The First Exoplanet

by T. J. Sedgwick

  “Well, Dana, first of all I want to say that we don't actually know what these ships are for. Nobody has seen them in action. Nobody even knows what weapons they’re armed with,” said Yang as Dr King interjected.

  “Eugene, let me just remind you of the damage to the Pinta probe. There’s broad consensus from advanced weapons researchers that this was caused by a particle beam weapon.”

  “Sure… That is correct Dr King, but we don't know what the larger ships are armed with. The fighters yes, destroyers and carrier and any other ships, no. They look big and scary, but we don’t know anything about their capability. But don’t get me wrong, I do think it’s a major threat nonetheless. Or at least it could be if they can actually get here to Earth. And that is still a big ‘if’. Whatever we do it’s pretty clear that these aliens have an industrial base far quicker at turning out new ships than we have. If this fleet does what we fear it can do then there’s no way the proposed corvette—”

  “—That’s the WGASS Atlantic that WESTFOR will fast-track,” added Dana.

  “Yeah, right. There’s no way one ship that size is going to be a match for the alien armada, if we assume all those alien ships are military ships. It doesn’t take a defence expert to tell you that.”

  “So what should we be doing to prepare? First, the world’s militaries and, second, the people?” asked Dana, with raised eyebrows.

  “Well, the president was right to say the best form of defence in this case is offence. As I see it, the only workable way to counter the aliens is to infiltrate their ships and facilities. And remember, no one has yet done that. They – the Triple-S – have only infiltrated the planet, not their ships and facilities. There’s a big question mark over how successful that’d be. The proposed raid on their fleet and facilities may only buy some time if we are to believe the Far Light report saying that they have already detected FTL drive gravimetric spikes. We then need to use that time to build up our defences. And those defences need to be in space. Space is the ultimate high ground: whoever has that dominates the theatre of war. If we lose space superiority then the aliens can dominate the planet; not much different to the WGA gaining air superiority over a tin pot regime with a tin pot air force. They could target anything from orbit and there’d be very limited means from the ground to stop them. It could ground all aircraft on Earth, stop all shipping including navies and even stop road traffic. They can literally target anything from orbit with near-impunity if we can’t defend against it in space. It’s about buying time and then governments around the world taking this seriously enough to allocate funding for space defence. We’re talking some serious costs here, starting with larger and more numerous orbital shipbuilding facilities. In its current form, the Alliance Citadel space station is not going to be enough I’m afraid.”

  “And people at home, Mr Yang? What’s your advice to them? How can they prepare?”

  “That’s more a civil defence question, but I’ll share my opinion and what I will be doing. Firstly, you need to keep up on the latest news. I don't want to perpetuate panic buying and hoarding, but I would buy a sensible amount of dried and canned food and large-sized bottles of water. The timeline for any invasion is enormously uncertain and many scientists say that to scale up the FTL tech for those ships we’ve been talking about would take decades. So I don't think we’re talking the next few weeks or months here. We need to keep it in perspective and still go about our business as usual. We haven't played all our cards yet; there are still military options as well as diplomatic ones open to us. We also don't know for sure what the aliens’ capabilities are. So I’d say to people at home: keep your head, stock maybe a little extra each week and keep an eye on developments. Other than that there’s little the ordinary person in the street can do,” Yang concluded, Dana turning her attention once again to Dr King.

  “Last thoughts, Dr King?”

  “I agree with Eugene to a large extent. But I’d also add that citizens should exercise their voice in lobbying for firmer action from the government, especially those WGA countries that have so far committed very little to countering the potential threat. Write to your elected representatives, join peaceful protests and make your voice heard,” Dr King advised with conviction, verging on passion.

  “Thank you, Dr Alan King from the WGA Space team and Eugene Yang, defence analyst,” concluded Dana. The camera switched back to the head and shoulders view of Dana behind her news desk as she continued with the show.

  Zara turned to Hart on the sofa and sighed, “I don't know what to believe. If they call you up to go to Avendano will you?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Of course you have a choice, Matt!” she cried. “If the shit hits the fan we’ll need you here not on another bloody planet!”

  “It won't be on a planet,” he replied, regretting his pedantic response as soon as it left his mouth.

  “Whatever!” she shouted, turning her head away.

  He put his arm around her and stroked her hair. Speaking softly, he said, “Zara, you knew what I did for a living when you met me. What’s changed? I've been on dangerous ops before.”

  When she turned back to face him tears had started streaming down her cheeks accompanied by almost silent sobs. “Look outside, Matt, we have Quin and Callum and they need you—I need you.” She broke down and they held each other tightly. Hart shed a single tear as he looked beyond Zara’s shoulder at his little blond boys playing, oblivious to the weighty problems of the adult world. The crying subsided and Zara went to the open plan kitchen area to get a glass of water as the TV report about survivalists in Virginia gearing up for the apocalypse neared its end.

  “Can’t you resign? You’re a pretty handy plumber and builder. You'd find work,” suggested Zara, with a forced hopeful expression.

  “Listen, love, whether or not I resign, if the shit hits the fan they will call me up.”

