Child of Time (60 page)

“Orbits have changed.” Kendra simply stated an effect
of the battle.

-------

Tyler snapped awake as the alarm on his tablet
activated. The sudden flash of clarity was followed rapidly by a
wave of drowsiness. His bed suddenly felt comfortable and the
desire to simply roll over and go back to sleep was almost
overpowering. The alarm still going off was the only thing that
kept him from falling back to sleep. Last night at his brother's
wedding reception was extracting its vengeance. Tyler wasn't one to
drink but last night had spun into a blur after tasting that punch.
Sitting up to reach for his tablet made his head swim.

“That punch must have been spiked.” Tyler groaned to
himself. There were several of his brother's friends that could
have been responsible. His own brother might have committed the
treacherous act. Tyler turned off the alarm and tried to rub the
cobwebs out of his brain. Recalling some of the stories he had
heard from such punch spiked evenings he peeked through his fingers
at his apartment scared of what he might find. Only seeing his own
tuxedo rental scattered across the floor he breathed a sigh of
relief. Getting up and making his way to the bathroom he looked at
himself in the mirror. His hair was still partially gelled but the
other half was messed up from sleeping on it. There was a curious
red smear on his neck. Shaking his head reminded him of a dull
throbbing sensation. A large glass of water would help that and a
quick shower would take care of the rest.

After the shower and a quick breakfast Tyler prepared
to leave. Grabbing his jacket, security pass, tablet and glasses he
made his way for the door. Reaching out for his keys Tyler stopped
when he saw an empty spot next to the door where the keys normally
resided. A cursory glance around failed to turn the missing keys so
Tyler switched on his tablet and logged into his GPS tracking
account. Tyler scowled at the screen when he saw the GPS locator
position. They were on the highway moving. A look outside revealed
an empty parking spot.

“Did it get stolen last night?” Tyler racked his
brain trying to remember how he had gotten home. Another glance at
the tablet screen told him that the keys had left the highway and
were moving down Main Street. Tyler decided to watch the keys for a
few more minutes before calling a cab. He like getting to work
early normally so he still had some time to spare. After a few
stoplights the keys finally turned off Main Street and cut through
towards Tyler's apartment. He relaxed a little at this but still
wondered. Tyler saw that his keys were coming down his street so he
got up and moved over by the window. A moment later he saw his blue
Acura pull into the parking lot in front of his apartment. Grabbing
his stuff again he left the apartment and walked over to his car. A
glance told him that the keys he had been tracking were in his best
friend's hand.

“You suck.” Tyler slid into the passenger seat. “You
should have at least left a note telling me it was you that stole
my car.”

“I suck?” Kyle raised an eyebrow. “I told you I was
going to drive you home when you couldn't hardly walk last night.
“

“I should have known that punch was spiked.” Tyler
put his seatbelt on and adjusted his glasses.

“I told you that it tasted funny!” Kyle rolled his
eyes and pulled out of the parking spot.

“I thought it was. Never mind, I just should have
known.” Tyler watched the people as they drove towards work.

“Ready for an exciting day working at SETI?” Tyler
almost didn't detect the sarcastic tone in Kyle's voice.

“Oh don't tell me Titan zapped Jupiter again. We
always get a spike when that happens.” Tyler became sarcastic
himself.

“Well at least you get to actually look at the data.
There could be worse jobs.” Kyle sounded a little jealous.

“Being a data analyst is boring. All you look at is
readings and background radiation. Boring stuff. At least you get
to go around and fix computers.” Tyler had grown tired of his job
over the last couple of years.

“Ya, about that. Keep your soda away from you
keyboard this week.” Kyle glanced at Tyler with a hint of mirth in
his eyes.

