Wherever Seeds May Fall (First Contact)

by Peter Cawdron

  Once he’s logged in, he sends an email asking for electronic copies of the social media posts and for all subsequent updates to be sent in a spreadsheet. Someone somewhere is smiling at his pain. They’ll laugh at what they thought of as an unreasonable request that ruined their otherwise quiet weekend on rotation.

  With a sip of coffee and a pen in hand, Nolan begins reading the posts and tweets and God knows what all the other variations are called. He’s methodical. Within a few minutes, he’s enjoying himself. He scans each page and makes a quick judgment, writing notes in the margin. He sorts the results into three piles—cold, lukewarm, and hot.

  Nolan finds his stride.

  One conversation, in particular, grabs his attention. At first, he’s not sure how it met the criteria for inclusion. The keywords he defined barely register. This exchange could have been easily overlooked. Whoever’s working on his project is on their game.

  Dr. Kathleen McKenzie, an astronomer at NASA’s Ames Astrophysics Laboratory, is discussing the comet in a public science forum. A quick check of her online biography tells him she has a dual Ph.D. in quantum physics and astrophysics. She’s had an engaging discussion with her peers on social media. Hers is one of the few posts from Sunday that extends over a page. Nolan finds the discussion intriguing. By Sunday, the astronomers and scientists had time to mull things over. Nolan’s aware he’s seeing reasoned consideration rather than comments made in the heat of the moment.

  Anyone still tracking this thing?

  Anyone else bothered by what they just saw?

  Kath McKenzie, NASA

  Given its inbound velocity, I’m not surprised there was a ricochet.

  An̆duru was moving so fast it was like a stone skipping on water.

  Sara Hendi, JPL

  I kinda expected it would graze Saturn from its angle of approach.

  But I thought it would be torn up in the process.

  Kath McKenzie, NASA

  How the hell did it stay intact?

  We should have ended up with a string of pearls.

  Prof Alvarez, ESA

  Still calculating the stress on A. when it passed the Roche Limit. It was well beyond the binding force of its own gravity or any Van der Waals attraction.

  Not like any comet or asteroid I’ve ever seen.

  An̆duru should have been torn apart.

  Spaghetti, anyone?

  Pete Conrad, ALMA

  An̆duru’s looking a lot like Óumuamua.

  Kath McKenzie, NASA

  I’m thinking the big A. is probably an iron core rather than an ice comet.

  An̆duru is hyperbolic and underwent heavy acceleration to get here.

  Probably broke up when ejected from its original star system.

  Picked up enough ice along the way for us to think it was a comet, but it’s not.

  Could be all that’s left of a disrupted moon thrown out of orbit.

  Sara Hendi, JPL

  So it’s a splinter?

  A big ball of iron?

  Was A. once a molten core?

  Pete Conrad, ALMA

  Maybe.

  Need better imaging.

  Could be analogous to one of our own asteroids—16 Psyche.

  Sara Hendi, JPL

  That would explain the bright radar signature.

  Prof Alvarez, ESA

  But why the ecliptic?

  A. is coming in on the same plane as the planets.

  Moving against their orbit.

  What are the odds?

  Anyone else think that’s more than a little crazy?

  Kath McKenzie, NASA

  What was the impact energy as it grazed Saturn?

  Sara Hendi, JPL

  From the cloud shapes and sizes, it was the equivalent of at least several hundred megatons of TNT.

  Might have even made it to a billion tons!

  Need to run a few more scenarios to be sure.

  Prof Alvarez, ESA

  Damn.

  How the hell is A. still in one piece?

  Sara Hendi, JPL

  Should have been ripped apart.

  Kath McKenzie, NASA

  Do you know what else I find strange?

  Pete Conrad, ALMA

  What?

  Kath McKenzie, NASA

  We’ve got US, European, Chinese and Australians looking at this thing. Everyone’s involved except the Russians.

  It’s like they don’t care.

  Pete Conrad, ALMA

  Unless they can get a few rubles out of it, they never care.

