The Vassal World (The First Exoplanet Book 2)

by T. J. Sedgwick

  As the last of his five colleagues finally entered the world of sleep, Powell lay awake, thinking. He’d entered the crew capsule and dropped into the FTL-gate’s singularity only twelve hours ago. It felt like weeks. For the first time since he’d left that bunker, he had time to consider his wife and daughter. He’d etched the final image of their faces in his mind for safe-keeping and now retrieved that image and many more in the mental photo album he’d cultivated over the years. At times like this he was glad he had. He still had no idea what had happened on Earth, and first thing tomorrow he’d need to make contact with Vice President Jefferson. He was the fifty-second President of the US and never had his people, or the planet faced such a grave situation as they did now. He was at the helm of efforts to lead them to victory. He drew some comfort from the positive way in which relations with the Outcasts had started. Without their help he had no doubt about the future of the Earth being a vassal world for the Korgax to use and abuse as they saw fit. Once again, he gave thanks for the efforts of the old SETI scientist, Yau Min, and NSA Captain Yusuf Kaya, who’d managed to decode the Outcast messages and contact them. Those men were true patriots, although the former had now passed away from a brain tumour, having never learned of his contribution to humanity’s chances of survival. This was a time when he’d have appreciated the listening ear of his wife, Alyssa. From his experience, most of the people he encountered in his hectic life were on transmit more than receive. His wife was a rare exception, and it was one of the things he loved her for. Before he realised it, he drifted into unconsciousness with the face of his wife before his mind’s eye.

  Chapter Five

  April 11, 2063: Outcast Underground Base, Exelon

  President Stephen F. Powell awoke first, before the five other people sharing the human quarters with him. It was generous to call them quarters, being a just large, but basic, single room. After some searching last night, they had managed to find and work out the light switch after their tiring, yet fruitful day. They’d dimmed the level of illumination in the rough-walled red-rock room to facilitate sleep. Last night Powell was so whacked that he could have slept on a hard plastic seat during the Super Bowl. He sat up and took a few moments to wake up, registering the still-snoring Wilke lying on his back on the adjacent mattress. Powell would either need to be as tired again every night, or he’d need to acquire some ear plugs. The slumbering giant, Wilke, sounded like a ride-on-mower. He got up and shuffled over to the EQP transceiver set that still sat in the corner and powered up the device. After a delay of a minute or so, the status display registered that a connection had been established. The counterpart transceiver was, as far as he knew, still sitting in the underground bunker in the US that he’d departed from. With some clever data compression, the EQP was just about capable of supporting low-quality voice calls. In the testing back on Earth, it had reminded Powell of some of the old movies he’d seen from the 1940s onwards. It seemed that voice calls were not always as clear as they were in the mid-twenty-first century. After security protocol with the Space Force operator on the other end and a brief wait, the tinny voice of Vice President Blake Jefferson filled Powell’s headset.

  “Stephen, great to hear from you!” he exclaimed. It was hard to tell with the marginal call quality, but it sounded more like relief than anything else.

  “Good to hear your voice too, Blake. Before we get down to business, how are Alyssa and Saskia? And where are they?” asked Powell after his wife and daughter.

  “They’re fine Stephen, but missing you and a little worried. They’ve gone back to Washington – to your place, not the White House. The attacks have stopped now, but sadly, there’s nothing left of the White House. The Aliens flattened it along with Congress and the Senate, the Pentagon and just about every other military and federal and state government building of any size. The jamming’s stopped too, but they’re still in Earth’s orbit, no doubt watching our every move. I tell you, Stephen, I never thought I’d see this day...I damn near teared up when I saw the results of their attack. We lost a lot of good people,” he reported gloomily, sighing and pausing for a moment. He took a deep breath before continuing, “I’m speaking to you from Groom Lake AFB right now; was no need to stay isolated at bunker fifty-two any longer. Arrived here by road last night – it’s not safe to fly Air Force One anymore.”

  “Thanks, Blake. I know they’re in capable hands with you. Please keep going with the Sit-Rep, then I’ll update you on progress here and what actions I need you to take forward,” said Powell.

  “Okay. Well, on the positive side I’ve never seen such bipartisan cooperation in my career before. You’re as close as any president’s ever going to get to a total executive mandate. Jameson has pledged full support from the Democrats to do what it takes with the Aliens…”

  “The ‘Korgax’, is the name of the aliens, according to our allies here. K-O-R-G-A-X.

  “Got it. Anyway, we’ve seen record sign-ups for all armed services and a ground-swell of patriotism. The country is united and our allies are united, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with us. I wish the same could be said for the Russians and Chinese. As usual, they’re being very cagey about their losses and their position on the Alien...Korgax demands over evacuating the Tropics. For now we’re working with WGA allies, Singapore and Malaysia, which are the only ones completely in the Tropics with nowhere within their borders to send people to. That’s assuming we follow the Korgax demands, of course. Anyway, we’ve initiated working groups within the WGA and further measures, including a summit, will be tabled at the UN.”

  “And what about civil disorder, Blake? What’s the situation around the country?”

