“Thank you, John, and Paul for coming and congratulations on becoming part of the executive team.”
Mike and Mac seemed ill at ease. “So Mike, what concerns you?”
“I guess that I have seen and read too many sci-fi stories that have the computers take over the world and destroy humanity. It’s a little scary having ESSI here.”
“Same goes for me,” added Mac.
“Read the details on ESSI on your tablets and stay after to ask her questions. We can discuss your concerns in my office. The only place ESSI can monitor at present is the computer ring and this conference room “
“Now to some other business. We have pretty much mined all the gravium that exists underneath Earth Station - that’s the name of the element that we discovered and is used in our anti-gravity devices. To you new members, the executive team decided on that name soon after it was discovered.”
“Our satellites have discovered all the rest of the deposits of gravium around the globe. All of them are located under mountains, several thousand meters below the surface. We have purchased the land above or near all the deposits and need to start mining the ore. Since Barry Walker has been with us pretty much from the beginning, I propose that he take on the task of mining and refining all the gravium and bring it back to Earth Station. As of now, we have plenty of gravium, but as we grow, we will need more and more. Eventually the rest of the world will discover us and I would like to have a lock on gravium before that happens. It is probably the most important discovery we have made to date. Needless to say, we need to extract the substance without being detected. Any ideas?”
ESSI raised her hand, “I have a suggestion. We could build a large vessel which could land above the deposit. The vessel could be cloaked and all the extraction could be done from underneath the vessel. As the ore is brought to the surface, the vessel could contain a purification processor which would refine the gravium. Then, since the gravium would not amount to very much of the bulk of the ore, we could use the tailings to refill the mining shaft and then sculpt the surface so that no one would know that we were there.”
“That’s a great idea ESSI,” John said with enthusiasm. “If you could come up with some basic plans, we can build the mining vessel in short order.”
“Let’s get Barry up to speed on this and see what he has to say, after all he is going to be doing it,” added Maggie.
“Sounds like a plan. All in favor, raise your hands.” Everyone raised their hands including ESSI which brought a smile to my face. “Maggie, let Barry know what is going on and then, you, Paul, John, Barry and ESSI come up with a plan to get the gravium mined and transferred to Earth Station. Let’s make this priority one. Once we are discovered, it will become so much more difficult. Anything else?” I looked around the room. “Okay, then, until tomorrow.”
Mike and Mac stayed after and grilled ESSI who remained calm and answered all their questions I guess they were satisfied because they didn’t come to my office to tell me I was crazy.
….
The mining vessel was huge; 200 meters in diameter and almost 250 meters high. It landed at the first deposit which was in the Verkhoyansk Mountain Range near the namesake town of Verkhoyansk. This spot was chosen first because it was the most remote, and thus if things didn’t go as planned, had the least likely chance of detection.
Once the mining vessel landed, the sides extended to the ground and a large section of the floor slid open. The mining drill began to burrow into the ground and after a day, reached the gravium deposits.
Barry Walker went along on this first extraction and was in constant communication with Earth Station. Also present was John Fleming and Paul Roberts with a few select defense force personnel, just in case.
“This is mining vessel one calling Earth Station.”
“This is Earth Station, go ahead MV 1.”
“Patch me through to Maggie O’Reilly please.”
“Hey Barry, what’s up?”
“We reached the gravium deposit and should have it all extracted in no more than three days, then another day to clean up. We should be back in four or five days at the most.”
“Mike has been monitoring satellite activity and we have surveillance mites at all the crucial Russian offices. Nothing yet, so you are still good to go. I hear it is pretty cold there.”
“I’m glad I’m inside. The temperature outside is minus 30 degrees Celsius. Burr….”
“Did you have any trouble with the drill at those cold temperatures?”
“Not in the slightest. John knew we would be in for cold, so he designed the drill to be able to handle it. Everything is good so far. How are things back home?”
“Engineering has come up with flatbeds of several different sizes which have anti-grav built in. It makes it really easy to move even the heaviest stuff around. Also, Heinrich has come up with a preliminary design for a space station. It’s pretty cool. You’ll have to check it out when you get back. If there is nothing else, I’ll let you get back to work.”
“That’s all for now. I’ll check in with you tomorrow. Out.”
….
Barry and the rest of the team were sitting down in the galley of MV-1 when all of a sudden, all their communicators chirped at once.
Barry answered and projected the communication onto a screen on the far wall. Mike appeared. “We may have some trouble. A Russian surveillance satellite just changed course and will be flying over your location in about ten minutes. I suggest you shut down to minimize your infrared signature. The outer hull and the cloak should screen most of the emissions coming from you, but it pays to be careful.”
