The Reply a5-2

by Robert Doherty

  Neither Turcotte or Duncan objected, so she flipped on a speaker. “Lexina, this is Zandra. I have Dr. Duncan and Captain Turcotte here with me.”

  A woman’s voice came out of the speaker. “Captain, you have the information we need to make a very important decision. The foo fighters, which Aspasia controls, are certainly acting in a hostile manner, but before committing to a course of action we’ve been waiting to hear what you found in Qian-Ling. What did the guardian there tell Professor Nabinger?”

  “Nabinger was convinced that Aspasia was coming to Earth to take the mothership and destroy the planet,” Turcotte summed it up succinctly. “The Qian-Ling guardian reversed the story he got from the Easter Island one: Aspasia was the rebel and it was the Kortad, or Airlia police, under someone named Artad, that saved the human race and the planet.”

  “Which do you believe?” Lexina asked.

  “Neither.”

  Zandra’s eyebrows rose over her sunglasses. “You think we should do nothing?” “I didn’t say that.”

  Dr. Duncan spoke for the first time. “Why do you believe neither, Mike?”

  “I don’t have any evidence. We’re getting conflicting stories, and for all we know they could both be bullshit. The bottom line is that Earth is our planet. These Airlia came here, set up shop, blasted Atlantis back into the ocean when they couldn’t keep their act together, and have been dicking with us every once in a while for millennia.

  “Everyone’s made a big deal about Aspasia, saying he didn’t interfere with our growth as a species, but as far as I can tell he didn’t help either. None of the Airlia did. I mean, this isn’t Star Trek — it’s not like the Airlia have a prime directive not to interfere.

  “Let’s look at what both sides admit to: Aspasia’s guardian says he blasted Atlantis and left the guardian on Easter Island, which is controlling the foo fighters right now; Artad’s guardian says he blasted Atlantis, and left the guardian computer in Temiltepec that took over Gullick; plus, it says he left a nuke in the Great Pyramid, and I think we have to assume got the Great Pyramid built in the first place, and I’d sure say that affected a whole bunch of humans, not to mention all the poor human slobs who died building the section of the Great Wall simply to spell HELP.

  “We know foo fighters accompanied the Enola Gay and watched the U.S. atom-bomb Japan; well, the human race could have used some help there. Or many other times in our history. They didn’t leave us alone but they also didn’t help us. Why should we think that’s changed now? I think we can safely assume that Aspasia is going to be looking out for his own interests, not ours. So the question is, why is he coming back now? What’s different?”

  The room was quiet as everyone turned over the events of the past week in their minds. Lisa Duncan spoke first. “The guardian at Temiltepec was moved and then destroyed.”

  Turcotte nodded. “You were right in a way about the sphere being a doomsday device. According to Nabinger, that guardian was responsible for the ruby sphere in the Rift Valley.

  “It could release the sphere,” Turcotte said, “into the chasm and an explosion that deep would start a chain reaction that could destroy the planet. When they took the guardian out of Temiltepec, Majestic made the sphere vulnerable,” Turcotte said. “That’s what’s different and that’s what Aspasia wants.

  “Also remember they blew Viking out of the sky over Mars so we couldn’t see what was going on. The foo fighters destroyed the Pasadena and killed all those men on board. And that happened after Aspasia was awake. Taking aside what the different guardians have said, I think the Airlia haven’t exactly been the friendliest and most peaceful encounter we could have for first live contact. And now they’re coming here in six ships that certainly don’t look like ET’s ship waving a white flag of peace.”

  Turcotte stared at the others inside the bouncer. “We either roll over on our stomachs like a beaten dog and hope they scratch our belly and not blow our brains out or we fight them. But there’s no way of absolutely knowing which is the right course until it’s too late.”

  Lexina’s voice filled the short silence that followed. “You are correct. Our charter that was signed by President Eisenhower directs us to take whatever means necessary to oppose an alien landing if there is not absolutely clear-cut evidence that the aliens are benevolent. Thus, for STAAR, our course of action is clear. We oppose Aspasia.”

