Neighbors

by Brian Whiting

  the flow, it might take a few hours. It is like when you scream against the

  wind, and your friend cannot hear you. But if you scream with the wind,

  they can hear you much further away.”

  On the screen, the display changed to give the audience a visual of

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  what Kalibri was talking about. “The flow passes through our galaxy at a slight angle against the plane. Here’s a consideration. Any message sent in

  subspace is receivable by anyone listening in subspace. There’s no known

  method to hide the signal, only to encrypt it. Thus, it’s logically the pri-

  mary method civilizations use to detect other early civilizations.”

  People were scribbling notes and whispering to their neighbors.

  Occasionally, someone would take a pic of the display screen. The screen

  changed, and a headline appeared across the top: Faster than light travel.

  “If all things are equal, the closer you get to the speed of light, the

  more energy you’ll need to get a little bit faster, and yet you’ll never attain the speed of light. But you can cheat. First, you need to generate a warp

  field, which will warp the properties of space itself within its envelope, then using the field, you can manipulate space both within and around the field,

  causing the vacuum of space itself to pull you forward, and the flow of

  space going around you pushes you even faster.

  “Several dangers exist. If the warp field collapses while you’re in FTL

  transit, your ship and everything on it will atomize instantaneously. While

  you’re in FTL transit, matter flows around your enclosed bubble of space

  like you’re not there. Once the bubble collapses, it’s important to confirm

  the bubble doesn’t collapse with physical matter inside it, or it will fuse to you or your ship. Different species have different ways of mitigating this

  risk. Theans use the deflector array to push small particulates and gases

  and small debris in space away from the space bubble. When the bubble

  collapses, it will be in a complete void. It’s good practice to leave the deflector on at all times. Rarely does it affect any other system and, aside from

  objects with a decent amount of kinetic energy, it will repel most particles.

  The next topic headline was in bright red. Time and perception.

  * * *

  “No… Time was by far the worst topic.” Alex slowly waded through the

  people leaving the auditorium. Zeek was by his side, along with a few dis-

  crete security personnel.

  “He lost me at ‘A second isn’t the same amount of time for a person

  stationary, and a person traveling’.” Zeek frowned.

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  “No, see, I got that time goes by differently for each person, but to each person, it ticks by normally.”

  “That makes sense to you?” Zeek faces contorted a bit as their little

  group got into an elevator.

  “Not really,” Alex confessed. “How’s my father been?”

  Alex and Zeek exchanged a quick glance. “He’s staying out of the way,

  every time he ask’s for something, someone’s giving him an excuse and

  a delay.”

  “Hmm…”

  Alex’s phone vibrated with a message.

  I just finished reviewing the

  information you sent me against

  my entire database. I can offer no

  information. I recommend further

  study and analysis—Kalibri

  * * *

  Day 31

  “Breaking news, special report. This is Chin Way of the Global Broadcast

  Network. Hours ago, we received video from an anonymous source. During

  that time, we were able to authenticate the video. What you’re about to see

  is disturbing. It is advised that children and those with weak hearts and

  dispositions not watch the following footage.”

  The screen switched from a headshot of the news correspondent to a

  helmet cam video.

  “Incoming fire coming from a second story building, north-facing

  window at our eleven o’clock. Seventy-five meters.” Two bursts of M-4

  machine gun fire lit the video for a brief second. The video panned an inte-

  rior room quickly. A US soldier was on his knees off to one side of another

  window, facing west. He was busily unjamming his weapon. The camera

  panned again and came to a closeup against a brick wall. The grout line filled the screen. The video elevated a few inches, and the outside became visible. A small courtyard surrounded by an eight-foot wall with a gate in view.

  The gate was wide open, and you could see a dirt road on the other side.

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  Someone from within the building screamed something. The camera shifted back to an interior view. A local boy holding water out of sight brought it

  to the soldier near the window, who had just unjammed his weapon.

  “Puck, go hide! Damn, kid, you’re gonna get killed!” snapped the sol-

  dier wearing the helmet cam.

  The soldier took the water from the kid, and he ran into another room.

  A barrage of gunfire hit the building, capturing the soldiers’ attention.

  There was a noise in an adjacent room. The cam view focused on the door-

  way between them. Nothing but the far wall was visible inside the room.

  Then a burst of machine gun fire rattled the vision.

  “Hey, private, what’s going on in there? You see people coming at us

  from the rear? Call out targets!”

  A few seconds went by, and there was no noise. “Hey, private!” the sol-

  dier with the cam yelled again.

  The soldier raised his weapon, focused on the open doorway as he

  approached. Puck lay in a pool of blood in the center of the room. The

  soldier stepped cautiously into the room and came barrel to barrel with

  Private Prager.

  “Piss for brains, did you just do that?”

