by James Palmer
Around the table men looked to each other and began to murmur amongst themselves. Johnson allowed this for a few seconds before he cleared his throat to get their attention. “Gentlemen, please, time is of the essence here. We cannot waste what we have of it arguing amongst ourselves. Whether any of you in this room or watching around the globe realize it, we are about to go to war, and for the first time it is not with one another. Aliens are coming for us, one and all. Beings from a galaxy that we could never reach were it not for my magno-disc engines.”
“So are you saying it is your fault they are here and coming for us?” a senator from Massachusetts shouted suddenly.
“No senator, they are coming here because they know we pose a threat to them, if we ever get out of our own solar system that is.”
Another senator, this time from New York asked, “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the end of the world, gentlemen. Life as we know it is about to end. And whether we are on the victor’s side of this war or the losers is up to us as a world. These aliens, of which I have only met, what I would term as the workers or foot soldiers, so far, are a purple skinned race with hair that appears to be very much like lettuce. Hence my people have begun to refer to them as ‘Salad Heads’, and what these salad heads want is to subjugate our world.”
“But why?” a congressman from South Dakota asked, incredulously.
“The answer, sir, is simple, they fear us. They fear our technology as well as our supposed bloodthirstiness. They seem to fear our ability to make weapons beyond our space faring ability. But beyond that, I have to assume they want to strip mine our planet and turn our survivor’s into slaves, which is what I was pretty much informed of. This is no joke, distinguished sirs. They are coming here; the only question is when and how.”
“What do you mean ‘how’?” one of the senators asked.
“By how I mean are they coming en masse? Or as they have up until now, surreptitiously.”
“How long do you believe they’ve been hidden here, Johnson? I’ve read your report and saw your vid-feed yesterday. What is your first hand assessment?” an Admiral asked.
“Admiral, they have been here for years. In fact if you turn to page forty six of your briefing report, you will see the information we have been able to gather over the past two days about the base my crew managed to destroy under the Blue Ridge Mountain range in Virginia.”
“This is insane!” The Vice-President leapt upwards, and exclaimed excitedly, “Do you mean to tell me we have had an alien race living under our noses, mere miles from the capitol of this nation? I’ve read your report, but I find it farfetched and unbelievable to be honest.”
“Whether you believe me or not, they were living here Mr. Vice-President, but they were here for a reason, to spy on us. To keep tabs on us, and to undermine our space program. They did not want us to reach for the stars. I have to assume they came to our world after our nascent space program reached the moon over a hundred years ago. They watched us and I’m sure they sabotaged our space programs around the world since they arrived here, whoever they truly are.”
One congressman got to his feet to interrupt. He waved a flabby hand, which set his many chins flapping as the light within the chamber reflected off his gleaming bald head. “I find this all very hard to believe,” the congressman began with a southern drawl. “Do you mean to tell me that an alien race has nothing better to do then keep tabs on us? A race that must be small and insignificant to them by a space faring and technological standard? Why would they bother with us? What harm could we possibly do to them? How would we even know of their existence?”
“I can answer that,” the President turned and faced the congressman, “The Hubble V tele-satellite in orbit around Pluto was taking deep space photographs when it saw something that at first our top men thought was a simple comet, or rather a group of them, all exiting an unnamed solar system incredibly far from here. Only after several of the top men in many different scientific fields had examined the photographs did we realize what they were. In fact if not for Mr. Johnson’s expertise we would still be scratching our collective head over this one.”
“Yes,” Mark chuckled slightly, “this was something we should have realized, but being the scientists that we were, we completely ignored the obvious. It was in fact, too much for our small minds and fragile psyches to consider. For the very first time we would have to seriously acknowledge we were not alone in the universe.”
“Get to the point Johnson,” the same congressman coughed again.
“Very well, we had witnessed a fleet of ships leaving a solar system, and traveling faster than light. They appeared to be streaking celestial bodies, meteors or comets, but in truth they were great star spanning vessels, a fleet of them, and the only reason I was able to ascertain this was that their rate of speed, based on what we were able to see, did not compute. They were so far away that they should have appeared to be barely moving. Instead their great streaks of light across the star speckled backdrop of the universe actually brought them to our attention.”
“Yes, and when this information was brought to my attention I knew we as American’s, and as Earthmen, had to discover what was out there as quickly as possible, for the sake of everyone on this planet,” the President finished.
“Which is why the President sent my crew and I on a secret mission to a world we had pinpointed a lot of activity coming and going from.”
“This is all too fantastic to be real,” the Vice President shook his head and spoke almost to himself as he looked away. “You mean to tell me, Salvatore, that you sent these men away on a matter of national security and you couldn’t even inform me of it?” He whined, his voice gradually growing higher in pitch as his anger grew.”
“Stand down, Todd,” President Scaleia ordered sternly, “These people saved my life as well as General Abruzzi’s. From now on they have carte blanche as far as I’m concerned.”
The vice president huffed and puffed, throwing his chest out as he paced around his seat, before finally sitting back down.
