Balan was opening her muzzle to order preparations for a flight to look at neighboring islands when the wall smashed into her from behind!
The other rendas in the room flew toward her as if the wall just behind her head had suddenly become the floor. Sickening “cracks” told her that some of her people had broken bones when they hit the wall.
What in the hells just happened?! she wondered, dazed by the impact of her head against the wall.
She’d just opened her mouth to start bellowing orders when the other wall flew toward her. Her wings, so inadequate for the gravity on this planet, spread in a completely useless effort to lift her away from the oncoming wall. The wings did manage to keep her from landing on top of Third Officer, but the blow when she hit the wall was crushing.
For a few moments she was blissfully weightless as if she was floating in space.
The ship was rotating around her.
She realized the ship was falling over!
It hit the ground, and she smashed into the wall that had hit her the first time, landing on her back and breaking the bony strut of her left wing.
Balan was still trying to assess the damage a couple of centidays (thirty minutes) later when the meteorite deflection system auto-fired. She sent Third Officer to find out what it had fired at and turned back to the bio-lab. The genegineers were practically hysterical over the damage done to their equipment. To the best of Balan’s understanding, they still had the virus they’d created and if it worked they’d be able to carry out their mission. However, there was significant concern about whether, if this one didn’t work, they could design any more viruses.
And, she thought bleakly, unless we can think of some brilliant way to set the lander back up on its base, we aren’t going to be able to move it to another island to find additional test subjects.
She realized she’d given up on the possibility of returning to the mothership.
***
The president’s fist thumped down on the table in frustration once again. They’d all just watched the Trident missile spout flame, angle off and plunge into the sea a few hundred yards west of the island. The beam from the aliens’ weapon wasn’t visible, but the audio pickups on the island had heard the twanging thrum when the weapon fired. She looked at General Cooper, “So, I don’t want that happening with an atomic weapon. I don’t suppose your guys have thought of a genius way to set off a nuclear weapon in the water on the beach?”
He shook his head, “The number of safety interlocks in those weapons…” his jaw twitched, “they seemed like a good idea at the time but they’re turning out to be really hard to bypass.”
“What about the fuel-air bombs?” the president asked.
“Still the same issue with the possibility that they’ll break the hull but not heat the insides enough to wipe out the virus.”
Someone said, “How do we know they aren’t actually venting their virus into the atmosphere as we speak?”
A woman cleared her throat and lifted a hand. Tiona recognized her as Dr. Pasha, the representative from CDC’s virology lab who’d arrived yesterday. The president nodded at the woman and she said, “Several items in the transmission the daughter-ship made to the mothership about their virus suggest that they’ve modified an influenza virus to create their killer bio-weapon. Fortunately, Tabuaeran lies on the equator and is subject to intense ultraviolet irradiation from the sun. Because an aerosol of the virus should be inactivated by UV, the aliens need a human or animal carrier to spread the virus from Tabuaeran to the rest of the world.”
The people around the table looked relieved until someone said, “What if they spray it at night?
The virologist shook her head, “There aren’t any storms in that part of the Pacific at present and the trade winds, which blow to the west, are pretty steady, currently about fourteen knots. That could move an aerosol nearly 200 miles overnight, but it’s over 600 miles to the next island to the west and substantially farther to any of the inhabited ones.”
President Miles gave her a dubious look, “So you don’t think we need to worry?”
Pasha’s eyes widened a little, “Oh no, we definitely need to worry. But, I don’t think they’ll be spraying an aerosolized virus into the air, it’d be highly inefficient. I’d be much more worried about them infecting some people or seagulls and turning them loose. I’d also be concerned that if you crack their hull without sterilizing the inside of it, rats or some other animal might get in there and carry out the virus to disseminate it.”
Miles said, “So what would you recommend?”
“Wait for the asteroid. Use the fuel-air explosives if they open the doors and start letting people or birds go before it hits. You need a plan to kill any birds that they release.”
Tiona was horrified at the mental picture of the doors opening and some people stepping out. You’d want to save them, but not when the entire human race might die because you made the attempt!
Having to kill them ourselves though…
***
Balan was keying in queries to the lander’s computer system, trying to determine whether there was any possibility that she could get the lander aloft without first setting it up on its base. They hadn’t been able to come up with a way to lift it upright with the equipment they had. But she’d started wondering whether it might be possible to launch it from where it lay. If she fired up the three thrusters which would lift the nose and kept them running while the main rockets at the back accelerated the ship? Was there any chance that it might get going fast enough for aerodynamics to come into play? Or would the nose drop into the sea?
Unfortunately, the computer didn’t have a program for the evaluation of such a bizarre possibility.
