Jury Duty (First Contact)

by Peter Cawdron

  “What’s going on?” Nick asks feebly, but Cooper is already shoving him in the back of the vehicle. Another, older soldier is talking with the senior police officer and the foreigner. His cap has two stars on it. Nick doesn’t know what rank that signifies, but he’s clearly above Cooper and Williams. The officer climbs in the front passenger’s seat as Williams starts the engine. The foreigner pushes in the rear of the Hummer beside Nick, sandwiching him in the middle, with Cooper on the other side.

  “Who are you?” Nick asks, looking around and seeing several more police cars with their lights flashing. The vehicles are spread out on either side of the road.

  “Major General John Sanders,” is the response from the front of the Hummer. “This is Corporal James Williams and First Lieutenant Jasmine Cooper.”

  “Jazz,” Cooper says, but without the smile he expects to accompany an informal introduction. “And that’s our Russian friend, Dmitri.”

  “UN Observer,” Dmitri says, pulling off his red tie and undoing the top button on his shirt. Indignation hangs from his words. “I’m here to ensure the US complies with its treaty obligations.”

  “Sure,” Jazz says, rolling her eyes and shaking her head.

  The word, “Treaty,” stumbles from Nick’s lips, but it’s an echo, not a question.

  The Hummer weaves its way down the street, working around the police cars partially blocking the road. Several police cruisers provide an escort, with one in front and two following close behind.

  “Am I under arrest?” Nick asks, rubbing his wrists and looking at the red marks left by the cold, hard steel. Deep down, he already knows the answer. The US Army doesn’t have jurisdiction over American citizens on US soil.

  “No,” the general replies, watching the road ahead.

  “Then I’m free to go?”

  The Russian laughs.

  Nick isn’t impressed. “Can I ask what’s going on?”

  “You can ask,” the major general replies, turning in his seat to face Nick. “But I’m not going to answer you.”

  Jazz says, “Let’s just say your options are limited.”

  “I have rights,” Nick says, but he’s bluffing. He’s seen too many goddamn awful, stupid TV shows. He has no idea what rights he has in any given context—especially as he just threatened to kill his girlfriend.

  “Your rights have been suspended,” the major general replies. “Article One of the Constitution, Section Nine, Clause Two states, ‘The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless… public safety may require it.’ Right now, your options are to sit there and shut up or spend the next couple of years in solitary confinement until this crisis is over.”

  No one likes being talked down to, least of all Nick, and yet, beyond the resentment festering in response to the way he’s been treated, there’s a gnawing sense of uncertainty. Years in solitary? Crisis?

  The general doesn’t give a damn about him and his feelings. With callous disregard, he says, “My orders are to escort you to Charleston Air Force Base where you’ll be flown to Ramey Air Force Base in Puerto Rico before flying on to South Georgia.”

  Nick shakes his head, somewhat in anger, somewhat in dismay. “We’re going to Georgia via Puerto Rico?” He quickly becomes wrapped up in that obscure point, missing the real question—why? Nick turns to the Russian crammed in beside him and says, “We could drive there in under an hour. What the hell is going on?”

  The burly Russian just smiles.

  “No, not Georgia,” the general says, turning back toward him with a smirk on his face. “South Georgia.”

  Nick still doesn’t get it.

  “In the South Atlantic. It’s an island in the middle of the ocean. Twelve hundred miles off the southern tip of Argentina. Just above Antarctica.”

  “But—But why would you do that?” Nick asks.

  “Don’t you know?” Jazz replies with sarcasm dripping from her words. “You’re the chosen one.”

  Chosen One

  “You don’t like me, do you?” Nick asks as they sit inside the pressurized cargo hold of a C-5 Galaxy waiting for takeoff. Jet engines whine, idling outside.

  Jazz replies, “I’m not here to be your friend. I’m here to do a job.”

  “And what is your job?”

  “To keep you alive. I’m an Arctic warfare specialist. Although, in this case, it’s the Antarctic we’ll be dealing with, and that’s worse, far worse.”

