“To stay put,” Jeff said. “Because we’re under attack.”
“By what?” Hughes and Walker asked in unison.
“No idea,” Jeff said through gritted teeth. “But I can see something coming at us from the planets.”
We all looked out the windshield. “I see nothing,” Tim said.
“He’s speaking for all of us,” Butler added.
“Through my helmet,” Jeff said. “I can see them coming at us through the helmet. Missiles or similar are leaving the planets.”
“All of them?” That seemed like overkill, even for the Solaris system, and Earth was considered really touchy, too.
“Sensors indicate it, yeah.” Jeff was pushing buttons at hyperspeed.
“Why can only Jeff see whatever it is?” Tito asked.
“Presumably because he’s in charge of Weapons,” Tim replied. “Though that makes no sense. I thought we could all see everything through the helmets.”
“Only what pertains to your duties and expertise,” Mother said.
“I can’t see Medical and we still don’t know why Kitty’s here, either,” Tito pointed out.
“Back to making no sense,” Joe offered from the impromptu daisy chain.
Walker took time out to catch hold of Butler’s free arm and pull him closer. Butler was then able to imitate the Kristie-Bot and get his arm through Walker’s harness. Now we had a semicircle around Tito, but Team Tinman wasn’t flying around through the air anymore, so one for the win column which was, once again, pretty empty.
But that the rest of us couldn’t see whatever it was out there made sense if only an A-C would be able to see what was coming. And there had to be some reason for why whoever—presumably Naomi—had made our seat assignments irrevocable. I’d inherited A-C vision from birthing Jamie, too, and I saw nothing, but I wasn’t the one assigned to shoot photon torpedoes or whatever, so maybe that was why. However, there was something that no one else was saying that I figured someone had to.
“Um, I don’t know whose job it is to say this, but shields up.”
“That’s me,” Tito said, as he started hitting buttons. Buttons were flashing on everyone’s consoles, not just his, though. The guys all pushed theirs fast. My console only had one button flashing. I’d already forgotten which button did what, and, so far, I’d only had to deal with three of them. Why I had this position was beyond me, really. However, managed to recognize that the button flashing was the same one I’d pushed to chat with Kreaving. Oh well, time to Uhura Up and do my job.
Pushed the button. “Hello, this is the Distant Voyager from Earth in the Solaris system. We’re sorry that we can’t take your call right now because we’re under attack. If you are the planet or planets attacking us, we would really appreciate your stopping. We come in peace and would like to leave the same way, versus in pieces.”
“What?” the voice on the other end said. Sounded female. Possibly.
“Stop shooting at us or whatever it is you’re doing.”
“Your ship ignored our instructions to stop.”
“No, we did not. Your call just came through.”
“We told your ship to stop.”
“Um, I’m in charge of Communications. These requests come through me or they don’t come at all.”
“We are able to talk directly to your ship. We did so, and your ship did not comply. Or respond.”
“Missiles getting closer,” Jeff said. “Verify that they’re warheads, Kitty, versus manned.”
“Ah, as to that, the ship is having some issues right now. Also, are you sending things to blow us up, or people to shoot at us?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean we’re about to retaliate. But we’re actually coming in peace, as in, don’t want to fight with any of you, so if those ships are manned then we’d prefer to talk versus shoot. If, however, those ships are bombs, warheads, or whatever else, then we’re going to shoot them before they hit us.”
“You attacked us and destroyed our shield.”
“Look, your shield is invisible. So are your bombs. At least to us.”
“Then how are you seeing them?”
“Nice to get the confirmation that you’ve sent weapons at us. Officially, that’s an act of war where we come from.”
“You intruded.”
“So sorry, but if you put up invisible barriers, you just have to figure someone’s going to crash through them. Frankly, where we come from, barriers are made to be really obvious so people avoid them. Those barriers that are hidden are usually hidden to hurt innocent and unsuspecting people. So, right now, we think of you as a violent race out to hurt us and probably others.”
There was a pause on the other line.
“Kitty, ten seconds and I have to fire.”
“Yo, whoever I’m speaking to, time’s up. Pull back or we blow the things coming at us up.”
“Locked and loaded,” Jeff said. “Firing in five . . .”
“We will pull back.”
“. . . four . . .”
“Jeff, they said they’re pulling back.”
“. . . three . . . no, they aren’t . . . two . . .”
“We have stopped!” The voice on the other side sounded panicked. “Don’t fire!”
“Not firing,” Jeff said, before I could tell him not to. “The missiles have all turned away from us.”
“Where are they headed?”
“Other directions, just not toward us. I’m monitoring in case they come back at us.”
“Thank you for not shooting,” the probably-a-woman on the line said. “Please leave our solar space now.” The ship stopped shaking and bouncing.
This was weird. Weirder than normal. Weirder the more I thought about it. First an invisible barrier, then invisible weapons that only Jeff could see, these people claiming to have talked to Mother directly, them managing to call their weapons off at the very last second, and then them telling us to leave, as if we were still the aggressors. The way the ship was somehow now through a barrier we couldn’t see—a very thick barrier, all things considered. An invisible barrier that a spaceship had flown through for several minutes. Something was off. Very off.
“Hold please.” And, speaking of off, took my finger off the button. It was still flashing, so assumed my call was still live, so to speak. “Mother, is the call still live?”
“Live, but holding, just as you requested. They cannot hear us.”
“Great. Mother, can you tell us what damage the exterior of the ship has taken?”
“None. I have been scanning since this began and the Distant Voyager is fully intact.”
“That seems impossible for how much I’ve been battered around,” Randy said.
“Our shields could be that good,” Walker said doubtfully. “I mean, Drax is a genius.”
“They are not,” Mother replied. “Based on what we felt, shields should have taken damage. But they took none.”
“Jeff, where are the missiles?”
“Can’t see them anymore, Kitty. They’re out of range.”
Looked out the windshield. “I see seven planets and what appears to be a lot of moons around most of them. What do you guys see?”