by Bob Blink
Automatically, she pressed the magazine release and let the nearly spent magazine drop to the floor, preparing to load the spare she'd taken earlier into the gun, just to be ready in case there were more of them. As she was about to load, she spotted the three cops charging through the door, and quickly let the magazine drop and placed the gun on the floor, stepping away from it, her hands held open and away from her body in an unthreatening manner.
Tony was stunned, and unable to move. He couldn't believe what he'd seen. Gwen had taken them both down, just like she knew exactly what to do. Then he realized that Dr. Gelon was down as well, and bleeding badly.
"Call for an ambulance," he shouted, and pointed at the fallen scientist.
Seeing the three men on the floor, and recognizing that Gwen and Tony were probably students, and that she was likely the woman who'd made the call informing them of the murdered security, one of the policemen approached, gun still in hand, while the other two went to check on the downed assailants and the Professor. It didn't take long to verify who they were, and to get assistance on the way for the badly wounded astronomer. The two interlopers were, of course, quite dead, and the gun that killed them now in the possession of the campus police.
Gwen was shaking and obviously distraught over the ordeal.
"Adrenaline," one of the cops explained. "It'll take her a few hours for it to settle down.
"I killed them," Gwen moaned.
"You saved us," Tony explained. "We'd probably be the ones who were dead if you hadn't acted as quick as you did."
"It was never like this in practice," she complained. "Oh, my god!"
Tony wrapped his arms around her hoping to help contain the shakes that still shook her body.
Less than five minutes passed before the ambulance pulled up to the front door of Cahill Center, and Dr. Gelon was rushed off to the hospital.
"Where did you learn to shoot?" Tony asked Gwen while they were waiting for the situation to stabilize, not wanting to keep the incident fresh, but unable to contain his curiosity. "I didn't realize you knew anything about guns." His voice sounded strange to him, the words superimposed on the numbed ears and the persistent ringing that muffled everything else. He wondered how long that would last.
"My dad taught me," she explained. "We used to shoot a couple of times a month."
"Do you own a gun?"
"Actually, yes. My Dad insisted I bring one with me to college, but they aren't allowed on campus, so most of the time its back at my apartment. A small Kimber .45."
"Have you ever carried it when we went out?"
Gwen smiled a bit guiltily.
"Yeah, I have."
"How come you never told me?"
"Some people go all weird when they find out a girl is packing a weapon," she explained. "You seemed the type to be uncomfortable with the idea. Even now I sense you are a bit spooked by my shooting those bastards."
Their conversation was interrupted by the policeman that had collected the gun Gwen had used, and had kept them isolated from the activities. "You are free to go now," he informed them. "Do you feel a need for an escort away from the campus? Are you okay, miss?" he asked, clearly aware of the shock her actions must be to her just now.
Gwen nodded uncertainly. "I think so," she added.
"I'd like a moment to pick up some data from the computer center," Tony said, remembering why he and Gwen had come here in the first place. He wasn't certain if he'd fully accepted the violent deaths that had occurred, but he sensed the explanation of what he'd seen on the moon might be important.
"I'll come with you," the cop said, and followed along as Tony led the way. One look at the output and he knew he needed to talk to Dr. Gelon as soon as possible.
Chapter 10
"What could cause a magnetic signature like that?" Dr. Allen asked as he and Tony stared at the computer-generated plots of the moon's magnetic field, reduced to component elements by the extraction of all changes since the baseline data that was taken some months ago before all of this started.
Tony was sitting in his office with Dr. Allen, who he had called asking for his opinion on the data he'd recovered the night before from the computer lab. Dr. Gelon was still unconscious, his wound serious enough, especially for a man of his age, that they weren't certain at this point whether he would recover or not. The implications of what Tony had noted in the data were too important to hold back hoping his mentor would pull through.
The university had increased security today, and at Cahill Center doubly so. Four armed soldiers were now stationed in the front lobby, restricting anyone without university issued campus identification that could be checked against the university's records showing they had an office in the facility. If you didn't have an assigned space, the only way into the center was to be escorted personally by someone who did.
Gwen was home this morning, claiming to be okay after the shootings the evening before, but Tony wondered whether she was as numb as she'd been when they'd gotten home last night and the full impact of her actions had struck home. If the Professor lived, something that was uncertain even now, it would be because of her quick response, but killing two people wasn't something she'd been prepared for.
He felt guilty leaving her alone, but she'd agreed that what he believed he'd found was too important to wait. They'd called her brother to drive out from Long Beach, but Tony didn't know if he'd arrived yet. He could only hope. Killing two people like she had was something he didn't think he could have managed.
"I've never seen anything like it," Tony agreed. "The drop off from magnetic bipoles is a one over "R" squared drop off, and most other magnetic fields decrease as one over "R" cubed, but the computer suggests that this odd pattern decreases at an even higher inverse power. The field drops off so fast that a few hundred miles away it no longer is strong enough to make a noticeable change in the moon's overall magnetic signature. By the time you look at the poles, there doesn't appear to be any change from a few months ago. The same is true for the entire Earth-pointed face. You really have to be looking for something in the field, something I've been doing so long for my thesis I can spot some things are aren't readily apparent to others. And the way the field wraps around on itself is simply not something I'd consider possible."
