Admiral Atgard looked at him suspiciously. “Are you drunk?”
The President laughed. “No, Daniel, I’m not drunk. But I want you to know that I have a tremendous amount of respect for you. I always have. We don’t always agree exactly, but you always do what you believe to be right, no matter how difficult it might be, and I admire that.” The edge of Stadler’s lip curled upwards. “But I also want you to know, Daniel, that you are a tremendous pain in my ass.”
“I try, sir.”
“But, you know, maybe you were right about releasing the Indomitable tape. Public reaction hasn’t been as bad as I thought. Sure, there are some protests and some people calling for my head and some religious fanatics trying to incite chaos and telling us that we’re all going to hell. But you know how those religious fanatics are, Dan. They tell us that all the time anyway.”
Daniel stifled a chuckle, mostly because he had never known the President to be this candid. He suspected that the scotch had something to do with it, and he suspected the one he had just finished was not his first glass.
“Well, you had probably better get going, since I don’t really want to arrest you. Hell,” he added, “I’ll probably have to give you a damned medal.”
“I don’t need a medal, William. But if you want to give out some medals, there are some members of my crew whom I would enthusiastically recommend.”
“Really?” asked the President. “Which ones?”
Daniel finished his water and, rising to leave, he placed the glass near William’s on the coffee table. “All of them,” he said earnestly. “Every one.”
• • •
Though his visit with the President had gone almost unbelievably smoothly, it had not ended one moment too soon for Daniel Atgard. The President had been gracious enough to provide Ryan, Anastasia, and the Admiral with their own aircars, and, after confirming that the Apocalypse would require at least another 24 hours to repair, Daniel headed straight to Key West.
Tara was, predictably, waiting for him when he landed, as he had called her shortly after leaving the President’s home. The trip, by civilian transport, had taken nearly an hour, a time that seemed like an eternity to the Admiral, a man used to moving at a far faster pace.
“My God, Daniel, you’re all right,” Tara called, running to meet him as he exited the aircar. “I had seen some of the newsgrid footage and that big ship was chasing after your little ship … .”
Daniel chuckled. “I told you not to worry about me in my ‘little ship,’ honey. We whipped that big ship’s ass.”
Tara smiled and embraced him. “It was just very frightening, you know, watching those big ships shooting at you. I couldn’t watch.”
Daniel silently cursed the newsgrids, which, through their accursed satellites, were intent upon bringing live coverage of every newsworthy event, especially military actions, right into his wife’s living room. Daniel begrudgingly realized that the media did serve a purpose, after all, but that acknowledgment did little to dilute his present scorn.
Tara released Daniel and looked into his face. “Is this visit just another quickie, or will you be here for a while this time?” He could tell by her tone that she had already expected and accepted the answer she knew to be coming.
“Oh, I’ll be here a while this time,” he joked. “Almost 24 hours.”
Tara flashed him a lopsided grin and shook her head. “Isn’t it time for you to retire, old man?”
Daniel returned her grin. “Not quite yet,” he answered, turning deadly serious. “There’s one more thing I still need to take care of.”
Tara embraced him once again. “How are you so brave? You’re the one going off to fight who-knows-what and I’m the one who’s terrified.”
“You don’t have to be afraid anymore, Tara. I’ll take care of them. I’ll protect you … I promise.”
Tara looked up at him, and Daniel could see her dark eyes had welled with tears. “That’s not what I’m afraid of, Daniel,” she began, her voice cracking as she spoke. “I’m not afraid for me. I’m afraid for you. I’m afraid you saving the galaxy will make me a widow.”
Daniel opened his mouth, but could think of nothing convincing to say. Instead, he simply drew his wife closer to him and did not let her go for some time.
• • •
The beeping of Daniel’s nanocomputer woke him instantly. Since the computer could monitor his biorhythms, and knew not to wake him for normal calls, the incoming transmission must be urgent.
