Retread Shop 1: First Contact

by T. Jackson King

  Looking over at Whitehead, McDonnell threw him an angry look as if to say “How the hell did this alien find out about two operational Russian radiofrequency weapon systems that we thought were still in the development stage!” She quickly turned her attention back to the Horem.

  “I’ll take your suggestion under advisement, Mr. Arax. Perhaps we will do as you suggest.” McDonnell looked thoughtful. “However, I have an obligation to my country to protect it at all times. At present, I am faced with at least two alien spaceships, five alien races, a worldwide vidcast that makes quiet diplomacy difficult, and no direct knowledge of your intentions. So I ask you, what are your intentions?” she probed, feeling both curious and playing for time.

  “Our plans, Madame President, are as I stated in the vid-interview.” The screen Sargon cocked his mohawk-crested head in a very human gesture. “We await an invitation from one or more Human nations to come visiting. Until we receive such an invitation on an open vidcast channel, we will not again approach Earth. It is, after all, your planet and we desire only discussion, with exchanges of ideas, biologicals and technology. Mutually beneficial Trade is what we are all about.” Sargon paused, looking aside to the Horem woman in the alcove, then back. “I have made two new friends to date in Liaison Jack Harrigan and Ms. Colleen McIntyre, and I hope for similar friendly relations between the Compact and your nation-Clan. We will remain at this orbital position awaiting your response.”

  McDonnell, thinking quickly, reached her decision.

  “Thank you, Mr. Arax. Please excuse me now as I have much to do,” McDonnell said as she tapped her satphone to kill the connection.

  Looking out at her advisers, Heather McDonnell quickly got down to business.

  She began with her Science Adviser. “Amy, get me everything NASA, Kitt Peak, Goddard station and anyone else can produce in the way of data and pictures of these alien ships. I want to know when, where and how they are where they are.” Security was next. “Edward, figure out how this could affect our current interests in Africa, Afghanistan, the Baltics, Iran, the Indian Ocean, Australia, Korea, the Yellow Sea and Europe—what can we do if these aliens suddenly decide to visit us without a request. Harold,” she glowered at her Secretary of Defense, feeling let down. “I want to know if those Air Force neutral particle beam satellites are operational yet, and also your projections for significant public disturbances and hysteria over this event.” She turned to her most reliable admiral and JCOS chairman. “Lucius, find out how the hell the Russians got operational on those RF weapons without DARPA knowing about it, and tell NASA to hold the Kennedy shuttle launch scheduled for Monday. Alex, you and I need to talk, and you better pack your bags—you may be going to Goddard station, or the Moon,” she told her suddenly startled Vice President. McDonnell paused, looking across the table at the CIA chief. “Loretta, tell FBI’s Metzger I want him to find this Jack Harrigan character fast. I want to talk to Harrigan myself, in person.”

  Her CIA chief nodded her head, long blond hair tied in a ponytail. “Will do re Director Metzger and this Harrigan guy. Uh, do you wish to know the status of spacecraft able to reach this L4 spot the aliens are parked at?”

  McDonnell blinked. Then felt pissed at herself. That should have been one of her first questions. “Yes, Loretta, please brief us all on the ships able to reach L4.”

  The woman who had acted as her campaign manager during McDonnell’s first run for the presidency looked down at her LinkPad. “First, L4 is located 60 degrees ahead of the Moon and shares the Moon’s orbit. Any Mars transit ship could reach L4. But the Chinese Yinghuo and the Jizo Bosatsu of Japan are both halfway to Mars. Our Armstrong ship is in orbit undergoing fusion isotope refueling from the fuel globes next to Goddard station.” She looked up from her LinkPad, fixing hazel eyes on Heather. “The Moon shuttles could also reach L4, though they might be short of fuel for any return to Earth or to the Moon. The Shikazu of Japan is parked at Tanegashima launch base. China’s Tianzhou shuttle is at its Moon base at Langrenus crater. Russia’s Lenin shuttle is parked at their Tyuratam field. Our Kennedy shuttle is fueled and ready to launch at Cape Canaveral once the Orion heavy-lifter is moved out of its hangar. The Moon shuttles of SpaceX, Bigelow and Microsoft are either in Earth-Moon transit or parked at their Moon bases.”

