by Rick Partlow
“When I think,” Julie said between gasps, “that we could have been lying on a beach on Kauai…”
“Come on,” I said, grunting the words, leaning into the steps cut into the trail, my quads burning with the effort, the straps of my backpack cutting into my shoulders, “just look at that view. Would you trade that for a beach in Hawaii?”
Grinnell Lake shone aquamarine in the morning sun, nestled in the green hills of Glacier National Park. Well, green and a little white. We were pushing the season and tempting fate backpacking Glacier in mid-September and there was a dusting of snow from last night, but it was melting off quick. I was betting we had a window for a three-night backpacking trip.
“It’s a great view,” she admitted, pausing for a second and leaning over to get the weight of her pack off her shoulders. “There are a lot of nice views in Hawaii, too…”
“Hey, we did Bali already.” I took advantage of the break to grab a water bottle and suck down a quick drink. “We agreed, you’d pick the first half of the honeymoon and I’d pick the second. You know I like the mountains.” I nudged her, grinning lasciviously. “Besides, this time of year, we’ll have the campground pretty much to ourselves.”
“Like I’m going to have the energy for that,” she scoffed. Then she frowned and her head tipped upward. “Is that a helicopter?”
“I don’t know.” I shaded my eyes and searched the sky, cloudless and painfully blue. It was about forty-five degrees, but I was still sweating. “Did you already call for an evac?”
“There it is,” she said, pointing. Her scowl deepened. “Is that a Blackhawk?”
It was, and it was the dark green of an Army bird, the white star on the side confirming it. And it was heading straight for us.
“Oh, shit,” I murmured.
“You don’t think….,” she trailed off, looking between me and the helicopter. “They wouldn’t really do that, would they?”
The helo was almost directly overhead now, about two hundred feet above us and descending. When the door opened and a soldier kicked a rope ladder down to us, I knew that yes, they indeed would do that.
“Major Clanton, Colonel Nieves,” the pilot’s voice came over a loudspeaker in the side of the bird, “please board the aircraft.”
“Hey assholes!” Julie yelled up into the thump-thump of the rotors, “we’re on our honeymoon!”
I sighed and grabbed the ladder when it whipped by. There was no point in arguing.
“Baby,” I told her, “I think the honeymoon’s over.”
***
When the Blackhawk had taken us to a private jet at the Glacier Park airport, I’d been convinced we were heading to Texas. It wasn’t quite that bad. The base in Idaho was a three hour flight and there was even beverage service.
Michael Olivera was waiting for us in the briefing room at the Alpha Site in Idaho, which I had halfway expected. Anu Neeme Klas was also waiting, which I had not.
“Brother, sister,” he greeted us, offering me first a nuzzle and then a hug, then doing the same to Julie, who looked bemused by the whole thing. “I beg your forgiveness for calling you away from your journey, but I fear the news I bring could not wait for your return.”
“You called us back?” I asked, not trying to hide my confusion.
“Don’t blame me,” Olivera insisted. “Ambassador Anu Neeme Klas contacted the President and asked for you and that was pretty much the end of the debate process.”
“What’s up?” Julie wondered. “What’s so urgent?”
“Tell me the Tevynians haven’t started causing trouble again already,” I pleaded with him. Holy hell, they couldn’t have that many warships left, could they?
“No, they have drawn in their horns and begun to concentrate what defenses they have left in their home system and a few colonies around it.” The Skrith bared his teeth. “The Chamblisi and the Helta have begun a campaign under guidance from your advisors to retake the shipyards they’ve captured, and with those out of their grasp, it will be some time before they are again a threat.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The Helta and the Chamblisi have long kept gravimetic sensors along the outer edges of their territories, trained outward, hoping for some signal, some sign that there are more of us out there, more races seeded by the Elders. Before the war they built them, not just in their own systems but in ours and the Vironians as well. Many of them were lost when our outer systems fell to the Tevynians, but we have, of late, retaken several of these worlds as the enemy has fallen back.”
He gestured to Olivera and the general touched a control on his comm unit. The holographic projector above the conference table at the center of the room snapped to life and showed us a star map. One system was highlighted in red, though I couldn’t have told you where the hell it was in relation to Earth from looking at the map.
“In this, the Deathroaring system, we finally checked the last ten years’ worth of recorded readings from the automated sensors.”
“The gravimetic sensors can detect hyperdimensional communications signals,” Olivera explained.
“And we have picked up just such a signal,” Anu told us, bristling with excitement like a puppy who’s just found a mirror. “We can’t interpret it, but it’s definitely not a natural pattern. And it’s coming from here.” He jabbed a finger at the map and another system lit up in red, connected to the first by a line that seemed to go on forever. “It’s at least five hundred light-years from the edge of our settled systems, inward toward the galactic center.”
“You think it’s an alien species?” Julie asked him. For the first time since we’d boarded the helicopter in Glacier, she seemed genuinely interested rather than annoyed.
“We think,” Anu said, “that it may be the Elders themselves.”
I whistled softly.
“This is farther than anyone has traveled before,” he explained, “and we have no idea what sorts of threats we may face. We would not risk such a journey without protection. And no one is more qualified to guard the expedition than you humans.”
“What do you say?” Olivera asked, smiling crookedly, arms folded over his chest. “Are you two going to retire to a life of domestic bliss…or do you want travel halfway across the galaxy and see if we can find the Elders themselves?”
I met Julie’s eyes and she shook her head. “I know you wanted out of this. I don’t want to drag you back into it.”
I tried not to grin like an idiot, but it was a losing battle.
“You’re asking me,” I said, laughing softly, “if I want to boldly go where no man has gone before?”
“Oh, good God,” Olivera moaned, rubbing at his temples like his head hurt. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”
“I only have one question,” I said. “When do we leave?”
CHAPTER TWO
Back Matter
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Acknowledgments
With special thanks to Ellen Campbell, my editor, for the great job she did on the series.
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About Rick Partlow
Rick Partlow is that rarest of species, a native Floridian. Born in Tampa, he attended Florida Southern College and graduated with a degree in History and a commission in the US Army as an Infantry officer.
His lifelong love of science fiction began with Have Space Suit---Will Travel and the other Heinlein juveniles and traveled through Clifford Simak, Asimov, Clarke and on to William Gibson, Walter Jon Williams and Peter F Hamilton. And somewhere, submerged in the worlds of others, Rick began to create his own worlds.
He has written 40 books in ten different series, and his short stories have been included in twelve different anthologies.
He is currently writing the best-selling Drop Troo
per series for Aethon Books, a mil-SF alien invasion series and the ongoing Interstellar Bounty Hunter series.
He lives in central Florida with his wife, two children and a willful mutt of a dog. Besides writing and reading science fiction and fantasy, he enjoys outdoor photography, hiking and camping.