“No, you’re their leader and if I use you, then I feel I’d be using you for personal reasons. If they wanted you to know, wouldn’t they have told you?”
“Possibly, or they might just be respecting my schedule.” He paused a moment and thought back to her, “Somehow I don’t think so. Contact me after the meeting and let me know what’s going on.”
“I will. When are you leaving with the fleet for the Cainth Empire?”
“Soon, the ships have to be rearmed and we’re going to replace the damaged ships with other ships from our reserves whose crews haven’t had any combat experience. Be sure to interrupt me and let me know what’s going on. I’ll be here a while.”
“I will, Love.” Danielle was always amazed at the ability she and Tag had been given by Atlas to hear each other’s thoughts where ever they were. Then she had an idea, “Atlas, did you hear all of that?”
There was momentary silence and then Atlas responded, “Yes. How did you know I was listening in?”
“I felt you. Besides, what else would a precocious ancient alien ship do with its spare time?”
Atlas was an intelligent ancient Alfont Ship that Tag had discovered in a cave on the moon while attempting to escape capture by the Directorate. The Alfont were the most technologically advanced race in the history of the Galaxy but had mysteriously disappeared more than sixty million years ago. Any race that found one of their artifacts was sentenced to be destroyed by the Alliance of Worlds to prevent anyone from getting an advantage in weapons technology; discovery of one of their artifacts meant total annihilation. When Tag touched the dead Alfont in the cave it had set off a tone that could be heard throughout the universe and the Alliance had tracked it on a line that passed through Earth and as a result was now in the process of attempting to occupy the planet. The sole reason that they were going to occupy the planet instead of destroying it outright was that Atlas had caused them to lose two of their lines of origin. The Earth was located on the line that remained but they did not know for certain that the tone originated from Earth. “You want to know if I know why the SFT wants you, right,” Atlas said.
“My, aren’t you the mind reader?”
“Well, I can’t help you; that group is pretty much invisible to me. Their psychic skills are strong and I don’t have a link into their meetings if Tag isn’t there. Sorry, but I’m sure it’s not anything to worry about.”
“Ok, thanks any way, Atlas.”
“You’re welcome, Danielle, any time,” Atlas thought back at her and broke the connection.
“He’s sounding more and more human in his thoughts every time I communicate with him,” Danielle thought. She arrived at the Central Government Tower, landed her floater in front of the building, and walked in to the front desk where she saw a tall man standing next to the security officers. “I’m Danielle A. Gardner and I’m,” she started but was interrupted by the tall man.
“Welcome, Mrs. Gardner, I’m here to take you upstairs; if you’ll come with me, please.”
Danielle followed the tall man into the lift and exited on the 336 ^ th floor where she entered a room with clear crystal glass on all sides of the room. She could see the huge city in all directions and it was beautiful from this height. Danielle noticed a table off to the right where a group of people were sitting and she walked over and stood in front of the SFT Team dressed in her Security Committee blue uniform with her blond hair falling to her shoulders looking both professional and lovely. The members of the SFT, however, could see the trouble in her blue eyes as she furrowed her brow and looked at them. They were sitting in a semi circle around a table whispering among themselves. A small woman sitting in the center stood and said, “I’m Alesia Patel and I’m the designated leader of the SFT this month. Welcome and we appreciate your coming on such short notice,”
“I’m available anytime you need me,” Danielle responded nervously.
Please sit down,” and the small woman indicated a chair facing them and Danielle sat down. “We know you’re probably curious about why we asked you here and I’m going to let Sung Lea Yung explain our reasons to you.”
She looked to the right as a woman stood up and said, “Most people don’t know how the members of our group here are chosen. We’re called Special Forces because every one of us is endowed with some form of psychic ability. Our talents are very special and taken together constitute a very important tool for protecting mankind. It was Tam Dillon,” and she looked to her right at an old man with grey hair and mustache stood up and nodded to Danielle, “that felt your husband’s psychic aura and began our quest to find him and bring him into our group. Tag leads this group because his psychic strength and talents are superior to any other member of this team. But more than that, I told the group that the Human Race was doomed unless he was made our leader. You see, my particular talent is that I can psychically see possible futures and in every future I envisioned we were destroyed except the one where Tag was made our leader. My visions didn’t reveal if we ultimately survive, but it didn’t show us being annihilated in the near future. Now my visions have become clearer and other details have been revealed. Those details involve you.”
Danielle listened to the young woman and noticed that she had a presence that could almost be felt. She was tall for a human of Asian ancestry and her green eyes were unusually bright. She had on a navy blue jumpsuit and looked Danielle in the eye as she talked. “Me! Wait a minute. You’re able to tell the future,” Danielle said changing the subject trying to absorb what she was hearing.
“No. I’m able to see possible futures and any of them can happen depending on the outcome of critical events. Our group exists to try and do things that cause the best possible future to take place and avoid making a critical error when one of those events happens. Once a new future starts happening, then new possible futures appear. Do you understand?”
Danielle furrowed her brow, “Yes, I think I do. When you made Tag your leader the other possible futures without him in that position were no longer possible but there are other possible directions the future can go after the decision was made. Is that right?”
“Yes,” Sung Lea nodded approvingly, “I see you understand. I try to find the critical events that cause multiple futures and make sure we do what causes the most successful future to take place. There are new possible futures where we are still destroyed even with him as our leader. The best possible future in my visions right now has you involved heavily in it.”
Danielle was nervous about asking the next question but she said anyway, “What kind of involvement?”
“You are going to have to be with your husband at every battle or confrontation with the Alliance. Your job with the Security Division will end with this meeting and you will be made a member of the SFT. Tam Dillon will be stepping down partly because we may only have eight members and he has requested to be replaced to spend time with his wife in their latter years.”
Danielle looked at the group for a long moment then said, “I thought you had to have strong psychic skills to be a member of your group.”
Sung Lea looked Danielle directly in the eye and said, “Danielle, you know you have psychic skills. You are able to see the truth in any situation and quite frankly, your skills are as strong, or stronger, than anyone else on this group other than your husband. I think you already know this at some level. After the initial contact with Thomas Gardner your psychic skills increased dramatically.”
“What do you mean increased?”
“Danielle, we are able to see psychic auras of people with psychic skills. Before you made contact with Tag, we did not sense yours. Afterwards, your aura was clearly visible and is getting stronger. We really don’t understand how that happened but we know that it did.”
That statement surprised Danielle but then she thought, “Why didn’t you discuss this with Tag before telling me?”
Alesia stood and said, “Because he will resist this with all his power; he will not willingly allow you to be put in danger especially where a fleet action is happening. However, I must get you and he to understand that unless you are present with him our race will die within six months and possibly sooner than that if you miss the Cainth invasion.”
Danielle looked into the woman’s face then back at Sung Lea; she could feel the truth of what they were saying. She also knew with her talent for seeing the truth that Sung Lea would never lie about something so important. “So what must I do?”
Alesia gave a heavy sigh and said, “We have an Empire Class Battleship waiting in orbit to take you to him. You will need to move quickly because he will be jumping out of system within eighteen hours. We will try to delay him until you arrive, but he may not cooperate because of his fear for your safety. If we have to we will have your ship follow him.”
“Atlas,” Danielle thought, “can you get me there in time?”
