The Unearthing (7 page)

“What’s telemetry showing?” Bloom asked.

“Lieutenant-Colonel You wouldn’t believe me if I showed you.”

“Show me,” Bloom said, stabilizing herself into an upright position relative to Donnelly.

On the viewscreen before them a three dimensional image began rendering. It showed the object under the New Mexico desert: a massive disk with a blistered dome arching up seven kilometres from the its surface, where it ended in a ring of small pyramids guarding a single pyramid at the summit of the mountainous arch.

“Wait a minute,” Bloom said, “Is this right? This can’t be…the scale shows this thing to be almost thirty-five kilometres in diameter!”

“I told you that you wouldn’t believe me,” Donnelly replied, “And there’s more, Ma’am. That was just the initial radar sweep; further scans have determined the object to be of an unrecognized metallurgical composition which won’t allow us to do a scan of the interior.”

“Is the sweep still running?”

“Never stopped, Colonel Bloom.”

“We got cameras aimed down there? Regular video?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Show me the dig site. It should be right in the center of the scanning field.” Donnelly worked the console and a few moments later a satellite view-from-above image of the Laguna Pyramid dig site appeared on the small viewer immediately to the right of that console’s main viewer.

“Zoom.” The image grew in size and detail. Now they were able to see shapes moving about, evidently people.

“Again,” Bloom said. The people became visible to them. They were all armed and all wearing fatigues and armour plating.

“Jesus Christ, they’ve already taken control of the site,” Bloom hissed.

“Now what?”

“Now we need a new plan,” Bloom said, “Contact Major Benedict and Captain Boucher. Have them meet us in my office the minute they’ve completed their work.”

♦♦♦

“Let’s review,” Peter said, “What do we know?” They were sitting in a corner of the laboratory on folding chairs provided to the detainees by the military. They were fenced in by simple retractable cordons but what was keeping them all in place were the heavily armed soldiers on the other side of the barrier. James and Peter had pulled their chairs away from the rest of the crowd and were drinking coffee also provided to them by the soldiers.

“Access to the World Grid has been shut down,” James said, “There’s no way to send any Grid-based communications out.”

“Right. And we know that the object underneath us is about thirty kilometres wide and that it’s been here for sixty-five million years at least.”

“We know the government wants it.”

“More precisely we know they want to keep it secret.”

“And we know that they’re doing everything they can to appease us right now,” James added, “Giving us chairs, giving us coffee, donuts…I don’t know if you’ve ever been arrested or detained before, but usually when you’re dumped into holding, the guards don’t try and keep you happy.”

“No,” Peter said. “They just try to keep you
there
.”

“Pretty much.”

“So without Grid communication what can we do?” James sat silent for a long time, his brow furrowed and eyes downcast. Suddenly he straightened and looked at Peter.

“I just thought of something,” James said. They watched members of the dig being escorted to Colonel Jude’s desk.

“Yeah?” Peter asked.

“The Army came in here in BVT 624 Ranger transports,” James said, “Those babies are equipped with full onboard console systems including independent Grid backbones. Even if the World Grid is being blacked out right now the console systems in those vehicles can get online. If we can get to one,
we
can get online.”

“Great,” Peter replied, “So all we have to do is figure out how to get past the barricade in here, past armed guards, out into their motor pool and into an Army vehicle and online using a computer that’s probably passcode-secured.”

“If I can get to my console I can get into that computer. I’ve got hackware that no one’s ever seen before.” James’s console unit was neatly stowed in its pouch on the desk of the lab’s main computer workstation.

“We still have to get out of here,” Peter said, “Which we won’t be doing any time soon.”

“Yeah,” James admitted, “That’s the fatal flaw in my otherwise brilliant plan.”

“I could probably boost the vehicle if we can get to it,” Peter said, “But the instant we try that shit, we’ll come under fire and pursuit.”

“Not a problem,” James replied, “I read about the 624 Ranger in
Jane’s Review
. They’re armour plated and can take an RPG round and keep going.” Peter nodded, suddenly soberly terrified by what he and James were talking about.

