The Commander (2 page)

# # #

For hours the two men sat in a booth at the far end of the diner. Luke listened late into the afternoon, his mind filled with awe at Sam’s story but still not sure how much of it to believe.

“Wait a minute,” Luke interrupted at one point. “Why are you even telling me this stuff? You should be talking to the president or Congress.”

“Yeah,” Sam replied slowly. “Let’s think about that for a minute. Isn’t the president some kind of entertainment star? You think he’s capable of handling this?
Getting
the planet ready for an alien invasion a decade from now?”

“Well…”

“Your Congress isn’t any better. Bunch of crooks sucking up to their wealthy patrons. Am I right?”

“Yeah, for the most part,” Luke admitted.

“This is not the first time we’ve given a boost to a seeded colony,” Sam explained. “We’ve known this threat is coming for a while and we’ve tried a few things to stop them, all without success. Early on, we did just what you’ve said. We visited planetary rulers and gave them a technology bump to help prepare for invasion. Unfortunately, like in
every
single case
, when the Bakkui finally arrived, the only thing left on those planets were smoking holes or starving savages. I dunno why, but the politicos I’ve seen only care about themselves; they don’t have the mindset to save humanity.”

Luke nodded. He had the same feeling if truth be told.

Sam continued. “Recently we had a little success by helping one small company get a head start on their competition. But even that didn’t work out. So this time, the powers-that-be are going back to basics. Give one guy the technology and the resources needed to mount a defense. Frankly, Luke, I look at you and I’m not hopeful.”

“Thanks. I appreciate the vote of confidence.”

Sam shrugged. “Just saying. I just think you should know the fate of your entire planet, and everyone on it, is resting on your shoulders. But no pressure.”

“And what if I say I’m the wrong guy? What if I say no.”

“Then I really do push that detonator button, and your head really does explode.”

Luke rocked back, aghast.

Sam slapped the table and guffawed. It was a long, rolling laugh that left tears streaming down his cheeks. “Man, that never gets old. You should see your face.” He sat there chuckling to himself.

“Would you stop that!” Luke hissed angrily.

“I don’t know, man. When are you going to stop being such a sucker?”

“I won’t help if you keep dicking around. How am I supposed to save the world when all I’ve got is you and your juvenile sense of humor?”

Still smiling to himself, Sam leaned forward with a confident expression. “Relax. Like I said, we’re going to give you all the resources you need. For argument’s sake, let’s assume you have unlimited money. You don’t, by the way, but for your purposes, it should be close enough. What would be the first step?”

Luke paused and looked thoughtful. “Okay. You’re saying don’t trust the government.”

Sam shook his head. “Nope.”

“Well, then. I need to create my own organization. I assume you’re going to give me the technology I need?”

Sam nodded.

“If I need to keep the government out, I should set up operations that are beyond government interference. Otherwise people will find out. It’ll be impossible to keep a lid on the technology. The feds would be all over it. Wouldn’t you think?”

“That’s a reasonable assumption,” Sam agreed.

“If the solution is a space-based force, I’d set up operations in space. Maybe on the moon to start. If you can’t give me that much of a head start, then I don’t know.”

Sam leaned back and for the first time since Luke had met him, looked surprised. “I’ll never understand how they do it, but maybe they’re right. You might actually be the right guy.”

# # #

Sam pointed at third door in the row of storage units. Luke stopped the pickup and killed the engine. “This is the one?”

“Supposed to be. I rented unit twenty-three. It’s keyed to your thumbprint.”

“How did you… Never mind.” If Sam could fly in from outer space, then getting Luke’s thumbprint probably didn’t rate that high on the difficulty scale.

Luke got out and approached the roll-up door warily. Sam’s idea of humor would be to fill the inside with starving Dobermans. Luke pressed his thumb to the strange lock and it clicked open. He removed the lock from the handle guard and lifted the roll-up door. Nope, not Dobermans. It was much worse. He counted sixty pallets stacked with what appeared to be solid gold bars.

Sam joined him at his side. “This is the financial resource I was talking about. It’s not unlimited as you can see, but this should get you started.”

Luke frantically scanned the driveway hoping no one was looking. “This has to be a couple hundred million dollars,” he said.

“Closer to two billion.”

“You didn’t think it was a problem storing that much gold here?”

“Don’t worry,” Same said. “I paid the rent through the end of the year.”

Luke sighed heavily and closed up the unit. With the door securely locked,
such as it is
, he got in his pickup. “You have anything else to help me get started?” he asked worriedly.

“I saved the best for last. Let’s head back to the hangar.”

# # #

Luke examined the spacecraft skeptically. “You want me to fly this thing? Without any training?”

“I think you can handle it,” Sam replied. “It’s got an autopilot system that makes it fairly easy. Kind of what you would call cruise control.”

Luke pushed the Open Door button on the key fob. The lights flashed, the canopy disappeared, and the fuselage door slid open.
This thing is exactly like a minivan
.

“Watch your head,” Sam advised as they boarded the shuttle.

Inside, it was much wider and more spacious than Luke would have guessed. He had expected the main fuselage to be filled with engines and fuel tanks. He asked Sam about it.

“Good question,” Sam replied. “Look there.” He pointed to a series of wide, lightly colored circles on the underwing. Those provide lift. You’ll find bigger ones on the back end. Essentially, they generate anti-gravity; we call them gravity drives. You’ll learn more about that later.” He gestured toward the front.

The cockpit included a control panel across the front and a center console between two comfortable captain’s chairs. Outboard panels ran along either side.

