Beyond the Event Horizon (10 page)

The future
Commander-in-Chief looked at the exalted guest with pounding heart.
Before him stood a space wolf, the massive leader of a mighty pack,
who had earned his position through his military talent and
unbending character. MacQueen had received from him a medal for
exceptional success. Although this was the least important medal of
his career, like a first love, it meant more to him than all those
which followed.

After the
speech, the cadets due for awards marched onto the stage, and
MacQueen personally handed them their certificates and pinned their
medals on them. On the way to the Academy, during the flight, he
looked through the dossier of each of those due for awards, so that
he could say something personal to them, not just the standard
empty phrases. Yes, the general felt himself personally responsible
for the future of the space fleet, and took it extremely
seriously.

As he was
shaking the hand of one of the cadets, MacQueen noticed out of the
corner of his eye that there was a sudden animation among his
bodyguards. Having combat experience, he felt such small changes in
a situation, unnoticeable to the untrained eye, with the back of
his neck. He looked at the guard commander, who took a step towards
him.

“Sir,” he
whispered in the general’s ear, “a report has come in that several
hours ago, three alien ships passed through the portal heading
towards the Sun. A general alarm has been declared for all branches
of the armed forces. You must leave immediately for the command
bunker.”

MacQueen
nodded.

“Forty-five
seconds, then we’ll go.”

“Yes,
sir.”

The guard
commander took one step back to his previous position and said
something into his microphone. Behind the barrier, on the lawn, the
soldiers of his guard swarmed out of the parked escort ship and
spread out, taking up a defensive formation and holding their pulse
weapons, although with muzzles lowered. This ship and MacQueen’s
own, standing a little further off, had already vented their
engines in preparation for an emergency lift-off.

There was one
cadet left. MacQueen unhurriedly stepped up to him and extended his
hand for a handshake. After congratulating him, and apparently
unaware of his guards’ activities, he took the medal off the
cushion, and, piercing the cadet’s tunic with its pin, asked
softly:

“How’s the
leg?”

The cadet’s
eyes widened in surprise. Two days previously, to mark the
beginning of the academic year, he, with others of his class, had
crawled onto the barrack-block roof, far from the eyes of their
commanders, for a small celebration of their reunion after the
annual summer leave. But they were noticed, and had to withdraw
quickly. In running from roof to roof, he sprained his ankle, so
was caught by the military police. There were no serious
disciplinary consequences, but a note had been made in his
file.

Although
MacQueen did not welcome indiscipline in the Service, this case was
a grey area. A real commander must on the one hand strictly observe
regulations, but on the other have a certain wildness in him, so
that he can achieve the impossible in combat contrary to all logic.
Those who succeed in maintaining the fine balance between these two
apparently mutually exclusive character traits have the potential
to become great military leaders.

“It’s almost
healed now, sir,” replied the cadet smartly, after a moment’s
confusion.

MacQueen
finished pinning on the medal, smiled and shook his hand.

“I wish you
further successes, young man,” he said, in a loud voice this
time.

“Thank you,
sir!”

The forty-five
seconds were up. The general nodded farewell to the audience and
calmly stepped down from the stage.

While MacQueen
was fastening his seat belt on board his spacecraft, the guard
commander took from his pocket a device for generating quantum
random numbers, selected ‘8’ on the display, and pressed the
button. The ‘8’ was replaced on the screen by a ‘3’. This time the
space fleet command post was in Bunker No. 3.

“Destination
Bunker No. 3,” confirmed the pilot who was observing them through a
camera, and almost at the same moment, the ship soared into the
sky.

Paying no
attention to the overloads or the vibration, MacQueen got out his
tablet, to which all the space fleet’s tactical and intelligence
information was downloaded in real time.

“The
expedition ship studying the gravity anomaly has reported the
appearance of three ships of the alien civilisation. They passed
through the portal at a speed of 90 km/sec. They are in triangular
formation, and are continuing to move towards the centre of the
system at unchanged speed.”

