A Sword Into Darkness

10: “FATEFUL MEETINGS”

February 24, 2045; Joint House/Senate Secure Briefing Center - TS/SCI Level; US Capitol; Washington DC

The image on the large display screen dissolved into a wash of static, and the assembled lords of government responded with complete silence. Nathan hit a button on his remote and the static froze, to be replaced by a diagram of the trajectories defining the rendezvous between the Deltans and the Promise. He turned back to his audience in the somber, austere top-secret briefing chamber.

His table and the screen behind him were the focal point to stepped tiers of stadium style seats taking up the majority of space in the wood-paneled, brushed-steel room. Seated there along the four rising levels, favoring him with unknowable expressions in the darkness, were senators and representatives of the House and Senate Armed Services committees, DOD officials, NASA representatives, and key Cabinet members, including the President’s Science Advisor, the Secretary of Defense, and the National Security Advisor. Little, unlit placards with thin lettering identified each person, but he could only make out a few. He recognized even fewer by sight alone, such as the Security Advisor and the SECDEF.

Nathan smiled grimly. His nerves at confronting such a high-powered audience had mostly settled down, but the video and the stark memory it brought up had set them jangling once more. Still, there was no alternative, no choice. The project needed him here, on their turf, in the basement of the Capitol itself. He needed to do this and do it well, both for Gordon’s memory and for their own potential survival.

“Ladies and gentlemen, all telemetry ends soon after the conclusion of the video-stream. We must assume that the Promise was either destroyed or was captured for study. The radar and lidar telemetry, as well as the passive sensor data support what the video shows for the most part.” Nathan clicked his remote again, changing the diagram to one of the Deltan ship-system. “The aliens travel in a convoy of sorts, with their ships in orbit around their main drive. It looks a bit like a miniature solar system, with the vessels laid out almost perfectly on the classic Lagrange points, but the drive is not a star, and the vessels are not planets.

“The drive is the largest component, a constrained sphere of plasma approximately 1000 kilometers in diameter, emitting a photon reaction thrust along one polar axis. The vessels all maintain a circular orbit around the equator of the drive, at a radius of approximately 800 kilometers, held there by some mix of electromagnetic fields, gravity, and possibly some undetectable forces.

“The vessels are as follows,” he said, highlighting each in turn with a click of the control. “The control ship. The junkyard. The cathedral. And the polyp. The control ship is the smallest at twenty kilometers in diameter, and the others are all about the same size at 45 kilometers each. We don’t know the purpose behind any of them, or why their designs all vary so greatly. All we know is that the control ship seems to take an active role in controlling the drive and the rotation of the convoy, and that it collected all the debris from the Promise’s sub-probes. Presumably, it gathered up the probe itself after it stopped transmitting.”

Nathan set down the control and looked over the darkened assembly. “That’s pretty much all we can say about the rendezvous. You each have full briefing packets before you which cover the video and telemetry analysis in greater detail. If you have any questions, please ask, but remember that all we know is there in the briefing. Anything else is nothing more than pure speculation, at least until Promise II makes its rendezvous. That includes conjecture over whether or not this was an overtly hostile act, whether it was some form of defense, or even if this was just a common, innocent reaction that we’re simply misinterpreting. We won’t know the answers to those questions until we are in direct contact. Now, given that, are there any questions before I continue with current ops plans and any future initiatives?”

The lights in the room came up somewhat, and he now faced a room peppered with expressions ranging from shock, to incredulity, to fear, and to amusement. He scanned over the room of darkly polished wood and brushed steel, hoping there would be no redirect, that he could continue before his confidence had a chance to falter, but in a room filled with people who were paid to pontificate, there was little chance of that.

One senator stood in the third tier, behind the cabinet members, but Nathan did not recognize him. He nodded to the man, wishing again for a set of congressional flash cards or at least some brighter placards, and then sat. The tall, stately, white-haired gentleman from Nebraska looked somewhat adrift, but he flashed his most challenging glare and addressed Nathan directly, though his comments were meant for the crowd. “Aliens. You gathered us together, interrupted our very tight schedules, shoved a bunch of spurious charts and analyses in front of us for … what? For aliens?”

Nathan responded from his seat at the table heading up the assembly. “Yes, Senator. I know it’s asking a lot. I, myself, didn’t really believe for years, but none of us now have the luxury of time to indulge our doubts. Unfortunately, you need to get on board almost immediately. There are decisions that have to be made, and you folks are the only ones that can make them.”

The senator just shook his head. “The Deltan invasion has long been the province of charlatans, madmen, and the ignorantly paranoid. But now that you have your little movie and your charts, you expect us to join up with the conspiracy theorists and just open the coffers to you? I really don’t think so. How do we even know this telemetry is real—that your probe is real?”

Nathan started to speak, but a hand closed over his own to stop him. Lydia Russ sat beside him, holding him still with a look. Instead, she rose gracefully to her feet, standing as the newly appointed head of Windward Inc., as decreed within Gordon's updated will. “Senator James, do we really need to start grandstanding in here? This brief is above Top Secret. None of your constituents will ever see it. C-SPAN Six won’t be covering any part of it. There will be no sound bites, and no lobbying. Today is about planning and policy, not politicking.

