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Therefore, it was almost missed when a scientist reported to have received a message from Verdant… and as quickly dismissed as an attention-grabbing stunt. However, when a second, then two more scientists in different institutions, came forward and all presented the same message, serious consideration had to be paid. As instructed, the scientists, and everyone else with powerful enough com equipment, tuned in one hour later to hear the supposed second message. When, an hour later, a persistent coded set of beeps were heard over the air—three short beeps, followed by one long beep, repeated ten times—it did not take long for com historians to identify the original Morse code for the letter “V”. Then the beeps ended, and a voice message began.

~

“This is a message to Earth, sent from the satellite Verdant. Repeat, this is a message from Verdant to Earth. Underlying this message is the coded ident signal used to confirm our com identity. You will notice that the time stamp indicates new coordinates and distance in relation to Earth, which is significant. If you examine and train any high-powered orbital telescopes on those coordinates, you will find us in our current location. But in order to save some of you the effort, we will simply tell you that we are presently in orbit over the planet Mars.”

“Good morning. This is Julian Lenz, Ceo of Verdant. I want to officially pass along my respects to the United Nations, and to any nation, organization and individual that is listening to this message. My first duty is to assure all of you that we are unharmed… all of Verdant’s citizens and visitors are alive and well, with the exception of the four Wasp pilots who perished in the process of defending Verdant from an unauthorized occupation attempt, just a few hours ago. We’re sure that our abrupt…
departure
from Earth orbit left you with many questions and concerns, which we intend to answer.

“The most important thing to understand, right now, is that we took the steps we took in order to preserve Verdant, its people, its integrity, and its sovereignty, which we fully intend to maintain. Any and all actions taken by Verdant, or by any nations with Verdant, must bear that in mind.

“Verdant, like the satellites Fertile and Tranquil, were established as sovereign territories by the United Nations in the 2100s. Those sovereign satellites were today under threat of occupation by a hostile force… not for anything we had done against any person, nation or to humanity… but because of our resolve to avoid being overrun by those who would undermine the satellites’ ability to function and stay viable and healthy. In the interest of self-preservation, Verdant has been working on protective technology for quite some time. When the existence of our work was revealed, it was assumed by other nations that we would use this technology for offensive purposes, and under that assumption, we were summarily attacked in order for other nations to take this technology for themselves, and lay claim to the satellites. Well, we have demonstrated the inherently defensive nature of this technology by actually using it… and as a result, removing Verdant from the field of battle.

“However, Verdant is by no means secure in its present position. The satellites were never designed to exist away from Earth, the source of our life-giving supplies and materials, and we have no intention of remaining here over Mars. In addition, there are citizens of various nations here on Verdant, as well as citizens of Verdant that are presently on Earth, who wish to return to their respective homes… and we have no wish to keep anyone on Verdant against their will.

“Therefore, we will make arrangements to return to Earth, when we have an assurance that we will not be attacked or occupied by hostile forces, and that we have the U.N.’s agreement to protection of our sovereignty.

“We are still examining the safest and most effective means of returning to Earth, and we cannot at this moment provide a timetable for our return. However, we would like to accelerate the process of returning to Earth its citizens, as a gesture of our good will. In return, we hope you will see fit to allow us some much-needed supplies to be returned here, to sustain us until we are able to execute our return to Earth. Therefore, we propose further dialogue, exchanged through the U.N., to arrange these details. It is our hope that we can put this terrible incident behind us, and resume our positions of safety and sovereignty as citizens of the united nations of Earth.

“We realize that real-time two-way communications will not be possible at this distance from Earth. Therefore, we will await your response on this frequency, and at that time, we will begin discussions as to how we should proceed. We wish you well, and hope to be back in the arms of Mother Earth soon.”

~

When the message was over, Gaston Lambert reached out and switched off the display screen. He glanced at Enu Thompson, who glared back under tightly-knitted brows and said nothing.

