Ninety minutes later, they rounded the northern end of the island, cutting through the one-meter swells. What they saw was stunning. Resting in the water about 300 meters off the eastern most tip of the island was the top of triangular shaped black pyramid rising over 200 meters out of the water.
“Arturo, how deep is the water where that thing is sitting?” Big Jim asked.
“Nearly seventy meters,” Arturo replied as he backed off on the throttle and angled the boat into a wide circle around the pyramid.
“Okay,” Big Jim said as he pulled out his com device and began snapping pictures. “That makes that thing about two hundred and fifty to three hundred meters tall. Let’s skirt around it from six to seven hundred meters out and then head back to port. I’ll take pictures from every angle then get them uploaded to the proper channel.”
Chapter 108 – Amazon Delta Landing
The exact same scene repeated itself over the mouth of the Amazon River. This time, however, the closest humans to the scene were aboard the recently christened Princendam from Holland America Lines. The fifth in the proud line of smaller luxury cruise ships by that name; the Princendam was about to make its annual trek up the Amazon River basin.
It was early afternoon, and the ship was just starting to see silt from the Amazon roiling past its bow with the Brazilian coastline far off to starboard. The pilot was the first to see that something unusual was happening as a bright point of light appeared high in the sky about forty degrees to starboard. Soon, it became so bright that the pilot had to look away. When he did, he saw shadows from the frame of the bridge window playing across the deck as the light raced from starboard to port well in front of the ship.
When the light faded, he looked back up to see a gigantic contrail curving downward from up the river to just beyond the last of the islands in the river delta.
The pilot signaled for the captain to come to the bridge and then reduced the speed of the ship to give the captain more options.
When Captain Van de Berg arrived on the bridge, the contrail was still the dominant feature visible through the bridge windows
“So, Mr. Meyer, what is it I’m seeing?”
“Sir, something very bright and very big crossed in front of us going west to east and settled into the sea just east of the delta islands. It was so bright I could not watch its entire flight, because it hurt my eyes. I reduced speed to one-third and awaited your arrival. We are not due to pick up our river pilot for another two hours, so I felt that I needed to give you as many options as possible.”
“Very good, Mr. Meyer. Mr. De Jong, get me the Brazilian navy so that we can report the sighting. I’m hesitant to move up river without their approval. Mr. Meyer, reduce speed to five knots and maintain your current heading.”
Chapter 109 – USpN Monitors the Landings
The reports were pouring in to Fleet Admiral Brooks, and the situation was looking rather grim. The alien ship had entered low Earth orbit six hours before, and already it had released two rather large objects down to the planet’s surface. Now it was adjusting its orbit, and only time would tell how many other landings would be made.
Surprisingly, Brooks had a detailed report of the landing in the Galapagos Islands. Apparently, a retired master chief petty officer had observed the landing and then gotten into position to take pictures of the craft just off the east coast of the island of San Cristobal. The details of the report described the landing and the features of the vehicle but were not very helpful in determining its purpose.
The second landing in the Amazon River delta was much less well documented. A cruise ship had been eighty kilometers from the landing site and had reported the landing to the Brazilian navy. This report had been forwarded to naval intelligence. Apparently, the Brazilian navy had warned the cruise ship away from the Amazon, and now it was headed north again back to its last port.
The Brazilian navy was placing a picket of ships around the alien landing craft and would be maintaining a careful watch with regular reporting back to the Space Navy.
“Sir, we have the next release from the alien vessel on ground-based radar out of Florida,” Commander Santos said. The trajectory shows a landing somewhere in the Bahamas. We should know the exact location in about ten minutes.”’
“Thank you,” Brooks replied. “That makes three landings in the western hemisphere. If my guess is right, we should have three landings in the eastern hemisphere shortly. Everything with these aliens seems to happen in multiples of three for some reason. Commander, please make a note for naval intelligence to explore the significance of the number three with regard to the aliens. We may be able to predict future actions based on it.”
“Noted, sir,” Santos said. “We are just receiving satellite imagery of the landing site in the Galapagos Islands. Shall I put it up on the main screen?”
“Please do,” Brooks said as he looked up at his fleet command screen.
Everyone in the Fleet Command Center looked up at the same time to see the images that the satellite had captured of the landing craft. Just offshore from the northeast point of the island a stark black triangular structure was rising from the island shelf. It was not, however, the only feature noticeable from the satellite feed. Just east of the object in the water were three dark spots that were growing in size as they watched. Very soon, the ocean currents were dispersing the outflow from the dark spots back toward and around the island.