“Now, how exactly do you think we even got you all in this room today? Was it because of my winning personality? Because I’m a veteran Beltway Bandit? Perhaps out of belated respect for my predecessor and friend, a man who gave so much to this nation? Not likely in this crowd. No, we did it by proving the data, to the satisfaction of the DOD, NASA, and top minds in the fields of science and industry. If you would have bothered to open your briefing, you’d have noted that every bit of it has been vetted and verified already.

“The probe was real—we have video of its launch, as well as eye-witness testimony from our own naval ships. The telemetry is real—it was received by numerous tracking stations who will each confirm that it was transmitted from deep space. And though it’s possible that we could have performed some sort of Hollywood magic to show the rendezvous, the briefing package will clearly show that is not the case. It’s all real: the probe, the data, and the aliens, certified by your own top government experts.

“So denying the situation at this point is the equivalent of screaming to us that the Earth is flat or that Washington is a bastion of virtue—not only is it crazy, it’s naive, short-sighted, and a waste of time. Given the evidence we’ve presented, no one should have to stretch their credulity any more than we do for any other piece of actionable intel. Face it, this is our new reality, and we’re already late in confronting it. We simply don’t have the time for business-as-usual. I recommend you start accepting that and stop obstructing the business of this committee.”

Senator James opened and closed his mouth like a gasping fish a few times, but he soon noticed something important among his paperwork and he sat down quietly to examine it further. Nathan suppressed a grin and stood as Lydia sat. He looked at her. He could tell why Gordon had liked her so, why his will had appointed her as his successor. They were kindred spirits.

He turned back to the room. “Any other questions?”

The conference chamber was quiet for a moment, but eventually a congresswoman stood in the fourth tier of seats, smoothing her dress and capturing the room with her gaze. When all eyes were on her, she spoke. “Mr. Kelley, I just want to express what most of us here are probably feeling. This whole situation has taken us aback. I don’t want to be obstructionist, Ms. Russ, but briefing package or no, this is something that’s going to take some getting used to. There are questions that need to be asked, and we can’t even formulate them until we can get our minds around the basic situation.

“Aliens? Where are they from? Why are they coming here? How can we prepare for them without making some critical misstep? Should your fears prove justified, how can we possibly defend against a capability so firmly beyond our own? And most importantly, how do we couch this new reality to the people of America and the rest of the planet?”

Nathan nodded. “Ma’am, I cannot answer all of those for you. I’m just an engineer now. The man whose later years had been devoted to coming up with those answers is no longer with us, unfortunately. We can only carry on with his vision and try to do our best. You ladies and gentlemen have to determine what that best is.” He favored her with a slight smile. “But we do have a few answers for you.

“If you will open your briefing package to section three, you’ll see summaries of the technical initiatives Windward and the DOD have been involved with for nearly twenty years. Realizing our best chance began with making first contact away from Earth itself, we’ve been developing a number of groundbreaking technologies in the areas of propulsion, power, structural materials, and computing. These have culminated in our first true spaceship, a vessel capable of interstellar flight within a reasonable mission-time, capable of greeting the Deltans outside of our solar system and establishing diplomatic relations, or, if necessary, of dissuading their further approach should they prove hostile.”

Nathan turned to the screen and clicked his remote. For a moment, the room faded away from his senses, and all he could see was the display. On it, a schematic and an artist’s rendering of their ship stood side by side, the long, stark lines of its hexagonal wedge and its chevron-like radiator panels unlike anything the world had ever seen, but familiar and nostalgic just the same, an image from fevered sci-fi dreams. He could almost feel Gordon standing next to him.

“This is the Sword of Liberty, the first in a new class of spacecraft. Numbered DA-1, for Destroyer-Astrodynamic, she is 800 feet long, with a beam of 100 feet by 130 feet, divided into three sections: mission hull, radiator, and reactor/drive. The ship masses about 6500 tons and is powered by a 10 GW plutonium pebble bed reactor, cooled by radiative emission and drive effect. Propulsion is via a breakthrough technology known as an enhanced photon reaction drive, enabling us to produce a continuous g-level thrust without need of any bulky reaction mass, and is similar, if not identical, to the Deltan’s drive.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Kelley!” Nathan stopped and turned around. The congresswoman, whose name he still did not know, but who had spoken up before, raised her hand up from her seat. “Do you mean that this is what you are planning on building or what you have built?”

“I mean that the Sword of Liberty is built, fitted out, and ready for launch into orbit. As we will discuss in greater detail in a moment, our intention is to launch with our full crew aboard, conduct a brief series of trials and tests in orbit, and to proceed on our own rendezvous mission soon thereafter.”

He turned back to the screen, clicking the remote to reveal the Sword in her floating launch hangar outside Santa Clara, laying down on her side, with cables and workers arrayed over the dark gray surface. “We have installed a wide variety of communication devices, each linked to linguistic databases, intelligent translation software, and first-contact primers developed by experts in the, until now, theoretical field of exo-linguistics. It is intended that a US ambassador and staff employ these systems to open negotiations. Room has been reserved for this diplomatic element, and we only await your guidance in order to finalize our crew.

