by Gini Koch
Wruck nodded. “It goes the other way, as well. There are Z’porrah who are our spies, for example.”
“I learn something new every single day. Glad I’m open to it. Speaking of which, though, there’s no way your people call themselves the Ancients. As far as I knew, the A-Cs here on Earth named you guys the Ancients.”
“In a way. However, the sound of the name we call ourselves is very close. Anciannas is our real name. It’s not surprising the A-Cs translated that to Ancients. And these days, it fits.”
“Yeah, it does. You know, LaRue—well, the LaRue on Bizarro World—told me that the name you had for yourselves was unpronounceable for humans.”
Wruck shrugged. “The Z’porrah refuse to use our name. She was a Z’porrah spy.”
“Gotcha. She didn’t want to say the name so told me I couldn’t say it and we moved on. So, was the book we found and translated a religious text?”
“Yes, it was. We traveled with it for reasons similar to why an Earthling would travel with the Bible or the Koran.”
“Always nice to be right.” Not that there was anyone here who I could lord this over, but when I had some time, I was definitely going to share this with Jeff, Christopher, and Alpha Team and be as smug about it as possible. “Speaking of formerly held beliefs, we all thought that the crew your crew came to check up on died here due to pollution. The crew whose crash we know about, I mean.”
He shrugged. “LaRue hid our ship with someone, Yates, I’d assume, because she didn’t crash it.”
“How did she think she’d killed all of you if you weren’t in the ship?” Buchanan asked.
“She shot us all, then lit us on fire, and tossed our bodies into the Superstition Mountains in Arizona. Something she did right before this gave me a warning. I didn’t have time to avoid getting shot, but I was able to alter into a race that can survive pretty much anything. I believe you met them.”
“You turned into an Alpha Seven Cleophese? I’d think LaRue would have noted one of her crew turning into a Cthulhu lookalike.”
He managed a smile. “I maintained my appearance but took on some of the Cleophese properties. I wasn’t able to shift into a full Cleophese—it was why I had to recover from my injuries before I could start tracking LaRue, and why those injuries almost killed me anyway. I’d have died like the others if I hadn’t had that one moment’s warning.” Now he looked sad. “I had no time to warn anyone else.”
“We all hate her, and even though the original is dead, trust me, I’m all about finding any and all of her clones and destroying them sooner as opposed to later.” Had another thought. “She had a Z’porrah power cube with her, right?”
“Yes. I saw it, the glitter of it, right before she attacked us. That was what warned me. And I assume that’s what she used to hide our ship.”
“Meaning there’s an Ancient spacecraft somewhere on Earth.” Something else for us to try to find. Mentally added it onto our to-do list. It was a long list, and getting longer daily.
“This didn’t answer Kitty’s actual question,” Siler pointed out.
“True. Regarding the crew, we came to find, as shapeshifters, that we can adapt quickly to circumstances, including polluted ones. In fact, adapting to pollution is easier than what I had to do in order to survive LaRue’s attack. We can adapt to breathe underwater. Pollution is unpleasant but survivable. As far as I know, the first ship didn’t crash so much as it was shot down.”
“Wouldn’t that have given them time to shapeshift, though?” I asked.
“If it had been a conventional shot from an Earth force, yes. It was from a hidden Z’porrah power cube and, as far as I’ve pieced together, the shot essentially paralyzed the crew. They had no way to avoid crashing and they were unable to shift into a form that could survive the impact.”
After Operation Destruction and all the hidden tunnels, rooms, and power cubes we’d found, the assumption had been just what Wruck was describing. But it was different, hearing Wruck tell us about how people he would have known—his people far more than we were or could ever be—had died. He sounded dispassionate. I knew in my gut that he wasn’t.
“That must have been horrible,” Buchanan said quietly. “Knowing you’re about to die and being unable to do anything to save yourself.”
“We’re at war,” Wruck said, as if this answered everything. Sadly, it probably did. “At any rate, the paralysis would be why the bodies would have been in a good state of preservation, and probably why death from pollutants or just Earth’s atmosphere was the presumed cause of death.”
We stopped talking about this cheery subject as we reached Walter’s White House Security Command Center and went in. Walter had set this up similarly to how we did it all over Centaurion Division, meaning it looked nothing like a normal human would expect. Because Security A-Cs, especially those who were in command positions, were expected to sleep on the job.
This was probably because the original Head of Security, Gladys Gower, had been a combination of a dream reader and empath, meaning that she could feel and see things going on in her sleep and was basically on the job 24/7. Therefore, the security command center in the main A-C facility, the Dulce Science Center in New Mexico, had several bedrooms connected to its futuristic eye in the sky setup, because Gladys had had a support team.
