by Mark Howard
"Now these," she explained, gesturing her fork towards the hangar, "are the opposite of all that. They are full-on nuclear powered — there is enough stored energy in the momentum of that ring, resting as it is right now, to power a good-size city for a week straight; never mind the actual reactor output that trickle charges it. And they have clearance — not from local authorities, mind you — but at higher levels — to operate at will over heavily populated areas. Now we have enough experience to trust this tech, but the general population? Forget about it. Never. And you can't redesign it any other way. Whatcha gonna do, unplug the reactor and slap solar panels on the top?"
At this, Star let out a long hoarse laugh, triggering fits in the others. It was sadly ironic for Jess to see old hippies laughing at the perceived impotence of solar power.
"OK, I get all that. I think. So there's a couple of reasons. But what's the bigger picture to all this?"
"Well, now, that is subject to opinion. But the consensus from our angle is that it is preparatory."
"Preparatory; for what?"
"For you, Jess," Star said, forking another slice out of her cake, "for disclosure."
"Now what you did," she continued after finishing her slice, "was inadvertent disclosure — from their perspective — but they've been well prepared for that too, and you've seen what they've done with it so far. It's no joke — there have been so many incidents through the years they've got it down to a science. But listen, your little stunt out there — regardless of whether you think it was effective or not — moved the needle on this big time. It cleaved an opening for the UFO nuts to reach the public. There's no denying this tech now, regardless of how they spin it, there was thirty-five thousand people who saw it with their own eyes, in person, and a whole bunch of them know the government-controlled media spin is bullshit. Maybe they haven't accepted it consciously yet, but trust me, they know. It's out there now. And that's what they've been afraid of. So now there's two ways about it. The public can believe it was a government ship, which they won't, because why would the government land a ship in the middle of Wrigley Field, or they can think it was Extraterrestrial, which the government has now covered up — once again. It plays so nicely into the whole long-lived Roswell theme, so that's what it'll be, in my humble opinion. Without knowing it, you became our first public alien ambassador."
"So what is their next step?"
"Well, they've prepared for this day and you've seen the start of it. Coverup and disinfo campaigns. They'll encourage all sides of it, too — discreetly pushing all the different theories: E.T., government recon ship, elaborate hoax, etc. to sew confusion. You'll notice they won't even deny the actual truth, and that's the trick. Ever heard of Black-Ops? Well there is also White-Ops, and Gray-Ops. White-Ops deals with public, truthful knowledge. Gray-Ops mixes White-Ops with Black-Ops — truth and lies — to breed confusion and disagreement. Add a little truth to a stew of lies and a whole bunch of people will lap it all up. Keep your enemy muddled and a coordinated reaction can't gel together. Then they sit back, watch the bickering, and wait for everyone to get tired, and then the whole thing will blow over without too much collateral damage. Will it grow the ranks of E.T. believers? You bet. Will it obviate religion and government order? No way. This is not a turning point, but it's a step. As long as people have food, jobs, a roof over their head, and a big TV in it, there won't be any street protests calling for disclosure. This isn't the 'Alien Spring' here. Honestly, we've all talked well into the night, many nights, about what would happen in the event of a full disclosure of their presence, and we don't think a whole lot — given the assumption they wouldn't invade or try to rule over us — which from our collective experience they have no desire to do. But the G-Men always hedge their bets — especially if they can use the fear internally to keep getting those massive black budgets approved — and so they prepare for any disclosure by showing off their tech now. It's grass roots, like us, but theirs is a storyline they're slowly building, so they can come back later and say it was them all along, that they're still large and in charge."
Jess, thrown by Star's intimation of an actual 'alien presence', decided to continue her strategy of dismissing it, since she had still seen no concrete proof to support such conclusions. "Still seems like an awfully ridiculous amount of resources going into this whole thing, for such a low probability outcome as alien contact."
