Sooner or later, in all good conscience, we had to give them the plans. There would be an ongoing threat from Listhelon long after we set sail. To not provide the US with membrane technology would likely sentence them to death. Many on our side were comfortable with that option, but realistically, the US citizens weren’t our enemies. Only their corrupt leadership. There was talk of transmitting it to them if they agreed to actually go our separate ways. But that could never be made binding. After learning the trick, they could chase after us if they really wanted to. A lot hinged on what their plan was for their two hundred fifty ships. Maybe their intention really was to have no contact with the rest of humanity. Again, good riddance.
The UN was moving masses of people to several staging areas around the globe. From there, they could be shuttled to their permanent homes. That's when human nature—good old human nature—began threatening the entire operation. Again, the UN had mostly large worldships. They could accommodate maybe a million people. That's a lot, but less than the population of most sovereign nations. So, unless they decided to mix the Earth's population intentionally, no one ship could hold all a country's citizens. Only nations with populations less than Switzerland could all fit on one worldship.
Like in gym-class, people had to choose teams. That worked about as well for adults as it did for kids on the schoolyard. Bickering, arguing, and the hurling of condemnations became the dialogue. This group wanted to be with that group, but never with that other group. No, they had cooties. To make unreasonable the official policy, many countries wanted everyone to go together, even though it was a proven fact they wouldn't all fit. Maybe half the population could be strapped to the outside like luggage? No problem there.
Then there were the ethnic and religious conflicts. Many nations announced they would not allow foreign residents to journey with their adopted homes. Israel, population fourteen million, wanted fourteen worldships. But they planned to separate the Orthodox from the Reform from the Conservative divisions of Judaism. That was fine, but it meant that some ships would be sent off partially filled. Other religions were downright obstreperous and unreasonable. Certain sects could not be mixed with others. These neighboring people, who'd lived together for centuries, wanted to go with a group they identified with more closely. The problem was that a third group always protested. They didn't want either of those bunches to be on their ships. No, they wanted that group over there. Maybe. They weren't sure yet. Could someone check back with them later? How about 2151? Could they please reach a consensus by then? Humans!
The UN, being after all, the UNITED NATIONS, took it upon itself to make everything right. That lasted two years. Then they simply assigned worldships to sovereign nations based on their population and let them deal with all the headaches. The backup plan, should a country be unable to decide who went where, was to randomly assign those citizens to ships. Yeah, if you can't decide, Mom will, but you won't like her solution, so you’d better fix it yourself first. I was gladder than ever I had nothing to do with politics.
In my neck of the woods—the exploration and discovery business—things were going well. All the Arks were back, except poor Sim’s ship and one other. They had variable success, but at least three excellent candidates for colonization were found. Many other fairly good options were out there, especially those requiring interface with a sentient population or adapting to hostile environments, for example. At least that part of humanity's future looked bright. The general plan was to send an Ark ship with as many worldships as possible. They would serve as advanced scouts. As the mothership crept along, the Ark ship could speed ahead to gather information or establish treaties.
I mentioned earlier that the bottom always drops when things are going well. Yeah, that would be 2149. That's when our long-range scanners reported contact with the Listhelon armada. It was a big one. Never let it be said those ugly little bastards took war lightly. No, they'd sent ten thousand ships of varying sizes. Some were clearly battleships. Others had configurations more consistent with supply and support craft. It was an impressive attack fleet, anyway you looked at it. They were decelerating rapidly, just outside the orbit of Neptune, which meant their missiles would be in range of Earth in two months, three tops. They could be in orbit in four months. I debated discussing their appearance with Offlin, but in the end, I decided not to. I didn't want to put him in the position of choosing between his race and his new friends.
