Prologue

"This is your Captain; I'm ordering an immediate evacuation. Head immediately to your escape pods. You have less than five minutes before we evacuate all the air and water from the ship. Everything else onboard will be jettisoned.

"The wounded we picked up in response to our opponents' distress call were infected with a highly contagious agent. This was clearly a planned sabotage in a desperate attempt to harm us by taking advantage of our humanitarian efforts. We've fled that system to prevent our ship from being captured and anyone attempting to rescue us from being infected. It appears the infection spread via the ship's air supply—generated from our internal water—which we also fear is infected. If we ever hope to return, we must evacuate the ship.

"We jumped to an unknown system far from our normal transit routes and we've sent no alerts, so rescue is unlikely. We've broadcast a local distress call, hoping any inhabitants of this system will be genetically dissimilar enough not to be affected. Your escape pods are programmed to take you to the only hospitable planet, which does appear to contain an intelligent native population.

"We'll be on our own from now, on a strange world with few resources. Escaping this poisoned environment may help, but the odds are against us. I hope to see anyone who survives. May God be with each and every one of you! That is all."

"Excuse me, Mr. President," the nervous aide said, shuffling from one foot to the other beside the bed of the most powerful man in the world.

"Err ... what is it?" the president asked, opening his eyes, groping around for his glasses. "I certainly hope it's important waking me and the First Lady up at this hour. What time is it anyway?"

"Uh, it's three seventeen in the morning, Sir," the aide said, checking his watch once more.

"OK, OK, I'm up. What is it?" The president wrestled with the sheets tangled around him and his wife.

"I think it might be better if you heard this alone and in a secure location, Sir."

"It's OK. My wife can hear whatever it is."

The aide frowned; he knew this information was critical, but he didn't want to argue with the man responsible for determining what to do with it.

"I don't know if there's a need for any immediate action, but we thought you should know. There's... ," the aide fidgeted nervously. "We've finally received a message from SETI, the Search for Extraterrestr—"

"Extraterrestrial Life, I know." President Alan Atkinson rubbed sleep from his eyes and looked up at the young man. "What could they possibly report? They've never picked up a thing in their entire history."

"We don't know, Sir. We can't decode it. It's a short message, broadcast every four hundred and thirty-six seconds."

"You're telling me they actually received a response from some alien intelligence somewhere?" Atkinson asked, incredulous

"Yes, Sir." The young aide allowed the president to adjust to this news at his own pace.

"Four hundred and thirty-six seconds, huh?" Atkinson asked, scratching his ear. "That's certainly significant. But I can't imagine a signal from some far-flung galaxy needing my immediate attention. I'll sleep on it and deal with it in the morning. Do we know its origin?"

"We don't believe it's from a distant system. It's too regular and the signal hasn't degraded over time, but we haven't been able to track it."

"I thought that was the whole purpose of SETI, to track broadcast signals?"

"That's correct, but it's a strange signal. It's a very short message, possibly a regularly repeated SOS, but we can't pinpoint it. It covers a broad spectrum and seems to be echoing."

"Echoing, huh? I guess the science guys will explain that to me. Here I thought nothing echoed in space. So the experts suspect it may be an SOS?"

"That's their best guess at the moment." The aide's collar felt clammy from the sweat trickling down his neck. This was way above his pay grade, and if he said the wrong thing there was no telling what the fallout might be.

"Yeah, either that or a demand for our surrender," the president said. "That wouldn't take many words either."

"That's exactly why we wanted you to know, Mr. President."

"Do you have any idea how far away the signal's source is?"

"Since it's so hard to track, it's difficult to triangulate, but it appears to be very close—possibly within the solar system, Sir."

The president's eyes popped open. "Here?" he asked, as if there were more than one solar system under consideration. Even his wife sat up and looked at the aide.

"It's a very strong signal, Sir; we just haven't been able to identify it."

"So we don't know if it's on the outskirts of the system, or parked on the other side of the moon?"

"Yes, Sir. Both of those are a very real possibility." The aide swallowed hard.

"OK, I'm getting up." The president threw his legs over the edge of the bed. "I want you to contact other major observatories to see if there's any more intel on this."

"SETI has already conferred with them. They wanted to know more before they were willing to report the issue. With every step up the chain of command they've been sent back to reconfirm. No one wanted to disturb anyone for either an insignificant anomaly or a malfunctioning sensor." The aide paused for a second. "The signal began fifty-seven hours ago, Sir. That's—"

"I know how long fifty-seven hours are!" President Atkinson barked. "Two full DAYS?"

"Yes, Sir."

"OK, check directly with the various observatories and see if they've noted anything else or have any other input into this."

The president got up and the aide hurried to gather his clothing, glad to finally have something practical to do.

"Yes, Sir. What about foreign observatories or nationalities?"

"Shit! They're likely to have received the same signals as us. Talk to the British, French, German and Swiss observatories. Set me up a connection to the leaders of those countries as well. It's likely they won't release anything unless it goes through their leaders first. Don't contact anyone else. And NO press! Understand?"

