They left Tom's suite and walked to 'G' wing where McPherson said the laboratories were located. Tom at first tried to memorize all the twists and turns in the myriad of hallways they traversed but finally gave up after about five minutes and two more fingerprint readers.
Stopping before a door labeled 'K', McPherson looked at Tom with a grin and said, "You are about to meet the most supercilious, pompous weasel who ever shook a test tube. The man has a foul temper and absolutely no qualms about belittling anyone he comes in contact with who questions or interferes in his work."
He then placed his big hand on Tom's shoulder and said very seriously, "Even so, keep in mind the guy is brilliant, the inventor of the kinetic generator, and I consider him my friend."
"The kinetic what?" asked Tom as McPherson opened the door with a flourish and stepped back to let Blunt precede him into the room beyond.
A loud conversation was taking place as they entered the lab and Tom clearly heard someone say in an imperious tone, "If I wanted your opinion, I'd tell you what to say!"
McPherson purposefully slammed the lab door with a loud bang and sauntered over to where two men were standing looking at one another.
"Doc, how's my old buddy?" McPherson said in a loud cheerful tone.
The older man wearing a pristine white lab coat turned to look at who had so rudely interrupted him. The shape of his face unfortunately made the man look like a rodent. His eyes seemed just a bit too close together, and his nose was long and slender. His hair might have been black when he was younger, but now it was a thin and scraggly grayish-white, slicked backwards over his skull as if he had soaked each strand with motor oil when he combed it. He wore round, gold colored metal framed glasses.
Glaring at McPherson with a scowl, Dr. John Heinbaum said resignedly, "My tormenter returns! What brings you back to soil my spotless lab?"
He then spotted Tom walking up to stand beside McPherson and added, "And who is this military goose-stepper you brought with you? Someone else wanting to usurp my research for black ops projects?"
Tom Blunt was stunned and rendered speechless by the audacity of the old geezer. He was about to reply pointedly about where the lab rat could shove his opinions when McPherson broke his musings and said with a gesture toward Tom, "Doc, this man is Tom Blunt. He's the son of Jim Blunt and Diane Hoffman."
The attitude change in the old man was instant. His first reaction was wide-eyed amazement. His second reaction was to walk over, put his hands on Tom's shoulders and in a welcoming tone and a big smile, proclaim, "Oh my God, I see it now! Good thing you take after your mother." Then with a sly smile on his face Tom found very obnoxious, Heinbaum said in a low, conspiratorial tone, "I always thought your mother was a real looker."
Standing back from Tom, Heinbaum waved a hand at the man he had been berating and said, "Ernest, come here, I want to introduce you to this young man."
"Tom Blunt, this is my lab assistant, Ernest Longarrow. Ernest has been with me for about 10 years."
Ernest nodded politely and shook Tom's hand. He was about 5 feet, 8 inches tall with black hair tied in a long ponytail by a leather strap. Longarrow was a Native American Navajo Indian with a Master's degree in Microelectronics from UCLA.
Peering quizzically at Tom, Ernest asked, "There was an article published in the Journal of Microelectronics by a Lt. Thomas James Blunt about microelectronic digital communications systems. You that guy?"
When Tom nodded in the affirmative, Ernest said with a smile, "Brilliant. Loved your theory of parallel cross-linked processors. I think you're onto something there."
At that moment, Captain McPherson cleared his throat rather loudly and announced, "Heiny, Tom has been assigned to work with us in the development of computer controlled armament using your kinetic generators."
With a clearly puzzled look on his face, Tom inquired, "What is a kinetic generator? I've never heard of that before."
The grins on the faces of McPherson, Heinbaum, and Longarrow threatened to crack their faces wide open.
Wrapping a big arm around Tom's shoulders and gripping him tightly, McPherson looked at him directly and said lightly, "Tom, you are about to be introduced to the greatest discovery in the history of mankind! A virtually limitless power source that makes nuclear power look like a campfire trying to burn wet wood."
