by T I WADE
The Russians had sent this information up to America One, and Fritz Warner was waiting for him inside the cube. VIN couldn’t see anything from outside, as the docking port walls weren’t transparent.
“I heard three bangs with the hammer, VIN,” stated Fritz over the intercom. “Can you see, or verify anything?”
“Negative, except that the port is connected and stable. There are no lights out here, and I can’t see anything, other than that Ryan is in the port, and not in the capsule.”
“OK, we have the cube sealed off. It seems that these cheaper docking ports are all the same, and we have taken all needed precautions. The cube is empty of people except for me, and I am fully suited up. The gravity is off and I hope we don’t space blast all the plant life in here.”
“You should be able to tell if there is a malfunction with your internal docking port lights pretty quickly,” suggested VIN. “If they flicker and stay green, that’s OK.”
Fritz slowly unwound the opening device and opened the outer hatch an inch. The lights flickered, turned orange for a second, and he halted the opening. A second later they turned green, he opened the hatch and Ryan literally popped out of the tube and into his arms.
“I’ve got him, he’s alive and giving me the thumbs up. VIN I’m closing the port, just in case. There was a really powerful rush of what I believe was hot air when I opened it. The pressure in there was far greater than in the cube, just like the Russians told us. Ryan gushed out like a waterfall. The Russians were right; we did get some valuable supplies of rich Russian air. I just hope nobody farted down there when they loaded the air into the tanks. I’m floating Ryan to the catwalk, turning on the gravity and will open the cube door to take him to the Bridge.”
A second team of three men who were not wearing spacesuits entered as Fritz left to unload the vital supplies: soil in canisters, 360 gallons of water in canisters, 300 pounds of Russian chocolate, 300 pounds of Russian powdered milk, 200 pounds of the best Russian beef, 200 pounds of butter, 100 pounds of fresh Russian vegetables, the same of fresh fruit, again all in canisters. Also unloaded were canisters full of hundreds of plastic bags of seeds, frozen chicken, pig, beef and sheep sperm, several dozen Russian vegetable plants, and the five trees.
Then there was the carry-on luggage: a case of French champagne, single malt whiskey, two cases of vodka, and several small cases of caviar as a thank you gift. VIN and several others would enjoy the last item.
The last object was encased in a smallish 200-pound, two-inch thick lead case in a separate, external compartment for external delivery. Inside the case was five pounds of newly produced plutonium-238 for the reactor; this most expensive part of the supplies cost a cool 50 million dollars. Now the reactor would be twice as powerful, having ten pounds of plutonium fuel for all the needs America One would need for the next 87 years of travel.
Such were the final supplies the crew of America One might see for the foreseeable future.
Chapter 3
The Repercussions on Earth – Glad I’m not there!
The shock of the documentary lit up the remaining media sites worldwide. Coupled with the realization that life was not perfect for many in the good old USA, institutions and agencies prepared for attacks, invasions, or internal terrorism immediately reacted.
Within ten minutes of the start of the documentary, 500 FBI agents raided NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland. Since the agency depended primarily on electronic data sorting, it suffered more than any other government agency, bar the CIA, from the loss of sophisticated electronic satellite surveillance and information communications. Very few saw the expected interference to begin so quickly and they were not ready to repel intruders.
Less than a dozen people died at Fort Meade trying to halt the invasion on their sacred soil. In addition, the invaders received help from within. Only a few of the top staff at NSA were rotten apples, the rest were normal G-men doing their jobs. Several of the top positions were about to become available.
Joe Bishop still had a group of clever advisors to compensate for his inabilities. He learned of the Sunday night documentary a few days in advance of its airing and moved his center of operations to the new NSA research facility in Utah. There, 200 men from different agencies, including local USAF, marines and even several Seals, were flown in for the occasion to take over the much smaller, but heavily guarded facility.
FBI agents were as clever as those at NSA. Joe Everson and his large team planned for all possible movements in and out of the country. As the show was being aired, every one of the dozens of NSA sites nationwide was invaded at the same time by every FBI agent Joe could muster. Even so, he knew that the director of the NSA had escaped.
It was a bitter-sweet fight which lasted less than an hour. Because several of their most popular and most senior retirees had recently disappeared, the Air Force Special Operations team begged to be part of the operation. Several of their retired team mates were found alive in dirty cells several stories below ground. There were over 100 fatalities, mostly NSA agents.
CIA Director Tom Ward watched the documentary on the same Miami-London feed as the crew of America One. He was already in London, in the Savoy, smiling at the stupid commentary and thinking he and his loyal assistants were totally safe.
Tom Ward and the CIA did not know that Martin Brusk had stock in the very hotel he was hiding in. When Martin looked through the past days’ security footage to see if his and Ryan’s own arrivals had been compromised, he was shocked to see what looked like Tom Ward being escorted through a back entrance by a dozen heavily-armed G-men in long grey coats, and into several of their best rooms.
Martin was not pleased to see this guest at his hotel. He sent word, and ten hours later Joe Everson received a phone call from Canada. The FBI would be busy in the U.S., so Joe Everson called in favors with friends in several external agencies.
