by Bob Blanton
◆ ◆ ◆
“I want to thank you for having me back,” Marc said as he rose to stand in front of the Security Council Chamber. “I’m sure there are a lot of questions; I’ll try to answer them.”
“How did you know that fleet was coming?”
“The fact that the asteroid was coming from the general direction of Paraxea and was so unusually large, was too much of a coincidence for us to ignore. So, we took a small asteroid and put gravimetric drives on it and a sensor array and had it do a flyby,” Marc replied.
“Why did you use an asteroid, why not send one of those drones?”
“That drone would have taken months to reach the asteroid, and it would likely have been detected. We used the larger drives and buried everything to reduce the likelihood of it being detected. We even sent the asteroid out in a viable orbit to further avoid detection.”
“Why are they coming here?”
“We don’t know, I would assume it is because our planet is compatible with their species and they have some reason to want to get away from Paraxea itself,” Marc said.
“Why don’t you think that Paraxea is behind it?”
“If their homeworld were behind the mission, I would have expected them to replace the damaged colony ship rather than use an asteroid. The shifting of the stasis pods to the asteroids as well as the limited acceleration they could achieve with it must have delayed them by years, fortunately for us.”
“Are we sure it’s not a peaceful mission?”
“They wouldn’t send two carriers and a battleship for a first contact mission; it would send the wrong message. The only purpose of a fleet like that is to subdue a planet,” Marc answered.
“How are you going to stop them?”
“It is how are we going to stop them,” Marc said. “With some help from other nations, Delphi can build ships and fighters. What we need are pilots to fly them and crews to maintain them. We can train them, but we need ones who already have a solid basis for that training.”
“And who’s going to command these ships?” the British ambassador asked.
“I would propose an alliance,” Marc said, “similar to the various alliances we already have here on Earth. Each member will contribute what they can, resources or personnel, Delphi will provide the technology and the overall command structure, but we need to seed it with competent people from the various military organizations here on Earth.”
“Why should you lead it?” the American ambassador demanded.
“Because we have the technology, we have the best understanding of what we’re up against, and we are the only ones who can build the ships and fighters.”
“Do we have enough time, and can you really build what we need?”
“We have about four months. You’ve seen the space station we’ve built; we’re better prepared now than we were when we started. We’ve already started designing the ships, and we expect to start the first carrier early next month,” Marc said.
“What about the fighters?”
“We’ve been building them already. We will accelerate our current construction program, and we have a new design that we can build faster,” Marc said. “We need help to produce the avionics we need, but since these fighters will only be able to operate in space, we can eliminate a lot of complexity for our current design. We have a plan that gets us two carriers and two thousand fighters within four months.”
“What about that battleship?”
“We have plans that we hope will hinder it or force it to turn back,” Marc said. “But until we engage it, we won’t know exactly what we’re up against. We do know we have to keep it out of the solar system.”
“Are you suggesting we start the fight out beyond Jupiter?”
“We have to stop it from getting into the solar system’s gravity well.”
“Why don’t we just bombard that asteroid of theirs, destroy all those pods?”
“Because the last thing we want is for all those fighters to have no reason to live,” Marc said. “If they fragment and come at Earth for revenge, we’ll see such devastation that it is possible Earth would no longer be habitable. No, we need them to stay together, and we need to defeat them as a military force, where we can negotiate a surrender.”
“So, what is next?”
“You decide if you’re willing to join the alliance,” Marc said. “The sooner we can get more pilots, crews, engineers, and construction workers, the better. We are already recruiting key personnel.
“And one last thing that may help, you’ve seen our medical advances. Many of our current pilots and military are from your military forces, men and women who have been injured and forced to leave the military. We have been able to bring them back to normal health. We can replace lost limbs, lost eyes, repair extreme damage. We will make that service available to all who want to join us. Eventually, we will be able to make it available to anyone, but we currently have limited capacity.”
“How can we believe you? That is impossible!”
Marc nodded to Ambassador Hannaford, and she started to hand out files to the group while Marc brought up a new image on the display. It showed Kal standing with his prosthetic legs, and next to it was an image of him with his new legs. The display cycled through others like Kal, each of them from a different country, showing them before and after their surgeries.
“You’ve just been handed the data on the individuals in this series of images; they’re all from one of your armed services. You’ll have the records of their injuries, and as you can see, they’re fully recovered. Let us know if you’re willing to join us in the defense of Earth,” Marc said as he and Margaret left the room.
◆ ◆ ◆
“Mr. President, what do you want me to tell them?” Ambassador Rasmussen asked.
“Tell them that they have the full support of the United States,” the president said, much to the shock of his entire security council.
“Full support?” asked General Wilson.
“Yes, give them whatever they ask for. I want the U.S. to be the major provider of pilots and crew to the new alliance.”
“Yes, sir,” Ambassador Rasmussen said. “I’ll communicate to them right away.”
“What about the armed forces?” Secretary Barrows asked.
