Keeping 10 percent of Earth shielded from sunlight is likely to cause massive crop failures and a loss of vegetation not seen since an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs millions of years ago. Worse, if Frozos continued to expand the sun shield past 25 percent of the Earth’s surface, the losses could be irreversible. Mass hunger, potential shifts in the composition of the atmosphere, and unprecedented cold risked mass unrest and global war amongst nations over the fight to secure food and other critical natural resources.
Frozos could set in motion a cataclysmic series of events where Earth falls from within. Obviously disgusted by the callous disregard for the loss of over one billion souls, Robert could nonetheless appreciate the ingeniousness and simplicity of the plan. While a strike would be preemptive, it is clear to Robert, having looked through the models and now sifting through presentation materials crafted by PEACE’s scientific research wing, that Frozos’s forces now pose exactly the type of imminent threat that PEACE was constructed to stop.
“You know,” Thornhill says to Robert, “When we think of besieged cities that fall, we think of Troy where the enemy attackers sneak their way in behind the guarded walls. In reality, throughout history, besieged cities fall because they are gradually and methodically starved of resources from the outside.”
“I’ve always thought of our planet as self-reliant,” Robert replies, “given there is no intergalactic commerce we partake in. I never realized that we were entirely reliant on another entity the whole time—the sun. So foolish of me.”
“Not just you, sir. Not one of us who worked on the force field foresaw this. Perhaps we all just lacked the imagination that there could be enough raw materials to effectively implement a solar blockade.”
Taking little solace in Thornhill’s attempt to comfort him, he attempts to pivot back to the plan of action. “Is May twelfth still our best guess as to when ten percent of sunlight is going to be blocked?”
“Yes,” the same junior aide who just a few weeks ago told Robert he was sure Earth would be victorious replies. Robert takes heart in his vigor—at least one man hasn’t lost confidence in the ultimate outcome of this effort.
“Well, Jake. You should freshen up. I’m going to take a quick shower and shave. I think we have a better chance of success if we don’t look like the crazed, sleep-deprived souls that we are.” Robert gives Thornhill a pat on the back and heads back into his office to freshen up before a 6:00 AM conference call.
At 6:00 AM in Jersey City, Robert is sitting behind his desk, having put on a black suit with a light blue tie. Thornhill is taking the video conference from his own office on the other side of the command center, wearing his standard purple jumpsuit with commander insignia. Given Robert sees the situation as a near military threat but not yet an imminent one, he has requested heads of state instead of the standard military representatives. In the mosaic of faces on his screen, he is relieved to see that President Victoria Larom is on the call. He needs her presence more than ever. There are 108 countries on the call with what looks to be eighty-one heads of state and twenty-seven military representatives—a strong showing, though Robert is left to wonder what those government leaders could be doing that is more important than the briefing he is about to give.
“I thank you all for being here on such short notice. I realize for many of you it isn’t a convenient hour. I’m going to ask Jake Thornhill to begin to provide all the technical details for today’s briefing.”
In his just-the-facts style, Thornhill runs through all the developments of the past forty-eight hours, from the supertankers’ arrival to the nature of the sunsheet that is now being strewn across Earth’s skies. Following these details, he summarizes the scientific consensus of the impact of the lost sunlight, from colder temperatures to lost agriculture.
“Thank you, Jake, before we open it up to questions on our plan of action, I just want to highlight two numbers,” Robert says. “The first is ten percent of sunlight. That is when we will start to feel the loss of sun noticeably on temperatures, solar energy production, and some crops. The journey to that first ten percent really shouldn’t impact daily life. The second is twenty-five percent of sunlight. Based on the scientific consensus, that is catastrophic, if not species threatening. Essentially, we need to destroy the sunsheet somewhere between the ten and twenty-five percent thresholds, which best guess would put us in the May twelfth to May thirtieth time period.”
Russian President Mikhail Malvodov is the first to speak up. “Why don’t we just destroy it now? Not that we in Russia mind our winters, but what’s the purpose in waiting?”