  Sara Hendi, JPL

  I’m working on the current trajectory.

  Can anyone check my numbers?

  I have A. inbound toward Jupiter.

  Will send model & orbital calculations.

  Kath McKenzie, NASA

  WHAT?

  ???How the f__k is that possible???

  Hohmann Transfer?

  Sara Hendi, JPL

  No.

  Still going way too fast.

  It’s pretty much a brachistochrone trajectory.

  Nearly a straight shot.

  A little like the fall of an arrow.

  Saturn bled off some of A’s speed.

  Roughly a third.

  Now ~330 km/s.

  Kath McKenzie, NASA

  Damn that’s fast!

  NASA’s Solar Parker Probe once pushed 200 km/s.

  But this thing is moving at over a million kilometers an hour!

  Still well and truly hyperbolic.

  Pete Conrad, ALMA

  And it’s going to hit J?

  Are you sure about that???

  Jupiter might be big, but it’s a damn small target at that distance.

  Sara Hendi, JPL

  We’ll find out in about a month.

  Kath McKenzie, NASA

  You’re thinking this is natural?

  Prof Alvarez, ESA

  Natural. lol.

  Kath McKenzie, NASA

  Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

  The approach was against Saturn’s orbit.

  Like Voyager, but in reverse.

  Is this gravity-assisted braking along with heavy aerobraking?

  Prof Alvarez, ESA

  Oh, no. It’s not…

  Kath McKenzie, NASA

  Yeah, let’s not encourage that line of reasoning.

  Sara Hendi, JPL

  Oh, boy. The tinfoil hat brigade is going to love this one!

  Pete Conrad, ALMA

  It’s not aliens.

  It’s never aliens.

  You know that.

  Kath McKenzie, NASA

  Yep. It’s never aliens.

  Sara Hendi, JPL

  Until it is.

  Pete Conrad, ALMA

  Nolan’s lost in the conversation. He’s trying to imagine the reasoning of the various scientists and astronomers discussing the path of Comet An̆duru. This is the closest he’ll get to reading their minds.

  “General Cooper is ready for the tabletop exercise.”

  Damn it! Nolan looks at the time. 9:55 am. The original pile of printouts is almost gone, sorted into piles on his right. He looks up at the staff sergeant rounding up the usual stragglers.

  “Oh, okay,” Nolan replies. “Just got to send a quick email.”

  Nolan’s mind is alive with ideas. If he were asked to express a single, coherent opinion about Comet An̆duru, he’d be in danger of waffling on for hours. His mind struggles to distill a succinct answer.

  Nolan’s an oddball. He’s more interested in the obscure than the obvious. The lack of Russian interest seems strange. Given they spent a generation locked in a space race with the US, he finds their absence curious. The Russians sunk hundreds of millions of rubles into the International Space Station. Why are they silent when it comes to An̆duru?

  He needs confirmation of his suspicions but thinks better of putting a request in an email. He swivels in his chair, facing his aging SECNET computer with its yellowing keyb
oard. The kind of information he’s after will only be in the hands of a few senior officers within the Atlantic and Pacific theater support staff. With a few keystrokes, he activates the messaging app.

  FROM: CINCNORAD

  TO: CINCPACFLT, CINCLANTFLT, CINCNELM, BALTOPS

  MESSAGE: CONFIRM RUSSIAN SUBMARINE MOTION TO HOME PORT

  MESSAGE ENDS:

  His finger hovers over the Enter key. The staff sergeant stands impatiently by the door, drumming his fingers against his trouser leg. Subtle. With a little more time, Nolan would direct his message to half a dozen key individuals, but his message should be routed by each office. It’s an inquiry, that’s all. Technically, General Cooper should sign off on flash traffic from NORAD, but it’s not unheard of to jump a few hurdles to get a quick answer.

  “Coming,” Nolan says, pressing Enter to send the request. As he rises from his seat, a sensor beneath the cushion is triggered, locking both computer screens. As annoying as it is when going to get coffee, it ensures no one walks away from their computer screens without locking them.