“Where do I sit?” Luke asked. “Left side or right?”

“You can control the shuttle from either position, but custom dictates that the pilot sits on the left.”

Luke took his place and Sam slid into the co-pilot’s seat. In a slightly louder voice Sam said, “Full instrumentation.”

The control panel came to life with cockpit instrumentation that was at the same time familiar and yet far advanced beyond Luke’s experience. The last military jet he flew had a
glass cockpit
, meaning the displays and controls were programmed into the aircraft’s display panels. The functions changed dynamically depending on the activity at the moment.

“Most of this will become obvious as we go,” Sam explained. “If you have a question, just ask. This is
Sadie
, by the way.” He gestured to the shuttle in general. “She’ll answer your questions and keep you out of trouble.”

“What’s that?” Luke replied, pointing to a dark stripe on the left of the main control panel.

“Throttle,” said a light, feminine voice. “Non-linear input.”

“See what I mean?” Sam said. “
Sadie
knows everything.” He indicated a joystick on the center console. “Up, down, left, right. Just like you’re used to. There on your left, is hover control. Zero to twenty feet. Let’s go.” He pointed to a green circle displayed on the front panel and touched it with his fingertip. A low
hum
started and the shuttle said, “Ready for flight.”

Luke brought the spacecraft into the air with the hover control and then slid the throttle forward infinitesimally. As he did the dark stripe turned bright green under his fingertips. The shuttle responded and hover-taxied out of the hangar.

“You don’t really need the runway,” Sam said. “Just pull back on the stick and give it some gas.
Sadie
will compensate for everything as necessary.”

Luke eased the joystick backwards until the nose was thirty degrees up. He slid the throttle forward to max but the green stripe stopped halfway.

“Requested power exceeds recommended speed for atmospheric flight,”
Sadie
advised.

Sam smiled. “See? She’ll take care of you until you get the hang of it.”

Outside the view was spectacular. The ground fell away faster than he had ever seen while flying for the military. In the F-35, it was routine to peg out the vertical velocity indicator at thirty thousand feet per minute but he was far beyond that now. As they climbed, the sky turned a dark shade of blue and the curvature of the earth replaced the flat horizon. In less than a minute, they were above the atmosphere.

“Okay, let’s head toward the moon,” Sam suggested. “Do you know where it is?”

“It’s late afternoon, so it should be rising in the east.” Luke rolled the spacecraft to the right and pulled the nose across the horizon. The terminator was already crossing the Atlantic coastline. The moon came into view, brilliant against the dark black of space.

As they rolled out, Luke pushed the throttle up again. Once again the green stripe stopped moving.

“
Exceeding
light speed not recommended inside a lunar orbit,”
Sadie
cautioned.

Luke looked at Sam with a surprised expression. “Seriously? Faster than light? This thing can go that fast?”

Sadie
sounded affronted. “I’m not a
thing,
Mr. Blackburn. Light speed is not safe in a crowded orbit. And please direct questions concerning flight parameters to me, not to your passenger.”

Sam gave Luke a knowing wink. “Sorry,
Sadie
. My fault for not briefing him about you in more detail. Take us off manual control and set us down inside the Moonbase hangar, would you?”

“Course set,”
Sadie
replied.

“You can practice manual flight later,” Sam said to Luke. “I just wanted you to see how it works. Normally, you tell
Sadie
where you’re headed and she’ll take care of it. Questions so far?”

About a million, Luke thought as the spacecraft rapidly approached the moon. “What about g-forces?” he asked. “I didn’t feel any acceleration.”

“Gravity plates inside the floors and walls. Creates a sort of null-gee environment.
Sadie
takes care of that too so we don’t get squished.”

“What about warp drive,
Sadie?
You actually fly at warp?”

Luke could have sworn he heard the shuttle sigh. “There is no such thing as
warp drive,
as indicated in your question,” she answered. “Your reference to warp drive is merely a concept for fictional entertainment on your planet. The fact is we simply accelerate as necessary to arrive at our destination as quickly as possible. Once outside the planetary orbit, this normally involves some multiple of light speed.”

“But traveling faster than light is impossible,” Luke argued.

“Perhaps for you,”
Sadie
countered. “Not for me.”

Sam intervened. “Luke, the so-called barrier of the speed of light is like all the other artificial barriers your population has invented. You probably know that scientists on your planet said early train travel at twenty miles an hour would put too much stress on the human body to survive. Then it was the sound barrier, etcetera. On its own, yes, light has a certain limit, just like sound. But what do you think happens if you accelerate to the speed of light and just keep accelerating? You go faster, that’s all. Acceleration is the only limiting factor to speed.
Sadie,
what’s our acceleration right now?”

“In terms of local reference, our maximum acceleration for this flight was approximately fifty gravities. However, we passed the acceleration phase several minutes ago and are now decelerating.”

The forces at play were staggering. The technology to control those forces was inconceivable, let alone to do it in a shirt-sleeve environment.

“I don’t understand how this can possibly work,” Luke said.

Sam waved dismissively. “I’m a PR guy, Luke, not a scientist.
Sadie
can fill you in if you’re that interested. But for now, we’re almost there.”

Luke turned his attention to the view outside. The spacecraft slowed as it neared the moon’s surface. They descended into a wide crater at least twenty miles across. The bottom was flat and pockmarked with hundreds of small impact points. The crater had high, steep walls. In the shadow of the eastern wall a lighted rectangle opened to a hangar carved out of solid rock. It was six times the size of the hangar they had left in Baggs.