The Time of the Attack

by Greg Ellis

  Chapter 2 The Snoopy

  One year later

  It was a cold clear day. Well it was almost always cold in Antarctica but clearness was at times a rare gift. Snowstorms could ravage an area for days. Today however felt like nothing could go wrong. Joel hoped this would be the case. Today was the first human test of the faster than light capable ship, the Snoopy, with Ashley Shepard at the helm.

  Where was Ashley? She should be prepping for the flight but was nowhere near the preparation area or the shuttle. Joel looked around. She was absolutely nowhere in sight! Where was she? It wasn't like her to be late, especially for something this important. Out of the corner of his eye Joel noticed some movements behind some crates. He headed towards them. On the other side of the crates was Ashley sitting on a small crate. She was shaking but it wasn't because of the cold. "What's up?" Ashley turned her head slowly towards Joel. The shaking had abated.

  "Oh I'm just about to get blasted at speeds that one of the greatest minds in history thought impossible," was Ashley's response. Her voice was very hollow. "Well Simon could explain it better but best as I understand it subspace does not obey the laws of nature especially gravity. It's been tested safe." Now Ashley pivoted on the crate so that her whole body faced Joel. "You forgot the ish. Lucy, the beagle, came out of an FTL test splatted against the windshield and then someone has the brilliant idea to name my test craft after some long forgotten beagle? I don't think it's as safe as you think! That’s not even considering Beagle 2. It seems cursed to have anything related to that breed in the name of a ship or probe."

  Joel took a moment to collect his thoughts. "Snoopy is the symbol of safety. Following a fire on Apollo 1 the space program was redesigned completely and Snoopy deemed the image to represent aerospace safety. The Silver Snoopy Award is one of the greatest awards in the space program given, 'For professionalism, dedication and outstanding support that greatly enhanced space flight safety and mission success.' They wouldn't dare invoke the name of Snoopy in the naming of a craft without being one hundred percent sure it was safe for human flight. As for Lucy the shuttle type, Beagle Class, is named in remembrance of her. We shall never forget the Alamo or Lucy."

  Ashley looked calmer but still very nervous. With a soft sigh she said, "Lofty speech doesn't always inspire confidence." "Well than what about experience then? You've tested riskier craft and you survived the border wars dodging missiles left and right..."

  Ashley's mind went to a different place. The border war seemed like yesterday but also years ago. When the majority of the world finally saw that it was doomed everyone went crazy. They had no reason to be shocked. Scientists, Economists, and all manner of professionals had been saying it was going to happen for years, and even decades beforehand. The scientific community was the first to see the inevitable. They saw we were using up more and more resources to serve the huge populations growth. People tried to make that seem like the population increase was the problem, but all it did was to accelerate the problem. The Earth would be eventually tapped of resources whether the population was seven billion or twenty billion. Even the using up of resources was just the start of the Earth's woes.

  The Earth gradually became infertile. Crops that were once alive withered and seeds refused to sprout. The world previously had always been able to produce enough food for everyone and yet the poor starved. This was not the case now. Everyone starved no matter the race, religion or creed. The rich bought up all the food they could but their reserves would soon be expunged.

  This is where the economists come in. They saw another problem that was about to happen. Every economy is based on the buying, selling, trading and bartering of goods. If there are no goods to trade every economy collapses. The economists saw it coming but it was too late to do anything but make charts of how it would happen. When the economy did crash people gave in to madness. A human being can only take no much grief without going mad or coming up with extreme coping mechanisms. Money hadn't meant anything for a long while; there was nothing to buy or it was insanely expensive. When everyone was told that all the money they worked their whole life to acquire was worthless it was the last straw. Chaos ensued. If money couldn't inquire things other methods had to be taken into account. On the small scale riots broke out everywhere fighting over the last of Earth's resources. On the global scale nation after nation looked to their neighbor to see if they could be invaded.

  One of the most notable of these was a planned joint attack on the United States of America by Mexico and Canada. They planned a ground invasion. It made no tactical sense Ashley thought momentarily coming out of her retrospect state. Joel was still blathering on about things Ashley didn't want to listen to.