She was keying in queries as to the force generated by the nose thrusters and comparing them to the mass of the front half of the ship when the meteorite detection system squawked. “Meteorite on collision course. Too massive for deflection. Ship must maneuver. Meteorite on collision course. Too massive for…”
Balan stared in denial and disbelief at the screen on the meteorite system. It showed a massive object headed for them. The likelihood of an accidental collision with an object that massive was infinitesimally small. Just the likelihood that it would hit this entire planet had to be remote, yet the meteorite system said it was actually going to hit the planet right where they were sitting! But, it wouldn’t be able to penetrate the atmosphere would it? Then she remembered that the atmosphere of this planet was thinner than expected—after all, that was why Balan’s respiratory system had had to be enhanced.
As Balan sat paralyzed with incredulity, the collision system’s audio message penetrated once again, “Ship must maneuver. Meteorite on collision course…”
Balan input commands to activate the reactor for the big rocket. Punching the button for the intercom, she barked commands for the flight crew to join her, for the engineering crew to resume their stations, and for the rest of the crew to strap in. “We’re taking off. Now!”
When the second and third officers reached the control deck she told Second to determine how much more time they had before the asteroid hit. Meanwhile she tested the front thrusters, wondering if she’d even be able to feel the maneuvering thrusters puny lift against this tremendous gravity.
Engineering called to say that it would be three centidays (45 minutes) before the reactor would be hot enough for full thrust. Balan screamed at them that they would have to abandon safety protocols to get it hotter faster.
Second Officer said, “Six millidays (nine minutes) until impact!”
In a panicked voice, Third Officer asked, “How are we going to lift the nose?!”
Balan told Third, “The front thrusters—which probably isn’t enough, I’m just hoping. Now shut up.”
Third moaned and said, “We’ll never make it!”
Balan backhanded him, “Think of something else then!” She shouted at engineering, “I’ve got to fire the main rockets in tw
o millidays. If you haven’t got them hot by then, we’re all going to die!” To herself she thought, And even if you do have them hot, we’re still probably going to die.
A milliday later, Engineer’s voice came back, “It’s hot. But the heat’s uneven. The chamber may shatter when you add propellant.”
Balan opened the throttle to put in a little propellant on the theory that it might even out the heat in the chamber. She gradually increased the throttle until some bumping told her that the lander was skidding across the ground a little. She fully opened the thrusters that she hoped would lift the nose, then threw the throttle for the main rocket to its stop.
A thunderous roar came from the back of the ship and Balan felt the thrust jam her back in her acceleration frame, shooting agony through her as her weight fell back against her broken wing. The ship bumped along, rapidly gaining speed, then the ground dropped out from under the nose.
For a few fleeting seconds Balan thought the thrusters and aerodynamic lift were combining to bring the nose up.
Then the nose slipped over the edge and tilted downward.
A second later the nose crumpled into the rocks at the edge of the sea.
Three minutes later a flash brightened the sky as the asteroid hit.
A mushroom cloud formed over the impact on Tabuaeran.
It was mildly radioactive from the vaporized pile of the rendas’ engine.
***
Every eye in the room was focused on the big screen showing the lander. When the big rocket at the back fired up and it started to move, there were some moans of dismay.
When it tilted forward and crashed nose first into the rocks on the beach a few cheers erupted, but they were nothing compared to the shouts of exultation that exploded when the asteroid finally hit. Their screens whited out, then the picture jumped further and further back to cameras far enough away to show the mushroom cloud as it developed.
The president waited for everyone to settle down a little, then led them in a toast. Finally she addressed them once again, “Way to go team. You all deserve congratulations.” She looked around the room, catching each person’s eye. Then she said solemnly, “Unfortunately… we still need to deal with the mothership.” She looked at General Cooper, “How much longer until General Stoddard’s in position Coop?”
Cooper glanced at his HUD, “Tomorrow morning. A little after 8 o’clock.”
The president glanced around again. “Okay, some of you need to perform after action assessments of the asteroid strike. Assess the tsunami and make sure it’s not bigger than expected. If it is, warn the neighboring islands. We also need an evaluation of just what’s happened to the alien daughter-ship. Presumably it’s been destroyed, but considering their phenomenal materials technology, we have to check. We also have to know whether the virus might have survived and been disseminated.” She smiled, “Those of you who aren’t busy with one of those tasks should take a break until morning, but keep thinking about all the things that might still go wrong and what we might do to keep them from happening. We reconvene at eight.”
***
Overnight, the president transmitted a diplomatically worded message to the alien mothership, both in English and with a translation into the alien language. She expressed regret that Earth had been forced to destroy the daughter-ship, but the hope that, “our two peoples can get along despite this bad start.” Even though the aliens’ first action had been to try to destroy the human race, she said she hoped that it was simply a misunderstanding which could be corrected. Nonetheless, she warned, Earth could not allow them to return to their own solar system where they might gather reinforcements without some kind of a negotiated agreement.
The aliens did not respond.
However, no one had really expected them to, so when the alien team gathered the next morning the mood was good. Not exactly buoyant, but much better than it had been in the past few days when they’d wondered whether they’d actually be able to deal with the daughter-ship. Now that they thought they’d succeeded in eliminating that threat, there was an expectation that things wouldn’t be all that difficult with the mothership.
