The Tau Ceti Agenda

no such thing as a 'typical day.'

'We're clean out here, so far. Teams are on post, snipers own the high ground, and I'm doing a walk-around,' Secret Service agent Vincent Kudaf replied to his team commander. 'Are you and the sarge holding up in there?'

Thomas looked at the hovercoaster behind him and could see the smile on the president's twelve-year-old daughter as she shouted excitedly. The president white-knuckled the roll bar of the rocket- ship-shaped amusement park ride as he ducked the virtual meteor that whizzed by his head. The expression on his face was nothing but teeth from his wide smile, and it was clear that there was no place else the president would rather be than on vacation with his wife and daughter.

'Ain't this great, Dee?' President Moore asked his daughter in his long, slow Mississippi accent.

'This is more fun than base jumping, Daddy!' Deanna answered. The cape of her anime superhero MegaWoman costume flapped behind her making a clapping sound.

However, the very big black man sitting beside the tall, slender, pale-skinned, dark-haired woman in the coaster car behind the president and his daughter was not having as much fun. Clay Jackson might have been a U.S. Marine, might have seen some serious action in his day, but the hovercoaster at Space Mountain was getting the better of him. Thomas tried not to chuckle at his longtime friend and colleague.

'Semper fi, marine,' Thomas chuckled on a private channel to his former NCO.

'Oorah,' Jackson replied with little enthusiasm. Sehera Moore, the First Lady, seemed about as enthusiastic as her bodyguard. Other than the occasional muffled squeal, she had mostly remained quiet, as was her nature.

The hovercoaster cars streamed through the meteor storm and banked with more than two gravities of acceleration through the virtual asteroid field surrounding Belt Station. The alien invaders from the Andromeda galaxy were hot on their tails. Thomas didn't have time to pay close attention, but he could tell that the president's daughter was fearless, like a Marine mechajock. Who knew? Her old man had been one hell of a marine, and maybe it was in her blood.

She pulled the joystick to the right to bank the hovercoaster formation, and then she swiveled the wheel with her left, yawing the middle car—the one she was in—on its axis so that they were looking orthogonally to their direction of travel. The three coaster cars were connected as if they were flying in formation with each other, and the next set of cars was more than five meters behind them and empty. The car in front held Thomas. Thomas continually swiveled it from side to side, scanning for anything out of the ordinary. His artificial intelligence counterpart (AIC) also scanned with multiple sensors attached to his personal armor system. So far, so good, he thought.

Occasionally, Thomas would make eye contact with the president and his daughter. Moore would sometimes nod in return, and Deanna always smiled at him. The car attached behind them holding the First Lady and Jackson seldom pitched or yawed. The First Lady apparently didn't enjoy the adrenaline-filled ride. But Deanna and President Moore were at the central controls of the three-car spaceship, and they continuously piloted the cars around and over each other like fighter planes in combat formations. The occupants of the front and rear cars were to be mainly gunners and shoot at the alien invaders.

'Shoot the alien, Daddy!' Deanna cried.

'I got him!' Moore fired the plastic multicolored cannon, sending blue and red bolts of lightning across the virtual asteroid field and destroying the alien spacecraft with a mixture of computer-generated holography and real- to-life pyrotechnics. It was a good coaster.

Moore looked over his shoulder at his wife behind them. Then he smiled at her with a sincerely affectionate grin. Thomas had always admired that about President Moore. Unlike many politicians throughout history, Moore was really married to his wife. And he revered his daughter as the epitome of love for their family. Thomas was certain that Moore would lay down his life in a heartbeat for either of the women in his life. In fact, he had seen him attempt to do just that.

Back when the man was just a senator from Mississippi and had gotten himself and his family caught up in events of the Separatist Exodus of 2383, he stood tall and faced a fierce enemy because of the love he had for his wife and daughter. Moore had single-handedly faced down several enemy mecha with nothing more than a rifle, attempting to lure the enemy mecha away from his family. And he had come out on top.

Thomas Washington had been there and had fought right beside him on that violent Martian day. Alexander Moore was a man he respected. Moore had been Major Moore of the U.S. Marine Corps once upon a time. And there was no such thing as a former marine. Thomas knew that it would be no problem for him to lay down his life to protect the President or any member of his family.

Knowing what he did of the then-senator Moore, it had been a no- brainer when Thomas' company commander had told him that he was being offered a detail with the Department of Homeland Security to be President Moore's personal security team leader. Then U.S. Marine Captain Washington went inactive and trained at the James J. Rowlings Training Center just outside Washington, D.C., for a year in order to take the position. To Washington, it was the biggest honor he'd ever received in his life. The president of the United States of America had specifically requested him. The president had also asked for the other two surviving marines who fought with him in the Martian desert that day. Gunnery Sergeant Clay Jackson and Corporal 'Kootie' Kudaf had been nothing less than gung-ho for their new assignments.

Thomas, I'm getting an urgent relay from HQ, Tammie, his AIC, informed him.

Patch it through.

Be advised of unusual bandwidth usage on the local area wireless networks. Disney World authorities don't understand the increase. Recommend protect and return protocols.

Tammie, you heard them. Shut this thing down and get Marine One in here. Thomas thought through the procedures that had been trained into him like instinct. His first thoughts were that there was a simple and harmless technical glitch going on at Disney World, but he couldn't take any chances with the people's lives that he had been charged with. Nothing is typical, he thought.

Tammie, you better tell Abigail to pass the information along to the president. We'll get off the ride and out quickly and smoothly.

I have already, relayed the info to the president's AIC, Thomas, Tammie replied.

Good. Now get this ride stopped. Thomas opened the channel to Kudaf and Jackson.