Mark instantly seized the moment, “This is not the time to fight amongst ourselves. This goes for all of you watching around the world also. Now the time has come for all of mankind to act as brothers, as family, to defend our world. If you want to go back to killing each other when all of this is over and done I sure as hell won’t try to stop you. But for now we have to work together, otherwise life on this big blue marble is over.”
“But what can we do?” A voice coming over the monitor said with an Indian accent.
“That part is simple,” Mark began as he flipped a switch on the table in front of him, activating a holographic display that sprang to life in the center of the room. In the display was the schematic for a new type of engine, the magno-disc engines that powered the Cagliostro and the Stargrazer both. “We build these, on double shifts around the globe building and outfitting every damned ship we can find with them. And once that’s done we take the fight to them.”
“That sounds all well and good, Mr. Johnson, but for all we know they could be here right now, and from what I see, it will take months, perhaps years to ready our fleet of ships for deep space travel,” a senator from Maine replied.
“You are correct sir, it will take years at the earliest to have the new engines installed in our entire fleet. But the few that are on hand and ready to be installed will be our first step in the right direction. You see, esteemed sirs, we do not need to leave the solar system to defend ourselves, we merely have to be able to fight off any attacker who comes to us, meaning to do us harm as a nation and as a world. I can help in both regards. I can re-arm our ships with the most advanced weaponry we have ever developed and I can continue to have the new magno-disc engines readied for installation on whatever ships you deem ready to go interstellar. But make no mistake gentlemen. The enemy is coming for us, and it is not to shake hands. It is to bury us so deep that the universe will forget i
t ever heard the word ‘Earth’, or the term ‘human’.”
Chapter 25
The work began around the clock at every Johnson Aerospace factory across the country as designs were pounded out and refined, allowing the first ships to be refitted. Mark Johnson himself oversaw the first re-fits aboard the Cagliostro, as the Cag flew parts to ships in orbit, where the war ships were flown into the huge hangers attached to the many space stations that orbited the Earth.
The ships would fly into the hangers, doors would seal, force fields would activate and the hangers would flood with oxygen, where technicians would work in space suits, but with their helmets open, ready at an instants notice to close the suits up in case of emergency. Working in zero-g allowed the technicians the ability to handle multi ton units without actually having to deal with the extra equipment necessary to move all that weight.
Meanwhile, ships stationed out near the asteroid belt, as well as satellites past Pluto’s orbit kept a watchful eye on deep space for any sign of an oncoming fleet of enemy vessels.
Aboard the command deck of the Cagliostro, Mark Johnson stood staring at the view screen with his hands clasped behind his back, his mind deep in somber thought.
“Quarter for your thoughts, sugar?”
Mark turned towards the voice, and smiled at Ariel as she slipped in beside him and wrapped her arms around his waist. He in turn wrapped his around hers.
“Just wondering where they are, Ari, as usual,” he added.
“You sound like you want them to come after us.”
“No, don’t be confused about that. I’d rather they turn around and run as far away from our quadrant of space as possible. But that’s not going to happen. There’s no doubt about it Ariel, they are coming for us. It’s only a matter of when.”
“You sound worried.”
“I am Ari, I am. The Earth has what? Maybe a thousand ships between all the nations upon it? There may be ten times that number coming for us, for all that we know.”
“Do you really believe that?” she asked in almost a whisper, as she turned and stared up at him.
“Of course I do. I’d rather be wrong and exaggerate something like the number of heavy ships we’ll be facing then underestimate them. This is not a good situation. If they get to Earth, our ground forces worldwide should be able to handle them if we can take out the majority of them up here. Unless they simply destroy the planet from space.”
Ariel stared at him, wide eyed in disbelief, “Are you serious? You think they can crush the planet from orbit? I-I thought you weren’t afraid of their weapons? You said ours were better, didn’t you?”
“From what we saw on our journey across the stars, yes, I believe our weaponry is more advanced.”
“Then why are you saying they could destroy the planet from space? We can’t do that.”
“Actually Ari, we could. Very easily too. A nuke attached to a quantum singularity generator fired into a planet. The nuke explodes and crushes the planets crust as the singularity generator is triggered upon impact and instantly the planet becomes a black hole and sucks in upon itself. It’s the cosmic death of a world in under two minutes flat.”
“You can do that?” she asked incredulously.
He shrugged, “I’ve theoretically been able to do that for the past ten years, actually. It’s a doomsday measure, something I’ll never use, unless the Earth is destroyed. Then I will fly to the home world of who and whatever has done this to us and send every last one of them to hell.” He stared her in the face as he finished his last sentence.
“I had no idea you had worked that all out,” she murmured.
“It’s not something I talk about. President Scaleia knows I can make it happen. He’s the only person as far as I know.”
“B-but you would have to manufacture everything you need to do this, right? It would take a long time to create, right?” Ariel asked with a growing fear in the pit of her stomach.
“Read my mind Ari, you tell me.”
