Cross forced himself to look away from Portia and concentrate on the conversation. He knew all of this stuff, so it wasn’t of much interest to him, and he knew that Bradshaw could handle much of it on his own.
It wasn’t until one of the Egyptians said, “I do not care whether the aliens need our planet as a food source. I do not believe that understanding the enemy makes much difference in this case.”
Cross stared at the man on the screen. He looked fierce. Maddox started to answer, but Cross said softly, “Let me.”
Maddox nodded.
Cross said, “We don’t know a lot about these aliens. We don’t know their cultural norms. We don’t know how they are born, how they raise their young, or how they live when they’re not at war. What we do know is that they are intelligent, they are—or were for many millennia—significantly more advanced than we are, and that they work well together in groups.”
The Egyptian was watching, arms crossed. Some of the other scientists leaned forward. Cross felt a shiver run through him. Britt had told him time and time again that people listened to him more than they listened to the others. It surprised him every time he saw evidence of it.
“The biggest thing that we know is that they harvest Earth like lost travelers in the desert would harvest an oasis. As far as we can tell, we are their only food source. For thousands upon thousands of years, we did not fight back.”
His voice was rising. He tried to keep it in check. He didn’t want to sound strident, even though he was feeling that way.
“It would be as if every animal group that we slaughtered for food, from chickens to cows, suddenly started fighting back—and also fighting to protect the crops and the grass around them. That’s what I believe these aliens are facing.”
“So?” the Egyptian said. “I cannot—I will not—feel compassion for them.”
Cross let out a small breath. Ah, that was where this argument was going, then. “When we try to understand the aliens, we’re not doing it so that we can empathize with them. We’re not doing it so that we feel compassion. We’re doing it to try to second-guess how they will attack us.”
Maddox folded her hands together. Portia was watching him over the head of the small dog. Britt was squeezing her cappuccino cup so hard her knuckles were white.
“I believe, and this is just my belief, that these aliens believe this is a fight to the death.” Cross glanced at the other screens. Heads were nodding at tables all over the world. “I think they are fighting for their own survival and we’re fighting for ours. They’re not going to come in, retaliate, and leave. They have to harvest food from this planet, or their species will die. That means that they’ll have to defeat us, at least by their game plan. I think this next fight will be extremely difficult.” The Egyptian bowed his head once. “If you put it that way,” he said, “I will agree with you. I would like to hear less psychoanalysis, however, and more about ways that we can physically defeat them.”
“Well,” Maddox said before Cross could speak again, “let me tell you what I can of the military plans.”
What she could? Cross glanced at her. She was a smart woman, one of the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. She chose her words with great care. Obviously, she felt she couldn’t share all of the plans. And now he was wondering why. But he knew better than to challenge her in front of their international peers.
“We have come up with a method of attacking the alien ships,” Maddox said.
Cross held his breath. No one had told him this and, judging from the surprised looks around the table, no one had told anyone on the U.S. part of the Tenth Planet Project.
“Why didn’t you tell us this before?” Yolanda Hayes asked.
“1 wasn’t at liberty to,” Maddox said. She smiled. Apparently the silence hadn’t bothered her. “Let me explain what we’re going to do.”
Her smile grew and she rubbed her hands together. Obviously this part of the plan pleased her. “All of you remember the first attack. Nothing electronic can get through the aliens’ dampening fields. They have some kind of equipment that steals the energy from anything within a certain radius.”
Most of that, Cross knew, was for the members who hadn’t been in the Project during the first attack. The aliens’ dampening fields had been part of the problem from the very beginning and the subject of many meetings.
“We have figured out a way around this. We are going to have planes fly above the dampening fields. As the alien ships approach the ground so that they can release the nanoharvesters, we will drop bombs on the ships from above.”
Maddox had all of their attention now. Cross’s stomach was in knots and he didn’t quite know why.
“Government scientists who have been working on parts of the alien ships have found a material that will stick to the hulls. We are going to use bombs that will stick and do no immediate harm. Instead of having an electrical timer, these bombs will have a simple altitude pressure switch that requires no electronics at all. When the alien ships rise to a certain altitude, the switch will trigger and the bombs will blow. We believe that enough bombs, dropped on the ships, will destroy the ships.”
“But the harvesters will already have been released,” Killius said.
Maddox nodded. She seemed almost annoyed that the first response was a negative one. Cross had to admit he was stunned by the news and was searching, in his own mind, to find a hole in the idea. Because Maddox had kept this secret from them? Or because he was trying to be a good scientist, skeptical to the end? He wasn’t sure.
“We should be able to use ground launchers to send these bombs into the air as well,” Maddox said.
Cross had a horrible image of apes hurling mudballs at tanks. He tried to shake it off.
“We have given this technology to all of the world governments,” Maddox was saying, “and they are rapidly arming themselves. Between these bombs and Ms. Groopman’s nanorescuers, we have a strong defense against the aliens.”
