Mike grimaced. “Tell her no thanks to the blind dates. That last one was a nightmare. Did Peggy really think I would be impressed by a woman with fake boobs the size of melons? You take care Rob, don’t let all those ground lovers get in your head down there. And don’t worry; we will be ready up here when the time comes. Just keep the politicians off our backs.”
“I will try my best,” said the General. “I need to go talk to the station commander before I head down. I will see you later old buddy.” “Safe flight General,” called Mike as his old friend left the compartment.
Chapter 44
April 17th, 2039
New Washington, Georgia
President Walden sat in the oval office with his Joint Chief of Staff and his CIA Director. “So what do we know about the incident?” he asked.
Admiral Desmond, who had relieved General Walden as the military’s top officer when General walden ran for president, spoke up. “Senator Gonzales’s private chartered jet took off from Dallas and was in route to Cancun. His plane had left US airspace when another small private jet crossed its path astern of the Senator’s plane. The second jet then changed course sharply and closed on the Senator’s jet. From what we can discern from the radar data, the second jet fired two air to air heat seeking missiles. The Senators plane was blown apart. Only small pieces of wreckage have been recovered and no bodies have been found by the search ships. The second plane veered out to sea after the attack. Two F-22’s that were scrambled to intercept it found it cruising on auto pilot at low speed at an altitude of ten thousand feet. Its transponder had been turned off and the rear access hatch was open. There was no one seen at the controls. Modifications had been made to the wings to mount two air to air missiles. It appears that the crew bailed out right after they turned the plane to sea and put it on auto pilot. Witnesses to the event say that one parachute was seen shortly after the missile explosions. We assume the pilot was picked up by a boat in the area.”
The President looked over at his CIA director expectantly. “We have determined that the plane used to launch the missiles had been reported stolen from Columbia, South America about five weeks ago. It appears that it took off from a little airstrip in Northern Mexico that had at one time been used by the drug barons there. The pilot reported to Mexico Air Traffic Control when they queried him that he had landed there to pick up a charter group. Mexico ATC did not pursue the matter until after the incident. Our sources in Mexico and those that the FBI has in place all say that Senator Gonzales was on his way to a meeting with perhaps a dozen associates who were all very pro-secessionist. They were in the final preparations of declaring the withdrawal of Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, and Arizona from the United States. What has not made the news yet, surprisingly enough, is that nine of those associates met their own demise shortly after the Senators plane was destroyed. Six of them died in two separate car bombings, one from a heart attack, and two from what is being reported as suicides.”
The President scowled at the CIA director. “You better be able to tell me that none of our security agencies had anything to do with this. We are already catching some serious heat about the probability of the CIA assassinating the Senator. I have authorized no such operation. If some asshole in one of our agencies did this on his own, I am going to personally castrate the son of a bitch.”
The CIA director shook his head. “We had nothing to do with it, although whoever did do it probably did us a huge favor.”
“Favor my ass,” cursed the President. “Have you seen the news networks headlines?” “President with military ties orders killings of opposition member,” the reporters are screaming.
“Actually, Mr. President, about the only people complaining that loudly about the incident are the members of the secessionist party that the Senator was the head of. Most of the country has wondered why we did not shoot him or lock him up before now,” said the Admiral. “He was a treasonous bastard and honestly, he deserved what he got.”
“Damn it Roger, you tell me how I can go on the air and tell the public as well as the Senator’s wife and daughter that he got what his mutinous ass deserved! Hell, I am probably going to have to speak at his memorial service and the thought of that makes me want to puke my guts out.”
The president leaned back in his chair. “Alright, we need to pick up the pieces that have been left lying for us. Who do we think carried out these killings?”
The CIA director shook his head. “Senator Gonzales had plenty of enemies. Outside of the southwestern United States and Mexico, he was despised. After he lost the presidential election and he made all those wild claims of cheating on the vote tallies, he alienated just about all his political allies in Congress. Obviously, whoever planned and carried out the attack had contacts that knew when, and where the senator was going ahead of time, as well as where the people he was to meet with were at. They were well financed and had the technical expertise to modify that jet to carry those missiles.”
“Admiral, do we have any idea what type of missiles those were? Who made them, and where were they were bought or stolen from?” asked the President.
“No, Mr. President. They had heat seeking guidance systems. Without being able to examine them or find pieces of them, we have no way to know. The missiles could have been made in Russian, the US, China, France, or God knows where else. They were obviously quite capable of doing the job. Missiles like that are sold and traded on the arms black market on a daily basis.”
“Mr. President,” said his CIA Director. “We have committed numerous resources into coming up with some answers. If we look at who gains the most from these deaths the fingers all point at the United States and you. The people who lose the most are obviously the ones that want to break the southwestern states away from the United States. Whoever was behind this, they killed all the influential leaders of that movement in one day and pretty much stopped the secessionist movement dead cold.”
