[The Fear Saga 01] - Fear the Sky (2014) (3 page)

He took a breath and continued, walking around the colonel to the console as the junior officer seated at it leant to one side to allow him to reach the keyboard. “Sooo, if these guys don’t seem to have many of those gaps,” he said as he typed into the machine, looking up at the screen as the mass estimates changed under his fingertips, and the computer began to recalculate the way the objects would react to the earth’s atmosphere, “they may have a higher mass to volume ratio, they may be denser, in which case they … might … do … this.” he said as he clicked enter on the last of the reconfigured estimates.

They all looked at the screen as the alternate entry statistics appeared.

The colonel’s obstinacy was not born of ignorance or stupidity, as it turned out, but of long practice of authority, and he was just as quick as his neighbors to see the implications of the new numbers.

“Yes, this
would
make it more interesting,” he said quietly.

Revised: NOTICE OF ANTICIPATED ATMOSPHERIC PENETRATION

Time logged: 0344 MST

Date logged: September 20

Time Last Modified: 1257 MST

Date Last Modified: September 27

Location: AMFPS85 Radar Array

Noted by: Neal P. Danielson

Note Type: First Contact [never gets old]

Est. Date/Time of Atmospheric Penetration: October 4, ~10am GMT

Est. Volume: ~1.35 km
³

Est. Mass: ~116k tons

Impact Probability: Scattered debris

Est. Impact Location(s): Multiple sites: all oceanic,

- North Atlantic, two impacts possible near Outer Hebrides, Scotland, and the Channel Islands

- Northern Pacific, two impacts possible across northern Pacific near Bering Strait

- East China Sea, impact possible northwest of the Okinawa archipelago

- Indian Ocean, two impacts possible: one in the Bay of Bengal near Sri Lanka, one southwest of the Kathiawar peninsula in the Arabian Sea

Incident ID: ColonelMiltonBlows

The colonel walked behind and to the right of the pair of scientists down a long, neon-lit beige corridor, herding them to turn left or right as required. Neal had tried to let the colonel go first as the man knew where they were going better than either Neal or Laurie did, but the military man’s training would not allow him to have civilians walking behind him in the high-security facility, out of sight, as it were.

As they walked in relative silence, Neal noted that unlike himself, Dr. West had not tried to argue the point with Colonel Milton, and had simply started walking in the direction indicated by the colonel’s outstretched hand. As she was clearly not one to blindly follow societal gender mores, it was obvious that she was simply more aware of which arguments could and could not be won with men like the colonel. The point was not lost on Neal, and he decided to try and follow her lead in the upcoming military briefing, noting with satisfaction that he was not as pigheaded as his ex-girlfriends typically said he was.

“We’ll be taking this next left.” the colonel interjected from behind them, continuing as they turned onto another uncomfortably well-lit beige corridor, “We’ll be meeting in Teleconference Room B526 up here on the right.”

As they approached Barrett Milton stepped to the door before them and, pausing as he clasped its handle, spoke in an aside to Neal, “Before we go in I just wanted to confirm that you changed the Incident ID on that report, I had meant to mention it in the control room but our conversation went a bit long and it slipped my mind.”

“Yes,” said Neal in a similarly low voice, remembering the report’s less than diplomatic name, “about that.” The colonel froze at Neal’s hesitation and frowned very sharply at the scientist, apparently considering bringing his not inconsiderable martial training to bear on the man.

The colonel spoke quietly but sharply, “I like a joke as much as the next man, Mr. Danielson, but this is going in front of important…”

“No, Colonel, no. You misunderstand. I tried to change it, I really did,” Neal held his hands up to placate Barrett, remembering his very real and quite frantic attempts to edit out his quip once the incident came into the spotlight as ‘requiring further investigation.’

“But apparently once you submit a report,” Neal continued, “you cannot edit its ID, something about ‘tracking’ and ‘validity of data.’”

