by Bob Blink
"There are a number of people here today that you probably don't know. Let me introduce your audience," the Vice President said. He started around the table, beginning with the Directors of the NSA and CIA, his Chief of Staff, and then he moved on to the group all wearing uniforms. Present were representative from all branches of the service, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, a former Marine, the Chief of Staff for the Army and Air Force, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, and finally the Chief of Naval Operations. Clearly the matter was being taken more seriously than it had the last time Dr. Gelon had made a presentation to the President. The military was most likely here in force because of the growing belief that the threat was based on an alien interference and not a natural phenomena as initially suspected.
With the introductions out of the way and everyone settled in, the Vice President turned to Dr. Gelon.
The Vice President was startlingly different than the chubby Chief Executive. Somewhere in his mid fifties, he had brownish hair, trimmed with growing incursion of gray around the fringes. He was slim, healthy with attentive brown eyes that hinted at being used to being in charge. This was clearly a different sort of man from the President.
"I'm told your group still has no answer for the source of this strange force that is moving our world, and so have decided it must be due to an alien invasion of some sort."
Doug Anders glanced quickly toward Dr. Gelon, wondering how he'd take this. Anders knew that his friend had a very low opinion of 'that moron in the White House', and also had a bit of a temper when prodded the wrong way. But this was their first direct contact with the VP.
Surprisingly, his friend's voice was calm as he replied.
"The conclusion was reached after the most recent changes in the force affecting us," he said evenly. "Natural forces have certain characteristics, while this force is clearly being guided by some form of intelligence and is designed to achieve a very specific goal. So, as uncomfortable as many might be with the conclusion, there appears to be little choice but to accept that some beings considerably more advanced than ourselves, because we clearly lack the technology to achieve such a feat, have chosen to target our world. Since there has been no visual confirmation of these creatures, I wouldn't hazard a guess as to their appearance."
Dr. Gelon stared directly back at the Vice President, indicating he wasn't going to back down, nor take any bullshit from the some senior political executive.
"Could one of you explain the current status?" their NASA friend suggested, as the Vice President waived his hand and smiled at Professor Gelon and indicated that Bud Hollister should take charge of the proceedings.
"I don't understand," General Easystone, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said. "Before, I thought you were concerned that the force was staying constant, now that it has changed you are finding issue with that."
"I'm sorry," Dr. Gelon said, happy to clear up the matter with the agreeable military General. "Those of us close to this tend to forget it isn't something as apparent to others. The matter is how the force changed. Consider another planet, or a small black hole as someone postulated in the earlier meeting. The force from a naturally occurring body like that would be varying constantly, smoothly, as the distance and direction between the Earth and that body changed. They would always be changing because the Earth, and presumably any other natural object, would be orbiting the sun. We weren't seeing that and it was unusual. What we have been seeing with the unexplained force is something that remains precisely fixed in magnitude and direction until it suddenly shifted, abruptly, to a new direction. Such shifts are not natural, and suggest an artificially manufactured and applied force. Further, the change in direction is precisely what was required to maximize the orbit adjustment effects on the Earth, again a suggestion that the force is being applied with a distinct purpose."
The General, clearly a man who thought before he spoke, considered what he'd been told.
"And this purpose is to shift our planet's orbit from its natural, roughly circular orbit into an ellipse that will bring us alternately closer to the sun and then further away with the corresponding shifts in temperature?"
"Precisely," Dr. Gelon agreed. "Also, it will ultimately allow the Earth to escape the gravitation influence of the sun and drift off into interstellar space."
"Other than this mysterious force that you can't explain, do you have anything else that might support the idea of extraterrestrial beings?" the Vice President asked.
Dr. Anders slid a series of photographs across the table.
"One of our graduate students noticed an oddity a couple of years ago while monitoring an asteroid that made a close approach to the Earth. At the time he believed it to be a reflection as a result of the city lights getting into his equipment, but given recent events he revisited the photographs he took in 2020. We have made an extensive investigation of all the recent fly-bys, and have found these four instances when it appears that a large vehicle might have been piggy-backing on the asteroid to approach the Earth and moon unobserved."
"You believe they have been hitching rides?" the Chief of Staff of the Air Force asked, obviously stunned by the suggestion.
"Actually, we believe they have been nudging some of these rocks our way, which might be an explanation why so many of late haven't been predicted and were discovered only shortly before they made their pass."
"Why would they be going to all this trouble?" the Commandant of the Marine Corps asked. "Given they can apparently travel between the stars, move planets and asteroids around to suit their purposes, wouldn't it be short work for them to simply conquer us?"
"We can't be certain of what factors drive their decisions," Dr. Gelon replied, "but we are of the opinion they don't want to conquer us. We believe they like our world, but want it elsewhere and without being occupied by what one of our colleagues has taken to calling vermin. A war between us and them would be destructive, perhaps undesirably so if we resorted to using nuclear weapons in its defense."