To Brooks, this looked like the beginning of a classical oil spill pattern, and his stomach clenched at the thought of what might be happening. “Santos, I need the name of that that retired master chief petty officer, and I need him on the line as soon as you can make it happen. We need to find out what that substance is pouring around the island and out into the Pacific Ocean currents. I also need satellite imagery of each of the landing sites as soon as we can get them. This looks like a catastrophe in the making, and we need to know how to stop it.”
“Yes sir,” Santos said as everyone tried to pull their eyes away from the screen to resume their duties. It was not easy. Human nature kept pulling them back. How could they not watch something of this magnitude unfold?
Chapter 110 – The Newsies
At this most critical of times, “The Insider” was strangely silent. This was not the longest stretch of silence that Richard had endured. Because of it though, the Rag had branched out over the nets to gather in more and more bloggers around the world. Each blogger was made keenly aware that the Rag was looking for verifiable stories related to the aliens coming to Earth and that the Rag would pay handsomely for firsthand information that could be published before it was released on the Internet.
Most bloggers’ income sources were limited, so those that had contracted with the New York Rag were constantly on the lookout for new stories.
Delmar Keane was a travel blogger. His best friend, Teddy Coombs, in Seattle, Washington, was one of the regular bloggers contracted with the Rag, and Teddy had put out feelers with all of his friends to keep an eye out for alien-related stories. Delmar was on the Princendam, attempting to document the impact of cruise ships on the native populations along the Amazon River. When the bright flash spread across the sky south of the ship, he was taking in some sun on the observation deck and formulating plans for how he could get interpreters to interview the Amazon natives. That bright flash changed everything.
Delmar went directly to his cabin and pulled out his Apple iBlog II unit and hooked up immediately with Teddy.
“What do you have for me, Delmar,” Teddy asked?
“Some alien vehicle just landed in the Amazon River delta. The Princendam was headed directly south and the landing took place right in front of the ship,” said Teddy.
“Can you get me the foredeck camera feed and some interviews with the crew,” Teddy asked? I’ll need everything within the next hour or we will lose the scoop to some other outlet.”
“I’ll get what you need in less than an hour. How much can we g
et for this story,” asked Delmar?
“I’ll take care of the money,” Teddy replied. “The Rag is paying top dollar for this kind of information. Just hurry.”
When Teddy got off with Delmar, he contacted Richard to warn him what was coming within the hour and to ask about compensation.
“Don’t worry about compensation at this point,” Richard said. “Just get the story to me as quickly as possible while I go to my other sources for confirmation and to get the big picture. You will both be well taken care of for this scoop. I may even run a special edition of the Rag just to cover this story.”
With that, Richard disconnected with Teddy and sent a query over the laser link to “The Insider,” mentioning the Amazon event as the basis for the query. The reply came back within seconds.
“Confirmed that three alien craft have landed. First landing in Galapagos Islands. Second landing in the Amazon Delta region. Third landing in the Bahamas. No details yet on the reasons for the landings. More to come soon. Publish what you have. I will follow up with analysis as soon as it is available.”
With that, the connection was terminated. Richard was elated to be ahead of this story but he had much work to do to set up this special edition. He called his entire staff into an emergency meeting and handed out assignments to each of his twelve local employees to get the afternoon edition rolling. Beating the networks to a story was no easy feat for the print media, and now he had millions in New York City depending on the Rag for reliable firsthand information.
Chapter 111 – The Esss Begin Monitoring Their Modules
The last of the six planetary re-engineering modules had been released and was now down on the planet’s surface. The first three were already up and running and reporting no problems whatsoever. The composition of the underwater shelf was supplying most of the chemicals needed to create the surface film being generated. What was not available from the planet’s surface was being supplied by the store of materials in the modules themselves.
The initial report from the master engineer indicated that resupply of the modules would not be necessary until the planet was on the opposite side of the star. At that point, six new sites would be selected, and the second wave of modules would be sent down and the first set retrieved for resupply.
All was proceeding according to plan. They would be ready when the crèche ship arrived from the forward operating base.
After dropping off the last module, the master navigator brought the scout ship back into high planetary orbit where all of the modules could be monitored.
Chapter 112 – Sted’s Unusual Request
Sted was becoming increasingly frustrated as more and more bad news poured in from the alien infestation on Earth. He was stuck on the shuttle from the belt, and all he could contribute were some possible strategies for a new untested fighter. He felt that he had exhausted that topic weeks earlier.
Jessica had caught him brooding again the evening before and told him to snap out of his funk. That comment had been bouncing around his skull ever since. Finally, he decided it was time to get proactive. He brought up his message-recording application from the desktop and began dictating a message to Cam.