The President stood. “I don’t care what it takes, find out who did it. I will shoot the bastard myself if I need too. Now, both of you get out of here and find me some answers!”
…
Benjamin Greco set down his wine glass as his personal assistant came in and whispered in his ear. Benjamin reached into his pocket and placed his communication pod on his ear. “This is Mr. Greco,” he said as he listened. “The pilot is on his way to New Zealand?” he asked. “And what of the ground crew? Very well, make sure they receive their payment plus a five hundred percent bonus. I want you to make very sure that they know if any word leaks out about their recent whereabouts or activities, it could cause un-foreseen problems with their family members. Goodbye.”
Benjamin raised his glass. “Geoff my friend, I would like to make a toast to the United States of America, may her President govern her wisely, and may her astronauts protect us all from rocks thrown from the heavens.”
Geoff emptied his wine glass and thought for a moment. “Do you really think that none of them will talk eventually? Some night one of them will get drunk and say something that will be passed on and repeated to someone else and then the hounds could get the scent.”
Benjamin dismissed his friends concern with a wave of his hand. “They are all being paid very well for their silence. We also made sure that every one of the people involved has large and extended families, wives, children etc. We made sure that they will keep the fact in mind that bad things could happen to those families if they talk.”
Geoff eyed his friend of many years with amusement. “Benjamin, would you really give the order for someone to harm women and children if one of the men that were involved talks? Perhaps I have been wrong about you all these years.”
Benjamin laughed and poured himself another glass of wine. “You know me well, Geoff. I could not do that, but those men do not know that. Besides, in about two years when the Dwarf is visible in the sky, nobody is going to remember or give a rat’s ass for Senator Gonzales or his other conspirators. History will fo
rget them completely in a very short time. Now one more toast, to my two sons who are now both enrolled in the Space Force Academy. It seems as if both of them have been chosen for pilot training.”
Geoff nodded and raised his glass in salute.
Chapter 45
February 19th, 2042
Houston, Texas
The JPL control room for the Elpis Probe was abuzz with excitement. The probe had safely arrived at the planet orbiting the Brown Dwarf nine days previously and had settled into orbit. Communications between the probe and its control team at JPL were taking a little over seven hours each way at the moment. that time span would shorten drastically as the planet entered the solar system, swung around the sun, and was finally captured by the sun’s gravity. The first images from the probe were just starting to come in and the control team was sending instructions for the probe to start deploying its other instruments. There was some concern over some of the probe’s instruments due to the fact that in the latter part of the probes deceleration toward the planet some small object, probably a micro-meteorite, had penetrated the probes EM shield and damaged one of the two instrument booms on the probe.
Peter arrived at the control center at four o’clock AM after he had been called at home by a very excited Robby Tully, the project team leader. He found Robby talking animatedly with one of the technicians. “Hey Robby,” Peter said as he walked up behind Robby. “What have you got?”
Robby handed Peter some printed images. “The first family photos from Elpis. You will be amazed at the improvement in the quality of these over the images from telescopes here,” said Robby. “Visual light is very poor due to the fact Elpis is still about the same distance from the Sun as Pluto. These were enhanced with the infrared imager on the probe. The color was then computer enhanced back to visual spectrum and this is what you are looking at. All of these are taken from an altitude of about four hundred kilometers.”
Peter looked at the images. He saw large areas of white and blue ice broken up by what looked like some mountain ranges of more white and blue ice. There was a slight haziness to the pictures. “Is the focus off on your camera?” asked Peter.
Robby shook his head. “Nope, spectrographic readings indicate that some of the frozen gases are starting to heat enough to sublime to gaseous form. The vapor is causing the distortion. That process is going to speed up very rapidly over the next month or two as the atmosphere melts, turns to gas, and settles around the planet. We expect that in about three months the water ice will also start melting and we are going to have very dense fog conditions on the planet. When that happens, it may be months to years before we get another clear glimpse of the surface again. It just depends on what the final atmospheric composition is.”
Peter tried to focus his eyes. “I need some caffeine. Why don’t we schedule a briefing for about nine AM after Mike gets in? Let’s take a hard look at what we have so far and the probes status. We are probably going to have to do a press release with some photos to make the public happy in the next few days. I will catch up with Mike and we can meet in the observation room at nine o’clock. Make enough copies of these for everyone there and make sure they are as clear as you can make them. I will see you then.”
…
Later that morning, Peter and Mike Banscott were huddled over a table behind the Elpis probe control room with Robby Tully and one of the photo reconnaissance gurus employed by JPL. The photo guy was explaining what they were looking at. “These are all from the first two orbits of the probe after she deployed her starboard boom that contains her wide angle and medium resolution imagers. These large flat areas that are broken up by ridges are water ice and will become a pretty big ocean once the planet settles into orbit and the ice melts. The ridges are where the ice has buckled up due to gravitation stresses caused by the dwarf as the planet orbits in close to it. Here you can see there is a line of mountains that is probably the result of plate tectonics and volcanic activity such as what we have on Earth. This area here, as soon as we can determine its altitude, is what we would call gently rolling hills and plains here on Earth. The most interesting area so far is this large plateau that is about one hundred kilometers across overlooking what looks like what will become a bay when the ocean melts and forms.”
