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Chapter 12
The Return

It was several days in the uncomfortable close quarters of the ship before the task force finally made it back to Forniat.
"Let's move," Jesse ordered standing up as soon as the ship landed behind the base they had taken it from, "I want to see what we can find out from this as
soon as possible," he continued pulling the floppy disk out of his pocket and carrying it in his hand as he hurried through the ship and out the hatch of the ship with the
rest of the task force several yards behind him.
"Glad to see you made it back alive," Bob said as soon as he saw the task force enter the base, "I assume you got the disk, then."
"Not quite," Jesse answered entering a room in the base and slipping the floppy in his hand into one of the computers in the room, "But we got some
information of our own on them, and gave them a computer virus in hopes of destroying any information they got."
As soon as the floppy was in the computer Jesse opened it and began to look through the information.
"I got everything that was on their computer system, and there's a lot of valuable information on it, but the most useful thing is this," Jesse said clicking through
the various screens of information until he found a page that appeared to be a chart filled with various foreign symbols. With one click of a button on the screen the
symbols disappeared and were replaced by normal English. "It's a list of all the species and planets they've conquered along with lots of valuable facts about them
such as the planet and how to get there. I think we can use this to get a few allies against the Luridens."
"It's going to take awhile, though," Yert responded, "We'll have to make sure we have a safe path to the planets. We don't want to run into a black hole or
something."
"I know. We have to make sure of how they feel about the Luridens before we reveal ourselves, too," Jesse replied. "And in that time there is no reason that
they have to stay here," he continued gesturing at P.J. and Daniel, "They have their own agency to run."
"Great, going to leave us out of the loop again," Daniel said angrily.
"Hey, no complaints here," P.J. replied, "I've had enough of this place."
"I'm not leaving you out of the loop," Jesse answered, "I'm going to leave the agents I sent to you to keep you informed and to give you some actual
reinforcements. Try not to get them killed, though. Your agency is too reckless. Try to fix that."
There were a few moments of silence as Jesse saved the information from the floppy to the base's hard drive and removed the disk, but then Jesse announced
his plans.
"Yert I want you to oversee the work here. Both of the incorporation of the information taken from the Luridens and the repairs to the main base. I'll try to
check in on the progress as often as I can, but I'm going to take this to my headquarters on Earth and drop P.J. and Daniel off on the way. I'm sure their agency is in
turmoil since they've been gone so long. At least since Daniel has."
"Great, make me feel useless again," P.J. interrupted angrily.
"Well, they think you're dead," Jesse responded with a smile. "Make sure to inform me of any new developments," he said turning back to Yert as he led
Daniel and P.J. back out of the base to the shipyard where they boarded a round ship, similar to the one that had taken Daniel to Jesse's headquarters on Earth, and
took off for Earth.

It was only a matter of a couple of days before they reached Earth, but Jesse made sure they waited in orbit until it was the middle of the night at their
destination. He also made sure to land in a rural area where they wouldn't be spotted so Daniel and P.J. were still several hours from the headquarters of the agency
after Jesse left them at a landing site where he had had one of Daniel's agency's trucks, from where they took off from Israel, dropped off and Jesse took off again for
a landing site closer to his headquarters.
"Tell me honestly, now," P.J. said as they drove back to the agency, "Do you really trust them?"
"I don't know who to trust anymore," Daniel said despairingly, "but can you ever trust, Jesse. He even admitted to being the one behind tricking us so many
times with the Finas. Sure he had his excuses, but is there anyone we can really trust. I'm sure we can't trust those Luridens anymore than we can Jesse and the
Finas."
"So you don't really trust them either," P.J. said happily.
"Not really," Daniel replied. "There is one thing that's been bothering me, though, and I want to check it out before we go back to the agency."
"What's that?" P.J. asked perplexed.
"For some reason those Luridens make the word Reptoid come into my head and I don't even know what Reptoid means," Daniel answered, "but I think I
might have something at my house that may refresh my memory a little."

It was still many hours before they arrived at Daniel's house in which P.J. and Daniel swapped stories about what had happened while they were separated.
When they got there Daniel led the way over to a bookcase in the living room where he began to look through some books on one of the shelves until he found what
he was looking for and pulled out a small paperback book with a few random pictures of aliens and U.F.O's on the cover. Daniel flipped through the book as he sat
down in a chair with P.J. following close behind and sitting in another chair nearby where turned on the TV to see what he'd been missing in the nearly six months he
had been stranded on Forniat and presumed dead.
"Aha, here we go," Daniel suddenly exclaimed looking down at a page in the book.
"What?" P.J. said curiously.
"It has a short list of the typical alien races that are seen," Daniel answered, "Greys, Blues, Humanoids, and Reptoids."
"I would hardly say that's accurate," P.J. replied, "We've only encountered maybe one out of four of those. What does it even say about these Reptoids?"
"Actually I wouldn't say we haven't exactly encountered the Blues. I mean even, though, the Daynads turned out to actually be the Finas in our encounter with
them, Jesse said that all the races they used to trick us were actual races the Finas had had encounters with before."
"Fine two out of four," P.J. answered bitterly, "What's your point?"
"The Blues are the only good ones on the list," Daniel answered, "They're supposedly here to warn about the Greys who are the typical big eyed grey or
whitish aliens that do most of the abducting. As well as being the ones believed to be working with the government."
"Huh," P.J. interrupted, "Looks like Jesse has some explaining to do, but where do the Luridens come in."
"I'm getting to it, but my point is that if the Finas were against the Blues/Daynads then that would seem to put them on the side of evil."
"So, you're saying that we may have more than just past feelings toward Jesse to back up our suspicions."
"Yep," Daniel answered. "Now, the Reptoids are lizard-like aliens who do pretty much the same thing as the Greys except for the government part, but they
are believed to be competing with the Greys or possibly even ruling over them."
"I still don't know how reliable that thing could be," P.J. responded, "but it does feel good to have something to back our suspicions up," he said as they got
up to leave. "Just out of curiosity," P.J. said as they put the book up and headed for the door, "What about the Humanoids?"
"Alien-Human hybrids," Daniel answered solemnly as he walked calmly out the door.