  Turcotte rubbed the stubble on his chin. He knew Kelly Reynolds would be blowing a gasket if she could hear this conversation. He also kept unvoiced his suspicion that STAAR wasn’t all it pretended to be either. Take things down in the order that they’ll kill you, was the maxim he’d had beaten into him in the mud at Fort Benning and the forests of Fort Bragg.

  And right now Turcotte knew that Aspasia was what had to be stopped first. He’d deal with STAAR when he could.

  * * *

  But Kelly Reynolds had been listening. She looked up at Major Quinn. The speaker that had played the intercepted conversation sat on the tabletop between them. Quinn had had the NSA zero in on any communications between Scorpion Base and anywhere in the world. It had not been hard to piggyback the communications that were routed through a MILSTAR satellite. Kelly had returned to the Cube twenty minutes ago.

  “They can’t,” Kelley said as the radio went dead. “Aspasia has said he is coming in peace. We have to believe him.”

  “Tell that to the men on the Pasadena,” Quinn said.

  “They fired first!” Kelly yelled.

  “Yes, they did,” Major Quinn acknowledged. “But the foo fighters didn’t have to destroy the sub. They could have disabled the torpedoes and gone about their business.”

  “That was just an automatic response!” Kelly reached out and grabbed Quinn’s arm. “Please. Give me a bouncer. Let me get to Easter Island and the guardian before things go too far.”

  Quinn had a lot of other things on his mind at the moment, and they would be easier to accomplish without Reynolds looking over his shoulder. “Take Bouncer 6. I’ll alert the pilot.”

  “Space Command has picked up a foo fighter heading in this direction,” Lexina’s voice rang out to those inside the bouncer. “We are going to have to evacuate our position here. There also seems to be some activity from the foo fighters over the Rift Valley compound. I think Aspasia is showing his hand. Good luck!”

  * * *

  Some activity was a large understatement.

  Two U.S. Navy F-14’s from the George Washington had been on station fifty miles away, shadowing the two fighters. They were the first to get destroyed, as the foo fighters raced at them, disabling their engines. The fighters then turned for the compound. They crisscrossed the skies overhead, a tightly focused beam of golden light coming out of each, destroying the helicopters that were on the ground, blasting those that tried to take off.

  Colonel Spearson and his surviving SAS men were gathered by the entrance, weapons in hand, waiting for the final assault and desperately radioing for help.

  The talons were less than eight hours out from Earth, their tight formation still weaving the same pattern. But there was a brief flash of golden light from each ship as it took the lead in the formation.

  A human fighter pilot from World War II would have recognized what they were doing: they were testing their weapons, making sure they functioned.

  CHAPTER 36

  “The ruby sphere is the key,” Turcotte said. “We can’t let Aspasia get it.” The bouncer was racing through the sky, now heading west toward Africa, the southern tip of India passing by to the right.

  “How do we stop him?” Duncan asked. “Not only does he have that fleet incoming, what about the foo fighters and the guardian computer under Easter Island? How do we destroy those?”

  “We haven’t simply been sitting still all these years at STAAR and doing nothing,” Zandra said. “We’ve analyzed the data of all confrontations with the foo fighters, and it seems that they have found a way to control electromagnetic energy and
use it to disable or control the attacking craft or missile.”

  “That’s why we can escape them if we shut all power down,” Turcotte noted. “Correct.”

  Turcotte thought about that, and for the first time in a while, a smile crossed his face. “I have an idea how we can attack the foo fighters. It won’t be easy, but it is possible. We need to coordinate. If all don’t follow the same procedures, we won’t have a chance.”

  “That’s a lot to do in not much time,” Duncan said, shaking her head. “It’s almost impossible.”

  “We still have ST-8 clearance and authorization,” Zandra said. “I can access MILSTAR and talk to every military force the United States has. Tell me your plan and let’s make the impossible possible.”

