Cross Council Read online

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  Carrie Brenneman played the trumpet. She also played a mean game of softball. She was Aimee’s best friend despite the fact that Aimee had not a single coordinated bone in her body. Time and time again, Carrie tried to recruit Aimee for some sport league or another, but the results usually ended up with a black eye or a sprained wrist. So instead, marching band was the only place where these two outcasts fit together.

  On one memorably scary occasion, Carrie and Aimee had missed the band bus to the game. As they had stood dejected and desperate on the curb contemplating their options, a senior they did not know had rolled up in front of them in a souped-up Civic. His car smelled like cigarettes and a tattoo of a dragon branded the arm hanging out the window. He asked if they had missed the bus to the game, and if they wanted a ride. Aimee and Carrie had taken that ride only because they were desperate to catch up to the band, and too naïve to think about the consequences. Ironically, the boy ended up being sincere and had talked to them genially on the seven minute ride about football and insufficient parking at the stadium.

  After they arrived safely, the shock of what they had done settled in and a pact was made to never accept a ride from a stranger again. Just because they’d been lucky the first time, didn’t mean that they were stupid enough to try it again. Aimee was sure that she wouldn’t have done something that stupid again on purpose. She hadn’t stepped into a beam of light on purpose. Maybe this was all a dream. At least, these were the thoughts and logic that awakened her some time later.

  “She’s coming out of it.” A woman’s voice intruded on Aimee’s bad dream. At least she hoped it was a bad dream. Her eyelids fluttered. Maybe she’d hit her head and this was the voice of some nice nurse in the emergency room. Wouldn’t Carrie laugh at that dream?

  Aimee’s eyes opened. All she wanted right now was to tell Carrie about the bad dream. All she had to do was wake up.

  A woman with long, black hair and wide, violet eyes was watching her. She looked exotic and beautiful, dressed in the same silver uniform Aimee had seen before, but this woman’s figure did the costume justice. Her expression was tender and sympathetic. She smiled down at her and touched her cheek lightly, confirming with that gentle brush that this was no dream. Aimee felt her eyes well up.

  “I want to go home,” she choked out.

  The woman made a tsking sound and touched her arm this time.

  “I know you do. A terrible mistake that has placed you here with us, but we can’t go back to your home just yet.”

  Aimee sat straight up, startling the woman. She was back on the bed, and knowing the windows were behind her, she fought the urge to turn around. If she didn’t look, then perhaps this was still all a mistake somehow. But she could no more ignore the windows than she could ignore the fact that the woman by her side had a computer monitor suspended in mid air, hovering in the empty space by her side, just out of reach.

  She had to be dreaming still!

  A dream. A bad dream was all this was. She was no longer scared to look out the windows, because quite honestly, none of it could be real. Aimee settled that thought awkwardly in her mind and held onto it for dear life.

  Instead of panicking again, Aimee gave the dream woman and her ridiculous floating monitor a big smile as she hefted off the bed and started towards the transparent wall. Her steps faltered, even in slumber when she no longer beheld Earth’s glowing surface. Even though she recognized that this had to be a dream, she ran up to the window and leaned her forehead against a surface that had no temperature. Stars now held proximity to her. Some were closer than others so that they became massive glowing orbs with three dimensional forms.

  “It’s gone.” Aimee whispered, twisting her head in search of the familiar planet.

  Don’t panic. You’ll wake up soon, she told herself sternly.

  “Yes.” The woman joined her at the window.

  Aimee cast a quick sideward glance at her and noticed that the suspended computer had been left behind. Her dreams weren’t normally this imaginative. Didn’t her mother berate her enough for her lack of creativity?

  “We had to make a hasty departure,” the woman said, her tone brisk but kind. “We didn’t want to draw any unnecessary attention from your military.”

  Aimee decided to play along with the hallucination. “Who are you?”

  “I am Charalan,” she answered. “You are in shock. We have given you something to ease your sorrow and confusion. I should be able to answer any of your questions now if you desire.”

  The impulse to laugh was there again and Aimee felt lightheaded. They’d drugged her. That was good. She couldn’t imagine how freaked out she would be if they hadn’t drugged her. Wait, drugs were bad. Her sluggish mind had trouble keeping up with what the woman was saying.

  She leaned against the glass pane, or some clear substance that resembled glass. Whatever this transparent barrier was, it was the only thing separating her from the black void of deep space. She felt as if she could simply float away if she leaned far enough.

  Was that another planet?

  In a haze caused by the multitude of stars and perhaps the dream serum this dream woman gave her, Aimee saw a jade sphere off in the distance. Its circumference was bound by a golden ring, a crooked halo. She tried squinting to get a better look, but here eyes lost focus and it faded into the milky stratosphere.

  To hell with it. She was going to ask the dream woman her most pressing question.

  “Where am I?” Aimee ventured, though she almost didn’t want to know. For all the bravado that was put into that question, Aimee heard her voice crack.

  Charalan arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “You are on the Guardian ship Horus.”

  “Guardian ship,” Aimee repeated, her mind grabbing at denial. “Is it like a space shuttle? Are you an astronaut? How did I get here?”

  The dream woman sighed, but her smile conveyed such serenity that Aimee began to feel the panic ebb. Those must have been some very good drugs.

  “What name do you go by?” Charalan asked.

  “Name?” Aimee stumbled to answer the nice easy question. “Aimee. Aimee Patterson.”

  “Aimee Patterson.” Charalan titled her head and enunciated the words as if she was learning a foreign language by actually savoring the taste of the sounds with her tongue. “Why don’t I take you to our commander, and perhaps he can answer your questions.”

  Answers. For a moment the cobwebs in Aimee’s head receded. She felt remarkably lucid and ready to take on her captors. Maybe she could talk some sense into this commander. He could just turn this whole thing, whatever it was, around and take her home.