1984
General Hisspat Zeck stood on the command deck of his mother ship, VrrSilliac Xur, looking out the large view screen at the vast array of warships and mega-liners aligned in high orbit above the planet, Chrysalis. Forty-nine mother ships were assembled in three overlapping layers formed into the shape of a pointed cone aimed in the general direction of planet HG-281. In the center of the cone, protected by the multiple layers of mother ships floated the command ship, VrrSilliac Xur. Trailing the VrrSilliac Xur, like the shaft of an arrow, were 200 mega-liners lined up two abreast. Each huge ship held 100,000 Chrysallamans ready for recolonization on HG-281.
Never in the history of the Chrysallaman Empire had such a mass migration been attempted. Each mega-liner was a cylinder of dark gray metal, 3,000 feet long and 1,000 feet in diameter, filled with 100,000 stasis pods and enough propulsive power to deliver the ship to HG-281 and land it on the planet's surface. Other than the pilot and two maintenance technicians on each mega-liner who would awaken from stasis to land the ship on the new world, all other occupants would remain in stasis until after landing. The benefit of stasis was that no food, water or air purification systems had to be built into the ships to keep their occupants alive during the 30-year voyage. Each mega-liner was also equipped with a cargo storage warehouse holding fertilized embryos of food stock animals and various native Chrysallaman plant-life, all put into stasis chambers for the long journey to the faraway world.
Every mother ship was a floating arsenal containing 5 heavily armored scout saucers. Each scout was powered by a fusion reactor which could run virtually unattended for 100 years before requiring re-fueling. The scouts were each crewed by four highly trained and disciplined Chrysallaman soldiers and armed with offensive weapons featuring 360-degree cutter and heat rays. Once the gravity drive on any saucer or mother ship was fully activated, no projectile weapon could penetrate the glowing, blurry drive field and cause damage.
From personal experience exploring planet HG-281 and testing specimens of the human race, Zeck was confident no human or human technology could withstand the onslaught of the mighty Chrysallaman fleet. It had been 6 years since Hisspat Zeck had returned to his home planet from HG-281. A malevolent smile curled his lips as he thought about the sweet revenge he would enjoy upon return to the planet. Humans would feel the wrath of Hisspat Zeck for the loss of his scout ship and the tarnish to his service record. No doubt about it!
Glancing at his data screen, General Zeck saw all ships reported ready to leave orbit. Confident he would go down in the history books as the Chrysallaman who saved his race from extinction, he stabbed the button authorizing his fleet to activate their gravity drives. Warning lights began blinking and 10 seconds later a blurry, glowing fog enveloped each Chrysallaman ship, and they flashed away from Chrysalis toward HG-281. All the plans and preparations for the invasion of Earth had come to fruition.
Chapter 16 - Pioneer 10
Lieutenant General Thomas James Blunt slid onto the stainless steel bench of the picnic table to enjoy his lunch in the spacious cafeteria serving the Nevada Command Center of FORCE. It was 1215 hours on Thursday, April 10, 2014. The week had been a fairly routine mix of month end reviews from March and some editing to the presentation he was to give to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington on April 15. The level of tension in the Joint Chiefs and the National Security Council seemed to grow every day now that 67 years had passed since the shoot down of the Chrysallaman saucer. Their increasing apprehension was well-founded.
Thinking about the probable time frame for the Chrysallaman invasion, Tom munched on his sandwich and mentally reviewed what he knew. The or
iginal best guess on the probable return of the Chrysallamans had been 65 to 70 years. Whatsit had been definite about his home planet being 30 light years away from Earth. As a result, the round trip time was simple to calculate. 60 years. The unknown element in the calculation was the time span needed by the race of sentient lizards to prepare an invasion force. The considered opinion of the best military strategists and civilian scientists back in 1948, specially hand-picked by General Matt Collier, then head of the Strategic Invasion Planning Department or SIP, had boiled down to a period of 5 to 10 years before the Chrysallamans would be prepared to embark on the return journey to Earth with their invasion fleet. Tom Blunt’s father and mother, Jim Blunt and Diane Hoffman, had been trusted members of the SIP task force, so Tom’s information about the projected time frame had come from a reliable source.
