I Married An Alien by Emma Daniels
Chapter Fifteen
Once the com-link had been reestablished between Earth and Terron, instead of the prime minister's head appearing in the holographic square, a completely different man arrived. It took me a moment to realize who he was, because at first glance he looked pretty much like any other middle-aged male. I wondered if the current incumbent was a long distant descendant of John Howard, a man who had been prime minister for quite a number of years in my day.
"Who are you?" the Chancellor immediately demanded. "You're not Allan Howard."
"How observant of you," the unattractive holographic head sneered. With a jolt of horror I realized who he was.
"Ian Rembrandt!" I grasped Jordan's sleeve. After watching various military hovers and craft head for the stricken space-port from our lofty window, we had returned to our positions around the table, feeling lost and helpless. I could tell the men were itching to join their troops, search for and help any survivors, but they were at the mercy of the Chancellor. Once he'd finished negotiating with the other chancellors and the First Chancellor in the privacy of his office at the other end of the room, he had ordered everyone to stay put. The whole building was now under lockdown.
The huge smoke cloud had now settled over most of the city, casting an eerie glow across the sky. It looked ominous, and reflected how I felt. Everything was beginning to take on an unreal quality. It seemed that this disaster revolved around me, or rather the woman I had become, and it scared the living daylights out of me.
"The prime minister is indisposed at the moment and can't come to the party. I'm afraid he's a bit tied up, if you get my drift," Ian Rembrandt laughed at his own pathetic joke.
But the stern-faced Chancellor wasn't playing his game. "What do you want, Rembrandt?"
"Oh not much really, just one Human woman, or rather my son does. He's beside himself with worry about his fiance."
"You bastard!" Jordan hissed, and I felt his whole body tense under my hand, where it rested against his forearm. "There's no way you, or your depraved son, are ever getting hold of Anita again."
"He can't hear you," Logan said from the other side of the table. "He can only hear the Chancellor."
"More's the pity, because I want to jump right down his throat and tear his fucking heart out!" Jordan snarled.
The Chancellor cast us a hard look, and was about to say something, when Ian continued. "You will be pleased to note that Earth will no longer require any more of your Hytana plant oil. My scientists and engineers have worked out how to synthesize the oil, so we can now make our own."
"What?" several of the other men gasped, and the Chancellor asked; "How is that possible?"
Ian Rembrandt tapped the side of his beak of a nose. "For me to know and you to find you." Again he sniggered nastily. "Now I would have played fair if you hadn't taken something which belongs to us. You might have noticed that we just used up the last shipment of your Hytana oil in a most spectacular fireworks display."
"I am going to tear out his heart," Jordan growled, and I squeezed his hand tighter.
"So, my fine alien friends, you have your planet all to yourselves again, so long as you return Anita DeBurgh to Earth within forty-eight hours. Failure to do so will result in the cancellation of the Treaty, the only thing keeping your pathetic race alive."
"They'll cancel the Treaty anyway," Logan muttered. "Now that we don't have something they want."
"How the hell did he get in charge so fast anyway?" I wanted to know. "Isn't there meant to be a Central Government Hub, or some such thing?"
"Well, there was. But as soon as Rembrandt told them about his wonderful new oil substitute, they probably started bowing and scraping to him… I bet they have no idea what he's done to us," Brian said grimly.
"I've got an idea," Jordan said suddenly. He motioned to the Chancellor.
"I will need to confer with my fellow Counselors," the Chancellor told Rembrandt.
"Well, don't take too long," Ian said amiably. "I have oil to produce you know, and there is a terrible shortage at the moment, so I really need to get cracking."
"I'll crack you over the head, you smug bastard," Jordan muttered.
The Chancellor stepped away from the holographic communication unit, and came to our end of the table. "Just tell me what you have in mind, and forget the violent retorts,” he snapped. “I know you want to get your hands on him. We all do, but it's not helping matters. We must remain professional at all times."
"All right," Jordan said. "I propose we meet him in space for the exchange."
"What?" I gasped. "There's no way I'm going anywhere near him!"
Jordan placed his index finger against my lips. "Hear me out, love, and then you can castigate me all you like…" He returned his attention to the Chancellor. "We make the condition that both he and his son come. We supply the exact co-ordinates and time to meet; you program them into the spindle computer network, and it blasts his ship to kingdom come."
"I like the way this guy thinks," Derek remarked. "But it's too risky. We might also blast you to kingdom come."
"If we're shielded the spindle won't be able to fix on us. The only ship out there in space it will be able to detect will be theirs. The spindles have an incredible range and now they’ve been fitted with the infinity-squared system, they can shoot through the wormhole network. No one on Earth even knows what they're for, and their energy comes directly from the core. We agree to meet halfway between Earth and Terron, and no one will be the wiser."
"How do we know he won't be armed and strike us down first?" the Chancellor asked.
"That's why we give him the coordinates. We'll know exactly when he's going to show up. We'll remain shielded until the last possible moment," Jordan explained.
"And what's if they use one of our ships and remain shielded themselves? If you recall Anita's kidnapping attempt they were about to steal a military shuttle from right under our noses. Who's to say they haven't already taken one of our own ships to Earth?" the Chancellor persisted.
Jordan sighed. "All we can do is hope they haven't. I mean they've never had cause to attack us until Anita took off on them with her knowledge about the explosives…" He sighed again. "I'm open to other suggestions, but violence and destruction is all these men know. It would be the last thing they expect from us. They think we’re all peaceful peasant farmers."
The Chancellor looked thoughtful instead of trying to throw another red herring into the mix.
"You know it might just work," Derek mused after a minute or two.
"Perhaps your ability to think like a Human might be a good thing after all," the Chancellor said at last.
"I'm waaaiiiiting," Ian Rembrandt called out from the hologram.
I couldn't help myself; I threw the notepad in front of me at his image. Of course it achieved nothing, sailing right through him, but it made me feel a tad less tense watching his ugly head divide into two before returning to its original shape.
The Chancellor gave me a hard look. I shrugged, but said nothing.
"That means taking a trip into space, Anita," Jordan said, returning me attention to him.
"What? Me?" I gasped.
"They need to be able to see you're on board. Just like we need to be able to see them. It needs to look completely genuine."
"But the spaceport got blown up," I reminded him.
"We have other spaceports and fighter craft at the army bases," Derek said.
"All right, if you think it will work." The Chancellor returned to his seat in front of the hologram. "All right, Rembrandt. Here is what we are going to do."
As I listened, I was surprised that Rembrandt agreed to our proposal. But I didn't like the idea of taking off into space to get a good look at him. I liked the idea of getting blown to pieces even less, but reasoned that if we died, then so would the two most evil men I'd ever had the misfortune to come across. I just hoped the adventure would be over quickly, with no time to feel the pain of our demise.
"Dana will have to come, of course," Derek said after thanking the Chancellor for his confidence in him. "We will be too far from Terron, and should I start Aging up there, I will become next to useless."
"She would age too, since you have been married for, what is it? Forty odd years?" Mark remarked.
"Forty-three," Derek said proudly. "And I dare say Anita would welcome her company."
I had to agree that the company of the other female would definitely keep my mind off the upcoming confrontation. I did like Dana, and we got on well. It was nice to have a friend at last, since I had never really had a good, close confidante before. The only negative was that out friendship would be short lived if we failed. At least I would die knowing what it felt like to finally experience passion and fall in love. Jordan and I would die together if the spindles terminated us along with the Rembrandts.