  “What! N—”

  The room the soldier just left exploded. The image provided a tumbling

  confusion of images for a few moments, half the screen obscured by wall

  debris and filming just off upside down. Private Prager walked over the

  camera and out of view, coughing terribly and wiping his face all the while.

  Things shifted around, and the video showed Private Prager walk out of the

  room. The video froze and went black.

  The correspondent returned to view. “It’s now known that this is

  the center of the incident that ended Alex Prager’s career in the military.

  Attempts to reach an official comment on the incident from the military

  or from Alex at the UEF office have gone without answer. We will provide

  more information as it comes in.”

  * * *

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  Day 32

  About a mile walk from the edge of the Complex was a small dip in the dry

  hard terrain. Zeek sat just inside the dip on a back seat one might find in a

  van. Several discarded chip bags and beer cans littered the small depression.

  In the center, on top of a small pile of burnt ashes, was a campfire burner.

  A small battery-operated FM radio was well into Highway to Hell, and he just finished his sixth beer, all while he stared at the circle of flame from the small propane tank while he roasted yet another marshmallow.

  When the marshmallow was golden brown, Zeek used a stick to gently

  ease the marshmallow onto a cracker and reached for the chocolate he’d just

  put down.

  “Arrrrrghhh!!!”

&nb
sp; Ants covered the sugary treat, and Zeek swore as he hurled both his

  nearly-assembled treat and the chocolate bar over the rim of his little hide-

  away, then kicked the bag of marshmallows and graham crackers to the

  other side of the depression.

  “Hey!”

  Zeek spun his head around to look at the offending intruder. He picked

  himself up out of the dirt, turning to glare.

  “What do you want?”

  Alex examined the surroundings. It looked like a small trash dump,

  minus an obvious odor. He pulled out his cell phone; it had just indicated

  no service.

  “I just… happened to see you walking away from the building to

  the middle of nowhere and decided to follow. How long have you been

  coming here?”

  Zeek rubbed his eyes with his right hand and sat back down on the

  seat. “About four months or so. I kept walking until I lost cell signal. Then

  I stopped.”

  Alex bit his lip as more questions reached the tip of his tongue. Instead,

  he hopped down into the dip and sat down in the seat next to his friend.

  He looked at the small, heavily-used camping burner and watched his

  friend from the corner of his eye.

  The sky was orange with small splotches of pink in the clouds. There

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  was no breeze at the moment, yet the air was cooling. Alex wondered what was going through Zeek’s mind for him to act like this. He scrambled to

  find a sly way to figure it out without being obvious.

  “The end of the world… I watched a lot of movies about it, never

  thought I’d have to endure it.” Zeek reached for another beer can, but the

  pack was empty.

  “I haven’t given up hope.” Alex looked at his friend head-on.

  “Neither have I, but let’s face it, the odds are stacked against us. We just

  don’t have their kinds of numbers. Our best simulations paint a disastrous

  picture. This isn’t something we are going to come out of looking pretty.”

  “Every few days is another weapon system, is another few kilometers of

  tunnel. Each minute that passes increases our chance of survival.”

  Alex looked Zeek over. He was still wearing his business attire. “You

  know, years ago I couldn’t get you to dress nice. Remember prom? You

  came in jeans. Now look at you, you’re in despair, and you can’t even loosen

  your tie.” The corner of Alex’s mouth curled in a smile.

  Zeek let the comment pass. Transfixed by the flame, they both let

  time pass as they watched the small burner flame decrease in size. They sat

  together, silently waiting for the gas to run out. The sky grew darker, and

  the cold became more noticeable. A shiver ran up Alex’s back.

  “Funny how responsibility changes you.” Zeek looked over to Alex.

  “So, what really happened overseas? I watched you talk on the subject

  today. But I want to know the truth.”

  Alex sighed. “The truth is exactly how I said it was. I was watching the

  East window. Puck came into the room, and I nodded to him. As soon as I

  focused back out my assigned window, the room lit up with weapons fire.

  Bullets ricocheted off the walls. I turned back around, and Puck was dead.

  A gunman shot at us from the roof of a building from the west window.

  I returned fire from inside the room. I was trying to figure out if I hit the

  man outside when my Sargent entered the room. We were face to face with

  weapons raised. Then an RPG exploded in the other room; my Sargent was

  killed instantly. You couldn’t see in the uploaded video, but the northern

  room collapsed. I went out the rear of the building and linked up with

  another squad.”

  “Three days go by and the next thing I know, I’m being questioned by

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  Jag officers. My unit completely blacklisted me. Eventually, I was cleared of any suspicion of wrongdoing but the video is damning, and perception is

  sometimes the only view that matters. Even if it’s not the truth, I requested

  a transfer. My next unit commander was even less thrilled to have me than

  my previous one. Next thing I know, he’s offering me an exit from service.