Nobody knows which “friends” were the first to get to the expensive suites after the documentary aired; it could have been teams from quite a few foreign agencies, or even countries. However, with the limited damage to the rooms themselves, Martin assumed that it was certainly a top team from a powerful country; one room had nearly an inch of blood swilling around. Thirteen men had been shot through the backs of their heads, or in the face. There was not one shot to lower parts of the bodies, which had Kevlar protection.
The Pentagon was harder to breach. General Mortimer had put it on full terrorist lockdown hours earlier. He warned the top staff of a possible terrorist plot to invade the building. Unfortunately, he could not prevent the documentary from being viewed in many offices, including the television he was watching in his suite of rooms. A thousand soldiers had been called in to defend this most important military building. However, word got out before the broadcast ended that something was amiss. When a convoy of a dozen military vehicles full of military police arrived an hour later, the defending troops allowed the military police to enter the building unhindered to arrest the Chief of Staff, who had already disappeared.
Members of Congress were easier to pick up. Police SWAT vehicles descended on seven large, expensive homes around Washington to apprehend members of government. One, Congressman Dickens, was found dead inside his Washington home, one gunshot to the head.
In the same way, five U.S. Senators were located and easily brought into police headquarters for questioning, most of them stating their diplomatic positions and claiming immunity.
The White House was left alone until the next morning. Several of the staffers had watched the program, and had mostly decided that the White House wasn’t the right place to be at this time in their lives; they disappeared through underground tunnels or back entrances to the security of their homes. Security personnel had been ordered to allow anybody to leave, except the president himself.
The president was angry. Where was Marine One? Why were there so few staff members to shout at? He could find only his Secret Service detail, his wife, and a c
ouple of office staff. It was if the rats had deserted a sinking ship, and for the first time in his political career he felt that he wasn’t invincible.
“Find out why Marine One isn’t following orders!” he demanded of one of the Secret Service agents. When he tried to reach the security center the man was apprehended by several heavily armed military personnel dressed in combat gear, including dark camouflage cream.
One of the office staff was asked to follow another military officer dressed in full uniform, and she was led out of the building to a safe place.
By midnight, only five people remained in the White House, but over 500 armed military troops took position on the surrounding grounds. With nobody returning to answer his questions, the president gave orders for his three remaining armed Secret Service guards to shoot to kill anybody they saw in the hallways. He called his wife down from their private residence, and, just before midnight, turned on the large television, rising up from the floor in the Oval Office.
“…Breaking news from the Savoy in London…” stated an announcer the president had often seen in the Press Office. “…live reports from London say that a delegation of what the police believe are American businessmen were shot dead on one of the top floors of the Savoy Hotel. Police have confirmed that the dead bodies, all with no identification, were killed execution style. This is the worst mass murder London has seen in many years….”
The president watched with little interest until one of the bloody bodies being carried out of a room and into a busy police-filled corridor to be put into a body bag looked much like his new director of the CIA. He angrily picked up the phone and was told politely that no calls were being allowed out of the White House until further notice.
“Who the hell are you to disallow my phone calls?” the president shouted into the phone.
“Head of the White House grounds security attachment, Mr. President. I’m under orders not to allow any calls in or out of the White House until further notice.”
“Who is President of the United States of America? I am and I’m the one, the only one who gives orders around here. Now get General Mortimer at the Pentagon on the phone for me, or I will find you a quick retirement package!”
“Sorry, sir, orders from the vice president. He is now in command. The vice president instructed me to tell you if you called out, that you are now under house arrest, the same house arrest you ordered for the ex-president, and that you should be ashamed at what you hid from him. You will be getting your first visitors in the morning.”
The president threw down the phone and shouted at two of his Secret Service agents to go and find somebody to get Mortimer on the line. They never returned.
Then there were three. The last Secret Service agent’s communicator buzzed in his ear; it was military personnel outside telling him for the umpteenth time to get out of there. Unfortunately, he took his job, protecting the president, seriously, and decided to barricade the Oval Office and keep the first couple safe. It was the only thing he had been correctly taught to do, and it would cost him his life when the Oval Office was stormed.
Chapter 4
AMERICA ONE powers up
The 51 humans aboard America One high above didn’t know much about what was happening down on Earth, nor did they really want to know. The Bridge had the most sophisticated communications aboard, and at the ship’s altitude, they were in the best position to tune into radio chatter, and media communications. Unfortunately, nobody was really interested; their boss had joined them, and it was time to celebrate.
Fritz helped Ryan exit the cube through the sliding door to the elevator which would take them, still fully suited up, to the Bridge just above them. Waiting in the Bridge were Kathy, Suzi, Captain Pete, Allen, Igor and his first Russian friend, Boris. There was not enough room for the whole crew in the Bridge, and this first welcoming committee helped him out of his suit and then got him to the cafeteria on the upper level—the largest area aboard ship—where there was room for everyone to gather.
Kathy hugged him, which made him wince, and kissed him hard once his helmet was removed by Suzi. Suzi was next. Everybody was happy to see him, but realizing that he was injured, the others shook their boss’s hand.
“Captain Pete, everything OK?” Ryan asked, shaking his captain’s hand.
