The Monkey and Squirrel fight for freedom. (24 page)

Jimmy and Dave had been given the task of pulling a team together to achieve something similar. Jimmy was relying on Dave for interpretation of the analysis, as engines were outside his field of expertise, it would be his name that would be used to attract the desired team. Get them working with Dodgy Dave on the actual engine project, while he built the ship to go round it.

The brief was it had to deliver tourists to the asteroid resort with a sub three month journey and in comfort. A space cruise ship, it had to look like a traditional rocket ship, have big viewing windows in the observation lounge, simulated gravity, that meant a large enough diameter. Needed to simulate earth normal gravity without making the passengers feel dizzy, and finally microgravity fun rooms for the passengers to play in, would on the centre of rotation.

His problem if he met the brief as written, it would dwarf the habitats, junking the brief he then provide a range of out line designs that loosely interpreted the brief. The smallest had accommodation gravity at half standard and looked most like a rocket ship, the middle one he thought the best compromise, the biggest one looked like a habitat with a big cone on the end that contained observation lounges fun rooms, state rooms and penthouses with a view.

They ordered two small ones and one each of the others, but build the middle sized one first, then the small ones his bosses instructed. He went round to Dave's lab he wanted to tell Dave in person. When he got to Dave's office he walked in on an argument, he told them to shut up, to his surprise they did, when he asked what was it about, Dave told him, “She maintains that what we have been brought together to do, cannot be done.”

“Is that your opinion, well just look at this analysis of an actual vessel in operation, then tell us it cannot be done, when it clearly has been, we just have to copy it.” said Jimmy now enjoying the shocked expression on the face of the expert as the numbers sank in.

“Is this for real?” The expert Sheila Jones asked eventually.

“Yes it’s from the best instruments that could be brought to bare, analysed by the best minds available, it's as real as it possibility can be. The aim apparently is to get it up to ten percent light speed to cruse to Barnard's star, the first ones destination was Proxima Centauri, our furry friends don't lack ambition. So tell me do you think you're as capable as a monkey, if not you're not on the team any more Sheila Jones.” stated Jimmy.

The ambitious but conventional scientist engineer snapped back,

“Of course I'm as at least as capable as those monstrosities, yes I know it's our fault but that's what they are. As a result we're all charging around in space all over the place, studying nothing before mining it into an empty shell. It's so disorganised and messy, I only hope it all calms down so things can get back on a serious scientific footing once more.”

“So you don't find it all exciting and interesting then?”asked Jimmy.

“Not exciting, confusing but interesting, and the prospect of being booted off a prestige job like this by Dodgy Dave, leaves me fearing for my career. How do you know so much of what they want these probes to do, Jimmy?” asked Sheila.

“They tell us mostly, they first contacted me about a possible weakness in one of my habitats, I checked it out and they were right. The ultimate propose of these probes is for them to be able to follow, this is an early prototype plan, they left out a lot of detail as they hadn't started the experiments then.” Jimmy said as he put up the interstellar ship plans on the monitor.

She certainly has an expressive face thought Jimmy. Then he told them of the order and Dodgy Dave's face was also picture.

“Well Dave you're the barking mad ideas man, where do we start?” asked Sheila Jones.

“Well if we just add more acceleration stages, they have to be powered and the extra mass causes diminishing returns, clearly not the way to go, similar concerns apply to increasing the primary excitation.

Our initial route has to be more efficient stages, focusing on transferring more of the power we already have into thrust, our advantage is we know it's possible and the generic design hasn't changed much in sixty years.” said Dave.

Then they started talking about possible ways of achieving this, before they got to deep into it, Jimmy excused himself and left.

Major Johnson had been surprised by how much of Group Captain John Hampton's demands had been met, though it would put them even deeper into debt with the Chinese. Anyway time to read the report he had been avoiding so far, he couldn't put it off any longer.

Charlotte Thatcher and a few friends had spent three months on one of the Chinese habitats, he had asked Chinese security to keep a eye on her. They had asked why is she a person of interest, they had been surprised and a bit confused by the reply,

'she is a far greater threat to any society than any bunch of monkeys, protect your young people keep them away from her and her followers'.

They had been very obliging, the first report they sent him was very detailed, it didn't make comfortable reading. Chinese security had been shocked by what they had observed and thanked him for the warning, some of them had children on that habitat. As he feared this was just as detailed, including the specialist equipment she had made to her specifications during her stay.