“A few reasons, Mister President,” Robert replies. “Each day, we’re now building 500 planes and graduating several hundred pilots. Each day enhances our military capacity, and we see little real-world impact of waiting at least ten days. Second, based on our roughest of estimates, the three supertankers may carry enough sunsheet to cover fifteen to twenty-five percent of the Earth. If we destroy it too soon, they could deploy a new one of sufficient scale. I want to waste more of their material. Third, I think it’s everyone’s consensus that we should only open Earth’s force field when it is essential to do so. We haven’t met that criteria yet.”
“Why do we need to use earthbound planes?” asks Ecuador’s President. “Can’t we use the lunar fighters again, to mitigate the risk?”
“I wish, Mister President. With a destroyer stationed against the moon, I fear those planes are pinned down. They’d have to travel two hundred thousand miles with Frozos’s military pointing at them. The probability of success is very low. There are few enemy crafts between the force field and the sun shield, which sits just a few hundred miles from the edge of force field. This has to be an earthbound mission.”
A solemnity hangs over the room. Many had hoped that direct military conflict between Frozos and Earth’s fighters could be avoided. It is now painfully clear that will not be the case. There will be at least one battle, and in all likelihood, more than one.
“How can we help you?” Portugal’s Prime Minister asks.
“To be frank, sir, don’t worry about the military aspect. We have high confidence we can win this battle, assuming the basic dynamics that Jake and I have laid out remain the same. Maintaining the element of surprise is critical. I believe our communications are secure from Frozos’s interception, but we will not divulge all details as a precaution. Know that between May ninth and May twenty-fifth, we will be taking action to destroy the sunsheet. That will be the sole focus of this mission. I ask you to do what is necessary to inform the public and keep calm. There is going to be a giant black spot in the sky; the public will find out what’s going on. I think you need to proactively communicate to the people you represent in a calming, reassuring way. You alone can do that; it’s outside my mandate. I leave it to you whether to invoke the T+1 plan, though I prefer you don’t just yet that way they don’t know that our strike will come from Earth. Leave the military matters as my concern, and I will leave the public as your concern.”
“That’s sounds like a fair deal,” President Larom concludes. She adds, “The United States will not be invoking T+1 unless you advise us otherwise.” She knows that by stating this position clearly that the rest of the world will follow.
“I thank you for your time.” Robert turns off the video conference. He knows his next move and is now just waiting to hear what world governments have to say.
At 7:00 AM in Washington D.C., President Larom has stepped behind the lectern of the White House Briefing Room, wearing a golden-yellow skirt suit. The room is filled to the brim with reporters and cameras. Over the past twenty minutes, leaders in Europe and Asia have been taking to the airwaves to discuss that mysterious black spot hovering above the skies in most European capitals. The world now waits to see what the American President has to say on the matter.
“Good morning. This morning, leaders of all nations in the
PEACE coalition conferred with PEACE leadership over developments in space outside of our force field. I will begin with the good news. The actions being taken by General Frozos’s military seem to indicate they too believe the shield is impenetrable. Rather than attempt to break through, they are attempting to place a sunsheet over our planet to block sunlight.
“They are seeking to lay siege to our planet, and by limiting the sunlight, cool global temperatures, destroy crops, underwhelm solar energy facilities, and kill oxygen-producing plant life. This strategy, if we do nothing, would take weeks to have any impact on our lives. Indeed, PEACE commander Robert Wilson told me the best thing the public can do for the war effort is to remain calm and carry on with daily life because these actions in no way are a danger to you.
“We, of course, will not stand idly by and do nothing. Rather, we have already formulated plans to ensure sunlight continues to Earth uninterrupted. To ensure the success of military operations, I cannot provide any details publicly of the nature or timing of our plans. Just rest assured they are coming.
“I encourage all Americans to begin this workweek as they would any other. Thank you and God bless the United States of America.”
As President Larom walks out of the room, reporters shout questions at her with variations of, “Why isn’t Commander Wilson answering questions?”
