CHAPTER 42

PETER

WELCOME BACK

Peter got word that another Ange’s Angel was returning. He was excited about her return but also slightly curious about how quickly she’d gotten back.

All the Angels that were close enough to arrive by now had already made their way back.

The only obvious solution was to have Angelique send one of her Angels back to Juniper rather than coming back herself.

He was currently making his way across this country and back to his home on the beach. He’d just given a speech in front of the military. And even though he was no longer the prime minister of the country, he was still working hard to raise support for what he assumed would be a military operation against the Atua.

He was not winning the fight, however. Humans had short memories. One of the evolutionary advantages of humans was the ability to forget pain. Psychologists believe it was a feature and not a bug. If a child remembered every single fall they had, after six months of living they would be too scared to move at all.

So everyone he spoke to had basically forgotten that they’d lost access to the Starnet. Everyone was again too preoccupied worrying about their own lives to care about some alien invasion.

He was amazed at how desensitized the people of Everest had become.

Peter knew the business cycles of boom and bust, or rapid growth then recession, typically happened once every ten or so years. Back when he was on Mars, he’d found it surprising how consistently the world would make the same mistakes. Somehow, businesses and governments would fall into the trap of forgetting the mistakes that had led to the previous recession and make them again. He’d made a lot of money simply by studying what had happened before and preparing for it.

He was seeing a lot of parallels in the way society was reacting to this. When Peter had first arrived on the planet, he’d had to fight quite aggressively to get the country aligned. There were a lot of oligarchs who’d inserted themselves into the planet’s running in order to take advantage of people. He had removed most of them from their positions of power.

Following that, he’d let the planet know about the Atua and shared the risks they posed. For several months, there was back-to-back news coverage about the potential threat these aliens posed. There was speculation about who they were, which star in the sky was their home system. Documentaries, movies, and conspiracy theories all revolved around the unknown alien species.

This made it easy for Peter to push for more money to be spent on the defense force, on research and development around infrastructure security, and even on limiting the ways their planet could be hacked into.

Peter had made the mistake of believing this trend in expenses would continue. When he’d left office, he’d thought things would be maintained as they were. He had been wrong.

The people of Everest quickly forgot the risks the Atua people posed. Slowly, defense spending was gutted, and practices that were designed to ensure the security of the planet was not put in jeopardy were overlooked.

Fast-forward to today and he wasn’t sure they could defend themselves properly against an attack.

Peter pressed a call button on the screen in front of him that gave him access to his security detail at the front of the car. “Can you turn the car around?” Peter said to the military escort in the front of the car. “Take us to Ange’s residence.”

“Of course, sir,” he heard one of them say as his flying car arced around.

It didn’t take long before he reached his destination. Ange’s house was at the very top of a cliff overlooking a big stretch of water. She liked her views. And she especially loved views with water.

It was an unexpected visit, and so both Ange’s and Peter’s secret service members had to quickly coordinate on the effort. The only obvious sign of any of this Peter experienced was having to drive the final few kilometers to her house because the airways around her small-village-like house were blocked off.

Peter’s driver moved him up to the porte cochere. One of his people opened the door, and he hopped out. He smiled as he took in the view. Ange was slowly rebuilding her old homes after they were destroyed in the previous mini–civil war that had left the older Ange dead.

The redesign had all the typical Angelique design hallmarks. A massive stairway leading right up to the top of a ballroom, gold everywhere. If he hadn’t known better, he’d say this place had been designed in worship of a god.

Ange appeared, walking out of the doorway with a huge smile on her face. “Peter, how are you?”

Peter walked over and gave her a big hug. “I hear you’ve got a surprise for me.”

Ange pointed up to the very top of the stairway. “You mean her?”

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At the very top Peter saw another red-haired woman. Peter assumed it was Trillion, but then he squinted to take a better look. Then he saw. “Angelique?”

“Nope, another Ange. But this one came back from Atlas.”

Peter’s ears perked up at that. “I thought there was something suspicious in the message you sent. Why haven’t you announced her arrival?”

Ange took hold of Peter’s arm, and the two of them began walking up the very long gold-and-marble stairwell. “She’s got something to share with us both.”

Peter wondered whether it was a weapon idea. Then his mind went to the potential of something worse. Had the Atua attacked them again? Was something more going on?

“Don’t worry,” Ange said, obviously noticing Peter’s worried expression. “We’re not in any danger. Ariana did have a run-in with the Atua who came back to reclaim its ship. But she survived. She’s fine.”

They reached the top of the long stairs. They opened onto a glass-walled space that overlooked the water.

The new Ange gave Peter a hug. “Atlas says hi.”

The original Ange looked at her security detail. “Can you secure the room? We want no eyes and ears on this conversation.”