The image of all those warships on the screen really brought home the impact of Uto's gift. Given our current technology, there was no way we could fight off such an attack without the membranes. The worldships were useless in combat. We had several thousand smaller, faster ships, but we didn’t have nearly enough for such an onslaught. Plus, if the bigger Listhelon ships carried fighters, they would wipe us out for certain. I couldn't forget the image of all the pain and sorrow in Uto's eyes. Was that really a me from the far future, somehow returned to this time hoping to prevent the extinction he escaped? That scenario seemed impossible. As the membranes were going to save humanity, I would never know what it was like to be absolutely alone, thankfully. But, there might be a me out there who did. Lord help him.
The battle with the Listhelons was going to be extremely brief and extremely one-sided. I had a bet with another pilot that we wouldn't lose a single ship. The reason for my confidence was our new weapon. Remember how, in an act of near panic, I had Al use the membranes to throw stuff at an aircraft back at Cheyenne Mountain? Once Toño heard about that application, he got to thinking. When that man thought, miracles happened.
He devised a railgun powered by membranes. A rail gun uses electromagnetism to fire a metal projectile at high speeds. It's like a canon without the gunpowder. You know how the lights on a landing strip flash in one direction to help a plane land at night? Doc used microsecond pulses of membranes to accelerate solid objects to ninety percent the speed of light. Yeah, that's one good cannon! What's more, the gun itself was only two meters long. He promised a rifle version in less than a year. They were going to be so cool.
Guess what happens if a pea-sized metal ball hits, oh say, a Listhelon warship at nearly the speed of light? Warship go boom! The explosive force would be truly stupendous. Our attack-vessels were firing one-pound degraded uranium spheres. One hit anywhere and any ship, or asteroid for that matter, would be utterly destroyed. The beautiful part was that, once fired, a projectile in space wouldn’t slow down until it hit something. The huge explosive impact did not degrade over vast distances. In fact, one suggestion for destroying the Listhelon armada was to simply fire a blanketing-pattern of projectiles from high Earth orbit. The spheres would likely wipe out the fleet in less than five minutes since they'd get there so fast.
In the end, we decided it was best to engage the Listhelons at close range, but before they were in missile range of Earth. That way we could be highly selective about where we fired, so as to not send deadly projectiles off to who knows where. We set sail in order to meet them near Jupiter's original orbit. For safety's sake, as we were talking about the end of life on Earth as the penalty for failure, we sent one thousand ships. I would pay good money to see the look on the Listhelon commander's face when he saw that we wanted the odds to be ten-to-one in his favor. He'd probably “shit his own water,” as Offlin was so fond of saying.
That time out, Fleet Admiral Katashi Matsumoto invited me to join the UN task force. He was in charge of all their space endeavors, both military and peaceful. He was a good man, and I was proud to serve under him. Katashi, with his Bushido mindset, tolerated me with suboptimal enthusiasm. I think my casual, some might call flippant, attitude about being an officer of such high rank rubbed him against the grain. Oh well. We weren't dating; we were going into combat. That relationship worked just fine for me. As literally the only veteran of space warfare on Earth, he positioned Ark 1 at the lead, just in front of his flagship.
The two-month trip to meet the Listhelons was very different for me.
Instead of being mostly alone with my own thoughts, I was part of a team. Matsumoto turned out to be quite the taskmaster. He had us run drill after drill after drill. We simulated every imaginable counterattack the Listhelons might try. We tested and retested for equipment failures, power failures, and casualty triage. It was intense. As a military man, I knew the value of such discipline, but I began to long for the boredom I'd experienced when I sailed on my own. The time did pass more quickly. But believe me, every man and woman in the fleet was glad when general quarters sounded for real. We were all ready to stand down.
Our defense of Earth began with Matsumoto's issuing one short, tersely worded warning to the Listhelon commander, Ocaster. Surrender or die. Ocaster's response was to launch one nuclear-tipped missile directly at the flagship. Matsumoto actually smiled as he gave the order to destroy the missile. Milliseconds after he issued the order, the missile detonated. It had only traveled a few hundred meters from Ocaster's ship. So the Listhelon commander missed the dismemberment of his armada, on account of being incinerated.