“That wasn't even mine!” Tyler scowled at Kyle who
burst out laughing. The rest of the trip was filled with friendly
banter. They had to show passes at the gate before they found a
parking spot. The two friends separated and made their way to their
own offices. Tyler settled into his desk and switched on his
computer. A brief overview of last night’s reading only showed a
few minor spikes. When dealing with less energy than is released by
dropping a grain of rice an inch makes most everything show up as a
spike. Tyler marked a couple spikes for further analysis. It wasn't
long before he had caught up and was looking at new telemetry.
Tyler glanced up from his computer station and looked around at the
other data analysts in the room. Only the new guy looked like he
wasn’t dying from boredom.
Another day at the office.
Tyler
turned back to his computer screens and set about analyzing the
previously marked spikes. A couple of them he recognized as Titan's
thunderbolts. There were a few smaller ones that he noticed that
were consistent with LGMs or pulsars.

Finishing the last one that had been marked he gave
the new data a cursory glance. Most of it looked normal but his
heart skipped a beat when he saw a large spike from about a half
hour ago. It was larger than anything he had seen as of yet. It was
a radiation spike across a wide spectrum of wavelengths. Tyler used
the computer to calculate the origin of the spike and found it came
from beyond the moon. It was well above what was normally detected.
Tyler switched to the satellites that were monitoring space around
earth. Finding the one that had been looking in the right direction
Tyler rewound the video to the right timestamp. His mouth dropped
open when he saw a bright flash. The camera went out of focus but
he saw blurry black spots silhouetted against the light. A second
later the light was gone. He let the video continue playing as he
tried to comprehend what he had seen. After having looked at the
clip again Tyler took the radiation reading and the correlated
video and emailed it to his manager. It wasn't but a few minutes
before Tyler’s manager stormed over demanding to know what kind of
joke the email had been mean to be.

“I swear it is from the readings. I didn’t doctor
anything.” Tyler protested his innocence.

“But it looks like an explosion in space with...” The
man waved at the black spots silhouette by the splash of light.
“Whatever those things are.”

Tyler was about to hypothesize when he was
interrupted suddenly. Eight men in black suits filed through the
door and began issuing orders.

“What is the meaning of this?” The manager confronted
the man who seemed in charge.

“We have just been given authority over this facility
by the white house and UN.” The man looked over Tyler's shoulder at
the video playing on his screen.

“Who has seen this?” The man pointed at the
video.

“Just the two of us. None of the others are working
on new data.” Tyler's manager glanced over the piece of paper he
had been handed.

“Everyone else out!” Tyler started moving towards the
door at the order. You two stay here. “Tyler sat back down.”

When the last scientist had left the room the leader
introduced himself. “I am captain Gregson. I need you to stay here
so I can keep news of this encounter from leaking. I'm sure you
understand.” Gregson was about to continue when the door opened and
Kyle was escorted in by two soldiers with guns and UN
insignias.

“We caught him in a closet watching a video of the
incursion.” One of the troops addressed Gregson before they both
saluted and left the room closing the door behind them.

Gregson glared at Kyle before speaking. “All three of
you go and sit in that corner and keep out of the way. You already
know too much so I'm going to have to keep an eye on you.” The
officers in the room quickly set about connecting their computers
to the displays around the room. On a couple of the walls
projectors were put up making impromptu displays out of much of the
space. Much clearer pictures of the incursion were soon painted the
walls. Tyler could see a large jagged light behind about five large
objects and a dozen smaller objects. It looked like several space
ships had appeared with a flash.

“I thought you said nothing ever happens.” Kyle
leaned over and whispered into Tyler's ear.

“I wasn't expecting this. By the way, how did you get
the video?” Tyler asked Kyle as soon as Gregson moved to the other
side of the room.

“I heard the soldiers coming down the hallway and hid
in the closet. I logged remotely into your computer to warn you.
That's when I saw that.” Kyle nodded his head towards the video
still playing on the screen on the far side of the room.

“You think that they want to kill everyone and
colonize our planet like in the movie?” Kyle awoke a fear that
Tyler had been suppressing since he started work at SETI. Tyler
didn't respond for a couple minutes.

