Defiant Order

by Donald B McFarlane

  Most of the information that Tohil had gleaned since Joe’s coup had come from the reports that the SETI team brought back to the Tohil engineers. Every note, image, and video recording were analysed for hours locally before being sent back to Tohil’s compound outside of Ottawa. John Robert was so paranoid about other companies learning about the alien technology that he had become hypersensitive about security, and even attempted to prevent the SETI team from relaying their findings back to the University of Berkley, where a massive, global team had assembled to review the discoveries and make them public, that the SETI team was forced to drive back to the airport almost an hour away and use the American command and control centre to transmit their findings because Tohil had erected giant masts that blocked any digital data transmissions near the crash site.

  A few minutes before the meeting was scheduled to start, Doctor Stokes arrived and slipped into the chair next to Joe. “Morning.” She whispered.

  “Howdy.” Joe replied with a smile on his face. He and Rhea had been spending more and more time together, and while he hadn’t tried any tom-foolery, Joe was glad that he was building rapport with a woman that he not only respected but was very attracted to, and for the first time in his life, he wasn’t making the mistake of rushing something, but instead, playing the long game.

  When John Robert finally arrived, he took his seat at the head of the table, with Stephenson on his left, to whom he often directed questions, scorn and the bulk of his attention. It always amazed Joe that even with his army of scientists at his disposal Robert put such a heavy burden of responsibility on Stephenson. Joe wondered if there was some underlying resentment about the way Stephenson had lost control of the SETI team and had gotten Tohil boxed out from direct access to the crash site.

  “Thank you, everyone, for attending.” John Robert had his reliable digital pad with him and frequently consulted it during the meetings. “I believe that the topic of today’s discussion is the possible construction of a walkway to the crash site from this area, and the possibility of looking into ways to repair the craft, with the permission of the crew.” He looked down at his digital pad and thumbed through a few pages of notes. He carried himself with the air of superiority, almost exuding the sense of royal entitlement, even though Joe knew that his family had run a chain of convenient stores in Antigonish, Nova Scotia for several generations. Only a scholarship to Saint Francis Xavier University had offered him a way out of his very lower-middle-class life, and the past that he had quickly turned his back on.

  While Ranix had never formally requested aid in the repair of the ship, everyone knew that it must have been at the forefront of his concerns. The suggestion of a permanent pathway didn’t seem like too far a stretch when compared to the logistical undertaking that repairing an alien spacecraft would entail.

  One of Tohil’s engineers was the first to chime in with any comments. “We could easily build a walkway to the crash site. Something could be constructed in a few days time. Any repairs to the ship would require cranes to lift the ship off the ground. Judging by the size of the ship, it could weigh anything from eight to ten thousand tonnes, and raising that amount will be a monumental task.”

  “What do you mean by monumental?” Robert asked sharply, leaning onto the table.

  “There’s nothing in the world that can lift ten thousand tonnes.” The engineer replied with a hint of trepidation in his voice, not wanting to upset his boss.

  “I see, do we have options?”

  “Luckily we do.” The engineer replied. “There is a company called Mammoet that makes super heavy lift cranes.” The engineer pulled out a piece of paper from a folder that was resting on the table in front of him. “They have two PTC-200 DS cranes in Sao Paulo that could be disassembled and brought up to the crash sites on trucks, reassembled and used to raise the ship.”

  Doctor Stokes reached across the table and snatched the single sheet of paper out of the engineer's hand and gave the document a quick scan before sliding it back across the table. “Did you read the small print at the bottom of that sheet?” she asked the engineer dryly.

  Before he replied, the engineer’s eyes darted to the bottom of the page and read the minuscule print. “Damn.” He said it quietly, but for the benefit of everyone in the room to hear.

  “What?” Barked Robert.

  “The cranes will take four weeks to disassemble, then a 30-hour drive to the crash site from Sao Paulo, then six more weeks to assemble.”

  Everyone in the room immediately scrambled for their calendars, trying to figure out when the cranes could be operational by. Looking over at Doctor Stokes open diary, Joe followed her finger as it counted down the weeks, finally stopping in October. Without anyone saying another word, John Robert sprung from his chair and raced out of the room, mobile phone already up to his right ear.

  The remaining people in the room looked around themselves in a state of confusion until Joe spoke up. “Unless anyone has any objections, I’ll talk to Ranix today and ask his opinion on the walkway, and also about the possibility of raising the ship for repairs.” Not a word from the room. “And before someone else tells Robert, I suggest one of you Tohil eggheads figure out what will need to be done to make the area around the ship suitable for those cranes because there is no way in hell that the ground out there would support the weight of that ship.”

  He looked at Rhea who nodded, and they both left without saying another word. Once outside the conference room, Stokes couldn’t help express her disbelief in the time required to get the cranes into action. “Ten weeks at the earliest. I can’t believe it.”

  “That’s the easy part. Who knows how badly the underside of the ship is banged up. Not to mention, at the rate things are going in the outside world, public opinion could be so hostile in ten weeks that the whole idea goes down in a ball of flames.”

