Among the countless planets that orbited the ten thousand suns of the Empire, many were such as this: great barren rocks that were host to gigantic seas of the matrix material controlled by the builders. From this they created the smallest to the greatest of the Empire’s physical constructs, even entire worlds. For if the Empress willed it, it would be done.
A great task had She given the builders here and on other worlds, even as the strangers, the humans, were fighting and dying before Tesh-Dar’s eyes. A new fleet would be created for Her warriors, to carry them forth into battle with their new enemy among the stars.
But this fleet was not meant to seek out and expunge the human animals from the Universe, for even a small task force of Her modern warships could accomplish that menial task. Instead, the builders had to reach back into the Books of Time, far back, to recall the designs created by their ancestors over one hundred thousand human years before. They sought designs that predated even the founding of the First Empire, for that was the level of technology that they sought to match. The bulk of the Imperial Fleet would remain as it was, the physical sword and shield of the Empire, but the new fleet would be roughly equal to the human ships they expected to face. And if the humans brought more advanced technology to bear in the coming encounter, so much the better for the added challenge Her Children would face.
Standing on the crest of a low mountain that held a great underground city, Tesh-Dar looked out across a giant lake of the black matrix. Above her the sky was bright with the artificial sun created aeons ago to light and warm this barren planet. It was a sterile wasteland of a world, useless for colonization, but ideal for the purposes to which it had been put. Much of its surface mass had been converted to the black matrix millennia before, and had been used as She required. A jarring landscape of violently upthrust rocks and ancient impact craters, the builders and the others of Her Children who labored here found solace and beauty in the monumental city beneath Tesh-Dar’s feet, where the graceful domes and spires of buildings and dwellings lay under open skies and were surrounded by forests as if they were still on the Homeworld.
While Tesh-Dar’s own powers were beyond the comprehension of any builder ever born, their powers left her with a keen sense of respect and awe. She watched as thousands of them stood in a rough oval nearly a human kilometer in length and half as wide, their arms out with palms turned inward to the center of the oval. She could sense the buildup of energy as the builder mistresses, those oldest and most powerful among the builders here, harnessed and guided the power of the acolytes. Other such groups of builders stood in similar ovals farther out; some groups were larger and some smaller, depending on the type of ship they had been called upon to build, with all of them near the shore of the matrix lake.
Tesh-Dar gasped as the power of the nearest group surged, and the surface of the nearby matrix lake began to stir. Its black, featureless surface suddenly began to ripple, and then the first particles began to separate from the depths of infinite black and float into the air. Moving faster and faster, the particles flew toward the center of the oval, the stream of airborne matrix becoming thicker until it blocked her view of the other groups of builders who worked beyond.
After momentarily hanging in the air in a nebulous cloud, the particles began to coalesce, and Tesh-Dar saw the first translucent shapes appear in mid-air where the ship’s internal systems would be. At first only as thick as a single matrix particle, the primitive internal components of the ship gradually took form, even as more particles began to form some of the outer hull segments.
The great priestess marveled at the sleekness of the emerging design. Even with primitive spacecraft as ancient as this Her Children had fused the beauty of form with function, so unlike the designs of human ships she had seen from the extracted logs of the human craft. Unlike the boxy and cylindrical utilitarian shapes of the human vessels, this craft was formed with elegant curves and shapely proportions pleasing to the eye, as well as deadly to its foes. Kreelan engineering was as much art as it was science in all that they did, and warships were no exception.
“In Her name,” breathed Tesh-Dar’s First, a fiery young warrior named Kamal-Utai. This was her first visit to such a place, and Tesh-Dar smiled inwardly at the fascination felt by her apprentice, for she found it no less enthralling after seeing similar scenes countless times before. “Even before the days of the First Empress were we masters of the stars.”
Tesh-Dar knew that it would take the builders weeks of painstaking labor to finish the ship that was now taking form, and even more time to complete the others being built for the new fleet, but she was satisfied with their interpretation of the Empress’s will. It would take yet more preparation to train the warriors who would crew the ships, for they would have to learn everything anew. She did not envy the task of the ship mistresses who now studied the Books of Time translating from the Old Tongue the information on how to operate these primitive vessels. But she herself would be among the many to receive their tutelage, for Tesh-Dar was to lead this first campaign. Piloting the ships, operating the weapons, learning appropriate battle tactics: there was so very much to learn, and she looked forward to every moment of it.
