“Getting off the line,” Jerry said. “Landing is commencing.” My phone turned off. No music came on. Put my phone into my back pocket. Wished I had my purse—needed to get all these extra clips out of my pants.
“We’re getting off, too, Chuck,” Stryker said. “We’re all watching the landing.” White’s phone disconnected and he took it back as well.
“Well done, V.A.R.I.S., thank you,” Chuckie said. Wruck did the repeat. “And now, V.A.R.I.S., I’d like full printouts for all plans, missions, projects, and protocols, completed, currently active, and upcoming.” Wruck repeated again.
“Yes, Doctor.” The sound of printing started.
“How did you know what to say?” Jeff asked me, as we turned to watch the television.
“It was that or ‘I’m the Queen of the World.’ But when I boiled LaRue down to what her driving motivation was, it was hatred.”
Rahmi had brought in a broom and dustpan from the cleaning supplies closet and was sweeping up the dead bad guy dust into a bucket. “Since when did you get so domesticated?”
She shrugged. “One day, when The Great Tito and I marry, I will have to share in the care of our home.” Resolved that, no matter what, that marriage was happening as soon as possible. They’d had literally the longest engagement in history. Rahmi smiled. “I knew you would be victorious.”
Chuckie turned around. “We wouldn’t have been without you, Rahmi.”
She cocked her head. “Why so?”
“If you hadn’t said what you had, Kitty wouldn’t have said what she did, and I wouldn’t have made the connection. As with everything we do, it was a team effort. Your mother, sister, and fiancé will all be very proud of you.”
She beamed at him. “Thank you, Charles.”
“Time to watch a ship none of us could conceive of before last week land,” Jeff said. “That’s an executive order, folks. Let’s join the rest of the world and see what no one on Earth ever has before.”
We all clustered around the screen. The Treeship was huge and, as the sun hit it, it glowed in rippling shades of green and blue. It was beautiful and amazing and gigantic.
Chuckie and Wruck had the computer system turn the sound on for the TV, so we got to hear the announcer’s commentary. Realized why Cliff had had the sound off—they were kind of vacuous. Until commentary switched to Mr. Joel Oliver.
Oliver was sharing the history of each of the races confirmed to be in the Treeship. We’d done this at a very high level during my Impromptu World Teleconference, but Oliver was going into far more depth. He also had Lyssara and Themnir as guests, voiceovers only, since all video was focused on the ship. They added interesting facts and tidbits as well, sounding buzzy and sloshy respectively. But it was cute and not off-putting.
The Treeship took an hour to safely dock. But it didn’t seem like it. And Adriana didn’t have to count down to anything.
“Six years ago, I’d have had to have all of Imageering hide this,” Christopher said softly as Oliver announced that the Treeship had successfully docked.
Naval ships from all the countries that bordered the Persian Gulf and yachts owned by kings and princes in the region were all heading to the ship to offload the passengers. And no one was shooting at anyone else.
“Six years ago the world was different,” White said.
“Not as different as it is now,” Jeff said.
“The world is the same,” Reader pointed out. “It’s the people on it who are different now. And that’s a good thing.”
“Our brave new world,” Chuckie said.
“The world you always told me was out there.” Was next to Jeff, our arms around each other. Reached out and took Chuckie’s hand. “How does it feel to never be wrong?”
“Well, as I keep on reminding you, I was wrong about where Hoffa was buried.”
“Right, you know, finally tell me, where is Hoffa buried?”
Chuckie’s mouth opened but everyone’s phones started ringing. We all stopped looking at the screen and answered our phones. My call was from my mother.
“Hey Mom, amazing timing. Every one of our phones just started ringing.”
“Because Walter just confirmed that the Aicirtap have entered our solar system.”
“Crap.”
“And they’re moving faster than any of the other ships have so far.”
“Does it get any better than this?”
“Yes. The lone Z’porrah ship has managed to stay ahead of the Aicirtap, but they’re not sure that they’ll make it to Earth before the Aicirtap overtake them. They are begging for help.”
“That we have no way of giving them.”
“Correct.”
“So, they’ll be the appetizer and then we’ll be the main course?”
“It looks that way. You and Jeff need to get back to D.C. The President needs to be in the White House.”
Mom and I said we loved each other and then hung up. Everyone else’s calls had been short, too. “We need to get out of here,” Reader said briskly.
“We can’t leave this equipment yet,” Chuckie pointed out. “We can’t allow any of it to fall into enemy hands, and Kitty essentially promised Gadhavi that she’d blast this place once we were done.”
“We need to move the Killer Octopus, too, and it’s incredibly heavy.”
Jeff, Reader, Tim, and Chuckie started mildly arguing about what to do. Realized my purse was still in the alcove. Trotted upstairs. No one appeared to notice. Yeah, we were all a bit preoccupied.
Retrieved my purse and found the Poofs snoozing. Relieved myself of the tons of clips I’d taken with me and realized that I had no idea where my Glock was. Chuckie had had it last, meaning he’d probably put it down onto the computer. Couldn’t see the computer all that well from this alcove, so couldn’t confirm that.
Put my purse over my neck and turned around. To find Siler standing there with a gun in his hand. Managed not to scream, but couldn’t stop myself from jumping.
“Sorry,” he said with a small smile as he handed me my Glock. “You’re heading back to D.C.?”
“Thanks. And, well, we all got the calls. You did, too, right?”
“Yes. My call was from Lizzie. She’s frightened. So are the rest of the children. The news has announced that the Aicirtap are coming within a few hours.”
“So, I guess you’re heading home with us, then, right?”
He looked at me. “Why bother?”
That wasn’t what I was expecting. “Come again?”
“Why bother going anywhere? Why go lie to the girl I promised to protect from harm when there’s nothing I can do to stop what’s coming?”
He wasn’t wrong. Had no idea what I was going to tell Jamie and Charlie, aside from how much their father and I loved them. Didn’t want to say goodbye forever to my children. And I really didn’t want some aliens who weren’t even themselves anymore to hurt my children, especially not in the ways I knew they would.
My music turned back on. Elton John’s “Answer in the Sky” was the current musical selection.
“The helicarrier—do you think it has the firepower to stop the Aicirtap?”
Siler shook his head. “If it did, Drax would have already told everyone to stop worrying.”
The music switched to “Octopus’s Garden” by the Beatles. Looked at the Killer Octopus. “We have the means to zap them all into dust.”
“But not the time to create more of those.”