Prophets

continent.”

Parvi saw Mosasa smiling out of the corner of her eye.

“We made it,” Wahid said over the PA system. “We fucking made it!”

Parvi looked at the planet hanging in the holo as she asked, “How close are we?”

Wahid was grinning, “A fucking bull’s-eye. Point-seven-five million klicks out.”

“Shit,” Parvi stared at the meters on the console in front of her.

“What’s the matter?” Wahid said.

“We’re too close,” Mosasa said, the smile leaving his face. He turned toward Parvi. “How long before the drives cool to safe levels?”

Parvi shook her head. “I don’t know. At the current rate, twelve hours, but we only have one damaged coil working. Venting continuously that long, it may start to degrade or fail entirely.”

“How much of a problem are we talking about?”

Parvi leaned back.“Worst case, if the coil fails completely, the drives will still go cold in about forty-eight hours all by themselves. Being hot that long increases the chance of an eventual failure. We’re also vulnerable if someone operates a tach-drive too close to us. That will cause the drives to heat up again.”

“Damn.”

Mosasa turned to Tsoravitch. “Our first priority, make contact with the surface. We can at least warn away outgoing tach-ships and request them to send someone up for repairs. Bill? Are you on-line here?”

“Yes.”

“Can you do anything to help cool the drives?” Parvi asked Bill.

“We unfortunately lack the equipment. We did everything possible before the jump.”

“What kind of danger are we in?” she asked. “What if someone does tach in on top of us?”

“A high-efficiency twenty light-year jump arriving within a two-million-kilometer radius will severely damage the drives. The effect drops off exponentially as the jump distance and drive efficiency decreases.”

“I just wish there was an AU or two between us and the planet,” Parvi said. “How the hell did we get that kind of navigational error?”

“Most probably a significant concentration of dark matter directly between here and the former location of Xi Virginis which caused an unexpected space-time curvature. I will be able to give a more thorough analysis once I’ve been able to review the telemetry data from the jump.”

“At this point,” Mosasa said, “Our main concern is contact. And once the drives are cold, I want preparations for landing.”

Date: 2526.6.3 (Standard) Salmagundi-HD 101534

Alexander had never seen the Grand Triad gripped by such chaos. Only yesterday they had come to grips with the alien invader southeast of Ashley. Despite the objections of the Ashley Triad and the area lumber interests, Alexander had finally gotten consensus around the idea of using their limited nuclear arsenal to eliminate the threat from the invader. The site was far enough away from Ashley that they should be able to avoid dangerous levels of contamination.

Even in a worst case scenario, moving the city’s population was preferable than allowing this alien infection to take root here.

But even as they had begun discussing the logistics of the strike in their ponderous manner, they faced another invasion.

On the massive holo screen facing the conference room an image showed a blunt-nosed tach-ship, a hundred meters long, hanging in space less than a million kilometers from Salmagundi. It was close enough that the satellite