Free SECTOR 64: Ambush by Dean M. Cole Page A

continue, sir. How are we and the Argonians the same race?"
    "We don't know for sure. They've told us that some of their early colony ships disappeared, never to be heard from again. As I said earlier, it's a damn big galaxy. They theorize one may have been stranded here tens of thousands of years ago. Although, we have no idea what became of their technology or scientific knowledge. Apparently, they were close enough genetically to the Neanderthals to coexist."
    "According to recent genetic discoveries, they did more than coexist ," Richard added.
    "Amazing," Jake whispered.
    "Anyway, returning to the nineteen forties," the general said. "After reporting their discovery, the scouts were ordered to proceed. Unfortunately, before they could make contact, there was a mishap. One of the scout ships encountered a severe thunderstorm over New Mexico and crashed." The general smiled and raised his eyebrows. "An incident most refer to as Roswell."
    Jake sat bolt upright. "Roswell was real?"
    "Yes," the general said. "It was a freak accident. Guess it just goes to show, even though they've advanced significantly, they're still fallible humans."
    "But why would they be in Roswell?"
    "That was before the Air Force split from the Army. Roswell Army Airfield was home to the Five-Oh-Ninth Bomber Group. It was an elite air wing and at the time the only nuclear-armed military unit in the world."
    "Also, it was only a hundred and ten miles from Trinity, the test-site where we detonated our first nukes," Richard said.
    "Go figure," Jake said. "No wonder that was their first stop."
    Tannehill continued. "The story has been altered and bastardized. However, many of the fundamental parts are true. The ship and its impact debris were collected. After several moves and several years, it ended up in an Area Fifty-One hangar."
    "Is it still there?"
    "No, it was eventually returned to the Argonians."
    "But, wait, Roswell happened in nineteen forty-seven," Jake said. "I thought you said we got their attention in forty-five."
    "You're right, Captain. The Argonian's drive technology allows them to travel significantly faster than light, and their zero-width wormholes allow instant galactic-wide communications. However, the signals their passive sensors listen for are limited to the speed of light."
    A storm of dissociated points of light swirled overhead. After a moment, they coalesced into the Milky Way Galaxy. Bent over the keyboard, the general tapped out another command. Standing, he pointed into the twenty-foot-wide hologram as the tide of green dots spread through the image again. "Even with more than a million equally spaced sensors, they are still a thousand light-years apart."
    "A thousand light-years?" Jake said in a dubious tone. Standing to his full six feet, his head was immersed in the hologram. As the slowly rotating galactic plane slid past, he eyed the spacing of the sensor grid with open skepticism. "I'm sorry, sir, but that doesn't look like it could be anywhere close to a thousand light-years."
    Walking toward the far side of the room, General Tannehill smiled and pulled a laser pointer from a shirt pocket. Activating it, he placed a red dot on the wall behind Jake. "Move to the outer edge, Captain."
    With a final skeptical look at the grid floating through his vision, Jake ducked out of the hologram. He stepped to its far side and stood opposite the general. Through the translucent brilliance of the rendering, he could just make out the man's face.
    Without turning it on, Tannehill lifted the laser to eye-level and aimed it at Jake's face. "Okay, Captain, I just fired my laser light at you."
    There still wasn't any light coming from the device. Jake saw the general's point immediately. "You're saying that it would take a long time for the light to travel across the galaxy."
    General Tannehill nodded and turned on the laser pointer. "A very long time. In the real galaxy, that light would take one hundred thousand years to travel from