  “Thank you,” Heather said, her mind churning with options. “Good to know we have two craft that can reach this L4 location.” She looked around the table. “Everyone, we meet back here at 7 p.m. tonight. Right now, I’ve got to go out and face the press. Get on it!”

  “Madame President,” interrupted Amy Sung, her expression intense and her black eyes bright. “Before we break up, there are some science matters relating to this alien contact that everyone should know. Especially you, before you talk with the news media. Who will already have their own science geeks on standby. May I?”

  Heather frowned. It was unlike Amy to forestall her ‘go on it” orders to the cabinet. Which meant it must be important. “Amy, spell it out for us, whatever you’ve got concerning these aliens!”

  The woman, whose two children often played with Heather’s grandchildren, gestured at the wallscreen. “The two vidcasts we’ve seen document some amazing tech. First, these aliens have artificial gravity.” Heather blinked, then realized the first vidcast that showed Earth in the porthole had not involved any ship movement. She was aware that pseudo-gravity could be produced by spinning a ship or having a ship be under constant thrust, both techniques having been used by their Mars expeditions. Others at the table looked suddenly alert at the implications. “You’re right. Gravity control is a very formidable technology. What else?”

  Sung gave her a quick smile. “Second, JPL has confirmed the James Webb scope was able to produce a decent image of this Sargon’s spaceship. It’s composed of four globes, with one atop the other three in a pyramid shape. We have nothing like it.” She paused, glancing down at her LinkPad to consult notes she’d made during Sargon’s talk. “Third, their ship’s fusion pulse main engines make use of antimatter for an afterburner effect to produce near lightspeed velocity. You all know the implications of controlling any quantity of antimatter.” Heather now understood Amy’s intensity. Antimatter involved a 100 percent conversion of matter to energy. That produced more destructive energy than even Russia’s ancient Tsar Bomb that put out 50 megatons of plasma energy. “Fourth, their Comlink block makes instant translation of languages, something our neural network computers can do for human languages. But this thing does it for alien languages! Fifth, they have an artificially intelligent computer, or Core, that they treat as if it’s a real person. They say it’s a quantum computer. Our quantum computer efforts are at the kindergarten toy level.” Amy looked around the room, then back to Heather. “Sixth, they’ve been here a year, they landed this Probe team in Chennai to learn about humanity, and they clearly have spytech that tells them all they wish to know about our defenses and the defenses of other major powers. Which means our Aurora spaceplane launches were no surprise to them.”

  Edward slammed his fist against the table. “So what! There are nine billion of us on this world, we control ten orbital battlestations and we can take out anything that enters our atmosphere with either the Aurora planes, our anti-ABM missiles or our HF laser bases!”

  Heather winced. Edward Luttwak was letting his Germanic heritage get in the way of clear thinking. For one thing, the UN controlled nine of the ten battlestations.

  Amy sat back in her chair and stared at him. “Oh? Really? Then how could this Sargon, and his Probe team, land three times on Earth without you, the Hindus or anyone else knowing about it?” She tapped her LinkPad, then gestured at the wallscreen. Which now showed a group of four globes against a starry background. “That is JPL’s image of Sargon’s spaceship. I see no exhaust portals. Which means it moves by a means other than VASIMIR magnetopause, fusion pulse or oldstyle rockets. This Sargon said in the Harrigan vidcast the ship uses a magpulse engine. My guess is t
hat engine reacts against the solar system’s magnetic field, and the magfield of any planet. Which makes it very hard to detect.”

  “We already knew they were hard to detect,” Heather said, nodding to Harold and Lucius. “Our Space Fence people at Peterson could not detect any unknown object out to geosync and beyond. Nor did our private Moon bases at the south pole, or our base at Tycho, detect any object near the Moon. According to earlier reports. Right, Lucius?”

  “Correct, Madame President,” grumbled the stocky, gray-haired man who’d captained the CVN-79 John F. Kennedy Ford-class supercarrier during its humanitarian mission to help the people of Sri Lanka. “Brigadier General Jane Howard and her staff at Peterson are more than capable. She initiated the DEFCON 3 status, upon your orders conveyed through Major General Jeremy Watkins, who advised me and my office of their actions. Which I fully support.” The man who resembled a human bulldog looked around the table, his expression combative. “The First Space Brigade has been activated by General Howard. This nation’s ICBM, ABM and Platinum Dome defenses, Aurora spaceplanes and HF laser bases are fully active and ready to defend the continental United States from any threat.” He frowned. “Leastwise, any threat we can detect. My DARPA people are working on other means of detecting stealthy spaceships like this magpulse thing of Ms. Sung.”

