Jackson watched, mesmerized as the new ships fired their powerful beams well outside what he would consider an effective range for that type of weapon.

"Three Alphas have been destroyed!" Hayashi exclaimed. "Four! Five-"

"The other ten ships have split again!" Barrett called out. "They're taking out the Bravos and taking them out fast!"

"All Alphas are destroyed!" Hayashi shouted. "Optical scans are picking up expanding debris, and that's about it."

"Who the hell are these guys?" Jackson demanded as the ships ripped through the remaining Phage.

Although a few of the smaller Bravos managed to break orbit and escape using whatever method they used for FTL travel, the crew of the Ares sat stunned as the eighteen new ships shredded an entire Phage armada in less than two hours.

"All eighteen ships are returning to their previous, low-power readings, Captain," Barrett said. "Putting up the best visual capture we have of one on the main display."

The blurry image was of a sleek, seamless ship that gleamed silver-white as it passed through the light of the primary star. It certainly had little in common with any Phage ship they'd seen so far, but also did not remind him of any Terran designs he'd ever seen.

"What are they doing now?" he asked.

"They've formed up into two phalanx flights of nine each and are moving into high-orbit over the planet," Barrett said.

"Let's give them a moment before we try-"

"Sir, there's another contact that just appeared in the inner system," Barrett said. "It's enormous... computer is trying to resolve the data now."

"Is it a Charlie?" Jackson asked, confused as to why they would only send in one.

"No, sir," Barrett said. "It's an Alpha, but its profile matches the first one we encountered with the Blue Jacket, not those we just fought."

"Incoming transmission, sir," Keller said. "Audio only."

"From the Alpha?" Davis exclaimed, clearly shocked.

"It appears so," Keller said. "Putting it through now."

"I speak to the leader." A raspy, metallic voice made all the hairs on the back of Jackson's neck stand at attention.

"I'm Captain Jackson Wolfe," he said. "Who is this?"

"I bring warning," the voice said, ignoring the question. "The test is concluded."

"What test?"

"Channel is closed, sir," Keller said.

"Target has disappeared from sensors," Barrett said.

"Well that was ominous." Jackson fell into his chair. "What did it mean by test?"

"Maybe the more important question is if we passed or failed," Davis said.

"Another incoming com signal, sir." Keller frowned. "This one is definitely coming from those unknown ships. Short-range UHF radio signal... I can't quite seem to make out what they're saying. There's also a video signal, but the computer can't resolve the format."

"Just put the audio through." Jackson's skin almost tingled from the anticipation.

"Greetings unknown Earth vessel," a voice said in an accent that only Jackson was familiar with, though the inflection wasn't quite right and could almost be called archaic. "I am Colonel Robert Blake, Unites States Air Force. I think we have much to discuss."

"Colonel who from the what force?" Chief Green blurted out as Jackson shook his head in disbelief.

Chapter 19.

"Earth vessel?" Barrett asked incredulously before throwing a slightly guilty look at Jackson.

"Do you have any idea what he's talking about, Captain?" Davis asked.

"Someone is playing games," Jackson said. "Colonel Blake is a famous aviator from Earth's ancient past. I doubt any of you would have heard of him."

"He was the commander and pilot of the Carl Sagan, Earth's first attempt at a faster than light exploration mission." Specialist Accari spoke up. "The mission was launched but never heard from again."

"Very good, Specialist." Jackson nodded. "Our friend on the other end of the com signal sounds pretty spry for a man who would be over three hundred years old."

"Captain, the channel is still open," Keller reminded him. "How would you like me to respond?"

"Put me on." Jackson waited for the double beep. "Colonel Blake, this is Captain Jackson Wolfe of the Terran starship Ares... First, let me express my thanks for your intervention on behalf of the people of Nuovo Patria, the Warsaw Alliance, the Terran Confederacy, and my own crew."

"I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Captain Wolfe," the voice of the supposed Robert Blake said. "I'm sure that you're either in utter disbelief of my claim, or you have no idea who I am claiming to be."

"You're correct on both counts, Colonel," Jackson said. "The bridge crew is pretty evenly divided."

"Of course," Blake chuckled. "Perhaps, Captain, it would be easier if I either came aboard your ship or met you on the surface of the planet below us. A quick blood test should at least confirm that I am, indeed, human. We can work out the details from there."