Everyone jumped into action. This scenario was practiced and everyone knew what to do. John shut down the drill, Barry shut down the processing plant and Paul got all the personnel inside Everything was battened down within five minutes. Paul jumped into the pilot seat and was ready at a moment’s notice to leave. The seconds and minutes passed by slowly as the satellite approached.
As it breached the horizon it began to scan the landscape. We had one of our satellites monitor its transmissions. They were all going to their satellite facility just outside of Kazakhstan. We had our surveillance mites throughout the facility. Eventually it passed directly overhead and within a few minutes was over the opposite horizon.
“Our preliminary assessment is that they didn’t see anything,” Mike relayed from Earth Station. “Give us about thirty minutes to analyze the data. We’ll give you the all clear if they got nothing. Earth Station out.”
The minutes strangely passed quickly. Mike was back on the wall. “The satellite has returned to its normal orbit and it seems that they are labeling this as a false alarm, so get back to work and try to get done quickly. I don’t want to press our luck. It’s kind of good that this happened. It allowed us to test our cloaking and surveillance systems which are accompanying this mining project. Earth Station out.”
The rest of the mining operation went pretty smoothly and MV-1 was on its way back to Earth Station two days later with almost two tons of gravium.
Maggie was waiting when MV-1 landed. She had with her one of the new flatbeds. The 2 tons of gravium fit in a relatively small container because gravium is pretty heavy – more than three times heavier than gold, it doesn’t take up much room. The container was lowered onto the flatbed and quickly moved to the gravium storage facility.
Gravium is relatively inert when it is in its natural state and doesn’t require any special shielding. It’s only when it is placed into the anti-grav generator that it becomes active and produces the anti-grav field. A typical device only requires 3 grams of gravium to generate an anti-grav field. Once it is put to work, it will slowly decay for about five years. At that point, the device has to be “refueled” with more gravium.
Maggie was excited to see MV-1 unloading its cargo. “You guys made a good haul; that almost doubles the supply of gravium that we now have on hand.”
“Five more trip
s and then we should have it all,” remarked John.
Paul added, “During this trip we trained some new personnel to take our place. Barry will be the only member of the executive team that will go on the rest of the mining missions. Our turnaround is only a couple of days so we should have the rest of the gravium out of the ground in a couple of months. Good work everybody.”
MV-1 was moved to the maintenance area to be prepped for its next run. The rest of the crew headed out for a well-deserved rest.
March 7th, 2112
The second mining operation went without incident. It was in the Alps, coincidently near where the Germans had their satellite facility at which Heinrich used to work. Barry and his crew extracted almost 3 tons of gravium from that location. The third was in the Himalayan Mountains near Katmandu. 3.5 tons was extracted.
“Hey Barry, how are you set for the fourth mining operation? I know it is probably going to be the most difficult,” asked Jake.
“I have to get with Mike and Mac to beef up the security surrounding this one. It’s in the Rocky Mountains in northern New Mexico.”
“I think you should take some of Paul’s defense force personnel. You never know what may happen, especially in the United States. I’m sure that you will have to be extra careful in hiding your activities. I’ve also had the computer geeks install a real-time link with ESSI in case you need her.”
“We’re set to take off in the morning.”
“Good luck and ‘God’s speed’. I hope you won’t need it.”
….
In the morning, MV-1 lifted off. On board, besides Barry, were Paul and Mike who felt they should be available to handle an emergency if it arises. MV-1 was also outfitted with some defensive weapons which hopefully would not be needed.
The landing went smoothly and the drill began its work. Two days passed without incident. At the beginning of the third day, the shit hit the fan. Somehow, the US special ops detected the drilling operation. Fighter jets buzzed the site and Helos began dropping troops in the surrounding area. One bit of luck was that they didn’t seem to know exactly where we were.
“What are our options?” Barry asked Mike.
“It doesn’t seem like they know where we are. The troops are doing a grid by grid search of the area. At the current rate they are searching, they will be here by the end of the day. I suggest you speed up the mining operation so we can extract as much as possible.”
“We are already working as fast as we can.”
The rest of the day went as normal as it could in this situation. By 4 o’clock in the afternoon, the troops were almost on top of MV-1.
“They must have some way to detect us. ESSI, are you on line?” Mike said with some concern.
“I’m here Mike.”
“Could you postulate how they found us?”
“Let me think about it for a minute while I gather some intel.” ESSI took all of thirty seconds before she spoke again. “It seems that there are seismic detectors in these mountains that are linked into an early warning system for earthquakes. They detected the vibrations from the drill. Their analysis ruled out earth tremors and these troops were sent here after satellite surveillance showed nothing. It’s a shot in the dark for them but they have localized your location to within a kilometer. They are going to walk right into the cloaking shield and fall on their asses.”
“So, what are our options?” Mike asked with a worried look.
“Let me send some surveillance mites into their ranks and see what they are thinking. I’ll get back to you.”
