“Do you think they’re trying to communicate with us?” Rear Admiral Griffin asked Captain Burns.
“It’s hard to tell, sir. Maybe the signals coming from them are encrypted. There is also a big chance that the signals are not encrypted. They could be trying to communicate with us in some alien mumbo jumbo. Perhaps it’s not even a voice transmission.”
“You’re right, Burns. It might even be data transmission.”
*
Rear Admiral Sopoaga froze when he heard the voice of his US Navy opposite number.
“Attention to the crew of the spaceships flying above the Indian Ocean,” the voice boomed from the speakers of the comm system. “This is the US Navy. Identify yourselves.”
Fuck you, US Navy, Sopoaga thought. We’re not in US airspace. We’re in international airspace, far away from the United States. He switched on the PTT button and breathed deeply. The admiralty had ordered him to avoid having a ship captured and the best way to do that was to avoid confrontation. “Attention all ships. Let’s get out of here and head back to Base.”
All captains acknowledged receiving the order. The ships fought the Earth’s gravity as they travelled toward outer space.
Half of Sopoaga was glad that the Earth’s powers had found out about the oxygen harvesting operation. Now the admiralty had no choice but to order the E Utopian space force to get oxygen from Venus’ carbon dioxide. He sighed with relief when all his ships left orbit without incident.
* * *
“The ships are leaving, sir!” Captain Burns said. “Should we send the drones after them, sir?”
Rear Admiral Griffin shook his head. “No. Bring the drones home. They don’t have the fuel to follow the spaceships into deep space. That woman from GEMA was right. We must create a space force to defend ourselves from these alien invaders.”
The drones were brought back to the USS Ronald Reagan in the aircraft carrier’s first ever arrested landing of a rocket-propelled drone.
“I’m getting out of here, Burns,” the rear admiral said. “All the Pentagon’s top brass are waiting to debrief me. I’ve a feeling that the President himself will be present during my debriefing.”
Captain Burns accompanied the rear admiral out of the operations room, to the deck. A V-22 Osprey airplane was ready and waiting on the deck.
“Have a safe journey, sir,” Captain Burns said with a salute.
The rear admiral returned the salute. “See you, Burns,” he said before he entered the V-22.
“Let’s get going, gentlemen,” he shouted as soon as his butt touched the seat nearest the cockpit.
“Yes, sir,” the crew chorused before they started the plane’s engines.
Chapter Thirteen
The Executive Council of E Utopia and the top brass of the E Utopian space force sat in Planet House’s situation room. For the first time, all members of the Executive Council were on E Utopia. The Executive Council was made up of the following: Sam Cruz, Ronald Hitchcook, Tyler Gibbs, formerly Director of Special Operations, Matt Spencer, formerly Director of Columbus Spaceport, William Fenton, formerly Director of the Bolivian Spaceport, Brian Nutwell, formerly Director of the Congolese spaceport, and Ryan Ford, formerly Director of Recruitment and Species Collection. Representing the space force were Fleet Admiral Charles Eawo, Admiral Chief of Operations Gyozo Geza and Vice Admiral Andrew Frankson. These were the most powerful men on E Utopia.
“Gentlemen, as you have all heard, earthlings have found out about our milking operation and they’ve adjourned an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council,” Cruz said. “It’s a good thing we evacuated the chosen ones before this happened. From the information that we garnered from the drones we sent into the Solar System to eavesdrop on data satellites, Interpol rounded up all the staff of the space agencies and satellite imagery companies who were working with us and they’re interrogating them as we speak.”
“I think those guys sold us,” Nutwell said angrily. “We should execute their loved ones in our prison.”
“That, I’m afraid, won’t serve anything,” Cruz said. “Who knows? In future we might need the prisoners as bargaining chips. Besides, there’s a lot of work to be done here and the prisoners will provide cheap labor.”
“That is a point, Mr. President,” William Fenton said. “But we must make sure that the prisoners don’t mix with the chosen ones.”