“This is really heavy,” he said.

♦♦♦

Concord 3 hung over the Earth, a tiny white mote with silvery-black solar sails above a massive blue sphere. The station stared forever down upon the eerie luminescence of the night time oceans bordering the continent and the brilliant web of diamonds that were its many cities. Toward the station flew with pointed precision and cold determination a white jump plane inscribed with the insignia of the Defence Intelligence Agency. The triangular, wingless wedge of metal shone from its own running lights as it made the approach. Capable of orbital insertion and return under their own power, jump planes had replaced the ageing space shuttle fleet early in the twenty-first century. Successive generations of jump planes helped lessen the expense of both air travel and space travel, making even lunar voyages accessible to the average citizen. But the plane approaching Concord 3 was hardly an innocuous tourist flight. General Roy Harrod was aboard and he brought with him an entire battalion of troops.

Armed with the news that Harrod’s plane was less than an hour away, Bloom once more stood before her senior staff.

“Donnelly and I have analyzed the telemetry from the New Mexico scan,” She explained to them, “There’s an object buried down there, composition unknown, origin unknown. Everything points to it having been there for the last sixty-five million years, maybe longer. The size and shape of the object as well as its composition seem indicative of it not being of Earth origin. The DIA has sent troops in to occupy the dig site. And as we already know General Harrod himself is coming here to seize all evidence of the scan on our end. This is what they’re trying to hide.” Bloom hit a switch on her desk’s keypad and the wall to their left lit up with a three dimensional computer rendition of the object.

“Oh God,” Cohen said, her breath catching in her throat.

“My guess is it’s a ship,” Bloom said, “And my second guess is that the US government is trying to keep its existence a secret so they can keep everything they find for themselves. They’re violating both the North American Aboriginal Charter regarding the sovereignty of the Protectorate territories and the World Space Accords to make sure they have exclusive control of the information.”

“So what are we going to do about it?” Benedict asked. Bloom smiled.

“We’re going to do just what the DIA doesn’t want us to do Exo,” Bloom said, “We’re going to broadcast the information out onto the World Grid. Any objections?” There were none.

“Fine. And thank you one and all. Captain Donnelly, I’ll need you to put a team together for an EVA. Because our Grid link has been cut we need to aim at another satellite. Then we have to hack in and send our signal. That’s where you’ll come in, Captain Boucher. I understand your skills as a hacker are what landed you in military security to begin with.” Boucher nodded.

“All that’s going to take some serious time Lieutenant Colonel,” Benedict said.

“Correct Exo: time we’ll buy for ourselves by shutting down automated docking control. If Harrod’s boys have to dock with the station without our help, it’ll take them at least another forty minutes. That gives us time to aim a dish, hack a satellite and transmit the information we have.”

“Where are we transmitting to?” Donnelly asked.

“I think there’s only one place
to
send the signal,” Bloom replied, “Where the world gets its news: INN.”

♦♦♦

The jump plane neared the space station. Concord Three grew steadily larger out the cockpit window, from a speck of light reflecting against the sky to an indistinct shape, finally to a series of segmented columns joined together in tight parallel. The columns were bisected by massive solar sails, designed to collect most of Concord Three’s power from the sun. At the upper end the columns met together in one junction, joined to the gently rotating barrel-shaped habitat carousel. The carousel spun clockwise and generated an internal gravity approximating two-thirds that of Earth’s. Above the carousel was the space observatory array consisting of radio, x-ray, optical and electromagnetic telescope equipment. At the earthside pole of the space station was a similar, though scaled-back array. Between the two arrays and just below the solar sails was the docking hub. And it was towards this target that the jump plane’s pilot was heading. Thrusters fired across the surface of the plane’s skin in quick, controlled bursts, adjusting its speed and attitude. Earth hung just beyond the station to their left and as the pilots made another course correction the planet filled the horizon, seeming to roll toward them as they turned. Now they were perfectly aligned with the distant station, growing larger still as they approached.

