The Mothership (3 page)

“How are we tracking?” the Operations Chief
asked.

One by one, the operators provided
summaries of the information they were receiving.

“Pine Gap is negative.”

“Diego Garcia has a good feed.”

“Guam’s got nothing.”

“The USS Blue Ridge has telemetry, but no
pictures.”

“The Joint Space Ops Center at Vandenberg
says the orbit is good,” the NRO officer said. “Radar is off, passive IR and
optical sensors are on, feed is good. The camera is at full off angle, maximum
field of view. We’ll zoom as soon as we have a target.”

The flashing green icon of the NRO spy
satellite drifted past the tiny dot of Rodriguez Island in the western Indian
Ocean, then began to crawl north east, towards Sumatra.

A phone rang, and was promptly snatched up
by an operator on the far right of the second row. “Uh huh,” the operator
repeated several times as he scribbled notes. When he hung up, he peeled off
his wire-thin headset and turned to the Operations Chief. “The George
Washington’s lost contact with global hawk six, two minutes ago over the Timor
Sea. She never got a look.”

The Operations Chief nodded, turning his
eyes to the satellite’s current position. He decided to wait until it had
completed its pass before asking the carrier to try again.

General Hickson whispered into Beckman’s
ear, “That’s the fourth UAV we’ve lost in six hours.”

Beckman said nothing, but wondered who
would want to shoot down their reconnaissance drones in that part of the world.

“Two minutes to first look,” the NRO
officer announced.

An operator in the second row with one
cigarette in his mouth and two smoldering on his ash tray spoke without looking
up. The finger tips of his left hand rested on his earpiece, holding it firmly
in place as he listened to a report. “Australian air traffic control report JAL
flight 5144, Melbourne to Tokyo, has disappeared off their screens.”

The Operations Chief asked, “How many
people?”

“I don’t know, but it was a 747.”

A young air force officer sitting in the
front row turned in his seat. “At least three hundred and fifty people.”

“Damn!” an Air Force officer standing
towards the back muttered.

The operator with the cigarettes added,
“The Australian Government has grounded all civil aviation north of the Tropic
of Capricorn. All incoming flights have been turned back. They’ve declared a
terrorist emergency.”

Beckman gave General Hickson a curious
look.

“It’s a cover story,” the general
whispered. “The Aussies have lost an AWACS, two reconnaissance planes and a
helo full of SAS trying to get in there. They know they have a serious problem
on their hands.”

Beckman hid his surprise as he wondered if
he knew any of the SAS troopers on the downed chopper. The special forces
community was small and tight knit, and the chances were he’d have served with
some of them, somewhere.

On the trajectory plot, the green icon
approached the Cocos Islands in the eastern Indian Ocean. “OK, here we go,” the
Operations Chief said. “Give me visual on one, IR on three.”

The screen on the left side of the
situation room filled with a side looking view of a vast green tropical forest
through wispy white clouds. The wild vista raced across the screen as the
satellite in low earth orbit sped toward the horizon. Its flight path, running
far to the west of the target area, would carry it above the horizon for just
seven seconds, before ducking and running. The screen on the right side,
displaying the infrared feed, revealed yellow tropical heat shimmers in the
foreground and a searing red glow blooming into the sky beyond the horizon.

“Damn! That thing is hot!” the IR
specialist exclaimed.

“Our bird will breach the horizon in five .
. . four . . . three–” The NRO operator stopped as the readout on his screen
vanished. “I’ve lost telemetry!”

The images on screens one and three were
replaced by white noise, while the satellite icon on the big central screen
began flashing red.

“I’ve got nothing,” a civilian technician
called from the front row.

“Give me status reports,” the Operations
Chief demanded crisply.

“System telemetry, negative.”

“Visual and IR feeds, both negative.”

“USS Blue Ridge is negative.”

“Diego Garcia has lost it.”

“Pine Gap had it for a few seconds, but
they’ve got nothing now.”

“Guam, negative. They never made contact.”

The Operations Chief focused on the NRO
civilian in the front row, who listened intently to his head set, speaking
inaudibly several times. Finally, he turned and shook his head. “Vandenberg’s
got nothing. Chantilly confirm, all our stations have lost it. It’s gone.”

“I’m calling it,” The Operations Chief
declared bitterly, looking at his watch. “Four fifteen AM, central time,
contact lost with USA-325, presumed destroyed by hostile action. Log it.”

“And that, people, is how you scratch a two
billion dollar satellite!” the nervous smoker in the second row declared.

