by Bob Blink
Colonel Jones called for the backup helicopters to be launched, and minutes later they appeared on the scene. More missiles were fired and two more of the glowing orbs were destroyed, but the cost had been another additional three helicopters. Thousands of useless rounds had been fired at the aliens weapons as panicked troops ignored what they had been told and turned to the only defense they understood. The orbs were not bothered, but many of the rounds that missed caused immense damage to other equipment in the area.
Ground troops were fairing badly, finding shooting the rapidly moving orbs difficult, and multiple antitank rounds had been expended uselessly. One more had been killed, leaving five of the deadly devices still active, although three were focusing on the helicopters.
Seeing a group of soldiers in dire straits, Steph pulled out the alien blaster that Glen had insisted she carry. It was the last of the seven functional units they had, and she didn't know how many shots it held. Taking aim, realizing now that the lab work she'd done with the weapons was proving its worth now, she triggered the device as the orb passed close overhead. Her shot was true, and the device hadn't gone another twenty yards before it died in a flash of its own fire. Scanning for the last of the deadly devices that were targeting ground troops, she realized she couldn't see them anywhere. Looking higher, she saw that another helicopter was burning and falling toward the ground, but the enemy weapons appeared to have vanished.
Mark, Simmons, and Janet had just reached the steps heading downward when the orbs appeared at the top level. Having heard the damage assessment from the other attacks over the net, Mark was unwilling to wait for other weapons to be used against the alien attackers. Wondering where the aliens that controlled these deadly things were hiding, Mark raised his weapon and blasted the closest one of the deadly objects. A second shot at another only seemed to weaken the object, and then the weapon was dead. Empty, Mark realized.
He tossed the discharged weapon aside, not caring that he'd been asked to preserve the empty units for future testing. He grabbed the blaster from the holster at his side, and quickly downed another of the things. Someone unleashed one of the dangerous anti-tank rounds, killing the targeted orb, but unleashing a blast that ripped units off of shelves and tossed irreplaceable gear across the area. Mark would learn later than Major Garcia and ten of his soldiers died in that explosion. Another of the orbs was blasted apart by a second of the FGM148 rockets, again triggering a massive explosion, that caught a second of the alien devices in its backlash. He could see the fire hose directing water toward another, and almost immediately the area was bathed in steam. An orb showing signs of having been damaged by the water blasts came flashing out of the cloud, and Janet was able to hit it dead on with an un-aimed shot with her grenade. Ducking behind a large transformer unit, Mark wondered how they were going to be able to fight without any visibility. Moments later, Simmons moved up beside him.
"Your people have to stop firing those rockets," Simmons warned. "They are going to damage the containment vessel if they keep it up, and then we're all in trouble.
Mark nodded, but he knew no one was going to take orders from him, and Garcia had been surprisingly quiet. Just then, another colored light came on.
"Oh shit!" Simmons cursed.
"What?" Mark asked.
"The reactor has been powered on. Someone or something pulled the rods out of the core."
"How's that possible? Mark asked. "I thought you said the reactor required coolant water for the reactor to work."
"Normal operations do require the water. It helps moderate and slow the neutrons to control the rate of fission. But the rods are the real control. Pull them out and the fissions will occur, how many depending on how far you withdraw the absorber rods. The problem we have now is that there is no coolant. Now there is nothing to stop the reactor from overheating and melting down. Assuming any significant power level has been activated, there is nothing that will save the core, and the containment vessel is at risk as well. This place is likely to become deadly radioactive before long."
How long?" Mark asked.
"That's hard to say. We need to get the operations team back in the plant."
They had been sent out of the facility when the battle grew too dangerous.
"Unit 1 is a functional reactor, and it should be straightforward to bring it into normal range, unless the levels have been taken too high. That's not the case with Unit 2. Without coolant, the core is clearly lost now, even at relatively low powers. It is going to melt. The containment vessels are well designed, but I'd say it would be prudent to start getting everyone else out of here. If we could ensure their safety while they work, the accident control team might be able to get that leak from the pump patched and get water back into the core. It won't save the unit, but it might save the containment vessel and prevent the radiation from escaping. "
Mark glanced around. The steam was dissipating, and all firing had stopped, both here and the level below. He couldn't spot any more of the alien energy orbs, despite the fact he was certain there'd been several more a few minutes earlier. For some reason the attack had been terminated. There was nothing left to stay for. They'd checked everything before the attacks begun, and had found nothing. They'd never seen an alien, and still they'd been attacked and badly hurt. It was time to get out and regroup before more people died uselessly.
Chapter 53
Three Days Later
"They're leaving, or at least they want us to think they are," the Director of Cheyenne Mountain's Tracking Facility told the small group assembled in the President's War Room. "We spotted their ship as it cleared the earth's atmosphere."
"Not until then," the President complained. "With all the billions we have in satellites to detect launches, you only just now found it?"
