This was probably why the Poofs could go Jeff-sized with a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth whenever danger threatened, and why they were able to ingest things—Z’porrah power cubes, weapons, anything they wanted or I asked them to—without feeling any ill effects. They also attached to whoever named them, and they had a really wide view of what constituted a name. I tended to consider that whoever had a Poof as a pet was approved as an ally.
The Peregrines, on the other hand, looked like peacocks and peahens on steroids, complete with really nasty claws and beaks and total brawler attitudes, and they were truly from Alpha Four. They were also Royal Protectors and tended to work in mated pairs. Alexander had sent us a dozen such pairs when Jamie was born, and by now we had a whole lot more. Walter had had George and Gracie from the start, and while my Peregrines Bruno and Lola were the Head Birds, George and Gracie considered themselves the Chief Security Birds. Peregrines took their jobs seriously.
Like Siler, the Peregrines had the ability to go chameleon, where they blended into the surroundings and could only be seen by those they allowed to see them. As such, when Bruno went visible I didn’t jump so much as feel I should have mentioned to Jeff that I’d have Attack Bird support in case of trouble in addition to the dudes with me. By now, even Jeff had admitted that the Peregrines were great protection.
Bruno and George started to have a quiet bird conversation. I caught bits of it— basically Bruno was getting George’s views on the situation. What I couldn’t catch was what George’s views actually were, though he seemed to be matching Walter in the worried department.
That I could understand any of it was because I’d somehow become Dr. Doolittle and could talk to the animals. The animals always understood me, but I could only understand them if they wanted me to. Right now, Bruno and George didn’t care if I heard them, but they weren’t going out of their way to ensure I could comprehend. No worries. I had an A-C here that I could get all the pertinent info from anyway.
“Walt, what’s going on?”
Walter didn’t look upset to see Siler and Wruck. Interesting. He did, however, look deeply worried. “Several things, Chief First Lady.” He cleared his throat. “Ah, I think the four of you should prepare yourselves.”
Well, presumably I could get information out of him. “It’s Anticipatory Statement Day, I see. I didn’t get the memo, but I can roll with it. What, exactly, should we be prepared for, Walt?”
“Potentially an invasion.”
Let that one sit on the air for a few moments while I ran through the countries crazy enough to try to invade the USA right now, when we were on, essentially, an Extremely Touchy High Alert and had been for a couple of months now. “Okay, so I’m going to focus on the word ‘potentially’ and assume this is why you wanted me to come here and didn’t want to share this with everyone else in the LSR.”
“Yes.” Walter pointed to several of his screens. We all got closer to him and them and took a look-see.
“Huh.” Honestly didn’t know what else to say. Because what I was seeing wasn’t on Earth. No, what I was seeing were spaceships. And they weren’t Earth or Alpha Centaurion spaceships.
CHAPTER 6
THERE WERE A LOT OF QUESTIONS I wanted to ask. To their credit, the men with me were utterly silent. Checked. Nope, none of them had run off to share this news with the rest of the team. Good. This was news that was going to take a diplomatic touch to disseminate. I probably was not the girl for this job, but I’d also likely have to muddle through because that was my job. Always the way.
“Um, my first question may surprise you. How can we see what we’re seeing?”
“We were given long-range viewing by Alpha Four,” Walter said. “Something the Planetary Council brought with them.”
“Ancient technology at its core,” Wruck said. “Though they probably don’t realize it.”
“Does all of Earth have this Ancient At Its Core Alpha Four Technology?” Because if they did, the entire planet was going to go to DEFCON 1 in a matter of moments.
“No. It’s restricted to being wherever Mister Executive Chief is, which is why I have this and Dulce does not. I am the only one with this equipment right now, Chief First Lady.”
Meaning no one knew about this right now other than Walter, me, Buchanan, Siler, Wruck, a Poof, and three Peregrines. Actively chose not to contemplate Jeff and Chuckie’s reactions to Walter’s choices, just hoped Mom would approve.
“Walt, I know it’s hard for you, but no titles right now. Do it for me. You can use them again when we’ve worked through this particular Gordian knot.”
He heaved a sigh. “Okay . . . Kitty.”
“Good man. Okay, so, are these all coming from the same directions?”
“No, they’re not. The equipment scans space for signatures of traveling ships. Once it spots such, it hones in. We can see about a hundred light-years in any direction.”
Buchanan whistled softly. “Does NASA know about this?”
“Not yet,” Walter admitted. “Right now, Emperor Alexander wants this under Jeff and Kitty’s control and no one else’s.”
Meaning Councilor Leonidas, who was basically Alpha Four’s version of Winston Churchill, didn’t want just anyone using this equipment. Couldn’t blame him—with this we could apparently check in on the A-C system as easily as we could check in on Japan. Checked Walter’s Earth Screens. All seemed reasonably okay all over the world. For the moment. Had a feeling that moment was going to be gone really quickly.
“So it sees what’s going on in the Alpha Centauri system?” Siler asked.
“Yes, and other systems as well. But as long as it’s normal space traffic, I keep scanning. These aren’t normal. In that they aren’t traveling within their own solar systems, but are in the space between systems. I tend to ignore those, too, because they’re usually traveling between systems far from us. However, these appear to be heading for Earth.”
“I remember we had a star chart from the Ancients.” Looked at Wruck.
Who nodded. “Every ship travels with a galactic map. And, to anticipate your question, there are a large number of inhabited star systems within a hundred light-years of Earth.” He studied the screens. “And, based on the ship designs, all these five are from nearby systems, as in, systems Walter can observe.”
Let the idea of a hundred light-years counting as “nearby” pass. I wasn’t living in a world where that distance was insurmountable. I lived in a world where entire fleets made hyperspace jumps from the Galactic Core without issue. Usually to come and try to destroy us.
“How close are the ships that you’re worried about?” Buchanan asked.
“They’re all between us and the Alpha Centauri system,” Walter replied. “I didn’t contact anyone until I was sure that they weren’t going there.”
“They have their own scanning. Did anyone from Alpha Four or any of the other planets give us the heads-up?”
No sooner asked than a weird beeping noise came out of something that looked kind of like a computer, but not one made on Earth. Walter put on a headset and started writing at hyperspeed.