Invaders (a sequel to Vaz, Tiona and Disc) (20 page)

Reven gave her a wide-eyed look, “I don’t look
hot
!”

Tiona lifted an eyebrow, “Yes you do. Oh, and,” she handed Reven a small tube, “try on this lip gloss, that’s all the makeup you should need.”

***

Though there was little for her to do, Levon reappeared on the bridge when they were ready to launch the lander. The massively muscular appearance of the lander crew’s high gravity, low oxygen bio-mods made her uncomfortable, so she avoided having much to do with them. The lander’s separation from the mothership proceeded without problems. They fired their big ion drive and the lander began to move away. Levon found herself on tenterhooks, looking for an excuse to leave the bridge and go down to the lander’s bay.

She’d be able to fly in the newly empty space!

Levon was just rising off of her rest to leave when Third Officer said, “Captain, do you wish to speak to the crew of the lander?”

“Why?”

“To, um, inspire them.”

Levon closed her eyes, irritated, but realized that a message from the Captain would be expected. “Connect me to them.” She paused for a moment, then assuming she was connected, began speaking, “Crew of the lander, the best wishes of the crew of the
Flying Light
go with you. In addition, remember that
all
of the Rendor people are depending on you as well. This system, while not perfect…” Levon realized she shouldn’t have said anything about the quality of the system. Other than the fact that they wouldn’t be able to fly on the oxygen bearing planet, the system actually met almost
all
of their needs. Hoping that no one had noticed this bobble in her speech, she continued, “has
almost
everything we need. We should be able to begin populating the larger body of the binary system as soon as you’ve eliminated any dangerous lifeforms. We’ll be able to float habitat in the thick atmosphere of the second planet. We’ll be able to build habitat underground on the fourth planet. We’ll be able to mine the plentiful asteroids of the system to build space habitat. Untold billions of rendas will be able to move here from the home system, many with only minor bio-mods.” She paused for dramatic effect, “Our
first step
begins with you and your genegineers. I know you must feel some trepidation as this is the first time we’ve had to eradicate an intelligent species and they’ll presumably try to resist your efforts. However, they must have very limited if any ability to modify DNA or they would have repaired the huge deserts that we can see on their world.” Levon paused, not quite sure how to conclude her speech. Finally, she simply said, “Do us proud.”

I think I did that well,
Levon thought with some surprise. She glanced around at her officers and was offended to realize that they looked surprised as well. “I’m going to check the lander bay.”

Levon was initially angered when she arrived at the lander’s enormous bay and found several of the crew flying around in it. They were pretending to fly from one location in the bay to another in order to check on stowage and examine the small space sleds stored in there, but the number of long flights gave away the fact that they were mostly just enjoying themselves.

For a moment she considered banning them from the bay, but then realized she would have little excuse for coming down here and flying in it herself if
they
weren’t allowed to. Realizing that Third Officer was nearby, Levon flew over to Third and found great relief in it, though flying in a weightless environment was never as exhilarating as flying on a planet. She said, “It looks like I’m not the only one who’s been looking forward to a chance to fly. Set up a rotation so that all of the crew can come down here and fly occasionally.”

Though Third was surprised that Levon had expressed concern over the crew’s well-being, she kept it hidden.
Maybe the captain’s recovering from whatever happened to her during transition,
Third thought,
I hope…

***

Tiona was on her way to GSI. It had been nearly 2 weeks since that fateful day she’d found Carolyn at Nolan’s house. She’d been spending a lot of time at GSI, getting involved in the science of thrusters, something she’d always told herself should be her field of interest, rather than gallivanting around the solar system. She worried that she was only trying to keep herself busy in order to avoid talking to Nolan.
I’m a woman dammit! Aren’t
we
the ones who are always supposed to be telling our men, “We need to talk?” The
men
are the ones who’re supposed avoid confrontation and emotional discussions by going fishing.
She’d actually seen Nolan several times—when
Carolyn
had invited her to go with them on some adventure! It was like she and Nolan had become one of the many planets orbiting Carolyn’s brilliant charisma. Tiona always had fun. She and Nolan acted friendly and talked about inconsequential things.

However they avoided the elephant in the room. Day after day she resolved to have a serious talk with him. To figure out where they were going. Yet, she always found something more important to do…

Her AI said, “You have a call from Dr. Kim Singer.”

Singer was the comet scientist at JPL who’d had her panties in a twist over the NEO. She’d been pretty pissed when Tiona told her that GSI wasn’t going to put on a special mission to go look at Singer’s fascinating object. For a moment Tiona considered talking to her,
At least it’ll get my mind off of how I
should
be calling Nolan.
However, Tiona didn’t want to listen to another harangue about how GSI owed it to the scientific community to shuttle Singer to look at the rock she was interested in. “Give her my apologies,” Tiona said, her mind already turning back to Nolan.
I could at least send him a message…

Tiona’s AI said, “Dr. Singer says it’s an emergency.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ll bet it wouldn’t be an emergency if
you
had to pay for it.
Nonetheless, Tiona decided to accept the call and was about to say so when the AI said, “You have a call from Dante. He also says it’s an emergency.”

“I’ll take the call from Dante… Dante, what’s happened?!” Her mind was picturing some disaster. A habitat punctured by a meteoroid, a lift disc dropping a heavy load on a city, a message from one of the saucers out at Saturn with a thruster failure.

Instead, Dante sounded angry, “Some people from the military are here and say they’re
commandeering
a saucer. Do
you
know what this is about?”

“No! Do they say why?”