“And in case communication should prove futile, the Sword of Liberty is a destroyer in fact, not only in designation.” Nathan clicked the remote to reveal another schematic, this one highlighting the weapons and sensors arrayed over her hull. “We have no way of knowing what weapons would be effective, so we’ve included a variety, stretching the limits of our own technology.” A green laser point appeared over each system as he briefed them.

“You can’t build an honest-to-God spaceship without lasers, so we installed them. The Sword is serviced by six independently powered and controlled diode laser stacks, each capable of producing a multi-megawatt beam of high-UV light, coherent out to a focal limit of 1500 kilometers. Though that seems a significant range for a direct-fire weapon, it’s fairly short for encounters in space, especially with something the size of the Deltan system. Therefore, while the lasers are capable of aimed fire out to their extreme range, they are optimized for autonomous defensive fire, and thus constitute the primary active defense of the ship.

“The ship also mounts a spinal railgun running down the centerline, firing forward. The railgun fires a number of different projectiles ranging from electronics rounds, to explosive rounds, to tungsten kinetic rounds, all of which can be fired at a selectable velocity—up to 60,000 meters per second, at a cyclical rate of 30 rounds a minute. Given our targeting capabilities, the railgun has a longer effective range than the lasers, but it’s ammunition limited, unlike the laser stacks.”

Nathan paused to survey the audience. They were rapt for the most part, with a few flipping back and forth through the briefing packet. Nathan reached down and poured himself a drink of water from the ubiquitous crystal pitcher and glass on his table. Those who had been reading looked up at the interruption while he drank. The cool water did little to slake his desperate, nervous thirst, though. His mouth seemed even dryer than it had been a moment before. This next part would be tough.

Damn Kris and her bright ideas.

He favored the audience with a half-smile and then turned slightly back to the screen. “Excuse me.” His green laser ran over a set of small, individual hatches arranged in six groupings of eight on each flank of the ship. “These hatches cover the main armament of the ship. Each of these 96 hatches tops a missile cell, much like our ships’ current Vertical Launch Systems. Within each one is a ship-to-ship offensive missile of our own design.”

Nathan clicked to the next slide, showing a schematic of the missile in profile. “This is the Excalibur Mark 1. It’s pretty much a small spacecraft in and of itself, consisting of a guidance and sensor package, a limited AI, and a photonic reaction drive powered by a sacrificial ultracapacitor bank. Each missile carries six variable-effect munitions capable of either deep penetration, contact, or proximity detonation. Each munition also has a fourth, untested detonation mode: lasing. One of the primary tasks for our orbital trials will be to validate the performance of the Excalibur in all four modes.”

Nathan heard a scraping of a chair and he looked over to see who had moved. Upon seeing the culprit, he stifled a groan. Not only had he inherited Gordon’s responsibilities on the project, it seemed he had inherited his headaches as well.

Secretary of Defense Carl Sykes, formerly Deputy SECDEF, stood with an unreadable expression on his face. “Excuse me, Mr. Kelley, but might I ask what type of explosive your missile is using? ‘Munitions’ is rather vague and you seem to have left it out of your otherwise fine briefing.”

Nathan squared his shoulders and faced off with Sykes across the room. “Not an oversight, Mr. Secretary—an intentional omission. We’ve relied heavily upon the largesse of the US government in order to get this ship built, but certain conditions and restrictions placed upon our preps could have derailed the whole effort. We knew what needed to be done, so we did it, even if it meant circumventing a few of the limits placed over us.”

Sykes’ eyes narrowed. “What are those missiles armed with, Kelley?”

“Thermonuclear warheads, Secretary Sykes.”

A few representatives and senators popped to their feet, with genuine outrage in some cases and carefully crafted platform stances in others. The incensed legislators frothed so automatically that they all started speaking over one another. “Nuclear warheads!” “This was never authorized—” “What about our treaties—” “—the damn Non-Proliferation Treaty—” “I bet it was that idiot in the White House—” “Where were those missiles built? My constituents—” “Whose securing these—”

“Quiet!” commanded Sykes, briefly returning to his former role as a senior general in the Air Force. And though the assembled indignant congresspersons were not the types to defer authority easily, his tone and their genuine level of discomfort with the situation allowed him to assert his control. “Ladies and gentlemen, I assure you that the office of the President and the agreement under which this ship was constructed did not include the outfitting or development of controlled weapons. In fact, they specifically barred the acquisition of weapons-grade nuclear materials.”

The SECDEF glared each of the reps back to their seats and then turned back to Nathan and Lydia. “Since that was indeed our agreement, would you mind telling us how you got highly-enriched fissile material through our screening process? All you were approved for was reactor-grade fuels, and I personally vetted the nuclear-security procedures set up.”

Nathan smiled tightly. “Yes, your procedures were very effective—effective at slowing down every aspect of reactor construction, but don’t worry. No one violated your materials control process.”

“So how the hell did you build nuclear warheads?”

“We did it by not using any nuclear materials at all—yours or anyone else’s. Our fusion warheads are triggered through a completely different process, developed in-house as an offshoot of our drive technology. There are no plutonium or uranium primaries. Instead we use a pure fusion process more closely related to laser ignition—the photonic compression sphere.” Nathan turned away from Sykes and addressed the audience as a whole. “I know this may be a special shock, in a day filled with shocks, but believe me when I say that this was a necessary step. Without a weapon of this energy level, we’d have no hope of competing with a tech-base capable of interstellar travel.”

