Battle for Earth

by Hammer Trollkin

In the meantime, I sat quietly, scowling, as we ate and watched the Emergency Broadcast news reports. Well, I didn’t eat, but the others were stuffing down food like it was their last meal.

  A report came on with the title, Capital Mall Battle.

  It turned out the report didn’t have much to say about the Capital Mall incident, only a brief acknowledgment that a special forces team had taken some action against the bug ship. No helicopters or drones had been allowed in the area. In fact, the entire area was secured, so journalists couldn’t get close to the ship.

  It was obvious to anyone in the vicinity of the Capital Mall that something was going on, with all the gunfire and explosions. There were some respectable distant camera shots but no detailed reporting. Government censorship.

  The film footage improved with some good camera work recording the bug ship moving up with the Washington Monument in the background. I really thought they were going to destroy the whole place. But the ship moved off and evidently headed out over the Atlantic. That was a happy sight.

  Mr. T received a call and moved to another room for a quick conversation. Roll was shaking his head. He was sure it was the military police giving us warning the house was surrounded and we should come out with our hands up. Next stop, military prison. That sounded about right. We should have gotten authorization for the Capital Mall operation. Mr. T came back, switched channels, and announced we should watch.

  As I’m sure you will recall, for our Emergency Broadcasting Programming entertainment, the authorities allow three or four slightly different news information productions. The same reports eventually cycle through all the channels. This report was different, with an air of excitement.

  There was some great footage of a couple of Bad-Ones, the new 6th -gen fighters. They seemed to drop in out of nowhere not far from the bug nest ship that was moving out over the Atlantic. The caption indicated it was the D.C. ship. There were two flashes and smoking trails as missiles launched and the Bad-Ones peeled off with amazing acceleration.

  Mr. T has been tutoring us on munitions. I’ve seen a lot of rocket launch videos. AMRAAM, Sidewinder, Hellfire, hypes, and more. These missiles seemed bigger, as did the actual rocket plume. Then there was a brilliant flash. Looks like they perfected a Goldilocks missile too.

  The report said the nest ship had been destroyed. Two Bad-Ones, no air base specifics given, chased down the ship that had terrorized Washington D.C. As a SIGINT unit, we receive numerous briefing reports. Some of those reports, if you ask me, seem too in-depth for a unit like ours.

  Anyway, from the briefing reports, we knew the military had found hiding spots for aircraft and heavy equipment that had survived the initial bug attacks. Actually, we knew from Mr. T the military had concealed a lot of equipment even before the invasion. The Bad-Ones had been pulled from hiding and successfully exploited that sensor blind spot. Mr. T had called in the sensor information less than an hour ago. Was it possible the Air Force had moved on the intel that quickly? And coordinated the attack with the news networks?

  However it happened. Another nest ship down! It feels like we are on the cusp of knocking back this invasion. Even I was feeling better. High fives all around.

  Rock has a huge smile on his face. “See. The military is just getting started. It takes a while to get all the gears of the big machine turning.”

  Roll is all smiles too. “Maybe this invasion is on its last legs. Just saying.”

  Grandad had to spoil it with the voice of reason. He held up a hand as if to ward off the wave of zeal coming from Roll. “Let’s not count the bugs out yet.” He has a big smile too though.

  Oh, I hate that eerie Emergency Broadcast Tone. Now what’s happening? It’s that old creepy tone instead of a Zone Tone. Not that I’d rather hear the local Zone Tone. Here’s the slow beep, beep, beep that plays before an announcement. What now? Oh no, a second wave of bug ships has come down. Time for a little break. I’ll be back later, I hope.

  The second wave of invaders didn’t bother coming in from outside the ecliptic. They came straight at us from Mars. Missiles were launched to intercept. None found their target. How many more ships can they send? This wave of invaders landed inside large population centers. Officials again emphasized the shelter in place command. But people have been leaving the affected cities in droves, which has led to terrible congestion. The bugs trooped out from their ships and herded hundreds of them into pens. Any resistance is being met with extreme force.