She looked into his mind and her face went taut with fear. “My God, y-you have everything you need to do this, to destroy a world, right onboard this ship,” she stammered out, in shock.
He nodded stoically.
“I have that and a lot more as well, Ari. These people are coming here for a fight, you heard that alien bastard who was torturing us. This is no joke. They wanted to destroy us before we reached the stars. Now we have. How many of our space ships over the years have they blown up? Does it go back to the 1970’s and the Apollo missions? Or the 1980’s and 2000’s when our shuttles were destroyed? These aliens have been trying to dissuade us from coming to space for years. How many of our people have they killed? Hell, how many have they kidnapped, and replaced with clones or shape shifters? We’ll never know.”
“But Mark, you’d kill an entire world?”
“If they destroyed our world? Yes, I would, in a heartbeat and with no regrets. I’d go to their home world and loose the world buster right down their throats.”
“And what then? Where would we go after that happened?”
“Would it matter what we did at that point?”
“Everything matters!” Ariel bellowed.
“Only if we’re alive, does it matter Ariel, and right now I’m trying to defend our world. I promise you I have no intention of using that weapon, ever, unless as a last resort for our survival or if our world is already destroyed. It is the ultimate final option. While I have no want or desire to use the world buster against any world, or people, it is always on the table.”
“B-but Mark, an entire race! Their children…”
“Is it any less than they would do to us? My God Ari, I have parents that are still alive, as do you, as well as your brothers and sister. What about them? You’d let them just die unavenged?”
“I-I don’t know.”
“What about your sister Cherie’s kids? These bastards mean to kill them as well as everyone else on this planet, because we supposedly frighten them, yet we have done nothing, let me repeat that, nothing, to any of these people. They came to us and attacked, they kidnapped the General, then the President, then they tortured you and me and our entire crew. They killed forty of our people. This is no game. If they fear us, so be it, we’ll show them what fear really is. I don’t need to use the world buster, I have other weapons that will leave lasting impressions on them as well as any allies they may have. It’s time for them to reap what they have sowed.”
She sighed then, and shook her head plaintively, before looking up at Mark again, “Don’t hurt innocents in this war Mark, whatever you do, please.”
“Ariel, I am praying that none of this will come to pass, I am going to do everything I can to stop this, all of this, in its tracks. I don’t want there to be a war with the first alien races we’ve ever met, I’d rather be going out there meeting them with the open hand of friendship, not the clenched fist of destruction. But the problem is Ari; I may not have a choice. If they come after us, like I’m sure they will, I will respond with everything I can come up with.”
“What if you’re wrong?”
“About what Ari?”
“About these aliens. What if they are more advanced than we are in everything they do? Spaceflight, weaponry, everything? What then?”
“Ari, what do you want me to do? Tell the President the Earth should just surrender to these things? They are more than willing to kill us all, without a second thought. This is the bottom of the ninth with two men out; this is all or nothing for the win, Ari. Seriously I understand your reservations, but as a planet we cannot lie down and just say, ‘Do with us as you will. We mean you no harm.’ That’s just foolishness.”
“You’re right,” she whispered as she leaned over and hugged him. He returned the embrace as they stared out the view screen.
The communicator system beeped and Ariel disengaged herself from Mark. She walked over to her desk, touching a control button and instantly Dan Sledge’s voice reverberated ac
ross the command deck, “Mark, it’s done. Everything should be one hundred percent operational now.”
“All right Danny, thanks. I’m glad to hear it. Another ace up our sleeves. Join us on the command deck when you’re ready.”
“I’m on my way boss.” Dan replied.
“What was that about?” Ari asked in wonder.
“Something I added to the Cagliostro as a ‘just in case’ measure.”
“Not another something to destroy a world, I hope.”
“Ariel, stop right there. That conversation is over.”
“I know,” she answered almost fearfully, but with trepidation at the very least.
The doors of the maglovator opened and Red, Eddie and Dan walked in looking grim.
“Everything okay with you three?”
“See for yourself, Boss.” Red replied as he sat down behind his console and punched a button, revealing a new image across the command deck viewer. Mark’s breath caught as he looked in wonder at what was displayed before him. Ariel slid up next to him nervously and gripped his hand.
“It’s really the end of the world, isn’t it?” she asked in a hushed breath.
“Not if I can help it,” Mark replied grimly with a steadfast resolve that snapped them all out of their momentary fear.
“That’s a lot of ships,” Red offered.
“It doesn’t matter, no matter what it takes, we’re going to win this war and protect our world.”
They all continued to stare as the sub-space feed they were viewing from a satellite out near Pluto showed thousands of ships, all large and heavily armed heading toward Earth. Then when most had passed the small world on the solar systems fringe, a burst of energy flared from one of the ships directed at the satellite they were viewing through, and almost instantly the view screen went decidedly dead.
Chapter 26
“Battle stations!” Mark shouted, as he punched a button on his virtual console, immediately causing a klaxon to sound across the ship.
