With a smile, Lexi said, “You’re looking at the latest in spacesuit technology. I call them ‘skinsuits.’”
Ron suggested, “I’m willing to bet that’s where the micro-miniaturized gravity generators you asked me to build wound up.”
Lexi nodded. “Yes. These contain an amazing amount of technology, all miniaturized. The gravity generators are built into them. There are no built-in weapons, although Zappers can be attached to them at the wrist. They have hyper-generators. Unfortunately, I don’t think hyperdrives can be made small enough to fit in the suit, although I plan to eventually come up with an external hyperdrive the suit can attach to. It might be large. Tractors and pressers, of course. They don’t have a lot of power, but could still be useful.
“The suit is powered by the same Zero-Point technology the Zappers use. For safety, there is a second backup ZPU as well. The suit generates a modified Klaavaanit field that provides a mental interface to the computers controlling the suits.”
She was practically beaming at them as she continued, “What this means is that we can fly through n-space and eventually hyperspace wearing one of these. We can board ships in hyper. With the weapon attachments, we can put up a good fight if we need to. Due to the Klaavaanit technology, we don’t even need to be in them. We can send in avatars. Admittedly, I’m still working on a cutout that will return us to our bodies if the avatar is killed. It seems to be a tough nut to crack.”
Urania stated, “This is all remarkable work, Lexi. I am very impressed. They’re much more sleek than existing EVA suits.”
“Thank you. They’re modeled on the type of outfit bike racers wear.” She grinned. “Possibly with an influence from some of the old Batman movies. I know I did all of this without discussing it with anyone. I even excluded Urania. I wanted this to be a surprise. Ron mentioned ages ago we needed better spacesuits. These are almost what we were thinking of at the time.”
“Almost?” Ron asked. “Sounds like they go beyond what I was thinking of.”
Lexi sighed. “Almost. A couple of things. You can only wear this particular model as an avatar.” She looked embarrassed as she added, “There is no easy way to put one on. I can’t believe I missed that. I’m sure if I hadn’t wanted to surprise everyone with them, one of you would have noticed. The next version is being designed so that you can climb into one in zero-gee in the dark. Then, I think the next step is to redesign military battle-armor based on this technology.”
She smiled. “Nothing, other than the suit fabric, is really new. It was just a matter of making it smaller and putting it all together. I’ve created a small instructional rubric for them. If you all want to lean back, I’ll activate it. Should take about five minutes. Urania, I think it will operate through your avatar. Ready to give it a try?”
Urania thought, Here we go again. Complete trust. Along with the rest of them, she nodded. Unlike the others, she didn’t lose consciousness, but then, for her, the transference was instant. She transferred her avatar to the suit. It felt normal.
Lexi found it weird watching three of her friends slump back in the chairs. She was momentarily concerned when Urania vanished until she realized she was already actualizing her suit. “What do you think?” Lexi asked.
“You still remember that I’m really a starship, Lexi?” Urania’s voice emanated from the speaker at the shoulder of the suit. She levitated herself from the chair using the presser-controls. “This is like that, only different. I think I love it.”
The others woke up at more or less the same time to see Urania cavorting in the suit. “If they’re not exactly ready,” Geena asked, “why the unveiling today?”
As Geena asked that, Urania disappeared entirely, suit and all. Ron, quick on the uptake, stated matter-of-factly, “Impressive camouflage tech, Lexi.” He only flailed for a few seconds when Urania lifted him from his chair using the tractor and presser beams of the suit. She set him down in a different chair and reappeared where he had been sitting.
Lexi shook her head. “Behave yourself, Urania,” she chided.
Urania reiterated, “I like this suit, Lexi. It’s going to let me go places I’ve never been able to go before.”
Lexi smiled. “The suits are fine for what I have in mind. They let the rest of us do something only Urania has been able to do. I’ve got tethers rigged off the aft of the ship. Who wants to go hyper-surfing with me?”
>>> End of Part 2: Marshal <<<
Part 3: Killer Queen
When negotiation with the enemy isn’t possible, when the combined military force of the Accord is inadequate, there’s only one alternative to total annihilation. Earth needs to follow the lead of a Killer Queen.
Chapter 42
Men in Black
It was the middle of the night in New York City. Outside, a torrential downpour flushed the city’s accumulated grime from the streets into the sewers. Frequent blasts of lightning, followed by jolting claps of thunder, lit the dark sky. From the streets below came the inevitable traffic sounds of a crowded city, cars honking and the sirens of police cars, ambulances, and firetrucks squealing. It was a normal noisy night in the city that never sleeps.
He was pretty deep into REM sleep when the intercom on his bedside table started yammering at him. The tone was loud enough to wake the dead. Far louder than needed, he was a light sleeper. His apartment was soundproofed as far as external noises went. It didn’t matter. He learned to sleep anywhere, any time when he was a Marine. His brain somehow filtered out the unimportant noises. This one was important. He was up and on his feet almost instantly, hitting the accept button and shutting the noise off. “Go ahead,” he said.
