Nu Trilogy 1: The Esss Advance (21 page)

Scout two had made four stops instead of three during the first rotation of the planet. It had had only one incident during that time, and the scout leader had warned it of the approach of the three local flying craft. Scout two rushed the water sampling by not sending the skimmer further out into the lake, but the samples would be fine. Getting them back onboard the scout before the arrival of the locals had been the most important objective, just in case they attempted to interfere with the collection process. As it was, the emergency takeoff procedure left the locals helpless to do anything further.

The extra stop, approved by the scout leader, was at the juncture of the large river flowing into the ocean. The sample of the mixture of fresh and salt water at that spot might add significantly to the understanding of how the environment must be changed to accommodate the Esss nursery.

Now it was on to the other side of the planet for the next set of samples. The team would be finished with the entire survey soon and could head back to the base ship orbiting the giant gas planet.

TV news reporting was going crazy. The story of the boy surviving the alien encounter at Lake Superior was being picked up by all of the national news organizations in the North American Union. The CEOs were under tremendous pressure from the government to downplay the story, but this was just too juicy to suppress. The local station that had reported on the boy from the hospital had no clue that anything they might say could be considered classified, so when the story went national, it was too late for suppression.

Back in New York City, Richard was almost beside himself with worry about where the
Rag
would go next. The paper was gaining a reputation for having stories that never even aired on television, a complete reversal from the fortunes of TV vs. newspapers in the late twentieth century. This was all due to his inside blogger supplying direct naval intelligence. Now Richard was being shadowed everywhere he went. He was also sure that the FBI, trying to plug the leak, was monitoring all of his VidPhone calls and text messages.

What they didn’t realize was that the blogger had recently shipped a classified laser link to the
Rag
that Richard had installed on the rooftop of his new offices. This meant the blogger could transmit his or her stories directly to Richard without any other type of pipeline being involved.

But how far should Richard take this new story? The aliens were taking water samples all over the planet for unknown reasons. Publishing this story might get his paper shut down completely, but suppressing the story would leave the masses in the dark about what was happening.

Richard decided to sit on the story for a little while and let the FBI work over the TV networks with the Michigan story. He composed a reply to “The Insider,” letting him or her know that what he needed was the Navy’s interpretation of why the aliens were taking these samples. Everyone else already had the story about the taking of samples, so there was little he could add to that anyway

Sted was scheduled to begin the final trial testing of the modified
Mantis
in the morning. Right now though, he was enjoying a quiet evening with Jessica in what was becoming home to them.

With AMC all but shut down in the belt, there had been little for Jessica to do until Sted suggested she apply at the naval research wing for an administrative job with Rear Admiral Cunningham, finding a way to get the other four Deltas into dry-dock for the naval refit.

With the clampdown on activity in the belt, the only time the Deltas could make progress toward the shipyard was when the alien craft in orbit around Jupiter was on the other side of the planet. Taking into account the time it took light to travel all the way across the solar system, the Deltas had a window of only two hours out of every seven where acceleration could be applied without being detected. The rest of the time the ships had to be in free flight.

Over the past several weeks, the Deltas had been hopping from mining platform to mining platform as they approached Rickover. Now all four Deltas were at the closest mining platform, only 412,000 kilometers away from the shipyard. Jessica had worked with the engineers for most of the day as they calculated a jump time and speed that would allow them all to exit the platform together in one safe window and arrive together at Rickover in another safe window where their deceleration would go undetected.

Sted had decided to make this into a date night. On his way back to the apartment, he stopped in at the local market and picked up some fresh but hard to get (not to mention
expensive
) vegetables that were not normally on their diet. He also picked up a freshly baked fruit pie and a small bouquet of flowers to decorate the table. It never hurt to splurge once in a while to show how much he cared, and by this time, Sted was firmly under Jessica’s spell.

“Good evening, Honey,” Sted called out as he entered the apartment. “I have a little surprise for you.”

“Now, that is really funny,” Jessica said from the kitchen. “Would you believe that I also have a little surprise for you?”

Sted crossed through the living space to the kitchen, put several packages on the table, and then picked Jessica up and kissed her firmly on the lips. “Okay,” he said. “You got home first, so you go first.”

“Well,” Jessica said as he put her back down on the floor, “I knew we would be separated for a while during your final trials, so I thought we should have a fun night and watch a classic movie with some real popcorn smothered in butter. I traded a few favors and picked up some seed corn from hydroponics. Then I asked Admiral Cunningham if I could leave a little early to get over to the specialty food store to find some kind of butter substitute, and guess what happened? She had gotten some real butter shipped all the way up from Wisconsin by her mother last month, and she gave me one stick for this special occasion. She must have really changed her attitude toward you to give us such a wonderful gift. What do you think of that, Mr. Smarty Pants?”

“That sounds marvelous,” Sted replied with a wry smile. “You’ve taken care of the evening’s entertainment, and I’ve taken care of the dinner. Let me show you what I brought home!”

