Talosian Chronicles 6: Armageddon (3 page)

She smiled and typed 'I can read lips'. "I don't think I can, Admiral. I appreciate the offer, but I doubt I will even leave the building alive. I knew telling you was a death sentence. I don't plan on giving those fools the satisfaction. For what it's worth Admiral, I feel you are doing a great service for our people. I just wish I could have been as effective." She was acting depressed and suicidal, setting up the situation for Cindy and her team. "If I could ask a boon of you, I would have you make arrangements for my Luciano." She forced a tear out.

"You have a son?" Ian asked.

She shook her head sadly. "No, Luciano is my cat. My one vanity; I bought him as a kitten. He is a rare breed; Egyptian Mau. He has been a good friend over the years. He deserves to be taken care of."

"I will see what we can do, Miss Shapiro. It's the least we can do for your warning," Ian replied.

"Now that you know, what will you do?" she asked.

"I'll need to speak to my intelligence and operations people, but we will deal with them. It might have to wait until after the battle we are preparing for, but we will find a way to correct this issue. Busting drug dealers is one thing, but dealing with corrupt organizations is another; we simply don't have the resources for that at the moment," Ian lied. "I thank you for the warning, it'll keep us from making a huge mistake at a time when we need to focus on protecting the people."

"This is Officer Lissa Dancer of the Raptor
Damocles
. I now have control of the monitoring devices in the room. Miss Shapiro, please move over to your office door while open one of your windows," Lissa said over the connection.

"That was fast! I was running out of stuff to say. I am curious though, how are you going to stage my suicide?" Shapiro asked.

"Magic," Cindy replied as she stepped through the window and into the room. As she left the
Damocles
' cloaking field, she became visible. "Miss Shapiro, if you will accompany me, we can stage the scene. I'm sure you don't want to see what we are going to do in here."

"Cindy, you'll need to stop by her house and get her cat, Luciano. He needs to come too," Ian said.

"I love cats!" Cindy replied. "Will do."

"Sir, Major Eischens is on the comm for you; he says it's urgent," Alex said.

"Thanks Alex," Ian replied and opened the comm once again. "What's up Ike?"

"Sir, do you remember we tagged one of the Caldarian freighters so we could figure out where it was going?" the man replied. He looked very concerned about this, and that made Ian uneasy; Major Eischens was Ian's chief intelligence officer.

"Yeah, they were in one of the dwarf galaxies just outside our own, right?" Ian asked.

"Yes Sir, although it got put on the back burner so to speak, we have been monitoring them. Two weeks ago, they began massing their ships in one place. I was preparing a report on it for you once we figured out what they were doing, since it was unclear. Now we know; they were preparing to leave. The entire fleet of ships jumped to hyperspace this morning," Eischens replied.

"If they were running out of food, that stands to reason I guess. So why are you so worried about it?" Ian asked.

"We plotted their course. Five Super-Nova class, and about a hundred and fifty assorted smaller vessels will be arriving here, just inside Uranus' orbit, but on the far side of the sun, in roughly three months," Eischens explained. "Sir, I checked with Mrs. Laskar already; this isn't the force she saw, but admitted that there were hundreds of warships in her vision. The Benesian women that are also seeing this confirmed that Caldarian ships are part of the attacking force. If this is accurate, we now have a time-line."

"Fuck! I'd hoped for more time," Ian said. "Ike, compile every scrap of data you can get your hands on; potential enemy strengths, arrival times, possible attack patterns, as well as how far along our preparations are. I'll want a full briefing in four hours. Alex, please try to have Alliance High Command attend as well as our full command staff. After that meeting, I'll need a meeting with Luke and the Council, please include the UN if possible.

"Has the
Damocles
returned yet?" Ian finished.

"They are on final approach, Sir," Alex replied.

Ian nodded. "Please ask Officer Lissa to report here for a special assignment. Have Major Corvis and the
Icarus
team report to Major Eischens to assist him in preparing this briefing."

"Thank you, Admiral. That'll really help," Ike replied.

Ian grinned. "Well, since you actually have to do some work, I figured I better get you some help!" He teased. "Seriously though, I'm putting you in a tight spot, Ike. I know that; just do the best you can in the time we have," Ian replied. "Good work on this. Talk to you later."

Ike chuckled but nodded. "Will do, Sir and thank you."

Ian nodded and closed the channel. "Have Cindy and Miss Shapiro tag along with Lissa please."

Alex was on the comms with someone, but she nodded that she understood and would handle it. Ian went over to the replicator in the office and got himself a cup of cappuccino as well as Alex's favorite drink. When he took it to her desk, she smiled up at him.

"Thank you, Sir. Colonel Williams, Officer Lissa and Miss Shapiro are on their way. The military briefing is set up for the large conference room in four hours. The political briefing is still in the works, but it looks like it'll be ready, in the same room, in
six
hours. Sir, it'll be the full UN, not just the Security Council. Since you didn't specify, I assumed you meant the entire body." When he nodded, she continued. "I'd have liked to give Major Eischens more time, but it's going to be late at night in New York as it is," the woman replied.

Ian nodded. "We'll make it work. I doubt any of them are going to be able to sleep after this anyway."

"Sir, I spoke to Admiral H'joles directly. He was very concerned about this news, but asked me to assure you that we will not be alone; the Alliance will be there to defend us," Alex added.

Ian nodded. "Yeah, I know they will. The question is, will it be enough?"

"With the Alliance fleets here as well as our own preparations, surely we stand a better chance, Sir," Alex replied.