  At least they’re not eating people. Some scientists are speculating the bugs were setting up a kind of ant and aphid society. Yeah, that would make us the aphids. There may be a chemical or hormone that humans give off, something that the bugs need. That seems as good a guess as any.

  The political commentators have been active. One congressman gave a speech suggesting we lay down our arms and negotiate from a strong position of peace. That’s what he said. Strong position of peace. It started an uproar. Does he really want to be a slave to some evil bug? Has he been in a coma since the invasion started? Bugs are bloodthirsty. They ignore any attempts to communicate. How can it not be crystal clear, the only solution is extreme counter-force? Now, here come the vids of protest groups with all sorts of stupid signs. Bugs are colorful. People eat Bugs, Bugs don’t eat People.

  Here’s a guy now, at some protest, saying the bugs didn’t do anything too terrible until we attacked them. What do you think about that Para? Yeah, what a lie! Talk to the millions of people who have been terrorized by those monsters. What about Los Angeles? You’re lucky a group of bugs wasn’t in your area when you formed up for your protests. I doubt you would have liked their method of participation.

  With the second wave of ships situated in the middle of large population centers, the work of the military is all the more difficult. Smart bugs! The war shifted from bad to worse just that quickly. Still, there are less than 60 ships. And they aren’t pounding us into submission from space. Another good thing. Our little team is getting stronger. We have the means to do something. Now’s the time to give my team cohesion speech. They’re going to hear me and then we’re going to totally enter this thing. It’s going to get real kinetic out there.

  ***

  + BEGIN TIMELINE DROP. This is a Trollkin xxx.

  Note: xxx. Purpose: parse error. Date stamp: parse error. Drop designation is. This is a Trollkin xxx parse error.

  NOTE: This is Viz. I always receive a notification when a timeline drop is placed in the Journal. Oh, the Journal says I mentioned that before. Anyway, the note for this drop suggests the AI was having some technical issues. Perhaps a bout of quantum decoherence. It happens to the best of them. The drop has good information, so I won’t petition for removal. It is a little technical, but worthwhile.

  Subject: Quantum teleportation.

  Personnel: Mr. T ; Muncle ; Communal .

  “Muncle, how can I reach Communal other than through the Journal?”

  “You could give them a call.”

  “Communal has a phone number?”

  “Of course, doesn’t everybody? Sorry.” Muncle pushed a few keys and waved his phone near Mr. T’s phone.

  “Thanks Muncle.”

  “Glad to help.”

  A few minutes later, Mr. T called Communal.

  “Hello Mr. T, this is Communal.”

  “Hello Communal. I have a question for you.”

  “I’ll try to help.”

  “It’s regarding the twins and teleportation. Teleportation, producing a perfect copy, must involve an incredible amount of processing power. I have some notion of your processing speed. Let’s say you are working in the exaflops <1018 floating point operations per second> range.” You wouldn’t have anywhere near the computing power to help teleport even one human being.”

  “Yes and no. We assume you are using Rock’s estimate. 1027 bits of information needed to teleport a person and achieve a perfect teleportation ru
n. With a 1-exaflop processing rate it would take quadrillions of years to process that much information.”

  “Close enough to make my point.”

  “The quantum realm, as you know, is different from the macro world on which we tend to focus our attention. It’s all one inseparable system, of course. Still, without a complete unified field theory, it helps to consider quantum dynamics separately.

  “For this topic, perhaps we can use an analogy. You use lossless compression, such as .zip or .rar, for large files. There could be a similar methodology for teleportation processing. What if we could ‘compress’ the necessary teleportation information by, let’s say, a little over 50%? Then, by analogy, the size of a teleportation information packet could be reduced to something on the order of only 1013 or 1014 bits of information. That is much more manageable, would you agree? A cellular device like you s-loop could easily handle that. The quantum realm is nothing, if not efficient and helpful; even mysterious.”

  “Very interesting. Thank you Communal.”