"Show me how you got this," Dr. Allen instructed.
Tony led the scientist to the lab and showed him the data files going back a dozen years, and how specific events could be extracted yielding the kind of magnetic signatures one would expect, impact strikes being the most common and yielding the most significant localized effects. They went through runs Tony had made over the past year until Dr. Allen was certain he understood the process and was comfortable what Tony was doing made sense.
"Are you certain the new data is valid?" he asked.
"Under normal circumstances I'd be pushing for a new sampling in these regions, and even questioning the program itself, wondering if something in the data was forcing a bogus output," Tony admitted. "But we are looking for something unexpected, believing that these aliens are there somewhere, and so that casts a different light on the data. Besides, I've used this program extensively for a couple of years now, and its always given me dependable results."
Professor Allen nodded, agreeing.
"So what do you think we should do?"
"NASA has lots of computers, and most likely their own software for this kind of thing. I think they need to be alerted and encouraged to run a similar analysis and see if they come to the same conclusion."
"Sounds like a sound approach. I agree with your thinking. Verify independently. The fields are clearly anomalous, they weren't there before, and they are in an area we have been hoping to find something. I believe we also need to contact Colonel Gellman," Dr. Allen said. "This information needs to get back the military and the Vice President."
Colonel Robert Gellman was an Air Force Officer familiar with the moon and the facilities the United States and Russia had there. An A
ir Force officer assigned to their aerospace division, he was stationed at a facility in El Segundo, and had been designated as their point of contact for any new information that surfaced.
"Where exactly is this place?" Professor Allen asked, staring at the map of the moon trying to put it into context.
"It's in the Fermi Crater on the southern hemisphere of the backside," Tony replied. "About 1350 miles from our base at Shackleton."
"That's a long way away," Allen noted.
"Further than anyone has ventured," Tony agreed. "It will be interesting what they will decide to do."
"Let's try something else," Dr. Allen suggested, as they scanned the visuals taken during the flyby a few days back which showed nothing was present in the area. "This is something we can probably do better in my office."
They walked down the hall to the scientist's office, where he called up the latest images of the area, and also a series of older images from files in the system. It took a minute to get everything set up, but then they had a look at the changing image on the screen. The blink microscope or comparator was very simple in concept, but a very powerful tool for finding changing pixels in a sea of data. Normally used for looking at star fields, the device flipped back and forth between calibrated images, and anything that changed quickly caught the eye's attention. It was a tool that Tony hadn't used before, his expertise being more in the theoretical planet based aspects of the field.
"It's different," Tony said excitedly. "The shift is small, but there are a number of spots that have shifted. Are you certain it isn't just the lighting?"
"I don't think so," the Professor said, being more familiar with the device, "but let's have a look using other old pictures of the area under different sun conditions."
It became immediately clear that the areas that were changing were the same. Something on the surface was different. The discrepancies were small enough that no one would notice simply scanning photographs of the area, but the fine details uncovered by the comparator gave away the changes.
"That's it," Dr. Allen said. "You have definitely found something. Let's call Colonel Gellman, and see how best to proceed."
"Can you come into El Segundo?" the Colonel asked when they had explained their discovery. "I have a secure network here, and this sounds like something that we should have a significant number of ears listening in on. I can get that setup while you are driving in."
Tony wasn't happy about leaving Pasadena, but nodded reluctantly.
"We'll leave in a few minutes," the Professor said, and terminated the call.
"What's the issue?" he asked Tony, having noted his reluctance.
"Gwen," Tony admitted. "I don't like leaving her alone today."
"Your girlfriend. The one that shot up those intruders last night?"
"Yeah."
"Maybe we should bring her along," the Professor suggested. "The trip might get her mind off what happened." After a moment the Professor added as they walked out toward the parking lot, "Did you know you were dating Annie Oakley?"
Tony shook his head. "I don't think she realized it either."
"How did she manage to function so smoothly in a situation like that? She probably saved Dr. Gelon's life and most likely yours as well."
"We talked about it when we got home. Her Dad had taught her how to shoot, and made a point of having her run through some very realistic combat courses, with pop-up bad guys and all. They did it for fun, but the whole approach to dealing with a hostage-like situation apparently became instinctual, and when we walked in on those two kooks, she simply went into some kind of automatic response mode. The aftereffects have her a bit shaken though," Tony explained. Punching paper or banging steel is one thing, but killing a couple of people, even bad dudes, is something else."
