“Captain,” Palmer pressed, “The orders are explicit – no exceptions.”
“The purpose of those orders was for us to do whatever was necessary to protect Earth should the situation arise,” Jack countered. “I don’t take this lightly.”
Kurt was transfixed by the debate as Jack turned to face them. Jack’s eyes leapt from him to Nadya, then to the other faces nearest him. “You are more than my crew. You are my friends. The last thing I want to do is put any of you at risk. However,” he said as he turned back to Palmer, “I believe the course of action I’ve begun laying out is the only one that complies with those orders. The only one that protects our home.”
“You’re still working on assumptions that you can’t back up,” Don challenged. He spoke fast as if he were grasping at the first thoughts that came to mind, “What if this isn’t their only fleet? If there’s another one lying in wait, then we’ll be destroyed and you’ll have accomplished nothing.”
“The data Alpha’s shown me from the other attacks says that they move their entire fleet each time. They’re almost nomadic. They don’t leave any ships behind, at least not right now. Alpha did suggest there is the possibility that a more thorough, ‘mop-up’ force might follow in the future, but only after this one’s cleared the way. If that’s the case, that force will be back at their home world or some other colony hundreds of light years away waiting for word to proceed. It’ll take centuries for them to receive word from this fleet and then return to these targets. That would at least give Earth some time to prepare.
The room was silent again. Kurt looked at Nadya, and wanted to say something; but there was too much to absorb. It was best not to think of their chances in battle. He knew he’d already cheated death too many times and was sure this time his luck would run out.
“Don,” Jack said calmly. “Palmer’s a hundred percent right about the value of the information we have. We have to send it back to Earth. They need to get every bit of data we’ve collected on both the enemy and Alpha’s people. I want you to head this up. It is our top priority. Use whomever you need to get this done.”
“Jack,” Don protested in a more civil tone, “it’s just sending a damned transmission.”
“There’s more to it than that. Should they somehow intercept our transmission, we can’t let them know how much or how little we know of their capabilities.”
“I know, I know. I’ll use standard quantum encryption,” Don said dismissively. “It will be unbreakable; the laws of quantum mechanics will take care of that.”
“If we learned anything over the past few weeks, it’s that our knowledge of the laws of nature is incomplete. Work with Alpha to find something that is good enough. Just be sure the people back home will be able to read it.”
Don took a deep breath before answering, “I can do that.”
Jack continued speaking, but Kurt’s attention was fixed on Don and Palmer. They were having an animated discussion, though in hushed tones he couldn’t hear. His best guess was that Don was being as stubborn as always. It was Palmer’s public challenges of Jack followed by his sudden silence, though, that unnerved him. That and the fact that he knew Don was still convinced Jack was wrong. It felt like they gave in too easily at the end. A tap on his shoulder made him turn to face Nadya.
“You think something’s up with Don too?” she asked.
He knew it was more of a statement than a question, but answered anyway, “I guess.”
Nadya nodded and said, “We need to tell Jack as soon as we can get him alone.”
“I agree, but...” Kurt stopped as he realized the meeting was breaking up. Jack was making his way toward them through the exiting crowd. Without breaking stride, he said, “I need the two of you to work on something,” and led the way down the hallway to his office.
Kurt glanced over his shoulder and saw that Palmer was following, though the man was far enough behind to be out of earshot. Turning back to Jack, he asked, “So, do you think the crew’s agreed to go along with this?”
Jack answered bluntly, “I wasn’t asking them. The meeting was to explain the reasoning behind our course of action. I need everyone to understand why we have to do this. I can’t have anyone thinking this is reckless; or worse yet, personal.”
Kurt was embarrassed that the thought had crossed his mind. He glanced at Palmer, who had just caught up with him, but his stoic expression told him nothing.
“You made a good point in there,” Jack continued, “about their vulnerability when they enter a star system. The problem is that we need to somehow figure out how long that window of opportunity will last.”
“I can only guess that...” Kurt started, but Jack quickly cut him off. “We can’t have any guessing. Besides, we have some data that might help us.”
“Sir?” Palmer said.
“During our escape, Alpha’s orbital view showed several of the enemy fighters accelerate hard to give chase. They did everything they could to try to keep up with us, but failed. This should give us an idea of their engines’ capabilities, and let us calculate the duration of their deceleration phase.”
“How can we get this data?” Nadya asked.
“I’ve already asked Alpha to download it to our systems, as well as detailed charts of this star system.”
“Not bad,” was Nadya’s response.
Turning to face Kurt, Jack said, “I need you and Nadya to review this data and analyze their engine capabilities. We need to know exactly what they can and can’t do. We need to keep the element of surprise.”
They entered Jack’s office as he said, “Computer, display a map of this star system.” He reached around Kurt to close the door while the display panel on the far wall came to life. A small, yellow star was set in the middle of seven, white, nearly circular planetary orbits. The last of the planets appeared to be embedded in a myriad of tiny yellow specs; probably a field of icy planetoids comprising the system’s Kuiper belt.
