Incoming

by Mel Todd

  "It took us a bit to translate the coordinates you provided, and no one is sure yet how you could have gotten those coordinates, but when we aimed multiple telescopes at that location, then tracked a trajectory towards Earth we saw four ships headed this way. Three are huge, bigger than our biggest aircraft carrier, the fourth smaller, more of a yacht-look than the big ones. Those come across as transport for freight."

  McKenna blinked at him, this was all new to her.

  ~Cass, I really need that drink. A strong version. Very strong.~

  ~Ditto,~ chorused the other adults.

  ~On the way. Anything to worry about?~

  ~Just trying to explain the impossible to the unbelieving~ Toni said, her tone wry. McKenna had to fight back a laugh.

  "Okay. I don't disbelieve you. But do you have a question? Or questions?"

  ~I have no idea what they want to hear. What would make them believe? If they ask questions maybe I can answer them. Maybe~

  George settled back and looked at her, he didn't seem angry or like he thought she was lying. Mostly it felt like he saw her as a puzzle.

  He still didn't say anything, just looking at her, then turning his head to look at the others, everyone but JD watching him. JD watched the grill, burning meat would be a bad thing.

  "I have many questions, but most of them will have to wait until I get you back to DC and in front of the cabinet."

  McKenna flinched at that, and her heart rate spiked. Just then Cass walked back out with a tray full of drinks and handed them out, putting some cokes and water on the picnic table.

  ~Thank god. I don't wanna go to DC~ she commented in her head even as she took her first long drink. ~Wefor, can you let the booze affect me just a little? 'Cause I'm so wired I'm about to explode.~

  [Understood. It will affect you per normal until you ask me to stop it.]

  McKenna sighed. "So if that's what you want, why are you here? Why didn't you just ask me to come to DC?"

  "Because I need to know why, ma'am." He leaned forward, his arms on his knees. McKenna fought not to roll her eyes at the basic body language of showing he was vulnerable. He wasn't.

  "Why what?"

  He sighed then frowned. "That may not have been the best question. Maybe it is how. How do you know this? What do they want? Why are you the one who knows this?"

  McKenna sighed and took another long drink.

  ~Charley, play, don't hide and when you need more food come up here. Nam, you especially. You need to eat.~

  She felt their assent and heard them starting to move around. The guard's eyes snapped over to them and grew wider, then the hint of a smile curved his lips.

  Gotcha. Cuteness overload usually wins.

  Knowing the man wasn't immune to cute animals made McKenna feel immensely better and she redirected her attention to George.

  "I'm aware of how insane this all sounds. And frankly part of me hoped you would tell me you couldn't find the ships we told you about. That way I could convince myself I was crazy and just go about my life." A wry smile and nod from George encouraged her to keep going. "While everyone is still thinking that a virus allowed us to change," she waved her hand encompassing them all, "it wasn't."

  Both George and the doctor suddenly looked very sharp and intent, their body language focused on them.

  ~I swear if they lock me up in a loony bin you guys had better come visit~ she muttered in her head and only got back laughter. ~I see how it is.~

  "You know what caused the change?" George asked, reminding her of one of the cats about to pounce.

  She refocused. "Yes. The reason is nanobots that were sent here from the very aliens currently approaching us. These nanobots contain the cellular blueprints, for lack of a better word, that allow our cells to be restructured. They burn calories to fuel the changes and give us the ability to switch back and forth."

  The doctor looked at her. "That actually makes sense assuming they are quantum computers encapsulated within the nanobot."

  "Actually, I've been told they function more as a distributed file system, with the nanobots that are embedded all through our bodies providing the ability to do the calculations and store the information needed."

  Doctor Shanks leaned forward, his mouth open, but George cut him off.

  "Told? Told by whom?"

  Oh boy. Here we go.

  She took another fortifying drink, letting the light buzz cut the edge off her stress. Her eyes had closed as she did so, and she opened them to see the four men all looking at her. Wariness in every line of their bodies.

