However, only a week after the maiden flight of the Stargazer, Captain Kansier relayed a message to Earth which dissipated the celebratory atmosphere:
“Nuclear weapon destroyed by the aliens seventy-six thousand kilometers before striking the target.” An image remained in the viewscreen of that defeat, near the surface of Pluto.
Moreover, Kansier had disastrous news to report concerning the repercussions of their failure: the resulting radiation of the nuclear blast had affected several large asteroids in the area and sent them hurtling towards Charon and Pluto. The asteroids had hit with so much force that they had vaporized the surface of both planetoids. Not having foreseen any possibility of failure, much less such a disaster, the council had taken this news hard.
“Chicken shit,” Knightwood sighed. The failure had come as no surprise to the scientists at the UESRC, but disappointment permeated the air for another reason. As a result of the nuclear blast, the surface of Pluto, which told the story of its evolution and ancient origin, had been erased forever, to refreeze as a disgustingly smooth enormous icy billiard ball. Even the remnants of the Earth base on Pluto's surface had been melted into the crust of the planet, vanishing forever without a trace.
Knightwood clicked off the view of the smooth ice ball Pluto.
“I can’t handle this.” She sighed, wondering where Zhdanov might be at this moment.
Days had passed as the crew of the Stargazer waited tensely for signs of further activity from the alien vessel, but no retaliation had ever been launched, and the Stargazer continued to hold its position on the shielded side of the blue giant Neptune.
Knightwood gazed at a status bar—no new messages from Kansier.
Meanwhile, at the UESRC, Knightwood had just presented status reports to the council outlining the deployment of the newest fleet of space cruisers, six vessels slightly smaller than the Stargazer and more expeditiously constructed, though very similar in design and operation. The crews had been already selected and informed, and their departure was scheduled for the next morning from the Ural Base where all but the two from Central City had been constructed.
“Blast it,” Knightwood sighed, She found it hard even in the relative safety of her office to clear her mind of the conversation on the last day of the meetings the day before, when she had again been subjected to another moral debate following her own report. Someone on the UESF Council had casually raised the question as to how the Earth might best maintain the defense squadrons in the future, given the present population and the heavy casualties incurred since the aliens had begun to attack the Earth.
Gradually, the Secretary had worked his way towards introducing a solution he felt was justified: at some unspecified point in the near future, the scientific community must begin to create test-tube "super-children", preferably ones "genetically suited" to fulfilling a the singular responsibility—the defense of the Earth.
Knightwood had been relieved to hear objections to this proposal coming from around her and felt reassured that the world hadn't entirely gone insane—yet.
“I hope that bastard doesn’t get his way,” she thought to herself.
Moral objections aside, Knightwood doubted whether it was even possible to provide the care necessary to nurture thousands of artificially created children. The facilities simply did not exist, at least not to shelter the numbers Secretary Hilbert envisioned. Ectogenesis—essentially, growing children to maturity in the laboratory—though popular currently, was still a closely monitored procedure for which families, single fathers, and single mothers had to apply for. Moreover, only a handful of children had been cloned since the laws of the late twenty-fourth century that banned human cloning on grounds of preservation of Darwin's laws.
Ectogenesis had once been misused before and had caused massive social instability, in that it had created a large, parentless, and isolated class of government pawns. The laws created to ban ectogenesis were considered just.
As useful as it might be to augment the defense force, Knightwood could not condone the suggestion of cloning “superchildren”. Many of the UESF Council members present made arguments that reflected Knightwood's private sentiments.
The logic of the socialization of the youth for defense did not escape Knightwood, however, even if she did not agree with Secretary Hilbert's suggestion. In Knightwood's own experience watching the cadets at the UESRC, she knew that the younger pilots were already developing into better soldiers because they were being raised for battle.
“What the hell is this world coming to?”
* * * * *
The planet was named for the ancient Roman god of the sea, and like the sea, it too seemed tranquil on the surface. Yet he had to remind himself that the sea had its share of tempests, and that beneath its sonorous waves, storms to ravage the boldest of mankind also brewed.
“Any change, Lieutenant?” Kansier barked at the pilot now that the bridge was empty except for them alone.
“None, sir. We’re cruising at maximum speed, no sign of any of our bogies yet.” Said the lieutenant pilot with a grin. “I’ve got it all under control, sir, nothing to worry about yet.”
“Good,” said Kansier. “I want you to keep circling the planet until we do attract their attention.” Kansier said, “let me know if something changes.” And with that, Kansier settled back into his own chair at the rear of the command room.
The gas giant Neptune filled Kansier with a great unease, this horrifically vast, achingly beautiful planet. Weeks passed monotonously while he sat faithfully rooted to his position in his command chair, looking out the forward viewport at the rotation of this voluminous planet the color of the deep blue oceans on Earth, occasionally dotted by thready white cirrus clouds. There was not much to do but wait.
The Earth itself would have been no bigger than an island on the great planet, had there been any islands. Truly, Earth only measured up to the size of the Great Dark Spot, that unceasing storm that swirled mesmerizingly across Neptune's southern hemisphere.
