He had crashed the tug through a hangar door while pulling the ship to safety. David Brenner, the remaining scientists, and the other workers had scrambled for the hangar exits. Minutes after the alien craft had been pulled into an adjacent hangar, the first hangar collapsed. Luckily, the brief moment of exposure to the open skies had not been enough for the alien fighter's existence to be discovered.
For three years, David Brenner and his team had been busily attempting to learn the secrets of the invaders. One benefit that had been derived from the canister mishap was that the interior of the ship had been exposed. With the vessel open, David and the other scientists had managed to discover the secret of the alien craft's power system... sodium fusion.
A simple fusion reactor, coupled with a generous supply of sodium, could keep the craft fully powered and in flight for many months. Over the following years, David Brenner and his team had unlocked the technology of that same sodium fusion reactor.
In addition to understanding the aliens’ power system, the team had also replicated and then greatly enhanced its performance and efficiency. With the abundance of sodium on the Earth and with the enormous power generated by a single reactor, the United States had seen a new energy renaissance.
With the world no longer dependent on fossil fuels and with an abundant supply of clean, cheap energy, world perspectives had changed dramatically. Every nation had been offered the power free in return for renewed diplomacy and friendly cooperation.
For security and control reasons, the reactors all remained in the United States under heavy guard. The power was broadcast to the other nations of the world using gigantic Tesla coils. For seventy years the system had worked. For seventy years man had largely been at peace.
During those years, the United States had vastly enhanced its military capability. The aircraft of the US armed forces had been outfitted with high-efficiency coil guns, nanoreactors, and electric turbines. The strength of the military was viewed as one of the reasons for the long period of peace.
As a US government strategy to preserve its technological advantage of sodium fusion, the nanoreactors could only be started using a full-sized reactor. Each reactor had also been outfitted with a tiny canister of the same corrosive liquid that the alien craft had used. With several layers of fail-safes in place, there was little danger of the technology falling into the hands of potential rivals where it could be abused.
Many of the United States’ defensive aircraft were in the form of UAVs. I was one of the lucky few who had been given the chance to pilot them. My career in the navy had been as a pilot for one of those remotely piloted UAVs.
The USAC had come about under military control. With improved economies and world peace, man had once again regained his desire to explore the solar system. Since being a young boy, I had dreamt of being one of the first astronauts to reach Neptune. Little did I know I would soon go far beyond.
For the prior decade, David Brenner had been busily designing space propulsion systems. Some of it had been derived from the alien craft and some from his own team's ingenuity. If anything... my great-uncle was a brilliant man.
As I sat on the sofa in the astronaut lounge, I awaited my new orders. I watched intently as the developing story unfolded on the 3-D wall holo-screen. With all the alien speculations, the nations of the UN were once again calling for the release of the secrets of sodium fusion power… just as they had many times before.
As I watched the reporters and media pundits throwing out their wild accusations and theories, an executive aide of David Brenner stepped in front of me. She was a young ensign and a very attractive one at that. The aide touched a medallion on her hat, and a miniature holo-projector sprang to life. My new orders had come in. As I watched the hologram floating in the air in front of her, I couldn't help but muster up a smile and a wink. Ensign Braswell, however, remained professional and did not return the favor.
The news was fantastic. I was being directly assigned to my great-uncle's research team. It was the most coveted job a pilot could dream of. I jumped up from the sofa, kissed the aide on the lips, turned, and walked toward the exit. I had a big smile on my face that only broadened as I heard the aide say, "Thank you, sir" as I left the room.
I reported to my quarters, where another aide was to come by to collect my duffel bag and to lead me to a transport. I was then flown to Area 51 in the Nevada desert. When I touched down at Groom Lake, I was surprised at how few buildings there were. I had thought I would be housed at the new Regents Air Base about two hundred kilometers away.
Regents was where the bulk of the new activity with fighters and weapons had been taking place since I had been a young boy. The Regents base housed our most highly classified secrets… or so I thought. When I exited the plane and entered the old building at Groom Lake, I was a little disappointed.
What I did take note of once inside was all the security cameras and automated mini coil guns. The building’s interior was heavily defended. After a bio-scan to verify my identity, I was escorted into an elevator. We descended two floors and exited into another room. I was again subjected to a bio-scan, only this time it was much more thorough... and a bit invasive.
My escort then pointed me down a long hallway and watched as I walked the 150 yards carrying my duffel. At the other end of the hallway, I was greeted by another escort and taken into the next room. Again I boarded an elevator and again descended another two floors. Upon exit from the elevator, I was greeted by a third escort. After another long walk down a curving hallway, I entered a room that had a windowless shuttle sitting on tracks in the floor. There was a closed door on the wall in front of it.
The shuttle door opened, and I sat and was buckled in by the escort. When the door closed, I was in complete darkness. I sat quietly as the shuttle began to move. I could hear the door to the room open and then close moments later after the shuttle passed through. The shuttle then quickly accelerated, and then, just as abruptly, it came to a complete stop. I sat waiting for a door to open. What came next was unexpected.