“Director, we’ve got a class-nine bogey in-system, coming in hot. Andy is already on his way to the control room.” He recognized the voice of the overnight Officer of the Watch, Lisa Evans. She held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, more for when she had to interact with military personnel than for any other reason. She would have already followed the protocols, bringing the rest of his command to full alert.
WASP, the acronym his command was known by, if only because this was the United States and you almost needed a friggin’ acronym to be taken seriously, not only included the International Space Station, but also thirty highly-classified orbiting missile platforms, only half of which technically belonged to the United States. In Russian, while the acronym lost all meaning, the organization was called ОСА́. Other countries followed the same pattern, using their language’s term for wasp and not worrying in the least about fitting it into an acronym. Regardless of what WASP was called, they all knew he controlled enough orbital firepower to snuff most of the planet. Most thought it was necessary. The rest thought it was insanity.
Right now his communications group would be scrambling to reach full staffing, waking scores of other people in this building alone, bringing the entire planet to what amounted to what the US would term DEFCON 3 in short order. That gave him some time. No one was shooting anybody yet.
“I’ll be right down.” He paused, running his hand through his hair, and then asked, “Class-nine? I didn’t mishear you, Lisa?”
“Yes, sir. Class-nine. That’s tentative. What we’re seeing is confusing, but if something that size is weaponized, it’s likely a planet-killer.”
“Lisa, bring the missile platforms online. Let the crews know we’ll fight back if necessary. Inform them that at the first sign of hostilities, they all flush at once.”
“Yes, sir. We should prepare the ISS for immediate evacuation also.”
“Agreed. Do it.”
His apartment overlooked the city from the penthouse of a ninety-story high-rise in midtown. WASP controlled the top twelve floors of the building, consisting of both office space and apartments for those who were on call. The operations center seven floors below his living quarters rivaled those at the Pentagon and NASA. The computer tech on those twelve floors would have turned the NSA green with envy if they knew it existed. They didn’t.
Below that, accessible by high-speed drop tubes that led deep into the granite that supported Manhattan, was the backup op-center. At the current alertness level, it was already fully staffed. In a true emergency, it wasn’t wise to be based in a skyscraper. Terrorists proved years ago that a tower could be taken down with a jet plane. No space weapons required.
Direct lines connected him to dozens of world leaders, over half of whom believed his organization to be useless, just a grandiose example of American paranoia. Those who thought that weren’t aware that WASP was funded not only by the United States but seven other major powers as well, including Russia and China.
Unless he made special arrangements, he was always on call. It was just part of the job. That being said, this type of situation was rare. Earth technology usually couldn’t see through the shields of incoming ships. According to their resident expert, starship shields weren’t designed for the purpose of cloaking ships from being detected. That was just an unavoidable side effect due to Earth’s relatively low-level technology.
The few they had identified over the years were never more powerful than a class-one, no larger than a small suburban house. Those had always been unarmed, private ships, manned by rich people with inexperienced crews who didn’t know how to maintain their shields, or really, anything else, properly. With only a few exceptions, there was relatively little left of them after they crashed. Fortunately, they usually went down in an ocean, not a city, presumably under the mistaken belief that they might be able to survive a plunge into a large body of water. They didn’t.
Earth never expected to see a class-nine. They had been assured they didn’t exist. Their off-world consultant laughed when he saw their grading scale and explained to them that extra-solar civilization didn’t possess anything larger than what Earth’s classification system termed a class-five. Further, the only class-five was a single dreadnought protecting the Vankovian homeworld. He eventually came to believe his consultant but hadn’t modified their grading scale, admittedly based on Hollywood’s special effects.
Now he was facing what was, according to his peoples’ assessment, something one step down from a Death Star coming at him. Maybe it was a Death Star. How much did size matter when killing planets? Worse, it was coming in unshielded. If it wanted to be noticed, that could be a good thing. If it just didn’t care that his instruments could see it, he suspected that was likely going to prove to be a very, very bad thing. He didn’t see any middle ground there. He couldn’t spare the time for a shower but did shave before dressing in a clean outfit. Had to look presentable for the alien conquerors, didn’t he?
Chapter 43
Visitors From the Stars
Earth had been aware for decades that there were other civilizations, extra-solar alien civilizations, having the technology to reach us. Most of that knowledge came from the occasional artifact that turned up along with masses of otherwise unexplainable sightings in the world’s skies. The United States, Russia, Australia, and China, to name a few, all owned damaged, and more often than not, crashed alien ships stashed away in hidden research facilities, ships loaded with largely incomprehensible technology. So far, no little gray men with big eyes and large heads had turned up. The bodies recovered from the wrecks were as human as anybody else on Earth. That initially caused a lot of head-scratching.
Why the aliens didn’t openly contact us was a mystery until it was explained a little over a year and a half ago by one of those same aliens. Apparently, they had rules. Still, somewhere out there, Earth had a friend willing to bend those rules, a friend who loaned out one of her people to help Earth governments understand the true situation. That decision made a lot of sense when looked at holistically. Earth technology was no more than a few decades from cracking alien starflight technology. Over the short term, at least, it was probably best if Earth wasn’t taken by surprise by what was found out there.
