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  “And?” she prompted.

  “And we are possibly being invaded by aliens.”

  Were it anyone else, she’d have thought it a prank. But even aliens were more believable than Aldirk pulling something like this. Wordlessly she gestured for him to continue.

  “The lab confirms an incoming space vessel on a trajectory which will end fifty lengths northwest of Blacksun. It was initially flying straight toward the city, but the ship has been continually adjusting its heading. The scholar in charge is of the opinion that it’s attempting to land in an unpopulated area. Colonel Mendalia from Whitemoon Base postulates that the aliens think we can’t detect them and are attempting to surprise us.”

  Shocked as she was, Tal could still see the hole in that theory. “They had to fly right past our observational satellites to enter our atmosphere. They’d be idiots to think we can’t detect them.”

  Aldirk’s eyebrows rose. “I didn’t think of that,” he admitted. “Then why put down in the middle of agricultural fields?”

  “I have no idea. But I do know we’ll be there to meet them. I’m putting Blacksun Base on immediate scramble, but they’ll need more time than we probably have to fully mobilize. We’ll have to have an early greeting party. I’m taking my Guards.”

  “Lancer Tal! You cannot possibly go out there—”

  “I cannot possibly stay here,” she interrupted. “Three thousand generations of Alsean history just ended, Aldirk. The only question now is what our future will be, and you would have me cower inside the State House while somebody else finds out whether or not we’re about to be exterminated?”

  He looked at her for a moment without speaking, his face softening into an expression she’d never seen before. “Be careful, Lancer.”

  “I will.”

  * * *

  Eight ticks was an impressive response time. Tal stood by her state transport, watching her Guards shout back and forth as they loaded gear and weapons, and felt a swell of pride in their professionalism. Like her, they’d all been asleep eight ticks ago. Now they were in full combat kit and preparing for a mission that none of them could have conceived of before now. And they were doing it without a moment’s hesitation.

  Colonel Corozen Micah strode toward her, his bristly silver hair shining in the landing pad’s floodlights. “We’ll be loaded in another five,” he said as soon as he reached her. “But the biggest thing we’ve got are the shoulder-mounted launchers. I don’t like going in this way.”

  “I don’t either, but we can’t afford to wait. The Astrophysics Lab says they’ll be landing before we even get off the ground, and we’re easily a hantick ahead of the fastest deployment a heavy weapons unit could make.”

  “We could wait for the aerial support. That would at least give us class four and five missiles.”

  “We could, but they’re still scrambling their launch and farther from the landing site than we are. Colonel Northcliff estimated they’d be arriving half a hantick behind us. Do you want to wait that long while aliens land their ship and do Fahla knows what?”

  “I don’t want any of this,” he grumbled. “I liked it just fine when we thought other life in the universe was something we argued about over a bottle of spirits.”

  She couldn’t help smiling. Even at a time like this, Micah’s gruff humor remained intact. “That argument is over for all time, Micah.”

  They watched the Guards, having given all of the orders they could for the moment. After half a tick of silence, Micah asked, “Have you woken up to this yet?”

  She shook her head. “No. You?”

  “No,” he said, looking up into the night sky.

  She followed his gaze. Though their largest moon washed out some of the stars, and the State House’s landing pad lights interfered with many more, the brighter ones showed through. She knew every constellation and in which seasons they came and went. Right now the Archer hovered over the northern horizon, her arrow—or his, nobody had ever agreed on that topic—aimed at the Winden fleeing toward the east. The Treecat was right over the Archer’s head, the final star in its tail marking the Northern Home Star, which forever remained still while all of the other stars moved around it. They were ever on the march, but always knew where their home lay. Every Alsean, even those who cared nothing for the constellations, knew where the Home Star was. She’d learned about it when she was four.

  Looking at it now made her ache inside. These stars had always been her comfortable companions, their timelessness offering a sense of security and a connection to her ancestors. She had never minded night watches when she had been a Guard, so long as the sky was clear and she could see. The earliest Alseans had looked upon the same stars, seen much the same patterns, guided their travels by them. But now it all felt different. These stars weren’t safe anymore. Their mysteries weren’t just for scientific and philosophical exploration. Something had come out of them: a giant ship that even now was screaming through their skies with unknown intentions. Whatever happened next, Alsea would never be the same. The import of the moment was so immense that she still couldn’t grasp it, and yet she had to. She was the Lancer, and the whole world expected her to lead.

  Never had the title weighed so heavily.

  Her wristcom buzzed and lit with a message. She read it and stared at Micah. “It should be right over our heads in the next tick.”

  As one they turned to face south, where the massive main dome of the State House loomed fifteen stories high. The landing pad sat at its base, a short walk from the Councillor’s Entrance. Paths radiated out in all directions, winding their way through the trees and formal gardens that made up the walled park. She had often been out for a run at this hour, enjoying the quiet, the rare privacy, and the darkness.

  It was not dark now. Aside from the floodlit landing pad, the State House itself was ablaze with lights in all five domes and on every floor except the fifteenth, where her own quarters were located. She could see shapes hurrying back and forth across the large windows, everyone busy on some frantic errand.

