Don't Mess With Earth (14 page)

Meanwhile, at the Mars Base, they
were monitoring all human space activity, when they heard the radio
transmissions between Houston and Commander Lovell. Since the base
commander didn’t want to be informed of such trivial matters, the
officer on duty asked for Yuri Gagarin to be brought to the command
center. Gagarin had asked to stay on Mars because he wanted to see
the progression of human space flight while he was still alive.
Once the former Russian cosmonaut arrived, he was asked, “Mr.
Gagarin, do you think we should go and rescue the Americans who
have their damaged spacecraft?”

“I don’t think we should. The
Americans are very resourceful and unless that ship is veering way
off course like mine did, then we should just see what happens. Can
you tap into their communications so we can listen?”

“We’ve been doing that, but I can
have you sit somewhere and let you listen through some headphones,
then you can offer up any advice you have regarding the situation.
Is that suitable?” asked the officer in charge.

“Yes, that would be fine.” answered
Gagarin.

They listened to the
communications for the five days the
Apollo 13
crew were in flight. The
Terrans seemed amazed at the ingenuity the Americans were
displaying, but Gagarin knew the Americans were always ingenious
and a potential force to be reckoned with. He hoped, for the
Terrans sake, that the Americans didn’t become incensed about the
Terrans watching Earth from Mars, because it could lead to a whole
galaxy of trouble for the Terrans, or for Earth, for that matter.
Gagarin hoped he wasn’t around when the Americans headed this way,
for one thing, he’d have to explain how he got here and then that
would lead to a big problem for Russia. Gagarin figured that would
be many years from now and he shouldn’t worry about future events.
Well, at least the
Apollo
13
astronauts made it safely back to
Earth.

The rest of the
Apollo
missions,
from 14 through 17, were a success. Unfortunately, due to rising
costs of the missions to the moon, the United States government
decided to discontinue funding of the
Apollo
project. NASA built
the
Skylab
and put it into orbit on May 14, 1973, but due to the damage
it sustained from getting into orbit, the space station was only
used for a little over a year and was programmed for re-entry into
Earth six years later, where most of it burned up in the
atmosphere. The space shuttle project was announced next, so that
NASA could have a re-usable mode of transportation into space. Area
51 also decided the shuttles would be perfect for more experiments
that could be sent up in the shuttles’ cargo bay and deployed in
orbit.

Meanwhile, Area 51 finally
decided to release the computer upgrades to the general public.
They still were having problems with software and hardware bugs, so
possibly letting a couple of computer nerds have access to it, for
them to distribute it to the general public, would make the nerds
rich, since they’d have to publish and sell upgrades every so
often. A few years earlier, Area 51, with the aid of the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), even invented
the means for universities and research facilities to share
information through a network, an early version of what would later
be the internet, called Usenet. A few years later, a politician
decided to take credit for the whole thing because he was running
for president and he had helped pass legislation to get it up and
running for the American public, but it made him look like a total
moron in front of the American people.

A scientist from Area 51 flew across the
country to the Massachussetts Institute of Technology to present
this new software to the right person who would take the software
and reap their rewards. The person that the scientist was looking
for was currently working on the BASIC programming language, a
pasty looking, huge glasses wearing, twenty-something kid who
seemed completely focused on his work and didn’t notice when the
scientist came into the room. The scientist sat down next to him,
tapped the kid on the shoulder, which startled the kid, he looked
up at the scientist, and with irritation in his voice, asked, “What
do you want?”

“Sorry to disturb you, young man.
Are you Will Bates?”

“Uh, yeah. Who are you?” asked
Bates, whose glasses appeared to be sliding down his nose.

The scientist handed Bates a
briefcase, then said, “The contents of this case contain something
very important, and it’s related to your work in the computer
field. My associates and I would like for you to look at what’s in
here, then put it to use. An explantion is inside as well, since
what it has to tell you is top secret and we wouldn’t want just
anyone to know. Mr. Bates, from now on, your destiny is in your
hands, will you fulfill it?” with that, the scientist got up and
walked off.

Bates was now entirely focused on the
briefcase and didn’t notice the mysterious stranger leave. Bates
was expecting a briefcase with a combination lock, but,
fortunately, it had no combination and he opened it by just
pressing on the tabs, unlocking the locks. He slowly opened the
briefcase, fully expecting it to have some sort of stupid prank
pop-up, but all he found was a floppy disk and a paper. He picked
up the paper, which was ten pages long, and began reading it. What
he read astounded him, and he had known it intellectually, aliens
did exist after all! At the end of the document, this secret
organization wanted him to usher in some sort of computer age with
the software they were giving him access to. Apparently the
software was quite complicated, but they were confident that Bates
had what it took to make it work for personal computers, which had
just recently been invented by a colleague of his. Fortunately for
Bates though, IBM was interested in most anything he was going to
come up with, while his colleague with the personal computers
wanted his own company with his own software, there would be no
sharing of computer components for him. What really troubled Bates
was this persistent error with the software, which he tried and
failed to purge when he tried going through nearly every line of
code. However, if the computer scientists at Area 51 thought he
could make money this way through upgrades, then who was he to
argue? There were others working on personal computers with IBM, so
hopefully this software would be a hit with consumers.