The Listhelon vessels far enough away from the blast reacted quickly. They moved to disperse and fired an impressive spread of missiles. Perhaps one hundred thousand messengers of death were fired in our direction all at once. Matsumoto gave the order for AIs on all ships to coordinate with the flagship's master-AI for fire-control, according to plan. A quarter million metal balls shot from our formation within seconds. As with Ocaster's original assault, all the targeted missiles were barely clear of their mountings when they exploded. We actually never had to fire on the warships, just the nukes. They were blown apart by their own weapons. Once this distressing fact became apparent to the support ships in the enemy fleet, almost all set collision courses for the nearest UN ship. A few turned and ran. Within thirty seconds, every loving one of them was interstellar dust. I did the numbers. The Listhelon War officially lasted less than three minutes. That had to be some kind of record.
A cheer rose up on each vessel so loud it vibrated their hulls. When word of the defeat reached Earth, there was dancing in the streets and free drinks in every bar on the planet. It was a proud moment in human history, and one badly needed by a worried population. The Earth might have been about to die, but no one was going to take it from us, ever.
TWENTY-TWO
General Jackson's heels clicked down the hallway as he approached the Oval Office. He was to report the results of the Listhelon War to the president. For reasons Marshall could only assume were the complete humiliation of the United States, Jackson was allowed to accompany Matsumoto on his flagship for the battle as an observer. What Jackson had seen stunned him to his core. How the UN could have developed such devastating weaponry was truly beyond belief. His forces possessed, in comparison, stones and hewn sticks. He was not briefed in advance as to the technology, so he had no way of anticipating its brutal power. That was, after all, Matsumoto's intention. He wanted Marshall to see firsthand how the UN utterly outclassed the US. Matsumoto wanted Marshall to understand that raising a finger against the UN would be futile insanity.
What Marshall did not know, and would not know for several months, was what else took place on Matsumoto's flagship. His general was able to ally with the enemy. Marshall was not yet aware that Jackson hated the president with all his heart, if he were to have still had one, and all his soul, which Jackson prayed frantically he still possessed. Jackson had come to realize that only the UN represented the interests of humanity. He believed the UN was the only hope for a meaningful exodus. He also knew Marshall was a demon and a madman who had to be stopped, no matter the cost. For Jackson to have the chance to work closely with the UN forces, and to do so with no risk of Marshall eavesdropping, was, in retrospect, foolish of Marshall. But, as the president was a consummate fool, such was only fitting.
One final detail of Jackson's contact with the UN was not apparent to Marshall or the outside world. It was a critical modification to Jackson's design. He had to beg, plead, pound his chest, and scream like a madman for Matsumoto to okay the change, but it was made. Both his fusion power generators were modified so that Jackson could switch off the containment field at will. What happened when the plasma in those generators, under tremendous pressure and as hot as the Sun, was suddenly freed? In a word: ka-ka-kaboom. Though much less explosive than a nuclear weapon, the local effects of such a release would be incredibly destructive. All Jackson had to do was bide his time. He savored the prospect. Eventually, he'd attend another Cabinet meeting with Marshall and all of his evil marionettes.
For the time being, Jackson had to be the very picture of the loyal lackey. He opened the Oval Office door and entered. After softly closing the door, he crisply saluted his imitation commander-in-chief.
Marshall glanced up, rolled his eyes, and pointed to a chair. “Sit down, Kendell!” He sat and set his hat on his lap. “I've read your report a dozen times, but it still seems more science fiction than fact. You have no idea how they pulled it off?”
“No, sir. I didn't ask, and they volunteered nothing.”
“Were there, I don't know, any unusual sounds when their weapons fired?”
“None, Mr. President. Whatever they did produced no explosions or mechanical sounds.”
“It can't have been magic, man! You have no clue?”
“Sorry, sir. None.” In fact, he knew nothing of the technology involved in the confrontation. Even if Matsumoto would have revealed something, Kendell would have stopped him. He didn't want to be the inadvertent source of any useful information to Marshall. “I've downloaded the video of the scene on the bridge during the entire brief engagement.”