Sitting in his office in PEACE headquarters, Robert hears these questions as the cable news channel cuts out of the briefing and back to their New York City studio where pundits are asking the same question, wondering if his silence signals a disagreement between elected officials and himself, which of course couldn’t be further from the truth. Robert can envision this narrative snowballing over the course of the day, so he decides he needs to nip it in the bud.
It’s funny, Robert thinks to himself. Most of mankind has never travelled to space and likely never will. And yet somehow, having space closed off like it is now makes one feel so utterly claustrophobic. Robert himself has that same feeling of being trapped, even though they still have an entire planet, closed off safely and securely. He tries to ponder over what message to tell the world in this time of strife.
He thinks of his father.
Chapter 20
Planet Nayan
Earth Year 2008
It has been just about four years since Marcus’s mother was murdered and Nayan had fallen to Frozos’s forces. During that time, Marcus and his father, Jesse, have lived together in the cave in the woods. In the back corner near the makeshift kitchen, Marcus and Jesse are working through complex physics problems at the kitchen table. There are still three chairs here, one of which neither has sat in: the chair that was supposed to belong to Marcus’s mother. In their first days in the cave, a young Marcus, noting there were no family photos or pictures of his mother, asked that they keep the chair to ensure they never forgot his mom. The chair has remained in its place, unoccupied, ever since; an ever-present reminder of his mother’s sacrifice. Aside from that, many of their nights passed with Jesse telling and retelling stories of their past, little anecdotes that revealed the character of his mother from their first date to her efforts smuggling resistance fighters through mining towns across Nayan.
The father and son passed most nights by playing board games and telling stories. Aside from his mother, Marcus’s favorite topic was of the resistance, and the heroic fighters who led it. Undoubtedly, Jesse took some literary license in these tellings to keep his son engaged, and often greater truth lies in fiction than fact. As the years passed, he at times forgot which stories were true and which had been exaggerated. Occasionally, Jesse would try to use his old radio to see if he could find resistance chatter away from the propaganda that the League of Planets pumped out. As the years went by, resistance chatter grew sparser and sparser, but there was the periodic snippet that kept hope alive. To this day, rumors that this King Hammerhead, whose planet, Aquine, was said to have held out longer than any other against Frozos, is alive and keeping rebel forces aligned, striking where possible, and patiently biding their time until there’s an opportunity to capitalize on the internal strife in the League, persisted.
Jesse consistently told his son that a day would come when Frozos would be toppled, repeatedly preaching to Marcus, “Intelligent life is not meant to be oppressed. The number who want to fight against Frozos far outnumber those who will fight on his behalf. But, the people need to believe that the fight can be won before they will muster the courage to challenge him. Until someone can light that spark, Frozos’s darkness will endure.”
While nights were occupied with stories and games, the days were hard work. Jesse was adamant that his son be educated, and given his background as a college professor, he was well equipped to teach him the maths and sciences. And so, Marcus spent every day from early morning to midafternoon on schoolwork. There were no summer breaks, and weekends were half-days. Marcus spent two-thirds of his time on math and science and the remainder covering a smattering of English and history with a focus on the history of democracies in this part of the galaxy. Jesse’s expertise was in mathematics, and he knew that passing that expertise on to Marcus would be his only ticket off this planet. But, he also wanted to ensure that Marcus knew right from wrong and would use that expertise for noble ends. Fortunately given Marcus’s natural proficiencies and the intensive tutoring his father provided, he excelled in the sciences and mathematics. As an eleven-year-old, he was already solving physics problems that would elude the greatest of Earth’s scientists.
After school, the father and son spend time carefully out of the cave, filling up their water reserve, picking berries and vegetables that grow naturally throughout the forest. Several times a week, they fish and trap small game to supplement their diet as the stock of food and supplies that had filled the cave to the brim have largely been consumed these past four years. Having spent his formative years in the forest, Marcus is an adept hunter and gatherer, able to move throughout the woods without making a sound. He stands at about five feet tall, which would place him just above average on Nayan. He has untidy, long hair, a natural result of living alone with one’s father, who now sports a beard to go with untidy lengthy hair of his own.
