Nu Trilogy 1: The Esss Advance (30 page)

Sted was becoming increasingly frustrated as more and more bad news poured in from the alien infestation on Earth. He was stuck on the shuttle from the belt, and all he could contribute were some possible strategies for a new untested fighter. He felt that he had exhausted that topic weeks earlier.

Jessica had caught him brooding again the evening before and told him to snap out of his funk. That comment had been bouncing around his skull ever since. Finally, he decided it was time to get proactive. He brought up his message-recording application from the desktop and began dictating a message to Cam.

“Hi, Cam. I know you’re set to run your initial field tests on the first Scorpion fighter, and I’m sure Marty will do a marvelous job ironing out any kinks from the hardware that the Navy has added to the frame. However, I’m not sure that Marty is the right person to be leading the ship-to-ship coordination tests required in the strategies I outlined in my last update from two weeks ago.

“Since we are about to come around Mars and swing toward Luna, any deceptions for alien consumption will be complete, so why can’t we arrange faster transport from Mars than this lumbering shuttle? Would it be possible for you to nudge the Navy to get one of their fast destroyers at the Mars orbital station to rendezvous with
Endeavour
and bring Jessica, myself, and any other critical resources aboard the shuttle to Luna on a much more aggressive schedule?

“I did the math, and it looks like we could shave at least three weeks from the shuttle’s best time, and it would bring me to Luna in time to coordinate the multi-ship testing. I would make the request directly to the Navy, but that would have to go through channels, and I know you have a direct channel to Vice Admiral Bunting.

“Let me know what you think of the idea and what kind of reaction you get from Bunting. Needless to say, I’m going a bit crazy out here not being able to contribute like I could from the lunar base.”

Sted saved the recording in the High Priority Request folder, knowing it would be routed to Cam almost immediately. Transmission time from Mars to Luna was much shorter than from the belt, so he might even hear back before Jessica got back to the cabin that evening. He was hopeful he would have a big grin on his face when she returned.

The Council of Eight had been in emergency session almost continuously for the past four days. They had received urgent requests from the six countries associated with the alien incursion for assistance in combatting massive ecological disasters being propagated in their territorial waters.

Today, they were hosting the ambassadors from Australia and the Philippines, and tomorrow they would be hosting the ambassador from Malaysia.

At the moment, Ken Clay from Australia had the floor. “Ladies and gentleman of the Council, we must take decisive action immediately, and Australia intends to do just that, with or without Council approval. We are notifying the Council today that at 0800 local time tomorrow in Perth, we will be attacking our visitors from both the sea and the air.

“We have two destroyers and one missile frigate coming into position ten nautical miles west of this monstrosity. We have created special depleted uranium shells, and we will be placing them aboard the destroyers to try and penetrate the surface of the pyramid. The missile frigate will try to protect the destroyers from any retaliatory strike from the aliens. In addition, we will launch a tactical nuclear weapon at the pyramid via a cruise missile to strike just two minutes after we begin the shelling from the destroyers.

“What we don’t have is any protection from that bloody mother ship in orbit. We would like some assistance from the United Space Navy to distract it just prior to our attack. That might buy us enough time to destroy the damn pyramid before we get our butts kicked. Sorry for the colorful language, but we will be the first country putting our military personnel in the line of fire, and we are looking for any help we can get.”

“Thank you, Mr. Clay,” President Travers replied. “We will take your request under advisement with the Secretary of the Space Navy and get back to you within the next four hours. Now, Mr. Ramos from the Republic of the Philippines, you have the floor.”

“Thank you, Sir William,” Juan Ramos said. “For the record, we have already asked for assistance from Japan, China, and the North American Union with the pyramid located just off Babuyan Island. I’m afraid that was a mistake on our part. Now we have squabbling between the three parties instead of a united front.

“Our request of the Council is for the Space Navy to take charge and coordinate between the three countries for an all-out attack on our pyramid. We believe that between the three countries, there is enough firepower to wipe that thing off the map without endangering our population on Luzon Island. We are already evacuating everyone from the Babuyan Islands. This should be completed within the next two days.

“Needless to say, the sooner we can destroy that thing, the less damage it can do to the environment. The slick being generated will reach Taiwan in just a few days, and from there it will travel up to Japan and then across the northern Pacific. We are already experiencing a major impact on our fishing industry, and that is only going to be magnified as it spreads northward.”

“Thank you, Mr. Ramos,” President Travers said. “Again, we will take your request under advisement with Secretary Miller. Because this request involves meeting with multiple countries, it will take at least the next two days to get coordinated while you complete your evacuation. You should be hearing from Madam Secretary by the end of the day with a proposed meeting schedule. Does anyone have any questions of either ambassador before we excuse them?”

He looked around the table at the council members but saw no takers. “Okay, ladies and gentlemen, we will suspend the council meeting until after lunch. If the ambassadors would be so kind as to join us in the council dining room, we can continue these conversations on a less formal basis.”

With the loss of the library in Alexandria, there was a major setback in the advancement of the knowledge base for humanity. The long road back was populated with some brilliant work by the classical astronomers and mathematicians Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo. The work of these three men helped humanity to better understand the structure of the local star system with the planets orbiting around the sun.