“What are we going to do? We will be surrounded shortly,” Barry said in a mild panic.
“Just keep working. They know that we are here but that is all they know. They have no idea of what we are doing or what we look like. We are still cloaked.”
An hour went by. One of the troops walked into the side of MV-1 and fell flat on his ass just as ESSI had predicted. That caused a huge commotion and within thirty minutes they had a ring of troops around MV-1. But they still couldn’t see us.
“I’m back and I have some interesting news.” ESSI’s face appeared on the wall monitor. “They don’t know who or what we are. One of the ideas they are floating around is that we are extra-terrestrials. I think that we need to capitalize on that thought. It will slow them down and give you time to finish your mining.”
Mike looked at the others who had gathered in the galley. “You heard what ESSI said. This is what I propose we do: we can talk to them like we are from outer space. I suggest I do the talking. If that doesn’t work or we need more time, we can incapacitate some of their troops as a show of superiority.”
“You’re the intel guy so go for it. I’m with you,” Paul said. The others nodded in approval.
“ESSI, can you make my voice sound alien; whatever that means?”
“I can deepen your voice and give it an electronic sound. That should do it.”
“Well there is no time like the present. ESSI, open up a channel to the outside and do your magic with my voice.”
This is going to be so hokey. Here goes nothin’, Mike thought as he turned the mike on, “Earthlings, we are not here to do you harm. Under your surface is a substance that we require for our spaceship. You do not even know this substance exists. Therefore, we are not removing any of your resources. It will take us another 48 of your hours to complete our task. We ask that you retreat from this area. Aggression will be met with resistance. Do not attempt to penetrate our barrier which you have detected. This is your only warning.”
He turned toward his fellow ‘aliens’ and asked with a smile, “So how did I do?”
Barry looked at him, “You’ve got to be kidding, you sounded like a bad B sci-fi movie. I hope it works. Meanwhile, I’ll keep my crew working.”
“ESSI, what are they saying?”
“They seem very confused. I believe that they are going to ‘push this up the ladder’ so to speak. They are in the process of contacting their superiors for direction.”
Nothing happened for the next twenty-four hours. A temporary headquarters was set up two km from our location. Activity started there. Two large vehicles started to approach our site. As they got close, they split up; one went right the other left until they were on opposites sides of MV-1. Three men got out of each vehicle and pulled what looked like a large hose out of the rear of the vehicles. Before we knew it, they were spraying a substance onto the outside of MV-1 which caused them to be able to see our ship. Within seconds, the substance slipped off MV-1’s surface and we disappeared again.
“ESSI, suggestions?” Mike asked in a concerned voice.
“You told them we would resist. I suggest you stun the troops by the vehicles that sprayed us. Also, you should send a EMP shell into their headquarters to incapacitate all their electronics. I can do it for you with pinpoint accuracy.”
He looked around at the rest of the crew. They nodded. “Okay, ESSI, do it.”
Within seconds, six narrow red beams shot out of the top of MV-1 and the troops dropped to the ground. A shell fired and entered the headquarters structure. Since it was not an explosive, we could not see what was happening inside.
“ESSI, what’s going on?”
“They are in a panic. All their communications are down. Our mites are shielded against an EMP so I can still see and hear what they are doing. I suggest you let them know that their personnel are still alive and they need to come and get them.”
“Put me on speaker outside.” ESSI indicated that the speaker was on. “Earthlings, I warned you about aggressive action. Your personnel are not harmed. They have been rendered unconscious and will revive shortly. Please collect them. The vehicles that they came in are still functional. Next time we will not be non-lethal.”
He ran his hand across his throat to indicate cutting the transmission. ESSI signaled that the mike was off.
Two troops came running out of the headquarters. It took them a few minutes to reach the unconscious
men. They quickly dragged them back to the vehicles and soon sped back.
“Barry, how long before we get the rest of the gravium out of the ground?”
“We have about 90% of it now,” Barry responded.
“Okay, stop mining and start filling up the hole. Make it quick. Paul, get this ship ready for lift off.”
“You know that they will start looking for what we were trying to get as soon as we leave,” Barry said with concern.
“When we get back, I’ll have ESSI work on a plan to get the rest of the gravium ore out before they get to it. How long before we are ready to leave?”
“The fastest we can work will take an hour and fifteen minutes. I’ve got the whole crew working.”
ESSI came back on the wall. “They are discussing escalating their attack. I don’t understand their reasoning, that’s just plain stupid.”
Mike turned towards the wall, “ESSI, that is part of the human condition. We do stupid things when we don’t have enough information. How long before they get it together?”
“Their communications and electronics are still down. It will take them several hours to get organized enough to mount an attack. We should be out of here by then.”
Earth Station (Station Series Book 1) Page 7
