by Ira Tabankin
A Novel
The Alien Whisperer
Book 3
2000-2050
First edition
Copyright in February 2020.
Ira J. Tabankin
Knoxville, TN 39720
Dedication:
This book is dedicated to my wife and true love.
Cover Design By
Graphic design by Matt Margolis.
Thanks:
I’d like to thank my beta readers, who helped me with their knowledge, comments, and encouragement. I’d like to thank Darryl Lapidus, who edited and made this edition possible.
Note:
Please note this isn’t a politically correct novel. Please recognize artistic license is used throughout this story. Any tense disparities are the author's view of the story as it's written.
Work of Fiction:
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
A Note on Punctuation:
Much of this story is a conversation between people. When we speak, we don’t do so in the same manner as the written word. Pauses in the written word aren’t usually there when we talk to each other. As such, the punctuation used in conversations is written as people speak, not as it would be in a written paragraph.
Copyright February 2020
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters, and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Ira Tabankin asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
Ira Tabankin has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks, and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.
Prologue
For centuries men have looked to the sky and wondered, ‘Are we alone?’ Some ancient societies looked up and thought the stars were windows from heaven, others thought they were gods watching us, and some said they were messengers from heaven. For years, flashing lights in the sky became the topic of stories, first in pulp fiction, comic books, and later on the large and small screens. In most of the movies, the aliens weren’t friendly. In the 1950s, the U.S. Air Force launched a program called “Project Blue Book” to investigate UFO sightings. After forty years, their final report said they could account for almost all of the sightings. Almost but not all. For some, they couldn’t find a logical or natural reason.
The crash at Roswell in 1947 was an actual alien ship crash. It’s pilot, Kalteck had survived a dog fight in orbit over Earth. He ejected from his damaged ship in what he called a life pod, a slim, flowing mini spaceship that was not only able to safely travel to Earth but could also carry him to the moon and back.
Kalteck was teamed with a young U.S. Army Air Force officer by the name of Captain Everett Yahnig, who was a military aide to President Truman. Captain Yahnig was also an ace, having shot down more than five enemy fighters over Germany in the Second World War. Truman prided himself on being able a good judge of people. He had taken an instant liking to Everett, who he promoted to Brigadier General pending Senate approval.
Truman assigned Yahnig to head up a new program which was going to be used as a cover for Yahnig’s real job which was to be the interface between Kalteck and America’s technology companies in order to increase the Earth’s technology so it could defend itself against an invading enemy fleet which was due to arrive around one hundred years in the future.
Kalteck later gave Everett a rare gift of medical nanites. He became the first human to have them in his system. The nanites kept him young, almost not aging. His looks didn’t change since his mid-30’s. As a special favor to Everett, he gave some nanites to him to mix in his wife’s drink or food. But these weren’t a complete set of nanites. Rather, they kept her healthy from any ‘normal diseases.’ She never suffered even a cold. However, the nanites didn’t correct any issues with her major organs, and one evening in her mid-70’s, her heart gave out. She passed as Kalteck had promised, in her sleep without any pain. Everett always wondered if Kalteck had programmed the nanites to terminate her life at this moment when a new President was elected. It was decided that Yahnig had to either retire or undergo a change. He’d been a general since 1947, and it was now 1990.
Yahnig’s nanites put him into a deep sleep, during which they changed his face, his eye color, his fingerprints, grew his hair back, and even changed the tone of his voice. He was reborn as a subject matter expert whom DARPA and the President placed in service with the U.S. Air Force under a new name, Rhett McIntire. Kalteck made sure Rhett had the knowledge by giving him a Martian teaching machine.
Kalteck had fought a battle with an alien species he thought to be extinct, Neanderthals, who flew through Earth’s system in massive warships. Kalteck managed to destroy one of the two ships before the other jumped out of the system.
Kalteck took Rhett on a recon mission to search for a base of ships he called the maggots, who were performing experiments on humans. Instead of locating their targets, they discovered two massive Neanderthal ships had entered Earth’s system. A battle was fought, but when Kalteck’s ship opened a wormhole to jump away from the battle, his ship was struck by an energy weapon from one of the Neanderthal ships. The energy weapon managed to not only damage Kalteck’s ship, but it also threw them out of the wormhole into an unknown area of space. They were
Chapter 1
Their ship had been wounded in the battle, the AI controlling the ship lost part of its core and memories. The ship’s replicators were damaged and off line, hence they couldn’t produce the food Kalteck and Rhett required. The ship needed time and raw materials for the nanites to repair the damage. The only way for Rhett and Kalteck could survive through the repairs was if they slept in a state of suspended animation that slowed their aging while they slept.
