WE HAVE CONTACT (The Kurtherian Gambit Book 12) (11 page)

“Is that,” Cheryl Lynn asked quietly, “truly me? No bullshit, no photo manipulation? Are you totally honest with me?”

Bethany Anne’s heart almost broke at the feeling of raw emotion coming out of Cheryl Lynn. If she could possibly go back in time and beat the shit out of her ex-husband for feeding into the emotional dystopia, she would. Bethany Anne kept Cheryl Lynn’s eyes on her own as she spoke aloud, “ADAM, reveal all of the original images of Cheryl Lynn.”

Cheryl Lynn turned back to the wall screen as the group of pictures disappeared to be replaced one at a time. The first picture came up, and a red line went down from the top to the bottom of the image. Each time, for each picture, as it went over the head, the original disappeared and Cheryl Lynn’s was shown. As the reveal uncovered the hidden information, Cheryl Lynn consistently saw the birthmark she knew about, and two that she had not known about until now.
 

Nothing else was ever changed.

By the end, Cheryl Lynn had her hand over her mouth and was silently sobbing.

After a few minutes, the two vampires could hear her tiny voice, “I’m beautiful,” she whispered, between her sobs.

Gabrielle reached out and put a hand around Cheryl Lynn’s shoulder, “Now own that knowledge and don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise.”

Cheryl Lynn just nodded her head in understanding, too choked up to respond right then.

Yollin Deep Space Ship - G’laxix Sphaea

“It is… ugly.” Captain Kael-ven T’chmon said as they watched the images coming in from the small video drone. He wasn’t sure if this world’s scanning ability could locate his ship in the cold of space, but he preferred to be safe. “It looks like it is made out of blocks, randomly assigned and stuck together.”
 

Communication specialist Melorn, sensing his Captain was in a conversational mood added, “It is rather large, Captain. Each of the main components seems to be pretty significantly sized. With the,” he looked down at his analysis report, “two hundred and twelve parts, there must be a large group of aliens in the station.”

The Captain grunted his understanding, “Melorn, do we have a way of stopping their communications?”

“A moment, Captain.” Melorn got to work, switching his systems to track all known frequencies, even those discovering hundreds of solar turns previously, “Yes, we are following a minimum of traffic from that,” Melorn nodded to the screen, “that … thing… to communication satellites at the gravity equilibrium point for the dead moon rock, sir.”

Melorn reviewed the listing on his amber screen, “So yes, we can block all of these transmissions with an appropriate jamming torpedo, sir.”

“Interesting,” Captain Kael-ven T’chmon leaned forward on his couch, “They are not in direct line of sight of the planet, and if we disrupt the communications we can strike their station, and achieve additional intelligence.”

Space Station One - L2

“Coach,” Adarsh rapped on the side of the door leading into Coach’s small working area.

Coach looked over to his compatriot and raised an eyebrow, “Is it Bree again? I swear, if she bitches about the coffee beans one more time, I’m liable to space the new grinder Marcus sent over for her.”

Adarsh gave a small grin and a tiny nod, “No, this isn’t Bree, or ReaLea, Kris, or even John.”

“John hasn’t been bad since the last set of Wechselbalg come on board. Every time he gets antsy, he goes and either gets his ass whooped, or gives an ass whoopin’ and everything is fine in the world again.”

“Coach,” Adarsh thumbed a finger at the door, “Can I close this?”

Steve raised an eyebrow and nodded his head. Adarsh stepped in the container and closed the door behind him, making sure it didn’t clang throughout the containers near them. He turned around, “Coach, did you watch the updates on the efforts to find the enemy ship?”

“Certainly. Plus, we are running a few different efforts to see if it is anywhere in our area of responsibility.”

There was a pause before Adarsh asked, “Coach, have you guys considered light?” He continued, “Either absence or variance?”

Steve reached up and lifted up his baseball hat, scratched his head and put it back on, “Variance?”

Adarsh nodded, “Let’s assume the ship is as cloaked to us as our Pods are to those on Earth. What would happen to any of the existing efforts?”

“Well, we would probably be failing, but how the hell could we tell if we are failing, or they aren’t actually there in the first place?” Coach shrugged, “Hell, for all we know, they left out some other door.”

“Right, very true. But, what all are we trying, do you know?” Adarsh pushed.

“No. Here,” Coach reached behind him and grabbed a chair from the desk behind him, “sit your skinny ass down and let’s go through what we are doing.”

Yollin Deep Space Ship - G’laxix Sphaea

Captain Kael-ven T’chmon looked over his shoulder as the bridge entry beeped before opening, allowing a member of his small task force on the bridge. The highest ranking military member of his team waited before Kael-ven turned back to his command arm and hit the sequence to allow Kiel into the protected area of the bridge.

Kiel was a third tier member of the Yollin society, two-legged, not four. While there were some second tier, four-legged members of the military, they would hold superior positions and would not find themselves on an unimportant deep space mission such as his.

Which was saying what exactly for him being here?

Kiel waited for his Captain to start the conversation. “Kiel, have you reviewed the data acquisition from the foreign station in this gravitic point outside of their dead satellite.” Kael-ven turned to Melorn, “What are they calling the satellite?”