  “Our first priority is to get into the Rift Valley complex and get the ruby sphere,” Turcotte said. “To do that,” he continued, “we’re going to have to eliminate the threat of the foo fighters.”

  “How?” Duncan asked.

  The smile came back on Turcotte’s face. “We’re going to have to make the Air Force and Navy become dumb again.”

  * * *

  There were four F-14 Tomcats from the George Washington circling over Kenya, a hundred miles from the Rift Valley complex. They’d heard their two fellow crews go down and they were itching to get into the fight; but so far their orders had been to hold in place.

  Lieutenant Commander Perkins was the flight leader, and he was more seasoned than the other seven fliers who were part of his group. He wasn’t as anxious to tangle with the foo fighters as they were. It wasn’t cowardice, it was experience. There was no purpose in fighting a battle that couldn’t be won, and as far as he knew, dating back to World War II, no human plane had ever won an encounter with the small alien spheres.

  Thus, when a man named Captain Turcotte came over his radio and briefed him on a plan to take out the two foo fighters over the Rift Valley complex, Perkins listened with a mixture of enthusiasm that someone finally had a plan and trepidation over the difficulty of executing the difficult maneuver Turcotte was suggesting.

  In the end though, all he said was “Roger that,” and gave the orders for his four planes to head north.

  * * *

  On board the Springfield Captain Forster and the fleet commander on the surface above the foo fighter base listened to the problem and course of action that Turcotte radioed to them with similar feelings. The situation there was compounded by the problem of the Greywolf being in close proximity to their target.

  After a short discussion with Turcotte, Forster came up with a plan. It was half-ass, as they would say back at sub school, but still it was a plan, and that was more than they’d had.

  Slowly and with minimum expenditure of power and electromagnetic signature, the Springfield and Asheville turned away from the foo fighter base. As the distance between them and the base increased, both submarines increased energy until both reactors were at full power, pushing the two geared turbines and, in turn, the one drive shaft at maximum RPM. The subs raced away from the foo fighter base at over forty miles an hour underwater.

  * * *

  At JPL, Larry Kincaid started awake as the door to the control room opened. Coridan walked over to his console. The rest of the room was still empty, the other workers all waiting on the arrival of the Airlia the following morning.

  “Have you plotted the TCM that will put Surveyor over Cydonia?” Coridan asked.

  “You specified such a quick burn,” Kincaid said, “and then not being able to check position and trajectory after the burn…” Kincaid stopped, realizing he sounded like one of the whining youngsters he so despised. “It’s plotted.”

  “Execute it for a time-on-target of four hours from now,” Coridan ordered.

  * * *

  The foo fighter came over the Antarctic ice at five times the speed of sound. Reaching the appropriate spot, it halted. A golden beam lanced out from the small sphere, slicing down through the ice toward Scorpion Base, but the onboard sensors told it that it was already too late: there was no electromagnetic power being generated below. Whatever and whoever had been there was now gone.

  The foo fighter shut off the beam and raced back to the north.

  * * *

  Bouncer 6 was already over southern California and flying at four thousand miles an hour. Kelly Reynolds sat in the copilot’s seat and slowly rocked back and forth, her mind focused and trying to figure out what she could do to get through to the guardian and then to Aspasia to stop the oncoming disaster.

  Her hands were pressed against her temples, trying to stop the pain she felt in her head.

  * * *

  On board the Greywolf Commander Downing’s head jerked up as he heard the faintest of noises. He glanced over at Tennyson, who had come awake also. They listened for a minute before Downing realized what he was hearing: someone banging out Morse code, metal on metal, echoing down from the surface.

  Downing grabbed a grease pencil, blew on his frozen fingers, wiped the condensation off the metal plating in front of him, and began writing the dots and dashes down. When he realized the message was repeating itself, he went back to the start and began translating the code into letters. When he had the message he stared at it for a few seconds, then nodded.

  He didn’t know why and he didn’t know how, but it was better than sitting here freezing to death.

  “All right. Time to be going.”