  “Some panic as was to be expected. The power outages – now mostly fixed – were thought to have been one of the contributing factors in the spike in violent crime. Seems to have died down since then. The worst incident was a major firefight in South Central LA centred on a food store and gun store, which was raided by gangs. National Guard had to quell it, losing two men. The gangs came off a lot worse. There’s a real resolve to strictly enforce the zero tolerance of local curfew-breaking and looting right now. We’ve reiterated to the Guard leadership on the need for restraint. Our allies have reported some violence and protests over handling of the whole thing. Central London was hit pretty badly because of the density of government buildings there. Just got off the phone with Prime Minister Carlton before you called in.”

  “Before you tell me about our allies, what’s the latest strength assessment of the armed services?”

  “Ground forces fared better than we’d expected – Army units themselves are at seventy percent strength. Bases, by contrast, have all been taken out of action. Air Force formations at thirty percent strength, and again, all bases were attacked with surface facilities and runways destroyed. Groom Lake, where I am right now, had all of its top side taken out too. Same story with naval bases and naval air force stations. All surface ships were hit and any sub that wasn’t submerged at the time of the attacks. Two of our New York class nuclear missile subs survived, but the USS Esperanza is still MIA. She was due in port at Kings Bay, Georgia, yesterday, but never showed. We’ve had no communication with her either.”

  The USS Esperanza was the first and, so far, only sub of her kind – the immensely powerful Hope Class nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed subs. Losing the entire surface compliment was bad enough – including the US Navy’s twelve mighty carriers – but the Esperanza was truly a super-weapons of her time. Still, even she could not stand-up to the lethal particle rays from the orbiting destroyers, which rained down from the heavens like the thunderbolts of Zeus.

  “We have some further bright spots. The Brits thought they’d lost some of theirs, only to locate HMS Wellington and three other SSBNs later on. As we’d guessed, the Space Force was completely wiped out. And I can confirm that the blast we witnessed in orbit was the Atlantic’s 100 megaton nuke going off. We just had nothing to hit back at them with after the loss
of the Space Force. Now, you want to hear the good news?” asked Jefferson.

  “Sure, I’m all ears for good news these days, Blake,” sighed Powell.

  “The crew of the Atlantic actually made it! They splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico yesterday. They took out a large part of the enemy fleet with that bomb. We owe Captain Winters and her crew a medal or two each.”

  “I think we should do more than that, Blake. These guys are heroes, real heroes of the kind that legend is made of. I think you should see to it that Morgan and McCauley, at least, as the two Americans on the Atlantic, get a decent homecoming. Perhaps, suggest to the Brits and Canadians they do the same for theirs. We could do with the morale boost and so could everyone else.”

  “Consider it done, Stephen. So what do you have for me?” asked VP Jefferson.

  Powell went on to update Jefferson on the previous day in the underground base on Exelon with their new allies, the Outcasts. He described the two-pronged approach they’d agreed: work on FTL accuracy and try to supply the planned Outcast attack; man-portable nuclear devices, troops and other support. His instructions were to prioritise the ongoing research into improving the accuracy of the FTL gates, of which there were six located in the bunker network at Groom Lake. The second research priority was to develop more effective particle beam defences – without that they wouldn’t stand a chance against the next onslaught. They’d also need to expand production of man-portable nuclear weapons to replace those used during Operation Stellar Shield. He looked down at his semi-naked body with just his underwear saving him from showing off all of his birthday suit. It felt bizarre sitting in a cave-like room on an alien moon with Romero, McIver and the others snoozing, while trying to run a war in his underwear. It was trivial, amusing insights like this that maintained his sense of humour at times like these. He’d let his team sleep through for now – he’d update them later anyway. They were more useful to him well-rested.

  They got onto the subject of the asteroid and what to do about it.

  “We’ve had our best people looking at it and we’ve been working primarily with the UK’s Special Space Service and one Major-General Hadley. Bottom line is that we need to send a team and we need to transit them there, to Exelon. Timing-wise, we estimate that by the time we’ve beaten back the enemy enough to secure space around the asteroid it’ll be too slow getting there by conventional means. We’ll have to use the FTL gates, either here or in the UK. Probably the latter if we end up going with the recommendation to use the triple-S guys,” explained Jefferson.

  “Why Special Forces? What about the Harpoons? I mean, they’re purpose-built for this mission. Can’t we transit them there instead?”

  “We would if we could and avoid risking lives. Two problems though. One: we don’t have any – we’ve confirmed that they were all destroyed in the attacks on Seattle and Cape Canaveral. Second: they’re big spacecraft and would not be able to fit through the FTL gates we have.”

  “What is the Special Forces team supposed to divert it with then?” asked Powell, hungry for the details.

  “Our scientists and engineers are working on it. Whatever it is will have to go through the gate with the team, or we’re going to have to work out how to operate the enemy’s thrusters that they’ve strapped onto the asteroid. That’s assuming they don’t disable or destroy them before we get there,” explained Jefferson, sounding somewhat tentative.