After all, it seemed like General Stoddard’s plan was practically foolproof. He had a remotely controlled saucer approaching from what they thought of as the rear of the relatively long and slender mothership. The front of the alien ship had that big mirror on it and so that end seemed like a poor target for the military’s secret beam weapon on the basis that whatever they were using for a mirror might reflect the beam away.
Learning of this concern made Tiona think that the military’s beam weapon must be some form of light based weapon like a laser.
Stoddard had spent hours poring over the images that Rob Marshall and Dan Vincent had obtained of the mothership. For their first target, he’d chosen one of several long cylinders in the agglomeration of shapes that were packed together to make up the alien ship. He hoped the cylinder contained important gases or liquids which would leak away through any holes punched by the Air Force’s beam weapon.
Stoddard was in a manned saucer a couple of hundred thousand miles from the remotely controlled one that carried the beam weapon. It was communicating with the weaponized saucer using a laser in the hopes that the aliens wouldn’t notice the command saucer. The weapon saucer also was constantly varying its acceleration to make it a difficult target, though it was still at risk. Tiona still wasn’t wild about Stoddard, but she had to respect him for being out there on the sharp end himself. Most people wouldn’t expect a general to be out there within reach of the aliens’ beam weapon, but Stoddard pointed out that if he wanted to be truly safe he’d have to be far enough away that the light-speed delay would be significant. “If I’m going to command,” he’d said, “I have to be on the spot.”
The weaponized saucer made its pass by the aliens’ ship “edge on.” This wasn’t just to present a smaller profile, but because the beam weapon was mounted transversely across the top of the disc. Also, having the main thrust of the saucer perpendicular to their approach allowed it to rapidly accelerate and decelerate or even zigzag across the approach path in order to make the saucer more difficult to hit. They were using a constantly shifting acceleration pattern to make its position extremely difficult to predict even though it made the laser communication and targeting more difficult. The saucers’ AI could compensate for the movement fairly well and the trade-off against the risk of the weapon-saucer being shot was thought to be well worth it. The aliens, on the other hand, with a massive ship and the meager thrust of their plasma engines, were unlikely to be able to move themselves sufficiently to avoid the beam from the Stoddard’s weapon.
The beam weapon was definitely a standoff weapon, but the beam did spread a little with distance so Stoddard was sending the saucer on a pass within 100 kilometers to fire his first shots.
It seemed like the saucer had all the advantages of mobility, so everyone out there in space, as well as the alien team members waiting in the president’s conference room were feeling pretty confident.
“Madam President, the weaponized saucer has broadcast your final warning and received no response,” Stoddard said. “Permission to fire our first shot?”
“You may proceed,” the president responded gravely.
Several minutes passed while messages traveled to Stoddard’s location and back.
“We’ve fired,” Stoddard said. “As agreed, this first shot was at twenty-five percent power for 10 milliseconds.” The beam weapon could fire for a full second so this represented a much lower energy shot than their maximum, but even at this low power the beam would punch a two centimeter hole in half inch steel plate.
The president had asked them not to fire at full power initially on the chance that they might destroy the alien ship before the aliens had an opportunity to surrender. Tiona thought it would be pretty bizarre if their ship was destroyed by having a two centimeter hole punched through it. After all, the aliens had punched holes in severa
l saucers now without destroying them, though they had killed Kurt. Still, she didn’t disagree with an initial low-power shot.
As if he’d realized they might wonder what was going on, Stoddard said, “We’re waiting for imaging to evaluate the effect of the shot.”
Tiona heard someone ask, “Can they really see a two centimeter hole at that distance?”
That query got an amused snort from the man’s neighbor, “Not a chance. He’s got a small disc making a pass at a distance of ten kilometers. Its scope can resolve a millimeter per pixel at that distance.”
***
Levon entered the bridge, “What is it now?!” she asked in an exasperated tone.
Second Officer turned, “The aliens have another ship approaching. It’s transmitted another message.”
Levon wanted to lash out and hit something. After all this time in the system with the aliens transmitting nothing but garbage, several decidays ago they’d transmitted something that could be understood after a fashion, even though the wording was clumsy. In the message, they claimed to have destroyed the lander.
Levon hadn’t believed they could even hurt the lander, but as the decidays passed without any further transmissions from the lander she was getting a sick feeling in her stomach. Even more appalling, the aliens had offered to hold talks in the hopes that they and the rendas could get along!
As if rendas would talk to an inferior race! Levon tried to calm herself, then said, “What does this message say?”
“It says they’re going to attack us because we won’t talk and they don’t want us to return to Naust and bring more rendas to their system.”
“They’re warning us?”
Second Officer nodded.
Levon scoffed, “These primitives can’t possibly hurt us… Fire the meteorite system at them. We’ll disable or destroy their ship and see how they react to that.”
Vaz 4: Invaders Page 29
