Nu Trilogy 1: The Esss Advance (19 page)

The United Space Navy had only three fleets. The first fleet (and by far the largest) was stationed in Earth orbit. Its primary function was to maintain order in the near-Earth environs. The second fleet was moon-based, and the third fleet was based in Mars orbit but was responsible for maintaining order everywhere other than on Earth or the moon.

At the moment, First Fleet was on the hot seat, and Fleet Admiral Joshua Brooks was feeling that heat. Brooks had been monitoring the alien flyby of the moon from his quarters aboard the USpN battle cruiser
Invincible
. When the feed from Governor Winton’s office made it painfully obvious that the visitors were just bypassing the moon and heading for Earth, he moved directly from his desk to the door opening into Fleet Control Center (FCC).

As he entered FCC, his flag aide, Lieutenant Anthony Manzelli announced, “Admiral on the bridge,” even though this was not technically the bridge. In a weightless environment, everyone could not rise and stand at attention at the appearance of a superior officer. The Navy had developed new protocols whereby everyone not engaged in a critical task would turn toward their superior officer and slap their hand to their chest over their heart, similar to the old Roman legions.

“As you were,” Brooks said, and the rustle of everyone turning back to their stations added a bit of normalcy to this otherwise bizarre situation.

“Commander Santos, I need an update on when our visitors will cross our line of defense.”

“Sir, the visitors are proceeding directly in system at approximately thirty-two thousand kilometers per hour and should reach our defensive perimeter in just over eight hours. If we maintain our current orbital configuration, B Wing will be at the approximate crossover point.”

“I assume that means we will have just passed that point with B Wing coming up directly behind us?”

“Yes sir. We will be about eighteen thousand kilometers past the intercept.”

Brooks nodded. “Okay. Notify Captain Greene that I want A Wing to expand its orbit so that we will intercept the three ships just above B Wing. That way we will have at least two wings between them and Earth. Since they are ignoring all of our communications, I think we need to get a little more aggressive and interpose a few of our ships directly in their flight path. Have B Wing running with weapons hot below A Wing while we try to wake them up by blocking their path. I want three destroyers dispatched from A Wing, one for each of the alien vessels. They are to break from the wing ten minutes before intercept and head directly into the incoming flight paths. We are going to play a little game of chicken.”

The scout leader detected numerous ships orbiting this planet in what appeared to be a spherical defensive perimeter. This could prove to be a problem, depending on the ships’ capabilities. Since its orders were not to engage with the locals, it would have to find a way through this rather thin picket line. Once through, however, each scout would have to deal with possible pursuit and disruption of the assigned tasks. It was time to split up and use their superior acceleration and speed to avoid any confrontation.

The leader passed on specific orders to the other scouts. Instead of establishing orbits around the planet just above the atmosphere for completing the mapping, they would have to make multiple high-speed passes over the planet from slightly further out. This would use up more fuel, but they had plenty to spare. The biggest disadvantage was that each of the scouts would have to remain in their acceleration tanks during the mapping process. Controlling the mapping equipment was easier from outside of the tanks but not impossible while immersed. Presetting the laser mapping controls before entering the tanks should be sufficient. If any fine adjustments became necessary, the scout leader would suspend the mapping process long enough to exit the tank, make the adjustments, and reenter the tank before the next high-speed pass over the planet.

AlvaResh was ready to intervene. It was time to increase the intelligence levels of the bipedal species that was developing at the edges of the receding forests. A young male and female had been captured and brought aboard their reconnaissance ship and were sedated in the laboratory. The genetic code in the egg and sperm of these two specimens needed several small alterations. The first would increase the size of the hips. The second would increase the size of the brain cavity. The larger hips would allow for better balance in bipedal walking and easier birth of the larger heads. The larger brain cavity would allow for expanded neural connections to bring the species into a state of self-awareness.

Normally, starting with just a single pair of this species would risk failure if they were unable to survive in their harsh environment. This would not be a problem, however, because the governor was going to extrude a portion of itself into each of these specimens. There was nothing better than on-the-spot monitoring to insure their safety. Also, remaining close by for an extended number of years to protect this pair would ensure the spreading of their genes into several successive generations.

“Sir, they’re splitting up and accelerating in three different directions,” Commander Santos reported. “They are already up to almost eighty thousand kilometers per hour, and each has a heading to pass through our screen in less than twenty minutes.”

“Plot the contact points, Commander,” Brooks replied. “I need to know if we will have any of our ships close enough to intercept.”

Thirty seconds later, Santos reported, “They have chosen their breach points very carefully sir. We cannot get any ship close to them.”

“Get me Naval Headquarters.”

Fifteen seconds later, Brooks was connected to Andrea Miller, Secretary of the Space Navy.

“What do you have for me, Admiral?”

“Ma’am, the visitors will breach our perimeter in less than twenty minutes and will be heading directly toward Earth with unknown intentions. They have accelerated to a speed far beyond our capability to pursue or even for a missile to strike. The only thing that could catch them would be a laser weapon.”

“Thank you, Fleet Admiral. Have you seen any evidence of hostile intent?”

“No, ma’am. They were ignoring us completely until we interposed our ships between them and Earth, and then they changed their approach by accelerating around us.”

“I’ll get back to you if we have any further orders, Admiral.”

Secretary Miller cut the connection.

The three scouts blew through the perimeter and passed over the planet at three times the height of the local atmosphere. Their courses intersected briefly after this first pass so the scout leader could consolidate their reconnaissance and send it back to the base ship. Then each scout executed a tight turn for the next pass. This was not as efficient as simply orbiting the planet, but the mapping could still be completed with only twelve passes, with the data from each pass sent back to base before starting the next.