“I could use a good cup of coffee,” Kansier thought with a sigh.
He was still gazing out at the view. There were more hospitable regions upon which travelers such as Kansier and his crew might land. Far less like the great planet and more like the naked moon of Earth, the eight rocky moons of Neptune occasionally passed between the Stargazer and a clear view of the gas giant. Tiny dots they seemed from this distance, crossing the face of Neptune in a never-ending race, although one of the participants, the rebellious Triton, circled the planet in the opposite direction.
How haunting the close-up frames of these planetoids had been, Kansier thought; pocked and scarred but infinitely silent and presently static, they certainly contrasted with the constant motion and vitality of the planet they encircled.
Idly, Kansier began to hum an old tune; he had forgotten the words years ago, but the melody pleased him.
A man could die from waiting like this, Kansier thought to himself, and turned his attention once more on the mesmerizing globe in the forward viewport. He thought about reading another book, but had no interest in it at that moment.
Artificial light had been washed into the image through the viewport's clear metal, a transparent substance that had been designed with the capacity of illuminating the image of regions of space such as this, where the far-away sun appeared as only a distant star on Neptune's brighter side.
“It’s so peaceful here,” Kansier said suddenly.
“Sir?” asked the communications officer.
“Yes, it’s hard to believe that we’re at war sitting way out here in space.”
“It is, sir,” agreed the communications officer.
“But we have to stay on our toes. They could attack us any time. Let’s hope they do, rather than attacking the Earth.”
Kansier did not mind the present state of peace, but he was ever conscious of the f
act that only this thin plate of metal, as strong as it might be, separated him from certain suffocation in the hideously crushing cold of outer space. And he did not trust the quiet.
In the three months that the Stargazer waited poised above the eighth planet, the crew had seen no sign of enemy activity. That did not mean that the aliens were not sending out their ship carriers; it was just that the aliens had diverted their course away from the Stargazer and the other Earth space cruisers, easily lacing through their weak defensive blockade. Radar reports confirmed that they had dived beneath the solar system disk when the Earth cruisers announced their presence only to resurface undetected on a new course heading for the Earth.
Which made Kansier feel like an idiot waiting out here at Neptune while alien assault ships bypassed him.
In Kansier's opinion, the failure of the hide-and-strike defense tactics indicated that a new, offensive course of action was necessary if the fleet had any hope of detaining the aliens in their progression towards the Earth. And no one knew how much longer their great flagship would wait out there, circling like a predator ready to strike.
As hopeless as it might be, Kansier realized that this offensive measure might involve a brief direct attack upon the deadly alien ship, exposing the fleet to the enemy, and hoping that they could retreat to the other side of Charon alive after they had taken out the smaller alien cruisers that were being periodically sent towards the Earth; as yet nothing had been able to inflict any damage upon the great alien flagship, though Kansier suspected that the UESF had hopes of assessing weak points in the alien flagship.
“We’re a dead target sitting out here, and still they won’t attack us,” Kansier sighed.
Kansier himself did not relish the idea of making himself a target; in fact it was for this reason that he had initially supported the defensive strikes at Neptune and Saturn, yet in his heart he had doubted they would be very successful. It had sounded plausible at first that a number of alien cruisers could be detained en route to the Earth, but the alien vessels seemed to have sensed their presence and taken another clear path to the Earth, undetected by the fleet at Neptune, Saturn, or Mars.
Kansier still approved of the defense-strike tactic as a means of launching interceptive counter-missiles in the event that the alien mothership targeted the Earth itself, but who knew how long the Earth could manage to withstand the constant fear of sudden attacks?
The missiles they had launched from so far away had been destroyed before they could approach the alien mother ship. Though he was not sure how it might be done, Kansier felt certain that they must find a way to get close to the alien vessel, perhaps a secret way along the lines of the radar-invisible envelope that had surrounded the nuclear missile. One thing was definite: they could not continue to sit back and let the aliens outsmart them.
The Earth is going to have to plan an offensive assault, one that will provide some clues as to the aliens' motives, no matter how long it takes.
Most of the council who had spoken to Kansier via delayed relay transmissions since he had gone to Neptune still seemed optimistic, as though they hadn't quite accepted the failure of the missiles or the mission itself.
But the time had come for a change in policy, and when Kansier returned to the Earth in two months, he would be paying a visit on the UESF council in Central City to make his report. Yes, he vowed silently. even if they didn't like what he had to tell them, they were going to swallow their pride and take their medicine.
Dammit, there are going to be some changes, like it or not!
Take away love, and our earth is a tomb.
—Robert Browning
Chapter Sixteen
“How cold it is out there, I wonder?” Scott Dimitriev pressed his nose against the clear metal window and stared at the activity far below the city, where transport tunnels shuttled passengers, weaving between the tall, unadorned, geometrically shaped apartment buildings. He had been waiting three hours for his father to come home from the Synthetics Building, where his father Aleksander Alekseivich had worked the past fifteen years.