One of the senators who had stood before, the man who had cried foul about the Non-Proliferation Treaty, stood up in the second tier again to address Sykes and Nathan. “Mr. Kelley, Ms. Russ, I’m Paul Yardley, senator from Nevada. I’m sure you felt this was a necessary weapon. It’s obvious that you’ve had to make tough decisions about issues that most of us have never even imagined before, but this decision, this choice, has repercussions beyond merely your project.

“You’ve looked at this like an engineer, finding a solution that neatly avoids the obstacles placed before you, but you’ve also just invalidated decades of armed diplomacy and enforced compromise. All our arms control safeguards are built around monitoring and controlling the use of processed radioactives. If you can get the same effect through what are essentially ballotechnics rather than controlled materials, then you’ve just made it possible for small groups or even individuals to make their own WMD’s. You built over 500 of them in Santa Clara, and no one even noticed.”

Nathan nodded grimly. “I realize that, Senator, which was why we took so much care with security—security so effective that the fact that our warheads were actually thermonuclear devices went completely unnoticed by our DOD overseers. They thought the missiles were armed with kinetic-kill submunitions only. The warhead components were all built by different sub-contractors under oppressive non-disclosure agreements. Not one of them knew what the components were meant to do, or what they connected to, or how they connected together. They were each assembled, mounted, and installed in the ship at our Santa Clara facility. Aside from the intended crew and the people in this room, there are only ten other people who know what the devices actually do, and I trust them all implicitly.”

Sykes grunted. “I’m sure your personal assurances are more than enough to soothe our nerves, you know, with uncontrolled nuclear arms proliferation on the table, and all that. By the way, wasn’t there a break-in at your facility?”

“Which we stopped—”

“And you still have no idea as to the identity of this thief, no knowledge of who he was working for, or how many other secrets might have leaked out before this?”

“He’s in your custody, Mr. Secretary! You should be able to answer that better than anyone! But you’re correct—our mystery man is still a mystery. However, no related tech has been seen in the outside world and we are sure that no other break-ins have occurred before or since.”

Lydia stood, placing a hand on Nathan’s rigid shoulder. He resisted for a moment, but soon responded to her gentle insistence and sat. She looked over the room, catching Senator Yardley and Sykes with her final gaze. “You’re right to be worried, Senator. This tech changes everything, and it makes your jobs both harder and more dangerous. But this device is, if anything, more complicated and difficult to build than even a ‘normal’ hydrogen bomb. It is not something your average Timothy McVeigh or Abdul Massharaf will be able to develop on their own. Rest assured, it was a necessary and vital development for the project. Don’t forget the stakes we’re dealing with here. Our failure to go through with this possibly ill-advised step could lead to our extinction or enslavement by an alien race. Remember that.

“Besides, when you think about it, this warhead tech is only the tip of the iceberg. Everything about this ship and its mission is going to change the planet.”

Senator Yardley cocked his head to one side, a signature gesture he used when he thought someone was lying or exaggerating. “I would be hard pressed to believe that anything could be more potentially upsetting than an uncontrolled, off-the-shelf nuclear weapons technology.”

Lydia smiled. “Then you obviously don’t understand what we’ve been sitting on for the past twenty years. While I myself wouldn’t characterize the weapons tech as ‘off-the-shelf’, it’s not my chief worry. At this point it’s covered in a blanket of secrecy. As long as we don’t blab about it, there’s no reason for anyone to suspect it differs from other nukes. It’s relatively ‘safe.’ But when we launch for trials and the mission itself, other aspects of this tech won’t be nearly as safe.

“If you launch something this big, with this much energy, people will notice. The probe was tiny, yet it still caused significant interest, which we were able to successfully deflect. When the Sword of Liberty goes up, it’s going to be the story of the millennium and there’s no way we’ll be able to hide it or its destination. All of a sudden, the US government will have to come clean about its cover-up, and about the truth behind the Deltans. Suddenly, we won’t be alone in the universe. I expect that the societal and religious disruptions that’ll cause will more than dwarf the unreleased fact that we have a fancy new warhead.

“The international community will be angry we didn’t involve them or the UN. Every preacher of every faith on the planet will wonder what this means in terms of our place with the Almighty, what it means about our souls, or about the aliens’ souls. The stock markets will experience an upheaval that no one can predict. Other emerging superpowers will try to beat us to the punch with their own first contact efforts, which means they’ll either go up with existing tech, try to develop their own, or try to steal ours—and there’s a lot to be stolen besides just the warheads. The structural materials like chromatic plate and allocarbium will spawn new industries and wreck the existing steel and composites economies. The laser and railgun tech will revolutionize the defense and power industries. Our computing tech is a good five to ten years ahead of what’s commercially available.

“But the big upset is the drive tech. Orbit is no longer difficult to achieve. The solar system is now days or weeks away, not months or years. There are mountains of ore just waiting to be smelted and processed out there in the asteroid belt. And don’t discount the tourist industry! Everybody is going to want to see Saturn’s rings for themselves.