"They don't use conventional propulsion," the Director explained. "We are still scanning the video feeds, but none of our satellites detected the launch. We have no idea where it originated, even though our experts have focused on this area. We'd have heard from our allies if they'd spotted a launch from the United States. We are already picking up chatter that reveals others have detected the object as well. We can anticipate being asked if we know anything about the object and should have a prepared answer ready. Maybe the aliens have some system that doesn't use our methods for in-atmosphere operations that makes it hard to detect. Whenever it arrived here on Earth, it wasn't spotted either."
"Why are we seeing it now then?" asked the VP.
"I'm only guessing, but perhaps traveling at low altitudes or coming in slow doesn't require too much effort on their part, but climbing out of the gravity well still requires a considerable amount of delta-V to be produced. Now that the ship is high enough to be spotted, they may want to get away from any missile we might choose to fire their way. They don't need to hide their departure after all. We know about them now. And, they must know we have many nuclear capable weapons, and they aren't safe from them any more than our earth bound enemies. But whatever they are using, preliminary analysis says it isn't any known chemical propellant."
"Just the one ship?" asked General Hunter."
"Only one has been detected."
"Can we fire on it?" the President asked, hoping there might still be a chance to bring the aliens down.
The Director answered for him, "It's too high and receding too fast for any of our weapons to reach it now."
"They aren't fighters, are they?" Colonel Jones said. "One defeat, and they flee."
"We surprised them," the VP guessed. "They didn't expect we could beat them at all."
"Prudence," suggested the President. "There is one ship, and you said you couldn't sense its size. We don't know how many of them there were. Might be, in fact it seems likely, that they were an advance scouting vessel, with a relatively small contingent. They might be going for reinforcements, which is one reason it would have been desireable to prevent their getting away. Staying could have meant defeat and loss of any intelligence
they gathered."
"What about the orbit?" the VP asked. "Where is it going?"
"It's too early to tell," the Director replied. "The vehicle is still accelerating at an impressive rate. Any orbit we might calculate is therefore changing continuously and an end point indeterminate. Not that it matters. It's probably going to change later anyway. The kind of thrust we are seeing gives them a lot of maneuverability, and once they are well away from Earth, they might even engage a completely different type of propulsion."
"So you can't hazard a guess how long before they reach whatever destination they have chosen?" the VP asked.
"There's no way to even speculate," the Director replied. "We have no knowledge of the vehicles capability, nor do we have any idea of a possible destination. It is almost certainly outside our solar system, and given what we know of local star systems, a habitable one is light years away. I'd like to think it would take decades for them to get where they are going and organize a return, but that's just wishful thinking."
"You realize, they may only want us to think they are leaving, or that they are the only ship here," General Hunter pointed out. "That could be why they are suddenly so obvious. If they can make us believe they are all gone, we might cease our relentless search for them. They got here once undetected, so they could sneak back, or any others here could wait and initiate a new effort. We have to assume the worst."
"Not a reassuring thought," the President replied. "We need to inform the rest of the world, and remain vigilant. We also need to prepare against a possible return. Clearly our peaceful existence in the universe has ended."
"What is the status at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant?" the VP asked. "Are we even certain that all the aliens are gone?"
"The plant is still under military control and is being carefully checked," Colonel Jones answered. "An initial search after the coolant system repair has revealed no sign of the aliens, but also hasn't shown where they could have been hiding, which suggests something has been missed. A more careful check is being planned as soon as an assessment of the radiation risks is complete. The facility is unlikely to ever be opened and made operational again. Far too much damage occurred as a result of the fighting there. Both reactors were severely stressed and the experts predict significant damage was done to the cores of both units. We were fortunate that the containment vessel of the Unit 2 reactor held, and massive leaks avoided. Still, with the amount of equipment, piping, and electrical lines destroyed, there remains the possibility of radiation leaks that haven't been fully evaluated, especially inside the main reactor buildings. The monitoring we have done thus far suggests otherwise, although levels are well above normal and we are limiting exposure of all troops that enter the area, but the cores are still very hot, and there could be damaged sections that might produce localized melting, and thereby change the current situation."
"How many did we lose securing the facility?" the President asked.
"We were lucky compared to what we feared," Colonel Jones replied. "Still, we have one hundred fifty-seven killed, eighty-five hospitalized, and seventeen missing."
"This isn't going to be like the Capitol Power Plant, where we find the aliens never were established there?" asked the President, unhappy with the numbers he'd been given and hoping the losses hadn't been the result of more incorrect assumptions.
"We've seen enough to believe this is where they made their base," the Colonel answered. "The history of unexplained power shortages suggests they were tapping the cores for the power needed to create their clones and other equipment. No other site has reported a similar history of power shortages, nor the unusual electromagnetic signals that were so strong here. The General is correct, however. We need to keep looking."
"How is it that we were able to defeat them?" the President asked. "We had little time to prepare, and all indications are they are significantly more advanced than us."
