Struggle for a Small Blue Planet

by Warwick Gibson

  The President nodded. The reason the images were not live was the destruction of the Mount Weather comms tower an hour before. Placing the tower eight kilometres east of the mountain, and running cables in through an underground tunnel, had proved to be a wise move. Airborne strikes from the citadel had flattened the tower and its surrounding equipment, but left the Mount Weather complex untouched.

  There was a back-up system, and it took messages away from the mountain by a number of different electronic pathways, scattering them across distant transmitters. It would not be used until the strikes had played themselves out.

  An hour previously some form of blinding energy had arced out from a nearby citadel, travelling hundreds of kilometres, and slammed into the comms tower. An area fifty metres across had been scorched down to the rock, and anything metal had simply vanished.

  The fidgetting in the room ceased as the screen came alive, and the recordings of the alien attacks began. A wall of horrified faces watched as similar energy arcs took out the nation's ability to communicate. Cell towers, transmitters, television stations, cloud servers, supercomputers, anything still capable of transmitting after the earthquakes. Everything that used an electromagnetic signal and could be tracked back to its source.

  Then the images changed. A line of fighter planes stood on a concrete apron at a military base. A row of white bubbles bloomed among them, each the size of an army truck, and were as instantly gone. Most of the planes disappeared with the bubbles. Whatever remained was left scattered along the apron.

  "The bubbles are shock waves, caused by pellets coming in from the space stations the aliens have built," said the senior staffer. "The detonations are far more powerful than our best explosives, and the pellets are travelling too fast for the naked eye to see.

  "We don't know why they don't burn up in the atmosphere, or how they're guided to their targets."

  The atmosphere in the room got a lot grimmer. More images of destruction followed, as every type of military base was systematically destroyed.

  Then the room was subjected to something different. A number of industrial activities still operating in some way – opencast mines, sawmills, warehouses, markets, any place where people gathered and there was much activity – was just as thoroughly destroyed.

  The destruction of an aircraft carrier followed, and the President called for the display to be turned off.

  "I think we've seen enough," he said into the shocked silence, and told the gathering there would be a fifteen minute break.

  The room re-convened to different images. They watched the construction of four alien space stations over the last few days, each one composed of five cylinders that met at a central point.

  "The space stations form a tetrahedron about the Earth, Mr President," said the senior staffer. "It's the most efficient way of getting direct access to every spot on the planet."

  When the construction of the space stations had finished, the President asked for silence during the transmission that would follow.

  "What you are about to see will move you greatly," he said quietly, "as it moved me. But I want you to hear every word, and remember every moment of this call. We received it thirty-five minutes ago."

  There was an intake of breath as the room recognised the inside of the International Space Station. A camera panned about, showing five people waving and attempting to smile, before it was fixed back in place on a control panel. The sixth person, who had been working the camera, came into view.

  Cleet Anderson, sitting a few paces to the President's left, knew who these people were. The current complement of the ISS was three Americans and three Europeans, two from France and one from Germany. The three Europeans had replaced three Russians just before the earthquakes hit. Now, he realised sadly, it was unlikely they would ever return to Earth.

  The face in front of the camera was Phillipe Pesquerre, the nominal head of the space station at the moment. His English was faultless, with the slightest trace of an accent.

  "Mr President," he began, "those of us who have been living in the space station throughout these troubles appreciate the devastation that has been visited upon the Earth."

  He hesitated, and one of the figures in the background murmured something.

  "We think there is something we can do to help," he said, finally.

  With the help of a mission specialist behind him, he outlined a plan to bring the ISS back from from its current orbit 408km above the Earth. On the way down it would pass close to one of the alien space stations – all in lower orbits – and the astronauts might be able to use one of the two docked re-entry vehicles to destroy the alien structure.

  It was a one-way mission, and the people in the Situation Room saw that immediately. They heard the President's voice as he responded, thirty-five minutes ago.

  "Are you all agreed on this?" he asked quietly, and Phillipe nodded. Then the ISS commander moved away from the camera, and the others voiced their agreement in turn.

  "How will you avoid your target destroying you, once it realises what you intend to do?" said Cleet, from alongside the President. Pesquerre was prepared for the question.

  "We will engineer a fake explosion – some sort of catastrophic failure – while we fire the engines on one of the re-entry vehicles to start the descent. We will set it up so we pass close to one of the alien stations, but not close enough, we hope, to threaten it.

  "If the ISS looks lifeless, they will think it is a piece of space debris on its way to burn up in the atmosphere. At the last moment we will launch the remaining re-entry vehicle on an intercept path.

  "The ISS will have a re-entry speed of 11km per second by then. We just need a small tangential vector from the re-entry vehicle and we'll be on them before they realise what's happening."

  A deep respect for the astronauts' courage came through in the President's voice as he answered.

  "Then we wish you God speed, and every success, Commander Pesquerre," he said slowly. "Satellite coverage is already limited, and we may not be able to talk to you again, but I want you to know our thoughts and prayers go with you!"