At the American Centaurion Embassy, Walter had been a one-man operation. He’d made the sitting room portion of his bedroom suite into the command center and had put a cot next to his equipment. Here at the White House the setup was similar, but because there were a lot of humans around, the bed was in the connecting room. The eye in the sky equipment, however, was in full force. TV screens, computers, audio equipment, and things I didn’t bother to try to identify were all over this room. Walter was in a big, comfy executive chair on wheels. I was about ninety-nine percent certain he slept in the chair more than his bed.
That the A-Cs still expected their various security chiefs to be 24/7 and essentially leashed to their command center was something I’d given up arguing about. Pointing out that having people trying to follow in the footsteps of a talented rarity fell on deaf ears, particularly the ears of those I was trying to relieve. Walter, who had no talents, William, who was a top imageer, Missy, who was now the Head of Security at the Embassy and whose talent situation I was unaware of, and every other A-C given this duty worldwide were all adamant that making changes was not in their manifesto. They were going to be as close to Gladys as they could be or die trying. The Security A-Cs were possibly the most dedicated of all the various divisions.
Walter was—true to expectations and despite the vast number of Secret Service agents we had hanging about—alone except for his Poof, Teddy, who was perched on his shoulder, and his Peregrines, George and Gracie, who were sitting near him.
Poofs were adorable alien animals, small round balls of cuteness with black button eyes and no visible ears or tails because of how fluffy their fur was. They were considered the Royal Pets of the Alpha Four Royal Family, of which the Martinis and Gowers were a part and into which the Whites had married. However, I’d discovered that they were really animals from the Black Hole Universe, and therefore they all technically belonged to the person who’d brought them with him to this universe when he’d taken off for Crimes in Support of Free Will.
This was probably why the Poofs could go Jeff-sized with a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth whenever danger threatened, and why they were able to ingest things—Z’porrah power cubes, weapons, anything they wanted or I asked them to—without feeling any ill effects. They also attached to whoever named them, and they had a really wide view of what constituted a name. I tended to consider that whoever had a Poof as a pet was approved as an ally.
The Peregrines, on the other hand, looked like peacocks and peahens on steroids, complete with really nasty claws and beaks and total brawler attitudes, and they were truly
from Alpha Four. They were also Royal Protectors and tended to work in mated pairs. Alexander had sent us a dozen such pairs when Jamie was born, and by now we had a whole lot more. Walter had had George and Gracie from the start, and while my Peregrines Bruno and Lola were the Head Birds, George and Gracie considered themselves the Chief Security Birds. Peregrines took their jobs seriously.
Like Siler, the Peregrines had the ability to go chameleon, where they blended into the surroundings and could only be seen by those they allowed to see them. As such, when Bruno went visible I didn’t jump so much as feel I should have mentioned to Jeff that I’d have Attack Bird support in case of trouble in addition to the dudes with me. By now, even Jeff had admitted that the Peregrines were great protection.
Bruno and George started to have a quiet bird conversation. I caught bits of it— basically Bruno was getting George’s views on the situation. What I couldn’t catch was what George’s views actually were, though he seemed to be matching Walter in the worried department.
That I could understand any of it was because I’d somehow become Dr. Doolittle and could talk to the animals. The animals always understood me, but I could only understand them if they wanted me to. Right now, Bruno and George didn’t care if I heard them, but they weren’t going out of their way to ensure I could comprehend. No worries. I had an A-C here that I could get all the pertinent info from anyway.
“Walt, what’s going on?”
Walter didn’t look upset to see Siler and Wruck. Interesting. He did, however, look deeply worried. “Several things, Chief First Lady.” He cleared his throat. “Ah, I think the four of you should prepare yourselves.”
Well, presumably I could get information out of him. “It’s Anticipatory Statement Day, I see. I didn’t get the memo, but I can roll with it. What, exactly, should we be prepared for, Walt?”
“Potentially an invasion.”
Let that one sit on the air for a few moments while I ran through the countries crazy enough to try to invade the USA right now, when we were on, essentially, an Extremely Touchy High Alert and had been for a couple of months now. “Okay, so I’m going to focus on the word ‘potentially’ and assume this is why you wanted me to come here and didn’t want to share this with everyone else in the LSR.”
“Yes.” Walter pointed to several of his screens. We all got closer to him and them and took a look-see.
“Huh.” Honestly didn’t know what else to say. Because what I was seeing wasn’t on Earth. No, what I was seeing were spaceships. And they weren’t Earth or Alpha Centaurion spaceships.
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 i
n 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.”