Beckman leaned toward General Hickson and
whispered, “What’s going on, General?”

“It’s the real deal, Bob. It came down
hard, and it’s big.”

“How big?”

General Hickson pursed his lips. “At least
two million metric tons.”

“What!”

“It entered the atmosphere at over one
hundred and fifty times the speed of sound, decelerating all the way down.” The
General gave him a sobering look. “We’re assuming there are survivors, because
it’s shooting down everything we send over to look at it. So far, we have zero
penetration.”

“I see.”

“It’s still top secret. Just us and the
Aussies know about it. No idea how long that will last. Every satellite in
sight of ground zero is gone. It’s a total no fly zone, so you’ll have to go in
on foot. So far, they’ve only blinded us. They haven’t attacked any population
centers or strategic targets, so it doesn’t fit any of the aggressor scenarios.
Washington believes it’s a forced landing, not an invasion. We’re proceeding on
the assumption that they’re buying time to make repairs. Hell, they might be
gone before you even get there.”

“Are we going to grab the ship, General?”

Hickson looked doubtful. “A lot of people
in Washington want that, but this thing can defend itself, so it’s probably not
an option. Your job is to get in there and assess threats and opportunities.”

“If they’re shooting down aircraft and
satellites, they’re not going to let us get close on foot.”

“I know. They’re your orders.”

“Understood.”

“And one more thing.” From the look on the
General’s face, Beckman knew he was not going to like what was coming next.
“Washington has assigned two civilians to your team.”

“Civilians? What kind of training to do
they have?”

“Assume none.”

“Nursemaiding a couple of civilians will
endanger the mission.”

General Hickson nodded. “I agree, but this
is from the top, Bob. Nothing I can do about it. You’re in charge, but these
two guys somehow managed to buy a ticket. Even I don’t know who they are.”

“Since you put it like that . . .”

“You leave in an hour. You can sleep on the
plane.”

“Yes sir,” Beckman replied crisply,
thinking,
We’re not ready!

Bandaka Wirrapingu
sniffed the air, wrinkling his nose at the acrid fumes lingering near the crash
site. It was a smell unlike anything he’d encountered before in the forest. The
Yolngu hunter rested his spear on the ground as he peered warily through the
trees toward the charred clearing fifty meters away. He’d been searching for it
since he’d seen a column of black smoke rising into the sky earlier in the day.
The smoke had been too black and oily for a campfire, too thin for a bush fire.
Bandaka guessed the source of the fire was on the eastern slope of Mount
Fleming, just north of the Walker River. It had burned itself out hours ago,
but the unnatural caustic odor remained like an invisible spirit haunting the
land. He wondered if it was the smell that had silenced the creatures of the
forest, or something else beyond his understanding.

The only sign of life was a dark gray,
wedge tailed eagle circling high above on wings whose span was greater than the
tallest man. Bandaka had always admired the great eagle, the largest hunter in
the sky. He took its presence as a sign that a great spirit watched over the
land and who, even now, spied the charred wreckage scattered amongst the tall,
white limbed gum trees ahead.

Gathering his courage, he crept toward the
burnt out clearing, moving as silently as if he were stalking his prey. He saw
a light gray tailplane resting against a tree, marked with a forward pointing
half arrowhead. It was then he realized the smell choking the area was the
remains of jet fuel that had exploded on impact. As he neared the scorched
ground, he spied the blackened outline of a slender fuselage, emblazoned with a
bright red kangaroo against a white background inside a blue circle. Bandaka
had seen Royal Australian Air Force Super Hornet fighters before. They flew
training missions over the land to the west, and above the sea to the north,
but this was the first time he’d ever heard of one crashing in the forest.

The fighter had shattered on impact,
scattering debris for a hundred meters through the trees and igniting a series
of spot fires. A battered torpedo-shaped device lay against a boulder to his
right. The glass plate on its underside, shielding the pod’s camera, had
cracked but not splintered. Bandaka glanced at it, not recognizing the photo
reconnaissance pod or suspecting the leaders of the western world were desperate
to retrieve its contents. Instead, he crept past the F/A 18’s landing gear to
the cockpit, which had separated from the fuselage when the plane had been torn
apart during the crash. Inside, he found the charred remains of the pilot,
still strapped in his seat wearing his helmet and partially melted oxygen mask.
Even though Bandaka lived in the forest, isolated from modern civilization, he
knew fighter pilots ejected from aircraft before they crashed. He wondered why
this pilot had ridden his plane into the ground. It never occurred to him that
the pilot had tried desperately to eject, but had been unable to do so when
every system on his aircraft had inexplicably failed.

