[The Fear Saga 01] - Fear the Sky (2014) (23 page)

With this technology, new probes were built and fired off through the sun. They each followed carefully planned routes through a series of planets and suns, eventually reaching previously inconceivable hyper-light speeds through the cosmos.

These new hyper-probes would never decelerate. As they began to pass out of the range of the huge onboard subspace tweeters that made up the bulk of their mass, another would be launched along the same path, stringing their communications out across trillions of miles, across light years, the chains of probes extending outward like ethereal tentacles, probing the cosmos and returning what they discovered via subspace. With data relayed back along these ever extending antennae, if a promising planet was discovered, or gas giant with a massive moon that required closer inspection, then the next probe in the chain could tweak its course, still following its cousin, but taking a closer look at whatever might have peaked their interest. Each pass providing greater and greater information on the systems and even the planets they passed through.

After that it was only a question of time until they found what they were looking for. Twenty years later they discovered us, and for the first time in the history of the planet the great empires united, the hope of this prize focusing their resources on the construction of the great fleet they would need to first subdue us, and then colonize our world.

A plan was formulated to build a navy capable of conquering a planet. Ships to carry an army and a colonization force of almost a million would be built to travel within the largest accelospheres that had ever been conceived. They would follow a route through two planets, then into their own sun already travelling at 5% of the speed of light. By the time they emerged they would be travelling at nearly 25% of light speed, and they would vanish from their solar system in a matter of hours en route to the next star as they built up their speed ever further, using the existential properties of the accelosphere to move past the very limitations of relativity. Eventually they would ignite their great braking engines and spend the majority of their actual journey in heavy deceleration, their passengers’ bodies immobilized against the colossal pressures.

As the fleet was being designed, tacticians and strategists struggled for the first time with the problem of invading a planet. They analyzed the unique advantages that they had, both from a technological perspective, and also those inherent advantages that came from being the aggressor. It was clear that defending a planet against attack would be a difficult proposition at best, impossible as it is to effectively defend something so large, where all its inhabitants live on its outside, only a feeble atmosphere between them and the void.

That said, the inhabitants of Earth had one notable advantage over their attackers. It was not much, but it was inherent to the fact that the earth, though vulnerable, was the very thing that the invaders craved. For the Mobiliei, as they were called, required not only to wipe the humans out, but to do so without destroying the very world they lived on.

The analogy was drawn to an empire trying to take possession of a fortress from a weaker force. Even if the invading army possessed the artillery necessary to kill everyone in the fortress with ease, it was of no use if they destroyed the fortress itself in the process.

This would not, necessarily, have been an issue had there not been clear signs of nuclear technology under development by the current inhabitants of Earth, its telltale signs clear to the passing probes that even now still studied the planet. The technology appeared embryonic, low yield, but that would change in the years it would take for the Armada to reach them. Not enough to close the technological gap between the two races, not even close, but enough, it was deduced, to threaten the planet should they unleash it in their defense when the Armada arrived.

Though far superior to their quarry in terms of technology, the Mobiliei had found no method yet for subduing or containing the unencumbered power of a nuclear explosion, and the likelihood that humanity would resort to a nuclear conflagration as they struggled to avoid their own annihilation was far too high to be ignored. No, the foe they faced would no doubt unleash any and all of their primitive weaponry in their defense when faced with the military might that approached them.

And even if the ships of the fleet could be shielded against the onslaught, when the humans eventually, desperately launched their nuclear arsenal at their attackers, they would, in the process, irradiate much of the precious planet they were defending.

There was much debate on this. But even the most forgiving models could not eliminate the possibility. After all, Earth would have plenty of warning that the Armada was coming, the great fires of the Mobiliei’s engines as they decelerated toward their goal would announce their arrival years before they could bring their guns to bear, shining, as they would, like new stars in the sky.

So the Mobiliei’s strategists concluded that brute force alone would not succeed. The option of using biochemical weapons was explored and a virus was developed that could be seeded into Earth’s atmosphere before the majority of the Armada arrived.

It was clear that this would be the easiest method of attaining victory. But even such a brutally effective tool of extinction would have the downside of leaving every oil tanker, nuclear power station, jet airplane, and chemical plant on the earth’s surface suddenly un-manned. Could this theoretically be timed just so with the arrival of the fleet to avoid an environmental disaster of epic proportions? Perhaps. Again, repeated scenario modeling came close, but would not say, with any certainty, that it could be avoided, and there would be no second chances here, they needed to be as close to 100% as possible.

And so the threat of that pollution and radioactivity soiling their prize brought them back to the original problem. Like a child’s innocence, a planet’s natural beauty was not something that could be reclaimed easily if destroyed. So again the strategists returned to the drawing board. There would be little or no room for adjustment once plans were set in motion, and so the plan itself must factor all eventualities.

A plan with more finesse was required.

Finally the generals and admirals of the Great Fleet decided that they must send a smaller, more discrete advanced force ahead of them, with the goal of infiltrating any and all military forces with a tenable nuclear capability. With the help of stealthed AI satellites that would accompany this small force, they would strive to clip humanity’s nuclear claws, preparing them for quick defeat.

As the plan began to take shape, the emperors and empresses of Mobilius began to lick their lips over our precious world. But amongst all this fervor, not all the world’s houses were as enthusiastic as they might seem. In closed meetings, amongst old allies and close friends, the leaders of some of the ancient nomadic trading families grew ever more disquieted by what their race had embarked upon. The images sent back by the probe made them long to visit our planet: not to own it, but to explore it. To meet us and, once dialogue had been established, to open up the greatest trading route of all time. And so, quietly, discreetly, a few of the smaller but very wealthy city states united in a covert effort to subvert the planned attack.

