Right Ascension

by David Derrico

  It was Dex who first broke out into applause, but it only took a moment before the rest of the crew had joined him, vigorously laughing and hugging each other despite their fatigue. The Admiral had not said what he did to boost morale, however; he had said it because it was true.

  “I wonder,” said Zach after a pause, “does that mean they’ll reinstate my license?”

  Nathan’s throaty laugh drowned out the rest. “God help us if they do,” he replied.

  “What?” laughed Zach. “Are you saying you wouldn’t ride with me?”

  The Fedoran appeared to seriously ponder the question for a moment. “Well,” he began, “I would say there is a 62 percent probability that I would do so.”

  Zach pretended to be hurt. “I see how it is.”

  “Not to worry, Zach,” Nathan replied, an odd smirk visible on his face. “That is more than half.”

  • • •

  When the Apocalypse arrived back at Earth, there was a ceremonial escort waiting for them, as four resplendent diplomatic vessels flanked the tiny ship on its way down to the planet. The landing pad had been decorated and blazed with holographic light, and a red carpet led from the platform to the Capitol building. On either side of the carpet, rows of military officers and, behind them, throngs of civilians cheered as the ship touched down. Once the crew began to disembark the vessel, their cheers were almost deafening.

  “Word travels fast, I guess,” commented Zach, gazing at the thousands of people who had gathered. “Looks like we’re heroes now.”

  Daniel, however, was not focused on the horde of people on the platform. He only scanned their faces to look for his wife.

  And there she was, bursting forth from the crowd before Daniel had even completely descended the exit hatch. He ran to her, embracing her and lifting her as he spun around, holding his wife close as the noise of thousands of people suddenly died away, leaving him alone with the one person he cared for most.

  Tara kissed his face, her eyes moist with tears of joy. “You’re staying now, aren’t you?” she cried, holding his face with both hands. “You’re staying with me?”

  “Yes,” Daniel replied. “Yes, I’m staying. For a good long while at least.”

  His wife buried her head in his chest, and as she did so, Daniel noticed for the first time that a swarm of cameramen, photographers, and military officials had surrounded him. “But first,” he amended, “I have to let them give me some medals or something.”

  Tara looked up and smiled. “Well,” she said, looking around, “I guess you have to do what you have to do.”

  Daniel kissed her once more and let himself be enveloped by the crowd as they herded him down the red carpet and toward the ConFedCom Capitol building. Though several of the men near him were speaking, Daniel could not make out what any one of them was saying.

  Once he got to the building, the swell of people subsided, as the cameramen and civilians were barred from entering the building. Daniel was pointed toward the transport tubes, and once inside, more people crowded into the small tube than he had thought possible. Luckily, it only took a moment for the transport to arrive.

  Daniel stepped out into the familiar anteroom of the Central Meeting Hall. The guards, this time, held the door for him, and he walked through.

  Awaiting him inside was the entire Confederation Council, all of whom were standing and applauding. Daniel was guided toward the front of the room, where the President, too, was applauding him.

  “Congratulations, Daniel,” he said as he approached, reaching for his hand and shaking it vigorously. “You saved us all.”

  “Well, sir,” Daniel began, “we just did what we had to do.”

  “You did much more than that, Admiral. Or, should I say, Fleet Admiral Atgard?”

  The room once again exploded into applause at the President’s words, while the President leaned forward and whispered, “That means you’ll have no one to answer to, Daniel. Not even me. Just the way you like it, no?”

  “Sir,” he replied, “I thank you for this honor. But everyone must answer to somebody. No one is above reproach.”

  “Is this your Ethics Committee idea again, Daniel?” Stadler asked. “Very well, very well. I’ll see if I can’t get that proposal passed, okay?”

  Daniel smiled. “Don’t do it for me, William. Do it for the Confederation.”

  The President nodded, and, as the applause from the Council members began to abate, he continued. “And it is with great pleasure that I present to you our greatest honor: the Medallion of Virtue. Through your courage, your valor, and your skill, you have—single-handedly—saved us all. I can think of no more deserving recipient.”