  “Can’t you fake an injury like they used to do in World War One or something?” asked Zara, half-serious, half-joking, a little chuckle making it through the drying tears.

  “Okay, moving on... Let’s discuss this some other time. I want to watch this next report,” he said a little coldly, shutting down the line of conversation, at least temporarily, while he thought it all through.

  The GNN news channel on the TV showed the frail, old man that was Pope John Paul III, shuffling out onto the magnificent central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica. Flanking him on the renaissance-style gallery overlooking thousands of faithful was his entourage of cardinals in their striking red cassocks. The cloudless blue sky and crisp sunlight had already rewarded the majority in the crowd that had dressed for summer. The crowd grew excited and broke into spontaneous applause as the Catholic church’s representative of God on Earth waved, taking in the masses assembled below and far across the piazza.

  Dana, the anchorwoman, spared viewers from the preamble and Bible-heavy references, giving background information on what the Holy See was expected to talk about in his long-overdue response to the existence of intelligent life on Gaia. She took the time to play a prominent atheist’s radio interview from the previous day:

  “The Church has a long history of having to explain away the so-called truths that it spouted for centuries before science uncovered the absurdity of many of their doctrinal beliefs. The earth is only 6,000 years old and was created in six days. Thankfully, there’s no need to convince anyone of that these days. ‘Evolution by natural selection is a lie’ was the Church’s position until earlier this century and is still espoused by many a religious ignoramus. Subsequently, Pope Francis told the faithful forty years ago that evolution is apparently not at odds with the Church’s doctrine and that started the slow process of backtracking on centuries of untruth. The sun goes around the Earth—another thing the Church preached on pain of persecution and death for centuries. When that was challenged by Galileo Galilei in 1610 the Catholic Church launched an inquisition into his support for heliocentrism.
He kept quiet in the intervening years for fear of being branded a heretic. But in 1633 – by that time an old man – he was found guilty of heresy and put under house arrest until his death... Now there are a lot of things the Church may be a good source of – although I’ve yet to find anything that can’t be found elsewhere – but I can certainly say that as a reliable guide to how the universe works the Church is a truly awful instructor. It makes one wonder why people still believe a word they say if they can be so wrong on so many counts… For me, and most scientists around the world, the discovery of life elsewhere was not wholly unexpected given the fact that the processes underpinning life are ultimately physics-based. The physics supports the chemistry and the chemistry supports the biology. Once the conditions for life have been established it is almost a mechanical process; evolution by natural selection, that is. It’s just that we’d never had another example until last year… Now I’m sure the pope will tell us that his invisible friend’s wisdom transcends human knowledge and that He works in mysterious ways. However, I fail to see why, in the twenty-sixties, this senile old man and his entourage of crusty old virgins are given a world stage to spout the nonsense that they do. Sometimes it’s well-delivered and charming nonsense from the world’s chief snake-oil salesman, but it is nonsense nonetheless. They enjoy the fruits of a respect and reverence that they have done nothing to deserve. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re already planning a mission to convert Gaia to Catholicism!”

  “And, in the interests of hearing both sides of the story, that was an excerpt from yesterday's interview on PBR with prominent atheist Professor Richard Beardman. We’re going to hear Pope John Paul speak now through an interpreter as he’s currently speaking in Italian. And we join him now…”

  The screen switched from the studio back to the balcony of the basilica and a head-and-shoulders view of the pope speaking, gazing out over his people and the terracotta roofs of the Eternal City.

  “...God’s dream is His people. Wherever they may be in His vast, majestic universe. He planted it and nurtured it with patient and faithful love, so that they could become a holy people, a people that bring forth abundant fruits of justice. But in the Gospel, God’s dream is thwarted. In the Gospel, it is the farmers themselves who ruin the Lord’s plan for His ‘farm’: they fail to do their job but think only of their own interest; for His people, for them to nurture, tend and protect the animals of the field. This is the job of leaders: to nurture the farm with freedom, creativity and hard work. But Jesus tells us that those farmers take over the farm. Out of greed and pride they want to do with it as they will, and so they prevent God from realizing His dream for the people He has chosen. The temptation of greed is ever present; greed for money and power and land. And to satisfy this greed, evil pastors lay intolerable burdens on the shoulders of others, which they themselves do not lift a finger to move. Again, as history will testify has happened through the ages, we see some of those leaders following the path of the temptation and making decisions based on greed and pride.

  “We are all sinners and can also be tempted to take over the farm, because of that greed which is always present in us human beings. God’s dream always clashes with the hypocrisy of some of His servants. We can thwart God’s dream if we fail to let ourselves be guided by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit gives us that wisdom which surpasses knowledge, and enables us to work generously with authentic freedom and humble creativity.