  That was a horrible day. American intelligence had found where the forces were amassing. The attack made no sense. It was like shooting fish in a barrel for the USA. Some autonomous drones were given orders to bomb some of the assembling sites. The others had to be bombed by pilots in fighter jets. The attack made no sense. Her mission was to fly into enemy territory and bomb one of these sites. It almost went according to plan.

  Ashley had made it halfway to the target. The enemy’s attempt at an attack made no sense. Suddenly Ashley heard a beeping noise. "You've got a bogie on your six," a beautiful calm female voice said. "Thanks computer, I really hadn't noticed! Heat seeking missile?" "Yes there is a high probability that assumption is correct. You haven't been able to shake it and the radar image looks in many regards to be similar to a missile." "Believe it or not that’s unhelpful. You got any idea how to shake it?" "No," the computer said emotionlessly. "Great! Thanks! Until you come up with an idea would you please be quit?" Suddenly Ashley had an idea. It was crazy but it might just work.

  She took the plane into a nosedive. "Please pull up! This flight path is not recommended." "Quiet! Let me concentrate or we're both going to be toast!" The plane was coming closer and closer to the ground."Yeehaw," she yelled. This was quite a rush. At the last possible second Ashley pulled up and put the plane horizontal. The missile chasing her was not so fortunate. It crashed behind her. The plane barely made it past the blast radius of the missile but survive it did. "What do you think now computer?" Ashley asked triumphantly. "Reckless. ETA to target two minutes at maximum mach." "Confirmed. Patch my radio into headquarters." "Done," the computer said quickly. "Command ETA is two minutes to target for mama bear." "Mama bear original target coordinates have been confirmed. You have a go." The voice she heard was one she would eventually come to know quite well. It was Joel Jordal's. We did meet under bad circumstances Ashley thought to herself. That was a horrible day.

  Ashley was at the target coordinates. "Bringing up satellite telemetry and video feed," the computer said. The video and telemetry appeared right in front of her and looked to be embedded into the window of the cockpit. There was a massive group of people with various machine guns amassed next to a small looking shed. Must be some sort of weapons locker or the entrance to an underground base of operations Ashley thought.

  A strange feeling enveloped Ashley. Why was no one shooting at her? She was flying at relatively low altitude and the plane wasn't exactly noiseless. They should at least be trying to take pot shots or something. "Command please confirm target." "Target has already been confirmed mama bear. Fire at will." "They aren’t even shooting at me. This doesn't feel right." "Maybe not but those people could kill a lot of Americans when they precede with their invasion plan. We can save many lives but we have to nip this in the bud now. Your orders are to fire, now do it!" Ashley let a huge sigh. I'm going to hate myself for this! "Mama bear fox one," she said as coldly as she could muster. She then quickly flipped a switch. The missile seemed to descend very slowly. Every moment felt like an eternity. It was almost beautiful to watch. The missile seemed like a swan in flight gliding with its feathers glimmering in the sunlight. It looked determined to complete its goal.

  Ashley stopped herself. This was no swan; it was a missile, a weapon of destruc
tion. There was nothing glorious about it. Slowly, it seemed, the missile propelled itself downward. Finally the missile exploded with a spectacular orange burst of flame and heat. The orange was there for a second then it dissipated leaving in its wake decimation. "Targets have been neutralized." "Satellites confirm. Good job. Return to base mama bear."

  She had to do the test flight. This may not be what she completely wants and her life may be in mortal danger but it would save many lives. Many people were hoping on the space program for their very lives. She then focused her mind on to what Joel was saying. "I mean can you believe the nerve of that guy Labonte? First he creates the LAMMA array that he names after himself and then accidentally discovers subspace while trying to get to an alternate universe. What's the first thing he does after he discovers the potential for space travel? He insists that measures of faster than light speed be named Labontes. The nerve!"

  Joel noticed that Ashley just now seemed to be paying attention and that in turn she previously hadn't been. I must have bored her to death with my rambling. "Anyways you'll be fine. You have to survive! You have to explain to me how you think there can be a god with all the evil there is." Joel hoped his joke was taken well. He wanted to raise her spirits and it wasn't completely in jest. Religious people always fascinated him with how they could believe there was a loving god in the midst of all the decay ruin and hate that defined humanity.