"We were lucky, and they didn't anticipate we would be able to defeat their energy weapons so readily. I also suspect they didn't think we'd locate them here, this far from Washington. We believe they tapped the reactor cores with those orbs, and once we were able to bring down the majority of those, they were left in an untenable position. The energy orbs could facilitate their other creations, but it must have taken the aliens time to build them, and they couldn't replace the ones we were destroying fast enough. They weren't set up to continue the conflict without access to the massive amounts of energy they needed, and elected to flee rather than be captured or killed."
"How long before we are certain Calvert Cliffs is completely free of any alien presence?" the VP asked, returning to the matter.
"I can only guess until the report from the plant scientists is in, but I'd guess three to five days, assuming we have complete access to all areas. If we are restricted, we'll have to use robotic probes, and I'm not sure how long that will take."
"Meanwhile a full military presence will be maintained at the plant," the Colonel emphasized. "We are currently bringing in more troops and equipment."
"What do we tell the public?" the VP asked. "There has been a lot of speculation by the news media that a major terrorist plot has been thwarted."
"We can't tell them the truth," Senator Conroy warned. "That would result in a panic around the world. It's better they believe terrorists are responsible. We should play on the media's mistake."
"On the contrary," the President disagreed. "The public has a right to know. You are assuming this is suddenly all over. We can't know that."
"You can't be serious," the Senator said.
"We lie to the public too much. They are going to find out eventually, and it would be better they heard it from their leaders, and that we have won this round. How many soldiers were there and already know or suspect the truth? No amount of threats or orders are going to keep something like this secret. Besides, we need the public to help us effectively monitor the actions of any possible covert cells that still exist or might be created at a later date. We are going to need to spend heavily on research if we hope to survive any future engagements. That investment will need to be explained. The annual budget is going to be burdensome if we want to do this right."
"The rest of the world needs to know, and we wouldn't be able to count on every foreign leader to keep the secret. Yet they must know if we are to try to root out any aliens that might be elsewhere. Yes, we see a ship leaving, but Chet is right. Is that all of them?"
"Finally, I don't believe in lying to our people. We were elected to serve, not to mislead. It's time we started doing what we were put here to do."
"I disagree," Senator Conroy said. "My party will oppose any plan to create fear and chaos."
"You are free to believe as you will," the President said. "We owe you a personal debt for your part in this, but now you are playing politics. I'm the President, and this is my decision."
He turned to his VP.
"Rod, alert the news media. I will be addressing the country in a couple of hours. First I need to make some phone calls to other leaders around the world. We need to know if there is evidence this was happening anywhere else."
Four hours later, the media waited for the President's hastily announced speech.
"My fellow Americans . . . "
Epilogue
One Year Later
It had been a long year. Mark was discouraged and tired of what seemed to be the inevitable change in the grand plans he had anticipated after the aliens had been chased off of Earth. Months had passed since the aliens had left. Mark had gradually come to realize that he wouldn't be getting the chance at revenge he'd promised himself. He also had come to understand that gradually politics was taking over the good intentions that had followed in the first weeks after the President had revealed the attacks. Now many were in it for the money, and the two parties were using the issue to try to win votes. It seemed like it was time for him to move on.
Within a week of the attack at the Calvert Cliffs plant
they had found the aliens' lair. Cleared of a significant radiation hazard concern, Colonel Jones authorized an extensive search of the facility. A large underground cavern was located under the power plant. How it had been built without being detected or without disturbing the operation of the plant was a mystery, but it was clearly the work of the aliens. Equipment of unknown function was scattered around the area, some of it tapped into the Calvert Cliffs' power system, and some of it clearly planned for independent operation, although the nature of the power source remained to be understood. Mark was certain this was how the clones were made, but they had no way to prove it.
A return to the old building where this had all started showed that the odd marks in the carpet were a perfect match for some of the portable units they had found in the underground chamber. There were no aliens, no living clones, and no weapons, but enough technology to keep a large hoard of scientists and engineers happy for a long time. There was also nothing that indicated a group of aliens had stayed here, but the prevailing theory was they stayed on their ship, although no one knew where that was or how they had connected to it on a recurring basis. With the nuclear reactors at the site permanently shutdown, the scientists were free to examine the find with infinite care and patience, and to attempt to power those items that appeared to be integrated into the power system. As yet their success had been minimal, but there was great hope that the caverns would yield major technological breakthroughs.
Mark hadn't returned to NSA, and he knew he wouldn't any time soon, if ever. He'd been assigned by the Colonel to a team that worked with the international community in their search for other alien sites. Tom Burrows and Janet Moore had somewhat similar roles within their respective organizations, Burrows at the FBI and Janet back at Homeland Security. Of all the people from the team, Mark interfaced with them most often, and typically once a month, he and one of the two, if not both, found themselves on a plane together going somewhere overseas.
