Command Decision

Chapter 1-1

1

Ten Years later:

Outside Flagstaff, Arizona:

“Dad, do you need anything else?” Julia Marksdale asked as she stepped into the Observatory.

“No, thank you. I have everything I need at the moment,” Harry Marksdale replied in an absent-minded voice.

Julia shook her head and sighed. For the last week, her father had been distracted. She chuckled when she saw that he had placed the remains of his sandwich in his coffee cup by mistake instead of on the plate. He was bent forward over the computer in front of him, studying it with a frown.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, walking forward to stand behind him.

Julia watched as her father rubbed a hand down his face and leaned back to gaze up at her through blurry eyes. He shook his head and released a tired sigh. She reached out and touched his shoulder when he closed his eyes for a moment.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted in a tired voice, slowly opening his eyes to look up at her. “It could be nothing. I need to take more photographs and check them.”

“Are you still studying the Gliese system?” Julia asked, pulling a small, metal, folding chair closer to the table where several different computers were hooked up.

“Yes,” Harry replied as he gave Julia a distracted smile before he turned to study her for a moment. “You look so much like your mother when she was your age.”

Julia resisted the urge to roll her eyes like she used to do when she was a teenager. He had been saying things like that more frequently. She was beginning to think that the lack of sleep was making him a touch loopy.

At twenty-two, she was used to being the one to take care of him. Her mother left them when she was ten. Living in the desert outside of Flagstaff, Arizona was not the place her mother - Carry Marksdale wanted to spend the rest of her life. The fact that her father spent more time gazing at the stars than he did at his wife didn’t help matters. When her mom gave her the choice of going or staying, Julia stayed. She loved the desert and the stars as much as her dad. In the end, she suspected her mother was relieved, because the only time Julia ever heard from her mom was on her birthday.

“So, what are you studying so intently?” Julia asked instead, glancing at the fuzzy images on the screen.

Harry glanced back at the monitor and frowned. “I’m not sure,” he admitted. “It may be nothing. I have a new telescope coming, so I hope that it will help.”

Julia raised her eyes to the old fourteen inch Cassegrain telescope. It was currently the largest telescope her father owned. The other two were a smaller eight inch and a refractor. They were each housed in separate smaller observatories on the property.

“I’ll help you set it up tomorrow night after I finish with the class I’m teaching,” Julia said with a smile. “How much more do you have to do tonight? I was going to fix some dinner.”

Harry glanced at the computer screen with a sigh before he smiled at Julia. For a moment, she saw his eyes glaze over as he lost himself back in whatever he was thinking before they cleared. The crooked smile told her that she had won the battle with the stars this time.

“I’ll be up in a few minutes,” he promised with an affectionate grin. “I just need to check everything one last time before I come in.”

Julia rose out of the chair and bent to brush a kiss across her father’s forehead. With a sigh, she picked up the remains of his lunch in the stale coffee. A soft chuckle escaped her when she saw a grimace flash across his face.

“If you aren’t, I’ll be back,” she said with a shake of her head. “I love you, dad.”

“I love you, too, honey,” Harry absently replied, already lost in what he was doing.

Julia glanced at the computer screen once more, a frown creasing her brow. Her dad was an excellent astronomer. He not only taught astronomy and ran the planetarium program with the undergraduates at Northern Arizona University, he had an impressive private set up. She had recently finished her PhD in Astronomy and Physics, taught classes at NAU, and volunteered at the Lowell Observatory. Her love of the universe had been nurtured by the fascinating stories her father told her as she was growing up.

“I’ll see you in a few minutes, dad,” she said again.

* * * *

Harry stared at the images he had on the screen before his gaze moved to the glossy pictures he had printed out earlier. He had already forgotten his promise to Julia to not be very long. Picking up the eyepiece he used to magnify the objects on the paper in front of him, he leaned forward and looked at the smudge on the photograph. He did the same with the other hundred pictures he had taken over the last several months.

“Tomorrow, I’ll have a better chance of seeing what you are,” he whispered, sitting back and staring at the computer screen.

Rising stiffly out of the chair when his stomach growled, he turned toward the door. He would come back after dinner for a few hours. The telescope and camera were already set up. All he would need to do tomorrow was process the images.

He paused at the doorway of the observatory, his gaze drifting back one more time to the images. There was something out there, something unnatural that wasn’t supposed to be there. He could feel it in his gut. He just needed more proof.