchedwith Kleezebee’s next communication. “Go ahead and power down.I’ll meet you in the surveillance room in one hour.”

“Ten-four,” Lucasresponded, before turning down his radio.

“DL can’t beserious,” Drew said. “How’s he going to climb up those stairson crutches and still get here in an hour?”

“The guards up topmust be helping him up the stairs.”

Drew nodded. “So whatdo you think DL stands for?”

Lucas shrugged. “Yourguess is as good as mine. Next time we’re alone with Bruno, let’sask him. He probably knows.”

Drew looked at hiswatch. “Let’s go check on Mom while we have some time. I’m sureshe could use the company.”

“Good idea. Let’sstop at the mess hall on the way. I’m starving.”

* * *

Ninetyminutes later, Lucas and Drew were chatting in the silo’ssurveillance room with Kleezebee, Bruno, and several videotechnicians. Two armed guards had joined them, taking position oneither side of the elevator doors. Energy domes were stillterrorizing the planet, filling the video screens with scenes ofdestruction and mayhem.

“This had betterwork; we’re running out of time,” Lucas said, captivated by theactivity on the screens.

“How long will ittake for your people to answer, Professor?” Drew asked.

“It all depends ontheir ability to decrypt my message and follow the instructions Isent them.”

“What did you tell‘em?” Lucas asked.

“I gave them theexact spatial coordinates of this room, as well as my equations.”

“Equations?”

“To open the bridgefrom their side. When we were marooned on Earth, we had only justbegun to explore the possibilities of the new rift-slippingtechnology. I continued to refine the equations here, but we had noway to know if our people back home have done so as well. Theequations I sent will insure they have what they need to make thishappen.”

“That assumes theywon’t need some time to build the equipment they need to open therift. You might be stuck here for a while longer.”

“Certainly apossibility.”

“Maybe they’vespent the past fifty years perfecting the technology on their own andbuilding the hardware.”

“If that’s true,all they needed to know was that we’re still alive, and ourlocation in the multiverse.”

* * *

Fourhours later, Lucas was leaning back in his chair, watching the videoscreens, when he nodded off for a second. His nose snorted once,waking him up. He looked around to see if anyone noticed—no onedid.

He stood up and walkedbriskly around the room, swinging his arms to get the blood flowing.He needed caffeine. “I’m going to run down to the mess hall, andgrab a soda. Drew, you want one?” Drew nodded. “Anyone else?Coffee? Soda? Bagel?” Lucas asked. Both Bruno and Kleezebeedeclined. The video techs ignored him.

As he walked to theelevator, his shadow started jiggling along the back wall, jumpingfrom one place to another with no predictable pattern. Lucas saw thatsomething was catching the security guards’ attention, making themlook past him as he approached the elevator. Lucas turned around andsaw a flickering light near the center of the room. It resembled atiny lightning storm, maybe six inches wide, and it was expandinggradually.

“Guys!” Lucasyelled, pointing at the phenomenon. Kleezebee and Bruno turned toface him, as did Drew, whose eyes grew to the size of ping-pongballs.

The security guards ranpast Lucas with their weapons drawn. Kleezebee scrambled around fromthe far side of the light, and held out his arms. “Stand down,”he told his guards. “They’re our friends.”

The security guardslowered their guns and moved to the right of Kleezebee, who was nowstanding on crutches a few feet in front of the light. Bruno slippedin between the guards and Kleezebee, while the video techs got upfrom their stations and waited to the far right of the securityguards. They all seemed eager to greet their long-lost brethren.

Lucas moved to the leftof Kleezebee and put his hand on his mentor’s shoulder as a gestureof solidarity. Kleezebee looked at him and smiled. Lucas nodded. Drewrolled next to Lucas, to his left.

The portal, now sixfeet in diameter, seemed to stabilize as its oscillating light raysslowed their pace. A trio of green laser beams appeared from therift’s center, spreading out horizontally across the elevatordoors.

“Don’t be alarmed,they’re just following safety protocols and scanning the area,”Kleezebee said.

The beams dancedindependently around the room like spotlights piercing the night skyabove a Hollywood movie premiere. Their pattern seemed random, movingquickly in multiple directions, until every inch of the surveillanceroom had been mapped. Then they vanished.

“Here we go,” Brunosaid.

Fifteen seconds later,murky silhouettes of three tiny figures began to take shape at thecenter of the portal, as if they’d just stepped into view at thefar end of a giant funnel. The figures moved forward, toward theportal’s event horizon, slowly growing in size. The figuresthickened and solidified with each passing second. Even though theywere no longer hazy shadows, Lucas still couldn’t make out much inthe way of detail. Their heads were larger than he expected, perhapsbecause they were wearing spacesuits or helmets of some kind, and itlooked like they were carrying something in their hands.