  "Because I got an upgraded version of the nanobot, one that comes with a functional AI, and it told me all of this. As well as the location of the ships, and exactly why the Elentrin are coming here." Before anyone could say anything she continued. "They're coming to collect the Kaylid, us, to use in their war against the Drakyn."

  Chapter 11 - Show Your Cards

  Our new restaurant is opening in Sacramento this week. We cater to shifters in animal form. Do you want to eat your steak rare while in wolf form or chew on a bone that can resist your teeth? If so, come down to Rarest and order a meal. They have shifting rooms so you can strip and change into your other form and experience food as nature intended. ~ Ad on KWAK

  George blinked, his mouth opened and closed, then open and closed again. The doctor was just as bad, his eyes blinking and mouth moving. The Air Force officer, Richard, just narrowed his eyes, a serious look on his face.

  After a long moment during which the mindspace echoed with giggles, though McKenna worried they'd storm out, George cleared his throat.

  "Am I to understand you have an artificial intelligence inside you that is providing you information?" His words came out slowly and carefully as if he needed to taste each word.

  "Yes."

  "How, wait, what I," he sighed and closed his eyes. "Is there anyway you can prove this?"

  McKenna made a face and shrugged. "I have no idea. I can share what has been told to me, and at this point everything I've been told has proved to be the truth. And it is definitely information and skills I have no way of knowing. Such as the celestial coordinates I gave you."

  George turned and glanced at the doctor. The doctor nodded and glanced at his computer.

  "It says here you have a degree in Criminal Justice with a minor in Sociology?"

  "Uh, yes? I always wanted to be a cop, so I got my degree to support that."

  "I suppose then advanced physics or stellar cartography is not a skill set you have."

  "No. I do good to handle my own finances and deal with my phone." McKenna frowned. "I mean Cass is a PhD person, in stuff, so she's way smarter than I am."

  "I specialize in biology and botany though, not that stuff. Best I ever got into was organic chemistry for the physical sciences," Cass chimed in as she helped JD start assembling hamburgers. A small pile of chicken breasts was cooling on the side table.

  Oh good, he's got stuff cooling for the kids.

  "Do you mind if I ask you some questions that would be well outside of your listed education?" Daniel asked, even as George sat back to watch.

  "Um, sure?"

  ~Wefor, is that an issue?~

  [No, this should be interesting, though any names you have for specific values I may not know if they are not things you would know.]

  "Wefor says fine, but warns that the common names for things might not match up. Especially if they aren't stuff that I know, she has no way of knowing."

  "Wefor?" Daniel asked.

  ~Crap, I said your name. Dammit, I was trying not to do that.~ She sighed and took another sip of her drink. Even with Wefor cutting back on the counteragents, a buzz didn't last long. In some ways getting nice and drunk sounded like the easy way out. But there wasn't anyone else to pick up this burden, so no easy way out for her.

  "It's what we call the AI. ‘Hey you,' sounded stupid."

  "What do you mean ‘things might not match up'? Why does an AI have a name and
a gender?" The doctor broke the silence, and McKenna shrugged.

  "She's in my head, and calling something It is rude. Yes, a name, because again, saying hey you or AI sounds stupid. At least Wefor sounds odd but not attention-catching." She sipped on the cold drink, enjoying the contrast to the heat outside. "So if you call something X and she doesn't know X and I don't know X, the answers aren't going to match up.

  George frowned and jotted down something on a notepad but didn't interrupt their conversation.

  Daniel picked up the thread of the conversation. "That is understandable. I'll ask questions that should be understandable. If I say Planck's constant is," he glanced down at his computer. "6.62607004 x 10-34 m2kg/s, could you tell me what that calculation is used for?"

  [That is the energy a photon carries with the frequency of its electromagnetic wave.] Wefor kept talking and answering the questions he asked, and McKenna just recited it, most of the questions and answers sounding like when she autocorrected into Spanish. But the doctor got more excited.

  "Daniel," George interrupted. "Does this prove anything?"