“Computer, display the direction to the last system.”
A simple green line appeared, stretching from the central star to the upper right edge of the screen.
“I guess we could set up some sort of mine field,” Nadya offered. “Maybe put some bait in place, to draw them in, and then set off the explosives.”
“Or maybe a debris field,” Kurt added. “I mean, yeah, use your idea of baiting them into the area. If they’ve got dozens or hundreds of ships coming in, it’d be tough to set up enough explosives to get even a large fraction of them. If we set up an area of rocky debris far enough out, I mean far enough from this star, then they shouldn’t be able to stop in time. The collisions would destroy them.”
They waited quietly for Jack’s response, but Palmer spoke up instead. “What if their ships are more maneuverable than we expect. It could be impossible to keep them from steering around a trap.”
Kurt answered quickly, “I’m not talking about a few rocks. Assuming Alpha can create some powerful explosives, we could shatter a few of the hundred-kilometer size Kuiper belt objects, there’d be dense clouds with hundreds of thousands of fragments; too many to simply steer around.”
“They’d need to be near the outer edge of the belt,” Nadya said. “At least two or three hundred AU out in order to be sure they’d still be going too fast.”
Kurt smiled. He was beginning to think they had a chance.
“Computer,” Jack said, “highlight any objects greater than fifty kilometers across along the inbound enemy trajectory.”
The screen’s view instantly changed. Gone were the ellipses of planetary orbits and the sprinkling of objects at the outer edge of the star system. They were now looking at a small array of randomly spaced red circles, each with a number beneath it indicating the object’s size. The green line along which the enemy would be travelling now had distance indicators starting at 300 AU at the upper right and counting backwards by twenties as it progressed to the other corner of the screen.
Kurt smiled ag
ain; it looked possible. There were several adequately sized objects right along the inbound trajectory.
“We need to be completely sure they can’t avoid whatever we put in their way,” Jack said. “Especially if they’re not as blind as we think on the way in.”
The solution flashed into Kurt’s head. “What if we use the debris as a sort of reverse bait?”
Nadya elbowed him as she said, “Reverse bait?”
“You know what I mean. Let’s use the debris fields to guide them into a trap. We’d create a couple of clouds of debris; not enough to look impassible. If they don’t see it and hit it, great. But if they are able to detect and avoid it, the clouds would channel them into a bottleneck close to a few of the larger objects. If we detonate those objects just as they’re passing, the fragments would be like buckshot from a shotgun blast. Think of it, in a tight space like that, their ships would be clustered together so we’d have a better chance of getting them all.”
Jack nodded as he studied the map. “It’s a start.”
“I see a problem, here to the right,” Palmer said while pointing to two noticeable voids in the map. “You’ve got a couple of areas where there are no suitable objects. They won’t be covered.”
Kurt was annoyed that Palmer was poking holes in their idea, but he saw it too. There were no sizeable objects within a hundred-thousand kilometers. “I see … there is a chance that some of the ships avoiding the debris field might divert to through those regions instead.”
“We could fall back on my original suggestion and lay mines in those regions,” Nadya added. “I mean there’re only two real voids.”
“But what could we place there?” Palmer challenged. “There won’t be any objects to break up, and you can be sure that they’d try to steer clear of any smaller ones.”
The room was silent. Kurt stared at the screen hoping a solution would just become apparent, but nothing happened. Their plan was starting to look promising, but they couldn’t leave any obvious gaps. He studied the shape of the voids more closely, but it didn’t help.
“The only thing I can see is a brute force approach,” Jack said. “We’d need Alpha to create some high-yield antimatter explosives. If we detonated a large enough explosive near the center of each void, that should cut off any possible escape.”
“We’d need a lot of antimatter,” Palmer said. “Too much.”
“Not as much as you’d think,” Nadya answered. “I mean it’d be a heck of a lot for us, but hopefully not too much for Alpha.”
“How much are we talking?” Kurt asked.
“A few hundred kilos of antimatter coming into contact with the same amount of matter would produce a blast in the thousands of megatons.”
“The question is: can they make it quickly,” Kurt said.
“There is also the problem of setting this all up,” Palmer said. “Our shuttles aren’t nearly fast enough to do it.”
“That’s where Alpha’s people come in,” Jack answered.
Chapter 33 – July 30, 07:47:00
Jack stopped in mid-stride, only a few steps from the bridge, when he heard the word, “Captain,” called out. He turned reflexively even though he knew it was Alpha’s voice and that he was alone in the hallway. “Yes?” he answered.
“We need to talk. Do have somewhere private where you can go so that we can discuss the situation.”
“Yes, give me a moment to get to my office. I’ll have Palmer meet me there.”
“Our preference is to talk only with you.”
Knowing that the last thing he should do was start keeping secrets from the crew, he answered, “No. I want my first officer present.”
“As you wish.”
Jack activated his comm. unit and said, “Palmer, report to my office.”
