Brick knocked me off that train of thought.
"Jake, incoming message. It was targeted at the Connahr base, but was addressed to you specifically. It is tagged as a private message."
"What? Where did it come from, can you tell?"
"It was sent from our northern outpost."
"Shit, the Greys are sending us messages now? And they know my name? This can't be good."
"I agree," Brick said. "As the message is tagged as private I've only informed you of its existence. Would you like to view the message in private mode?"
I thought about it for a second. I couldn't see any reason to exclude my friends and allies from hearing whatever the aliens had to say.
"No. Everyone, heads up. I've got a message from the Greys and I'm going to play it."
"Ferals you are!" Metra cursed at me.
She must have sprinted back from Pax and through the gate, as she was beside me less than a minute later.
"What's the problem?" I asked.
She had pulled free her portable computing unit and had placed it on a control console nearby and was rapidly manipulating her invisible Interface windows.
"You were just going to expose Brick to whatever viral payload those little grey shits shoved into that message? Are you crazy?"
"Hey, it's Brick. If he can't defend himself from computer viruses who could?" I asked.
She sniffed and paused for a moment. "Brick is very capable, but there are potentially hardware-level exploits that could be triggered."
"The Union is pretty weird," Marty said. "You guys don't have virus scanners on your email? It's like the Internet in the bad old days."
Metra opened her mouth to reply, and I suspected this was going to be one of those deep rabbit holes, so I stepped in.
"Metra, is it safe for us to watch the message now?"
"One second," she said, and went back to her interface for a moment.
"Now it is. I'm filtering the data through my processing unit before display. Nothing should make it out of the unit that could possibly harm Brick. I'll make up a more permanent version of this filter for any further communications with these aliens."
"I appreciate your concern, Metra."
She simply nodded and looked at me.
"Alright, let's see what these guys have to say to us. Play it!"
What happened next wasn't at all what I expected. A woman appeared in front of me, standing six feet away and looking me in the eyes. There was almost no sense that this was anything but a real person standing there, although I knew that this was just the way that Union messages worked. I'd expected that.
What I hadn't expected was that the woman would be Meredith, my sister. I was frozen in shock, my mouth slightly open.
"Dude, your sister! I fucking told you!" Marty crowed before she could speak.
"Jake, I hope you are well," Meredith said. She was like that sometimes, strangely formal when she'd leave voice mails or email me. That was usually when she wanted something.
"I was quite surprised when I found the cache of Union materials in your basement in Paradise Plains. I couldn't think of a reason for them to be there. Was Grandpa Mattias a Union citizen? Surely my little brother had no knowledge of this.
"Then my men trace a terrorist raid on a US military base back to a Union site in northern Canada, and I am again surprised to find that my brother is involved. Your DNA was found in a set of winter clothing, as well as that of Martin Farnell. The nephew that Sheriff Farnell neglected to mention had gone with you."
"The clothes! We forgot the clothes and DNA! They CSIed us!" Marty cursed.
"Shush, I'm listening, Marty," Metra replied.
"Was that you in the armor, Jake? The other two were clearly Union aliens. If so, you should know that you and your accomplices killed several of my men. They were good men—patriots wanting to protect their country and their world from alien interference."
That turn of phrase broke me out of my trance.
"Hold up. Pause, Brick," I ordered and the playback stopped. My sister became completely still. It was quite creepy, actually.
"She said we killed several? We killed a lot of Greys. Is she not counting those? Only the humans count?" I asked.
"I was not ready to present my findings yet, but I can fill in a gap here," Kiril said.
After a pause Kiril continued. "I've examined the 'Grey' as you call it. It is not a corpse, but an Artifact. You might call it a robot."
"Those things didn't fight like robots. They were all different," I said, remembering a few moments of the fight.
"That is the part I am not 100% certain on, as I have not finished my analysis. I believe that they are remotely controlled by sentients rather than any kind of programming or AI."
"What? The Greys are remote controlled robots?" Marty protested.
"That is what I believe. I have to complete my analysis," Kiril said.
"Let's hear the rest," I said, and signaled Brick to resume.
Meredith's image came back to life and continued to speak. "You also seriously damaged or destroyed a lot of irreplaceable government hardware. Combined with your extensive intrusions into restricted computer systems, I feel confident in predicting a prison sentence in the millions of years range for you and all your companions."
She paused to let her words sink in. I waited patiently. This was patented Meredith. The stick always came first, usually followed by the carrot. She wanted something and this was how she got what she wanted.
"I am not blind to the fact that we seem to be working toward the same goal. Whatever you did on Mercury