“We’ll make sure that the prisoners will be separated from the populace at all times,” Cruz said. “The chosen ones will turn against us if they find out that we’re the cause of El Monstruo.”
“Have the people on Earth found out our identities?” Hitchcook asked.
“Not yet but they’ll soon find out,” Cruz replied.
“They won’t be able to do anything to us even if they find out our identities,” Matt Spencer boasted. “Without jump drives, they can’t come here.”
“Even if they had ships capable of travelling at FTL speeds, it would take them time to find E Utopia,” Cruz said smugly.
“It looks like we won’t be going back to Earth anytime soon,” Peter Ford drawled.
Admiral Eawo looked at Cruz. “Mr. President, does this mean the end of the oxygen harvesting operation?”
“Yes,” Cruz agreed. “We’re going to get the rest of our oxygen from Venus’ carbon dioxide.”
“May I speak, please, Mr. President?” Admiral Geza broke his silence.
“Feel free, admiral.”
“The people on Earth don’t have jump drives on their spaceships but we must not relax. Maybe they’ll discover jump drives in the future. Since we’ll be getting the rest of our oxygen from the Solar System, albeit on another planet, there’s the remote possibility that earthlings might capture one of our ships and reverse engineer it. I think we should place many defensive missile batteries into E Utopia orbit and these batteries must be programmed to shoot any ship that approaches our planet without access codes.”
“That is a good idea, admiral,” Cruz said, raising his hand. “Raise your hand if you agree with Admiral Geza.”
Everyone raised hands.
“The missile batteries must be manufactured right away and launched into orbit as soon as possible,” Cruz said.
“We’ll do that, Mr. President,” Fleet Admiral Eawo promised.
“Have we abandoned our plan to wipe out polluters and take over Earth?” Hitchcook asked.
Cruz leaned forward and banged the table with his fist. “We cannot leave the Earth in the hands of polluters.”
“They haven’t yet discovered the nuclear launchers that we put in Earth orbit,” Hitchcook said fervently. “Let’s strike them now before they discover the nuclear weapons.”
“Yes,” Gibbs agreed. “Let’s strike them now before they create a strong space force. Mr. President, I believe that now is the best time to strike.”
“If we nuke the Earth, we’ll destroy the environment beyond repair,” Cruz said. “We need to come up with a plan that deletes the polluters without permanently destroying the environment. I need you, gentlemen, to brainstorm. Let me know if you come up with a plan that can wipe away polluters without filling the Earth with nuclear radiation.”
“Mr. President,” Fleet Admiral Eawo said. “We do not have the manpower to sustain a long war against the Earth’s powers. Our orbital nuclear weapons are our only chance of achieving victory.”
Cruz sighed. “Let’s shelf that for the moment, Admiral Eawo. We’ll consider nuking the Earth if we fail to come up with a better plan.” He cleared his throat. “Now let’s talk about the environment here. At what stage is the tree planting, the revival of cryopreserved plant cells, and the implantation of frozen embryos?”
“It is progressing well, Mr. President,” Hitchcook said. “The plants are growing well. E Utopia will soon be a green planet. The implantation of frozen embryos has been satisfactory so far. We’ve successfully implanted three tiger embryos in one female leopard and four lion embryos in another femal
e leopard.”
Cruz shook with delight. “Are you kidding me? I can’t wait to see big cats roaming the plains of E Utopia.”
“We’ve also implanted African buffalos and bison in Asian bantengs. Believe it or not, we successfully revived a frozen killer whale embryo and implanted it in a dolphin. When the embryo gets too big for the dolphin, we shall take it out and put it in an artificial womb. The embryo is female and if it survives, we’ll use it as the surrogate mother of other whale species. We plan to do the same with shark embryos, which we plan to implant in smaller viviparous cartilaginous fish before we transfer them to artificial wombs. We also managed to revive cryopreserved eggs of several species of oviparous fish.”
