by D F Capps
“I know it looks the same from the outside, but we’ve modified the mounting of the particle beam cannons on the fighter craft.”
She frowned as she examined the mounting. “So they move now? How do we aim them?”
Theo smiled. “The same way you did before, by pointing your craft at the target. Before now, when your craft made a jinking movement—jumped either up, down, or to the side—it changed where your cannon shot went, making it harder to hit your target. The difference now is that as soon as the computer randomly selects the jinking movement, it changes the aiming point of the cannon to compensate for the change in firing position.”
“Clever,” she said. “So it’s also tied in with the targeting radar?”
Theo nodded. “It is. I can have my crew upgrade your craft while you’re here. It’ll mean you have to spend the day.”
Diane smiled. “I’ll let Hollis know. Shouldn’t be a problem.”
Time and privacy with Theo, she thought. I could really use that right about now.
* * *
“When is the test of the improved interceptor missile?” Conrad Kaplan asked. He was vice president of the second largest defense contractor in the country and responsible for the development of an anti-ballistic missile interceptor that would give the United States the ability to use a preemptive nuclear strike against Russia without fear of total annihilation in return.
“One week,” Harlan Mohr, his chief scientist, answered over the satellite phone. “The Krestu Atol, three hundred miles north of the Marquesas Islands.”
Kaplan glanced at his chart of Micronesia. Five, maybe six days sailing to get there.
He disconnected.
Because of some unfortunate events that connected him to an attempted assassination of President Andrews, he had to stay out of the jurisdiction of the United States until the arrest warrant against him could be quashed.
He climbed up on the deck of his yacht, Dominator II and motioned the captain over. “Collect your crew, we sail on the high tide.”
The captain nodded. “The crew is going to miss their vacation in Port Vila.”
Kaplan scoffed, turned, and walked off without saying another word. I’m not paying them to vacation in Vanuatu, he thought.
Kaplan was secretly connected to an influential group of politicians, defense contractors, and international bankers that sought war with Russia as part of their path to world domination.
I’ve got to see the new interceptor missile in action. If it works as expected, the stalemate between America and Russia will be over. Every Russian ICBM will become obsolete overnight. I just wish I could see the expression on Pasternov’s face when he realizes none of his missiles are going to make it out of the atmosphere. He can’t strike back against us. He and his vile country are going to be DOA.
* * *
Theo led Diane through his office and into his private apartment. She looked around the modestly decorated space. “You’ve added some pictures and a new couch since I was here,” she said.
Theo blushed. “I thought it could use something . . .” He looked around the room.
“Yeah,” she said. “It was pretty Spartan.”
He nodded. “That wasn’t the term I was looking for.”
She giggled. “Now it looks like someone actually lives here.”
He smiled.
The small table where they had their candlelight dinner was still there, along with the half used candles. The two small vases, each with a single flower, were gone. She walked over and touched the tablecloth. “Dinner was so nice.”
He stepped closer to her. “I wish you could have stayed.”
She nodded. “The Zeta Greys . . .” she said wistfully.
“Things are quieter now.”
She looked up at him and smiled. “They are, aren’t they?”
He smiled back at her.
She stepped close to him, reached her arms around him, and settled in for a long embrace. The kiss sent shivers down her middle as old desires bloomed once again.
“I could order dinner, like before,” he whispered.
She shook her head slightly. “Maybe later,” she whispered back. “Food isn’t what I’m hungry for.”
Chapter 8
McHenry followed Hollis into the old silver mine entrance, through security, and then down a long smoothly-cut corridor. He stopped and put his hand on the side wall. It didn’t feel solid and cold as he had expected.
“This isn’t stone. What’s behind the wall?”
Hollis stopped and turned to face him. “Ventilation ducts, electrical lines. Water and sewer lines run under the floor.”
McHenry nodded and stared down the long hall. “How long did it take to dig all this out?”
Hollis tipped his head slightly. “About six weeks. Why?”
McHenry grinned. “I assume you used a tunnel boring machine?”
Hollis smiled back at him. “Three of them, actually. Average excavation speed is forty feet per hour per machine. This base has about twenty miles of tunnels.”
“Concrete reinforced?”
Hollis nodded. “All the way around.”
This place is starting to show some possibilities, McHenry thought. “Are the machines still here?”
Hollis frowned. “Yes. Parked in the lower tunnels. Why?”
“We’re going to need them,” McHenry said. “This base needs to be a lot bigger than it is now.”
Hollis continued the tour of the underground base. They stopped and watched as a new twenty-foot-long cannon was lowered into place by a Chinook helicopter.
“That one of the particle beam weapons?” McHenry asked.
Hollis pulled him back out of the way. “Large version, yes, it is.”
“Okay, pardon my outdated frame of reference, but how would this do against a main battle tank?”
Hollis grinned. “This cannon will completely obliterate a tank from two hundred miles away.”
McHenry stood still and took a deep breath. “So all of our standard equipment, strategy, and plans really are obsolete.”