  Questions bounce around in Nick’s head. He isn’t sure where to start. Dmitri walks over to them, sitting down on the other side of him with a couple of water bottles. He offers one to Nick, who waves it away with a polite, “No, thanks.” Defiance is all he has, even when offered something helpful. Passive-aggressive much? Almost immediately, Nick regrets those two words, but his pride says, too late, even though his parched lips scream otherwise.

  Without saying anything, Dmitri insists, waving the bottle one last time. “Are you sure?”

  Reluctantly, Nick concedes.

  The interior of the C-5 Galaxy is massive, living up to its name. By Nick’s reckoning, the cargo hold is well over a hundred feet long, easily twelve feet high, if not higher, and is probably about twenty feet wide. As there are no windows, instead of sitting in the fuselage of an airplane, he feels as though he’s inside a warship.

  The hold is full of equipment. Instead of being packed in tight, the equipment has been placed throughout the aircraft, being spread out to balance the load. Thick strapping secures dozens of crates. There are a pair of snowmobiles on a wooden pallet. Tall radio antennas have been attached to the rear of each vehicle. They’ve been bent over, forming an arc that ends by the front skids, but even so they reach up to within inches of the ceiling. The snowmobiles have been painted bright orange, no doubt to aid with visibility.

  Behind them, there’s a large, clunky, orange industrial tractor with four independent tank-like treads instead of wheels. The box-shaped cabin lacks any aerodynamics and could house ten people at a pinch. The clunky engine bay at the rear makes the tractor look like something from the 1950s, while the paint job reveals the machine is brand new. Old-fashioned bulky windshield wipers hang down from above the cab. Thick metal arms extend from clunky electric motors on the roof. These are for scraping ice rather than clearing snow or shifting water.

  The loadmaster checks the strapping on the cargo. He calls through to the cockpit via his headset, letting the pilots know they’re ready for take-off.

  “So Puerto Rico and then South Georgia, huh?”

  “We need to stop for fuel,” Jazz says by way of explanation.

  “On our way to Antarctica?” Nick replies in disbelief.

  Jazz nods.

  One of the aircrew checks his seatbelt, making sure it’s uncomfortably tight.

  The three of them are seated on the side of the plane facing inward. Not exactly survivable in a crash. There’s no safety demonstration. No blurb about putting on oxygen masks or grabbing lifejackets if they ditch in the sea. The unspoken assumption is, if it comes to that, they’ll probably be dead already.

  Jazz says, “Normally, we’d take you along the supply route out across the US to Hawaii, then south to Christchurch in New Zealand. The final leg is over the Southern Ocean to McMurdo in Antarctica. The problem is, the Pentagon wants you there yesterday, while the White House is stalling, wanting clarification.”

  “I don’t understand,” Nick says, shaking his head. “Why?”

  Jazz replies, “If we get the green light, we need to get you in before winter closes the continent. The Brits have a base on South Georgia. So we’ll touch down there to drop off supplies and refuel.”

  “No,” Nick says. “Not why are we going this way. Why are we going there at all? What the hell am I supposed to do in Antarctica?”

  “That’s classified,” Jazz replies. “I’ll tell you as soon as I can.”

  Nick says, “Did it ever occur to you that you might have the wrong man?”
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  Jazz laughs. “Oh, you’re kidding, right? Did it ever occur to me? Hell, yes.”

  Nick is silent. He’s insulted by the enthusiasm in her response.

  She adds, “Do I think you’re the wrong man for the job? Absolutely. But it’s not my call. It’s his.”

  Dmitri says, “I have confidence in you.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Nick replies. “Surely, there’s been some kind of mix-up—a misunderstanding.”

  “Nope,” Dmitri says. “No misunderstanding.”

  “But you’ve got the wrong guy. I’m an electro-mechanic. I never went to college or into the army. Sure, I’ve made a few mistakes along the way, but whatever this is, I’m not your man.”

  “You like football, yes?” Dmitri asks.

  “Yes.”

  “You drink beer?”

  “Yes.”

  “You love America? The Fourth of July? The Constitution? All of the Amendments?”

  To be honest, Nick’s only aware of the first few, particularly the second, but, “Yeah, sure.”