  “God is timeless; God is the creator whose plan for this universe in which we live started with the Big Bang fourteen billion years ago. The Big Bang, which today we hold to be the origin of the world, does not contradict the intervention of the Divine Creator but, rather, requires it. Reading Genesis we imagine that God is a wizard with a magic wand capable of doing all things. But it is not so for He created life and let each creature develop according to the natural laws which He had provided. God’s dream was to see the stars bring light and the planets teem with life. My brothers and sisters, our limited human knowledge has grown so that we now know more of the extent of the Lord’s farm. With a heavy heart we can observe again that we sinners have allowed the ‘evil pastors’ to exercise their greed and hypocrisy on another world far from the seat of their power. We must do everything we can to extend the word of God to these distant lands and bring peace and justice to God’s wider universe. Those described as ‘aliens’ have the intelligence bestowed on them by God’s plan and, as such, should be regarded as in the constituency of God, part of his population of holy subjects. My brothers and sisters, this is our mission, to do a good job of nurturing and tending the farm. Our hearts and our minds must be kept in Jesus Christ by the peace of God, which passes all understanding. In this way, our thoughts and plans will correspond to God’s dream: to form a holy people, who are His own and produce the fruits of the kingdom of God.”

  Hart, although not a religious man, had to admit to himself that the pope’s words actually did hit a chord with him. The atheist professor’s words appealed to his head; the pope’s to his heart. If he was truthful with his core feelings, he knew that the way they’d gone about contact with the aliens left a lot to be desired. Humanity was hardly blameless when it came to explaining how hostilities had started. From all he’d seen of the aliens though, he struggled to believe that they would be hospitable no matter what they were to have done instead. Perhaps the pope should have explained the aliens as agents of the devil or such like. Perhaps, in years to come, the church would change the official line to something like that, thought Hart.

  “Tired of hearing about this,” he said, getting up and making his way out to the kids in the garden.

  Zara called after him, still nursing her drink and staring into the TV screen. “Matt, we still need to talk. You didn’t answer my question earlier…”

  “Okay, love,” he called back, “but let’s wait until the kids are asleep tonight. Yeah?”

  He felt his smile grow and his mood lift as he quietly watched his pure little boys jumping around on their new trampoline. Their childish innocence, their unrestrained joy unsullied by the burden of the dark days that may soon be upon the people of Earth; unburdened by the decision that Sergeant Matt Hart – Daddy – would soon need to make.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  March 13, 2063 WGA Headquarters, Seattle / The White House

  “Thank you, Mr President,” said General Fred McIver presenting the WESTFOR mission to destroy and disrupt alien shipyards and capital warships massing around Gaia. Further probe missions since the British SSS team returned ten months prior had confirmed a further build up and worrying signs of an accelerating faster-than-light development programme. He was on a video conference speaking to the Oval Office from the WGA headquarters in Seattle from where the mission would be controlled.

  He coughed once, covering his mouth politely, and launched into his executive summary for President Powell’s and Secretary of Defence Romero’s endorsement.

  “The latest count is one-hundred and twenty destroyers, one carrier and around four-hundred-fifty fighters. This is just the armada in orbit around Gaia. There are an unconfirmed number of other assets spread all over the star system. We’ve already witnessed one of the destroyers making an FTL transit to somewhere unknown only to return to Gaia orbit away from the armada a short time later. We’ve identified how they jumped out: via a large FTL gate also in Gaia orbit. We assume they have another one somewhere else out of probe sensor range. We triangulated the gravimetric spikes the first time then captured the visuals on a subsequent jump once we’d identified the FTL gate. That gate joins the already extensive target list. Identifying the destination gate is a top recon priority at the moment, sir.”

  “Okay, General,” said the president, studying the mission plan in front of him. “Let’s talk about the rationale for using only battledroids and how we’re going to deal with deviations from the plan. I mean, that’s the whole reason we still have human Special Forces: their ability to improvise when pl
ans change in the field.”

  “Certainly, Mr President,” continued McIver, having anticipated this query. “The sheer number of targets and the level of risk are two of the factors, sir. We’re going to have to go after every one of those hundred-twenty destroyers since the WGASS Atlantic might be able to take on one or two if we’re lucky, some of our other weapons systems a handful more, but simulations show that’s about all if they make it through to Earth. So we need to take them out before they leave Gaia. Then we’ve got the all-important carrier, the ship-building facilities – of which there are five – and now at least one FTL gate. So the number of targets is high and we need at least one battledroid per destroyer and four each for the other targets making a minimum requirement of one-hundred-forty-four droids. If we used human soldiers that’d be a noticeable part of our Special Forces complement and a lot of human lives,” he said.

  “Okay. And the method of attack, General?” asked President Powell.

  “Yes… So, as I said, numbers are high and risk is high. So, moving on to method of attack, we have no warships that can beat the aliens in a head-to-head battle, and that’s even if we could make a drive or gate large enough to jump them to Gaia. So we need to infiltrate and destroy them from the inside. We’ve been studying the destroyers and carrier carefully over the past few months and can find no evidence of shielding – ‘force-fields’ if you will – only armour-plating. We’ve seen two collisions which tell us this: the first when a fighter veered off course trying to enter a launch bay on the carrier and smashed into the side of the ship. Not much left of the fighter but there was some deflection of the hull plating and we’ve been able to calculate the approximate thickness and strength based on that and have made an assessment of the material type. The second collision involved the debris field from the fighter collision peppering a destroyer in the same orbit. Again, nothing to suggest shielding, just armour; although pretty damned tough armour.