Hollis nodded. “The modern army that you commanded might as well be a Roman legion armed with swords, spears, arrows, and heavy wooden shields. It’s that out of date.”
McHenry clenched his jaw and looked around. “We have to rethink everything.”
* * *
Hollis led McHenry into the OPS Center. If he was impressed by the other technology, Hollis thought, this ought to finish blowing his mind.
“This is the command center for Operation Planetary Shield,” Hollis said. He watched McHenry’s expression closely. His face revealed a combination of confusion and curiosity.
McHenry turned to face him. “A planetary shield?”
Hollis smiled and nodded. “This is the single most critical factor in our war against the Zeta Greys. We can destroy any object trying to enter or leave our atmosphere.”
McHenry’s eyes opened wider and his mouth fell open. “How does it work?”
“Two parts, really,” Hollis explained. “We have a system of receiving antennas spread around the globe that have been recording the background electronic emissions from space. It’s actually fairly constant. They’re called backscatter arrays. Any physical object that gets close to Earth blocks the background emissions. We can detect the silhouette of an object as small as an inch in diameter.”
“You’re kidding. An inch? In outer space?”
Hollis nodded. “That’s the passive side. We also have an active part.”
“Yeah,” McHenry said. “The actual shield, right?”
Hollis smiled. “You ever heard of HAARP?”
McHenry nodded. “The high frequency active auroral research project. I thought that was shut down.”
“The experimental version was. We now have a weaponized version that is a hundred times more powerful. There are twenty-four transmitting stations spaced around the planet, from Alaska all the way down to Antarctica. With them we can el
ectrify specific sections of the upper atmosphere, or we can electrify the entire ionosphere. Nothing can get through without our permission and cooperation.”
McHenry shook his head. “This is incredible.”
* * *
Hollis showed McHenry the office next to his.
“Your new home.”
McHenry looked in the door. The office was moderate in size. Not what he expected, but certainly workable. “What are my guidelines in recruiting members for the Space Command Army?”
“We have a list of corrupted people. As long as your candidates are single and not on that list we’ll verify whoever you like for security upgrades. You can go out and meet them privately, in civilian clothes, but not through the normal chain of command. When you select your people, we’ll have special orders cut for them, which you will deliver personally. With the major shakeup in the military command structure by the president, most of what you do should be functionally invisible. Whatever material resource you need, just ask, and it’s yours. Any other questions?”
“Why do the people need to be single?” He generally knew the answer. He just wanted to see what explanation Hollis was using.
“Security, mostly.” Hollis paused and glanced around. No one was close enough to hear what he said. “The U.S. Space Command will eventually be based in outer space. Leave will be seriously limited due to logistics. Family creates ties that are not compatible with our long-term mission.”
McHenry had assumed as much. He looked around. “You seem to think this base is relatively secure.”
Hollis seemed offended. “It’s surrounded by miles of solid rock with only one entrance. Why? What do you see?”
He turned to face Hollis. “You said that the aliens have an extensive network of interconnected underground bases. How advanced do you think their tunneling technology is?”
Hollis stared at him, obviously deep in thought.
“Flying saucers aren’t the Zeta Greys only means of attack. You have two blast doors in the silver mine entrance, plus one protecting the Operation Planetary Shield Command Center, and one protecting each of the particle beam cannon rooms. The rest of the base is wide open. There’s no compartmentalization, no way to slow down the aliens in the event of a breach, and no plan in place for containment. Frankly, I’m surprised you didn’t lose the base.”
He could see the muscles in Hollis’s jaw tighten. “We built everything for an aerial-based enemy. We didn’t seriously consider a ground-based assault. If it wasn’t for our lead pilot, and her intuitive insights, this war would have ended here, in defeat, three days ago.”
“I have some suggestions for increasing the security of the base,” McHenry said.
“You have more than that,” Hollis replied. “You’re now responsible for increasing the security of the base. Do whatever needs to be done.”
Chapter 9
Sean Wells had talked to Dr. Herbert Jackson, MD on the phone to set the appointment. The long drive to New Haven, Connecticut had only filled him with more questions that he hoped could be answered.
Dr. Jackson’s house was a mixture of cobblestone and New England clapboard. The two-story structure was neatly nestled away in an oak forest on rolling hills. With dark green trim and tan siding, the home looked like it had always been part of the trees and rocks in the exclusive neighborhood.
Sean got out of the car and walked up the short walk. Before he reached the porch, Dr. Jackson opened the front door and stood there waiting for him.
“Dr. Jackson, I’m Sean Wells from the New York Times.”
Dr. Jackson stepped aside to allow Sean in without saying a word, then led him into an office on the right side of the house.
“You see patients in your home?” Sean asked.
Dr. Jackson nodded. “Some patients, yes. I travel to see many more.”
Dr. Jackson’s office was beautifully crafted from dark mahogany with book shelves lining the walls. The doctor certainly looked the part of the reclusive psychiatrist, with his neatly trimmed white beard, glasses, and sweater vest.
