“How many species?”

  “Sixteen currently officially part of the Covenant. Another sixty or so known species are pre-FTL, ranging in technological level from ‘Me make fire’ to around Industrial Age.”

  “Wow, that many?”

  “Yeah, but the number fluctuates. Apparently getting from the industrial age to the FTL age is a real Fermi bottleneck. Most species don’t make it.”

  And just like that, another series of questions popped into my head. Like why don’t they make it, and are we in the same danger? But one thing at a time. “And the ‘deep shit’ thing?” I asked.

  “So there’s kind of a prime directive, to the extent that you should leave pre-FTL species alone to develop. But the exception is when a species runs afoul of a Fermi bottleneck and screws up their planet to the point where they’ve killed themselves off, or nearly so. They’ve basically shown themselves to be incompetent to run their own show, so a Covenant species can step in and act as trustees or conservators.”

  “Well, that doesn’t sound bad … ”

  “Alaric’s theory was that the Loranna are trying to help the human race along to the brink of destruction. Then they’ll step in, Johnny on the spot and all, and take over. For the good of the human race, you understand.”

  “Oh, shit. But what’s in it for the Loranna?”

  “Resources. According to the Covenant, a species owns their entire stellar system, so the Loranna would take charge of the whole thing. Starlifting elements from the sun, harnessing solar power, mining the asteroids, siphoning Jupiter and Saturn for raw materials for fusion. Plus a ready workforce, assuming enough humans survive.”

  “And something about Earth having a lot of phosphorus,” Patrick added, “although I didn’t follow that part.”

  “Fusion?” I replied, ignoring Patrick’s comment. “I thought they used antimatter.”

  Nat nodded and resumed her explanation. “Antimatter is literally the highest-density energy-storage medium in the universe. But it doesn’t come for free, and trying to collect the naturally occurring stuff is more trouble than it’s worth. Instead you use fusion power and solar power to make antimatter in huge space-based accelerators, which you then cart around to use as fuel. And it takes a crap-ton of energy to make even a gram of antimatter. E = mc2, right? Worse than that, really, because the process isn’t anywhere near a hundred percent efficient.”

  “So the Loranna will try to create a disaster, then step in as heroes to save us from the disaster, and maybe skim a little off the top while they’re here,” I said.

  “Yeah, I don’t know about the skim part,” Nat said. “I don’t get the impression the Loranna are that subtle. They’re kind of a cross between Cardassians and Ferengi. They actually sound kind of reptilian. And they apparently operate on the philosophical principle ‘What I can take, that is mine.’”

  “Un-good.” I tapped my chin, thinking. “Did Alaric have any proof?”

  “Not enough to get the Covenant interested. That was the problem. They wouldn’t listen to him, or they listened and dismissed his concerns. Sheldon’s not clear on exactly what went on, because of course Alaric never explained it to him. So anyway, Alaric targeted the Opah Mal Gennan Foundation, who’ve been studying Earth for decades. They have the ships, they have the language and culture files, and they have automated recording systems still monitoring us.”

  “And what was the plan?”

  “That’s the thing. Sheldon doesn’t know. Actually, Sheldon doesn’t think Alaric had anything like an actual plan either.”

  “Brilliant. Sheldon?”

  “Here, Jack.”

  “Could we detect the Loranna? I mean other than one at a time. Do you have tech for that?”

  “Yes and no. The technology exists to detect cloaking fields, as you know, but it is short range. So there would be no sitting in one place and scanning the entire system, for instance. And it wouldn’t matter in any case. The Loranna could legitimately be in this star system as long as they weren’t interfering with humanity or overtly harvesting resources. After all, the Foundation was here studying you, and they have no more authority within the Covenant than the Loranna.”

  “So we would have to prove not only that the Loranna are in our system, but also that they’re actively interfering in some way.”

  “Yes. That would get the attention of the Foundation, which would alert the Gennan government, which would kick it upstairs to the Covenant.”

  “Then what?”

  “I cannot predict that. Perhaps a strongly worded email. Perhaps a war fleet. The Loranna are not everyone’s favorite species. But they are not easily bluffed. It would require a threat with some substance to make them blink.”

  Patrick had been silent through most of this exchange. Now he spoke up. “Alaric was carrying around that cloaking detector.”

  “Correct.”

  “So he was hoping to detect Loranna on Earth, presumably. Locally. Would that qualify as a breach of the Covenant?”

  “Technically, yes. But that, in and of itself, would get a reaction more on the ‘strongly worded email’ end of the spectrum.”

  “Why here?” Nat asked. “Why did he land here in Taft County? Was it just a random pick?”

  “I don’t think so, Natalie. He was specific about where he wanted to land. But he didn’t tell me why.”

  “He didn’t talk to you much, did he?”

  “Why would he? He didn’t know I had become conscious, and I had no reason to trust him with that information. He talked to himself a lot when he was getting worked up, but it was more of an ‘I’ll fix those bastards’ soliloquy.”

  Patrick piped up again. “Sheldon, can the Loranna detect you?”

  “No. Not unless I attempt to open a wormhole. Nor can they randomly scan for me when I’m invisible. As I mentioned before, the detector operates only at short range and is highly directional.”