Then Lambert turned to the other chair in the office, where Kris Fawkes sat. She had arrived before the message had been sent, and despite her loss of American diplomatic credentials, had demanded to see President Lambert immediately. When challenged as to why she should be given access to Lambert, she said, “Do you really want to turn away an eye-witness to the event of the century?” She had duly been admitted, and after explaining that she had been part of the group that had consulted Ceo Lenz on the intent and content of his message to Earth, as well as informing them of her new position as diplomatic representative of Verdant, Lambert had requested her to stay until the message was broadcast.

Kris turned to regard the President evenly. She made every effort not to suggest an adversarial role, but she knew that after the events of the day before, she was no longer considered an American diplomat. In fact, by deliberately disobeying an order, Lambert could by all rights have her arrested (though the worst they could do to her would be to lock her up in one of the compound’s guest suites… hardly a punishment, by any means). But by arriving at the compound, she was also demonstrating that she had confidence in the support of Verdant’s government, and she was sure Lambert would think twice before taking any actions against her at this stage.

At any rate, she knew that when she left there…
if
she left there… she would probably never come back.

Lambert eyed Kris carefully before asking, “What do you know about this technology of theirs?”

Kris shrugged lightly. “Only that it exists, it works… and it’s like nothing you or anyone on Earth has.”

“Do you know how it works?” Thompson asked her.

Kris smiled wryly. “I don’t know how my dentimed works.”

Thompson scowled, but said nothing more.

“Can they take Verdant back to Earth?” Lambert asked.

“Apparently so,” Kris replied. “Of course, they are understandably concerned about rushing back.”

“What about that bit about returning citizens back to Earth? If they don’t go back, how are they planning to do that?”

“At the moment I left,” Kris told him, “the consensus was that they would retrofit their new technology to a ship and allow them to make the first trip back.”

“They can use small ships,” Lambert stated for the sake of confirmation.

“Yes,” Kris said. “It seems they’ve tested this system a few times with smaller test-beds to confirm it works. They didn’t just blindly throw a switch and hope for the best. They knew what they were doing.”

“And we should just let them send people back?” Thompson asked.

Kris looked at Thompson. “Although CnC is refraining from actual plans along this stage, they are aware that they can also use this system to deliver other things to Earth.” After a pause, she added, “Things Earth won’t want to get.” She left the statement there, knowing Thompson and Lambert would understand full well she was talking about bombs. Both men met her gaze stonily, but their thoughts were clear to Kris… they were clearly aware now of how little control they had over this situation.

After an extended moment of silence in the room, Lambert asked, “Can you tell us anything else?”

“I’m not here to tell you anything else,” she told them plainly. “I am here, as an authorized representative of the Verdant Command Staff, to relay an invitation to meet Ceo Lenz.”

“For what purpose?” Lambert inclined his head proudly. “Am I supposed to surrender to him?”

“Of course not,” Kris smiled. “Your staff needs to work with CnC to organize who will be returning to Earth on the first ship.”

Thompson and Lambert exchanged glances silently. Neither of them seemed happy. Kris duly added to their unhappiness by adding, “Obviously, as President and Chief of Staff of the United States of America, you two will have reserved seats on the first ship back to Earth.”

Both men glared at Kris. She found she had to struggle to avoid smiling.

~

When Kris reached the foot of the stairs and turned towards the diplomatic offices where she kept her few items of property, she was almost immediately confronted by a security guard who blocked her way. She came up short, then looked down at the guard’s hands. At his waist he held a small bag, in such a way that the mouth was open and its contents were visible. Kris looked down into the bag, leaning forward slightly so as not to have to step closer to the guard.

Inside the bag were the entire contents of her locker. Kris smiled, not surprised at all that they had already gone through her things. When she straightened up, the guard closed the bag and held it out to her. Kris took the bag silently, and gave the guard an expectant look. The guard took a step sideways, leaving her a path to the front door of the building.