"Well, they don't have the faith we do, neither in humanity or them," Star said, gesturing upwards, "and they're paid to be paranoid. Remember, it is their job to protect us, after all. But mix a noble cause with borderline psychotic paranoia, then add in whole lot of money with no parental supervision, and this is what you get — some kind of crazy."
Jess finished her cake and lemonade as Star rose to retire into the adjoining living room. The others, who had all been surreptitiously listening to the conversation, followed her lead, leaving Jess alone at the table. Victor cleared the empty plates, then brought out trays full of tapas from the kitchen, along with a few bottles of wine. Jess sampled each dish slowly, trying to process all of this information, before joining them all on the couch.
"Now," Star said, slapping her knees with both hands, "we've told you what we know, and glad to do it. Let's talk about how you can help us."
"Sure, but how? It seems like you've got a good thing going here."
"We've got the land here to support two more Big Mamas, and we want 'em. We have another unlock code, too, but they've upped the security — they keep the Gen III's underground now. We can find it remotely, given enough time, but we can't do what you do."
"So...you want me to swipe it for you," Jess replied, motioning toward the hangar outside, "and bring it back here."
"Would be awful sweet of ya," Star replied with a smile.
"Look, I respect what you all are doing here — but I've got different goals in this. I want full disclosure — even of the things I don't know about yet — and I am going to continue down that road. So you can have the ship, but only after I raise my own type of awareness with it. And I can't guarantee I'll get back to you in one piece, if at all."
"Now hold on a second here," Star countered with a measure of annoyance, "these codes don't come up very often — this here's a special opportunity for us."
"I get it," Jess said. "And I'm offering my help, but if you think you can get it yourself, then that's your business. I will say though, if you offer me the opportunity on this one, I will work my darndest to get it back to you when I'm finished with it."
Star paused for a second, and then glanced at Roper, who after a moment gave a quick nod. Then she looked over to Victor, standing in the doorway wiping his hands on his apron. Without delay, he also gave a confident nod along with a thumbs up.
"Yeah, I could'a predicted that; she's got you in her left pocket," Star mumbled to Victor before turning back to Jess. "That's acceptable to us," she said brightly, shaking Jess' hand, then turned to Sag.
"Get Tweetie on the line, honey bunch."
~ 55 ~
Sag led Jess to a cramped upstairs dormer room, which contained a comically small child-size roll-top desk supporting an enormous and ancient ham radio set. Two black wires, one thick and one thin, led from the back of the radio to the outside of the house via the sill of a newspaper-covered window. On a side table next to the ham equipment stood a smaller, portable radio with a large analog frequency dial in the center surrounded by various toggle switches. Below it sat a triangular glass ashtray, holding the remnants of a stale joint.
On the wall next to the rig was affixed a map of the world with different colored pushpins stuck into it. Although most of them were located within the United States, a few other countries — the U.K. was a prominent one — were also represented. Within the states, there were about a dozen spread across the eastern seaboard, but the majority appeared to cluster in the southwest states of Texas, Utah, and California. Looking upwards, she noticed a prominent grouping of purple pushpi
ns as far north as the Arctic Circle, which she found odd. She was about to ask about them, when Sag began transmitting.
"X-ray Tango One-Zero-One-Seven. Calling for Wolfram Foxtrot Zero-Six-One-One."
A minute of radio silence elapsed before Sag tried to raise him again, but still there was no answer. "Must be offline. It's a little early for him anyway. We'll try again in a bit. Hey, in the meantime I want to show you something."
He flipped on the smaller shortwave radio and turned the dial. A rush of alternating static, voices, and songs filled the small room until he settled on a particular frequency. A woman's voice could be heard reading random numbers, one after the other. After several had been read, there was a pause, then a short tone, and then more numbers.
"What is this?"
"This is the source for the fleet management carrier," Sag explained. "It's a station that broadcasts worldwide, twenty-four-seven. It's been online without fail since the late sixties at least."
"What the hell? It's super creepy."
"Yeah, used to be they thought it was the Russians communicating in code to their spies, and it may have been at one time. But doesn't make any sense now, twenty-six years after the wall fell, does it?"