Lucas looked atKleezebee and then Bruno. Both men seemed to be mesmerized withanticipation, each smiling like a groom-to-be, enjoying his lastnight of freedom at a local strip club. Lucas was proud to be sharingthis moment with his friends who had toiled for decades to reach thisepic milestone. It was too bad History hadn’t been invited to thisreunion  ; Lucas’ name would have been forever etched into the annalsof time, never to be forgotten.

He wondered what hismentor was thinking. He couldn’t imagine what it was like forKleezebee to be without his wife and son all these years. Dreaming ofthem; longing to hold them close again. Would they be waiting for himon the other side with loving smiles and open arms? What if theyweren’t? What if Caroline were dead or remarried? Would getting hispeople home be enough for Kleezebee, or would it tear his guts out,leaving him a shell of a man?

Drew was sitting to hisleft in his wheelchair, looking like a kid waiting for a hot fudgesundae to be delivered, completely oblivious to the complexities ofKleezebee’s homecoming. Drew was a glass-half-full kind of person,always looking on the bright side, always expecting things to workout. Lucas admired his little brother for having that type of blindfaith in the unexpected, but he wasn’t wired that way. Lucas dealtwith life’s twisted sense of humor by planning for the worst andhoping for the best. It might seem like an overly simple concept tosome, but it allowed him to sleep at night. Fate had a funny way offinding him, often times with harsh intentions.

Lucas looked back atthe portal just in time to see the visitors stepping through to hisuniverse, but what appeared wasn’t human. Three, nine-foot tallcreatures appeared with a pair of giant claw-like appendages extendedout in front. Two of them advanced forward, standing in front of thethird like a football team’s offensive line moving to the line ofscrimmage to block access to the quarterback.

Their bodies were burntorange in color and made of stacked layers of donut-shapedmodules—like exposed vertebrae—held together by thin connectingtissue or bone. Their heads were stretched back horizontally into anelongated sphere, with two sets of glowing, compound eyes along thefront. Mucus dripped from the creatures’ mouths, slinking down tothe floor as the aliens moved. A collection of tentacles hung downfrom the rear of their exoskeletons like dreadlocks, maybe twentyfeet long, with a pulsating orifice on each end. Stinger-like tailsthrashed about behind the creatures with barbs or serrated edgesalong the pointed tip.

Lucas wanted to run forcover, but his feet wouldn’t move.

The first two alienswere carrying grappling devices mounted to their claws. Before thetwo security guards could get off a shot, the aliens fired, impalingthe men with the jagged hooks. Almost immediately, the creaturesretracted their weapons, ripping the men apart from the inside. Bloodand guts splattered everywhere.

The aliens’ tentaclessnaked along the floor and began siphoning the human remains throughthe pliable opening on the ends. When some of the bigger hunks wereingested, the tentacles bulged like a boa constrictor swallowing arabbit for supper.

The third alien racedforward, using the back of its mighty claw to knock Bruno, Kleezebee,and Lucas across the room in one swing. Lucas landed upside down withhis back against the wall, knocking the wind out of him. He wasdazed, gasping for air, but alive. Bruno landed on top of Kleezebee,just to Lucas’ right. Neither of his colleagues was moving.

Lucas tried to stand,wanting to protect Drew, who was sitting helpless in his wheelchair,but his legs wouldn’t cooperate. The alien was much quicker thanLucas would have predicted. It snatched Drew from his wheelchair andwrapped him inside a web of tentacles, before carrying him back tothe portal. Drew was hanging horizontal against the creature’sside, looking back at Lucas, with his leather pouch hanging freeoutside his shirt. Lucas cried out for Drew just as the creaturedisappeared through the rift with his brother in tow.

Two of the techs pickedup the security guards’ handguns and fired at the two remainingcreatures. The invaders raised their claws to protect their headswhile the techs fired a continuous volley into what Lucas guessed wastheir torso. A gooey orange substance gushed from their bodies eachtime a bullet hit its mark. The creatures backed up, single file,toward the rift, with their tentacles continuing to suck up the lastfew chunks of the guards.

The creature nearest tothe techs took the brunt of the weapons’ fire, while the other oneslipped through the portal. The remaining creature appeared to besuccumbing to its wounds as it stumbled sideways into the portal’sevent horizon. The rift closed around it, chopping off one of itsclaws and legs. It flopped to the floor.