“No, this ship could have deployed armed with nothing but sticks and stones, and it still would have turned the world upside down. Worry about the warheads if you like, but this august assembly had better worry about the other aspects of this situation a hell of a lot more. The good thing is that our beloved US of A is starting out at the top of the heap. You gentlemen and ladies have to figure out how this country’s going to capitalize on the opportunity before it blows up in your faces.”

Lydia sat to renewed murmurs and excited, concerned discussion. She turned to Nathan and whispered to him, “That’s got ‘em buzzing. Good god, Gordon would’ve gotten a kick out of this.”

Nathan nodded. “He’d eat it up, but he’s not as smooth as you are. He probably would’ve had a tantrum and attacked a senator by this point. Of course, we haven’t dropped the big question yet. You could still pull a Gordon.”

She feigned an expression of exaggerated shock. “Me? I thought you were the one who would make the Grand Request.” She smiled, looked over the room and then locked in on Sykes again. “He’s been too quiet. After sticking him in the eye on the whole warhead thing, I figured he would have to be dragged out of here.”

“Maybe it wasn’t as much of a shock as you thought it was. Gordon warned me about him. He’s supposed to be pretty shrewd.”

“Mmm hmmm. Shrewd and not the biggest supporter of what we’re trying to do here.” Her eyes narrowed. “He’s up to something. There’s a reason he hasn’t protested much yet.”

Before Nathan could respond, Senator James took advantage of a lull in the room’s chatter and stood. From his position on the third tier of elevated seats, his tall frame towered over the chamber, causing all eyes to go toward him. “Excuse me! Excuse me. My dear Ms. Russ, your little presentation has us all atwitter, which I’m sure must be exciting for you, however what do you really need from us? You’ve got your ship, your crew, and your smug sense of duty. Why bother informing such an insignificant body as the United States Congress? Why not just go on your mission and write yourselves into the history books without us?”

Lydia stood, smoothing her outfit. “Members of Congress, Secretaries, the Sword of Liberty is only the start, but it’s all that Windward Tech could hope to accomplish with its own budget and the black funding from the DOD. As of this last quarter, the company I now head is in the toilet. Windward has to turn away from exterior concerns and focus on the business of business, or else we’ll be gobbled up and cast to oblivion.

“The reason we’re briefing you, aside from your simple need to know, is that DA-1 is not enough. The Sword will make first contact, and hopefully that contact will prove the aliens benign. Should it prove otherwise, it will then attempt to find out what, if any, of our tactical preparations are actually effective. Should it become necessary, DA-1 will engage the enemy, determine its tactical capabilities, transmit that data to Earth, and, God willing, withdraw. But it is not the final defense of Earth, only the first sally.

“You all have to make sure that’s not in vain. While DA-1 is in transit, you must begin construction on DA-2, and then DA-3, and 4, and 5, and more and more until we have a fleet of Sword-class destroyers. You must build them, outfit them, and crew them. You must start thinking about the defense of our planet. You have to start thinking about orbital mine fields, asteroid laser and missile emplacements, sensor nets, electronic warfare stations, supply depots. Frankly, you have to authorize and shepherd our way to a space-based defense right out of Star Wars or Star Trek within the next 13 years, because that’s the world we’re in now, and we’re starting this game already behind.”

Senator James sneered at all the reps who nodded their heads at her request. “You’re talking about putting us on a war footing! We don’t know that such a thing is even necessary, or how it might color our first negotiations with these aliens! And how do we know that your destroyer will be effective in the least?”

“We don’t know, but that question is almost useless. If we prepare and they prove friendly, what we gain in terms of technological distribution and new tech will make the expense and effort almost minor. If our preps make them uncomfortable, well, we’re human, and such a step is only supported by our history as a species. If they know anything about us, they should know it’s the sort of thing we’re apt to do. Hell, it’s a moderately friendly action compared to some of the things we’ve done right here on Earth when faced with the unknown. Of course, if we prepare and the Sword is totally outclassed, there’s always a chance we can adjust our defense in time, but more likely they’ll just wipe us off the face of the planet. Then no one will be left to complain about how much we’ve spent.

“And certainly, there’s the distinct possibility our preps will be completely justified. If the Sword is moderately successful, then building a defense at home might very well save all our lives. Of course, then there’s the worst case scenario: you don’t allow us to prepare as we’re urging, the aliens prove to be the nasty sort, and we all end up dead. Then you can try to balance the cost of these defenses against the price of everyone’s lives, all the way to your grave.”

Senator Yardley stood as James carefully returned to his seat, his face troubled. Yardley appeared thoughtful though. “Ms. Russ, that all sounds quite a bit like Pascal’s challenge concerning the existence of God. But, let’s move away from the philosophical and narrow down on the practical. How much would the defensive measures you’re advocating end up costing us? Can we even afford what you’re asking of us? Are you asking us to start issuing war bonds? Are you asking us to do this in collaboration with other nations?”

Nathan took over from Lydia. “Those questions are the meat of the matter, Senator, and that’s what you folks have to determine. We’ve done what little we could to aid your deliberations, though. If you’ll all turn to section four of your briefs, you’ll see a Defensive Cost Analysis—”

“Wait one moment, Mr. Kelley!” Sykes stood with the briefing package open in his hands. He smiled in an unpleasant way. “I’m not quite done with section three yet, on your ship and mission.”