  “You’re welcome Mr. T. Anytime.” END TIMELINE DROP. +

  CHAPTER THREE

  COUNTERSTRIKE.

  August 30 th – September 5 th Our little band of “gifted” warriors doesn’t have an official name yet. But we have been working hard on tactics and an overarching strategy to do our part to end the invasion. We have been working on team cohesion. At my insistence, thank you very much.

  Our force multiplying capabilities are functional, the application consistent. We could use more practice, but time is running out. There is still a need to gather more information about our enemy before we go ballistic on them. What are their specific objectives? What are their weaknesses? How might we exploit those weaknesses?

  To find the answers we need to get on board one of their ships and do some interrogating. While we’re at it, we might as well appropriate a ship. The term appropriate sounds so much better than steal, don’t you think? It just so happens all that would fit well with our SIGINT gig. Well, other than the ship stealing part. But that’s okay. We don’t mind stretching our boundaries. Right Para?

  Could we quantum teleport onto a ship? Rock and Roll each had the same exact contemplative look.

  Rock stood up and held his arms out wide. “The thing about teleporting is, you really want to do it in wide open spaces. Or, at least you need to have a good grasp of the layout. Take a bug ship for example.

  “What are you laughing at? Oh, yeah, we really do want to take a bug ship.

  “Anyway, we need to know where we will materialize. You ... do ... not ... want to materialize inside a solid steel bulkhead.”

  “We need a better term, other than materialize. Ending up with half of you in a bulkhead would definitely ruin your day. Being entwined with a bug would be nasty too. Solid material does seem to push back a little. That’s what it, ‘feels’ like. It might help as we gain experience with this. Roll agrees, it’s like that. It feels like a push back. But I’m not ready to trust the feel, not yet.”

  Roll smiled. “Yup, that’s what it ... feels like. Matter that is dense can be felt when porting. But I’m not ready to port blind to an unknown area. Not sure I ever will be ready. We should call it untangle rather than materialize.”

  “I like the term untangle. Right now, it would be stupid to port into a confined area.”

  “It is a little like the Space Journey app or even like Mr. T’s old Google Earth. If you’ve been somewhere, or have other location information, you can fly in from orbit and zoom down to the spot where you want to untangle. But you need to see it, or know where you’re going.”

  “Porting is just information going through a processor of some sort.”

  “Like a giant quantum computer, you think? What happens to the original matter at point A?”

  “It gets recycled. At the Planck level. Or smaller.”

  “Like it’s scanned, and then the information is forwarded to the destination.”

  “Yeah, an information loop so the process can be halted before it hits point B.”

  “If the porting is halted, the original form information returns to untangle at the start location?”

  “Or, the scanned copy is just not sent and untangles at the origin, point A.”

  “The process might not allow us to untangle within a solid object.”

  “There’s no such thing as a solid object.”

  “Well, an object that is too dense.”

  “So, it would spit us out into a less dense environment.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You go first. How about we find a nice lead cube for you to try?”

  “Real funny. String theory or Loop quantum gravity?”

  “Or some other quantum field theory operating. We don’t know enough.”

  “You don’t have the math!”

  “I don’t have the math? No one has the math.”

  “Like I said.”

  They’re pulling out some white-boards to start with the math equations. I am going to loop quantum theory someone upside the head in about two more seconds.

  This can go on for hours. “Guys, we’re all still here.” And there’s Mr. T just sitting there smiling at the twins. I think he’s enjoying himself.

  If we had blueprints of one of their ships, we might manage to teleport in. But we don’t. I messed up when I broke the cloak on the National Mall ship, before we got the complete tour. The bugs don’t generally leave the hatch open, so getting in again may not be easy. We do have Para though. We were sitting at the round table in our command center, planning our strategy, when she stated the obvious. Well, it was the lunch table in Mr. T’s lab, our makeshift command center.