Lucas was bent over,holding his abdomen, when the elevator doors opened and a four-mansecurity team rushed into the room, followed by two medics Lucasrecognized from the infirmary. He figured one of the video techs musthave called for reinforcements. The security team dashed to surroundthe quivering alien, leaving behind boot prints in human blood.

One of the medics, awoman, ran up to Lucas, “Are you injured?” Lucas nodded. “Wheredoes it hurt?” she asked.

“Everywhere,” Lucasgrunted with diminished breath. His chest felt like it had been runover by a cement truck.

The female medic helpedhim off the floor and then raised his hands over his head. “Try torelax and breathe normally,” she said.

Lucas’ breathingslowly returned to normal. “Better,” he said, nodding. His wholebody ached. “I’ll be all right. Go help my friends,” Lucas toldher, pointing at Kleezebee and Bruno. She did.

Lucas staggered over tothe portal’s last position, pushing his way through the guardssurrounding the wounded creature. The alien was convulsing, spurtingjets of orange blood from its severed limbs and bullet wounds. Itsclaw, stringer, and tentacles were not moving, no longer a threat.

“Where’s mybrother?” he asked the creature, ignoring its putrid smell. Therewas no response. He kicked the creature in the head, crushing one ofits four eyes. “Answer me!” he screamed at it before one of theguards pulled him away from the marauder.

“I doubt itunderstands you,” the guard said.

“Those thingstook my brother!” Lucas said, trying to squirm free from theguard’s arm lock. “I have to get him back!”

“Look at it,” theguard said, turning Lucas’ body toward the creature. Theconvulsions had stopped, and its eyes had started to dim. “It’salmost dead. It’s never going to tell you anything.”

Reality set in, sendinga torrent of emotions washing over Lucas. His mind went numb and sodid his body, dropping him to his knees. He sobbed into his hands.

* * *

Severalminutes later, Lucas felt a sudden calm in the room. He wiped off hischeeks, his nose, and then looked up. The guards were helping themedical team remove the alien’s carcass from the surveillance room.Both Kleezebee and Bruno were alive and receiving treatment from thesame female medic who helped him earlier. Lucas stepped around thepool of orange blood, and walked up to Kleezebee. “We have to goafter Drew.”

“I wish we could, butthere’s no way to find him. Even if we knew where he was, we can’topen the rift from this side.”

“We can’t just sithere. There has to be something we can do.”

“Trust me, he’ll beall right. They won’t hurt him.”

“How the hell couldyou possibly know that?”

“Because theKrellians didn’t send through a battalion of warriors to kill usall. It was only a small surgical strike. They’re going to want totrade.”

“For what?”

“The BioTex.”

“But why Drew? Whynot me or you? We were much closer to it.”

Kleezebee looked atLucas with an apologetic look on his face. It took him a moment torespond. “Because Drew is my son.”

Lucas’ brain wentinto a spin. “What?”

Kleezebee ushered Lucasto a chair sitting in front of the video control station. “Have aseat and let me explain.”

Lucas sat down in thechair with his arms folded across his chest. He couldn’t wait tohear another of Kleezebee’s whoppers.

“Remember when I toldyou earlier, that after we crashed, my crew began to pair off andstart new families.”

“Yeah.”

“I couldn’t bringmyself to choose a new woman. I loved my wife too much, and I stillheld out hope we would get home. But eventually, after twenty yearsof futility, even I began to doubt our chances of getting home. Igave in to the realization that we might be marooned on your planetfor a long time, quite possibly for generations. I was lonely anddecided that I needed a son, someone to carry on my legacy andcontinue the work. But, I was too old and too busy to raise a child,and I certainly didn’t want a new wife.”

Lucas was starting tosuspect that Kleezebee had knocked up Drew’s mom. “What did youdo?”

“I had our geneticistopen a fertility clinic.”

“The same one thatDrew’s bio-mom chose, am I right?”

“Yes. We needed awoman with no family, a compatible genetic makeup, and who possessedsuperior intelligence. Lauren Falconio fit the bill. After sheselected her donor sperm, we highjacked her pregnancy and inseminatedher with my sperm. I’m not proud of what we did, but if we hadn’t,Drew wouldn’t be here today.”

“How did the aliensknow Drew was your son?”

“When they scannedthe room, they must have checked our genetic markers and determinedhe was my offspring.”

“What about me?”Lucas asked, wondering what earth-shattering revelation was next. “AmI one of your ‘offspring,’ too?”

Kleezebee shook hishead. “No, you’re not.”

Part of Lucas wasjumping up and down that Kleezebee wasn’t his father, too. But therest of him felt a deep sense of regret and he wasn’t sure why. “Somy being part of this, is what, an accident?”