Richard Collins woke up to loud banging on the door of his Canal street apartment. He stumbled out of bed and put on his frayed old bathrobe as he headed from the bedroom to the apartment door.

“Just a minute,” he yelled as he flipped on the lights. He took a quick look around the living room and then shrugged his shoulders. “Whoever you are, you’ll have to put up with a messy apartment,” he muttered to himself.

At the front door, Richard activated the camera feed from the apartment hallway and saw three men in suits standing outside his door. Pushing the intercom button, he said gruffly “Who the hell do you think you are, knocking on my door at two o’clock in the morning?”

“Open the door, Mr. Collins. I’m special agent Mark Singleton from the FBI and we have a warrant to search your apartment and your office.”

“Just a minute,” replied Richard as he disengaged several locking mechanisms on his door and pulled it open to admit the FBI agents. “What the hell do you guys want?  Don’t you realize it’s too early to be pulling this kind of crap?”

“Don’t worry about what time it is,” said the agent. “Here is your copy of the warrant. We are looking for any documents associated with your publication of classified information regarding the alien visitors. If you tell us your source and turn over all of the materials you have, we can be on our way.”

“Excuse me, please, while I contact my lawyer. You can search all you want, either here or at the office, but I will never reveal my sources.”

With that, Richard picked up his personal comm device and dialed his lawyer’s number. He knew that the FBI would try to question him further, and he was not talking without proper representation.

When Richard and the FBI agents reached the offices of the
New York Rag
, his lawyer was waiting for them, and that ended the questioning very quickly. The offices had been relocated to the top floor of a small commercial building on the lower east side of Manhattan not far from his Canal Street residence. Since Richard still did not know the identity of “The Insider”, he couldn’t reveal the name of the source to the FBI anyway. That, however, wouldn’t stop them from asking in the future, because the aliens were now buzzing around the Earth for some unknown reason. 

When the agents left, Richard decided to get right to work. With the Rag’s circulation figures now exceeding 100,000 copies a day, he was forced to spend almost all of his time overseeing his news staff of four actual reporters and he always felt like he was behind and just couldn’t seem to catch up.

In the meantime, he had recently contacted three additional bloggers with inside tracks to the North American Union who could provide background information on what was happening inside the government to prepare for the aliens’ arrival. He had been able to offer the bloggers what some might consider exorbitant fees for their stories. These bloggers continued with their regular blogs but found the time to pass sensitive information to Richard for publication in the
Rag,
each under their own nom de plume. Now he had to worry about these sources being bothered by the FBI.

Richard was hoping that tonight’s edition would have something substantive to report. He hadn’t heard from “The Insider” today, so he was scrambling for filler stories just in case. Reporting the news was definitely much harder than the rumor reporting of the past. Perhaps a story about the FBI harassing the paper was in order.

“They’ve been flying over Earth like bees flying around their nest,” Secretary Miller reported to the Council of Eight. “By analyzing their flight paths, we have surmised they are making detailed maps of Earth’s surface. They have not flown over any place twice and will probably complete their mapping runs with only two more passes. What they do next is a matter of pure speculation.”

Council president Sir William Travers held up his had to quell the immediate outpouring of conversation stimulated by this report. “Let’s have some order please.”

Travers waited for the buzzing to stop before he spoke. “Let me summarize what we know so far. First, we have an unknown alien presence in the system with a large vessel in orbit around Jupiter. Second, we have three smaller alien craft that were dispatched from the large vessel and sent in system for unknown purposes. Third, we sent a convoy toward Jupiter that encountered these three smaller ships while on their outbound flight. All attempts at communication from the convoy failed. Fourth, the three vessels altered course as they approached Earth so that they could over fly the moon. Again, all attempts at communication failed. Fifth, the Navy attempted to interpose itself between the alien vessels and Earth, to no avail. Finally, the three alien vessels are now on what appears to be a mapping mission around Earth. Did I leave anything out?”

Councilman Jacques St. Just raised his hand and was recognized by the president. “We must note that there has been no direct evidence of aggression by the aliens to date. Personally, I would not recommend any course that would antagonize them. We need to take a wait and see approach.”

“I did not ask for recommendations at this point,” Travers said. “Let’s hold that until we wrap up the summary of what we know so far. I will add a seventh point to the list, noting no aggression to date. Now, does anyone have more to add?”

Miller raised her hand, even though she was not a council member. Travers nodded for her to speak.

“We must note that, as a race, the aliens have interstellar capabilities and that their technology is quite advanced beyond what we can currently produce. We could add quite a bit of detailed information about the three alien craft, but I think the only relevant point is that they have already demonstrated the ability to out-accelerate our best ships and to maintain velocities well above our current maximums, which are limited by our fuel capacity. Whatever other technology they have will probably be at least as far beyond our current capabilities as their vessels.”

“Thank you, Secretary Miller,” Travers said. “I think that summarizes our worst fears. What we do know makes us feel like we are simple natives encountering the first thrust of an oncoming advanced civilization.”

He gestured toward the door. “Okay, Secretary Miller, you are excused from the meeting. We will call you back in if we have further questions. At this point, I want to go around the table and get input and recommendations from each of the council members on what we should do next.”

As Miller closed the door behind her, she heard the buzz of multiple conversations around the council table. She only hoped they would come up with something constructive that the Space Navy could do in the face of these daunting aliens.