“Here it comes,” Lydia said softly from her seat, where only Nathan could hear her.

Nathan nodded. “Very well, Mr. Secretary. Go ahead.”

“I just have a few questions regarding your crew selection.”

“Ask away.”

“A few of your choices seem … unusual. With a crew totaling just 35 people on a potentially tactical mission, only fifteen of them have any military experience at all.”

Nathan smiled. Something was building here. “Well, of those 35, thirty are identified, with the remainder to be decided upon by the DOD and the State Department. Half of my portion of the crew have extensive military experience, primarily in the Navy and the Air Force. We also have one Marine thrown in for good measure. That’s not too bad a ratio, in my opinion. Of the remaining fifteen, seven have private pilot’s licenses, two are former Merchant Marines, one’s a trauma surgeon, another’s a general practitioner, and the others are the primary designers for several of our most complex systems.

“All of our identified crew has trained for over a year on operating and developing the combat and engineering systems aboard the Sword, and each crewmember has undergone extensive cross-training so they each know the others’ jobs. The whole crew has been through a private version of NASA’s astronaut training program, and they’ve gone through the full space station psychological battery. When it comes to having an expert crew able to handle any eventuality or casualty, I’d go with this one over any other.”

“One of your veterans is a double amputee, Mr. Kelley.”

Nathan’s eyes narrowed. “That particular gentleman has gotten by quite ably for the last thirteen years on prosthetics, and in microgravity that handicap should be a moot issue. In addition, he’s a tactical and technical wizard, a decorated former Senior Chief in the US Navy, and I’d trust him with my life anytime, anywhere.”

Sykes shook his head. “Would you trust him with every life on this planet?”

“Yes.”

Sykes grunted and looked back down at his briefing. “And who is the commanding officer of this ‘expert’ crew?”

Nathan said nothing and looked down. He sighed and scanned the crowd. A few followed along in their briefs, but most simply stared at him and Sykes.

He turned back to the antagonistic Secretary of Defense. “I’m the captain of this mission. I had a major hand in designing the ship, in determining the tactical mission parameters, and in assembling the crew. My past naval experience and my skill-set in particular were sought out by Mr. Lee. I was his first and last choice to lead this mission. There may be someone out there with more battle experience than I, or more sea time in command, but no one has more experience aboard this type of ship on this sort of mission. Gordon Lee wanted me to be the CO, and I plan to carry out his wish.”

Sykes nodded and looked around at the audience. Now all eyes were on them. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t your last seagoing assignment as a mere lieutenant department head, an assignment that ended with your ship sunk and half your crew killed?”

Lydia shot to her feet. “That’s a damned low blow, Carl!”

Sykes raised placating hands. “I’m not disputing the valor with which you served, nor the medals you justly received for your actions off the coast of North Korea. I merely want everyone here to realize to whom they’re entrusting the wellbeing of our nation and the entire human race.”

He turned completely around, looking up from his seat in the first tier to address the joint House and Senate committees. “I would be the last person to disparage a seasoned, bloodied hero of our Navy, but I also won’t allow them to capitalize on my honor and respect in order to steer this body onto a dangerous course. What LT Kelley did in 2031 is far removed from what he’s proposing to do now. Years can change a man.

“See it this way, if you will. Do you feel safe entrusting first contact to a man who has already lied to our government? Who lied for the purpose of building his own nuclear arsenal for use against an alien presence that has not definitively proven itself hostile? Who will be far beyond the systems of checks and balances and controls that our own trained, vetted ballistic missile sub captains operate under? Who may, possibly, be suffering from the effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or who may have something to prove for past blood and lost glory?”

Lydia began to step out from the table, held back only by Nathan’s firm grip on her wrist. “God damn you, Carl! There’s not one bit of truth to anything you just said! You’re twisting things!”

Nathan surveyed the room, purposely avoiding Sykes’ eyes. To their credit, several senators and representatives looked appropriately shamed, unable to lock gazes with him. Eventually, Nathan forced himself to focus upon Sykes. “I suppose you have an alternative plan, Mr. Secretary?

Sykes smiled slightly. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

February 24, 2045; Kelley residence, Vista Del Mar Condominium Village; Santa Cruz, California

Nathan slammed the door on his car and looked toward his front door with a mix of dread and relief. At this, the tail end of the longest, toughest day he had ever endured, all he wanted was to lay down, shut his eyes, and sleep. But surrendering to sleep also meant giving up the fight, even though he had already lost before he even knew he should be fighting.

Gordon predicted this, he thought. He saw this coming, he warned me with his dying words, and I still failed him.

Nathan shouldered his overnight luggage and trudged up the path to his first-floor condo. Looking at the cement walk, fumbling for the key on his key-ring, he failed to notice Kristene sitting on his porch until he almost fell over her.

“Hey! Kris!” He smiled down at her, momentarily glad despite how the day had gone. “What are you doing here?”

She looked up at him and slowly rose to her feet, her wildly disarrayed phosphorescent red hair offset by the dark expression she wore. She stepped forward to block his access to the front door. “Anything you want to tell me about your trip, Nathan?”

He sighed. “There’s a lot I want to tell you, that I need to tell you, but not right now, okay? I was up at five AM East Coast time and it’s been a hell of a long day. All I want to do now is get some sleep.”

