“You’d better hurry, Commander. I might have orders for you to take her up with or without Miller after this meeting.”

Victoria turned on her heels and hustled down the hallway, back to the massive hangar where the Leviathan slept in its steel confines, waiting to be unleashed. She once again had to navigate a myriad of people, still clogging the halls as they tried to find their respective focus groups.

Clicking on her communicator, she established a connection with Chief Engineer Carlos Delgado. He answered immediately. “Engineering.”

“Serling here,” Victoria replied. “I just got clearance to prep the ship. Are your people working?”

“Oh yeah,” Carlos said. “Captain reached out to me a bit ago. We’re running some tests on the engines and the artificial gravity modules right now. I’m sure we’ll be done in the next twenty minutes and we can start the ignition process. How long before you come aboard? And what about the captain? Are we waiting for him?”

“We don’t have launch clearance so we’ve got time to let him get here. I’m almost to the hangar now and will ensure the bridge staff has taken their posts. Hopefully, they can finish their preflight check in less than an hour but I won’t hold my breath … unless you’ve already gone through some of the list?”

“Some,” Carlos said. “Not as much as I’d have liked. Our part of this process will take longer than the bridge so the moment we heard about the object, we came aboard and started working. I had a feeling the council would order us up ASAP. Sounds like we’re taking some initiative?”

“I talked Jacks into authorizing your activities.” Victoria drew out her security card and scanned it to get through the door leading to the hangar bay. It slid shut the second she stepped through. “It didn’t take much though. They’re sending some of the smaller ships to check it out, those two test ships with guns, I think. Everyone’s worried about what we’re dealing with here.”

“I am,” Carlos admitted. “I don’t mind saying it.”

“Well, remain calm,” Victoria said. “I’ll see you in person in a couple minutes. Serling out.” She rounded a corner and paused at the clear plastic wall that separated the hallway from the work area. Taking in the massive flagship, it never ceased to give her a sense of awe. Spanning just over twenty-three hundred feet long, it was the largest space vessel ever built by man.

Bristling with weapons and the most advanced technology humanity ever conceived, it was prepared for the perils of space, of visiting other worlds and discovering the secrets waiting for them out there. Victoria never dreamed those things would come to them first, that they would experience them at home.

Somehow, I feel naive about that. Whether they were dealing with something automated, an alien intelligence or something else entirely it felt like fate to encounter it so close to their own launch into the cosmos. They were months, perhaps weeks away from leaving Earth and yet, the unknown came to them.

I suppose it’s convenient.

Victoria headed to the docking arm and ran her card twice more to get through to the ship proper. Utilitarian walls were covered with gray metal plating, hiding the various subsystems beneath.