Daniel muted the alarm and slipped out of bed, hoping he had managed not to wake Tara as he did so. He tiptoed softly out of the bedroom, and, closing the door behind him, he keyed for the transmission to begin.
The nanocomputer’s tiny holo-vid emitter projected an image into the air, which quickly coalesced into Nathan’s wrinkled face.
“Admiral,” he began without ceremony, “it is imperative that you return to the Apocalypse right away.”
“What is it, Nathan?” he asked, wiping the sleep from his eyes. “The ship isn’t even supposed to be ready for another 12 hours.”
“No, sir, it is not, but, as you know, I have been working on perfecting our method of tracking the Lucani Ibron, and I now have a long-range reading on their position.”
The Admiral sighed. “Are they on their way, Nathan? What is their position?”
“Yes, sir,” he explained, “they are. They are currently just over a thousand light years from Earth.”
“Oh,” replied the Admiral, relieved. “So we have some time?”
“Not really, sir,” Nathan warned. “We had better get going as soon as possible.”
It was just like Nathan, Daniel thought, to get overly excited and worried, though they clearly had at least several hours until the Lucani Ibron got anywhere near the Sol System. “Exactly how much time do we have, Nathan?”
“It is hard to say exactly, sir, but if I had to guess …” the Fedoran stroked his wrinkled face with a tentacle as he thought. “About an hour, maybe two.”
The Admiral’s eyes widened dramatically, jolting him fully awake. “Nathan,” he said, trying to speak calmly, “are you telling me that the Lucani Ibron ship can travel one thousand light years in an hour or two?”
“Yes, sir,” Nathan gulped. “In about 90 minutes, the Lucani Ibron will arrive at Earth.”
CHAPTER 23
ConFedCom sent a swift military transport to retrieve the Admiral, and by the time he had hurriedly finished his preparations to leave, it had already arrived, though he did keep it waiting for several minutes while he said good-bye to his wife, quite possibly for the last time.
Transports had also been sent to retrieve the rest of his crew, most of whom had already arrived by the time the Admiral got to the spacedock, scarcely 15 minutes from the time he had left Key West. Waiting for him when he arrived was Devorak Lipinski, who carried the same hurried manner and appeared to be overseeing the same level of chaos as when last the Admiral was there, only 36 hours ago.
“Well, sir, as I said,” Lipinski began, “it would take at least 48 hours to affect full repairs.”
“What is the current status of my ship?” asked the Admiral. Daniel was interested in results, not apologies.
“The good news is that the energy grids and engine cores are completely repaired. Your ship has full power, Admiral.”
“And the bad news?” he prompted.
“The bad news is that we could not complete full repairs on the rear armour plating—atomic armour is tricky stuff. As we speak, our techs are finishing patching it up as well as they can, but hull integrity is back to 100 percent.”
“You said I have full power, Commander? All systems are functional?”
Devorak straightened up. “Yes, sir. Full power. All systems on-line.”
“Excellent,” replied the Admiral. “Thank you, Mr. Lipinski; that will do just fine.”
Lipinski saluted, and the Admiral returned it and walked to his ship. The Commander had
done a good job, Daniel thought. In fact, it hardly mattered that the rear armour was less than 100 percent. After all, this time, when they met the Lucani Ibron, running would not be an option.
• • •
Daniel could tell by the vigorous hum of the hyperdrive engines that the Apocalypse was once again traveling at her full speed, rushing headlong into the crosshairs of an invincible ship and its omnipotent weapon.
The Hub was full, save Nathan, who once again remained on the bridge performing last-minute calculations as to the position of the incoming ship. By his last estimate, scarcely 15 minutes remained until the two mighty ships were to intercept each other.
Admiral Atgard was no stranger to this, the proverbial calm before a battle. He was no stranger to his current situation, leading his crew, outmatched and outgunned, against a vastly superior foe. And he was certainly no stranger to the unknown, having ventured further into the depths of space and the far reaches of the galaxy than any man before him.
But what he felt now was different.
