The Monkey and Squirrel fight for freedom. (32 page)

Chapter 31

Aimee 237

April saw the discovery of a real danger to Earth, it was named Aimee 237, at twelve and a half kilometres approximately in diameter, it was a planet killer sized asteroid. When it's path was plotted and confirmed in August, it was revealed as an Earth impactor, a planet devastator, the refined prediction put the impact in Dallas at five minutes past four pm on the fourth of July 2129. When it was announced most people just couldn't believe it, but it slowly sank in, it was real and wouldn't go away.

The politicians finally settled down to working out what to do about it, after a couple of weeks they agreed to consult the experts, it was urgent after all. They said 'there were only two options, using a high speed impactor to divert it, if it was a solid object; if wasn't solid they were left with using high powered lasers to divert the component parts away from Earth.

When the politicians asked why can't you just blow it up with nukes? The experts were hard pressed not to laugh out loud, but they managed to contain themselves just, explaining that even if we could get a one Giga tonne hydrogen bomb in the centre of the object, all it would do would spread the mass over a wider area, also making it radioactive, then most of the mass would collapse slowly back together. The effective damage to earth could be even worse, from our perspective, pretty much the same as a global nuclear war, in either case Mars would be more hospitable than Earth for centuries.

The only viable option is diversion, if it can be done. The politicians chose to ignore the if, saying well get on with it, we'll work out how to fund it later. As the experts left, some one made the observation 'Isn’t it amazing how helpful politicians can be when it's their necks on the line'.

With the need for extra information, they dispatched three probes, one high velocity fly by for the earliest close look and two to fly parallel courses to give a detailed picture. The discarded booster stages of the probes would impact Aimee 237, to reveal details of the internal structure, the intercept course being the deflector course, no point in wasting that momentum. The cost no object probes were soon on their way.

China announced that they had begun a massive expansion of their space habitat and cruse ship building program, it was now the national number one priority but they were still fully committed to the international deflection of Aimee 237 effort. The Group Captains carrier was ordered to the asteroid mines for conversion into a full habitat.

Group Captain John Hampton, took the news fairly well, he was fully confident the asteroid would be deflected, the Chinese were just hedging their bets because they could. The only other nations with anything like operational habitats being India (two,one two hundred meters in diameter and one four hundred meters in diameter), Iran (one, three hundred meters in diameter) and Brazil (one four hundred meters in diameter and one under construction eight hundred meters in diameter).

After Jimmy's 'A' team had created the designs, techniques and process, the 'B' and 'C' teams had been busy too. The Chinese now had three completed habitats, plus one under construction in Earth orbit, one in Luna orbit, and had just begun construction of a giant one kilometre diameter habitat to go with the resort in the asteroids. In Jupiter orbit they had one and had begun building a giant of one kilometre diameter, the rest being to the five hundred meter Chinese (Jimmy) standard design.

He could also foresee that some frantic bidding, to secure places on the habitats would be going on, those that could securing themselves a bolt hole for the just in case. Unbidden thoughts of his daughters and his ex-wife came to mind, they did not have the wealth or skills to get them on to the habitats, if the unbelievable became the real. Unlike his brother Richard who was already resident with his family on a Chinese habitat, constructing solar arrays. That really suited him, with him being against nuclear weapons, nuclear power plants, genocidal campaigns and no lover of the military machine, an unthinking killing machine was his favourite way of describing it.

Never the less he had kept in touch, wishing him safe return, but mission failure, his preferred option apparently had been the two sides never coming into contact, so all parties would die of old age. His brother had been horrified by the first exchange of fire, urging him to see sense and turn for home while he still could, it had had the opposite effect on John making him more determined to carry on, and prove his loony idealist brother wrong.

He had been insufferably right so often in the past about the outcomes of events and reactions to them, how can he be so right about that, but so wrong about the obvious facts of life, Richard's reply 'there is nothing obvious in this world, you have to search for the real', was grossly irritating.

John could see his fighters being turned into tourist taxies or mining shuttles, his own home command seemed to have forgotten all about them on the carrier, the only regular messages came from Major Johnson. Just lately they appeared to be just to let them know they were still getting paid and the news from home. He wondered what he would be doing after they got to the asteroids, probably shipped home for retirement, given the frosty relationship between him and the carrier captain, he didn't see a job offer for him coming from the Chinese. Unlike that warrant officer James Smith, who's love of wine had him working in the core vineyards, producing the best vintages yet from them, guaranteeing him a job, when his service finished.