In the coming war with the human horde, Her warriors would be evenly matched against the enemy. It would be a glorious opportunity to bring honor to the Empress for the warriors chosen to fight. Even now, countless arenas around the Empire were filled with cries of fury and the clash of steel as warriors fought in ritual combat for the right to slay, or be slain by, the human animals. Such combats would continue for many weeks, for many tens of thousands of warriors would be involved in the invasion of the human world, Keran, and many more would fight in the cycles to come. The attack on this first world had no particular strategic value, but was merely to provoke the humans into a fierce response. For this was not a battle or a war to be won or lost: it was simply to be fought for the honor and glory it brought to Her, to the Empress. And Her warriors would keep on fighting through the remaining centuries left to their dying race, should that be the will of the Empress.
With the Bloodsong burning in her veins and her body tingling with the energy unleashed by the builders, Tesh-Dar watched in silent wonder the birth of the fleet that would soon be hers to command.
* * *
Seated behind a lavish teak desk in his main office at the Keran Embassy, Ambassador Faisul bin Sultan, Keran’s diplomatic representative to Earth, listened quietly as Secretary of State Hamilton Barca explained the situation as it was viewed by the Terran Government. Less than twenty-four hours had elapsed since Aurora flashed into existence next to Africa Station, and the shock waves of Stephanie Guillaume’s news report and the president’s press conference were spreading through human space with every successive jump of the communications couriers that carried the broadcasts. Ambassador bin Sultan had, of course, seen both the news release and the president’s press statements: Barca had called him beforehand to make sure the news did not catch him by surprise, and to schedule a meeting as quickly as possible at the Keran Embassy.
“...and so, Mr. Ambassador,” Barca concluded, “we would like to offer our unconditional support in the defense of your world, including direct military assistance should you so desire. The president made it very clear to me that there were absolutely no strings attached, no quid pro quo.”
Bin Sultan’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. There were always strings, always conditions, he thought, even though they were often invisible.
“When the enemy invades,” Barca told him, “we want to try to stop them cold.”
Leaning back in his chair, bin Sultan regarded Barca for a moment before he spoke. “Mr. Secretary,” he said finally, his mellifluous voice carrying only the hint of an accent of his native Arabic through his Standard English, “I do not wish to appear ungrateful, because the offer made by your president is truly generous. I also wish to express condolences, on behalf of my government and myself, for the loss of your ship’s company, among which was a citizen of our world, as I am sure you know. As with ships that sail upon the seas, the loss of a crew or a vessel on such a long and perilous journey is always a terrible tragedy. All that aside, Mr. Secretary, I will of course convey your government’s kind offer immediately to my government.” He paused for a moment, clearly grappling with what he was to say next. “But I also cannot help but feel that President McKenna may be reacting with, if you will forgive me, some small haste in the matter. It has barely been a full day, and complete analysis of the information has barely begun. I feel very strongly for the young man who returned alone from this ill-fated expedition, but asking us to go to a war footing based solely upon his account and some interesting artifacts is...precipitous, let us say.”
Barca grimaced inwardly at the diplomat’s choice of words. In diplo-speak, it was the rough equivalent of bin Sultan shouting that he thought the president was fucking crazy. But Barca couldn’t help but agree to some extent with what bin Sultan was saying: the president had been incredibly quick off the mark on this one, and two cabinet members had already resigned after her little in-house pep talk. But to Barca, she was still The Boss, and if she wanted to go balls to the wall to prepare for an alien invasion, he would do everything in his power to help her. Because, God forbid, she just might be right.
“I completely understand, Mr. Ambassador, believe me,” Barca said. “We fully realize how much of a shock this must be, and how...well, how incredible it all seems. But the president is fully convinced by the available evidence and is committed to having Earth do whatever we can, as quickly as we can, to prepare for whatever may come. Eighteen months leaves us very little time.”
“Thank you, Mr. Secretary. And please rest assured that I will contact you personally the moment I have a response from my government.” The ambassador smiled and stood up smoothly, signaling an end to the meeting, and Barca did the same. Shaking the bigger man’s hand, bin Sultan told him, “I appreciate your coming here, Mr. Secretary. Please keep us apprised of your findings, and I will contact you soon.”
“Always a pleasure, Mr. Ambassador,” Barca replied formally.
A few minutes later, Barca settled into the limousine that would take him on to the next of half a dozen visits to other embassies to try and drum up support for the war effort against an enemy that only one man had encountered and survived. Sighing, he put a call through to the president to give her an update. He expected one of her executive assistants, but his call was answered immediately. It was the president herself.