  All I had to do is sign some papers. I almost didn’t, you know… Felt like I

  was running away. As much as I didn’t like being looked at like some kind

  of traitor, I also deeply missed you guys. I’ve never had a friend like you,

  Zeek.” Alex fidgeted with a rock under his shoe. “So, just like that, less than honorable discharge. Thank you for your service, clear out your locker.”

  Night had completely fallen around them, and Alex could hear the first

  signs of nighttime critters dragging themselves from their burrows to begin

  their nightly foraging. He watched a small bump on the other side of the

  ridge as it turned into a family of armadillos, the parents leading their small pups scarpering over the dirt as they headed out for bugs.

  “Alex, I believe you’re telling me the truth, but, I gotta tell you, it’s cer-

  tainly a controversy. I don’t think Jorge believes you. To him, it makes sense that you couldn’t face him anymore when you got back. He’s convinced

  you did it.”

  Alex found a small pebble with his shoe and started fussing with it with

  his heel. When it was obvious Alex wasn’t going to say anything, Zeek con-

  tinued, “I think I am going to back out. But I don’t want you to think it’s

  because of the incident. It’s just… we kind of lost our identities when this

  all got so big. I need to scale back. Disappear for a while.”

  “Do you really think you can do that? Disappear?”

  Zeek didn’t look at him but focused on the flame as it grew smaller and

  smaller. “What kind of public support are we losing over this?”

  “I think it’s too early to—”

  Something on the horizon caught their attention: a rising star, much

  brighter than the others, and moving much quicker. Then another. Alex

  rubbed his eyes, trying to figure out what it was. Now it was a cluster

  of stars.

  “Wha…” Zeek and Alex both stood up, squinting at the lights as they

  began to move in odd patterns.

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  Alex pulled out his phone to call Mason, but there was still no signal.

  “Crap! We gotta go!”

  Alex took off towards the Complex at a sprint, but seriously misjudged

  the distance he walked to get there. Before he made it halfway back, he

  was completely winded, Zeek not too far behind him at a steady pace. Alex

  pulled out his phone and called his XO.

  As soon as the line clicked on, he shouted, “I am about a mile or so

  south west from the Complex, come pick me up.”

  “On our way.”

  His phone continued vibrating as it downloaded messages and voice-

  mails. Almost as soon as it started, the Emergency Messaging System placed

  an alert on his phone.

  This is a message from the

  emergency broadcast system. This is

  not a test. Zorn fleet is inbound, seek

  shelter. This is not a drill. This has

  been a message from the emergency

  broadcast system.

  Zeek caught up to Alex, his face buried in his phone. Alex was still

  panting heavily due to the long run, but Zeek seemed fine. He patted Alex

  on the back. “Looks like
the savior of Earth needs to work out more.”

  “Eh, don’t call me that.”

  They both looked up as the Abraham rose above the nearby complex

  buildings and turned in their direction. Before he caught his breath, he

  remembered his XO was still on the line.

  “What’s the situation?” Alex put his phone on speaker.

  “Our fleet is in orbit, minus us and the Raziya. Cindy says they will be airborne in minutes.” Lanora said.

  “The enemy simply appeared on our sensors. The military launched

  ICBMs in their direction. At their current speed, the Zorn will be in Earth

  orbit in about eighteen hours. ICBMs should reach them in about half

  that time.”

  The Abraham set down fifty meters away from Alex and lowered the

  rear ramp. Alex climbed aboard as turned back towards Zeek.

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  “I’ll get everyone to the shelter.” Zeek didn’t wait for an answer, but turned and ran towards the Complex. It was another three minutes before

  Alex managed to reach the bridge of the Abraham; the ship was larger than the Destiny, its hallways a little more complicated.

  Alex walked onto the bridge, and the occupants simply glanced at him

  while they awaited instruction. “I hope you’re not waiting for me to tell you

  to get us in the air,” he said and headed for a seat next to his father, who

  glared back at him.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Alex snapped.

  “Liaison, remember,” Drake snapped back.

  “I thought we agreed you would not be involved in actual combat.”

  “When the alert went out, I was onboard.”

  Alex gritted his teeth and focused on his father’s face, wondering what

  his real motives were.

  “The President is on the line.”

  “Put it up on the screen,” Alex said, unwilling to look away from

  his father.

  The President’s face appeared on the main viewscreen. In the back-

  ground, military personnel frantically moved equipment and other such

  things around, obviously trying to both work and keep their operations out

  of the UEF’s view.

  “I’m bunkered down already. I authorized a launch of a dozen missiles.

  After they detonate and we get a damage assessment, I’ll authorize another

  launch. I suggest you stay in orbit and out of the way until that second

  volley passes you.”