“No, apparently I don’t have the ‘need to know.’ They want one that’s spaceworthy and can do at least a week long mission in deep space. The general that’s here asked his aide how long it would take to ‘get there’ and, though the guy whispered the answer, I still heard him say thirty-two hours. I’m not sure what destinations you can reach in thirty-two hours, but I thought that might help
you
figure it out.”

“Why aren’t they taking one of their own? We sold them a few small and medium-size saucers last year didn’t we?”

“Yeah, but apparently they’ve got all of them set up for suborbital and orbital work, not for lengthy deep space missions. My impression is they’ve just been putting up spy satellites and preparing for the orbital part of Earth warfare. They’ve had no interest in the rest of the solar system so far, but it seems like
something’s
changed their minds. Besides, I get the impression they want something big enough to transport a lot of men…” Dante continued almost plaintively, “Where the hell could they be going Tiona?”

While Dante spoke, Tiona and been thinking about Dr. Singer’s emergency call. “I don’t know, but I might know someone who does. I’m on my way to GSI and I might have some answers by the time I get there. Where should I land so the military boys don’t jump all over me?”

Dante suggested landing a block away and driving to the side entrance at street level. Once he’d signed off, Tiona put through a call to Dr. Singer. “Hello, Dr. Singer?”

“Yes, yes! Ms. Gettnor, you
must
send a mission to the new NEO! It’s separated into two objects and the smaller one is moving away from the bigger one. It generated ionized hydrogen for a little over twenty-five hours after the separation!”

“Hydrogen?” Tiona said uncertainly, not sure what that might mean.

“Ionized hydrogen! It’s probably from a plasma drive of some kind! Aliens! We’ve
got
to go and meet them!”

“Oh…” Tiona said, her mind spinning as several things suddenly fit together.

Tiona did make it in the side entrance unimpeded. Well, that wasn’t quite true, she was having some difficulty walking while watching her HUD as her AI downloaded pages about plasma drives and the orbit of the NEO.

She felt like she was just beginning to get a handle on it when she arrived at Dante’s office and found a couple of guards in military uniform outside his door. She blinked a couple of times, paused and said, “Um…”

The soldier said, “Keep moving ma’am, they’re having a top-secret meeting and they’re not to be interrupted.”

Tiona grinned at him, then spoke to her AI, “See if Dante will take my call.”

“Tiona, where the hell are you?!”

“Standing outside your door. Did you know you have some military guards out here keeping anyone from entering?”

“Dammit General,” Dante said, “didn’t you tell your guards that you were waiting for our CTO?”

“Yes!” A moment later the door jerked open and an angry looking general looked at his guards, “Did you men send away the company’s head tech guy?!” As they were answering with an emphatic “No sir,” his eyes flashed to Tiona and he continued, “I thought I told you not to let people stand around in the hall up here!” Then he tilted his head curiously as if he thought he might recognize Tiona.

Tiona put her hand up a little, saying, “Tech guy.”

The General looked angrily over his shoulder at Dante, “There’s
some
kind of tech person out here, but where the hell’s your CTO!”

Tiona lifted her hand again and said, “CTO.”

The general’s eyes narrowed as if he thought she was putting him on, then they widened. He said, “Shit! You’re Tiona Gettnor aren’t you?”

Tiona nodded.

The general waved her into the room with a grimace, “Sorry, in all this rushing around I’ve heard about the CTO and I’ve heard about Tiona Gettnor, but I hadn’t quite recognized they’re the same person. I’ll also apologize for the fact that your country needs to commandeer one of your spaceworthy saucers. Your brother,” the General darted a look at Dante, “claims he doesn’t know where they are. And, he claims that you guys don’t have very many!” The General turned back to her, “But he says you know where they are and what they’re doing.”

Tiona put out her hand, “Hello General…” she looked pointedly down at his name tag, then back up into his eyes, “Stoddard, I’m Tiona Gettnor.” She lifted an eyebrow making it evident that she expected a response.

Brusquely he shook her hand and said, “Thanks. We’re introduced. Now, where are the saucers?”

Tiona turned to the other officer in the room, putting out her hand again.

With a glance at his general he shook her hand, saying, “Hello Ms. Gettnor, I’m Major Daniel Vincent.”

Tiona turned to Dante, “Have they told you what this is all about yet?” At a shake of Dante’s head, she turned her eyes back to the general, “I’d
imagine
it has to do with the aliens that are in or on that NEO coming our way from the direction of the sun?” She looked at Dante, “Apparently a smaller object has separated from it. The small piece was propelled by a plasma drive of some type for a little over a day.” She turned back to the general lifted her eyebrow again, “Perhaps, General, you could tell us why you’re trying to keep this a secret from the very people you hope are going to fly you out there?”

“We’re
trying
to keep the populace from panicking!” Stoddard said, looking like he wanted to grit his teeth. “Though apparently some people who
shouldn’t
be talking… have been. Anyway,
you
don’t need to fly us out there, you just need to provide the saucer.”

“I think, General, you might find that we
could
be a great deal of help… If we were asked nicely rather than ordered around. Or, you can keep being a jerk and watching us drag our feet, it’s up to you. In any case, our spaceworthy saucers are currently scattered around the solar system. Neptune, Saturn, asteroid belt…
None
of them are immediately available.”

The general took a deep breath as if he were about to bellow, then slowly let it out. “Dammit!” He closed his eyes for a moment, “What’s the soonest you could have one here?”

Tiona knew she could have the big seventy-five meter saucer back from the asteroid belt in about four days, but didn’t want to say. “I’d have to look into it. Are you going to tell us what’s going on so we can help? Or are you going to continue trying to just order us around? I think you’ll find that telling us to ‘do this or do that’—rather than explaining the goal to us—works about as well as trying to tell a blindfolded man where to put his hand so he can catch a ball for you.”