Major Johnson was again thinking about retirement, with Daisy getting married next year, he thought within the next five years I could become, a granddad, just thinking about it made him feel old. Then he thought about the probable names given the maternal line's tendency to name girls after flowers, it would be something like Violet, Poppy or less likely Marigold. He remembered when Daisy was little she liked the name Buttercup, it was the name of a cow in her favourite book at the time, so it wouldn't be that just the association in her mind wouldn't allow it.

He'd have more influence if it was a boy that required a name, no way would he allow anything like Jimmy. But she wouldn't do that to him, even if she didn't know why he didn't like the renowned engineer, she still loved 'the old over protective so and so' as she called him. It had only taken a few weeks for Daisy to demand his report on  Alistair Dale, just to make sure he handed it over, she brought up the big guns, her mum Rose, so there was no way of saying no. When they had both read it, Daisy asked him,

“Do you approve of this one then?”

He replied,

“More like I don't disapprove of him, as you can see nothing nasty has turned up so far, you know no one will ever be good enough for my little girl.”

Daisy and Rose together in perfect timing, rolled their eyes and assumed the give me patience expression, it was quite intimidating, they didn't have to say any more.

“OK, OK I approve with the reservations of any dotting dad, are you satisfied with that?”

“You'll do.” said Daisy and Rose in perfect harmony again.

That was back then, now it was wedding plans, starting with when and where, the reception, where, how many guests, then it was bridesmaids, the wedding dress, bridesmaids dresses. The style of suit for the men (decided inside two minutes), accessories for all the above, music for the church, the reception, menus, flowers it just went on without end. When he had exasperatedly declared,

“There was less planning for this disastrous expedition to Jupiter and Saturn than this wedding.”

The reply was, “we need to get this perfect first time, there is only one chance, there never can be second first wedding”.

Then he was sent on another errand he didn't understand, just like work really. That's why he was at work today, hiding from it all, it had been making his head spin. The trade mission to the Jupiter habitat had come as a shock, the traded items and terms of trade had all been straight forward.

The guided tour of the large carrier for Wing Commander Wendy Glendower, had proved conclusively that the human carrier was massively out gunned, the only sensible course of action had been to return home.

There was a report on his desk headed Charlotte Thatcher, she had taken residence in the Iranian habitat, complete with a full set of playmates, he casually wondered if both parties knew what they were letting themselves in for, none of the other habitats would have even let them on board.

Given her manipulative abilities the Iranians were in for an interesting time, they had obviously underestimated her and her small but relatively powerful army of playmates. This was no old lady with a few friends, she looked under thirty years old for a start. There were details of the financial arrangements, but the key thing was, she had acquired three new influential Iranian playmates, they must be how she secured the deal. Good she is their problem now, not mine.

Jimmy was pleased at the accelerating development of the habitats, but one of the big problems for carrying capacity was lack of adequate soil for the farms and park land. Even with the new building regime it would take many years to get enough for the minimum requirements for the new Jupiter habitat, if only he could get additional cargo transport. The trade mission to the Jupiter habitat, gave him an idea, if he could find something to trade, they may be persuaded to ship ten thousand tonnes of soil to the Jupiter colony for their new habitat, it was just a question of getting permission to negotiate, then meeting the price.

His employers thought it was an inspired idea,

“If you can pull it off and get their cooperation, we'll back you all the way.”

So with a little trepidation he sent an e-mail to Lad (Tman) setting out his requirements and asking what would it take to make it happen?  The reply was I need to talk to the chamber about this, we do have a shopping list but coming that close to Earth to collect a cargo, could be a psychological barrier, I'll get back to you.

                                                                                                                                              Chapter 32

The deal gets made                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Tman said to Chatty,

“Well it didn't take long for them to dump it back on us did it?”

“No, but once chamber decided to make the trade, they put it back on us as the trade experts, we lead one mission and now we're experts.” agreed Chatty.

“As there has only been one previous mission it does make us the most qualified, that's why I insisted on us having understudies hence young Newton
[9]
,Faraday
[10]
, Einstein
[11]
and Gardner
[12]
.” commented Tman.