SIP's elite task force had realized an early warning system was crucial to the defense of Earth, and as a result General Matt Collier had persuaded President Richard Nixon to fund the development of a long range communications module. The space probe Pioneer 10 had been launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida on March 2, 1972. Anyone reading its mission statement understood it was supposed to fly toward the planet Jupiter, taking photos along the way of Mars and the asteroid belt. After eventually orbiting close enough to study the environment around Jupiter, the probe was designed to attain enough velocity to escape our Solar System and fly off into uncharted space. Contrary to popular belief, Pioneer 10's real purpose was to act as the early warning system for the alien invasion. Its trajectory, as it flew past Jupiter, aimed it squarely at the home star system of the Chrysallamans. The theory was if the probe detected any large objects in deep space coming toward our Solar System at or near the speed of light, it would instantly transmit a warning back to Earth about the in-coming threat. The SIP task force believed any transmitted warning from the probe would reach the Earth well before the Chrysallaman threat, providing some modicum of time to prepare defenses.
Continued worry about the Chrysallamans doing something sneaky like approaching our Solar System from trajectories not aligned in a direct route from their planet, Chrysalis, towards Earth influenced SIP to arrange for the Voyager 1 and 2 probes which launched from Cape Canaveral on August 20 and September 5, 1977. The general public was told the new probes would each explore the outlying planets Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The true Voyager trajectories were programmed to make them link up and interlock with Pioneer 10, creating a cone of sensors guarding a wide volume of space encompassing the most probable lines of invasion by the Chrysallamans. The wide mouth of the cone funneled any significant sensor readings back toward Earth in powerful bursts of digital information that were analyzed and catalogued by computers at the Nevada facility.
"Yes," Tom thought silently to himself. "It's been 67 long years since the Chrysallaman saucer was shot from the sky. Unless the lizards are particularly timid or incompetent, the probability of their return is growing daily."
The Federal Organization for Response to Celestial Enemies or F.O.R.C.E. had been created by Congress in 1981 as the official agency charged with defending the United States against dangerous alien races. Many Congressmen at the time considered the new agency a flamboyant effort by newly elected President Ronald Reagan to pander to his fringe base in his home state of California. In reality, Reagan had been convinced after his meeting with General Jim Blunt, Whatsit, Dr. Diane Hoffman, Dr. John Heinbaum and Captain Jerome McPherson that if he didn't get the agency created and funded, the United States could be at the mercy of bloodthirsty alien lizards. On December 1, 1981 General Matt Collier had been appointed by President Reagan to be the first commander of FORCE. Reagan wanted continuity between the old SIP and the new agency. Collier had quickly appointed Captain Thomas James Blunt as his Aide-de-Camp. Young Blunt had been working tirelessly with Dr. John Heinbaum and Captain Jerome McPherson in the development and testing of new applications for the Heinbaum Kinetic Generators and had proven to be quick witted and calm under stress.
One of Tom Blunt's earliest recommendations had been to create an eye in the sky above the Earth. Conceiving a high orbit satellite capable of monitoring a wide swath of space surrounding the Earth, plans were set in motion and on April 24, 1990 NASA orbited what was known to the public as the Hubble Telescope. Ostensibly designed as a space based telescope for discovery of neighboring stars and galaxies, the real purpose of the Hubble was to be an ultra-sensitive radio receiver for transmissions from the early warning probes, Pioneer 10 and Voyagers 1 and 2. In addition to radio transmissions, specialized equipment on the Hubble constantly observed the heavens, monitoring light waves in the ultraviolet, visible and infrared light spectra searching for any evidence of intelligent life. Continuing advancements in computer control and encrypted digital communications enabled FORCE to weaponize the Hubble. During a maintenance flight to the satellite by NASA Astronauts in December, 1993 officially described as a necessary repair to a faulty lens in one of its telescopes, a powerful set of offensive weapons including cutter rays and heat beams were installed on the platform, all powered by a Heinbaum Kinetic Generator.