“How did it go, Ham?” she asked him expectantly.
“He said, in a most dignified manner, of course, that he thinks you’re a loon and that we’re making a mountain out of a molehill,” he told her bluntly. “He’s going to pass the offer along to his government, of course, but...” He sighed and shook his head.
She puffed out her cheeks and rubbed her temples. “I know,” she said, trying to rein in her frustration, “and I don’t blame him. And the others will be the same, I’m sure, at least right now. There are huge questions that we can’t answer, and precious little evidence-”
Barca snorted. “Ma’am, a five hundred meter ship with a missing crew is plenty of evidence of something. It’s just that people don’t want to believe Sato’s story about the aliens. Not so much that there are aliens, although there are a lot of folks who won’t believe that, either, but that they don’t even know us and yet they’re coming to look for a fight. If the ship’s records had been intact and had shown some reflection of the attack, anything to support Sato’s story other than the physical artifacts, it might be different. Might be. But even at that,” he shrugged, “people have an incredibly powerful sense of denial.”
“I know,” she said, a trace of strain in her voice, “I know. But I feel this in my gut, Ham. We can’t afford to be wrong. We’ve somehow got to make them see that there’s a threat. And get them to do something about it.”
He paused before he answered. He had known Natalie McKenna for over twenty years, and had found her to be one of the most noble, intelligent, sensible, and downright tough human beings he had ever encountered. He also remembered that she’d had quite a few “gut feelings” in the time he’d known her, and she had never once been wrong. Not one single time. Call it intuition, call it blind luck, call it whatever you want. It all boiled down to the same thing. If something inside her was telling her that this was the real deal, something beyond the incontrovertible evidence embodied in what the Aurora had brought back, then he believed it. And it was starting to scare him to death.
“I’ll do my very best, Madam President,” he told her solemnly as he flexed his massive arms, stressing the seams of his suit. “Even if I have to pound it into their thick heads.”
That won him a tentative smile from his commander-in-chief. “I know you will, Ham,” she replied. “And thanks...”
* * *
Three weeks later, Ichiro Sato was finally released from medical quarantine aboard the Aurora. He had stoically endured the endless poking and prodding for blood samples and biopsies, provided urine and stool samples every few hours, had a variety of two- and three-dimensional scans done every week, and suffered even more intrusive and humiliating tests to satisfy the army of doctors and nurses in biological warfare suits. He knew it was in a good cause, both for himself and for his fellow humans, but being released from quarantine was almost as emotional an experience as had been his return to Africa Station.
With the scientists and engineers finally losing interest in him or, in the case of the doctors, having no excuses to continue holding him, Sato had finally been freed from quarantine aboard the ship. But as soon as he stepped out the airlock, he first had to sit through some very tough questioning from the board of inquiry about what had happened to the ship and her missing crew. After surviving that, he was plunged into an endless series of meetings planetside with senior officers and civilians who demanded his story in person. As he was shuttled from venue to venue, he discovered that his image was plastered everywhere. He was an overnight celebrity across the planet, and that was spreading rapidly to the other planets of the human sphere. Some pundits considered him a heroic survivor, but some weren’t so kind. A few even went so far as to accuse him of somehow engineering the deaths of the crew so he could return home, overlooking the fact that Earth wasn’t his home, and the navigational feat of Aurora appearing right next to Africa Station was simply impossible with available human technology. Others were convinced that his body secretly harbored some sort of alien parasite that would suddenly burst forth and begin the process of eliminating his fellow humans.
The only saving grace in his time planetside was Steph. She and her network, which had shot to the top of the ratings charts, had an exclusive, and no other reporters were allowed access to Ichiro unless her network agreed to it. They had made some exceptions, but for the most part Steph had kept them out of his now properly cut hair. She went with him to all of the sessions with the senior brass, and made it all look good in the public eye. While she was doing it for obvious professional reasons and Sato essentially had no choice, they found each other to be pleasant company and had become good friends. In a way, Sato wished it might become something more, but he found that there was a deep emotional emptiness inside him that concealed a sense of guilt that the psychologists and psychiatrists had been unable to expunge. On balance, he was happy enough just having a friend who seemed to understand him.
Today, though, was something special: the courier had finally returned from Keran with the meteorological data he had requested to compare with the images he had taken of the cloud formations circling the alien replica of the planet. That information was what the powers that be had been waiting for before holding the final review of what had come to be called the “Aurora Incident.”