This, however, was not enough to get humanity out into space. Much more was needed. The latest reports from scouts arriving from further out in this galaxy indicated that the Esss would overrun this area within 300 years. To survive, humanity would have to escape the gravity well of the planet and become a spacefaring race.

A real push was needed, and AlbuTang found an ideal candidate in Bern, Switzerland in the early part of 1902. In the guise of a patent applicant, AlbuTang met briefly with Albert Einstein to review an application drawing. At the end of the meeting, the two shook hands, and that’s when it happened. AlbuTang did not release his grip right away but continued to talk with Einstein while transferring a small portion of himself into the unsuspecting human.

The results of this transfer would be a true advancement of the understanding of the universe by humanity. Einstein’s miracle year, three years later, would see four articles published on the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, the special theory of relativity, and the world’s most famous equation, E = mc
2
.

With this small push, humanity would reach the moon in fewer than seventy years.

“They want me to ‘distract’ the alien ship in orbit?” Fleet Admiral Brooks asked, unable to hide his anger. “Did they say how long this distraction should last?”

Secretary Miller absorbed the anger over the com connection and let it flow through and past her, maintaining her calm demeanor and waiting before replying.

“Yes they did, Admiral” she replied calmly. “They will begin their shelling of the pyramid off Perth at 0800 local time and then hit it with a tactical nuke-tipped cruise missile two minutes later. I think a five-minute distraction would be all that is required.”

“I’m sorry, Madam Secretary,” Brooks said, looking sheepishly into his com camera on board
Invincible
. “With what we experienced so far from the three small alien ships when they ran their sampling missions, I can’t even imagine that distracting the main ship is going to be anything but fatal.”

Brooks was less than happy about the request from Australia. If they were successful in destroying that polluting pyramid off Perth, one of his ships might suffer the consequences in Earth orbit.

“Okay, Madam Secretary. Let me get back to you in twenty minutes after we run an assessment on what resources we have available that we might consider ‘expendable’. I also need to verify where the alien craft will be in orbit at the time of the attack and what ships we can get to that general area to cause the distraction.”

“Thank you, Admiral. I’ll be waiting on your call.”

“Commander Santos, have navigation plot the orbit of the alien vessel and let me know where it will be at 0800 local time in Perth, Australia tomorrow morning.”

“Give us five minutes, sir,” Santos said as he pushed off from his console and floated toward the navigation center.

“I assume you heard the admiral’s request?” Santos said to First Lieutenant Jamie Hart. She was in charge of fleet navigation in the FCC, because she was the best mathematician in the fleet. She had been known to run orbital calculations in her head faster than others could type in the parameters to the navigation computer and have the calculations done for them.

“Yes, sir,” Hart replied. “We have the orbital plot of the alien vessel already mapped. The orbit has been stable now for almost forty-eight hours, so I feel comfortable with the assumption that the ship will maintain the same orbit over the next twenty-four. I just entered the request for the navigation computer to display the plot with hourly markers based on Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and then advanced the time by eight hours for Australia Western Standard Time (AWST). Now let’s see the results.”

She tapped the key one final time. On her screen, the map adjusted the time markers of the orbit to AWST. Because the black pyramids were all located fairly close to the equator, the aliens’ orbit was always directly over the equator, giving that ship access to each of the sights three times each day. Perth happened to be located furthest from the equator of all six locations, but that was offset by the location in the Philippines that was north of the equator at close to the same longitude.

“It appears that the alien ship will be over South America between the Galapagos Island site and the Amazon delta site at 0800 AWS,” Hart said. “My guess is that the Australians timed it that way on purpose.”

“I would have to agree with you,” Commander Santos said as he pushed off from the navigation console back toward the Brooks’ flag station.

“Sir, I don’t see where any distraction is necessary,” Santos said. “When the attack occurs, the alien vessel will be on the opposite side of the globe with no chance to interfere.”

“Thank you, Commander. Please get me the secretary back on the com to report the good news.”

Thirty seconds later, Secretary Miller appeared on the fleet command console at Brooks’ station.

“What do you have for me?”

“Either the Australians are very lucky, or they were just using this request as a way to announce their intentions to us in the guise of a request for assistance. The alien ship will be over South America at the time scheduled for the attack, assuming it maintains its current orbit, as it has for the past two days.”

“I’ll get back to the Council right away,” Miller said. “Can you put together a plan anyway to cover the possibility that their orbit will change between now and then? If we say we can support them, we should cover all contingencies.”

“We have a little over nineteen hours until the planned attack. I will make sure we have at least two of our ships in orbit over eastern Brazil at that time. That’s the best I can do on this short notice.”

“Thank you, Fleet Admiral Brooks,” the Secretary said in a more formal tone. “I need to fill you in on one other matter before the Council when you get a chance. Would you please schedule some time with my office for a fifteen-minute conference? Make it sometime after the afternoon council session.”

“Certainly, Madame Secretary,” Brooks said as he cut the connection.