“Offer them as many of our pilots as they need. Try to keep them together with the other pilots from their squadrons. I want to approve the transfer of any officer above O5,” the president said.
“Do you want me to communicate with the Joint Chiefs, or will you?” Secretary Barrows asked.
“You communicate with them,” the president said.
Chapter 21
The Buildup
“How’d it go?” Samantha asked when Marc made it back to Delphi Station.
“Like you don’t know,” Marc said, “as well as could be expected.”
“Do you think we’ll get support?”
“I don’t expect any from Russia, and probably not the U.S., but France, Britain, and China should be willing to step up. We need to be ready for it when they do.”
“Catie and Liz say they’ll be ready to start the hull next week,” Samantha said. “Our new asteroids show up in a few days. Blake says the miners are ready. He also thinks we should nudge the asteroids closer to Earth to reduce the flight time between them.”
“That sounds good, but we’ll go over it all at the briefing tomorrow. Why don’t we have a nice dinner and a quiet evening,” Marc said.
“Who are you, and what have you done with my boyfriend?” Samantha asked.
Marc laughed, “I’m your new and improved boyfriend. Now that almost everything is out in the open, we can only do what we can. We have to let things play out, so we might as well enjoy the time we have while we’re waiting.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“Margaret, I understand you have good news for us,” Marc said as he opened the morning briefing.
“Amazing news,” Margaret said. “The U.S. has
joined the alliance and committed to full support. They’re offering us the pick of squadrons from their military.”
“That is amazing,” Marc said. “Has anyone else committed?”
“The French were right behind the Americans,” Margaret said. “I’m meeting with the British ambassador after this meeting, so I expect they will also commit, which means Canada, Australia, and New Zealand will be joining the alliance as well.”
“What about the Chinese?”
“The Chinese ambassador says he needs to go back to China to consult; I think offering a Lynx to transport him would be a good gesture.”
“Do it,” Marc said. “Good work, Margaret. Everyone up here is in shock about the Americans.”
“As am I,” Margaret said. “I’m going to head to my meeting with the British ambassador, is there anything new I should report?”
“I believe we’ve decided to bring the asteroids closer to the Earth,” Marc said. “You should probably inform our allies.”
“I will take care of that. I’ll report back right after my meeting.”
“Thank you, and good luck,” Marc said.
“That is good news about the U.S.,” Blake said.
“I think so, but we should be careful how we absorb their people,” Marc said. “What do you think, Admiral?”
“I would agree, you should balance the U.S. forces with the forces of our other allies to avoid having a concentration of US forces in one place,” the admiral replied.
“I agree. Liz and Catie, where are we with your carrier?”
“We’ve brought all the construction workers from Delphi City up here to the station to work on it,” Liz said. “We’ll need to focus on building out more of the station first to accommodate the extra bodies, but that shouldn’t take more than a couple of weeks. We’ve ordered all the appliances and fixtures we need for the station, as well as what we need to put on the carriers. If we can get some help prioritizing those with the manufacturers, it would help immensely.”
“I’ll take care of contacting the state departments of our allies to facilitate that,” Samantha said.
“Thank you, Sam. Liz, anything else?”
“Nothing critical to add.”
“Impressive progress, ladies. Blake, how about our new Foxes?”
“We’ve reviewed the design with all of our top pilots, and with some minor changes, they’ve signed off on it. We’ll start putting the tooling together this week and will have the first prototype out by the end of next week.”
“Excellent. Now how are we going to manage the training and keep ourselves from being overwhelmed by pilots?” Marc asked.
“You know, with the new design, the carrier can handle twice as many fighters,” Catie said. “That’s one thousand per carrier.”
“Then we should try to shoot for that number,” Marc said. “I was assuming we’d overload some of the hangars to max out our number, but now it sounds like we can keep them all flight ready.”
“Then we’d better start training pilots as soon as we can,” Fred said. “Run them through the ground training and simulator training, then have three pilots assigned to each Fox. They can rotate four hours of flight and two hours of maintenance for three shifts, then a six-hour maintenance shift. We can start with the Foxes we have, so that means we can bring in three classes of twenty-four pilots.”
“Okay, what about ground crew?”
“Same thing, assume each squadron brings its own ground crew.”
“We should train some weapons officers, too,” Catie said. “We’ll have a bunch of two-seater Foxes, and if we put weapons officers in them, they can manage their missiles as well as the Hyraxes’ missiles.”
“Hyraxes?” Marc asked.
“Yeah, they’re little mammals, they’re kind of small, fat things--not that glamorous, like those new jets,” Catie said.
“Hey! Don’t disparage my new design,” Blake said.
“But it’s one of the last animals that end in an X. I don’t think we should use Ibex yet.”
“Why not, they’re sleek and fast,” Blake said.
“You two can fight over the name later,” Marc said. “Do we agree about the weapons officers?”
“I think it’s a good idea,” Admiral Michaels said. “We want to maximize our options.”
“I’ve got it,” Fred said. “How are we going to split production between the new design and the Fox design?”