Earth didn’t have the technology to do much about the sporadic visitors, most of whom got in and out undetected. We knew that some were stealing humans for an illegal, off-world slave trade. There were also semi-legitimate purchases of Earth-made artillery, preferred almost universally by the alien’s various police and military organizations. That amused him whenever he thought about it. You would have expected them to be toting ray-guns, not Glocks and AK-47s.
On entering the op-center, his gaze immediately went to the three large monitors mounted against the front wall. “What have we got, Lisa?” the man whose job was to both prepare for and handle alien visitations to Earth asked. Even after all of these years, he still marveled from time to time that his job was protecting the planet if and when it became necessary. This could be the day he earned his salary. He hoped his daughter, wherever she was, was somewhere safe. Three years passed since he last talked to her.
“These images are from just inside the orbit of Mars, Director. I’m casting them to the main screens now. They definitely want us to know they’re coming. They’re broadcasting sound too.”
The tall man stared at the middle monitor for two long minutes while contemplating the unlikely music the aliens were broadcasting. Andy arrived soundlessly and stood next to him, handing him a cup of coffee and also focusing his attention on the monitor. Andy was a gift to Earth, offered by one of the alien governments. During the time he had been here, he had come to respect all of these people, but especially the man he just brought coffee for. “That music sounds familiar to me. Why, Charlie?” Andy asked.
“We’re listening to the Royal Scots Dragoon Guard playing Promontory. It was on the soundtrack of the Last of the Mohicans, one of my favorite movies of all time. I made you watch it a few months back. I’m relieved they’re not treating us to Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries. Lisa, this isn’t somebody’s idea of a joke? I refuse to believe we’re being invaded by either Scotland or Hollywood. We haven’t been hacked?”
“No, sir,” Lisa confirmed. “Whatever it is, all of our instruments say it’s really there. And it’s coming in fast. I have confirmations from the remote sites as well, including the Mars satellite.” She paused a moment, as though listening on her headset. “Analytics confirms, sir. Also, that ship is not coming up in the ET database.” That was the database provided by their expert.
The Director continued to stare at the winged dragon as it slithered through his solar system toward the planet he was tasked with protecting from extra-solar threats. He glanced sideways at Andy as he heard him mutter in his own language that the ship wasn’t in the database because it didn’t exist. His glance drifted briefly to the companion monitor to the right, showing statistics. The left-side monitor updated continually, indicating the alien’s changing position relative to other objects in near-Earth space.
Andy asked, somewhat rhetorically, “Is anyone else puzzled as to why an unidentifiable alien ship is broadcasting the soundtrack of an Earth movie?”
The dragon was well over a mile long from the snout to the tip of the tail. It was definitely a dragon. One he could picture swooping down to do battle with Saint George. In fact, it looked suspiciously like the dragon in Raphael’s painting hanging in the Louvre. All things considered, he wouldn’t place a bet in favor of George. Its size made the human-looking rider sitting on its back as tall as the skyscraper he worked and lived in. He wondered briefly if it was the solar wind that caused her red hair to stream backward like that. He didn’t really believe for a moment the solar wind could have that strong an effect. Then he blinked. Unbelievable! In a very quiet voice, he instructed, “Lisa, zoom in on the rider for me, please.”
As the image focused on the dragon rider, he saw an attractive human female dressed in what appeared to be skin-tight black leather, otherwise unprotected against the vacuum of space. Over her shoulder was the hilt of a monstrous sword. A futuristic looking gun adorned her left thigh. Ray-guns after all? Maybe. The image settled on her face. He sighed. She looked like her mother. All he could think to say was, “What have you done, Lexi?” It was a phr
ase he used many times while she was growing up.
Lisa asked, puzzled, “Excuse me, sir?”
“I have a daughter, Lisa. Electra Stevens. She goes by Lexi. She disappeared around three years ago, ran off with a boyfriend.” He pointed to the face on the monitor. “Interesting, isn’t it? It looks like she’s coming home.” He paused. “Andy, what have you got for us?”
“I recognize the rider as well, Director. I met that woman at the coronation of Ackalon’s new Plicora. She’s pretty extraordinary if the stories are true.” After a pause, he added, “Even if they’re only close to being true.” He turned to look at Charlie. “She was introduced to me as Lexi Stevens. I’m sorry, Director. I didn’t make the connection. It never occurred to me there could even be a connection.”
Andy was the alien consultant who let them in on the workings of the Accord, the interstellar civilization that spanned a huge volume of space, including that containing Earth. Earth was categorized as a Level-Two, non-member world by the Accord. That meant they were supposed to be hands-off — a technologically advanced civilization still shy of interstellar flight. One the Accord didn’t want to influence.
Aeolus Investigations Set 2: Too Cool To Lose: The Continuing Evolution of Lexi Stevens Page 38