The metal pane began to fog under his warm, moist breath, obscuring the view beneath him; Scott breathed harder, viciously blotting out the continuous traffic of transports.
It’s so unfair! he thought. Life had gone on without mom and his sister! At least, he thought, other people’s lives had gone on. He had never recovered from the death of his mother and twin sister.
“I hate living up here,” he said out loud, with some frustration. Scott pushed himself away abruptly to remove himself from the activity below and sat down on the hard floor, leaning against the corner wall, knees drawn up in front of him. Outside the great window, a sea of static black towers reflected the light back to him, shining under the invisible dome that contained Central City, the city where he had been born, a city located in the heart of the American continent, just south of the Great Lakes.
The dome, Scott thought darkly. The dome was a farce! It hadn't protected them, so what else was it good for, except as a cage to confine them?
I am going to do it, mother. I am going to join up. Just let father try and stop me this time.
Scott sat in a frustrated state of mind, excited that he might have found his chance to go into space—yet his young heart was filled with anger and filled with dread. How could he break the news to his father? His unsettled emotions kept stirring up his thoughts, so much that he felt certain words would fail him when the time came, and how he resented that thought.
Scott already knew his own mind, and yet for some reason, he had never before been able to win an argument with his own father.
The more he thought about this, the angrier, the more frustrated he became. Why could he not choose his own future? Why did he need his father’s approval? He was going to try again, anyway.
The anger dissipated when Scott realized he was not really angry at his father, only irritated that his father had thus far kept him from satisfying his need for vengeance. He just had to go! In nearly everything else, Scott agreed with his father, even admired his father’s views; all the more reason why he could not understand his father's position on this matter.
Scott jumped up when the automatic door flashed open; all at once he found himself robbed of speech and immobile. Aleksander came in, dropped his belongings inside the foyer of their apartment, almost knocking over the plate ceramic on the entry table, and took a few steps forward into the dining facility center, then spotted his son.
"Good, evening, Scott," he called, and then Aleksander continued whistling a tune he had heard sometime during that day.
Scott could only follow his father's movement with his eyes while Aleksander called Scott's younger sister, Lara, to join them for the evening meal.
Scott finally pointed helplessly to a crumpled piece of printout strip; Aleksander stopped a moment to glance at the words printed into it as Lara skipped into the room, half out of breath.
"Father, I have to go," Scott announced.
“You have to go where? To kiss your sister and tell her she’s your sweetheart?” Aleksander could see that resolution in his son’s eyes and posture. Aleksander sensed it. Scott was only eleven years old, but his eyes were resolute. Aleksander usually respected his son and his son’s opinions. But he was not going to humor him.
“Father, you know what I meant.” Scott was extremely intelligent, headstrong but usually sensible (when he did not let his temper or emotions get the better of him). He was resistant to change and slow to make critical judgments of others. Also, Scott hated injustice and was a champion of the weak. Scott had a keen sense of justice and injustice; his nature frequently compelled him to right whatever he thought had gone wrong.
“I know, and I told you already how I feel about it.” What could he say to calm the youth this time? The father wondered.
“Father, I have to go! There’s been anot
her call for young trainees!”
At first, there was a dreadful silence. Then—
"I won't have you going off into space some day to get yourself killed, and that is the end of it!" Aleksander's voice rose helplessly, coming as close to a shout as his calm disposition allowed. While the son now turned calm, the father found he could not. Lose another child? Lose his only son? No, Aleksander knew what was best. His heart told him what to do. And what he could never allow.
Scott said nothing. Aleksander knew better than to trust Scott’s silence. Scott was too much like his mother, stubborn and willful, and yet, Aleksander thought, it was as though he were physically facing his younger self. Aleksander’s extended family had lived in Coast Charles for two generations.
Aleksander kept his own ambitions and opinions secret—and the thoughts behind them.
"I can go to the preliminary tests and be back the same day, father.” Scott said, viewing Lara with a critical eye, knowing deep down that she would support her older brother if she could, but she was too young to be of any real help. Perhaps sensing this, Lara flashed him a sympathetic look and retreated to the other room.
“And what good would that do if I won’t let you join the flight programs?” Aleksander said, regaining composure.
“Please, let me go this time!" Scott persisted, not allowing himself to be chemically calmed by the family robot as he waved the machine away.
"I won't allow it. I am not trying to be cruel, but there’s no sense in volunteering to go, or going at all until they draft everyone into service." Aleksander remained firm on this occasion as he had so often before, though he was not insensitive to the integrity beneath his son's request. "What have you been training for all of this time, Scott?! You're going to become a developmental project scientist someday. That is what we decided.”
“I never wanted that, father, and you know it.”
“Good Lord, son! The military are all dying out there, one after another!" Aleksander shook his head.
“I’m not afraid to die.”
"Because you aren’t thinking clearly. Do you have any idea how many people have been killed at the Charon front?"
The Osiris Invasion: Book Two of Seeds of a Fallen Empire Page 17
