Nu Trilogy 1: The Esss Advance (29 page)

It was mid-morning in Puerto Baquerizo Moreno on the island of San Cristobal in the Galapagos Island group. The sea breezes blew steadily over the island, tickling the waves into ripples on top of the un-ceasing rolls on Wreck Bay.

The dive boat, the
Gala Diver
, had left the bay early that morning and now rolled gently near Kicker Rock as Big Jim Gandy slid his massive arms and shoulders into the harness of his black ScubaPro Knighthawk IV buoyancy compensator. Most men his size would burn through a bottle of air in no time, but Big Jim was an exception. He had been known to pair up with the dive master and come back to the boat with more air than the pro.

This morning, however, he would never even make it into the water. As he stood up with the BC and tank on his back and adjusted the straps across his girth, the morning peace was interrupted by a deep, low rumbling sound coming out of the western sky. The rumble became louder and louder as he and the captain stood on deck looking up at the bright object descending from the heavens. They had to look away, because the bright light stabbed into the back of their eyes and left their vision compromised with black spots no matter where they looked.

After blinking several times to clear his vision, Big Jim looked back up in time to see what looked like a black version of one of the Egyptian pyramids dropping over the other side of the island and then disappearing. Shortly afterwards, the rumbling ceased, and a plume of steam appeared above the island, as if the old volcanoes had come alive once again.

Big Jim turned to the boat’s captain. “Can you take me around the island, Arturo?  I think we need to investigate whatever the hell that was. Based on timing, I would bet this has something to do with that alien ship.”

“You hired the boat for the entire day Mr. Gandy,” Arturo replied. “I will take you around the island, but I will not put you or myself in danger by getting too close.

“Fine. If you weigh anchor, we can get out of our dive gear. I want to get some pictures of that thing to some old friends of mine in the Space Navy. I’m sure they will welcome any intelligence they can get from on the ground.”

Ninety minutes later, they rounded the northern end of the island, cutting through the one-meter swells. What they saw was stunning. Resting in the water about 300 meters off the eastern most tip of the island was the top of triangular shaped black pyramid rising over 200 meters out of the water.

“Arturo, how deep is the water where that thing is sitting?” Big Jim asked.

“Nearly seventy meters,” Arturo replied as he backed off on the throttle and angled the boat into a wide circle around the pyramid.

“Okay,” Big Jim said as he pulled out his com device and began snapping pictures. “That makes that thing about two hundred and fifty to three hundred meters tall. Let’s skirt around it from six to seven hundred meters out and then head back to port. I’ll take pictures from every angle then get them uploaded to the proper channel.”

The exact same scene repeated itself over the mouth of the Amazon River. This time, however, the closest humans to the scene were aboard the recently christened
Princendam
from Holland America Lines. The fifth in the proud line of smaller luxury cruise ships by that name; the
Princendam
was about to make its annual trek up the Amazon River basin.

It was early afternoon, and the ship was just starting to see silt from the Amazon roiling past its bow with the Brazilian coastline far off to starboard. The pilot was the first to see that something unusual was happening as a bright point of light appeared high in the sky about forty degrees to starboard. Soon, it became so bright that the pilot had to look away. When he did, he saw shadows from the frame of the bridge window playing across the deck as the light raced from starboard to port well in front of the ship.

When the light faded, he looked back up to see a gigantic contrail curving downward from up the river to just beyond the last of the islands in the river delta.

The pilot signaled for the captain to come to the bridge and then reduced the speed of the ship to give the captain more options.

When Captain Van de Berg arrived on the bridge, the contrail was still the dominant feature visible through the bridge windows

“So, Mr. Meyer, what is it I’m seeing?”

“Sir, something very bright and very big crossed in front of us going west to east and settled into the sea just east of the delta islands. It was so bright I could not watch its entire flight, because it hurt my eyes. I reduced speed to one-third and awaited your arrival. We are not due to pick up our river pilot for another two hours, so I felt that I needed to give you as many options as possible.”

“Very good, Mr. Meyer. Mr. De Jong, get me the Brazilian navy so that we can report the sighting. I’m hesitant to move up river without their approval. Mr. Meyer, reduce speed to five knots and maintain your current heading.”

The reports were pouring in to Fleet Admiral Brooks, and the situation was looking rather grim. The alien ship had entered low Earth orbit six hours before, and already it had released two rather large objects down to the planet’s surface. Now it was adjusting its orbit, and only time would tell how many other landings would be made.

Surprisingly, Brooks had a detailed report of the landing in the Galapagos Islands. Apparently, a retired master chief petty officer had observed the landing and then gotten into position to take pictures of the craft just off the east coast of the island of San Cristobal. The details of the report described the landing and the features of the vehicle but were not very helpful in determining its purpose.

The second landing in the Amazon River delta was much less well documented. A cruise ship had been eighty kilometers from the landing site and had reported the landing to the Brazilian navy. This report had been forwarded to naval intelligence. Apparently, the Brazilian navy had warned the cruise ship away from the Amazon, and now it was headed north again back to its last port.

The Brazilian navy was placing a picket of ships around the alien landing craft and would be maintaining a careful watch with regular reporting back to the Space Navy.