Anger flashed in her eyes. “Yeah? Well I want some freakin’ answers! Why is all my access cut off?! Why are there Army types crawling all over the shipyard and the dock? What the hell did you do in DC today?!”

“Army types? Damn, he works fast.”

“What is that supposed to mean? I called Lydia and she said she couldn’t tell me over the phone. She told me to go and ask you. So here I am. I’m asking! Why have you two cut me off from my work? Am I not on the team anymore, now that you’re in the big leagues with Washington?”

Nathan shook his head, confused for a moment, and then he looked at her and grinned slightly. He laughed, but choked it off when he saw her expression turn fiery. “Okay, all right. Let’s go inside so I can put this shit down. I’ll tell you everything, but it’s not what you think.”

She stood her ground for a few seconds and then stepped to one side. “It’s not?”

“No,” he said, “it’s much worse.”

Nathan unlocked and fumbled through the door, dropping his gear on the other side with relief. The place was pristine, ordered, but not because he himself was. He was virtually a stranger in his own apartment. All his time, his devotion, his passion was spent at the shipyard. This place was furnished out of Swedish catalogs, updated with all the latest electronics, cleaned and maintained by a service, and enjoyed by virtually no one.

Kris entered behind him and shut the door. She looked uncomfortable, the heat of her anger cooling slowly. Nathan favored her with as welcoming a smile as he could muster, given how tired he was, but he could not help it coming off more melancholy than friendly.

Realizing he could not make her feel any more at ease, he dropped the smile, and meandered through his place. He felt unaccountably nervous. It had been a long time since a woman had been in his apartment, but this was Kris. That was a non-starter. It could not be that.

He wandered over to the one area of his apartment that he truly thought of as “his”. A wall entirely devoted to bookshelves was filled to overflowing with paperbacks, hardcovers, UV-ROM movies—science fiction, thrillers, and military all, with a few engineering and speculative science texts thrown in for good measure. Interspersed among the books-stacked-upon-books were bits and pieces of his former life. Ball caps, signed pictures of the three ships he had been on, photo albums, cruise books, memorabilia—snapshots of a time when he had served something greater and nobler than his own interests. Nathan had hoped to add another ship’s icons to those shelves.

But that would not happen, not now.

He shook his head and turned back to Kris. Her anger had ebbed enough that she could see how deeply he hurt. He could see the compassion rising in her eyes. Nathan took a step closer. His voice dropped to a near whisper. “We lost it, Kris. It happened just like Gordon warned it would, and there wasn’t a damn thing we could do to stop it.”

“What—”

“They nationalized us,” he said in a louder, grimmer tone. “Sykes must have been planning for this from the very moment the government began bankrolling the program. Now that the ship is done and the mission is no longer political suicide, he made his move. It’s not just you who’s lost your access. It’s all of us. As of this afternoon, the Sword of Liberty and the entire Special Projects division of Windward Technologies Inc. are wholly-owned properties of the United States government, managed by the Department of Defense.”

Anger colored her face again, almost making it match the glowing crimson of her hair, but this time her ire was not aimed at him. “They can’t do that! You said Gordon had agreements, contracts that clearly laid out the boundaries of who owned what!”

He nodded sadly. “That’s right, but you’ll find that contracts are hard to enforce when the things they concern are classified at a higher level than any court that’s authorized to work out disputes. We relied on the magnanimity of the Beltway, which goes completely by the wayside when you start edging up on national security issues. And when Congress found out we had our own unregulated nuclear arsenal, and that a bunch of non-military eggheads were going to be negotiating with an advanced alien race for the fate of the planet … well, they were only too happy to back up the SECDEF in his power grab.”

Kris looked like she was about to scream, but then her face just fell, her fury shorted out. He could see all the emotions she had built up through hours of wild speculation and worry over betrayal simply vanish, leaving behind a numb, empty shell, another soul hollowed out by the bureaucracy. To Nathan, it was a recognizable moment, that realization of defeat.

She turned and sat down on the couch, moving slowly as her mind tried to sort things out. Nathan was grateful. His fatigue and his own drained emotions conspired to sap him of whatever energy still kept him standing. He walked over and flopped down on the plump tan couch next to her. The cushions were bliss. He laid his head back.

Kris leaned over, her elbows on her knees, her hands massaging her temples. “What happens now? Are we out-out? Or are we just out for the moment?”

He looked over at her. He was so tired, but he had worked through all of this hours ago and he did not want her to rack her mind through all the permutations he himself had turned to and discarded, one by dismal one. “Yes, we’re out-out. Apparently, we’re national assets, you more than me. We’re needed down here, to oversee and guide the construction of the fleet, assuming of course that they even decide to build one.”

“A monkey could do that now,” she snarled, some anger still alive within her. “The ship is designed! Anyone could take our specs and build another. I’m not needed for that. I’m needed where the damn first contact team might run into something we never planned on!”

Nathan shook his head. “Be that as it may, your new place is here. A combined Navy-Air Force crew will take up Liberty, and they’ll make first contact. They’re dependable. They’re expendable. They’re not us.”

“So I build their damn starship, and I don’t even get a ride? That’s complete BS!”