It took the team a whole thirty seconds to rearrange the room, closing off the stairwell behind them, securing all windows shut, and flicking a switch on the glass areas facing the water, turning them into one-way mirrors.

All three of them took a seat on a white couch that Peter immediately sank into. Even though he was no longer running the country, he was still feeling the effects of extreme tiredness and overworking.

“You’ll be happy to hear we’re bringing the Starnet to all the colonies,” the new Ange began by saying.

“Why the change of mind?” Peter asked. “Have things escalated with the Atua?”

Peter assumed the only reason Angelique was open to using the Starnet now was that something had happened recently to make it important they could share real-time communication with all the other colonies.

“Atlas knows which star system the Atua come from,” Ange stated matter-of-factly. “At least the very least, he knows where one of their star systems are. And he’s currently searching for the others. He’s created a telescope capable of taking a high-res picture of any planet less than a couple hundred light-years away.”

Peter was in shock. He couldn’t think of a single way to build a telescope that powerful. He’d always thought there was a practical limit on how big a telescope could become.

Peter didn’t have a chance to comment because Ange continued: “Now, if we can see them, then they can see us. And it basically means there’s no way to hide in this universe. If you’re changing the atmosphere of the planet in the same way we’re doing here, then a civilization with advanced enough technology will be able to see us.”

Peter nodded. “This is a departure from previous thinking.”

“Well, previously,” Ange continued, “we believed there was strategic value in staying hidden for as long as possible. But with this new revolution, we realized we’re only hiding from civilizations less advanced than us.”

“And those are the ones we’re not afraid of,” Peter said.

“Exactly. Atlas has proven you can’t hide from a civilization with a similar technological level as us.” Ange paused for a moment; she had a look in her eyes, something that said this was the reason she’d changed her mind, and not because Peter had been pushing for it. “And so we’re not going to throw away our main advantage. Having real-time communication between the planets is a strategic advantage we need to make use of.”

“So you’re not worried about giving away our position to less-advanced civilizations—if there are any watching?” Peter asked.

Ange shook her head. “Atlas has a solution for this too. Lex is waiting on the other side of the stealthfield with billions of entangled particles. I need help to convince everyone to turn off the Starnet for a long enough time to get the particles through.”

Peter knew from his own research into how the Starnet worked. The stealthfield broke entanglement with particles. So the Starnet wouldn’t work through the stealthfield.

Peter and both the Anges discussed the strategy for convincing the leaders on the planet that they needed to change a policy of maintaining the stealthfield at all costs.

Ange shared everything that had happened since she’d last visited. It got Peter very excited about seeing his old friend Atlas again.

One thing that hadn’t come up yet was a weapon. Peter had sent a message to Atlas to request he build a weapon. He wanted to know if Atlas had made any progress. “Did you ask Atlas about building something we could use to fight the Atua aliens with?”

“I did,” the new Ange responded. “Judging by the way he responded, I get a feeling his heart’s not in it. He understood the need to fight back, but I don’t believe he’s comfortable with building a weapon that could potentially wipe out a whole alien race.”

The other Ange added, “I can see his point. Building something meant for that kind of destruction takes a different kind of person.”

“Have you both read about the nuclear arms race?”

“Are you talking about back on Earth?” the other Ange asked. “When the US and another country—I can’t remember the name—began mass-producing nuclear bombs? I recall both countries entering a sort of war with both sides trying to create more weapons than the other.”

Peter nodded. “Exactly that. Both countries spent time and energy trying to create more nuclear bombs. But more importantly, neither side used them because they knew it would result in their destruction.”

“Mutually assured destruction.”

“Correct. If we can show the Atua we have the ability to utterly destroy them if they attack us again, then it’s simply a type of game theory. They couldn’t attack us without the risk of being attacked themselves. And equally, we don’t know what weapons they possess, but we have to assume they have something powerful enough to take out at least a few of our colonies.”

The Ange that had stayed on the planet the whole time responded: “And now that we know it’s possible to identify exactly which planets are colonized. So each side has the ability to attack the other side because there really is no way to truly stay completely hidden. We might be able to hide a few small spacecraft, but hiding colony worlds is impossible.”

“Unless they have the capability to neutralize all our planets at once. If they can take us out effectively enough that we don’t have the capability to respond, then we’ll still lose.”

Peter looked out into the ocean view in front of them. “That’s where the arms race comes in. If we can produce enough of the weapons that the Atua can never be sure they’ll be able to take out every single one of our planets and hidden starships, to attack us would be stupid unless they could guarantee we were pacified completely and unable to launch a counterattack. Which, again, the risk becomes too high if we have enough of these weapons hidden around the galaxy.”

“Assuming Atlas builds something.”

“Yes, assuming he does.”