“So we have our shopping list, it's grown a bit, more species of fish and aquatic plants to add to the few we have, I take it you have added this bit, places to be reserved on the habitats for our human friends and their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren that's twenty nine people including Torquay's daughter, granddaughter and Miss Penelope Goodbody. Why did you include her?” asked Chatty.

“I think Plumber would have wanted her to! She is not a bad person given her circumstances, many have done far worse starting from more advantaged positions, and her biography of Plumber is very good, warts and all, but told in a sympathetic way.” answered Tman.

“Well if they go for it, how do we transport ten thousand tonnes of soil from Earth to Jupiter?” enquired Chatty.

“We get them to pack the soil into those water bags shot it in system by mass driver and they can strap them to the two transport frames we'll take with us towed behind two of our small carriers with a third to acting as escort, we should be able to handle any trouble with those.” replied Tman.

“That only leaves security, as we want to do this quietly without anyone noticing, we'll use Chinese freighter transponder codes for our carriers, no one should notice unless they get a close look.” added Chatty thoughtfully.

“That's a game plan, have you youngsters have anything to add?” signed Tman looking at them.

“Nothing leaps out to me, how about you three?” signed young Newton.

The others signed agreement.

“Right then, let us write our proposal together and you can contribute to he details. You'll have to remind me and Chatty you're part of the team, as we have brainstormed together for years, so you may have to barge in from time to time.” instructed Tman.

The proposal was formalised and sent to Jimmy using a newly created e-mail address for trade activity. The reply was generally agreeable, but they wanted more for their money, additional important cargo and five hundred people. That was too many people for the carriers to handle.

The negotiations started in earnest; the deal was finalised ten days later. The carriers would transport the bagged soil, a thousand tonnes of containerised cargo and four hundred people, mostly families. Packed in four people to a cabin split between two carriers, each group sharing a communal area and a canteen, food provided by the New People.

The passengers would be checked for weapons as they boarded, in small groups from their shuttles. Emergency medical cover could also be provided by the New People, but was not really expected to be required, it was a safety fall back.

Preparations were soon under-way for the momentous trip, the transponder codes were loaded into Punisher, Judgement and Enforcer, the latter being the escort.

When everything was ready they set off, just as the first close up pictures of Aimee 237 arrived. It didn't look good, a central mass made up of several large loosely amalgamated bodies spinning rapidly, orbited by thousands of objects from around three hundred meters diameter down to dust, nearly doubling the total mass on collision course with Earth.

When the three booster stages impacted, only one actual hit the central mass the other two being chewed up in the orbiting mass, no measurable deflection was achieved. The two orbiting probes confirmed it in HD,3D, the spectral analysis, gave it a very mixed composition everything from nickel iron to ice.

An excellent example of the worst possible type of object to deflect, a fifteen kilometre diameter ball of iron would be far easier to deflect.

Tman signed to Chatty after viewing the data.

“That's going to be one hell of a job, deflecting that junk pile, target one bit of it you drive it away from the rest but it will expend most of the applied energy spinning and twisting out the pile. It's going to take lots of laser power over considerable time to shift it's course significantly. Quite frankly, I don't think they have enough of either, we may have to step in.”

“That wouldn't be the most popular action to advocate, considering what they have been wanting to do to us for many years!” observed Chatty.

“You're right it wouldn't be popular, but it's the right thing to do. Our agenda is for them to recognise us as equals, that can't happen if they're all dead!” Chatty gave him a quizzical look. “Yes their habitats and Mars populations would still be around, even if the Chinese manage to get their planned two million people into habitats, the absolute maximum for the others combined is half a million, that's a microscopic part of humanity.

Then consider the non-human life on Earth they won't be packing into their habitats, it would be criminally negligent not to act if we can.” explained Tman.

“We do have a tendency to forget about all the non-human life, as we don't live there and with humans always dominating our thoughts about Earth, it's only natural. The complex interwoven web of life of planet Earth is far richer than anything we have out here. Our base habitat system is too simple and fragile, that's why we are bolstering it, trading for increased depth and diversity. If Earth dies so do all those treasures we need to enhance our future.” admitted Chatty remembering what young Gardner had talked about and explained in the planing sessions. 

“So you do get the full picture, and understand my reasoning behind sending a suggestion to chamber! That we should work up an intervention plan in case the humans fail, to save all those wonderful plants and animals for our richer future environment! I'm canvassing for support for an intervention plan on that basis.” signed a relieved Tman.