Sitting at the front of the main briefing complex at Terran Naval Headquarters with the other presenters, Sato listened as Admiral Tiernan, Chief of the Terran Naval Staff, delivered short opening remarks before a battery of experts, including Sato, was called upon to deliver their findings to a joint council that included everybody who was anybody in the Terran military. The meeting was chaired by Tiernan, but representatives from every service were present, as were Defense Minister Joshua Sabine and several other key cabinet members. The president had decided to wait for the executive summary version from her cabinet representatives: in the meantime, she had more battles to fight with congress.
“Because we have a lot of ground to cover,” Tiernan told the attendees, “I’d like to ask that you hold your questions until the breakout sessions after the main presentation. And with that, I’ll turn it over to Dr. Novikov to begin.”
Dr. Anton Novikov was the director of the medical staff that had examined Sato. “After the most exhaustive test battery we’ve ever run,” Novikov explained, “our findings on examining Lieutenant Sato were completely negative in terms of any identifiable pathogens.” On the main screen in the expansive conference room, a bewildering list of tests, dates, results, and other information scrolled from bottom to top. But no one paid it any attention: everyone’s eyes were riveted on Sato.
“However,” Novikov went on, “we did find clear evidence of physiological manipulation.” On the screen, the blinding list of tests disappeared, replaced by side-by-side bioscans of Sato’s jaw line. “In this case,” Novikov went on, “the cracks that Lieutenant Sato had in two of his lower teeth, sustained during his first year at the academy-” the hairline fractures were highlighted in the bioscan on the left, “-have disappeared, as you can see in the bioscan on the right.” The audience murmured as they examined the two images. While the cracks were subtle in the “before” image, they were nonetheless clear. And they were plainly gone in the “after” image. “We examined them extremely closely, and they are definitely the original teeth, not replacements. But there are no indications of any type of repair: no fusing or any other technique. It’s as though they were never damaged in the first place.”
A new set of bioscans flashed onto the screen, this time of Sato’s left ankle. “Lieutenant Sato had mild scarring of his left achilles tendon from a childhood accident,” the doctor continued. An easily visible mass of tissue at the base of his achilles tendon was highlighted in red. “Again, the evidence of this injury is completely gone in the bioscans we made after his return.” The image on the right showed Sato’s achilles tendon again, but this time in pristine condition. “Ladies and gentlemen, there is no medical application or science we have available to us today that would repair these injuries and leave absolutely no trace behind. There are also other, more subtle, differences that we detected in Lieutenant Sato’s physiology that indicate some sort of medical intervention.” He paused, looking across the audience. “Without a sample, we obviously cannot corroborate Lieutenant Sato’s report of an alien ‘healing gel.’ However, based on our findings, we can certainly say that something happened to him that is beyond our ability to satisfactorily explain. And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes the medical portion of this briefing.”
“Thank you, Dr. Novikov,” Admiral Tiernan told him. “And now I’d like to move on to-”
“What about psychological aberrations?” someone interrupted.
Tiernan frowned. Someone always didn’t get the message about what “hold your questions” meant, but he let the question stand. Novikov hadn’t touched on the psychological aspects, and Tiernan himself was curious.
Novikov shook his head. “We ran an extremely intensive series of psychological tests,” he said. “The reason I did not include the results here is that, aside from some understandable emotional trauma, we could detect no unexpected or unreasonable variations from normal.”
There were some sidelong glances around the room, Sato noticed. More than a few people were concerned that he might have been psychologically influenced or brainwashed by the aliens and made into a spy or assassin. He didn’t really blame them: it was a lot easier to believe that than face the truth.
“Any other questions?” Tiernan asked, the tone of his voice making it clear that there had better not be. Heads shook around the room. “Very well. Captain Bennett, if you please.”
The woman sitting next to Sato rose and took up a position behind the podium. Captain Leona Bennett was the chief engineer that had led the team that had taken Aurora apart from stem to stern. When she looked at the audience, she didn’t smile. She had not liked what her team had found.
“As Dr. Novikov’s team did with Lieutenant Sato himself,” she nodded at him from the podium, “we conducted extended forensics tests of the Aurora, including her hull, interior, and all ship’s systems.
“We found that Aurora herself was completely free of any suspicious microorganisms, particles, or devices. However,” she went on, “as Dr. Novikov found with his patient, there were a number of oddities about the ship that we are at a complete loss to explain.
“The first,” she said as a projection of the ship appeared on the screen, the camera panning from the bow toward the stern, “is that there was no evidence at all of any holes having been cut anywhere in the hull. Even microscopic examination of several specific areas that Lieutenant Sato pointed out to us revealed nothing.
