Table Of ContentTwilight Times Books
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First published in 2010
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CONTENTS
The Cresperian Alliance
Prologue
Part One: Working Fast
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Part Two: Racing
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Part Three: Surprises
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Authors’ Notes
Darrell Bain
* * * *
The Cresperian Alliance
* * * *
By Stephanie Osborn and Darrell Bain
* * * *
The Cresperian Alliance
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.
Twilight Times Books P O Box 3340
Kingsport, TN 37664
www.twilighttimesbooks.com/
Cover art by Darrell Osborn Electronically published in the United States of
America [Back to Table of Contents]
Prologue
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.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Part One: Working Fast
Chapter 1
"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