Leveraging their expertise and significant resources, they worked diligently to remain a key part of the Armada’s construction, all the while seeding the staff and crews with a network of spies and allies. Their greatest coup was, without doubt, when they managed to focus all of their influence and political capital into placing one of their own minds amongst the prestigious eight selected to have their personalities implanted into the machine Agents of the advanced team.

This double agent would warn humanity about the coming attack, and try to thwart the plans of the other Agents sent ahead to stop Earth from fighting back. It might only delay the inevitable, but the Nomadi’s history of persecution and oppression at the hands of Mobiliei fed the trader’s desire to help the weaker, unsuspecting humans. They knew they could not be certain of the outcome, they knew that the odds were very much against them. But they also knew they could not sit idly by and bear the shame. They had to resist. They had to find some way to help us in the coming fight for our survival.

As he finished describing the story of his race and the method of their coming attack, John Hunt suggested that they focus the little remaining time they had that night as efficiently as possible.

Madeline was clearly overwhelmed. Neal, though, was lapping it all up, clearly fascinated, his desire to let the questions flow from him only stemmed by John’s ceaseless speech, never taking a breath, never needing one. The luxury of idle conversation was not available in the little time they had.

“And so, as far as my colleagues and I can see, there are three things that must be done in order for you to have a chance of survival.” he said at one point.

“As we have already discussed, we must fundamentally improve the scale of Earth’s defenses. Secondly, in order to give those defenses the ability to be effective against what is coming we must introduce several new technologies. I would say that was going to be hard enough, but before we can work on either of those things we must stop the other Agents from accomplishing their mission. Which will mean destroying them, and the satellites we have in orbit even now.”

Neal nodded, and Madeline began to ask what new innovations they should be looking into, but John stopped her. “Before we get started on that, I must insist we focus on the task of dealing with the advanced team. I must tell you that my team is very capable of defending itself against attack. The task of defeating the other seven, and the AI satellites that we brought with us, is going to be harder than you know.

“And to make matters more complicated, I have to tell you that we came up with a backup plan in case, for some reason, we were discovered. If all else fails and we are defeated, the hub-satellites have the super-virus I told you about before on board to be used as a final resort.”

The two stunned faces opposite him stared aghast at this turn. John went on, “If they perceive that there is a credible threat to the mission, they will release the virus into the atmosphere in a series of cluster bombs. They will not allow you to prepare for the coming fleet. They cannot risk it.”

Madeline broke the ensuing silence, “Can we take out the satellites before they can release the virus?”

“Destroying them will require a massive amount of weaponry to get past their defenses, but even if we mount a successful attack without their knowing about it in advance, no amount of firepower could destroy all four satellites before one or all of them dropped their pathogen clusters into the atmosphere. You should know that one successful release would be enough to wipe out up to half of Earth’s population.”

They both stared, aghast, again. It was becoming a habit.

John labored on, once more, “No, before we can actually attack them, you must develop the antibody and a method of distributing it, and you must do so covertly. To that end, I am going to give you a detailed breakdown of the virus, but more importantly, I am to give you the design for a universal nano-antigen that can be used to combat the virus.”

And with that, John handed the pad he had been holding to them. All the while he had been talking he had been doodling on the pad in front of him, or at least that was how it had seemed. In fact, he had assigned a subroutine within him control of his arm and given it a set of data to replicate onto the pad. It had then set to writing a phenomenally detailed dossier for Madeline and Neal while John talked to them, leaving it to its task.

Neal began to leaf through it all. It included a detailed description of the virus and the associated antigen, with schematics and chemical breakdowns. Subsequent pages listed, in exhaustive detail, the other seven Agents, their ranks, locations past and present, mission parameters and interim goals, and a phenomenal set of facial sketches for each, both front and in profile. Neal continued to flick through the pad, coming to design drawings for machines he did not even begin to understand and John reached out to rest his hand on the top of the dossier.

Neal stopped looking through the information and looked up at John, his face meek like a child after the TV has been shut off.

“You can spend time looking at that later,” said John, “for now, we have more to discuss.”

* * *

That had all been ten minutes ago.

There had been so much to decide, so much to talk about, that John had suggested that they stick to areas where immediate decisions needed to be made, decisions like who they should recruit into the team, and what they were going to need to do to move forward.

When, in the course of the remaining conversation, questions came up which John felt he could answer without debate, he had told them he would add it to his notes, and he took back the pad, his hand once more starting to write and draw at astonishing speed on page after page. Now that they knew what it was doing, it became ever harder to ignore the strange sight, or to escape how cool it was, Neal thought, stifling a boyish grin.

At last their time had come to an end and John had stood, handed them the sheaf of papers he had written, and bid them farewell, leaving to drive back to Norfolk and pretend to the AI that he had just woken from his faux sleep.

They spent the first half an hour after he left just reading through his notes. For now John focused on designs that would help in the fight against the other seven Agents. He had given them designs for jamming devices and body armor, as well as for hand-to-hand combat weapons whose lethality would make any general almost sexually excited.

He had also included the design for the nano-medical device. Madeline tried to wrap her head around it. If they could manufacture this, it would, quite literally, cure almost every communicable disease ever faced. The implications were staggering.