After 2000 years, the Terrans have returned to Tiberius in search of an ally in the war against the genocidal 'pedes - centipede like creatures determined to wipe all sentient species from their universe.
An act of kindness has brought Patrol Officer Claire Justinian to the attention of the Terrans and now she is caught between doing her duty and defending her planet, because the 'pedes aren't the only threat to her people.
Excerpt:
Veniunt. They come.
Thousands of faces turned to the star-speckled night sky, to the single bead of white light that swelled as they watched.
People, citizens from across the planet, stood along both sides of Tiberius City’s fifty-metre-wide airstrip apron and filled temporary stands built to overlook the runway and crowds.
Senior Patrol Officer Claire Justinian lifted her gaze to the expanding ball of light and found it eerie that she couldn’t hear any accompanying sound.
This was history in the making, even though her duties demanded she focus on the crowd. Given the approaching alien shuttle, how could she?
First contact is scary, she thought, as she glanced at the blooming light and then at the silent, entranced audience. She doubted there’d be trouble, not with Land Patrol turned out to keep the peace. Nor, she allowed, with all the cameras filming the event for posterity—and broadcasted to those who couldn’t be here.
So it is. A voice murmured. I remember…
Nothing. You weren’t there. Claire responded, her gaze in constant motion.
Genetic memory.
Claire snorted and glared at the pre-adolescent boy who was trying to sneak away from his parents. The kid froze as Claire turned towards him and she took a step forward.
The boy grinned and took two careful steps backward to his parents, tugged on the father’s hand. The father glanced at the boy, frowned, then at Claire, shrugged, and returned to watching the sky.
Bit of disinterest there.
More than that, the incoming shuttle is the focus for Mom and Dad and the kid couldn’t care less, Claire thought. But I’m not the kid’s parent. Not my job until he does something illegal. And she turned away to continue her surveillance of the crowd.
She saw the military leadership of Tiberius waiting near the heavy-duty landing platform and wondered if they were as nervous as she was.
King Marcus the Third of Tiberius could no more keep the news of the visitation from the population than walk on water.
The government considered the message. Carefully debated the meaning. Caution ruled about messages from beyond the system. A panicked society did… unfortunate things. After the first announcement from the Palace there’d been a sort of pause, as if the people hunkered down for a day or two to consider the words, “The Terrans have returned”.
Returned. As if they’d been on an extended holiday. She snorted.
Officer Justinian was too low in the hierarchy to know which Terrans had come visiting and so she, along with sixty million others, waited for the great revelation.
A poor choice of words, Justinian wondered as the bead grew to gold coin size, or maybe genuine sentiment.
Two thousand Terran years, she thought as her mouth tightened with disgust and turned away from the moving light, since anyone from Mother Earth deigned to contact Tiberius.
Claire was proud to know she and her people would not take any crap from the ‘aliens’.
When Shen Xi-Ming invented the hyperspace generator and Timon Gorsky, the inertial compensator, Mother Earth shook off the dirt of the home world and explored several systems, surveyed as many Earth-like planets as it could.
The first hundred years were prosperous.
Tiberius enjoyed an era of economic boom in trade, even as mercantile leaders established the city-states. Timber and farming sustained the population and provided much needed export revenue.
Then… something happened. No one knew whether it was by design or an accident, for the supply and trade ships stopped arriving.
The next scheduled merchant ships failed to appear, and the Tiberians shrugged. They’d get along; they had enough. When the third fleet failed to appear, the concern grew. Smaller convoys became overdue, with no message about the delays. Some demanded a courier launch to find out.
Then the courier disappeared and the fourth consecutive merchant fleet failed to arrive.
Now, there was more than concern. Feelings edged towards panic. The government refused to send any more ships.
And so, the last in-system ship, the military escort destroyer Solaran Republic Ship Bowen, drifted into geosynchronous orbit. Air Patrol shut down everything to standby mode. The colonists did what they had to survive until someone, anyone, came back.
Without Mother Earth’s income, the mercantile class collapsed with bankruptcies, skyrocketing unemployment, civil unrest and nearly armed conflict.