  “Hey,” Captain Donald Gardner says, greeting Nolan by the door. “Are you ready to go to war?”

  “Do we know the scenario?” Nolan asks as they hurry down the steps to the basement conference room.

  “No, but I hear you’re on the red team.”

  “Oh, fun,” Nolan replies as they walk down a windowless corridor.

  The basement is divided into three rooms used for secure meetings. Soundproof partitions hang from the ceiling, but they’ve been rolled away, extending the space available. There are no windows. The basement has been meticulously shielded, cutting cell phones off from Wi-Fi and mobile network access. Even so, the duty officer collects phones from each person as they enter the room. The officer labels them with a large white sticker and an obnoxious felt marker. He drops them unceremoniously into a plastic bin where they await retrieval. No audio. No video. No images allowed. At least, none beyond the cameras recording every comment made. Uncle Sam is never more effective than when he’s spying on himself.

  Everyone here has top-secret clearance. They could all get access to the supporting documentation if needed, but this is a thought experiment. It’s an opportunity to walk through strategies and discuss scenarios in a live, chaotic manner, which is the best way to mimic war.

  Each participant is checked off a list and given a designation—a label with a role and a colored sticker indicating their side in the conflict. Gardner gets blue with the description ‘Logistics.’ Nolan gets red. ‘Counterstrike.’

  “Told yah,” Gardner says, tapping him lightly on the shoulder. “Have fun, buddy.”

  Nolan smiles. “Oh, always.”

  Tables have been set up around the room with maps of the various theaters laid out on them. Although the maps are oversized, there’s plenty of room to walk around. Seeing familiar shapes from different angles helps spur the imagination.

  General Cooper takes to a low stage at the front of the room.

  “Normally, we’d give you an initial briefing, time to plan and prepare, and then set you to work, but today we’ve got something a little different. Given the global nature and sensitivity of the proposition, we’re keeping this one quiet.”

  Nolan’s intrigued. Ordinarily, tabletop exercises consider specific theaters of war. Scenarios like Malaysia seizes the southern Spratly Islands, triggering a land grab with the Philippines also claiming islands inside the archipelago. An enraged China reacts with gunship diplomacy. The US responds by dispatching a carrier battle group in support of the Philippines. What happens next? De-escalation? Local skirmishes? Regional war? Global? How should the US react to each possible outcome?

  General Cooper pauses, looking around the room before saying, “Can we defang Russia without triggering a nuclear escalation?”

  “Oh, fuck,” Gardner says under his breath.

  “Nope, nope, nope,” Nolan replies.

  The general continues. “I want to know if we can use our conventional global strike capability to disarm Russia without either side firing a nuke?”

  Nolan murmurs, “This isn’t going to end well.”

  The general presents a couple of slides outlining the parameters of the war game. He lists assumptions, resources, restrictions, and timeframes, setting the teams to work.

  Over the next four hours, heated discussions break out around the room. Some officers are designated as conflict arbitrators. They make the final call on the degree of success for each strategy, moving markers across the maps. They highlight theoretical outcomes with colored blocks. Most of the analysts focus on the European theater. They assess whether an overwhelming number of hypersonic glide missiles could be used to disable nuclear silos. Russian airfields are targeted with cruise missiles. Considerable time is spent discussing how to hunt down mobile launchers.

  Space Force talks about the need to disable Russian communication assets in the opening moments of the war. They target land-based and orbital platforms.

  Navy specialists account for Russian submarines and the ability to take them out of play with precise timing.

  Hubris is low. Serious consideration is given to practical difficulties and the uncertainty involved. For the most part, Nolan just observes the discussions, walking between tables. He listens, watching, waiting, thinking.

  “What’s bothering you?” General Cooper asks, walking up beside him.

  “They won’t see it as surgical,” Nolan replies. “To the Russians, this will be apocalyptic. And when there’s nothing left to lose…”

  He can’t bring himself to finish the sentence. Nolan points at the map, saying, “Germany will be the first to go, followed by France. Even without nukes, the Russians will exact revenge on the West, pouring across the border. My fear. My worry…”

  “Yes,” the general says.