"It is not within my authority to invite you to land on Nuovo Patria, Colonel, so I guess that leaves us one option," Jackson said after a moment. He didn't believe for a moment that the voice on the other end of the channel was who it claimed to be and he was treading carefully. Humanity couldn't afford another enemy with such superior technology. "Would you like us to send a shuttle for you?"

"No need, Captain Wolfe," Blake said. "My ship has analyzed your lateral airlocks and is fabricating the necessary collar for us to dock directly with each other-with your permission, of course. I felt it might streamline this process if you were also able to come aboard my ship."

Jackson looked around at his bewildered bridge crew and shrugged. "Very well, Colonel. The Ares will maintain her current orbit. When can we expect you to have the necessary hardware completed and join us?"

"Already complete, Captain," Blake said. "Moving to you now."

"In that case, we will see you shortly at the starboard airlock," Jackson said. "Ares out."

"Channel closed, sir."

"Coms, tell Major Ortiz I need him and five of his best to meet me at the starboard airlock," Jackson said. "Lieutenant Davis, you have the bridge. Once I leave, you are to initiate lockdown protocols. Nothing comes in here until we've gotten some answers. If this goes to hell, I want you to order the Icarus out of the system. In the meantime, bring Commander Wright up to speed on what's happening."

"Aye, sir," Davis said to his back as he walked off the bridge.

"He's completely homo sapiens," Commander Owens confirmed to Jackson just outside the conference room.

Colonel Blake was still seated inside with Lieutenant Davis, along with Major Ortiz and his Marines. The strange ship had docked easily with the Ares and revealed that it was only crewed by a single person, despite the fact it was half the tonnage of the destroyer that had a crew of over six hundred.

Owens scrolled through his test results. "There are even markers that confirm he would have come from Earth in the mid twenty-first century, though I can't tell you any more precisely than that."

"So, he's either telling the truth, or someone went through an incredible, and unnecessary amount of trouble to fool us," Jackson said.

"Unnecessary?" Owens asked.

"Their ships defeated an entire Phage armada in less than two hours," Jackson explained. "And easily. The Ares and Icarus would have been no match for them. If they wanted something from us, they could just take it."

"That's not my area of expertise." Owens shrugged. "I'm just here to tell you that as far as my equipment is able to determine, he's human."

"Thank you, Doctor." Jackson nodded and turned to reenter the room.

"Captain," Blake said as Jackson walked in and took his seat.

"Good news, Colonel," he said. "As far as my Chief Medical Officer can determine, you're as human as anybody in this room."

"That is a relief," Blake said with a wry smile. "Tell me, Captain... How long have you been fighting the species you call the Phage? We intercepted their message to you. Highly unusual in our experience. As far as I know, they've never bothered to communicate with a species they've marked for destruction before."

"We'll get to that in due time," Jackson said, still highly disturbed by the cryptic Phage message-their first and only contact with the species to date. "I think a far more interesting story would be how a near-mythological figure from the distant past has swooped in with ships of incredible power and pulled our asses out of the fire at the last possible instance."

"I could say it was a wild coincidence, but that's not entirely true," Blake said. "We'd been tracking this group for a while. I'm just sorry we found them too late to help minimize your losses. How much do you know about the Odyssey Project and the Carl Sagan?"

"Almost nothing other than it was supposedly our first attempt at FTL exploration."

"Supposedly?"

"A lot of time has passed, Colonel," Jackson said. "The Carl Sagan was never heard from again, and Tsuyo Corporation has erased knowledge of your crew by omission. Most contemporary historical accounts only tell of their first successful attempt to explore and colonize."

"Tsuyo Corp is still around?" Blake seemed genuinely surprised. "And still manipulating public perceptions, I see. I guess some things really don't change. But yes, I was part of that first ill-fated mission."

"So what happened to you and your crew?" Lieutenant Davis asked.

"How much time do you have?" Blake joked.

"It seems we have plenty now that you've cleared our skies." Jackson leaned back and gestured for Blake to begin.

The story the colonel told them over the next two hours was nothing short of extraordinary.