“However,” she went on, “the microscopic scans revealed something completely unexpected, and led to a detailed metallurgical sampling of the hull and interior components.” She flashed a chart up on the display screen. “These are spectrographs of samples of the ship’s outer hull plating during her last refit. As you can see, there are tiny variations in the composition of the alloy. This is normal from slight imperfections in the production processes. This, however,” she said as she changed the display to a new chart, “is not.” Where the previous chart showed slight differences among the samples, the samples in the new chart were eerily identical. “These samples were taken from the same plates in the hull as those in the chart you just saw. Not only are they all identical, but they’re all slightly different than the samples taken during Aurora’s last refit.” She paused, her face taking on a grim expression. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is flat-out impossible unless someone completely remade, on a molecular level and with a precision that we cannot match - the entire ship.”
That sparked an uproar until Tiernan ordered everyone to silence so Captain Bennett could continue.
“That’s not all,” she told them. “More perplexing to us were the findings from the analysis of the ship’s engines. As most of you know, certain components have a limited operational life because of heat, friction, or a variety of other factors and must be periodically replaced.
“But everything in Aurora’s sublight and hyperdrive systems looked brand new,” she explained. “And I have to emphasize that some of the components are normally extremely difficult to get to, and require very special tools. It took my engineers a full week working around the clock to pull the hyperdrive core. And it was clear from the part identification markings and three-dimensional scans that they weren’t replacements: they were the very same parts as installed on the ship’s last refit. But somehow made new.”
Looking directly at Admiral Tiernan, she summed up her findings and her fears. “Sir, I can’t confirm Lieutenant Sato’s story from what we found on the ship. But I can definitely confirm that something incredibly strange happened to that ship, something that’s centuries beyond our current engineering capability.”
Those around the room fell silent. Bennett had a reputation for being an engineering genius, and many had long thought her talents wasted in the Navy. Her last words sent a haunting chill through the senior military officers and civilian officials who sat around the table at the center of the room.
“Thank you, captain,” Tiernan said into the resounding silence. He had already read the summary and most of the details of Bennett’s findings, but was nonetheless disturbed. While she made it clear that there was no indication that the ship itself posed any danger, whoever had manipulated the vessel was clearly in a league of their own in terms of technology.
“Dr. Larsen will now present the results of the study of the substance, believed to be blood, found on Lieutenant Sato’s sword,” Tiernan said, nodding toward a tall, thin man with thinning blonde hair who sat on the other side of Sato. “Doctor, if you would, please.”
Larsen was nervous as he took the stage. Unlike many academics who had a lot of experience in front of people, even if just students in a classroom, Larsen had very little: his life was spent in the laboratory. He was widely published, but had generally avoided giving public talks himself. Instead, he almost always trusted it to one of his understudies.
Sato grimaced inwardly, expecting a droning catalog of esoteric genetic technobabble, but he, along with most of the rest of the audience, was surprised as Larsen’s stage fright was overcome by enthusiasm for his topic.
“You have already seen many incredible things in the various reports from the analyses of Aurora and young Lieutenant Sato,” Larsen began, reading from his notes after clearing his throat several times. “But I believe that those revelations pale in significance to the findings I bring before you now.” He groped around on the podium for a moment, finally finding the control to bring up his first display.
“Here you see the double-helix that we are all familiar with,” he explained as a strand of DNA slowly turned on the screen behind him. “While it varies depending on the species used for comparison, human DNA - a reconstruction of which you see on the screen behind me - is much more similar to other Earth-descended life forms than it is different. For example, we share roughly ninety-five percent commonality in our DNA with chimpanzees.” A second strand of DNA appeared on the screen next to the first, with a watermark of a chimp behind it. To the untrained eye, the two strands were identical.
“Now, ladies and gentlemen,” Larsen said, for the first time glancing up from his prepared notes, clearly excited, “I know that you expected me to ramble on about gene sequences and such. But there is no need once you’ve seen this.”
The chimp DNA disappeared, and was replaced by the image of a new double helix. It was nearly twice as long as the human DNA strand, and had strange protrusions from the helix at regular intervals along its length. The audience made a collective gasp: Larsen’s team had only just finished their analysis, and no one, not even Tiernan, had yet seen the results until now.
