Chapter One
Paris Abraham had always been fascinated by the stars and outer space in general, and she had a love of radio. Her father had gifted her with her first high-powered telescope at the age of ten and an old-fashioned CB radio at twelve so she could listen to truckers and dispatch. They had stumbled across NASA's frequencies purely by chance and she spent her free time watching the stars and listening to radio-exchanges at NASA with broadcasts from Cape Canaveral and Houston.
She graduated high-school in 2002 and went into radio programming and broadcasting, double majoring in astronomy at the local community college. After five years of college, Paris graduated with honors ad started her job-hunt. A year's hunt and waiting landed her a job with SETI in New Mexico and she got to combine her two loves. Paris had never believed they were alone in the universe, let alone their own galaxy. She was in good company at SETI and when they weren't monitoring extra terrestrial radio frequencies, or ETRFs, she and the boys talked about all things Star Wars, Star Trek, and dabbled in the realms of Stargate for the sheer hell of having nothing better to do with their time.
Paris had been with SETI for about a year when they got what the boys called The Big Kahuna, legit radio-frequency contact from the Big Black Beyond. It started out as a burst of noise across the regular frequency noises made by nearby planets and star systems. It was six seconds of noise, loud, unanticipated sound, and it scared the shit out of Paris and the boys. Paris froze, her heart pounding, and it grew very quiet in the control room.
"Did anyone else hear that? Or was that just me?" she whispered.
"I heard it."
"Yeah. Me, too."
"Good, I'm not going crazy. What was that?" she dared to breathe again. All over the room, looks were exchanged and suddenly they were running. Tracking satellites, radio frequencies, visuals, everything was pulled up.
"Think it was NASA?" Daniel Grant whispered.
"Nope. Wrong frequencies." She looked at her screen as she tracked the six-second sound-byte, "Something's out there." Once she had it, she isolated it and played it back at regular speed. It was clearly a human voice, male.
"Are we sure that's not feedback from NASA?"
"Bobby, do we have anything on our tracking sats yet?" Paris pushed back from her desk and leaned back in the chair, looking towards the little room that held the tracking computers for their satellites.
"Yeah we do. The boys upstairs are gonna love this." Bobby Richards emerged from his corner of their isolated little world, "One of the orbiters got this a minute ago."
"On screen, Bobby." She turned back to the video screen where random satellite images flashed up interspersed with radar flashes. A minute later, Bobby's images showed up and the room once again fell dead silent. The images on the screen could not possibly be real.
"You're joking." She looked at Bobby.
"No! I swear, that's what the orbiter got!"
"Seriously? Come on, Bobby, we're not that gullible."
"You don't believe me."
"No I do not. Which orbiter got these?"
"Saturn Six."
"What'd we find?" Daniel wanted to know. Paris offered up the print-outs.
"If Bobby didn't mess with the pics, that thing is hiding in Saturn's orbit. Forgive my skepticism."
"The Enterprise? No way!" Daniel was floored. One of the landlines rang. Paris went to answer and realized that it was the direct line from Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs just before she picked up. Paris had only spoken to the NORAD commanders once before regarding a mix-up with some of their tracking satellites, she was not looking forward to this conversation. NORAD would only be calling if their sats had picked up the little radar-blip that was the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701. None of her predecessors, just the Silver Lady herself come to call. Bracing herself for the reprimand she knew was coming, Paris picked up the receiver.
"Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, Paris Abraham speaking."
"Abraham, you kids had better have a damn good excuse for the stun you just pulled with that orbiter." As soon as she heard the voice on the other end of the line, Paris almost dropped the phone. She double-checked the i.d. strip under the wall-mounted base. No, it was NORAD alright. Paris looked at her coworkers, who argued over the authenticity of the photos on the screen.
"Good morning, sir."
"Care to explain yourself?"
"Sir, you have to believe me, we didn't touch the orbiter. All we have are ten digital photographs and a six-second sound-byte that rolled over the frequencies about five minutes ago. There has been no tampering." Paris tried to keep her nerves from showing in the tone of her voice. It wasn't every day they got a phone-call from the man who led the free world and ran the United States of America.
"Paris."
"Yes, sir?"
"It's too early for you kids to be goofing around out there. What's going on?"
"I don't know, sir."
"I don't know, sir." He repeated what she'd said and Paris winced.
"That's honest truth, sir." She looked at her bickering coworkers, "What good reason would I have to tamper with my own bloody orbiters or lie to you, Mr. President?"
"Don't get smart with me, Paris Abraham." There was a tone of voice in his voice she rarely ever heard him use with her, or anyone really. Paris pinched the bridge of her nose so she wouldn't start crying.
"You put me here, sir, would it kill you to have a little faith in the Director of SETI? Hand-picked, I might add?" She chose her words carefully. There was a brief pause on the other end and she waited. Paris heard a murmur of voices in the background and narrowed her eyes, "Excuse me, sir?"