Melorn turned his head from the reports the system was providing, “Sir, we have a ninety-two percent match. They call it the Moon, sir.”

Captain T’chmon turned back to his military leader, “So, this station outside of their moon?”

“Yes, Captain, we have been reviewing the information we are provided so far. While it would be easy enough to destroy, and it doesn’t look like entering the station will be challenging, we do not know if those inside are prepared for a sudden and catastrophic loss of atmosphere.”

A short bark of laughter erupted from the Captain, “That would cause a problem for the acquisition of live subjects if they asphyxiate before you can grab them.” Captain T’chmon agreed, “Suggestions if I need at least a couple to question?”

“Well,” Kiel temporized, “We have located certain areas we suspect have more activity.”

“Using?”

“Vibrations analysis, Captain.”

“Interesting, go on.”

“We have located two such areas. If this species is similar to most we have in our database, they are likely some sort of recreation area and an area for food consumption.”

“So, you are thinking to do…”

“Two attacks at those points. If we use the attack sleds, we believe we can ram their walls and then eject our members after the seal completes.”

“That seems a little, oh, I don’t know, let’s say abrupt?” Captain T’chmon asked his leader. “Is there an option two?”

“Yes. If the Captain would be so kind as to pull up the holographic?” Captain T’chmon turned in his chair and hit the appropriate controls. A large holograph of the station appeared in front of the Captain's chair.

Kiel held his two arms out, the two opposable thumbs on each hand touching, “May I?” With his Captain’s permission, Kiel opened his thumbs and started manipulating the Captain’s hologram. This was the third deep space mission Kiel had been a part of and so far, his latest Captain did not seem nearly as allergic to those of the third tier as the previous two. Kiel opened his arms to increase the magnification. He pushed his right arm to the left to spin the display, “You can see these little circles on the sides. If we are able to acquire the correct specifications, we can manufacture, in perhaps one-third a solar day, a connector. We believe these connectors are for temporary ship connections.”

“Who believes this?”

“Scientist Royleen and myself.”

Captain T’chmon nodded his understanding. He wasn’t a big believer that the third and fourth tier members of society were mentally retarded compared to those in the second tier. It wasn’t because he personally had seen overwhelming evidence as much as he had seen the proof that he wasn’t significantly less intelligent than those of the first tier.

Logic dictated it was a social construct. He would worry about it another day. For now, it allowed him to trust the intelligence and the advice from those on his team without prejudice.

Like, how to attack this space station and acquire information on this species.

Clan Temple Near Shennongjia Peak, Hubei

Stephanie Lee looked around the small room. She had her father, always a shadow at her shoulder, protecting her. The four leaders who had come when their Empress called were each on a side of her rectangular table. It had taken her five minutes to figure out they didn’t understand the new situation and why she was worried.

“Esteemed Kings,” She bowed ever so slightly in each of their directions, “we have come to a pivotal point in our future. Those that have created the Sacred Clan and those that have ruled it for generations have, unfortunately, not been allowed the time necessary to implement the primary strategy using stealth.”
 

She paused, took a sip of her tea and then continued, “Part of the reason is another Alien group has attacked our country and uncovered our existence. The present leaders of China have been stopped from acquiring the technology from this other group.”

“These are the vampires? The offspring of Michael?” King Qin asked, respectfully.

“Yes, so it would seem. They have been working for years now to build up their technology base and surprised the world by leapfrogging all super powers.” Stephanie Lee waited for a question.

And she received one.

“This is what the Chairman wanted, their technology?” King Li asked. King Li had been alive over ninety years, although you would not know it looking at him. Unfortunately for Stephanie Lee, most of her people did not keep up with current events as much as she might wish.

“Yes, not only China. They are a very, very influential business group connected in every major country in the world. There were many killed, on both sides. This private war, however, was not broadcast in the news.” Stephanie Lee paused, “I have made connections with the representatives of the business group here in our country, and I am willing to bring them into the fold. However, we need to protect this location until we can remove the treasure China seeks.”

“What treasure is that?” King Li asked, “Is it something easily taken, in our clothes?”

“Unfortunately, no. I’m told it took almost three years many centuries ago to move most of the components from the original location into our hidden sanctuary. I am going to share with you three what makes the Sacred Clan the way we are, and then we are going to agree on a method of extracting the most important pieces from this location as quickly as possible.”

Stephanie Lee glided up to a standing position from sitting on the ground, “Come, you four will be the first non-priests in ten generations which have laid eyes upon the sacred room.”

The kings all stood up, looking at each other in confusion.

What treasure could the Chairman and his people want so badly?

TQB Base, Australian Outback

Yuko clicked to minimize the heavily-customized Metasploit program window and left open two other windows that had scripts running and sat back.

It was getting close to time to move out of Australia. The General, or Mr. Lance, or if she could get herself to say it, just Lance, had been spreading the word that they would be leaving pretty soon to transfer to ArchAngel. Another few days and everything that was already on the ship (and her people) would be in place, and then ADAM’s group would be going up.

She exhaled slowly, thinking about her new future.

“Yuko?” ADAM spoke into her ear.

She smiled, “Yes?”
 

“Do you have a few minutes?”