  Heather looked back to her Science Advisor. “Anything else we need to know, Amy?”

  “Yes.” The short-haired woman, whose wife was a friend of McDonnell’s lesbian daughter, gestured again at the alien spaceship on the wallscreen. “Seventh, I suspect these aliens may have pressor and tractor beams able to manipulate solid objects. Think Star Trek, only these beams are likely to be real. Our Los Alamos National Lab people have desk-top tractor beams using acoustic energy and magnetic impulses. If our people have achieved proof of concept devices, then these aliens likely have real tractor and pressor beams. Which means—”

  “They can block any missile, rocket or torpedo launched at them,” grumbled Harold, who as a former aeronautical engineer with years at Boeing knew the implications of alien tech. “Sorry, Amy. I’m glad you are pointing these tech things out. While they say they are interested in acquiring our VASIMIR space drive, I doubt there is much tech we have that they do not possess. Or need.”

  McDonnell nodded to Harold, Lucius, a simmering Edward, a thoughtful Loretta and ended up with her eyes on Amy. “Does that cover what we need to know?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I will be working with NASA, DARPA and JPL on monitoring this alien ship near the Moon, and on tracking this asteroid starship in the Asteroid Belt. Uh, you may wish to make an address to the nation and the world at a time of your choice.”

  Heather knew she had the news media and the public to face. First the media, then the public, then meet this Harrigan, then meet back here tonight for a follow-on SITREP. “Go to it, everyone!”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Sargon looked sideways at T’Set T’Say as the American McDonnell closed the link, wondering what evaluation T’Say would send to T’Klose and the Military Compound. T’Say’s right eye looked his way as she kept most attention on the Defense block’s multiple screens. They showed a real-time depiction of offensive target radars now active worldwide, the ABM capabilities of the Russians, Chinese, Brazilians and the Americans, and the encrypted long-frequency signals of each nation to their deep-patrolling nuclear submarines, which appeared as small spots of neutrino emissions on one of T’Say’s screens. Her harness rose and fell with her breathing, showing calmness, dedication and professionalism. He’d always admired those qualities in T’Say—and felt far more comfortable with her on Command deck than with T’Klose. Noticing his stare, she waved a claw-hand his way, acknowledging his attention. Sargon turned back to his own multiple displays that surrounded his Command seat, wondering just what the Humans would do. Who would be first to contact them? Who would be most daring? Who would overcome shock and realize the Trade potentials? He smiled, remembering Corin and Grethel’s excited speculations—there was time enough for all things to happen. So long as the Humans remained calm.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  In New Delhi, the chief of the Intelligence Bureau left the Prime Minister’s office, his ears burning at the lower caste epithets hurled at him by his boss. Who had learned over public vidcasts that aliens had been in Chennai for a year. Jagat Prasad was personally going to Chennai to direct his local IB agents in turning up everything and anything that could be learned. The Prime Minister had also given very explicit instructions that Chennai was off-limits to any non-Indian nationals, including the “brotherly” Russian SVR, FSB and GRU operatives who masqueraded as industrial engineers, trade experts and technicians. It was a task that would require him to coordinate with his brethren at the Research and Analysis Wing. The RAW had unique assets that might be of use. And the RAW was much involved with monitoring the Russian Pacific fleet as it conducted exercises with the Indian fleet off the east coast of South Africa. There was much to do and less time in which to do it.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  In Tokyo, Minister for Foreign Affairs Hiroto Arioshi met privately with Prime Minister Yukio Narasaki to present the Cabinet’s unanimous recommendation on the upcoming national broadcast. Narasaki was a former disciple of ex-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Three decades earlier Abe had, by the sheer force of his personality, convinced the group consensus of Japanese national society of the need for Japan to remilitarize “with a human face.” That past policy change, which had allowed the Japan Self-Defense Forces to fight on foreign soil, had now evolved to the point where Japan had military leaders on its space station, at its Moon base and in the cabinet as Minister of Defense. Now Narasaki listened avidly but without expression to the novel plan proposed by his ministers. Once again, thought Arioshi, the children of Izanagi and Izanami will astound the outer barbarians. And we will get rich doing it!

