ALPHA AND OMEGA: BOOK 6 - CAUSATIVE RELATIVITY (THE PROBLEM OF LIZ)

Part 5

(Thursday – September 16th, 2004)

They had been driving for almost three days straight and Nicholas knew they must be approaching their destination. They were running out of country.

At first, Nicholas had only meant to capture the shape shifters but he had become increasingly curious as to their destination and decided to follow them. Nicholas' driver had caught up to the shape shifter's car after a couple of hours, by pushing the speed limit, and had kept them in sight ever since. Nicholas ordered his driver to periodically drop back and change the color and model of the car in case the shape shifters were checking for tails.

As they continued to drive west, Nicholas had the skin soldiers from each city they passed join the pursuit, and now there was a long line of cars following them at a discrete distance.

Nicholas figured the shape shifters must be going either to the remains of their ship, if there were any, to meet the other shape shifters, or to the Granolith. And since the Granolith was the only thing on Earth of value to them, Nicholas was betting on it as the shape shifters' destination.

Nicholas looked out the window. They had been driving through the desert for hours. There was nothing but sand, rocks and scrub plants. He let out a sigh and sank back into the seat.

"General," said Grester from the front seat. "It looks like the shape shifters are slowing down."

Nicholas sat forward and watched in amusement as the shape shifters' car pulled off the highway and headed into the desert on a dirt road. "Roswell," he said aloud with a laugh. "It's brilliant. They left the Granolith in Roswell."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

(Near the Pod Chamber)

The sound of a car woke Kaldar and he watched as it drove straight to the rock formation that housed the pod chamber. He slipped into a blind at the base of the rocky slope and as they drew closer, he was relieved to recognize Cuerena and Sodan.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sam stopped the car in front of the rock formation that housed the pod chamber and climbed out, with Cuerena close behind.

She grabbed two handfuls of sand and using her powers, fashioned them into a rough six – sided crystal almost a foot long.

Sam watched with curiosity. "Any crystal will work?"

Cuerena nodded, "Crystals are crystals. It's simply an interface device, like a zip disc or a CD in a human computer. The key is to tell the crystal what to do, like programming a computer."

Her voice dropped as she remembered the King they had just lost, again. "On Antar, Zan and Ava didn't need a crystal interface, they were able to link directly to the Granolith."

"And they will be again," Sam assured her, pulling her to her feet. "We just have to stop this whole thing from happening."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Kaldar watched as Cuerena and Sodan passed within inches of him to climb the rocky path up to the pod chamber door. He had heard their words but he couldn't make any sense out of what they were saying.

They reached the top and Sodan passed his hand over the rock to reveal the glowing handprint to activate the door. He placed his hand on the mechanism and the rocky panel slowly moved aside and they disappeared into the chamber.

The sound of another car drew Kaldar's attention and he quickly scrambled to a higher vantage point on the rocks. There was a single car coming rapidly toward them but a couple of hundred yards farther back, fifteen to twenty more cars were converging on them as well.