“Of course not. They would need a lot more ships than
that.” Tyler tried to convince himself. He had hardly finished
speaking before a new visual feed came from one of the satellites
to one of the projectors. In it could be seen an object moving
rapidly across the camera field. It was definitely a ship of some
type. Tyler's stomach felt like the bottom had fallen out. A new
image appeared painted on the wall. It depicted a hulking shape
slide into view before the screen went dark. There wasn't any doubt
in anyone's mind as to what they had seen. The room was silent for
a moment before Gregson barked an order.

“Start broadcasting the greeting.” An audio track
began playing. Tyler recognized it as a standardized
extraterrestrial greeting that had been modernized since it's
inclusion on the voyager probes. He rolled his eyes at the
absurdity of a standardized alien greeting.

“They actually think that aliens will understand
gibberish like that?” Kyle whispered to Tyler. “We have no idea if
they can even hear sound or not!” The exclamation earned them a
scowl from Gregson who was busy monitoring a scanner for any
acknowledging transmission.

Another of the huge ships appeared on the wall and
they watched as the ship slowed and then melted from sight. Gregson
continued the transmissions. Tyler saw Gregson drop the headset and
began pacing the room as he kept an eye on the screens. It struck
Tyler that Gregson really didn't know what he was doing. The idea
that the guy who had been put in charge didn't know what to do made
Tyler uncomfortable.

“There is another incursion!” One of the guys that
was running a computer yelled. A moment later the image was on the
screen for everyone to see. Another bright light lit up space and a
multitude of black dots appeared. Gregson rushed back to the
headset and listened for any transmissions. In the background could
be heard the standard greeting being replayed over and over but
nothing aside from random radio noise could be heard through the
set. The satellite cameras were still looking into the dark but
here and there could be seen a glimmer of light reflected from the
sun where none should be.

“Someone turn that damned track off.” Captain Gregson
was looking more and more frustrated. “This is earth’s designated
ambassador to any alien race. Earth sends our greetings and we hope
to open peaceful negotiations with your people.” Gregson again
listened at the headset.

“I can't believe this is happening to me.” Patrick,
Tyler’s manager was mumbling to himself. His eyes were glued to the
wall and the random glints of light reflecting off the approaching
objects.

“Please respond with an audio message. We wish to
open peaceful negotiations.” Gregson had the latest transmission
run through a translation program and sent out in more than twenty
languages. Everyone in the room was watching the projector on the
wall intently. Suddenly all the ships could be seen as they came
out of the moon’s shadow. There was a collective gasp as the number
of ships could be seen.

“There has to be more than a hundred of them!” Kyle
was transfixed by the sight. He had hardly finished speaking when
the first ships that they had seen shimmered into view. Bright
points of light streaked between the ships and several brilliant
flashes obliterated ships from the second fleet. Confusion reigned
in the following moments. It took a moment before Tyler realized
that they had to be watching an epic space battle. The questions of
who and why sprang to the front of his mind.

“Captain!” I’m getting reports that this is visible
from the ground in New York. One of the guy on a computer relayed
the information. Gregson swore under his breath and beads of sweat
began to grow on his brow as the magnitude of the situation began
to dawn on him.

“This solar system is not a sanctioned combat area. I
warn you earth is prepared to defend ourselves if threatened.”
Tyler wanted to strangle Gregson. To be making demands and threats
as two alien forces clashed above earth was ludicrous. As Tyler
thought about it he came to the conclusion that the only reason
aside from pure chance that aliens would want to fight over earth
was if one fraction wanted to defend the planet from the other
fraction. Another scenario was that both races wanted to enslave
the populace or claim the planet for themselves. Of these last two
possibilities, it made more sense that the fractions would want to
negotiate for spoils rather than expend manpower and resources if
the first option were true. If the second scenario was true it made
no sense that the first alien fleet had laid an ambush rather than
proceeding to the business at hand. That left the original scenario
of one fleet defending earth from the second fleet. This then
raised the question of why. This idea made Tyler uncomfortable
knowing he had only seen a handful of ships arrive in the first
group. Nothing compared to the numbers that they had seen with the
second group. On the other hand they seemed to have some sort of
cloak so one couldn’t believe everything that he was seeing.