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  In the cold, black night of the plexiglas observatory dome unit of the Robert H. Goddard space station, astronomer and cosmologist Dr. Amanda Wernke worked quickly. She floated in front of a pixel flatscreen that showed images from the 6.5 meter wide hexagonal reflector that floated outside the station. It was a twin of the James Webb Space Telescope orbiting at L2. Like that scope it had mid-infrared vision and a near infrared spectroscope. But attached to one side of the 20 meter long tube was a smaller, six-inch true-light refractor scope. Images from the refractor fed into a screen next to the infrared.

  Clad in a light blue, single-piece jumpsuit with NASA and MIT patches on the shoulders, the tall, blond-haired and gray-eyed mission specialist carefully manipulated the telescope’s computer positioning controls. She focused in on the L4 lunar orbital area whose position she had just moments before received from Presidential Science Advisor Amy Sung. With a glance at the 20-inch color repeater screen for the true-light scope, she adjusted focus and magnification controls to enlarge the reddish-gray dot on the screen. The dot became a pyramidal shape composed of three globes at the base with a single globe atop them. She looked at the infrared screen. It showed intense heat glows from all four globes.

  Amanda felt an intense, exhilarating excitement such as she had not felt since she was eleven years old and had found her first planet with a store-bought, three-inch reflector. She wondered if she would meet the aliens in person, even as another part of her mind moved her slim fingers to command both scopes to take ultraviolet, infrared, gamma ray, normal light, polarized light and spectroscopic images of the visitor.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  In an isolated office tower of the Astrophysics Building at Akademgorodok, just south of Novosibirsk in western Siberia, and shortly after 10 p.m., junior Academician Alexei Yevgeny Tikhonov sat watching the Harrigan vid-interview on his Sanyo wrist TV. An Australian colleague interested in low-temperature physics had given it to him a year ago at a scientific conference in Melbourne. The little unit was quite capable of picking up a sufficiently strong comsat signal, and he wat
ched with growing excitement the Russian language subtitles appearing below the two centimeter square screen. At the end of the vidcast, he looked out the triple-paned glass of the window fronting his desk, staring at the twinkling stars of the northern sky, thinking deeply. His research specialty was the reduction of Bremsstrahlung and cyclotron radiation energy losses in deuterium-based fusion reactions in existing Tokamak-type, laser inertial confinement and compact fusion reactors. Now . . . here were aliens who had developed fusion pulse starship engines that made travel to the stars possible. Even more fascinating was the invention of coherent antimatter beams that served as an afterburner for the fusion plasma exhausts. He looked out at the night sky with an intense longing to know all he could about these strange new visitors.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  In Omaha, Nebraska, Pastor William Jennings Hartman of the Church of the Revealed Word of Christ looked with deepening dismay upon the seductively satanic image of Sargon on his forty-inch flatscreen. Hartman sat in a luxuriously furnished corner office in the thirty-story Tower of God’s Word, built in downtown Omaha with the weekly donations which his “lambs washed in His blood” regularly sent to him. Over the last seven years his worldwide vidcast preaching of the infallible Biblical word of God, from a self-contained studio with a l,900-seat auditorium on the ground floor, had gained him a weekly audience of 120 million saved souls. Now, he thought, are come the minions of Satan to challenge the literal words of God in the Bible, to further shake the righteous in their faith in a world only 4,254 years old, in Creationism, and in the revealed Word of God as spoken through himself. No! They threatened the task God had set for him of turning the eight and a half billion heathens on Earth to the One True Way of unquestioning belief in the literal Biblical Word of God. Now, he feared, the twin abominations of Secular Humanism and Evolution would be strengthened in their attempts to seduce his flock away from their Shepherd! Suddenly, in his mind’s eye he saw a vision of himself dressed in flowing white robes, with Archangel Michael by his side, laying about the head of the werewolf alien with a shining staff of light. Coming back to himself from his momentary thrall, Hartman pressed the chat button on his office desk. He spoke hurriedly to his male Executive Secretary and part-time producer. While he was talking, the irises of his dark brown eyes widened sharply in what one Lamb had once called “Christ looking out at her from Pastor’s eyes.”