"Absolutely, Sir, except ... it's not exactly restricted information. All it would take is someone tuning in to the correct frequency. And, Sir, it's broadcasting across many different frequencies. So far it's coming across as interference on radio, television and short wave, but if someone suspects it's more than just ordinary static, they might figure it out."

"Shit! OK, put out a short press release in the morning. Say it appears there's some sort of space anomaly—, no, that's no good. Don't admit ANYTHING. Just make sure SETI doesn't release any information. Also, rein in anyone connected to this."

The aide shuffled uneasily. "That'll be hard to do, Sir. SETI has been crowdsourcing their data, asking the general public to review it for any anomalies."

"Damn, shut down SETI's communications. Claim their computers have crashed. Blame the Chinese or the Iranians. If the information isn't available, no one can pick anything out of it."

"Except there are astronomy labs in colleges and universities around the world; anyone there could detect this signal. Hell, if it interferes with public or private broadcasts, it won't take long for them to discover what's going on."

"We can't afford for this information to get out," Alan stressed, speaking slowly and emphasizing each word, glaring at the aide. "It could cause panic and disrupt the entire economy. If this becomes a crisis, the last thing we need is a disorganized response. We can't afford to let a bunch of students gossip about matters of National Security." The president paced back and forth in his pajamas, considering it. "Issue strict instructions that no one is to publicize or even talk about it to anyone but us. Threaten them with the Patriot Act. Hell, threaten to send them to Gitmo if necessary. No one is to talk about this. Threaten to cut off all government funding, not only to their programs but to their departments, their universities and their private student loans. Make it painful enough that no one would dare whisper this information to anyone. I want all electronic communications about the topic shut down, now!"

"Yes, Sir. I'll take care of it immediately, Sir." The young man laid the president's suit on the bed and quickly backed out of the room, closing the door before turning to the people outside anxiously awaiting word of President Atkinson's response.

"Get me someone at the Pentagon, the FBI and the CIA," he ordered. Everyone scurried away to do his bidding, but he had little chance to gloat. He knew if he screwed this up, he'd likely end up in a Gitmo prison cell along with whatever science nerds wound up there.

Another aide stepped into the room. "Mr. President, we've got an update on the SETI information." He stepped out of the doorway, clutching the latest reports in his hand and waited for President Atkinson to acknowledge him.

"Good. It's been too long since the last update." The president turned so he was facing the aide, lowering his glasses and focusing his attention squarely on him.

"We've been able to locate the signal, Sir." The young man in the perfectly tailored suit held the slim report aloft while glancing at both the president and the impressive yet familiar décor of the Oval Office. This was his first time addressing the president in this room, and while he appreciated it, it also terrified him. The formality of the room echoed the importance of his message. What he was revealing could very well change history. "The reason we couldn't identify the source was because it's being sent across a variety of alternating frequencies, originating from several different locations."

"Several?" President Atkinson asked, cocking his head to the side. "What does that mean?"

The aide, Robert Finch, opened the report and raised his voice to be heard at the president's desk. "Well... , it either means there are several sources or 'ships' broadcasting, or ... we think it's more likely it's an attempt to hide their actual location." Not having been invited in, Robert remained by the door but closed it to ensure their privacy. "But the signals originate within the Oort cloud, that's much further than Pluto."

"So there isn't much chance of us reaching this 'ship' then?" Atkinson asked, resting his elbow on his massive oak desk.

"Sir, even if we knew where it was, it would take our fastest ship several decades to reach it." Robert shifted from one foot to the other to ease his tension. "These are tremendous distances we're discussing."

"Do we know how long it would take them to reach here?" President Atkinson asked, changing the focus.

Robert cocked his head, not sure how to address the question. "No, Sir, the signals don't seem to be moving."

"If it's an SOS, why don't they broadcast from a clearly designated position where we could respond?" the president asked rhetorically, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"Probably because they don't know our intentions. I'd assume they're broadcasting some sort of standard distress call, but won't issue a specific location until we return an acceptable standardized response."

"A reasonable supposition, however it's important to remember it's only a guess. We have no idea what these—I hate to say 'people'—are thinking."

"Understood, Sir. We're continually monitoring for any signs of change and we have experts reviewing the information."

"Good," Atkinson said, putting his fingers together and glancing over them at Robert. "Now, who else knows of this?"

"Uh ... you're not going to like this, but it's pretty much an open secret. Basically any scientifically capable government knows, and most of the Astronomy Department heads and researchers already know. However we've had the Pentagon, the FBI and members of the staff calling the various agencies, applying pressure to keep this under wraps. They've all agreed there's to be NO press coverage of any kind concerning this news. We feel secure we can keep a lid on it for now, but we can't limit those who already know. With so many people aware, it's only a matter of time until someone leaks the news."

"Damn it, I hate losing control," the president swore, clenching his fists and staring at the young aide.

"Sir, I don't think this was ever under our control. It's an open broadcast to whoever is capable of listening."

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