  “I don’t hear anything,” Micah said. “If it’s that close, shouldn’t we—”

  An earsplitting boom cracked the sky in half, stopping her heart and sending every warrior on the landing pad into a defensive crouch. Simultaneous with the deep boom was the higher sound of breaking glass, and she watched in shock as seemingly every window in the State House exploded, the shards sparkling in the lights as they dropped to shatter on the ground below. A piptick later came the roar, louder than any transport engine she’d ever heard. It passed over their heads and moved off to the northwest, only gradually fading.

  She straightened and tried to calm her racing heart. It hadn’t been an attack after all. For a moment she had expected the State House to explode along with its windows, taking her and everyone else with it. But the ship had kept going. It hadn’t even slowed down.

  All activity on the landing pad had come to a standstill, her Guards staring at the State House or in the direction of the receding roar. Next to her, Micah rubbed his chest.

  “Holy shekking Mother,” he murmured. “Now I know what cardiac arrest feels like.”

  She nodded in agreement. “And we’re going to meet that with hand disruptors, rifles, and a few shoulder-mounted launchers.”

  He met her eyes. “Second thoughts?”

  “Second, third, and fourth. But we have no choice.” Raising her voice, she shouted at her still-stunned Guards. “Move it! Get the rest of this gear on board; we lift off in three ticks!”

  * * *

  Micah adjusted his molecular disruptor, which had gotten caught under his hastily fastened harness, and looked at the woman in the seat across from him. Tal was as stunned as the rest of them—she’d admitted as much—but it showed in neither her expression nor her posture. If aliens dropping out of the sky couldn’t rattle that woman’s composure, then he gave up on finding anything that could.

  A slight bump signaled their liftoff, and he gla
nced out the panoramic window of her private cabin to watch the State House and its park drop away below.

  “Hard to believe we just woke up thirteen ticks ago,” he said.

  She nodded. “Hard to believe that thirteen ticks ago, the world was still normal.”

  “Do you have a strategy?”

  She gave an inelegant snort. “Yes, my strategy is to do a flyover of a ship that’s as long as Blacksun Base, including the training grounds, and see as much as we can in the middle of the night with only one moon for light. Then I’ll tell Continal to land, just as soon as I figure out where the shekking door of that ship is, and put myself and thirty of the Defense Force’s best up against Fahla only knows what. Unless you have a better plan?”

  Her eyes flashed as she met his, and he found himself smiling.

  “What?” she demanded.

  “I’m just glad to know that you’re Alsean after all.”

  “Because I have no idea what I’m doing?”

  “Because you’re just as frightened as the rest of us. I’ve known you forever and even I can’t tell sometimes.”

  She stared at him, then shook her head with a smile. “If this is one of your encouraging speeches, I have to say it’s not up to your usual standards.”

  “I’m not certain there’s anything to be encouraged about. I just wanted to say…” His throat tightened, and he gave her a brisk nod to cover it up. “…that whatever happens, I’m proud to have served with you. And I’m proud of you.”

  Well, he thought to himself, her composure can be shaken after all.

  “Thank you, Micah,” she said after a pause. “You know I feel the same way. If we’re flying straight to our Returns, there’s no one I’d rather have at my side.”

  He glanced out the window and cleared his throat. “Well then. Now that we have that out of the way, the answer is no.”

  “No, what?”

  “No, I don’t have a better plan.”

  Chapter 3

  Reconnaissance

  “The ship’s landing track is just coming into view now.” First Pilot Continal’s voice sounded unusually quiet over the com, and when Tal got her first look out the window, she understood why.

  Ever since leaving the outskirts of the capital city, they’d been flying over the holdings and agricultural fields that made up most of Blacksun Basin. It was the middle of the growing season, two moons away from the autumn harvest, and the fields shone whole and pristine in the silver light of Sonalia.

  But now she was looking down on massive destruction. A deep furrow at least a quarter-length wide had been dug into the landscape, with huge banks of soil thrown up on either side. Full-grown trees lay scattered beyond the banks like so many twigs, snapped off and hurled with more force than she could imagine. On and on the track went, straight as a sword, and as they flew beside it a thought niggled at the back of her mind. She’d seen something like this before, on a much smaller scale.

  “Micah, do you remember when that commercial flight lost its vertical thrusters two cycles ago and had to land like an old-fashioned glider?”

  He looked at her in surprise. “It does look like a crash track.”

  “Either that, or these aliens have a very bad pilot.”

  Continal was flying slower now, giving them ample time to study the signs of the ship’s passage. She couldn’t believe how long this track was. But then again, the ship had still been going faster than the speed of sound when it crossed over Blacksun. If it hadn’t been able to control its descent and had hit the ground at such a speed… She sucked in a breath, convinced now that her initial guess was correct. The aliens had crashed, which changed everything. If they’d planned an invasion, their plans had surely been upset. The odds were already looking better.