  CHAPTER 37

  The bouncer was holding, three hundred miles off the east coast of Africa. Turcotte and the others inside were listening to the radio nets of the various forces they’d set in motion. First into action were the four F-14’s to their west, attempting to clear the foo fighters out of the sky over the Rift Valley complex so they could move in and get the sphere.

  “Sixty miles and closing,” Perkins’s navigator and weapons officer, Lieutenant Sally Stanton, reported. “Space Command reports no movement from the foo fighters.”

  Perkins’s hands were steady on the controls of his F-14, trying hard to keep the plane under control. They were pushing the edge of the envelope and the plane was struggling with it. The F-14 was rated with a ceiling of 56,000 feet. Perkins and his flight were already passing through 62,000, over eleven miles high, and a half mile higher than any F-14 had ever been flown. “Fifty miles and closing,” Stanton reported. “Still nothing.”

  “Good,” Perkins muttered. “Good so far.”

  He had the wings of the plane in their full-out position, trying to grab as much of the thin air as possible. At this altitude he was worried about engine flameout. If either engine got too little oxygen it would quit. Restarting in flight was a tricky proposition, plus it would mean aborting the mission. “Forty miles and closing. Still nothing.”

  “Flameout!” Perkins’s wingman called out over the radio.

  Perkins looked to his left and watched the F-14 there peel off in a steep dive. He could see that one engine was still providing thrust, so the plane should make it back to the carrier, but they were down to three now.

  “Thirty miles and—” Stanton was interrupted by another pilot reporting flameout.

  “Both engines down. I’m going to hang with you and try to make it,” the pilot reported. Perkins looked out to his right. The third F-14 was already losing altitude. He knew it wouldn’t make it to the target zone.

  “Turn away and get your engines started,” Perkins ordered the pilot.

  Perkins felt a trickle of sweat slide down inside his oxygen mask. They were down to his plane and one other. When they reached the target, it was going to be one-on-one.

  On board the bouncer Turcotte exchanged a worried look with Duncan. If they lost another F-14, they would have to abort.

  “Twenty miles.” Stanton’s voice was calm. “We have two foo fighters heading our direction on an intercept course.”

  “All right,” Perkins called to the one surviving plane. “Hold steady. Execute on my command. I have left and lead, you ha
ve right and trail.”

  “Right and trail,” the other pilot acknowledged.

  “They’re closing fast,” Stanton reported. “Fifteen miles. Intercept in thirty seconds.”

  “Execute!” Perkins ordered. He pulled the nose of the F-14 up. They had passed through 63,000 feet when a warning light flashed on his console. His left engine had flamed out. Perkins immediately did the opposite of what had been drummed into him throughout years of intensive flight training: he shut down his right engine. Then he continued, fighting his instincts, shutting down every electrical system he had.

  In the backseat Lieutenant Stanton did the same, cutting all her navigational and targeting computers, the radio, the SATCOM up and down links, and the missiles that rested under the wings.

  She couldn’t even talk to her pilot through the intercom. The F-14 was now a very heavy glider, losing altitude rapidly. Perkins looked out and spotted the one remaining plane to his right, also dropping, all systems dead.

  The electronic controls were out, so his eyes fastened on his attitude indicator, making sure he kept the plane as level as possible given that the horizon was a hazy line in the distance. He also watched the hand on the altimeter spin around rapidly, counting off altitude lost.

  Sixty thousand feet and dropping.

  Fifty-five thousand feet and still going down. Perkins looked around. Where the hell were the foo fighters?

  He turned on the plane’s radar for two seconds, then turned it off. “Come to Papa,” he whispered. He again lit up the radar, trying to suck the foo fighters in.

  He felt a pounding on the back of his seat. Stanton signaling. Perkins turned off the radar and looked about. There they were! Ahead and to the left, climbing to meet them, two small glowing orbs, rapidly closing in.

  Perkins strained with the plane’s hydraulics, turning toward the foo fighters. He had his entire being focused on the left one, no longer able to spare any attention to determine whether the other plane had also spotted them.