"I don't understand," the Vice President said.
"They don't want us, or any of the other species that currently reside on Earth to persist and interfere with their occupation. Hence the strange orbit they are choosing. It will alternately raise temperatures above what we can tolerate, and then below. The cycling combination will certainly sterilize the Earth. Unlike a situation that gets hot or cold, we can't relocate to offset the shift in climate. By the time people relocate to deal with the heat, it will be getting cold, and they'd have to move back, or even further into the warm regions."
"But this isn't until some time off in the future," asked the Speaker of the House. The woman had been paying careful attention, but was concerned on the timing.
"Less time than we initially thought," Dr. Anders replied. "That's because of the recent shift in the force, and if they can change the direction, they might also be able to shift the magnitude, which could mean we have far less time than we have been assuming. Remember, we have been aware of this for less than a year, and much of what we are seeing looks a lot like someone tuning a system with small changes before going into a full operational mode."
"That sounds more than a little ominous," the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs observed.
"We don't mean to frighten or project," Dr. Anders assured him. "I am just pointing out how little we know, and how things could move out from under us."
"And if we were able to stop these creatures today?" the Commandant of the Marines asked. "What would be the consequences?"
"We would still find that our familiar weather patterns are going to show changes, in some areas potentially significant ones. Every day this continues, the more significant those impacts will be, and remember, they are all irreversible by us."
"So what is your plan?" the Vice President asked, probably realizing he'd been a spectator thus far rather than the coordinator of the meeting. "I assume you are suggesting we take some kind of action?"
"Our team will continue t
o monitor those things we can, and report on any changes to the timeframe for the events we have described, as well as anything that we might learn that could in any way be helpful. But we believe mankind must be proactive, and a thorough search for these aliens be initiated. Our counterparts are making the same suggestions to their governments."
"What kind of search?" the Vice President asked.
"We believe they have a base on the moon, most likely on the back side which is always pointed away from us," Dr. Gelon explained. "Whether that is the only installation, or whether they have sites located somewhere on the Earth, is unknown. My personal belief is that they must. The engines that power the forces acting on the Earth almost have to be located on the planet itself, which would suggest they are located here somewhere."
"Searching the moon is a tall order," NASA Director Hollister said. "It is a large and inhospitable place, and we have very limited resources for such a task."
"Even less so without an orbiting satellite capable of taking surface images," Dr. Anders pointed out. "The failure of the latest of the moon mapping spacecraft late last year has left us essentially blind, since funds were cut for its replacement. Neither the Russians nor the Chinese currently have an imaging satellite in orbit around the moon either."
"We still have spacecraft capable of measuring background radiation, electromagnetic emissions, and any number of parameters," Hollister pointed out. "It's not the same, but we might pick up some indications of an unsuspected presence."
"If we rushed the construction, how soon could we get another mapping satellite into moon orbit?" the Vice President asked.
"A year, eighteen months," Hollister replied. "That's far too long."
"But that might also be ill advised," Dr. Gelon warned. "We don't want to do anything that these creatures would notice and realize might be a search for them. We'd like to locate and study them without being obvious about it."
"You're concerned how they might react if they knew?" the Army Chief of Staff asked.
Gelon nodded. "If they were to become aware of our search, they might change their approach, either speeding up the sterilization process, or maybe outright attacks of some kind."
"So how do we approach this?" the Vice President asked.
"We have an idea for an artificial asteroid flyover," Dr. Anders pointed out, "but it would be a one-shot deal, and without something to suggest where we want to look, it seems grounded for now."
"There are three permanent bases on the moon," Hollister pointed out. "Two are near the poles from which teams could be sent out over to the back side. Our base is near Shackleton Crater at the South Lunar Pole and the Russians are located near Peary Crater at the North Lunar Pole."
The Air Force Chief of Staff disagreed. "As pointed out, there is a lot of area to investigate, and the vehicles we have available aren't intended for extended long-range trips across the surface. Any crews sent would be very much at risk of mechanical breakdowns that would strand them too far away for recovery. We'd be putting lives at risk with no idea if we can realistically expect any intelligence worthy of the risk." Clearly he knew that it would be Air Force Officers selected to make the trip. There were no other military forces located on the moon.
"I agree," Dr. Gelon said. "We need the information, but I can't see an acceptable approach without something to better pinpoint the search area. More thought is required before we can develop a plan."
"What about closer to home?" General Easystone asked. "You said we need to have a look here, but you have no idea where to start on our planet than you do on the moon."