  “You shouldn't pay attention to all the fear mongers, Joe. Nothing we can do about it.”

  “True, but the proletariat has a nasty habit of getting what it wants some time, and God only knows what some people want to do to the visitors.”

  The pair made their way out of the Tohil headquarters building and towards the dining hall for lunch. Joe had agreed to hold a SETI meeting to discuss the current status of each team member’s efforts, and how well they were liaising with their alien counterparts. He knew that there was always the possibility that the Paraguayan authorities would bow to Tohil’s request to banish the American Major from the country, but he also knew that the US government would never stand for being completely boxed out of something this big.

  6

  The crew was on their second batch of moulding tablets, which were becoming harder for some of the crew to use. Ranix was worried how much longer his body could continue to absorb the pills before he succumbed to a possible reaction. The only long-term chance the crew had was to repair the damaged sections of the bottom of the hull and bring the ships air purifiers back online, a process that hadn’t even been discussed yet.

  Morale of the crew had been buoyed once the humans had started visiting the ship. It was always an amazing experience developing an understanding between such radically different cultures, but the Empire had succeeded in bringing together dozens of cultures into a peaceful existence for many years. Ranix had personally enjoyed his time with Major Hunt, who made regular visits to the ship to discuss everything from the weather to human military tactics and to ask questions about the Alliance.

  Ranix knew that Master Doctor Prure had given the humans complete access to the database that contained the physiological characteristics of every single species ever discovered in the universe. There were millions of creatures ranging from the simplest microbe to the species capable of interstellar travel for the humans to study. It would take generations for humanity to understand the real vastness of the cosmos and the amazing secrets and treasures it had.

  At the same time, Master Engineer Sulvan was proving a more delicate case. The hu
man engineers could not understand half of the calculations and algorithms that were shown to them, and even then, Sulvan was extremely hesitant to show the Earthlings too much too quickly, assuming, perhaps correctly, that they would easily cause themselves harm if they attempted any radically new scientific endeavours with their less advanced understanding of the universe.

  Making his way down the empty corridors of the ship, Ranix reached the dining hall for their weekly meeting which covered the most mundane of ship operations but was just as important as any other conference.

  Sulvan and Prure were waiting for the young Floxian and had poured themselves two glasses from a bottle of Johnny Walker that Major Hunt had given the ship as a gesture of hospitality.

  “Nice of you to join us.” For reasons unknown to Ranix, Sulvan had become more and more agitated with the young officers handling of affairs over the past two weeks. Ranix suspected that the senior engineering officer didn’t approve of the level of access that the humans were receiving.

  “My apologies.” Ranix sat down across from the two veteran service members and poured a splash of the brown liquid into his glass and brought it up to his nose and inhaled a deep breath of the warm liquor. “This stuff reminds me of blue marja, the kind that you’d find in my mother’s garden.”

  The older Doctor smiled. “It is quite enjoyable, although its intoxicating properties are rather weak.”

  Shaking his head, Sulvan activated his datapad and started flipping through several pages of schematics and diagrams of the ships power cells. “I’ve been looking at our power usage and how that is affecting the solar panels that we’ve set up, and what the poor weather has done to our overall energy situation.”

  Ranix put down his glass. “Where do we stand?”

  “We’ll need to bring the engine online to ensure that we have a continuous charge running to the reactor at all times. The poor weather forced us to use a significant amount of energy, not to mention that those panels are over thirty years old and only meant to last for a few days at most. We’ve had them running for over 30 days.”

  “What’s the bottom line?”

  “We need to bring the engine online to provide a constant supply of energy for the reactor within the next ten days, or we’ll be forced to start taking some of our systems offline.”

  Ranix took another sip of his drink. “Doctor, your thoughts?”

  “This is a critical situation. I know that medical uses an enormous amount of power, along with the healing baths, but to take those offline would risk the lives of everyone on the ship.”

  “If the situation is as you say it is, then that leaves us with only one option, to request the water we need from the humans now, before it becomes too late to act.” Ranix finished his drink and set the empty glass down.

  “And if they refuse?” The engineer asked.

  “Then we’ll be forced to go get the water we require for ourselves.”

  The Doctor's eyes opened wide and looked at the young Lieutenant. “And how would we accomplish that feat?” he asked.

  “Simple. The shuttle and Sentinel Commander.”

  The air was drawn out of the room. Sulvan had always worried that the younger officer wouldn’t do what was necessary when the time came. What he just heard changed his mind.

  "We're dead unless we get water.” The Chief Engineer's words were a stark reminder of how precarious their position was. The humans had shown that they were willing to make sacrifices to protect the ship; this situation would now test the limits of their willingness to offer aid.

  7

  The following morning was like any other for Joe, he woke up just past seven in the morning and had gone for a run with Lieutenant Colonel Almada and Doctor Stokes who, it turned out, was a keen sportswoman. After their jog, the trio showered and shared breakfast, which consisted of a full English breakfast of eggs, beans, bacon, sausage, tomato, and mushrooms. The breakfast had been a request of Doctor Reynolds, who was starting to get homesick for the green pastures of his native Yorkshire and had even contemplated returning to Europe.