Bandaka felt sadness for the dead flier and
made a sign to the fallen man’s wandering spirit. There was little else he
could do. He looked curiously over the fragments of the jet fighter strewn
through the trees, wondering why the white men had not come. He knew they
should have been there by now in their rescue helicopters. The fact they
weren’t, unsettled him. He’d seen the great falling star, an evil omen whose
frightening meaning his tribe knew well. Now the white man’s warplane had
crashed and no one had come.

It was very strange.

Bandaka swallowed apprehensively. The
Yolngu people had lived harmoniously with the natural environment for tens of
thousands of years. They belonged to this ancient and sacred land, the domain
of great and wise spirits, but now he sensed something was wrong.
Instinctively, he looked skyward for the majestic hunter of the air, but the
great eagle had vanished, leaving Bandaka feeling very much alone. The forest
was like an old friend, but it had inexplicably changed. Where before there’d
been the promise of food and protection, now there was danger. He knew he must
seek old Mulmulpa’s guidance. The old man with his dreaming vision would know
what was happening.

Bandaka approached the cockpit again, paid
his final respects to the dead pilot, then headed northeast towards his camp.
He thought of the signs, certain they were warnings from the great spirits. The
falling star, the dead pilot, the vanished eagle, the white men who failed to
come, and the eerie silence that smothered the forest. They were as clear to
him as the spoken word. They told him to hide, to melt away into the forest
where the spirits could protect him.

Bandaka had learned long ago to always obey
the spirits.

* * * *

Laura McKay gently
placed the sleeping bird in a cage, then locked the small wire door. It would
be morning before the rainbow lorikeet awoke to discover the white bandage and
tiny splints holding its broken leg in place. The injured bird had been brought
in from the surrounding forest by one of the aboriginal children, even though
Laura ran a zoological research station, not a veterinary clinic.

Another eighteen-hour day
, she thought wearily. It was past eleven
PM and she’d been up since five, but she wouldn’t trade her remote little
outpost for the best paid job at Taronga Zoo in Sydney.

She walked back down the narrow aisle
between cages that were filled with a dazzling array of deadly and colorful
creatures. She found it strangely paradoxical that the driest continent on
earth should have one of the world’s most diverse ecologies. Unlike the Amazon
or the Congo, the vast tropical wilderness of Arnhem Land found itself within
the borders of a developed nation, an accident of history that ensured its
survival. The eastern half had been an aboriginal reserve since 1931, while
Kakadu National Park protected the great tropical wetlands to the west. This
protection ensured the region escaped the catastrophes striking down tropical
forests on other continents, and while tourists flocked to Kakadu, few
outsiders were ever allowed into the ancient aboriginal lands to the east. When
Laura had been offered the chance to run East Arnhem Land Research Station,
she’d jumped at it, even though her family thought she was out of her mind. The
isolated station possessed modern technology thanks to a small research fund,
yet setting foot outside the compound was like stepping back a million years in
time.

She returned to her desk as the door opened
and her husband entered holding a glass of ice cold orange juice.

“Thanks,” she said with a tired smile as
she took a sip.

“You should get some sleep,” Dan said.

“I will, as soon as I finish this report
for the university. I’ve got to have it down there by Friday.”

“You should tell those kids to stop
bringing you every half-dead creature they find.”

“I know . . .”

He watched her relax into the chair with a
weary sigh, her eyes closing momentarily. Dan McKay was almost ten years her
senior. He’d spent his entire life in the north, working mostly as a stockman.
Now he used his talents to lead wilderness safaris for the few tourists daring
enough to venture into this most remote of regions. He was tall, with sinewy
muscles, dark hair and a tanned weathered face. When he smiled, it was like
leather cracking, but it was the strange blend of quiet ruggedness and good
humor that had drawn Laura to him. One day, he’d simply walked out of the
forest as if he was strolling to the corner store. In the following months, his
visits became regular occurrences, and before she realized it, they were the
highlight of her week. Eventually, he moved his safari business to her station,
only leaving to take tour parties out or bring supplies back. The rest of the
time, he kept the machinery running, built new enclosures, and became the bed
rock of her secluded existence.

“How’s the bird?” he asked.

“She’ll recover.”