"Everything we can do before they get here improves our odds, Alex." He snorted. "You've seen the same reports I have; this fight will most likely be the largest battle in history. Thousands of warships from three different agencies all fighting in one sector.  With that much destructive force unleashed in one place…" He shook his head. "There is simply no way to calculate odds or outcomes; there are too many variables. All we can do is prepare and when the enemy arrives do the best we can to defend our people."

Alex nodded. "I understand Sir. Colonel Williams is here."

Ian smiled at her. "Just keep the faith awhile longer, Alex." When she nodded, he turned and walked over to the conference table as Alex opened the door for the new arrivals.

Cindy and Lissa entered the office and walked over to the conference table, Miss Shapiro was staring around her in awe, and holding tightly to a large, gray, tabby stripped cat; Luciano.

Alex went to the replicator and got a litter pan for the cat, then got a bowl of water and premium cat food. The VIP now taken care of, she asked the three new humans if they wanted anything.

Olivia took Luciano over to the litter pan and sat him down so he could check it out. He sniffed it and walked all the way around it before stepping in and relieving himself. He stepped out, quickly cleaned himself, then proceeded to investigate the rest of the office and discovered the food.

"Welcome aboard, Miss Shapiro. As you know, I'm Ian Williams, this young lady…" he indicated Alex. "…is my assistant and resident miracle worker, Alex." He paused as the two women greeted one another.

"Miss Shapiro, I'm going to break a few dozen rules here, because we need your help. My instincts tell me I can trust you, and that's what I'm going to do. If you agree to this, I'm going to have Cindy take you down to Marine country and have Master Sergeant Ames certify you with our weapons and fit you with armor. While you're doing that, I'm going to have a shuttle made available to you as well as a pilot, a few Marines and a couple of Techs.

"Tomorrow, you and Luciano will head back to Earth to help Colonel Carlson with coordinating the installation of defensive weapons in various places around the world. I'll need you to work your magic to make sure they get finished as quickly and as painlessly as possible. I know you have no experience with the weapons or technology involved, but we can fix that. What I need is your skill at coordination and your ability to cut through the bullshit and make things happen.

"But, understand, this is voluntary; I'm not telling you to do this; I'm only asking you to. You can say no," Ian explained.

"Uh, Admiral," Cindy said. "She's literally fresh off the ship here, are you really asking her to jump into this? Has something happened I don't know about?"

Ian nodded. "We have a better idea when the attack is coming; we have about three months left before all hell breaks lose."

"Admiral, no one on the planet knows what's coming. Most of the planet has not been told any details. We know that you are preparing to defend the planet against an attack, but no one has given any details. How bad is this going to be really?" Miss Shapiro asked.

Ian nodded. "We know the governments haven't been telling the people everything. To be honest, I kind of agree with them to a point. If full knowledge was widely known, there would be wide scale panic and riots, religious doom-sayers on every corner and no one would be able to get anything done. Once we get more of our defenses in place, and we have a better idea how much we'll be able to protect, we'll tell the planet the truth. They'll still panic, but we'll be able to tell them we've made preparations, and not just for the planet's elite."

"Sir, if you think I can help, I'll help. I can certainly understand the risk you are taking with me as well. You don't know me; I could very well be a spy for anyone. I swear to you on my life that I am not working for anyone and have no hidden agenda. Luciano, I am not as sure about. He is a cat; they always have a hidden agenda," Miss Shapiro replied smiling weakly.

Ian returned her smile. "I'm sure you got to see the size of this ship when Cindy and her team brought you here. Just so you have a frame of reference, she isn't the largest or the most powerful of our warships. In about ninety days, hundreds of other warships, most of them larger and more powerful than this one will arrive here to destroy us. By us, I mean all of humanity, and not just the warships. Their mission will be to sterilize the planet and destroy every human they can track down in this entire sector of space. We have no idea why they are coming to do this, only that they are.

"What the world leaders are having difficulty with is how we came about this information. Mental abilities such as telepathy, and telekinesis do exist in our universe. As does precognition. We were warned of the coming attack by multiple precognitives having the same, or close to the same vision. That opens a whole different can of worms about how the ability works and all that, but suffice it to say, the coming attack is a certainty and we have been treating it as such.

"A few minutes ago, we got confirmation of part of it. Do you remember the reports of the huge warship that we destroyed a couple of years ago?" Ian asked.

The woman nodded. "Yes, there was a lot of speculation and gossip surrounding it, but no one doubted the event itself."

Ian nodded. "We know that five more of those super ships are now in route to us. This time, they are not alone either, they are bringing their entire fleet with them. According to the seer's visions; this is only a small part of what we are going to be hit with. In fact, one of them hadn't even noticed they were part of the attacking force since there were so many other ships involved. That's what we're facing, but we won't be alone. The Alliance is already preparing to send us fleets of warships and entire devisions of troops to help fight. We can win this," Ian said and looked at his hands. "We are going to lose people, maybe a lot of people, but we can stop them from destroying us if we work together."

After Miss Shapiro agreed to help, and Ian had her take the oath, he asked Cindy to take her down to see the Master Sergeant. "I'll need you in the main conference room in a couple hours, but that should work out okay; I imagine she'll be pretty tired by then, so find her and Luciano a place to sleep for the night and show her how to work everything. You might want to do that first so Luciano can check the place out before his mistress returns. Oh!" Ian said, surprised.

Luciano jumped up into his lap, put his front paws on Ian's chest and looked him in the eyes. Knowing cat-etiquette, Ian looked back for a short time before looking down. Luciano leaned in and nuzzled Ian's chin before turning to walk across the table to his 'mother'.

"Now that's really something! Luciano never does that to strangers, and even then never to a man!" Olivia replied. She had asked Ian to call her by name as Miss Shapiro reminded her of her mother.

"Well, I guess that means I have his seal of approval!" Ian said."I just hope he likes living on a shuttle."