In their first weeks in the cave, there was an abundance of aerial activity as Frozos consolidated his control over Nayan and rounded up those who had fled to work as slaves in the mine. There were even several ground patrols through the woods. As a consequence, during those first two months, Marcus never left the cave and Jesse did only sparingly. However after about a month, the patrols and air raids nearly came to a halt; Frozos’s forces must have been confident they had rounded up or killed substantially all of the holdouts on the planet. For the following three years, there were virtually no patrols through the forest and planes could only be heard from above occasionally. Generally, these patrols occurred after an escape from the mine; Jesse and Marcus would not run across a single soul during these three-plus years. However, in recent months, activity had been ticking up with several air patrols a week and ground patrols once every eight or nine days. It is unclear to Jesse and Marcus why there was an increase; Marcus hoped it was a sign there was increasing smuggling to resistance forces. While Jesse wanted to believe this as well, the lack of communication he could come across on his radio left him more circumspect.
Today is a hot, summer day on Nayan. It is mid-afternoon, and Marcus is wearing a green tunic and cargo pants, barefoot, his feet having outgrown shoes quite some time ago. His father is wearing a badly-fraying, faded yellow button-down shirt, torn khaki pants, and hiking boots badly in need of repair. Marcus is sitting anxiously as his father grades a celestial physics test. Jesse always maintains a perfect poker face while grading, enjoying the nervous anxiety building in his son. After several agonizing minutes, he puts his red pen down.
“Not bad, but you can do better. A ninety-one. We need to review gravitational forces on multi-star solar systems, but
that can wait until tomorrow.”
“Okay, I guess,” Marcus says with a sigh, “but it’s still an A-. You know what that means!”
“I know; I’ll get the water,” his father replies. To incentivize his son to learn to the fullest of his potential, anytime he did better than a ninety on a test, his father would do that day’s main chore, which today was going to the river and refilling the water tank. This happened to be Marcus’s least favorite chore; it was a quarter-mile walk to the river. He had to carry a five-gallon tank like a backpack and a one-gallon bottle in each hand, which would give them several days’ worth of water. For an eleven-year-old, it is an exhausting project. Knowing this, Jesse had taken to scheduling tests on water fill-up days, to give his son a bit of extra motivation to study and excel. He is more than happy to carry the water if it meant his son achieving his academic potential.
Throwing the empty water bag over his shoulder, and with the two empty canisters in hand, his father heads out. Marcus pulls a beaten-up deck of cards to entertain himself with a game of Nayan solitaire—not the most exciting of pastimes, but it is something to do when alone. As time passes, Marcus realizes he is on his sixth game of solitaire; normally, after three, his father is back. Worried, he decides to go look for his dad, crawling through the opening, and rushing through the trees, toward the river.
As he nears the river, he slows down, remembering his father’s demand to always be cautious, particularly in daylight. Crouching down, he moves silently, but swiftly, through the tall grass and bushes, until he settles under a bush and behind a tree, about seventy-five yards from the water’s edge. Looking out, he sees exactly what he feared most. His father is on his knees, hands tied behind his back. The right side of his face is swollen and some blood is coming down from the corner of his lips. His clothes are covered in dirt and dust, apparently, all from some scuffle. Surrounding him, there are eight League of Planets soldiers. Marcus had seen them from afar but never this close. They are entirely in black, from the soles of the army boots to their face shield, a black composite Kevlar-like helmet from which a black bullet-resistant glass visor descends just below a soldier’s chin. This made it impossible to see the eyes or read the facial expressions of a soldier. Seven of the soldiers are carrying laser rifles across the arms, while the eighth only has a pistol holstered on his right hip. This soldier, assuredly the group leader, is standing in front of Jesse, about five feet away, while five of his troops are positioned in a circle around Jesse, and the remaining two are ripping through the water containers, trying to find contraband or communications material. Marcus feels both intense anger and deep fear.
Robert Wilson and the Invasion from Within Page 18