  All right we really need to get her to the shuttle Joel thought. We are already a half an hour behind schedule and clear days like these don't happen every day. "Are you ready to boldly go where no one has gone before?" He reached out his hand towards Ashley. "And boldly splitting infinitives as we go? Why not?" She grabbed his hand and lifted herself. "Buy me a drink after all this is over and I'll tell you all about it!" "I look forward to it!" Joel was broadly smiling. Man could he hold a smile Ashley thought.

  With that she headed to the prep area and the locker room. She quickly donned her flight gear and then headed to the shuttle.

  Unlike the shuttles of the Apollo and other earlier space programs the beagle class shuttle was designed to take off like an airplane and land like one too. The Snoopy was beautiful sleek ship. Ashley climbed a ladder into the cockpit. "Welcome Captain Shepard," the ships computer said. "Oh I forgot about that! I'm never going to get use to these ships computers," Ashley complained loudly though there was none to hear her but the computer. "Run preflight checks." "All systems operating at maximum efficiency," the computer replied quickly. Well maybe there were a few advantages Ashley thought.

  "T-minus?" "5 minutes," was the computers response. Ashley pushed a few buttons. "Ashley to home base is everything ready for the launch?" "Yep. Everything checks out. T-minus 4 minutes." The voice was the lead scientist of the project Simon Walsh. "All this is quite fascinating. You will be the first human to travel faster than the speed of light. This is really historic. If Labonte were still alive he'd be amazed to see how far we've come." "Or how far we haven't. The only reason we are testing FTL technology is because Earth that was is dead. We killed her. I don't call that progress when everything we are doing is to save ourselves."

  "T-minus 2 minutes," the computer said loudly. Two minutes to fame or a footnote in a history book. Two minutes to being the most famous person in the galaxy or dead. She said a quick prayer like she did before every risky flight. It ended in a "God please help me!" "T-minus 1." "Beginning initial burn," Ashley said as she operated the controls to do just that. "T-minus 59, 58, 57..." Down and down went the countdown: slowly but surely. "10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1." The ship shot off the runway gaining altitude quickly. Once it reached a certain altitude the ship went from horizontal to vertical very quickly, almost instantaneous to any observer. The ship quickly gained speed.

  The ship continued it's upward climb until it left the Earth's atmosphere. "Engaging Subspace shunt," Ashley said as she manipulated the controls. "Inertia negators at maximum capacity," the computer said. The ship sped up quickly. ".5 Labontes. Now it’s at .8, 1, 1.2, 1.3," the computer counted off. Ashley started to feel like a heavy weight on her chest. "1.4 Labonte." The weight started to feel like an elephant. Grayness started creeping up on Ashley's vision. "Breathing," she thought. She started to do a series of breathing exercises. Hyac, hyac, hyac was the sound these exercises produced. The grayness started to go away. "1.5 Labonte." "Mission accomplished. Heading towards Moon Base." The ship slowed gradually. When it reached .3 Labonte Ashley used the subspace shunt to reenter normal space. Eventually the ship slowed to a stop and the inertia negators were automatically turned off to conserve energy. Ashley quickly unstrapped herself from the chair she had been sitting in. As she got up she stumbled but caught herself from hitting the chairs on the left side of the one she was initially in.

  Ashley stood upright. She had a pounding headache. She then had an uncontrollable urge to throw up, which she did. The vomit just hung in space. It looked like it would just in that spot hung forever. Inertia however was slowly propelling the vomit towards the wall of the shuttle and Ashley knew this would make a mess. She rushed to grab a wastebasket that was strapped to a wall. She used the wastebasket to force the vomit into the bottom of the basket. She rotated the wastebasket with her forefingers to negate any inertia.

  She then set down the basket on the "floor" of the ship. The vomit remained where the basket had been previously. "Computer enable artificial gravity 1G." The vomit went into the bucket with a thump and a splat. Mission accomplished Ashley thought. She quickly tied of the bag in the basket. She then strapped the basket back against the wall.