  The Council once again erupted into applause, but Daniel motioned for them to stop. “No, no,” he said, speaking above the commotion, “the President is wrong. I did not do anything single-handedly. And I alone do not deserve this honor. It was my crew that defeated the Lucani Ibron. It was their bravery that saved us. And it is they who should be standing here.”

  Daniel was beginning to think that all the Council did was applaud, but as they did, the President motioned to one of the guards by the door, and, a few moments later, Daniel’s crew was ushered in to stand beside him.

  “Wow,” said Zach, mouth agape as he walked down the aisle. “The last time this many people cheered for me was when I played baseball at the academy.”

  Anastasia walked up and stood at Daniel’s side. “Does this mean no court-martials?” she joked.

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure it does,” he replied, scanning the faces of the rest of his crew. They were each singularly overwhelmed, save Nathan, whose face, though hard to read, showed a look of consternation rather than joy.

  Daniel sidled over to him. “What’s the matter, Nathan? They’re cheering for you.”

  “I know, sir,” Nathan replied. “But I have been playing a hunch I had.”

  “Uh-oh,” replied Daniel.

  “During my scans of the area after the Lucani Ibron ship was destroyed, I came across a strange energy spike. I postulated that it may have been a transmission of some kind.”

  “You mean a signal sent by the Lucani Ibron before they were destroyed?”

  “I did not think so at first, sir, because I traced the transmission, and its path did not pass within range of a single star system, inhabited or otherwise.”

  “But?” prompted the Admiral, aware that the Council’s applause had ironically begun to die down.

  “Well, sir, if you follow the path of the transmission much, much further,” Nathan explained, holding up his nanocomputer so the Admiral could see for himself, “you can see where it does go.”

  Daniel rubbed his eyes and stared at the small screen, vainly hoping that his interpretation was somehow incorrect.

  Nathan, however, removed all doubt. “Sir, the transmission passes directly through the Andromeda Galaxy.”

  Daniel stumbled backwards, leaning against the podium for support. “My God,” he breathed, his hand going to his mouth. “Even if it had the range, that journey would take our fastest ship over a hundred years.”

  Nathan nodded. “But what really disturbs me, Admiral, is not how fast they got here—it is how they even knew about the Korgian Annihilation in the first place.”

  The Admiral scanned the room as he realized the sheer impossibility of it, his eyes falling on scores of beaming faces who no doubt believed their victory to be permanent. But to Daniel, the ramifications were both obvious and terrifying.

  Anastasia appeared at Daniel’s side. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “What is it?”

  Daniel gestured to Nathan’s nanocomputer. “Even with the most powerful telescopes,” he said, “the light from the explosion at Korgia Prime would not have reached their eyes for over two million years.”

  Anastasia’s brow wrinkled. “So how could they have found out so soon, let alone traveled here?”

  “That’s the problem,” the Admiral confirmed. “It seems
we didn’t just recently attract the attention of the Lucani Ibron.” He looked pointedly at Anastasia. “They must have had ships here, in our galaxy, silently watching and studying us for some time.”

  The blood rushed out of Anastasia’s face. Her voice was a hoarse whisper. “For how long, do you think?”

  The Admiral sighed. “If I had to guess,” he replied, “these ‘Ancient Arbiters’ probably watched the first humans drawing on cave walls.”

  “That certainly is a disturbing thought,” added Nathan.

  Anastasia slowly shook her head. “That’s not what bothers me. What bothers me is that they’ve been watching us for hundreds or thousands of years, and they never felt we were even worth communicating with. They watched us build the Omega Cannon and never even warned us against its use.” An involuntary shudder escaped her. “Instead, they just waited for us to use it and then used that as an excuse to exterminate humanity.”

  The Admiral let out a sardonic, humorless laugh. “And now that we have their attention, I doubt they will be content with merely watching us anymore.”

  EPILOGUE

  28 August 3046

  “C’mon, dad, I want to go play now!”