  “So you’re an average American.”

  “I guess.”

  Dmitri slaps his hands together in a muffled clap, “Then you’re the right man. That’s why you’re here.”

  Here, though, is in the back of a military cargo plane accelerating down the runway. The whine of the engines grows ever louder.

  “Are you going to tell me what this is about?” Nick yells over the noise rattling around within the hold.

  “As soon as we’re airborne and out over international waters,” Jazz replies. The C-5 Galaxy lumbers into the air. Her comment does not inspire confidence.

  Once the plane climbs to cruising altitude, soldiers begin milling around the cargo hold. Several mechanics pop the hood on the snowcat. They start tinkering with the engine, working on it as though they were in a garage somewhere on the ground. As he’s a mechanic and technically not a prisoner being held under arrest, Nick unbuckles and joins them.

  “Can I take a look?” he asks, standing by one of the tank-like treads immediately below the engine bay.

  “Sure,” one of the military mechanics says.

  Nick climbs up under the watchful eye of Jazz and Dmitri.

  “Oh, man. This is old school,” he says, getting his first good look at the engine.

  “Yeah, she’s a beauty,” the mechanic says. “Naturally aspirated V12 diesel with even torque all through the range. She purrs from just a few hundred RPM right up to four thousand.”

  “No fuel injection?” Nick asks, surprised by the simplicity before him. “No electronics?”

  “Nope,” the mechanic says. “Nothing to go wrong. Reliability beats efficiency. I’ve seen one of these babies keep running for over six hundred miles across the ice in the dead of winter with a cracked head. We had temperatures plunging to a hundred below but she just kept humming. I had to clean out the rocker cover every couple of hours because the condensate and oil kept mixing. There was this soapy sludge that would form under there. It would ice up, but she kept on trucking. This baby is bulletproof.”

  Nick’s eyes follow the thick wiring for the glow plugs, the steel pipes forming the exhaust manifold, the fan belt and the antifreeze plumbing, recognizing all the parts. The entire engine has been painted what he could only describe as shit-yellow, which clashes with the orange of the vehicle, but he understands why. Any leaks will be immediately visible. If a gasket goes and oil starts to ooze from the sump, it’ll be obvious.

  “Beautiful, huh?” the mechanic says, realizing Nick’s admiring the engine.

  “It’s quite something.”

  “Jacob Smith, Private, First Class,” the mechanic says, offering a friendly hand. They shake, although Nick is a little cautious and not quite as enthusiastic. He’s still trying to assess the dynamics within the crew. “They call me Bear. I’ll be your driver on the ice.”

  “Oh,” he replies. “Nicholas Ferrin, nobody, no class. They call me Saint Nick. I’ll be your extra baggage on the ice.”

  Nick’s trying to imitate Bear’s military swagger, but his joke falls flat. Bear, though, doesn’t seem to notice. He smiles, saying, “Welcome to the team, Nick.”

  “Thanks, I guess.”

  The C-5 Galaxy is buffeted by turbulence, reminding Nick he’s in the air. He’s not at a trade show admiring the latest engineering innovation, or in this case, a classic engine design. He’s being dragged to the underside of the world.

  “So you’re a mechanic?” Bear asks.

  “Electro-mechanic. Nothing old school like this,” he replies. “While I was in high school, I spent my summers volunteering with the New York Fire Department, but their old diesel engines are still a world away from this beauty.”

  “She’s a legend,” Bear says.

  “Yep.”

  Dmitri beckons Nick over. He drops to the deck and staggers a little as the Galaxy sways with a crosswind.

  “We have clearance to fill you in on a few things.”

  That gets his attention. Nick sits in a canvas seat. Aluminum rods on either side of the thick canvas pretend to give the seat some form, but they fail at any measure of comfort. Jazz hands him a thin paper cup with a plastic lid on it. The heat of the coffee radiates through the walls of the cup, forcing him to switch hands. He removes the lid and blows on the surface, trying to cool the drink without spilling it. Black. Probably no sugar. Probably instant. This is a caffeine hit and nothing else. There are no macchiatos or cappuccinos in the unfriendly skies of the US Air Force. Barista is probably a term ridiculed by the flight crew. Nick sips at his coffee. It’s as bitter and angry as he expects.