“Hardly. After we hadyour intellect tested, we arranged for the two of you to be roommatesin the orphanage. I had hoped you two would bond.”

Lucas figured Drew wasgoing to be pissed when he learned that his bio-dad knew hiswhereabouts, but chose to leave him in the orphanage to fend forhimself. The video screen in the back of his mind suddenly played amovie of Drew crying himself to sleep night after night in theorphanage, which wouldn’t have been necessary if Kleezebee hadstepped up and taken responsibility for his progeny. Maybe Kleezebeewasn’t confident in his skills as a single parent, or perhaps hiswife Caroline took care of all the child-rearing, leaving Kleezebeeto focus solely on work. Whatever the reason, a branch just fell offthe Kleezebee respect tree. “What about our adoption? Did youarrange that, too?”

“We may have helpednudge it along a bit.”

“So you’veorchestrated everything since day one.”

Kleezebee nodded. “Thatway I could keep close tabs on you.”

“And the free rent?”

“I would have donethat regardless,” Kleezebee replied. “And you should probablyknow that Trevor isn’t just your lab assistant; he’s also yourbodyguard.”

“That sounds aboutright,” Lucas said, rolling his eyes. “Why didn’t you tell Drewhe was your son?”

“Simple, really—healready has a family. Telling him I’m his biological father wouldonly muddy the situation.”

“But, he has aright to know.”

“Perhaps, but I wouldprefer that you not tell him, or your mother. It could destroy yourfamily, and I’m sure you don’t want that.”

Lucas wasn’t sure ifhe agreed with Kleezebee’s reasoning, but nodded anyway. Regardlessof what Kleezebee thought or expected of him, his primaryresponsibility was the well-being of his little brother. If he laterdecided to tell Drew the truth, he would. Kleezebee would just haveto deal with it.

Lucas started thinkingabout his biological parents and the humiliating stories he was toldabout their pasts. He had always secretly hoped their backgroundswere a fabrication of lies, but never expected it to be apossibility, until now. “Was my bio-mom really a drug addict?”

“Yes, and yourbiological father died in prison. That all happened before we placedyou with Drew.”

So much for riddinghimself of some emotional baggage; he shouldn’t’ have expected toget that lucky. “What about Drew’s bio-mom? Is she really dead?”

Kleezebee nodded in astrange manner, acting as if he wasn’t telling the whole truth.Lucas needed answers. “Oh my God, you didn’t run her car off theroad, did you?”

“No, that was atragic accident. We had nothing to do with it.”

“Well, what is itthen?”

“The photograph Drewcarries around his neck is not hers. It’s a picture of one of mycrew; someone who died a long time ago.”

“Why the hell wouldyou give him a fake photo?”

“We didn’t have agood photo of Lauren to use.”

“Why even bother?”

“We needed somethinghe would want to carry with him at all times. There’s a trackingdevice and audio transmitter hidden inside the photo’s backingpaper.”

Lucas’ head spun. Hadhe just heard the professor correctly? Kleezebee had beeneavesdropping on them all their lives? Lucas was certain somewherealong the way, a few embarrassing or slanderous conversations musthave taken place between him and Drew that Kleezebee never shouldhave heard. “Was the audio on all the time?”

“No, justoccasionally when I checked in on you.”

“That’s how youalways seemed to know when we needed help.”

Kleezebee nodded.

Lucas was still pissed.But now wasn’t the time to dwell on the privacy ramifications ofthe transmitter. He decided to save that debate for a later time.“Can we use the tracking device to find him?”

“If we could getclose enough, yes. But it’s obviously not going to work acrossdimensions. For now, we wait for the Krellians to contact us andarrange a swap.”

That’s not much of aplan, Lucas thought. Kleezebee was supposed to be a master plannerand this was the best he could come up with? He had hoped for a moredirect response to the Krellian threat. “Can’t we just overpowerthem the next time the portal opens?”

“And do what? Send ina handful of men? If they’re opening the portal from one of theirhive ships, we’d be outnumbered a hundred thousand to one. Allthat’ll do is get Drew and our men killed. No, we’re going towait to see what they want, and then formulate a rescue plan. Rightnow, the best course of action is to step back and think rationally.They may look like simple overgrown bugs, but they’re very cunningand formidable.”

Bruno tapped Kleezebeeon the shoulder. “Boss, we really need to start preparing for theexchange.”

Kleezebee acknowledgedBruno’s request, then turned to Lucas. “Are we good?”

Lucas nodded, though he didn’t want to.