“Clean and shipshape,” was the reply.
“And in your department, Igor?” Ryan asked shaking the next man’s hand.
“Da, as you would like it, Ryan,” the Russian replied.
As he was helped out of his suit, the crew around him filled him in.
“All the cubes are on schedule with plant and animal life. The chickens and rabbits are showing a little fatigue without full gravity, but we should have the extra gravity with the ship’s rotation in a month or so,” Suzi told him.
“All ship communications are online. There seems to be political problems in America since last night. Do you want a report?” asked Boris.
“Negative. I’m sure that my glasses, the ones you designed for me several years ago, gave the ex-president’s men what was needed. I saw the footage on the flight over to London; it was clear, loud, and crisp. I didn’t know that the lenses were so good. I could never see the camera lenses on the frame.”
“Your glasses had cameras in those thick black-rimmed frames all the time?” asked Allen Saunders, it was his turn to shake Ryan’s hand.
“Yes, my backup pair. Let me sit down, get these boots off, get some metal shoes on, and I’ll tell everybody something only Igor, Boris and I know. You guys all know me by now; I’m still a bit of a systems nut.” Ryan sat in one of the captain’s chairs, resting while Boris and Igor helped him off with the rest of his suit. Like all astronauts, Ryan wore a tee-shirt, underpants, and a thin pair of cotton shorts under his suit.
“Years ago, my core team was playing around; they always joked about my thick-rimmed glasses while we were in California. I loved those rims; my mother actually got them for me while I was still a kid, a story I will tell you about one day. Anyway, these rims were new in those days, extra strong ones with metal reinforcement. She spent a fortune so that they would never be broken again while I was at school. Anyway to cut a long story short, Igor and Boris told me about modern Russian spyware in the 80s, when James Bond was so popular. They bet me that they could get an exact pair made for me that could hold a full microphone, a recording devise, and very small but powerful camera lenses that could record real video, very new in those days. Well, several months later I picked up my glasses one morning and unbeknownst to me, I walked around trying to figure out why these dumb Russians I had hired, my best friends, were acting like monkeys wherever I went.
“Only after a full day’s work, did they tell me that I wasn’t wearing the glasses I had worn for the last couple of decades. Remember, I was only in my late twenties when this prank happened. Anyway, they gave me back my real glasses and over drinks they showed me nine hours of recording; my whole day speeded up into thirty minutes! It was wonderful what these glasses could do. It was as if I had a high-quality video camera and went around that whole day recording my life. We all forgot about the glasses until the airfield opened, and I wanted to record certain meetings. I often used them as backups when my real glasses needed adjustment. Thanks to Boris and Igor, this old joke on me recorded everything I wanted to make public about Bishop, Ward, Mortimer, and the president.”
“I hope your dealings with me and my body are safe and not recorded,” said Kathy, smiling sweetly. Kathy had disappeared from the Bridge and just returned with a new pilot’s flight suit. The suit was navy blue and had the logo of “AMERICA ONE” in large letters on the right breast. “You had better not have any sexy videos of me! You might be really perverted, and want to show human mating rituals to foreign life forms out there on other planets.” The crew laughed. “Love, a gift from your Air Force girls,” she said to Ryan handing him the flight suit, and kissing him on the cheek, again to much laughter.
<
br /> He blushed, stating that only shouting matches, not sexual acts had been recorded.
“We pooled some cash a few months ago before the Internet went down and ordered some of these from the navy store in Norfolk. We thought blue would work on the Bridge better than air force green, which of course we would have got for you if we were on a flight deck. You have half a dozen blue ones, we ex-air force crew members have our old green ones, VIN and Fritz have a couple of new camouflage flight suits, the build-team crews have brown, and the civilians and scientists are all in white flight suits, as we have always seen them. Captain Pete here, as you can see, has red for being captain of the ship, and we girls only wash clothes once a month.”
Ryan thanked everybody for the gifts. He hadn’t thought about what to wear once permanently aboard, and was thankful that this problem was already sorted out. Now dressed in his new suit, and wearing metal slip-ons over socks so that he could walk, he looked around the Bridge.
It looked complete, tidy and ready for action. Maggie, VIN, and Jonesy came in to greet them having doffed their suits. He winced again at Maggie’s hug and now everyone realized that he was still injured; he might need a visit to the medical cylinder which was ready for its first patient.
“You’re looking a little thin, Ryan. Didn’t they feed you down there on Earth?” asked Jonesy, being his usual direct self.
“The prisoners were not fed three meals a day, Mr. Jones. Thanks for asking. Some days not even one,” replied Ryan. When his crew heard that he had vacationed in Cuba, they were all shocked.
Since all the elevators to the mid and accommodation levels above them could hold only three people at a time, the crew members went up slowly while Ryan was given a tour of the Bridge by Captain Pete and VIN. VIN, Ryan noticed, looked pretty dapper in his camouflage flight suit, and he had even found lieutenant shoulder pips somewhere, proudly displaying his old marine rank; he even had the ribbons of his medals on his suit. Ryan suddenly realized that a lot had gone on behind the scenes at the airfield towards the end, and somehow personal items were shipped up without his knowledge.