  “This is going to sound crazy,” Jazz says.

  “No more crazy than being hauled onto a military transport bound for the South Atlantic,” Nick replies.

  Dmitri says, “Four hundred and thirty thousand years ago.” He pauses, looking for a response from Nick, but from Nick’s perspective, this day simply could not get any weirder. “Something crashed on the Antarctic continent.”

  “Something big,” Jazz says. “Something not from this world.”

  “Aliens?” Nick asks, genuinely surprised.

  “Aliens is a bit cliché,” Jazz says. “These aren’t your little green men in flying saucers or monsters with acid for blood.”

  “So what are they?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to determine,” Dmitri says. “Best we understand it, they were explorers. Imagine Columbus or Magellan, but traveling between planets instead of continents.”

  “And this is for real?”

  “You’re sitting here, aren’t you?” Jazz says, gesturing to the cargo hold.

  Nick is stunned. Is this a joke? The presence of the snowcat, the aircrew, and the soldiers all reinforce her point. The drone of the engines is all too real. There must be some other rational explanation, but the hard lines on her face tell him she’s serious.

  “So you’re telling me there are aliens in Antarctica?”

  “Were,” Dmitri says.

  “The craft is buried under a mile of ice,” Jazz says.

  Dmitri adds, “You have to remember, this happened long before there were humans. Around this time, our ancestors were covered in hair. They probably looked more like apes, but stood upright. Their brains were about two-thirds the size of ours. Natural selection still had time on its hands before we arrived on the scene.”

  “You’ve seen photos of Antarctica, right?” Jazz asks. “It looks like a frozen wasteland, huh? Just a barren, flat stretch of snow and ice, and the odd mountain range.”

  Nick nods.

  “Well beyond that, miles below all the snow and ice, there are canyons and crevasses etched into the rock. They form a network easily fifty to sixty miles longer than the Grand Canyon. There are subsurface lakes teeming with microbial life—all interconnected—all in defiance of the mile or more of ice they’re buried beneath.”

  “And that’s where the UFO is?” Nick
asks.

  “Yes.”

  For a moment, Nick sits there stunned, wondering how the hell he got caught up in all this and why it has any relevance to him. He was happy watching football with a beer in hand.

  “And what does this have to do with me?”

  “You’ve been selected for jury duty,” Dmitri says.

  “Jury duty?” Nick asks.

  Just when he thought things couldn’t become more surreal, the idea of serving on a jury shocks his mind.

  “You’re familiar with the concept, right?” Dmitri asks.

  Somewhat offended, Nick replies, “Oh, yeah. I get what a jury is. What I don’t understand is why you need one.”

  Dmitri explains. “Juries have existed for at least two and a half thousand years for one purpose and one purpose alone.”

  “To ensure justice?” Nick says.

  “No,” Dmitri replies. “To ensure justice was never the sole domain of the elite. To prevent kings, queens, and princes from perverting justice. Juries keep life and death decisions in the hands of common people.”

  “I don’t get it,” Nick says. “No one died, right? No one got murdered down there, did they?”

  Jazz says, “We don’t know what we’re going to find beneath the ice, but we do know it will irrevocably change our world. Whether that’s for the better remains to be seen, but who should decide how this power is used? The military? No. What about the government? Ours or his?” She laughs. “Would you trust either of them?”

  “What about scientists?” Nick asks.

  “They would be a good choice,” Dmitri says. “But there too we’re faced with an elite. No, the UN decided that the only way to ensure impartial decisions were reached was by means of a jury of peers. If decisions are to be made, they need to be something the average man and woman can understand and agree upon. We need a jury of equals, not elites.”

  “So I’m a juror?” Nick asks in disbelief, pointing at himself.

  “You’re a contingency,” Dmitri replies. “Ten jurors were chosen. Two civilians from each of the five permanent members on the United Nations Security Council.”

  “Wait,” Nick says. “I’m confused. You said I was a contingency. So I’m not on the jury?”