"So she just reads numbers all day long?"
"Yeah, well we assume it's a recording, not an actual chick in her seventies sitting there all day long! But anyway, we found out that it had been co-opted in the mid-nineties to be a carrier for the ships. I guess they figure everybody knows about it, and attributes it to the Russians, so what better cover is there? Anyway, the numbers don't matter anymore, there's a subcarrier synchronized by the tone which keeps the ships checked in. Like a heartbeat. They need to use this frequency because standard ship to shore communication frequencies are blocked by the EMF field around the ship when stationary, and these things move so fast that regular radio waves aren't reliable at speed — they get distorted. So special equipment onboard monitors this particular shortwave frequency to maintain a heartbeat, and also to listen for the subcarrier, which lets the ship know which ELF to lock into to for more detailed commands."
Jess looked askance at him. "Ah, elf?"
"Sorry, Extremely Low Frequency. The longer wavelengths have an easier time breaking through the EMF fields. So if a fleet management command needs to be transmitted, the shortwave heartbeat will modify the subcarrier temporarily, redirecting the ships to a specific secure ELF data channel. Then they broadcast the command over the ELF channel, to the particular ship they're targeting."
"Wow, you're like a rocket scientist in here. When I first met you you didn't seem that..." Jess quickly bit her tongue, but Sag finished the sentence for her anyway.
"...bright?"
"Umm, yeah, sorry. First impressions, and all."
"Yeah, that was just the ganja. Taking the frontal lobes offline once in a while is good for the spirit. Life isn't all about directed thought you know. You should read the Dao de Jing."
"Can't seem to find the time these days, but I'll take that under consideration," Jess replied with a smile. "Anyway, that makes sense what you said about the comms — when I was onboard I didn't hear a single communication to a tower or home base, except when we were docking, and later when we did a fly-by of a base."
"Yeah, those were probably through ELF channels, which change regularly on a coordinated schedule. Usually they slow or stop the ship and drop an antenna to receive the message. And it's not a high speed data link either, it's generally used just for sporadic fleet management commands or emergencies. I mean these things are stealth, so there wouldn't be much communication anyway, regardless of the technical hurdles."
Sag attempted the transmission again, and after a moment a crackling began issuing from the speaker.
"Wolfram Foxtrot," came the slow, steady reply, as though from someone answering the phone after viewing a suspicious phone number on the caller ID.
"Foxtrot, X-ray Tango looking for a meet-up. Local option. Coffee and tea?"
"That's affirmative. Seven-thirty?"
"Yup."
"Usual suspects?"
"Affirmative, and a plus-one."
A few moments of silence elapsed before there was another tentative reply. "Vetted?"
"Wrigley," Sag transmitted.
"Ha! Gotcha. See you then. Out."
"Out," said Sag, returning the mic to the table. "Boy he sure is excited to meet you! Let's catch up in the morning, its been a long day."
Sag led Jess to her bedroom, next door to the radio room. Brushing her teeth in the tiny bathroom, she had some time to think about the day's events. What have I gotten myself into? And when will I get out of it? she thought, as she lay on the bed trying to fall asleep. But the din of the crickets outside, along with the sporadic sound of a distant freight train, conspired to take her frontal lobes offline, and she was soon asleep.
~ 56 ~
An actual rooster awoke her, as the first glint of sunlight shone through the lace curtains. Arising, she stretched and went to the window. Before her lay an idyllic scene of gently rolling green fields leading to the edge of the forest beyond. Near the back corner of the property something reflective twinkled in the sunlight, catching her eye. As she squinted to examine it closer, her attention was distracted by the clink of pots and pans from downstairs, followed by the smell of bacon wafting into the room. Deciding it wise to abandon further investigation, she dressed and headed downstairs to find Roper and Sag preparing fresh bacon and eggs for the crew.
"Mornin!" Roper greeted her. "How do you take 'em?"