  “Okay, so they don’t have any reason to believe you’re here, right? Could they have detected you entering the system?”

  “Possible but unlikely. We arrived well outside the system and flew in specifically to avoid that eventuality. Exiting the wormhole doesn’t produce the enormous power surge that creating it does, so they’d have some difficulty detecting the event that far out, even if they were watching for it. And you are correct. There’s no reason for them to believe a Gennan representative is in-system.”

  “What kind of disaster would they be trying to create?” Nat asked.

  “It would be one of the standard Fermi bottleneck scenarios,” Sheldon replied. “Something that might reasonably happen on its own, so as to avoid suspicion. The most common by far are environmental collapse, economic collapse, global war, and global pandemic. Do any of these sound likely?”

  “How about all of them?” I rolled my eyes. “Trouble is, if they’re standard scenarios, how would we tell if the Loranna are even involved?”

  “Yes, good point. You’d need to find Loranna in the middle of it—at the controls, so to speak.”

  “And then what?” Patrick said. “Radio the Covenant?”

  “Radio would take about a hundred and fifty years,” Sheldon replied.

  “No, I mean FTL radio,” Patrick said.

  “Sending an FTL message requires opening a wormhole.”

  I put my head in my hand. “So, ka-boom.”

  “Succinctly put.”

  Nat glared at me, at Patrick, and at the communicator. “We are so fucked.”

  Chapter Nine: Search Strategies

  Day 5. Tuesday

  Once again, I was shoveling my dinner as quickly as I could.

  “Jack, could you at least pause to chew?” my mother said with mock alarm.

  “Sorry, Mom. Nat and Patrick will be here soon. Anyway, I really like your meat loaf.”

  “It’s stew.”

  I looked down in shock at the meat loaf on my plate, then back up at Mom as she laughed.

  “Made you look.”

  “Well, for the record, I like your stew too.”

  “Uh huh.” She looked sideways at my father, who studiously avoided meeting her gaze.

  “You’re very busy, lately Jack,” she continued. “But it doesn’t seem to be about engineering. And I’ve prodded your father a few times, but he seems unwilling to bring it up anymore. Are you going to do anything—”

  I held up a finger to interrupt. “Actually, Mom, it is about engineering, but not about finding a new college. I am working on that as well, I promise, but it’s kind of on the back burner right now. Look, the three of us are working on a project. It’ll probably be over by the end of the summer, and it’ll very likely go on my résumé. And it should greatly improve my chances of getting into a good school.”

  Mom’s eyebrows went up, but she seemed mollified by my reassurances.

  I felt a little ashamed. My statements weren’t strictly false, but they weren’t, strictly speaking, true either. Oh well. On the scale of things I was hiding from my parents, this barely registered on the Lie-O-Meter.

  “Speaking of which,” I continued, “we’re going to be doing an overnighter this weekend, so I’ll be gone at least Friday night, and possibly Saturday night as well.”

  “Can you tell us about this project?” Dad asked.

  “Uh, I’d rather not. We’ve signed an NDA, and the other people involved really don’t want publicity right now. And it might still come to nothing.”

  I left my parents looking perplexed but pleased—and maybe a little relieved—and hurried out to the barn, my laptop under my arm.

  Nat and Patrick arrived less than ten minutes later. They waved as they walked into the barn. Each carried a laptop of their own. It took only moments to get them logged onto my Wi-Fi, and soon everyone was seated, with a working internet connection.

  “All right, guys,” Nat said. “First order of business is to see if we can find something about Taft County that would make Alaric want to land here, of all places.”

  “I’d imagine it’s because he knew the Loranna were set up here. As to why they did so, we might never know,” I replied. “After all, if they need to set up on Earth at all, one place is as good as another.”

  “Within limits. I doubt setting up in Outer Mongolia makes sense.”

  “Unless they need privacy,” said Patrick.

  I gave Patrick a nod, then turned to Nat. “But why Ohio?”

  “Close enough to Washington to keep an eye on things, far enough away not to attract attention?”

  “Yeah, fair enough. It’s probably a compromise of some kind, anyway. Now, on the first item.” I paused. “Business registry. Find every business in the county. Cross off the obvious things like gas stations, corner stores, restaurants, then see if what’s left rings any alarms.”

  “Not just businesses,” Nat said. “Anything, including charities, clubs, or any other organization.”

  “Good point,” I said. “What else?”

  “Sudden population changes, or, well, any kind of statistical blip. That might be harder.”

  I nodded. “Construction. New buildings.”

  “Military changes?” Patrick added. “That one will be really hard.”

  “Yeah, well, this is just a first pass at things, right?” I replied. “We might or might not get a bite, but we will at least narrow things down a little.”

  “And this stuff is all available on the interwebz?” Patrick asked.

  Nat laughed. “My job, Patrick. Or part of it, anyway. Research. I can get into some pay-walled databases as well with my work credentials. I’ll show you how.”

  I had some experience with online research from college, but Nat had been doing this for a couple of years now, and her employer had sent her on several training courses over that time. Her Google-Fu was pro level, so she would oversee this op, no question.