The first package he opened was a pretty bouquet of six Brown-Eyed Susans mixed with a few sprigs of fresh rosemary that they could use later for cooking. This brought an immediate response from Jessica, who had not received any flowers since she last left Earth.

“Oh Sted. . . . ” She jumped right back into Sted’s arms and gave him a kiss that would make any man’s knees weak!

When they both came up for air, neither could focus on anything else but the other’s eyes. The other packages would not be opened for a while as dinner was put on temporary hold.

“How formal is this meeting, Josh?” Secretary Miller asked. Fleet Admiral Brooks and Secretary Miller had been friends long before they had attained their current positions, so the familiarity was only natural to them.

“Let’s keep this informal and unrecorded for the moment, Andrea,” Brooks said. “We only have theories at this point, so I don’t want to make a formal declaration. Let’s just go over what I have and what I suspect and then you tell me if we need a formal report or a formal meeting with minutes for you to bring to the council.”

“Okay. Just lay it out for me, and don’t hold anything back. This is shaping up to be a make or break event for humanity, and we need the best information possible.”

“Right. First I will tell you what we know for sure. The three alien vessels have been much more active over the past twenty-four hours. The one vessel in orbit has captured one of our geosynchronous satellites for unknown purposes. We were unable to interfere or prevent the capture, but we were close enough to paint the skin of the alien ship with a low-level laser to let them know we were not happy. We got no reaction from the alien ship, other than it piling on acceleration to get out of range.

“The other two vessels have made at least six actual landings on Earth’s surface. Three were near some of the Western Hemisphere’s largest freshwater lakes: Lake Superior, Great Bear Lake in northern Canada, and Lake Titicaca in Peru. We have an eyewitness account of the landing in Lake Superior, and we know for sure that the vessel released a small motorboat-sized craft that went about a half mile out into the lake and then returned. Just after the watercraft was lifted back into the alien vessel, we had three military jets from the Michigan Air National Guard buzz the alien vessel, at which point the vessel took off at such a high speed that the jets could not follow.

“We know there have been additional landings in the Amazon River delta, on one of the small islands in the Bahamas, and on a small island off of the Oregon coast. These we know about because of radar and satellite feeds. We have no eyewitnesses to date for any of the landings outside of Lake Superior. Also, please note that all of the landings are immediately adjacent to water, whether fresh water or ocean water.

“In addition, we have radar and satellite data showing one of the alien vessels flying along the coasts of both North and South America. We are not sure what this was about but I will make a guess in a few minutes. Any questions so far, Andrea?”

“Yes. How reliable is the eyewitness account?”

“So far, we only have a video news report from a hospital interview of the young man who was fishing near the site of the landing. The NAU is securing the boy at the closest military hospital, and they will be debriefing him shortly. I would say that the story is very reliable unless we get facts to the contrary.”

“Okay, Josh. Those are the facts. Now I need your analysis.”

“Based upon the eyewitness account, we have to assume that all landings are basically for the same purpose and that at all landing sites they are sending small watercraft out into the environment to take water samples. Now, I know that if I were thinking of moving into a new territory, I would want details about that new territory to plan how I would make a new settlement in the area as successful as possible.

“All of my analysis points to the aliens surveying Earth for a takeover. Since they are completely ignoring every attempt at communication, we have to assume they don’t care what we’re doing. We’re too far beneath them to be anything other than an inconvenience. To make a proper comparison, think of the European invasion of North America in the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries. But instead of the Europeans arriving on their small wooden boats after crossing the ocean, picture how well the Indians would have fared against that same number of people backed by modern technology.”

“That is a very scary thought,” Miller said. “Now, what do you think those flights up and down the coasts of are all about?”

“This is pure speculation on my part, but I think, based upon the lower speeds they employed while going up and down the coast, we will find that the aliens are studying our ocean currents. We need to follow up along every coast to see if they have dumped anything into the oceans that can be tracked from above.”

“So, where are they now?”

“They appear to be starting the same procedure in the eastern hemisphere, although it is a little too early to be sure. I’m going to direct resources to all of the large freshwater lakes in Africa and Asia to see if we can get there ahead of them and verify some of these theories. There’s just too much ocean shoreline to anticipate where they might set down for salt water samples, but the number of large freshwater lakes is limited. I have anticipated Lake Victoria and Lake Tanganyika in Africa and the Caspian Sea in Asia as the most likely targets.”

“Okay,” Miller said. “I need you to prepare a presentation that I can use at the next council meeting. I would prefer you give the presentation, but we can’t wait for you to get back from orbit. If you get any more facts or insights after you send the presentation and before the council meeting, I need you to contact me so I can bring the presentation up to date right at the meeting.”

“Give my team two hours, and we’ll have everything put together for you. I’m sure you can convince them of the seriousness of this situation. We need to know if we can go weapons free on these alien craft if we have another close encounter. I know it’s dangerous, but I don’t think we can just sit back and have our home taken over by some unknown alien race without some kind of pushback!”

“I understand completely,” Miller replied. “I will contact you after my presentation, and then once again after the council makes some kind of decision.”