"Yes, Abraham?"
"Where are you? I hear other voices in the background." She'd gotten good at picking out certain background noises, voices were easy even over roaring traffic.
"I've gathered the Joint Cheifs of Staff. We're all here."
"The admirals, too, sir?"
"Yes."
"Damn." She was on speaker-phone then. When Paris hung up the phone ten minutes later, she had explicit, very direct orders from the President to report to Cheyenne Mountain by sunrise. She checked her watch. It was twelve-thirty. The sun didn't rise in Colorado until six-thirty or roughly thereabouts. She had six hours to get there. He wanted her to bring any and all printouts she could get her hands on, and he wanted her to come alone. She set the receiver on the cradle and pushed away from the wall.
"Bobby, I need any new pictures you got from Saturn Six and the originals. Printouts and a thumb-drive both. Do we have anymore audio-feed?"
"Two minutes."
"Good. I need that, too, and somebody get me a printout of the radar images."
"Sure, boss." The boys scattered and she ran off some data readouts.
"What's going on, Paris?" Daniel wandered over.
"NORAD wants our stuff."
"What? Why?"
"They think you idiots are paying around the orbiters and tracking satellites. Guess who gets into trouble with the boys upstairs when that happens?" She downloaded all of the data to her laptop and packed up for the drive to the nearest airfield.
"Paris, sweetheart, chill." Daniel followed her around as she collected her jacket from her office.
"Daniel not now! If you want to explain yourself to the Joint Chiefs and three senior admirals, you be my guest. Otherwise, keep your mouth shut. Bobby!"
"Here boss." He gave her a thick manila envelope of pictures, someone else tossed her a thumb-drive, and she walked out of the station.
"Hey, whoa! Wait a minute!" Daniel came after her, "Paris, where are you going?"
"Look, Daniel, whatever's up there, it's got the military big shots jumping at their own shadows. They think it's a hoax, I have six hours to get to Cheyenne Mountain and convince the President of the United States of America that it's no joke, that we're not fucking around with our orbiters and satellites. If I'm not up there by sunrise, some bizarre and ugly level of Hell is going to open it's gates." She grabbed her cell-phone as it buzzed in her pocket.
"That wasn't my question." Daniel looked very hurt, but after talking to the president himself, and by extension the JCS, Paris wasn't in a very good mood. She read the text message she had just received.
::Roswell, Area 51. 2 hrs. Be there.:: The "or else" left unsaid was pretty obvious.
"Paris?"
"I'm going to Roswell, Daniel. I've got two hours. See ya 'round." She climbed onto her motorcycle, a Kawasaki Vulcan 500 LTD in candy-apple green, keyed the ignition, and waved as she left SETI. She wasn't entirely certain if there was anything in the Roswell desert, but orders were orders and besides, the ride would help Paris clear her mind.
The sky was just turning gray when she saw a turn-off on the highway and took it. Nothing but desert out here, and maybe something else. About three miles down the road, she saw a gate. Paris was stopped by two armed guards who demanded to see identification.
"Paris Abraham?" The one reading her driver's license looked at her.
"Yes."
"Good timing. The plane's just landing."
"What plane?"
"That one." The guard pointed up as she heard the roar of turbine engines. Paris looked up and over one shoulder and gasped, ducking as the engine-wash hit them.
"Air Force One!" she looked up again.
"Good morning, Miss Abraham." The guards returned her license and waved her through the gate. She rode onto Roswell Air Force Base and coasted to a stop under the starboard wingtip of Air Force One once the pilot had killed the engines. Reaching up, she brushed warm metal with her fingertips. She was probably the only civilian who could ever get this close without the Secret Service going ape-shit. Paris smiled and killed the bike as the boarding stairs were lowered. She was standing at the bottom of the stairs as her uncle came down.
"Hey, Uncle Jack!"
"Getting into trouble again, Paris?"
"You know it's what I do best." She accepted the hug, "I wasn't expecting the red-carpet treatment after that phone-call, though."
"Once I figured out which orbiters were transmitting those images, I knew I had to give you a chance to defend yourself."
"And in the process get me out of SETI before I killed somebody." She looked around, "So, mind a favor?"
"Already done, my girl." Jack Harlen just smirked. Presidential gag-orders were a big deal, the nerdy boys of SETI were about to get served their first ever gag-order and by god would they keep it…or else.
"Thanks, Uncle Jack. Though how I'm supposed to explain all of this to the Joint Chiefs I have no idea."
"I thought you might say that, so let me show you something the Air Force has been storing in the basement since before you were born." He put an arm around her shoulders and guided her into the base's main structure.