  That was the end of the transmission.

  "The ISS has already used the first re-entry vehicle to start its descent," said the President. "Commander Pesquerre, his fellow French astronaut, and one of the Americans, will attempt to ram the target station when they are close enough.

  "The other astronauts are still in the first re-entry vehicle, which has detached itself from the ISS after completing the burn to bring the ISS out of orbit. Removing themselves makes the ISS more stable on its descent, and that will make it easier for the second re-entry vehicle to line up on its target.

  "It will take the ISS a number of orbits to get close enough."

  He paused. "We will know whether they were successful some time tomorrow morning."

  The hubbub of discussion that followed was eventually interrupted by a senior staffer calling for quiet. The President began to read from a new printout. Mt Weather was largely cut off until the back-up comms system was brought online, and this printout had come by off-road vehicle from a nearby town with an exchange still operating on old copper wires.

  "Ladies and gentlemen," began the President, "we no longer have satellite coverage. We have photographs of the satellites' destruction taken by backyard telescopes, and they will go up on the main screen shortly.

  "You will all understand how serious this is."

  32

  Lake Adelaide

  Southern Alps, New Zealand

  "Satellite photos show us this much," said Tomas, holding the precious tablet in front of him. Electronic storage was rare now, but as long as they had the helicopter they could recharge the batteries. The ability to record details in the field, and display some of that information as images, had become the new military gold standard.

  The other members of the team moved closer. The tablet showed a citadel that had risen from the bed of Lake Adelaide, and was now a met
re or two above the surface.

  "At least that was how it was – before," he continued

  Yes, thought Cathy. Before our satellites were blasted out of the sky and we were blinded. Now everything's preceded by the words, 'that's how it used to be, and we can only hope it will be the same when we get there.'

  The thought wasn't encouraging. Another thought, that the only way left for humanity had to be up, made her feel a little better.

  The NH90 sat behind them, covered by a large camouflage net. They had landed near the head of Lake Wakatipu on the preceding evening. Fires still put a smokey haze over the ruins of Christchurch, and they studiously avoided looking in that direction on their way down the Southern Alps.

  Next morning the helicopter had flown through the Greenstone valley, and then entered the Hollyford in whisper mode. The upright walls of giant U-shaped glacier valleys slid past as they hugged the open spaces of the rivers.

  The NH90 had landed on the edge of an ancient beech forest. A pasture of lank grass, reverting to bush, lay between the forest and the river. A rough gravel road ran through the pasture, following the river on its way down the valley.

  "We're about here," said Tomas, bringing up a map of the area, and pointing. "As you can see, a side road splits off a short way upriver, and ends at a bluff in the forest behind us.

  "That bluff is our target," he said. "The road in will be overgrown, so we'll strike directly through the forest from here, carrying what we need. I'll take point, and Brun will bring up the rear. The pilots will stay here and guard the chopper."

  He hesitated for a moment.

  "You two are in the middle because you're carrying the most sensitive gear, not because you're women," he said to Eileen, and the team moved out.

  Cathy smiled. It was the age of equality, but these things were still being worked out. She recalled their briefing about their target, as the forest closed in about them. It was a story straight from Cal's stash of historic files.

  An entire tunnelling team had died in an underground accident. The official explanation had been carbon monoxide poisoning from the new-fangled boring machine they'd used, but the overseer – bleeding from his ears and eyes and barely alive – had told a different story.

  He talked about a city in a huge cave inside the mountain, something the tunnellers had seen when they broke through from the outside world. It was a story the doctors had put down to the carbon monoxide. If the science team was here to investigate it, Cal wasn't taking the doctors at their word.

  The team came out at the foot of the bluff twenty minutes later. The old workings were still there, recognisable after ninety years. Most of the huts had collapsed, and the pile of tailings further down the slope had been colonised by ferns and saplings. The entrance to the tunnel looked dark and uninviting.

  "We need a diversion," said Tomas, as they settled down for their first break of the day. Eileen looked enquiringly at him over a cup of tea.

  "Sullivan's story said the breakthrough was sealed off again with molten rock. If that is the case, we're going to have to blow a hole in the seal, or cut through it somehow.

  "If anything is listening on the other side, we could be in trouble. Since the citadel is presumably high-tech, we need a low-tech diversion they won't recognise. This is our planet, people, and that gives us the home advantage."

  Now they were all looking at him. Maybe Cal had asked all his senior people to brainstorm this stuff, but it was true the game had changed. The citadels had brought new rules, and it was time the indigenous population – which Eileen realised with a start meant every human being now – started making up its own rules.

  Cathy nodded to herself. So this was how SAS people thought. An example of the inner resilience that made them different.

  In the end Tomas decided on a rockslide for his diversion. Eileen and Brun were sent to clamber round the bluff at one end, and set low-level charges along the top. Tomas and Cathy laid thermal cutters and HE cord at the face of the tunnel, which wasn't far in, and set about rigging up a partition to stop daylight shining in when they cut through. Around midday they were ready.