The report
included a map of the Solar System, on which the formation’s flight
trajectory was clearly shown. It intersected the orbit of Saturn,
and was reminiscent of the flight trajectory of the first alien
visitor. But this time, they were apparently not intending to stay
in the orbits of the gas giants. If the vector remained unchanged,
their destination appeared to be Earth itself.

The general
put his tablet aside.

By this time,
MacQueen’s ship and its escort were already in near-Earth space,
where the atmosphere was so rarefied that there was virtually no
air resistance. Having accelerated to a tremendous speed, they left
behind in rapidly changing succession the fields of the East Coast,
the forests and lakes of Canada, the dreary landscape of Greenland
and the snowfields of the North Pole. When the white lifeless
desert was replaced by the leaden waters of the Arctic Ocean, the
ships re-entered the atmosphere, and losing altitude in a shallow
trajectory, set course for Norway.

In the icy
waters of the Norwegian coast, illuminated by the dim light of the
Sun sitting low in the sky, a bright star, falling from the
heavens, was reflected. A minute later, the silence, apart from the
sound of the cool wind and the splash of water, was broken by the
deafening roar of the sound wave created by the military ships
flying at Mach 5.

They slowed
down as they continued to descend to just above sea level, then
changed to horizontal flight. Almost touching the ocean, they
rushed on, creating splashes which kept hitting the armoured
windows.

Having reached
the mainland, the two ships disappeared into one of the firths.
Following the watercourse, and avoiding the cliffs majestically
rising from both sides of the fjord, they weaved about, banking
sharply in the turns. Suddenly the first one pointed its nose
upwards, and describing a huge dead loop, hovered over a quite
unremarkable cliff. The second one followed it, taking up a
defensive position a little way off.

At one point
in the cliff, a barely noticeable landing site had been cut out,
running deep into the mountains. There, under a canopy of
overhanging rock and concealed from the prying eyes of outsiders,
was the start of a tunnel going many kilometres into the
mountains.

The general’s
ship landed, reducing the thrust of its turbines to the minimum,
leaving the guard ship hovering some way from the landing site.
Several SSS officers jumped out, and, after looking round the
vicinity, took up position at its perimeter.

“All clear. We
can move out,” reported the guard commander to MacQueen.

The general
unstrapped himself and got out, after taking silent leave of the
pilots with a salute. A strong cold wind blew in his face,
disturbing his short hair. The cold easily penetrated his summer
tunic and made itself felt on his body, and the fresh wind was in
sharp contrast to the warm breeze in Florida, where he had just
been addressing the cadets.

After
presenting his hand and eyes for scanning at the entrance, MacQueen
was authorised to enter. The tremendously thick door, partly
recessed into the rock, turned anti-clockwise and moved back,
opening the dark tunnel. In order not to breach the camouflage, the
lighting was only switched on when the door was fully closed. The
general was the first to step inside, the soldiers guarding the
perimeter ran inside two by two, while the others had their guns
trained on the area in front of the entrance. When no-one remained
outside, the door returned to its original position, closing the
passage. It immediately became quiet in the tunnel.

Outside, one
of the ships took off, turned, and disappeared from sight, going
back down the fjord towards the water. A few seconds later, the
other one followed. The deafening roar and wind from the turbines
ceased, and silence was restored to the fjord. The ships retraced
their route back to the open sea, and only then did they soar up
vertically.

Inside the
tunnel, the air was warm and dry. MacQueen and his guards entered
the passenger compartment of the monorail standing a little further
in and took their seats. The cabin of the miniature train moved off
almost noiselessly, and, rapidly gaining speed, rushed its
passengers through a labyrinth of tunnels with many branches.

The
underground monorail travelled fast, passing round the turns
smoothly. Every few hundred metres, the tunnel branched out into
several new tunnels, most of which went on penetrating for
kilometres into the mountains and finished up as dead ends. The
train unerringly selected the few roads which led to the command
bunker.

