CHAPTER 6
THERE WERE A LOT OF QUESTIONS I wanted to ask. To their credit, the men with me were utterly silent. Checked. Nope, none of them had run off to share this news with the rest of the team. Good. This was news that was going to take a diplomatic touch to disseminate. I probably was not the girl for this job, but I’d also likely have to muddle through because that was my job. Always the way.
“Um, my first question may surprise you. How can we see what we’re seeing?”
“We were given long-range viewing by Alpha Four,” Walter said. “Something the Planetary Council brought with them.”
“Ancient technology at its core,” Wruck said. “Though they probably don’t realize it.”
“Does all of Earth have this Ancient At Its Core Alpha Four Technology?” Because if they did, the entire planet was going to go to DEFCON 1 in a matter of moments.
“No. It’s restricted to being wherever Mister Executive Chief is, which is why I have this and Dulce does not. I am the only one with this equipment right now, Chief First Lady.”
Meaning no one knew about this right now other than Walter, me, Buchanan, Siler, Wruck, a Poof, and three Peregrines. Actively chose not to contemplate Jeff and Chuckie’s reactions to Walter’s choices, just hoped Mom would approve.
“Walt, I know it’s hard for you, but no titles right now. Do it for me. You can use them again when we’ve worked through this particular Gordian knot.”
He heaved a sigh. “Okay . . . Kitty.”
“Good man. Okay, so, are these all coming from the same directions?”
“No, they’re not. The equipment scans space for signatures of traveling ships. Once it spots such, it hones in. We can see about a hundred light-years in any direction.”
Buchanan whistled softly. “Does NASA know about this?”
“Not yet,” Walter admitted. “Right now, Emperor Alexander wants this under Jeff and Kitty’s control and no one else’s.”
Meaning Councilor Leonidas, who was basically Alpha Four’s version of Winston Churchill, didn’t want just anyone using this equipment. Couldn’t blame him—with this we could apparently check in on the A-C system as easily as we could check in on Japan. Checked Walter’s Earth Screens. All seemed reasonably okay all over the world. For the moment. Had a feeling that moment was going to be gone really quickly.
“So it sees what’s going on in the Alpha Centauri system?” Siler asked.
“Yes, and other systems as well. But as long as it’s normal space traffic, I keep scanning. These aren’t normal. In that they aren’t traveling within their own solar systems, but are in the space between systems. I tend to ignore those, too, because they’re usually traveling between systems far from us. However, these appear to be heading for Earth.”
“I remember we had a star chart from the Ancients.” Looked at Wruck.
Who nodded. “Every ship travels with a galactic map. And, to anticipate your question, there are a large number of inhabited star systems within a hundred light-years of Earth.” He studied the screens. “And, based on the ship designs, all these five are from nearby systems, as in, systems Walter can observe.”
Let the idea of a hundred light-years counting as “nearby” pass. I wasn’t living in a world where that distance was insurmountable. I lived in a world where entire fleets made hyperspace jumps from the Galactic Core without issue. Usually to come and try to destroy us.
“How close are the ships that you’re worried about?” Buchanan asked.
“They’re all between us and the Alpha Centauri system,” Walter replied. “I didn’t contact anyone until I was sure that they weren’t going there.”
“They have their own scanning. Did anyone from Alpha Four or any of the other planets give us the heads-up?”
No sooner asked than a weird beeping noise came out of something that looked kind of like a computer, but not one made on Earth. Walter put on a headset and started writing at hyperspeed.
He stopped, took the headset off, and turned back to the rest of us. “Yes, Kitty, that was them just now. They’ve determined that the trajectories are clear and they feel that these ships are absolutely heading for Earth.”
“Lucky us. John, you seem to know the ships.”
“Yes. They’re from different systems.” He pointed to the rightmost screen with a ship that looked like a large manta ray, complete with its wings or flaps or whatever moving slowly up and down as if it really was a ray swimming through space. “This one belongs to the Vrierst. They’re farthest from home here.”
“Per what everyone’s said and our knowledge of where we sit in the galaxy, they’re all far from home if they’re in our neck of the woods, even though they’re in our neighborhood, so to speak. I’m going to refrain from asking if Earth has somehow gotten onto the Galactic Hot Spots list and instead ask if everyone else thinks the ship that’s fairly close to the Vrierst ship looks like a hand trowel with a wide handle or if it’s just me.”
Wruck managed a chuckle. “I suppose it does. That belongs to the Yggethnia System. There are several inhabited planets in that system and they tend to work together. They’re one of the two closest to Earth, after Alpha Centauri, that is.”
Another screen had a ship that was ball-shaped, with what looked like a variety of neon-blue rings encircling it in various directions—all spinning so fast that I could only see them moving because I was enhanced with A-C abilities thanks to the mother and child feedback I’d had when Jamie was born—so that it resembled our depictions of atoms. “Who’s in the funky Death Star Atomizer?”
“That would be a ship of the Themnir. They’re from Sirius, so the next closest after Yggethnia. And they’re extremely pacifistic. That’s not a Death Star, it’s what they call a Roving Planet.”
“What about the one that looks like a tree?” Buchanan asked, before I could make another Star Wars comment, pointing to the next screen. He wasn’t wrong, but it was a tree that was definitely a spaceship. A giant treeship.
“That’s a Faradawn ship,” Wruck said. “And it’s the type of ship they use to collect survivors of battles, disasters, and so forth.”
“So, are they like the Shantanu?” The Shantanu were the colorful penguin people from Alpha Seven. They essentially functioned as the Alpha Centaurion System’s version of the Red Cross.
“Not in looks, but if you’re asking if they’re the people who go out and help others, yes, they are.” He looked worried.
“So, why are they, and all these others, coming here?” Bingo, Wruck looked more worried by this question of mine.
“I can only assume something bad is happening in the galaxy,” he said finally.
“You mean more bad than normal?” I asked.
Wruck shook his head. “I honestly have no guess.”
“I’m fond of the Borg ship myself,” Siler said, indicating our fifth entry, which was a cube.
“That belongs to the Lyssara, and they’d call it a comb, not a cube.” We all stared at Wruck.
“Um, John? I don’t see anything that would indicate that said ship was like something any of us would use on our hair.”
“Oh. No. Not a comb like that. A comb like bees create. They’re like giant honeybees. As you’d understand them.”
Was about to come up with a really snarky retort when Walter shifted a bit in his chair and I finally caught sight of the last screen showing in outer space. That ship in this section of our neighborhood really caught my eye. “Is that a Z’porrah ship?”