Libre by S. H. Jucha

Author:S. H. Jucha
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: S. H. Jucha
Published: 2015-07-05T23:00:00+00:00

-17-

At 11 hours the following morning, the Rêveur’s senior officers, their seconds, the Leaders, the Libran Captains, their seconds, and everyone’s security escorts assembled in Freedom’s largest conference room. The SADEs were linked to the group.

<Well, Admiral, you called this meeting,> said Eric. <I take it you have some news of import.>

<Sers, you have a significant problem,> Alex began. <Your present timetable for evacuation of the planet, if you stick to your schedule, is 178 days.>

Eric looked to Captain Reinhold, who decided to confirm the timetable estimate with Z.

<Yes, the Admiral’s timeline is correct, Captain,> Z announced to the entire group. <One would wonder why you are questioning the Admiral’s information, since it would be obvious to most that he would have acquired that information from us.>

Captain Reinhold was so taken aback from what he considered an outrageous breach of protocols from a SADE that he couldn’t reply.

<Who is us?> Eric asked.

<Why, the SADEs, Leader Stroheim,> Z said.

<As I was saying, Sers,> Alex continued, <you have a timeline of 178 days until you are ready to exit this system. However, our SADEs have performed some intricate calculations to estimate the time that the drones, or shells, or whatever you wish to call them, will spend on Bellamonde. Their research has determined that the Bellamonde group will swarm in the next 90 to 120 days.>

Alex allowed time for the information to be absorbed. He had prepared his people earlier this morning so they would have time to wrap their minds around it, but glancing around the room, none of them were handling it any better than the Librans, except for Renée and the twins, which Alex found a little disconcerting.

<Z, Cordelia, Julien,> Alex said, <would you be so kind as to run through your analysis for the group?>

The SADEs walked everyone through their research—Alex’s and Julien’s hypotheses of the subterranean nature of the aliens, the historical infestation of the planets, the original surveys of the planet’s resources, the tunneling of the shells that could be correlated to survey sites of rare mineral resources, calculations of the resources on Bellamonde when the swarm invaded, and, finally, the harvest time the drones would require, based on their landing rates on Bellamonde over the past seven and a half years.

The intricacy of the assimilated data floored even the technically minded among the group. It was an incredible amount of data sifting and correlation. Others just fixated on the end result: time had run out.

Eric Stroheim was fuming and after a while could not contain his indignation. <This is inconceivable. Why weren’t we informed earlier?> he asked, directing his anger at Alex.

<Why don’t you ask them, Leader Stroheim?> Alex simply offered.

When no question was forthcoming from the Leader, the most sensitive of the SADEs relented. Cordelia answered Eric’s question. <Leader Stroheim, it was not a matter of deciding when to tell you. The information we have provided was buried in an extraordinary amount of uncorrelated data. The only reason that we have come to this conclusion at all is because the Admiral asked questions and Julien directed our research.

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