  "We'll take a break first," said Tomas, and they settled down to eat. When they were finished their meal, they went over the plan one more time. Then it was game time.

  "Five . . four . . three . . two . . one . . go," said Cathy, counting down from a timepiece. On the 'go' Tomas ignited the thermal cord taped in a loose circle against the rock, and they turned away to protect their eyes. The face of the tunnel lit up behind them, casting their shadows across the improvised partition near the cave mouth.

  At the top of the bluff, Brun was counting down too. On his 'mark' Eileen threw her weight behind a sapling wedged under a pile of decent-sized rocks. Brun joined her, and the rocks cascaded down the bluff. As soon as the rocks were underway, Brun activated the five second fuse, and they scrambled back from the edge together.

  They threw themselves flat just before the charges went off, and the noise was hidden by the cascade of rocks. Then large parts of the bluff started moving.

  Inside the tunnel, the thermal cord was at its peak, the rock under it weakened by the extreme heat. Sections of bluff roared past the tunnel entrance. When the cord of HE lying next to the ribbon of molten rock went off, part of the end of the tunnel broke free, and fell away into darkness beyond.

  Tomas looked at the square metre of inky blackness, and then at Cathy. "I think we have a go," he said quietly. A minute later there was a rustle from the partition, and the other two joined them.

  "Packs on," whispered Tomas, as he unrolled nylon rope through the gap, "and remember why we're doing this. We have the right to our existence as a thinking species. If that doesn't do it for you, remember how many people we've lost to these bastards already!"

  One by one they slid through the aperture and down the vertical drop off below it, leaning back on the rope and working their feet against the rock. Cathy was pleased to see her muscles remembered this part of her training.

  At the bottom of the drop off Tomas handed out specialised night goggles. He switched his to infra-red when they didn't pick up enough light. A meter at his waist told him radiation levels were normal, but there was a lot of electromagnetic activity.

  A slope in front of them ran down to a moat collecting seepage. He had expected the seepage. Schist had a lot of fracture lines. The water in the moat disappeared to the left, vanishing into a tunnel too straight to be natural.

  They weren't under Lake Adelaide yet, and they were still a kilometre or two from the citadel. This place must be like a mushroom, thought Cathy, spreading out extensively below ground for the smaller cap that appeared above.

  It made sense. The original meteors had been underground for centuries by now. Of course they would have built an industrial base in that time. Next they would have constructed the equipment that unleashed the earthquakes, and they would have been tunnelling ever outward as the colony expanded.

  Tomas led the team down the slope and across the moat. It didn't come much above his knee. There was a wide path on the other side, with a low, rounded building that covered a huge area beyond that. He hurried them to a vantage point nearby as he saw movement down the track.

  Cathy squeezed his arm when she saw what it was. A long, segmented form passed by below them, swaying slightly from side to side. It was made entirely of metal, and its means of propulsion wasn't clear. It moved in silence, and reminded Tomas of a huge, elongated wood slater.

  He took a deep breath. It was going to get a lot weirder as they went deeper into the complex.

  33

  Imazighen village

  Atlas Mountains, North-west Africa

  Don assembled his team when he got back from the buried ship, and told them they were staying in the village indefinitely, and why. News of the ship created an uproar. He finally stilled the questions with a promise they would get a look at the strange alien artifact themselves, in the very near future.
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  Once Izem knew Don had made that choice, he gave permission for Jo to visit his comms centre. The comms equipment had been transferred to a room at the back of a newly constructed barns after the earthquake.

  Wind generators on the cliffs charged a bank of deep-cycle batteries, and the centre had been well stocked with equipment. It was a modern, sophisticated set up. Jo was introduced to the two Imazighen specialists that worked there, and she soon impressed them with her set of skills. Mostly they were working on ways to send messages without alerting the citadels.

  "What was the ship like?" she said brightly, as Don leaned over her shoulder to look at what she was doing. He had told them the basic layout, but everyone wanted more details.

  "You'll see for yourself soon enough," he said, watching lines form, oscilloscope-like, along the top half of the screen. A much slower wave ebbed and pulsed below it. Jo and her team were trying to fit Morse Code into a carrier wave, and trying to make it look like a random electromagnetic discharge.

  She turned and gave Don a decidedly unfriendly look.

  He sighed. "It looked alien, all right? What did you expect it to look like."

  Her expression didn't change.

  "It's hard to say exactly," he said at last, digging deep to work out what his impressions had actually been. "But they're so different to us, Jo, you wouldn't believe it. It's not how they build, it's what they are."

  He went on to tell her what Izem thought about the creatures' brains. By the time he finished, everyone in the room was listening.

  "This is Sufian, by the way," said Jo, indicating the young man beside her. "Masters degree in Electronics Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology – one of the best US colleges – and he's been trying to understand the ship for three years now.