  “…is that we’ll be forced to use nukes to contain them.”

  The general nods.

  “And you?” he asks. “You’re on Russian counterstrike. How do you combat this? What’s your response when your nuclear forces are decimated? Your command and control is crippled. What would you do?”

  “Me?” Nolan says. “I’d have an insurance policy.”

  He walks to the North American table and reaches into his pocket, pulling out a quarter. Nolan places it on the map a hundred miles from New York, in the middle of the Atlantic.

  “What’s this?” the arbitrator for North America asks as the general watches.

  “A two megaton nuclear explosion just off the continental shelf. You see, the Russians don’t need to hit America. They just need to get close and we’ll lose Newport, New York, Long Island, and Atlantic City to a tsunami.”

  “No, no, no,” a nearby naval analyst says. “We’ve already neutralized all the subs in the Atlantic.”

  “Not a sub,” Nolan replies, tapping the quarter. “Could be a drone. Could be a nuke already on the seafloor with a deadman’s trigger. Maybe it has a subsurface radio buoy on a tether. It could have been there for decades. Take out their satellites and you inadvertently take out the East Coast.”

  “No,” the analyst protests. “You saw the asset list for this run. You can’t just make stuff up. There was no mention of your mysterious, mythical, magic bomb.” The analyst protests to the general, saying, “He’s cheating.”

  “Is he?” the general asks.

  Nolan says, “If it’s not in the Atlantic, then they’ve rigged the Pacific. Although they’ve probably rigged both.” He points, adding, “Bye-bye LA.”

  “How is this fair?” the analyst asks.

  “Fair?” Nolan counters. “This is war! We have to recognize our weaknesses, not just our strengths. We have to consider unknown factors coming into play, not just the summary of intel reports.”

  The general crosses his arms over his chest. His head tilts. His eyes narrow. This is what he likes to see—his team reaching beyond assumptions and challenging each other.

&nbs
p; “You cannot go to war without unknowns,” Nolan says, picking up his quarter and turning it over in his hand. “Regardless of whether it’s Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan, our biggest mistake has always been underestimating our enemy.

  “We cannot ignore our geographical weakness. If I were the Russians, I’d have an insurance policy like this in place for just such a first strike event.”

  Nolan pockets the coin and looks to the arbitrator, who nods, placing a black block over New York City. Gone.

  “Damn it,” the naval analyst says.

  “Figure it out,” the general says. “I want solutions, not complaints.”

  Gardner walks up behind Nolan, brushing close enough to whisper, “You really are a bastard.”

  Nolan tries not to laugh, knowing it would be horribly misunderstood by everyone else.

  The general returns to the stage and calls the war game to an end. He thanks the participants, which is something Nolan finds strange. Their theoretical musings would have cost hundreds of millions of lives on both sides if played out in the real world. To Nolan, the value in these exercises is in talking themselves out of rather than into these crazy ideas.

  Russia

  It’s almost three in the afternoon by the time Nolan gets back to his office. There’s another large pile of paper stacked ready for inspection. Ah, the military. The ops team would have seen his email from this morning and ignored it—for now. Nolan will eventually get his electronic copies. They just want to let him know the bigwigs don’t always get their way. He eats a late lunch at his desk, trying not to get crumbs everywhere while he looks at the printouts.

  Work-to-rule has always been a passive-aggressive act of defiance in the military. Technically, no one’s done anything wrong. They’ve just been slow to react, that’s all. Nolan doesn’t care. He’s been there. He remembers his time at the bottom. To get angry and react would reward the E-5 staff sergeant tasked with this. Besides, whoever it is, they’re probably overworked and understaffed. Needling him is their way of pushing back. Everyone needs breathing space. After this morning, Nolan’s come to enjoy flicking through the pages. It gives him time to think. Too many people mistake speed for productivity. Sometimes, it’s more productive to slow things down. As tedious as this is, he’s less likely to miss something than when scrolling through comments.