Daniel looked to his crew, each of whom sat facing him in absolute silence. He tried to read their faces, but what he saw in them now he had never seen before. Even the seasoned crew of the Apocalypse was now treading on unfamiliar ground.
And so, too, was he, Daniel realized. Never before had he been so unsure—so unsure of what to expect, so unsure of how to proceed, so unsure if the coming hour held victory … or death.
After all, he still had far more questions than answers, or even good guesses. Though he knew what the Arcadians had told him, though he saw some of what the aliens’ mysterious ship could do, though he had seen how useless his own weapons were against them, Daniel still had a complete lack of information about many far more important questions: who were they? Where did they come from? And why were they here?
Though many of his questions were left unanswered, Daniel’s instincts provided him with an answer to one. Without being able to totally explain how he arrived at his conclusion, the Admiral somehow knew this would be the last time he and the Lucani Ibron ship would meet, one way … or the other.
Daniel looked out at his crew once again. His gaze passed to Commander Mason, who stared back into his hazel eyes, her keen glare equally focused on him. Like he himself, he sensed from her a fear—a fear borne not so much of what they knew of their near-hopeless situation, but of what they did not. He could sense, however, that Anastasia, like the rest of the crew, was ready for whatever was about to occur.
“No speeches,” Daniel decided abruptly, stepping away from the podium. “Let’s go kick some ass.”
• • •
Daniel had already run the status checks half a dozen times, and on the seventh, he finally realized that he was just trying to avoid thinking about the Lucani Ibron, now a mere ten minutes away. After all, there was precious little else of use he could think about: the way they had destroyed the Indomitable like it was a defenseless cargo ship; the way his own weapons were useless against them; the way they probably planned to destroy Earth after they were through with the Apocalypse.
Daniel came out of his ruminations to hear Zach finishing a joke. The rest of the crew laughed at its completion, but their laughs were uniformly hollow—sounds made merely to fend off the stifling trepidation that fought to subdue them all.
The display showed that there were no inhabited star systems for parsecs in any direction—only the Apocalypse, the Lucani Ibron ship, and the cold void of interstellar space. The Admiral peered at the display, pitch black save for the green dot of the Apocalypse and the menacing red sphere that represented the approximate location of the alien ship. Daniel stared into the ebony panel, letting his thoughts drift to another time.
Chad was there, in his backyard in Key West, his tiny hands feebly trying to catch the ball Daniel had tossed to him. His hair, then a light brown, caught glints of the brilliant summer sun and looked more like the dirty blond hair he sported as a toddler. Though he had dropped the ball, the look on his face was one of determination—Daniel knew even then that his son possessed the perseverance to work on something until it was mastered.
As Chad picked up the ball and looked back up to his father, however, his aspect changed. His eyes had narrowed, and his small hand had gone to his forehead to shield his delicate eyes. The boy’s mouth cracked open, and he absently let the ball drop from his hands.
Daniel looked behind him, trying to focus on what his son was observing with such awe. Squinting from the harsh sunlight, Daniel could see, just above the horizon, the majestic, hovering form of the Indomitable.
Daniel turned back to his son to find his arm outstretched, half pointing and half reaching for the enormous starship that hovered several thousand kilometers away. Daniel looked back to his face, and saw there the face not of a toddler, but of a young man, a man who had already envisioned his ultimate dream.
“Admiral?”
Anastasia’s voice jolted Daniel out of his reverie. His eyes instinctively flicked to his display, finding that they had nearly reached the red sphere representing the Lucani Ibron ship.
“Let’s take her out of hyperspace,” ordered the Admiral, straightening himself in his command chair. “And prepare the gravity buoy.”
The starlines on the viewscreen slowed, then stopped, finally receding backwards into the points of light they actually were. Nothing else was visible on the screen, and nothing moved in the depths of interstellar space.
“Grav buoy ready, sir.”
“Very good, Dex. Release the buoy. Nathan, move us a few kilometers to starboard,” Daniel directed, “and engage the Quantum Refractor.”