“Sir, we have the next release from the alien vessel on ground-based radar out of Florida,” Commander Santos said. The trajectory shows a landing somewhere in the Bahamas. We should know the exact location in about ten minutes.”’

“Thank you,” Brooks replied. “That makes three landings in the western hemisphere. If my guess is right, we should have three landings in the eastern hemisphere shortly. Everything with these aliens seems to happen in multiples of three for some reason. Commander, please make a note for naval intelligence to explore the significance of the number three with regard to the aliens. We may be able to predict future actions based on it.”

“Noted, sir,” Santos said. “We are just receiving satellite imagery of the landing site in the Galapagos Islands. Shall I put it up on the main screen?”

“Please do,” Brooks said as he looked up at his fleet command screen.

Everyone in the Fleet Command Center looked up at the same time to see the images that the satellite had captured of the landing craft. Just offshore from the northeast point of the island a stark black triangular structure was rising from the island shelf. It was not, however, the only feature noticeable from the satellite feed. Just east of the object in the water were three dark spots that were growing in size as they watched. Very soon, the ocean currents were dispersing the outflow from the dark spots back toward and around the island.

To Brooks, this looked like the beginning of a classical oil spill pattern, and his stomach clenched at the thought of what might be happening. “Santos, I need the name of that that retired master chief petty officer, and I need him on the line as soon as you can make it happen. We need to find out what that substance is pouring around the island and out into the Pacific Ocean currents. I also need satellite imagery of each of the landing sites as soon as we can get them. This looks like a catastrophe in the making, and we need to know how to stop it.”

“Yes sir,” Santos said as everyone tried to pull their eyes away from the screen to resume their duties. It was not easy. Human nature kept pulling them back. How could they not watch something of this magnitude unfold?

At this most critical of times, “The Insider” was strangely silent. This was not the longest stretch of silence that Richard had endured. Because of it though, the
Rag
had branched out over the nets to gather in more and more bloggers around the world. Each blogger was made keenly aware that the
Rag
was looking for verifiable stories related to the aliens coming to Earth and that the
Rag
would pay handsomely for firsthand information that could be published before it was released on the Internet.

Most bloggers’ income sources were limited, so those that had contracted with the
New York Rag
were constantly on the lookout for new stories.

Delmar Keane was a travel blogger. His best friend, Teddy Coombs, in Seattle, Washington, was one of the regular bloggers contracted with the
Rag,
and Teddy had put out feelers with all of his friends to keep an eye out for alien-related stories. Delmar was on the
Princendam,
attempting to document the impact of cruise ships on the native populations along the Amazon River. When the bright flash spread across the sky south of the ship, he was taking in some sun on the observation deck and formulating plans for how he could get interpreters to interview the Amazon natives. That bright flash changed everything.

Delmar went directly to his cabin and pulled out his Apple iBlog II unit and hooked up immediately with Teddy.

“What do you have for me, Delmar,” Teddy asked?

“Some alien vehicle just landed in the Amazon River delta.  The
Princendam
was headed directly south and the landing took place right in front of the ship,” said Teddy.

“Can you get me the foredeck camera feed and some interviews with the crew,” Teddy asked?  I’ll need everything within the next hour or we will lose the scoop to some other outlet.”

“I’ll get what you need in less than an hour. How much can we get for this story,” asked Delmar?

“I’ll take care of the money,” Teddy replied. “The Rag is paying top dollar for this kind of information. Just hurry.”

When Teddy got off with Delmar, he contacted Richard to warn him what was coming within the hour and to ask about compensation.

“Don’t worry about compensation at this point,” Richard said. “Just get the story to me as quickly as possible while I go to my other sources for confirmation and to get the big picture. You will both be well taken care of for this scoop. I may even run a special edition of the
Rag
just to cover this story.”

With that, Richard disconnected with Teddy and sent a query over the laser link to “The Insider,” mentioning the Amazon event as the basis for the query. The reply came back within seconds.

“Confirmed that three alien craft have landed. First landing in Galapagos Islands. Second landing in the Amazon Delta region. Third landing in the Bahamas. No details yet on the reasons for the landings. More to come soon. Publish what you have. I will follow up with analysis as soon as it is available.”

With that, the connection was terminated. Richard was elated to be ahead of this story but he had much work to do to set up this special edition. He called his entire staff into an emergency meeting and handed out assignments to each of his twelve local employees to get the afternoon edition rolling. Beating the networks to a story was no easy feat for the print media, and now he had millions in New York City depending on the
Rag
for reliable firsthand information.

The last of the six planetary re-engineering modules had been released and was now down on the planet’s surface. The first three were already up and running and reporting no problems whatsoever. The composition of the underwater shelf was supplying most of the chemicals needed to create the surface film being generated. What was not available from the planet’s surface was being supplied by the store of materials in the modules themselves.

The initial report from the master engineer indicated that resupply of the modules would not be necessary until the planet was on the opposite side of the star. At that point, six new sites would be selected, and the second wave of modules would be sent down and the first set retrieved for resupply.

All was proceeding according to plan. They would be ready when the crèche ship arrived from the forward operating base.

After dropping off the last module, the master navigator brought the scout ship back into high planetary orbit where all of the modules could be monitored.