“Yes, ladies and gentlemen,” Larsen told them, turning to look admiringly at the image. “This is something entirely new to our science! Nowhere in all the worlds we have surveyed have we seen anything like it. Some parts of it, we understand; others, such as these strange extensions-” he pointed to one of the protrusions, “-continue to baffle us. There is much controversy among those of us looking at the samples brought back by Lieutenant Sato. But there are two incontrovertible facts. First, that this gene sequence can encode vastly more information than our own DNA; and second, that it is not from any known species of life that humanity has ever encountered and sampled.
“While this is all still very preliminary,” he went on, turning back to his stunned audience, “I feel compelled to point out that a majority of my colleagues are convinced that the species or sub-species that this sample came from was genetically engineered, that there is far too much data in the structure to have been encoded naturally, even over an extended period of evolution. Others believe differently. I myself am not yet decided on the matter. But we are all in agreement that it is of completely unknown origin.”
“I don’t bloody believe it,” someone murmured.
I wish I could say that, Tiernan thought. Whether Sato had really found blue-skinned alien women from hell out in deep space or not, something was out there. “Thank you, Dr. Larsen,” he told him, relieved that the haunting image of that alien DNA had been taken off the screen.
As Larsen shuffled off the stage, Tiernan turned to look directly at Sato. “Okay, son, it’s your show.”
Sato took his place at the podium, facing his audience. In his earlier life, he would have been terrified of briefing such an assembly of senior officers and civilians. But he had already come to know many of them fairly well over the last few weeks through an endless series of vidcom calls, and what he had experienced on the Aurora had forever changed his threshold of fear. His eye caught Steph sitting in the back row, again wearing her “killer red dress,” as she liked to call it. He didn’t acknowledge the wink she gave him, but her confidence warmed him nonetheless.
“Thank you, sir,” Sato said, his strong voice carrying well without the need for artificial amplification. “Since most of you already know the background on what you’re going to see, a comparison of the cloud formations on the alien artifact representing Keran with time-matched meteorological records sent back from the Keran government, I’ll skip over the preliminaries and get to the bottom line.” He pressed a button on the tiny remote he held, and the massive screen at the head of the room suddenly showed an image of a planet that looked much like Earth, with a set of time and date information at the bottom. “This is satellite data that was delivered to us this morning by courier from Keran,” Sato explained. “Please note the date and time information, which is shown in Universal Standard to correspond with the times of the images I took while returning on Aurora.” The view of the planet suddenly changed from that of a typical sphere, expanding to show a two-dimensional display of the entire planet, as if it had been converted to a wall map. Three red circles flashed on, illuminating some large cloud masses. “These three major storms are good points of reference for what we’re about to see in this first sample.”
He clicked the remote again, and that image shrank to half the screen, while another image of what looked like the same planet appeared, except that it was suspended on a metal ring in an image capture stand. Identical time and date information to what was on the first image appeared at the bottom. “This is the alien artifact that appears to represent Keran, taken at the same relative time.” Another click, and the sphere was reformed to show a rectangular display of the entire planet’s surface as Sato had done a moment before with the satellite imagery, with three red circles around major storm systems.
“These cloud formations look similar, but the question is, are they the same? I had the computer highlight any differences between them in bright red.” Sato clicked the remote again. The two images came together and were merged. “As you can see, they appear to be the same. Closer analysis revealed, however, that the two images are not just similar, but are identical.” He paused. “This means that the alien artifact is showing not just some random representation of Keran, but is actually echoing an image of the planet in real-time, even from hundreds of light years away.”
“That’s impossible,” someone blurted.
“To us, perhaps,” Sato said. “But this isn’t a fluke. I made a dozen different recordings over the four months of the journey back to Earth. Every single one of those recordings was a perfect match with the imagery from Keran.”
“So what does this mean?” the Minister of Defense, Joshua Sabine, asked pointedly. “I’ve heard the arguments both ways about there being a Kreelan ship in Keran space somehow broadcasting to this...artifact. But how does it influence our strategy?”
“It means, Mr. Secretary,” Tiernan pointed out, “that, aside from the implications such advanced technology has in general, the enemy has unparalleled reconnaissance and communications capabilities compared to our own forces. They’ll know about anything that goes on in Keran space instantly, while we have to rely on couriers for inter-system communications. And, of course, if the Keran government doesn’t allow us to preposition any forces in the system when the clock is about to run out, we’ll have nothing in the way of reconnaissance to help us if the president orders us in.” He tossed the pen he’d been idly twirling in his fingers onto the table. “We’ll be going in completely blind.”