“Yes,” Marshall waved a dismissive hand, “I've seen it several times. Nothing useful.” Marshall gently pounded the desk with a fist. “And they completely scrubbed the rest of your recordings before you disembarked?”
“Yes, sir. De Jesus saw to that himself. I was allowed to retain only what you've seen.”
“And you didn't try and hide some records?”
“Of course I did. De Jesus knew right where to find those too. He's a very thorough man.”
“He's a son of a bitch, is what he is. A traitorous son of a fucking bitch!”
Kendell offered no response. He liked Toño and was very impressed with his commitment and vision. The fact that Marshall despised the man elevated Toño further in Kendell's book.
“So, the entire Listhelon fleet was simply blown to bits by some mysterious weapon the UN has that we can't duplicate?”
In his head, Kendell smiled wickedly. “It would appear so, sir.”
“A lot of fucking help you are, Jackson.” Marshall looked to a set of monitors. Flicking his pen in the air, he dismissed his general. “If there's nothing else, you can go.”
Oh, how Kendell wanted to detonate himself right there, right then! Marshall was the devil and was badly in need of killing. If he waited, he could take out several of Marshall's evil cronies at the same time. He would eliminate the branches, trunk, and the roots of the foul mockery of a constitutional government in one swift stroke. And, most of all, he would end his own suffering. He felt violated to an extent that defied articulation. Forced by a maniac to inhabit a godless metal husk was not living. It wasn't even hell. It wasn't that pleasant. Kendell longed to cease existing.
The evacuation of a small percentage of Americans to their worldships was well underway. Two hundred ships were full and had already pushed-off to a predesignated rendezvous point beyond the orbit of Saturn. Though it would take them years to get there, they would be safe. The puppet leaders of the US would flee Earth at the last minute and catch up with their ships on high-speed shuttles. Well, at least, they thought they would.
He didn't know all the sordid detail of the leadership's lecherous plan, but he suspected correctly the key elements. He had glimpsed high-clearance communications mentioning that most worldships were carrying only women of childbearing age. He could imagine no acceptable reason for that to be th
e case. Every fact he learned made him long all that much more to end Marshall and his associates.
A key agreement Kendell was able to reach with the UN during his voyage was how the UN would evacuate the remainder of the US population—those individuals abandoned by their illegitimate government. Hopefully, the US leaders would be dead and the UN could act openly. The worst-case scenario had the UN scrambling to save those left behind after Marshall and his pets fled. That would be cutting it very close. Probably too close. All the more reason for Kendell not to fail.
One aspect of the whole charade Marshall put forth sickened Kendell the most. Up until then, the public at large was unaware that the US had only a small percentage of the worldships needed to evacuate the bulk of the citizenry. Through total censorship of all traffic to and from the construction facilities in space, Marshall was able to keep a tight lid on the shortfall. Glowing reports, accompanied by glorious holo-casts, were created to make it look like massive worldship production was underway.
To help maintain the illusion, personnel were not allowed to return to Earth once joining the workforce in space. Martial law dictated that such essential workers couldn't be spared. If one was able to finagle a return visa to Earth from a production facility, they were at great risk of never completing the trip. Unless cleared by Marshall himself, anyone attempting to return to the ground was cast out an airlock in high Earth orbit. The family would be told their loved one had been assigned to an ultra-high security area and could only receive communications.
With a year to go before Jupiter struck, the sick truth had not reached the American people. If and when it did, all hell would break loose. If that were to occur, all high-level officials had constantly updated back-up plans to spirit them to their worldships before they could be arrested or ripped to shreds by a mob.
By the time Kendell returned to his office in Houston, there were no fewer than thirty messages from Marshall or one of his sycophants requesting updates on their precious, personal worldships. He delegated a subordinate to respond to them all. The less contact he had with those megalomaniacs, the better. He wished he could safely communicate with his new allies, but it was too risky. He certainly couldn't share his plans with his family, especially not his wife. She would never sit passively and allow him to kill himself. She could never know why it was so critical that he do so.
The Forever Enemy (The Forever Series Book 2) Page 9