  "Snoopy are you there? Ashley are you alright?" came Simon’s voice over the radio. "Yeah, sorry! Snoopy to Earth base: I am alive but it felt like I was pulling way more g’s then I was told it would be. I almost blacked out. I also have a bit of a headache but other than that I'm good. Tell Joel he owes me that drink immediately when I get beck to Earth." "Copy that Snoopy. The moment you get back to Earth," was the response on the radio. This time it was Joel's voice.

  ...

  In the Earth control room joyous shouts could be heard. Joel let them have their fun for a few minutes. After that time was up he started yelling. "What do you have to celebrate? You could have very nearly killed her! Ashley was supposed to pull at most 2 g’s but instead she peaked at 15 g’s. Any other pilot and it wouldn't have gone so well! What went wrong?" Everyone in the room looked worried. No one would dare speak and a chilling silence filled the room.

  Finally after what seemed an eternity Simon spoke up. "The inertia negators didn't compensate as well as we thought they would. The design should have negated all the forces and left it at 1g but for some reason the device only operated at fifty percent of its capacity. All lab tests showed that it worked perfectly. Once we find and isolate the variable that caused the failure we should be able to continue on with the Mars project. Even a failure can yield a lot of good scientific data."

  "There should have been no failures! We're talking about a human life here!" "As far as we could tell it was a hundred percent safe. It was an accident Joel. They happen. Yes they are tragic but it is no reason to halt the Mars project, especially with what is at stake." Simon looked apprehensive.

  "Fine but you better find out what the problem was or there will be no Mars. The project relies on quick transport of goods back and forth. Without the FTL drive that is not possible." "It's more of a subspace shunt that allows for," Simon's voice trailed off. This wasn't the time. "We will get right on that," Simon said quickly.

  ...

  Ashley still wasn't feeling her best. "Computer can you fly us back to moon base without killing us?" "Survivability estimate 90 percent." "Great please do it." "Please sit down and strap yourself in." She did that.

  When Ashley arrived at the base she was greeted by a large group of people. "Hello Miss Shepard and welcome to Moon Base." The person who spoke to her was the commander of Moon Base Paul Lighter. "Permission to come aboard," Ashley
asked half heartily. Paul laughed a little. "No need to be so formal. We have a reception waiting for you and a guaranteed good time. If you'll follow me."

  "Honestly I'd prefer a good nights rest. Is there any chance you can show me to my quarters and we reschedule the good time?" "Of course. The flight did go a lot differently then expected. Should we say later today?" Ashley winced a little. "Tomorrow," Ashley asked with a pleading look in her eye. "Of course tomorrow will be fine too. Follow me and I will show you to your quarters. The medical staff will want to do a full examination after your rest." "Great," Ashley replied sardonically.

  ...

  "Power distribution problems," Simon said. "When we were running tests we didn't have all the systems running. For animal test flights we hade life support, inertia negators, and other systems running but there were some systems that were running during Ashley's test that weren't during our other test flights. The power distribution network gave priority to these systems instead of the inertia negators. With a fourth of the power the negators could only do a fourth of the job." "What were the systems running during Ashley's flight that weren't present during other tests," Joel asked.

  "To name a few radio communications was one. Hearing a dog's howls and barks really isn't that helpful. Also the ships computer was never fully on. It ran some minor systems during the animal flights but for a human flight it has to plot courses, interact with the pilot, and worse case scenario completely take over the flight should the human be incapable. During the test flights we just remote controlled the ship from Earth making the systems unnecessary to have on and a lot of the missing energy went to the computer systems." "Ok so is it fixable?"

  "Yes. All it should take is a software patch on the current system. Once the Snoopy is Earth side we should check the electrical conduits and pathways to make sure that isn't attributing to the problem. If it isn't then problem solved. If it is then some rewiring should fix the problem. Until then I would recommend that the Snoopy only travel at sub-light speeds."

  ...

  Ashley hit the bed and fell asleep almost immediately. It seemed like she had slept for a few seconds. She looked at a clock. Hours had passed. To test or not to test that is the question. Better get it over with she thought. She went to the medical lab. She was given a large battery of tests. She didn't know which was more stressful: the flight or the tests.