  The doctor snorted. "Either she's a genius the likes of which I've never seen or she has an intelligent computer that can guess what my next question will be. Your call."

  George rubbed his temple. "I'm going to accept you're right, frankly because the consequences of assuming you're insane and aliens are not coming are shattering. While if I humor you and everything you've said is a lie, the cost relatively low in comparison."

  "Gee, thanks," McKenna replied, her sarcasm obvious, but she relaxed a little.

  "What do you want us to do?" George asked.

  The question hung there in the air and McKenna just looked at him, frozen.

  "And on that note, let's eat. Because I think Kenna is about to have a heart attack. Gentlemen, please share a meal with us. We need to eat, the kids need to eat, and there isn't any answer to this. At least not as far as we are aware." JD interrupted her moment of deer-in-a-headlight reaction, and she closed her eyes.

  ~Eat, give them a bit of time to adjust to this, and you need to calm down.~ Perc said in the shared space, his voice calming.

  "We aren't-" George started to say when Richard interrupted.

  "Yes, we are. We haven't eaten and sharing bread is an old tradition that helps build trust. And at this point trust is the only thing we have. Besides, I've been smelling that food for the last thirty minutes and I'm starving." He grinned as he said that, and it brought warmth to his face, chasing away the taciturn persona.

  "Ditto," the guard said, and she could see he had relaxed a bit, too, though he still stayed alert.

  "Fine."

  The next few minutes were involved in creating burgers, getting the rest of the food out here, and cutting up the chicken breasts.

  ~Guys, you wanna come eat some now? And you can have more food after they leave?~ McKenna asked the kids who had been playing through the obstacle course. She'd kept track of them and their emotions, but hadn't talked to them though they could hear the mindspace through her.

  ~Yes. Nam needs to rest a bit, too. Can we get cheese on the chicken? And maybe some mustard on mine?~ Charley asked as they started to move towards the adults. Nam hanging back a bit with Jamie right beside her.

  JD put the cut-up chicken breasts with some chunks of cheese on a large platter and doctored one with mustard.

  ~How can you eat that? Don't get any on mine, it will make it gross,~ Jessi protested even as they came up on the deck, their movements cautious as they kept eyes and ears on the strangers.

  "Do they always eat in animal form?" Richard asked watching them.

  "No, rarely, in fact. But we don't trust you and they can protect themselves better in this form, and they need the calories. Shifting burns them and right now the tiger, Nam, needs to gain some weight," Toni replied, her voice flat and hard. Her body tense even as she kept an eye on her kids and the military men.

  "Is something wrong?" Daniel asked, frowning.

  "Long story and not important right now." McKenna replied then she took a big bite of her hamburger. Excellent as always. They all spent the next few minutes focused on food. McKenna ate two hamburgers, refilled her drink and made a chips and salsa pile for her to munch on. By the time everyone had finished she almost felt able to handle the questions that would occur.

  "George." Her voice calmer than she felt. He immediately looked over at her, a pensive look on his face. "You asked what I want you to do. I have no idea. What we know from the information Wefor provided is that a solar wave hit the nanobots as they were impacting Earth. This caused damage to the programming for all the nanobots and that damage is the only reason we are even having this discussion."

  George tilted his head and poked at a chip on his plate. "What do you mean by that?"

  "The original programming would have locked us all in animal form, mindless. Unable to access our human intelligence or shift back to human."

  Richard tilted his head at her, his eyes narrowing. "Like some of the people lately that seem to have truly turned into animals."

  "Yes, though there is a chance I might be able to get them to shift back. Maybe."

  "What? How?"

  "I'm a commander, the AI is just one of the benefits."

  George made a note then nodded for her to go on. McKenna sighed and tried to reorganize her thoughts. "With all of us trapped in animal forms, mindless and terrified, we would have wreaked havoc and terrified people. The Elentrin are showing up to 'save' us." She made air quotes around the word. "They would enable us to gain our human forms again, and in payment would take a portion of the remaining Kaylid to use for troops. Though I think they made a few mistakes."

