A/N - So, apparently "Christmas Break" means "free labour" to my family. Updates should be better from now on though. Thanks for the reviews!
I do not own anything to do with NCIS.
Timothy couldn't remember the last time he'd slept. It had probably been about 24 hours since he arrived home to find Harriet in his apartment, to find that the world might be ending. That sounded melodramatic but it was a distinct possibility, and one that Timothy couldn't help but take more seriously now he'd seen what they were up against.
Harriet's inability to use the Shifter properly had lost them several hours, so it had only been about four hours since Timothy's call to NCIS. He hadn't had time, in the end, to call home. That was really bothering him now, because he knew he wouldn't have the chance to get in touch with his family for a long time. The radio room would be fully occupied in alerting the Peace Force units spread across the galaxy and personal calls were not a priority.
He'd done this once before, disappearing for four years with no word, and the relationship between him and his parents and sister had never fully recovered.
As a teenager, Timothy had been a very skilled hacker. Young and reckless, his attempts to impress an online hacking group with his abilities got him noticed. However, while most of that group were tracked down and arrested, Timothy was allowed to slip through the net.
Somebody kept an eye on him, though. Nobody was entirely sure whose idea Stars had been, nor who called the shots from Earth, but somebody decided Timothy was what the force needed.
Along with seven other young computer experts, he had been literally kidnapped from his parents' home one night and taken to a military base. Here, the eight were read into the Stars programme and promptly sent up to the smallest of the three orbiting defence stations, to work in the radio room.
They hadn't been given much of a choice, really; all of them had been involved in something less-than-legal, though never inherently malicious, and the general impression was that agreeing to join the Force was the only way to avoid punishment.
However, it became apparent fairly quickly that the technology in use was beyond even this specialist group. It was so far ahead of anything found on Earth that the humans found it very difficult to adapt to the entirely new systems. Only three of the eight felt they would be able to learn, and Timothy wasn't one of them.
Timothy and the other four were given over to the armed Peace Force and sent straight into basic training. Four months later, war broke out.
All of this felt like a lifetime ago. Of those eight humans - all aged between 18 and 23 - Timothy was the only one left alive. The four who joined him in basic training had been killed during the Hotton war and Timothy had recognised the faces of the three technicians in the tribute to the missile strike victims.
It was a horribly lonely thought.
Timothy arrived late and cross to the General's meeting, trailed by a triumphant Harriet and an irate Doctor Gorcheva.
Doctor Jenia Gorcheva was a Bulgarian woman in her mid fifties, her hair prematurely grey and always pulled back into a tight bun, the head of the Stars medical staff. She was a formidable woman with clear ideas on how her department should be run, who never backed down to anyone and who was used to being listened to.
Though not technically a General, nobody disputed her right to be included in these meetings. Doctor Gorcheva was a well-respected and well-liked member of the Force and Timothy owed his life to her several times over.
The only person Gorcheva didn't get on with was Harriet. A deep and abiding hatred ran between the two women and any meeting was likely to end in a fierce argument. Unfortunately for Timothy, he had accidentally stumbled into one of these on his way to the conference room and been dragged in.
The dispute was quickly settled. Gorcheva didn't think Harriet should attend the meeting. Technically she was correct, as Harriet was only a Captain, but Harriet was about as likely to agree to exclusion as Gorcheva herself and her expertise usually proved invaluable. Settling these rows was more Kinoan's area than Timothy's, however, so tempers were running high when they finally arrived in the conference room.
"Generals." Timothy didn't wait for silence or for introductions. Everybody in this room knew exactly who he was. There were a few new faces among the ranks, and a few familiar ones missing, but there would be time for introductions and explanations later. They had already wasted enough time.
"We are at war."
Silence greeted his words. Around the long table sat forty individuals in uniform, some immaculate and some clearly fresh from a conflict zone, all bearing the four stars of their rank. Twenty wore black, the uniform of a military General, and twenty wore green to signify their position as Diplomats.
Though the Milky Way galaxy alone holds billions of solar systems, only a limited number were members of the Peace Force. Of these, the twenty biggest defence stations had sent their leaders, the others watching this conference via video link. Each station had both a military and diplomatic General of equal importance.
"War, McGee?" A wizened old woman said from his right. She wore a stained and torn black uniform. Timothy recognised her at once; this was Vivia Leconiger of the planet Pastiar. She looked very old indeed but Timothy knew she was only a couple of years older than he was. Pastairans always appeared ancient but were, in fact, very agile.
"Surely you are getting ahead of yourself." Vivia said sceptically.
An unfamiliar General joined in. "What actually happened to Zsais, General McGee? We have not been told."
"Several thousand unidentified ships surrounded the solar system known as Zsais." Timothy explained. "Captain Mason and I were nearby and witnessed what happened next. Using technology we have never encountered before, the ships destroyed Zsais completely. There are no survivors and nothing left of the system."
It was hard to convey just how dreadful the scene had been, to people who had not witnessed it even on radar screens. Nevertheless, many of the faces registered disgust and horror. Everybody knew Zsais was - had been - a developing solar system. To target a place, so full of life yet so defenceless, was the worst of all war crimes.
"This is an atrocity, but does it necessitate war?" Another voice called out. This was General Ivoon Juviaria of Kallanna, a diplomat and a good friend of Kinoan's.
"I believe so." Kinoan took this question. A diplomat advising war would always carry more weight than a military General. "We have known this was coming for a long while. These ships will return."
"This is it, then?" From the far end of the table, a second unfamiliar General asked in a quiet voice. "The war we have all been waiting for?"
"We thought this of the Hotton War, Kinoan, remember." Vivia put in.
"That was complacency on our part." Snapped Timothy. "If we had looked deeper, we could not have avoided the truth. Believe me, all of you, we are facing our darkest hour and we must act."
"Our only hope is to strike hard." Harriet interrupted, ignoring Gorcheva's blistering glare. "To show them we are no so weak-"
"Emergency. Emergency." The intercom system blared into life with a sudden, ear-splitting, alarm. "Incoming missiles detected. Repeat. Incoming missiles detected. Impact imminent."
There was no time to respond. The message had barely finished its second repetition when the whole station shuddered horribly to a deafening smash. Thrown from his feet, Timothy hit the floor hard.
Everything was noise and chaos as a second terrible explosion sounded. From his position on the floor, Timothy felt the entire station shift slightly. An awful wave of panic rose in his throat; if one more missile hit the Orbiter, the station could be knocked completely out of its orbit and sent plummeting towards Earth. So far it seemed as though the shields were protecting the station from the actual blasts but shields would not help at all if the Orbiter crashed into the planet.
The station was the size of America, a huge and cumbersome beast travelling very slowly due to its weight. If it fell to Earth, the planet would be devastated.
"Emergency, emergency. Incoming missiles detected. Repeat. Incoming missiles detected. Impact imminent."