I felt the shuttle lift slightly, and it then began to spin. The spinning increased until I was pressed hard back into my seat. When the spinning finally stopped, I was relieved, but completely disoriented.
The shuttle was once again placed on a track, where it then began a rapid acceleration. The speed continued to increase for a full minute. A short time later, it began a heavy deceleration that would last the same amount of time. When the shuttle came to a complete stop, I was certain I had traveled several hundred kilometers.
As the door opened into a bright room, I squinted my eyes. I was then greeted by a new escort. Again, a complete bio-scan was done to reconfirm my identity. When it was complete, I was taken into a room that had a blast door. Once the blast door had been opened before me and then closed again behind, I boarded yet another elevator.
A twenty-two-story drop brought me into a room that was attached to another long hallway. I was beginning to get irritated and wondered what all the fuss could possibly be about. The hallway was dotted with many doors as we walked. The escort beckoned me along with a smile and a semiautomatic coil machine gun that was powered by a picoreactor.
When we arrived at the door labeled 236A, the escort knocked and then turned and moved back toward the elevator. When the door opened, I walked into a room where my great-uncle David was sitting at a desk.
David Brenner rose and came to greet me. I received a big hug and welcome from him. I had only had the privilege of briefly meeting David Brenner once before. He had attended a band concert rehearsal that I had played in during my seventh-grade year of school.
I had had the pleasure then of standing in awe and listening while he had praised my performance. After a brief chat with my parents, he had been whisked off again to other more important duties. The fact that he had taken the time to pay a visit had left me with an immense sense of family pride. He was, after all, the man who had first saved and then powered up the
world.
I sat down in a very comfortable high-back leather chair and looked around his office as he made himself a cup of coffee. When he sat back down at his large glass-topped desk, he then pressed a holo-button on a small console floating above it.
The walls of his office came alive with 3-D holograms. It was as if we were sitting in Yellowstone National Park, watching Old Faithful. Coupled with a 3-D sound system as well as the scents of the area, it was hard to tell that we were not actually there.
He told me it was his way of dealing with not seeing daylight for most of the year. As I sat, I listened intently as my great-uncle told me the story of the alien craft and its many secrets.
The sodium fusion reactor had been child’s play as compared to the propulsion system. It had taken David almost forty years to unlock some of the propulsion drive's secrets.
The fusion power system was used to generate a magnetic field that was just powerful enough to almost stop the spin of an electron. He described to me how it was well known that all matter in the universe was made up of subatomic particles. Those particles all had spin, and they all spun in the same direction.
The aliens, with their advanced knowledge, had figured out how to nearly stop the spin of a particle. The result of almost no spin was a craft that defied the pull of gravity. The absence of particle spin also greatly reduced the effects of inertia on anything within the craft.
I struggled to keep up as my great-uncle tried his best to discuss it in layman’s terms. After our long talk, David Brenner rose and then walked me through another door. The door entered into an immense chamber.
The chamber ceiling was at least a half mile above, and the far walls of the chamber were a mile away. It had been carved out of solid rock. The place was abuzz with activity.
I was given a lengthy tour, with our first visit to the alien craft. David talked of the knowledge they had gained from the different components of the ship. We then proceeded to the next area. This was where I was shown the first vessel of what was to become our space fleet. He then revealed the fact that all the ships would be manned and that I would be going into space! My mind raced with questions.
We continued our tour into an area that was flooded with holo-screens. The information was a hemispherical display of the skies above the northern half of the Earth. Several hundred feet away was an identical setup of the Southern Hemisphere. As I looked up, I could see seven red flashing dots. That's when David told me that indeed the aliens had returned.
He then told of our new satellites that had coil gun defenses. On the holo-screen, the flashing red satellites that had been destroyed belonged to other nations, who lacked our defensive technology. David then pointed me toward an orange dot. He explained that the satellites had been destroyed by a handful of advance alien fighters. He pointed to four yellow dots. He then described the orange dot as an entire alien fleet.
Our imaging systems were still too weak to discern the size of the fleet. We just knew that it looked to contain ships that were bigger than the eight-kilometer-diameter behemoth that had attacked us during the Sodium Apocalypse. Our scientists’ best estimate was that we had at least two years before the bulk of the fleet arrived.
All the activity going on in the chamber was geared toward manning and equipping a fleet of our own. It would be tiny in comparison to what was coming, but we hoped our technological gains of the last seventy years would give us an advantage.
We next moved to another area, where a number of pilots were busily training in fighter simulators. Simulation training and then manning one of the new ships was to be my job for the next two years as we planned our defense before the alien fleet was to arrive.
David looked me in the eye and then shook my hand before drowning me in another rather embarrassing hug. He said his goodbye and then hurried away, heading back toward his office. I was then left at the mercy of my new training handler... Ensign Paige Braswell.
Chapter 2
* * *
Ensign Braswell wasted no time in stepping forward to let me know who the boss was. I outranked her, but she had been given full authority over my training, and as such, I was under orders to follow her every command... to the letter.