  Straight afterwards she headed back to her quarters. She was physically tired but her mind was racing thinking about her future. A door chime rang and then there came a knock. "Misses Shepard, may I come in?" It was a voice she had heard before but couldn't quit place. "Open," Ashley said and the door slid open. It was Paul the Moon Base Commander. "I just heard from Earth and the Mars project has been given the full go ahead. You have been reassigned to that as per your requests." "That's great!" Nothing could have made Ashley's day any better to hear those words. "Is there anyone from the Beagle Project who is getting transferred to the Mars Project?" Paul's face looked deep in concentration. "The only ones I can think of off the top of my head are Joel as the commander and Simon as the lead scientist. Other than that all I have no idea.” "Well thanks for the info. The news certainly made my day. “What more than a FTL flight," he asked. "Yep. Hey is there any chance I can use the array to place a call back to Earth?" "Well ordinarily I would say no and you have to get in the long line of people waiting to call home but after all you've been through today I say yes. Computer authorize Miss Shepard for that call home." Paul then started to move towards the door. "I leave you to that call." "Thank you," Ashley said as he left.

  Ashley debated about whom to call. All her relatives had passed away long ago and most of her friends would be more accurately described as acquaintances. Stupid military she thought. Ashley joined at a young age and ever since then she felt like she was just hopping around from one assignment to another. She was always transient and never able to set down roots. Sometime during Mars my contract will be up and I'll be free of the military. Then a strange thought occurred to her: could she make roots on Mars? She now knew whom she would call.

  ...

  They were pushing the project too fast. They were getting clumsy. Mistakes were happening. The president’s holographic image was starring at him, waiting for an answer. "Madame president my recommendation is that we postpone the project. The Beagles are not ready. Ashley almost blacked out on her flight. A seasoned pilot, one of our best, almost blacked out."

  "It was a simple accident. Has the problem not been rectified?" "That's exactly my point. We are making mistakes! We need to take this slow! We need to delay! Yes the problem has been rectified but what is the next problem? What if there is another problem we haven't found?"

  "What's up, Joel? You’re usually never this cautious, especially when dealing with issues concerning UARS. Yes mistakes happened but that never stopped any from continuing on with the space program. The Apollo fire, the Challenger disaster; through it all we carried on."

  "Yes but both shouldn't have happened. The Apollo was due to faulty wiring and a completely faulty design. Challenger was due to an O-ring with a known defect. Each time they took a step back to make sure the design was safe. Here we are just trying to patch and fix a design not for one moment examining the full breadth of the situation. Sure we'll examine to see if the wrong electrical pathways were part of the problem but we will never step back and see if the shuttle design as a whole is fundamentally flawed. Why are you not concerned about this? In the beginning you were the cautious one."

  "Joel when is the last time you got any sleep? Your eyes look really bloodshot. We chose the shuttle design because of how many successful missions it worked on. No one died and the flight is survivable. The whole world rests on the fact that this mission work."

  "It's been a few days but it is not compromising my judgment! We are making huge mistakes here!"

  "How could it not affect your judgment? Sleep deprivation has been known to cause mental fatigue and the inability to put an emotional event into context and making a decision based on that clear context. Please Joel get some rest and give me your report in the morning." The president's image faded out. She was crazy. Why would it be an emotional event for him? He had sent many soldiers to their death and saw them die. Ashley was no different. He was just mad that they were trying to push to continue the project with a possibly faulty design. Ashley meant nothing to him. "Call coming in from moon base from an Ashley Sheppard. Would you like to answer?" Came the voice of the computer. Why was she calling Joel wondered?

  "Bring it up," Joel said. A holographic image of Ashley came up in the room. "Hey did you hear the good news? We've been reassigned to the Mars Project. Rumor has it your up for the commander position." Joel tried to forge a smile hoping it would convince. "Yeah that's great!" "You owe me a drink mister! When are you going to pay up? There is a celebration up here for me tomorrow and the day after I should be heading back to Earth."

  "Well the president wants to have a parade midday when you get back so maybe after that? Washington does have a few good bars." "Great nothing seedy please. Can't wait!" She was smiling brightly then started to have a look of concern. "Sorry I haven't had much sleep in the past couple of days, well none at all more likely. It defiantly is going to be interesting and goodnight or good day or whatever it is up there." "Alright goodbye." Her image quickly vanished. Could the president be right?