“So what got you into alien abductions?” Sean asked.
Dr. Jackson gave a short chuckle. “I guess that’s the part that intrigues everyone.” He leaned back in his padded chair. “From a purely psychiatric perspective, the reports of people being abducted by aliens were somewhat off the reservation, so to speak. It had to be a hoax. The claims and descriptions were so ridiculous that no one in the academic community took a second look at them.”
“So why did you?” Sean pulled out his paper notebook.
“I had several students who kept insisting something was actually happening to people to cause them to come forward with their stories. I, of course, knew better. So I set out to prove once and for all that there were no abductions and the entire phenomenon was nothing more than an elaborate hoax.”
Sean scribbled quickly and looked up. “And the faculty at Yale University, how did they take that?”
Dr. Jackson smiled. “Oh, they were in love with the idea. They gave me a break from teaching classes and a grant to cover my expenses. They were very supportive at first.”
Sean grinned. “And?”
Dr. Jackson gazed around his office and glanced out the window. “The mantra of the academic community, including me, was that there was no evidence to support the alien abduction hypothesis. Without solid evidence and repeatable facts, it had to be a hoax.”
Sean tipped his head. “What changed your mind?”
Dr. Jackson paused and looked directly at Sean. “There is evidence. There are repeating, predictable facts. After two years of investigating case after case, after several hundred hypnotic regressions, repeated evaluations, and in-depth interviews, I finally came to the realization that what people were experiencing was real.”
Sean leaned back in his chair. “And Yale University?”
Dr. Jackson stared out the window for a long moment. “Let’s say we came to a parting of the ways.”
“Your tenure at the university, your retirement?”
Dr. Jackson shook his head slightly. “I’m not going to comment on that.”
“But you still see patients,” Sean said.
Dr. Jackson nodded. “You have to understand. The death of a loved one is a traumatic experience. If someone close to you is murdered, that’s a very traumatic experience. But those things happen to people in our world. There is some basis for acceptance, known coping mechanisms, approaches for therapy that we can use. I’ve dealt with that kind of trauma for most of my career.
“For the ordinary person who gets abducted by aliens and goes through the medical and genetic probes and procedures, there is no reference for that experience in our world. Nothing prepares them; they are left in a deep state of shock and denial because their brains are just not equipped to deal with what happened to them. That’s why I deal exclusively with abductees now.”
Sean stopped writing and looked up at Dr. Jackson. “Many of them find you on their own, don’t they?”
Dr. Jackson nodded slowly. “A precious, brave few do find me.”
This is incredible, Sean thought. If I hadn’t seen the crashed saucers at Peregrine Base and the dead Zeta Greys, I would have a hard time believing any of this was real. “How do they find you?”
Dr. Jackson raised his eyebrows. “It varies. Some find an understanding friend who knows about me. Once in a while a therapist reads one of my articles and calls. Others read my book and know someone who fits the profile. Only a very small percentage of people get the help they need.”
“How do you help them?” Sean asked.
“It’s a two step process. People come to me because they know something is seriously wrong in their lives. They’re having nightmares, vivid dreams, and strange coincidences. It’s the coincidences that bring them to me.”
Sean’s mind drifted as he remembered how Charlie had saved him from a hit team in Washington, D.C. and brought him into the center of an epic battl
e with the Zeta Greys. Yes, he thought, the coincidences . . . That’s what reminds you that it’s real and not just a horrible dream.
“The first stage,” Dr. Jackson continued, “is to recover the repressed memories and to expose the traumas embedded in the subconscious mind. Once the patient realizes that something physical happened, then I can help that individual to start dealing with the trauma, the emotional damage, and the shock that is buried deep within the mind.”
I’ve at least got the photographs to connect me with my encounter with the Zeta Greys, Sean thought. What if I didn’t have any proof? I couldn’t explain it to anybody. How would I cope?
“The second stage is group therapy,” Dr. Jackson said. “The realization of what happened isolates the individual from family and friends. Meeting other people who have had the same traumatic experience helps to normalize the abduction. The patient is no longer alone.”
Sean was having trouble imagining how someone could get back to some sense of normal after being through an abduction experience. “And they get their life back?”
Dr. Jackson shook his head slowly. “If only it was that simple.”
Sean’s mind drifted back to his conversation with his editor. It’s a people story, and here was where the guts to the story became real. “So what happens?”
“Most people retreat back into their protective emotional shells, unable to recover. But some of them face their fears and the trauma they endured. Their inner courage blossoms and delivers them into a much higher realm of understanding and awareness. They become transformed—enlightened, in a way. They become better people: more loving, more gentle with others, more compassionate, and more empathic. When one of my patients makes that transformation, every bitter word and unjust criticism against me from past colleagues melts away. That’s what keeps me going. That’s what drives me to help all those I can reach who have been traumatized by alien abductions.”