Cross glanced at her. But that wasn’t all. From what she had said before, they were making other plans as well. “Are we going to attack them before they get into orbit?”
“We haven’t finalized any other plans, yet, Dr. Cross,” Maddox said.
He bit his lower lip. He wanted to say to her that keeping secrets wasn’t productive, that this time it was the humans against the aliens, not the U.S. against some other country. But he didn’t. He’d had that fight with Maddox before—countless times—and it had done no good.
She looked at him for a long moment, as if expecting him to make the same old tired argument. When he didn’t, she said, “Unless anyone has anything to add, I’d like to close this meeting. As I said before, we’ll deal with details outside of this structure. Does anyone have anything major they’d like to say?”
There was a moment of silence. Maddox again looked at Cross. He would talk to her about the secrecy in private.
“Well, then,” Maddox said. “There is only one more thing I need to discuss.”
She paused, it seemed, for dramatic effect.
“This will be the last meeting of the Tenth Planet Project.”
So that was why she had been looking at Cross. She had been preparing herself for his reaction. “This is the wrong time to break up the Project,” he said. “We need the consortium of minds and information—”
“1 know, Dr. Cross.” Maddox smiled. “The problem is that we no longer have the luxury of time. These meetings take hours that I don’t have and neither does anyone else on this extended team. Besides, with the unrest all over the world, getting together is taking longer and is less productive.”
“But—”
“Let me finish,” Maddox said.
He could have sworn her eyes twinkled. She had presented that news this way just to get him riled. He had been manipulated, and he was trying not to be angry about it.
“I agree that continuing to coordinate information from scientists and leaders from all over the world is impo
rtant. I believe that it is crucial in these next twenty-nine days. But I think we must avail ourselves of technology and stop relying on face-to-face meetings. Instead, I think we need to work without such a rigorous meeting schedule.”
Her words quieted Cross.
“What I would like to do is this.” Again, she paused. She was tormenting him, and getting some enjoyment out of it. He hadn’t realized that she actually liked sparring with him. “Dr. Cross, I want you to coordinate all of the information through this Tenth Planet Group, make sure each of us remains informed, and keep all of the channels open so that we are perhaps more informed than we’ve been.”
Cross frowned. “I have good equipment, but it’s not up to this many satellite links and—”
“I know,” Maddox said. “That’s why I’ve arranged for you to work out of the communications section of STScI’s lab. Offices will be cleared for you by this afternoon, and additional equipment is already there. We have several assistants lined up to help you, although we know you’ll want to bring in some of your own.” He was feeling railroaded and he wanted to protest, but he didn’t. She was giving him what he had been asking for all along. Free-flowing information. Even more free-flowing than it had been. And he was going to coordinate it all.
“All right,” Cross said. “How much setup will this take?”
“Most of it has already been done,” Maddox said. “All of you should find e-mail in your links telling you how to stay in contact.”
Britt squeezed Cross’s hand. “At least we’ll be in the same area now,” she whispered.
He glanced at her. Had she known about these plans and not told him? He felt a flare of anger, then set it aside. He didn’t like being out of the loop, and that was what he was reacting to. It wasn’t Britt’s fault. And Maddox was right. This was the best for all of them. Cross had taken a couple of much needed hours just to get to the meeting, and the meeting itself was taking a lot of time. He could speed up this process considerably.
“Now I am going to officially call an end to this last face-to-face meeting of the Tenth Planet Project.” Maddox seemed to make eye contact with everyone on the screens as well as at the table. “Humankind has a great chance of surviving this war because of the work of everyone here. I, for one, am proud to be a part of this team.”
She smiled at him, then went on. “I hope you will all avail yourselves of the new methods of communication. I expect to be hearing about all of your work regularly. And I hope that when we meet again, face to face, it will be for a worldwide victory celebration.”
She slapped her hands on the table. “Meeting adjourned.”
One by one the screens winked out.
Maddox stood. She started for the door, but Cross caught her arm.
“You blindsided me,” he said.
“You’re the one who wanted freer communication,” she said.
“And I think it’ll work,” he said. “I think it’s the right decision.”
Her features softened just a bit. “Yet you’re complaining.”
He shook his head. “Not really.”
He glanced at the others, making the look obvious, so that Maddox knew what he said was just for her. The remaining members of the Project were talking to Portia.
“There is one question that I have for you,” Cross said. “You alluded to something twice in this meeting. First you said, ‘Let me tell you what I can of our military plans.’ This implies that there are plans you can’t tell us about. And secondly, you dodged my question about other forms of attack. Why are you keeping secrets, General?”
Her smile faded. “Dr. Cross, it’s always been military policy to keep things close to the chest.”
“I know that,” he said. “But this time things are different. We’re not fighting other humans who are trying to discover our strategy and tactics. We’re fighting creatures we’ve never seen before.”
“I know,” she said. “But the art of war is an ancient one. And it has always been contingent on secrets. We don’t make decisions by committee in the military. All I can tell you is that we have other plans in the works. I am not at liberty to tell you—or anyone else here— what they are. Most of my direct subordinates don’t know either.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to let us know?”