  "I understand the strategy. There are historical examples of it being used when laying siege to cities to have a disease spread and offer to come in and cure it. But what mistakes do you think they made?" George asked, making another note.

  McKenna had a bad feeling he was making notes of all the things he needed to follow up on. Oh, well. Having someone competent was better than another idiot.

  "Do you work with any shifters?" she asked.

  George blinked and glanced around them then nodded slowly. "There are two in my organization."

  "Have they mentioned anything about dreams?"

  "No. But not sure I would have found out. Neither of them is a particular friend. Why?"

  "We seem to tap into training programs to learn skills. Some of them are part of the nanobots storage systems. But as the ships are getting closer, we seem to be linking into what's going on at the ship. Most probable answer is trans-harmonics that intersect the planet boosted by the ships, and we're intercepting them. But either way, information, some of which we've been able to validate, is being passed to us. And if it's accurate, they're expecting maybe industrial revolution level of technology and approximately 1.5 million shifters."

  The three men's eyebrows raised at her statement. The guard, whose name she still didn't know, kept watching the kids with the hint of a smile on his face. The four of them had decided adults were boring and were playing around the obstacle course again.

  "Why in the world would they think that? And even if they do, they should be seeing our satellites pretty soon. That will disabuse them of that notion. Not to mention, why did they think the shifter numbers would be so low? There are around 150 million shifters, we think. That is going off the percentages," Daniel blurted.

  McKenna shrugged. "Not really sure, though they expected a certain amount of us to be killed. The AI says the nanobot swarm is self-replicating and continues to replicate as they pass through space matter. They are tiny, but they hit a lot of material coming here, so by the time they hit Earth they would have numbers over two billion. Only the commander modules don't replicate. There are fifty, and they assume at least half won't find viable hosts, or targets, if you prefer," she said at the sour look on their faces.

  Cass came back out from helping JD take fo
od into the kitchen. In her hands she held a large pitcher and walked around refilling drinks. McKenna caught George and Richard looking at it longingly, the doctor seemed oblivious as he typed furiously on his laptop.

  "So how many commanders do you think are on Earth? How many people have AIs?"

  McKenna shrugged. "No way to know. The failure rate is pretty high, as you can see if you do the math. Maybe as few as five? Maybe as many as a thirty. It also depends on the damage. This AI rebuilt based on my actions and attitudes. Which means, as far as we can tell, Wefor is sentient." She took a deep breath. "I'm not answering the other questions yet. Now here are my questions. What now?"

  George narrowed his eyes and jotted something on the note pad, but didn't say anything as the doctor turned the laptop towards them. "Since we found the ship, we have more of our telescopes pointed that way, all under Top Secret Eyes Only clearance. No one is getting to see the data reported back to us. We even have armed guards to keep the scientists out which is causing a lot of feathers to fly. But we've intercepted communication between their ships. Would you mind translating it for us?"

  [This is probably a test. They would have received enough information from what we already provided to decipher most of it.]

  ~Then does it matter? It might prove our point. But I still don't know what we do now. You did say they don't have weapons on their ships?~

  [Not like how your movies portray.] Having Wefor watch Star Wars had been entertaining, yet made the movie much less fun as she pointed out all the things that were not possible. [However, kinetic weapons are always possible via tractor beams, which are used to help ships dock with each other and the rare space station. Most Drakyn do not use spaceships as that is not how they travel. From the data available all other planets that have been used for Kaylid harvesting, none had achieved anything past chemical power projectiles.]

  "Go for it."

  The doctor pressed a key on the computer and noise spilled out of it. He let it play all the way through then stopped it and looked at her expectantly.

  Wefor fed her the information as she spoke. "We are twenty-one teran out of the planet; however, anomalies have been picked up. Please have your science officer verify the presence of artificial satellites around the planet. If this is accurate, estimation of planet technology is not current." McKenna paused, her head tilting the slightest bit. "The next part is on a different day."