“Docking control, this is the
Trafalgar
. Come in please,” The pilot said into his headset, “Concord Three docking control, this is jump plane
Trafalgar
. Do you copy, over?” The pilot turned to his co-pilot.

“What’s our ETA?”

“We are thirty-eight minutes from hard dock.”

“
Trafalgar
to Concord Three docking control,” The pilot said one last time, “We are currently forty minutes—that’s four-zero minutes—from rendezvous. Come in, over.” There was no response when the pilot toggled the com switch to receive.

♦♦♦

Donnelly’s breath echoed loudly within the confines of her helmet. She felt the push of the space suit’s built-in jets as she thrust her way towards the upper array. Two of her assistants were behind her, and watching via cameras from the command module Major Benedict kept her apprised of their progress. Donnelly watched another bead of nervous sweat pull away from her forehead and float up to the top of her helmet.

“Looking good Liz,” Benedict’s voice said over their radio link.

“Yeah, easy for you to say; you’re inside,eigh Donnelly replied. She hated spacewalking. The cosmonaut thing wasn’t bad if you were in a ship or doing time on the Lunar or Martian surface, but out in space with no dirt under you? That was too much for Donnelly.

“You’re almost there,” Benedict reassured her.

“Yeah,” Donnelly breathed, “Almost.” Donnelly and Benedict had determined prior to her sortie that the station’s communication array was being hit by a microwave jamming field, most probably from a nearby military satellite. As the field was aimed at the base of the station and the array pointing toward Earth, the array at the top of the station should be free from such interference. All they had to do was aim one of the microwave scanning dishes at the top of the station down towards another satellite and they would be able to communicate with the world again. They knew the approximate location of another nearby satellite and were going to use handheld equipment to locate it and aim the dish. Benedict had already run wires from the science lab to the command module, effectively turning the radio astronomy dish into a communications array.

“The SETI people are going to be so pissed about this,” He muttered, gleefully.

“Hey,” Donnelly said through the open channel, “They’ll forgive you Major, when they hear about the Ship. We’re here. I’m going to start now. We’re going take the dish off its mounting bracket. Christ, the thing is huge…”

♦♦♦

“What’s our status?” General Harrod asked, returning to the cockpit for the second time in ten minutes.

“We’re still trying to raise docking control,” The pilot said, “No go. We’re less than twenty minutes from the station now, sir.”

“Can you dock this thing without their help?”

“I could, but I’d rather not.”

“You’re going to have to I’m afraid,” Harrod replied, “Believe me, son. I’d rather be dirtside as well.” In truth there were few places that Harrod would not have chosen over space. He hated the constant feeling of falling, the nausea associated with having his stomach contents float around on their own and what
that
did to his acid reflux. Harrod had a long career in military intelligence; most of it as an analyst, sitting comfortably behind a desk. Space was for him the antithesis of comfort. True, he’d done his time in the field as an operative and served proudly. Harrod wasn’t one to shirk his duty, but he wasn’t one to necessarily enjoy it, either.

“A manual docking procedure without the station’s help will take longer,” The pilot advised the General, “Probably on the order of forty-five minutes to an hour.”

“Be that as it may,” Harrod said, “Just get me and my troops aboard that station.”

♦♦♦

There was a haze of smoke in Bloom’s office. She’d manually—and illegally—disabled all the smoke detectors within the confines of the small room shortly after taking command of the station. The lights were off; the only illumination from the glowing red tip of her cigarette. She stared out the blister window behind her desk, allowing herself to float in the zero-gravity environment; womb with a view. The view, of course, was Earth’s nightside. Dawn was creeping up somewhere to the right. But a different set of lights was shining in front of the luminous night time of America. It was these lights that held Bloom’s attention. The
Trafalgar
, an Avro Phoenix III orbital insertion jump plane configured for military use; modular payload convertible between cargo, hardware deployment, or troop capacity. The jump plane had grown from an indistinct reflective blur to a series of flashing lights to the point where Bloom could make out the plane’s silhouette. They were minutes away from beginning manual docking procedures and not a damn thing Bloom could do about it except hope her people finished their work before Harrod’s troops breached the bulkheads.