The truth was that Neal didn’t dislike this Colonel Barrett Milton guy nearly as much in person as he had after their initial phone conversation. Plus the ‘guy’ in question was roughly six foot, his angular jaw and rugged features emphasized by a clearly enthusiastic athletic regime, and it was obvious to Neal that the man could happily beat the younger, but somewhat flabbier, scientist to a Tropicana pulp if the inclination grabbed him.

Like before, Laurie saw an opportune moment to interpose herself between the two men, this time physically as well as metaphorically, and as she pushed past them toward the door, she said, “We need not mention the title as we introduce the topic, Colonel, nor, I’m sure, does anyone read that part of the report.”

As she said, this she remembered, with a well-hidden smile, the name of the incident, and hoped her analysis of the reading habits of the room they were about to enter was accurate. The colonel contemplated the number of far worse things he had baked into official reports as a lieutenant to spite his fellow junior officers and calmed himself. After a moment’s pause, he released his grasp on the door handle so the doctor could enter the conference room, his sheen of professionalism and authority rising over his anger, like rising water snuffing a flame.

Neal followed Laurie into the room, apologizing silently to the once again unflappable colonel as he passed. The room contained a long table with about five chairs along each side, and one at the end nearest the door. An extremely large flat screen was at the other end with a camera mounted above it, and flat, omni-directional microphones were arranged intermittently along the table’s length.

An air force technician sat about midway down the table at a small touch screen console, setting up the link with the meeting’s other participants at the Pentagon. The screen itself simply said “WAITING FOR PARTICIPANTS” with the kind of infinite, machine patience that sentience simply won’t allow.

Standing to one side was the colonel’s aide, who had left the control room ahead of them to make sure the conference room was set up. As Laurie took a seat, the screen came to life and a gathering meeting showed on the other end. It was full of highly decorated senior officers and a couple of more expensively dressed, if less well-decorated civilians who were busy sitting their suited selves down, arranging their papers while they arranged their thoughts.

“The link is muted,” prompted the technician as he went to leave, “the sound control is here,” he said, pointing at a small button and volume control next to the microphone in front of the colonel.

The colonel looked at the button and nodded, but did not look up from his seat at the head of the table as the technician left. The colonel’s aide went to the door and confirmed it was securely closed, per procedure, and then took one of several seats arranged around the outside of the room, leaving eight empty chairs at the large, immaculately polished conference table itself. Neal watched her sit on the outside, and was unsure whether he was happy to be at the grown-ups table, or annoyed at the triumph of hierarchy over practicality. Then he thanked the gods that he wasn’t in the military himself, and took the seat opposite Laurie, with the colonel between them at the table’s head.

“The meeting will be led by General Pickler of Air Force Intelligence,” the colonel said, indicating the man at the head of the table on the big screen. “So you know, Mr. Danielson, they can see several other conference rooms from their screen. My report will be one of several that will be made at this meeting, and the objects of your report will be one of several I will be reporting on. You will speak only when asked to, and only on the topic of your report. This meeting will be classified level P5 based on the presence of you and some other low-level civilians. So you know, I checked and confirmed that your Armed Services Secrecy Act Agreement is up to date prior to approving your attendance here today. Consider yourself informed that this meeting most definitely falls under the auspices of that contract.”

Neal noticed the colonel was looking specifically at him as he said this. He nodded seriously, but inside him he felt two conflicting emotions coming to the forefront as the colonel spoke: firstly, how damn cool it was to be attending a classified meeting, but secondly, it was also dawning on him that he had clearly just signed up for what was probably going to be two hours of serious tedium. This would be a thorough test of his inherent allergy to monotony, delivered as only the military can deliver monotony. He only hoped he didn’t actually fall asleep as he had so often in class. No, that would be bad, he thought. Shit, have to stay awake, he thought. Shit, what am I doing here, he thought.

The colonel then turned briefly to the doctor, seated calmly on his other side in her somehow smart white T-shirt. On top of the T-shirt she wore a knee-length, grey, thick-knit woolen cardigan, which framed an exquisitely well-polished silver necklace from a trip to the Mayan Riviera decades ago.