"Scrambled, please, thanks. Smells amazing."
After deftly breaking three brown eggs into a bowl with one hand, Roper added some milk with the other, then chucked the egg shells through the open kitchen window into the yard.
"Order up, Vic!" he called out the window after them.
"Where is he?"
"Oh, he's out working in the garden. He's usually in charge of the kitchen but he's got some weeding to do. So I understand you've got a meeting this morning."
"Ayup, down in Texas, y'all," Sag answered on her behalf, as he sat at the small kitchen table absentmindedly folding over the edge of a placemat.
"Well...don't mind Tweetie if'n he ain't too friendly at first," Roper warned Jess, mimicking Sag's bad accent. "He's got a lot on the line with this deal. We don't know where he gets all his info, as he's pretty low on the totem, so there may be a chain in operation he's overly protective of. Sometimes he doesn't fully trust the judgement of us damned dirty hippies."
"Yeah, he seemed that way," Jess agreed. "Well I guess I don't blame him, considering. Hey, by the way, what's the big shiny thing in the back corner of the field?"
Roper frowned at Sag, but Sag knew immediately what she meant. "Oh yeah, that's Libra."
"Libra! You mean the Gen I model?"
"Yeah, that's what you do out in the country when yer car tain't work no mores. Ya set 'er out ta pasture," Sag replied, now a midwestern farmer.
Accents must be the only entertainment they have out here, Jess thought. "Yeah that's fun with the voices and all. So anyway, about Libra, are you kidding me? It's just...out there? In the wide open? What about, like, Google satellites snapping pics of it?"
"Honey, nobody's gonna care what's out here. She's in the weeds, man, and she's almost gone anyway."
"What do you mean, almost gone?"
"They sink, Jess," Sag replied. "Without the ring operating you'd need a serious foundation just to support the dead weight. In two years time she'll prolly be completely buried. Might keep goin' too, unless she hits a layer of solid granite or something."
She pondered this, as Roper served her a plate of fluffy yellow scrambled eggs with a sprinkle of pepper. Returning to the kitchen, he poured more eggs into the pan, and Jess listened to them sizzle as a rooster crowed out back. The surreality of discussing the fate of worn-out spaceships in this setting was not lost on her.
After breakfast, they all took a l
ong walk down to the back of the property. Star, waiting for them at the hangar, took them inside and led them around Big Mama to the Gen II model parked in back.
"This is our commuter, Scout. Big Mama, and all the other Gen III's, are night runners only. They removed the visual camouflage functionality on 'em, so you can't take them out during the day. Personally, I think the camo gear was always overkill, and I think they figured that out too. Works well enough — when it works — but there have been some spectacular failures. Imagine seeing a huge triangle flying above your house lit up with TV static. That really happened, and not just once! Talk about stealth, huh! Covered those up by saying they were malfunctioning advertising blimps."
This new ship, Scout, was more similar to the ship she took than to Big Mama, but was half the size. Though it emitted a low hum, it was also supported by three four-inch square timbers set into concrete footings.
"What's with the wooden posts supporting this one — does that mean you turn it off?"
"Well, the tripod supports on her stopped working about six years ago, so Roper put these posts in. Supposed to be a quick fix, but you know how those things go. And no, these posts certainly couldn't support the full weight. In the earlier models, like this one, the ring only compensates for about nine-tenths of the mass. We don't want to be running the thrusters in here in the summer, cause of the waste heat, so we support the rest of the weight the old fashioned way. Like I said before, with Big Mama they got the grav-null efficiency up to one hundred percent, so that's not an issue with her."
"So if Big Mama can account for all its weight, why are there still the three big thrusters on the bottom?"
"Well you still need 'em for a quick getaway straight up, and also all the systems are integrated, so you need the waste heat to generate the plasma envelope. So they're kinda like an appendix, but still useful in some ways. Also, if you noticed last night, on her they got a bunch of smaller recessed thrusters spread out along the edges. They're not needed for lift either though, just for station keeping."