“It's a good argument you've convinced me, what about the others what do they think?” asked Chatty.                                                                  

“Young Gardner and Einstein are both broadly in favour, Young Faraday and Newton are thinking about it, as are the rest of our crew, but I have had no objections so far.” replied Tman.

“Why am I the last to know, you take my agreement for granted?” asked an irritated Chatty.

“Far from it, last night we were all in the Chinese canteen, when I had the idea, you had gone to the Mediterranean canteen for a change. So what do you think?”

“You know it's a sound idea, there is no logical reason to object, except we would be saving the ones that wanted to exterminate us.” pointed out Chatty.

“Granted, but they're not all bad, we have a lot of humans wishing us well, particularly since we defeated their armada, without killing them all.” signed Tman.

“I can see some accusing us of smug self-satisfied moral superiority.” commentated Chatty.

“I think we can live with that.” replied Tman. 

Jimmy was converting the small cruse ship into a fighter support vessel, it would tow the thirty six ships equipped with high power lasers, all they had to laser range of Aimee 237.

More would be built but it was stretching their logistics support to the limit just to get those they had in position. They were rushing to fit life support, bunks, navigation and engines, once that was done they could close up the hull, do a quick test and send them off.

When they were on their way, his 'A' team would start on the large cruse ship, 'B' and 'C' teams would start a small cruse ship each.

The moon farms and mines had gone into overdrive. Each of Jimmy's teams would start building a habitat as soon as they had finished building the ships. The newly trained 'D' team would then make a series of basic version small cruse ships, to ferry people to the outer habitats in a hurry. Those habitats already under construction were being stretched to double the original planned length, being the quickest and safest way of maximising capacity within the time frame.

On the moon huge laser arrays were being built, where they would be waiting for the one last try if needed. He knew on the ground all the old fallout shelters were being refurbished and new ones built, he was hazy on the numbers there. But based on England's provision of places for a few tens of thousands for a population of tens of millions, globally they would optimistically only supply refuge for ten to twenty million people. The Chinese hoped to achieve the stuffing of two million into their habitats; those living in habitats would be the most likely to survive long term. That his own family would be among them did give him a twinge of guilt, but that was far outweighed by the relief he felt at their safety. He just hoped that all this frenetic activity wasn't needed in the end.

Sparks, Knowledge, Elf, Torquay and Penelope all received the required reservations from the Chinese just after Lad's e-mail telling them about the trade. Lad(Tman) explained that it was just in case the deflection attempt failed. He wanted his friends to be safe as they had ensured he and as many of his kindred as possible were safe, when they were powerless to do so for themselves.

They were deeply moved, but thought their personal places should go to much younger people, and asked the Chinese what would happen to their places if they didn't go?

The reply was short and to the point, places not reserved for essential personnel and their families, would go into the lottery allocation of places for Chinese nationals that met the pre-selection criteria. That being two parent single child families, complete with dependant child. They as individuals had been awarded, essential personnel status, if all of those over seventy opted out, then two young families could go instead.

They opted out for themselves, Sparks and Torquay had spouses that agreed with them on this at least.

Penelope was surprised on being offered a place but accepted, moving her funds to The Bank of China now based on habitat three. All the major banks now had backup head quarters on the moon and Mars.

Major Johnson read the e-mails with raised eyebrows, the Chinese were trading with the bloody monkeys for essential supplies for their new habitats, mostly for the new Jupiter one, logistical problems apparently. The monkeys had named their price and happily supplied the lacking resource once it was met.

He had been told of the monkeys trade mission to the Jupiter colony and had accepted that, as they didn't have any choice but to cooperate, under the gun as it were. But this was different the Chinese had contacted them first, then haggled about the price, but had reached agreement quite quickly. After all what was twenty nine places when making the deal allows you to house another hundred thousand, possibly more of your people. There was a rumour, that those habitats under construction were being stretched out to double length to double their capacity, the extra workers being shipped out with they're families could easily be accommodated within the existing habitat.

He could see them easily becoming over crowded in the next year or so, they were really going for it. Every state was getting the shelters ready just in case, with new hydroponic systems, how much good they would do if needed he didn't know. The predicted effects of impact, global Armageddon, followed by a ten year winter. Probably a minimum twelve years before it was possible to plant and harvest a surface crop, he couldn't afford to think about it to much, but those off planet farms would be essential.