“Dr. West,” he said, “as with all our meetings so far in your stay with us at the Array, this falls under the Agreement you are no doubt very familiar with. Level P5, as I said before.”

Laurie nodded professionally and they all turned to the screen, where they too seemed to be coming to some kind of order. Barrett clicked on the sound button and ‘Mute Off’ appeared briefly in the center of the screen.

“… ime we got started, gentlemen, ladies.” said the general at the head of the other table. The hubbub died down, the general nodded to his aide and scribe to his side, and began:

“Good afternoon, everyone, let’s get started. Plenary Briefing of United States Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance Branch, September 27
^th
, General Pickler chairing.

“We’ve completed our roll-call at this end,” the general said, looking to his aide for a nod of confirmation. The aide leaned towards him, “Level P11, as usual, sir.” he mouthed to the general, indicating the lowest level of security clearance at their end of the room.

“If we could start with you, Colonel Milton.” the general prompted.

“Colonel Milton, Level 11, for ANFPS85 on the line, sir. Dr. Laurie West you know, Level 13, I also have a Mr. Neal Danielson for a spot analysis, Level 5 clearance, and Lieutenant Diorio, Level 11.”

The various other unseen sites on the briefing call provided their information, acknowledged by the general as Colonel Milton had been, and soon the meeting began in earnest. Over the course of the next forty-five minutes the general ran through a checklist of agenda items that apparently all the participants at the other end were privy to. He stopped at various points to allow various parties, both seen and unseen, to contribute in a well-orchestrated interplay of highly educated experts, informing highly ranked and often equally highly qualified officers. Topics included reports, analyses and think tanks on a variety of space-related surveillance topics from satellite tracking and development to launch monitoring programs, both at home and abroad.

As discussion of each agenda item came to a close, it was either closed or tabled for review in closed door meetings as deemed appropriate by the general after a form of hierarchal democratic consent had been reached which only effective military organizations and the occasional medieval government have ever done well.

In the meantime, Neal considered his fellow classified meeting attendees. Laurie was, undoubtedly, extremely clever, what was less expected was her lack of conceit or patronizing tone. Of course, being very nice and inclusive is, in its way, a conceit of the extremely clever and accomplished, albeit a more pleasant one.

That said, he brimmed with a pride he’d not felt in some time when he recalled how effectively he had explained his theory to her, and not for the first time he longed for the higher echelons of scientific pursuit which a younger, more arrogant Neal had spurned. He envied the patience that he knew she must have displayed in the decades she had no doubt spent under people less gifted than her before reaching the level which she clearly now enjoyed. Patience he himself had always had trouble showing during his shorter and distinctly less exalted career.

As the meeting proceeded, he noticed that she would occasionally interpose a thought or suggestion, always to the attentive silence of the group at the Pentagon, but she never grandstanded. Colonel Milton proved equally surprising. He was not a dolt, as Neal had assumed, but a capable man who was actually in the right job here at the Array. He had demonstrated surprisingly little difficulty absorbing the new ideas Neal had proposed, and had shown virtually none of the inflexibility that Neal expected from a man of his rank and station. Within his arena the colonel’s was clearly a strong mind, trained after years of rigmarole into a practical conformity that was no doubt appropriate to his rank.

While the stereotype had been wrong for the colonel, though, it was becoming clear it was very much applicable to General Pickler, Neal thought, as he looked at the general’s corpulent face. Though he had a strong stature, his coloration showed that an abundance of a younger man’s indulgences were still stubbornly allowed to pass his lips, and no doubt he would continue to insist he was fine till the day his seemingly healthy, five-mile-a-day body keeled over, his bacon and filet mignon soaked blood finally congealing in his veins.

Sadistically entertained though Neal was by this image after nearly an hour of painstakingly banal briefings, he was broken from his reverie by the sudden turn of the meeting’s focus to the topic he was here to discuss.

“Colonel Milton,” the general said, “you had some business from the Array’s comet, asteroid and meteor review, I believe. Another Armageddon, is it, colonel?” the general chuckled as he made his little joke, bless.