When they got to Tony's apartment, a somewhat subdued Gwen was extremely happy to see her boyfriend, and despite her brother's presence had immediately agreed to make the drive into the beach city. With the traffic, a common Southern California nightmare, it took a bit over two hours to make their way into El Segundo, exiting the freeway on the main street of the same name as the city, and head toward the ocean. They made their way the couple of blocks to the Air Force facility, which is located in the city to support the many contracts the government has with the aerospace community.
Once parked in the visitor's lot, they entered the main building and informed the security guard at the front desk they were there to see Colonel Gellman. It took only a few minutes for someone to come and fetch them. They had obviously been eagerly awaited, but the lieutenant who came for them clearly hadn't been expecting Gwen.
"She's with me," Tony said, indicating he wasn't going if Gwen wasn't allowed also.
Uncertain how to proceed, the young escort shrugged and pointed the way. He'd let the Colonel deal with the situation.
The Colonel's eyes raised noticeably at Gwen's surprise presence, but he'd obviously been briefed about the incident the night before, and quickly put the facts together and said, "This must be our gunslinger."
Colonel Gellman was not your typical Air Force Officer and not at all what Tony had envisioned. He'd pictured your typical movie pilot, clear-eyed, tall, handsome, and physically fit. The Colonel wore glasses, had a mop of brown hair with unruly bangs that couldn't be regulation, was five feet eight inches tall, and he slouched. His uniform was poorly tailored and he was noticeably out of shape. Clearly, this man was a nerd.
Gwen winced at the shooting reference, but nodded, clearly a bit embarrassed by both the designation and the attention she was getting for her shooting.
"I assume you have told her about what you have discovered?" the Colonel asked.
"I told what I was doing when we were going to the lab last night," Tony admitted. "She wondered what could be so important, and I really didn't think I was going to stumble on what I found."
"Bring her along for now. I am doubtful people will agree to her full participation, and if that happens I expect you to agree to wait in the special visitor's room we have near the meeting area." He watched Gwen for her reaction as he spoke.
Gwen looked uncomfortable, but nodded.
Surprisingly, it was decided that she could stay, since she probably knew as much about the topic as anyone else, and they had her to thank for the fact both Dr. Gelon and Tony were alive. Had she not acted, what appeared to be the discovery of the alien's base on the moon wouldn't have happened. Permission for her involvement was granted by a new participant, Mark Billings, the United States Secretary of Defense and the second most powerful military person in the chain of command after the President himself. He was participating from the office of General Easystone in the Pentagon.
Once they were settled into the conference room and the doors closed, Tony was directed to briefly repeat what he had conveyed to Dr. Allen and how he'd located the suspect site. Neither the Colonel nor Secretary Billings on the far end of the video conference made any attempt to identify the participants, but Tony had met them all before and had a good memory for faces. In addition to General Easystone, he noted NSA's Director, the Vice President, NASA Director Bud Hollister, the Air Force Chief of Staff, plus the Speaker of the House, perhaps present because she represented the opposition party to the President and who had been somewhat vocal at previous meetings.
NASA's Bud Hollister was the first to respond. "I'll have my people immediately start an independent verification using our software, but I don't believe we will find any fault. The approach is sound, and I think we might have found what everyone's been looking for."
"Can we investigate it?" the Vice President asked. "We have two sets of data that suggest the enemy is located in that crater. Both the visuals, when examined carefully show anomalous changes, and the magnetic signature is very unusual, perhaps signifying the source of whatever is causing our problems."
"I believe it's too far from our base at the South Pole," General Easystone replied. "What did Dr. Allen say? It's almost 1500
miles. That's a considerable drive on the moon."
"Thirteen hundred and fifty," the Air Force General Markham corrected. Shackleton was officially his base. "And actually it's not out of range. The current moonwagons have been designed to support a trip of that length, although it will be long and we've never attempted anything even close to that kind of distance on the Earth facing side let alone on the backside, which is mostly unexplored. The real problem is the associated risks and being so far out of range of any reasonable response to an emergency."
"How fast do your vehicles travel?" the General asked.
"They can move at speeds of up to twenty-five miles an hour for short durations, but that would be risky over foreign and uncharted terrain. I would suggest an average closer to ten miles an hour for such a trip would be more realistic."
"Less than six days," the General said aloud, doing the quick calculations in his head.
"Probably a few days longer," General Markham countered. "They are electric and will need some time to make up the charge they are using. Under full sun they can almost run on direct sunlight, but continuous operation would deplete their charge, so the vehicles would need some down time each day, as would the crews."
"What about those periods when the sun isn't present?" Troy asked.
"The vehicles will also run on a fuel cell, but they can't carry sufficient supplies for such an extended trip. I believe the fuel cells are only good for a couple of hundred miles. I'll have to check the specs on that."
"What I'm hearing is that this is doable," Secretary Billings said. "I want this made a high priority, and for a team to figure out how it can be done. How many of these vehicles do you have on site, and how many can they carry?"
"A half dozen at Shackleton," Markham replied. "They will carry four, but its cozy. I would suggest two people per vehicle since supplies will be needed, and the men will need to have room to stretch out and sleep."