Mike was studying the areas that were expected to be above the level of the melting waters. “Do we have any indication what the climate may have been like before the planet was ripped away by the dwarf?”
“As you see can see,” the recon man said, “there are no signs of major erosion or what would appear to be any river deltas or other indications it was a warm planet. My best guess is that it may have once had liquid water but that the climatologically warmer period was very brief and then the water and the atmosphere froze. Our best comparison is that it is similar to Jupiter’s moon Europa. This planet has less water and a lot more elevated ground than Europa however. Our estimate is that the planet’s surface will be about sixty percent covered with water. We are not yet certain how deep the oceans will be.”
“Do we know yet if there is any liquid water in the deeper parts of the oceans? If there was time for any primitive life to develop, that is probably the only place that it could have survived all these millions of years of ice,” Peter said.
Robby spoke up. “We are not deploying the laser altimeter for another couple of days. That will give us very accurate altitude readings of the surface. Unfortunately, we may not be able to answer your question regarding any liquid water in the depths. The port instrument boom will still not deploy. That is the one we believe was hit by the micro-meteorite in route to the planet. We are lucky the entire probe was not destroyed. That boom had the radar imaging device as well as the higher resolution photo imager. We will not be able to get much better images than these before the planet is fogged in by its melting ice.”
“Robby, can we tell what the atmospheric composition is yet?” asked Mike.
Robby shrugged. “It is just starting to melt and vaporize so we can only give a rough guess. Early Spectrographic results show it to be about sixty percent nitrogen, eleven percent oxygen, a pretty high carbon dioxide concentration of about two percent, and an unusually high mixture of exotic gases such as argon, xenon etc. A lot of those rare gasses will be ionized by the suns solar wind and radiation and will be quickly lost. The planet does have a pretty strong magnetic field so it will probably have some very awesome auroras around the pole regions.”
Peter looked up at Mike. “You know what we really need here don’t you Mike?”
“I know, I know. We need a manned orbiter with deployable robot probes. I just don’t know if we can afford that or convince the President to authorize it. We have a spare Mars Transfer ship that we could use, but it would be complicated getting it there in time to do some good science before it had to leave again as the planet swung away. After that, it will be almost eight to nine years before we have another really good window for a manned mission. I will talk to General Seale about crew status and then try and hit the President up at an opportune time. Peter, let’s get a few of these better images released to the press and see if we cannot get the public curious and involved. It may be hard to do now that they can see the dwarf in the sky, but it cannot hurt. If the general public gets involved it will make it easier to get a manned mission approved.”
“We’ll get on it Mike,” said Peter. “Robby, keep trying to get that other instrument boom to deploy. I know it is probably a lost cause, but just keep trying. We are going to lose our photo shoot opportunity real soon. That radar imager would be able to see through the fog. If the radar imager can be brought on line it could keep us up to date on what the surface of that ocean is doing after it is fogged in.”
Chapter 46
March 14th 2042
Birmingham Relocation District
President Walden walked with his entourage through the new re-location housing development in Southwest Birmingham, Alabama. This one housing developmen
t had been planned for over a hundred thousand residents. The twenty story buildings were laid out in two by two blocks. Every third block was dedicated to retail stores, restaurants, or other small service businesses. There was a park or recreation area about every six to seven blocks. The sides of streets were planted in maples that over the past seven to eight years since their planting were starting to branch out and provide some shade to pedestrians on the sidewalks below. On the streets, there was a moderate amount of automobile traffic, all of it was electric vehicles as older vehicles with internal combustion engines were prohibited in the new developments. Twenty feet underground were moving sidewalks that could propel people up to ten mph in addition to their own walking pace for transportation around the local residential development. Deeper underground, there were high speed rail tubes for taking residents of the area to the greater Birmingham Industrial Area and the old city.
Governor Jamison of Alabama and Mayor Tristan of the residential development were pointing out features to the President as they walked ahead of the President’s security detail. “As you can see, Mr. President, this development has the most modern standards of suburban living. Most of the residents that have re-located here are from the Detroit and Chicago areas. Relocation services are trying their best to keep local communities from up north intact as they move the populace here. As a matter of fact, you can find some of the same old family Italian restaurants from Chicago that have re-located here to this area. You can dine out on a sidewalk bistro almost eight months out of the year here due to warmer weather, although they tell us that will change after the encounter. They expect our climate to be very similar to what Chicago has now, except we will not have the lake effect snows that Chicago presently experiences in the winter time,” explained the mayor.
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