  And if they hadn’t planned an invasion, then that scholar at the Astrophysics Laboratory was right, and the aliens had indeed chosen a landing site away from any populated areas. But not for concealment’s sake. They’d tried to save themselves by selecting the best crash site they could, just as she would if her own transport’s controls had suddenly ceased to function.

  Was it possible they hadn’t wanted to hurt anyone in the process?

  Don’t get too hopeful, she warned herself. See what is there, not what you wish were there.

  “The trench isn’t as deep,” Micah said. “We must be getting close.”

  They watched the trench grow more and more shallow, until it became a scrape.

  “I have the ship in sight,” Continal said. “Flying a circuit now.”

  The transport banked, and as the ship came into view, Tal dug her fingers into the arms of her seat.

  “Great Goddess,” Micah said in wonder.

  Silently, she agreed. Knowing it was three-fourths of a length long didn’t prepare her for actually seeing something that enormous. Unless these aliens were the size of city buildings, there could be thousands inside. There were thirty-two Alseans on board this transport, not counting Continal, who would stay at his controls. What could they hope to do against what could very well be an army?

  But as more of the ship passed by her window, it became increasingly obvious that it had suffered tremendous damage. Moonlight glinting off the silvery hull revealed dark areas where material had been torn away, mostly around the flatter outside ring of the ship. When she looked more closely, she could see that the entire hull was pocked with small marks: little nibbles rather than the slashes and gaps that had drawn her attention at first. It was difficult to imagine what could have marred the ship so equally over its surface. She’d have thought it was a design feature if it weren’t for the few intact sections, which were as smooth as a temple dome.

  Smooth, she thought, and examined the ship with new eyes, focusing on the design rather than the destruction. It had no windows, no doors that she could see…and no landing struts, nor anything to hold it stable on the ground. It sat tilted forward on its rounded base, with what she assumed was the narrower bow of the ship resting on the ground while the broader, indented stern was high in the air. Curved around the top edge of the bow were alien markings, probably for identification. But the only reason to have markings on top would be if the ship was frequently viewed from above.

  “Micah, this ship was never meant to land,” she said. “It’s not an airship. It’s a spaceship.”

  He nodded. “I think you’re right. And they crashed it.”

  “If there really is an army inside, it’s not designed to mobilize on the ground. Perhaps they had some method of dropping units onto a planet from orbit, but nothing built for a space launch could work the same way on the ground. And they’ve been here for twenty-five ticks already. If they were going to mobilize, they should have done it by now.”

  “But they haven’t. There’s no sign of movement anywhere.”

  “Maybe that’s why.” Tal pointed. “I don’t think that happened in the crash.”

  They had completed their flight up one side of the ship and turned to begin scanning the opposite side. Here the damage was far more extensive, with black marks scoring the ship from bow to stern. They were deep, going all the way through the hull in several places, exposing jagged edges, dangling wires, and what looked like broken pipes.

  “Not that I have any experience in diagnosing alien ship damage,” Micah said, “but that looks like they were in a fight. And lost.”

  “Not necessarily. After I called you to scramble the Guards, Aldirk called me back with some data the astrophysicist had forgotten to mention. When he first detected this ship, there were two of them. But one exploded high up in our atmosphere. It was vaporized.”

  “Two of them? And this is the victor? Should that make us feel better or worse?”

  They were passing around the other end now, having flown a complete circuit. Tal activated the com switch on her armrest. “Continal, have you seen anything moving? You have the forward view.”

  “No, Lancer. Nothing.”

  “All right.
Let’s go around one more time.” She tapped the com off. “Do you see anything that could possibly be a door? Or a hatch?”

  “No, this thing is as smooth as a fanten’s nose,” Micah said. “Or it would be without all the damage. Wait a piptick,” he interrupted himself, pointing. “That wasn’t there before.”

  She’d seen it at the same time: a tiny black opening just below the top of the enormous dome that rose above the plane of the ship. Immediately she ordered Continal to get them a full length away and hold position with that opening in view of her windows. As the transport banked south, she tapped the main cabin com and updated her Guards. “Stay in your harnesses for now; we may have to do some quick maneuvers. But anyone with a clear view out the right side, get your scopes out and keep a careful eye on that hatch. The coms are all open, so shout it out if anything comes at us.” She and Micah were already pulling their own scopes from their gear bags.

  It took a moment to locate the hatch in her magnified view, but once she’d centered it, she could see a ladder built into the dome’s side. Small rungs led from the hatch down to the flat section and seemed to be made from the same material as the hull. To her surprise, the ladder continued along the flat plane all the way to the ship’s nose, then went over the edge and down to the ground.

  That had definitely not been there before.

  “Movement!” Micah said, echoed by several Guards over the com. Tal found the hatch in her scope again and stared in fascination.

  One alien was on the ladder, beginning the downward climb, while two others were waiting on the lip of the hatch. They all wore uniforms of some sort, carried no visible weapons, and seemed strangely normal in appearance. Two arms, two legs, a head supported by a neck—she didn’t know what she’d been expecting, but it wasn’t this. They looked like Alseans.