With a muffled thump, the grav buoy shot out the port missile tube and traveled away from the Apocalypse, its dark form merging with the black of space as it receded from view. A few moments later, the stars on the viewscreen shimmered in unison, heralding the cloaking device’s activation.
“Now it’s time to drag them out of hyperspace for a change, eh, Admiral?” asked Zach, his customary cockiness struggling to overcome his fear. “Let’s see how they like it.”
Before he could respond, Nathan spoke up. “Sir,” he reported succinctly, “they are here.”
Daniel trained his eyes on the viewscreen, grimly realizing that only seconds remained before he came face to face with his greatest, most enigmatic enemy for the last time. As he watched, a fast-moving gray glow appeared in the distance, a glow that gradually slowed and coalesced into a single gray sphere. The alien ship, jarred out of hyperspace, sat idly for a moment, and then began slowly moving forward, toward the gravity buoy to the Apocalypse’s left. It casually passed the buoy, its course subtly arcing around behind the Apocalypse. Maintaining its deliberate speed, it continued toward a spot to the rear of the ship, and, as it moved directly behind them, nonchalantly turned toward the cloaked vessel.
“My God,” whispered Daniel, his mouth fixed open in awe. “Those bastards can see us.”
But it was too late. The alien ship had already fired.
• • •
The bolt of energy that coursed through the Apocalypse tossed the ship like a cork rocked by a mighty tidal wave. Daniel felt a strange vibration, and the pinpricks of light on the viewscreen shimmered violently.
They had been decloaked.
Alarm klaxons rang out as the Quantum Refractor, rendered useless by the Lucani Ibron, violently disengaged, leaving Daniel to wonder if there was anything beyond the power of these bizarre aliens. Not only were they able to somehow detect the cloaked Apocalypse, but they were apparently able to decloak them at will. And unless the Admiral did something soon, they would surely destroy the Apocalypse.
“Zach, spin us around,” commanded the Admiral, his eyes narrowing to tiny slits. “Dex, charge the Omega Cannon and prepare to fire.”
“With pleasure, sir.”
Suddenly, the rapidly-darting stars on the viewscreen were replaced by a new image, which soon resolved to show what appeared to b
e the bridge of a ship. Translucent chairs, seemingly untethered, floated throughout the area, and holographic displays around the perimeter of the room projected indecipherable, swirling patterns into the air. The entire room was bathed in a strong, pure white light, a light that caused Admiral Atgard to raise his hand to his eyes. Within a moment, his pupils had adjusted, and he could see that the chairs—or perhaps receptacles of some sort—were occupied by small luminescent beings, beings whose skin convolved like the outer surface of the ship they occupied. The beings had neither arms nor legs, but were roughly spherical in form, though their shape seemed to be remarkably elastic. Several of the aliens floated around the perimeter of the room, moving as if propelled by an unseen hand. Looking at them, Daniel could not actually tell if they were composed of matter at all, or if they were simply pure energy in motion.
In a chair directly in the center of the viewscreen hovered a being more luminous than the rest, and Daniel thought it seemed slightly larger as well, though it could have simply been an effect of its increased glow. Though it made no outward indication or movement of any kind, it somehow began to speak.
“Humans,” it began, its voice as light and ethereal as the being itself, “you have transgressed. We are here to rectify that transgression. Do not resist us.”
As the being spoke, it slowly dawned on Daniel that it was not actually speaking at all. The words were audible only in his head.
The Admiral looked around, and realized that the rest of his crew had perceived the disembodied voice as well. Nathan and Zach in particular sported looks of pure bewilderment, as if unsure of whether they had actually heard the words or not. Dex’s jaw was clenched in anger, and the look on his face was one of indignation. Anastasia’s eyes, however, were the most complex of all. In them, Daniel sensed an admixture of fear, outrage, and uncertainty, feelings he himself felt in abundance.
“Admiral,” whispered Dex through clenched teeth, “let me cure all their ills.” His finger rested precariously over the fire button.
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