“It’s actually worse, admiral,” Sato told him quietly, although his voice still carried easily through the hush that had settled on the room.
“How can it be worse?” Sabine growled.
“Sir,” Sato went on, “it’s something that we discovered this morning. I never thought to check for this myself, but Miss Guillaume,” he nodded toward the back of the room toward Steph, “happened to be doing some video recording of the artifact, and had the idea of taking some very close-up macro shots. What she found prompted us to turn a high resolution microscope onto the artifact. Here are the results of some of the images we took.”
With another click of the remote, a seaside city suddenly sprang into view. But it wasn’t a typical landscape scene as taken from someone on the ground; it was as if it had been taken from the air. Oceangoing ships, vehicular traffic, even large groups of people could clearly be discerned in the video image. The scene shifted to what was clearly a military facility, with armored vehicles aligned next to vehicle sheds and rows of barracks nearby. It shifted again to show a major airport, with aerospace vehicles taking off and landing, shuttling people and cargo to low orbit.
“Dear mother of God,” Sabine whispered. “Are you telling me that what we’re seeing here is - was - really happening at the time these images were taken of the artifact?”
Sato nodded grimly. “Yes, sir. We haven’t confirmed it directly, of course, because that would require another courier run to Keran for additional data. But based on our analysis this morning of both the meteorological and ocean wave data that we were able to compare with the artifact, we believe that what you are seeing here actually took place, and is not a random simulation of the activity on the planet.” He paused. “And these images are really limited by the equipment we had available at the time. I believe that it would be theoretically possible to go to street level and see the individual people there as clearly as we see each other around the table here.”
“Anything else to cheer us up with, Sato?” Tiernan sighed. He knew it wasn’t the boy’s fault, but this was all news that he definitely did not want to hear.
“Actually, yes, sir, there is some good news.” He clicked the remote again, clearing the troubling close-ups of Keran from the screen. “As you know, I believe the artifact is a countdown timer for the invasion.” Several heads around the table nodded. Very few had been inclined to believe his claim before, but he saw that much of the doubt about his story had faded quickly in the last half hour. “It is gradually changing what it shows over time, I believe morphing from a real-time image to some sort of artificial projection of what may happen.” A recent view of the artifact showed the smoke from the northern continent swirling into the polar region, and a variety of ships orbiting, apparently in combat. “So, using what Miss Guillaume discovered this morning, we turned our attention to the ships we periodically see passing across the northern pole of the artifact, as well as to some of the surface areas that appear to have been attacked. It was very difficult in the short time we had to do the analysis this morning, so these results must be considered preliminary, but...”
He clicked again, and suddenly a rakish vessel, what could only have been a warship, swam into jittery focus. To those in the room who had knowledge of such things, it clearly was not of any human design. Where human warships, regardless of the builder, tended to be very utilitarian in nature, made up largely of basic shapes and sharp angles with a variety of antennas and weapons arrays poking out into space, this one looked almost like a super-sized aerospace fighter aircraft. It fired what looked like a brace of missiles and followed up with a salvo of what appeared to be lasers at a target that was outside the field of view. “While we’ll need more exact measurements,” Sato said as his audience sat, transfixed by the scene, “we believe this particular ship to be roughly on a par in size with our heavy cruisers. It is nothing close to the size of the ships that attacked Aurora. And from what little we were able to tell this morning, reflected in what you see here, the weapons this ship is using appear to be roughly similar to those in general use by human warships.”
“Has this information been turned over to my analysts for further study?” Vladimir Penkovsky, head of Terran Intelligence, asked pointedly.
Sato opened his mouth to respond, but was cut off by Vice Admiral Mary “Bunny” Richards, the Commander-in-Chief, Orbital Systems Command. Her command was responsible for all the orbital platforms like Africa Station, and she was at the top of Sato’s current command chain. Sato had always wondered if anybody really ever called her Bunny. He knew that he certainly never would.
Eying Penkovsky with evident distaste, Admiral Richards told him in her heavily accented native British, “Lieutenant Sato and his team sent a report out this morning at oh-eight-forty, along with a request for support from TIA.” TIA was Penkovsky’s Terran Intelligence Agency.
“Listen, Joshua,” Penkovsky told the Defense Minister, “we need better integration on the intelligence side of this. We’ve been kept at arm’s length-”
“With all due respect, sir,” Richards interjected. “TIA was invited from the very beginning to participate in the debriefing and on the analyses of Aurora, but you declined.”