She stepped directly in front of me and then moved her face to within inches of mine. It was definitely a stare down. As I began to smile, she stepped back and then let me have it. She barked off the command for fifty pushups.
I hesitated for a moment in disbelief and then noticed she was not smiling. And the several other workers who had turned toward us were looking on with stern expressions as well. Even though my great-uncle was still within sight, I dared not invoke the family name. Not there... not then.
Given my heavy frame, the pushups were slow and torturous. When I had completed my ordered duties, I was then directed to follow the ensign to the mess hall for some breakfast. As we walked toward a far door, I could see she had a slight smirk on her otherwise stoic face. The smirk told me she must at least have a sense of humor. I thought perhaps there was hope for Ensign Braswell after all.
We proceeded through a buffet line that had just about every imaginable breakfast item. I was in heaven. We then sat at a long table and were joined soon after by three other new pilot trainees and their handlers. The other trainees were Captain Albert Biggings, Major Robert Hardee, and Major Beatrice Parks. We were quickly told that anyone calling her Beatrice would likely die quietly in their sleep. I laughed along with Al and Rob as Betty smiled along with us.
As we ate our breakfast, our handlers began telling us of what was in store for the next few weeks. It would be all classwork followed up by more classwork. It would likely be several months before we would get time in the fancy holo-screen simulators we had been shown in the chamber.
I could see the excitement melt away from Al and Rob's faces as the handlers talked about the coming coursework. Betty, on the other hand, was enthused. It seemed that no matter where you went, there was always someone who enjoyed the bookwork. After her gleeful display, I knew that Betty was surely one of those people.
After breakfast, we were taken back by the holo-simulators for one last look. The handlers raised their voices as loud as they could as we stood just on the edge of the nearest holo-sim area. Each of the areas in the chamber had been outfitted with noise-cancellation gear that kept sounds from the other areas out. We were told it was the only thing keeping the massive underground chamber from becoming one gigantic and distracting echo chamber.
The handlers then hurried us across the floor and into a classroom along with twenty-eight other new recruits. There was a near-even split between men and women.
The war-fighter game had changed tremendously as technology had advanced. As I looked around the room, I took note of the makeup of our rookie crew. Tall, thin, short, heavy... almost every size and shape imaginable. Modern air warfare had seen to it that all you needed was a quick wit, rapid reflexes, and the ability to sit in a chair for hours on end.
Al was a big, muscular fellow who we gave the call sign "Mr. Bigg," which was soon shortened to "Bigg." With his height, he would have had trouble fitting in an earlier version of a manned cockpit. He had a deep, booming voice that commanded attention.
Bigg was a veteran of the USAF. He had been in the UAV Corps piloting a drone when the newly arrived aliens had last attacked. He had been one of the UAV pilots responsible for tracking the alien craft during their brief yet destructive encounter.
In a strange twist of events, Bigg's son Chris had been brought in as a technician. Bigg had been told that with the several thousand personnel in the chamber and the tight schedules he would be keeping, he would likely not have much chance of seeing his son. It was a very busy place.
Next was Rob, who was an older gentleman. We called him "Pop-Top," as he had told us of his taste for vintage beers. It was soon shortened to "Pop." Pop was average height and weight and sported a big caterpillar of a mustache. We weren't sure why, but Pop was always gr
inning.
Then there was Betty. We called her "the Whip," which soon became "Whip." She was a short, razor-thin firecracker of Asian descent. Several things that became instantly clear about Whip were that she was sharp and quick-witted with her vocabulary. She also had no problem using that against you if she felt it necessary.
And then there was me: a five-foot-nine, 290-pound giant bag of cheese puffs. After watching me eat my breakfast, the others had quickly decided on the call sign "Hoover." It wasn't flattering, but it wasn't inaccurate either. I liked my food.
We had been sitting in a classroom talking for ten minutes when the instructor came through the door. She was a tall brunette with linebacker shoulders and a prosthetic arm. As she turned to face the roomful of chatty fliers, she had a scowl on her face. The room quickly became silent.
Her artificial limb had a panel strapped to it that contained several buttons and a touch pad device. Other than the rubbery-looking skin, the rest of the arm looked and functioned in an almost natural manner.
Colonel Darlene Rogers then pressed one of the buttons on her arm pad, and a holo-screen with a close-up of an enemy fighter came to life, floating in the air just above her and to the left. The fighter slowly rotated as the colonel began her talk.
We were told there were four alien fighters identical to the one shown above her, wreaking havoc on the world's communications satellites as we spoke. We had managed to damage one of them when it had attacked one of our birds, a satellite that was armed with a coil gun. The other three had since been doing nothing but recon work. We were told they seemed to be watching for our reactions... probing our defenses.
The colonel then told us this was not the first return of the aliens to Earth. Thirteen years before, two of a similar type of fighter had been taken out by our ground-based coil gun defenses. But, it was not before they had knocked out fifty-four of our best-equipped fighters. Our top fighters at the time were all fully manned, each with a two-person team. We had lost 108 good airmen that day.
SODIUM Trilogy Part One Page 30