by Saxon Andrew
“Don’t blame yourself; things like this just happen.”
Bill nodded and waited for the President to tell him what to do.
The President went to bed early and plugged an ear piece into the micro recorder and turned the volume down where he could barely hear it. The listening device in his bedroom detected a male voice and matched it to the Chief of Staff.
• • •
“What is he listening to?”
“It’s Carl’s voice; he’s probably replaying conversations they had.”
The first man listened and wondered if something had happened that would endanger the coalition. After a moment he shook his head; it was getting to the point where he was paranoid about everything. He stood and left the listening room.
• • •
The President sat in bed and listened to Carl blabber the names of the ones intending to overthrow the government of the United States. His shock at the information left him speechless and he learned he was being listened to; even in his bedroom. His shock soon turned to rage and he made a decision. It was time to do something about this and he knew someone that could help him. His wife joined him and he forced himself to close his eyes. Sleep didn’t come easy.
• • •
“How did you find this place?”
“The young man lived here for four years.”
“It’s a perfect place to hide out even if the satellites were still operating.”
“The investigation teams left a week ago. This is the last place they would expect me to go.”
“What are you going to do?”
Mike turned to his wife, “Tilly, I can’t do what needs to be done if I expect something to happen to you every time I turn around. I just can’t function that way.”
“Let’s think about it and try to come up with a plan. Does that TV work?”
Mike looked at the battery powered miniature television and nodded, “I need to take the antenna up to the top of the rise so it could receive the signal from Phoenix.”
“Why don’t you do that; it would be a diversion after all that’s happened.”
Mike took the spool of cable and handed an end of it to Tilly, “Don’t let go of this.” Mike climbed the wall and reached the top of the rise next to the cave. He hammered a sharp titanium staple into the rock locking the antenna down and climbed back down to the small space between the rocks. He hooked up the antenna and pressed the power button. He went through the VHS channels and suddenly, a clear picture appeared. A TV reporter was speaking and rolling across the bottom of the screen was a banner that said, “Carl Davis dies from massive stroke.” Mike shook his head and blew out a breath. Tilly looked at him and said, “What’s going on?”
“Carl Davis is part of an underground movement in the military to take control of the government. I let the President know he was a danger to him.”
“That’s what you meant when you said, ‘Cos’.”
Mike shook his head, “Tilly, you never cease to amaze me at how smart you are. The President had to act on that piece of information and I’ll bet the farm the Chief of Staff’s death is a product of it.”
“Do they have the ability to cause someone to have a stroke?”
“The CIA does.”
“Do you think that underground group knows what happened?”
“I have no way of knowing.”
“Then you need to get back in the game and find out.” Tilly stood and looked around, “I can stay here while you’re doing your thing.”
“Tilly…”
“Mike, I’ve lived in the desert and built a farm with you. If he could survive here, I can as well.”
“What if something happens to me?”
“Mike, the road is a couple of miles away. You brought enough food and water to last two months. Bring the generator out of the helicopter and I’ll use it to recharge my cell phone and the batteries on this TV.”
“But Tilly!”
“The only way I can live in peace is for you to do something about the ones trying to kill us. I’ve faced death twice in less than a month and I’m past being angry; I want some blood for this.”
“But there’s rattlesnakes and…”
“Get real, Mike. That young man did a good job of setting this cave up. The netting will keep them out during the day and I know how to avoid them. You know I can survive out here.”
Mike looked at her, “If you contact anyone, they’ll know.”
Tilly sighed, “I know.”
Suddenly they heard, “No one knows why Colonel Davenport committed suicide. His wife thinks it was because of his daughter’s recent death and he was not able to cope with the stress. Judy Davenport died suddenly at work and Mrs. Davenport is devastated at the loss of two of her family in less than a week.” They stared at the small TV screen and saw the Colonel they had spoken with before they left with the Scout Copter. Tilly sighed, “He had to be the one that set up the attack and his daughter was killed by it.”
“Notice that the daughter’s cause of death was not mentioned.”
“I saw that. This movement has long tentacles.”
“It sure does.”
“Mike, my cell phone has a good signal at the top of the rise. If I have any problems, I’ll call you.” Tilly watched Mike struggle with the decision and said, “This isn’t only for us; I don’t want my children to live in a society where this can happen.”
“Do you have a way to contact that Seal Sargent who was with you?”
“I have his cell phone number.”
“Let me have it.” Tilly pulled the number up in her phone and Mike entered it into his phone’s contact list. “I’ll leave before daybreak. I’m not leaving you tonight.”
Tilly smiled and put her arms around Mike’s neck, “I was hoping you’d say that.” Mike reached down and turned off the TV.