"But we have far more assets available to us, and we can coordinate with the Russians, Chinese, and others," Dr. Anders said. We have satellites in place that are constantly monitoring, and therefore wouldn't be an alert to our postulated visitors. There is the International Space Station and the Chinese have their own station in orbit around the Earth. It is even larger and better equipped than the ISS. We can monitor the Earth visually, plus we have multispectral monitors, and even laser and radar satellites."
"The military birds would be best for visual and IR," General Easystone replied, "or they would be due to their resolution if they were all functional. Sadly a great number work off star pointing, and our unpredictable orbit makes their operations somewhat problematical."
"We have people who can give you better star data," Dr. Anders replied. "We can predict how things will be changing, and even have a reasonable guess on when the next change in the acceleration is likely and what its impact would be. We could be wrong, but if the net goal of all the efforts behind this acceleration is what we believe, then odds are pretty good we know what to expect, near term at least."
"That could prove very helpful," the Air Force General noted, clearly anxious to get his hardware back to performing at nominal levels.
"You'll also want boots on the ground," the Army General suggested. "Satellites are grand, but they can't do everything and humint often is where the answer lies."
"That would almost require letting the public know what we are up to," the Vice President objected. "Can you imagine the reaction if the news media gets hold of the idea we are on an alien hunt? I don't want to kick off another round of riots and suicides."
"Maybe you can get creative, but I don't see you being successful. Too many people, in this and other countries know about this. Somebody's gonna talk," Dr. Anders warned.
"But the fate of the human race might be at stake," the VP protested.
"Let's hope the aliens aren't monitoring at that level," Dr. Anders said. They had already discussed this and already agreed that security over something this widely executed just wasn't realistic.
"What about the oceans?" Admiral Weiner asked. "Who's to say they put things on the land. If you wanted to hide this stuff, and had the technology, there is a lot of ocean out there that we will have a devil of a time trying to monitor."
The look on a lot of faces plainly indicated that the others had completely overlooked the possibility.
"How would you search underwater?" the Vice President asked.
"Submarines, but we'd have to go active, which would reveal we were searching for something, and there is a lot of ocean that we can't get deep enough to do a real survey. In any event, this kind of search is very, very time consuming. If those places aren't a problem for them, well, then we're screwed."
"I'm not certain an ocean search is feasible," General Easystone said thoughtfully. "Finding things on the bottom of the ocean is not one of our strong suits. Think how long it took to locate the Titanic, and we knew where it went down."
"I suggest we table that option for now," Dr. Gelon suggested, not wanting them to get sidetracked on a task it didn't sound like they had a means of implementing. "Perhaps the Admiral has people he can put to looking at the honest feasibility, and maybe we will get lucky and find these creatures before we need to undertake something like that."
Admiral Weiner nodded, but it was clear he felt they were pushing aside a serious issue. Water covered a goodly portion of the Earth, and who's to say these things weren't water creatures. Maybe that's why they wanted the Earth. It was one of the few planets they knew of that had so much water available.
"I assume we are going to fight them once they are located," General Easystone said.
"You want to fight an advanced alien species?" the Speaker almost shouted. "We wouldn't stand a chance against them."
"It may be that we fight or simply elect to roll over and go extinct," the Marine Commandant replied. "I suspect they aren't going to be open to negotiation."
"Do you really believe our guns and missiles and the like wouldn't just be batted aside?" the VP asked.
"Never know until you try," the Army General replied. He was of the same mind as the other warrior. "Nukes might be every bit as problematic for them as for us."
"And if they have shields against such things?" the Vice President asked.
"Then we are clea
rly up shit creek," the General replied straight-faced.
"Put together a plan," General Easystone ordered. "Let's assume we find them, and they aren't invincible. Clearly we are at a tactical disadvantage, but until we have some real intelligence, we really don't know what our options might be. I'm for going down fighting."
"It sounds like we have some serious planning to do," the Vice President said. "I want to reconvene this time tomorrow. In the meantime, if there are any leaks from this group, I will see the leaker tried and executed for treason."
Dr. Gelon was a bit surprised. That was a real sign that they had genuine support from high levels of the government.
Chapter 8
Two Weeks Later
Two weeks had passed since the heavily attended meeting at the White House where plans had been made to seek out the enemy. During that time nothing had been found. Not a hint of where the elusive aliens might be located. More and more people were raising the possibility that they might indeed, be hiding under the oceans, or perhaps under the ice in the north or south poles. The only good news, if it could be called that, was the fact their prediction on when the acceleration would change again had been only a fraction of a day off. Without a doubt the goal of the disturbance was to maximize the effect on changing the shape of Earth's orbit, and there could be little doubt any longer that the acceleration had been artificially induced.
Frustrated by the lack of progress, Professors Gelon and Allen were on a private call with the Russians. Gelon's eyes showed dark smudges emphasizing his lack of sleep these past days.
