LITMIR.BIZ

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assure you, Captain Eklund, that a Threat team leader is always interested in hearing every possible theory,’ said Leveque. ‘Particularly the unpleasant ones.’

      Fian was obviously disconcerted by Leveque’s calm reply. There was an awkward silence which was broken by Nia Stone.

      ‘I suggest we all eat now, Riak, and then you should go to bed.’

      ‘Seconded,’ said Mason Leveque. ‘You’ve had no rest since the sphere was first detected, Riak. We’ve taken the base off alert status so people can sleep and that includes you. If the sphere does something, or a whole armada of smaller spheres portal in, the last thing we need is a commanding officer who’s half dead from fatigue.’

      I blinked with surprise as they calmly ordered the Colonel around. This was obviously an informal meeting, but even so …

      ‘You’re right, both of you. We eat.’ Colonel Torrek stood up with an obvious effort.

      Everyone else hastily stood up as well, and formed an orderly queue behind him for food and drinks. There was wine, there were some fancy drinks I didn’t recognize, and there was frujit. I played safe and stuck to frujit.

      The food was real food, rather than reconstituted, so I piled my plate high. There were some tempting desserts too, but I might not get a chance at those. If the Colonel went to bed, Fian and I couldn’t hang around in his dining room stuffing our faces.

      We all sat down again, and concentrated on eating for a few minutes. I glanced across at Fian. Having said what he wanted to say, he seemed to have calmed down a bit.

      Colonel Torrek’s forearm lookup gave a chime to indicate an emergency message, and I stopped eating and waited tensely. Had the alien sphere responded to our signals, or done something hostile, or …

      ‘I thought I was a patient man,’ said the Colonel, ‘but I’ve just about hit my limit here. Don’t these people realize I’m too busy to pamper their precious academic egos?’

      I’d no idea what he was talking about, but I wasn’t risking asking questions when a full Colonel looked that annoyed.

      Colonel Torrek closed his eyes for a few seconds and then opened them again. ‘Well, if that’s what they want, they can have it!’ He paused for a moment before speaking in a calmer voice. ‘That was a representative of the History team. Apparently, it’s impossible for them to work with a team leader who knows nothing about the history of Earth. They’re demanding I replace Major Tar Cameron immediately.’

      ‘Rayne Tar Cameron doesn’t exactly love them either,’ said Nia Stone. ‘She says it’s like babysitting a bunch of 2-year-olds. If she turns her back on them for ten minutes to do her Command Support work, they do something stupid.’

      ‘Something stupid like sending me emergency messages,’ said Colonel Torrek. ‘For the second time! Well, if they want a team leader who knows Earth history, they can have one.’ He turned to me. ‘Jarra, you’ll be the new History team leader, with Fian as your deputy.’

      I dropped my fork on my plate, and stared at him. ‘But … We’re only pre-history students, sir, not experts.’

      ‘You’ve already proved you’re far more use to me than eight leading civilian experts on the pre-history of Earth,’ said Colonel Torrek. ‘It was only after my experts arrived that I discovered most of them had never even visited Earth before.’

      ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Yes, well, it was only twenty years ago that they changed the rules to make history students spend a year working on Earth’s dig sites.’

      Colonel Torrek sighed. ‘Even if they’d never actually been to Earth, surely at least one of them knew Ark existed, but none of them had the tactical sense to tell me about it. It’s not enough to have a lot of knowledge. I need someone who can look at a mountain of irrelevant information, and spot the single tiny fact which rates giving me an emergency call at any hour of the day or night. You’ve shown you can do that, Jarra.’

      Nia Stone laughed. ‘You should have seen the desperation on Jarra’s face, Riak. Sitting in that briefing, about to explode if I didn’t let her speak.’

      I blushed. ‘Sorry, sir. I’d just realized you wouldn’t know about Ark.’

      ‘It was essential information,’ said Mason Leveque. ‘Our only question is whether we evacuate people as soon as Ark is ready, or whether we wait. We’ve gone up to 49.3 per cent threat level, but evacuating the entire planetary population on the basis of one small sphere that’s doing nothing seems excessive and has political implications. Announcing the arrival of aliens is likely to cause significant public concern.’

      Colonel Torrek smiled. ‘That’s putting it mildly. High Congress won’t like an announcement, but they may have to accept it. The General Marshal says he’ll back me all the way rather than risk the civilian population of an entire planet.’

      He sighed. ‘Commanding the Earth solar arrays was supposed to be a quiet retirement job, but first I get a solar super storm and now aliens. I’ll need an extra week in a rejuvenation tank after this. If you can find any evidence the aliens have been to Earth before, Jarra, it might give us some clue whether they’re friendly or hostile. I’d be grateful for anything, because I’m making decisions blind.’

      ‘They may have been here before, but no records were made or they’ve been lost. We can only check through what records still exist.’ I frowned. ‘Leading pre-history experts won’t like a Foundation course student telling them what to do.’

      ‘Then get rid of them and replace them with people who realize the survival of humanity is more important than their egos,’ said Colonel Torrek.

      ‘You’ll need to make Jarra a Major if she’s taking over as History team leader,’ said Nia Stone. ‘Her team wouldn’t take a Captain seriously after having a Major in charge of them. Promoting her would also make the Artemis situation slightly less embarrassing. I’m told that when she walked into Orientation Hall 1 earlier today, every officer there, including Commander Shirinkin, reacted as if the General Marshal had arrived.’

      I gave a shocked gasp of understanding, and everyone looked at me.

      ‘Sorry, sirs. It’s just I’d been wondering why everyone kept madly saluting me. It makes sense now.’ I grinned. ‘They weren’t saluting me, they were saluting the Artemis!’

      Colonel Torrek laughed. ‘Only eleven living people are entitled to wear the Artemis, so most of my officers haven’t seen it before. Hopefully, they’ll calm down in a few days time, but Nia’s right.’

      He swapped to a formal Military manner for a moment. ‘Captain Jarra Tell Morrath, you are hereby promoted to the rank of Major. Congratulations.’

      I gave him a dazed salute. Nia Stone went across to a shelf, picked something up, and handed it to me. It was a set of insignia for my new rank.

      ‘How many field promotions have I given out today?’ asked Colonel Torrek.

      ‘I’ve lost count,’ said Nia Stone.

      ‘Either twenty-four or twenty-five,’ said Leveque, ‘depending whether you count Jarra’s promotions as two separate ones or combine them. I’m sure Command Support will save effort by sending it through channels as a single promotion.’

      ‘This must be the highest number of field promotions handed out in one day since the Thetis chaos year,’ said Colonel Torrek, ‘and my chain of command still breaks every possible rule of seniority.’

      Nia Stone smiled. ‘It certainly does. I’m currently giving orders to a General out in Kappa sector. Very polite orders of course.’

      Colonel Torrek glanced at her. ‘If General Hiraga gives you any trouble, Nia, tell her I’ve had to create one of the largest command structures in history within hours. If she thinks she could do better, I’d be delighted to hand over command of the Alien Contact programme to her.’

      Nia

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