“I’m glad we’re making progress in the reproduction of our planet’s biota. How is the astronomy front going? Did our astronomers discover any other planet in the star system apart from Fuel Ball?”
Hitchcook shook his head. “No, Mr. President. They only discovered one asteroid with a radius of one hundred and ten kilometers.”
“We must push the astronomers, Hitchcook. We want to learn more about this star system.”
“I’ll push them, Mr. President. I think we should launch a number of space probes to speed up the discovery of new planets in this system.”
“Talk to our technicians and build the space probes, Hitchcook. I want them launched into space as soon as possible.”
“Yes, sir,” Hitchcook said.
Cruz cleared his throat. “Since we’re all here, it’s time for us to form our Cabinet. Hitchcook, from now on, you shall be Secretary for Education, Science and Technology. Admiral Eawo retains the Defense and Interplanetary Transport portfolio and will be deputized by Admiral Geza like before. Secretary Gibbs shall be in charge of Interior, Security, Law and Order. Secretary Nutwell shall be in charge of Forests, Wildlife, Agriculture and Natural Resources. Secretary Ford shall be in charge of Local Transport, Communications, Energy and Mining. Secretary Spencer shall be in charge of Finance and Economic Planning. Secretary Fenton will be in charge of Public Works and Housing. I hope that you gentlemen shall faithfully serve E Utopia, its people and its biota.”
All members of Cabinet said statements to the effect that they would faithfully serve the planet.
“We need to have a calendar of some sort here,” Cruz said. “Have you finally determined how long our year is? Did you notice any seasonal patterns?”
“We discovered that there are cold and hot seasons,” Hitchcook said. “But the length of the day doesn’t change much during the seasons, suggesting that E Utopia undergoes little or no axial tilt as it travels around the Luz Cruz. The seasons, I suspect, are more due to the shape of its orbit than to the tilting of its spin axis. It seems that E Utopia’s orbit around the Luz Cruz is more elliptical than the Earth’s orbit around the Sun.”
“So we have a winter and summer like on Earth?” Cruz asked.
“If my assumption is correct, we have two winters when the planet is on the elliptical orbit’s furthest arcs from the star and two summers when the planet is on the orbit’s nearest arcs to the star.”
“So how many days does our year have?”
“We’re not certain, but we think our year has between five hundred and eleven and five hundred and thirteen days.”
“I hope that this uniformity in the lengths of days and nights throughout the seasons won’t have a negative effect on photoperiodic flowering plants,” Ryan Ford mused.
“You’re right, Ford,” Hitchcook said. “We’ll experience problems with photoperiodic flowering plants, especially qualitative short-day and qualitative long-day plants. We’ll monitor our photoperiodic flowering plants and come up with the best ways to induce flowering.”
“We need all our plants to flourish,” Cruz said somberly. “We’ll have to come up with ways to create artificial long days and artificial short days for our qualitative photoperiodic plants.”
“Creating artificial long days will be much easier than creating artificial short days,” Nutwell said. “To create long days, we’ll just have to install floodlights in sections of our forests.”
“Creating short days will be tricky,” Spencer entered. “We’ll have to cover sections of our forests with retractable roofs.”
“We’ll do it,” Cruz declared. “No price is too high to pay for the survival of our plants. We have to create a monetary system as soon as possible to facilitate the growth of our economy.”
“Yes, sir. We need a monetary system to facilitate trade,” Fenton said.
“The Cabinet has to meet at regular intervals. Since we haven’t yet established a calendar, we’ll meet after every ten days.”
* * *
The whole world was in shock. Everyone from heads of states to the common man was equally shocked. Some executives and directors of the implicated space agencies and satellite imagery companies had confessed to taking part in the theft of Earth’s oxygen. At first it wasn’t clear whether they were human collaborators in an alien attempt to end life on Earth, but it soon became clear that there was no alien involvement.