Bates introduced his new company,
Nanotech, to the world five years later. His software, a disk
operating system called, Tech Works, was put on the open market
less than a year later, for a substantial asking price, but people
bought it anyway. Everyone complained of an error that randomly
popped-up, which everyone took to calling the Green Screen of
Horrors, which required the user to re-boot their computer and
start over. This software error espcially ticked off those who
forgot to save anything they were working on, requiring some to
retype documents hundreds of pages long. Others, who hated Tech
Works software, began working on their own versions, including
Black Cap Frinex, which could be run simultaneously with Tech
Works, and Grapes’ less than flexible Macroniche software. Bates
soon became one of the richest men in the world, but was
occasionally required by Area 51 to donate his time, money, and
computer talent to aide them in the further advancement of human
space travel.

He helped design a more
advanced space probe that NASA had originally wanted to launch into
deep space, which was going to be called
Voyager 1
. The secret government
scientists derailed that project and put in line a probe that would
have fusion engine capability, the computer would have
microprocessors that would run fifty times faster than anything
currently being used, sensors that could pick up minutely detailed
information about any planet it scanned, and was equipped with a
Ragnor cloaking device to disguise it from the Terrans and whomever
else came across it. Another NASA robot mission, which was supposed
to land on Mars and study its surface, called
Viking
, was also cancelled
due to supposed budgetary cutbacks by Congress against NASA, or at
least that was the official line.

The
Viking
was transferred to the
complete control of Area 51, who had its engineers upgrade the
systems. The robot probe would still appear to be taking soil and
atmospheric samples, but it would also be taking pictures of the
entire planet, looking for the exact location of the Terran Base.
The
Viking
was launched from the Nevada desert a year later and made the
trip to Mars in eight months. The probe scanned the entire planet,
found the location it was looking for, and snapped a few pictures.
It landed a few hundred miles away, and appeared to be doing the
scientific experiments it was programmed to do, in case any prying
eyes decided to investigate what it was doing. The Terrans
themselves had decided it was just a harmless probe, mostly because
Gagarin had reassured them that the Americans and the Russians had
wanted to explore all the planets in the solar system. He had also
implied that nobody on Earth knew anything about the Terrans or the
Mars Base, this robot probe on Mars was a scientific experiment and
nothing more, there was no need to worry.

Back on Earth, the pictures
the
Viking
had taken finally arrived in the data stream and the
scientists of Area 51 began poring over them. About twenty minutes
into looking at the pictures, one of the scientists shouted, “I
found it!”

Everyone in the room rushed over to look
and see what was in the picture. A massive dome shaped building
with some spacecraft sitting on the outside was pictured. There
appeared to be no defensive weapons that could be seen of any sort
around the building or in the immediate vicinity, but, they did see
plenty of communications devices. General James Bridger, who
recently replaced Yeager as the Base Commander of Area 51, ordered
the scientists, “I want these photos doctored so they can be
released to various media outlets, and make sure nobody can see the
actual buildings or anything associated with the base. We can’t
have anyone panicking. Everyone understand?” The scientists voiced
their agreement. When the pictures were doctored, they were smudged
to make it appear that a face was staring out from Mars, and some
newspapers posted headlines saying this was proof that Mars either
currently had life or had once supported life sometime in the
distant past. The idea that there was life on Mars captured the
imagination of the American public, because people began asking if
the United States would ever send a manned space mission to the
fourth planet from the sun, everyone hoping it was accomplished in
their lifetimes.

“
Houston, the
Hubble Space Telescope
is
now successfully in orbit and operating at peak efficiency. May we
see amazing things that we’ve never seen before.
Discovery
out.”
stated the commander of the mission.

NASA turned over the
Hubble
mission
to the Space Telescope Science Institute, where they began to
search the stars. Area 51, in the meantime, had planned a space
searching mission for the
Hubble
. The Area 51 scientists were
given an allotted time to use the telescope, they didn’t give an
exact reason for wanting to use the telescope, but they were given
the time to do so anyway. In the control center, General Bridger
said, “With this new super telescope we can now search for the
Ragnor star system. Has the coordinates Ostoro given us been
uploaded to the
Hubble
?”

“
The upload is nearing completion
now, General. After the upload, it’ll take a few minutes for the
computer on board the
Hubble
to adjust the lenses and locate
the exact coordinates of the Ragnor solar system. Once we’re able
to search out that part of space, we will know exactly where to
find the Ragnor. Would you also like for us to focus in on Alpha
Centauri, sir?”

“Not right now, Dr. Travis. Ostoro’s home
system is our first priority. Once we make our detailed scans,
Alpha Centauri will be the next system we scan on our next
scheduled use of the telescope.”

Twenty minutes later, the computer
informed Travis and his associates that
Hubble
had located the coordinates
of where the Ragnors’ home solar system was supposed to be located.
The real-time scan of the Ragnor solar system was projected onto an
enormous screen at the front of the control room. The telescope
lenses focused on the target, only to come up with what appeared to
be an empty sector of space. There were stars near the sector, but
not one located where Ostoro said that one would be. For a few
minutes longer, Travis tried to re-focus the
Hubble
and make sure they
weren’t imagining an empty sector of space, but it was to no avail.
General Bridger, who was a very hands-on kind of boss, was nearing
the end of his patience, when he said, “Someone bring Ostoro up
here. Now!”

Ten minutes later, Ostoro came into the
control center accompanied by two human guards bigger than him. He
walked over to the General, glanced over at the screen, a small
smirk appeared on his face, and asked, “What can I do for you,
General?”

“What can you do for me, you smug alien?
Would you care to explain why there isn’t a star system at the
coordinates you gave us?”