The next one was usually more relaxing, the e-mail intercepts of Lad's (Tman) human crew mates. Carl noted even Plumber now joined in occasionally, his cancer now greatly limiting his potential for hedonistic pleasure. He read though the topics, the observations about Kuiper belt objects observed, no problems for him there, routine general exchanges about health, the same, then he sat up and read it again.

Lad's new job was designing new engines for the next generation of improved and more powerful fighters and drones. Being built to counter the proposed improvements in the human fighters, as well as engineering out the weakness reveal by the engagement. It's cat and pigeon time again, he thought to himself, better break the bad news, he passed the problem to technical to evaluate the potential size of the problem. But sent a summary to the Group Captain, just to let him know he could be facing a new type of drone. Faster with more fire power and the monkeys fighters were being up graded to remove weaknesses, increase speed and fire power.

Group Captain John Hampton took the news as calmly as you would expect, wing commander Wendy Glendower walked into his office in time to hear him running though his entire vocabulary of profanity for the second or third time.

“Bad news sir?” she asked raising an eyebrow.

“You could say that, I've copied the message to you.” he said

Wendy read the message, 

“What weaknesses?” Wendy said, thought for a second then said,

“ Lack of a missile defence is the only one I can think of sir.”

“Exactly, can you imagine what those two fighters would have done to us, if they had been equipped with a missile defence system?” John said shuddering at the thought.

“They might of taken out the carrier and us with it sir.” said Wendy.

“Right on the money, add to that they're making them faster and deadlier.” said John.

“Could it be a bluff sir, to make us give up and go home?” asked Wendy.

“We can hope wing commander, we can hope, but if those drones turn up, we'll know it's for real.” John said.

Then the link to the command centre, sounded off,

'flight two on route to relieve flight ten has been ambushed, all units disabled, rescue required.'

“Wing commander have you ever wished you had never said something, like I just did.”

“I think everyone has at some time sir.” replied Wendy.

“Most likely true.” John said as he hit the command link giving the order,

“Launch flights fourteen, sixteen and twenty two, twenty two to provide rescue and recovery, fourteen and sixteen to provide cover or counter attack as required. Flight ten maximum alert, possible imminent attack.”

When he finished speaking, he then joined Wendy in the Command centre next door, and got the detailed report. The flight had been attacked from the rear and disabled in less than two seconds, with twelve shots from two sources then nothing. Wendy and John looked at each other,

“The new drones.” they said together.

“Flights one, three and six launch, proceed to mining operation, one and three to relieve flight ten on protection duty, six to accompany ten back to carrier. New enemy drones in operation in system, number unknown, capable of firing multiple times, minimum of two flights in company at all times. That is all.” John ordered next.

“I'll chase new fighter production and crew training shall I sir?” asked Wendy.

“An excellent idea wing commander, if you can come up with a way to improve morale at the same time, it will be even better, carry on.” instructed John.

“Some thought is required before I stand a chance of delivering on that problem sir.” replied Wendy.

“Don't I just know it.” commiserated John.

They adjusted to the new situation, with irregular but often harassment attacks, no one was killed, but everyone was irritated and anxious. It was the mocking and taunting nature of the attacks, demonstrating how vulnerable they were and easy to kill if the attackers wanted too. They carried on because of orders and shear bloody mindedness.

Major Johnson read the reports thinking if a few B###### drones can cause this much havoc, they don't have a cat in hells chance of completing the mission. His e-mail monitoring had revealed that Lad's (Tman) old crew were happy the monkeys weren't killing anyone. Lad was very pleased at how successful the prototype drones were, they just need a little tweaking before going into full production. His eagerness to the start the new fighter test program, so much better than that old stopgap design.

Major Johnson's job was to decide what was propaganda and what was true, given he had a pretty good idea where the drone tests were taking place. He decided he should warn Group Captain John Hampton of the possibility of a new type of enemy fighter showing up for live testing like the drones had. It might just be propaganda, but making preparations if it wasn't, would be sensible given recent events, a similar up grade in performance, to the drones could reasonably be expected.   

Group Captain John Hampton's vocabulary didn't improve with the message, the number of languages he could swear in had increased, still the essence was

'if this is true they may as well order us to commit suicide as continue with the mission.' Wing commander Wendy Glendower having read the message felt the same way. The frustration of not being able to get to grips with the enemy, always waiting to be attacked, never able to attack.