Rhett looked at his alien friend, and then he again looked at the eight-foot-tall glass tube in front of him that appeared to be glowing. He smiled and shrugged his shoulders, “I’ve trusted you for all of these years, what have I got to lose now? I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. How does sleep suspension work? Will I dream? Will I have endless nightmares?”
Kalteck smiled, more like a leer, “My friend, you won’t dream, and no, you won’t have any nightmares. The system will slow your bodily functions down to a fraction of normal. When the ship is repaired, the AI will wake us. We’ll have no memory of the passed time.
“There is something else I need to tell you before you enter the tube, so you are not surprised when the sleep period is over. Please hear me completely before you react. I fear you are most likely going to be terribly upset about wh
at I have to tell you.”
“Oh my God, what did you do now? Please tell me you didn’t set up the removal of other public figures or government officials, we’ve had this talk before.”
“No, nothing like that. I gave you my word. I wouldn’t do that again. Please just listen to me, before we left, I initiated another little plan; I was sure we’d return before the final act of the plan played out. We were supposed to return to stop it in the nick of time. Based on the condition of the ship, I’m not sure we will be able to return in time to prevent it now. I think we should discuss it before you enter suspension and learn about it when you wake.”
Rhett looked confused. “Okay, I’ll bite, what did you do this time? Oh my God, please tell me you didn’t start another little war someplace. We barely survived Vietnam.”
“I promised, I wouldn’t do anything to harm the President. I did something that you may like even less than had I plotted against President Bush.”
Rhett sat down, looking around the small eating area, “I brought some beer, I think I better take one before you tell me what mischief you’ve gone and done this time. Can’t you just discuss these ideas of yours before you do them? Sometimes you remind me of a child who just has to have his way no matter who it may harm.”
Kalteck nodded, “Bring the entire six-pack. You’re going to need it.”
Rhett downed two beers on an empty stomach, “Okay, I’m ready, just tell me what you did. Let’s clear the air, say it.”
Kalteck sat down across from Rhett, “Please hear me out and listen to everything I have to say before you react. I promise you my reason was sound. I only had your people’s best interests at heart. I didn’t mean for it to go so far that some of your people would be injured or some die. I thought it was critical to rebuilding your military’s pride that they would have a reason to fight and quickly defeat an enemy. You did good in your Gulf war, but that wasn’t really a fair fight. I wanted to make sure you had a very unusual opponent this time. One, if you quickly defeated, would double the pride your people had for their military. I wanted to give your new President another means to increase your defense spending and speed up technology development. I didn’t want them to slip back into the mess you suffered after the mess they made of Vietnam…”
“Vietnam? You set that mess up. That little mess cost us 50,000 lives, and you think we needed another lesson? What the F did you do this time?”
“I used my nanites to set up a situation during your Gulf war ten years ago. I wanted to shock your people to support a massive increase in military spending and to again look to the stars. I’m sorry, but with the damage to the ship, we most likely won’t make it back in time for my secondary plan to kick in…”
Rhett was getting very frustrated, and he knew Kalteck had really done something really bad if it was taking so long to tell him, “What did you do? Why was a secondary plan required? I don’t remember you ever speaking about a primary or secondary plan before. What do you mean you wanted to push my people, humans, or Americans? What did you do this time? Just tell me.”
“The primary plan was there is, was going to be a large terrorist attack on your largest city and capital. You were going to catch it just before the final act happened. Without us there, my AI can’t alert your people. He can’t quickly contact the nanites to force them to change the pilot’s course at the last minute and crash, thus missing their primary targets. I’m afraid the attack is going to happen, and I won’t be there to stop it.”
Rhett’s face turned red, “I think you better tell me what the target is and how the attack is going to be carried out and by whom.”
“Remember, this wasn’t supposed to happen the way it’s going to play out. I can’t stop it, nor can I do anything from here to change what’s going to happen.”
Rhett looked into his friend’s eyes, “Damn it, just tell me the targets.”
“New York City, the twin towers of the World Trade Center. They make a great target. They’re just standing there by the water and the Pentagon, which should have enraged your people to fight. The last target was going to be the Capitol building. It was my way to enable your people to elect a new government and move forward on the right path.”