He shrugged. “I know, but Lydia and I were able to get a couple of concessions, at least. We will get to go up. We’ll launch the ship, carry out the test trials with the military crew, and then we’ll return to Earth. One ticket, one joyride, but no mission.”

She slumped back on the couch, to slouch as he was. She looked over at him. “And what about the mission? What about the whole reason we built the ship in the first place?”

Nathan smiled tightly. “The ship will stay in orbit while they re-evaluate the mission plan, and train on the operational systems. When the DOD decides they’re ready, they’ll go. I’m sure we’ll get a nice mission patch or something, but as of this afternoon, the fate of the world no longer rests on our shoulders.”

Kris turned her head and stared at the ceiling. “Good god, this sucks.”

“Yeah.” He looked at her in profile, smiling softly to himself despite how horribly the day had turned out. Kristene was here, and for some reason that seemed to make everything all right. He watched her stare ahead, working furiously and hopelessly through all the angles of their new reality for as long as he could. But after a few moments, his eyelids drooped, the world fell away, and he slept, admitting defeat at last.

After some unknown time, as quick as an eye blink, or as long as hours, the world came back. He awoke refreshed, renewed, and unreasonably content. The worries of his long day did not seem to matter as much. Something was different, with either himself or the world, but the difference was a welcome one.

As he rose further from the comforting depths of sleep, he realized that something indeed was changed about the world, a world defined at the moment by just his senses of touch and smell. Now, before he dared to open his eyes, the limits of his existence were bounded by the pleasant warmth and the reassuring pressure of someone by his side, by the fresh, indescribable scent of a woman’s hair.

Nathan opened his eyes and looked over to see Kris’ head lying against his shoulder. She looked back at him with red-rimmed eyes, unspent tears gathered at their corners.

She said nothing, gave him no explanation for why she was there, for why she might have been crying. There was nothing that needed to be said, however. For her, things between them had never really changed, only delayed. For him, the only thing that had changed was the realization that his stoicism and his denials had been for nothing. His rejections had not saved the project. They had only put off what they both wanted, what they both knew was the right and necessary thing.

His reasons for doing what he had done had been valid and objectively wise, but they also no longer applied. They did not need to hold him back anymore.

Nathan circled his arms around Kris and leaned toward her. She reached up and drew him into a kiss, gentle and slow, the fulfillment of an unspoken promise that had been made in his office one night nearly two years before. Over time, time that passed unnoticed and unheeded, their kiss grew more heated, more insistent.

The pleasant warmth that lay between them became an unbearable heat. Lying on the couch together, they each quickly shed their encumbering clothing and yielded to the pull of unrealized needs, to the weight of years spent orbiting about one another, waiting for this moment.

Later still, so late that it was early, Nathan lay back in his bed, holding her close to him, reveling in the sensation of her skin in contact with his own. His hands roamed aimlessly across her back, tracing the colorful tattoos that extended up from her left arm and across half her back, massaging or idly stroking with no rhythm or regularity. It was just something to do, something he had always wanted to do, but which he had never admitted to himself before. He enjoyed the slight shivers that went through her when his touch was lightest.

They looked at each other and, seemingly on cue, they both started giggling, laughing over nothing but new-found joy. It was as if they were two children who had discovered the hidden wonder and magic in the everyday world, like suddenly finding the rainbow spun off a crystal in sunlight.

Kris rolled over and lay next to him on her back, in contact, but not so close now that he could feel every heartbeat. She pulled the sheet down, carrying nothing for modesty and happy for a chance to cool off. She looked at him. “You know, I’ve been thinking … .”

“You can still think?” he asked, smiling. “Wow. That’s one up on me.”

Kris smiled back. “Stop it. I’ve been thinking, is the SECDEF a bad guy, someone who just wants the tech for himself, under his control? Or is he right, that we shouldn’t be trusted with something this big, that just because we thought it up and we built it, we aren’t necessarily the right choice to actually go?”

Nathan frowned and reached for her hand, entwining her fingers with his own and kissing them gently. He brought their arms down between their prone forms, still holding her hand lightly. “I don’t know. I don’t know him well enough to say. Just because someone didn’t get along with Gordon or Lydia, doesn’t automatically mean they’re evil or wrong.”

“But it’s not exactly a vote in his favor, either.”

“No, definitely not. Still, Gordon had his quirks, and not everybody appreciated them. I guess I’d have to hope that Carl Sykes did what he did out of a genuine sense of duty and concern for the nation. But I was there. I saw him and the way he operates. He may have nothing but altruistic motives, but how he gets his way is nothing short of criminal.”

Kris rose up on one elbow and turned toward him, making it difficult for him to concentrate suddenly. “Eyes up here, fearless leader.” He locked gazes with her and they both smiled. She nodded. “Tell me, is what Sykes doing the right thing or not? Is this mission delay and crew swap a better plan in the end, objectively? Or do you stand by the crew you picked out, the mission you’ve been planning?”

There was no hesitation on his part. “Getting out to the Deltans sooner rather than later is a better plan. Going out there with the people we trust and who we’ve worked with for so long is the right plan.” Nathan sighed. “But it’s out of our hands now. Why ask?

She leaned in to him, her lips brushing his earlobe, whispering, “Because if we only get one chance to be on that ship, we’d better make it count for something.”