Yes John and Wendy understood the tactics employed against themselves, bleed the enemy, weaken them and at the same time strengthen your own forces. When it comes to the final battle only one outcome is possible and you are victorious. These fiendish aliens had read all the books on tactics, distilled the essentials and were applying the lessons ruthlessly.

Wing commander Wendy Glendower thought if I wasn't on the receiving end, I could admire the skilful way the theory is being applied.

Chapter 20

Intimidation

Chamber decided against sending fighters to Jupiter, as the fire power was best kept under wraps. But did send ten to have a close look at the mining habitat on route to Jupiter, just to make a point, they would only fire if fired upon, broadcasting a message to that effect as they came within detection range of the habitat.

When they arrived at the habitat, it caused consternation, the commanding officer of the fighter crews wanted to launch. But that required stopping rotation and pumping the air out of the hold, it would take at least three hours, if they vented the hold, they didn't have the reserves to re-pressurise.

The Chinese opted to sit tight, and hope for the best, regardless of the haranguing by wing commander Harry Glover frothing at the mouth the entire time. The Newp fighters matched velocities, spent an hour examining the habitat, then left at a surprisingly high acceleration. This visitation on sixth of December 2114 had caused a lot of anxiety and anger on board the mining habitat. The relief those on board when the Newp fighters left was tainted by the anxiety that they could come back.

On the carrier they got the point, the monkeys had intercepted the habitat only a year in to its journey to Jupiter and could have easily destroyed it. In the command centre, the Group Captain and Wing Commander knew it was aimed at them, if they returned to the inner system they wouldn't be attacked, aggression would be met with aggression. The only positive from John's point of view was the technical section had finally found a way to detect the drones in real time. But it was resource hungry, it required a minimum of three platforms with multiple frequency radars, and lots of computer power. Making it very cumbersome, but had allowed them to foil several drone attacks. The drones counter to this, was extreme range shots at those radar emitters, usually damaging several, this although irritating was better than before. As these attacks happened at least twice a day, production of the required equipment was struggling to keep up. But they knew what would happen if they got behind.

The message was received on Earth and the military took note. Politicians didn't get the significance, dismissing it as posturing, saying we already knew they had very fast craft, this was just grandstanding as a form of intimidation. Major Johnson knew it was intimidation but saw it as a genuine threat, what the monkeys were saying, was to him and most people engaged with the real world,

'We can kill you at any time, give it up if you want to live.'

He knew command group wouldn't see it that way, it would mean admitting defeat without a proper battle. They would insist that the expedition had to rise to the occasion and meet the challenge. People would be sent into battle and die in large numbers in other words to prove them wrong.

On impulse he e-mailed Lad (Tman) with his thoughts on the matter. The reply the next day was a little chilling.

'We have no great desirer to kill humans, but if that carrier crosses the line, it will be a cloud of expanding gas not long afterwards. We will mass a large enough force to convince, even the most dull witted politician that it would be suicide to continue with the mission.

If we keep your carrier immobilised in Jupiter orbit, this conflict will never be resolved, and we have far better things to do with our time than keep the military entertained. Your carrier will be allowed to leave Jupiter and will be confronted at a suitable distance, where it will either withdraw admitting defeat or be destroyed. A pointless loss of life your leaders will refuse to accept responsibility for, even though it was their orders that killed them.'     

The next note was a surprise,

'I wish you continued success at keeping Daisy out of Charlotte's clutches, I know exactly what suffering her collection of appetites is like, I wouldn't wish her on my worst enemy.'

After digesting this titbit, Carl analysed the message, it's no surprise they're still keeping track of us, at least it has been spelt out now. The worst of it was they probably did already have the capability to destroy the carrier. Remembering how close those first two fighters had come to destroying the carrier in the first engagement, first time the monkeys had shot back. He removed the reference to Daisy, then forwarded the message to carrier command for their enlightenment.

On reading this John got out his emergency whisky, on seeing this Wendy read his screen then said,

“Pass it here.” Together they got totally smashed.

The usual media frenzy jumped though the same old hoops, HS was even more predictable hysterical shrieking about threats and insults. Those opportunist politicians that had previously though to use the fear HS created for their own advancement. Publicly mocked them for being divorced from reality, privately blaming them for the current mess conveniently forgetting their own part in it.