Rhett dropped his beer on the floor. He didn’t pay any attention to the gray flood of nanites that swarmed over the spilled beet cleaning it up. “You arranged an attack on America? On America? My home? The country that stood by you. The Pentagon? How? What kind of weapons were going to be used? You’ve got to get us home so we can stop it! Do you realize if the President or anyone realizes you were behind any attack on us, he will declare war on you and your people? Do you have any idea of the mess you created?”
“We can’t get back in time. We’re millions of light-years away with a damaged ship. We don’t have a drive, and our main replicators are offline. Our AI is damaged. It’s going to take time for our repairs to be made, and then we have to figure out where we are before we can plot a course home. We can’t get home without knowing where the wormhole dumped us out, and we can’t do that until the ship and AI are repaired.”
“Please tell me your plan didn’t include the use of weapons of mass destruction, if you did, I don’t think I could forgive you.”
“I would never use them. The weapons were commercial airplanes. The nanites enabled a group of men who follow the one they call the Prophet and their God, Allah. They will fly what you call hijacked planes into two towers in New York City, another two will fly one airplane into the Pentagon, and two men will take over a plane and fly it into the Capitol Building. I had planned it so we would be able to stop it by having the AI give them instructions whereby they’d crash before they struck their targets. I projected that the miss would be as good as a strike. A few people may have died, but it would be a ridiculously small number. I determined the result would have been the same as if the airplanes had struck their targets. I’m sorry, I didn’t expect us to get thrown fifty million light-years away. You can’t blame me for this…”
Rhett’s face turned dark red, “Can’t I? You set up the event. You planned it. You didn’t tell me anything about it. I thought we were partners, and this is the first I’m hearing you set up an attack against my country. I kept my mouth shut when you executed President Kennedy. I kept my mouth shut when you set up President Nixon, but this? I never expected you to set up an attack on us. It’s like attacking me.”
“Why don’t you get some rest in the tube and then we’ll see if the event happened…”
“Event? It’s not a damn event. It’s an act of god damned war. You SOB. I called you friend. I thought of you like the brother I never had. I did everything in my power to protect you, and this is how you pay me back? By attacking my country! I’m still a sworn officer in the United States Military. I should kill you for what you’ve done.”
“We both know you won’t be able to lay a hand on me. You’ve seen what happens to those who attempt to harm me. Please don’t make that mistake. You also know that without me you’ll never get home. Rhett, Everett, please hear me out.”
“You’ve already told me you planned to attack America. That makes you an enemy of my country.”
“Rhett, please calm down, you shouldn’t be excited just before you enter the tube.”
Rhett stood and pounded the table in front of them, “Calm down? How do you expect me to calm down when I realize the person, I’ve been working with for over fifty years turns out to be an enemy? I have to wonder who the real enemy is, you or the mystical enemy who’s coming in another forty or fifty years. Maybe that enemy is you! Is this the way you welcome us into the new millennium?”
Rhett got up to his feet to make a move on Kalteck when Kalteck said, “AI, execute program Yahnig one.”
Rhett never felt a thing as he fell to the floor passed out. Kalteck shook his head, he bent down and picked up Rhett. Kalteck spoke to the ship’s AI, “I will place him in his tube. While he is sleeping program his nanites to calm him
and help him see what and why I did what I did.”
“Yes, sir. The program is ready to execute once he’s in his tube.”
Kalteck gently placed Rhett inside the sleep tube. The tube automatically ‘grabbed’ Rhett and held him up while the glass tube closed and filled with a gas which combined with the nanites in his system put Rhett into a deep slowing sleep.
Kalteck stood watching the tube fill with the gray gas. He spoke out loud to the ship’s AI, “Will we be repaired in enough time to stop the attack?”
“No. I am sorry. I estimate given my reduced capacity it will take over an Earth year before we can begin our return to Earth and then even with our FTL drive it’s going to take time to transition over fifty million light-years. Of course, that assumes I can determine where we are.”
“Do your best. I will be in my tube.”
Kalteck’s last thought before he closed his eyes was, I never meant for the attack to succeed. If the Americans can’t stop it, they will go to war in the Middle East again. The war will drag on for years because they haven’t learned they can’t defeat a religion with tanks and bullets. Their population will grow tired of war and they’ll demand peace at all costs. Then like at the end of every other of their wars, they to quickly disarmed. Maggot shit, my plan isn’t just going to backfire, it’s going to… Kalteck never finished his thought as the gas in the tube placed him in suspension.