“Build them both as fast as we can right now. If there’s a bottleneck, favor the new design,” Marc said, getting an approving nod from the admiral and Blake.
“Where do we house all these pilots?” Kal asked.
“For starters, in Delphi City,” Marc said.
“We can focus on crew quarters for the carrier buildout, so we can just put them on the ship,” Liz said.
“It’s not going to be that nice without gravity,” Kal said.
“Put it in a stationary orbit over the North Pole,” Catie said. “At four hundred miles, you’ll have about nine-tenths-G.”
“Huh?” Liz said.
“Yeah, if it’s not orbiting, then it’s not falling, so you’ll have gravity from the force to keep it up there,” Catie said. “Four hundred miles isn’t that much compared to the Earth’s four-thousand-mile radius.”
Liz paused for a moment as she went through the model in her head, “That sounds good then.”
“What about having so many pilots from the US that close to us?” Admiral Michaels asked.
“We should park one of them over Jupiter as soon as we can,” Catie said. “It’s going to be close to where the Paraxeans will enter the solar system, so it will be a good base; besides, you’ll be able to get as much hydrogen and deuterium as you want from Jupiter’s atmosphere.”
“I like that idea,” Marc said. “We can rotate pilots through it as we add them, but keep as many out there as we can. Do we have the ability to keep them resupplied?”
“Sure, just need a couple of Oryxes on a continuous flight schedule. I need to check with Vince and Mrs. Michaels, but we should be able to ramp up food production to cover all the extra personnel without having to ask our allies to help us.”
“Sounds like a plan. What about missile production?” Marc asked.
“Nikola has agreed to manage that for us,” Fred said.
“Do any of you need more support?”
“We’re pulling in whoever we need,” Blake said. “We’ll holler if the well runs dry, but I think we’ve got enough talent around to cover things for now. As we bring in the squadrons and crews, we’ll be able to hand more off.”
“Alright, keep up the good work,” Marc said as he closed the meeting.
◆ ◆ ◆
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Delphi City and the Delphi training squadron,” Kasper said. “This will be the last time you hear that particular salutation. In Delphi, we use Cer as a sign of respect when referring to anyone, male or female. So, Cers, you’ve been introduced to the Fox and have had a chance to fly it down here in the atmosphere. Now we’re going to start to explain to you what it means to fly one in space. And as a special treat, I’ve invited Delphi’s top pilot to start this briefing. She’s currently undefeated in simulated combat. She can be a bit of a showoff; when we first met, she killed me three times within thirty minutes. The first two surprised the instructors, so my jet didn’t register how dead I was. The third time, it was embarrassingly obvious that I was dead. Please welcome Lieutenant Catie McCormack.”
Catie rose from her chair and walked to the front to stand beside Kasper. There was a nice round of applause before someone yelled out, “Come on, how old is she, sixteen?”
“The Lieutenant has agreed to keep her age a secret so that I don’t have to suffer any more embarrassment,” Kasper said. “She’s young, wily, and utterly ruthless when she’s in the cockpit, so piss her off at your peril. Her uncle liked to use her to help overconfident pilots find a little humility, and I fully intend to
do the same.”
“I think Kasper asked me to give this presentation as a way to point out how simple it really is,” Catie said. “Surely, if a young teenage girl can teach it, all of you will be able to learn it in no time.” That got her a laugh from the entire audience.
“Now, all of you are used to dealing with the aerodynamics of flying in atmosphere. There you have to worry about the ability of your jet’s airframe to withstand the turn, where you can even use the atmosphere as a brake. Well, when you’re in space, none of that matters or helps.” Catie brought an image up on the wall-sized display behind her.
“If you’re traveling at Mach five, and yes, we still use Mach when referring to speed in space even though the speed of sound in space is zero. Back to my example: You’re doing Mach five, and a target appears at your three o’clock; in atmosphere, you would execute a high-G turn and take yourself through a parabolic curve until you were heading directly toward it. Now, what would you do in space?”
Catie pointed to an eager pilot in the front row. “You would just use your thrusters to turn your jet, so you were pointed at it,” he said.
“Close,” Catie said as she had the trajectory trace out on the display. It showed the jet turn toward the target, but slide by as it traveled in a parabolic curve winding up above the target. The curve was similar to the atmosphere trajectory she’d drawn earlier. “You forgot that you’re still traveling at Mach five toward your twelve o’clock. You actually have to turn more than forty-five degrees to get to your target. In fact, depending on how close you are to it and how many Gs of acceleration you want to apply, you might have to turn over ninety degrees.”
There were groans from the room.
“This can be further complicated if you’re in a gravity well, like say Jupiter’s. If you and your quarry are orbiting the planet, then its effect can mostly be discounted, but if you’re not orbiting it, then you’ll have to account for the planet’s gravity until you’re well outside its influence. Here around Earth, you have the effects of gravity until you’re beyond the moon. At the distance of the moon’s orbit, you have about one percent of a G to deal with.
