Captain James Zanella, the new Marine company commander and First Sergeant Jeffrey Powell were also present. Powell was one of the five Marine survivors of the previous mission. Tall and slim with a deeply wrinkled face from lots of time in the sunshine, the Marine Senior NCO had a masters degree in international relations from the Sorbonne. The latter had come in handy in negotiating with the Cheerick on their previous mission. Zanella was even taller than his first sergeant with a greyhound physique and black hair shot with premature gray. Zanella was in a polo shirt but the first sergeant was wearing a T-shirt with a dragon fighting a wizard on the front.

The one face Weaver couldn’t place was a lieutenant in undress uniform. His nametag read: Fey.

Weaver was, by far, the most underdressed. But he could handle that.

“Glad you finally made it, Commander,” Admiral Townsend said without any notable rancor.

“I was near the top of a mountain in Alabama, sir,” Bill said, taking a seat. “It took me a while to bike down then get to the glassport.”

“Understood,” Townsend said, looking around and letting loose a grim smile. “This caught us all flat-footed. Lieutenant?”

“To introduce myself, I’m Lieutenant Chris Fey with SpaceCom’s Office of Alien Technologies,” the LT said. “This got routed through SpaceCom and I was the officer they dispatched to give the good news.”

“Which is?” Bill asked.

“Not good,” the lieutenant said, keying on his computer and projecting a starmap on the wall. A star was highlighted. “This is HD 36951, located just north of Orion’s Belt in the sky and is about five hundred and fourteen light-years from Earth. It is a Class A3 type star. Its Gamma planet is a gate world, one of the most distant we have.