Some ten
minutes later, they reached their destination. The general went in,
leaving the guard to take position at the entry post, and looked
around. The interior décor of all the secret command bunkers was
the same to make them more difficult to identify at video
conferences: an external box of massive ferroconcrete with another
box inside it, an ‘aquarium’ consisting of thick glass, simply
furnished with the command control panel, a table and chairs.
Nothing that was unnecessary.

The general
went up to the air conditioner control panel, which shone with an
amber light right by the entrance, and lowered the temperature a
little. He preferred working in a cool atmosphere. It helped him
forget that he was imprisoned in a mountain under kilometre-thick
granite, where the air in the corridors was warm and dry.

MacQueen took
off his ceremonial tunic and signalled to the computer to start up
the system. While the servers were starting, he sat down, leaned
back in his chair and wiped his eyes. Last time he had only had to
spend a few weeks stuck in a bunker. This time, it could be
forever.

“I need
several back readings. Flight time to Mars and to near-Earth space.
Base them on the last known speed and flight trajectory of the
aliens.”

“Yes,
sir.”

“What is the
registration number of the ship that sent the report about the
aliens?”

“EMC1906,
sir.”

“Have they
managed to find out anything about our visitors?”

“Clarifying
information was attached to their last report.”

“What is
it?”

“EMC1906
managed to take several close-up photographs. Shall I display
them?”

“Yes.”

The screen
filled with hundreds of small photos. They had been taken over a
short space of time, so could be viewed as a film. MacQueen viewed
the animation several times, stopping every now and again to
magnify a picture in an attempt to get a better look at the alien
technology. But in vain.

Like the last
time, it was not possible to make out any details of the alien
spacecraft. All three ships were of the same elongated teardrop
shape. Absolutely smooth surface, no acute angles, edges or
convexities. One of the ships was distinguishable by its size. It
was about five times as long as the others, but less drawn out
longitudinally. The other two were indistinguishable from each
other.

“Allocate
numbers. Call the biggest Alien-1, and the other two Alien-2A and
Alien-2B,” MacQueen ordered the computer.

The computer
did so, synchronising with the central computer centre. The ships
would now be listed under these names in all the military
databases.

The first one
appeared to be the main one and the other two its escorts. They
could be fully automatic drones. From a military point of view,
they had to be kept targeted, and it had to be borne in mind that
they might try to position themselves as shields to cover the main
ship, if it came to an attack.

After some
thought, the General asked:

“Are we
technically able to distinguish between 2A and 2B?”

“On the basis
of our current information, no, sir. 2A and 2B are absolutely
identical.”

“No difference
in exhaust or hull temperature?”

“Nothing is
known about the exhausts. The surface temperature of the alien
ships is equal to the temperature of their environment, at present
close to absolute zero. No higher temperature areas have been
detected on the hulls.”

“Hmm.”

“Sir, the
formation has increased speed. Flight time to Mars’ orbit has been
reduced to eighteen hours. Thirty-three to Earth,” reported the
computer.

“Has there
been any exchange of information with them?”

“After they
left the portal, EMC1906 made no attempt to contact them. However,
they received a message from Alien-1. Shall I display the content
of the message?”

“Certainly.”

There appeared
on the screen, in large letters:

DO NOT PURSUE,
DO NOT TRACK WITH TARGETING SYSTEMS.

ANY HOSTILE
ACTION WILL LEAD TO INSTANT DESTRUCTION.

Without
letting his face betray his feelings, MacQueen approached the wall
serving as a screen and, with a careless gesture, wiped off the
aliens’ warning, then magnified the map of the Solar System.

As the aliens
approached the orbit of Mars, they would fly through a sector of
space monitored by one of the automatic armed bases, which would
track any flight in its sector and attack any unauthorised traffic.
There was no problem with authorising the alien ships, but it was
not possible to stop the base’s targeting systems tracking them.
This could only be done by a servicing team landing on it.