  “That’s something I believe our Outcast friends may be able to help us with,” replied Powell. Their experience with Korgax technology was bound to be better than the almost non-existent knowledge humanity had. Perhaps they could supply the technical know-how to manipulate the enemy thrusters that had nudged 375 Nemesis onto its current collision course with Earth. The clock was ticking and it wouldn't be long before the 10km-wide asteroid was more than just a dot in the evening sky. With certain doom visible day-in-day-out on Earth, panic would spread like wild fire. With the negative-story bias of the media, it was a virtual certainty. The sooner they had a concrete plan the better, although it would necessarily need to stay covert until the very last minute.

  They finished up, having covered Powell’s agenda for the second day on Exelon. He was so engaged with the 15 light-year-distance conversation that he didn’t notice the audible change in background noise. The goatee-bearded giant of a Secret Serviceman, Bill Wilke, had finally stopped snoring and was sitting up awake just as the call was ending. With Powell already feeling quite secure amongst the Outcasts – and the fact that they were hopelessly outnumber had their host turned out hostile – there was no need to send reinforcements from Earth. The President of the United States clicked off until his next call to Earth, his home world in another star system.

  ***

  The cloaked shuttle touched down gently on Exelon at the base of the broad, steep-sided gorge. The military craft that had set off eight hours ago from the nearby moon of Arlon and carried a deadly cargo. The ramp-door at the rear of craft eased down onto the wind-eroded rock that now absent flowing water had once crafted. A cloaked rover emerged, unseen, progressing slowly down the ramp and onto the rust-red ground. With only tyre tracks betraying its existence to the vigilant eyes of the Outcast base just two klicks away, it eluded the watchers and their robotic assistants. Once clear of the ramp another rover followed, then another, and another after that. Each carried a crack team of six Outcast commandos clad in their matte-black exo-skeletons, armed to their fish-like teeth with weapons, explosives, and tech. The twenty-four warriors, hidden and dangerous on the moon of Exelon, moved silently towards their targets.

  Chapter Six

  April 11, 2063: Weapons Lab & Testing Facility, Outcast Underground Base, Exelon

  General Rafai led his six human guests through the heavy security doors which he opened merely by the power of his thoughts. Much of the Outcasts technology took advantage of their ability to generate short-range signals via the magnetic centre at the base of their brains. For humans this would present problems when interacting with Outcast tech. Any such technology would need to be adapted, but fortunately not all, as some had manual controls – either as a backup or where it was simply more convenient. The open-plan military lab was more like a giant aircraft hangar, with the obligatory red-rock surfaces. Sturdy metallic columns and horizontal ceiling trusses supported the roof. Illumination was dim and bluish, as seemed to be the Outcast preference; perhaps, thought Powell, because of their marine origins. It was a hive of activity, the floor populated by dozens of the near-unclad Outcasts. They were working at metallic benches on unknown equipment, some beside strange looking machines. The occasional flashes of what looked like plasma fire pulsed from the far right corner. An Outcast to the mid-left was advancing tentatively, wearing the legs of an experimental exoskeleton. His colleague stood by him, studying his progress intently.

  As Powell and the five other humans feasted their eyes on the visual bounty before them, General Rafai explained via his translator machine, “The lab is divided into sections. First, we will look at the small-arms section.” His dappled teal spots flushed a lighter shade before he continued, “I will concentrate on the areas we think your war effort will benefit from. Please ask me questions if you would like to.”

  He leaned awkwardly into his stride and led the way to the far right corner, walking like a being built for the water, on land. The many Outcast scientists and engineers they passed stared curiously at the weird-looking mammalian bipeds. They occasionally exchanged thought-conversations, and at other times they spoke their watery language. Powell looked into the large, black eyes of one of them and found it strangely hypnotic. He started to wonder if they really could hook into a human brain somehow. Hell, if humans could be hypnotised, then it must be possible, he mused, as they neared the screen from behind which the plasma light had come.

  “Here our engineer is testing an upgraded type of plasma handgun,” said Rafai, as they stopped at a metal workbench with two Outcasts standing beside
it. One was looking intently at a large – by human standards – disassembled, black handgun, trying to pry something out with a long-pointed implement. The other Outcast engineer turned to face General Rafai, making eye contact the way they seemed to do. He was shorter than Rafai and, for the first time, Powell managed to clearly see the difference in facial features between individual Outcasts. Perhaps his mind was becoming accustomed to the subtleties of their features, he thought. To their left, and twenty-five metres away against the lab wall, was a row of three humanoid-shaped targets hanging from cables.

  “It is lighter and with a better rate-of-fire than those currently in service. I will ask him to give you a demonstration now,” continued the General. He said nothing, but the engineer closest to them – the one holding the intact handgun – seemed to understand. He flicked a switch on the side of the oversized weapon and waddled over to the line on the floor opposite the targets. He raised the handgun to his eye one-handed and held down the trigger. Sorensen, the Secret Serviceman and ex-SEAL, looked on enviously as the handgun let forth a furious precession of bluish-white plasma. They needed to squint at first, so bright were the boiling, fiery slugs. The noise was almost as intense as the light. The high-pitch pew-pew-pew… continued for a full three seconds, by which time there was only a smouldering stub where the target had once hung. The red rock behind it was glowing orange where it had absorbed the plasma hits.