Less than half an hour more driving brought P.J. and Daniel to the agency headquarters. Upon entering the building they found a few of their agents arguing
with some of Jesse's agents.
"Oh, Daniel!" one of the agents said running over to Daniel and P.J., "They made up some story about how the Finas aren't really bad and an underground
and all sorts of junk! We thought they had killed you or something!"
"Sure, ignore the one who was actually nearly killed," P.J. muttered angrily.
"P.J.?" the agent asked skeptically realizing who was with Daniel.
"Yeah," P.J. answered happy to finally get some recognition.
"So, where have you been?" the agent said turning back to Daniel
"I was stranded on that desert of a planet for six months," P.J. continued without realizing the agent had gone back to talking to Daniel.
"Well, I assume they told you about the Luridens, and the Underground and everything," Daniel answered.
"Yeah, but we didn't believe them," the agent replied.
"That's okay, I'm not sure I fully trust them either," Daniel said openly.
"You're not listening, are you!!!" P.J. yelled angrily.
"Huh," the agent answered.
"Never mind."
"Call a meeting, and I'll explain in more detail," Daniel told the agent.
"Yeah, I'll tell my story at the meeting, too," P.J. yelled at the agent as he was heading down the hallway to inform everyone of the meeting.
"You care about what I have to say, don't you, Bonnie," P.J. said to one of Jesse's agents who was still standing in the entranceway with them.
"Sure," she said, "It's nice to see you survived the explosion. We hated having to do that, but we had to keep up appearances."
"See, I told you we couldn't trust them!" P.J. exclaimed.
"Maybe you should listen to what I have to say at the meeting before you start saying stuff like that," Daniel replied beginning to walk down the hallway to the
meeting.
At the meeting Daniel told everyone about what had happened and what he thought about the Underground and the Luridens. He even mentioned his
suspicions even, though, Jesse's agents were there. P.J. also attempted to tell about everything that had happened to him, but people only cared that he was alive and
had no interest in hearing all the details.
"Because of these suspicions," Daniel said holding one of his agents back as the meeting was breaking up and the last one of Jesse's agents was already gone,
"I want you guys working overtime on reverse engineering that ship and gun, and gathering any other useful information."

Jesse's nice black shoes thumped against the shiny tiled floor as he walked stiffly down the hall of the plain building.
"I always thought you'd end up coming back here, Jesse," a man coming down the hallway toward Jesse said causing Jesse to stop. "After all your life is tied
to the government. They made you what you are, after all."
"I'm still deciding whether that's a gift or a curse," Jesse said taking off his sunglasses as he stopped to talk to the guy. "Just tell the Greys that I'm back,
Brad."
"They prefer to be called Scito. Have you been gone so long that you don't remember that," the man interrupted.
"Just tell them that the Luridens will likely be too busy with a rebellion to worry about them," Jesse answered as he put his sunglasses back on and began to
walk back the other way.
"You had this planned all along, didn't you," the other man exclaimed in shock.
"Of course," Jesse said stopping in mid-step and turning back around.
"There's just one thing I don't understand," the man answered "Why are you so willing to endanger your friends' lives? You didn't even have to get them
involved in this."
"I see the government's been keeping an eye on me, huh," Jesse commented.
"Don't they always," the man answered.
"That's true," he said turning around to leave.
"Just answer my question, Jesse," the man insisted.
"They're not friends," Jesse answered without even turning back around, "They're merely acquaintances easily forgotten," he finished as he began to walk
away again and didn't turn back.

Days go by at twenty miles an hour
What can I do to make sense of this ruse
Nowhere to run to, no time to cower
Constant waiting for some good news
Yet it fails to come and the days go on
The pain so great I can barely bear it
What have I done to deserve this great con?
Yet new hope rises out of the dark pit
A distant voice is calling as it approaches
The past is dark, but the future is bright
Waiting is endless but glory encroaches
Yet the reason for this remains out of my sight
What joy is this that has returned unto me
The result of which I have yet to see