by Jyr, Aer-ki
“They’re staying put?”
“For the time being, yes.”
“I’m heading back to my office, set up a tactical feed there with holo.”
“We’ll keep you in the loop, but if there is a fight to be had it’s going to be a quick one.”
“Copy that,” Davis said, deactivating the earpiece and pulling it out as they rode the lift through the city. “Thank you,” he said, giving it back to the security officer. “I can find my way back from here.”
The man nodded and waited out the rest of the transit in the car beside him, then stayed inside when the doors opened and Davis ran out. The Director worked his way back towards his office, blowing through the various security checkpoints and hitting his staircase without bothering to confer with his staff, knowing they’d have everything he needed to know sent up to his desktop.
When he got back up on his office floor there was a lifesize hologram standing next to his desk, which he immediately recognized as Roger-009. Davis triggered and stepped onto his own holopad, with the trailblazer now able to see him from his end.
“No change as yet, aside from more ships coming in. Count now up to 138. They’re staggered pretty wide. Either that’s a conscious choice or their navigation systems suck.”
“Confirm they’re not V’kit’no’sat.”
“Not a chance,” Roger dismissed. “But I have no idea who they are…whoa.”
“What?” Davis asked, just before seeing a new contact on the system map floating beside him enter stellar orbit. It decelerated just as the others had, but it was easily 10 times their size.
“Some type of carrier or command ship. Big sucker,” the trailblazer commented offhand, though Davis could see it wasn’t as large as a Melee-class.
“Maybe it will talk,” Davis wondered/suggested.
“I’ve got a repetitive inquiry going in every known language. If that doesn’t work we’re going to go up and knock on their door. I don’t see any repositioning for a second jump, so I doubt they’re just passing through.”
“Combat formation?”
Roger’s left eye half closed. “A little, but they’re not looking like they’re here to fight…or they’re really stupid and they don’t know what they’re up against. They’re not moving to match our incoming ship trajectories.”
“Sensor lag?”
“No, I meant those already in stellar orbit,” he said as a few more smaller unidentified ships came out of braking maneuvers.
“Best guess?”
“They took a wrong turn somewhere.”
Davis laughed humorlessly. “A single ship I could understand, but a fleet of that size doesn’t go roaming about through the ADZ without knowing where they are. Our maps are widely available.”
“Maybe they don’t like closed systems and wanted a peek at what we’ve got.”
“Came a long way to get it,” Davis mewed.
“Unless they’ve got a lot more coming there’s no real threat here…unless they have something sneaky planned.”
“Such as?”
“Drop a bioweapon into the atmosphere or slingshot around the sun to go back in time and steal some Humpback whales.”
Davis cracked a smile. “Not a direct threat, but they’re obviously here for something.”
Roger’s head twitched. “Got a relayed hail through one of the closest drones. Coding is weird, but compatible with ADZ comm protocols.”
“Put through a copy when you get a chance.”
“They’re using a laser transmission, tight beam to one drone in particular. Shields were blocking it until we made adjustments. This is going to take a few minutes, it’s not audio or holo.”
“Please tell me it’s not a computer virus.”
“They’re not hacking our systems,” Roger said defiantly, knowing full well how much time and care had gone into crafting their drone control systems. Communications research in the pyramid database had been stamped with the number 1 priority, with it being well ahead of the other prototypes Star Force had constructed based on that data.
Davis waited patiently while the army of analysts worked through the signal, then Roger raised an eyebrow and hit a few buttons, sending something to Davis that popped up in holo beside him, though all he saw was statistics.
“What is this?”
“Comm protocols. They’re telling us how to interface with their systems.”
“How long to make the adjustments?”
“Not…long,” the Archon said as a repetitive message popped up on his screen, being transmitted continuously from all of their ships but using a form of signal transmission that Star Force couldn’t previously recognize. “Well, looks like they’ve been transmitting since they entered the system after all.”
“Why didn’t we pick it up earlier?”
“Stellar interference. The filters assumed it was garbage…and it’s written in English.”
“Care to share?” Davis asked.
Roger’s hologram looked up at him almost in apology, then sent a copy to him. Davis saw it was a very brief introduction, identifying who they were and the fact that they were here to negotiate with Star Force concerning the mutual threat of the Li'vorkrachnika. It took Davis several moments to recognize the name, with it being what the lizards referred to themselves as. The Alliance always called them the Cajdital and this was the first time he’d ever seen the official title in use.
They were here as representatives of another Alliance that was engaged with the lizards, and from the position data given in a popup map it indicated that they were located well rimward of the ADZ, farther than Star Force had scouted to date, but the biggest thing that stood out to Davis was the name of the race that the ships belonged to, for it was familiar to him. He’d read about them in the very first data packet he’d gotten from the original Alliance.
Like the others he’d written them off as long dead, but it seemed the intel he’d gotten had been a bit more on the assumption side than the factual, for the H’kar were literally standing on their doorstep and wanting to talk about their mutual enemy.
“Roger, I’ll let you handle this. I’ll just eavesdrop.”
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