Major Carl Johnson was disappointed to be proved right about his political masters. The latest monkey high speed experiment it had been noted was streaking out from Saturn, they had given up that deception as pointless now. With the e-mail surveillance, the talk was just about the interesting things in the Kuiper belt, Lad (Tman) complaining about being re-elected to chamber, the problems they were having with the fusion drive.

An intriguing comment on the need to make shows of force to convince the human leadership that they cannot win. What will they do next, that stunt with the habitat was pure menace, the forces on the carrier couldn't fight, only sit there and sweat it out, for a warrior that was torture, very bad for morale! Carl thought to himself.

Jimmy and his team were making progress, they had some ideas to prototype, once the engine design was narrowed down, he could finalise the ship designs. He had got most of it down as a general layout but he could no more until he had an engine to accommodate and build on.

One minute everything was normal then alarms were going off all over the place, those manning the space defences went to action stations, they couldn't believe it fifty vessels coming in hard, they stayed out of the defenders range and used their rail guns to blitz all the space infrastructure with paint balls, the paint was all bright florescent colours.

By the time they had been round Earth three times there wasn't a significant piece of space infrastructure that didn't look like an art students abstract project, satisfied with their work they left. When the dust settled and in some cases underwear changed, the different groups began analysing the 'attack' and its significance to them.

To Jimmy it was making the point the New Peoples could clear humanity from space if they so wished, they had no great desire to. But if humanity didn't leave them alone they would. This didn't come as a surprise to the Chinese head of space security, he had reached the same conclusions himself. If the Monkeys had used their normal rail gun rounds they would have removed nearly eighty percent of humanity in space.

The Moon would have been evacuated using their emergency escape pods launched my the moon mass drivers. In theory the Mars colonies were self-sufficient these days, but would struggle to survive, as they were still setting up the support systems. 

Knowledge, Sparks and Elf thought it was a great humorous way to make a point, propagating that view on the Monkeys are people web site.

Major Johnson thought it was extravagant and ultimately pointless. The command group had all virtually wet themselves and now demanded the impossible, immediate action, even their limited grasp of reality having completely deserted them. He could only hope they would eventually calm down and regain that connection.

World wide the public’s level of panic had been surprising, no doubt helped along by the 'reporting style' of the less restrained 'news services'. In the absence of facts those less restrained 'news services' had let their imaginations off the leash, while 'speculating'. Looting, rioting and suicides being among the more extreme, reactions, triggered by fears of invasion and mass destruction.

In October 2115 the FTB probe had closed on Uranus and had been destroyed by a lone fighter. Carl noted that it was the original design, casually wondering how long had it been out there waiting to do this task.          

Chamber decided that the paint ball attack had been counter productive, and only do fly bys as a way of keeping up the pressure. Until the mining habitat joined up with the carrier and then when they had a real point to get across to the crews of those vessels, it would be time to give them a psychedelic paint job.

It was the twelfth anniversary of the New People arriving at Saturn. Tman and Chatty were having a meal in the Italian canteen. Tman accused Chatty of engineering his re-election to Chamber, Chatty said,

“That is ridiculous it was just down to your popularity that you have been re-elected as soon as you were eligible for candidacy in 2114.”

Tman decided to change the subject.

“Centauri one has recently passed through the Kuiper belt, and has delivered a lot of information. Several hundred of our homes could be supported though out the Kuiper belt, Barnard will soon be entering the Kuiper belt, adding depth to our picture. The way the probes have performed in our solar system, we can expect them to do good a job when they arrive at their destinations. It's really exciting thinking about what could be revealed” signed Tman.

“How many systems are there within twenty light years?” asked Chatty.

“Seventy two systems including brown dwarfs to date, not all have planets, but most should have the resources to support habitats, our interstellar probes will give us a more detailed picture of near space.” replied Tman.

“By near space you mean from here out to twenty light years, you're not exactly thinking small?”

“Relative to the size of the galaxy, I am thinking small; we could potentially have a colony that far out within five hundred years.” answered Tman defensively.

“Hopefully we'll have solved our fertility problems by then, there is no hope for us if we don't.” signed Chatty.

“You'd have to check with medical to see how much progress they have made with that.” signed Tman.

“The last time I checked, they were making slow and steady progress removing the nasties, once that is complete, they can start rebuilding our genomes.” reported Chatty.

“Well it cannot be rushed! Now it's time for me to go to one of those meetings I thought I was done with forever, until swines unknown conspired to re-elected me to chamber. Until next time.”

“Next time.” signed Chatty.