She shook her head. “We don’t have systems in place for that sort of thing, and we don’t have time to invent them. It’s better to use tradition. The systems are in place and take no thought to implement. Right now, I’m staring down the barrel of a gun that will go off in exactly twenty-nine days. If I can carve out extra time in those twenty-nine days and not jeopardize our mission, I will. That includes using old methods because they already exist. It includes dissolving as many formal meetings as I can—not just with the Project, but with my own staff and others.”
Her blue eyes were steely. Cross had never met anyone with such power in her gaze.
“I’ll be honest with you, Dr. Cross. We have to cram months of work into the next few weeks. We can do it if we work at peak efficiency and on very little sleep. If we miss by so much as a hair, we lose. And I hate to lose”
“I don’t think losing is an option, General.” “Neither do I, Dr. Cross,” she said. “That’s why I’ve gone to so much trouble to continue this group. You’re going to run it now, Dr. Cross. No secrets, except the ones that someone chooses to withhold from you. Let the information flow.”
He smiled.
“But don’t waste my time having me read memos or getting redundant e-mail or watching dull vids. Boil it down, pass it on to the right parties, keep us all informed, but in a way that speeds things up rather than slows them down. Is that clear?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good.” She nodded and started to walk away, then stopped as if she had another thought. “You do realize, Dr. Cross, why I put you in charge.”
“To keep me out of trouble?” he joked.
She shook her head. “You’re probably the only person in this entire project, perhaps the only person I’ve ever met, who can understand, coordinate, and communicate all of the various information that will flow from these people. I hope that you’ll keep an open mind. I will. If one of your trademark hunches flows logically from this information, share it with me. I’ll make sure you’ll be heard.”
Then she turned her back on him and left.
He watched the door close behind her. The shaded glass walls shimmered. He had been feeling the urgency of the aliens’ arrival before, but now it seemed heightened.
And somehow, with Maddox’s last minute charge, he felt as if the fate of the world rested on his shoulders.
October 12, 2018
9:22 a.m. Central Daylight Time
29 Days Until Second Harvest
Kara’s feet hurt. At dawn, she had walked to the Loop, hoping to find a train that would take her somewhere close to home. All she had wanted to do was get on the Red Line, or even the Purple Line. The Red had an extension all the way to Lake Forest. It was the line she had taken the night before, before everything got crazy.
But it hadn’t happened.
She had arrived to find the entire downtown section, from the Daley Center to the Sears Tower, filled with broken glass, destroyed cars, and small fires. Not many rioters were still active, although there was a lot of looting going on.
She had walked the filthy concrete stairs up to the El at the first station she saw. It was on the corner of Washington and Dearborn. But as she peeked over the top, she realized she didn’t want to go any farther.
A train was askew on the tracks, doors open, the interior destroyed. No one was on the platform, and the eerie emptiness terrified her. She couldn’t even hear the rumble of a far-off train.
The booth had been knocked over, the electronic turnstiles destroyed.
At that moment, she had realized she wasn’t taking an El home, and she’d started to shake.
She wasn’t going to cry. She had survived so far. She wasn�
�t going to let this get to her.
And she hadn’t.
She was walking through the mess down Randolph to Lake Michigan. Lake Forest was on the lake—more than forty miles away, but on the lake—and she would walk it if she had to.
She was tired and cold and hungry. She had never spent a night outdoors before—not without a tent or family or friends. Sometime around midnight, she had crawled down some steps that led to a boarded-up door and wedged herself as far against the stone wall as possible. The sidewalk was above her, and from it she could hear the screams and shouts of people as they ran by.
The sounds of breaking glass faded, though, as the night went on—probably because there were few windows left. And the voices died down as the looting ceased. Once, she thought she caught the acrid scent of smoke, and she peeked out of her hiding place, afraid that the fire was nearby.
A car, upside down, its wheels moving like the feet of an upended turtle, had a fire on its undercarriage. But the flames hadn’t looked like they’d spread, and she had eased back into her hiding place.
She knew she had slept, but that was only because she had bounced awake as her head slipped against the stone. Her dreams had been as bad as the night around her.
She had tried everything. She had searched for a cab, waited for the bus, and tried to get into some of the nearby hotels. The hotels had locked their doors. No people could get in and no guests could get out. She had pounded and screamed, and once, a security guard had come to the door. All he had done was tell her to go away.
Finally, when she’d found her safe place at the bottom of the stairs, she had used her wrist’puter to call her father. He had answered on the first ring, relief so deep in his voice when he realized it was her that it took her a moment to tell him what was happening.
She hadn’t realized how worried he would be. She had thought he wouldn’t even know she was gone. Her mother’s voice had echoed in the background, also worried.
Kara had told her father where she was, what had happened, and had urged him to get her. He had promised he would be there within the hour. But a half an hour later her ’puter vibrated against her wrist. She answered.
Final Assault Page 5