  Eilleen really was the sweetest child in the world, but when she wanted something, she was not at all shy about making it known.

  “Okay, okay, sweetie. I’ll be out in a minute.” Daniel, though he loved playing with his daughter, was not looking forward to the oppressive summer heat, heat that seemed to have no effect on the vibrant youngster. Eilleen had just turned 11 today, and ever since they had adopted her five years ago, Tara and Daniel had noticed that she was an unusually energetic, happy child. She had always done well at school, and her outgoing nature had allowed her to make friends easily. Daniel smiled as he thought of the bright future she had ahead of her, a future wondrous in its uncertainty. She could become anything she wanted, Daniel thought: an engineer, a singer, a teacher … . Right now, however, Daniel was concentrating on training her to be an athlete.

  Eilleen grabbed both her glove and her father’s and ran out the front door, letting the screen door slam loudly against its wooden frame. She bounded out of sight around to the side of the house, where she would wait patiently for her father—for about 90 seconds.

  “She sure loves to play, doesn’t she?” asked Tara, sitting beside Daniel on the couch as he donned his shoes. “I can’t believe she’s already eleven. It seems like just yesterday we brought her home.” Tara was practically beaming.

  “She sure does love to play,” Daniel replied, taking another sip of the fluerenzinone-enhanced sports drink Tara had thoughtfully poured. “And to her, the hotter it is, the better.”

  Tara chuckled. “What’s the matter, old man? Can’t take a little Key West heat? It’s barely a hundred today.”

  “Yeah, in the shade,” Daniel retorted. “Which means, by the way, that it is hot enough to melt titanium ferrite.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic,” Tara chided. “You are wearing sunscreen, right?”

  “Yes, yes, dear,” he said, rising to go meet his daughter outside. “Just be sure you have the oxygen tank waiting for me when I get back.”

  Tara smiled and turned away, bringing the empty glass back to the kitchen.

  Though he was wearing a personal cooling system, which flowed cool water through tubes all over his body, Daniel stepped into the midday sun with trepidation. A wall of heat slammed into him as soon as he stepped outside, and his contact lenses automatically tinted to help shade his eyes from the sun, though the small plasticite lenses were horribly outmatched. Turning the corner of the house, he found Eilleen tossing the ball up in the air and diligently chasing after it as it fell.

  “Alright,” Daniel said, pretending to turn back, “that’s enough for me.”

  “Daddy!” she exclaimed, and caught up to him, tugging on his tunic and thrusting the glove into his hand. “Here.”

  “Oh alright,” he replied. “Tell you what—I’ll stand here in the shade and you go stand out there by the trees.”

  “Okay,” she agreed enthusiastically. Ah, youth.

  Daniel gripped the ball and tossed it to her, his arm, still slightly sore from the day before, protesting only mildly. Eilleen thrust her glove out at the ball, and it ricocheted off the heel, though the youngster managed to adroitly catch it with her free hand before it fell to the ground.

  “Nice catch,” Daniel said, “but you want to catch it in the pocket. Use your other hand to cover it.”

  “I know, daddy,” she replied, her petite face taking on a very adult expression, clearly not appreciating being patronized. “I can catch it.”

  “Okay, sweetie, okay,” Daniel chuckled. “Now let’s see that arm.”

  Eilleen wound up and released the ball, and, though she was standing almost ten meters away, it carried to Daniel in the air, almost getting by him and impacting the side of the house.

  “Nice throw,” said Daniel, removing the ball from his glove. “How about a high one?”

  Before he threw the ball, however, Tara appeared from around the corner of the house. “Daniel,” she called, more than a hint of concern in her voice, “there’s a transmission for you. They say it’s urgent.”

  A million thoughts ran through Daniel’s mind, the most pervasive of which was: were they here? Had the Lucani Ibron come back after all these years??