  Para isn’t the kind to sit around very long. She stood up and slapped her hands on the table and sort of giggled. “Come on Sis, let’s walk right up to one of those bug ships, knock on the door real hard, and give them a good neighborly welcome. I’m thinking a nice bug hug is in order. Around the neck.” Then she got a serious look. “As long as we are all in close contact, your invisibility cloak will hide us. They won’t even know we’re there until we ... let them have it.”

  ***

  + BEGIN TIMELINE DROP. This is a Trollkin AI drop.

  Note: General information test. Call back directive received. Credential error encountered.

  NOTE: This is Viz. A drop slipped through the cracks. Personal data breach. I like this one. The AI did a good job writing it up too. Let’s keep it.

  He, Mr. T, was chatting with Marj one afternoon, and recalled how Mia would often stand up for those who needed help. She had gotten into trouble for that more than once. Mia was involved in such an event in middle school. Mr. T had stopped by to surprise the girls and pick them up from school. There was Mia, beyond a grassy area on the other side of the high chain-link fence.

  A couple of girls were hurting a third girl. No, it was worse than that. The poor girl was on the ground and they were brutally kicking her. Mia saw what was happening and was on them like a whirlwind. Mr. T’s practiced eye picked up on how careful Mia was to NOT hurt the bullies. Well, not hurt them too badly. Let’s say, she was very strategic and careful with her response.

  As it was, a teacher came around a corner and witnessed Mia’s defense of the poor girl. Unfortunately, all the teacher saw was Mia performing some adept martial arts moves and three other girls on the ground. She was brought to the office and promptly suspended. There was no attempt to interview witnesses or get to the bottom of the event. Zero tolerance for violence.

  Mr. T knew this situation was not the sort envisioned by a zero-tolerance violence policy. Going directly to the office to help give some perspective to the situation would be futile. That would be seen as a grandfather’s biased attempt to reconcile a brutal attack.

  It was indeed a brutal attack, with the hero mistaken as the attacker. No bias there. It wasn’t difficult to find a student who had videoed the entire event. A quick text later and Mr. T was on his way to the
office.

  He met immediate resistance. How had he gotten onto campus? Shall they call the police? But people are usually quite reasonable when addressed with politeness and a calm demeanor; a few relaxed and precise words; a video displayed on the principal’s computer screen. How had that gotten there?

  Mia was reinstated on the spot. The police would be called, but Mr. T and Mia were free to go, and with the school principal’s fervent thanks. Oh, that it was always so simple. END TIMELINE DROP. +

  ***

  That sure is a sinister giggle you have Sis. And a good idea. It was time to do some recon work, interrogate a queen, and appropriate a ship.

  We, as a team, could do most of the work. Actually taking the ship would be the problem. You know, moving the thing. Flying it was out of the question. It had to be heavy, at least 10,000 tons or more. Transporting the ship would be a huge endeavor, especially in a compressed timeframe. The military would need to handle that. And they would have to move fast, before bug high command figured out what was going on. We decided to go local and take the ship that had recently landed in our own area.

  Mr. T contacted an old friend, an admiral at Naval Base Kitsap, Admiral Blake. There is a large naval station in Bremerton, and a submarine base not too far from there. At least it’s not far as the crow flies. We got to listen in on the conversation.

  *Mr. T: “Chuck, how would you like for me to hand over the keys to a bug nest ship. All you have to do is tow it quickly from Federal Way to ... I suppose it would have to be Bremerton. The sub base would be a better place to hide it, that could happen later, right now I don’t think you’d have the time. Oh, you’ll need a team to do a bit of blasting to get the nest ship into the water.”

  *Admiral Blake: “So DARPA finally drove you nuts. I warned you about that back in the day.”

  *Mr. T: “Chuck, I’m serious. There’s a better than good chance my team is going to have a bug ship. Tomorrow. The one in Federal Way. But I can’t move the thing.”

  *Admiral Blake: “Well, I’ll be. Of course I want a danged bug ship. We can hide it well enough at Bremerton. Even set up a complete electronic cover. The bugs can probably access our sat feeds though. I’ll need to get authorization for a complete overhead blackout. What the #&$$