Earth Star

‘Sorry about that, sir,’ I said.

‘Don’t worry about it now.’ He gestured at the portal. ‘You’d better get moving.’

Fian entered the destination code of the nearest Earth Africa Transit. As he stepped into scan range the portal started talking.

‘Military traffic. There is no charge for this journey.’

Fian froze, and then turned to look at me, his mouth open.

I gulped. ‘Military personnel travel free on the portal network. That means …’

‘Our genetic codes are already registered as on Military assignment,’ said Fian. ‘It’s not a mistake. This is really happening.’

I realized something. ‘Pre-empts! That’s why the class was late back!’

‘What?’ asked Playdon.

‘The pre-empt system, sir. Handicapped babies are portalled to Earth as emergency medical pre-empts. Their signal automatically overrides other traffic on the relay system, grabbing any portal it needs to boost their signal on through to the Hospital Earth Infant Crash units. It’s mostly medical emergencies that need to bypass all the queues at Sector Interchanges, Off-worlds and Transits, but the Military use pre-empts for urgent journeys too.’

Playdon gave a nod of understanding. ‘And Alien Contact is active, so …’

‘Exactly. The Military will be moving massive amounts of personnel and equipment. They’ll be using the pre-empt system, both for speed and to avoid everyone asking questions about why Military officers are pouring through every Sector Interchange. Each pre-empt locks out everything on its path, tying up a lot of the relay system, cross-sector and off-world portals. Everyone else has to wait until they’re free.’

‘Jarra, we have to go,’ said Fian in a grimly terrified voice.

He was right. I didn’t understand what mad reason Alien Contact had for calling us in, but we had to report as ordered.

We stepped through the portal.

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