The Unscheduled Mission by Jonathan Edward Feinstein Page A

ships; better than three times the size of ours.”
    “Excuse me,” Park responded and left the control room at a run. Finding an empty office, he made himself at home and started making calls, first to his security people, putting them on alert and ordering the Humvees to be prepared to move. Then he called Arn and woke him up. “Three big ships,” Park reported. “Sounds like they could hold anywhere from two hundred or more on them and there’s really no good reason they would need anything of that size for a treaty negotiation. It’s like bringing three carrier groups to the site of peace talks.”
    “Your specials are on alert?” Arn asked. “Good. I’ll put the base on red alert at least until they land.” He hung up and a few minutes later alarms were going off even as Park grabbed an ATV to get himself up on the hill. He wanted to have a good seat from which to watch the landing and if anyone had to give the order to shoot, he figured it had better be him.
    The three Alliance ships came down fast, swooping out of the east with the dawning sun. “Keep them in your sights,” he told the men stationed on the hill, “but nobody pulls a trigger until I say so.” He got a chorus of “Yes, sir!” and “Aye aye, sir!”
    The ships, however, did not attack, but instead quickly performed a series of vertical landings, thereby clogging up the spaceport’s runway. “Keeping our own ship blocked too, I see,” Park muttered to himself.
    “Park!” Dannet’s voice came to him. Looking around, Park saw Dannet climbing the hill. “Be careful. There’s no reason Jance should have shown up with three troop carriers.”
    “Yeah, I figured that out for myself,” Park retorted. He picked up a radio and ordered the Humvees out of hiding. “I want you to take up positions on the hill here,” he told the crews. “Get here as fast as you can, but come around the back way. I don’t want you seen from the port.”
    “Yes, sir!” came the response.
    “I never had much use for the military,” Park admitted to Dannet, “but having good men who accept orders without debating them comes in handy during a crisis.”
    The high-speed movements proved to be unnecessary, and Jance soon exited one ship with only a small party of aides. Several scientists were disgorged from the one of the others and some men and women from various Alliance news services came out of the third. Park saw no good reason they could not have all traveled together and still have had room to spare, but once Jance came out of his ship Park rushed back down to the base with Dannet.
    “I don’t expect trouble while Jance is out in the open,” he explained to Dannet, “and it’s sort of up to me to greet the scientists. I wonder who Arn put in charge of wrangling the newsies.”
    On their arrival, they discovered that Taodore and Marisea Waisau were giving the news people a tour of the spaceport and answering a few questions. The Mer news people were mixing with their Galactic counterparts easily enough, but when Park was spotted, they all crowded around him. “Sorry, folks,” Park waved them off. “There will be a news conference a little later. We’ll let you know when.” Then he and Dannet continued on, ignoring the questions that got pelted at them until they had gone through a door into the control building, where Arn was waiting for them.
    “Terius is with Jance in the conference room,” Arn informed them.
    “I ought to greet the scientists, right?” Park asked.
    “Good idea,” Arn admitted. “Introduce them around and promise a Q&A session later.”
    “I just promised the same to the press corps,” Park admitted.
    “Me too,” Arn nodded. “When you have the scientists comfy, please join us in the small conference room.”
    “The small one?” Park asked. “Aren’t we going to be a bit crowded in there?”
    “It was Terius’ idea,” Arn replied. “Jance likes to have a large staff with him, but he does all the