Once the astronauts, as they were still so called, were shuttled up to the Carl Sagan, the ship began its ponderous, chemically-fueled flight out of the Solar System. The FTL drive seemed to work as advertised, and they transitioned out of the system, just past the orbit of Venus. That drive, not even first generation but more of a prototype, had flown twice before in unmanned test flights to prove the system's integrity before trusting it with forty-eight highly trained humans.

The first two weeks of the warp flight were spent monitoring the drive and making sure the ship's automated functions were performing as they should. This was absolutely critical since, even though they were traveling faster than light, the trip would still be of sufficient length as to require the crew to enter an induced hibernation.

Theoretically, the drive was capable of incredible, almost unimaginable speeds, but the human scientists that had adapted it were no closer to developing the necessary power source than they were twenty years prior. The compact fission reactors aboard the Carl Sagan just couldn't develop the distortion fields needed to push past a warp factor of 1.5 at maximum output.

"But something went wrong." Blake shuddered. "We were scheduled to arrive in the Proxima Centauri System, scout around, and then fly home loaded down with enough imagery for Tsuyo's marketing department to use for a decade to justify funding for Phase II of the Odyssey Project. Instead, we ended up adrift in interstellar space. We found out later that something had happened to cause our guidance and flight control computer to reboot. The ship just flew on in a random direction, never alerting us until reactor two finally failed and forced the T-Drive to disengage."

"So your warp drive failed," Jackson said. "Then what? You just woke up and found yourselves stranded?"

"Warp drive? That's actually funny," Blake deadpanned. "We were absolutely forbidden from using that term. Anyway, Captain, no... We didn't wake up. The environmental systems had failed long before we dropped back into normal space. We had all been dead for many, many years."

"Obviously you'll have to clarify that," Jackson prompted.

"We had died while in hibernation, the interior of the ship cooling rapidly from multiple hull breaches that we were told occurred from the shear forces caused by variances that developed between our distortion fields," Blake said. "It shouldn't have been an issue since we'd planned to drop out of... warp long before then. The stasis beds were well insulated, so some of us were very well preserved as the temperature and pressure dropped slowly rather than explosively. Most of us weren't so lucky."

"Who told you about the field variances?" Jackson asked, already suspecting where the story was heading.

"Twenty-three of us were so well preserved, and our minds had already been mostly dormant during the induced hibernation, that the Vruahn were able to repair the damage and revive us," Blake said. "Before that, they'd already been able to decipher our languages from studying the remains of the Carl Sagan. It was still a hell of a shock when I opened my eyes and had an alien jabbering at me through a translator."

"Twenty-three out of forty-eight," Jackson said. "Tough break, Colonel."

"Indeed," Blake said softly. "I have the ashes of those unfortunate twenty-five aboard my ship. When we began the trek back, I had hoped to be able to return their remains to Earth, ideally to whatever family may exist for each of them."

"About those ships," Jackson gestured at the display in the conference room that was showing the two phalanx formations. "Vruahn?"

"Yes, Captain." Blake nodded. "The Vruahn and humanity now have a common enemy-the difference being that their society has evolved to be so passive that they were unable to even attempt defending themselves. Long story short, that's where we came in. Eighteen of us have been clearing out systems for the better part of fifty years now, while the Vruahn continue to build us better and more powerful ships, but we're still losing ground to them... these Phage."

"Wait... fifty years-?"

Jackson was interrupted by Ensign Hayashi bursting into the conference room, his face flushed red and tears standing in his eyes.

"What is it, Ensign?"

"A com drone has arrived from a Prowler in the Alpha Centauri System, sir!" the young officer choked out.

"And?" Jackson asked impatiently.

"Haven is gone, Captain!" Hayashi said. "The Phage... they showed up and completely destroyed it!"

Epilogue.

Two months after the Battle of Nuovo Patria.

Jackson's blurred vision focused again on the business end of his 1911 .45 pistol, the slide still wet with his saliva. Again, he placed the weapon down and grabbed the near-empty bottle on his desk, tilting it up and draining it. He slammed the bottle down and grabbed the pistol again, convinced that this was the only logical conclusion to his life: a coward's way out for a fool that was responsible for the deaths of billions.

He was dimly aware of his hatch chime chirping away cheerfully as well as the harsh pounding of someone really wanting into his office. Ignoring it, he lifted the weapon again and, oddly, felt a pang of sympathy for his poor steward who would have to clean up the mess later.