“Hi, Cam. I know you’re set to run your initial field tests on the first Scorpion fighter, and I’m sure Marty will do a marvelous job ironing out any kinks from the hardware that the Navy has added to the frame. However, I’m not sure that Marty is the right person to be leading the ship-to-ship coordination tests required in the strategies I outlined in my last update from two weeks ago.
“Since we are about to come around Mars and swing toward Luna, any deceptions for alien consumption will be complete, so why can’t we arrange faster transport from Mars than this lumbering shuttle? Would it be possible for you to nudge the Navy to get one of their fast destroyers at the Mars orbital station to rendezvous with Endeavour and bring Jessica, myself, and any other critical resources aboard the shuttle to Luna on a much more aggressive schedule?
“I did the math, and it looks like we could shave at least three weeks from the shuttle’s best time, and it would bring me to Luna in time to coordinate the multi-ship testing. I would make the request directly to the Navy, but that would have to go through channels, and I know you have a direct channel to Vice Admiral Bunting.
“Let me know what you think of the idea and what kind of reaction you get from Bunting. Needless to say, I’m going a bit crazy out here not being able to contribute like I could from the lunar base.”
Sted saved the recording in the High Priority Request folder, knowing it would be routed to Cam almost immediately. Transmission time from Mars to Luna was much shorter than from the belt, so he might even hear back before Jessica got back to the cabin that evening. He was hopeful he would have a big grin on his face when she returned.
Chapter 113 – Council of Eight Receives Requests for Assistance
The Council of Eight had been in emergency session almost continuously for the past four days. They had received urgent requests from the six countries associated with the alien incursion for assistance in combatting massive ecological disasters being propagated in their territorial waters.
Today, they were hosting the ambassadors from Australia and the Philippines, and tomorrow they would be hosting the ambassador from Malaysia.
At the moment, Ken Clay from Australia had the floor. “Ladies and gentleman of the Council, we must take decisive action immediately, and Australia intends to do just that, with or without Council approval. We are notifying the Council today that at 0800 local time tomorrow in Perth, we will be attacking our visitors from both the sea and the air.
“We have two destroyers and one missile frigate coming into position ten nautical miles west of this monstrosity. We have created special depleted uranium shells, and we will be placing them aboard the destroyers to try and penetrate the surface of the pyramid. The missile frigate will try to protect the destroyers from any retaliatory strike from the aliens. In addition, we will launch a tactical nuclear weapon at the pyramid via a cruise missile to strike just two minutes after we begin the shelling from the destroyers.
“What we don’t have is any protection from that bloody mother ship in orbit. We would like some assistance from the United Space Navy to distract it just prior to our attack. That might buy us enough time to destroy the damn pyramid before we get our butts kicked. Sorry for the colorful language, but we will be the first country putting our military personnel in the line of fire, and we are looking for any help we can get.”
“Thank you, Mr. Clay,” President Travers replied. “We will take your request under advisement with the Secretary of the Space Navy and get back to you within the next four hours. Now, Mr. Ramos from the Republic of the Philippines, you have the floor.”
“Thank you, Sir William,” Juan Ramos said. “For the record, we have already asked for assistance from Japan, China, and the North American Union with the pyramid located just off Babuyan Island. I’m afraid that was a mistake on our part. Now we have squabbling between the three parties instead of a united front.
“Our request of the Council is for the Space Navy to take charge and coordinate between the three countries for an all-out attack on our pyramid. We believe that between the three countries, there is enough firepower to wipe that thing off the map without endangering our population on Luzon Island. We are already evacuating everyone from the Babuyan Islands. This should be completed within the next two days.
“Needless to say, the sooner we can destroy that thing, the less damage it can do to the environment. The slick being generated will reach Taiwan in just a few days, and from there it will travel up to Japan and then across the northern Pacific. We are already experiencing a major impact on our fishing industry, and that is only going to be magnified as it spreads northward.”
“Thank you, Mr. Ramos,” President Travers said. “Again, we will take your request under advisement with Secretary Miller. Because this request involves meeting with mult
iple countries, it will take at least the next two days to get coordinated while you complete your evacuation. You should be hearing from Madam Secretary by the end of the day with a proposed meeting schedule. Does anyone have any questions of either ambassador before we excuse them?”
He looked around the table at the council members but saw no takers. “Okay, ladies and gentlemen, we will suspend the council meeting until after lunch. If the ambassadors would be so kind as to join us in the council dining room, we can continue these conversations on a less formal basis.”
Interlude 15 – 200 Years Ago
With the loss of the library in Alexandria, there was a major setback in the advancement of the knowledge base for humanity. The long road back was populated with some brilliant work by the classical astronomers and mathematicians Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo. The work of these three men helped humanity to better understand the structure of the local star system with the planets orbiting around the sun.
Nu Trilogy 1: The Esss Advance Page 25