Laura yawned, dragging her fingers back
through her close-cropped red hair. She’d long ago given up the pretence of
maintaining a hair style. Out here, she kept her hair short, her nails trimmed,
and had all but forgotten what makeup was. Down in Sydney, she would have had a
swarm of freckles on her face, but under the brutal Top End sun, her tan was
complete. Dan thought the tan suited her, although he knew her naturally pale
skin and flaming red hair was the worst possible complexion for the tropics.

“Any word on those assistants you asked
for?”

“Yeah. A guy doing a PhD thesis is coming
up for six weeks in September. He’s doing some interesting work on the
myiagra inquieta
.
” Laura caught Dan’s blank look and
translated, “Restless Flycatcher.”

“Right,” Dan said, nodding, “A bird.”

She’d tried undergraduates on vacation
leave, but they’d proven more interested in their own mating habits than those
of the animals and she’d sent them home. The few qualified scientists who’d
come for no pay would stay just long enough to research a paper, then return to
the air conditioned comfort and steady pay of the big southern universities.
But then, what could she expect?

This isn’t exactly the Ritz Carlton
, she thought ruefully.

Dan began gently massaging her shoulders,
causing her to close her eyes, luxuriating under his strong hands. “Looks like
that meteorite started quite a fire,” he said absently.

“Meteorite?” Laura said confused, then
remembered what he’d told her at dinner. “Oh, the shooting star you saw this morning?”

“It was no shooting star. It was as big as
a bloody mountain.” The massive fireball had streaked low across the northern
sky, blindingly bright even through the tall trees encircling the station.

She smiled, patting his hand, knowing his
tendency to exaggerate to make a story more interesting. “Sure it was.”

“No, seriously. Didn’t you feel the
earthquake?”

“It was a slight tremor.”

“For a few seconds, I thought it was a
dinosaur killer!”

“It appeared bigger than it was because it
was close.”

Dan shook his head obstinately. “Nah. It
was a long way off. And it
was
huge. It’s thrown a lot of stuff into the
air, over by the Goyder.”

For the first time, Laura showed genuine
interest. “How can you tell?” The river was a long way to the west, far out of sight
of the station.

“Sky’s bright over that way. Bushfires must
be burning where it came down.”

Laura straightened, alarmed. It was the dry
season, when the forest was at its most vulnerable. “Which way’s the wind
blowing?”

“There’s a bit of an easterly, but I don’t
think it’ll reach us.”

“Have you reported it?”

“Nah. Darwin’s five hundred kilometers
away. What are they going to do?” Dan knew as far as the Territory Government
was concerned they might as well have been on another planet.

“They can get the air cranes up from the
south!” Laura said as she tossed her white lab coat onto a chair and hurried
out past the makeshift operating theatre into the yard. To her right, was their
old wooden two-story house with its wide veranda and a leaky tin roof which
made a hell of a racket during the wet season. The four-wheel-drive was parked
in the garage beside the house, alongside the machine shed housing the
generator and topped by the satellite disk. On the other side was the aviary, a
nylon net thrown over several large trees and home to nearly a hundred brightly
colored birds. Between the aviary and the machine shed stood two smaller
buildings, the marsupial sanctuary and the reptile house.

Laura stepped into the middle of the yard,
looking anxiously towards the west. A great column of dust rose high into the
night sky and spread into the upper atmosphere where it masked the normally
vibrant stars. The dust cloud glowed dull orange, lit by fires and radiant heat
from the impact site below. She searched the sky in vain for clouds, knowing it
would be months before the rains came.

Dan followed her outside, wondering what
all the fuss was about. “See? It’s got to be over near the Goyder River.”

“I’ll call Darwin. They have to know.”

“They won’t do anything unless Kakadu’s
threatened.”

She ran into the house, picked up the
telephone and scanned the list of emergency numbers. If there was one thing she
was afraid of, it was bushfires. If one passed their way, there would be no
place to run, nowhere to hide. She found the Northern Territory Fire and Rescue
Service number, then realized there was no dial tone. She tapped the phone
several times, but the line was dead.

“Damn,” she whispered, slamming the phone
down.

She turned, about to hurry back outside to
get Dan, when a thought struck her. She switched on the TV, to be greeted by
hissing white noise.

It’s not the phone!

Laura went back outside, her sense of
urgency replaced by helplessness. “The dish is acting up again!” She said,
knowing they were temporarily cut off from the outside world. To get the dish
repaired meant following an overgrown dirt track thirty kilometers to the
nearest satellite telephone, then waiting weeks for a technician to make the
trip out from Darwin.