Kris nodded in understanding, and started for the door. After only a few steps, however, she noticed Shay Vaughn standing by one of the diplomatic desks, watching her go. Kris stopped, taking notice that the guard did not seem to have a problem with her doing so.

Shay looked at the bag impassively, then up at Kris. “Is that it for you, then?”

“Looks like it,” Kris smiled, hoping it wasn’t as final as Shay somehow made it seem. Something else occurred to her. “Looks like the Americans will be going home. Give some thought to where you want to spend your retirement.” She gave Shay a significant look:
Look out for yourself
. Then she gave her one last nod, turned, and strode out of the offices.

She spoke to no one else, and no one spoke to her, as she walked through the front doors, out into the open air, and to the compound gate. Kris felt, rather than saw, her guard escort stopping shy of the gate as she reached it. Without a backward glance, she continued on through. The compound gate closed behind her, and Kris realized she had been holding her breath. She let it out in a sigh, part of her feeling immense relief at being officially divorced from the service of Enu Thompson.

And now it was time for her to focus on someone else who needed her… and, she reflected, in more ways than one. Opening the top collar of her blouse to the air, she walked calmly away from the Presidential compound, looking forward to the tasks to come.

“So, this… is it.”

It was clear from Julian’s voice that he didn’t know what to make of the vast storage room full of scaffolding and scientific equipment, and the researchers standing proudly off to one side of the room. Dr. Silver had escorted them down to the room, and had brought them in without a dramatic sweep of arms or loud and excited voice. Simply: “Here we are, our quantum translation system.” She also showed no surprise or dismay by Julian’s lack of reaction to the maze of struts, piping, cables and equipment.

Aaron, who had been uncharacteristically subdued and reserved following his humiliation at the hands of Dr. Silver, had a slightly more enthusiastic response upon seeing the construct, given that he was a bit more familiar with at least some of the equipment in the room. As he looked around, his eyes lit up, and a boyish smile crept over his face. “You put it all in here with the nine gigacapacitors—of course! How many workstations do you have in here? Are they all full stations, or are some of them slaves?”

“Six full workstations and four slaves,” Dr. Silver replied.

“Whoa… that’s a lot of processing power.”

“You should see the equations needed to handle translation of significant objects in realtime,” Silver commented by way of explanation. “Two of the workstations control the equipment in here. The rest of them crunch the numbers.”

Julian watched as Aaron and Dr. Silver conversed, and although he was glad to see Aaron reanimated after his professional humiliation, he quickly became concerned that if left to their own devices, they would wander off on their own tangent. He glanced at Reya, who shook her head in helplessness. “Doctor,” he spoke up before they could go on, “can you give us a layman’s understanding of what all of this does?”

Dr. Silver looked at Julian, and nodded. “Of course. It might be easier if Dr. Rios were here,” she added, but they were all well-aware that Calvin had gone off to see his wife in the hospital. “But I’ll do my best.”

She led them to the edge of the scaffolding, reached a steep stairway, practically a ladder, and started to climb. At the top, she motioned for the others to follow her. As they followed, Reya grumbled, “I’d very much like to know how they managed to get all this heavy gear in one place, and the GLIS never made a peep to CnC about it.”

Julian glanced over his shoulder, past Reya, to Aaron. “Creative accounting, Aaron?”

Aaron replied defensively, “There was nothing unusual about any of this equipment. Dr. Silver must have… repurposed a lot of it, besides the project we were… I
thought
we were working on.” Aaron shrunk a bit from the renewed hit on his ego, and he drifted behind Julian and Reya as they began climbing the scaffold.

Once Julian, Reya and Aaron had joined Dr. Silver on the scaffold, she led them towards the center of the space, which was dominated by two large constructs, one spherical, one rectangular. The long axis of the rectangular construct was in line with the center of the sphere, and the two of them were joined by a rigid black conduit that ran through the center of each. Both constructs were festooned with rigid and flexible cables and conduits, many of which ran to a workstation seated close by on the scaffold.