Hyperspeed being awesome, arrived downstairs in a couple of seconds. To find that everyone was already in the various limos and burly SUVs we used, and the rear passenger door to the Beast, the President’s personal limo that was supposedly the most secure vehicle in the world—that the A-Cs had taken one look at, sniffed disparagingly, and fixed up to be truly invulnerable—was open. Kyle was standing outside, holding said door.
Algar was definitely affecting things, because this wasn’t something that happened, ever. No one loaded up until everyone was down here and ready—we weren’t a group that waited well. Didn’t argue or discuss, just got in. Algar was sitting on the bench that faced the back along with the three kids. Jeff, Raj, and Vance were in the back. Kyle helped me inside, I settled in between Jeff and Vance, and verified that Len was driving. Kyle closed my door and got into the shotgun seat, and we took off.
This was the fastest, smoothest departure we’d made possibly ever. I was directly across from Algar, who had the Royal Hatbox on his lap. “I assume everyone’s been introduced?”
“Yeah, baby,” Jeff said, sounding perfectly normal. “One additional person isn’t going to be a problem.” He shot Algar what I thought of as his Impressing the Parents Smile. “And having the representative from the Brotherhood of Nations with us to smooth things over with all of his fellow sovereigns is a good thing. Thank you for fixing that up for us.”
Well, it wasn’t someone telling me I was insane for this, so that was one for the win column. That Jeff and the others were being mind-controlled by Algar wasn’t.
“Music, Kitty?” Kyle asked.
“Oh my God, yes, please, and thank you very much.”
“Mama, Don’t You Worry” by Smash Mouth came on. “Oh, but I do worry,” I said conversationally. “Today’s a big day and things just seem . . . a little . . . off.”
“I’m sure things will seem normal shortly,” Algar said confidently. “You’re all just nervous. Once the butterflies settle, you’ll feel right.”
“I suppose.”
“Daddy, can we go on a vacation?” Jamie asked. “Once your important speech is over, I mean.”
“Sorry,” Lizzie said. “We were talking about it at breakfast once you’d left, and I forgot to remind Jamie and Charlie to ask about it after the speech.”
“That’s not a problem,” Jeff reassured. “Mommy and I will discuss it and we’ll see, okay, kids? Though I’m sure we could all use a vacation.”
This opened the floodgates and the kids started discussing fun places to go, though Jamie kept on naming people who should come with us and Charlie kept on insisting that anyplace suggested wasn’t as fun as it should be.
I didn’t join in because I was worried and didn’t want Jeff to pick it up, though he clearly had his empathic blocks set on high, or Algar was providing an assist, because he should have noted my concern already.
The music changed to “It’s OK (It’s Alright)” by the Fine Young Cannibals, and after that to “Alright” by Lit. Clearly Algar wanted me to relax and not worry. Did my best. Failed, for the most part.
It only took the three songs for us to arrive—Andrews wasn’t all that far from the White House, especially when we were traveling in this way, with the D.C.P.D. blocking streets and us rolling like a badass caravan.
There were the usual protestors in the streets—sadly the Club 51 True Believers had only gotten stronger in the past year-plus despite our attempts at infiltration. Infiltrators had all come back with the same intel: the only way to stop this was to either kill all of them—which wasn’t an acceptable choice to any of us on the side of pro-alien sentiment, sanity, or decency—or to change all the hearts and minds of the members. We’d managed that once, with a good portion of the original Club 51 membership, but no one felt that this kind of lightning was going to strike twice. Meaning it was change individuals’ hearts and minds, one at a time. Which was going exactly as fast as you’d expect, meaning at a snail’s pace.
Thankfully, we were ushered through Andrews’ security checkpoint quickly and I stopped worrying about Club 51 True Believers and focused instead on the situation at hand.
Which was impossible to miss.
CHAPTER 7
ANDREWS WAS A BIG Air Force base, but the Distant Voyager was huge. And it was lifted up on launch scaffolding or whatever they called it so everyone could see its gleaming beauty.
The caravan parked and as we exited the cars and headed toward where Jeff would be speaking, I held Charlie’s hand, Lizzie took Jamie’s, Jeff took Jamie’s and Charlie’s other hands, and we all stared at the ship.
It was massive. Gustav Drax had been instrumental in this ship’s design, which was a good thing, since he was a self-exiled Prince of Vatusus, which was a planet where they communed naturally with all things electronic. Drax had started out as an Accidental Big Bad during Operation Epidemic, but I’d swayed him to our side during Operation Madhouse, and we were all glad to have his skills on the Side of Right because, true to his own hype, he was a weapons creation genius, and that genius extended to spaceships.
He’d worked with our NASA teams as well as teams from many of the races that had come to Earth for protection and asylum, including all the spacefaring planets in the Alpha Centauri system. Basically, the Distant Voyager was more than just Earth’s first manned long-range spacecraft—she represented how well all the disparate races could work together to create something amazing.
It wasn’t quite as large as Drax’s helicarrier—which I always thought of as a S.H.I.E.L.D. flying fortress—an Alpha Four Imperial Battlecruiser, or the Themnir’s Roving Planet, and its layout was so different than the Faradawn Treeship that I couldn’t make an apt size comparison. But it was definitely bigger than a Canus Majorian Dog’s Head, a Feliniad Cat’s Paw, a Reptilian Lizard-Bird of Prey, a Lyssara Borg-Honeycomb, a Yggenthnian Hand Trowel, a Vrierst Manta Ray, or a Z’porrah Flying Saucer. They had official, real names, but those were the ones I used—my names were far more accurate.
Because Drax had been involved in the entire process, the Distant Voyager looked beautiful as well as functional. He’d insisted that the ship gleam, so it had a golden hue that made it glitter in sunlight.