  As the trio finished their cups of tea, the icing on the meals cake, Doctor Temple walked into the dining hall with a mildly bewildered look on his face and made his way to where the group was sitting.

  "Good morning, Doctor Temple." Rhea was the first to greet the husky American, who looked like he had just seen a ghost.

  "What's up, Bobby? You don't look well." Joe sipped his tea as Bobby set his notepad on the table, and opened it to his last entry, turned the book so that Joe could read it, and pushed it forward.

  Joe smiled at his friend before looking down at the notebook, which was filled with Bobby's very indecipherable chicken-scratch. "What am I looking at here?"

  There was no response, and Joe continued to scan the page until he found a small star that was next to the words water.

  "You planning on building a water park here, Bobby?" Joe joked and shoved the notebook towards Doctor Stokes for her to read.

  Picking up the book, she quickly scanned the page, then the previous page, flipped the page over and read the two prior sheets. "Wow." Was all she before Joe yanked the notepad out of her hands and scanned the recent pages.

  "What am I missing here?"

  "Other than a degree in the sciences, a lot, Major." Rhea replied.

  Lieutenant Colonel Almada had a good enough grasp of the English language to realise that something was afoot. "What is going on?"

  Joe shrugged his shoulders and looked at Bobby, who finally looked like he was coming to his senses. "They need the water in less than ten days or the ship will start to lose power and die."

  "Shit." Joe let out, almost as a whisper.

  Doctor Stokes leaned back in her chair. "My thoughts exactly."

  “And it’s not like we can give them just any old water. The ships filtration system is damaged, and they need some very pure water, with as little contaminants as possible.” Bobby looked at the group. “Rainwater and water from a local source won’t cut it; we need to supply them with a highly purified source, in either liquid or frozen form.”

  Joe looked down into his empty teacup. "We have to give it to them."

  "That's nice Joe. It would be great if we were in a position just to hand it to them, but I'm not sure if that idea is going to garner a lot of support." Rhea replied.

  "We don't have a choice."

  "What the hell are you talking about?" She asked, looking like Joe knew something she didn't.

  "The Sentinels. They are required by their programming to protect the ship and crew at all costs." Joe leant away from the table.

  "If I know anything about the Sentinel Commander, he is already working on contingency plans to obtain the water, with or without our assistance."

  "They would risk a conflict?" Almada asked, turning suddenly pale. He knew exactly how real the threat from the Sentinels was.

  "They're not going to let every member of the crew die because we won't give them the water. We'd be forcing their hand." Joe replied. Rising from his chair, Joe looked at his three colleagues. "I need to call the President, and we need to talk to John Robert."

  8

  The small town of Glazov was located 212 kilometres to the west of the city of Perm, and along the famed Trans-Siberia Railway, making it an ideal destination for people not wanting to risk the scrutiny that airports offered.

  After the collapse of the coup against President Pasha Konev, the chief conspirators had constantly been on the move. Colonel General Yaroslav, the former commander of the Western Military District, and Lieutenant General Akim Zaytsev, who had commanded the Tupolev bombers to Venezuela, had been staying at a small bed and breakfast, owned by a supporter of the far-right cause, for three days before Major General Igor Fedoranko, the former head of the GRU, joined them.

  Fedoranko had just escaped a Federal Security Service raid on his last safe house by a matter of hours and was not in high spirits. His family had been detained for q
uestioning, and he was starting to have doubts about whether or not they would be successful in their mission to rid the world of this alien disease. The quest to eliminate the visitors to many of those involved in the conspiracy was merely an extension of their hatred for anyone what wasn't white and Russian.

  When Fedoranko arrived in the room that Yaroslav was sharing with Zaytsev, he dumped his only bag on the carpet before pouring himself a large glass of vodka and dumping a few cubes of ice into the liquid. "I have news from Moscow." He took a sip of the chilling liquid. "My sources tell me that the Americans have agreed to supply the water required for the spacecraft."

  "You must be joking!" Shouted Zaytsev. It was a reality that he couldn't believe. White men are helping some disgusting race from another world. "Then perhaps we need tell my brother that it is time to put his submarine to good use."

  9

  At about the same time that the three Russian generals were meeting in the small town in the Udmurt Republic of Russia, Major Nikita Pullinski and the strike teams second in command, Captain Mikail Altunin were just exiting the Queens Midtown Tunnel onto 1st Avenue, just below the United Nations Building.

  "Our commander believes that the liberals will eventually ask the ship's captain to visit the United Nations to make an address to the world. Assuming they fly into La Guardia, we'll have a tiny window to assault the convoy before they reach their destination." Nikita slowed the car, and finally parked at the bottom of East 38th Street. The two veteran operators got out of the car, cameras in hand, and walked towards the United Nations Plaza.