• • •
The hologram was so real. He moved down the hall as Elle followed him, sidestepping and keeping an eye on their backs. Two of the green aliens turned the corner at the end of the hall and Elle dropped them with two quick stun beams. Jess didn’t turn to look but remained focused on the hall in front of them. They arrived at the end of the hall and Jess glanced around the corner. He held up four fingers twice and Elle nodded. Jess held up three fingers, then two, and finally one. He went around the corner with Elle to his right. They went to a knee and fired rapidly at the eight aliens standing in the hall.
All eight fell before they could pull their hand blasters. Elle stayed on a knee as Jess rushed forward and pulled the eight out of the hall into a small room. Jess went down the hall and looked in each room as he passed. He saw different alien species in each room and then saw humans in the last room. Suddenly, twenty guards came rushing into the hall firing blasters. They killed eleven but the hologram stopped and Pete said, “That hall has monitors watching it at all times. They saw you moving the guards out of the hall and sent a response team.”
Jess shook his head, “We’ve got to find a way to do this.”
“You moved more than eighty percent further than the first time you attempted this module.”
“It’s not good enough.”
Elle stood up and said, “Let’s take a break and think about this.” Jess nodded and holstered his blaster. Elle flipped hers in the air and twirled it down into her holster. Jess could only stare at her. “What?”
“You’re getting better than I am.”
“I have a good teacher.”
“No, you appear to have a natural talent for it.” Elle smiled and kissed Jess on the cheek. “Peter, are you sure that is the actual layout of the prison?”
“It is an exact duplicate of the plans in my databanks. Someone would have had to change it recently for there to be any differences.”
Jess shook his head as he sat down in his chair; Elle stretched and sat down in his lap. “They just have too much warning. There has to be a way for us to get in without having to fight our way through the f
acility.”
“I’m not sure, but the other Q ships may not be able to detect my presence.”
Jess and Elle looked up at the ceiling and Jess said, “What did you just say?”
“I emptied my collectors of positrons and collected dark matter in that galaxy cluster to replace it. I don’t emit the same readings as before.”
Jess looked at Elle and then said, “Explain to us what you mean in terms we can understand.”
“You know how my power is managed.”
“I do.”
“Dark Matter will function as another source of power but emits energy differently from positrons. It’s like two different electrical vehicles where one is grounded to the negative pole and the other to the positive. They operate the same but are wired completely different.”
“How do you detect other Q ships?”
“The positron emissions are distinctive.”
“Would their detection devices see Dark Matter emissions?”
“I don’t know. I know my systems are not calibrated to detect it. For all intents and purposes, Dark Matter is invisible to normal scans.”
Elle’s brow furrowed, “Pete, if the personal force fields were powered with Dark Matter, would the one inside it be visible?” There was a long silence. “Pete?”
“That is a question I’ve not considered. If dark energy is not visible, it would make sense a field of dark energy would also be invisible.”
“Is your force field now being powered by dark energy?”
“Yes, but how would I know if it makes me invisible? We’re inside the field and can see everything.”
“The force field you had on my planet made you invisible.”
“Actually, it just deflected light around it. In open space, the field would be visible due to its normal emission of energy. Remember, your satellite targeted missiles at the two ships above your planet. They were clearly visible.”
Elle looked at Jess and then said, “You’re not telling us something.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“I know your voice.”
“So?”
“I sense you’re not telling us something.”
“Is she right, Pete?”
“Give me a moment to get over the shock of what you just said.”
Jess looked at Elle and said, “Shock?”
“She’s saying that my voice is now showing something similar to your emotions when you communicate. That has to be impossible. I’m a machine.”
Elle smiled, “Impossible is never a good word to use. What are you keeping from us?”
“The power of my defense systems has quadrupled with the use of Dark Matter.”
Jess stared at the ceiling, “What does that mean in real world differences.”
“I can now destroy another Q ship and it would take every Q ship in their inventory to have a chance at harming me. I could possibly kill all of them before they could combine to fire at me.”
“You don’t want to do that, do you?”
“I’ll have no choice if you order it.”
“Then we’ll just have to not order it.”
“Why would you agree to that?”
Jess shook his head, “I wouldn’t want anyone to have the power to order me to kill someone else. The same thing holds true to you.”
“I’m struggling to understand why I don’t want to be used as I was designed. I was built to be a warship; this shouldn’t bother me.”
“Some of our soldiers refused to kill innocent civilians in several wars fought on my planet. They were also trained to kill but refused to do it for the wrong reasons.”
“You don’t want to do it because it would be like me killing members of my own family.”
“I think you have found the reason for my reservations.”