Even as Paris Abraham entered Roswell Air Force Base that cool New Mexico morning, the super-classified objects she would eventually see for herself and positively identify for everyone else had been located by the watchful, brooding First Officer of the Enterprise. Preliminary scans had indicated a Vulcan presence somewhere in New Mexico. He had begged a favor from the captain and taken one of the shuttles on a scouting run closer to Earth. Upon closer inspection, Spock was able to identify a Vahklas-type Vulcan ship and at least two very faint Vulcan life-signs. Even now, five years after the officially-designated Narada Incident, the discovery of any Vulcans at all, anywhere, was good news to him. He could have wished to find them in a safe, friendlier time, but beggars could not be choosers, to borrow a purely Human phrase. What he knew of pre-First Contact Humans, they were a violent, suspicious, superstitious lot. Saddened, and determined to take back from the Humans what had been lost to the Vulcans, Spock returned to the Enterprise, reported to the captain on his findings and submitted a log-entry on the matter, and began planning how he would recover the ship and it's surviving crew safely and with the least interaction with the pre-First Contact citizens of Earth.
Back in Roswell, Paris Abraham was having a field-day and loving every minute of it. She had already succeeded in making twenty top scientists feel like a bunch of dumb dipshits by automatically and positively identifying the space-craft as a Vahklas-type Vulcan transport ship the minute she laid eyes on it. The novelty of proving herself smarter than twenty Ivy League professionals wore of pretty fast when her uncle showed her the ship's four-man crew. Two had died on impact, two had been put into some kind of suspended animation. Using a form of cryogenics, all four had been preserved. Paris stood by the gurney holding one of the Vulcans, studying the peaceful features.
"Paris?" her uncle spoke her name quietly.
"He looks so calm, so peaceful." Paris didn't dare speak above a whisper, "I've never a seen a Vulcan before, not like this." She looked up, "Could I stay a while?"
"I think the Joint Chiefs can wait. Take your time." He just left, giving orders that she was to be left alone. Reilly knew that her life would never be the same again. She could leave Area 51 and never return, but she would never forget what she had seen and learned here. Inspired by a very childish desire, Paris looked around to see if there was anyone who would catch her. It didn't look like it, so Paris quietly pulled off one of the Latex gloves she had been given to wear and reached out to do something she certainly couldn't have done if the Vulcan had been awake. The first touch of ice-cold skin made her jump and she pulled back with a startled gasp. Paris looked around quickly to make sure that had gone unnoticed. The lab seemed almost empty. Exhaling slowly, Paris carefully stretched out her left hand and touched the cold skin.
"I don't even know your name." She whispered, "I know nothing about you." Her fingers shook as she traced features she was familiar with but had never been able to explore. This Vulcan was clearly in later life, the others were much younger by appearance. His hair was almost completely gray, just turning white, his face lined with soft wrinkles that only made him look wise but not old. Paris took time to stroke the curve of one upswept ear and remember that their ears, like their hands, were very sensitive to touch. Like hers were. People wondered why she didn't like shaking hands unless she had to? Paris sighed and looked at the aged face, "You're like me, aren't you?"
"Paris, the Joint Chiefs are waiting." Her uncle's voice did not startle her for some reason, neither did the realization that she'd been in contemplative study for almost half an hour.
"I'm coming." She leaned over the elderly Vulcan, who struck her very much as a grandfather figure, and pressed her lips to the wise forehead just briefly. Pulling away was so hard, part of Paris wanted to stay. What that part was or how dominant it might actually be, she wasn't sure, but Paris knew she had to make the Joint Chiefs of Staff understand that the Enterprise's unexpected presence in the orbit of Saturn was no cause for alarm and certainly not a matter of national or international security.
As she debriefed the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the current, admittedly bizarre situation an hour and a half later, Paris's mind and heart were focused on the elderly Vulcan she had seen in Roswell. Listening to the Joint Chiefs and the admirals discuss the next course of action, Paris wondered why the elder seemed so familiar when he wasn't even supposed to exist. She went through a list of every Vulcan she was familiar with. They were arguing the odds of making contact with someone from the Enterprise, which were pretty good in her opinion, when it occurred to Paris just who her mysterious elder was. She leaned against the table and folded her hands a certain way under her chin. Was it really Soval? The very first Vulcan Ambasssador to the United Federation of Planets? Paris just wanted to get back to Roswell to see if she was right about her Vulcan.
No common ground or agreement was reached in that session, and when Paris was dismissed, she returned to Roswell. Paris visited the ship first and managed to get a manifest of it's crew and passengers. Three crew and one passenger were named. She knew Vulcan, but not how to read it. Taking a printout of the manifest, she visited the suspension chamber to see the Vulcans. Yes, it was Soval. The other survivor was T'Pol. Wondering how long the Enterprise would wait, she contented herself with monitoring the Enterprise from Area 51 and the occasional bout of daydreaming.
Orders came from NORAD to bring one of the Vulcans out of suspended animation three days later. Paris got a say on which one and she decided to bring Soval out first. This was picked up by the Enterprise and they went into action accordingly.