General Collier retired in 1995 and Colonel Tom Blunt was the obvious choice to take over command of FORCE. Tom chuckled as he recalled the private ceremony when President Bill Clinton had confirmed him as the new commander of FORCE and elevated him to the rank of Brigadier General. Clinton had never met Whatsit and was fascinated by the black and white sombrero with intricately beaded decorations Whatsit had chosen to wear for the occasion. The President had instructed his aides to find him a similarly audacious sombrero, and he had several photos taken with Whatsit and him, arm in arm, sipping mai-tais.
Tom had eaten half his sandwich when a young corporal hurriedly walked up to him and saluted.
Peering up at the man and seeing the excited look on his face, Tom knew something important had happened, "Yes, Corporal?"
"Sir, we have uninvited guests!"
Throwing down his napkin and rising from his seat, Tom asked quickly, "Location and trajectory?"
"One-half light year distant from Pioneer 10 on a direct course for our Solar System."
Trotting out of the cafeteria and down the wide hallway leading to his office, General Blunt ordered, "Transfer the latest reports from Pioneer 10 to my server. Arrange a staff meeting for one hour from now."
Bursting into the reception area of his office, Tom looked at the startled face of his secretary, Madelyn Amsley, and said, "Call the President. Get him off the golf course if necessary. Tell him this is a Code Red Celestial alert!"
“Yes, Sir!”
Madelyn Amsley looked like a very efficient, no nonsense school teacher. She was a 35 year old African-American around 5 feet, 4 inches tall. She wore oval shaped, steel rimmed reading glasses. Whenever she took off her glasses, they hung around her neck by a black, jeweled cord attached to the temple covers. Her hair was always gathered in a bun pinned tightly at the back of her head.
Blunt opened his inner office door, walked quickly around his desk and plopped into his high-backed leather chair. Activating his computer screen, he opened the information logs received from Pioneer 10 and began reading.
The logs showed a large object approaching Earth's Solar System at 99% of light speed. The moment the computers at Nevada received the alert signal from the Pioneer probe, instructions had been transmitted to Voyagers 1 and 2, ordering their computers to maneuver into a position where they could triangulate on the incoming light speed object. The triangulation would provide more accurate information on the location, actual trajectory and number of objects coming our way. Unfortunately due to the distance from Earth to the Voyagers, which were now well past the orbit of Pluto, the time for the roundtrip of a radio transmission sent to the Voyagers and returned from them with information from the triangulation was 12 hours.
Tom's musings were interrupted by Amsley, who opened his door and said quietly, "Staff is here and ready."
"Thank you," Tom replied, and he rose from his chair and walked to the inner office door leading to his conference room.
The Staff Conference room was a rectangular space 20 feet wide and 30 feet long. Special LED lights recessed in the ceiling had been dimmed to illuminate the room just enough to permit comfortable viewing of the bank of computer monitors suspended above the conference table. The walls of the room were painted a neutral color and unadorned with anything that might distract its occupants from the business at hand. The conference table was round. Tom Blunt favored the concept of treating his team as knights of the round table in a nod to the tales of King Arthur. Even though Blunt always made the final decision, everyone seated at the table knew their opinions carried equal weight as he considered his options.
The general buzz of conversation silenced immediately when Tom stepped into the room. Taking his seat, Tom took a moment to look around the table and review why he had chosen each person to be a member of his General Staff.
Colonel Jason Stoneman was a Navy Seal Commander with special expertise in chemical and biological warfare. He had joined the Navy after earning a Bachelor's Degree in Chemistry from the University of Texas. His physical and mental test scores had placed him in an elite group of recruits coveted by the Navy Seals who quickly scooped him up and rigorously trained and molded the man into a dedicated and quite competent naval officer. Within seven years from his enlistment, Stoneman had risen to be a Task Unit Commander with tours of duty in Iran and Afghanistan. On one of his missions, Stoneman had dispatched six well-armed Taliban soldiers single-handedly, suffering only a deep knife cut in his left cheek. He always said the scar on his cheek was there to remind him to move quicker. Stoneman stood 6 feet, 2 inches tall and kept his head shaved completely bald. He had piercing brown eyes and a slightly upturned nose hinting of an Irish ancestry. Stoneman was in charge of all sea-based offensive and defensive facilities.
The Origin of F.O.R.C.E. Page 24
