“An opportunity to create disruption when they least expect it,” Lexi realized. And an opportunity for me to learn what the Alliance is really up to.
“Precisely. It’s time we make our presence known.”
CHAPTER 5
The return flight to TSS Headquarters gave Jason time to process the meeting with Darin and think about what the alien contact meant for the TSS going forward. While the touch with the being in Darin’s memory hadn’t been particularly sinister, it had solidified for Jason that the being, and its kind, were what he had seen in his nexus vision. Something immense was coming.
He stifled a yawn while descending the central elevator into the heart of Headquarters. It had been a long day, and it wasn’t over yet.
Echoes from Darin’s broken mind still swirled at the edge of Jason’s consciousness—the downside to using telepathy to dive deep. The images stuck around. Some telepaths couldn’t take it and were sucked in, blurring the boundary where the subject’s memories ended and their own began. Though Jason had never felt at risk in that way, he still kept a little of everyone he read with him. In time, the memories would fade and become unrecognizable in the background. But for now, he may as well have been on the Andvari himself.
Jason checked the time on his handheld. He still had twenty minutes before the scheduled meeting with his parents to debrief about what he’d learned.
Following the upcoming debrief, the rest of his schedule was looking fairly clear, so he wanted to stay true to his promise to get together with Tiff. He pulled up his text thread with her and sent a message.
>>Hey, just got home.<<
>>Oh, hey!<< she wrote back right away. >>How did it go?<<
>>That’s for a longer conversation.<<
This time, there was a several second delay. >>Okay. Are you free tonight, then?<<
>>I was hoping you hadn’t already made other plans. I could really use a night away from all this.<<
>>Yeah, of course. I’d also like to talk about something.<<
>>Sure. You know I’m always happy to lend an ear.<<
“Jason!” a voice called from behind him.
He slipped his handheld into his pocket and turned to see Gil approaching from the Primus Agent offices in the administrative wing, where he was headed himself. “Hi, Gil.”
“Is it true?” his friend asked, barely above a whisper.
“We’re still looking into the details,” Jason said. It was technically true, and he couldn’t share the full extent of what was going on until his father decided to make a formal announcement.
Gil paled. “Shite, that bad?” He shook his head. “When I saw that the incident with the Andvari had suddenly become classified—”
“I wish I could talk about it, but I can’t,” Jason cut in. “We’re taking care of it.”
“Right, yeah.” He swallowed. “Uh, welcome home.”
“Game night next week, maybe?” Jason suggested, hoping to soften the blow of not being able to share the specifics of his most recent assignment.
“Sure, that’d be great.” Gil nodded to him and then resumed his walk down the hall.
Since there wasn’t enough time to go to his quarters before the meeting, Jason decided to head to the High Commander’s office early.
As he passed by the Lead Agent’s office, he noticed the glass walls were set to full transparency—normally tinted opaque with the environmental controls. His mother waved to him from behind the desk inside. She grabbed her handheld from the desktop and jogged across her office to meet him.
“Well?” she asked.
“It’s genuine.”
She took a slow breath. “Okay.”
Together, they walked the rest of the way to the High Commander’s office at the end of the hall.
Saera opened the door without knocking and Jason followed her inside. Pacing next to the wooden desk, his father was finishing up a voice call.
“Right. Yes. I’ll keep you apprised. Talk soon.” Wil terminated the communication and sighed. “I hear you don’t bring good news.”
“Afraid not.” Jason closed the door.
Wil took the seat behind the desk and gestured for them to sit in the visitor chairs across from him. “I was surprised to see you recommended Darin for the Militia Division.”
“The poor kid lost everything on the Andvari. He needs direction and a community.”
“We do try to make the TSS feel like a family,” his mother replied. “I hope he can find that with us.”
His father nodded his agreement but remained focused on the more pressing issue. “Do you feel confident in what you got from his mind?”
“Yes,” Jason confirmed. “It took a little digging, but I got through the block. I’d never seen anything quite like it.”
“So, the being is telepathic?” Saera asked.
“It’s a lot more than that.”
His father had his full attention on him. “How so?”
“What we could see in that image was only part of it. This entity looks massive, but it’s just a temporary manifestation. I don’t think it has any kind of set physical form. I believe it’s from a higher dimension and that it is, indeed, using the Rift as a gateway to spacetime.”
“Worst-case scenario, then,” Wil stated flatly.
“It’s looking that way.”
“What an odd way to make first contact—attacking a random civilian ship,” Saera commented.
“I don’t think that’s what it was.” Jason sat up straighter. “On the way back, I mulled it over and reread part of the initial findings report. I have a hypothesis. Rather than an attack, I believe it was an experiment.”
His parents exchanged glances. “Go on,” his father prompted.
“Going through Darin’s memories and, more or less, experiencing the contact firsthand made it clear that the being was curious. It wanted to learn about our Taran form. It basically scanned him, but it wasn’t