  Daniel tried to remain calm as he retrieved his nanocomputer from Tara. He keyed the transmission and listened intently, a concentrated look on his face. His wife watched him carefully, but when the transmission was over, he flashed her a lopsided grin, allaying her fears. “Don’t worry—it just seems that they need me for a special meeting of the Ethics Review Board.”

  Tara breathed a sigh of relief.

  “You know, this is precisely why I left my nanocomputer inside,” he lamented. “Why do they need me?”

  “Well,” Tara laughed, “you are the Chairman.”

  Daniel shrugged and turned back to his daughter. He threw the ball to her, but it sailed over her outstretched glove and rolled to a stop just before the tree line began.

  The child sprinted to retrieve the ball, running toward the shaded area near the tall oak trees. She bent down to pick up the ball, but as she turned back to Daniel, she absently let the ball fall from her hand. She was staring into the sky, and her outstretched arm pointed over Daniel’s head.

  Daniel turned to look behind him, and he could see a sleek fighter speeding toward the house, undoubtedly sent to pick him up. He turned back to his daughter, and watched as her emerald eyes traced the path of the swift ship, following it until it descended on the far side of the house, out of sight.

  It figures, Daniel thought, watching her standing there in awe before the gently-swaying trees. After all, he noted, Eilleen was now standing almost directly beneath the bridge of the cloaked Apocalypse, which hovered, unseen, on its antigrav repulsors several centimeters from the ground below. Daniel could not help but chuckle at how ironic it was that the ship was hidden, as it had been for the past five years, right in Daniel’s own back yard, patiently awaiting the eventual return of the Lucani Ibron.

  THE END...?

  Thank you for reading Right Ascension—I hope you enjoyed it.

  But the story is just beginning … continue the adventure with Daniel, Anastasia, and the rest of the crew in:

  Declination

  Declination, Astron. One of two coordinates (the other being right ascension) representing the position of a heavenly body in space, expressed in degrees and calculated as an angular distance north or south from the celestial equator.

  • • •

  A continuation of the saga begun in Right Ascension, Declination finds us in the year 3050, ten years after the dreadful Lucani Ibron have been driven from Earth. Now, the Confederation’s crises are spawned from within, and one brave woman struggles against all odds to keep mankind united amidst a hailstorm of rebellion, war, and moral declinati
on.

  The Lucani Ibron have yet to return, but all is not well within the Alpha Sector. Internal strife, terrorism, and ever-escalating conflicts with several neighboring species have spread the Confederation’s resources dangerously thin. Captain Anastasia Mason, together with an eclectic group of humanity’s most decorated heroes, struggles to hold the Confederation together against powerful forces that threaten to rip it apart at its very core. Then, at what appears to be mankind’s most desperate hour, an old enemy returns from a ten-year hiatus, casting humanity to the brink of civil war … and outright annihilation.

  For More Information:

  www.rightascension.com

  Keep reading for a sneak peek at

  DECLINATION

  available now!

  On the bridge of the Apocalypse, multihued status lights blinked their variegated chorus, tactical display consoles streamed data garnered from the enemy vessel, and the ship’s computer silently tended to a myriad of pre-programmed functions. The ship was seven short of its normal complement, leaving only one man—Daniel Atgard—but his attention was not concentrated on blinking lights or scrolling readouts. Daniel Atgard’s attention was, instead, focused rather intently on the viewscreen, which displayed an image that was, though from a decade ago, hauntingly familiar.

  Seconds passed and seemed like eons. There was no sign of activity from the alien ship. No movement, no attempt at communication. The categorical indifference was, indeed, the very hallmark of the alien species.

  Suddenly, the viewscreen changed, resolving to show the bridge of the alien ship, a sight with which Daniel was also all too familiar. Though he had last seen it ten years ago, his recollection was as vivid as any memory he had. Every detail of the alien bridge was exactly as he remembered it: hovering light-beings clustered around indecipherable patterns of light, flickering and changing shape seemingly at will. In the center was a being more brilliant than the rest, and the Admiral was forced to squint in order to prevent the entire scene from merging into a single luminous blur.