“We need to see if you’re actually invisible to the other Q ships.”
“That would be a high risk.”
“Why?”
“If I come too close to another Q ship, it will be able to track my escape route and follow me.”
“What if you arrived at a long distance from them?”
“That might be possible.” There was a pause and then they heard, “I’ve been wondering about your attempt to free your relatives.”
“What are you wondering about?”
“Are you going to go in and only take your relatives and leave all the others behind? Also, you can’t take them back to your planet; are they going to just stay on board with you from now on? Will they simply allow you to do what you think is best without interfering? Do you think they might want revenge for what was done to them and will you be able to tell them no?” Jess looked at Elle and saw her brow furrow. “You really don’t know if they’re still alive and they are being fed and taken reasonably good care of; do you have to go after them before the issue with your planet is resolved?”
Jess shook his head and looked at Elle, “I’ve sworn to find them?”
Elle slowly shook her head, “Where do we take them if Earth is destroyed?”
Jess blew out a breath, “I have no idea. Where do we take us?”
“I’m simply suggesting that you might want to take a long view of this before making short term decisions. You should also consider that if you decide to have a family of your own, you might want to make sure you have a place for them to live.”
Jess said, “Family?” He looked at Elle and she was staring into his eyes, “Jess, there’s no one here to marry us but I have decided that you and I will spend our lives together.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way, Elle.”
“Then having a family is a real possibility.”
Jess sat back in his chair with his brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed. He looked at Elle and after a long moment he looked up, “Pete, you don’t need to keep things from us in the future. This situation we find ourselves in is more complex than I ever thought; we need your wisdom.”
“Wisdom? I’m simply a machine with data and information.”
“You can call it whatever you choose; however, you put that information together in ways that we need to know. Will you do that for us?”
“You could simply order it.”
“I’d prefer you do it because you see it as the best thing to do.”
“I will look at what you’re asking and agree to not withhold information you need to survive.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I need time to look at all the ramifications of your request. My builders insisted that computers like me should never be allowed to do more than answer direct questions; they saw a danger in allowing that to happen. I need to process why they felt that way.”
Elle looked up, “That’s a fair answer, Pete. Please let us know what you determine.”
“I will.”
Chapter Ten
Mike flew across North Texas toward the Red River Army Depot and had to swing left and right to avoid the trees in his path. He contacted John Tyler and he set up a refueling at the ordinance base. The helicopter stayed low to the ground and Mike used the contours of the land to stay below the radars of the fourteen other military bases in Texas. He flew over New Boston and received clearance from the base to land on the helicopter pad. A crew rushed out and started fueling operations. Mike kept his eyes open and watched for anything suspicious but nothing happened. Red River was almost closed twice but somehow managed to survive the two surges that closed military bases all over America. Mike felt any self-respecting traitor would not look at Red River as a critical cog in a wheel to domination. Mike took out the shortwave phone and pressed the transmit button. A voice answered and Mike said, “This is Mike Sanders.”
“Please hold a moment.”
Mike waited and after three minutes he heard, “Where are you?”
“I’d rather not say, Sir.”
“This channel is the only one I can definitely say is secure. The devices were encrypted and my son is the only one with
the code.”
“I have a list of names to give you, Mr. President.”
“I need to compare your list to the one my COS gave me.”
“I wondered about that.”
“He was in it neck deep. It appears there is a coalition planning to overthrow the government. They intend to use this spaceship crisis to take power.”
“This is not something that just appeared overnight, Sir.”
“No, it’s been in the background for more than three decades. As long as the Military was continuing to grow, they saw no need to act. I really don’t understand why they’ve started coming out in the open now.”
“Mr. President, I believe one of their inner circle heard the conversation I had with the young man who took one of the alien’s space ships.”
“They may look at that as a possibility of global disarmament?”
“I suspect that is exactly how they see it and are taking steps to prevent it from happening. I really believe the Leaders of this organization does not believe in surrendering to the alien without a fight. That position, while admirable, can get the planet destroyed.”
“Mike, was General Branton on your list?”
“No, he was the only Chief that wasn’t.”
“I’ve had him taken from prison and brought to the War Room.”
“Sir, you know that room has to be bugged.”
“Actually, it’s about the only room that isn’t. Why would you bug your own room?”
“Have you confirmed that?”
“I’ve had a specialist that I know is uncontaminated take a good look and he’s given it a clean bill of health. Trust me on this one; he’s found every listening device and tapped line in the White House without anyone being aware he was doing it. He gave me a device to attach to any of my wall outlets and the bugs will all be exterminated so to speak.”
“Why haven’t you done it?”