In several countries throughout the world, people who had declined invitations to E Utopia told the authorities about the invitations. It was apparent that a group of people had found a new world somewhere in the Universe and had robbed oxygen from Earth. Investigators discovered that all the reported invitations to an extraterrestrial world had come from people involved in environmental activism.
People accused governments of allowing the theft of oxygen to take place. How could the world’s powers, with all their technology and military hardware, let a small group of psychopaths destroy the world? People accused the world’s powers of being too obsessed with their rivalries at the expense of protecting the Earth. All countries were only preoccupied with protecting their territories from attack by other countries, leaving international airspace at the mercy of people like Sam Cruz. People held demonstrations worldwide, calling for the creation of a unified Earth defense system. Everyone praised Sara Cummings for saving the world. The term of office of the UN Secretary-General was going to expire in four months and many political commentators said that Sara Cummings should succeed him as UN chief.
Sam Cruz was the only known green activist who owned an aerospace company, making him the number one suspect. As the world’s best-known environmental activist, he was conspicuous by his absence. Many expected Sam Cruz to lead the outcry against the oxygen theft and his silence raised eyebrows throughout the world. It was clear that he was the mastermind behind the oxygen heist. The FBI tried without success to locate him. They didn’t find anyone when they went to his spaceport. The rest of his companies were running but his spaceport and aerospace industries were shut. It was the same case with his Bolivian and Congolese spaceports. All of the International Green Movement’s Executive Council had simply vanished. People couldn’t understand why a man who professed so much love for Mother Nature had decided to destroy Earth’s natural environment.
Takehiko Hatsu, a prominent member of the Green Party of Japan, made a revelation that helped the world understand the rationale behind the oxygen theft. In an interview on Japanese national TV, Takehiko related how he and fifteen Japanese green activists were invited to the United States to meet the Executive Council of the International Green Movement. Sam Cruz told Takehiko and his compatriots that he was frustrated by the world’s inability to reduce environmental degradation and had decided to employ a new strategy to save the Earth’s biota from man’s greed. Takehiko said he refused to take part in the new strategy because he had a gut feeling that it involved some kind of dirty play. He said he last saw thirteen of his fellow Japanese green activists at the meeting.
Investigations revealed the families of the thirteen Japanese green activists had vanished. Gone to a new world where they were breathing stolen oxygen.
A wounded conservationist had lashed out, almost succeeding in wiping out mankind from the face of the Earth.
> The United Nations Security Council held a meeting at Head of State level, chaired by the French President, who currently held the rotating chairmanship of the Council. All delegates at the meeting that took place at the UN Headquarters in New York agreed the world had to create a unified defense system to ensure that the Earth would never again be breached by outside forces. But they disagreed on how to do it.
Inevitably, there were deep suspicions between the Western powers on one side and the Russians and Chinese on the other side. Both sides feared the other side could use the crisis to gain military advantage over the other. Everyone agreed that the best way to protect Earth from intruders was putting missile systems in orbit but there were huge differences on how those missiles should be controlled. Neither side wanted to give the other side more control over the orbital missile systems.
The British Prime Minister proposed that the orbital weapons should be programmed and positioned to attack targets coming from outside the Earth. The French President proposed that the weapons should be programmed in such a way that their positions or status would not be altered without a code. To avoid unilateral action, the five permanent members of the Security Council would have a part of the code, making it impossible for one country to unilaterally alter the positions and status of the weapons. The United States, China and Russia were worried that the system could be hacked and used against the Earth as a whole or against particular states.
In the end the Security Council agreed to expedite the creation of a United Nations Space Force and to launch many surveillance satellites into orbit to watch out for intruders. The space force would be on standby, ready to launch their spaceships if the surveillance satellites detected E Utopian spaceships. On the issue of oxygenation of the atmosphere, the Security Council agreed that sand reduction was the only viable option. Venus was too far away. With the current rocket technology, rockets would burn lots of oxygen to get to Venus and the oxygen they would burn could outweigh the oxygen they would bring from Venus.
The E Utopia Project Page 28