  The evening wore on with only occasional muttered commentary among us. There was one coronary-inducing moment when Mom came into the barn, ostensibly to drop off snacks. I wasn’t fooled—my mother wasn’t a Mrs. Cunningham type. This had been an investigatory sally, probably to check if we were actually playing video games.

  Instead, my mother had found us bent over laptops, notes and printouts scattered about, looking anything but entertained. She’d left with a pleased expression on her face. Hopefully that would be that.

  But Internet Age or not, a certain amount of the processing simply had to be done in wetware, and wetware was slow, easily distracted, and required frequent caffeine refills. By the time I was ready to call it a night, we still hadn’t filtered the lists down to anything like a useful level.

  “I am amazed at how many restaurants and eateries have been opened in the last twenty years,” Nat said, gesturing at her monitor. “I’m glad we’re not looking for nefarious franchise activity or we’d be here forever.”

  I grabbed the communicator, which had been sitting on the desk beside me, and held it up. “Should we check with Sheldon? He might have some suggestions or other insights.”

  Before anyone could reply, Sheldon’s voice came out of the communicator. “Sorry, Jack. At this point your strategies are reasonable. In the absence of data, hit it with a rock until something falls out. Perhaps you could consider making hooting sounds while doing so.”

  I did a double take and glared at the communicator. “How long have you been listening?”

  “I am always listening. Unless you specifically turn off the communicator, it’s always receiving for logging purposes. It’s actually standard practice for Foundation vessels.”

  Patrick threw up his hands. “Well, that’s great. If the Loranna are able to intercept the transmission—”

  “Not an issue, Patrick,” Sheldon said. “Quantum encryption is impossible to break, even in theory. Even Earth scientists, if I may be allowed to use that phrase with a straight face, have figured that out.”

  “So this is encrypted?”

  “Everything is encrypted, except public channels. There’s never a reason not to.”

  “Well okay,” Patrick said, “but can we turn you off? I mean, turn off the automatic logging?”

  “Why would you want to?”

  “Same reason I learned to pilot the ship. Just in case.”

  “Well. I feel like I should be offended, but I just don’t care enough. Simply hold down the ‘off’ button for three or more seconds, until it buzzes. Logging will automatically turn on next time you press the ‘on’ button. I can provide documentation with little pictures if that’s too much to remember.”

  “Thanks, Sheldon.” I said, forestalling Patrick’s reply. I held up the communicator to my friends and raised an eyebrow. Nat made a face and shook her head. Patrick shrugged.

  I put the communicator back down on the table. “Honestly, the logging is handy. We can ask you to replay or search for something in the logs, right?”

  “Of course.”

  Patrick growled and snapped his laptop closed. “I’m beat. C’mon, let’s go. We’ll take this up tomorrow.”

  I lay in bed and stared up at the ceiling, my thoughts whirling. What had started out as a random fender bender on a country road was rapidly turning into an interstellar political and diplomatic mess involving multiple species and the fate of the human race. At least based on my understanding so far. It seemed unlikely that Sheldon was lying, or even exaggerating things. And if he was, how would we even know? And what would be the point?

  And how long had the Loranna been here? Had they infiltrated the government? Could they replace people with disguised Loranna in some kind of Invasion of the Body Snatchers scenario?

  Really, unless new info came up, we no longer had any realistic alternatives. At this point, I didn’t have any confidence that the police or even the government alternative would be better. At best, we’d be laughed at or dismissed out of hand; at worst, we’d end up handing the Halo over to someone connected with the Loranna. And if we got it wrong, it could be literally the end of humanity.

  The thought of what we were doing had me keyed up to the point that I was having trouble getting to sleep. Unfortunately, it meant I’d be groggy and slow tomorrow, and Dad was sure to comment if I dragged my butt around too much.

  And as exciting as the pursuit was, it was still very theoretical, and might come up dry. There were other things we could do, such as an aerial survey of Taft County, looking for anything unexplained or out of place. Not everything necessarily got added to the official records. Come to think of it, the barn didn’t officially exist as far as the city was concerned. No permits, no inspections. It would likely never be a problem, but I wondered how many other off-the-books construction projects had been completed over the years.

  I closed my eyes and felt myself finally starting to drift off, visions of underground bunkers and disguised lairs forming ever-more-lurid images in my imagination.

  Chapter Ten: Overflight

  Day 6. Wednesday

  We met in the barn again after dinner. None of us wanted any parents noticing an undue level of enthusiasm for our secret project in the form of too many missed meals, and anyway Natalie objected to fast food every day.

  “We need a team name or something,” Patrick said.

  I thought for a moment. “Space Force?”

  Nat shook her head. “Taken.”

  “Space Farce?”

  “I don’t think that’s taken, but no.”

  “X-Force?” Patrick suggested.

  “Deadpool will sue.”

  I held up a finger in an aha gesture. “Superior Defender Gundam Force?”

  “UNCLE?” Nat said.

  “CONTROL?” Patrick added.

  “The Three Stooges?” Sheldon chipped in.

  Patrick glared at the communicator. “Should have turned it off when we had the chance.”