“Enough,” the Defense Minister held up his hands. “Vlad, we’ll take this up later off-line. On the one hand you’re right: we do need better integration between operations and intelligence, particularly in light of these recent revelations.” He nodded toward the screen, which now showed blurry images of what appeared to be some sort of assault boats disgorging from a larger vessel, probably an alien troop carrier, before they plunged toward the surface. “But let’s count our blessings, people, what few of them we’ve got. I don’t know if we can accept what we see here as valid - maybe the enemy is trying to deceive us - but at least we’ve got something to work with, and that’s where we need to start.” He looked at Sato. “Lieutenant, this is damn good work.” Turning toward the back of the room, he nodded at Steph. “You, too, Miss Guillaume.”
Steph smiled her thanks, grateful for the notice.
Sitting back in his chair, Sabine said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m going to be candid here: does anyone not believe that we have a real reason to be worried? Does anyone still think this is some sort of hoax, and if so, do you have any plausible story to back it up? I’m not looking for people to hit in the head, I just want to make sure we’re not overlooking some other plausible explanation.”
The faces around the table, along with the back-benchers, were uniformly grim. Those who had come into the presentation scoffing at the whole affair were now believers. They didn’t even have to believe all of Sato’s story: the evidence presented today was terrifying enough.
Sabine turned back to Sato. “How much time does Keran have left?”
Sato answered without hesitation. They had confirmed that the progression of the depiction of war southward across the artifact’s surface was at a constant rate, and had refined his own original estimates. Unfortunately, the confirmed rate left them with less time than Sato had originally predicted. “Four hundred and eighty-three days from today, sir,” he told him. “A little over sixteen months.”
A lot of heads shook at that number, and Sato heard several groans and curses. No one in this room had really, truly believed it until then. But seeing an image of what was clearly an alien ship made it a lot more real than the word of an emotionally devastated midshipman-turned-lieutenant.
“All right,” Sabine went on, “that’s what we have to work with. Ladies and gentlemen, I can’t emphasize enough how important it’s going to be to pull what we can together as fast as possible. This is the president’s number one priority. We’re probably going to go through some rough changes in how we do things, so be flexible and remember what’s at stake. Because if they can hit Keran, they can hit Earth. They proved that with how they sent Aurora back to us.”
“Which brings up the question of why they even bothered to send you back,” Penkovsky said, looking at Sato. “Why not just attack out of the blue and wipe us off the map? Why go to all this trouble of warning us?”
Sabine turned to look at Sato, too, as if the young lieutenant had all the answers.
“I believe,” he said slowly, “that it is their sense of honor.”
“Explain,” Admiral Tiernan told him.
“I am only speculating, sir. But consider: only the members of the crew who fought back, or were in a group that collectively fought back, survived the original boarding attack. I believe the only exception was the engineers tasked with destroying the computer core, who apparently died fighting. From what Lieutenant Amundsen said, it sounded as if they forced the Kreelans to kill them before they could be stunned. But that is only a guess.” He glanced at Steph, and saw her nod. It didn’t matter how many times he’d thought or spoken of what happened in the arena, it was still impossible to talk about it without having to seize firm control of his emotions. “Then those of us who were herded into the arena faced off against warriors who were clearly chosen to be roughly equal to ourselves. We were given a choice of weapons, and they fought without the armor that they normally wore. Petty Officer Yao believed that it was a test of our character, and everything the aliens did seemed to be aimed at making the contest as equal as possible.” He nodded toward the images on the screen, now showing the alien warship again. “The lottery was also clearly intended to choose one of us to send back, to bear witness to what happened. I believe that sending the Aurora back tells us that they are intentionally giving us a chance to prepare. I believe that they want us to put up a good fight.” He shrugged. “It would have made my job much easier for them to have left the ship’s sensor and navigational records intact, but perhaps that was all part of the test of our character, as well.”
“What if we refuse to give them a fight?” Penkovsky mused. “What if they jump into Keran and are welcomed with open arms?”
“The people on the planet will be slaughtered,” Sato said bluntly, “to the last man, woman, and child. Just like the Kreelans cut down everyone on Aurora who didn’t fight back.”
“You have no doubt of that?” Admiral Tiernan asked softly.
“None, sir,” Sato told him, fists clenched at his sides. “I saw enough to convince me.”
Tiernan nodded sadly. He had known Owen McClaren well, and his death and that of his crew hit him personally.
“All right, then, people,” Sabine told them. “If the president can get us the money and the people, we’ve got a fleet to build and a war to prepare for. And we don’t have much time...”