Barely a second passed before Palmer replied, “On my way.”
As he walked back down the corridor, his mind raced ahead. He still needed to present the plan to Alpha. How do you convince a species who’s only understanding of conflict was to run and hide, to instead take a stand and fight; especially when the odds of your own individual survival were better if you ran. It seemed crystal clear to him: this enemy was trying to exterminate them. There was only one way to deal with such a threat: fight back. There was another equally obvious question though. How do you convince someone with infinitely more experience and knowledge that they should follow you?’ Without exception, Alpha had treated him respectfully, but Jack was sure that they viewed their human guests as little more than impetuous children. He needed a way to convince them to place some value on human experience. They needed to see things from a point of view that was truly alien to them.
Jack entered his office, left the door open for Palmer and took a seat at his desk. His blank screen stared at him, as if it were pressuring him to do something; he just didn’t know where to begin. Before he could finally formulate his thoughts, Palmer entered. Jack quickly said, “Close the door behind you please.”
Palmer did as asked, at which point Jack continued, “Alpha just contacted me. They want to speak with us about our situation.”
“Interesting,” Palmer replied. “I assume it’s a response to your proposal. I would have thought you’d at least let me know exactly what it was you were presenting to them.”
Jack allowed his annoyance at Palmer’s challenge show as he said, “I haven’t sent them anything yet, there’re still some details that need to be worked out. You’ll see the plan and have a chance to comment before I send it.”
Palmer straightened in his chair and replied, “I apologize for my assumption sir.”
Jack nodded in acknowledgment before he activated his comm. and said, “Janet, respond please.”
“Here sir.”
“Send a radio signal to Alpha. Let him know I’m ready to speak with him.”
“OK,” was the quick answer.
A moment later, Alpha spoke. “Thank you for speaking with us.”
Jack was still amazed at their continual politeness and answered, “Not a problem. What did you want to discuss?”
“It relates to our current situation. Several members of our vessel are concerned about your idea of setting traps for and attacking the inbound fleet. We still don’t know who they are, and at this point, they have not yet done anything to us here, yet...”
Palmer started speaking over the alien, “Jack, you said you…”
Jack cut both of them off, saying, “Stop!” There was an abrupt silence. Rather than wasting time asking Alpha what traps he was talking about, he held up a finger to Palmer and said, “Alpha, can you please tell me how you got your information?”
“There is a separate research group aboard our vessel that has been studying you; they are very interested in your civilization. While doing this, it appears that they have been monitoring your ship in great detail, including all conversations. A member of that team alerted me to the issue.”
Palmer responded first, “You assured us that you wouldn’t spy on us – that we would still have our privacy.”
“Yes I did, and I can still assure you that I have only heard what you have spoken directly to me. This will continue to be the case.”
Palmer looked at Jack in disbelief. Jack replied, “But that’s obviously not the case if others on your crew are listening in on us. They must abide by your agreement.”
“As I said, I am not in charge of them. All aboard our vessel have the freedom to do as they wish. I became your liaison, so to speak, simply because I was first to volunteer for the task.”
“But don’t you understand how this violates our trust in you?’ Jack pressed. “Surely individuals on your vessel can’t simply listen in on anyone else whenever they want.”
“Any individual can do whatever they want,” Alpha replied. “They can listen to, watch or monitor whatever they choose. There are no rules that limit one’s actions with us.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Palmer said.
�
��How can everyone just accept such blatant invasions of privacy?” Jack added.
“Captain, as I have tried to explain, ours is a civilization where there are no limitations on any individual, and where no one lacks for anything. As a result, there is no need for your concepts of ownership or privacy. If someone were to watch everything that I do, and listen to every thought that I have, that is fine. It has no effect on me or what I’m free to do; they’re not taking anything from me. I know it’s complicated for you to understand, but keep in mind that your ideas of privacy are necessitated only by the fact that you still compete with each other. You keep things to yourselves in order to hold an advantage over others. When every individual can have whatever they want, there is no advantage to be had; there is no need to compete. As your civilization and technology advance, you will understand. Please just accept that this is the way things are.”
For the first time, Jack was sure he heard a note of condescension in Alpha’s voice; if not in his tone, then certainly in his words. How do you respond to someone who just told you that your feelings of betrayal were because you’re just a child? He looked to Palmer who sat there speechless, then took a deep breath and said, “Alpha, you’ve just asked me to accept you for who you are. To accept the basis of your society on faith. This goes both ways. In order to work together, you need to accept us for who we are. And, as a result, respect our own values, whether or not they seem primitive to you.”
“I didn’t mean to imply that you are primitive,” Alpha said apologetically.
“Alpha, it doesn’t matter. What is important is that you, and your crew accept our need for privacy. It will aid us in working together with you and trusting you.”
“I can understand your need for this. Though, I am confused by your statement. There is no need for us to work together. We will protect you to the best of our ability; there is nothing you need to do.”
“There’s much more to it than that.”
Prelude to Extinction Page 38
